------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
WEALTH OF NUCLEAR DATA
China angry over news US will defend Taiwan
China hints at reprisals over U.S. weapons sale
China Threatens to Stop Aiding U.S. in Arms-Control Efforts
Belarus brought to its knees by 'invisible enemy'
USEC Inc. income for its third fiscal quarter
Shipbuilders to Merge
DU research - call for info
Children Most at Risk From Depleted Uranium
WHO MAKES RECOMMENDATIONS ON DEPLETED URANIUM AND HEALTH
Japan village to hold referendum on nuclear fuel
Chernobyl's deadly legacy -- 15 years on
Chernobyl anniversary haunts Ukraine
Anniversary of Chernobyl Marked
Former Soviet republics honor Chernobyl victims
Chernobyl remembered 15 years later
Chernobyl Victims Need Financial Help
Ten-Year Study Reveals Nuclear Weapons Unlawful
New Life for Diesel-Sub Builders?
Leroy Ingles; First Chief of a Nuclear Submarine
Task force advises on military's 'transformation'
General Dynamics to purchase Newport News
Nuclear interests anticipate future growth
Americans slightly more energetic about nuke power
CONNECTICUT YANKEE SUIT REJECTED
Union questions nuclear site security
Hanford reactor verdict on hold
Spent nuclear fuel unguarded now at Hanford

MILITARY
Angry Nation
Pilot Error Is Blamed in Bombing in Kuwait
Bush Tells Beijing the U.S. Is Ready to Defend Taiwan
China Denounces Bush's Comments on Taiwan
China accuses Bush of taking 'a dangerous road'
Bush´s remarks leave in doubt U.S. policy
White House sees 'no change' in Taiwan policy
Pentagon searching for sub builders
New Life for Diesel-Sub Builders?
Tough Conservative Picked for Drug Czar, Officials Say
Tape Said to Show That U.S. Jet Tried to Warn Peruvians of Error
An Unwinnable War on Drugs
STOP NETS $12 MILLION IN DRUGS
Peru preoccupied with scandals, presidential race
States
Serious charges dropped against American
Mellow media
Koizumi Woos Peace Faction After Backing Rearmament
S. Korea hopes U.S.-N. Korea dialogue reopens
Judge Refuses to Halt Bombing Exercise in Vieques
The Navy Way on Vieques
Judge refuses to halt bombing exercise in Vieques
The War Within
Ex-Senator Kerrey Says Raid He Led in '69 Killed Civilians
Kerrey Says Today He 'Cannot Justify' Killings in Vietnam Raid
ACADEMY INCREASES SECURITY
Kerrey expresses guilt, remorse; questions remain
House may end contract for berets
Billions sought for arms

OTHER
28 in Queens Are Charged in Pollution at Junkyards
Decision on Gulf Drilling Puts President on Spot
Panel Overturns Ruling Against Strip Mining
CLEANUP SUIT SETTLED
STATE WETLANDS PLAN CRITICIZED
Lovely as a Tree: Now Let Us Go Planting
States
Is Trade the Path Out of Poverty?
Taxation without representation
Panel Urges Retraining, Not Discipline, for Diallo Officers
Vallone Challenges Green Over His Criticism of Police
Young Man Whitman Searched in 1996 Is Suing Her and Police
Diallo's Mother Denounces Police Report
Diallo officers acted within guidelines, report says
Mississippi
Soccer moms beware
Military role grows on home front
BERENSON WITNESS WON'T TALK

ACTIVISTS
Controversial Army School To Be Protested In Washington This Week
Leon Sullivan, 78, Dies; Fought Apartheid
Thousands of Demonstrators Released in Ethiopia
Pakistan Detains Hundreds of Democracy Activists
Falun Gong Holds Protests on Anniversary of Big Sit-In
States
Anti-apartheid crusader Leon Sullivan dies at 78


-------- NUCLEAR

WEALTH OF NUCLEAR DATA

From: "Bill Smirnow" <smirnowb@ix.netcom.com>
Thu, 26 Apr 2001

1. http://www.geocities.com/mothersalert
HOMEPAGE

2. http://www.geocities.com/mothersalert/crac.html
CRAC-2 report documenting MASSIVE fatalities, cancers, injuries & property damage in case of Class-9 meltdown. CRAC-2 Report mandated by NRC, Study Carried Out By Sandia Labs

3. http://www.geocities.com/mothersalert/rickover.html
Admiral Hyman Rickover's daughter-in-law's signed, notorized statement about President Carter's Ongoing Cover Up Of 3 Mile Island & The ENTIRE commercial nuclear industry in the USA[possible international ramifications]

4. http://www.geocities.com/mothersalert/bertell.html
Dr Rosalie Bertell's Signed, Notorized Statement On Jimmy Carter's Ongoing Cover Up Of 3 Mile Island Accident. NRC & DOE involved, too.

4B. http://www.geocities.com/mothersalert/blanche.html
Whistlebower On Ongoing Cover Up Of 3 Mile Island. NRC & DOE Involved, too.

5. http://www.geocities.com/mothersalert/bertell2.html
History Of Lies & Permisssable Radiation Standards By Dr Rosalie Bertell

5A. http://www.geocities.com/mothersalert/stewart.html
Dr Alice Stewart On A-Bomb Data Being Wrongly Intrepreted

6. http://www.geocities.com/mothersalert/infant.html
Infant Mortality Rates Drop At 5 Reactors Sites After They're Closed

6A. http://www.geocities.com/mothersalert/nrcprocessflawed.html
Union Of Concerned Scientists On NRC's "Garbage In, Garbage Out" Methodology, NRC Can't Be Trusted Claims UCS

6B. http://www.geocities.com/mothersalert/taiwan.html
Over 7 Million Would Die At Taiwan NPP Meltdown

6C. http://www.geocities.com/mothersalert/violations.html
NRC Allows N-Industry To Violate Safety Rules At Over 90% Of Reactors In USA

6D. http://www.geocities.com/mothersalert/nrccongress.html
NRC Helps Industry Shape Policy & Lies To Congressman, Public

7. http://www.geocities.com/mothersalert/probability.html
NRC Admits To Congress 45% Chance Of Core Melt Over 20 Year Period

8. http://www.geocities.com/mothersalert/earthquake.html
NPPs & Earthquakes

9. http://www.geocities.com/mothersalert/generators.html
Weakest Links With NPPs- EDGs[Emergemcy Diesel Generators]

10. http://home.acadia.net/cbm/
Wide Variety Of Links/Data

11. http://www.geocities.com/mothersalert/nuclearwar.html
Graphic Description Of Nuclear War

12. http://www.geocities.com/mothersalert/nuclearwinter.html
Nuclear Winter

---------

China angry over news US will defend Taiwan

Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Thu, 26 Apr 2001
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newslink/weekly/newsnat-26apr2001-73.htm

China has reacted angrily to the news that the United States (US) is prepared to defend Taiwan in the event of an armed conflict.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry is warning the US "not to head down a dangerous road".

A Foreign Ministry official says the Chinese Government has become deeply concerned about the American actions and comments in the past few days, first promising to sell arms to Taiwan and now talking of doing "whatever it takes" to defend Taiwan.

The Chinese have lodged protests in Washington and Beijing, and say that Sino-American relations have reached a sensitive and complicated stage.

One area where China is considering retaliation, is through weapons nonproliferation agreements, where only last year China had agreed not to sell nuclear missile technology to other countries.

A spokesman says, given the Taiwan problems, it was hard to see how China could maintain such cooperation in the future.

---

China hints at reprisals over U.S. weapons sale

Seattle Times
By John Pomfret The Washington Post
Nation & World
Thursday, April 26, 2001
http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis/web/vortex/display?slug=china26&date=20010426

BEIJING - China responded angrily yesterday to a U.S. arms package for Taiwan by threatening to scale back cooperation with Washington on arms control.

In a "strong protest" lodged with the U.S. ambassador to China, Vice Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing said selling Taiwan submarines, destroyers and anti-submarine aircraft would "seriously impact" China-U.S. cooperation on preventing the spread of weapons and cause "destructive damage" to overall ties.

Li "urgently summoned" U.S. Ambassador Joseph Prueher and demanded the U.S. cancel the sale.

China has always made an unspoken link between U.S. weapons sales to Taiwan and its sale of weapons of mass destruction or weapons-related technology to nations such as Iran, Libya, North Korea, Pakistan and Iraq.

Experts said promises by China not to sell cruise missiles to Iran or cooperate with Iranian nuclear programs and a commitment in November not to export nuclear-missile technology could be at risk.

Washington's offer of arms to Taiwan and China's hardening response add to the strain on relations caused by an April 1 collision between a U.S. surveillance plane and a Chinese interceptor. China released the 24 U.S. crew members but still holds the plane.

Li said the weapons sale would "only further the arrogance of pro-Taiwan independence forces to split China, intensify the tension across the Taiwan Strait and harm peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region," a hint that the sale might prompt China to deploy more missiles across the strait from Taiwan or launch saber-rattling military exercises near Taiwan's shores.

Li stressed China's opposition to the sale to Prueher because it included for the first time a clearly offensive weapon, submarines. He said the move "scotched the U.S. lies of selling only defensive weaponry to Taiwan," according to a report on the meeting by the New China News Agency.

"The Chinese people cannot help asking: `Where on earth is the U.S. trying to lead Sino-U.S. relations?' "

China and Taiwan split amid civil war in 1949. Beijing considers Taiwan a part of China and has threatened to use force if the island refuses to reunify peacefully with the Chinese mainland. Taiwan rejects reunification on Beijing's terms but says it won't declare independence.

Chinese analysts said the reaction was more muted than it could have been because Washington deferred the sale of the most controversial item Taiwan requested: high-tech destroyers equipped with the Aegis combat-radar system.

In Taipei, President Chen Shui-bian thanked the Bush administration and Congress for their "concern and efforts regarding the balance of military power in the Taiwan Strait and Taiwan's security."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

---

China Threatens to Stop Aiding U.S. in Arms-Control Efforts

Salt Lake Tribunue
Thursday, April 26, 2001
BY JOHN LEICESTER THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.sltrib.com/04262001/nation_w/92153.htm

BEIJING -- China responded angrily Wednesday to a U.S. arms package for Taiwan by threatening to scale back cooperation with Washington on arms control, a move that could blunt U.S. efforts to prevent Beijing from arming other countries.

In a "strong protest" lodged with the U.S. ambassador to China, Vice Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing said selling Taiwan submarines, destroyers and anti-submarine aircraft would "seriously impact" China-U.S. cooperation in preventing the spread of weapons and cause "destructive damage" to overall ties.

Li's protest, reported by state-run media, was China's strongest response so far to the arms package announced formally Tuesday. President Bush said the weapons would allow Taiwan, which China claims as part of its territory, to defend itself.

The Chinese threat to curtail cooperation on arms control could be of serious concern to Washington. State media did not say whether Li specified what areas of nonproliferation would be hurt.

But experts said promises by China not to sell cruise missiles to Iran or cooperate with Iranian nuclear programs and a commitment last November not to export nuclear missile technology could be at risk.

China has "always attempted to draw the link between U.S. arms sales to Taiwan and Chinese arms sales to Pakistan, Iran, Libya and Syria," said Larry Wortzel, former military attachŽ to the U.S. Embassy in Beijing from 1995-1997.

"My sense is that they will now go back to very visible cooperation programs -- to which the United States objects -- with all or some of those countries," said Wortzel, now director of Asian studies at The Heritage Foundation in Washington.

Washington's arms offer and China's response to it adds to the strain on relations caused by an April 1 collision between a U.S. spy plane and a Chinese interceptor. China released the 24 U.S. crew members after 11 days but still holds the plane.

Beijing is also angry at Washington for granting a visa to Lee Teng-hui, the former president of Taiwan viewed in Beijing as a leading obstacle to China-Taiwan unification.

Experts warned that China may turn a blind eye toward companies exporting technologies with possible military uses.

"Who in the government is going to stand up and say we shouldn't sell technology to country A, B or C because of our agreement with the U.S.? Nobody," said Evan Medeiros of the Monterey Institute of International Studies.

-------- belarus

Belarus brought to its knees by 'invisible enemy'

Irish Times
Thursday, April 26, 2001
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/opinion/2001/0426/opt3.htm

Fifteen years after Chernobyl, the world has moved on. But for Belarus the problems are only beginning. Thyroid cancer rates have risen by 2,400 per cent since the explosion, writes Eugene Cahill

At 1.23 a.m. on April 26th, 1986, an explosion occurred in the No. 4 reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in Ukraine. Some 190 tons of highly radioactive uranium and graphite were blasted into the atmosphere.

The radioactive cloud released from the burning reactor travelled north into the neighbouring country of Belarus. It then moved east over western Russia and west across Europe.

The fallout from the disaster has directly affected over nine million people in Belarus, Ukraine and western Russia. The people of these countries were exposed to radioactivity 90 times greater than that released by the atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The UN has declared the disaster the worst environmental catastrophe in history.

It is the country of Belarus which has suffered, and continues to suffer, most from the disaster: 70 per cent of the radiation has fallen on its land and people.

Mr Vladislav Ostapenko, head of Belarus's Radiation Medicine Institute, told a recent press conference that "science cannot yet completely assess the consequences of the Chernobyl accident, but it is plain that a demographic catastrophe has occurred in our country.

"We are now seeing genetic changes, especially among those who were less than six years of age when the accident happened and they were subjected to radiation. These people are now starting families."

Medical research has shown that radioactive elements (primarily caesium 137 and iodine 131) cross the placental barrier from mother to foetus, contaminating each new generation. Faced with soaring levels of infertility and genetic changes, the gene pool of the Belarussian people is now under threat.

The rates of thyroid cancer have increased by 2,400 per cent in the 15 years since the disaster and this figure is expected to continue to rise. There has been a 1,000 per cent increase in suicides in the contaminated zones and a 250 per cent increase in congenital birth deformities.

With 99 per cent of the land of Belarus contaminated to varying degrees, the people of this stricken country are forced to live, eat, drink and breathe radiation.

Ms Adi Roche, executive director of the Chernobyl Children's Project, which has initiated 14 aid programmes for the stricken regions, has travelled on many humanitarian aid convoys to Belarus. She has found it to be "a country on its knees, struggling to fight against the invisible enemy of radiation, an enemy that is slowly destroying its people".

The Chernobyl disaster has financially crippled Belarus. It has cost the country 25 per cent of its annual national budget and it is estimated that by 2015 the fallout from the accident will have cost Belarus $235 billion.

Because there is no international law governing an accident such as that which occurred at Chernobyl, Belarus has received no compensation for the damage to it from either Ukraine or Russia.

In a vicious and toxic cycle, the country cannot afford to minimise the effects of the disaster because it is so economically crippled as a direct result of it.

Within the world's most radioactive environment, some 2,000 towns and villages lie eerily silent and empty. These towns were evacuated in the weeks and months following the disaster because of the extremely high levels of radioactivity.

Yet, in a very worrying development, the Belarussian authorities are attempting to change the existing laws relating to the protection of citizens suffering from the disaster to reduce the financial burden on the state.

Prof Nesterenko is a Belarussian scientist who carries out independent research into the effects of the contaminated land. His research is crucial to all aid work relating to the disaster carried out in Belarus.

He has warned that the authorities are propagating a return to living in contaminated zones instead of giving objective information to the population about the dangers to health of living in contaminated areas.

In spite of such a large-scale tragedy, the issue has been largely forgotten or ignored by the international community and the voices of the victims remain largely unheard.

Fifteen years after the disaster - at a time when its full consequences have not yet peaked - there is a growing complacency within the international community about it.

There is an urgent and vital need for the Chernobyl issue to be placed back at the top of the international agenda.

Most of the aid to the affected regions is collected and distributed by international non-governmental organisations. If the problems are to be correctly tackled, it is imperative that increased financial commitments be given by UN member-states to the relief effort. Every government and every country has a crucial role to play.

Although the Chernobyl power plant was finally closed down last December, it is by no means the end of the problem. An omnipresent threat of nuclear apocalypse still hangs over much of Europe.

Within the last few weeks, a former director of security services in the Chernobyl region, Mr Valentine Kupny, has warned that radiation is still seeping from the entombed reactor.

Speaking in last week's German weekly Focus, he alerted people to the fact that the steel casing entombing the nuclear reactor was crumbling and in imminent danger of collapse. When this casing collapses, much of what will happen will depend on the wind.

Mr Kupny has said that nobody knows exactly what is happening inside the reactor. "In September 1996 we recorded the last atomic chain reaction but it is very possible that something is happening now. We don't know."

Mr Kupny was dismissed from his post shortly after his interview for the article. Many people do not want to hear the truth.

Isn't it about time that we did?

Eugene Cahill is press officer of the Chernobyl Children's Project.

-------- business

USEC Inc. income for its third fiscal quarter

Thursday, April 26, 2001
Washington Post

USEC Inc., a Bethesda-based processor of enriched uranium, said its net income for its third fiscal quarter, ended March 31, was $45.4 million (56 cents a share) on revenue of $243.1 million, compared with net income of $22.6 million (25 cents) on revenue of $281.8 million in the same period a year earlier.

The quarter's net income included a $37.3 million tax credit associated with the company's transformation into a private company three years ago. Excluding the credit, the company earned $8.1 million, compared with $22.6 million a year earlier.

USEC's first nine months' net income was $70.9 million (88 cents) on revenue of $857 million, compared with net income of $71.3 million (77 cents) on revenue of $960.3 million.

The company attributed the deline in its operating performance to slower sales of enriched uranium and lower prices billed to customers.

• Choice Hotels International Inc., a Silver Spring-based franchiser of hotels such as Comfort, Quality, Sleep Inn and Clarion, said its first-quarter net income was $7.4 million (16 cents a share) on revenue of $26.9 million, compared with net income of $8.8 million (16 cents) on revenue of $24.9 million in the first three months of 2000.

Choice said its royalty fees grew during the quarter because of a 4.9 percent increase in revenue per available room, a key measure of hotels' financial performance. Choice signed on 57 hotels during the quarter as franchisees, bringing the number of Choice hotels worldwide to 4,390, a 3.2 percent increase from a year ago.

----

Shipbuilders to Merge
General Dynamics Buying Newport News

By Greg Schneider
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 26, 2001; Page E01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A2401-2001Apr25?language=printer

Two years after the Navy rejected the same merger, General Dynamics Corp. said yesterday that it has agreed to buy Newport News Shipbuilding Inc. for $2.6 billion in cash and assumed debt.

The combination would create the Navy's dominant supplier of ships and its only source of nuclear-powered vessels. General Dynamics, which is headquartered in Falls Church, currently builds nuclear submarines at its Electric Boat Corp. subsidiary in Connecticut, while Newport News builds nuclear subs and is the Navy's only builder of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers.

The deal would take consolidation of the U.S. shipbuilding industry about as far as it can go, leaving only one other major player: Northrop Grumman Corp., which never built ships until purchasing Litton Industries Inc. earlier this month.

The Navy has aggressively guarded its dwindling industrial base. When General Dynamics made an unsolicited $1.5 billion offer to purchase Newport News in 1999, the Navy blocked the deal.

But many analysts say circumstances have changed and the Bush administration will be friendlier to the merger. "I think they're going to do it this time," said Stuart McCutchan, publisher of the Defense Mergers & Acquisitions newsletter. Such a combination offers the prospect of cost savings that should prove irresistible for a Navy that is struggling to pay for its weapons needs, McCutchan said.

The deal has already picked up key political support. Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.), who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a statement yesterday that he met with top executives the night before the announcement and gave the marriage his blessing.

"The terms and conditions the companies have negotiated . . . will protect the jobs of shipyard workers in both yards who build the best nuclear navy platforms in the world," Warner said, adding that he telephoned Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to inform him of the deal.

Top company executives said at a news conference that they had notified the Defense Department of their intent but did not seek or receive a specific reaction.

"We sort of have an intuitive feeling that the Navy and the Department of Defense are going to be supportive of this deal, just from having worked with them over the last several years," Newport News chief executive William P. Fricks said.

He added that when the Navy opposed the 1999 deal, there was less certainty about how many ships the military would buy in coming years. Now, Fricks said, although the Bush administration is reviewing weapons priorities, the companies believe the Navy will stay on its current course and buy at least one nuclear submarine a year and a carrier every five or six years.

The submarine construction contracts alternated between Newport News and Electric Boat. Thus, the executives said, there has been no real competition in nuclear shipbuilding in nearly a decade.

Newport News and General Dynamics have worked so closely in divvying up contracts, Fricks said, "it just coalesced to the point where it sort of cried out to merge the companies."

General Dynamics chairman and chief executive Nicholas D. Chabraja said that by combining purchasing power and eliminating overlapping management functions, the companies will be able to save "in the low billions" over the next decade.

Chabraja said he has no plans to lay off hourly workers or engineers at either shipyard.

While the merged company will be a dominant shipbuilder, it faces competition from Northrop Grumman, whose purchase of Litton Industries included the nation's other primary military shipyards, Ingalls in Mississippi and Avondale in Louisiana.

Neither of those shipyards handles any nuclear work, but one industry official pointed out that Northrop Grumman's sheer size -- some $12 billion a year in sales -- left Newport News in need of a partner with similarly deep pockets.

Newport News Shipbuilding has 17,000 employees and posted revenue of $2.07 billion last year. General Dynamics, which also makes tanks, Gulfstream business jets and information technology systems, employs 46,000 and expects sales of $11.5 billion this year.

Yesterday's deal has already been approved by the boards of both companies, and executives said they expect to clear regulatory hurdles in time to close the sale in the third quarter.

General Dynamics said it will pay $67.50 per share to Newport News shareholders. It also will assume $500 million in Newport News debt, bringing the total value to $2.6 billion.

"I think they're paying a full price for Newport News," analyst Rob Norfleet of Davenport & Co. in Richmond said. Newport News stock had been trading in the low 50s this month, but rocketed up $9.05 yesterday to close at $64.10 a share.

General Dynamics lost $1.38 a share to close at $72.73.

Analyst Heidi Wood at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter said it simply seemed to be a deal whose time has come.

"You've had a realization on the part of the Navy that they're probably not going to build as many submarines as they thought two years ago, so the question arises of whether you need to maintain quote-unquote competition at the expense of a lower-priced boat," Wood said. The new administration "might have a different philosophy relative to competition," she added.

One member of that administration is likely to be retired General Dynamics executive Gordon England, who President Bush has said will be his nominee as secretary of the Navy. "One should expect that he will probably recuse himself from this situation," Wood said, "but it can't hurt."

-------- depleted uranium

DU research - call for info

Thu, 26 Apr 2001

Dear DU campaigners

At a recent CADU meeting we came to realise that an area of research that has so far been largely overlooked is the trade in weapons and products made from DU materials. We believe it will strengthen the campaign against depleted uranium if we are able to say who has been manufacturing which products and weapons, in what quantities, who has been trading in DU products, who has been buying them, in what quantities and for how much in financial terms, who are the principal suppliers of the raw material, how are DU products being transported and along which routes, road, rail, air or sea and so on. In short we want to know who is profiting from the sale and use of DU products. We are certain the information is there to be found, but we are looking to collate and organise that information, with the aim of producing a briefing pack or report that makes the information readily and comprehensively available.

This research is currently in its initial stage and I am writing to you for help in getting material together. If you have any information or leads that may help us I would be grateful if you can send it on. Specifically at the moment we are looking to compile a comprehensive itinery of DU products - weapons in particular. We know of quite a few already but we would like to make sure we have a list that is as complete as possible. Any additional information regarding manufacturing company, end users etc. on the lines outlined above would be gratefully received.

If you are able to help then please let us know, or if you know of someone who may be able to help then please forward this message. You can reply directly to me philb@redbricks.org.uk, or write to Philip Boast, c/o CADU, Bridge 5 Mill, 22a Beswick St., Mcr, M4 7HR, tel (0161) 273 8293.

Phil Boast Campaign Against Depleted Uranium

-------

Children Most at Risk From Depleted Uranium

April 26, 2001
ENS
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/apr2001/2001L-04-26-11.html

GENEVA, Switzerland, The World Health Organization (WHO) today published research on depleted uranium, including guidelines on how to deal with the substance's impact on human health.

Weapons made with depleted uranium (DU) pierce solid objects, like tanks, before erupting in a burning cloud of vapor. The vapor settles as dust, which is chemically poisonous and radioactive.

"Depleted uranium has the potential to have chemical and radiological effects on health, but we found in the review that exposure to DU would have to be significant before any health effects are observed," said Dr. Mike Repacholi, WHO's coordinator for occupational and environmental health.

Children caught in the Balkans conflict in which depleted uranium munitions were used. (Photo courtesy War Child)

WHO recommends measures are taken to prevent exposure of young children to depleted uranium because they may face particular risk.

"Young children could receive greater depleted uranium exposure when playing within a conflict zone because of hand to mouth activity that could result in high depleted uranium ingestion from contaminated soil," said the WHO research. "This type of exposure needs to be monitored and necessary preventative measures taken."

"Heavily affected DU munitions zones should be cordoned off and then cleaned up and treated as if any other heavy metal waste had contaminated the soil," added the organization.

Uranium is a naturally occurring, ubiquitous, heavy metal found in various chemical forms in all soils, rocks, seas and oceans. It is also present in drinking water and food.

Depleted uranium, a byproduct of nuclear power, has a density about twice that of lead, which has led to its use as counterweights or ballast in aircraft, radiation shields in medical equipment used for radiation therapy and containers for the transport of radioactive materials.

Those same physical properties have seen DU used in munitions designed to penetrate armour plating and for reinforcement of military vehicles.

First used in the Gulf War in 1990-1991, DU's possible health risks gained wider attention after its use during the Balkan conflict in 1998 and 1999.

NATO is estimated to have fired 31,000 DU shells during the Kosovo campaign in 1998 and 1999. Some of that ammunition still litters Kosovo, and other parts of Yugoslavia.

DU penetrator. (Photo courtesy U.S. Department of Defense)

After a peace agreement in the summer of 1999, that saw Serb forces withdraw from Kosovo to be replaced by NATO peacekeepers, the United Nations set up the Balkans Task Force to assess the environmental damage of the Kosovo conflict.

In response to a request from UN secretary general Kofi Annan and the United Nations Environment Program, NATO provided the exact coordinates of the target sites, enabling the task force to make proper measurements of DU sites in Kosovo.

With help from other UN agencies, such as WHO, researchers hope to find out whether the use of depleted uranium during the conflict may pose health or environmental risks.

"Depleted Uranium: Sources, Exposure and Health Effects," makes several recommendations regarding DU, which according to WHO, has 60 percent of the radioactivity of natural uranium and "significant chemical toxicity."

WHO says it is not necessary to screen the general population in areas where DU munitions have been used. But, it adds that those who believe they have been exposed to the substance should see a medical practitioner.

People in Glogovac, Kosovo. (Photo courtesy Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe)

"The greatest potential for DU exposure occurs after conflicts when people living or working in affected areas could inhale dust or consume contaminated food and drinking water," WHO said.

The agency warns that after DU munitions are used, "in some instances the levels of contamination in food and groundwater could rise after some years and should be monitored and appropriate measures taken where there is a reasonable possibility of significant quantities of depleted uranium entering the food chain."

"Potentially, DU has both chemical and radiological toxicity with the two important target organs being the kidneys and the lungs," said the WHO review, which notes that DU munitions have been used only relatively recently and the science has not yet thoroughly addressed the effects.

The agency recommends further research, including studies to clarify the extent of kidney damage and its possible reversibility.

--------

WHO MAKES RECOMMENDATIONS ON DEPLETED URANIUM AND HEALTH IN NEW MONOGRAPH

Press Release WHO/22
26 April 2001
http://www.who.int/inf-pr-2001/en/pr2001-22.html

The World Health Organization (WHO) today published Depleted Uranium: Sources, Exposure and Health Effects, a monograph containing a number of recommendations regarding depleted uranium (DU) and human health. The monograph is the product of a review of the best available scientific literature on uranium and depleted uranium. It provides a framework for identifying the likely consequences of public and occupational exposure to DU.

"DU has the potential to have chemical and radiological effects on health, but we found in the review that exposure to DU would have to be significant before any health effects are observed," said Dr Mike Repacholi, Coordinator, Occupational and Environmental Health, WHO.

In order to protect against significant exposure, WHO recommends that:

exposure to DU of young children be monitored and preventive measures are taken, as children might be at particular risk of exposure because of the way they play;

heavily affected DU munitions impact zones be cleaned up and treated in the same way as if any other heavy metal waste had contaminated the soil. Such sites should be cordoned off until clean-up takes place. Disposal of DU fragments should come under appropriate national or international recommendations for disposal of radioactive materials;

drinking water and food, if contamination is suspected, be monitored and appropriate action is taken;

individuals who believe they have been exposed to DU and are concerned see their medical practitioner. However, general screening of populations living in areas where DU munitions were used is not called for.

Available at www.who.int/environmental_information/radiation/depleted_uranium.htm, the monograph contains a comprehensive scientific assessment of the chemical and radiological risks of DU for health. It was undertaken by WHO as part of its ongoing environmental health reviews. Information is given on situations where exposures might arise for workers and the general public, the likely routes and potential health risks of intake of DU with different solubility characteristics. Estimates of levels of exposure that are unlikely to lead to health effects are provided.

The greatest potential for DU exposure occurs after conflict when people living or working in affected areas could inhale dusts or consume contaminated food and drinking water.

A by-product of the process of uranium enrichment, DU has 60% of the radioactivity of natural uranium and significant chemical toxicity.

Measurements of environmental DU at selected sites in Kosovo (Federal Republic of Yugoslavia) by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) indicate localized contamination (within a few tens of meters of impact sites) at the ground surface. This suggests that the likelihood of health consequences to the local population is very low unless people are active at the impact sites or the DU progresses in significant quantities to the food chain or ground water.

The monograph indicates that there are still important gaps in knowledge about the effects of DU on the human body and identifies areas for future research. For instance, further studies are needed to clarify the understanding of the extent of kidney damage and its possible reversibility. DU munitions were used in conflicts only relatively recently and the science has not yet thoroughly addressed this exposure situation.

For further information, please contact Ms. Melinda Henry, Spokesperson's Office, WHO, Geneva. Tel.: (+41 22) 791 2535. Fax: (+41 22) 791 4858; E-mail: henrym@who.int. All WHO Press Releases, Fact Sheets and Features as well as other information on the subject, can be obtained on Internet on the WHO web site: http://www.who.int

---

Depleted uranium: sources, exposure and health effects

Executive summary
http://www.who.int/environmental_information/radiation/depluraniumexecsume.htm

This scientific review on depleted uranium is part of the World Health Organization's (WHO's) ongoing process of assessment of possible health effects of exposure to chemical, physical and biological agents. Concerns about possible health consequences to populations residing in conflict areas where depleted uranium munitions were used have raised many important environmental health questions that are addressed in this monograph.

Purpose and scope

The main purpose of the monograph is to examine health risks that could arise from exposure to depleted uranium. The monograph is intended to be a desk reference providing useful information and recommendations to WHO Member States so that they may deal appropriately with the issue of depleted uranium and human health.

Information is given on sources of depleted uranium exposure, the likely routes of acute and chronic intake, the potential health risks from both the radiological and chemical toxicity standpoints and future research needs. Several ways of uptake of compounds with widely different solubility characteristics are also considered.

Information about uranium is used extensively because it behaves in the body the same way as depleted uranium.

Uranium and depleted uranium

Uranium is a naturally occurring, ubiquitous, heavy metal found in various chemical forms in all soils, rocks, seas and oceans. It is also present in drinking water and food. On average, approximately 90 µg (micrograms) of uranium exist in the human body from normal intakes of water, food and air; approximately 66% is found in the skeleton, 16% in the liver, 8% in the kidneys and 10% in other tissues.

Natural uranium consists of a mixture of three radioactive isotopes which are identified by the mass numbers 238U(99.27% by mass), 235U(0.72%) and 234U(0.0054%).

Uranium is used primarily in nuclear power plants; most reactors require uranium in which the 235U content is enriched from 0.72% to about 3%. The uranium remaining after removal of the enriched fraction is referred to as depleted uranium. Depleted uranium typically contains about 99.8% 238U, 0.2% 235U and 0.0006% 234U by mass.

For the same mass, depleted uranium has about 60% of the radioactivity of uranium.

Depleted uranium may also result from the reprocessing of spent nuclear reactor fuel. Under these conditions another uranium isotope, 236U may be present together with very small amounts of the transuranic elements plutonium, americium and neptunium and the fission product technetium-99. The increase in the radiation dose from the trace amounts of these additional elements is less than 1%. This is insignificant with respect to both chemical and radiological toxicity.

Uses of depleted uranium

Depleted uranium has a number of peaceful applications: counterweights or ballast in aircraft, radiation shields in medical equipment used for radiation therapy and containers for the transport of radioactive materials.

Due to its high density, which is about twice that of lead, and other physical properties, depleted uranium is used in munitions designed to penetrate armour plate. It also reinforces military vehicles, such as tanks.

Exposure and exposure pathways

Individuals can be exposed to depleted uranium in the same way they are routinely exposed to natural uranium, i.e. by inhalation, ingestion and dermal contact (including injury by embedded fragments).

Inhalation is the most likely route of intake during or following the use of depleted uranium munitions in conflict or when depleted uranium in the environment is re-suspended in the atmosphere by wind or other forms of disturbance. Accidental inhalation may also occur as a consequence of a fire in a depleted uranium storage facility, an aircraft crash or the decontamination of vehicles from within or near conflict areas.

Ingestion could occur in large sections of the population if their drinking water or food became contaminated with depleted uranium. In addition, the ingestion of soil by children is also considered a potentially important pathway.

Dermal contact is considered a relatively unimportant type of exposure since little of the depleted uranium will pass across the skin into the blood. However, depleted uranium could enter the systemic circulation through open wounds or from embedded depleted uranium fragments.

Body retention

Most (>95%) uranium entering the body is not absorbed, but is eliminated via the faeces. Of the uranium that is absorbed into the blood, approximately 67% will be filtered by the kidney and excreted in the urine in 24 hours.

Typically between 0.2 and 2% of the uranium in food and water is absorbed by the gastrointestinal tract. Soluble uranium compounds are more readily absorbed than those which are insoluble.

Health effects

Potentially depleted uranium has both chemical and radiological toxicity with the two important target organs being the kidneys and the lungs. Health consequences are determined by the physical and chemical nature of the depleted uranium to which an individual is exposed, and to the level and duration of exposure.

Long-term studies of workers exposed to uranium have reported some impairment of kidney function depending on the level of exposure. However, there is also some evidence that this impairment may be transient and that kidney function returns to normal once the source of excessive uranium exposure has been removed.

Insoluble inhaled uranium particles, 1-10 µm in size, tend to be retained in the lung and may lead to irradiation damage of the lung and even lung cancer if a high enough radiation dose results over a prolonged period.

Direct contact of depleted uranium metal with the skin, even for several weeks, is unlikely to produce radiation-induced erythema (superficial inflammation of the skin) or other short term effects. Follow-up studies of veterans with embedded fragments in the tissue have shown detectable levels of depleted uranium in the urine, but without apparent health consequences. The radiation dose to military personnel within an armoured vehicle is very unlikely to exceed the average annual external dose from natural background radiation from all sources.

Guidance on chemical toxicity and radiological dose

The monograph gives for the different types of exposure the tolerable intake, an estimate of the intake of a substance that can occur over a lifetime without appreciable health risk. These tolerable intakes are applicable to long term exposure. Single and short term exposures to higher levels may be tolerated without adverse effects but quantitative information is not available to assess how much the long term tolerable intake values may be temporarily exceeded without risk.

The general public's ingestion of soluble uranium compounds should not exceed the tolerable intake of 0.5 µg per kg of body weight per day. Insoluble uranium compounds are markedly less toxic to the kidneys, and a tolerable intake of 5 µg per kg of body weight per day is applicable.

Inhalation of soluble or insoluble depleted uranium compounds by the public should not exceed 1 µg/m3 in the respirable fraction. This limit is derived from renal toxicity for soluble uranium compounds, and from radiation exposure for insoluble uranium compounds.

Excessive worker exposure to depleted uranium via ingestion is unlikely in workplaces where occupational health measures are in place.

Occupational exposure to soluble and insoluble uranium compounds, as an 8-hour time weighted average should not exceed 0.05 mg/m3. This limit is also based both on chemical effects and radiation exposure.

Radiation dose limits

Radiation dose limits are prescribed for exposures above natural background levels.

For occupational exposure, the effective dose should not exceed 20 millisieverts (mSv) per year averaged over five consecutive years, or an effective dose of 50 mSv in any single year. The equivalent dose to the extremities (hands and feet) or the skin should not exceed 500 mSv in a year.

For exposure of the general public the effective dose should not exceed 1 mSv in a year; in special circumstances, the effective dose can be limited to 5 mSv in a single year provided that the average dose over five consecutive years does not exceed 1 mSv per year. The equivalent dose to the skin should not exceed 50 mSv in a year.

Assessment of intake and treatment

For the general population it is unlikely that the exposure to depleted uranium will significantly exceed the normal background uranium levels. When there is a good reason to believe that an exceptional exposure has taken place, the best way to verify this is to measure uranium in the urine.

The intake of depleted uranium can be determined from the amounts excreted daily in urine. depleted uranium levels are determined using sensitive mass spectrometric techniques; in such circumstances it should be possible to assess doses at the mSv level.

Faecal monitoring can give useful information on intake if samples are collected soon after exposure.

External radiation monitoring of the chest is of limited application because it requires the use of specialist facilities, and measurements need to be made soon after exposure for the purpose of dose assessment. Even under optimal conditions the minimum doses that can be assessed are in the tens of mSv.

There is no suitable treatment for highly exposed individuals that can be used to appreciably reduce the systemic content of depleted uranium when the time between exposure and treatment exceeds a few hours. Patients should be treated based on the symptoms observed.

Conclusions: Environment

Only military use of depleted uranium is likely to have any significant impact on environmental levels. Measurements of depleted uranium at sites where depleted uranium munitions were used indicate only localized (within a few tens of metres of the impact site) contamination at the ground surface. However, in some instances the levels of contamination in food and ground water could rise after some years and should be monitored and appropriate measures taken where there is a reasonable possibility of significant quantities of depleted uranium entering the food chain. The WHO guidelines for drinking-water quality, 2 µg of uranium per litre, would apply to depleted uranium.

Where possible clean-up operations in conflict impact zones should be undertaken where there are substantial numbers of radioactive particles remaining and depleted uranium contamination levels are deemed unacceptable by qualified experts. Areas with very high concentrations of depleted uranium may need to be cordoned off until they are cleaned up

Since depleted uranium is a mildly radioactive metal, restrictions are needed on the disposal of depleted uranium. There is the possibility that depleted uranium scrap metal could be added to other scrap metals for use in refabricated products. Disposal should conform to appropriate recommendations for use of radioactive materials.

Conclusions: Exposed populations

Limitation on human intake of soluble depleted uranium compounds should be based on a tolerable intake value of 0.5 µg per kg of body weight per day, and that the intake of insoluble depleted uranium compounds should be based on both chemical effects and the radiation dose limits prescribed in the International Basic Safety Standards (BSS) on radiation protection. Exposure to depleted uranium should be controlled to the levels recommended for protection against radiological and chemical toxicity outlined in the monograph for both soluble and insoluble depleted uranium compounds.

General screening or monitoring for possible depleted uranium-related health effects in populations living in conflict areas where depleted uranium has been used is not necessary. Individuals who believe they have been exposed to excessive amounts of depleted uranium should consult their medical practitioner for examination, appropriate treatment of any symptoms and follow-up.

Young children could receive greater depleted uranium exposure when playing within a conflict zone because of hand-to-mouth activity that could result in high depleted uranium ingestion from contaminated soil. This type of exposure needs to be monitored and necessary preventative measures taken.

Conclusions: Research

Gaps in knowledge exist and further research is recommended in key areas that would allow better health risk assessments to be made. In particular, studies are needed to clarify our understanding of the extent, reversibility and possible existence of thresholds for kidney damage in people exposed to depleted uranium. Important information could come from studies of populations exposed to naturally elevated concentrations of uranium in drinking water.

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Japan village to hold referendum on nuclear fuel

JAPAN: April 26, 2001
Story by Miho Yoshikawa
REUTERS
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10630

TOKYO - Amid mounting anti-nuclear feeling in Japan, a northern village will hold a rare referendum next month to decide on the use of recycled nuclear fuel in a local power plant, a local official said yesterday.

The vote, which will not be legally binding, will be held on May 27 and will address whether Japan's largest power utility, Tokyo Electric Power Co Inc (TEPCO) , should be allowed to use the fuel at its Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant in Kariwa on the Sea of Japan coast, the official said.

Village leader Hiroo Shinada took the decision to hold the referendum for Kariwa's 4,141 eligible voters, the official said.

"I believe Mr Shinada made the decision to hold the referendum after giving the matter very serious thought," TEPCO President Nobuya Minami said in a statement. "TEPCO will... put all its efforts into gaining understanding for... the fuel."

The use of MOX - a blend of uranium and plutonium recycled from spent nuclear fuel - in conventional reactors is a cornerstone of Japan's energy policy. The resource-poor country depends on nuclear energy for a third of its power needs.

Anti-nuclear campaigners say TEPCO would find it difficult to ignore the result of the vote even if it is not binding.

"If the majority vote against the use of MOX, the power company can hardly take a step that goes against their wishes," said Baku Nishio of the Citizens Nuclear Information Centre.

The referendum itself indicated that there is probably widespread opposition to the use of the nuclear fuel, he said.

Rising public pressure has left the industry behind schedule in plans to begin commercial use of MOX, initially set for 1999.

Critics charge that Mox fuel is dangerous and does not make economic sense because it is more expensive than conventional nuclear fuel.

A string of nuclear accidents in recent years has bolstered their cause and seriously eroded public faith in Japan's nuclear industry.

TEPCO had aimed to load the fuel at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant's 1,100 megawatt (MW) No 3 reactor during a maintenance closure between April 17 and July 13.

A spokesman said a final decision on whether to load MOX fuel or conventional nuclear fuel would be made by mid-June.

Last week, TEPCO said it had decided not to load MOX fuel at its Fukushima No 1 nuclear power plant in northern Japan during a current maintenance closure.

In February, the Fukushima governor said he would not allow the use of the fuel, noting deep-seated public opposition.

DEEPSEATED PUBLIC DISTRUST

Japan's worst nuclear accident occurred on September 1999 at a uranium processing facility run by JCO Co Ltd in Tokaimura, 140 km (90 miles) northeast of Tokyo, exposing plant workers, emergency personnel and hundreds of residents to radiation.

Workers at the plant used a bucket to mistakenly load nearly eight times the safe amount of condensed uranium into a mixing tank, triggering a self-sustaining nuclear reaction that took 20 hours to bring under control. Two workers later died.

Even before the Tokaimura accident, public distrust in the nuclear industry was rife.

Japan held its first-ever referendum, in August 1996, on whether to allow construction of a nuclear power plant in the small coastal farming town of Maki in northern Japan.

The town's 23,000 people voted overwhelmingly against Tohoku Electric Power Co Inc's plan to build the 825 MW plant.

Tohoku Electric vowed at the time to forge ahead with the plan. But a spokesman for the utility, Japan's fourth-largest, said yesterday it had decided last year to postpone commercial operation of the plant until the business year 2012/13.

He cited the company's failure to acquire all the land it needed for the plant as a reason. Tohoku Electric has 96 percent of the required land, no more than it had in 1996, he said.

"We also believe we need more time to win the understanding of local people," he added.

Since the vote in Maki, more referendums have been held.

Last year, residents in Tokushima Prefecture, on western Shikoku island, rejected a dam in the first referendum ever held on a public works project.

"The referendum provides a means for local people to express their views, and as such it is important," Ban said.

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Chernobyl's deadly legacy -- 15 years on

CNN
April 26, 2001
http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe/04/25/ukraine.chernobyl/index.html

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukraine is marking the 15th anniversary of the world's worst nuclear accident, with the Chernobyl power plant finally lying idle.

But the former Eastern Bloc country is still dealing with the deadly legacy of the catastrophic explosion and fire on April 26, 1986, which sent a large radiation cloud over much of Europe and contaminated large areas of then-Soviet Ukraine, Russia and Belarus.

With the last operating reactor at Chernobyl shut in December, the government is struggling to provide employment to some 6,000 Chernobyl workers and take care of the workers' town of Slavutych.

"The 2001 budget did not provide for the social needs and for works related to the plant's closure," says Chernobyl Director Vitaly Tolstonohov. "We had to do much work in resolving the questions of financing, and have partially solved them."

More than 4,000 people who took part in the hasty clean-up have died, according to government estimates, and over 70,000 Ukrainians left fully disabled.

Altogether, Ukraine's health ministry estimates that one in 16 of the population of 49 million is suffering from grave health disorders linked to the disaster with 400,000 adults and 1.1. million children entitle to state aid.

Thyroid cancers in particular are on the rise -- with neighbouring Belarus having similar problems.

Several thousand of those affected gathered in Kiev in the weekend to protests that they were not receiving their state entitlement.

"Chernobyl victims are now owned 737 million hryvna ($136 million) and the debt grows by up to 40 million hryvna every month," said Yuriy Andreev, who heads a victims' union.

The greatest worry remains the visibly rusting concrete and steel sarcophagus over the ruined reactor which a $758 million internationally-funded project now aims to make environmentally safe.

And there is growing frustration that other money promised by the international community to compensate for the loss of Chernobyl electricity -- in particular to complete two new reactors -- has not materialised, with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development raising new conditions for loans.

"I consider this is as unwillingness to fund construction of the reactors," said President Leonid Kuchma.

"Why do we go with our hand outstretched, and they always beat us on our hands by various conditions? Didn't we know that it would be so when we were closing down Chernobyl?"

---

Chernobyl anniversary haunts Ukraine

Planet Ark
April 26, 2001
Story by Nino Ivanishvili
REUTERS
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10629

SLAVUTYCH, Ukraine - Dina Shafun, now a student with long blonde hair, was a five-year-old playing in the spring sunshine when it became apparent something had gone badly wrong at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant down the road.

On April 26, 15 years ago, nobody in the town of Pripyat, seven km (four miles) north of the station, realised what was happening as Chernobyl's fourth reactor began to spew radiation into the air hundreds of times worse than that unleashed by the Hiroshima bomb in Japan in 1945.

Ukraine marks the explosion's anniversary on Thursday, this year for the first time since drawing a line under the accident last December by decommissioning the last functioning reactor at the world's most infamous power station.

But for many, including the Shafun family, Chernobyl will not go away.

On the day of the accident in 1986, Dina and her family only grasped something was amiss when they returned to their ninth floor flat in Pripyat which afforded a clear view of the four reactor blocks set among lush trees.

The impossible had happened. Chernobyl was on fire, smoke pouring from its reactor housing which was rapidly becoming a burnt-out shell.

"I only remember crying in complete despair when it seemed everybody was leaving the town, and we were leaving behind our father," Dina told Reuters Television yesterday.

About 26,000 people had to be evacuated that night. But Dina's father, Serhiy, who to this day is among 9,000 staff still working at the plant, had to stay behind because he was on shift the next day.

That was not unusual in the Soviet Union, which in the coming weeks and months would send hundreds of poorly protected "liquidators" or clean-up workers to the highly radioactive area around Chernobyl. Many have since died.

MILLIONS IRRADIATED

Officially, 31 firemen died in the blaze at Chernobyl. Millions more people are estimated to have suffered or died from the effects of the radiation doses they received as a cloud of fallout swept across Europe.

The Shafun family are lucky. They say they have not suffered health problems and live in what by Ukrainian standards is a comfortable house in Slavutych, a town 50 km (30 miles) west of Chernobyl built for workers at the plant after the accident.

But Ukraine's health ministry estimates that one in sixteen people in the country of 49 million is suffering from grave health disorders linked to the disaster.

Thyroid cancers, especially among children, have spiked up. Neighbouring Belarus has similar problems.

The plant itself is also still beset with problems. Western countries pledged to help fund the closure, but Ukrainian officials complain that little money has yet appeared.

A steel-reinforced concrete "sarcophagus" enclosing tonnes of radioactive dust in the burnt-out reactor is visibly rusting, but little progress has been made towards replacing it.

And the people of Slavutych, the Shafun family among them, wonder what will become of them as jobs are gradually phased out and working hours reduced in Chernobyl's reactor halls and offices.

"We realise a lot of people in the world felt relieved (by the plant's closure)," said Serhiy Pavlovsky, a spokesman for the power station.

"But our own feelings are negative here in the Chernobyl nuclear power station. Our prospects are uncertain."

---

Anniversary of Chernobyl Marked

New York Times
April 26, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Chernobyl-Anniversary.html

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) -- With prayers and flickering candles, people across the former Soviet Union honored those killed and sickened 15 years ago by the world's worst nuclear disaster at Ukraine's Chernobyl power plant.

In Moscow, hundreds of people mourned firefighters who died after the radioactive explosion and were buried in radiation-proof coffins. In Kiev, hundreds more people attended an overnight memorial service at a chapel built to commemorate the disaster.

The scene was repeated in the Belarusian capital and in Slavutych, a town of Chernobyl workers close to the plant. In Rome, Pope John Paul II prayed for the victims. The pope is scheduled to visit Ukraine in June.

The April 26, 1986, explosion and fire sent a radioactive cloud over much of Europe and contaminated large areas in then-Soviet Ukraine, Russia and Belarus.

The Ukrainian government says more than 4,000 people involved in the hasty and poorly organized Soviet cleanup effort have died, and that more than 70,000 Ukrainians were disabled by the disaster.

In all, 7 million people in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine are estimated to suffer physical or psychological effects of radiation related to the Chernobyl catastrophe.

At the chapel in Kiev, mourners held burning candles as priests prayed for the dead. The chapel bell rang shortly after 1 a.m., the time the reactor exploded. Some in the crowd broke into tears.

Early Wednesday, Ukrainian leaders laid wreaths at a monument to firefighters and emergency workers next to the chapel. A similar service was held in Slavutych, where President Leonid Kuchma said the disaster continues to hobble Ukraine's development.

``Human calamities and problems born by the disaster remain,'' Kuchma said. ``For 15 years, Ukraine has born the cross of Chernobyl practically alone, we had to do everything on our own in unfavorable economic conditions.''

In the Vatican, the pope prayed for the Chernobyl victims at a service attended by Ukrainian children.

At Moscow's Mitino cemetery, hundreds of relatives and friends paid tribute to dead firefighters.

``We have come here for 15 years and I will come with my husband as long as we have our health,'' said Valentyna Lopatiuk, whose son was a Chernobyl firefighter.

In neighboring Belarus, thousands of people turned out for an evening rally in the capital, Minsk, to commemorate the tragedy.

Following the explosion, other reactors at Chernobyl continued operating until shutting down in December under intense international pressure.

At the plant itself, workers still monitor the now-idle reactors, and they are building a heating plant and facilities for nuclear waste disposal and reprocessing.

They are also involved in a $758 million, internationally funded project to repair the leaky concrete and steel sarcophagus over the ruined reactor.

---

Former Soviet republics honor Chernobyl victims

USA Today
04/26/2001 - Updated 03:04 PM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2001-04-26-chernobyl.htm

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) - With prayers and flickering candles, people across the former Soviet Union honored those killed and sickened 15 years ago by the world's worst nuclear disaster at Ukraine's Chernobyl power plant.

In Moscow, hundreds of people mourned firefighters who died after the radioactive explosion and were buried in radiation-proof coffins. In Kiev, hundreds more people attended an overnight memorial service at a chapel built to commemorate the disaster.

The scene was repeated in the Belarusian capital and in Slavutych, a town of Chernobyl workers close to the plant. In Rome, Pope John Paul II prayed for the victims. The pope is scheduled to visit Ukraine in June.

The April 26, 1986, explosion and fire sent a radioactive cloud over much of Europe and contaminated large areas in then-Soviet Ukraine, Russia and Belarus.

The Ukrainian government says more than 4,000 people involved in the hasty and poorly organized Soviet cleanup effort have died, and that more than 70,000 Ukrainians were disabled by the disaster.

In all, 7 million people in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine are estimated to suffer physical or psychological effects of radiation related to the Chernobyl catastrophe.

At the chapel in Kiev, mourners held burning candles as priests prayed for the dead. The chapel bell rang shortly after 1 a.m., the time the reactor exploded. Some in the crowd broke into tears.

Early Wednesday, Ukrainian leaders laid wreaths at a monument to firefighters and emergency workers next to the chapel. A similar service was held in Slavutych, where President Leonid Kuchma said the disaster continues to hobble Ukraine's development.

"Human calamities and problems born by the disaster remain," Kuchma said. "For 15 years, Ukraine has born the cross of Chernobyl practically alone, we had to do everything on our own in unfavorable economic conditions."

In the Vatican, the pope prayed for the Chernobyl victims at a service attended by Ukrainian children.

At Moscow's Mitino cemetery, hundreds of relatives and friends paid tribute to dead firefighters.

"We have come here for 15 years and I will come with my husband as long as we have our health," said Valentyna Lopatiuk, whose son was a Chernobyl firefighter.

In neighboring Belarus, thousands of people turned out for an evening rally in the capital, Minsk, to commemorate the tragedy.

Following the explosion, other reactors at Chernobyl continued operating until shutting down in December under intense international pressure.

At the plant itself, workers still monitor the now-idle reactors, and they are building a heating plant and facilities for nuclear waste disposal and reprocessing.

They are also involved in a $758 million, internationally funded project to repair the leaky concrete and steel sarcophagus over the ruined reactor.

---

Chernobyl remembered 15 years later

The Washington Times www.washtimes.com
4/26/01
World Scene
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20010426-21233780.htm

KIEV -- Fifteen years after the Chernobyl disaster sent a radioactive cloud over much of Europe, the infamous plant has been idled and a beleaguered nation struggles to deal with its deadly legacy.

The plant -- site of the world´s worst nuclear accident -- continued operation after the April 26, 1986, explosion, amid international concern over safety issues.

The last reactor was shut down in December and the plant stopped operating for good.

The greatest worry remains the leaky concrete-and-steel sarcophagus over the ruined reactor, and a $758 million internationally funded project aims to make it environmentally safe.

Now, with promised Western aid in limbo, the economically struggling Ukraine must provide for about 6,000 Chernobyl workers who depended on the plant to survive.

From wire dispatches and staff reports.

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Chernobyl Victims Need Financial Help

April 26, 2001
ENS
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/apr2001/2001L-04-26-10.html

NEW YORK, New York, United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan has called on the international community to "do far more" to help those still living with the after effects of the Chernobyl nuclear accident, which happened 15 years ago today.

About 1,800 cases of thyroid cancer in children who were exposed at the time of the accident are among those effects. So too is the psychological trauma felt by millions of people who lived near Chernobyl who have been relocated, lost social ties and fear radiation.

The remains of Chernobyl's fourth reactor. (Photo courtesy Chernobyl Charity Online)

Farming communities in Belarus and Ukraine continue to suffer heavily from radioactive contamination.

While much has been learned about the cause of the two devastating explosions that ripped through the Soviet built RBMK reactor April 26, 1986, the full humanitarian impact of the disaster is not yet known, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

At a joint press conference at UN headquarters in New York, OCHA chief Kenzo Oshima said it could be years before the many medical manifestations appear from the accident, which released 50 million units of radiation, contaminating an area of more than 160,000 square kilometers.

Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine should not be the only ones shouldering the financial burden of helping their populations, said Oshima, who is also UN Coordinator for International Cooperation on Chernobyl.

The UN Secretary General agreed. "The legacy of Chernobyl will be with us, and with our descendants, for generations to come," said Annan.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. (Photo courtesy United Nations)

"I appeal to member states, non-governmental organizations and private individuals, to join with me in a pledge never to forget Chernobyl.

"Together, we must extend a helping hand to our fellow human beings, and show that we are not indifferent to their plight."

Annan and Oshima were joined at the press conference by UN ambassadors from Belarus, Ukraine and Russia. Each emphasized the need for financial assistance in humanitarian efforts.

Much of the international aid has gone to the monumental task of decommissioning the four reactors at Chernobyl, which is 113 kilometers (70 miles) north of the Ukrainian capital Kiev.

Decommissioning is the final phase in the lifecycle of a nuclear installation, covering all activities from shutdown and removal of fissile material to environmental restoration of the site. Technical operations include decontamination, dismantling and waste management.

In November 1986, a so-called sarcophagus was built to contain the remains of the devastated fourth reactor core and bring the release of radioactive material under control.

The sarcophagus is thought to contain about 200 tonnes of irradiated and fresh nuclear fuel, mixed with other materials in various forms, mainly as dust. Under a deal between the Ukraine and the Group of Seven (G7) industrialized nations, the sarcophagus will be replaced by a safer, more permanent structure.

More than 100,000 people were evacuated from the area surrounding Chernobyl, including the city of Pripyat. (Photo courtesy Chernobyl Charity Online)

In return for loans from the G7 to do this, the Ukraine agreed to shut down Chernobyl's last working reactor, reactor three, last December for safety reasons.

Reactor two was shut after a fire in 1991 and reactor one passed its expiration date in 1996. Reactor three had been producing five percent of Ukraine's electricity until last December.

The financial deal included the completion of the half built nuclear reactors Khmelnitsky 2 and Rovno 4, known as "K2R4", as part of a package of energy options for replacing the power from Chernobyl.

Last December, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) approved a loan of US$215 million for the completion of the K2R4 reactors. The European Commission agreed to an additional loan of US$585 million.

A statement issued by the Ukrainian government Wednesday praised the efforts of the G7 and European Commission, but said the "slow pace" of action on the ground remained "a significant concern."

The statement, issued to mark the 15th anniversary of the accident, also spoke of the human cost.

"The Ukrainian nation continues to pay a dear price for the accident that is today measured in not only lives lost and the health of its people, but in terms of the huge material and financial resources lost," it said.

"In Ukraine alone, more than 3.5 million people have been affected by that catastrophe, while over 160,000 people have been resettled from the disaster stricken area and almost 10 percent of the nation's territory has been contaminated by radioactive fallout.

"There remains an acute need to address the ongoing social ramifications of the Chernobyl disaster and the station's subsequent closure.

"Improving the health conditions of the station personnel and the residents of the town of Slavutych remains a high priority. While creating new employment for the more than 5,000 people who are expected to lose their jobs in the next few years as result of the station closure must soon be addressed."

To deal with the aftermath of the disaster, the UN set up a 19 member Inter-Agency Task Force on Chernobyl, which, together with non-governmental organizations, provides health care to people affected by radiation.

The task force helps with psychosocial rehabilitation, job creation for resettled families, the study of radiation's environmental impact, waste disposal and decontamination, as well as technical support for improved nuclear safety.

Chernobyl's fourth reactor is covered by a sarcophagus. (Photo courtesy IAEA)

Another UN agency, the Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) reported last year that there have been about 1,800 cases of thyroid cancer in children who were exposed at the time of the accident.

The agency added that if the trend continues, there may be more cases during the next decades.

"Apart from this increase, there is no evidence of a major public health impact attributable to radiation exposure 14 years after the accident," said UNSCEAR's report to the UN General Assembly last June.

"There is no scientific evidence of increases in overall cancer incidence or mortality or in non-malignant disorders that could be related to radiation exposure. The risk of leukaemia, one of the main concerns owing to its short latency time, does not appear to be elevated, not even among the recovery operation workers.

"Although those most highly exposed individuals are at an increased risk of radiation associated effects, the great majority of the population are not likely to experience serious health consequences from radiation from the Chernobyl accident."

Thirty-one people, mostly firemen, were killed immediately after the Chernobyl explosion. Over the following four months, about 116,000 people were evacuated from the region to avoid continued radiation exposure.

The radionuclide composition of the material released in the accident was complex. The radioactive isotopes of iodine and caesium were of the greatest radiological significance.

Iodines, with their short radioactive half lives, had the greater radiological impact in the short term, but the caesiums, with half lives of the order of tens of years, have the greater radiological impact in the long term.

According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), material released from Chernobyl to the atmosphere and eventually deposited onto the surface of the earth was measurable over practically the entire northern hemisphere.

IAEA director general Mohamed El Baradei. (Photo courtesy IAEA)

IAEA director general Mohamed El Baradei said today that the Chernobyl disaster "was a tragic but important turning point for the IAEA."

"It prompted us to focus unprecedented energies and resources to assist the affected people and help ensure that such a serious accident would never happen again," he added in a news conference at IAEA headquarters in Vienna, Austria.

Those energies and resources include novel initiatives, such as the "Prussian Blue Project," administered by the IAEA and UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to reduce caesium contamination in milk and meat.

The IAEA is providing assistance in treating thyroid cancer in Ukraine by supplying the radioactive iodine used to treat patients.

In another project with the FAO, the IAEA is helping to restore agricultural land by producing rapeseed on 50,000 hectares (123,552 acres) of contaminated land in Belarus.

The seed takes up and stores radionuclides from the soil in its stalks and seed coat, but not in the seed. This seed can then be used for economically viable products such as biolubricants, cooking oils or high protein cattle feed.

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

Ten-Year Study Reveals Nuclear Weapons Unlawful

US Newswire
26 Apr 9:53
http://www.usnewswire.com/topnews/Current_Releases/0426-104.html

Ten-Year Study Reveals Nuclear Weapons Unlawful According To U.S. And Military Documentation To: Metro Desk Contact: Barbara Marx-Webber, 301-390-1114

NEW YORK, April 26 /U.S. Newswire/ -- New York litigator and former St. John's law professor Charles Moxley is catching the attention of leaders in the fields of politics, law and international relations due to the provocative conclusions in his recently released book, Nuclear Weapons and International Law in the Post Cold War World (Austin & Winfield, Publishers, University Press of America). Both the Professional's Network for Social Responsibility and the Middle Powers Initiative have invited Moxley to be their keynote speaker at upcoming events in New York (on April 29 and May 3).

Moxley will discuss the results of his 10-year study on the legality of nuclear weapons as well as implications of the U.S. Administration's Missile Defense Program. He says, "The use of nuclear weapons under established rules of international law is unlawful, even according to official U.S. and military documentation."

Moxley will be the keynote speaker at a private strategy conference for the Middle Powers Initiative (April 29) as well as for the Professional's Network for Social Responsibility. (Thursday May 3, at 5:30 p.m. 15 Rutherford Place, East of Third Ave.) For press coverage, to arrange an interview or obtain a press copy of the book, contact Barbara Marx-Webber at 301-390-1114.

Experts in the fields of politics, law, and national security are calling Moxley's work groundbreaking, comprehensive and of the utmost importance. In an indictment that Columbia Law School Dean David Leebron concludes, "requires a response" and Robert McNamara says should call on the President and Congress to investigate, Moxley expertly challenges the U.S. position on legality. Moxley also reveals that, to stave off an ICJ decision recognizing such total unlawfulness, the United States, acting through State and Defense Department attorneys, resorted to misrepresenting the facts and law to the Court.

Robert McNamara describes Moxley's book as "the best exposition I have seen of the irrationality of the U.S. policy in this area, the irrationality of the policies of the other nuclear weapons states, and the irrationality of the human race in permitting the potential use of these weapons to continue." (Note: The April 29 event is closed to the press, however interviews can be arranged and copies of the speech can be made available.)

MPI is a campaign of international citizen organizations launched in 1998 to influence and assist middle power governments to encourage and educate the nuclear weapon states to commit to immediate practical steps to reduce nuclear dangers and commence negotiations to eliminate nuclear weapons. PNSR is a non-partisan network for professional organizations that share a concern about human and environmental needs and a desire to build a strong civilian economy through redirection of national priorities away from Cold War militarism and weapons protection.

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New Life for Diesel-Sub Builders?
Taiwan, Egypt Deals May Revive Production

Washington Post
Thursday, April 26, 2001
By Dan Morgan Washington Post Staff Writer
http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2853-2001Apr25.html

With the quiet support of Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.), a major Mississippi shipyard is angling to use a new round of U.S. arms sales to Taiwan to revive the United States' long-dormant production of diesel submarines, according to sources.

President Bush this week approved the sale of eight diesel submarines, Kidd-class destroyers, sub-hunting planes, torpedoes and missiles to Taiwan. Although no non-nuclear submarines have been produced in the United States since the 1950s, Northrop Grumman Corp.'s Ingalls Shipyard in Pascagoula, Miss., is "optimistic that it will win the contract to refurbish the Kidd-class destroyers and eventually sell the subs," according to a Senate GOP aide.

Ingalls is now working on a plan to build two diesel submarines for Egypt using Dutch designs and licenses and Lockheed Martin Corp. combat systems. The sale, which would be paid for through the U.S. military aid program, would require final approval from the State Department.

Since the 1960s, the U.S. has produced nuclear submarines at Groton, Conn., and Newport News, Va. A Northrop Grumman spokesman said, "We have the capability and capacity to build [conventional] submarines" in Pascagoula. He said Ingalls built diesel submarines in the 1950s, turned out a nuclear attack submarine in 1974 and overhauled and refueled nuclear submarines as recently as 1980.

But significant diplomatic and technical hurdles will have to be overcome in any sale to Taiwan. Germany and the Netherlands, which hold designs for conventional submarines, have ruled out participating because they recognize only the Beijing government. China considers Taiwan a province and wants to reunite the island of 23 million with the mainland.

Without Dutch or German help it is unclear how U.S. yards could obtain the necessary blueprints or licenses.

Lott last year pressed for the sale of Ingalls-built Aegis-class destroyers to Taiwan. Though they were not included in the package, it appears that the Pascagoula yard will be a major beneficiary of any deal with Taiwan because it would be a strong candidate to modernize the Kidd-class destroyers, a substantial job.

Both Northrop Grumman and Raytheon Corp. expressed interest this week in vying for parts of the work, which will include providing upgraded electronics, navigation, radar and anti-submarine capabilities. The Kidd-class destroyers were originally built for Iran in the 1970s, but were recently decommissioned.

Ingalls has long-standing connections to Lott. Litton Industries Inc., its owner until it was acquired earlier this month by Northrop Grumman, has been one of Lott's top 10 contributors since 1996. Together the two companies collected $663,900 in the last cycle and gave almost two-thirds of that to Republicans, according to FEC Info, a private data base.

The White House announced Tuesday that Northrop Grumman Vice President James G. Roche would be nominated as secretary of the Air Force.

Earlier this year, the Ingalls yards received a $106 million contract to repair and restore the guided-missile destroyer USS Cole, damaged in the Oct. 12 terrorist attack in Yemen. It also builds LHD-7 amphibious attack ships for the Marines.

Word of the weapons sale touched off maneuvering by defense contractors anxious to compete for the remainder of the Taiwan business.

Taiwan has been cleared to receive 12 of Lockheed Martin's P-3C submarine reconnaissance plan, but it was unclear how this would be done. The aircraft is not currently produced in this country.

Another item on the list, MK-48 Mod-4 torpedoes, are made by Raytheon and Northrop Grumman. But sources said this may not generate much if any new business for the companies. That's because the U.S. Navy could supply the torpedoes from its own stocks while it continues to acquire more up to date models.

But Raytheon could benefit from the proposed sale of ALE50 decoys, towed magnets that lure surface-to-air missiles away from attack aircraft, and from sales of Avenger surface-to-air systems, which use the company's Stinger missiles.

Staff writer Greg Schneider contributed to this report.

---

Leroy Ingles; First Chief of a Nuclear Submarine

Los Angeles Times
Thursday, April 26, 2001
http://www.latimes.com/news/state/20010426/t000035214.html

Leroy Ingles, 84, pioneer nuclear sailor as first chief of the U.S. submarine Nautilus, the world's first nuclear-powered submarine. Born in Rushville, Ill., Ingles joined the Army in 1935 and transferred to the Navy three years later. His first tour of duty was aboard the aircraft carrier Saratoga, and afterward he served in the submarine fleet. He applied for the job as Nautilus chief and was chosen by Adm. Hyman G. Rickover, even though the admiral told him after his interview to "get the hell out" of his office. After his Nautilus duty, Ingles worked aboard one of the Navy's first nuclear missile submarines, the Theodore Roosevelt. He retired from the Navy in 1965 and later worked in missile assembly for Lockheed Missiles and Space Co. On April 12 in Olympia, Wash.

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Task force advises on military's 'transformation'

USA Today
04/26/01
By Andrea Stone USA TODAY
http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20010426/3266867s.htm

WASHINGTON -- A panel appointed by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to find ways to transform the military has recommended space weapons, robotic vehicles and orbiting radars. It also urged buying the Army's Crusader heavy artillery system, which another panel wants to cancel.

The ''transformation'' task force is one of 18 panels reviewing military strategy and programs under a charge from President Bush to ''challenge the status quo'' at the Pentagon. The task forces are expected to draw a blueprint for the military, which experts say is ill-suited for a post-Cold War era in which terrorism and a shift in focus toward Asia have made plans to fight massed armies obsolete.

Groups studying conventional forces, missile defense, terrorism on U.S. soil, nuclear weapons, personnel and other issues won't finish their work until next month. But already, some analysts are concerned the panels are recommending new weapons systems without calling for others to be canceled.

''They're not getting super advice from these panels,'' said Michael Vickers, a defense analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a non-partisan think tank here. ''This is standard fare from the '90s: Buy everything you're currently buying, and buy a few more things as well, but avoid the hard choices.''

The Pentagon has said the reviews are ongoing and has refused to comment on them.

The transformation panel, chaired by retired Air Force general James McCarthy, recommended building a trio of tactical fighters, even though Bush suggested that the Pentagon can't afford all three. The Air Force F-22, the multiservice Joint Strike Fighter and the Navy F/A-18 programs are expected to cost $340 billion. The Pentagon's budget for 2001 is $310 billion.

The panel did not call for more long-range B-2 bombers, despite a consensus inside the Pentagon that future conflicts will require aircraft to operate far from U.S. shores without relying on overseas bases or carriers. Some critics have assailed the fighters as Cold War relics that work fine over Europe but are too short-range for the Pacific.

The study group also recommended buying the proposed Crusader. Slimmed down from 110 tons to 84 tons, the self-propelled howitzer is still too heavy for most of the world's bridges.

Another panel focusing on conventional forces recommended canceling the $11 billion Crusader program. It concluded that a weapon designed to win another Persian Gulf War would be out of step in future battles that would be fought mostly in the air and at sea.

Rumsfeld has said he plans to ''cherry-pick'' the panels' best ideas at the end.

As the former head of commissions on ballistic missile threats and space security, Rumsfeld is likely to look favorably on the panel's proposal to build a missile defense and beef up space operations.

The panel urged continued development of President Clinton's limited ground-based system to stop long-range missiles. But it also recommended funding research into sea- and space-based interceptors. Bush called for such a ''layered defense'' during the presidential campaign.

Other programs the panel recommended include:

Reusable space planes that can deliver bombs to any spot on the globe in 90 minutes.

Anti-satellite weapons that can jam other satellites or maneuver close to them and explode.

Space-based radars that would provide real-time battlefield imagery of enemy ground movements. Congress canceled a similar program last year, citing its $25 billion price tag.

Stealthy, high-flying unmanned aerial vehicles that could one day replace the U-2 spy plane. The Pentagon killed a related program last year after reportedly secretly spending $850 million on it.

---

General Dynamics to purchase Newport News

The Washington Times www.washtimes.com
Published 4/26/01
Kristina Stefanova THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/business/20010426-115686.htm

General Dynamics Corp., the U.S. Navy´s largest shipbuilder, said yesterday it would buy Newport News Shipbuilding Inc. for $2.6 billion, creating a single maker of all U.S. nuclear submarines.

If regulators approve the deal, the Falls Church company would become the only American maker of nuclear-powered ships and submarines, with a strong hold on the market for Navy destroyers, support ships and commercial oil tankers. Its only competitor would be Northrop Grumman Corp., which bought shipbuilder Litton Industries this month.

General Dynamics would pay the Newport News, Va., company $67.50 per share in cash, or 75 percent more than its unsolicited bid in 1999.

"We´ve been friends and partners and colleagues in nuclear shipbuilding for a long, long time," Nicholas D. Chabraja, General Dynamics´ chairman and chief executive, said during a conference call yesterday. "We´ve worked closely together."

General Dynamics, with 46,000 workers, supplies defense systems to the federal government and its allies. It also builds long-range commercial jets and conducts business in numerous industries like aerospace, technology, marine, combat and information systems.

Newport News, with 17,000 employees, is strictly a Navy contractor. It designs, constructs and maintains nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and submarines. It also services Navy ships.

The Pentagon rejected General Dynamics´ bid for the shipbuilder two years ago. But executives from the companies do not expect any major regulatory hurdles this time. Defense industry analysts agree that the timing is right.

"I don´t think there´s much question," said Paul Nisbet, analyst with JSA Research in Newport, R.I. General Dynamics "backed off from the original offer when the Navy indicated that the timing was not right. . . . Obviously has double-checked with the Navy and found that the timing now is right. And I think a major part of that is the change of administration."

The deal was announced the day after President Bush named Gordon R. England, 63, secretary of the Navy. Mr. England retired in early March as executive vice president at General Dynamics after 30 years with the company. The Senate must confirm his nomination.

The boards of the companies approved the deal yesterday. It now requires Pentagon approval and is subject to a review by the Justice Department´s antitrust division.

"The department is reviewing the matter," said Susan Hansen, spokeswoman for the Defense Department. "We´re taking another look at it."

Sen. John W. Warner, Virginia Republican and chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said yesterday that he supports General Dynamics´ acquisition of Newport News.

"The terms and conditions the companies have negotiated -- we were advised -- will protect the jobs of shipyard workers," he said in a statement.

The companies plan to complete the transaction by fall.

General Dynamics will assume about $500 million in debt from Newport News. Combined, the companies would have four shipyards, in Newport News; Groton, Conn.; Kennebec, Maine; and San Diego.

"I felt a couple of years ago that we would not get the value of the company," William P. Fricks, chief executive of Newport News, said yesterday. "We now have demonstrated and have the contracts to prove this."

The deal with General Dynamics includes a $50 million breakup fee and a clause that prohibits Newport News from seeking other bids.

"I think it´s going to be problematic when you go from two suppliers to one," said Tom Burnett, president of Merger Insight, a New York group that researches potential mergers from the shareholder point of view. "That same transaction was turned down in 1999. Has the world changed in two years? The only thing that changed is that Newport News is getting a 75 percent higher price."

In 1999, Mr. Fricks said General Dynamics´ $1.4 billion bid for Newport News was too low. The company then lobbied the Pentagon for help. The Defense Department rejected the bid for anti-competitive concerns.

General Dynamics and Newport News have not competed since 1991, when both lobbied for the Seawolf-class submarine contracts. Since then, General Dynamics has focused on building ballistic-missile and attack submarines, while Newport News has specialized in building nuclear aircraft carriers.

The expanded General Dynamics and Northrop Grumman are expected to compete for a possible refurbishing of the four Kidd-class destroyers, eight diesel submarines and reconnaissance aircraft that the United States has offered to sell to Taiwan. The diesel-powered machines are no longer in production.

The news of the acquisition yesterday pushed shares of Newport News up 16 percent, or $9.05 to $64.10, on the New York Stock Exchange. Shares of General Dynamics closed at $72.73, dropping 2 percent.

Newport News reported first-quarter financial results yesterday. Profits grew 14 percent to $24 million (75 cents per diluted share) from $21 million (63 cents) a year ago. Meanwhile, sales grew 3.4 percent to $485 million from $469 million. Diluted shares reflect the value of options, warrants and other securities convertible into common stock.

General Dynamics said its profits grew 30 percent to $240 million ($1.19) from $184 million (91 cents) a year ago. Sales rose 5 percent to $2.67 billion from $2.55 billion.

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

Nuclear interests anticipate future growth

CNN
By David George CNN
April 26, 2001
http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/science/04/26/nuclear.revival.02/index.html

The Bush administration's recent suggestion that more attention be paid to nuclear power has drawn anew some old lines of contention between nuclear advocates and their opponents.

Officials from different nuclear power interests say their companies are ready to move forward with reactors' design and construction since the administration said nuclear power might help cut greenhouse-effect gases caused by conventional power plants.

Critics of nuclear power, meanwhile, claim that those proposals are potentially disastrous.

As the arguments continue, some nuclear interests appear ready to take their plans from drawing board to construction site.

Water and gravity

Westinghouse Electric Corp. has won approval from the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build a 600 megawatt generator, dubbed the AP600.

The reactor would rely on the cooling properties of water, said Howard Bruschi, chief technology officer for Westinghouse Electric, builder of about half the world's 435 operating nuclear power plants.

In the event of an accident, he said, water would flow automatically into the AP600's containment vessel from a series of huge tanks. When it touched the reactor, the water would boil, creating steam. Billowing upward, the steam would reach the ceiling of the containment building enclosing the reactor, where it would condense to water, Bruschi said.

The water would drain down -- gravity pulling the water back to ground level -- and cool the reactor as it dropped, he said.

"That whole cycle will just continue indefinitely," Bruschi said. "Eventually the plant will just shut down."

Westinghouse said it is seeking clients for the AP600 around the world.

Terrorist-proof reactor?

Another corporation, meanwhile, proposes a different design.

Exelon Corp., a Chicago, Illinois-based holding company created when Commonwealth Edison and PECO Energy merged, is promoting a reactor that it says would stymie terrorists hoping to use spent fuel for weapons.

Working with British Nuclear Fuels Ltd. (Westinghouse Electric's parent company) and Eskom, a South African firm, Exelon is backing development of a pebble bed modular reactor, or PBMR.

The PBMR would be fueled by 310,000 uranium-infused spheres the size of tennis balls, mixed with 100,000 spheres made of plain graphite, according to plans. The spent fuel spheres would be so depleted at the end of a reactor's cycle that they would be useless to potential terrorists, backers claim.

The PBMR would be cooled with helium. If the gas got lost in an accident, the reactor would shut itself down and "cool off like a cup of coffee," said Corbin McNeill, Exelon's chairman.

Exelon and its partners hope to get approval from the South African government to build a PBMR in that country. The reactor's proponents would ask the NRC to approve the design later, Exelon said.

Critics skeptical

Not everyone is impressed by the descriptions of new reactors. Paul Gunter, who monitors nuclear developments for the Washington-based Nuclear Information and Resource Service, said renewed interest in nuclear power would mean the renewal of some problems related to nuclear energy.

He outlined three possible threats: catastrophic accidents; release of radioactivity; and the proliferation of nuclear weapons material.

Nuclear proponents want the Bush administration to create a permanent storage spot for high-level nuclear waste, said McNeill.

Industry critics say the most likely site for such a facility --- Yucca Mountain in Nevada --- is unsuitable because of potential volcanic activity nearby.

The Yucca Mountain site represents "not a technological solution (but) a politically expedient course the industry seeks to take so they can continue generating nuclear waste," said Paul Gunter of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service.

There are 103 commercial nuclear power generators operating in the U.S. The country gets about one-fifth of its electricity from nuclear power, though federal government hasn't licensed any new plants since the 1970s.

--------

Americans slightly more energetic about nuke power

Chicago Sun-Times
April 26, 2001
BY WILL LESTER
Associated Press
http://www.suntimes.com/output/business/nuke26.html

Americans have grown slightly more comfortable with nuclear power over the past two years, an Associated Press poll suggests, with half now saying they support using nuclear plants to produce electricity.

Supporters of nuclear power were significantly more likely than they were two years ago to accept a nuclear plant close to their homes. The poll was conducted for the AP by ICR of Media, Pa.

The support for the nuclear option now being considered by the Bush administration was strongest among men and those older than 65.

"I think it's a safe way to produce energy," said Mike McDonald, 46, a computer consultant from Sparta, Mich. "It's better than global warming," he said, referring to the contention of some scientists that emissions from the burning of fossil fuels are causing the Earth to warm up.

Fifty percent in the poll supported nuclear power, and a majority of the supporters, 56 percent, said they wouldn't mind a nuclear plant within 10 miles of their own home. Three in 10 opposed nuclear power, and the remainder said they didn't know.

Two years ago, 45 percent said they supported nuclear power, and fewer than half of those supporters said they would want a nuclear plant nearby.

In the new poll, some admitted that concerns over energy shortages and fears of pollution have affected their support for nuclear power.

"They're threatening to start up those plants in California, and that's going to bring more smog and pollution," said Verna Clark, 72, a retired hospital worker from Tucson, Ariz. "I've been liking nuclear power better and better because as time goes by, they're getting more and more skilled at handling it."

But concerns remained strong about how to handle radioactive waste from the power plants.

Almost half said they don't believe nuclear waste can be safely stored for many years, about the same level as two years ago. The number who thought it could be stored safely was up slightly to almost four in 10.

Support for nuclear power was lowest and fears of nuclear waste were highest among young adults. The sentiment for nuclear power increased steadily as the age of poll respondents went up.

"I'm pretty opposed to nuclear energy," said Liza Lionetti, 25, an Internet company employee from Rancho Cucamonga, Calif. "The biggest issue is the waste products. We bury them and we poison the ground."

Among the regions, support for nuclear power was strongest in the energy-starved West, 55 percent. Support for nuclear power tended to increase with education levels.

Republicans were twice as likely as Democrats to support it, and men were more supportive than women.

Nuclear power plants, which produce 20 percent of the nation's electricity, are the focus of renewed interest. They have become more competitive in cost because of rising natural gas prices and growing concern about pollution from fossil fuel-burning power plants.

The nation's 103 nuclear reactors have increased their power output by 25 percent over the past decade along with a steadily improving safety record. A Bush administration energy task force is expected to conclude next month that nuclear power is essential in meeting the nation's energy needs and recommend ways to increase nuclear energy production.

In 1989, an AP poll showed that a clear majority, 55 percent, supported nuclear power. But the sentiment for nuclear power dwindled in the 1990s, before the latest renewal of interest.

The slightly improved climate for nuclear power hasn't eased the doubts of some, although two-thirds said they think nuclear power is safer now than it was 10 years ago.

The numbers who think a nuclear accident at a power plant is likely has dwindled slightly from half two years ago to just over four in 10 now.

"I'm not in favor of nuclear power due largely to the fact that there's always the chance for error," said Dale Buchanan, 51, a machine operator from Belleville, Pa. He lives about 60 miles from Three Mile Island, site of the nation's worst nuclear accident, in 1979.

"The closer to home it gets," Buchanan said, "the more you think about it."

-------- connecticut

CONNECTICUT YANKEE SUIT REJECTED

New York Times
April 26, 2001
Metro Briefing
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/26/nyregion/26MBRF.html

HARTFORD: A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit by a nuclear- power plant against the town of Haddam, which refused to change its zoning designation specifically to allow the plant to store spent nuclear fuel rods on the plant's property. The plant operator, the Connecticut Yankee Atomic Power Company, had sued, asserting that Haddam lacked jurisdiction over a federally regulated operation. In a Friday ruling, Judge Alan Nevas of United States District Court dismissed the claim, saying zoning rules did not expressly prohibit nuclear waste storage.

-------- washington

Union questions nuclear site security
Guards say changes at Hanford pose serious risk

MSNBC
04/26/01
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.msnbc.com/news/564861.asp?cp1=1

YAKIMA, Wash., April 26 - The union representing guards at the Hanford nuclear reservation claims eliminating 24-hour security at two pools holding lethal spent fuel could put the public and environment at risk. The new security plan, which took effect last week, replaces the round-the-clock staffing at the 1.1 million-gallon basins with roving surveillance guards who cover a much larger area.

THE U.S. Energy Department and Fluor

Hanford, the contractor managing the nuclear reservation, called the move a thrifty business decision that will make operations more efficient.

The union's contention that the plan poses risks to the public is "flat-out wrong," said Mike Talbot, an Energy Department spokesman. The federal agency has no security scenario that would result in the draining of the two K Basins by terrorists or saboteurs, he said.

"All of the scenarios that we've worked up show that we're doing the right thing. We're trying to be efficient with taxpayer dollars," Talbot said.

Most of Hanford is closed to the public, with fences and the Columbia River limiting access to the 560-square-mile reservation in south-central Washington, and security barricades are set up at the two roads leading inside.

The K Basins contain about one-third of the radiation at Hanford, the most-contaminated nuclear site in the country.

If either of the pools were ruptured by a terrorist attack or internal sabotage, it would "make Chernobyl look like a Girl Scout campfire," said Darryl Sybouts, a former business agent for Local 21 of the International Guards Union of America.

About 2,100 tons of spent fuel, including 4 tons of plutonium, have been stored underwater in the basins, which were built in the 1950s.

Most of the deadly radioactive rods there came from a reactor that was used to make plutonium for nuclear weapons during the Cold War, and were originally intended to be reprocessed.

The existing collection represents about 80 percent of the nation's inventory of irradiated fuel left over from that era.

The plutonium in the basins is not weapons-grade, one of the reasons constant, on-site security is unnecessary, said Michael Turner, a Fluor Hanford spokesman.

Unprotected exposure to the fuel would be deadly, but he said it would take an elaborate plan to safely retrieve the fuel because it is underwater.

But Charles Nelson, the local union's current business agent, said the real danger would be someone damaging the basins and allowing the contamination to escape into the environment, including the Columbia River, about 400 yards away.

The K Basins and associated facilities are a hub of activity these days, as the DOE and its contractors move the spent nuclear fuel out of the pools for drying, packaging and storage. One of the pools has leaked, and moving the fuel out of the basins is a top priority.

Without the 24-hour guard, the extra workers brought on board for the spent nuclear fuel project are no longer checked routinely for prohibited items, such as drugs, firearms and transmitters, Nelson said.

Everyone wears a badge, and access is limited based on security standards determined by DOE, Turner said.

Although it has been suggested that the union is sounding the alarm because it fears potential job cuts or lost overtime, that is not the case, Nelson said. No jobs have been eliminated, only reassigned, he said.

"Our concern is security," he said.

---

Hanford reactor verdict on hold

Seattle Times
Thursday, April 26, 2001
By The Associated Press
http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis/web/vortex/display?slug=hanford26m&date=20010426

RICHLAND -- The new federal energy secretary has put on hold for 90 days an end-of-term decision from the Clinton administration to permanently shut down an experimental reactor at the Hanford nuclear reservation.

The three months will be used to review potential private-sector interest in restarting the Fast Flux Test Facility, U.S. Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Pasco, said Tuesday.

"It was an outrage that a final decision on FFTF was hastily reached in the last days of the Clinton administration without formally soliciting interest in utilizing FFTF for production of medical isotopes or other missions," Hastings said.

Though more than 20 years old, the FFTF is the Energy Department's newest reactor, large and versatile because it was designed to research advanced forms of nuclear fuel for breeder reactors, which produce as much or more plutonium fuel than they consume.

The federal government scrapped its breeder reactor program in the 1980s after deciding it had misjudged the nation's electricity needs.

The 400-megawatt FFTF became surplus and, in 1992, was placed on standby. The nuclear fuel was removed from the core, but the sodium-cooling system has been maintained to permit a possible restart.

Hastings has been urging the Bush administration's energy secretary, Spencer Abraham, to reconsider the shutdown decision.

Some drug companies have come forward to advance the idea of restarting FFTF, as have medical researchers.
-------

Spent nuclear fuel unguarded now at Hanford

Thursday April 26
By LINDA ASHTON,
Associated Press Writer
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20010426/us/hanford_security_1.html

YAKIMA, Wash. (AP) - The union representing guards at the Hanford nuclear reservation claims eliminating 24-hour security at two pools holding lethal spent fuel could put the public and environment at risk.

The new security plan, which took effect last week, replaces the round-the-clock staffing at the 1.1 million-gallon basins with roving surveillance guards who cover a much larger area.

The U.S. Energy Department and Fluor Hanford, the contractor managing the nuclear reservation, called the move a thrifty business decision that will make operations more efficient.

The union's contention that the plan poses risks to the public is ``flat-out wrong,'' said Mike Talbot, an Energy Department spokesman. The federal agency has no security scenario that would result in the draining of the two K Basins by terrorists or saboteurs, he said.

``All of the scenarios that we've worked up show that we're doing the right thing. We're trying to be efficient with taxpayer dollars,'' Talbot said.

Most of Hanford is closed to the public, with fences and the Columbia River limiting access to the 560-square-mile reservation in south-central Washington, and security barricades are set up at the two roads leading inside.

The K Basins contain about one-third of the radiation at Hanford, the most-contaminated nuclear site in the country.

If either of the pools were ruptured by a terrorist attack or internal sabotage, it would ``make Chernobyl look like a Girl Scout campfire,'' said Darryl Sybouts, a former business agent for Local 21 of the International Guards Union of America.

About 2,100 tons of spent fuel, including 4 tons of plutonium, have been stored underwater in the basins, which were built in the 1950s.

Most of the deadly radioactive rods there came from a reactor that was used to make plutonium for nuclear weapons during the Cold War, and were originally intended to be reprocessed.

The existing collection represents about 80 percent of the nation's inventory of irradiated fuel left over from that era.

The plutonium in the basins is not weapons-grade, one of the reasons constant, on-site security is unnecessary, said Michael Turner, a Fluor Hanford spokesman.

Unprotected exposure to the fuel would be deadly, but he said it would take an elaborate plan to safely retrieve the fuel because it is underwater.

But Charles Nelson, the local union's current business agent, said the real danger would be someone damaging the basins and allowing the contamination to escape into the environment, including the Columbia River, about 400 yards away.

The K Basins and associated facilities are a hub of activity these days, as the DOE and its contractors move the spent nuclear fuel out of the pools for drying, packaging and storage. One of the pools has leaked, and moving the fuel out of the basins is a top priority.

Without the 24-hour guard, the extra workers brought on board for the spent nuclear fuel project are no longer checked routinely for prohibited items, such as drugs, firearms and transmitters, Nelson said.

Everyone wears a badge, and access is limited based on security standards determined by DOE, Turner said.

Although it has been suggested that the union is sounding the alarm because it fears potential job cuts or lost overtime, that is not the case, Nelson said. No jobs have been eliminated, only reassigned, he said.

``Our concern is security,'' he said.


-------- MILITARY

Angry Nation

ABC News
April 26, 2001
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/taiwan010426.html

WASHINGTON, April 26 - China today issued a harsh rebuttal to President Bush's promise of military support for Taiwan, accusing him of violating his commitment to Beijing.

"There is only one China in the world. Taiwan is part of China. It is not a protectorate of any foreign country," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue told a news conference.

"The Chinese government and people are strongly indignant and opposed" to Bush's comments, Zhang said.

Calling Bush's comments "mistaken remarks," Zhang also noted his unprecedented support for Taiwan came on the heels of a Pentagon offer of arms to Taiwan.

"This shows that it has drifted further on a dangerous road," Zhang said, referring to the United States.

Serious and Resolute

In an interview taped Tuesday but aired Wednesday on ABCNEWS' Good Morning America, Bush said the United States would do "whatever it took" to defend Taiwan if it were ever attacked by China.

Clearly sensing there would be some fallout in China after what is believed to be the strongest and most direct statement of support for Taiwan by a U.S. president, top White House officials have insisted Bush's remarks were not a departure in policy.

National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said the Taiwan Relations Act made clear the United States has an obligation to maintain the island's peaceful way of life.

Rice said Bush's comments show how seriously and resolutely he takes this obligation. Rice added that a secure Taiwan would be in a better position to engage in a dialogue with Beijing.

A senior administration official traveling with the president in Arkansas said the Chinese military buildup made it even more important for the president to make a clear statement about his intention to defend Taiwan.

State Department spokesman Philip Reeker told reporters there was no change in change in U.S. policy toward Taiwan.

"We expect any dispute to be resolved peacefully. The president's said that. We expect, hope, believe that peaceful resolutions are possible. He said that the Chinese have to hear that we'll uphold the spirit of the Taiwan Relations Act," Reeker said

Full Force of the U.S. Military?

In the Good Morning America interview, Bush was asked if the United States had an obligation to defend Taiwan.

"Yes, we do, and the Chinese must understand that," he said.

Asked if his commitment would be backed up with the full force of the U.S. military, Bush replied: "Whatever it took to help Taiwan defend herself."

However, in later interviews with CNN and The Associated Press on Wednesday, Bush softened his stance, saying military force is "certainly an option" if China were to invade Taiwan.

He also reiterated Washington's commitment to the one-China policy, and did not say the use of U.S. military force would be considered if Taiwan were to declare independence.

"A declaration of independence is not the one-China policy, and we will work with Taiwan to make sure that that doesn't happen," he told CNN. "We need a peaceful resolution of this issue."

The comments follow the administration's notice to the Taiwanese government that it could buy new military hardware - but not the U.S. Navy's most advanced radar technology - to fend off a potential threat from China.

The potential sale is being viewed as a strong commitment by Bush to Taiwan, which China has long viewed as a renegade province.

Most Direct Statement From U.S. President

Bush's comments appear to mark a significant change in policy regarding U.S. rhetoric on the Taiwan issue.

Under the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act, Washington is pledged to provide Taiwan with "such defense articles and defense services ... as may be necessary to enable Taiwan to maintain a sufficient self-defense capability." But a U.S. president has never articulated that the United States would actually undertake military action, as opposed to arming Taiwan to defend itself.

Joseph Cirincione, director of the Non-Proliferation Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, said, "I don't think any American president has ever committed carte blanche like that before."

The change in tone has drawn some fire. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., took the president to task for not adhering to "strategic ambiguity" in his comments on Taiwan.

"We have been deliberately vague about the circumstances under which we would come to Taiwan's defense, not only to discourage Taiwan from drawing us in by declaring independence but also to deter a Chinese attack by keeping Beijing guessing," he said Wednesday on the Senate floor.

China has expressed its opposition to the Bush administration's offer to Taiwan of destroyers, submarines, anti-sub planes and other advanced weapons.

But under the terms of the offer, Taiwan will not get destroyers equipped with the advanced Aegis radar system, at least for now.

Fearing an invasion from mainland China, the Taiwanese government has been asking for the most high-powered new destroyers and radar gear. While the $1 billion Aegis-equipped ships will not be in Taiwan's shopping cart this year, the White House is signaling that if China further increases its saber rattling toward Taiwan, the situation could change.

Taiwan's Shopping List

The United States will sell the following to Taiwan, according to the White House:

Four Kidd-class destroyers ready by 2003.
12 P-3C Orion aircraft.
Eight diesel submarines designed to counter blockades and invasions.
Paladin self-propelled artillery system.
MH-53E minesweeping helicopters.
AAV7A1 Amphibious Assault Vehicles.
Mk 48 torpedoes without advanced capabilities.
Avenger surface-to-air missile system.
Submarine-launched and surface-launched torpedoes.
Aircraft survivability equipment.

The United States also will give Taiwan a technical briefing on the Patriot anti-missile system the island has been developing.

ABCNEWS' Ann Compton, Vic Ratner and Tamara Lipper and ABCNEWS.com's David Ruppe contributed to this report.

Weapons Systems Facts

Diesel Submarine

These have not yet been constructed but are expected to be built on a German or Dutch design and manufactured in one of those countries.

The subs would be intended primarily for anti-blockade operations and to counter China's growing fleet of modern subs and ships.

They are expected to be able to carry MK-48 torpedoes, but probably will not have a land-attack missile capability.

Kidd-class Destroyer

Initially built for the shah of Iran but acquired by the U.S. Navy in 1979, and then decommissioned in 1998.

Geared for general warfare and capable of operating offensively to deal with simultaneous air, surface and subsurface attacks.

P-3C Orion Aircraft

Land-based, long-range surveillance aircraft, primary used in antisubmarine or antisurface warfare.

Can also carry a mixed payload of weapons internally and on wing pylons.

Paladin M109A6 Self-Propelled Artillery System

Used by military forces in the United States, Israel and Kuwait, this cannon artillery system can fire up to eight rounds per minute or three rounds per 15 seconds.

Has a range of 214 miles with a maximum speed of 40 miles per hour.

MH-53E Minesweeping Helicopter

Minesweeping version of the extremely versatile CH-53E, one of the world's largest and heaviest helicopters.

Six of these aircraft were used during Operation Desert Shield/Storm. It has proved to be an excellent mine-countermeasures platform.

AAV7A1 Amphibious Assault Vehicle

Designed to provide armor protection, command, control, and repair capabilities while transporting troops and cargo from ship to shore.

Able to negotiate 10-foot plunging surf, and all kinds of terrain, with a top speed of 45 mph.

MK-48 Torpedo

A heavyweight torpedo designed to combat fast, deep-diving nuclear submarines and high-performance surface ships, carried by all Navy submarines.

They can use active and/or passive homing, and can conduct multiple reattacks if they miss the target.

Avenger Missile System

Lightweight, highly mobile and air transportable surface-to-air missile systems, typically mounted on the back of a Humvee.

Includes eight Stinger missiles in two turret-mounted launch pods and can fire from a moving or stationary position.

---

Pilot Error Is Blamed in Bombing in Kuwait

New York Times
April 26, 2001
By JAMES DAO
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/26/world/26KUWA.html

WASHINGTON, April 25 - A Pentagon investigation into a bombing that killed six people in Kuwait last month has concluded that a Navy pilot mistook an observation post for a target and recommends that he be disciplined, military officials said today.

But the report, which has not yet been made public, also assigns some blame for the bombing to two air traffic controllers who helped guide the F/A-18 pilot toward the observation post and then authorized him to release three 500-pound bombs, the officials said.

Five American servicemen and an Army major from New Zealand died in the incident at the Udairi Range near the Iraq border, while three other Americans were seriously injured.

The officials said the report would probably not include specific recommendations on how the three men should be disciplined, leaving that decision to their commanders in the Navy and Air Force.

For the pilot, Cmdr. David O. Zimmerman, the head of an F/A-18 squadron, the punishment could range from being stripped of his command, being forced into retirement, or being reprimanded, military officials said.

The report also said that at least three other incidents occurred in the months before the March bombing in which pilots dropped bombs in the wrong places at the Udairi Range, the Pentagon officials said. The investigators concluded that the targets might be difficult to see from the air, and recommended that the Army should improve its management of the range.

The report was prepared for Gen. Tommy R. Franks, chief of the United States Central Command, which oversees American military operations in the Persian Gulf region.

The report recounts a rapid series of blunders on the evening of March 12 that began with Commander Zimmerman mistakenly identifying a staffed observation post as his intended target, which was about a mile away. At the time, Commander Zimmerman was flying at about 10,000 feet.

After flying once over the target area, Commander Zimmerman banked and prepared to begin his bombing dive. At the observation post, an Air Force ground spotter was using an infrared beam visible through night-vision goggles to point the pilot toward the intended target. But for reasons that remain unclear, Commander Zimmerman focused on the source of the beam instead of the target.

As he finished his bank, the officials said, Commander Zimmerman received what sounded like assurances that he was on course from a Navy air traffic controller who was flying in a nearby F-14.

In fact, his aircraft was pointed at the observation post.

Moments later, after Commander Zimmerman had programmed his aircraft to aim at the wrong target, the Air Force controller at the observation base authorized him to drop his bombs, using the code words "cleared hot." Almost immediately, the controller realized the F/A-18 was aiming at him, and tried to abort the mission. But it was too late.

The investigators found that the ground-based air controller was distracted while Commander Zimmerman was preparing his bombing run, causing him to take his eyes off the fighter jet for a brief time. But that was long enough for the controller to lose his bearings, resulting in the mistaken "cleared hot" order, the officials said.

---

Bush Tells Beijing the U.S. Is Ready to Defend Taiwan

New York Times
April 26, 2001
By DAVID E. SANGER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/26/world/26PREX.html

LITTLE ROCK, Ark., April 25 - President Bush, offering a more explicit commitment to Taiwan than his recent predecessors, said in a television interview broadcast today that if the island came under attack from China, he would order "whatever it took" to help Taiwan defend itself.

Mr. Bush did not go so far as to say he would send American forces into battle with China. During his presidential campaign, however, he questioned the wisdom of the policy of maintaining "strategic ambiguity" about how the United States would react if hostilities broke out across the Taiwan Strait, and said repeatedly that, in contrast, his administration would be "clear about Taiwan."

While the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act commits the United States to help Taiwan defend itself, presidents have deliberately kept vague how they would respond in the case of an armed conflict. The policy was designed so as not to encourage Taiwan to be bolder in its own statements, and to contain the political factions on the island that have argued for declaring independence, a move China says would prompt an armed response.

Asked on ABC's "Good Morning America" if the United States had an obligation to defend Taiwan if it was attacked by China, Mr. Bush replied: "Yes, we do, and the Chinese must understand that. Yes, I would."

The interviewer, Charlie Gibson, pressed further, asking, "With the full force of American military?"

Mr. Bush said, "Whatever it took to help Taiwan defend theirself." He did not elaborate.

Mr. Bush's comments seemed to trigger some confusion on Capitol Hill and among China experts over what the president meant and what signal he was sending to Taiwan. But his aides said tonight he had chosen his words quite carefully.

Mr. Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, who traveled here with Mr. Bush for a Republican fund-raising event, said tonight that he was not changing policy. But she made clear that he was deliberate in his choice of words. "What he said clearly is how seriously and resolutely he takes this obligation," she said. "A secure Taiwan will be better able to engage in a cross-straits dialogue."

The Taiwan Relations Act says: The president is directed to inform the Congress promptly of any threat to the security or the social or economic system of the people on Taiwan and any danger to the interests of the United States arising therefrom. The president and the Congress shall determine, in accordance with constitutional processes, appropriate action by the United States in response to any such danger.

Mr. Bush's statement was part of what his aides say is a "rebalancing" of American policy away from Beijing - where Mr. Bush's aides believe President Clinton veered - and back toward Taiwan.

That is bound to gratify the conservative wing of his party, which has grumbled that his arms sales to Taiwan on Tuesday should have included the sophisticated Aegis radar system. It is also sure to further inflame Beijing. In that regard, it seemed similar to his statements about North Korea in the first weeks of his presidency, when he appeared to turn his back on missile talks that President Clinton had begun, to the discomfort of South Korea's president, Kim Dae Jung, and take a harder line toward the Communist regime in Pyongyang. Those comments essentially froze peace talks between North and South Korea.

Earlier today, Chinese officials denounced Mr. Bush's decision to sell destroyers, submarines, helicopters and other military hardware to Taiwan even though the Aegis had been excluded from the list. Admr. Joseph W. Prueher, the American ambassador to Beijing, was summoned by the deputy foreign minister, Li Zhaoxing, and according to state television was asked to tell Mr. Bush to "immediately withdraw this mistaken decision and stop selling arms to Taiwan to avoid new grave damage to China-U.S. relations."

Mr. Bush's statements about Taiwan came in the course of a series of television interviews marking the approach of his 100th day in office. The interviews were taped at the White House on Tuesday, though they were broadcast just before Mr. Bush came here for a rally in support of his tax plan and his budget.

Within hours of the broadcast the State Department said there had been no change in the American policy. "Our policy hasn't changed today, it didn't change yesterday, and it didn't change last year, it hasn't changed in terms of what we have followed since 1979 with the passage of the Taiwan Relations Act," Philip T. Reeker, a State Department spokesman, told reporters today. "And the president was very clear on our position, and I think he reiterated what we've always said."

But to many of Mr. Bush's own aides and allies, his statement today sounded much like what George W. Bush the candidate had said, but not what past presidents including his father or American diplomats had said in carefully worded statements.

Until now, the essence of American policy has been to keep the peace by keeping both sides guessing. Presidents from Richard Nixon to Bill Clinton have wanted Beijing to believe that the United States would defend Taiwan, but also to leave Taiwan wondering about the extent of that commitment. Washington has always feared that if the Taiwanese believed the American commitment to their security was ironclad, they would be emboldened in their dealings with Beijing, perhaps to the point of provoking a conflict.

But Mr. Bush's advisers during the campaign said they viewed that policy as outmoded. Taiwan is now a full-fledged democracy, they said, and has elected a longtime opposition leader as the president. Moreover, they argued that Beijing's military buildup in recent years made it imperative for Washington to be more explicit about supporting the island.

Outside experts on China and Asia policy said that while Mr. Bush has changed the language, he may not have changed the understanding of both sides about how the United States would react.

"He covered both sides of the argument," said Richard H. Solomon, president of the United States Institute of Peace, and a longtime Republican foreign policy adviser, though he has not advised this White House.

"He said we'll defend Taiwan, but he doesn't want Taiwan to precipitate a crisis," said Mr. Solomon, referring to comments Mr. Bush made in an interview with CNN today.

Mr. Solomon noted that "the big issue that's not being discussed is whether Taiwan is to be dealt with as a military problem or a political problem." President Nixon, he noted, had converted the Taiwan issue to a political question when he opened up relations with Beijing. Mao said at that time that Taiwan was a long-term problem, taking the immediacy out of the issue of how it might reunify with China.

But during Mr. Clinton's term, the conflict became remilitarized. President Jiang Zemin made it clear, during Taiwan's 1996 presidential election, that China would not wait indefinitely, and triggered a crisis by conducting military tests off Taiwan's coast. Mr. Clinton sent two carriers into the area, though not directly into the Taiwan Strait, as a show of resolve. China backed off.

Mr. Bush's comments triggered an immediate reaction on Capitol Hill. Senator John F. Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat who is considered a possible presidential contender in 2004, took to the Senate floor this afternoon to speak out against Mr. Bush's comment on Taiwan.

"If what the president said is in fact what he means or if it is indeed the new policy of the United States, it has profound implications for our country," Mr. Kerry said. "He made a far-reaching comment this morning on the American defense of Taiwan, a comment that suggests that without any consultation with Congress, without any prior notice to the Congress, that a policy that has been in place for 30 years is now being changed with implications that I believe are serious."

Mr. Kerry said that the United States had never said what it would do if Beijing tried to use force to reclaim Taiwan because "we understood the danger of doing so."

He said that if Mr. Bush had decided to abandon the "so-called strategic ambiguity," it was a "major policy change" that "serves neither our interest nor Taiwan's."

Mr. Kerry noted that any situation that resulted in the use of force across the Taiwan Strait was unlikely to be black and white. "For example, if China attacked in response to what it sees as a Taiwanese provocation would we then respond?" he asked. "Apparently so, according to President Bush."

Representative Gary Ackerman, a New York Democrat and member of the International Relations Committee, said that Mr. Bush had apparently confused a policy of providing Taiwan with defensive weapons with a broader defense commitment.

"Has this become a unilateral defense treaty?" Mr. Ackerman asked. " `Whatever it takes' means you will do anything to defend Taiwan," Mr. Ackerman said. "Does it mean that if Taiwan attacks China, we are at war with China?"

---

China Denounces Bush's Comments on Taiwan

Associated Press
April 26, 2001 Filed at 2:48 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-China-US-Reaction.html

BEIJING (AP) -- China accused President Bush on Thursday of taking the United States down a ``dangerous road'' with pronouncements about American resolve to defend Taiwan.

Bush's comments that the United States can use military force in Taiwan's defense sparked a wave of concern Thursday across Asia. Beijing said Bush had further harmed China-U.S. ties, already strained by a spy plane standoff and a U.S. offer of arms for Taiwan.

``There is only one China in the world. Taiwan is part of China. It is not a protectorate of any foreign country,'' said Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue. ``The Chinese government and people are strongly indignant.''

That Bush's ``mistaken remarks'' came on the heels of the American weapons package for Taiwan ``shows that it (the United States) has drifted further on a dangerous road,'' Zhang said. ``We are deeply concerned.''

Venturing beyond the strategic vagueness of past U.S. policy, Bush said Wednesday that America would do ``whatever it took'' to help Taiwan defend itself. Later he softened that somewhat by saying U.S. military force would be ``certainly an option'' if China invades Taiwan.

Zhang said Bush's comments violated China-U.S. communiques in which Washington acknowledged Beijing's claim to Taiwan. She said his comments would inflame China-Taiwan tensions and ``create further damage for China-U.S. relations.''

Washington must ``correct its mistakes and stop interfering in China's internal affairs with the question of Taiwan,'' she said.

China and Taiwan split amid civil war in 1949, and China doesn't rule out using force to assert control over the island it claims as a breakaway province.

The goal of U.S. policy has been to keep Taiwan from provoking China by declaring independence, and to keep China worried about the possibility of American forces defending the island from Chinese attack.

Bush's remarks made front-page news in Taiwan and led television newscasts.

Taiwan's Foreign Ministry, seemingly anxious not to rile Beijing further, reacted with a brief statement saying it recognizes Washington's ``effort and determination to safeguard the security across the Taiwan Strait'' but added: ``We must build up our own defenses.''

A China-Taiwan conflict that embroils Washington could be disastrous for Asia, disrupting trade and forcing countries to take sides between Beijing, the region's rising power, and the United States, the world's sole remaining superpower.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard urged calm and restraint.

``We don't want to see any aggression by China against Taiwan,'' Howard said. ``We don't want to see any wider tension escalate between the United States and China.''

Vietnamese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Phan Thuy Thanh urged all sides to avoid actions harmful to regional peace and stability.

The Hong Kong newspaper Apple Daily editorialized that Bush's ``harsh and provocative comments are unwise'' and would prompt ``an equally hard-line stance'' from Beijing.

Japan's defense chief, Toshitsugu Saito, said Bush showed ``strong commitment to defend Taiwan.''

Bush's comments and his offer Tuesday of submarines, destroyers, aircraft and other arms for Taiwan added to tensions sparked by an April 1 collision of a U.S. spy plane and a Chinese fighter over the South China Sea. The Chinese pilot died and China detained the U.S. plane's 24 crew members for 11 days. China is still holding their plane.

---

China accuses Bush of taking 'a dangerous road'

USA Today
04/26/2001 - Updated 02:40 PM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2001-04-26-china-reax.htm

BEIJING (AP) - China accused President Bush on Thursday of taking the United States down a "dangerous road" with pronouncements about American resolve to defend Taiwan. Bush's comments that the United States can use military force in Taiwan's defense sparked a wave of concern Thursday across Asia. Beijing said Bush had further harmed China-U.S. ties, already strained by a spy plane standoff and a U.S. offer of arms for Taiwan.

"There is only one China in the world. Taiwan is part of China. It is not a protectorate of any foreign country," said Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue. "The Chinese government and people are strongly indignant."

That Bush's "mistaken remarks" came on the heels of the American weapons package for Taiwan "shows that it (the United States) has drifted further on a dangerous road," Zhang said. "We are deeply concerned."

Venturing beyond the strategic vagueness of past U.S. policy, Bush said Wednesday that America would do "whatever it took" to help Taiwan defend itself. Later he softened that somewhat by saying U.S. military force would be "certainly an option" if China invades Taiwan.

Zhang said Bush's comments violated China-U.S. communiques in which Washington acknowledged Beijing's claim to Taiwan. She said his comments would inflame China-Taiwan tensions and "create further damage for China-U.S. relations."

Washington must "correct its mistakes and stop interfering in China's internal affairs with the question of Taiwan," she said.

China and Taiwan split amid civil war in 1949, and China doesn't rule out using force to assert control over the island it claims as a breakaway province.

The goal of U.S. policy has been to keep Taiwan from provoking China by declaring independence, and to keep China worried about the possibility of American forces defending the island from Chinese attack.

Bush's remarks made front-page news in Taiwan and led television newscasts.

Taiwan's Foreign Ministry, seemingly anxious not to rile Beijing further, reacted with a brief statement saying it recognizes Washington's "effort and determination to safeguard the security across the Taiwan Strait" but added: "We must build up our own defenses."

A China-Taiwan conflict that embroils Washington could be disastrous for Asia, disrupting trade and forcing countries to take sides between Beijing, the region's rising power, and the United States, the world's sole remaining superpower.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard urged calm and restraint.

"We don't want to see any aggression by China against Taiwan," Howard said. "We don't want to see any wider tension escalate between the United States and China."

Vietnamese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Phan Thuy Thanh urged all sides to avoid actions harmful to regional peace and stability.

The Hong Kong newspaper Apple Daily editorialized that Bush's "harsh and provocative comments are unwise" and would prompt "an equally hard-line stance" from Beijing.

Japan's defense chief, Toshitsugu Saito, said Bush showed "strong commitment to defend Taiwan."

Bush's comments and his offer Tuesday of submarines, destroyers, aircraft and other arms for Taiwan added to tensions sparked by an April 1 collision of a U.S. spy plane and a Chinese fighter over the South China Sea. The Chinese pilot died and China detained the U.S. plane's 24 crew members for 11 days. China is still holding their plane.

---

Bush´s remarks leave in doubt U.S. policy

The Washington Times www.washtimes.com
4/26/01
Ben Barber THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20010426-73736348.htm

Analysts yesterday questioned whether President Bush had sent a deliberate signal to China or simply misspoken when he told a reporter the United States would use military force to defend Taiwan if the island is attacked by China.

Despite a later insistence that there had been no change in policy, Mr. Bush´s remarks went further than those of any U.S. president since 1972, when Washington opened the door to Beijing and introduced a policy of "strategic ambiguity" meant to deter provocation by either Taiwan or China.

Until yesterday, the United States had carefully limited itself to saying it would provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself and that it opposed any use of force to change the status of Taiwan.

That changed yesterday morning when Mr. Bush was asked on ABC television: "If Taiwan were attacked by China, do we have an obligation to defend the Taiwanese?"

"Yes, we do," Mr. Bush answered. "And the Chinese must understand that."

ABC newsman Charles Gibson went on to ask: "With the full force of American military?"

Mr. Bush answered: "Whatever it took to help Taiwan defend herself."

The president left more doubt about what the United States would do in case of an attack on Taiwan in a later interview with the Associated Press.

The use of American force "certainly is an option," he said. "The Chinese have got to understand that it is clearly an option."

Every U.S. president since 1979, when President Carter shifted U.S. recognition from Taiwan to the Beijing government, has left vague the question of what the United States would do in the event of an attack.

Taiwan in reality has been independent of China since 1949, when communists seized power on the mainland and the Nationalist forces fled to Taiwan. However, Beijing has always insisted that Taiwan is a renegade province and has threatened to invade if it declares independence.

Following the 1979 U.S. recognition of Beijing, the United States has maintained unofficial ties with Taiwan. That same year, Congress passed the Taiwan Relations Act, which required the United States to help Taiwan defend itself and opposed any use of force to change its status.

The United States also has signed three communiques with China that recognize China´s policy of only "one China" -- an undefined phrase that has meant for two decades that there is one nation with independence deferred and to be achieved by peaceful means.

Mr. Bush also put that understanding in doubt yesterday in his interview with the AP by referring to "two nations."

"Our policy is a one-China policy that the two nations can resolve their disputes peacefully," he said.

It has been widely assumed that the United States would act forcefully if Taiwan is invaded. In 1996, President Clinton sent two U.S. aircraft carriers toward Taiwan when China launched missiles to intimidate pro-independence voters on the island.

However, U.S. officials feared that if they openly declared a commitment to defend Taiwan with arms, Taiwanese leaders might publicly declare independence.

Despite Mr. Bush´s remarks yesterday, both the president and the State Department insisted that the policy of the past 20 years was still in place.

"Nothing is really changed in policy as far as I´m concerned," Mr. Bush said in an interview with CNN. State Department spokesman Philip Reeker also denied a change in U.S. policy toward China.

On Capitol Hill, Rep. Tom Lantos, California Democrat, praised the Bush commitment of U.S. force. "I think the president´s straightforward, courageous and unambiguous statement will guarantee that hostility in the Taiwan Strait will not take place," Mr. Lantos said at a hearing of the International Relations Committee.

Rep. Gary L. Ackerman, New York Democrat, took the opposite tack, saying: "The president´s attempts to be clear about Taiwan will be seen within China as further provocation and support for Taiwan´s independence."

Analyst Nicolas Lardy of the Brookings Institution said Mr. Bush´s statement would have marked a huge change in policy had he allowed it to stand.

Either he did not know the importance of his statement and was seeking to backtrack, or else he and his China advisers wanted to end the "strategic ambiguity" policy, said Mr. Lardy.

"The Bush statement today went far beyond any previous commitment we made to Taiwan," Mr. Lardy said in an interview.

Two of Mr. Bush´s top foreign policy advisers Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Deputy Secretary of State Richard Arm-itage -- signed a letter before taking office this year in which they urged the United States to say explicitly that it would defend Taiwan.

Mr. Lardy said force "has always been an option. ... The whole idea of strategic ambiguity has been when and under what conditions we would use force."

---

White House sees 'no change' in Taiwan policy

The Washington Times www.washtimes.com
4/26/01
Bill Sammon THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20010426-77692942.htm

NEW ORLEANS -- President Bush yesterday insisted he has not changed U.S. policy toward Taiwan, despite his vow to do "whatever it took" to defend the island in the event of a military attack by mainland China.

The president´s tough talk on Taiwan raised eyebrows because it seemed to signal a departure from previous policy, in which the U.S. was intentionally ambiguous about whether it would defend Taiwan against a Chinese attack.

In one of numerous interviews about his first 100 days in office, Mr. Bush was asked whether the United States has an obligation to defend the island, which Beijing views as a renegade province.

"Yes, we do," the president told ABC News. "And the Chinese must understand that. Yes, we would."

Asked if that meant using the "full force of American military," Mr. Bush replied: "Whatever it took to help Taiwan defend herself."

Mr. Bush yesterday repeated his words and said they did not reflect a change of U.S. policy.

"Nothing has really changed in policy as far as I am concerned," Mr. Bush told CNN in an interview yesterday. "This is what other presidents have said and I will continue to say so."

One senior administration official, acknowledging Mr. Bush´s remarks carry greater weight now that he is president, said it was important for him to restate the tough talk now that China is engaged in a massive military buildup.

In Washington, the State Department scrambled to downplay the remarks.

"Nothing has changed in our policy," insisted State Department spokesman Philip Reeker. "Our policy hasn´t changed today. It didn´t change yesterday. It didn´t change last year.

"It hasn´t changed, in terms of what we have followed since 1979 with the passage of the Taiwan Relations Act," he added. "And the president was very clear on our position. And I think he reiterated what we´ve always said."

But the Taiwan Relations Act, while committing the United States to helping Taiwan defend itself, does not specify the use of military force. By asserting that he is willing to resort to such force, Mr. Bush caused a stir among some Democrats, who accused him of abandoning a policy of "strategic ambiguity."

Samuel R. Berger, the Clinton administration´s national security adviser, told the Associated Press that a key reason for being vague always has been "not to embolden Taiwan."

In the space of a few hours, Mr. Bush "went from a 20-year policy of strategic ambiguity to what appeared to be a firm commitment, then back to strategic confusion," he said.

But Mr. Clinton was anything but ambiguous when he sent warships into the Taiwan Straits in 1996, when China was conducting provocative military exercises and issuing bellicose statements toward Taipei.

"The Taiwan Relations Act makes very clear that the United States has an obligation that Taiwan´s peaceful way of life is not upset by force," said National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice. "What he said clearly is how seriously and resolutely he takes this obligation. A secure Taiwan will be better able to engage in a cross-strait dialogue."

James Lilley, former U.S. ambassador to China, lauded Mr. Bush for jettisoning U.S. ambiguity.

"He was being frank," Mr. Lilley told The Washington Times. "He was saying what´s been happening all along. He laid it out on the table.

"The Chinese have been squawking about using force. What´s wrong with us saying if you use force, you´re going to run into us? It was implicit before; now it´s fairly explicit."

He added: "The Chinese have gotten increasingly belligerent. They´ve got the wherewithal to do it -- the submarines, the missiles. And it´s time to make a clear message: Don´t use those things."

Although Mr. Bush´s remarks to ABC unsettled observers in both Washington and Beijing, he refused to back down from his position in subsequent interviews.

"What I´m saying is that China must know that if circumstances warrant, that we will uphold the spirit of the Taiwan Relations Act and that they just have got to understand that," he told the AP.

Asked whether the United States would use force to do so, the president said: "It´s certainly an option."

Mr. Bush also used the CNN interview to restate U.S. support for the 'One China´ policy, which calls for eventual reunification by peaceful means, and to warn Taiwan against declaring independence.

"I certainly hope Taiwan adheres to the 'One China´ policy and a declaration of independence is certainly not the 'One China´ policy and we will work with Taiwan to make sure that doesn´t happen," he said.

Still, Sen. John Kerry, Massachusetts Democrat, said Mr. Bush had limited U.S. flexibility by essentially telling Taiwan that "no matter what it does, the United States will be there to defend it." Mr. Kerry is considering a run for the White House against Mr. Bush in 2004.

In a speech on the Senate floor, Mr. Kerry called Mr. Bush´s comments "a major policy change with absolutely no consultation" with Congress.

Mr. Bush´s comments came less than 24 hours after the U.S. offered to sell Taiwan the most extensive package of U.S. weapons in a decade. Despite his criticism of Mr. Bush´s comments, Mr. Kerry called the arms package for Taiwan "the right mix and the right measure."

Further complicating U.S.-Sino relations is Beijing´s refusal to return a U.S. reconnaissance plane that made an emergency landing after colliding with a Chinese jet fighter April 1. The Chinese held the plane´s 24 American crew members hostage for nearly two weeks and have shown no sign of returning the plane.

He added that "no new date has been set as yet for the postponed meeting" of the military maritime commission that has been tasked with resolving the plane´s fate.

But Mr. Lilley said reclaiming the plane is unimportant compared with the urgency of reinstituting U.S. surveillance flights off the Chinese coast, which were suspended after the collision.

Mr. Lilley said there is virtue in straight talk when it comes to dealing with a potential threat like China. He recalled the failure of former Secretary of State Dean Acheson, who was deliberately vague about whether the United States would go to war to protect South Korea half a century ago.

The ambivalence helped convince North Korea to invade the south, with China´s backing.

"I wish Acheson had been plain-spoken in January ´50," he said. "Maybe 50,000 American lives would have been saved."

Dave Boyer contributed to this article.

-------- arms sales

Pentagon searching for sub builders

The Washington Times www.washtimes.com
4/26/01
Bill Gertz THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20010426-70303888.htm

The Pentagon has begun the process of procuring up to eight diesel-powered submarines for Taiwan and is anticipating "political problems" from China in the process, U.S. government officials said yesterday.

The process is being directed by the Defense Cooperation Security Agency, which already has begun contacting foreign governments in search of a submarine-design license.

The agency is looking for a design that can be licensed to one of two U.S. shipbuilders that would bid for the contract, said officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The governments of Germany and the Netherlands said Tuesday they would not help the United States by licensing the design of their diesel submarines.

"The Germans have a good design. The Dutch have a good design. I believe the Italians -- there are good designs for diesel electric submarines out there," Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. Craig Quigley told reporters on Tuesday.

But a U.S. government official said yesterday that the administration expects China to take steps behind the scenes to make it hard to procure design plans.

"There are a lot of different ways it could be done," said the official. "There are other producers besides the Netherlands and Germany. That said, there are going to be political problems with all third parties."

China´s communist government is very aggressive in threatening economic retaliation against any nation that provides arms or military assistance to Taiwan.

Other nations that could be provide a submarine design for the submarine deal include Australia, Britain and Japan.

Another possibility is that a U.S. shipbuilder could construct the submarines from scratch. However, officials said that would sharply increase the costs for the weapons.

"The cheapest way is to purchase an existing design and build it here," the official said.

Asked about the difficulties in getting a design license, Adm. Quigley said: "We are reasonably sure that if the Taiwanese wish to come through us to obtain submarines, then we will find a way to make that work. . . . We are confident that we can find a way to make that happen."

The United States does not manufacture diesel submarines and officials said the most likely builder would be the Ingalls shipyard in Mississippi.

Ingalls officials have told the U.S. government they would be able to construct the submarines based on a foreign design.

President Bush on Monday approved the sale of the submarines to bolster Taiwan´s defenses against a Chinese blockade or submarine attack.

The Taiwanese are expected to go ahead with the purchase because of the buildup of Chinese naval forces opposite the island. China recently purchased two guided-missile destroyers from Russia and also is buying four Kilo-class attack submarines.

In addition to the submarines, which in the past were rejected by the Clinton administration as offensive arms, the Bush administration has approved the sale of Mark 48 torpedos, among the Navy´s most capable weapons.

The administration also approved the sale of Harpoon anti-ship missiles that can be fired from the submarines.

--------

New Life for Diesel-Sub Builders?
Taiwan, Egypt Deals May Revive Production

By Dan Morgan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 26, 2001; Page E01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A2853-2001Apr25?language=printer

With the quiet support of Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.), a major Mississippi shipyard is angling to use a new round of U.S. arms sales to Taiwan to revive the United States' long-dormant production of diesel submarines, according to sources.

President Bush this week approved the sale of eight diesel submarines, Kidd-class destroyers, sub-hunting planes, torpedoes and missiles to Taiwan. Although no non-nuclear submarines have been produced in the United States since the 1950s, Northrop Grumman Corp.'s Ingalls Shipyard in Pascagoula, Miss., is "optimistic that it will win the contract to refurbish the Kidd-class destroyers and eventually sell the subs," according to a Senate GOP aide.

Ingalls is now working on a plan to build two diesel submarines for Egypt using Dutch designs and licenses and Lockheed Martin Corp. combat systems. The sale, which would be paid for through the U.S. military aid program, would require final approval from the State Department.

Since the 1960s, the U.S. has produced nuclear submarines at Groton, Conn., and Newport News, Va. A Northrop Grumman spokesman said, "We have the capability and capacity to build [conventional] submarines" in Pascagoula. He said Ingalls built diesel submarines in the 1950s, turned out a nuclear attack submarine in 1974 and overhauled and refueled nuclear submarines as recently as 1980.

But significant diplomatic and technical hurdles will have to be overcome in any sale to Taiwan. Germany and the Netherlands, which hold designs for conventional submarines, have ruled out participating because they recognize only the Beijing government. China considers Taiwan a province and wants to reunite the island of 23 million with the mainland.

Without Dutch or German help it is unclear how U.S. yards could obtain the necessary blueprints or licenses.

Lott last year pressed for the sale of Ingalls-built Aegis-class destroyers to Taiwan. Though they were not included in the package, it appears that the Pascagoula yard will be a major beneficiary of any deal with Taiwan because it would be a strong candidate to modernize the Kidd-class destroyers, a substantial job.

Both Northrop Grumman and Raytheon Corp. expressed interest this week in vying for parts of the work, which will include providing upgraded electronics, navigation, radar and anti-submarine capabilities. The Kidd-class destroyers were originally built for Iran in the 1970s, but were recently decommissioned.

Ingalls has long-standing connections to Lott. Litton Industries Inc., its owner until it was acquired earlier this month by Northrop Grumman, has been one of Lott's top 10 contributors since 1996. Together the two companies collected $663,900 in the last cycle and gave almost two-thirds of that to Republicans, according to FEC Info, a private data base.

The White House announced Tuesday that Northrop Grumman Vice President James G. Roche would be nominated as secretary of the Air Force.

Earlier this year, the Ingalls yards received a $106 million contract to repair and restore the guided-missile destroyer USS Cole, damaged in the Oct. 12 terrorist attack in Yemen. It also builds LHD-7 amphibious attack ships for the Marines.

Word of the weapons sale touched off maneuvering by defense contractors anxious to compete for the remainder of the Taiwan business.

Taiwan has been cleared to receive 12 of Lockheed Martin's P-3C submarine reconnaissance plan, but it was unclear how this would be done. The aircraft is not currently produced in this country.

Another item on the list, MK-48 Mod-4 torpedoes, are made by Raytheon and Northrop Grumman. But sources said this may not generate much if any new business for the companies. That's because the U.S. Navy could supply the torpedoes from its own stocks while it continues to acquire more up to date models.

But Raytheon could benefit from the proposed sale of ALE50 decoys, towed magnets that lure surface-to-air missiles away from attack aircraft, and from sales of Avenger surface-to-air systems, which use the company's Stinger missiles.

Staff writer Greg Schneider contributed to this report.

-------- drug war

Tough Conservative Picked for Drug Czar, Officials Say

New York Times
April 26, 2001
By CHRISTOPHER MARQUIS
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/26/politics/26DRUG.html

WASHINGTON, April 25 - President Bush plans to name John P. Walters, a law-and-order conservative who was harshly critical of the Clinton administration's efforts against illegal narcotics, as the drug czar, Bush administration officials said today.

Mr. Walters, who was the top deputy to William J. Bennett, the drug czar in the last Bush administration, shares Mr. Bennett's emphasis on publicly stigmatizing drugs at home while mobilizing considerable resources - including the American military - against narcotics producers abroad.

Mr. Walters favors severe prison sentences for violent felons, marijuana smugglers and repeat offenders, but he views first-time drug users more leniently. He criticized a recommendation by the United States Sentencing Commission in 1995 to reduce sentences for dealers of crack cocaine significantly.

The nomination, which officials said is imminent, comes as the Bush administration struggles to maintain cooperation with important drug- producing allies in Latin America.

The United States this week suspended intelligence-sharing with the Peruvian air force pending an inquiry into Peru's downing of an unarmed plane carrying a family of American missionaries. Administration officials, moreover, are seeking to win the support of other South American nations that have voiced concerns about American-backed military buildup in Colombia.

If confirmed by the Senate, Mr. Walters will succeed Barry R. McCaffrey, a retired general who sought to reduce the level of confrontation with drug-exporting nations and spearheaded a national advertising campaign aimed at convincing American youth that drugs ruin lives.

As the new chief at the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, Mr. Walters, 49, would oversee a staff of more than 150 and a budget that - including grant programs - amounts to nearly a half- billion dollars, officials said. An important job of the drug czar is to scrutinize the antinarcotics programs of federal agencies and sign off on their budgets.

President Bush has not decided whether to make the drug czar a cabinet level appointment, officials said, though several Republican lawmakers have urged the president to maintain the visibility of the position with cabinet ranking, a status General McCaffrey had.

Before settling on Mr. Walters, the White House had considered several candidates, including Bill McCollum, a former Florida representative; Jim McDonough, the Florida drug czar; and Rick Romley, an Arizona district attorney, the lawmakers said.

Mr. Walters' background as a chief of enforcement and supply reduction in the last Bush administration has raised the concerns of some that he will not focus enough on treatment and prevention.

"Some of his positions in my own view need to be carefully considered by the confirmation committee," General McCaffrey said in an interview today. "I am hopeful to maintain a commitment to the bipartisan support for treatment programs."

General McCaffrey, who said he has researched Mr. Walters' views, complained that Mr. Walters had voiced a concern "that there is too much treatment capacity in the United States, which I found shocking."

Mr. Walters, who declined to comment on his pending nomination, has told associates that his enforcement experience will give him greater credibility on the softer aspects of drug reduction, including treatment. President Bush has repeatedly emphasized the need to reduce demand in the United States.

Mr. Walters, who was the acting drug czar briefly in 1993, quit in protest when President Clinton slashed his staff to 25 from 146 and announced he would reorient anti- narcotics policy to focus on hard- core users, while de-emphasizing law enforcement and interdiction.

In testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1996, Mr. Walters criticized "this ineffectual policy - the latest manifestation of the liberals' commitment to a `therapeutic state' in which government serves as the agent of personal rehabilitation."

In his Senate appearance, Mr. Walters outlined elements of what he said was an effective drug policy.

He said the president should make use of the "bully pulpit" to heighten awareness of the dangers of drugs, and noted that President George Bush had used his first national prime-time address in 1989 to discuss the drug issue.

Mr. Walters urged the United States to step up the battle against drugs at their source, in Latin America, and called foreign programs cheap and effective.

He also advocated giving the military a lead role in interdiction efforts, stiffening federal marijuana penalties, and opposed federal financing for needle exchanges to reduce the spread of AIDS.

A Michigan native, Mr. Walters is president of the Philanthropy Roundtable, a conservative association that advises more than 600 donors to charity. Before that, he was president of the New Citizenship Project, which promoted increasing the role of religion in public life. In the 1980's, he was a top aide to Mr. Bennett at the Education Department, then followed his boss into the drug czar's office at its inception, in 1989.

Together with Mr. Bennett and John J. DiIulio - Mr. Bush's recent appointee to head a White House office on religious-based and community initiatives - Mr. Walters wrote a book: "Body Count: Moral Poverty and How to Win America's War against Crime and Drugs." The book, published in 1997, warns of the young criminals branded "superpredators," who come from broken homes, alienated communities and attack without remorse.

Such criminals, Mr. Walters and his colleagues wrote, suffer from "moral poverty" and should face stiff and certain punishment. Society must protect itself, according to Mr. Walters, who displays little patience for those who say the nation's prisons are too full.

---

Tape Said to Show That U.S. Jet Tried to Warn Peruvians of Error

New York Times
April 26, 2001
By JAMES RISEN
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/26/world/26PLAN.html

WASHINGTON, April 25 - The American crew of a surveillance aircraft overheard the pilot of a small plane carrying a missionary family communicate with the tower at a Peruvian airport, and tried to warn a Peruvian Air Force fighter before it attacked, tape recordings of the incident reveal, according to United States officials who have reviewed them.

But the Peruvian jet almost immediately opened fire, and the pilot of the small Cessna can then be heard on the tape saying "they are killing us!" one official said.

The American pilot and co-pilot of the surveillance plane then shouted to a Peruvian Air Force officer on board, who was acting as their liaison with the Peruvian fighter, to order a cease-fire. At that point, one member of the American crew can be heard shouting, "Tell him to terminate, tell him to terminate!," the official said. The Peruvian officer on board the American plane then told the Peruvian fighter plane: "No more. No more."

In Washington, senior American officials are still reviewing the video and audio tapes from the incident over Peru last Friday, in which an American woman and her baby daughter were killed. The pilot of the missionary plane was wounded, but he was able to land, and two other passengers also survived.

The Peruvian fighter and the American surveillance plane were part of a joint operation to stop drug- running flights in the region. United States drug interdiction flights have been suspended over Peru and Colombia, according to the State Department.

Since the downing of the aircraft, American officials have said that the Peruvian jet opened fire on the missionaries' plane without carefully following established procedures. Now, officials say that the tapes of the incident, which have not yet been publicly released by the United States government, show that C.I.A. contract personnel repeatedly raised questions with the Peruvians about their procedures before the Peruvian pilot opened fire. They then intervened to try to stop the firing almost as soon as it began.

Still, officials caution that some of the facts surrounding the incident still must be clarified, including any attempt to reconcile the tapes with other reports that the survivors were strafed after they landed. An investigation of the incident by the government is expected, although it is still not clear who will lead that inquiry.

But in seeking to piece together the sequence of events that led to the downing of the plane, American officials reveal that the tapes show that the Peruvians moved so quickly that the American crew on the surveillance plane had only a few minutes to intervene. The tapes show that the American crew repeatedly asked questions of the Peruvians and expressed strong reservations about their actions. At one point, they asked the Peruvian officer on board their plane whether he was certain that the small plane was a drug trafficking aircraft. The Peruvian responded that he was not certain.

In recounting the incident, officials say that it began a few minutes before 10 a.m. on Friday when the American plane, a Citation aircraft, began its surveillance of an unknown aircraft. The American plane had three C.I.A.-contract employees on board, including the pilot, co-pilot, and a systems operator, who tracked radar. In addition, a bilingual Peruvian Air Force lieutenant colonel was on board, acting as a liaison with the Peruvian Air Force.

After it began to track the unknown aircraft, the American crew asked the Peruvian officer to check with Peruvian officials on the ground to see whether the plane had filed a flight plan. The Peruvian Air Force responded that no flight plan could be found. But since then the Association of Baptists for World Evangelism, the missionary group whose plane was attacked, has posted on its Web site a copy of the flight plan that it said it had filed.

Shortly after 10 a.m., American officials said, the Peruvian officer aboard the American plane asked the Peruvian Air Force to launch an A-37 interceptor to investigate. The American crew expressed caution. About 10:13 a.m., the Americans recommended that the Peruvians go through the standard procedures for identifying the plane, including trying to hail its pilot, and not to take further action unless the plane began to take evasive maneuvers. American officials caution that the times of each statement heard on the tapes remain approximate, and are still reviewing them to determine a precise chronology.

Officials said that an American crew member could be heard on a tape saying, "We don't know who this guy is, it could be he is legit."

The officials said that the tapes showed events continued to unfold this way:

A few minutes later, an American crew member states that the Cessna plane could just be sightseeing, and points out that its altitude and flight pattern do not match the profile of a narcotics plane.

About that time, the A-37 interceptor arrived in the area, and the American crew of the surveillance plane recommended that the Peruvian officer on board their plane tell the fighter to pull forward and identify the unknown aircraft. At that time, the American crew again asked the Peruvian officer on their plane whether the Peruvian Air Force had found a flight plan because "it looks like he is heading toward Iquitos," rather than on a clandestine drug-running mission.

The Peruvian officer again said that no flight plan had been found.

Around 10:36 a.m., the Peruvian officer on board the surveillance plane ordered the A-37 to begin the first step in its checklist for the air interdiction program. Under phase one, an interceptor can visually identify an aircraft and its registry, try to establish radio contact, and if necessary proceed to a landing strip where the Peruvian Air Force can require it to land.

At that point, the Peruvian officer on board the surveillance plane tried to radio the Cessna on an emergency frequency, but received no response. The American crew then suggested that he try to hail the plane on an air traffic control frequency, which he did. Again there was no response. The American crew then twice recommended that the Peruvian officer use the Iquitos airport tower's frequency. Officials said it is unclear whether the Peruvian officer did so.

Around 10:40 a.m., the Peruvian officer on board the surveillance plane said the first phase was completed, and directed the fighter to begin the second step in the checklist, which calls for firing warning shots if the aircraft is ignoring instructions to land. American officials said they were not certain the Peruvian fighter actually fired warning shots. The American crew once again said that the plane did not seem to fit the profile of a drug- running plane.

But almost immediately, the Peruvian officer on board the surveillance plane called to the ground to ask for authorization to move to the third and final step to fire on the plane, American officials said.

At that point, the American crew objected to the Peruvian officer, and called their own supervisors on the ground in Peru. They told their supervisors they would not recommend going to the third step. They then asked the Peruvian officer on board their plane whether he was sure that the plane was a drug-running aircraft. He said no, according to American officials.

Almost immediately, Peruvian officials on the ground authorized the request to begin shooting. The Peruvian officer asked for confirmation from the ground a couple of times, and received it. But the American crew began to voice more strenuous objections, saying that the plane was not displaying evasive behavior and was not trying to escape, and recommended again that the A-37 pull up in front and visually identify the aircraft.

At 10:43 a.m., the A-37 was close enough to report the plane's tail number, OB1408, to the American surveillance plane. The Citation crew then suggested that the A-37 make itself visible, pull ahead of the plane and make a close identification, to resolve further doubts.

Soon after that, the American crew asked the Peruvian officer on board their plane three more times whether he was sure the plane was a narcotics flight. This time he said yes. At 10:46 a.m., American crew members said they thought that might be a mistake.

About the same time, the pilot of the Cessna was establishing communication with the tower at Iquitos airport, and informed the tower that military aircraft were in the area and that he was uncertain what they were doing. The crew of the American surveillance plane then heard the Cessna pilot talking to the Iquitos tower, and told the Peruvian officer.

At that point, the sequence of events appears tightly compressed, and the exact chronology is still difficult to piece together. But about 10:48 a.m., the A-37 opened fire, officials said. An American official said that on the tape, the pilot of the Cessna can be heard saying, "They are killing us!"

---

An Unwinnable War on Drugs

New York Times
April 26, 2001
By ETHAN A. NADELMANN
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/26/opinion/26NADE.html

That has the war on drugs done for Darryl Strawberry and Robert Downey Jr.? Are they better off or worse off? Are they the targets or the victims? Should they be thankful or regretful?

The war on drugs is really a war on people - on anyone who uses or grows or makes or sells a forbidden drug. It essentially consists of two elements: the predominant role of criminalization of all things having to do with marijuana, cocaine, heroin, Ecstasy and other prohibited drugs and the presumption that abstinence - coerced if necessary - is the only permissible relationship with these drugs. It's that combination that ultimately makes this war unwinnable.

The previous drug czar, Barry McCaffrey, wanted to do away with the rhetoric of the war on drugs while retaining its two core elements. Now the new attorney general, John Ashcroft, wants to intensify the drug war efforts. The implications are ominous.

The success or failure of drug policies is usually measured by those annual surveys that tell us how many Americans, particularly teenagers, confessed to a pollster that they had used one drug or another. Drug warriors often point to the 1980's as a time when the drug war really worked because the number of illicit drug users reportedly fell more than 50 percent in the decade.

But consider that in 1980 no one had ever heard of the cheap, smokable form of cocaine called crack or of drug-related H.I.V. infection. By the 1990's, both had reached epidemic proportions in American cities. Is this success?

Or consider that in 1980, the federal budget for drug control was about $1 billion, and state and local budgets perhaps two or three times that. Now the federal drug control budget has ballooned to roughly $20 billion, two- thirds of it for law enforcement, and state and local governments spend even more. On any day in 1980, approximately 50,000 people were behind bars for violating drug laws. Now the number is approaching 500,000. Is this success?

What's needed is a new way of evaluating drug policies by looking at how they reduce crime and suffering. Arresting and punishing citizens who smoke marijuana - the vast majority of illicit drug users - should be one of our lowest priorities. We should focus instead on reducing overdose deaths, curbing new H.I.V. infections through needle-exchange programs, cutting the numbers of nonviolent drug offenders behind bars, and wasting less taxpayer money on ineffective criminal policies.

Darryl Strawberry and Robert Downey Jr. qualify as both targets and victims of the war on drugs - targeted for consuming a forbidden drug, victimized by policies that must "treat" not just addiction but criminality. Millions more are victimized when their loved ones are put behind bars on drug charges or when they lose family members to drug-related AIDS, overdoses or prohibition-related violence. We should base our drug policies on scientific evidence and public health precepts. That's the most sensible and compassionate way to reduce drug abuse.

Ethan A. Nadelmann is executive director of the Lindesmith Center-Drug Policy Foundation.

---

STOP NETS $12 MILLION IN DRUGS

New York Times
April 26, 2001
Metro Briefing
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/26/nyregion/26MBRF.html

NEW JERSEY

PATERSON: Officer Edwin Cruz of the Paterson police pulled over Victor Riomana yesterday for failing to use a turn signal and uncovered more than 283 pounds of cocaine with a street value of $12 million, Chief James Wittig said. Mr. Riomana, 36, of Queens, driving a van with New York plates, made a series of left turns without signaling, Chief Wittig said. Officer Cruz pulled over Mr. Riomana at 9:45 a.m. and noticed brown paper wrapped with clear tape and duct tape, material often used to package drugs. (AP)

---

Peru preoccupied with scandals, presidential race

USA Today
04/26/2001
By Sibylla Brodzinsky, Special for USA TODAY
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2001-04-26-peru-scandal.htm

LIMA, Peru - Peruvians and Peru's media are immersed in nearly daily reports on scandals involving top government and military officials and a heated presidental campaign. They have had little time for the story of an American woman and her child who died last week when a Peruvian air force fighter shot down their light plane. "What plane?" is the most common response from Lima residents when asked what they think about Friday's downing of a plane carrying American missionaries. Veronica Bowers and her 7-month-old daughter were killed; pilot Kevin Donaldson was injured. Also surviving: Veronica's husband, Jim, and their 6-year-old son, Cory.

U.S. and Peruvian authorities are trying to piece together how the incident happened. Peruvian newspapers noted that the missionaries' Cessna 185 was being refloated so investigators could study bullet holes in the aircraft. There was no flight data recorder on board.

In Washington, a senior U.S. intelligence official who viewed a videotape of the incident made by a CIA drug-surveillance plane said it showed the Peruvian fighter jet failed to take a number of warning steps before firing on the civilian plane. The official said crewmembers on the CIA plane listened in horror as the Peruvian jet strafed the Cessna and are distressed by the experience. Peru's air force has said it followed proper procedures.

Although it is front-page news in the USA, the story of the missionaries' plane has been bumped here by political intrigue and new reports on the whereabouts of Peru's most-wanted man, former spy chief Vladimiro Montesinos. He is wanted on charges of graft and human rights abuses.

Montesinos, disgraced ex-president Alberto Fujimori's top adviser, is at the center of congressional and criminal investigations of corruption and abuse of power during Fujimori's 10-year rule. He is believed to be hiding in Venezuela. Fujimori, living in self-imposed exile in Japan, also may be charged.

Meanwhile, the former chairman of Peru's joint chiefs of staff, Gen. Nicolas Hermoza Rios, confessed in a closed hearing Tuesday that $14.5 million he had stashed in Switzerland was the product of "illicit activities." The revelation came days after interim President Valentin Paniagua sacked the chiefs of the army, navy and air force. They reportedly had signed a pact effectively endorsing Fujimori's "self-coup" in 1992, when he closed congress and ruled by decree.

Last Friday's shoot-down incident "is just one more thing to add to the air force's problems," said political analyst Juan Abugattas of the University of Lima. "Once again the air force finds itself in the middle of controversy."

Most Peruvians are more anxious about who will be their next president. Free-marketeer Alejandro Toledo won the first round of voting April 8 but failed to win a majority and avoid a runoff. His rival in the second-round is Alan Garcia, a former president driven from office in 1990 and later into exile.

Contributing: Barbara Slavin in Washington

---

USA Today
04/26/01
States
http://www.usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm

Connecticut

Southington - The wife of a Southington police sergeant has been charged for the second time in six months with selling or distributing marijuana. Hope Perry also faces charges of selling alcohol to minors. Sgt. William T. Perry was suspended without pay for 15 days following the discovery of marijuana in his home in October.

South Dakota

Pierre - Lawyers for former state Rep. Mike Koehn told the state Supreme Court that Koehn's drug conviction should be overturned because a prosecutor improperly used the testimony he gave to a grand jury under an immunity grant. Lawyers for the state said evidence was obtained independently for the misdemeanor marijuana conviction.

Texas

Houston - Yosvanis El Cubano Valle, 25, a prison gang leader, is going to death row for his part in a home burglary in which a drug dealer was killed. A jury decided Valle should receive lethal injection for ordering the 1999 gang hit on Jose Junco. Prosecutors said proceeds from the burglary were intended for families of gang members in prison and the prisoners.

------

Serious charges dropped against American

The Washington Times www.washtimes.com
4/26/01
World Scene
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20010426-21233780.htm

MOSCOW -- Russian prosecutors dropped drug-dealing charges against American student John Tobin yesterday, saying they would seek a four-year sentence on the lesser charge of drug abuse instead, witnesses said.

Investigators in the southern Russian city of Voronezh had threatened Mr. Tobin, 24, with up to 15 years in jail for reportedly running a marijuana ring. Drug charges were accompanied by hints from security officials that he also was training to be a spy.

But the prosecution abandoned accusations that Mr. Tobin and a fellow U.S. student had formed a drug-dealing ring after witnesses provided no incriminating evidence.

---

Mellow media

The Washington Times www.washtimes.com
4/26/01
John McCaslin
Inside the Beltway THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/inbeltway.htm

Nicholas Thimmesch, former Reagan-Bush staffer-turned-communications director for NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, says it was with a little help from the creative computer of the teen-age son of NORML´s legal counsel that they came up with the unique three-day conference media pass pictured here, featuring a cannabis leaf springing out of the word "Media."

And unlike other Washington media credentials, the backs of these unusual green passes give reporters advice on "what to do and what not to do if stopped by a cop."

"The media credentials are becoming somewhat of a collectors´ item," says Mr. Thimmesch. "No matter how many media credentials you see, you will never see one like this again."

-------- japan

Koizumi Woos Peace Faction After Backing Rearmament

New York Times
April 26, 2001
By HOWARD W. FRENCH
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/26/world/26JAPA.html

TOKYO, Thursday, April 26 - Junichiro Koizumi, a non-conformist politician who rode a stirring two- week campaign for change to victory on Tuesday was sworn in as Japan's ninth prime minister in 10 years today.

Although his election today was largely a formality, his comfortable margin of victory in Japan's powerful lower house of Parliament was symbolic of the way Mr. Koizumi's insurgent tactics have swept away or won over opponents throughout the campaign. The final tally was 287 votes, well above the 240 he needed for victory.

Mr. Koizumi's attentions now return to intensive consultations under way to name a cabinet, which is expected to be in place before the end of the day. Mr. Koizumi's campaign was based on ending the rule of factional politics within his Liberal Democratic Party, and his selection of ministers will be the first major test of his independence from the party's traditional power brokers.

On Wednesday, Mr. Koizumi, demonstrated the kind of balancing act he will need in the weeks ahead: He gratified conservatives in the governing party with an unusually strong call for Japan to field an army, then met with coalition partners opposed to any such move.

The statement about the need to amend the Constitution to allow Japan a real military came at Mr. Koizumi's first news conference after his election on Tuesday as president of the Liberal Democratic Party and was the strongest in memory from such a leading politician.

But Mr. Koizumi made no further reference to it, and local analysts appeared unmoved, seeing his words as a deft political maneuver rather than a change in policy.

"It is unnatural to have a provision saying the Self-Defense Force is not an army," he said. "It is better to have a constitution in which respect is held for those who lay down their lives in times of crisis." The Constitution, written by Americans during the postwar occupation, prohibits a military except for self-defense.

Just a few hours later, Mr. Koizumi was ensconced in a conciliatory meeting with his party's main coalition partner, the Buddhist-affiliated New Komeito party, which has always opposed changing the Constitution. He emerged from that session and one with the tiny New Conservative Party, to announce a broad policy agreement that would keep the governing coalition intact.

Japan's new leader is expected to announce his cabinet today, and so far little of detail is known about the policies he will apply. But there were numerous hints of accommodations under way.

Mr. Koizumi made his first major personnel decisions on Wednesday, appointing new party leaders. Asserting the independence from political factions that was the hallmark of his electoral campaign, Mr. Koizumi seemed to follow through in naming a longtime ally, Taku Yamasaki, to the post of secretary general, the second most powerful person in the party that has governed Japan for almost all of the last four decades.

Mr. Yamasaki was one of the principal architects of an internal rebellion last November and has long advocated major reforms for the party, whose machine-style politics have steadily lost favor with the public.

But Mr. Koizumi took care to balance the slate of top party leaders by appointing one of his vanquished rivals for the party presidency, Taro Aso, to the party's No. 3 job.

"The nomination of Yamasaki is meant to demonstrate Koizumi's independence, but he will not be able to completely ignore the mainstream factions," said Ikuo Kabashima, a political science professor at Tokyo University. "Likewise, the L.D.P. will never be able to win an election without the support of Komeito, so he has to keep them in the coalition. If Komeito goes into alliance with the Democratic Party, that is the end of the L.D.P. The machine is too weak now to win on its own."

With crucial elections only three months away, the governing party needs Mr. Koizumi, who enjoys a relatively liberal image among voters inclined to vote for the opposition Democratic Party, Mr. Kabashima said. Likewise, Mr. Koizumi, who has no major independent power base of his own, needs unity and cooperation from his party to get through the next few months.

Most analysts are already predicting a major battle in September, when the Liberal Democratic Party hold a regularly scheduled election for the top party post, and hence the prime minister's job.

Whether they supported his candidacy or not, party members here mostly seemed willing to back Mr. Koizumi.

"The landslide victory of Koizumi in the party primaries contains a message from the rank-and-file membership of the L.D.P.: they do not like factions to control everything, and they want a change from factional politics," said Hideaki Omura, a legislator from the Hashimoto faction, the party's largest.

-------- korea

S. Korea hopes U.S.-N. Korea dialogue reopens

USA Today
04/26/2001 - Updated 12:09 PM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2001-04-26-uskorea.htm

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - Top South Korean security officials on Thursday asked the United States to reopen dialogue with North Korea, South Korean officials said.

Foreign Minister Han Seung-soo and Defense Minister Kim Dong-shin met Thursday with Evans Revere, charge d'affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul, and U.S. Forces Korea Commander Gen. Thomas Schwartz.

"During the meeting, we relayed our hope that the United States will resume dialogue with North Korea as soon as possible after reviewing its policy on the North," said Kim Euy-taek, a spokesman at the Foreign Ministry.

Also Thursday, President Kim Dae-jung said he believed that North Korea will soon resume dialogue not only with South Korea but also with the United States.

"There is no alternative to dialogue, which is beneficial to each other," said the president during a speech in Seoul.

South Korean officials are concerned that the absence of dialogue between Washington and Pyongyang could hurt Seoul's efforts to reconcile with the North.

Inter-Korea exchanges flourished last year after their leaders met for the first time and agreed to promote reconciliation and unification. But the reconciliation process came to a virtual standstill after President Bush took a harder stance on North Korea and ruled out an early resumption of dialogue with the totalitarian country.

The Korean Peninsula was divided into the communist North and pro-Western South in 1945. The 1950-53 Korean War ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty, and the border remains sealed.

About 37,000 U.S. troops are stationed in South Korea under a defense treaty.

-------- puerto rico

Judge Refuses to Halt Bombing Exercise in Vieques

New York Times
April 26, 2001
By DAVID STOUT
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/26/national/27CND-PUERTO.html

WASHINGTON, April 26 - A federal judge refused today to block resumption of naval bombing on the island of Vieques, Puerto Rico, declaring that there was no finding that the exercises would cause "irreparable harm" to island residents.

But while Judge Gladys Kessler of United States District Court cleared the way for the bombing to resume on Friday, she made several remarks that heartened opponents of the bombing. The judge said there had been "an implied promise" by the Navy that bombing would not resume until completion of studies into possible links between noise and heart ailments among island residents.

Judge Kessler also said the bombing, which will last four to seven days, is in apparent violation of a newly enacted Puerto Rican law against noise pollution. And she encouraged Pentagon officials to intensify their discussions with Puerto Rican officials on the future of the exercises.

"Based on the evidence before me, I cannot find that the four-to-seven-day period of shelling will cause irreparable harm to the people of Vieques," the judge said at the end of a hearing. The "irreparable harm" factor is a crucial one when a court is determining whether to grant a restraining order or injunction.

The exercises to begin on Friday will involve thousands of sailors and marines and many ships and planes. The ammunition used in the bombardments will fire non-explosive rounds, but the jets and naval guns will still create a mighty din.

The Navy owns about two-thirds of the island of Vieques and for more than a half-century has used a 900-acre range on its eastern tip. Opposition to use of the range erupted after a civilian was accidentally killed by two errants bombs dropped by a jet in 1999. The Navy had suspended exercises in recent months.

Rear Adm. Craig Quigley, a Pentagon spokesman, said today that the Vieques range is "very, very important" to Navy and Marine Corps training. He called the range "the best in the entire Atlantic."

As for the noise-control law enacted by Puerto Rico earlier this week, Justice Department lawyers representing the Pentagon and Navy have asserted that it was aimed squarely at the bombing exercises and timed to enable the Puerto Rican government to file an 11th-hour complaint.

Today's ruling by Judge Kessler was surely not the last word in the controversy. She did not rule on the merits of the case, and it was far from clear today how long the controversy would continue, and whether it would be decided in court or through political negotiations.

Anabelle Rodriguez, Puerto Rico's Secretary of Justice said she was "extremely pleased" at the general tone of Judge Kessler's ruling and predicted that opponents of the bombing would prevail eventually.

----

The Navy Way on Vieques

By Mary McGrory
Thursday, April 26, 2001; Page A03
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A2825-2001Apr25?language=printer

The governor's voice sounded a bit tremulous over the phone. "This is a very sensitive day for our island," said Sila Maria Calderon, the first female chief executive of Puerto Rico.

"I have signed a bill outlawing the Navy bombing exercises -- they violate our health and human rights and our new anti-noise laws. We have just gone into federal court with a suit against the Navy. I never thought it would come to this. I thought we could settle this problem through dialogue and compromise."

The war over the Navy's maneuvers on the beautiful beaches of Vieques, a small island off Puerto Rico, has reached a new and critical phase. It is also becoming something of an issue in New York politics. Republican Gov. George E. Pataki has become a fiery opponent of the exercises, which include ship-to-shore shelling and dummy bombing.

Recently, he made a trip to the island. It was a sound political move: Puerto Ricans are the fastest growing group within the Hispanic community, but a Quinnipiac University poll showed that although New Yorkers agreed with Pataki about ending the bombing, by 61 percent to 24 percent, they stated in similar numbers that the governor should mind his own business.

Whatever his motives, his impact on the Bush administration was not noticeable; two days after Pataki's return from Puerto Rico, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld announced the exercises would go off as planned, just as they have for the past 60 years.

The White House does not want to talk about the problem. Puerto Ricans traditionally vote Democratic, and George W. Bush has courted all Hispanics. But Puerto Rico is going to be used for target practice just the same. The Navy says no place else will do. The shells and dummy bombs will fly on Friday as planned -- unless the court intervenes.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., son of the late New York senator and an environmentalist, plans to join the thousands of protesters expected at the bomb site. "A Dunkirk-type fleet is being assembled," he says. Five hundred Puerto Ricans have been arrested at the bomb site in the last two years, since a local was killed by an errant bomb.

Calderon, a Manhattanville College graduate who calls herself pro-American, says Puerto Ricans "disagree politically on almost everything, but not on Vieques. We are one against the bombing."

For Democrats, Vieques is embarrassing. In eight years, President Bill Clinton, with his wonted deference to the military, did nothing to interfere with the exercises, and in January 2000 he made a deal with Calderon's predecessor, Pedro Rossello, to buy out the opposition. If Puerto Ricans agreed to the bombing, with live bombs later, they would receive $40 million in development funds. Understandably, an area subject to supersonic jets firing missiles has not attracted developers.

At the White House meeting, Calderon, who was then the mayor of San Juan, was the only opponent. "I told the president, 'Our vote is not for sale,' " she recalled. The president was heard to grumble about "one tough lady."

Andrew M. Cuomo, erstwhile Clinton housing secretary and candidate for New York governor, accuses Pataki of pandering. "He has paid no attention to Puerto Ricans," he says. Cuomo announced his opposition to the bombing in his final week in office; the Pataki people accuse him of being too late. Cuomo's primary foe, Comptroller H. Carl McCall, has always opposed the bombing.

A controversy about the health consequences of the military exercises rages on. The Bush administration has promised further study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Calderon says that an investigation by medical experts shows a thickening of heart walls in Vieques inhabitants, fishermen and children alike, and a higher incidence of cancer than found on other islands. The Navy asked Johns Hopkins to review the findings, but the governor contends Hopkins has not seen the echo cardiograms, which are the crucial evidence.

The Navy has not budged during the uproar. That is the Navy's way. It does not change. It has been using Vieques for target practice for 60 years and does not want to stop now. To the Navy, it seems, change is defeat or surrender.

Look at its response to the recent calamity over the submarine that rammed a Japanese fishing vessel, killed nine people and caused a crisis between us and Japan. The day before the Navy's verdict in the case was announced, the admiral who was meting out the punishment stepped forward with an impassioned defense of the Navy policy of having civilians visit its ships. In the Greeneville tragedy, the visitors were considered a factor. But the Navy thinks that having company is a weapon in its war for public opinion, and it knows it is never wrong.

Now with its intransigence on Vieques, the Navy's only friends may be the people it takes for rides.

---

Judge refuses to halt bombing exercise in Vieques

USA Today
04/26/2001 - Updated 04:39 PM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/washdc/2001-04-26vieques.htm

WASHINGTON (AP) - A federal judge allowed the Navy to resume bombing exercises on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques, saying she found no proof that shelling from training this weekend would cause irreparable harm to residents.

But U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler suggested on Thursday that ''it would be the wiser course'' for the Navy to postpone scheduling future drills on Vieques until the U.S. government can finish a study on any health risks linked to the exercises.

Puerto Rico Gov. Sila Calderon, at a news conference in San Juan, said she disagreed with the ruling but would respect it ''because I am a person of law and order.''

The Navy was expected to begin four to seven days of training on Vieques starting Friday, and Kessler said she could not find any irreparable harm to island residents for such a ''particularly discreet'' period.

She also stressed that her decision was not a final ruling on the merits of the case.

Carlos Ventura, a Vieques fisherman, said island protesters planned to go into the Navy range in an effort to halt the training. ''The plan to bomb is an act of tyranny against our people,'' he said.

''The government should continue with our legal action, but I call on all Puerto Ricans to support the plans for civil disobedience on Vieques.''

Kessler's decision was made in response to a lawsuit filed by Puerto Rico to stop the naval drills, saying they caused health problems and would violate a newly enacted anti-noise law.

Attorneys for the Justice Department argued that the law - which was signed by Puerto Rico's governor earlier this week - was enacted solely to target the military activities and therefore, doesn't apply to the United States because it is discriminatory.

The Justice Department also accused the Puerto Rican government of waiting until days before the Navy's scheduled drills to enact the legislation.

An attorney for the commonwealth denied it, saying five days of hearings were required before the law was passed.

The new law cites the U.S. Noise Control Act of 1972, which allows states - or, as in Puerto Rico's case, U.S. territories - to set noise-control laws. Exemptions to the law may be made by the U.S. president.

While issuing her ruling, Kessler expressed several concerns about the case.

Among them, President Bush's failure to intervene on behalf of the Navy for training exercises a Justice Department attorney described as ''absolutely critical.''

Kessler said she also was bothered by an ''implied promise'' the Navy made to Puerto Rico's newly elected governor earlier this year to postpone future drills until the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services could finish its review on studies linking the noise to heart problems of island residents.

Eugene Gulland, an attorney for the commonwealth, said past naval drills on Vieques created at least 15,000 sonic booms a year.

He cited various studies suggesting a link between the noise and cardiovascular problems.

Earlier, Kessler denied a Justice Department request to transfer the case to a federal court in Puerto Rico, where several lawsuits against the bombing are pending and judges there have familiarity with the issue.

The lawsuit was filed against the Navy, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, acting Navy Secretary Robert Pirie and Adm. Vern Clark, chief of naval operations.

The Navy owns two-thirds of Vieques, and the bombing range covers 900 acres on the island's eastern tip. Bombing has been suspended since March on the eastern part of Vieques.

A group of Vieques residents, led by the Roman Catholic bishop of Caguas, Ruben Gonzalez Medina, plan to deliver a letter to Pope John Paul II this weekend asking him to appeal to President Bush to end the naval training on Vieques.

Celebrities, including Marc Anthony, Benicio del Toro, Ricky Martin, Jose Feliciano, Roberto Alomar and Juan Gonzalez asked Bush in full-page advertisements in Thursday's Washington Post and New York Times to ''stop the bombing of Vieques now.''

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

The War Within

New York Times
April 26, 2001
Bob Kerrey
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/26/opinion/26THU1.html

In one sense, wars last as long as the lives of the soldiers who survive them. That is why the aging veterans of D-Day still weep to recall the costly landing on the Normandy beaches, and that is why a new generation of men in their 40's and 50's are haunted by operations such as that conducted by former Senator Bob Kerrey and six other Navy Seals in the village of Thanh Phong on the night of Feb. 25, 1969. A story to be published in The New York Times Magazine on Sunday and now available at The New York Times on the Web relates the tangled story of how Mr. Kerrey, then a lieutenant, and his men killed as many as 20 unarmed Vietnamese men, women and children in what was supposed to be an operation to capture a Vietcong official. The former senator says the event arose from the confusion of night combat but nonetheless filled him with shame, guilt and remorse throughout a political career based in part on the fact that he won the Medal of Honor under heroic circumstances in a later engagement. Another member of the squad says the victims included 14 or 15 women and children rounded up as a group and shot on Mr. Kerrey's direct order. It is a story that - with its conflicting evidence, undeniable carnage and tragic aftermath - sums up the American experience in Vietnam and the madness of a war that then, as now, seemed to lack any rationale except the wrecking of as many lives as possible on both sides.

In regard to Mr. Kerrey, who lost part of a leg in Vietnam and is now president of the New School University, our first reaction was one of compassion rather than condemnation. But there is no avoiding the fact that the episode raises serious questions that must be confronted even if they can never be resolved. The purposeful shooting of noncombatants, such as occurred at My Lai, where Army troops killed hundreds of villagers in 1968, is a violation of American military law. It also raises questions of credibility for Mr. Kerrey, who sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 1992 and has not ruled out a run in 2004. Mr. Kerrey once called President Clinton "an unusually good liar," and some Americans will question his long silence and his candor about this episode, for which he received the Bronze Star and a citation for killing 21 Vietcong.

Mr. Kerrey and other members of his unit have begun talking about this agonizing event as the publication of The Times's article and a "60 Minutes II" broadcast, based on a coordinated reporting effort, approached. Mr. Kerrey said he had already made the decision to begin a public discussion of the events at Thanh Phong in the course of writing his memoirs. There is no dispute now that only civilians died in the village. But Mr. Kerrey said they had been shot in the darkness after his unit was fired upon in an area that had been declared a free-fire zone and that civilians had been urged to leave. At least one other member of his unit supports that account. But another Seal, Gerhard Klann, says the unit found no enemy fighters in the village and killed the women and children to facilitate their escape from the area.

The one common thread in both accounts is moral agony. Mr. Klann told The Times he wanted to "cleanse my soul." Mr. Kerrey spoke of inescapable shame and second-guessing about what he recalls as an error in judgment in a place where the enemy was hard to identify. Saying he once thought dying for one's country was the soldier's worst fate, he added: "I think killing for your country can be a lot worse. Because that's the memory that haunts."

The confusion of war, where very young people operate under unimaginable stress, often leaves conflicts in testimony that can never be resolved. Vietnam, because it involved no mission of national survival, also left young Americans like Gerhard Klann and Bob Kerrey with a greater burden of guilt and remorse than any other conflict in the nation's history. With the emergence of this story, Mr. Kerrey's career has entered a new phase of public assessment. The nation, for its part, must stick with the ongoing task of remembering the horrible lesson of the physical and psychological damage to people on both sides when a great power undertakes a war without a rationale.

---

Ex-Senator Kerrey Says Raid He Led in '69 Killed Civilians

New York Times
April 26, 2001
By AMY WALDMAN
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/26/nyregion/26KERR.html

Bob Kerrey, a former United States senator who won the Medal of Honor for his military service in Vietnam, has acknowledged that a combat mission he led there three decades ago caused the deaths of 13 to 20 unarmed civilians, most of them women and children.

Days before an investigation of his role in the incident was to be published in The New York Times Magazine, Mr. Kerrey began describing his version of the events in interviews that appeared yesterday in other newspapers and on television.

He first spoke publicly about the incident, which occurred Feb. 25, 1969, in the Mekong Delta, in a speech last week at the Virginia Military Institute.

"I have been haunted by it for 32 years," he said in the V.M.I. speech on April 18.

The magazine investigation was carried out jointly with "60 Minutes II," the CBS News program. After Mr. Kerrey began granting other interviews on the incident, The Times posted the article, the cover article of this Sunday's magazine, yesterday on its Web site. CBS plans to broadcast its report Tuesday.

During the course of an investigation that lasted more than two years, Mr. Kerrey, 57, the president of New School University in Manhattan, granted three interviews to Gregory L. Vistica, the writer of the magazine article, spoke with him during several dinners and had shorter conversations by telephone and E-mail.

Mr. Vistica also got in touch with the other six members of the squad of Navy Seals that Mr. Kerrey led on a mission into Vietcong territory in 1969.

Three refused to discuss the events of that night in any detail. One gave an account that differed from Mr. Kerrey's on some respects, but over time has come into line with his.

Another member of the squad offered a starkly different version of events, under which Mr. Kerrey ordered the killing of the civilians because he felt it was the only way for his men to retreat safely.

Mr. Vistica, a former reporter for Newsweek, had begun reporting the article for Newsweek, which decided not to publish it after Mr. Kerrey did not run for president in 2000. Mr. Vistica did more than a year of additional reporting before The Times Magazine published the article.

In the interviews with Mr. Vistica, Mr. Kerrey said that because his memories of the event were clouded by time and trauma, he could not be sure that the other version of the events was incorrect. But in the television interviews yesterday, Mr. Kerrey emphatically denied that his unit knowingly killed women and children. In one interview broadcast last night, he described the incident as "a firefight."

As reports about the incident began circulating yesterday, the reaction from two of his former Senate colleagues who also served in Vietnam was one of sympathy and understanding.

Senator John McCain, an Arizona Republican and a former prisoner of war in Vietnam, told CNN: "My heart goes out to Bob Kerrey at this moment. All of us involved in wars do things we're proud of and things we're not so proud of."

On the Senate floor yesterday, Senator John Kerry, a Democrat of Massachusetts who once headed Vietnam Veterans Against the War, offered his public support to Mr. Kerrey.

"He obviously feels anguish and pain about those events," Senator Kerry said. "But I don't believe they should diminish for one moment the full measure of what he has given to his country and of what he represents."

Although Mr. Kerrey's public discussion of what happened was described as a single incident, The Times Magazine article examines the killing of two different groups of civilians that night.

At the time, Mr. Kerrey was a 25- year-old lieutenant who had arrived in Vietnam only a month earlier. On Feb. 25, 1969, he led a group of six Navy Seals - the informal name for Sea-Air-Land units, specialists in unconventional warfare - on a mission to capture a Vietcong leader who was supposed to be having a meeting in the area that night.

On a moonless night, the squad, known as Kerrey's Raiders, was dropped off by boat. The men moved in and encountered a thatched hut. Mr. Kerrey says his men killed those inside, but he did not know who they were and did not participate. Two other members of his unit say some women were present, and one says there were children. Both say Mr. Kerrey helped kill one of the men.

The squad moved on and encountered another set of huts. Here, Mr. Kerrey says, they came under fire and returned it. Then they discovered that all the dead were women and children.

"The thing that I will remember until the day I die is walking in and finding, I don't know, 14 or so, I don't even know what the number was, women and children who were dead," he told The Times Magazine.

Another member of the squad, Gerhard Klann, said the Seals rounded up women and children from the edges of the village, then debated what to do. Feeling they could not safely escape if they released them or took them prisoner, they opened fire on them after Lt. Kerrey gave the order, Mr. Klann said.

As part of the investigation by CBS and The Times, a cameraman for "60 Minutes II" went to the village to interview residents. A Vietnamese woman who said she witnessed the events of that night, and two people who said they were relatives of the civilians killed, gave accounts consistent with Mr. Klann's version.

Another member of the squad, Mike Ambrose, told The Times Magazine that he strongly disagreed with Mr. Klann's account of what occurred in the second encounter.

In The Times Magazine article, Mr. Kerrey conceded that his three- decade-old memory might be faulty. But he said in an interview with The Times yesterday that he had talked to all of the men in his squad, and all but Mr. Klann share his recollection.

Still, Mr. Kerrey said, "I don't begrudge Gerhard his memory," adding, "Mine's bad enough."

He added: "Some in my squad feel I've gone soft for even being haunted by this, but I am."

After the incident, Lt. Kerrey's commander reported that the squad had killed 21 Vietcong. At least one villager, an old man, complained to American military officials about the killings at the time, but there was only a minimal investigation, according to the magazine article.

Mr. Kerrey was awarded a Bronze Star for the mission. But he has seldom talked about that honor, and his most recent official biography does not mention the award.

Less than a month after the civilian deaths, on March 14, 1969, Lt. Kerrey led his Seals on another mission. and lost part of his right leg when a grenade exploded at his feet. In 1970, he was awarded the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest military award.

He spent months in a military hospital. After his recovery he returned to Nebraska and opened a successful string of health clubs and restaurants. In 1982 he was elected governor and in 1988 he was elected to the United States Senate.

He served two terms in the Senate before choosing not to run again last year. He was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1992, and had contemplated running against Al Gore for the party's nomination for president in 2000. He decided against it, citing his lack of appetite for an uphill battle. The decision came a few weeks after Mr. Vistica first interviewed him and presented documents about the mission in Vietnam.

Mr. Kerrey's war experience, and the loss of his leg, have become part of his political profile. He is routinely introduced as a hero.

He told The Wall Street Journal in an interview published yesterday: "This is killing me. I'm tired of people describing me as a hero and holding this inside."

Mr. Kerrey said yesterday in the interview with The Times that he was writing a book about his experience in Vietnam. He said he would continue talking about what happened in Thanh Phong. Two things, he said, made him feel he should keep talking about the incident.

One was the reaction of his son and daughter, who are about the age he was when he went to Vietnam. They told him, "We still love you."

"Mercy is a powerful thing to give another person," he said. "Love can be healing."

The other thing, he said, was the speech last week to a nationwide gathering of cadets in the Reserve Officers Training Corps attending a leadership seminar at V.M.I. In that speech, he said: "It was a not a military victory. It was a tragedy, and I had ordered it. How, I have anguished ever since, could I have made such a mistake? Though it could be justified militarily, I could never make my own peace with what happened that night."

The incident, he said, illustrated why the military needed to provide training not only in how to kill, but also how to cope with killing. "When contemplating war we must abandon euphemism and answer the question: does the cause justify sending young men out to kill other human beings?" he said in the speech.

When he finished speaking, Mr. Kerrey received a standing ovation. Men his age, he said, came up to him to describe similar experiences.

He also said that while attending a conference last weekend at the United States Military Academy at West Point, he had discussed the incident at Thanh Phong with Gary Solis, who is a war crimes expert who teaches the rules of war at the academy.

"It's the first time I had read the rules of war," Mr. Kerrey said. "I certainly wasn't trained in them."

---

Kerrey Says Today He 'Cannot Justify' Killings in Vietnam Raid

New York Times
April 26, 2001 Filed at 4:11 p.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/nyregion/AP-Kerrey-Vietnam.html

NEW YORK (AP) -- Former Sen. Bob Kerrey, after publicly acknowledging he led a squad that killed women and children during the Vietnam War, said Thursday that he did not plan to return the Bronze Star awarded him after the incident.

``It's not my intent to do so,'' Kerrey told a crowded Manhattan news conference. ``The medal has meant nothing to me. ... I put it away with other memories as far as I could.''

Kerrey, a presidential aspirant, said he has carried the memory of that night with him for 32 years -- not even sharing the details with his children.

Kerrey received the Bronze Star for the Feb. 25, 1969, raid in the Mekong Delta. The award citation says 21 Viet Cong were killed and enemy weapons were captured or destroyed. Witness' and official accounts of the number of dead varies from 13 to more than 20.

Kerrey said he and his fellow soldiers began shooting only after they were shot at in a free-fire zone -- an area cleared of civilians by the U.S. military. Anyone remaining was assumed by U.S. forces to be the enemy.

``It may be that I did nothing wrong,'' Kerrey said. ``But I felt like I did something wrong. Here's what happened, and I cannot justify it.''

A Pentagon spokesman, Rear Adm. Craig Quigley, said he knew of no plan for the Pentagon to investigate the circumstances of the Bronze Star award, but he did not rule out an eventual investigation.

One day after revealing some details in interviews about the events, Kerrey laid out his version of the night:

Kerrey, then 25, was a lieutenant leading an elite seven-man team of Navy SEALS. They were approaching an area where, according to intelligence, a Viet Cong meeting was to take place.

As Kerrey and his men approached two huts on a dark, moonless night, they were fired upon and returned it on Kerrey's orders. Once the shooting stopped, Kerrey's squad determined that the only people killed were women, children and older men.

``We fired because we were fired upon,'' Kerrey said. ``We did not go out on a mission to kill innocent people. I feel guilty about what happened.''

Kerrey has indicated that he believed the victims were likely Viet Cong sympathizers. Another squad member, Mike Ambrose, has said he believed the Viet Cong were firing from behind the women and children before fleeing.

Kerrey had kept his recollections private until his hand was forced when squad member Gerhard Klann told ''60 Minutes II'' and The New York Times that the victims were herded into a group and massacred.

A Vietnamese woman, Pham Tri Lanh, corroborated Klann's version in an interview with ''60 Minutes II.'' The Times will publish its story in its Sunday magazine and posted it on its Web site Wednesday.

Klann did not return a phone call Thursday from The Associated Press; neither did Lee ``Doc'' Schrier, another member of Kerry's squad.

Kerry said he will not challenge Klann's version of the events, but can only recall his own.

``All the members of my squad, with the exception of Gerhard, will say the same things'' about the night, Kerrey said.

Seventeen days after the incident, Kerrey earned the Medal of Honor -- America's highest military honor -- for directing an attack on a Viet Cong unit even after losing part of his right leg when a grenade exploded at his feet.

Kerrey, a Democrat, served one term as governor of Nebraska and two terms as senator. He sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 1992, and recently became president of the New School University in New York.

He initially spoke about the incident April 18 at an ROTC leadership seminar at the Virginia Military Institute.

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ACADEMY INCREASES SECURITY

New York Times
April 26, 2001
Metro Briefing
Hope Reeves
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/26/nyregion/26MBRF.html

WEST POINT: The United States Military Academy has tightened security at its three gates because of an increased threat of terrorism. The academy is requiring all vehicles to display a Department of Defense sticker on their front bumpers or their occupants will face questioning every time they enter, said Lt. Col. James Whaley, the academy's spokesman. A March 27 Department of Defense directive requires all Army installations to tighten security, he said. The three million tourists who visit the school each year are routinely questioned, he said. (NYT)

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Kerrey expresses guilt, remorse; questions remain

USA Today
04/26/2001 - Updated 07:03 PM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/washdc/2001-04-26-kerrey-raid.htm

NEW YORK - Former Nebraska senator Bob Kerrey expressed shame Thursday over his role in a 1969 combat mission during which unarmed Vietnamese women and children were killed. He characterized the incident as a tragic accident, disputing other accounts that victims were herded into a group and massacred. Kerrey also indicated to reporters that he has ruled out running for president in 2004. In an afternoon news conference, Kerrey said:

"We did not go out on a mission to kill innocent people." "I have chosen to talk because it helps me to heal and because I hope that my words can convey something useful and that some good may come of that night." "I have carried this for more than three decades, with private anguish, and words cannot convey how I feel." "I feel guilty because of what happened, but not because of what we intended to do." "Though others have justified it militarily to me, I have not been able to do so." "I have not discussed this tragedy before, not even my children knew. But they told me they still loved me and their love heals."

Though a member of Kerrey's SEAL unit and a Vietnamese woman who said she witnessed the killings allege the civilians were herded together and massacred, the former Nebraska governor maintains the raid was by and large carried out in self-defense.

"To describe it as an atrocity, I would say, is pretty close to being right, because that's how it felt and that's why I feel guilt and shame for it," Kerrey said, according to a partial transcript of a 60 Minutes II segment scheduled for broadcast Tuesday.

Kerrey was later awarded a Bronze Star for the Feb. 25, 1969, raid in the Mekong Delta. The citation says 21 Viet Cong were killed and enemy weapons were captured or destroyed. Witness' and official accounts of the number of dead varies from 13 to more than 20.

"We herded them together in a group. We lined them up and we opened fire," Gerhard Klann told 60 Minutes II.

"I just happen to believe that it's not true," Kerrey said Thursday of Klann's version of the story.

The former senator says he did not plan to return the Bronze Star. ''It's not my intent to do so,'' Kerrey told the reporters at the crowded Manhattan news conference. ''The medal has meant nothing to me. ... I put it away with other memories as far as I could.''

A Pentagon spokesman, Rear Adm. Craig Quigley, said he knew of no plan for the Pentagon to investigate the circumstances of the Bronze Star award, but he did not rule out an eventual investigation.

Kerrey also said, "I am not a potential commander-in-chief," apparently ruling out a run for president in four years.

Kerrey, who earned the nation's highest valor award, the Medal of Honor, for a later SEAL action, talked about the raid publicly for the first time last week in a speech to ROTC students at Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, Va.

Kerrey said the mission took place on a moonless night, when he was a 25-year-old lieutenant leading a seven-man commando team. He said Klann and another one of his men killed several people they came upon at the start of the raid because they believed they were a threat. Kerrey said he had not ordered the killings but took responsibility for them.

About 15 minutes later, Kerrey said, shots were fired at his squad and his men returned fire.

"But when the fire stopped, we found that we had killed only women, children and older men. It was not a military victory. It was a tragedy and I had ordered it," said Kerrey, who has since said he counted about 14 bodies.

Klann's version of the shooting, and an account from Pham Tri Lanh, who said she saw the raid, were reported as part of a joint effort by CBS News and The New York Times. The Times will publish the story in its Sunday magazine and posted it on its Web site Wednesday.

Klann said that at the start of the raid he killed an old man with Kerrey's help and that he does not remember anyone shooting at their team. Instead, he said the commandos assembled about 15 villagers for questioning and that Kerrey ordered the men to open fire.

Lanh, then the 30-year-old wife of a Viet Cong soldier, said she witnessed the shooting.

"They shot these two old women and they fell forward and they rolled over and then they ordered everybody out from the bunker and they lined them up and they shot all of them from behind," Lanh told CBS News.

Mike Ambrose, a third member of the commando team, "wholeheartedly" denied rounding up villagers and shooting them. Ambrose, like Kerrey, said he remembered the unit being fired on.

"It got ridiculous pretty much once the guns got going. I was in survival mode. It was dark, you're not seeing much but movement and shadows. You couldn't tell if they were women or men," Ambrose told the Times magazine. The four remaining members of Kerrey's team declined to comment.

Kerrey said his memory may differ from the rest of the team due to the passing years and the fog of war.

"Gerhard I will not contradict," Kerrey said. "So if that's his view I don't contradict it. It's not my memory of it and as to the eyewitness (she) is, at the very least, sympathetic to the Viet Cong."

Kerrey, a Democrat, served one term as governor of Nebraska and two terms as senator. He recently became president of New School University in New York.

He told the magazine he wasn't afraid to accept his responsibility for the incident and is under no illusions about the repercussions.

"It's going to be very interesting to see the reaction to the story," Kerrey said. "I mean, because basically you're talking about a man who killed innocent civilians."

---

House may end contract for berets

The Washington Times www.washtimes.com
4/26/01
Rowan Scarborough THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20010426-11717758.htm

Some members of the House Armed Services Committee plan to try to block the Army´s black beret handout this year through legislation canceling the production contracts, a congressman said yesterday.

Rep. Roscoe G. Bartlett, Maryland Republican and an Armed Services Committee member, said the move would come via an amendment to the 2002 defense budget bill written this summer, or in a stand-alone bill.

"I think there is a growing sentiment among our members that the Army is in a very difficult situation," said Mr. Bartlett, who, like many other lawmakers, is upset that more than 600,000 berets are being produced in communist China. He said the Army was "politically incapable of doing the right thing, which is to say we will cancel the black beret program."

"I would say there is a very high probability we will put something in the bill on the berets," Mr. Bartlett said in an interview. "I would think it would be to cancel the contracts of those made in China and not implement the berets for Army-wide use."

His remarks came after the Armed Services Committee met behind closed doors yesterday with Gen. Eric Shinseki, the Army chief of staff. Also questioned was Lt. Gen. Henry T. Glisson, director of the Defense Logistics Agency, which is buying nearly 4 million berets at up to $35 million for virtually all Army soldiers.

It was not clear yesterday whether Congress could act quickly enough to stop the Chinese production before the contract is fulfilled. China already has delivered more than half of the 618,000 berets that the U.S. Army ordered. Soldiers began receiving the new headgear this month. All are scheduled to have the headgear by June, meaning congressional action to rescind the program would result in troops exchanging the new berets for the foldable green caps they replaced.

Gen. Shinseki announced in October he would put a beret on every soldier as a symbol of the Army´s transformation into a lighter, more agile force for the 21st century. Since then, the apparel decision has not gone as smoothly as top Army officials predicted.

The special operations community erupted in anger, saying universal berets cheapened the black berets given to elite Army Rangers, as well as maroon berets for airborne troops and green berets for special forces.

Then, The Washington Times reported that the Defense Logistics Agency, in order to meet Gen. Shinseki´s June 14 deadline for black berets for all Army soldiers, had to award contracts to companies that operate low-wage factories overseas, including in China.

To meet the deadline, the agency invoked a legally available waiver to a federal law, known as the Berry Amendment, which requires U.S. military uniforms to be made of American components in domestic factories.

The twin complications of soldier protests and a Chinese connection prompted letters from lawmakers calling on President Bush, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Gen. Shinseki to cancel the program.

But the general stood firm and announced a compromise by which the Rangers would switch from black to tan berets.

Mr. Bartlett described the sentiment of congressional members as, "I don´t want to micromanage, but this is a mess." The congressman said he does not know whether there are sufficient votes in committee to cancel the beret program.

Committee member Rep. Duncan Hunter, California Republican, also has been a critic of the Army´s beret decision. A spokesman said Mr. Hunter has declined to comment but may have a statement later on the issue.

Senate Armed Services Chairman Sen. John W. Warner, Virginia Republican, has called on the Army to suspend black beret handouts until a new civilian secretary can review the program. The White House announced yesterday it would nominate retired Brig. Gen. Thomas E. White as the next Army secretary. He now faces a Senate confirmation hearing.

Congressional sources said Gen. Shinseki spent much of his briefing yesterday justifying his beret decision. The sources said the witnesses refrained from using the word "China" when discussing where 618,000 berets were being made. Instead, they referred to the name of the British company that operates the plant there.

"They never could have anticipated they would have to make these in China at the same time they are holding 24 hostages," said Mr. Bartlett, referring to China´s 12-day detention of 24 EP-3E American crew members on Hainan island earlier this month.

More than 75 House members signed a letter to Mr. Rumsfeld last month protesting the foreign purchases. U.S. apparel manufacturers contend they could have competed for a larger share of the nearly 4 million berets if Gen. Shinseki had not set such a tight deadline of June 14, the Army´s birthday.

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Billions sought for arms

USA Today
04/26/2001 - Updated 11:09 PM ET
By Dave Moniz and Andrea Stone, USA TODAY
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washdc/2001-04-27-rumsfeld.htm

WASHINGTON - As Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld nears the end of a top-to-bottom review of the Pentagon, he is expected to seek a large boost in defense spending - $200 billion-$300 billion over the next six years, Defense Department sources familiar with his plans say.

An increase in that range for the military amounts to a 10%-15% boost over the Pentagon's current spending blueprint of about $2 trillion from 2002 through 2007.

During his campaign in 2000, President Bush called for increasing defense spending by $45 billion over nine years. He left open the possibility of seeking more money for the Pentagon, which has a budget of $296 billion for 2001.

A budget boost as big as Rumsfeld is eyeing could trigger opposition in Congress, which is forcing Bush to scale back the size of his $1.6 trillion tax cut and resisting his call for cuts in many domestic programs.

Bush has ordered Rumsfeld to review ways to modernize the military. Although he has kept his findings private, three sources familiar with his thinking have provided USA TODAY details of some of his expected recommendations. The sources say Rumsfeld, who might outline his plans to Bush as early as next week, is expected to propose:

Investing more in satellites, unmanned aircraft and space technology.

De-emphasizing the role of ground troops. Among the ideas is reorganizing the Army's 12,000-to-15,000-member divisions into 3,700-troop brigades to make the service more flexible.

Retiring Air Force B-1 bombers, which cost $200 million each, and purchasing more B-2 "stealth" bombers. The Air Force has 21 B-2s that cost $1.3 billion each, but the new versions are expected to cost half as much.

Replacing aging aircraft much sooner than the current life cycle of 30-40 years.

Launching a reorganization of the services that would include contracting to private companies some functions not directly related to fighting wars, such as maintenance, supply and accounting.

Rumsfeld's spokesman, Rear Adm. Craig Quigley, cautioned that the defense secretary has not made final decisions on the proposals.

Since he took over the Pentagon's top post in January, Rumsfeld has convened 18 working groups to focus on issues ranging from the military's mission in a post-Cold War world to the makeup of conventional forces. The Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines have had limited input, but they are expected to be briefed before Rumsfeld makes his report public.

Christopher Hellmann, an analyst for the Center for Defense Information, a think tank in Washington, says such a large increase in defense spending during peacetime "is absolutely unjustifiable." He compares the higher spending plan with Vietnam War era boosts. On the other side is Eliot Cohen, director of the Strategic Studies Program at Johns Hopkins University. He says the Pentagon needs to make up for a decade of spending cuts: "There really is a backlog and a deficit in maintenance and modernization."


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28 in Queens Are Charged in Pollution at Junkyards

New York Times
April 26, 2001
By BARBARA STEWART
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/26/nyregion/26DUMP.html

A yearlong investigation into environmental crimes at Queens junkyards ended yesterday with the arrests of 28 workers charged with dumping thousands of gallons of toxic car fluids that poisoned the land and poured into Flushing Bay.

A team of city police officers and state investigators raided 21 junkyards in the large commercial strip on Willets Point near Shea Stadium, arresting owners and employees and seizing millions of dollars in assets, including bank accounts and machinery. The charges could lead to sentences of four years in prison, heavy fines and multimillion-dollar payments to clean up brownfields and Flushing Bay, the state attorney general, Eliot Spitzer, said. Thirty-two junkyard workers were charged; four have not been arrested.

"This is a massive environmental debacle," he said. "These businesses have been dumping fluids that leave our environment in horrendous shape, and leaving the public to pay for the cleanup. They've created brownfields that lie fallow, that nobody wants. That forestalls economic development and creates wastelands in the mddle of the city."

Mr. Spitzer said the workers poured antifreeze, brake fluid and other toxic fluids onto the ground, where they leached into the water system. They cut concrete trenches to channel the waste into Flushing Bay, he said, and pumped fluids through hoses that emptied into storm water drains or the bay.

"They deliberately punctured holes in tanks so that gas and oil and antifreeze ran all over the place," said Mary Ellen Kris, the New York City director of the State Department of Environmental Conservation. "They were renegades when it came to environmental law. They've caused extensive damage to the soil and the bay."

The investigation, carried out by city police, the attorney general's office and the Department of Environmental Conservation, began when undercover police officers opened a scrap metal shop to investigate the junkyards for unrelated crimes. A city police detective, Joseph Wedge, got in touch with the other agencies when he saw the greasy blackened soil and oil-slicked puddles around the shops. That evidence allowed state investigators to obtain search warrants.

Mr. Spitzer said charging the junkyard workers with felonies and civil violations of state environmental regulations was significant because polluters are usually charged with misdemeanors.

"The judges impose a $500 fine," Mr. Spitzer said. "It's like a ticket. It isn't much of a deterrent."

The junkyards, which cover most of the 55-acre Willets Point area, have long been an eyesore, the Queens borough president, Claire Shulman, said. She hopes to have them all condemned this year, violators and law-abiders alike, to make room for an urban renewal project.

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Decision on Gulf Drilling Puts President on Spot

New York Times
April 26, 2001
By DOUGLAS JEHL
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/26/national/26DRIL.html

GULF SHORES, Ala., April 24 - Along the coast where Florida and Alabama meet, the sands are sugar white and the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico wash along dazzling beaches. But in a difference that spells trouble for the new administration in Washington, the two states hold very different views about what they would countenance offshore.

The dividing line is a plan for new offshore drilling, welcomed by Alabama's Democratic governor, with support from Mississippi and Louisiana, but opposed by Florida's Republican governor, who happens to be President Bush's younger brother.

The president has not yet said where he will come down on the issue, but by October at the latest, he must decide whether to authorize oil and gas leasing in the eastern gulf for the first time since 1988. A no would please the environmental-minded voters of Florida and help his brother Jeb.

But President Bush has been warned point-blank by the Republican chairman of the House Energy Committee that such a response would be hard to reconcile with his pledge to do his utmost to build up the nation's domestic energy supply.

"No one wants to put him on the spot," the chairman, Representative Billy Tauzin, Republican of Louisiana, said of the president. "But how can he possibly argue that we should open up areas that are closed, like the Arctic refuge, if he won't drill areas that are open," like the eastern gulf.

Like most gulf-state politicians outside Florida, Mr. Tauzin regards going ahead with the lease sale as a boon. By giving approval to exploration across six million acres of gulf waters, he said, it would add to energy stockpiles an area believed to harbor as much as seven trillion cubic feet of natural gas - a 16-week supply for the country - while bringing jobs to the region. Because the proposed drilling area lies in federal waters, the nearby states would not be eligible for royalty payments.

Even in Alabama, which has beaches that would lie nearest the drilling, Gov. Don Siegelman, a Democrat, has asked only that drilling be kept at least 15 miles from the coast, to protect the view from tourist destinations like Gulf Shores.

Noting that President Bush asked him to help with the sale of drilling leases, Governor Siegelman said on Tuesday, "This is in the country's and Alabama's best long-term interest as long as safety measures are met."

But in Florida, Governor Bush is asking not only that the drilling be kept 100 miles off the coast, but that it be kept 100 miles from Florida in any direction. That plan would cut off from the proposed lease sale a stovepipe section that lies due south of Alabama. Because that area is believed to be the richest in natural gas, the industry strongly opposes the Florida plan.

"You can't afford to put such resources off limits," said Ken Leonard, a senior manager at the American Petroleum Institute, the industry's trade association.

Politicians say that the root of the regional divide over offshore drilling is simple: an environmental lobby in Florida carries enormous influence but is all but impotent in Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana.

"I can count on my fingers and toes how many paid staff people there are in Alabama working on the environment," said Kristen Bryant, executive director of the Alabama Environmental Council, an advocacy group.

Even Tony Rivera, the city administrator in Gulf Shores, which derives 90 percent of its revenue from tourism, said there had been no real hue and cry for anything like the 100-mile buffer being sought by Florida.

"We've felt that a compromise was acceptable," Mr. Rivera said, "because we understand the country's need for energy, and we try to be reasonable."

A separate oil-drilling decision affecting Florida is also in the hands of the Bush administration, this one involving a lease sold before opposition from the state effectively closed off the eastern gulf to drilling in the mid- 1980's. The Chevron Corporation has appealed to the Commerce Department to be allowed to drill under an existing lease in an area rich with natural 25 miles south of Pensacola. This area is also in federal waters.

A decision by the Commerce Department could come at any time. Although the two cases are separate, Florida fears that approval of the new lease sale would make approval of Chevron's challenge more likely.

Governor Bush has fought hard against the proposed lease sale, sending two letters to the Interior Department since January. The Clinton administration supported the lease sale, which have been in the works since 1997.

"Few other issues so completely unite Floridians," Mr. Bush wrote three months ago, asking that the department "recognize that the entire eastern Gulf of Mexico planning area contains many sensitive marine and coastal resources, and not advance any new leasing in this area."

At least for now, Gale A. Norton, the interior secretary, has kept the plan moving forward, with a final decision by October to offer the sale by the end of the year.

"I share your commitment to protect the environment of Florida's coastline as well as the entire Eastern Gulf of Mexico," Ms. Norton wrote to Mr. Bush on April 9. "At the same time, I must consider our nation's energy needs and the appropriate management of the American public's natural resources."

Using a more conservative estimate than Mr. Tauzin, Ms. Norton put the potential reserve at 2.9 trillion cubic feet of gas and 396 million barrels of oil.

Unlike the western and central gulf, where drilling supplies about 30 percent of the country's natural gas and 20 percent of its oil, the eastern gulf has until now remained effectively shielded from offshore drilling, even though it has never been permanently closed to exploration.

The oil and gas industry says its operations in the gulf, which have been carried out without a disastrous spill over half a century, should reassure those concerned about new drilling in the eastern gulf. But Florida and environmental organizations say that even the tiny fraction of 1 percent of oil and gas lost to accidents over that time should be cause for concern, particularly since eastward- flowing currents would drive any spill toward Florida beaches.

Across an area from Mobile, Ala., to Naples, Fla., Congressional bans and presidential moratoriums have blocked new lease sales since 1988, while objections by Florida have prevented drilling on active leases issued before that date.

But drilling did begin just south of Mobile in 1999, under rules that blocked exploration within 100 miles of the Florida coast. Governor Bush's predecessor, Gov. Lawton Chiles, a Democrat, had approved the plan for the proposed new lease sale off Florida. But Governor Bush and Florida environmental groups, in demanding a change of that stance, have noted that the nearest part would lie about 30 miles southwest of Pensacola, Fla.

"It's not an issue of technical geography, it's an issue of impacting our beaches," said Mark Ferrulo, executive director of the Florida Public Interest Research Group.

But the oil and gas industry notes that wells in the western and central gulf are starting to run out.

But Governor Bush's position is awkward for President Bush, who has appointed a panel led by Vice President Dick Cheney to find ways to increase domestic energy supplies, and has already said he wants to open more public lands, including Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, to oil and gas exploration.

As a presidential candidate, when asked about drilling by the editorial board of The Orlando Sentinel, Mr. Bush pointed to his brother Jeb and promised not to mess with "little brother over there."

According to the newspaper, he added: "We won't explore in Florida or California," affirming an earlier pledge to extend a drilling moratorium off both coastlines.

Without such a pledge, some political analysts in Florida have speculated, Mr. Bush could not have narrowly won the state's electoral votes and the presidential election.

"Were Florida voters duped?" The Orlando Sentinel asked on Sunday in an editorial that called on President Bush to stand up for his brother's position. "Will he cave to the oil interests that helped finance his presidential campaign?"

"Is oil thicker than blood?" the newspaper added. "Floridians will soon find out."

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Panel Overturns Ruling Against Strip Mining

New York Times
April 26, 2001
By FRANCIS X. CLINES
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/26/national/26MINE.html

WASHINGTON, April 25 - A federal appeals panel has dismissed a lower court's finding that the strip mining of West Virginia mountaintops violates environmental law by allowing vast amounts of coal slag to block hundreds of miles of vital streams.

Without ruling on the merits of the complaint, a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, in Richmond, Va., unanimously found that West Virginia enjoyed constitutional immunity from a citizens' lawsuit that accused the state of permitting the coal industry to engage in wholesale violations of federal regulations protecting the streams from pollution and burial under mining waste.

The panel, in a ruling issued on Tuesday, rejected the 1999 decision by a federal district judge in West Virginia, Charles H. Haden II, to curtail "mountaintop removal" severely. This is the decapitation of coal-rich hills with explosives and the discarding of slag into surrounding hollows by mammoth bulldozers.

"If there is any life form that cannot acclimate to life deep in a rubble pile, it is eliminated," Judge Haden ruled in siding with state residents who were alarmed at the blockage and disappearance of Appalachian streams by large-scale backwoods dumping. "No effect on related environmental values is more adverse than obliteration."

But the appeals panel ruled that the citizens' complaints had no federal standing. It held that federal oversight of the 1977 Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act ended as soon as West Virginia set up its own enforcement program under the act's provisions. The act allows either state or federal regulation of surface coal mining "but not both," Judge Paul V. Niemeyer wrote in the decision, holding that complaints about abuses could be heard only in state courts.

Environmentalist groups here and in West Virginia immediately conferred on plans to challenge the decision. They said the ruling reversed guidelines of state-federal cooperation and invoked state primacy in a way never approved by Congress.

"The mining industry has effectively won in court what it lost in Congress in 1977," said Jim Hecker of Trial Lawyers for Public Justice, a lawyer in the suit brought by state residents and the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy.

Mr. Hecker said the decision ignored that Congress, in writing the act, specifically rejected the jurisdictional dichotomy posed by the appeals panel and invited citizens' appeals to the federal government about state failures in enforcement.

Mr. Hecker said the Clinton administration's legal authorities had endorsed continuing federal oversight of state enforcement.

"The appeal will be a crucial test of where the Bush administration is on whole issue of cooperative federalism, the bedrock philosophy under many environmental statutes," he said.

The appeals ruling held that, to the contrary, the state sovereignty was clear and that allowing federal suits from citizens would "undermine the federalism established by the act."

Mr. Hecker maintained that the decision contradicted a 1997 finding in a separate case before the Fourth Circuit that state strip-mining rules issued under a federal law were enforceable in federal court.

Judge Haden's initial ruling had been denounced by the state's mining and political leaders as the probable death knell for coal mining, which has been increasingly mechanized with 20-story-tall removal machines that have systematically leveled hilltops in Appalachian states rich in low-sulfur coal.

The appeals ruling was hailed by Bill Raney, president of the West Virginia Coal Association, as "positive news for the coal industry and positive news for West Virginia."

The suit asserted that state officials charged with protecting the environment had given free rein to the coal industry to dump wastes into streams. The industry denied this, contending that only seasonal, "ephemeral" streams might have been affected, but Judge Haden agreed with environmentalists that numerous perennial streams basic to the environment were being polluted and obliterated.

"We think the appeals panel went out of its way to find some means to kick this out of federal court," said Joan Mulhern, legislative director of Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund.

"The decision is bad but not unexpected," Ms. Mulhern said, referring to the Fourth Circuit's reputation as being highly conservative.

Judge Niemeyer was joined in his ruling by Judges J. Michael Luttig and Karen J. Williams. Their decision can be appealed either to the full Fourth Circuit court or directly to the Supreme Court. Environmental lawyers said recourse to state courts was less inviting because judges there historically favored coal mining companies.

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CLEANUP SUIT SETTLED

New York Times
April 26, 2001
National Briefing
Mindy Sink
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/26/national/26BRFS.html

COLORADO: The State of Colorado and the energy company ARCO have settled a lawsuit, with ARCO agreeing to pay $250,000 for cleanup of the Summitville mine. Pollution from the mine, including acid and cyanide, killed all wildlife in the Alamosa River in southern Colorado in the 1980's and 90's and seeped into groundwater. ARCO, which is owned by BP Amoco, is one of a handful of companies the state has sued over the cleanup, which is to cost at least $150 million.

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STATE WETLANDS PLAN CRITICIZED

New York Times
April 26, 2001
Metro Briefing
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/26/nyregion/26MBRF.html

NEW JERSEY

TRENTON: A state proposal regulating development of wetlands has been rejected by the federal government as too lenient. The Environmental Protection Agency, in a decision dated in January but circulated by the Sierra Club last week, determined that the state's wetlands proposal allows too many exceptions for wetland owners who say that their property rights have been abridged. Sharon Southard, a spokeswoman for the State Department of Environmental Protection, said the state is negotiating with the E.P.A. The state program is more stringent than federal standards, she said, "because we deny more permits than the federal wetlands program."

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Lovely as a Tree: Now Let Us Go Planting

New York Times
April 26, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/26/opinion/L26TREE.html

To the Editor:

While the E.P.A. considers new research on the relationship between small soot particles and the nation's health (front page, April 21), there's something everyone can do right now about soot, starting on Arbor Day, April 27: Plant a tree or support tree-planting programs.

Research indicates that trees, in addition to their other urban benefits, remove some 10 percent of small soot particulates from the air we breathe. A Chicago study shows that 120 acres of tree canopy can absorb up to 170 pounds of particulates daily. A Baltimore County forest agency calculates one tree's particulate uptake at 50 pounds a year.

What a good time to get behind the Forest Service's Urban and Community Forestry program, American Forests' Global ReLeaf tree-planting campaign or the efforts of local groups to plant and preserve city trees.

ARTHUR PLOTNIK Chicago, April 21, 2001 The writer is the author of a book about trees in cities.

---

USA Today
04/26/01
States
http://www.usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm

Ohio

Dayton - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency won't allow companies to stop removing hazardous waste from a landfill near the water supply of 400,000 people. The companies requested a halt, in part because of the $16 million expense of removing drums of chemicals from the Valleycrest landfill. Neighbors were worried that the waste could contaminate the ground and water.

Rhode Island

East Providence - The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will work with state and environmental groups to restore a fish run on the Ten Mile River. Three dams along the river have kept herring, American shad and other fish from their spawning habitat. Every spring, fishermen have caught the herring and hauled them over the dam by hand. Construction of the $1.3 million project will begin in 2003.

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

Is Trade the Path Out of Poverty?

New York Times
April 26, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/26/opinion/L26GLOB.html

To the Editor:

Re "Protesting for Whom?" (column, April 24):

Thomas L. Friedman says that since passage of a free trade bill with Africa, various countries have increased their exports. But he did not say whether there was a corresponding increase in living standard.

Trade policy that pays no attention to human costs encourages corporations to exploit the inadequacies of other countries for profit. A host country's production may rise, but the population's standard of living does not. Just look at Mexico under the North American Free Trade Agreement: increased exports, but a 21 percent decrease in wages.

Countries want to sell things to the United States. Only when we start treating access to our market as a privilege to be earned, and not just a given, will our trade policy begin pulling the world forward instead of accelerating a race to the bottom.

DAVID J. SIROTA Washington, April 24, 2001 The writer is communications director for Representative Bernard Sanders, a Vermont independent.

To the Editor:

Thomas L. Friedman's sensible April 24 column asked what the world's poor think of globalization, while professional protesters and student followers pretend to speak on their behalf.

How can these Western protesters, with all the luxuries they take for granted, like nutritious food, phones, electricity and schooling, understand what people living on a dollar a day in Africa and Latin America want?

When I was a Peace Corps volunteer in West Africa in the mid-1990's, I met people too busy surviving each day to think about globalization, but I expect that they would welcome the jobs and improved living standards that increased foreign investment would bring.

North America and Europe wouldn't have prospered without international commerce. Let's allow the rest of the world the same opportunities.

ELINORE BOEKE Arlington, Va., April 24, 2001

To the Editor:

Thomas L. Friedman (column, April 24), by arguing that Africa's only route out of poverty is through market-led globalization, mistakes a cause of the continent's problems for the solution. In an earlier era, prying open Africa's economies and societies was called colonialism.

Mr. Friedman brands the resistance as the "anti-globalization gang." In slotting a wide variety of stances on globalization in two boxes - for and against - he obscures diverse responses from Africans. While he listened to the elite, did he also listen to those hurt by globalization?

Many Africans and non-Africans alike resist globalization but do not seek to stop it. Rather, they are posing important questions about the moral values inscribed in a world order based on market integration, and about engagement on what and whose terms.

JAMES H. MITTELMAN Washington, April 24, 2001 The writer is a professor and coordinator of African studies at American University.

To the Editor:

Re "Protesting for Whom?," by Thomas L. Friedman (column, April 24):

The protesters in the streets of Quebec City were clamoring for justice. We were not denouncing globalization outright. We are simply speaking out for environmental protections and basic worker rights because history shows us that without these protections, corporate globalists will not exercise those wise restraints that set people free.

LUTHER VANUMMERSEEN Philadelphia, April 24, 2001

---

Taxation without representation

The Washington Times www.washtimes.com
4/26/01
House Editorial
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20010426-484673.htm

In the world of multilateral institutions, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is hardly high-profile. While massive demonstrations against the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization have been televised around the world, the OECD isn´t a household name. And yet the 30 industrialized economies which comprise the Paris-based OECD, otherwise known as the rich men´s club, are poised to level a worrisome assault on national sovereignty.

In essence, the OECD is trying to force countries to share information to crack down on tax evaders. The argument is that cracking down on evasion will boost tax receipts and embolden taxpayers to call for lower taxes for everyone. Greater compliance could lead to welcomed fiscal reform. Well, it´s a theory at least.

However, because the OECD would enforce cooperation through trade sanctions rather than through the free will of the governments involved, its proposal smacks of imperial overreach. Of all the measures that might merit retaliation as extreme as trade sanctions, bank secrecy and low taxes hardly seem to qualify.

The OECD has put together a black list of all the countries that it considers to be tax havens. The list has caught the attention of the Black Caucus, since it singles out many predominantly-black Caribbean nations but not the European countries famous for bank secrecy, such as Switzerland and Luxembourg. This, the OECD says, is because the organization has a separate "preferential tax regimes" list of its own members who have to improve their banking disclosure requirements and fiscal policies. By June, these countries could similarly be subject to sanctions by other OECD members. The United States is on the preferential tax regimes list.

In order to get off its black list, the OECD dictates that countries must "achieve transparency and effective exchange of information" and "eliminate any regimes that attract business without substantial business activity." The OECD goes on to tell other countries how they should conduct fiscal policy: "Each Party will ensure that there are no non-transparent features of its tax systems, such as rules that depart from accepted laws and practices, secret rulings, or the ability of investors to 'elect´ or 'negotiate´ the rate of tax to be applied."

The OECD´s proposal was unsurprisingly embraced by the Clinton administration. The Bush White House, however, should know better. If the United States refuses to sign on, the OECD proposal will be as ineffective as the Kyoto treaty. Treasury Secretary Paul O´Neill is on record as having reservations about it, and he ought to act on those instincts. The world, emerging economies especially, should beware the OECD´s imperialistic ambitions.

-------- police

Panel Urges Retraining, Not Discipline, for Diallo Officers

New York Times
April 26, 2001
By KEVIN FLYNN
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/26/nyregion/26DIAL.html

A preliminary report by Police Department investigators has concluded that the four officers involved in the shooting death of Amadou Diallo should not be disciplined for the incident but should be retrained in tactics, according to officials who have seen the report.

The investigative panel included several Bronx police commanders and a police officer. It found that although the officers had fired 41 times at an unarmed man, they had not violated the department's guidelines because the officers believed, however incorrectly, that Mr. Diallo had a gun and they were acting out of bona fide concern for their lives. "In their mind's eye, they perceived a very real danger, and under a perceived combat situation, they behaved appropriately," said one official, paraphrasing the report's conclusion.

The recommendation by the panel is one step in the administrative process under which the department will decide whether the officers deserve to be disciplined, or even fired, for their actions in the Feb. 4, 1999, shooting in the vestibule of Mr. Diallo's apartment building in the Soundview section of the Bronx.

The report and its recommendations will be reviewed by a second investigative panel and then forwarded to the police commissioner, who will make the final decision on whether the officers engaged in misconduct. Even though the report's conclusions are preliminary, they are nonetheless significant because, historically, the department has tended to go along with the recommendations made by the original investigators.

The Bronx panel's report was forwarded yesterday to the chief of department, Joseph J. Esposito, the department's third- ranking official. Mr. Esposito will direct a second group of senior police supervisors, known as the Firearms Discharge Review Panel, in reviewing the facts. That panel's recommendations will then be forwarded to First Deputy Police Commissioner Joseph P. Dunne and Police Commissioner Bernard B. Kerik, most likely within a few days.

"We are not going to comment because this is part of an ongoing process," the commissioner's chief spokesman, Thomas Antenen, the deputy commissioner for public information, said yesterday.

Although the Bronx panel did not endorse discipline for the officers, its recommendation for retraining is a clear indication that the panel acknowledged the magnitude of the officers' error in mistaking Mr. Diallo's wallet for a handgun. The officers have said that initial mistake was part of a series of events, including a fall by one of the officers, that created a misperception that they were in a gunfight. Many critics, however, have said the officers' negligence was so serious that they should be dismissed.

Mr. Diallo's mother, Kadiatou, said she was disappointed by the panel's conclusions, as relayed to her by a reporter.

"It is unbelievable that these people would say that it is within the guidelines of the department that these officers acted," she said. "They are trying to say about healing, they are trying to say about police and community relations. I will tell you this. They have to have the courage to denounce those who did wrong. That's the only way they can heal this city and make the police better."

Even if Mr. Kerik was to decide to keep the officers on the force, it is unclear whether they would ever be assigned to patrol duties again because of the potential liability the city might face if they were involved in another shooting.

The four officers, Kenneth Boss, Sean Carroll, Edward McMellon and Richard Murphy, were acquitted of criminal charges at a state trial last year. Federal authorities decided earlier this year not to pursue civil rights charges against them.

Since the shooting, they have been assigned to desk duty and have had their guns and badges confiscated. On the night of the shooting, the officers were assigned to the Street Crime Unit, a plainclothes detail whose officers drive unmarked cars and focus on catching violent criminals and seizing illegal guns.

Currently, they are each charged administratively with "prohibited conduct," based on the original criminal charges of murder and reckless endangerment. The administrative charges can be amended or dropped as the investigation proceeds.

Investigators with Internal Affairs and the Bronx Investigation Unit interviewed the four officers separately for a total of more than seven hours on Friday. In evaluating the conduct of the officers, they set out to answer such questions as whether the officers properly identified themselves, or whether they followed guidelines that outline the tactics they should use during street encounters and the situations in which it is permissible to fire their guns.

The Bronx panel's recommendation was submitted with an eight- page report, with a series of additional documents, including a sketch of the shooting scene, the injury reports filed by the officers and an autopsy report on Mr. Diallo.

If Mr. Kerik decides that, contrary to the panel's recommendation, there is evidence of misconduct by the officers, the case would be referred to the department's in-house prosecutor for a disciplinary trial. A decision at trial would be rendered by an administrative law judge, and then that decision would be forwarded to Mr. Kerik, who would make the decision about any disciplinary action, officials said.

Two of the officers have already indicated an interest in leaving the department to become firefighters, and they have taken the Fire Department's test. One, Officer McMellon, has been tentatively cleared for hiring by Fire Department officials because of his high score on the firefighters exam, but they are awaiting the outcome of the police disciplinary process before making a final decision. The other, Officer Murphy, scored significantly lower on the exam and would not be eligible to be hired for several years.

---

Vallone Challenges Green Over His Criticism of Police

New York Times
April 26, 2001
By ADAM NAGOURNEY
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/26/nyregion/26GREE.html

In one of the first direct clashes between the candidates for mayor, Mark Green and Peter F. Vallone battled yesterday over Mr. Green's record on police issues, as Mr. Vallone charged that Mr. Green had a history of criticizing police officers and was now attempting to hide his "ultraliberal roots."

Mr. Vallone, the City Council speaker, issued a written statement attacking Mr. Green at the very moment that Mr. Green was holding his third campaign event of the last two months intended to demonstrate his concern with crime. He focused on crime prevention, and had spoken on enforcement and punishment earlier. Among other things, he proposed creating a City Hall office devoted to overseeing crime prevention programs and spending more money on education and finding jobs for released offenders.

"Now that he is running for mayor, Mark Green is talking tough on crime," Mr. Vallone's statement said. "Green's rhetoric on crime is the centerpiece of an election-year makeover designed to hide his past failures and his ultraliberal roots."

Mr. Green, the public advocate, was in the midst of answering questions about his speech when his press secretary, Joe DePlasco, walked over to the lectern and handed him a note alerting him to Mr. Vallone's statement. As his audience listened befuddled, Mr. Green launched into an attack on Mr. Vallone and suggested the Council leader was motivated by the fact that Mr. Green is leading him in public opinion polls.

"I have not been critical of cops on the street," Mr. Green declared. "I have been critical of the management of the New York Police Department. I would hope that my friend, Speaker Peter Vallone, would stick to ideas rather than insults. If any of my rivals are anxious because I have a strong record on reducing crime, and am supported by the leading policeman in the world, Bill Bratton, I would tell them to get over their anxiety and talk about substance."

The statement by Mr. Vallone, one of the gentler figures in New York politics, came at a time when his candidacy has been obscured by the more energetic efforts of his three major opponents: Mr. Green; Alan G. Hevesi, the city comptroller; and Fernando Ferrer, the Bronx borough president.

Mr. Vallone declined a request for an interview about his campaign statement. In any event, the statement underscored the extent to which Mr. Green's past criticism of Police Department abuses, which he has cited in seeking support from some Democratic voters, is viewed as a liability by his opponents.

---

Young Man Whitman Searched in 1996 Is Suing Her and Police

New York Times
April 26, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/26/nyregion/26FRIS.html

A young man who was photographed while being searched by Gov. Christie Whitman in 1996 as she accompanied state troopers on a drug sweep in Camden is suing Mrs. Whitman and the state police.

Lawyers for the man, Sherron Rolax, now 21, filed the suit on Tuesday in United States District Court in Camden, charging that the former governor violated his civil rights by patting him down after he had already been searched. In addition to Mrs. Whitman, who is now the administrator of the Federal Environmental Protection Agency, the suit names the former state police superintendent, Carl A. Williams; two officers supervising the Camden drug sweep in May 1996; and unnamed troopers who detained Mr. Rolax.

The suit charges that Mrs. Whitman agreed to a trooper's request to pose for the photograph after Mr. Rolax had been searched by troopers and found not to be carrying anything illegal. "Whitman's touching or frisking of Rolax was without legitimate or lawful purpose," the suit states, adding that it violated the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution, which protects against illegal search and seizure.

The image of the smiling white governor with her gloved hands on the back of the black suspect, with his feet spread and his hands against a wall, outraged civil rights advocates.

Mrs. Whitman said then that it had been a mistake to pose for the picture, but she never offered a public apology to Mr. Rolax, who was by then serving a sentence for an unrelated drug offense. Mr. Rolax is in a halfway house in Bayonne and would not comment on the suit, said his lawyer, Saul J. Steinberg. Mrs. Whitman did not respond to requests for comment left at the E.P.A. Mr. Williams and a spokesman for the state police also declined to comment.

---

Diallo's Mother Denounces Police Report

New York Times
April 26, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/nyregion/25AP-DIALLO.html

Kadiatou Diallo said Thursday she was not surprised by a preliminary police report that concluded the four officers who fatally shot her son, Amadou, acted within departmental guidelines.

"It's been over two years since I came to America. The only thing that I can claim still is justice," she said. "Unfortunately, it is not happening and I don't understand why."

The investigative panel, which included several police commanders and a police officer, did not recommend the officers be disciplined, but rather undergo retraining in tactics and firearms use.

It ruled that the officers did not violate guidelines because they believed, however incorrectly, that Diallo had a gun.

"I'm here to denounce the (justice) system," said Diallo's mother, joined at a news conference by the Rev. Al Sharpton and her attorney, Anthony Gair. "If the New York City Police Department is supposed to be the best in America, someone will have to denounce this conduct."

The four officers were found to be defending themselves when they fired 41 shots at the West African immigrant, striking him 19 times, two police sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Associated Press.

The recommendation is the first step in the administrative review process of the officer's actions.

The report will be forwarded to the Firearms Discharge Review Board, and then to Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, who will make the final decision.

Sharpton called the report "outrageous, insulting, offensive but expected."

He challenged all the mayoral candidates to denounce the report, and added: "Commissioner Kerik and others will get the final opportunity to show courage and say 'let's heal."'

"There should be no police department in the world that says it's acceptable procedure to shoot at someone 41 times," Sharpton said.

The four officers -- Kenneth Boss, Sean Carroll, Edward McMellon and Richard Murphy -- encountered Diallo in the vestibule of his Bronx apartment building on Feb. 4, 1999, while searching for a rape suspect. They opened fire when they saw what they thought was a gun; it turned out to be his wallet.

All four were acquitted of criminal charges last year.

"For me, it was wrong because my son was executed," said Diallo, who did not take questions from reporters.

The officers are on desk duty pending the final outcome of the review. Boss and Carroll seek to remain on the police force; McMellon and Murphy have both applied to join the Fire Department.

McMellon was one of the top 200 finishers out of 6,000 applicants on the most recent firefighter test. Fire officials have put his application on hold pending the outcome of the NYPD review.

Gair said the Diallo family's last legal venue is its $81 million civil suit against the officers. "We only have left now, unfortunately, the civil case, and I guarantee you this, the truth will come out."

Gair said depositions will be taken from all four officers by the end of June.

---

Diallo officers acted within guidelines, report says

USA Today
04/26/2001 - Updated 08:06 AM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/nation/2001-04-26-diallo.htm

NEW YORK (AP) - A preliminary report by New York Police Department investigators concludes that the four officers who fatally shot an unarmed African immigrant in the vestibule of his apartment building acted within departmental guidelines, news reports said.

The investigative panel, which included several police commanders and a police officer, did not recommend the officers be disciplined, but rather undergo retraining in tactics and firearms use.

The panel ruled that the officers did not violate guidelines because they believed Amadou Diallo had a gun and they were defending themselves when they shot him Feb. 4, 1999, according to reports in The New York Times, the Daily News, the New York Post and Newsday. All cited sources they didn't name.

The recommendation is the first step in the administrative review process. Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik will make the final decision.

The officers - Kenneth Boss, Sean Carroll, Edward McMellon and Richard Murphy - were acquitted of criminal charges last year. They were placed on desk duty pending the outcome of the review.

---

Mississippi

USA Today
04/26/01
States
http://www.usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm

Jackson - A former police officer who took bribes from FBI agents posing as drug dealers has been sentenced to four months in federal prison. Nate Thomas, who was arrested last November, pleaded guilty in February to accepting eight $150 payments over two months in 1999. He was one of six police officers accused of shielding the undercover agents from arrest.

---

Soccer moms beware

The Washington Times www.washtimes.com
4/26/01
House Editorial
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20010426-96827.htm

Conservatives usually have a healthy distrust of the state, so it was surprising (and depressing) to learn of the conservative-dominated Supreme Court´s decision this week affirming the authority of police to arrest and cart off to jail people who have committed minor, non-criminal traffic offenses such as failing to buckle-up while operating a motor vehicle.

The case at issue Atwater vs. Lago Vista revolved around an incident that occurred back in 1997, when Gail Atwater, a soccer mom with three young children, was stopped by a traffic cop because her kids weren´t buckled-up, in violation of the local seatbelt ordinance. Instead of merely issuing Mrs. Atwater a ticket and sending her on her way, the officer arrested and handcuffed the woman - in front of her children and took her in his squad car to the county lock-up. She was released after posting bond and paying the $50 fine for the seatbelt violation.

Understandably outraged by treatment she viewed as excessive, Mrs. Atwater took the matter to court, arguing that her arrest constituted an unreasonable search and seizure, in violation of Fourth Amendment protections. Not so understandably, a majority of the Supreme Court disagreed, taking the hard-to-swallow position that police are within their lawful authority to arrest and waylay citizens who may have done no more than commit a minor infraction punishable, at most, by a fine.

"The arrest and booking were inconvenient to Atwater," wrote Justice David H. Souter in his majority opinion, "but not so extraordinary as to violate the Fourth Amendment." Concurring in the majority ruling were Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Clarence Thomas, and Antonin Scalia.

"Inconvenience" is not the only issue. As a result of the court´s ruling, police will have the ability, in effect, to conduct virtually at-will searches of anyone, not just motorists and their vehicles because under the law, once a person is placed under arrest, police have greatly expanded authority to conduct searches of persons and possessions (such as vehicles).

Prior to the Supreme Court´s ruling, it was not lawful to conduct a search of either a motorist or his vehicle merely on the basis of a non-criminal traffic violation. A warrant was required - and it had to be based upon probable cause. Not anymore.

The court´s ruling "demonstrates all too clearly that that a minor traffic infraction may serve as an excuse for stopping and harassing an individual," wrote Justice Sandra Day O´Connor in her strongly worded dissenting opinion. "After today, the arsenal available to any officer extends to full arrest and the searches permissible to that arrest," she continued. That a majority of the Supreme Court can justify such an outrageous assault upon basic civil liberties is a chilling thing to contemplate.

-------- terrorism

Military role grows on home front
'Mission creep' becomes a domestic issue
Marines taking part in a chemical warfare counter-terrorism exercise in Jacksonville, North Carolina.

MSNBC
04/01
By Robert Windrem NBC NEWS
mailto:Robert.Windrem@nbc.com
http://www.msnbc.com/news/546844.asp?0nm=C17O#BODY

PHILADELPHIA - As Republicans gathered here last August to nominate George W. Bush for president, a drama played out in secret locations across the city as thousands of American soldiers stood poised for a catastrophic event. Along with a host of civilian emergency specialists, these specialized troops braced for a biological, chemical or nuclear terror attack on the GOP and its nominees - the kind of attack that might force a declaration of martial law.

NO SPECIFIC or credible threat ever surfaced in Philadelphia or in any of the dozen other U.S. cities hosting similarly high-profile events in the past five years. But the Philadelphia plan sheds light on a new domestic role for the military.

Some argue that the role makes sense in light of the threat posed by modern terrorist groups. But a diverse coalition of civilian law enforcement agencies, civil rights advocates and libertarian groups worry about allowing the military to play so prominent a role on U.S. soil.

"There used to be a bright line separating the military from involvement in civilian affairs," says Steve Aftergood, who directs the Project on Government Secrecy at the American Federation of Scientists. "The pernicious aspect of terrorism is that it threatens to erode what is a clear distinction. We are seeing them on all these 'fronts.'"

'There used to be a bright line separating the military from involvement in civilian affairs. The pernicious aspect of terrorism is that it threatens to erode what is a clear distinction.' - STEVE AFTERGOOD Secrecy watchdog

The "bright line" Aftergood refers to is called the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, enacted to prevent the military from engaging in police activities in the United States without the consent of Congress or the president. In the mid-1990s, after the bombings of the World Trade Center and the federal building in Oklahoma City - as well as a sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway system - the law was amended to allow the attorney general to send armed troops into American cities in cases of catastrophic attacks.

This new role for the military prompted Rep. William Thornberry, a Texas Republican on the Armed Services Committee, to introduce a bill last month that would create an office called the National Homeland Security Agency to help civilian federal agencies do a job that the military is being drawn into by default. Thornberry, who is a rancher and fierce critic of government intrusion into the lives of its citizens, believes the country should be careful not to put the military in the position of acting as police in the United States. Thornberry may be facing a tough battle.

NEW MISSIONS

As the world's borders have become more porous, the definition of national security has expanded into many new areas: counter-terrorism, tracking drug traffickers and disaster preparedness. Secretary of State Colin Powell said recently he will add immigration to that list as well.

The military's move into domestic law enforcement territory began with drug interdiction along the U.S. border during the Reagan administration, and expanded significantly during the Clinton years.

Officials at several key civilian agencies - from the FBI to the Public Health Service and the Federal Emergency Management Agency - say the military's growing role in preparing for a domestic terrorist attack is disconcerting.

"We used to be the main people involved in this," said a domestic preparedness official with the Public Health Service who spoke only on condition of anonymity. "Now, there are fewer of us and more of them."

REAL BREAKDOWN

Despite the Posse Comitatus Act and concerns about domestic mission creep, a doctrine known as "Garden Plot" exists in the Department of Defense that would allow the armed forces to step in to take control of civilian affairs following a catastrophic event if the president requested it. As with the military's posture abroad - the "Defense Condition" or "DEFCON" - there is a step-by-step system for military involvement at home as well. It's known as Civilian Disorder Condition, or "CIDCON."

This scenario is the last resort following the collapse of order at home. In this most dire of circumstances - possibly anarchy in the wake of a large-scale terrorist incident, for instance - the "Garden Plot" doctrine gives the president the power to invoke martial law under The Insurrection Act.

Here's how it would have worked last August in Philadelphia:

Two military "Joint Task Force" units were available for quick deployment. One, called Joint Task Force-Civil Support, is based at Fort Monroe in Virginia. It is

trained to coordinate countermeasures for terrorist attacks and would generally be deployed without weapons.

The other unit, code-named "Task Force 250," is meant to go in fully equipped for battle. This unit, according to documents obtained by NBC News, is meant to restore civil order after major terrorist events. "Task Force 250" is more commonly known as the Army's 82nd Airborne Division based at Fort Bragg, N.C.

THE PHILADELPHIA PLAN

Even without a crisis, hundreds of servicemen were on hand in Philadelphia last summer, and more than 1,000 were on alert to move into the city if necessary.

Command centers and alternate command centers - in case the primary headquarters was destroyed - were established. Among those stationed the center:

More than 80 military bomb disposal teams, several Army biological advisory and assessment teams, four Department of Defense biological sampling vehicles and the Nuclear Emergency Search Team of the Department of Energy. The Navy even set up a facility for "use as a detainee processing center," the documents say, in case there were numerous arrests.

In addition, some 10 military bases and another Marine Corps biological and chemical response teams were on alert.

Eighty bomb disposal teams and 35 explosive detection dogs assigned to the Secret Service. Seven Army biological advisory and assessment teams assigned to the Secret Service. Four military biological sampling vehicles assigned to the Secret Service. Technical escort team from the Department of Defense assigned to approach and disarm biological or chemical weapons. Department of Energy's Nuclear Emergency Search Team assigned to approach and disarm nuclear weapons or radiological bombs, which are designed to spread radioactive material. Two medical support teams from the Uniform Services University of Health Sciences at Bethesda Naval Hospital assigned to the Public Health Service. An additional team assigned to the FBI.

A regional operations center set up near the First Union Center in Philadelphia.

An "alternate regional operations center" at Willow Grove Naval Air Station.

A mobilization center for staging or moving federal resources.

One Naval support location in Philadelphia reserved for use as a detainee processing center by the U.S. Marshall Service.

Similar plans existed for the Democratic

National Convention in Los Angeles last year and the NATO Summit in Washington, D.C., in 1999. Smaller plans have become commonplace for other events, including the annual State of the Union speech and the presidential inauguration.

These so-called "federal response plans" fill dozens of pages, complete with locations, phone numbers and contact names for counter-terrorist teams, civilian emergency response agencies, law enforcement and military operations.

They also contain instructions on the limits of the Task Force's power while law and order are being restored. According to the documents obtained by NBC, the plans for the presidential conventions said: "Use deadly force only with great selectivity and precision."

WHO'S IN CHARGE?

Defense Department documents describe the Joint Task Force-Civil Support as "the primary DoD command element for the planning and execution of military assistance to civil authorities for domestic counter-measure operations as a result of a weapons of mass destruction incident."

But the military's new role has added to confusion over who would ultimately be in charge in the event of a domestic catastrophe, according to several officials who spoke to NBC News.

"The U.S. government spends $12 billion a year on terrorist-related activities," said one former Clinton administration official involved in counter-terrorism. "I think there will be a major review by the new crowd. There needs to be a national strategy and there needs to be an agency in charge. Someone at OMB [the Office of Management and Budget] has to put someone in charge."

R. Michael Walker, who has served former presidents as both undersecretary of the Army and deputy director of FEMA, says that in spite of years of discussion, the issue of "who is in charge after an attack - the crisis management side or consequence management side - remains an issue."

It is one more issue the Bush administration has to consider as it revamps the military worldwide.

ACKNOWLEDGING CONCERN

The Pentagon is aware of the red flags raised by giving the military a role in a domestic crisis. For instance, prepared orders to the commanders of the Joint Task Force, obtained by NBC News, are kept ready for issuing on the stationery of the chairman of the military joint chiefs of staff.

The order says the military's involvement in an attack at home would be complex, and adds: "It is intended this way to ensure that civil liberties and fundamental rights are protected as set forth in the Constitution."

Robert Windrem is an investigative producer at NBC News based in New York. Independent military analyst Bill Arkin and MSNBC's Michael Moran contributed to this report.

---

BERENSON WITNESS WON'T TALK

New York Times
April 26, 2001
World Briefing
Clifford Krauss
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/26/world/26BRIE.html

PERU: A convicted Peruvian terrorist, suspected of having posed with Lori Berenson as a journalist to inspect the Peruvian Congress building as part of the planning for a rebel attack, refused to testify in the New Yorker's trial, saying she would not speak from behind bars and without a lawyer. Nancy Gilvonio is considered a key witness in the case; Ms. Berenson's lawyer said Ms. Berenson did not know Ms. Gilvonio's true identity when she hired her as a photographer.

-------- activists

Controversial Army School To Be Protested In Washington This Week

by Chris Strohm
Inside The Army
March 26, 2001

Activists and organizers are planning to converge in Washington, DC, this week for a series of protests and actions in an effort to close a controversial Army training center.

Six days of actions set to begin this week will include a civil disobedience demonstration at the Pentagon, where activists will risk arrest in their efforts to close the Army's Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation at Ft. Benning, GA.

The institute was opened Jan. 17; it replaces the School of the Americas at Ft. Benning, which has come under fire for years by human rights activists and some members of Congress because graduates have gone on to commit human rights abuses and criminal activity in Latin America and South America.

Jeff Winder, program director for SOA Watch, which is organizing the demonstrations, said the institute continues to focus on combat training even though its name has changed.

"The first message is that this is not a new school," he said in an interview with Inside the Army. "The second message is that the atrocities of the school are not in the past."

Protest events will begin on Thursday with a legislative workshop and vigil on Capitol Hill. The protest at the Pentagon is scheduled for Monday morning, Winder said.

Winder added that SOA Watch plans to work with supportive members of Congress to introduce legislation to close the institute and conduct an independent investigation into training curriculum and what graduates have done after leaving.

"There's no comprehensive study that's ever been done of SOA graduates to find out if they are going back to commit human rights abuses or not," he said.

Some lawmakers, such as Rep. Joe Moakly (D-MA), have tried for years to shut down the school because of curriculum and training practices that he and others have blamed, in part, for atrocities allegedly committed by graduates. The school's alumni includes notorious figures like Panama's Manuel Noriega and El Salvador death squad leader Roberto D'Abuisson. Legislation has been introduced in previous years to close the school, and a bill came up 10 votes short last fiscal year. As a result of public pressure, the fiscal year 2001 Defense Authorization Act mandated that the school's name and charter be changed.

The Army held a closing ceremony for SOA on Dec. 15 and opened the institute on Jan. 17. An official from the institute did not return a telephone call for comment by press time (March 23).

According to an announcement released by the Defense Department last November, the new institute "will provide professional education and training to eligible personnel of the nations of the Western Hemisphere. It will focus its training on the democratic principles set forth in the charter of the Organization of American States (to which the United States is a signatory)."

The institute will promote respect for democracy and human rights, the DOD statement added. Also, its operations and curriculum will be reviewed regularly by an independent "board of visitors" made up of members of Congress, the State Department, DOD and civilians.

SOA Watch organizes annual demonstrations against the school, which was opened 54 years ago.

Winder said this year's demonstrations last longer and include more activities than prior events. He said the demonstrations against the school this year will also address U.S. military aid to Colombia, which is embroiled in a war that includes leftist insurgents, drug traffickers and right-wing paramilitary units. Winder said Colombia is the "largest customer" for graduates of the school.

"We're trying to represent the movement of people who are affected and suffer so terribly at the hands of the graduates of this school," he said.

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Leon Sullivan, 78, Dies; Fought Apartheid

New York Times
April 26, 2001
By PAUL LEWIS
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/26/world/26SULL.html

The Rev. Leon H. Sullivan, the clergyman and civil rights leader who drew up the Sullivan Principles, guidelines for American businesses operating in South Africa under apartheid, died yesterday in Scottsdale, Ariz. He was 78.

The cause was leukemia, his family said.

In 1977, Mr. Sullivan drafted his guidelines to help persuade American companies with investments in South Africa to treat their workers there in the same way that they treated their workers in the United States. He later worked with the United Nations on drawing up a code of ethical conduct for multinational corporations.

As originally stated, the Sullivan Principles called for racial nonsegregation on the factory floor and in company eating and washing facilities; fair employment practices; equal pay for equal work; training for blacks and other nonwhites so they could advance to better jobs; promotion of more blacks and other nonwhites to supervisory positions, and improved housing, schooling, recreation and health facilities for workers.

In an interview in 1999, Mr. Sullivan recalled an experience a quarter of a century before that helped give birth to his effort.

"In 1974 I met with hundreds in South Africa and I realized that apartheid was sinful," he said. "When I was getting on the plane to go home, the police took me to a room and told me to remove my clothes. A man with the biggest .45 I'd ever seen said, `We do to you what we have to.'

"I stood there in my underwear, thinking, `I'm the head of the largest black church in Philadelphia and I'm on the board of directors of General Motors. When I get home, I'll do to you what I have to.' "

In 1984, after Mr. Sullivan had used his position as a member of the board of the General Motors Corporation to persuade virtually all American companies doing business in South Africa to abide by his guidelines, he added several more, saying that American companies should also campaign actively against apartheid, allow black workers full job mobility and provide accommodation closer to work.

By 1987, with apartheid undented by his principles and African leaders like Nelson Mandela still in prison, Mr. Sullivan toughened his approach, urging American corporations to withdraw altogether from South Africa and calling for the United States to impose trade and investment sanctions on that country.

This harsher stance, however, won little support from either the Reagan administration or American business leaders.

In 1999, by now retired as a clergyman, Mr. Sullivan promulgated his own Global Sullivan Principles, ethical guidelines for multinational corporations in the globalized economy; about 100 American corporations have now accepted them.

In this effort, he worked closely with the United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan, who that year put forth his own Global Compact, another set of ethical guidelines for multinational corporations based on accepted United Nations principles.

Although the Sullivan Principles skirt such labor issues as the right to collective bargaining, the United Nations has accepted them as a practical attempt to put its ideals into practice.

Leon Howard Sullivan was born on Oct. 16, 1922, in Charleston, W. Va. He was brought up by his grandmother after his young parents separated.

At the age of 10 he conducted a private desegregation drive in his hometown after being told he could not sit at a drugstore counter while drinking a soft drink. He won a first victory when the owner of a segregated restaurant offered him a free meal.

While he was still in the South, he met the Rev. Adam Clayton Powell, who was on a lecture tour. Several years later, he introduced Mr. Sullivan to the Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York with the announcement, "I can take a young man from the hills who looks like he never wore a pair of shoes in his life and make him a leader!"

After graduating from West Virginia State University, he studied theology at Union Theological Seminary in New York and sociology at Columbia, meanwhile working as a coin-box collector for the Bell Telephone Company, the first black to hold such a job.

In 1945 he married the former Grace Banks and spent the next five years as pastor of the First Baptist Church in South Orange, N.J. In 1950 he became pastor of the Zion Baptist Church in Philadelphia. Here he and other black pastors started a Selective Patronage Program, under which they boycotted enterprises that failed to provide employment for minorities. The highly successful program was copied in many other cities.

In 1962 he founded Zion Investment Associates, a cooperative organization that began investing in profit-making ventures. From modest beginnings it went on to create major real estate ventures, a garment manufacturing company and Progress Aerospace Enterprises, the first black-owned aerospace company.

In 1964 he set up the first in a series of training schools, calling it the Opportunities Industrialization Center. By 1969 about 20,000 minority workers were enrolled in O.I.C.'s around the country.

In 1971 he joined the board of General Motors, the company's first black director. He was instrumental in expanding black employment and creating more black dealerships. He was awarded honorary degrees by Dartmouth, Princeton and Swarthmore, among dozens of other colleges.

In 1988 Mr. Sullivan retired from Zion Baptist Church, moved to Phoenix, and began building bridges between Africa and black America, organizing a series of African and African-American summit meetings, with the first held in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, in 1991.

He is survived by his wife and three children, Howard, Julie and Hope.

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Thousands of Demonstrators Released in Ethiopia

Reuters
April 26, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/world/ethiopia-students.html

ADDIS ABABA, April 26 (Reuters) - Ethiopian police on Thursday freed most of an estimated 3,000 students arrested in the worst riots in years but those released pledged to pursue a campaign to rid their campuses of armed police.

Mothers waiting at the campus of Addis Ababa University ululated with joy as they greeted 1,200 students driven there in three lorryloads from a police facility outside the capital where they had been held for a week.

Several of the 1,200 said they would continue to press for academic freedom and the withdrawal of armed police from the campus of the country's main university.

They said most of another 1,800 students held with them at the police training college at Sendafa town 38 kmfrom the capital had also been freed and sent to separate campuses in Addis Ababa and at nearby Debrezeit town.

The government has said that anyone among the Sendafa detainees found to have looted or destroyed property would remain in custody and eventually be punished.

The disturbances, in which up to 41 people were killed, were triggered by a confrontation between police and student demonstrators demanding academic freedom.

They quickly degenerated into an orgy of looting by unemployed youths and spread to a number of colleges and schools in towns around the country on April 18 and 19.

Independent newspapers and human rights groups have estimated the total number of suspected looters, opposition activists and students detained by police around the country at anywhere between 2,000 and 7,000.

STUDENTS COMPLAIN OF MILITARY PUNISHMENTS

One fourth-year social science student said he and his colleagues were subjected to military-type physical punishment which included being forced to perform hard labour and lie on cement and gravel floors. They were fed on bread and water.

His account was supported by a first year science faculty student, who said students had been roughed up. He said he wanted to go back to class but would not sign any undertakings.

``We still insist that the police should be removed and our academic freedom guaranteed,'' he said.

The government has agreed to most of the students' demands but has said it cannot remove the armed police until it trains civilian guards to replace them.

Medical sources said 41 people were killed on April 18 in clashes in the city between rioters and police that erupted when police entered the campus to protect property and ensure the continuation of classes.

The government has put the death toll at 31, ten fewer. It blames most of the violence on what it called gangsters and jobless youths who took advantage of the tension between the college authorities and students to loot and destroy private property.

A university official said several students had began registering with university authorities in preparation for resuming studies, apparently withdrawing from a two-day boycott of classes aimed at pressuring the government to release the detained students. He gave no figures.

The authorities reopened the campus on Tuesday, a week after it was closed amid the riots, and demanded any student returning sign a form expressing regret for the riots and pledging to ensure future demands be presented peacefully.

---

Pakistan Detains Hundreds of Democracy Activists

New York Times
April 26, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-pakista.html

KARACHI (Reuters) - Leading Pakistani politicians scurried into hiding on Thursday as military rulers arrested hundreds of people in the second major clampdown within a month, according to opposition sources.

Police and security forces launched raids through the night and into Thursday in a bid to stop the 16-party Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy (ARD) from pushing ahead with plans for a banned rally set for May 1 in Karachi, they said.

``The whole night there was an operation against (political activists),'' said an official of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) of self-exiled former premier Benazir Bhutto.

A similar rally planned for the central city of Lahore late in March was blocked after security forces detained thousands of political activists.

But many of Thursday's raids proved fruitless as the authorities discovered their prime targets had long gone.

``My house was raided, but I'm still out,'' said Ejaz Shaffi, a member of the suspended National Assembly and of the Pakistan Muslim League (PML) of ousted and exiled premier Nawaz Sharif. ''They are still looking for me so I'm not in my usual places.''

The number of arrests was unclear as police officials contacted by Reuters refused comment, and officials of the Sindh provincial government could not immediately be reached.

Political partyworkers said hundreds of their colleagues had been detained, but the total could run into the thousands.

LEADERS DETERMINED

``(We) strictly condemn this situation including the arrests. It's a conspiracy against the federation of Pakistan, a conspiracy against the constitution ... and a conspiracy against democracy,'' the PPP official said.

He added that political leaders would still attend the rally. ``Several of the leadership have gone underground because of the current arrests and harassment ... Our senior leaders will be there in Karachi on May 1,'' he said.

Military authorities earlier this week warned political leaders not to travel to Karachi for the May 1 event, saying they would be arrested if they did.

The ARD, which includes both the PPP and the PML, intended the rally as part of a campaign demanding that the military stand down and immediately restore democracy.

The military regime of General Pervez Musharraf, which dislodged Sharif in a coup in October 1999, has banned all public rallies but vowed to restore civilian rule around October 2002, within a three-year deadline set by the supreme court.

The detained included former justice minister and PPP deputy secretary general Mian Raza Rabbani as well as Fauzia Wahab, who heads the PPP's human rights office.

``There are a lot of our workers being arrested...and we are getting more information from the interior of Sindh of more arrests,'' the PPP spokesman said.

Haleem Siddiqui, Sindh province general secretary who heads a faction of the PML, which split following the coup, said about 150 of his workers had been detained.

``The city administration is arresting people who have nothing to do with the May 1 rally,'' he said.

Senior ARD leaders, including 83-year-old chief Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan and the PML's Javed Hashmi, were detained for more than eight hours at Karachi airport on their arrival.

They were forced to board a plane back to Punjab province.

``They have arrested hundreds of pro-democracy supporters, but whoever is among the leaders of ARD present on May 1 in Karachi will hold the scheduled public rally,'' ARD chief Khan told Reuters from Punjab.

``I will challenge their (government authorities) decision not to allow me entry in Karachi before the court tomorrow and after that we will decide the next course of action. But I will again make an attempt to reach the city before the May 1 rally.''

---

Falun Gong Holds Protests on Anniversary of Big Sit-In

New York Times
April 26, 2001
By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/26/world/26BEIJ.html

BEIJING, April 25 - Members of the banned Falun Gong spiritual group staged small scattered protests today on Tiananmen Square in an attempt to commemorate the second anniversary of a silent sit-in that the movement held outside the leadership compound in 1999.

That brazen 10,000-strong demonstration to seek official recognition took the government by surprise. It catapulted the obscure spiritual organization into international awareness, also leading a few months later to the government ban.

Today, at least 12 members were detained as they adopted the typical Falun Gong meditative pose or unfurled small banners with slogans like, "Falun Gong Is Good."

The protesters arrived in groups of two and three. Some couples had small children.

The police often pushed or hit the demonstrators as they were herded into the police vans that have become fixtures on the square in the last 18 months.

The protests were remarkably smaller than those on the first anniversary, when hundreds were detained. They demonstrated that the government's vicious 20-month campaign against Falun Gong had been at least somewhat successful in squashing a movement that once said it had 70 million practitioners on the mainland, or at least in driving the group underground.

On a bright spring day, the arrests were overshadowed by the tourists who packed the square, although foreign tourists who witnessed the events had their film confiscated, observers said.

Falun Gong was declared an "evil sect" and banned in July 1999. Since then, the state media has been filled with invective against the group. Schoolchildren have had to attend anti-Falun Gong classes, and recalcitrant members have been subjected to police harassment, detention and, for organizers, long prison terms.

Since the ban until early this year, members have staged small silent acts of civil disobedience on Tiananmen Square almost daily. The actions became a routine. One or two members would climb the stairs to the square, strike a pose indicating they were a Falun Gong practitioner and promptly be arrested.

But in January, five members, including one child, doused themselves with a flammable liquid and set themselves on fire on the square. The spectacle has caused the police to redouble their efforts to weed out members. The images of the burned child that were splayed across Chinese newspapers reinforced ideas that the movement was, indeed, extreme.

Since then, protests have been more sporadic, in part because the police have become more active. On sensitive dates like today, they check identity papers of all Chinese at the entrances to the square and sniff soda bottles to make sure that they do not contain gasoline.

After months of the crackdown, many of the most persistent members are in custody. Up to 10,000 followers are in labor camps, according to human rights groups, and more than 100 have died in custody.

Although public protests have declined, it is not clear whether the private exercises have waned. Many members continue to practice secretly at home, members say, although they face losing their jobs or being detained if they are found out.

Falun Gong combines slow motion exercises and meditation with an idiosyncratic blend of Eastern philosophies that members say promote physical and emotional health. Founded by Li Hongzhi, a former Chinese bank clerk in exile in the United States, it was widely and openly practiced in Chinese parks in the late 1990's.

Although it has no overt political goals, the sudden assembly of 10,000 protesters at the leadership compound in 1999 was an overtly political act in a country where demonstrations are banned unless they have permits.

---

USA Today
04/26/01
States
http://www.usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm

Arizona

Tucson - Vandals using sledgehammers and crowbars caused about $200,000 in damage to an underground power line for the Mount Graham Observatory, according to the observatory's associate director. Environmentalists have opposed the project, claiming it would harm an endangered red squirrel and a spruce forest. Two of seven planned telescopes have been operating since 1994.

Idaho

Boise - The Nature Conservancy of Idaho is embarking on the largest private conservation program in the state's history. It hopes to protect millions of acres by working with private owners and government on long-term conservation projects. It will invest $20 million in seven projects from the Canadian border south to the Owyhee Mountains and east to the edge of Yellowstone National Park.

North Carolina

Raleigh - Critics of a Million Mom March at the State Capitol grounds May 5 are organizing a countermarch two blocks away. The moms want tougher laws for handgun storage and a law requiring handgun licensing and registration. Grass Roots North Carolina, organizers of the countermarch, say existing handgun laws are sufficient.

Wisconsin

Madison - A University of Wisconsin-Madison student has died of injuries he suffered in a fall from a balcony during a weekend party to raise money for anti-sweatshop causes. Carlos Schwenn, 18, of Kenosha, had been in critical condition at University Hospital. Madison police were investigating the incident but said they had no indication of foul play, Lt. John Rife said.

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Anti-apartheid crusader Leon Sullivan dies at 78

USA Today
04/26/2001 - Updated 08:38 AM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2001-04-26-sullivan.htm

PHOENIX (AP) - The Rev. Leon Sullivan, a pioneering civil rights crusader credited with helping end South Africa's system of apartheid, has died of leukemia at age 78.

The former Philadelphia minister, best known for developing an international code of business conduct called the Sullivan Principles, died Tuesday in a hospital in Scottsdale, Ariz., said his daughter, Hope Sullivan Rose.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan praised Sullivan on Wednesday and said he "was known and respected throughout the world for the bold and innovative role he played in the global campaign to dismantle the system of apartheid in South Africa."

The Rev. Jesse Jackson called Sullivan "a tremendous source of hope and vitality and moral authority." He praised Sullivan's work in Philadelphia that became the basis for Operation Breadbasket, the economic arm of Martin Luther King's civil rights organization.

Sullivan devised the Sullivan Principles in the 1970s, after becoming the first black board member at General Motors Corp.

He described them as "a code that companies of America and the world came to follow to end apartheid peacefully, starting with the workplace." Companies doing business in South Africa were encouraged to give opportunities to their black workers and help local communities.

"When I started this program, a black man had no legal standing in South Africa," he once said. "Literally you had to break a whole system of inequity throughout South Africa."

In the 1980s, he came to believe that U.S. companies could better pressure South Africa to end apartheid by pulling out of the country but he said the Sullivan Principles would still provide a good road map for most countries. Apartheid was abolished in South Africa in the 1990s.

"If you take a hammer and a chisel and pound a rock 100 times, it's going to crack. I pounded and pounded, and it cracked," Sullivan once said.

Sullivan was born in West Virginia and recalled the racism he faced trying to buy a soda at age 8 in his hometown of Charleston.

"That was my first real confrontation with segregation and black and white," he said. "So I decided ... that I was going to stand up against that kind of thing the rest of my life."

As a Philadelphia minister in the early 1960s, Sullivan organized a nonviolent boycott of local companies that would not hire blacks. The slogan: "Don't buy where you don't work."

The boycott worked and jobs were offered to people of all races, but many did not have the skills required for the openings.

Sullivan offered a solution in 1965 by beginning the Opportunities Industrialization Center, a job training program that to date has trained about 1.5 million people in 142 centers worldwide.

After retiring from Zion Baptist Church, Sullivan moved to Arizona in 1981. His Phoenix-based International Foundation for Education and Self-Help aided hundreds of thousands of people in Africa and the United States. Sullivan also continued serving as an advisory to GM's board.

In 1992, then-President Bush awarded Sullivan the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

In addition to Rose, he is survived by his wife, Grace; son, Howard; daughter Julie; and seven grandchildren.


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