------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
Nuclear-Safeguard Funds Cut
Just Minutes Might Have Sufficed to Avert Collision
Admiral orders key crewman to testify at sub inquiry
Nuclear waste in limbo after court ban
Only `one China', Zhu warns Taiwan
JAM - PROPOSALS
US Airforce DU counterweight data
White House Reveals Plans for New Taiwan Arms Sale
Dealing With Mr. Putin
Debate Rises in Russia Over Arms Sales to Iran
Bush Retreats From U.S. Role As Peace Broker

MILITARY
INDIA: ARMS SCANDAL INQUIRY
In the War on Coca, Colombian Growers Simply Move Along
UNITED NATIONS: RELIEF BASE

OTHER
Company admits spill
Beef and lamb will cost more
A Setback Is Feared on Global Warming
Forest Rules Postponed Again by Bush
Bush's Shift Could Doom Air Pact
Cowboys Ride the Range
Whitman Defends Bush on Emissions
World Briefing
What They Knew (Not!)
Ex-Businessman Named to No. 3 Post at C.I.A.

ACTIVISTS
Actions at IMF/WB Annual Meetings
World Briefing


-------- NUCLEAR

Nuclear-Safeguard Funds Cut

International Herald Tribune
Saturday, March 17, 2001
Eric Pianin and William Drozdiak Washington Post Service
http://www.iht.com/articles/13709.htm

A program to help Russia safeguard its nuclear materials is facing deep budget cuts by the Bush administration, even though a bipartisan commission recently called these efforts essential to protecting U.S. national security, The Associated Press reported from Washington.

President Bush's proposed fiscal 2002 budget would cut spending for Russian nuclear nonproliferation activities by more than $72 million, government and private sources who have seen the numbers said.

The Energy Department has sought to increase the program, which the Clinton administration had earmarked for a 50 percent increase to $1.2 billion for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1.

The final funding levels will be set in Congress, where some lawmakers have already expressed concern.

"Dramatic cuts to these programs," said Representative Ellen Tauscher, "may cripple our efforts to secure nuclear material in Russia and ensure that Russia's nuclear physicists are gainfully employed in nondefense related industries." The California Democrat made her comments in a letter to Condoleezza Rice, the president's national security adviser.

The cuts were ordered by the White House despite several attempts by Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham to obtain more money for the programs, said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

In January, a bipartisan commission issued a report calling the risk of theft of Russian nuclear materials "the most urgent unmet national security threat" facing the United States and urged sharp increases in spending for the Russia nonproliferation programs.

The Energy Department initiatives targeted by budget cuts include programs aimed at enhancing security at Russia's nuclear-weapons facilities, providing help to economically strapped Russian nuclear scientists and helping Russia convert weapons-grade plutonium to less threatening materials.

---

Just Minutes Might Have Sufficed to Avert Collision, Sailor Says

New York Times
March 17, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/17/national/17HAWA.html

PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii, March 16 - With only a few more minutes to analyze data, crew members aboard the submarine Greeneville would probably have realized that a Japanese fishing vessel was dangerously close and would have acted to avoid a deadly collision, a sonar supervisor on the Greeneville testified today.

The witness, Petty Officer First Class Edward McGiboney, told a Navy court of inquiry that a lack of time to perform a proper sonar analysis had contributed to the sinking of the trawler Ehime Maru on Feb. 9.

"Why didn't you hear this guy?" Vice Adm. John Nathman, one of three admirals presiding over the inquiry, said, referring to the Ehime Maru.

"I don't think we had enough time," Petty Officer McGiboney replied.

The Greeneville was demonstrating a rapid-surfacing drill for 16 civilians when it surfaced beneath the Ehime Maru, tearing into its stern and sending it plunging to the ocean floor. Nine people, including four teenagers on an expedition to learn commercial fishing, were killed.

The inquiry has focused on two factors: whether Cmdr. Scott D. Waddle rushed preparations for surfacing and whether he failed to look long enough to detect the Ehime Maru during a periscope search.

About 20 minutes before the accident, the Greeneville performed a series of high-speed maneuvers as a demonstration for the guests. Sonar data during that drill is unreliable, looking much like "spaghetti," Petty Officer McGiboney said today.

In preparation for rising to periscope depth, the submarine then conducted two turns intended to allow the sonar system to reset itself and begin obtaining good data once more.

That procedure, called target motion analysis, typically requires 10 minutes. The Greeneville performed the maneuver for six minutes, according to testimony.

The inquiry will help decide the fate of Commander Waddle; Lt. Cmdr. Gerald K. Pfeifer, the executive officer, and Lt. j.g. Michael J. Coen, the officer of the deck. They could face anything from a reprimand or discharge to a court-martial. The court will forward recommendations to Adm. Thomas B. Fargo, commander of the Pacific Fleet, for final action.

One question that remains unanswered in the inquiry is why a fire control technician, who analyzes sonar data, did not report that the Ehime Maru was near.

The technician, Petty Officer First Class Patrick Seacrest, was granted testimonial immunity today and ordered to take the stand on Monday. Such immunity prevents prosecutors from seeking charges against the petty officer based on what he says.

---

Admiral orders key crewman to testify at sub inquiry

USA Today
03/17/2001 - Updated 07:40 AM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2001-03-17-sub.htm

PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii (AP) - A crewman who had data indicating another ship was near the USS Greeneville prior to a fatal collision has been granted partial immunity and ordered to testify at a Navy court of inquiry.

Petty Officer 1st Class Patrick Seacrest, the Greeneville's fire control technician, told investigators he obtained data about six minutes before the collision indicating another vessel was 4,000 yards from the submarine.

Seacrest said he assumed the data was wrong when, about a minute later, the officer of the deck and the skipper reported seeing no vessels during their periscope scans. He also said he didn't report the information because civilian visitors blocked his access to the officers.

Adm. Thomas Fargo, head of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, granted Seacrest testimonial immunity on Friday at the request of three admirals presiding over the inquiry. Testimonial immunity prevents prosecution of Seacrest based on what he says. Seacrest was scheduled to take the stand on Monday.

The Greeneville was demonstrating a rapid-surfacing drill for 16 civilians when it emerged beneath the Ehime Maru, tearing into its stern and sending it plunging to the ocean floor. Nine people, including four teen-agers on an expedition to learn commercial fishing, were killed.

Named as parties to the inquiry are Greeneville Cmdr. Scott Waddle; the executive officer, Lt. Cmdr. Gerald Pfeifer; and the officer of the deck, Lt. j.g. Michael Coen. They could face punishments ranging from a reprimand or discharge to courts-martial. The court will forward recommendations to Fargo for final action.

The inquiry has zeroed in on two key factors - whether Waddle, with his ship running behind schedule, rushed preparations for surfacing and whether he failed to look long enough or high enough to detect the Ehime Maru during his periscope search.

The Greeneville's sonar supervisor testified Friday that with only a few more minutes to conduct a proper analysis of surface contacts, he would have probably realized the trawler was close and acted to avoid the collision.

"Why didn't you hear this guy?" demanded one court member, Vice Adm. John Nathman.

"I don't think we had enough time," Petty Officer 1st Class Edward McGiboney said.

About 20 minutes before the accident, Greeneville performed a series of high-speed maneuvers as a demonstration for the guests. Sonar data during that drill is unreliable, looking much like "spaghetti," McGiboney said.

In preparation for rising to periscope depth, the submarine then conducted two turns intended to allow the sonar system to reset itself and begin obtaining good data once more.

That procedure, called "target motion analysis," typically requires 10 minutes with the submarine on a steady course, speed and depth to obtain an accurate picture of the location of surface vessels. The Greeneville performed the maneuver for six minutes, holding steady for even less time.

The Ehime Maru was moving toward the submarine at a bearing rate of six degrees per minute, which is considered a high rate. Sonar did not know the boat was close, however, because the system didn't have enough time to reset and begin getting good data, McGiboney said.

"It should have just jumped off the screen," he said, adding that such a bearing rate would have been considered a "trip wire" and prompted an immediate report to officers.

Sonar operators track bearing data on surface vessels. The fire control technician takes that information and does a computer analysis to come up with a more detailed picture of the location and distances of the vessels.

-------- australia

Nuclear waste in limbo after court ban

Australia News Network
17mar01
http://news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,1808924%255E421,00.html

A SHIP carrying nuclear waste from Sydney's Lucas Heights reactor has been turned away by French authorities, threatening to create a nuclear ghost ship whose cargo cannot be removed.

Australian authorities yesterday claimed the ship would not be allowed to return to Australia claiming the French Government had "already accepted" the shipment.

But a local French court yesterday banned the unloading of the Australian nuclear waste -- which was sent to France to be reprocessed before returning to Australia for disposal or storage.

The waste, 360 spent nuclear fuel rods from the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation's HIFAR reactor at Lucas Heights was contained within five 20-tonne casks.

Greenpeace France successfully filed an action in a local court at Cherbourg blocking the unloading of the shipment on the basis that COGEMA had no licence to take the waste or reprocess it.

Greenpeace claims the rejection by France places the Federal Government's plans for a new reactor at Lucas Heights in doubt.

A spokesperson for ANSTO said the claim that the shipment may need to be returned to Australia "had no basis".

"This is the fourth shipment of HIFAR spent fuel from ANSTO since 1996 and the second to the COGEMA facility, all of which have been handled in accordance with the applicable national and international safety requirements," said the spokesman.

The shipment is the second of four deliveries COGEMA has contracted to take from ANSTO.

Under the contract between France and Australia, the waste is to be reprocessed in La Hague before being sent back to Australia for safe disposal.

But Greenpeace told the court that the fissile matter in the shipments, a form of 23 per cent enriched uranium, has never been dealt with at La Hague and that COGEMA does not have the technology to process it.

-------- china

Only `one China', Zhu warns Taiwan

The Age
By JOHN SCHAUBLE
Saturday 17 March 2001
http://www.theage.com.au/news/2001/03/17/FFXTUI6RCKC.html

In a measure of how little progress has been made over the past months in relations between China and Taiwan, Premier Zhu Rongji simply hammered home the message of "one China" in his annual press conference this week.

A year ago this weekend - in defiance of a finger-wagging Mr Zhu's strident warnings at his last meeting with the press - Taiwan dumped the Kuomintang, or Nationalist Party, which had ruled the island for 55 years. Instead it installed a government led by Chen Shui-bian, head of the Democratic Progressive Party.

By the time it assumed power, the DPP had backed off from its policy of seeking an independent Taiwan.

With a minority in the Taiwanese legislature, its first 10 months in government have been marred by a downward spiralling stockmarket, embarrassment over the on-again, off-again construction of a nuclear power plant and ongoing rows with China over the purchase of weapons from the United States.

The picture has not been entirely bleak. Earlier this year, for the first time in half a century, families on the outlying islands of Taiwan were reunited with relatives from the mainland after Taiwan lifted restrictions on inter-island travel.

But for the Chinese Government, the starting point for any rapprochement with the island it regards as a "rebel province", remains an acceptance by Taiwan that it is part of China. "This question should be resolved on the basis of the one country, two systems principle," Mr Zhu said, referring to the model used to effect the reunification of Hong Kong with the mainland in 1997.

"If the one-China principle is not recognised, what can be discussed," the Chinese Premier said in answer to a question from a Taiwan journalist. "We hope the Taiwan authorities will come back to the one-China principle," he said. "If they do not recognise the one-China principle or even worse, they do not admit they are Chinese, then how can such talks get off?"

For its part, Taiwan is fuelling tensions by seeking to purchase advanced weapons systems including the Aegis-equipped guided missile destroyers as part of a modernisation of its armed forces.

Weapons sales and US commitments under the Taiwan Relations Act remain one of the most contentious aspects of China's relations with the US. That relationship is under wholesale review since the election of the Bush administration. The US commitment to the development of a national missile defence system (NMD) is seen by China as threatening its own capabilities and impinging on its ability to deal militarily with the Taiwan issue if deemed necessary.

"Our stance is a clear-cut one," said Mr Zhu. "We are opposed to NMD."

China's chief arms control negotiator, ambassador Sha Zukang, was even more blunt this week. "We hate this idea," he said. "Taiwan is our territory."

Mr Sha said any transfer of technology under the guise of missile defence would trigger a "strong reaction" from China. Any increase in arms sales in terms of quality or quantity would be in breach of international law, he said. "Arms sales to one part of a sovereign state is wrong."

President George W.Bush is to decide next month the type and quantity of weapons Taiwan will be allowed to purchase this year.

US officials say there is as yet no administration consensus on the package, and the Bush team still must figure out exactly what Taiwan needs to defend itself.

The decision could have a long-term - perhaps even explosive - impact on Sino-American ties.

-------- depleted uranium

Subject: JAM - PROPOSALS

From: Bertholet <L.Bertholet@chello.nl>
Response (Du-list) Digest Number 243
Sat, 17 Mar 2001

Proposals made on the last day of the conference "Uranium, les victimes parlent"
Workshop: information and activist movement

1. CADU and LAKA will collect data on companies onvolved in the manufacture of DU products. Joanne Baker (CADU) will make a list and make data avaible. Goal is to make boycott sheets and organise an activist movement.

2. Make a booklet with testimonies and stories of victims of the Gulf War Syndrome or other related Syndromes of different countries. These booklets should be for prospective soldiers and recuits.

3. Create video material on Net to visualize testimonies and incidents where DU is involved. The Video of this conference serves this purpose as well and will be avaible soon.

4. We should progress to a wider movement. This may not be a rush job and should be worked out thoroughly. This includes: a. networking and web site building with more links b. educational material c. media information etc.

Example:

In December there will be a conference on militarism (who has more information as to when, where and why?) There should be room for the issue of DU within this conference. We could supply material.

Who will take the responsibility to centralize the information and make it available to the individual participants?

Workshop specialists and scientists:

1. Criteria for long term independent medical studies should be established. a. Medical procedures and protocols should become standardized. b. Data collecting and compiling should be systematic and periodical. c. Person, committee or institute should coordinate the data interpretation in order to establish epidemiological conclusions. d. Victims should be well documentated and must be provided with an identity card to make post-mortem studies possible.

2. Protection of civilians in contaminated areas. a. Systematic and periodical reporting is necessary. b. Coordinator should provide centralized conclusions on the areas concern.

3. Physicists measuring data and medical data should be internationally linked to provide evidence for the areas and to the world about health consequences of radiation and its toxicity.

4. Doctors working in the field must try, during medical symposia, to link data among each other in order to come to a Standard Operation Procedure (SOP) for diagnosis and possibly for treatment plans. Also other factors besides radiation and chemical toxicity problems should be taken into consideration e.g. epidemiological spread of opportunistic infections resulting in auto immune diseases.

5. Results should be used for psychological preparation of civilian population and for preventative information both for personal benefit and for planning activist actions for environmental and radiation protective measures to stop further spread and proliferation of DU.

For the rest we talked about possibilities for exchange of information on basic human levels to increase awareness of the problems around DU. We need international, inter cultural and educational exchange with the areas of concern.

The the problems around financing these projects.

What is needed:

a. Measuring instruments like Geiger counters and mass spectrometers etc.
b. Data processing devices.
c. Sponsoring money for conferences, symposia, investigations etc.
d. Volunteers like artists and media engineers for the presentation of the DU issue, the results of studies and actions like books, pamphlets, posters, music projects, educational materials etc.

In short:
What we need are "enriched" ideas for Depleted Uranium!

Like Ray Bristow stated:

"For evil to succeed all it takes is good men to do nothing!"

So do something!

1. Keep each other informed about your activities (short briefings).
2. Talk to specialsists and politicians.
3. Gather information on (DU) industries, interesting conferenves.
4. Write letters of concern and request a solid answer within two weeks, to menbers of Parliament, European Committees, large international organizations etc.
5. Put scientists and doctors willing to participate and help in the study of the health consequences of DU on a central list.
6. Keep CADU and LAKA informed about new video material, books, pamphlets etc. and where to obtain them and at what cost.

-------

US Airforce DU counterweight data
Aircraft Radioactive Materials Database

Sat, 17 Mar 2001
http://www.abwem.wpafb.af.mil/em/emb/aircraft/default.HTM

When you search this database for the isotope of U-238, you get a longer list of items, with the following ones being those with major U contents: (DU weights added assuming 12420 Bq U-238 per g DU)

Each NSN (µCi) Type Part Name Isotope Activity DU weight(kg)

1420-01-127-5648 BALLAST CAST U-238 1.6E4 47.7
1560-00-021-5922 COUNTER WEIGHT U-238 100.0 0.3
1560-00-140-4646 BQM-34F DRONE BALLAST U-238 600.0 1.8
1560-01-005-2470 COUNTER WEIGHT U-238 6.2E4 184.7
1560-01-005-2522 COUNTER WEIGHT U-238 6.2E4

-------- missile defense

White House Reveals Plans for New Taiwan Arms Sale

New York Times
March 17, 2001
By JANE PERLEZ
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/17/politics/17DIPL.html

WASHINGTON, March 16 - The Bush administration officially told Congress for the first time today the details of Taiwan's request for advanced weapons, and appeared to be paving the way for a package of arms sales to Taiwan that China vigorously opposes.

The Taiwan shopping list was unveiled a few days before the arrival of China's deputy prime minister, Qian Qichen, whose explicit purpose is to impress upon President Bush his country's opposition to one of Taiwan's major requests: guided-missile destroyers equipped with the Aegis radar system.

The Chinese have argued that the sale of the Aegis system fitted to Arleigh-Burke-class destroyers would give Taiwan a precursor to a theater missile defense for Taiwan and, thus, would significantly sour relations between Beijing and Washington.

Some conservative Republicans in Congress are stepping up the pressure on the White House to go ahead with the sale and are casting the decision as a test of the new administration's resolve on China.

The Bush administration, which includes senior officials who have advocated a more robust American defense of Taiwan, has begun the decision-making process on the Taiwan sales. The decision on what to sell the Taiwanese is usually made every year in mid-April.

Several major players in the administration, including Richard L. Armitage, nominated to be deputy secretary of state, as well as Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and the nominee for undersecretary of state for arms control, John R. Bolton, signed a 1999 letter calling for a more vigorous defense of Taiwan.

At today's closed-door session on Capitol Hill, a senior State Department China expert, Darryl Johnson, and a senior Pentagon official, Fred Smith, told Republican and Democratic staff members that among Taiwan's requests were the Aegis-equipped destroyers, P-3 Orion aircraft used for detecting submarines, and sophisticated command and control communications.

The Aegis system is particularly distressing to the Chinese because they see it as leading to a missile-defense system that could provide a shield over Taiwan. Taiwan seeks the Aegis system to counter Chinese missiles aimed at the island from the mainland.

The Clinton administration deferred a decision last year on selling Taiwan the Arleigh-Burke- class destroyers equipped with Tomahawk cruise missiles and Aegis radar systems. Although it declined to sell the Aegis system, the Clinton administration sold Taiwan $20 billion in arms, according to the Congressional Research Service.

Beijing, believing that the Bush administration appears inclined to make a big sale to Taiwan this year, has unleashed a diplomatic effort and Mr. Qian's visit is seen as a crucial part of its strategy.

If the administration decides to sell the Aegis systems and persuades Congress to go along, it would be the most significant sale of weaponry to Taiwan since former President George Bush sold 150 F-16 aircraft to Taiwan during the 1992 presidential campaign.

Aside from the Aegis systems, other Taiwanese requests that were discussed today at the Capitol Hill briefing were Kidd-class destroyers, P-3 Orion aircraft and high-speed anti-radiation missiles, known as HARM.

According to Taiwanese press accounts, Taiwan wants four Kidd destroyers. Some military experts point out that Kidds could be sold to Taiwan immediately.

-------- russia

Dealing With Mr. Putin

New York Times
March 17, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/17/opinion/17SAT2.html

After the erratic but generally pro-Western leadership of the Yeltsin era, President Vladimir Putin has brought a more nationalist tone to Russian diplomacy. In some areas, like this week's announcement of renewed conventional arms sales to Iran, his policies run directly counter to Washington's. Yet in others, like arms control and his efforts to bring Russia into the global economy, Mr. Putin hopes for cooperation.

These mixed messages pose a challenge for the Bush administration, which came into office promising a tougher, more realistic relationship with Russia. When Moscow's policies collide with America's national interests, Washington must oppose them. But the United States should not turn away from encouraging Russia's transition to a market economy and democracy and working with Mr. Putin to reduce nuclear dangers left over from the cold war.

Russia should not be offering Tehran spare parts for its planes and tanks and an advanced new air defense system. Nor should it be building a civilian nuclear power reactor in Iran that could become a conduit for sharing nuclear weapons technology with Iranian scientists. Iran's military is still dominated by clerical conservatives who support international terrorism, oppose peace between Israel and the Palestinians and are driving to develop nuclear weapons.

Moscow is also acting irresponsibly in its relations with former Soviet republics like Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova, using its choke hold over energy supplies to press these governments for military, economic or political concessions. Further east, Russian troops are stationed in former Soviet Central Asia to help fight Islamic insurgencies. Mr. Putin, who spent his formative years as a Soviet intelligence officer, seems determined not only to restore the authority of the Russian state but also to rebuild some of Moscow's old international ties, and he has made a point of visiting Soviet-era allies like Cuba and Vietnam.

But he seems to understand that Russia's most important security relationships are with the West, including the nuclear arms and ballistic missile agreements with the United States. In recent months he has softened his opposition to America's missile defense plans and signaled a willingness to negotiate with the Bush administration about both offensive and defensive missile systems. Washington should explore this possibility.

Mr. Putin also appears to recognize that despite the lift Moscow has gotten from high oil prices, Russia's economic vitality depends on increased trade and investment with the West. That will require sterner measures against corruption and a radical simplification of business licensing rules. The West should encourage these steps.

There should be no illusions in Washington about Mr. Putin. He is steering Russia on a more assertive and independent course than his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin. But it may also prove to be a more predictable and pragmatic course. The Bush administration should encourage cooperation in areas where it is possible, for Russia's integration into the the global economy and its support for arms control measures would benefit both Washington and Moscow.

-------

Debate Rises in Russia Over Arms Sales to Iran

International Herald Tribune
Saturday, March 17, 2001
Patrick E. Tyler New York Times Service
http://www.iht.com/articles/13718.htm

Some Say Putin Is Aiding Potential Enemies

MOSCOW When President Vladimir Putin was deep in Siberia, either skiing or hunting wolves - the Kremlin would not say for sure - here in the capital there was no vacation from the political debate that Russia's burgeoning relationship with Iran has touched off.

A state visit this week by the Iranian president, Mohammed Khatami, the first since the Iranian revolution, not only set off alarms in the Bush administration over Moscow's determination to sell arms and nuclear technology to Tehran but also caused Russians to question whether it is prudent to develop warmer relations with a country believed to be supporting terrorism.

"The patron of international terrorism has been promised increased sales of arms and broader cooperation in the nuclear energy field," the newspaper Sevodnya said, summing up the visit that it said "has lived up to Washington's worst expectations."

Mr. Putin met with the Iranian leader on Monday and then left for a four-day vacation. But Mr. Putin cut short his trip on Friday to return to Moscow in the aftermath of the hijacking of a Russian airliner.

After the visit by the Iranian president, Izvestia, under a headline "Dangerous Deal," said that "the Khatami presidency is a liberal facade for the fundamentalist regime."

The real power in Iran, the newspaper warned on Wednesday, "is held not by the liberal Khatami but by the ayatollahs, who take quite a different view of the country's future." Mr. Putin should not be surprised, the newspaper warned, that if in five to 10 years, "a group of Islamic terrorists or separatists armed with military hardware that Moscow had just sent to Tehran" show up in Russia or on its borders. The debate over Mr. Putin's headlong rush to capture the Iranian market for Russia's beleaguered arms and energy industries is not yet as intense as the American reaction to it - indeed, many Russians support closer ties with Iran. But a sense of danger is growing based in part on the fear that Iran's moderates will lose power, putting Russian weapons in the hands of hard-liners who might point them at Central Asia or use them to incite Russia's Muslim population.

The conflict in Chechnya has intensified this concern.

The sense of danger is also based on the fear that Russia's deteriorating relations with Washington will only get worse as the Bush administration pressures Iran over its support for terrorism, and Tehran's efforts to develop long-range ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction.

"Russia today has a major problem of image deterioration," said Andrei Kozyrev, foreign minister under President Boris Yeltsin. "We are losing in terms of these demonizing cliches, that every Russian businessman is a thief," or that "Russia is reverting to the old Soviet style of anti-Western behavior."

"This reality requires that we in government, Parliament and business should understand that we have an image problem that should be addressed and that requires a cautious approach in foreign policy," Mr. Kozyrev said. He pointed out that while Russia has no other choice but to do business with Iran, it should do so in a manner that addresses Western concerns about the spread of dangerous weapons technologies. "I would be extremely cautious in doing any weapons business with Iran since that would put Russia on particularly thin ice," Mr. Kozyrev said.

Nonetheless, Mr. Putin's policy on Iran does have its supporters. "I think that Russia, the United States and the European Union have a very big stake in the future of Iran and we need many channels of communication," said Andrei Kokoshin, a national security adviser under Mr. Yeltsin.

He characterized Mr. Khatami's visit as "an opportunity for the involvement of Iran in world political affairs and world economic affairs that could provide an alternative to the policies of the conservatives in Iran."

Mr. Kokoshin said he hoped that the United States and Russia could collaborate in drawing Iran out of its isolation. He also rejected the notion that the sale of conventional Russian weapons is a significant factor in Moscow's relations with Tehran.

Even some of Moscow's most pro-Western liberals favor selling arms to Iran, up to a point.

In January, Grigori Yavlinsky, who heads the liberal Yabloko Party, wrote an open letter that he thought Mr. Putin should send to President Bush. In it, Mr. Yavlinsky said that Iran represents a "very important arms market for Russia. Such trade does not threaten our security. We do not intend to make concessions on this issue. This is a very important source of revenue, and the possibility of developing technology."

It is not known whether Mr. Putin has taken this advice and conveyed these sentiments to Mr. Bush, but the Russian leader chose this week to send his closest adviser on national security affairs, Sergei Ivanov, to Washington. In meetings at the White House and State Department, Mr. Ivanov was expected to try to convince Mr. Bush's aides that Russia is as concerned about the potential danger from Iran as anyone.

Mr. Ivanov likes to say that Russians live much closer to Iran than anyone in the West and therefore Moscow has no interest in assisting Iran's ballistic missile program or its secret efforts to develop nuclear weapons.

He also likes to note that Russia is providing Iran with a nuclear power plant at Bushehr on the Gulf coast that is almost identical to a nuclear plant that the United States and South Korea are building in North Korea.

He fails to point out, though, that Washington made North Korea agree to abandon any attempt to develop nuclear weapons as a condition for that deal.

-------- us nuc politics

Bush Retreats From U.S. Role As Peace Broker

Washington Post
Saturday, March 17, 2001; Page A01
By Alan Sipress Washington Post Staff Writer
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A11134-2001Mar15?language=printer

President Bush marked an early St. Patrick's Day yesterday, receiving a customary crystal bowl of shamrocks from Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern in return for assurances that the new administration remains committed to the cause of peace in Northern Ireland.

Those guarantees would have been superfluous while President Bill Clinton was still waging his very personal peace mission, which included three trips to Northern Ireland and telephone mediation lasting until his final day in office. It is an effort Bush has said he does not intend to repeat, telling British Prime Minister Tony Blair last month he would take a more hands-off approach.

"I am going to wait to be asked by the prime minister," Bush said at the time, standing beside Blair during a news conference near Camp David. "He's got a better handle on it than I conceivably could, as to when and if the prestige of the United States is needed to make the process work better."

Blair was gracious but clear that Bush was effectively opting out. "It's difficult to foresee the exact circumstances in which I might pick up the phone and ask the president to help," he said.

Bush's reluctance to become involved in Northern Ireland reflects a broader skepticism in his administration about the usefulness of American mediation in regional conflicts. From the Middle East to missile talks with North Korea, the young administration has shown little taste for the roles of broker and hand-holder that became the hallmarks of Clinton's foreign policy during his second term.

"We look forward to helping when we can help," said a senior State Department official. But, he added, "the goal in all this is not for the administration to do something. It's for the parties to make the hard decisions."

Though the Clinton administration had a mixed record in resolving conflicts from Central Africa and Haiti to Bosnia and Northern Ireland, officials involved in those efforts contend that U.S. mediation often kept strife from spinning out of control. The Bush team could come under pressure from allies and domestic groups to play a similar role.

The Bush White House wants "to draw back from a number of issues the Clinton administration was deeply involved with. The question is how long they can sustain that stance," said James M. Lindsay, who was on the staff of Clinton's National Security Council and is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Bush administration officials have repeatedly stressed that they are not disengaging from the world. But their comments and early agenda reflect a revised calculus of U.S. interests -- one more focused on security challenges posed, for instance, by the development of advanced weapons in Iraq and North Korea.

"It's a different approach than that of the previous administration," said Lawrence J. Korb, a top Pentagon official under President Ronald Reagan who is vice president of the Council on Foreign Relations. "Unless it's a problem that threatens us, we're going to stand back and not get presidential prestige and the United States involved."

The contrast is sharpest in the Middle East, where the United States has been heavily involved in peace negotiations under Democratic and Republican administrations alike. Clinton's immersion was so deep that some Washington insiders called him his own desk officer because he personally bargained with Israelis and Palestinians over intricate details typically left to State Department specialists.

The Bush administration offered an early sign that it would stand back, deciding not to participate in talks at the Egyptian resort of Taba during former prime minister Ehud Barak's last days in office. Then, the administration eliminated the post of special Middle East envoy, previously held by Dennis B. Ross, who had answered directly to the White House.

Though Secretary of State Colin L. Powell visited Israel and the West Bank during his Middle East tour two weeks ago, he indicated that those stops were secondary to his main goal -- pursuing a new policy to contain Iraq. After meeting the Israeli and Palestinian leaders, Powell made clear the Bush administration would not be as ambitious as its predecessor in pressing the two sides to close a deal. "In the end, we cannot want peace more than the parties themselves," he said.

In 1995, Clinton became the first U.S. president to visit Northern Ireland and then returned two more times, including a valedictory trip a month before his term expired. He tapped former Maine senator George J. Mitchell to chair the tortuous negotiations that produced the 1998 Good Friday accord and quieted 30 years of sectarian strife.

Clinton remained so deeply immersed in the issue that on his last day in office, he called Gerry Adams, leader of the Sinn Fein political party allied with the Irish Republican Army, in a last-ditch effort to advance the Good Friday agreement.

Powell, testifying before a Senate committee last week, insisted that the State Department is "following the developments very closely" in Northern Ireland, but that the administration has not decided whether to name a special envoy. Instead, the administration has given the Northern Ireland portfolio to Richard N. Haass -- on top of his already extensive responsibilities as director of policy planning at the State Department.

Also last week, Bush told visiting South Korean President Kim Dae Jung that the United States has no plans for a quick resumption of missile talks with North Korea. Kim had urged the administration to resume Clinton's effort to strike a deal that would send economic aid to famine-stricken North Korea in return for a commitment to stop development of long-range missiles and halt exports of missile technology. Such an agreement had been close in Clinton's final days.

Though South Korean officials urged that time was of the essence, Bush said he doubted that North Korea could be trusted to abide by any deal, and State Department officials said the United States would decide in "due course" whether to engage the North.

Similarly, while hosting Colombian President Andres Pastrana last month, Bush rejected Pastrana's request to have an American observer sit in on peace talks with the country's largest guerrilla group. Twenty-five other countries, including many U.S. allies, sent envoys to the meeting last week in a remote Colombian village. U.S. officials have left open the possibility they might attend future sessions if the negotiations make progress and if guerrillas responsible for the 1999 killing of three American aid workers are turned over to authorities.

Clinton administration officials held secret talks in 1998 with the guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, but severed contacts after they were publicized.

The Bush administration may be passing up the role of broker partly because it is still so new. The White House has yet to appoint or win Senate confirmation for many of its top foreign policy officials. At State, for instance, only Powell has been confirmed, leaving more than 40 top posts unfilled. Officials have been nominated for about a quarter of these and are now working informally.

During the early years of the previous administration, Clinton, too, kept aloof from foreign affairs. It took time before the world captured his imagination and he launched mediation efforts in such far-flung places as Cyprus and the Horn of Africa.

Richard C. Holbrooke, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and a Clinton mediator in several regions, said he could not yet judge whether the Bush White House ultimately might become as engaged. "I hope the new administration, in reaction to what it perceives as over-involvement, does not pull away from using American leadership to prevent or resolve conflicts," he said.

Foreign policy experts and former officials said, however, that the outlook and background of the Bush team make it inherently less enthusiastic about the unwieldy process of negotiating solutions to regional strife.

Patrick M. Cronin, director of the research and studies program at the U.S. Institute of Peace, said negotiations hold less intrinsic appeal for the new team. "It's a results-oriented process and not just process for process's sake," he said. Indeed, the Bush State Department has scaled back the official use of the phrase "Middle East peace process" to emphasize that conducting talks is not the ultimate goal of U.S. diplomacy.

Powell also has dropped more than a third of the 55 special envoy posts created under Clinton. Eliminating envoys for places such as Haiti, Congo, Cyprus and the Balkans does not necessarily mean that U.S. engagement in those locales will wane. But the Bush administration has shown no sign that it wants regular State Department officials and ambassadors to fill the empty seats at bargaining tables.

Among top Bush officials, there are varying levels of interest in having the United States assume this role. Powell, for instance, initially suggested that the administration would pick up the North Korean missile talks where the Clinton administration had left off. Bush quickly squelched that notion in his meeting with Kim.

Yet despite these differences, few in the new administration have exhibited an appetite for the United States remaining broker-at-large. "There's a return to a more unilateralist worldview," said Joseph Montville, an expert in conflict resolution at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

-------- MILITARY

-------- arms sales

World Briefing
March 17, 2001
New York Times
Celia W. Dugger
http://www.nytimes.com/pages/world/index.html

ASIA

INDIA: ARMS SCANDAL INQUIRY The cabinet authorized a Supreme Court judge to begin an investigation into allegations of high-level corruption that came to light in a sting operation by journalists pretending to be arms dealers. For the fourth day, the opposition forced the adjournment of Parliament in protest over the scandal, but the governing coalition rallied around Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee. (NYT)

-------- colombia

In the War on Coca, Colombian Growers Simply Move Along

New York Times
March 17, 2001
By JUAN FORERO
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/17/world/17COLO.html

LLORENTE, Colombia, March 12 - This isolated town used to be as sedate and dirt poor as all the rest.

Then came coca and its byproducts, discos and prostitutes, pool halls and cantinas, cheap hotels and the businesses that cater to newcomers, stores with wood planks, tin sheeting and other materials for flimsy but serviceable housing.

The change began more than a year ago, local government officials and residents say, but accelerated with a huge American-backed campaign to destroy coca fields in adjacent Putumayo Province. The effort, the officials said, displaced coca growers and their crops, sending them to the jungles here in Nariño Province. It is a familiar pattern. Coca came to Colombia because of success in eliminating it in Bolivia and Peru, without aerial spraying.

"What the fumigation did was to transfer the phenomenon from Putumayo to Nariño," said Gov. Parmenio Cuéllar of Nariño. "And if they fumigate Nariño, the problem will go to another place."

Nowhere are the effects more visible than in this town on Highway 10, once a sleepy community of poor farmers that is luring hundreds of former Putumayo farmers, coca-laboratory workers and others drawn by the coca trade.

"They call this Little Putumayo, and they say people who are coming here are leaving Putumayo because of the fumigation," said the Rev. Domingo Moreno, a Roman Catholic priest who works in Llorente. "The people, more and more, are lured by coca, tempted by the magic leaf. Not only are they starting to plant coca, but they're also leaving behind the other plants they grew, plantation bananas and cacao."

Critics of aerial defoliation say the expansion of coca in Nariño and elsewhere bore out a central warning about the plan to destroy coca in Putumayo: that eradication in one region causes coca to move to others.

"The argument I've always made is that the fumigation will not, in any way, do away with the coca fields," said Carlos Palacios, an expert on the coca trade and the human development secretary in the town of Valle del Guamués in Putumayo. "What fumigation does is that it causes the fields to simply transfer to other places."

Opposition to spraying is so strong in southern Colombia that mayors, church officials and others have been pushing President Andrés Pastrana's government and the United States to stop the spraying. Mr. Cuéllar and three other governors visited Washington this week to criticize the program and to lobby for aid to improve agriculture.

American officials counter that the size of the Nariño crop, with fewer than 15,000 acres under cultivation, is manageable compared with the 250,000 acres that existed in the coca-growing heartland of Putumayo and Caquetá Provinces before large-scale spraying began in late December. The Americans also note that the movement of people and planting of coca in Nariño began long before the spraying in Putumayo.

The Americans say the defoliation effort, called Plan Colombia, with its reliance on crop dusters, military helicopters and battalions of Colombian antinarcotics troops, is intended to contain the spread of coca. The plan is "intended to apply pressure in more places simultaneously than previously possible," said Jim Mack, deputy assistant secretary of state for international narcotics and law enforcement.

But the officials, and their Colombian counterparts, are worried.

"We're concerned about Nariño," an official at the American Embassy said. "Right now, there's a lot more coca there, in Nariño, so much so that in fact it's going to be one of our next priorities."

Mr. Cuéllar said the migration into the province began before the spraying in Putumayo, as farmers and others in the coca trade became convinced that a broad plan to wipe out coca was going to become a reality. But he said the movement of people grew significantly in late September, when the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia closed roads throughout Putumayo to prove that it was in control, strangling the coca trade in the process.

On Dec. 19, Plan Colombia, with a goal of halving the estimated 336,000 acres of coca in five years, began. Financed with a $1.1 billion American aid package, the operation denuded 75,000 acres of coca in Putumayo in two months. Those whose farms became instantly worthless quickly packed up and left for Nariño.

Provincial officials and workers from the central government's social service agency, Solidarity, said the displacement of people from Putumayo had stretched resources in Nariño. Shantytowns have sprouted on the outskirts of Pasto, the capital. Crime has increased.

An estimated 10,000 people have fled Putumayo since September, with 1,600 settling in neighboring Ecuador, according to the director of Solidarity, Fernando Medellín. An additional 8,400 dispersed into Nariño, Cauca and Huila Provinces, with most settling in this province, Mr. Medellín said. In Pasto, nearly 900 arrived in February, and about 40 new families arrive every week.

Alonso Matta, 36, who arrived two weeks ago in Pasto, said spraying his four-acre farm "got everything, my plantains, my coca, all of it."

"There are a lot of people who are leaving for that reason," Mr. Matta said. "They're going to go where they find work, where they can find some money."

In many cases, experts said, the migrants are going to where they can again grow coca. Other provinces like Amazonas, which is large, isolated and laced with rivers that allow the easy movement of contraband, may also have new coca fields, American officials said. Guaviare Province, which had large tracts of coca sprayed in 1999 and last year, has shown signs of a resurgence.

Last month, the army said that it had found thousands of acres of coca on the border of Guiania and Vichada Provinces in the southeast. In the north, particularly in Santander Province, coca is also flourishing under the watchful paramilitary groups.

American and Colombian officials who defend the eradication have noted that coca farmers with small- scale farms could voluntarily stop their coca in exchange for a benefits package. Many of those who fled Putumayo for Nariño came from a region where farmers declined to sign pacts with the government to destroy their crops voluntarily. Ana Teresa Bernal, director of Redepaz, which works with the displaced, said 65 percent of those who fled worked in coca fields.

Llorente was in many ways the perfect place to relocate coca and coca labs, a locale that Mr. Cuéllar calls "the door to the vast territories where narcotraffic is creating extensive coca fields."

Traffickers can take advantage of many rivers to move in the processing chemicals and move out the finished product. Nariño's long unguarded Pacific Coast is an ideal jumping-off point for northbound cocaine.

And public security is nonexistent in the 100-mile stretch between Tumaco on the Pacific and Ricaurte, where the Andes rise dramatically, said Col. Jorge Valencia, the police commander in Pasto. Indeed, some newcomers here said they were well aware of the slight presence of security forces.

"Here, everyone works in everything that has to do with coca," said a recent arrival from Putumayo who used to work in coca labs. "There are farms and labs and transportation, all of that. I'm looking for work in the lab."

Others seek work in new businesses or those that are booming because of the influx of cash.

"We've been seeing a lot more business," said Pilar Benavides, 18, who was born in Putumayo and who was running a pool hall while her parents picked coca. "They come to play pool, have some beers. The tables are always full on weekends, all the time. Here, any business will work. If you sell some corncakes on the street, you'll make money."

José Laborda, a vendor from Putumayo, said he left after spraying had dried up most businesses, including his. He quickly found a job as administrator of the Hotel Familiar.

"I see friends here and there and I ask them why they came," Mr. Laborda said. "They all say the same thing. The reason is economic."

Others, like Alberto Tapias, moved to Llorente to escape the violence in Putumayo. Mr. Tapias, a former coca grower who moved with his wife and three children, has given up coca for now. He works in a palm field.

"We're poorly paid, have little to eat, live badly, but we're better off," said Mr. Tapias, who is renting a newly built house in a crowded neighborhood filled with flimsy structures.

There are signs of change. Murders and other violent acts are increasing, officials said. Leftist rebels and their archenemies, the paramilitary groups, are more visible than before.

"There's a lot of concern," Father Moreno said. "I've said this is a time bomb. We don't know when it's going to go off. But it will."

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

World Briefing
New York Times
March 17, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/pages/world/index.html

UNITED NATIONS: RELIEF BASE The United Nations opened its first rapid response base to provide relief in emergencies around the world. The base, in Brindisi, in southern Italy, will serve as a logistics and storage site for the operations. (Agence France-Presse)

-------- OTHER

-------- environment

Company admits spill

Australian News Network
17mar01
By Court Reporter SAM WEIR
http://news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,1808370%255E421,00.html

MINING company Pasminco faces a maximum fine of $120,000 after admitting causing a spill of acidic liquid at its Port Pirie smelter almost two years ago.

The company pleaded guilty in the Environment, Resources and Development Court yesterday to a complaint, lodged by the Environment Protection Authority, of causing material environmental harm.

The court heard that between 10 and 31 kilolitres of spent zinc electrolyte escaped from a holding tank at the smelter into a salt water drain.

This occurred over an estimated 12-hour period during the evening of May 2 and morning of May 3, 1999.

The solution, used in the zinc extraction process, caused the death of about 50 fish.

The court was also told about 2000 fish died in May 1998 when a similar solution escaped after a pipe failed.

Fraser Bell, for Pasminco, said yesterday the 1999 incident occurred because of "a series of dominoes that fell".

"The company accepts entirely the responsibility for what happened (but) it's our submission this incident was entirely unforseeable," he said.

"There's no doubt there was a highly acidic solution in the environment and that's what killed the fish. We did cause environmental harm."

Mr Bell said Pasminco had reported the spill to the EPA after it was discovered and had co-operated during the investigation.

Plant processes had also been changed, including a $58 million waste water treatment plan.

Jeff Powell, for the EPA, said that given the 1998 incident, where Pasminco was blameless and not prosecuted, the company was "well aware of the potential dangers".

"If there ever is a case where a defendant ought to have been aware this is such a defendant," he said.

Pasminco had "a special position of trust" in the Port Pirie community.

"The defendant had a duty to prevent the escape of spent zinc electrolyte from its premises and it failed in that duty," Mr Powell said.

"The means to prevent this incident were always completely in the control of the defendant. No external influence can be blamed for this incident."

Judge Christine Trenorden is expected to deliver her penalty in the next fortnight.

---

Beef and lamb will cost more

Australian News Network
17mar01
By KAREN COLLIER and RICK WALLACE
http://news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,1808976%255E421,00.html

BEEF and lamb prices will rise by up to 10 per cent within weeks.

This will come as worldwide demand for Australian meat is certain to increase because of Europe's mad cow and foot-and-mouth diseases.

It also will follow drought conditions, seasonal supply restrictions, the plunging Australian dollar and increased live cattle exports that have combined to push saleyard prices through the roof in recent months.

National Meat Association (Victoria) executive director Tony Rowden predicted butchers and supermarkets would begin to pass on higher wholesale costs to customers within weeks.

Steak and other prices could rise by up to $3/kg.

Mr Rowden said many butchers had been forced to pay export rates to secure quality.

Costs would blow out further if countries which usually bought meat from Europe increasingly turned to Australia.

Australian quarantine officials stepped up vigilance this week.

Australia banned meat and dairy products from Europe and dozens of other countries on Wednesday as foot and mouth spread.

Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service spokesman Carson Creagh said 6000 items had been X-rayed in Melbourne, with several offending objects removed.

He said St Patrick's Day had sparked an increase in four-leaf clovers being sent from Ireland.

"We had a parcel of prosciutto sent from France and the person who sent it tried to disguise it between cakes of soap," he said.

"It's a dumb thing to do because the detector dogs aren't even remotely fooled by that."

Among other offending items discovered at airports and mail centres were soiled shoes, bacon and plant matter.

Officials said there had been fewer than expected seizures and almost all travellers were complying with the bans.

Tough import restrictions were relaxed on Thursday to allow leather goods, chocolates and some infant formula from Europe.

Australia's chief veterinary officer, Gardner Murray, called for vigilance from the public and the agriculture sector.

"There are no second chances with this one," he said.

The National Farmers Federation described foot and mouth as the greatest risk to the meat industry and backed the Government's moves.

---

A Setback Is Feared on Global Warming

International Herald Tribune
Saturday, March 17, 2001
Eric Pianin and William Drozdiak Washington Post Service
http://www.iht.com/articles/13709.htm

Environmental Groups See Bush's Turnaround as a Bar to World Pact

Environmental groups and some lawmakers eager to get international global warming talks back on track say that President George W. Bush's abandonment of a campaign pledge to curtail carbon dioxide emissions from power plants has hurt the chances for a deal this summer.

Mr. Bush's decision, revealed Tuesday in a letter to Senate Republicans, has provoked dismay in Europe. Green parties exercise growing clout on the Continent, and resentment is building against the reluctance of the United States to engage in an international effort to combat global warming.

"This letter was a real poke in the eye to the European Union," said Kalee Kreider, global warming director of the National Environmental Trust. "This letter sounds like they want to walk."

Representative Sherwood Boehlert, Republican of New York, an influential moderate allied with environmentalists, said, "I don't think that will enhance the prospects for productive negotiations."

Talks on how to comply with a protocol negotiated in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997 that prescribes sharp cuts in emissions of carbon dioxide - a gas that scientists cite as a major factor in the planet's rising temperatures - collapsed in November. European governments have since pointed out that the United States is responsible for 25 percent of carbon dioxide emissions while representing 4 percent of the world's population.

Many U.S. allies in Europe had feared that a Republican administration would be tempted to backslide on the global warming issue. But EU officials said they were pleasantly surprised at a meeting of environmental ministers of the Group of Seven nations, plus Russia, in Trieste, Italy, two weeks ago.

The administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Christie Whitman, told her counterparts at the meeting that Mr. Bush intended to set "mandatory reduction targets" for several pollutants, including carbon dioxide.

"She made it clear that the U.S. government recognized the problem and was willing to act," a senior EU official said. "We all believed that this was a good omen for the next round of negotiations and that we actually might get an agreement on how to put Kyoto into effect." Those talks are scheduled to take place in Bonn in July.

Mr. Bush's letter announcing he was reversing his position came in response to a pressure campaign from four Republicans in Congress - led by Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Senator Larry Craig of Idaho - and lobbyists from the coal and oil industries and some utilities.

Representatives of those industries contended that efforts to curtail carbon dioxide would be expensive and burdensome for the U.S. economy and were counter to the Bush administration's goal of increasing domestic energy production.

"Obviously, the administration noticed there was a lot of concern" among industry leaders, said Glenn Kelly, executive director of the Global Climate Coalition, which represents oil and coal producers.

The president's decision undercut Mrs. Whitman's efforts in the past month to assume a leading role in future talks with European leaders over climate change issues, many specialists agree. Mrs. Whitman has declined to comment publicly about Mr. Bush's decision. Officials of the Environmental Protection Agency said she had relied on Mr. Bush's campaign statements when she assured the G-7 environmental ministers of the president's support for limiting greenhouse gases.

Margot Wallstrom, the EU environment commissioner, said she was "concerned" about Mr. Bush's contention that more research was needed into the causes of climate change before governments could decide on the best solutions.

She said the latest United Nations studies produced strong evidence that global temperatures could rise sharply in the next century, exacerbating the threat of violent storms and the inundation of coastal areas.

"The intergovernmental panel on climate change has once again confirmed the evidence on the causes of climate change and the solutions," the EU commissioner said. "Nobody should ignore these warnings."

Rainer Hinrichs-Rahlwes, the German environmental minister, said that "maybe it will be necessary to ratify the Kyoto protocol without the United States and to instead pave the way for them to join later." The Japanese are also likely to voice their concern early next week, according to environmentalists following the issue.

White House and State Department officials said it was premature to speculate on the impact of Mr. Bush's decision until the administration completed a review of global warming policies.

"Our message to other parties, and that includes European countries, is they shouldn't make any assumptions about our policy until our review is complete," said Philip Reeker, a State Department spokesman.

"The president's letter does address our long-standing concerns about the Kyoto protocol," he said.

But Mr. Reeker added, "The president has said he expects the administration will be active in terms of global climate change."

---

Forest Rules Postponed Again by Bush

New York Times
March 17, 2001
By DOUGLAS JEHL
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/17/politics/17FORE.html

WASHINGTON, March 16 - The Bush administration signaled today that it might consider a settlement that could significantly scale back the effect of Clinton administration rules putting a third of the national forests off limits to development.

Facing the first court challenge to the rules, the administration essentially put off a decision on whether to defend them.

In a motion filed in a Federal District Court in Boise, Idaho, it also offered to postpone when the new rules would take effect, probably until at least early summer.

The administration said it needed more time to complete a review of the Clinton policy, whose wisdom President Bush has publicly questioned and whose effective date had already been put off until May 12, as part of a broader moratorium on rules issued late in the Clinton administration.

As originally scheduled, the rules would have taken effect this past Tuesday.

But the filing of the motion suggested more clearly than ever that the new administration is not inclined to support the rules as they now stand. The offer of a postponement essentially granted a request by Boise Cascade, the timber giant, which had asked a federal judge to grant a preliminary injunction barring the rules from taking effect.

The move also opened a window for possible negotiations between the Bush administration and the Western states, timber interests, off-road enthusiasts and others who have filed lawsuits aimed at overturning the Clinton rules, which would ban roadbuilding and logging across some 60 million acres of national forest.

"We want to completely understand and review what was a last- minute regulation, and this motion allows us to continue to do that while the lawsuit is ongoing," Claire Buchan, a White House spokeswoman, said.

Proponents of the Clinton plan suggested that the Bush administration recognized that the rules had broad public support and was trying to seek modifications as part of a legal settlement rather than through a head- on challenge to the policy.

"This is the first time that the Bush administration is showing its hand on the policy specifically, and it looks like they're buying time to come up with a settlement," said Phil Clapp, who heads the National Environmental Trust, an environmental group based in Washington.

In criticizing any further postponement in the effective date of the rules, Mr. Clapp and other environmentalists said that one result could be to open the way to several timber sales that would have been prohibited under the Clinton plan but for which planning is proceeding, particularly in the Tongass National Forest in Alaska.

Along with timber interests, the mining, oil and gas industries have been vehement opponents of the Clinton plan, the effect of which would be to curtail mining and drilling as well as logging.

The move follows Mr. Bush's decision earlier this week to reverse his pledge to regulate power plants' emissions of carbon dioxide, regarded as a key contributor to global warming. It was described by environmentalists who had championed Mr. Clinton's "roadless forests" policy as a further indication that the new administration is hostile to their agenda.

In contrast, a spokesman for the timber industry said he welcomed the move as a sign of the Bush administration's willingness to consider what he called the fatal weaknesses of the Clinton approach.

"We feel that the whole roadless initiative was very unfair, it was predetermined, it was slanted against us, it was dictated by a radical environmental community which distorted public opinion polls to make it look like there was vast public support for this," said Michael Klein, spokesman for the American Forest and Paper Association.

"What we felt from a Bush administration was that at least we'd get a fair hearing," Mr. Klein said. "It looks like they've heard our outcry that this policy stinks and needs to be looked at again, and it looks like they're going to do that."

A spokesman for Boise Cascade said the company would not comment on the administration's position until its lawyers had time to review the motion, which was filed late today.

The Clinton rules on roadless forests were adopted after a review that lasted more than two years, included scores of public meetings, and prompted written or oral comments from more than 1 million people.

But the broad thrust of the policy was clear from the start, with President Bill Clinton vowing to protect forest lands "before it's too late," and the timber industry and state and local officials in the West have complained that they were unfairly shut out of a decision-making process that would affect them directly.

The rules were among those issued in a flurry by Mr. Clinton's White House during his final days in office, as part of a plan that was intended to leave a strong environmental legacy but which also added to an impression of last-minute improvisation.

The rules' original start date was set back 60 days under the terms of a broader order issued by the White House chief of staff, Andrew H. Card Jr., to allow Mr. Bush's team time to review the Clinton decisions.

Forest Service officials who helped to write the roadless rules have said that, so far, the delay in their enactment has had no practical effect.

But environmentalists have said that in Alaska's Tongass forest in particular, local forest managers have been drawing up plans for possible timber sales, sales that would be barred under the Clinton plan but could be offered for bidding in the next few months if the rules are kept on hold.

"Forest Service planners are working as fast as they can to bring sales to market sales that are flatly illegal under the Clinton plan," said Niel Lawrence, a senior lawyer with the Natural Resources Defense Council.

In addition to concern about the effect on the timber industry, a major objection cited by critics of the Clinton roadless plan is that it would restrict access to public lands, particularly in Montana and Wyoming, that are seen as potential sources of oil and natural gas.

---

Bush's Shift Could Doom Air Pact, Some Say

New York Times
March 17, 2001
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/17/science/17WARM.html

Efforts to complete the Kyoto Protocol, an international agreement intended to curtail global warming, have been seriously damaged by President Bush this week, negotiators and independent experts on the treaty say.

The protocol, signed by the United States and more than 100 other countries but not yet ratified, was already in trouble, with the last round of talks concerning details of the agreement collapsing last November.

But when Mr. Bush issued a letter on Tuesday that renounced his campaign promise to cut carbon-dioxide emissions from power plants, he delivered what could be the coup de grâce, said many foreign government officials, some White House ones and others involved in the talks.

Some say this may be just as well, because the pact, negotiated in 1997 in Japan, contains targets for cutting emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases that are nearly unreachable because of rapid recent growth in many economies and energy use in many nations. Others say there are ways to change the agreement without losing years of work by rejecting it outright.

Mr. Bush's policy change was welcomed by Saudi Arabia, one of the treaty's staunchest opponents.

"This announcement by President Bush is the announcement of the death of the Kyoto Protocol," said Mohammed Al-Sabban, the energy adviser to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the leader of that country's negotiating team.

Dr. Henry D. Jacoby, an expert on the treaty and an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said the treaty's outlines probably could not be salvaged. But the negotiating structure that led to it would probably continue, he said.

"The Kyoto Protocol is really two different things - it's the current text and numbers, and it's a process," he said. "The numbers are no longer going to work, but the process is going to go on. It has to, because the issue is too important."

"It's clear," Dr. Jacoby added, "that this administration won't be able to go four years without dealing with this."

The pact, if ratified, would commit the United States and three dozen other industrialized countries to cut their combined emissions of heat- trapping gases by 2012 to 95 percent of the amounts measured in 1990.

Throughout last year, Mr. Bush had said he opposed the climate treaty because it would harm the economy and exempt developing countries from committing to reductions in emissions.

But it was the definitive language in the letter, which represented the administration's first elaboration of its emerging climate policy, that startled many people, even some conservative Republicans who had long opposed the treaty.

Several elements in the letter undermined the treaty. Some were seemingly intentional, like a pointed criticism of China and India. Other language, White House officials and others involved with the treaty said, remained in the letter even after meetings early in the week at which Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and other foreign affairs experts suggested changes.

Mr. Bush's reversal on power plants took away a valuable bargaining chip: evidence that the United States would commit to reduce emissions within its borders. Treaty experts said the shift would also seem to confirm suspicions of many European nations that the United States would avoid cutting emissions.

In a separate passage, Mr. Bush alluded to what he called "the incomplete state of scientific knowledge of the causes of, and solutions to, global climate change." Yet environmental groups and even some officials in the chemical industry, where many companies have already started to cut emissions, said the scientific consensus was stronger than ever.

"We saw sufficient science emerging to warrant what in our judgment was prudent action back in 1991," said Thomas R. Jacob, the manager of international and industry affairs for DuPont, one of several dozen corporations that have committed to voluntary reductions in their greenhouse-gas emissions.

Some longtime opponents of the climate treaty said they were surprised that the letter lacked the usual nuances and qualifications required to sustain diplomatic discussions, regardless of a country's stance on the substance of a treaty.

Other critics of Kyoto welcomed the unambiguous statement. Dr. S. Fred Singer, a retired physicist and longtime critic of research indicating a warming trend with a human cause, said he hoped Mr. Bush would kill the treaty outright.

"The Kyoto Protocol is like a vampire," Dr. Singer said. "You need to drive a stake through its heart. Otherwise it'll keep coming back and causing problems."

The Bush letter has generated a number of cables from European governments to the State Department expressing concern for the fate of the climate talks.

More telling, perhaps, was the reaction in China, where an official in the foreign ministry yesterday restated the stance of developing countries, that the United States and other industrialized countries must take the first steps to reduce emissions.

"The developed countries have been discharging greenhouse gases for over a hundred years," the official said. "They bear the historical responsibility on climate changes that cannot be shirked."

White House officials said that the letter reflected Mr. Bush's position on Kyoto, but did not preclude further talks. "The president clearly expects his administration to be active internationally in dealing with the issue," said Sean McCormack, a White House spokesman.

---

Cowboys Ride the Range, Thoughts an Ocean Away

New York Times
March 17, 2001
By JOHN W. FOUNTAIN
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/17/national/17FOOT.html

BREWSTER, Neb., March 16 - Two anxious cowboys watched over a herd of pregnant heifers grazing on these snow-covered hills against a gray sky.

It was the beginning of calving season in cattle country, and the cowboys, Justin Bradley and Lon Larsen, like other ranchers here, had a lot on their minds.

The cowboys were convinced that at least one coyote lurked somewhere on the 10,000-acre spread they work because a newborn calf had been missing for two days. They were concerned about the icy weather that can kill a weak calf, and the fluctuating price of beef that can put them out of business.

And if that were not enough to worry about, there was one more thing: foot-and-mouth disease.

Although it has not surfaced on the Nebraska plains or anywhere else in the United States since 1929, the virus that is devastating cattle herds in England and has spread to France has started to stir worries here.

"It's another stone in the sack," said Alan Janzen, owner of the Circle Five Ranch, where Mr. Bradley and Mr. Larsen care for about 3,000 head of cattle. "It makes business tougher. When we get together as cattlemen or producers, a common comment is, `I just wanted to raise a few cattle. Now we've got all these issues that we have to solve.' "

Similar concerns were echoed across the state - in bars, stores, just about everywhere cowboys gather. The concerns have taken on an urgency now that the United States has banned the import of fresh meat from cloven-hoofed animals from all European Union countries.

"There are not that many people in the county, and they're all having the same conversation," said Dana Larsen, Mr. Larsen's wife, who also works on the Circle Five. On Thursday afternoon, she had gone to the grocery store, to the courthouse in rural Blaine County and to a gas station. Everywhere, the story was the same. "It's a major topic around here now," Mrs. Larsen said.

That is no surprise in a state where beef is still the No. 1 industry.

For John Schroder, 29, a cowboy with a thick mustache who ranches near Taylor, about 30 miles east of Brewster, the worry, at least for now, is not that the disease itself will reach United States shores.

"If they keep the product out of this country that's diseased or could be, that should mean that we should get a higher price for our product," said Mr. Schroder, parked in front of a bottle of beer at a local bar.

Still, he fretted that consumers might begin to worry about the safety of all beef, domestic and foreign.

"All they're going to know is that's a piece of beef that could have hoof- and-mouth disease," Mr. Schroder said. " `We're going to eat chicken tonight.' "

Foot-and-mouth disease rarely affects people. But it is highly contagious and has debilitating effects on cloven-hoofed animals. In Britain alone, nearly 200,000 animals have been slaughtered and incinerated as the authorities there try to contain the virus. Severe measures here in addition to the federal ban include the Agriculture Department's placing airports on alert to inspect travelers and their belongings in hopes of keeping the disease out.

Until now, ranchers have been concerned mostly with mad cow disease, which has plagued cows in Britain and can cause fatal Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans.

That may be changing.

"Now that it has become an issue, it has caused in us a fear," Mr. Janzen said. "If we all of a sudden decide cattle aren't worth anything because, `Man, if we get hoof-and- mouth next week, they'll be worth half as much,' we can drive our own market down," he explained.

The last reported case of foot-and- mouth disease in the United States was in 1929 in California. A swift response by state authorities limited the spread of the disease to 3,600 animals. Five years earlier, though, in 1924, an outbreak of foot-and- mouth disease that began in Berkeley, Calif., went undetected in a herd of pigs. When the authorities declared a state of emergency 90 days after the pigs were believed to have been infected, they were too late, according to Dr. Richard Breitmeyer, the California state veterinarian and an expert on the disease. The outbreak ultimately spread to most counties in the state, affecting some 950 herds and causing the destruction of 110,000 farm animals.

Should the disease surface here, early detection, quick eradication and containment will be critical, experts say. Even a small outbreak "would mean millions," if not billions, of dollars, Dr. Breitmeyer said.

For cattle dealers like Mike Pitzel of Taylor, the stakes are high.

"We're very concerned," he said, sipping a whiskey with friends at Cattleman's, a bar in Taylor where worries were as thick as the sounds of country music. "Why wouldn't we be? It's everybody's life."

Another rancher chimed in. "In 1929 - we were talking about it today - we had it here," said Ron Worm, speaking of foot-and-mouth disease. "It's a serious deal."

"We don't need a scare in this country," Mr. Pitzel added.

While worries swarmed, out on the range there are still cattle to raise and calves to be born. The Circle Five cowboys knelt in a stable, helping a mother having trouble with her delivery. The calf finally plopped out, its eyes closed, lethargic and wet. But it livened up with Mr. Bradley's brisk rubbing. Within minutes, the calf and its mother were united. Moments later, Mr. Larsen saddled up.

"Where you going, Lon?" Mr. Bradley asked.

"Just going up to take a look at that black heifer," he replied. "I see a lot of legs for no head." He headed for a snowy hill under a gray sky.

Vermont Sheep to be Seized

WASHINGTON, March 16 (Reuters) - The Agriculture Department said today that it would seize flocks of Vermont sheep suspected of carrying an ailment related to mad cow disease.

The department and the farmers have fought in court for months over whether the government has the right to destroy the sheep because four of the animals had tested positive for scrapie, a brain disease distantly related to mad cow disease.

The sheep were imported from Belgium in 1996, the year before the United States closed its borders to all European meat to prevent the spread of mad cow disease.

---

Whitman Defends Bush on Emissions

New York Times
March 17, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/17/politics/17WHIT.html

WASHINGTON, March 16 - In her first public comments since President Bush reversed a pledge to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by power plants, Christie Whitman, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, defended the action today as an effort to maintain a balanced energy supply.

Mrs. Whitman, who had repeatedly indicated that the administration would keep the promise on carbon dioxide, said Mr. Bush and his advisers became worried that capping emissions could cause the energy problems in California to spread.

"He didn't want to do anything that was going to discourage decisions that would result in a better mix of energy," Mrs. Whitman said at the National Press Club. She also said Mr. Bush determined that proposing carbon dioxide restrictions could complicate his efforts to lower emissions of other harmful gases.

---

World Briefing
New York Times
March 17, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/pages/world/index.html

THE AMERICAS

BRAZIL: SINKING OIL RIG The world's biggest offshore oil rig, hit by a series of blasts on Thursday that killed at least one person and left nine missing, could sink within days as the chances of recovery fade, said the president of the state oil company, Petrobras. Engineers said the sinking of the 40-story rig could cause an environmental catastrophe as oil spills into the sea. The cause of the explosion is still unknown. (Reuters)

EUROPE

ALY: CUTTING OFF THE VATICAN Italy's environment minister threatened to cut off the electricity supply to Vatican Radio unless it reduced electromagnetic output from its transmitters. Vatican Radio, which has been charged with breaking Italian environmental laws, said it was "astonished" by the threat, which would effectively shut down the station, which broadcasts Pope John Paul II's words around the world. (Reuters)

-------- spying

What They Knew (Not!): 44 Years of C.I.A. Secrets

New York Times
March 17, 2001
By STEPHEN KOTKIN
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/17/arts/17CIA.html

PRINCETON, N.J. -- The wood-paneled auditorium, filled with more than 175 gray-haired men in gray suits, was buzzing. The men, mostly retired C.I.A. analysts and some current ones, were not known for their garrulousness, but many couldn't contain themselves. "This is all too much," said an otherwise sober-minded analyst. "I'm sorry. I just - I can't stop talking. This is great!"

They had gathered at Princeton University last week along with 70-some professors, students and dabblers in espionage for a two-day conference devoted to the agency's analysis of the Soviet Union from 1947 to 1991.

Did the Central Intelligence Agency, as former New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan has often charged, greatly overestimate Soviet capabilities - causing the United States to spend far too much on its military - and then hide its erroneous views in an undemocratic "culture of secrecy"? Or was the agency's record "pretty good," as suggested by Lloyd Salvetti, director of the Center for the Study of Intelligence, who distributed CD-ROM's holding 19,000 pages of recently declassified documents at this public conference?

Even with the release of such documents, the questions are not easily answered, since only the agency knows what remains classified. But that is what made the Princeton conference, at the initiative of the agency, so extraordinary. Here was a chance to hear the front-line analysts candidly explaining and criticizing their work.

And beyond the insider's look at the agency was the look at the insiders. They attended schools like Princeton, Yale and Harvard, the favorite recruiting grounds, colleges that were closed to women until the 1970's. Preferring to go by their first names, Howie and Winston, Smitty and Dick, they referred to their analyses as "product" and to government officials as their "customers."

For these highly professional and dedicated men, the Soviet world, at a certain remove, was an integral part of their lives. Having toiled in utter seclusion for decades, received medals in private ceremonies and followed orders not to disclose what they knew, these desk veterans were allowed in from the cold.

Ray said he had briefed Richard M. Nixon for the "kitchen debate" with Nikita S. Khrushchev. Bill rose to say he had predicted the outbreak of the Korean War, but that his later attempt to get his own paper using the Freedom of Information Act came up empty. Eight seats over, Herb leaped up to announce that he had handled the request and apologized that the document could not be located.

They had written secret multivolume encyclopedias on things from the consistency of Soviet rope to the friction in Chinese- Soviet relations. And now they reminisced about careers in cold war puzzle solving. Like a mysterious 880-foot-long building in the Soviet Union. Was it a chicken farm or a state-of-the-art radar facility? It was radar, in fact, part of the Soviet early warning system. How did the agency figure that out? First they identified the structure from photos taken from a U-2 spy plane, then a new tool. Next they maneuvered their own giant radar dish on Chesapeake Bay to pick up radiation emitted from the "chicken farm" that analysts surmised could be caught bouncing off the moon.

Such ingenuity enabled the agency to grasp the extent and limits of the Soviet military in the 1950's without artificial satellites. The agency had correctly reported that the Soviet Union was not likely to launch a war in Europe the way the Japanese had at Pearl Harbor. Mr. Salvetti, the conference organizer, seemed vindicated.

But so, in absentia, did Senator Moynihan. Raymond Garthoff, a longtime C.I.A. military analyst, admitted that "there were consistent overestimates of the threat every year from 1978 to 1985." Douglas MacEachin, a 32-year veteran and former deputy director, agreed, saying: "The biggest single trap for intelligence estimates was Soviet intentions. We `knew' what their intentions were before they did." He added, "We joked, `Let's cable Moscow with the news.' "

Mr. MacEachin said that the agency did not fully realize how the Soviet military industrial complex drove its own institutional growth, which took on a life of its own without a conscious political strategy. He said the agency also missed the extent to which Leonid I. Brezhnev's military buildup from the late 60's to the early 80's was based on Soviet perceptions of American military strength. And the agency overestimated the accuracy of Soviet missiles. That, too, derived from a tendency to interpret Soviet realities through American eyes.

But where else could government officials, the "customers," turn? Jack F. Matlock Jr., a former envoy to the Soviet Union for the Reagan and George Bush administrations, summed up his appreciation for the C.I.A. by noting that everyone ignored Pentagon intelligence on the Soviet Union because "it would never include anything that might threaten to reduce the Pentagon budget."

Indeed, independent analysis of the Soviet arsenal was indispensable. The agency's best-guess inventories proved that weapons agreements could be "verified." Without them, arms control would not have been possible.

The contribution was still deeper. Even when wrong, the precision offered in agency intelligence estimates eventually cast a calming spell. Knowing in detail how the Soviet Union could destroy the world a thousand times over, paradoxically, helped reduce the hysterical levels of paranoia in the nuclear age. "We understood the plumbing of the Soviet armed forces," boomed Fritz W. Ermarth, another retired agency veteran, "so we did not overreact in periods of tension."

Elsewhere in the agency, Soviet statistical manuals (when they were available) were subjected to econometric analysis, and satellite imagery was used to measure floor space in factories and deduce production capacities. Quickly it became clear that the Soviet Union would not overtake the United States, but a debate ensued about the size of its economy: was it 30 percent or 60 percent of the American economy? And what was its growth rate?

One trip to a Soviet manufacturing plant would have provided some ready answers, but even though travel to the Soviet Union became possible in 1957, agency desk analysts for the most part were not sent to do fieldwork. Analysts who did travel to Moscow much later, and who had assumed that Soviet goods were probably similar to the lowest-end items in the Sears, Roebuck catalog, reported having been shocked by their shoddiness.

Decrepit, inefficient factories, however, were worth quite a bit inside the Soviet Union, since their output was often a monopoly and they also provided housing, nurseries and secure jobs, not to mention urban power grids and mass transit systems. Considered in world market terms, however, those same factories were often destroyers of wealth: their output was valued at less than the cost of their inputs.

Puzzling over the worth of an economy without market prices or a real currency, agency economists, at policymakers' request, estimated the Soviet gross national product in dollars. But that willy-nilly rendered it as part of the global economy even though it wasn't. Here was the crucial question, and it did not involve growth rates or size estimates but politics: How long could the Soviet Union wall itself off from the rest of the world's economy? The answer began to emerge in the 1970's, when oil exports and grain imports increasingly entangled the Soviets in the world market. And that world market's valuation of the Soviet economy proved devastating, as Russia in the 1990's showed.

James Millar, an academic economist and agency consultant, noted that the C.I.A. did get Soviet trends right (i.e., downward) and had caught the onset of declining growth under Brezhnev. "But C.I.A. did not have the courage of its convictions," he concluded, adding, "We underestimated the costs of haste in industrialization, of autarky, empire, excessive standardization and the suppression of economists."

Did the agency do better than the Sovietologists at universities? "No, they did about the same," Mr. Millar said. Should the agency have done better, given its big budget and access to wider information? He shrugged his shoulders. Later Richard Kerr, a 32-year agency veteran and deputy director in 1989- 92, finished the thought, calling the agency "a W.P.A. project for economists."

Predictably, both the analysts and the organization as a whole found it difficult to relinquish views in which they were deeply invested. The economist Paul Samuelson, noted Steven Rosen, director of the Olin Center for Strategic Studies at Harvard, liked to say, "We make progress in economic theory one academic funeral at a time." Mr. Ermarth pointed out that they didn't understand that the Soviets couldn't translate their military might into political and diplomatic leverage. Worse, an agency paper on "the domestic stress on the Soviet system," he said, was produced only in the fall of 1985, "embarrassingly late." Another paper bore the title, "Moscow's troubles with empire - so what?"

One could go further and argue that the C.I.A. underestimated the crushing effect on the Soviet Union of America's social welfare programs (which blunted the Communist critique of capitalism), expanding home ownership, and export of mass culture, and the example exerted by an open and democratic society. It was a combination of weapons for which the Soviet Union had no answer.

After the stunning Soviet breakup, John McLaughlin, the current deputy director of the agency, said, "We still had a Soviet canned goods specialist and a Soviet timber specialist." Soon, however, such analysts "found themselves studying Uzbek language or Ukrainian politics."

Gone is the problem of gathering information about a closed society, Mr. McLaughlin said. He described an analyst starting her day now by profitably examining 20 Russian Web sites, the same ones available on any computer. But the agency's task has not been made easier, for the "clarity of the old paradigm" is gone, he said.

The picture that emerged over two days was of thousands of analysts, bounded by their consciences but also their worldviews, producing a vast body of intelligence. Some of it was indispensable; and some, within limits, offered divergent views. But how much of this colossal effort affected or even reached policymakers?

James R. Schlesinger, a former director and secretary of defense, observed that policymakers "like to have their views confirmed," so "they pick out of our intelligence the points that confirm their views." How often directors of central intelligence, who funnel information to the president, did the same, was left unsaid.

---

Ex-Businessman Named to No. 3 Post at C.I.A.

New York Times
March 17, 2001
National News Briefs
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/17/national/17NATI.html

WASHINGTON, March 16 (AP) - The Central Intelligence Agency said today that A. B. Krongard, a former businessman and longtime consultant to the agency, would become its executive director.

George J. Tenet, director of central intelligence, announced that Mr. Krongard would replace David W. Carey as the agency's third-ranking official. As the C.I.A.'s executive director, Mr. Krongard will essentially serve as its chief operating officer.

Mr. Krongard has worked full time for the agency since February 1998. During a 29-year business career he was chief executive and chairman of the investment banking firm Alex. Brown Inc. and vice chairman of the board of Bankers Trust.

-------- activists

Actions at IMF/WB Annual Meetings,
Sept. 28-Oct. 4 2001 - Washington

Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2001 09:51:58 -0800
From: Neil Tangri <jzern1@yahoo.com> (by way of Jonah Zern <jzern1@yahoo.com>)

PLEASE CIRCULATE WIDELY

September 2001 Mobilization! Mark Your Calendars Now! Washington, DC: September 28 - October 4

A Call Issued By: 50 Years Is Enough Network; Mexico Solidarity Network; Essential Action; Center for Economic Justice; Nicaragua Network; Global Exchange; Jubilee South Africa; ACERCA; Native Forest Network - Gulf of Maine; Native Forest Network -Southwestern US; Native Forest Network - Eastern North America Resource Center; STITCH; Freedom from Debt Coalition (Philippines); Alliance for Global Justice; Campaign for Labor Rights; Jobs with Justice

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank will be holding their Joint Annual General Meetings in Washington, DC from September 28 to October 4, 2001.

We call on activists from all over the world to come to Washington during that week to protest and expose the illegitimacy of the institutions and officials who continue to claim the right to determine the course of the world economy.

In April 2000, some 30,000 activists came to Washington to protest the spring meetings of the IMF and World Bank. The fall meetings are an even more important target for protests: instead of a few hundred bankers and bureaucrats, about 20,000 usually descend on Washington for the annual meetings.

The IMF and the World Bank are the primary architects of neo-liberal globalization. Their meetings in Washington are the most significant gathering of the proponents of corporate-led globalization in the U.S. in 2001. It is imperative that supporters of global economic justice send a clear message: the movement for global justice continues to grow, and will not stand for continuing efforts by these institutions and the G-7 governments to structure the world for the benefit of corporations and the wealthy and to deny basic justice to the majority of the world's people.

Among the groups issuing this call are those who issued the first call for the April 2000 mobilization. We helped create the Mobilization for Global Justice for that event, and in cooperation with Jobs with Justice and others later helped organize over 65 nationwide events in September 2000 in solidarity with protesters in Prague at the time of the 2000 IMF/World Bank annual meetings. Those of us in Washington are now part of the local coalition (again assembled under the banner Mobilization for Global Justice) organizing for teach-ins, trainings, and demonstrations against the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) and in solidarity with activists opposing it at the Québec Summit of the Americas April 18-22. Actions in Washington will include demonstrations at the U.S. Trade Representative's office and outside the spring meetings of the IMF and World Bank on April 29. The FTAA will be the focus of the Washington actions as we make the link between longstanding economic positions of the IMF/World Bank and the trade regime embodied in the FTAA.

We will work to rally the same coalition of forces that came together in April 2000 as we work to organize for September 2001. We will also (and have already started) work to reach out to the many groups working on the issues within the U.S. that parallel those in the IMF/World Bank struggle: access to health care, welfare reform, labor rights, discrimination, people of color, environmental justice, etc.

We issue this call now, ahead of the formal beginning of that organizing effort, to alert activists to an upcoming imperative and opportunity.

At the World Social Forum, which drew 16,000 activists to Porto Alegre, Brazil in January, 2001, there was broad support for IMF/World Bank protest actions in September. In Porto Alegre, we distributed about 2000 flyers (in Portuguese, English, Spanish, and French) inviting people to Washington between September 28 and October 4.

The 50 Years Is Enough Network will circulate a set of demands of the IMF and World Bank, developed in consultation with colleagues in the Global South, for which we hope to gain broad endorsement. As part of the preparation for the September actions, the Network, in cooperation with others, is also organizing "teach-in tours" in the U.S. and Canada, featuring colleagues from the Global South who will share their experiences and struggles of resistance to corporate-led globalization, the international debt burden, structural adjustment programs, the HIV/AIDS crisis, economic and political oppression, as well as their organizing efforts in advance of the September actions.

For more information contact the 50 Years Is Enough Network wb50years@igc.org tel: +1-202-463-2265 www.50years.org

---

World Briefing
New York Times
March 17, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/pages/world/index.html

IRELAND: STUDENT BACKLASH In a counterprotest against a one-day teachers' strike on Wednesday, 450 high school students walked out of their classrooms and demonstrated for a resolution of the labor dispute. A union representing 16,000 teachers plans to hold five more one-day strikes over the next two weeks. The teachers, who are demanding a 30 percent pay raise, have refused to supervise the students' year-end examinations. Brian Lavery (NYT)

SOUTH AFRICA: RALLY FOR WHITE FARMER More than 200 white farmers gathered in a church hall in Lydenburg to support Willem Pretorius, a farmer being forced to sell his land for black resettlement. But blacks from the Dinkwanyane clan said they were overjoyed that they would soon regain land seized from them 40 years ago by the white-supremacist government, and pointed out that they were never compensated when they lost their homes. More than 3.5 million blacks were driven from their land during the 46 years of apartheid that ended in 1994. (Reuters)

UNITED NATIONS: ANTI-CHINA RALLY The Falun Gong spiritual movement is planning a large demonstration at the United Nations headquarters in Geneva on Monday to protest Chinese persecution. The occasion is the opening of the annual session of the United Nations Human Rights Commission, where China is usually able to keep criticism of its human rights record off the formal agenda. Barbara Crossette (NYT)

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