------- Index of Articles
NUCLEAR
Sub crewman says he violated orders
Italy Agrees With EU on Uranium
Rumsfeld hesitates to OK defense plan
Indian Parliament Suspended Over Arms Scandal
A Road Too Close Squeezes Gaza Village
N Korea warns U.S. on nuke reactor deal
Maybe it's not so bad Backing missile defense
Bush may slash aid to help Russia cut nuclear arms
Bush and Putin
Iran, Russia Arms Deal Stirs Chaos
Fire Shuts Taiwan Nuclear Plant
Key director at Chernobyl fired
Hawaii Attorney fighting for Enewetak compensation
Bush Is Due to Meet Chinese on Issues Crucial for Ties
Our Champion of Continuity
Energy needs may spur rebirth of nuclear power
MILITARY
The New Grant Administration
Iran, Russia Arms Deal Stirs Chaos
Raytheon competing for missile deal
Gulf arms bazaar opens for business
KEY PLAYERS
Zimbabwe London Blocks Arms for Kosovo's UN Police
India to review defense deals
Military begins bribery probe in India
As Strife in Macedonia Rises, U.S. and NATO Shun Fight
Eleven Die in Ukraine, Russia Helicopter Crashes
Space shuttle Discovery undocks
NASA extends Galileo mission
Commanders war crimes trial opens
UN human rights chief to step down
Air Force Proposes Plan to Help Boeing With Sale of Planes
OTHER
Abraham: Energy Costs Pose Recession Risk
Germany expresses concern to EPA
Schools built on unsafe land
UN launches coral reefs project
FDA to test for biotech allergy
ACTIVISTS
All African Women's Revolutionary Union Conference
Anti-summit activists will pay minister a visit
MOBILIZE AGAINST THE PRISON INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX
Def Summer internships available!
Solidarity Conference (April 6-8)
M1: Join the global struggle against corporate tyranny
Activists unfurl large banner "End Corporate Rule"
Girl set ablaze in Tiananmen dies
Spain protests car-bomb killing
Spaniards protest latest killing
-------- NUCLEAR
Sub crewman says he violated orders
USA Today
03/19/2001 - Updated 12:16 PM ET
By PAULINE ARRILLAGA Associated Press Writer
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=406434814
PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii (AP) - A crew member aboard the USS Greeneville admitted Monday he violated orders by failing to maintain a manual plot of surface ships the day the sub surfaced beneath a Japanese trawler and sank it.
Petty Officer 1st Class Patrick Seacrest told a Navy court of inquiry he failed to maintain the chart of sonar contacts despite standing orders by his skipper, and he said he never told officers he had stopped.
``You got lazy, didn't you Petty Officer Seacrest?'' demanded Capt. Bruce MacDonald, counsel for the court of inquiry.
``Yes, sir. A little bit,'' replied Seacrest, who had been granted immunity for his testimony.
The Greeneville hit the Ehime Maru from below while demonstrating a rapid-surfacing maneuver for 16 civilians on board. The trawler, on an expedition to teach high school students commercial fishing, sank in minutes. Four teen-agers, three crewmen and two teachers never were found.
The inquiry has focused on whether Greeneville Cmdr. Scott Waddle rushed preparations for surfacing and whether he failed to look long enough or high enough to detect the Ehime Maru during his periscope search.
Also under investigation are the boat's executive officer, Lt. Cmdr. Gerald Pfeifer, and the officer of the deck, Lt. j.g. Michael Coen.
On his way into court Monday, Waddle repeated what his lawyer has said, telling reporters that if he is granted immunity for his testimony he will acknowledge his responsibility for the collision.
``The first word I will say to the court will be that fact - that I'm accountable and I'm responsible for the accident that led to the tragic collision and sinking of the Ehime Maru,'' Waddle said.
``None of my crew members should be accountable or responsible for that accident,'' he said.
Waddle's attorney, Charles Gittins, has insisted the commander will not testify without immunity.
The court hasn't indicated when it will rule on immunity.
Seacrest, the Greeneville's fire control technician, was the last witness scheduled to testify before attorneys for the three officers present their cases.
Seacrest has told investigators he had data indicating another vessel was 4,000 yards from the submarine but that he assumed it was wrong when Waddle and Coen reported seeing no ships during their periscope scans.
Seacrest also has said he didn't speak up because the civilian guests blocked his access to the officers.
Adm. Thomas Fargo, head of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, granted Seacrest immunity on Friday. Coen's lawyers also have requested testimonial immunity.
Once the inquiry concludes, the three admirals presiding over the court will recommend whether the officers should be punished. The report goes to Fargo, who has up to 30 days to take action.
The officers could face punishments ranging from a reprimand or discharge to courts-martial.
-------- depleted uranium
Italy Agrees With EU on Uranium
Associated Press
March 19, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Italy-Depleted-Uranium.html?searchpv=aponline
ROME (AP) -- An Italian panel has reached the same conclusion as European Union experts: there is no proven link between depleted uranium and cancer in soldiers.
The Italians, however, on Monday recommended the continued monitoring of soldiers' health.
The incidence of cancers in soldiers who served in Bosnia and Kosovo was lower than the normal incidence of such tumors in the overall population, said Franco Mandelli, head of the investigative panel commissioned by the Defense Ministry.
Earlier this month, EU experts concluded that depleted uranium used in armor-piercing weapons had no link to health problems, findings that concurred with NATO's own studies.
U.S. aircraft used munitions containing depleted uranium, a slightly radioactive heavy metal, during the 78-day air campaign against Yugoslavia in 1999, as well as in Bosnia in 1994 and 1995.
Concerns arose in several European countries this year when Italy began studying the illnesses of veterans of Balkans peacekeeping missions.
The Italian commission studied 28 cases of cancer from late 1995 through January 2001 in 39,450 Italian soldiers. Ten of those cases ended in death. Comparing the incidence of cancer in Italian soldiers to Italians in general, the panel found that the number of cases in soldiers was ``significantly lower than the expected'' number, the commission said.
Mandelli did note that the rate of Hodgkin's disease was higher than expected -- nine instead of four cases -- as well as that of acute lymphatic leukemia -- two instead of the expected incidence of one.
But he said those findings were ``not statistically significant,'' given the overall number of cancers and the size of the population studied.
-------- europe
Rumsfeld hesitates to OK defense plan
Washington Times
March 19, 2001
By Joe Murphy LONDON SUNDAY TELEGRAPH
http://www.washtimes.com/world/default-2001319221547.htm
LONDON - U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has warned that plans for a European defense force could "inject instability" into the NATO alliance, undermining claims by British Prime Minister Tony Blair that he has persuaded the United States to support the plan.
The proposed European force could "put at risk something that is very special," Mr. Rumsfeld said in an interview with the London Sunday Telegraph, the first detailed public statement on the subject by a senior U.S. official since Mr. Blair visited Camp David last month.
Mr. Blair said on his return that President Bush had agreed to support the European "army," but Mr. Rumsfeld made it clear that the new administration remains deeply concerned about the project.
Invited to confirm that he was "relaxed" about the European Union's proposals, Mr. Rumsfeld conspicuously declined to do so. He warned: "I personally will be watching carefully to see how things evolve, because we have so much at stake with that [NATO] alliance.
"We need to be vigilant to see that we don't do anything that could inject an instability into the alliance."
In a sign of his frustration that the issue refuses to die, Mr. Blair, also interviewed by the London Sunday Telegraph, accused Britain's opposition Conservative Party of pouring "poison" into the ears of the Americans.
However, Mr. Blair acknowledged that some EU countries involved in the defense initiative may intend "to destroy NATO" - a reference that assumably applied to France.
"Well, if we don't get involved in European defense, it will happen without Britain," Mr. Blair said. "Then those people who really may have an agenda to destroy NATO will have control of it."
The re-emergence of the trans-Atlantic rift is a blow to Mr. Blair, who sought to alleviate Mr. Bush's concerns when they met at Camp David a month ago. At the time, Mr. Bush said: "He assured me that NATO is going to be the primary way to keep the peace in Europe."
Mr. Bush's advisers, however, have been alarmed by annexes to the Nice Treaty, signed last year, that state that the European force will be "under the political control and strategic direction of the EU" during operations.
Mr. Rumsfeld, interviewed in Washington by the former Conservative member of Parliament Winston Churchill - grandson of the wartime leader - was asked to confirm Mr. Blair's view that the Bush administration was "relaxed" about the force.
Instead of agreeing, he replied: "I think the correct way to say it is that the president has said what he has said about it, and he understands it. As in so many things in life, the devil is in the detail. And the details haven't been worked out.
"The way the planning mechanism is handled could make an enormous difference. But arranged in a way that didn't really look out over the long term . . . then it could put at risk something that's very special."
In his wide-ranging interview with political columnist Anne Applebaum, Mr. Blair said those in the Bush administration "have had poison poured in their ear by the present Conservative Party going over there and saying, this is all about ripping apart NATO, it's a French plot to destabilize . . .
"Every time I explain European defense to Americans, they understand it and end up supporting it.
"But this is all part of that ghastly [Conservative] traffic that goes across there saying, 'Oh, you know, the purpose of the New Labor government is to pull Britain apart from America.'"
-------- india / pakistan
Indian Parliament Suspended Over Arms Scandal
Reuters
March 19, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-arms-in.html
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India's warring political parties said on Monday they planned to launch street protests across the country over an arms bribery scandal that has plunged the coalition government into its worst crisis yet.
The main opposition Congress said the first phase of a ``long haul'' program to oust Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's 17-month-old government would be launched at the weekend with public meetings in each district of the country.
``It is a long haul program. How long it will be, will depend on Mr. Vajpayee,'' said Congress spokesman Jaipal Reddy. ``We are not confident of the moral sensitivity of this government.''
A secretly shot film by journalists posing as arms dealers showed politicians, military officials and bureaucrats apparently accepting money to influence a fictitious arms deal.
Officials from Vajpayee's office appeared before reporters for the first time since the scandal broke last week, to deny any wrong doing. They said it was unfortunate that aspersions had been cast on the Prime Minister's office.
``The allegations which arise from this so-called expose are baseless,'' Brajesh Mishra, Principal Secretary to Vajpayee, told a news conference.
The documentary makes a passing mention of Mishra who is considered close to Vajpayee, prompting opposition groups to demand that he step down with N.K.Singh, another key figure in the Prime Minister's office.
The scandal, which has claimed the heads of the defense minister and the chiefs of two political parties, including that of Vajpayee's Bharatiya Janata Party, paralyzed parliament on Monday and most of last week.
Lower house speaker Ganti Balayogi suspended the chamber for the day after opposition deputies led by the Congress party bayed for the government to quit.
``The government is making commissions while soldiers are bleeding,'' they chanted. The upper house was also suspended for the day after a similar uproar.
A Congress leader, however, said the party would not stand in the way of the government seeking a vote allowing it to continue to spend money after the end of the fiscal year on March 31.
``We don't want to be irresponsible. The vote-on-account will be passed,'' Congress leader Kapil Sibal told Reuters.
NEEDS APPROVAL
The vote-on-account is a temporary measure whose passage is needed before parliament can approve the federal 2001/2002 budget. It must win assent in the lower house before it recesses at the end of this week. The budget, unveiled last month, will be up for approval when parliament reconvenes in mid-April.
Leaders of the coalition responded to the opposition threat of street protests by saying they too would take the battle to the people, accusing the opposition of unleashing a campaign of lies.
``We will tell the nation the facts of the case. No deal was struck, no minister was involved. It was only a fictitious deal,'' said BJP spokesman Vijay Kumar Malhotra.
The BJP has called a meeting of its national executive next weekend which will culminate in a public meeting to be addressed by Vajpayee in Delhi.
An opinion poll said 69 percent Indians believed Vajpayee should stay on in office despite the bribery scandal.
India Today newsmagazine which commissioned the poll, however, said that 81 percent of those surveyed felt the scandal had a serious impact on the coalition.
The poll carried out by market research company ORG-MARG sampled 979 people in India's five largest cities.
The government said on Monday that a retired Supreme Court judge would lead the inquiry into the revelations by the journalists of an Internet news and entertainment service who carried out the defense department sting operation.
-------- israel
A Road Too Close Squeezes Gaza Village
Jewish Access Route Is Barrier to Palestinians
Washington Post
Monday, March 19, 2001; Page A10
By Lee Hockstader Washington Post Foreign Service
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A15525-2001Mar16?language=printer
MUGHRAKA, Gaza Strip -- The misfortune of the little village of Mughraka is to be situated by a road.
Most villages in most places might appreciate a road, which allows people and goods to come and go. But the road by Mughraka, a Palestinian village in the Gaza Strip, is different.
This road is for Jews, and for Jews only.
In particular, it is for the 300 or so Jews who live a few hundred yards up the road in Netzarim, a tiny Jewish settlement, smaller even than Mughraka. The Palestinians of Mughraka -- farmers, construction workers and drivers -- have not only been banned from traveling on the road. They cannot walk on it. They cannot cross it. They cannot even approach it, although it runs just in front of their houses.
"We cannot move, we cannot breathe," said Yussef Gudsi Wuhaidi, an out-of-work taxi driver whose house is a few paces from the Netzarim road. "It's a disaster for us who live by the road."
With a Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation in Gaza and the West Bank now in its sixth month, Israel is using its overwhelming military muscle to squeeze the Palestinians into submission, especially in areas it deems a security risk. Since there have been gunfire and roadside bomb attacks against the Jews who use the Netzarim road as a thoroughfare, the Israeli army keeps Palestinians away from it. If that makes life impossible for the 3,000 Palestinians in Mughraka or those elsewhere, Israel hopes the message is clear: Continue the uprising, and everyone suffers; end it, and everyone benefits.
The new government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has spelled out that carrot-and-stick policy in some detail, hoping it will help snuff out lingering popular support for the Palestinian uprising.
Palestinians got a taste of Sharon's policy last week. Without notice, Israeli troops clamped a blockade around the West Bank city of Ramallah, making life miserable for tens of thousands of Palestinians there. Israel said the move was intended to thwart planned terror bombings against gas stations and clubs in Jewish neighborhoods of Jerusalem. Palestinians said the measure was simply harassment.
Elsewhere, Israel relaxed somewhat its restrictions on travel and commerce, although Israeli army checkpoints, barricades and trenches are still regular features of the Palestinian landscape.
It is unclear whether the Israeli policy will work. Although Palestinian militants say they will continue their armed revolt, there has been a slight lull in attacks on Israeli targets since Sharon took office March 7. Israeli military officials dismiss the lull as a pause that will be followed by a new wave of violence. That assessment was seconded by Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement, which warned it was ready to deploy 10 suicide bombers against the Jewish state.
At the same time, there are signs the Palestinians are tired and hurting from the sanctions and resulting economic meltdown, even if few are willing to announce they will kneel to Israel's armed might. What began Sept. 29 as a popular uprising involving thousands of youthful stone-throwers has evolved into something approaching low-intensity guerrilla warfare -- sporadic armed attacks by militant Palestinian gunmen.
At this point, say analysts, there is little popular participation in the Palestinian uprising.
"Apart from the satisfaction of revenge, materially, physically and psychologically [the uprising] is not bringing us any closer to liberation, and this is why it's losing popular support," said Eyal Sarraj, a psychologist in Gaza. "More and more people within the Palestinian Authority are realizing this. The [uprising] has become a burden in its present form."
That burden is clearly visible in the narrow courtyards and cramped alleyways of Mughraka, which, like about a third of the Gaza Strip, is in a zone of Israeli control. It is in these interior spaces that life is lived these days, since it has become so dangerous for Palestinians to live outside them or too close to the Netzarim road.
That is a problem for Neama Hassanat, whose front door, which opens onto the Netzarim road, is now off-limits, blocked by an earthen barricade and coils of barbed wire placed by the Israelis. To enter her house, Hassanat, 50, must wend her way through the twisting back passages from her neighbor's compound, step over squabbling ducks and chickens, then clamber up a wobbly stack of cinder blocks and through a storeroom window.
The perimeter wall of her house has caved in where an Israeli bulldozer, clearing the road's shoulder, accidentally sideswiped it. The same bulldozer cut the power line that provided Hassanat and her neighbors with electricity. They now run their lights from small fuel-powered generators, if at all.
"Who knows what they'll do to us next?" said Hassanat, whose grown children moved out of the village over the last few months. "It has become unbearable here."
If Palestinians come too close to the road during daylight hours, the Israeli troops who patrol the road in tanks, armored vehicles and jeeps routinely fire a warning burst from a machine gun. At night, residents have been warned, the Israelis may shoot to kill. No one in Mughraka drives a car on the side streets anywhere near the Netzarim road, for fear the Israeli troops will shoot first and ask questions later.
A hospital orderly was killed by Israeli troops on his way home from work after dusk last month, his neighbors said. They said his mistake was to take a shortcut too close to the Netzarim road.
"The Israelis often shoot without provocation, just to scare people," said Herve Landa, a French psychologist with the humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders who works frequently in the area.
The restrictions on Mughraka have played havoc with just about every aspect of residents' lives. Most days, except when Israeli troops ease their patrols, children in the neighborhood cannot walk the few hundred yards to the neighborhood school, which requires crossing the Netzarim road. Even the mosque that sits on the other side of Netzarim road, an easy stone's toss from the last line of houses in the village, is off-limits to the Palestinians of Mughraka who used to pray there regularly.
To minimize the danger from roadside bombs, Israel has also bulldozed 70-yard swaths of land on both sides of the road, destroying olive orchards and citrus groves that had helped provide a livelihood here for years.
Israel is in no mood to apologize for the measures it has imposed on Mughraka or similar places. It matters little that most Western countries and humanitarian groups regard settlements such as Netzarim as illegal under international law or that the previous Israeli government of Prime Minister Ehud Barak was prepared to shut down Netzarim and withdraw all Israelis from Gaza.
What matters now, say Israeli officials, is security. Thirty-seven Israeli civilians have been killed during the uprising, many of them by roadside bombs or in drive-by shootings. The army's response is preventive security, the officials say.
"The price is paid by the Palestinians due to the Palestinian violence," said Maj. Yarden Vatikai, a military spokesman. "We're very sorry for the suffering of the people but they have to go to their own leaders who promote this violence and terrorism. There's no other address for that."
In the meantime, the sanctions have deepened many Palestinians' already bitter resentment of the Israeli occupiers.
"It is a policy that makes people feel so angry and so undignified, helpless and hopeless, that any one of them can turn into Abu Elba," the Palestinian bus driver who intentionally plowed into a group of Israelis near Tel Aviv last month, killing eight of them, Sarraj said. "It leads to despair and terrible feelings of humiliation, and it will do nothing to secure the streets and the borders of Israel. On the contrary, it brings Israel more enemies."
-------- korea
N Korea warns U.S. on nuke reactor deal
InfoBeat News
Morning Coffee Edition - 3/19/2001
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=406427843
TOKYO (AP) - North Korea's state-run media on Sunday warned President Bush he risks drastically worsening relations if the United States reconsiders a Clinton-era deal to help build nuclear reactors.
Such a move would lead North Korea to ``take up an extreme hardline stance,'' the broadcast on Radio Pyongyang said. It was monitored in Tokyo by the Radiopress News Agency.
Radio Pyongyang said it was reacting to reports that Sen. Jesse Helms, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, had recommended Bush cancel the deal.
The U.S. newsletter Defense News reported that Helms made the recommendation to the president in a letter sent March 9.
Under the 1994 agreement, the United States agreed to supply nuclear reactors for electricity generation in exchange for the country halting its suspected nuclear weapons program.
North Korea has threatened to pull out the nuclear pact to protest President Bush's tougher stance toward Pyongyang.
``We're in a position where we'll have to respond to war with war,'' said the report broadcast by Radio Pyongyang.
Earlier this month, Bush met with South Korea's President Kim Dae-jung and expressed skepticism with regard to North Korea's intentions. He said any deal in which the North agrees to limit its missiles must include ways to check for cheating.
That prompted a furious response from North Korea, which accused Washington of trying to ``isolate and stifle'' the North.
-------- missile defense
Maybe it's not so bad Backing missile defense
US News & World Report
World Report 3/19/01
By Michael Adler
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/010319/germany.htm
BERLIN-German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder will be coming to Washington for his first visit with President George W. Bush on March 29 as a good ally-having nimbly reversed his recent opposition to the national missile defense concepts favored by the new man in the White House.
Just last month, at a security conference in Munich, Schröder had echoed the objections across Europe to U.S.-envisioned missile defenses as destabilizing to the nuclear weapons accords undergirded by the 1972 antiballistic missile treaty. Alluding to European and Russian opposition, he warned the United States against going it alone. "We should look for joint answers to current and future security threats," he said.
But the chancellor has changed his tune. Germany, he now says, cannot afford to ignore possible economic and technological benefits of building a missile shield. "It is important that we not be left on the outside with the technological developments and know-how," he said in a television interview previewing his Washington visit.
His turnaround may be a harbinger of a shift by Western European leaders faced with what they see as the Bush administration's determination to proceed with the development of missile defenses. It also shows that despite trumpeting its desire to stand on its own and its muscle as the European Union's largest country and biggest economy, even a center-left German government remains timid about holding to a political stance independent of the United States.
------ russia
Bush may slash aid to help Russia cut nuclear arms
Pioneer Planet
Published: Monday, March 19, 2001
WALTER PINCUS WASHINGTON POST
http://www.pioneerplanet.com/seven-days/mon/news/docs/038796.htm
WASHINGTON U.S. programs that pay to help Russia reduce and safeguard its nuclear weapons and materials have been targeted by the Bush administration for cuts of 12 percent below this year's level and 30 percent below the proposal in the Clinton administration's fiscal 2002 budget, according to congressional and other sources.
Rose Gottemoeller, former Energy Department director of nonproliferation and national security, said she has been told that the $1.2 billion proposed under Clinton for Russian programs had been reduced by President Bush's Office of Management and Budget to $800 million, which is $73 million below the current year's figure.
An Energy Department spokesman, Joe Davies, said Secretary Spencer Abraham ``is still working on budget figures'' and that no final number is expected until April.
Gottemoeller said the ``Nuclear Cities'' program, which this year provided $30 million to help former nuclear scientists get nonmilitary work, would be cut to $6 million.
The nuclear materials protection and security program, which helps pay for improved security over Russia's stockpiles of plutonium and enriched uranium, received $154 million this year. Under Clinton, it would have risen to $217 million. Under Bush, it is set to drop to $139 million.
Energy's plutonium-disposal program, in which the United States and Russia change weapons-grade material so it cannot be used for bombs, is set to rise from $200 million this year to $217 million under Bush. That is well below the $400 million proposed by the Clinton administration to enable construction of a facility to begin processing the nuclear materials.
---
Bush and Putin
International Herald Tribune
Monday, March 19, 2001
THE NEW YORK TIMES
http://www.iht.com/articles/13787.htm
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 last week's announcement of renewed conventional arms sales to Iran, his policies run directly counter to Washington's. In others, like arms control and his efforts to bring Russia into the global economy, he 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 from 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 that Moscow has received from high oil prices, Russia's economic vitality depends on increased trade with and investment from 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 global economy and its support for arms control measures would benefit both Washington and Moscow.
---
Iran, Russia Arms Deal Stirs Chaos
InfoBeat News
Morning Coffee Edition - 3/19/2001
By ANWAR FARUQI Associated Press Writer
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=406428154
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) - Iran's latest arms deal with Russia, underpinned by a surge in its oil revenue, has troubling implications for its neighbors, almost all of whom are embroiled in quarrels with Tehran that could turn violent.
Moscow and Tehran insist the deal is for defensive purposes only, but the United States, itself a big weapons supplier to the region, has expressed alarm.
News of the latest agreement came during a four-day visit by Iranian President Mohammad Khatami last week. Russia agreed to supply $7 billion worth of weapons over the next few years and to complete Iran's only nuclear reactor by 2003.
Iran covets Russia's missile technology and its Su-25 warplanes that could narrow the gap with its U.S.-supplied Gulf Arab neighbors. In a single deal last year, the tiny United Arab Emirates placed a $6.4 billion deal with the United States for 80 F-16 fighter planes.
A Russian official visiting Washington last week didn't mention warplanes when asked about the Iran arms deal. ``All defensive,'' insisted Sergei Ivanov, Russian President Vladimir Putin's national security adviser. ``Personnel carriers, tanks, anti-air missiles, which are very legitimate.''
But Russia already has helped Iran tip the regional naval balance by selling it three Kilo-class submarines, the only subs owned by a Gulf country, and between 1989 and 1999 it supplied a reported $5 billion worth of weapons to Iran, the bulk of Tehran's recent purchases.
Iran's military ambitions are not new. They can now be realized, however, because of a windfall from oil revenues.
Russia makes no secret of its need for big customers to prop up its flagging defense industries. By engaging with Iran, a major and influential player in the region, Moscow also retains powerful influence in the Gulf and beyond.
But weapons sales to Iran at this time raise concern because the Islamic Republic is more unstable now than at any time since it rose out of the 1979 revolution.
Religious hard-liners who still believe in holy war and exporting the revolution are waging a power struggle with pro-Khatami reformists.
Despite a thaw with Iraq, neither country can forget their devastating 1980-88 war.
Across the Gulf, Iran is locked in a territorial dispute with the Emirates.
Ties with Turkey are strained over Tehran's support for rebel Kurds and Ankara's military ties with Israel, Iran's arch foe.
In 1998, Iran came close to war with Afghanistan's Taliban rulers following the killing of seven Iranian diplomats and an Iranian journalist by renegade Taliban troops.
And then there's the Mideast conflict. Iran's defense minister, Ali Shamkhani, said in December that his country would retaliate in an ``astounding and unexpected'' way if Israel attacked Syria or Lebanon.
Iran has built and tested a number of missiles. Its latest, the Shahab-3, has a range of 800 miles and can reach Israel or U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia.
Israeli leaders repeatedly warn that Iran is close to developing a nuclear weapon, despite denials by Tehran. Ignoring U.S. concerns, Russia is building Iran's only nuclear reactor at a power plant in the city of Bushehr.
Both countries insist the technology cannot be used to make bombs, and can point out that Israel too is reported to have nuclear warheads, plus the missiles to deliver them.
Russia has said Iran agreed to sign up for a second nuclear reactor during Khatami's visit.
Moscow disregarded a 1995 agreement with Washington that called for a ban on more arms sales to Iran.
``It is not wise to invest in regimes that do not follow international standards of behavior,'' Secretary of State Colin Powell said Wednesday, criticizing the latest arms deal with Iran. The Russians, he said, should not be ``investing in weapons sales in countries such as Iran which have no future.''
-------- taiwan
Fire Shuts Taiwan Nuclear Plant
March 19, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Taiwan-Nuclear.html?searchpv=aponline
TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) -- A small fire closed a Taiwanese nuclear power plant, but there were no radiation leaks, officials said Monday.
The fire broke out early Sunday in one of the generators vital to cooling the plant's two nuclear reactors, the Taiwan Power Co. said. The plant was immediately shut down.
The malfunction did not occur in the nuclear reactor and did not cause any radiation leaks or injuries, said spokeswoman Huang Huei-yu.
The company said there was no threat of an electricity shortage on the island since it has enough power in reserves to make up the shortfall.
Initial findings showed that salty deposits had accumulated in four electric transmission lines, causing a circuit breaker to malfunction in one of the generators and starting the fire, the company said.
Officials did not know when the plant could resume normal operations.
-------- ukraine
Key director at Chernobyl fired
InfoBeat News
Afternoon Edition - 3/19/2001
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=406433935
KIEV, Ukraine (AP) - The director of the concrete-and-steel sarcophagus that encases Chernobyl's ruined nuclear reactor has been fired, an official said Monday.
Following international pressure, Ukraine closed down the Chernobyl nuclear plant for good in December, but work to prevent further environmental damage is continuing at the station.
The chief of the sarcophagus, Valentyn Kupny, was dismissed on Thursday due to a ``gross violation of labor duties,'' Stanislav Shekstelo, Chernobyl's spokesman, said, without specifying what Kupny allegedly did.
Chernobyl was the site of the world's worst nuclear disaster, when its No. 4 reactor exploded and caught fire in April 1986, sending a radioactive cloud over much of Europe.
The reactor was later covered by a haphazardly constructed concrete-and-steel sarcophagus, a leaky structure believed to contain tons of nuclear fuel and dust. A $750 million international project to make the structure environmentally safe is presently under way.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
Hawaii Attorney fighting for Enewetak compensation
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
01/03/19
http://www.abc.net.au/ra/newsdaily/s262168.htm
A Hawaii attorney says the people of Enewetak Atoll in the Marshall Islands deserve compensation from the United States similar to that given to Japanese Americans for their wrongful internment during World War II.
Attorney Davor Pevec is representing the people of Enewetak in their push to seek compensation from the U.S. for the use of their atoll for nuclear testing.
The U.S. government evacuated the Enewetak islanders to conduct 43 nuclear tests between 1948 and 1958.
The evacuees returned to find their island devastated and contaminated by the nuclear explosions.
The Nuclear Claims Tribunal has heard a number of cases in relation to compensating people affected by nuclear testing, but the Tribunal doesn't have sufficient funds to cover actual payments of awards made.
-------- us nuc politics
Bush Is Due to Meet Chinese on Issues Crucial for Ties
March 19, 2001
By MICHAEL R. GORDON
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/19/world/19MISS.html
As President Bush prepares for his first meeting with a senior Chinese official, his administration faces two military decisions that could put the United States on a collision course with China while the Bush administration is barely under way.
The issues are whether to design a national missile defense capable of countering China's small nuclear force and whether to sell destroyers equipped with the Aegis radar system to Taiwan.
Both matters are of great concern to China, especially the sale of the Aegis. It fears that the $1-billion-a-ship system could eventually become a platform for a regional missile shield for Taiwan and could usher in a new level of American military cooperation with the island, which China considers a renegade province.
And both decisions are also dear to the hearts of conservative Republicans, who are deeply suspicious of China and represent an important constituency for the new president. Mr. Bush played to this sentiment in a major address on national defense in September 1999 by underscoring the need to counter the Chinese missile treat.
China has indicated that it is ready to begin a dialogue on missile defenses when Deputy Prime Minister Qian Qichen meets with Mr. Bush this week in Washington. But the issue remains politically charged, the Chinese are adamantly opposed to the Aegis sale and reaching a long- term accommodation with Beijing may prove elusive.
"The Chinese may be open to the idea of a discussion with us," an American expert said. "But I don't think you will get this administration to come out and say that it is the U.S. national interests for China to have a stable deterrent - that is, that it is in the American interest for China to be able to incinerate an American city."
Though Russian and Chinese objections to an American missile defense are often lumped together, the two nations' circumstances are vastly different. Russia is a power in decline and is viewed mainly as a menace to itself. In Washington, however, China is increasingly seen as a growing regional power that will compete with the United States for dominance of the western Pacific.
The structure of Russian and Chinese missile forces also differ radically. When it comes to long-range nuclear arms, the Russians have more than enough missiles to overwhelm a limited American defense. In contrast, China has only 18 DF-5 long-range intercontinental missiles that are capable of reaching the United States, with aging liquid- fueled systems whose warheads are kept separately.
Russia has also taken the position that if new missile defenses are to be developed, they should be "theater" systems, capable of countering medium- and short-range rockets, not those in Russia's strategic arsenal. It has even offered to join the United States' European allies in building such a system.
But the deployment of theater defenses is a big worry for the Chinese. They would potentially counter the more than 100 medium-range missiles China has within range of India, Japan and American forces in the Pacific. While China's DF-21 medium-range missiles can overwhelm current theater defenses, future theater antimissile systems might be more capable and linked to an American national missile defense system.
Then there is Taiwan, which has made the United States' efforts to develop national and theater missile defenses even more of a worry. To put pressure on Taiwan to accept Beijing's sovereignty, the Chinese have placed about 300 short-range missiles near the island, American specialists say, and are expanding that force at a rate of 50 missiles a year.
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Our Champion of Continuity
By Jackson Diehl
Monday, March 19, 2001; Page A17
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A23876-2001Mar18?language=printer
As a parade of foreign ministers has trooped through Washington the past few weeks, representing just about every country that calls the United States an ally, a pattern has emerged in the international response to the Bush administration. Typically, the ministers step off their planes anxious about a new president said to be poorly informed about foreign affairs and about the aggressive changes he and his advisers have talked about making in U.S. foreign policy.
Then they meet Colin Powell. "He is simply extraordinary," gushed one of the European ministers who recently saw him. "He listened, he was engaged, he was absolutely reassuring." The minister paused. "If Colin Powell is going to be making the policy," he said, "then I am very hopeful."
There were two messages in that encomium. One is that the new secretary of state has been as effective in mesmerizing foreign leaders as he has the press and members of Congress, who have made his first press conferences and Hill hearings into love-fests. In a remarkably short period, Powell has managed to smooth over some large differences between the United States and allies in both Europe and the Middle East, leaving governments from London to Riyadh convinced that they can do business with the administration.
But those same governments have noticed that Powell represents one side among several in a foreign policy team with significant internal differences. And they leave little doubt whose side they are on. As one GOP official put it, "they are rooting like crazy for Powell."
Powell is attractive abroad in part because his style is an antidote to worries about the administration's competence and to lingering resentment at the perceived haughtiness of his predecessor, Madeleine Albright. At a meeting of the NATO council in Brussels last month, he delighted small-country delegates with attentiveness and charmed the ministers with stories of his past service in Europe.
But the deeper source of Powell's popularity is that, in an administration still debating the first rough cuts of policy, he comes closest to representing the pragmatic continuity that most of the world would like to see in the United States. Powell's State Department has been ready to pick up roughly where the Clinton administration left off in the Balkans, Iraq, Korea and elsewhere, and like the first Bush administration, make policy through consensus-building abroad. In contrast, the Defense Department of Donald Rumsfeld and the foreign policy apparatus around Vice President Cheney are where the Republican advocates of change are concentrated -- those who would break with the strategies of the 1990s and risk bruising allies in the process.
The difference was clearly visible on Powell's opening trip to the Middle East and Europe. By advocating a smaller but tighter set of "smart" sanctions for Iraq, Powell not only was attempting to breathe new life into a decade-old containment strategy, he also was building a policy that most of the front-line states around Iraq could be comfortable with. In contrast, the more aggressive course of giving military cover to an opposition movement inside Iraq, a policy backed publicly in the past by the Pentagon's new leadership, is deeply unsettling to governments such as Saudi Arabia's and Turkey's.
Powell's popularity in Brussels, too, was due to more than his charm; he gave NATO governments an assurance that the United States would not prematurely or unilaterally withdraw its troops from the Balkans -- as suggested by national security adviser Condoleezza Rice during the presidential campaign -- and offered qualified support for the planned European defense force, in contrast to the tough questions raised by Rumsfeld at a European defense conference several weeks earlier. He also promised thorough consultations on missile defense -- a pledge that some European ministers took as an assurance that the administration would not, as the Europeans fear and the Pentagon advocates, unilaterally renounce the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Russia.
Some Republicans in and outside the administration grumble that Powell's intention to rely on the State Department's career policy-making apparatus has made him a captive of the status quo. But the differences among State, Defense and the vice president's office also reflect long-standing fault lines in the Republican Party on foreign policy -- fissures that Bush and Rice were able to paper over before the election but that now are played out in decisions on Iraq, NATO, North Korea and China.
So far Powell's pragmatic continuity has prevailed on Iraq and on relations with NATO but has been overruled on Korea, where Powell's promise to "pick up where President Clinton and his administration left off" in negotiating with North Korea was bluntly reversed by the White House -- to the dismay of South Korean President Kim Dae Jung. That has left a lot of governments in Europe and the Middle East feeling comfortable with the administration -- and a few in Asia waiting anxiously to see if the harder Bush line on Korea will extend to the administration's next big decision: whether to include advanced anti-missile systems in the annual military sale to Taiwan, at the risk of provoking China. That choice will signal whether pragmatic continuity, and its charming champion, remain decisive in shaping a Bush II foreign policy.
-------- us nuc power
Energy needs may spur rebirth of nuclear power
March 19, 2001
By Patrice Hill
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/default-2001319232031.htm
SPECIAL REPORT
One surprising result of the past year's energy crisis is a revival of interest in nuclear power - an industry that was declared dead only a few years ago.
Perhaps the most visible sign that nuclear power is back came last month when Silicon Valley executives declared that it would be the best solution to the chronic electricity shortage facing California, though it still faces formidable political obstacles.
"Nuclear power is the answer," said Craig Barrett, chief executive of Intel Corp., "but it's not politically correct."
The computer-chip executive said his company risks losing millions of dollars each time power fluctuates during one of California's rolling blackouts, disrupting the manufacture of microchips.
Nuclear, which provides about one-fifth of America's power, is one of the most reliable and plentiful sources of electricity since nuclear plants can run 24 hours a day, seven days a week and are not affected by drought or frigid weather like hydroelectric and conventional power sources.
But Mr. Barrett acknowledged that resistance to nuclear power remains strong, particularly in Northern California, where the Green Party and other environmental groups are major political forces. He said local officials have consistently blocked efforts to build new power facilities in the valley, and the company would not expand there for that reason.
Scott McNealy, chief executive of Sun Microsystems Inc., agreed in a speech at the National Press Club last month that nuclear is the best alternative for California.
"In terms of environmental and cost and competitiveness and all of the rest of it, I just don't see any other solution," the software executive said, alluding to another nuclear selling point: It is largely pollutant-free and requires no disruptive drilling in sensitive environmental areas, unlike oil and gas.
The hard facts
The statements from high-tech executives may appear mostly symbolic. But hard statistics show that nuclear no longer is the dying industry that only a few years ago was biding time waiting for aging power plants built during the 1970s to crumble toward their inevitable burial.
Today, with the cost of natural gas and oil soaring, old nuclear plants that had been mothballed because they were too expensive to maintain and operate suddenly can be brought back on line and made profitable once again.
A brisk business in buying and selling closed plants has developed, and 80 percent to 90 percent of the nation's 103 nuclear plants are expected to seek 20-year extensions of their operating licenses.
Baltimore Gas and Electric Co.'s Calvert Cliffs plant in March 2000 was the first to win relicensing.
With demand for electricity at record highs, existing nuclear power plants have been producing a record amount of power - up 3.7 percent to 755 billion kilowatt hours last year, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute.
Improvements in maintenance procedures that mean, among other things, less down time for refueling also enabled the plants to operate at a record 89.6 percent of capacity in 2000, the institute said. Also for the first time in more than a decade, nuclear production has become less expensive than any other source of electricity generation.
"It's the best year ever in performance," said Alfred C. Tollison, executive vice president of the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations. "The foundation is being put in place for a renaissance in nuclear power," though he added, "that depends on the industry remaining accident-free."
Safety questions persist
All sides agree that public perceptions about the safety of nuclear power and the question of how to permanently dispose of nuclear wastes remain significant obstacles. Because of that, no new nuclear plants have been built in the United States in the last two decades, and none are on the drawing board.
But there are signs that the political opposition may not be as potent as in past years. The interest shown by many technology professionals suggests that younger generations are not as worried by the scare surrounding the Three Mile Island and the Chernobyl nuclear accidents that made the power source untouchable to older generations.
Observers say nuclear's clean record on safety after decades of operating power plants in the United States, France, Japan and other industrialized nations also is vindicating the reputation of the industry.
Meanwhile, a new generation of technology is being developed that could virtually guarantee safety through automatic shutdown mechanisms designed to prevent even the remote possibility of a meltdown.
Exelon Corp. wants to start building a new plant using this new technology in South Africa by 2002 and then export the technology to the United States. The South African plant is expected to be smaller, quicker and cheaper to build than the older U.S. plants.
"Nuclear power is much safer than fossil-fuel systems in terms of industrial accidents, environmental damage, health effects and long-term risk," Richard Rhodes, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author on energy issues, said in testimony last year before the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
"The U.S. nuclear power industry has an extraordinary record of safe operation across the past 40 years, and I would submit to you that disposal of civilian nuclear waste is a political, not a technical, problem," he said.
The Energy Department could designate a permanent disposal site - most likely Yucca Mountain in Nevada - as early as this year under procedures Congress established in 1987 that require extensive scientific review for safety.
Congress intrigued
Despite the still-emotional debate surrounding waste disposal and safety, interest in nuclear is quietly picking up in Congress. Republicans and some centrist Democrats are saying nuclear should play a significant role in solving the country's energy crisis.
Further chronic power shortages are expected in California this summer and could crop up in the West, New York and other Northeast cities in coming months as well. During the 1990s, most utilities expanded power generation by building small, inexpensive units fired by natural gas, which became the power source of choice for environmental as well as economic reasons.
Now, with the quadrupling of natural gas prices in the last year, those gas-fired plants have become expensive to run and are a major reason that wholesale electricity rates skyrocketed in California, bankrupting the state's utilities.
The woes faced by gas-fired plants, many of which are just coming on line, will continue, energy analysts say. They predict that robust demand for gas from both power plants and homeowners will keep prices elevated at around $5 per million British thermal units -double what they were at the end of 1999.
Gas prices at those levels make nuclear plants, which are more expensive to build but cheaper to operate, competitive economically for the first time in years, industry officials say.
Marvin Fertel, a vice president at the nuclear institute, said they would make new nuclear plants feasible within five years.
With most of the political opposition to nuclear coming from the left wing, perhaps the most potent testament that nuclear's time may have arrived is the interest centrist Democrats are showing in it as an effective way to curb the carbon-dioxide emissions thought to cause global warming.
Environmental assets
Unlike coal, natural gas and oil-fired power plants, nuclear plants are free not only of carbon emissions but also of other noxious gases like sulfur dioxide, mercury and nitrogen oxide that have made fossil-fuel-burning plants the biggest sources of air pollution in the United States.
In 1999, nuclear plants provided about half of the total carbon reductions achieved by U.S. industry under a federal voluntary reporting program.
The Clinton administration gave nuclear a little-noticed boost as it sought to find economical and relatively pain-free ways to comply with the steep cuts in carbon dioxide emissions called for under the global-warming treaty.
In negotiations over the treaty at The Hague in November, the Clinton administration waged a monumental fight with environmentalists and the 15-nation European Union over whether to allow the use of nuclear power to curb carbon emissions in developing countries. Major Third World nations like China and India insisted that they should play a major role in averting climate change.
"Nuclear power, designed well, regulated properly, cared for meticulously, has a place in the world's energy supply," former Vice President Al Gore said at the Chernobyl museum in Kiev in 1998.
Mr. Gore's running mate for president last year, Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, Connecticut Democrat, also endorsed nuclear as "part of the solution to solving the world's energy, environment and global-warming problems."
Sen. Bob Graham, a Florida Democrat who is concerned about potentially catastrophic floods caused by global warming in his state, said nuclear's potential to reduce the one-third of U.S. carbon emissions generated by power plants has piqued his interest.
France, Japan and several other industrialized countries rely heavily on nuclear power to reduce their carbon emissions.
Mr. Graham was startled by the conclusion of a Nuclear Regulatory Commission study that found that if the United States used nuclear power to the extent that France does - 80 percent - it could in one fell swoop achieve the goals of the environmental treaty, which calls for a 10 percent reduction of U.S. emissions below 1990 levels.
Also, nuclear power does not require the destructive drilling off-shore and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge that would be required to produce significantly more oil and gas in the United States. Mr. Graham, like many other Democrats, opposes drilling in the Alaskan refuge as well as in the Gulf of Mexico off Florida.
"Nuclear power is not a magic bullet, but it should also not be a poison pill," the senator said. "The technology exists to make nuclear power - already one of our cleanest energy sources - also one of our safest, most reliable and least expensive."
Mr. Graham is the co-sponsor of a bill to expand the use of nuclear energy and support advanced research into technologies to minimize nuclear wastes, introduced this month by Sen. Pete V. Domenici, New Mexico Republican.
Two other Southern Democrats have signed onto that legislation, Sen. Mary L. Landrieu, Louisiana Democrat, Sen. Blanche Lincoln, Arkansas Democrat, with a raft of Republicans.
Mr. Domenici said new technologies promise to make nuclear "totally safe" and are prompting new interest in Congress.
"We'll be talking about this in 18 months," he predicted. "The U.S. can't just sit by and say we don't need this. We need it."
National strategy
The Senate's energy development bill, introduced this month by Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Frank H. Murkowski, Alaska Republican, also offers incentives for nuclear production, including liability protection in case of nuclear accidents.
Nuclear is also expected to get support from the Bush administration, which views nuclear as "an integral part of U.S. energy security," though it has not offered any detailed proposals. Recommendations from a White House energy task force headed by Vice President Richard B. Cheney are expected within weeks.
In a sign that the administration will take a strong pro-nuclear stance, U.S. representatives at environmental negotiations on sustainable development last month insisted that nuclear power be considered a "sustainable" and safe energy source - prompting an outcry from environmentalists.
"We do not understand how a technology whose radioactive waste could be used to build a weapon of unthinkable destruction could be considered sustainable under any definition," said a group of 65 environmental, consumer and health organizations in a letter last week to Secretary of State Colin Powell.
While the environmental groups raise questions about nuclear proliferation, House Republican leaders see nuclear as a key component of a national energy strategy aimed at enhancing national security through energy independence. They too are promising incentives for nuclear power in the House's energy bill later this year.
"The nuclear industry has been stagnant for years, yet it offers the capacity for clean and emissions-free power," said Rep. J.C. Watts Jr., Oklahoma Republican and chairman of the House Republican Conference.
Environmental groups dispute the nuclear industry's claim to be emissions-free and question whether it will remain competitive for long. Kit Kennedy of the Natural Resources Defense Council says extensive drilling will force natural gas prices down again within a few years and nuclear will become less attractive.
"We think natural gas will continue to be a lot more tempting than taking on the huge task of building new nuclear plants," which face stringent opposition from local activists, she said.
The environmental group has challenged advertisements by the Nuclear Energy Institute that portray nuclear as "clean and green," asking both the Federal Trade Commission and the Better Business Bureau to investigate the claims, she said. Neither agency has taken enforcement action.
Ms. Kennedy said nuclear is not emissions-free because huge amounts of electricity from "dirty coal-burning plants" must be used to enrich uranium fuel.
In addition, the cooling systems in nuclear power plants suck up water from nearby rivers and bays, heat and then discharge it, killing billions of fish eggs and fish larvae, she said.
And while the possibility of major life-threatening accidents at nuclear plants is "remote," she said, any meltdown would have "tremendous public health implications."
-------- MILITARY
The New Grant Administration
Slate - Today's Papers
By Scott Shuger
Monday, March 19, 2001, at 4:18 a.m. PT
The WP fronts an explainer on a little-known commodity playing a role in the Congo's wars--the country's muddy ore called colombite-tantalite or col-tan, which has become a key ingredient for cell phones, jet engines, air bags, night vision goggles, fiber optics and computer chips. In 1998, col-tan fetched less than $20 per pound, but now because of all the new applications, the price is often above $100 per pound, which means it has even outstripped diamonds and gold as a means of paying and equipping the soldiers of the six foreign countries and two rebel groups fighting in Congo. The story mostly focuses on the African workers, traders and politicians involved, delaying until the last few paragraphs mention of a German and a U.S. company that are end purchasers.
-------- arms sales
Iran, Russia Arms Deal Stirs Chaos
March 19, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Iran-Russia.html?searchpv=aponline
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) -- Iran's latest arms deal with Russia, underpinned by a surge in its oil revenue, has troubling implications for its neighbors, almost all of whom are embroiled in quarrels with Tehran that could turn violent.
Moscow and Tehran insist the deal is for defensive purposes only, but the United States, itself a big weapons supplier to the region, has expressed alarm.
News of the latest agreement came during a four-day visit by Iranian President Mohammad Khatami last week. Russia agreed to supply $7 billion worth of weapons over the next few years and to complete Iran's only nuclear reactor by 2003.
Iran covets Russia's missile technology and its Su-25 warplanes that could narrow the gap with its U.S.-supplied Gulf Arab neighbors. In a single deal last year, the tiny United Arab Emirates placed a $6.4 billion deal with the United States for 80 F-16 fighter planes.
A Russian official visiting Washington last week didn't mention warplanes when asked about the Iran arms deal. ``All defensive,'' insisted Sergei Ivanov, Russian President Vladimir Putin's national security adviser. ``Personnel carriers, tanks, anti-air missiles, which are very legitimate.''
But Russia already has helped Iran tip the regional naval balance by selling it three Kilo-class submarines, the only subs owned by a Gulf country, and between 1989 and 1999 it supplied a reported $5 billion worth of weapons to Iran, the bulk of Tehran's recent purchases.
Iran's military ambitions are not new. They can now be realized, however, because of a windfall from oil revenues.
Russia makes no secret of its need for big customers to prop up its flagging defense industries. By engaging with Iran, a major and influential player in the region, Moscow also retains powerful influence in the Gulf and beyond.
But weapons sales to Iran at this time raise concern because the Islamic Republic is more unstable now than at any time since it rose out of the 1979 revolution.
Religious hard-liners who still believe in holy war and exporting the revolution are waging a power struggle with pro-Khatami reformists.
Despite a thaw with Iraq, neither country can forget their devastating 1980-88 war.
Across the Gulf, Iran is locked in a territorial dispute with the Emirates.
Ties with Turkey are strained over Tehran's support for rebel Kurds and Ankara's military ties with Israel, Iran's arch foe.
In 1998, Iran came close to war with Afghanistan's Taliban rulers following the killing of seven Iranian diplomats and an Iranian journalist by renegade Taliban troops.
And then there's the Mideast conflict. Iran's defense minister, Ali Shamkhani, said in December that his country would retaliate in an ``astounding and unexpected'' way if Israel attacked Syria or Lebanon.
Iran has built and tested a number of missiles. Its latest, the Shahab-3, has a range of 800 miles and can reach Israel or U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia.
Israeli leaders repeatedly warn that Iran is close to developing a nuclear weapon, despite denials by Tehran. Ignoring U.S. concerns, Russia is building Iran's only nuclear reactor at a power plant in the city of Bushehr.
Both countries insist the technology cannot be used to make bombs, and can point out that Israel too is reported to have nuclear warheads, plus the missiles to deliver them.
Russia has said Iran agreed to sign up for a second nuclear reactor during Khatami's visit.
Moscow disregarded a 1995 agreement with Washington that called for a ban on more arms sales to Iran.
``It is not wise to invest in regimes that do not follow international standards of behavior,'' Secretary of State Colin Powell said Wednesday, criticizing the latest arms deal with Iran. The Russians, he said, should not be ``investing in weapons sales in countries such as Iran which have no future.''
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Raytheon competing for missile deal
InfoBeat News
Morning Coffee Edition - 3/19/2001
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=406425108
BOSTON (AP) - Defense giant Raytheon is involved in negotiations to sell the United Arab Emirates hundreds of missiles to equip the F-16 jet fighters the country bought two years ago, a top company official said Sunday.
``The U.S. government is making the negotiations on our behalf,'' International Business Development Director Thomas McKinney told the UAE's news service at the International Defense Exhibition in Abu Dhabi, capital of the UAE.
``I think the UAE is negotiating with other parties as well, but we are very hopeful about the deal,'' McKinney said.
McKinney said Raytheon was proposing to sell the UAE five missiles: the air-to-air Amraam and Aim-9-M and three air-to-ground missiles, the Maverick, the laser-guided Paveway and high-speed Harm.
David Shea, a Washington, D.C.-based Raytheon spokesman confirmed that the company was interested in selling the missiles but would not comment on the status of negotiations, which he said are handled by the U.S. government.
``We are interested in selling these missiles to the UAE, but sales of this nature are done government-to-government through the foreign military sales program. I am unable to confirm the status of these potential sales,'' Shea told The Associated Press.
When read McKinney's statement, Shea said, ``I have no reason to doubt that those are the missiles we're interested in selling to them.''
This year's version of the arms bazaar known as Idex opened Sunday and closes Thursday.
Last year, the Emirates placed one of the biggest defense orders in the world, buying 80 F-16 fighters from Lockheed Martin.
McKinney did not discuss a potential sale price, but did say Raytheon would consider offset, or investments in development programs required of arms sellers in the UAE, as a basis for a deal.
On Friday, Oman said it is increasing defense spending by 38 percent and wants to buy an unspecified number of F-16s.
The United States, the main guarantor of security for Gulf Arab nations, has long advised the countries to acquire similar weapons that would complement each other in time of war.
---
Gulf arms bazaar opens for business
InfoBeat News
Morning Coffee Edition - 3/19/2001
By ANWAR FARUQI Associated Press Writer
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=406428167
ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates (AP) _ The show grounds were prickly with tanks, missiles, grenade launchers, machine guns, radar, trucks, and enough other equipment to start a small war Sunday as 860 arms makers from around the globe courted some of their best customers _ tiny, oil-rich Gulf states that have been spending heavily on weapons since the Gulf War.
``Gulf countries account for 20 percent of all the arms sold in the world,'' said Paul Beaver, spokesman for the Jane's Information Group, which publishes the respected Jane's Defense Weekly. ``The world spent $81.8 billion in arms last year, and we estimate that to increase by 2 percent every year for the next five years.''
Nearly every arms maker in the world is drawn to the biennial International Defense Exhibition in Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates. This year's version of the arms bazaar known as Idex opened Sunday and closes Thursday.
Last year, the Emirates placed one of the biggest defense orders in the world, buying 80 F-16 fighters from Lockheed Martin of the United States.
On Sunday, the official Emirates News Agency quoted an official from the U.S.-based defense giant Raytheon Co. as saying the country was negotiating the purchase of hundreds of air-to-air and air-to-ground missiles for the F-16 fighters.
The deal is worth billions of dollars, the official said, without giving the precise figure. He said the Emirates was also negotiating with other companies for the F-16 rockets.
On Friday, Oman said it is increasing defense spending by 38 percent and wants to buy an unspecified number of F-16s.
The United States, the main guarantor of security for Gulf Arab nations, has long advised the countries to acquire similar weapons that would complement each other in time of war.
Following the 1991 Gulf War, in which a U.S.-led international coalition forced Iraq to reverse its invasion of Kuwait, Kuwait and others in the Gulf have invested heavily on weapons and signed defense cooperation agreements with major Western countries. Aggressive, much larger neighbors such as Iraq and Iran have made many of the smaller countries nervous.
Iran signed a $7 billion arms agreement with Russia last week, further fueling the regional arms race. Also, oil prices have been soaring and look to remain strong, so there is more money to spend on arms.
Brazil, Ireland, Kazakhstan and Bosnia make their debut at this year's Idex. Organizers said Saturday that all countries were welcome _ except Israel, which many Arab countries do not recognize.
-------- congo
KEY PLAYERS
The Oregonian
Monday, March 19, 2001
News Focus
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/news/oregonian/01/03/nf_21rail19.frame
Mobutu Sese Seko: Commander in chief of the army who first took dictatorial control in a 1961 coup, ceded it, then again seized power in 1965 and renamed the country Zaire. Ran a corrupt regime that diverted billions in public money to buy villas and fill bank accounts in Europe. Under international pressure, Mobutu agreed to political reforms in the 1990s but stubbornly sabotaged them. In 1997, a cauldron of ethnic violence and rebellion involving Hutu and Tutsi rivals forced his exile to Morocco, where he died.
Etienne Tshisekedi: The Congolese-trained lawyer who served in Mobutu's Cabinet in the 1960s. Expelled from Parliament in 1981 after criticizing Mobutu, he founded the nonviolent Union for Democracy and Social Progress. Tshisekedi endured years of beatings and arrests until 1990, when Mobutu allowed opposition parties. Tshisekedi was elected prime minister in 1992 by the Sovereign National Conference, an internationally backed effort at democratic reform that Mobutu stymied by naming his own government.
Laurent Desire Kabila: A backer of the Marxist regime Mobutu overthrew in 1961, Kabila formed the People's Revolutionary Party and mentored under Che Guevera. He spent decades skirmishing with government forces and smuggling ivory and diamonds. In the 1990s' ethnic fighting, he sided with Tutsi leaders in neighboring Uganda and Rwanda. When the conflict spread to Zaire, Kabila emerged as chief rebel leader. He took power in 1997, renaming the country the Democratic Republic of Congo. A bodyguard -- reportedly angry about not being paid or fed -- shot Kabila to death on Jan. 16.
Joseph Kabila: The 29-year-old heir to his father's presidency has raised hopes for an end to fighting in the Congo by backing the 1999 Lusaka Accord. Signed by all major parties, it calls for a national dialogue on the future. The younger Kabila has arrested some Cabinet members and released some political prisoners. But as Rwanda and Uganda have pulled back troops, skeptics such as Tshisekedi are waiting for Kabila's allies -- Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe -- to do the same and are calling on Kabila to lift a ban on political activities.
CONGO AT A GLANCE
Area: 905,063 square miles, about the size of the United States east of the Mississippi River
Capital: Kinshasa
Natural resources: cobalt, copper, cadmium, petroleum, industrial and gem diamonds, gold, silver, zinc, manganese, tin, germanium, uranium, radium, bauxite, iron ore, coal, hydropower, timber
Population: 52 million; life expectancy: 48.75 years
Ethnic groups: 200 all told, largest is Bantu. The four largest tribes -- Mongo, Luba, Kongo (all Bantu) and the Mangbetu-Azande (Hamitic) -- make up about 45 percent of the population.
Languages: French (official), Lingala (a lingua franca trade language), Kingwana (a dialect of Kiswahili or Swahili), Kikongo, Tshiluba, hundreds of dialects
Religions: Roman Catholic, 50 percent; Protestant, 20 percent; Kimbanguist, 10 percent; Muslim, 10 percent; other, 10 percent
Literacy: 77.3 percent, can read and write French, Lingala, Kingwana or Tshiluba
Independence: June 30, 1960, from Belgium
Gross domestic product: $35.7 billion; per capita GDP: $710 (1999 est.)
Industries: mining, mineral processing, consumer products (including textiles, footwear, cigarettes, processed foods and beverages), cement, diamonds
Economic sectors: agriculture, 58 percent; industry, 17 percent; services, 25 percent
Inflation rate: 49 percent
Radio stations: 16
TV stations: 20
Internet providers: 1
Source: CIA World Factbook
-------- kosovo
Zimbabwe London Blocks Arms for Kosovo's UN Police
March 19, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-un-brit.html
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Zimbabwe complained to the United Nations on Monday that Britain, the African nation's former colonial power, was preventing it from delivering arms and ammunition to its contingent of international police in Kosovo.
Zimbabwe's Foreign Ministry accused Britain of preventing it from delivering the arms to Kosovo ``because British Airways, the only airline flying to Kosovo, refuses to transport these vital items.''
``The government of Zimbabwe is of the view that the United Nations peacekeeping operations should not be held hostage to bilateral relations between member states,'' the ministry said in a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, asking him to intervene.
Zimbabwe had 69 civilian police officers in Kosovo as of Jan. 31 as part of the U.N. Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo, known as UNMIK.
British spokeswoman Catherine MacKenzie said Britain had been completely unaware of the problem before the ministry's letter surfaced at U.N. headquarters.
Privately owned British Airways had turned down an oral request to carry the arms without first consulting London, relying on its own overly broad interpretation of British restrictions on arms transfers involving Zimbabwe, she said.
In addition, while BA was the sole airline serving Kosovo, several other carriers served various nearby cities, she said.
``The British authorities were not at any point made aware of these oral inquiries. If we had been, I'm sure a practical solution could have been worked out,'' MacKenzie said.
President Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe's only ruler since independence in 1980, has come under fire in Britain for his campaign to seize hundreds of white-owned farms and for what critics see as a campaign to intimidate the media and the judiciary. His troops are also involved in fighting in the Congo.
-------- india/pakistan
India to review defense deals
InfoBeat News
Morning Coffee Edition - 3/19/2001
NEELESH MISRA Associated Press Writer
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=406427970
NEW DELHI, India - India's defense ministry will review all of its upcoming purchases in the wake of a bribery scandal that has rocked the government, officials said Sunday.
However, they rejected speculation that the military's ambitious modernization program would be slowed by the review.
``I don't think the modernization process itself will be affected, but we will have a re-look at any deal which is in the pipeline,'' Defense Ministry spokesman P.K. Bandopadhyay said.
On Tuesday, a journalism Internet site, Tehelka.com, published an investigative report that alleged corruption in the way the government chooses defense contractors.
It released videotapes showing politicians and defense ministry officials receiving money and discussing bribes with journalists posing as defense contractors.
Defense Minister George Fernandes and the head of the prime minister's party have resigned over the allegations. Two other ministers and one party from the governing coalition have withdrawn from the government to distance themselves from the scandal.
The scandal comes as India is trying to modernize its military arsenal. It is in the process of buying British trainer jets, Russian T-90 battle tanks, airborne warning and control systems, high-altitude unmanned surveillance airplanes, refueling aircraft and French Mirage 2000 aircraft.
Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha raised the defense budget by almost 14 percent to $13.3 billion last month, apparently to fund the ambitious shopping list.
Fernandes accused the journalists of being backed by shady defense dealers and arms companies that he had shut out of the ministry.
``The people who lost their access to the defense ministry, the entire arms bazaar and the middlemen are responsible,'' Fernandes was quoted as saying by The Pioneer newspaper. ``They have been at work during the eight months that (the) tapes were made.''
Arms dealers have been outlawed in India since a bribery scandal over the purchase of Swedish artillery guns by the Indian army in the late 1980s. The scandal led to the defeat of then-Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in federal elections.
On Sunday, the government said Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh will take over defense ministry duties.
---
Military begins bribery probe in India
USA Today
03/19/2001 - Updated 12:16 PM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2001-03-19-indiabribe.htm
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=406432884
NEW DELHI, India (AP) - The military began an inquiry Monday into a bribery scandal that has rocked India's government as opposition lawmakers paralyzed Parliament, shouting demands for more resignations in the ruling coalition.
The closed-door probe by a three-member army court seeks to examine videos taped by undercover reporters that showed politicians, military officers and bureaucrats purportedly taking money to facilitate a weapons deal.
In Parliament, lawmakers from the opposition Congress and communist parties shouted slogans demanding more resignations from the scandal that has already forced out the defense minister and top officials from the party of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
"We want resignation; prime minister come clean, or else leave your throne," angry Congress party lawmakers chanted.
The lawmakers crowded around the speaker's chair in the lower house, drowning out attempts by speaker G.M.C. Balayogi to call a debate on the scandal. Balayogi was forced to close the house for the day.
The fallout of the video tapes - shot by reporters from the Web site Tehelka.com and made public last week - included the resignation of Defense Minister George Fernandes and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party's chief, Bangaru Laxman.
One of the key partners of the 24-member ruling coalition, the Trinamool Congress party, withdrew its support. Its leader, Mamata Banerjee, who was the railways minister in Vajpayee's Cabinet, also resigned.
Even Vajpayee's backers were demanding some resignations.
The Shiv Sena party, a member of the ruling coalition, and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, or National Volunteer Corps, the ideological parent of Vajpayee's party, demanded the resignation of Brajesh Mishra, the prime minister's powerful principal secretary.
Mishra, who is also the national security adviser, was named in the Tehelka.com tapes by Laxman as a person likely to influence Vajpayee because of his proximity to him. Mishra himself did not appear in the tapes.
Opposition parties paralyzed Parliament all last week, demanding the resignation of the government. This was the fourth day that parliamentary business came to a standstill because of the scandal.
The army court of inquiry, headed by Lt. Gen. S.K. Jain, sought copies of the tape recordings made by Tehelka.com, which allegedly captured at least four senior army officers taking bribes from undercover journalists posing as arms dealers.
The officers have been suspended for the duration of the probe.
-------- nato
As Strife in Macedonia Rises, U.S. and NATO Shun Fight
March 19, 2001
By JANE PERLEZ
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/19/world/19DIPL.html
WASHINGTON, March 18 - With the conflict intensifying in Macedonia, the Bush administration and European allies made plain today that they had no interest in using NATO-led peacekeepers to fight Albanian insurgents and that the problem was one for Macedonia's government to resolve with diplomatic and monetary aid.
The fighting around Macedonia's second-largest city, Tetovo, entered its fifth day today and has already sent hundreds of residents fleeing. Macedonian troops are using heavy mortars to battle ethnic Albanian rebels in the hills above the city, and reports said the government had called for the mobilization of reserves, a curfew and restrictions on civilian movements.
But even as the conflict has spread quickly from the border with Kosovo, where NATO commands a peacekeeping force of 37,000 troops, officials here and at NATO headquarters in Brussels
The conflicts in the region have spread for nearly a decade and broke apart Communist Yugoslavia. Macedonia, a former Yugoslav republic, had been immune to the violence, until now.
Bush administration and NATO officials said their strategy would be to lend support to Macedonia's weak military and young government - which one Western diplomat described as "panicked" - with indirect help like NATO military information, financial aid and some high- level diplomatic visits.
But involving any of the region's peacekeeping forces - either those in Kosovo or the separate force in Macedonia - directly in fighting the Albanian rebels was out of the question for now.
The Macedonian foreign minister, Srgjan Kerim, is scheduled to meet the NATO secretary general, Lord Robertson, in Brussels on Monday. A request for NATO troops to help fight the rebels, who say they want greater recognition from Macedonia's government, would add some pressure on NATO and the United States for a more vigorous response. But it will be rebuffed, a senior NATO official said.
Officials in Washington said the Macedonian conflict had yet to seize the attention of the new administration, which campaigned on a election platform of getting American troops out of the Balkans.
In fact, the administration's most immediate concern, officials said, is to ensure that the 5,000 or so American soldiers in Kosovo, who are involved in patrolling the border with Macedonia, are not drawn into defending the Macedonian government and remain in Kosovo.
The administration's relative lack of interest appears to be driven by the belief that a war in Macedonia does not threaten American interests, though analysts have long warned that two nearby NATO allies, Greece and Turkey, could become involved in a conflict there.
Only in recent days have the Pentagon and the State Department begun any serious analysis, officials said. A meeting at the National Security Council to discuss Macedonia, which would include Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, is planned for this week, officials said.
So far, Washington has been considering sending Macedonia financial help to bolster its armed forces, which are among the most feeble in the Balkans, one official said. But it is not clear yet how the money, which would probably come from a Pentagon account used to help African militaries, would be used or whether it would be sufficient for Macedonia to address its current emergency.
"The issue is not whether we can restructure it in the next five years but whether it can exist by next week," said the official, speaking of the Macedonian military.
The Macedonian Army had "limited capabilities," another administration official said, adding that it was not clear how long the army could manage under current conditions.
The Macedonian military is riven by divisions between the army, which includes former officers from the Yugoslav Army, and special paramilitary policemen, who are doing most of the fighting.
According to the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, Macedonia has 15,000 soldiers and 7,500 paramilitary policemen. But the soldiers lack the training and equipment to fight a guerrilla war. The Macedonian Army has 94 T-55 tanks from the Yugoslav Army, for instance, but they are obsolete and in any case not suited to this kind of fighting, NATO officials said.
-------- russia
Eleven Die in Ukraine, Russia Helicopter Crashes
March 19, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-crash-u.html
KIEV (Reuters) - Two Soviet-designed military helicopters crashed in Ukraine and Russia on Monday, killing a total of 11 people, military officials in both countries said.
Ukrainian Defense Ministry spokesman Kostyantyn Khivrenko said eight people were killed in the Mi-8 military transport helicopter crash which occurred shortly before 10 a.m. near Kherson in the south of the former Soviet state.
Another Mi-8 on its way for an overhaul crashed near the Russian city of Ulyanovsk, killing three crew members, according to military officials.
Two Mi-8 helicopters crashed in ex-Soviet Kazakhstan earlier this year. In one accident, in February, six people on board were killed when the helicopter plunged from 600 meterswhile patrolling the Chinese border.
Khivrenko said it was the first Mi-8 crash in Ukraine since independence a decade ago.
He said the defense ministry had banned all helicopter flights pending a probe into Monday's crash. He said Defense Minister Olexander Kuzmuk had cut short his visit to the United Arab Emirates and was returning to Ukraine.
A second defense ministry official, Ihor Khorvinsky, said the helicopter carrying six military pilots and two technicians to the Black Sea port of Odessa crashed seconds after take-off.
The aircraft involved in Monday's other crash belonged to Russian forces which patrol the border between the former Soviet republic of Tajikistan and Afghanistan.
-------- space
Space shuttle Discovery undocks
InfoBeat News
Morning Coffee Edition - 3/19/2001
By MARCIA DUNN AP Aerospace Writer
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=406427437
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) - Space shuttle Discovery undocked from the international space station late Sunday night, bringing home the first, trailblazing crew of the orbiting outpost.
``Sail her well,'' the station's departing commander, Bill Shepherd, urged his successor.
The two spacecraft parted company 245 miles above South America, after more than a week of linked flight. It marked the end of 4{ months of space station duty for Shepherd and the two Russian cosmonauts who served under his command.
Discovery is due back at the Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday.
Before taking his place aboard Discovery for return to Earth, Shepherd formally handed over control of space station Alpha to Russian cosmonaut Yuri Usachev.
The 51-year-old Navy captain was visibly moved as he handed the ship's log to Usachev. Shepherd followed naval protocol in the farewell ceremony, reading his speech with care.
``We pass to your care Alpha's log with the hope that many successful entries here are recorded,'' Shepherd said. ``May the good will and spirit and sense of mission we have enjoyed on board endure. Sail her well. I am ready to be relieved.''
With that, he turned over the log and firmly shook Usachev's hand.
Shepherd and his Russian crewmates, Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev, had lived aboard the space station since the beginning of November, transforming it from a spartan, three-room outpost to a sophisticated four-room complex capable of scientific research.
``We are on a true spaceship now,'' Shepherd said. ``We are not the first crew to board Alpha or the last to depart. But we have made Alpha come alive. We gave her a name and put substance to the idea that our crews can work together as equals and our countries as partners, that we may proceed with bolder and more enterprising voyages in space.''
Shepherd was flanked at the brief ceremony by Krikalev and Gidzenko. The new U.S. crew members, astronauts Jim Voss and Susan Helms, floated next to Usachev, their commander for the next four months. In the middle were the four shuttle astronauts who ferried the new station crew to orbit and were taking the first crew back to Earth.
Mission Control thanked Shepherd, Gidzenko and Krikalev _ Expedition One _ for their ``outstanding duty.''
``It has been an honor and a privilege,'' radioed Mission Control.
The ceremony ended with bear hugs between the two station crews.
Earlier Sunday, Discovery's astronauts pulled a trash-filled cargo carrier off the space station and placed it back aboard the shuttle for the trip back to Earth.
The Italian-built carrier, named Leonardo, came off easily. But the process leading to its removal from the space station dragged on for five hours longer than planned because of a series of nagging problems.
Andrew Thomas, the shuttle crane operator, was relieved when he finally had Leonardo latched down in Discovery's payload bay.
Discovery arrived at space station Alpha on March 10. Two days later, the shuttle crew attached the Leonardo cargo carrier to the station. Five tons of gear came out of the carrier and one ton of stuff _ empty food cartons, packing foam, dirty clothes, old equipment _ went in.
Saturday night's closing of Leonardo was delayed by last-minute packing. The 10 astronauts and cosmonauts also fell behind because of concern over the shuttle's main computers and leaky hoses in the vestibule between Leonardo and the space station.
Experts at Mission Control feared the computers' software may have been corrupted by the astronauts' hasty reactivation of two computers earlier in the day. The pilots did not wait the necessary 10 seconds before switching on the second computer as per written procedures, but flight director John Shannon said the pilots were following orders.
Luckily, the software was not corrupted and did not have to be reloaded, a lengthy procedure never attempted in space.
``It was just good fortune'' that the software was not ruined, Shannon said.
---
NASA extends Galileo mission
InfoBeat News
Morning Coffee Edition - 3/19/2001
By ANDREW BRIDGES AP Science Writer
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=406424906
PASADENA, Calif. (AP) - NASA has extended its Galileo mission a third time, allowing the unmanned spacecraft to continue orbiting Jupiter until 2003, when it will make a fiery plunge into the planet's atmosphere.
The extension will allow the aging probe to make five more swings past Jupiter's moons Amalthea, Callisto and Io before burning up in the giant planet's 37,000-mile thick atmosphere in August 2003.
``We're proud that this workhorse of a spacecraft has kept performing well enough that we can ask it to keep serving science a little longer,'' said Jay Bergstralh, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's acting director of solar system exploration.
Although the extreme radiation environment around Jupiter continues to batter the $1.4 billion spacecraft, causing almost regular glitches, scientists hope it will give them a few final peeks at the volcanoes on Io and allow them to estimate the mass and density of Amalthea.
Since it began orbiting Jupiter in 1995, Galileo has released a probe that made the first measurements of the planet's atmosphere, provided strong evidence that its moon Europa has a liquid ocean and discovered the first asteroid orbiting another asteroid. Galileo also gave the only direct view of Comet Shoemaker-Levy as it slammed into Jupiter.
Galileo, launched in 1989, completed its primary exploration of the Jupiter system in 1997. NASA announced Thursday it would extend the spacecraft's mission for a third and final time.
``Galileo has already succeeded beyond expectations, and we have the opportunity to learn still more in coming months, but it is sad to see the end of the road up ahead,'' said Eilene Theilig, Galileo project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
NASA opted to destroy Galileo to keep it from slamming into Europa, contaminating it with terrestrial microbes stowed away on the probe. Scientists believe Europa's frozen surface caps a salty ocean that could harbor extraterrestrial life.
On May 25, Galileo will come within 76 miles of the surface of Callisto, the second largest of Jupiter's 28 known moons.
------ u.n.
Commanders war crimes trial opens
InfoBeat News
Afternoon Edition - 3/19/2001
By ANTHONY DEUTSCH Associated Press Writer
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=406433360
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) - Three Bosnian Serb commanders went on trial Monday before the U.N. war crimes tribunal on charges of running a prison camp where hundreds of inmates were tortured and killed _ some in a mass execution.
Dusko Sikirica, Damir Dosen and Dragan Kolundzija operated the Keraterm detention facility in Bosnia-Herzegovina, where thousands of prisoners were starved, beaten, sexually assaulted and held in cells so cramped there was no room to lie down, prosecutors said.
``The three accused here before you today were among those who made their lives a living hell,'' Dirk Ryneveld said in his opening statement.
The defendants were part of ``an orchestrated rampage of persecution and terror'' intended to wipe out the non-Serb population in the Prijedor region and create an ``ethnically pure Serbian state,'' the prosecutor said.
On one night, July 24, 1992, Bosnian Serb prison guards at the ceramics factory-turned prison camp fired machine guns into a building where defenseless prisoners who were rounded up from nearby villages huddled, the indictment says. By morning, 140 Bosnian Muslims and Croats were dead.
Routinely, prisoners were not given bedding or medical treatment and were subjected to ``brutal'' racist persecution by camp guards and officials, the indictment states.
Sikirica, 36, the camp commander, is accused of genocide, the most serious crime to be judged by the tribunal. He also faces several counts of crimes against humanity and violations of the laws or customs of war.
The two other suspects face war crimes charges but not genocide. About 300 people are believed to have died at the camp.
Dosen, 33, and Kolundzija, 41, were accused of being shift commanders, running two of three units of 10-15 guards.
All three have pleaded innocent to the charges of personal involvement and superior authority over subordinates who committed war crimes. They could face life sentences in prison if found guilty of any charge.
In his opening statement, Kolundzija's attorney, Dusan Vucicevic, described his client as a family man who was ``absolutely integrated in multiethnic society.''
He rejected prosecution allegations of a planned genocide of Muslims by Serbs, saying the ``new Serb nation'' had acted in fear of an extremist jihad, or holy war, by fundamentalist Muslims.
Prosecutors will call dozens of witnesses in coming months, including legal and military experts and camp survivors who will testify about the conditions at the camp.
Some witnesses were expected to recount the July 24 killings. Prosecutors say Kolundzija was on duty and present during the massacre.
``The camp guards and others who came to the camps used all types of weapons and instruments to beat and otherwise physically abuse the detainees,'' the indictment says. ``At a minimum, hundreds of detainees, whose identities are known and unknown, did not survive.''
The prosecutor said Sikirica supervised the rounding up of prisoners before the July 24 massacre and the clean-up afterward. He killed a number of survivors with his pistol before ordering guards to make sure no traces of blood were left.
Prisoners were forced to load the bodies of fellow detainees, often friends and relatives, onto vehicles so their remains could be transported to mass graves, the indictment says.
Keraterm was one of three camps in the Prijedor region along with Omarska and Trnopolje. Up to 7,000 people are believed to have been interned in the camps, part of a Serbian ``ethnic cleansing'' campaign aimed at ridding the area of non-Serbs and forming a nationalist state.
Most prisoners were middle-aged men believed eligible for military service, but intellectuals, civilian leaders and suspected opponents were also targeted. Women, children and the elderly fell victim to assaults and plundering and were also killed.
According to census reports, the Muslim population was reduced from 49,000 to 6,000 within a year in the Prijedor region. The Serb population, in the meantime, rose by 6,000 people to 53,637. The Croatian population was reduced from about 6,300 to 3,150.
---
UN human rights chief to step down
InfoBeat News
Afternoon Edition - 3/19/2001
By NAOMI KOPPEL Associated Press Writer
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=406433303
GENEVA (AP) - The United Nations' top human rights official announced Monday she was stepping down from her post, saying severe shortage in funding hampered her agency's work and she could do more outside the ``constraints'' of the U.N. system.
Mary Robinson, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, said she would leave office at the end of her four-year term in September.
``I believe that I can achieve more outside the constraints that a multilateral organization inevitably imposes,'' Robinson said.
Robinson, a former Irish president, said she had told U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan of her decision and wanted to announce it early so there would be time to find a new high commissioner.
After making the announcement during the opening session of the 53-nation U.N. Human Rights Commission, Robinson said she would stay in office until the end of the World Conference on Racism, which opens Aug. 31 in Durban, South Africa.
``This has not been an easy decision to make, and I know it is one that may surprise and perhaps disappoint many,'' she said. ``I know some will feel that I should have sought to continue working from within the United Nations and I ask them to respect my decision.''
Robinson, who has been increasingly outspoken about rights violations, is the second person to hold the job of high commissioner, following the low-profile tenure of Ecuadoran diplomat Jose Ayala Lasso.
She said her office was dramatically short of funding, receiving 2 percent of the United Nations' $1 billion annual budget. Last year, her office for the first time issued an appeal directly to governments and received $44 million _ more than twice the allocation from the U.N. budget.
Many governments were unwilling to provide extra funding because they believed _ rightly _ that human rights was part of the core work of the United Nations and should be funded directly, Robinson said.
``I will go on advocating the need for adequate resources,'' Robinson said.
In her speech, Robinson pressed the world's governments to fight against racial discrimination as a way of improving rights for people across the world.
Racism was ``of the highest significance'' because it leads to other human rights violations, she said.
``Racism and xenophobia _ manifesting themselves through discrimination and all forms of intolerance _ are the wellspring of many of the world's conflicts,'' said Robinson.
She pointed to the rise of ethnic fighting in Macedonia, which, she said, could threaten the stability of the troubled Balkans region.
``During the past month alone, hundreds have been killed in Borneo, Burundi and countless other parts of the world on the grounds of their ethnicity,'' Robinson added.
China, Russia and Israel will be among the countries put under the spotlight by the commission during its six-week session.
European Union foreign ministers agreed Monday to support a U.N. draft resolution to be debated at the commission meeting that is expected to condemn China's poor record on human rights. But they backed away from cosponsoring it, despite a request from Secretary of State Colin Powell to do so.
Ambassador Leandro Despouy of Argentina was elected president of the commission on Monday.
-------- u.s.
Air Force Proposes Plan to Help Boeing With Sale of Planes
New York Times
March 19, 2001
By JAMES DAO
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/19/national/19MILI.html
WASHINGTON, March 18 - In a twist to the Pentagon's growing efforts to bolster the defense industry, the Air Force has devised an ambitious plan to help Boeing, the world's biggest commercial jet producer, sell a version of its latest jumbo military transport plane to private cargo companies.
The plan calls for the Air Force to provide an unusual array of financial incentives to encourage private carriers to buy the transport plane, the C-17 Globemaster, including guaranteed government transport business, a Pentagon promise to buy back C- 17's from firms that go bankrupt, and even subsidies up front.
In exchange, the private haulers would be required to make their C- 17's available to the Air Force for war and other emergencies.
The plan is subject to the approval of Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, who has yet to review it, and Congress, where the C-17 program will be pitted against other big- ticket programs facing cuts.
But for Boeing, the plan could help create a market in oversized commercial cargo planes potentially worth billions of dollars, more than enough to keep its C-17 line in Long Beach, Calif., humming into the next decade. Without new orders, the 8,500-worker plant there is expected to close within five years. The plan would begin with the sale of 10 of the planes to commercial cargo companies at a total cost of $1.6 billion.
"We see this as win, win, win, for the Air Force, for Boeing and the air cargo industry," said George P. Sillia, a Boeing spokesman in Long Beach.
But Pentagon watchdog groups say the proposal underscores an alarming trend toward government- business partnerships that weaken Pentagon oversight of the defense industry and raise questions of favoritism. The partnership may diminish the Air Force's desire to hold a contractor to the strictest accountability, these critics warn, and may result in the buying of weapons that are not necessary.
"These cozy relationships have always existed," said Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, a nonprofit watchdog group that has studied the C-17 program. "But this is more overt than in the past. And that's a disaster for taxpayers."
Industry experts say the C-17 proposal is groundbreaking in its foray by the military into the private sector. Although the Pentagon has in the past authorized contractors to sell commercial versions of military equipment, this would be the first time in memory that it would help do the selling by offering such broad financial incentives, the experts said.
And with many defense contractors asserting that they have been dangerously weakened by shrinking military budgets, such forays could become more common, the experts said.
"It's a sign of the times," said Richard Aboulafia, an expert in military aircraft with the Teal Group, a consulting firm. "A fiscally weakened Department of Defense, declining markets and an industrial base that has over-capacity are potent recipes to encourage a more interventionist approach," Mr. Aboulafia said. "There is no question we'll see more of this."
The Air Force-Boeing collaboration has its roots in the post-cold-war downsizing of the military. In 1990, convinced that the Air Force had more than enough airlift capacity, Dick Cheney, then the defense secretary, slashed the C-17 acquisition program to 120 aircraft from 210 to bring the total cost to about $40 billion. The last of those planes is scheduled to arrive by late 2004.
-------- OTHER
-------- energy
Abraham: Energy Costs Pose Recession Risk
Reuters
March 19, 2001 Filed at 2:06 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/business/business-energy-reces.html?searchpv=reuters
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham on Monday said high energy prices were having a negative effect on the U.S. economy and linked the rising costs to the possibility of a recession.
``This nation's last three recessions have all been tied to rising energy prices -- and there is strong evidence that the latest crisis is already having a negative effect,'' Abraham said in a speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
``Rising energy costs are hitting every family's checkbook, primarily affecting those who can afford it least,'' he said.
Abraham made his comments during a speech outlining the major energy supply problems facing the United States.
He and other top Bush administration officials, members of a White House energy task force, were scheduled to meet later on Monday to discuss a broad national plan to boost domestic oil and gas drilling, invest in so-called ``clean coal'' technology, reduce foreign oil imports and promote energy conservation.
The United States consumes about 20 million barrels of crude oil and refined petroleum products each day. Currently, about 54 percent of the U.S. oil supply is imported.
The National Association of Manufacturers estimated that soaring fuel prices between 1999 and 2000 cost the U.S. economy more than $115 billion, Abraham said. That was roughly equivalent to a drop of one full percentage point off the nation's gross domestic product.
Abraham told the business group that California's electricity crisis was not an isolated incident, and that the entire nation faces an energy crisis.
``The failure to meet this challenge will threaten our nation's economic prosperity, compromise our national security and literally alter the way we live our lives,'' Abraham said.
The former Michigan senator blamed the Clinton administration for failing to address the nation's energy needs during eight years of economic prosperity. The Democrats, Abraham said, ``sat on the sidelines as our nation's energy needs mounted.''
During the 1990s, the Clinton administration ignored the rapidly expanding energy needs of the future, he added.
``Their energy strategy boiled down to: you can't find it, you can't transport it, and even if you get it, we don't want you to use it. Through neglect or complacency or ideology, this approach has led us to the crisis faced today,'' he said.
Bush, a former Texas oilman, would introduce legislation based on recommendations from the White House task force later this spring.
Other key points in his speech included the following:
+ Regulatory restrictions have limited the ability of U.S. refineries to expand capacity to meet demand during the past 25 years. Refiners also face difficulties because of the government's requirement that more than 15 types of gasoline be produced to meet regional pollution needs.
+ An estimated 40 percent of potential U.S. natural gas resources are on federal lands that are closed to exploration or have restrictions of other kinds.
+ U.S. electricity demand will grow by 45 percent over the next 20 years, particularly due to the rise of the high-tech economy, according to Energy Department estimates. That means about 90 new power plants must be built annually to keep up with demand.
+ Coal and nuclear plants will continue to play a major role in providing electricity. ``The administration will not regulate coal out of existence and we will not support measures that will threaten electricity supplies and significantly raise electricity prices,'' Abraham said.
+ Electricity shortages could affect New York City, Long Island and the Midwest and Northern Plains states this summer.
+ Opening the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil drilling would affect only 2,000 acres, or an area about the size of Dulles International Airport. The entire refuge has 19 million acres. ``Based on December 2000 figures, it would free us from about 54 years of oil imports from Saddam Hussein and Iraq,'' Abraham said.
-------- environment
Germany expresses concern to EPA
InfoBeat News
Morning Coffee Edition - 3/19/2001
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=406428381
BERLIN (AP) - Germany's environment minister expressed concerns over U.S. policy on reducing carbon dioxide emissions in a letter to Environmental Protection Agency chief Christie Whitman released Sunday.
Juergen Trittin pleaded to the United States to follow the agreements originally reached 1997 in Kyoto, Japan on regulating so-called greenhouse gases to curb global warming. Another round of discussions is planned in Bonn in July.
``I understand that the new U.S. administration hasn't yet ended scrutiny of its position on international climate protection,'' Trittin wrote, urging Washington to follow the already reached Kyoto agreements. ``There's no alternative, the Kyoto protocol can't just be at someone's disposal.''
Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder is also expected to raise the subject with President Bush when the two meet in Washington on March 29.
The Bush administration said last week in a statement to U.S. lawmakers that the president will not seek to regulate U.S. power plants' emission of carbon dioxide produced by burning fossil fuels like coal and oil.
--------
Study: Schools built on unsafe land
InfoBeat News
Afternoon Edition - 3/19/2001
By GREG TOPPO AP Education Writer
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=406432882
WASHINGTON (AP) - Twenty-three years after she blew the whistle on Love Canal, Lois Gibbs says school districts across the nation are still building schools on unsafe land.
In a report issued Monday, her organization said school districts across the nation have built schools on or near unsuitable sites, posing potential health risks to students and teachers.
``What makes it worse is that we know better - or should know better,'' said Gibbs.
Among the ``poisoned schools'' cited by the Virginia-based Center for Health, Environment and Justice is Los Angeles' Belmont Learning Complex. The nation's costliest high school has never been completed because of fears of contamination from the former oil field and industrial site on which it is located.
School administrators say they are aware of the problems that could result from building on former industrial sites and the necessity of conducting their own thorough inspections.
``The people who have built on brownfield sites have had nothing but problems,'' said Bruce Hunter, director of public policy for the American Association of School Administrators. ``The word of that goes through the profession. That kind of stuff, everybody hears about. In fact, frequently it ends up getting the superintendent fired.''
Ron Baker, spokesman for the California Department of Toxic Substances Control, said a 1998 state review of several projects in Los Angeles found poor environmental evaluation by the school district.
In one instance, he said, a city-hired inspector who couldn't get into a site simply peered through a chain-link fence before approving the project.
At Belmont, he said, the company that sold the land to the city hired the firm that performed the environmental assessment. Belmont has since been shown to be contaminated with crude oil, acetone and other dangerous compounds.
Since then, California has changed the way it approves school sites, sending its own inspectors to advise districts, Baker said.
``If these assessments aren't done properly, you wind up with problems down the road with residual contamination - and that's what we're trying to avoid.''
Federal officials say a recent boom in school enrollment will force school districts to build 2,400 new schools by 2003.
But without federal guidelines and strict supervision, the report says districts run a greater risk of building future schools on polluted land or near industrial sites.
The state and local environmental guidelines that school districts follow are often inadequate to ensure that sites are safe enough for children, who tend to be more vulnerable to toxic chemicals, the report says.
In 1978, Gibbs led the campaign to convince New York officials that chemical and other waste buried under the Love Canal community was making residents sick. The fight began at 99th Street School, which her children attended.
---
UN launches coral reefs project
InfoBeat News
Afternoon Edition - 3/19/2001
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=406431229
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) - The U.N. environment agency launched a multimillion dollar project Monday to help preserve the world's coral reefs, up to 60 percent of which are at risk _ primarily from human activity, officials said.
``The time for talking is over and the time to act is now,'' the U.N. Environment Program said. ``There has been growing scientific evidence over recent years that the globe's coral reefs are in serious decline.''
Threats against the reefs _ which are a vital habitat for fish, an important source of tourist revenue and a natural sea defense for many low-lying islands _ include overfishing, coastal development, overuse of fertilizers and other forms of pollution, the agency said.
The four-year initiative, known as the International Coral Reef Action Network, has secured $10 million in funding and hopes to raise $20 million more to manage selected coral reef sites with local communities around the world.
Steps will include helping fishermen find supplementary sources of income, improving reef-based tourism and educating local residents about preservation, as well as monitoring and mapping the reefs.
``The question is to ... get people to feel they have a stake in the conservation,'' said Robert Hepworth, a senior program official who spoke in Nairobi.
These ``centers for excellence'' will then be used as blueprints for similar work elsewhere, Hepworth said.
The project will be implemented by a coalition of environmental groups. The initial sites are still being selected, but could include areas of the coasts of Kenya, Indonesia, Jamaica, Mexico, the Solomon Islands, Madagascar and the Seychelles.
-------- genetics
FDA to test for biotech allergy
InfoBeat News
Afternoon Edition - 3/19/2001
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=406433400
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Food and Drug Administration will soon begin blood-testing people who say they may have been sickened by eating a variety of genetically engineered corn.
The test, which FDA recently developed, is designed to indicate whether someone is allergic to a special protein in the corn, known as StarLink, said Monica Revelle.
``It's a very new process so we're approaching it very cautiously,'' she said.
The government has been investigating about a dozen complaints of people who said they became ill last fall after eating corn products.
StarLink corn, which has been withdrawn from the market, was never approved for human consumption because of unresolved questions about its potential to cause allergic reactions.
The corn was supposed to be used only for animal feed or industrial purposes but was discovered in the food supply last fall, prompting nationwide recalls of taco shells and other products.
Aventis CropScience, the corn's developer, says that more than 400 million bushels of corn nationwide have been contaminated with StarLink.
Some 94 million bushels of tainted corn have been routed from grain elevators to approved uses, and another 343 bushels are in storage, said John Wichtrich, general manager for Aventis CropScience.
Most of the contaminated corn came from the 1999 crop, Wichtrich said in a speech to the North American Millers Association on Sunday.
-------- activists
All African Women's Revolutionary Union Conference - March 24, 2001
1st Annual Sister's Unity Conference CALLING ALL
Mon, 19 Mar 2001
From: Banbose Shango <bshango@juno.com>
Sisters-Join Hands Defend Africa!
Africa is at war. Her land invaded, her resources plundered, and her people enslaved. Although you see the face of an African ruler behind him is a capitalist pulling the leader's strings. Where is there self-determination for Africa and her people? Diamonds plundered and oil stolen. The masses of the people never benefit from the amassing of millions from this wealth. African people in the Americas and Europe continue to slave for Europeans on plantations-corporations. The majority of Africans (people of African descent) are poor and illiterate with the highest incidence of AIDS in the world. Those who are not poor do not produce for themselves and their people's benefit. They continue to be pimped by the global economy and finance capital. As we stand up to defend Africa we defeat globalization, imperialism and forward the just struggles of people world-wide. Let us stand up for each other as we stand up for Africa. Sisters! Defend your principles everywhere, no matter your nationality. Unite sisters-so that the majority can reap the benefits of our labor. Join hands sisters! Defend Africa!
When: March 24, 2001 @10:00 am Where: Howard University, Blackburn Center Symposium Room Sponsored by the AAWRU (the All African Women's Revolutionary Union), and the AAPRP (the All African People's Revolutionary Party) For More Information Contact: (410-922-7990, (410) 884-8696, funaliim@hotmail.com, nacaw@aol.com, swalima@aol.com
REMEMBER... AFRICAN LIBERATION DAY, WASHINGTON, D.C. MAY 26, 2001 SYMPOSIUM, Howard University - RALLY, MALCOM X PARK (PLEASE WEAR ALL WHITE AS A SYMBOL FOR UNITY)
---
Anti-summit activists will pay minister a visit
Montreal Gazette
Monday 19 March 2001
LEVON SEVUNTS The Gazette
http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/pages/010319/5027362.html
Anti-free-trade activists say they have lost patience after a year of trying to meet Pierre Pettigrew, federal minister of international trade.
So they're going calling on him at his Ottawa office.
His visitors will be from Peaceful Convergence Q-2001, an umbrella group of about 30 religious, environmental and women's groups, student associations and unions.
'Citizens' Search'
The group announced yesterday it plans a peaceful blockade of Pettigrew's office and intends to make a non-violent "citizens' search" for documents about the forthcoming Summit of the Americas in Quebec City.
The group gave Pettigrew an ultimatum last March to publish all documents on the summit.
They also wanted to meet him. Pettigrew, citing the planned involvement of Convergence Q-2001 activists in civil-disobedience actions, refused.
Tomorrow the deadline of the ultimatum expires and the government hasn't published any documents.
Philippe Duhamel, president of SalAMI, an anti-free-trade group, said they will try to hand in a petition calling for publication of the documents and a group "of people specially trained in non-violent methods of civil disobedience" will try to get into the building for the symbolic search.
"Only a handful of people have seen these documents, not even the MPs who are supposed vote on them," said Regine Laurent, a representative of the Quebec Federation of Nurses. However, the documents have been sent to several powerful business groups in the United States, she said.
Convergence Q-2001 organizers, almost all of whom had received what they described as intimidating visits from RCMP officers, also deplored the atmosphere of siege mentality over the summit and the "security hysteria" of the law-enforcement agencies.
"Nobody wants to be clubbed over the head, or literally be stabbed with a bayonet," Laurent said. "But, hell, I'm not going to shut up just because somebody has big stick in his hand."
More radical anti-capitalist groups, such as the Anti-Capitalist Convergence (known under French acronym CLAC) and the Summit of Americas Welcoming Committee (CASA), are a concern, said Robert Jasmin, president of ATTAC-Quebec, which calls for greater regulation of the international financial system.
"We fear that some people might be willing to test the police."
Thousands Signed Petition
Convergence Q-2001 had initially invited some of these groups to join the umbrella group, on the condition of renouncing violence.
"But they insisted that we 'respect the diversity of tactics,' which includes violence," Jasmin said. "We couldn't agree to that."
Laurent said that the interest of ordinary people is reflected in the number of signatures they have gathered on their petition. "We were aiming for 10,000 signatures but we got 15,300 and still counting," she said.
---
MOBILIZE AGAINST THE PRISON INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX
Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2001
From: "joyola shouting" <fuzzyheded@hotmail.com>
You may have heard about the prison industrial complex...
Over 2 million Americans are currently incarcerated in the United States. These are overwhelmingly people of color, people surviving below the poverty line and a growing population of women. Children are being tried as adults around the country and the death penalty is still enforced with vigor. All across the country the business of incarceration and rehabilitation is being farmed out to major corporations for labor. Using prisoners for labor is considered a cost-effective way of producing goods which companies can then claim were "Made in the U.S.A." All the while these prisoners are being held in unsafe and unsanitary conditions, denied basic medical needs, and often being held on trumped up charges or kept in prison despite lack of evidence. Laws and legislations and other tactics such as racial profiling are used to target people of color and people living below the poverty line. These factors combined with the general apathy and isolation of the American public is giving rise to a racist institutional "prison class" of people who will never have the opportunity to educate themselves or bring themselves out of the viscious circle the law puts them in. This phenomenon will be endlessly profitable for big businesses wishing to make an easy buck.
...but have you heard about the force behind the prison industrial complex?
The American Correctional Association, previously known as the National Prison Association, has been working on keeping the corrections industry alive and healthy for 131 years. Their stated aim (on their website www.corrections.com/aca) is to serve as an umbrella organization, able to provide services and contacts to people in the corrections "industry" that no other organization in the world is able to provide. The business of incarceration and corrections is seen as a lucrative business deal to the ACA. At their annual conferences and conventions a large space is dedicated to exposition, as well as discussions about the state of the corrections industry today. According to their website, a company in the ACA can expect to do over 80% of their corrections related business at one of these conferences. The annual conference this year is going to be held in lovely downtown Philadelphia, PA from August 11 to 16.
The ACA is composed of companies in all aspects of corrections. Everyone from the Center for Disease Control to the American Fence Company are members. Companies that specialize in constructing prisons and companies that specialize in keeping prisons operational will be at the conference this year. From construction to death row, the money and power behind the incarceration of millions of Americans will be at this conference.
Another role of the ACA is to be a third party accreditor of newly consturcted prisons. Over the last 2 years, lawsuits have been filed against the ACA over numerous private prisons the ACA has accredited. These were all privately owned and operated, and have been found after a few years of operations to be sub standard institutions. This brings up the question- who is running the ACA, and where do thier interests lie?
The ACA also works to lobby congress and other people of "power". Their legislative agendas are full of language of rehabilitation and corrections, but it's not hard to realise that this is an official veneer over something much more insidious. While the talk is of rehabilitation, the overwhelming majority of member companies of the ACA are focused on maintaining prisons as they function now. The fact that the ACA has not been challenged by a cohesive and united movement has let them continue working behind the scenes without facing the consequences of their actions. This opportunity for prison activists around the country to unite and educate around these issues should be seized!
To learn more, or to share information about the ACA or related organizations, please email prisons@critpath.org or mail to PDAG, c/o WILPF, 1213 Race St, Philadelphia PA 19107
--------
Def Summer internships available!
Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2001
From: Neil Watkins <neil@econjustice.net>
March 2001
SUMMER ORGANIZING INTERNSHIPS AVAILABLE WORLD BANK BONDS BOYCOTT CAMPAIGN
The Center for Economic Justice seeks interns to work in its Washington, D.C. office for Summer 2001 on the World Bank Bonds Boycott campaign.
The World Bank Bonds Boycott is a growing campaign through which activists, students, working people, and others are building pressure on the World Bank using grassroots economic and political power. The World Bank (International Bank for Reconstruction and Development) gets nearly all of its money through the sale of bonds. World Bank bonds are sold by financial firms like Citigroup. Corporations and large investors, including those institutions in our own communities, purchase World Bank bonds. The campaign works with activists to get city councils, churches, unions, and colleges and universities to pass a resolution or ordinance that they will not invest in World Bank bonds in the future. A growing number of institutions -- including the cities of San Francisco, Oakland, and Berkeley, several unions and churches and most of the major socially responsible investment firms -- are joining the World Bank Bonds Boycott. In the U.S. Europe, Canada, and in the global South, students are using power of their movements and the financial power of their universities to enlarge the World Bank Bonds Boycott.
This summer in Washington will be a particularly exciting time to work on these issues, as activists in DC and around the world gear up for a major mobilization in Washington at the time of the IMF/World Bank Annual meetings, from September 28 - October 4, 2001. Interns will have the opportunity to build for this mobilization as part of their work this summer.
Depending on an intern's background and interest, s/he may:
Organize student participation in the boycott; Research World Bank policies or holdings of World Bank bonds; Provide support for activists working to pass World Bank Bonds Boycott resolutions in their communities; Organize events; Design and update the website; and assist in fundraising.
Requirements for the internship include:
A commitment of at least two days a week and a minimum of 12 hours/week over a period of at least ten weeks; Commitment to justice and sovereignty, especially for low-income populations and countries; Some understanding of international economics and/or international justice movements; Competency in most of the following skills: human relations, organizing, administration, research, and writing; Knowledge of Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, French, or Creole is a plus, though not essential.
We are very committed to internships in which individuals may pursue their interests towards maximal learning and experience. No stipend is available, though college credit is.
People of color and people from the global-South are especially encouraged to apply. The Center for Economic Justice is an equal opportunity employer, and does not discriminate on any basis.
The deadline for applications is April 16, 2001.
To apply, send a resume and a cover letter describing your interest by mail, fax, or email to: Neil Watkins, World Bank Bonds Boycott coordinator, 1830 Connecticut Ave., NW; Washington, DC 20009; or neil@econjustice.net. Call (202) 299-0020 with any questions.
Neil Watkins <neil@econjustice.net> World Bank bonds boycott campaign Center for Economic Justice 1830 Connecticut Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20009 phone: (202) 299-0020 fax: (202) 299-0021 web: www.worldbankboycott.org
To stay updated on the World Bank bonds boycott, join our listserve: Send blank e-mail to <bank-boycott-subscribe@egroups.com>
World Bank Bonds Boycott Student Info Network www.worldbankboycott.org 202-299-0020 - WBBB Campaign HQ
----------
Solidarity Conference (April 6-8)
Mon, 19 Mar 2001
From: sgodlove <sgodlove@wells.edu>
Hey Folks!
I know it's a little short notice, but--
During the weekend of April 6-8, State College, Pennsylvania will be the site at which thousands of activists from numerous political and social movements will converge to learn about a variety of issues, from "The Free Trade Area of the Americas and the Future of Democracy," and Biotechnology and globalization, to Protesters' rights, the EZLN, radical parenting, and Prison issues.
Among some 20+ other speakers, HOWARD ZINN and JELLO BIAFRA will be there.
Check out the following web site for more details: www.geocities.com/solidarityconference
Contact solidarityconference@hotmail.com -or- 814-880-8826 for more info.
-Sarah Godlove
--------
M1: Join the global struggle against corporate tyranny
CALL TO ACTION!! MAYDAY!!
Mon, 19 Mar 2001
From: "Allison Brim" <mirb783@carolina.rr.com>
M1: Join the global struggle against corporate tyranny in Charlotte, North Carolina !!
Mayday is a day of celebration that recognizes the power of workers and remembers those who struggled before us. A day we can collectively take part in a recognition of people's power. This year on May first, Charlotte hopes to host it's first Mayday and needs your help! From sea to shining sea people from all walks of life will take to the streets to demand that workers be recognized once again as the foundation of a sustainable community.
It started back in 1886, when workers in Chicago went on strike to demand an eight-hour workday and renounce capitalism. After the fourth day on strike, workers were violently broken apart, and a peaceful strike quickly turned into a clash between the workers and the police. This day was stapled as the Haymarket riots. Later, eight labor organizers were arrested on false charges and executed for their supposed "role" in detonating a bomb during a police raid. The origins of Mayday have been thrown deep into the vault of U.S. history in hopes that it would quickly be forgotten. However, this important movement for social change has managed to recently resurface.
Although the issues workers were fighting for have surely changed since the 19th century, conditions of it's time are still present in parts of the world. While Neo-liberalism is on the tongue of every CEO, real wages for workers are steadily declining. Powerful institutions such as the WTO, GATT, and NAFTA are screaming for more deregulation in the name of corporate interest. Social services and resources are being privatized for profit. Intellectual property rights are becoming powerful models for corporate monopolization. And Free trade policies have been tried and failed with disastrous results for working people.
So why do these habits continue? Why haven't we put an end to corporations taking over the economy, and people's living standards ending up dead last in the race with profit? Because profit is the objective of all CEO's. We realized this in 1999 and successfully disrupted the WTO's meeting in Seattle. Mass movements have followed this demo in places as close as Charelston South Carolina and as far as Prague, Melbourne, Seoul, Davos, Nice, Israel and Brazil. So let us converge unto the streets of Charlotte to celebrate workers power and to remember those who struggled before us. The struggle for democracy and justice is far from over!!!
To help organize and be a part of Mayday, contact: The UPRISE collective at: uprisecharlotte@hotmail.com
For more information on Mayday around the world, visit: www.Mayday2001.org
-----------
Activists unfurl large banner "End Corporate Rule"
Mon, 19 Mar 2001
From: cestpodge@aol.com
From the Buffalo Independent Media Center:
Pictures online at http://www.buffalo.indymedia.org
Early reports indicate that activists from the Buffalo Direct Action Network (Bdan) staged a rare daytime banner drop amidst a downtown throng of revelers at the annual downtown Buffalo St. Patricks Day celebration. The Banner which read "END CORPORATE RULE" followed by a circle with a slash over the FTAA letters was daringly dropped from the iconic Statler Tower Office Building just prior to the official 2PM (EST) start to the annual St. Patricks Day Parade. Ironically, there were no arrests reported even though local police, firefighters and civic groups swarmed around the building, forming up and preparing for their symbolic places in the nearly 100 year old march featured annually in Buffalo. The Statler Towers office building faces City Hall in downtown Buffalo and overlooks Niagara Square, the scene of the staging area for the annual parade. The banner was still standing throughout the duration of the parade and was unfurled with an estimated 2,000 people assembling in the square.
------
Girl set ablaze in Tiananmen dies
InfoBeat News
Morning Coffee Edition - 3/19/2001
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=406427814
BEIJING (AP) - A 12-year-old girl who set herself on fire in Tiananmen Square in a purported protest against China's crackdown on the Falun Gong meditation sect has died in a Beijing hospital, government-run television said Sunday.
Liu Siying died Saturday night of sudden heart troubles at Jishuitan Hospital, where she had been receiving treatment since she and four others set themselves ablaze on Jan. 23, Chinese Central Television said.
One of the four, Liu's mother, died that day on the square. The three others are still in the hospital's burn unit.
The Chinese government has said the five were members of the Falun Gong spiritual group, which it banned 19 months ago as a threat to social order and communist rule.
Falun Gong has denied that the five were members, saying its teachings do not condone suicide.
Beijing seized on the group suicide on the traditional Chinese New Year's Eve to drive home its message that Falun Gong is an evil cult that callously pushes its members to acts of self-destruction.
Gruesome images of the five ablaze or their blackened bodies lying on Tiananmen's gray flagstones were beamed on national television.
Government propagandists focused in particular on Liu, showing photos of a smiling, pretty girl in a school uniform and then footage of her writhing charred face crying out for her mother.
The campaign has apparently been effective, creating genuine revulsion for the sect among Chinese. After weeks in early January when state media said hundreds of Falun Gong followers were being rounded up daily on Tiananmen Square, demonstrations by the group have also seemed suddenly to decline.
Falun Gong attracted millions in the 1990s with its mix of traditional Chinese religion, health exercises and the teachings of founder Li Hongzhi, a former government grain clerk now in the United States.
It was outlawed in July 1999 after the group surprised Chinese officials when more than 10,000 members surrounded the leadership's living compound in Beijing in a demonstration to demand official recognition.
---
Spain protests car-bomb killing
InfoBeat News
Morning Coffee Edition - 3/19/2001
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=406428352
ROSES, Spain (AP) - Hundreds of people gathered outside a town hall on Sunday to protest the latest Basque separatist violence, as Spain's main political parties condemned two car bomb attacks blamed on the ETA.
Police officer Santos Santamaria Avedano, 32, was killed late Saturday night when a car bomb went off as he was evacuating guests from a hotel in Roses, 60 miles north of Barcelona, authorities said.
A Basque newspaper had been warned of the bomb by a caller claiming to represent the Basque separatist group ETA.
Some five hours after the blast, police carried out a controlled explosion of another car bomb in the eastern coastal resort town of Gandia, some 270 miles away.
Another caller to the Basque newspaper had warned that the bomb would go off at midnight. Police evacuated the town's promenade area but several cars and nearby buildings were damaged in the blast.
Spanish police believe Basque gunmen used cars and explosives stolen in France for the two car bombs.
``In both Roses and Gandia, we're talking about cars with explosives which were stolen in France and taken across the border,'' Interior Minister Mariano Rajoy said on Sunday.
``Police believe members of the armed group ETA living in France were responsible ... and that the explosives used were stolen in Grenoble (France).''
Rajoy was speaking on arrival in Barcelona to pay final respects to the dead officer.
At midday Sunday, hundreds of people gathered outside Roses town hall to protest the car bombing as politicians from mainstream parties condemned the attack.
In a statement read to the crowd, town mayor Carlos Paramo described the bomb as a ``brutal attack which upset the peaceful coexistence of our town.''
Rafael Hernando, a spokesman for the governing Popular Party, said that ``neither ETA nor its supporters will get any where with these actions.''
ETA has killed more than 800 people since taking up arms for Basque independence in 1968, including five killings so far this year and 28 since it ended a unilateral cease-fire in December 1999.
The group regularly uses car bombs and then claims its attacks in statements to pro-Basque independence media several weeks later.
Saturday's car bomb came hours after Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar attended a ruling Popular Party meeting in the Basque regional capital of Vitoria to present Rajoy's predecessor Jaime Mayor Oreja as the party's top candidate in upcoming Basque elections May 13.
Since taking office in 1996, Aznar and Mayor Oreja have stepped up the police battle against ETA and insist there can be no negotiations until the group surrenders.
---
Spaniards protest latest killing
InfoBeat News
Afternoon Edition - 3/19/2001
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=406433231
MADRID, Spain (AP) - Thousands of Spaniards around the country observed a minute of silence Monday to protest the latest killing blamed on the armed Basque separatist group ETA.
In Madrid, lawmakers gathered outside Parliament to condemn Saturday night's car bomb blast that killed a policeman in the Catalan town of Roses. A larger rally was set for the evening in Madrid.
Noontime rallies were also held in Barcelona, Bilbao, Pamplona, in Roses itself and in the eastern resort town of Gandia, where police found and detonated another car bomb Sunday. No one was injured.
In Bilbao, Basque regional government spokesman Josu Jon Imaz said the rally in that city was more than just a way to show solidarity with the dead policeman's family and the people of Catalonia in general.
``It is also to demand that ETA abandon its path of blood, pain and madness,'' Imaz said. ``Violence is ethically abominable. A democratic society can never be built with violence,'' he added.
The car bomb Saturday killed 32-year-old policeman Santos Santamaria. Since ETA called off a 14-month-old cease-fire in December 1999 it has claimed or been blamed for 28 killings.
The group has killed around 800 people since it began fighting in 1968 for an independent Basque homeland in lands straddling northern Spain and southwest France.
------- Onelist (submissions from subscribers)