------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
Lack of graduates signals decline in nuclear industry
China Plays Gao Zhan
Sympathy for The Palestinians
On Tentative Agreement Between Bush and Putin
Anti-missile debate gains
Russian nuclear experts say raising Kursk is safe
Weapons-grade uranium seized
U.S. Will Not Seek To Alter ABM Treaty
Bush Approves Payments to Radiation Victims
Carter 'Disappointed' With Bush Presidency
Commander Bush Takes Flak
Bush Trip Ends on Solemn Note
Bush Discusses Trip With Congress
Nuclear plant has lowest fuel cost

MILITARY
Rumsfeld affirms Asian presence
Bush: Stop smuggling arms to Macedonia
Macedonia slides toward civil war
Rioters Attack U.S. Embassy In Macedonia
Skopje accuses NATO of backing rebels
US Rejects Anti-Germ Warfare Accord
U.S. Explores Other Options on Preventing Germ Warfare
UN wants audit of Colombia cocaine spraying
Limits on Medical Marijuana Plants
Iran Is Accused of Threatening Research Vessel in Caspian Sea
Israeli Army Kills Hamas Activist in Missile Attack
Czechs, Slovaks and Poles to set up joint army
U.S. Air Force Linked to Electronic Warfare Attack in Tennessee
Military Cuts Are Implied in New Strategy
Studies focus on cutting overseas deployments

OTHER
Dane wind turbines shares down amid tech worries
Univ. of Mich. entry wins 2,247-mile solar car race
House Judiciary Panel Passes a No-Clone Bill
Down to the Nuts and Bolts at NSC
Powell Expects Release of Scholar Convicted of Spying in China


-------- NUCLEAR

-------- britain

Lack of graduates signals decline in nuclear industry

Joe Plomin
Guardian Unlimited
Wednesday July 25, 2001
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4228010,00.html

The nuclear industry in the UK is facing decline within five years because of a lack of trained graduates.

The news could undermine plans floated by government ministers last month to rejuvenate this source of power.

The Department for Trade and Industry's foresight energy futures taskforce report predicted "a partial revival of nuclear [power] from 2015", something that might not be possible if there is no one to build or make new plants safe.

To try to tackle the problem, the DTI has commissioned a new steering group intended to improve training and increase graduate interest in the industry.

The body has not yet been officially announced and ministers are still discussing its exact role, but the head of the new group has been chosen - Professor John Chesshire, Sussex University's specialist in science and technology policy.

Professor Chesshire has said, although the nuclear industry has some of the world's top scientists and engineers, not enough young people are getting the training the industry needs, and those who are do not want to go enter into the field.

Professor Richard Williams at Leeds University predicted that, within ten years, there will be a serious shortage of trained engineers.

Staff are getting older, university facilities are crumbling and nuclear bosses are getting worried. The chief inspector of nuclear installations, Laurence Williams, and directors from key industry organisations, such as BNFL and BNIF, have all expressed concern.

Liz Morrey, head of the government's skills action team, which looks at industry needs, said there are two issues. Graduates do not think nuclear has a future and so do not take courses in nuclear power and safety, and too few students go into mathematics, engineering and the sciences.

"The worry is people see nuclear as a dying industry, where graduates cannot see a career. Currently, the workforce is in place, but in five years, it is not clear the industry will be able to replace the people that will be leaving," she said.

Ministers have been talking about a return to nuclear energy after years of not allowing anyone to build new power stations because of concerns Britain could be running out of energy. A report last month suggested Britain could experience Californian-style blackouts, caused by the failure of the industry to meet the high demand.

In five years, the UK will be a net importer of oil.

-------- china

China Plays Gao Zhan

Wednesday, July 25, 2001
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A46274-2001Jul24?language=printer

THE CHINESE government yesterday moved another couple of pawns in its aggressive gambit to intimidate the Bush administration into accepting a political relationship on Beijing's terms. Unfortunately for her husband and 5-year-old son, one of those pawns was Gao Zhan, the Washington-based academic who was abruptly arrested last February and charged with espionage. Just four days before the arrival of Secretary of State Colin Powell, a court sentenced Ms. Gao and another permanent U.S. resident, Qin Guangguang, to 10-year prison terms, after sham trials that were closed to the press, U.S. officials and other outside observers. American officials held out hope that Beijing might soften this kick in Mr. Powell's shin by releasing Ms. Gao and a U.S. citizen convicted last week, Li Shaomin, before the U.S. delegation lands on Saturday. Even if it grants this concession, however, the government of Jiang Zemin will have established its position: that it expects the Bush administration to conduct business and carry out normal high-level relations with China regardless of how it treats its own people -- even those who happen to be U.S. residents or citizens.

China has good cause to lay down these terms. The government's repression of religious believers, supporters of democracy and independent-minded intellectuals has escalated over the past year -- and seems likely to grow still more as the contest over succession to Mr. Jiang intensifies in the coming year. In particular, the leak of the Tiananmen papers, which described the struggles among senior leaders during the 1989 crackdown, seems to have motivated a renewed effort to purge or intimidate intellectuals with foreign connections. The extremes to which the security apparatus has gone are manifest in the case of Ms. Gao, a sociologist associated with American University. Ms. Gao's nominal offense was to collect Chinese magazine and journal articles about relations with Taiwan from one academic colleague, Qu Wei, and pass them to another, the Hong Kong-based Mr. Li. Though this doesn't come close to real espionage, a Chinese court deemed it sufficient to impose a decade in prison on Ms. Gao and 13 years on Mr. Qu. It did so after a three-hour trial and a half-hour of deliberation, which in turn came after Ms. Gao had been allowed to see her lawyers -- her only contact with the outside world -- just twice in five months.

All of this is a challenge to Mr. Powell, who before his trip spoke of the administration's interest in smoothing relations with Beijing after the dispute over the downed U.S. surveillance plane. The administration, Mr. Powell said recently, is ready to "get on to the real issues of trade and economics" with China. It would also like to defuse Chinese opposition to the administration's missile defense plans, and head off any deepening of the strategic alliance Mr. Jiang signed with Russian President Vladimir Putin last week. Mr. Jiang knows all this -- which is why this was a good week to throw the book at Ms. Gao and Mr. Qin. Cooperation is fine, China is saying to the Bush administration -- but first swallow this. Mr. Powell should not go along. Instead, he should make clear that the Bush administration's engagement with China will deepen -- and the president's planned visit to China will take place -- only when the Chinese American academics are released and the campaign against the intellectuals is stopped.

------- israel

Sympathy for The Palestinians

By Shibley Telhami
Wednesday, July 25, 2001; Page A21
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A46267-2001Jul24?language=printer

As the Palestinian-Israeli conflict heads toward serious escalation, the United States is facing reduced cooperation from some of its Arab friends, even in the military arena, thus raising questions about the potential consequences of escalation for U.S. interests in the region. American diplomats report that even Kuwaitis, who are understandably obsessed with the Iraqi threat, want to discuss nothing but the Palestinian-Israeli situation these days. The mere story that Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, to protest U.S. policy, refused to visit the White House has made him an instant hit in the Middle Eastern media.

Does this mood represent an unjustified concern by Arab leaders who are out of touch with the public? To get a rare view of Arab public opinion, I commissioned a survey (through Zogby International) in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Lebanon. The results indicate that Arab leaders may even be underestimating public opinion on this issue.

In each of four countries surveyed, about 60 percent of the public reported that the Palestinian issue "is the single most important issue" to them personally, and more than 20 percent more ranked it "among the top three most important issues." Remarkably, this is true even of public opinion in Kuwait, which has had a troubled relationship with the Palestinians since the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990. In all, about 85 percent of people in the five states ranked the Palestinian issue among the top three issues.

The results from the fifth state, Egypt, were even more impressive: Seventy-nine percent of Egyptians said that the Palestinian issue is "the single most important issue" to them personally. This is the more surprising because Egypt was the first Arab state to make peace with Israel and had been accused by other Arabs of "selling out."

What explains this amazing ranking of the Palestinian issue in such places as upper Egypt and the Arabian desert? It is not the new satellite media, such as Qatari al Jazeera TV, as has been so widely speculated. The results were robust even among those who don't watch such media, including in Egypt, where satellite receivers are scarce. These media may be a factor in getting the public to the streets, but not so much in setting its preferences.

Two factors explain the importance of the Palestinian issue that cannot be ignored. First, the Palestinian issue remains an "identity" issue for most Arabs, regardless of what they think of Yasser Arafat or the Palestinian Authority. Most Arabs are shamed by their inability to help the Palestinians and feel personally insulted when the Palestinians seem slighted. The way the United States behaves toward the Palestinians is taken as a message to all Arabs.

Second, the Arab narrative about the failure of the Camp David negotiations and the eruption of violence is the mirror image of the Israeli narrative: Arabs blame Israel for what happened and continues to happen, in the same way that Israelis place the blame on Arafat. Whereas Israelis understandably focus on the innocent casualties of horrifying suicide bombings, Arabs focus on daily pictures of dead Arab civilians, helicopter gunships attacking Palestinian targets and demolitions of homes of ordinary people who look like their cousins.

Do these opinions mean that Arabs are ready to go to war over the Palestinian issue? Probably not. Instead, the survey reflects a serious psychological mood that no Arab government can ignore, and suggests that the Palestinian issue cannot be sidestepped. It helps explain why, one year after the collapse of the Camp David Summit between the Palestinians and the Israelis, the American-backed order in the Middle East of the past decade is under serious assault.

Although some of the pressure on this order emanates from a changed international environment, especially the increasing assertiveness of Russian foreign policy, it is mostly an outcome of the collapse of the peace process. No regional policy can be successful without restoring serious Palestinian-Israeli negotiations that revive public hope.

The writer is Anwar Sadat professor for peace and development at the University of Maryland.

-------- missile defense

On Tentative Agreement Between Bush and Putin

Cleveland Plain-Dealer
By Paul Volpe Special to washingtonpost.com
Wednesday, July 25, 2001; 11:12 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A48740-2001Jul25?language=printer

• The Cleveland Plain-Dealer on a tentative agreement between President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin that would link arms reduction to further talks on missile defense: "A change in defense policy of this magnitude - radically reducing the nation's nuclear weapons inventory while developing a system to defend against incoming missiles - demands a thorough, intelligent, informed debate across the American political spectrum."

http://www.cleveland.com/editorials/plaindealer/index.ssf?/xml/story.ssf/html_standard.xsl?/base/opinion/99605343824312143.xml

-------

Anti-missile debate gains

07/25/01
Cleveland Plain-Dealer

The winds of change are blowing across the fields of nuclear deterrence. With Sun day's understanding between President George W. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin having set aloft Bush's grand plans for a missile defense system, some Democrats have decided it's high time they got their own smaller, less-threatening balloon in the air.

Good for them. A change in defense policy of this magnitude - radically reducing the nation's nuclear weapons inventory while developing a system to defend against incoming missiles - demands a thorough, intelligent, informed debate across the American political spectrum.

The Democratic impetus is coming from national security experts who served in the Clinton administration. As one observed, "you can't fight something with nothing." And nothing is what most liberal Democrats have wanted, when it comes to the idea of a missile defense system.

But if the Democrats cling to that position as Bush moves forward, they will find themselves without so much as a finger in shaping the next generation's arms-control agreements and Pentagon budgets. That's politically untenable, especially as Republicans are painting opponents of missile defense as something less than patriotic.

So the centrists, those who had President Bill Clinton's ear, are targeting the scope and cost of Bush's proposed multilayered system. It's too big, they say, and would unnecessarily threaten both the Russians and the Chinese. The smaller system they want would be less threatening and could fit within an amended, not abandoned, Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

Theirs is the approach that Clinton was pursuing, but it may already have been outpaced by events. Although Bush and Putin insist they have agreed to nothing more than accelerated consultation about both force reduction and missile defense, that very consultation is seen by analysts both here and in Russia as indicative of Putin's willingness to consider a far-ranging agreement that would replace the keystone 1972 ABM treaty. And that treaty, as Clinton found and Bush has argued, is written precisely to prevent developing the sorts of defensive systems that both parties now propose.

The coming months will be critical to the formulation of bilateral nuclear weapons and defense policies that may last for decades. Such policies should involve the best thinking of both major political parties. It's not too late for Democrats to participate as more than across-the-board nay-sayers, if they can agree among themselves to play so cooperative a role.

------- russia

Russian nuclear experts say raising Kursk is safe

RUSSIA: July 25, 2001
Story by Tara FitzGerald
REUTERS
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11745

MOSCOW - Russian nuclear experts dismissed fears yesterday that the operation to raise the Kursk nuclear submarine from the Artic seabed could pose ecological problems, saying tests showed there were no radiation leaks.

The Kursk sank to the bottom of the Barents Sea after an unexplained explosion last August, killing all 118 crew members.

On Sunday, drivers began cutting holes in the hull of the sub to fix cables that will eventually be used to hoist it to the surface.

President Vladimir Putin has vowed to raise the sub, recover the bodies of its crew and dispose of its nuclear reactors. But some environmentalists say they believe sealing the reactors on the sea floor would be safer.

The vice-president of the Kurchatov Institute, one of Russia's leading nuclear laboratories, told a news conference that tests carried out after the accident confirmed the submarine's reactor had shut down, the reactor's emergency system worked and there were no radiation leaks.

"We have carried out all preparatory work and considered all possible situations that could occur during the lifting, transporting and docking of the submarine," Nikolai Ponomaryev-Stepnoi said.

"Together with the chief designer, we have concluded that not only in a normal situation, but also in any out-of-the-ordinary case, the nuclear reactor would remain in the same state."

SALVAGE OPERATION

Divers recovered 12 bodies from the wreck last year before bitter winter conditions forced an end to salvage operations.

The Barents Sea is one of the world's most important fisheries, and any leak of radiation could be devastating. Residents in the area have also expressed concerns over the safety of docking the submarine on land.

But Alexander Kiryushin, director of the bureau that designed the Kursk's nuclear reactor, said the level of radiation measured corresponded to the background level in the Barents Sea.

The plan to raise the Kursk envisages sawing off its damaged torpedo bay and leaving it on the sea floor for the time being.

The rest of the 18,000-tonne craft would be lashed to a giant floating pontoon, hoisted to the surface and towed into port. The operation is due to be completed by late September.

Ponomaryev-Stepnoi said the radiation levels of the submarine would be constantly monitored during the lifting operation and the reactor would then be examined in dock.

Kiryushin said all reactors were designed to take into account any possible emergency situations, adding that in the case of submarine reactors this would include collisions, explosions and other impacts.

Russia says the submarine sunk to the bottom of the sea after its torpedoes exploded. The cause of the explosion has not yet been determined.

Moscow contracted Dutch salvage firm Mammoet and Rotterdam's marine services firm Smit International to lift the Kursk, and divers have already begun cutting holes in its hull to affix cables that will be used to raise it to the surface.

--------

Weapons-grade uranium seized
1.7kg of nuclear material found in Georgia may have been destined for a rogue state or terror group

Special report: Russia
Amelia Gentleman in Moscow and Ewen MacAskill
Guardian
Wednesday July 25, 2001
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4227489,00.html

Police officers in Georgia said yesterday that four men had been arrested trying to sell a large quantity of enriched uranium, raising the fear that it may have been destined for a terrorist group or country classified by the US as a rogue state.

Although there has been an increased number of cases of smuggling nuclear material since the collapse of the Soviet Union, it is rare for uranium of this quality and quantity of to appear on the black market.

The men were arrested by local anti-terrorist police last Wednesday morning in a hotel room in the Black Sea port of Batumi, apparently finalising plans for selling the weapons-grade uranium.

About 1.7kg of what is believed to be uranium-235 stood inside a large glass jar, wrapped in a plastic bag, on the hotel room floor. It is believed to have been heading for Turkey, which is often used as a transit point. The final destination is not known.

The US says that the countries seeking uranium on the black market include North Korea and Iran. Iraq is not thought to be among the buyers in this instance, since it knows how to enrich uranium.

There is no independent confirmation of the US claim that North Korea and Iraq have a nuclear capability.

The US also lists 12 terrorist groups which it claims have tried to buy nuclear material, including that led by Osama bin Laden and the Japanese sect responsible for the Tokyo underground poisoning.

Rizor Sakvarelidze, head of the anti-terrorist unit of the Georgian autonomous region of Adzharia, said: "We don't have any protective clothing, so we had to perform the arrest and the seizure of the material with our bare hands."

The three unemployed men and a captain in the Georgian army were hoping to be paid $80,000 (£56,300) a kilogram.

Officials believe that the haul may have been stolen from a Russian nuclear submarine. It is being analysed in Tblisi, and the results are expected to give a clearer idea of its origin.

Hundreds of attempts to smuggle radioactive material out of Russia are made every year, but most cases involve relatively low-risk strontium isotopes in materials stolen from hospitals or the mining industry. These isotopes do not have nuclear bomb making potential.

"Instances of uranium being stolen are much rarer; especially highly enriched uranium," Igor Kudrik, of the nuclear watchdog Bellona, said. "This kind of enriched uranium could be used to make a so-called 'dirty' nuclear bomb; not a sophisticated weapon, but powerful enough to wipe out a city."

The 1.7kg would not have been enough to manufacture a whole bomb: at least twice as much would be needed.

"But this is still a significant amount, and it is an extremely worrying case," Mr Kudrik said. "The know-how required to turn this material into a bomb is not that difficult. Anyone with a good education in physics should be able to do it."

Ivan Safanchuk, director of the Moscow office of the Centre for Defence Information, said: "If this material does turn out, after analysis, really to have been highly enriched uranium, then it is very scary news, because the greatest difficulty rogue states or terrorists face if they want to make a nuclear bomb is finding weapons-grade plutonium [an alternative] available on the black market.

"It is extremely unusual for highly enriched uranium to be found on sale."

David Kyd, chief spokesman for the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations body based in Vienna, said that although lots of cases of smuggling appeared in the press, most of it was of small quantities and not sufficiently enriched for making nuclear weapons.

He said most countries and terrorist groups were wary of buying on the black market because of stings by intelligence groups and criminal gangs.

Enriched uranium is used as fuel on Russian nuclear submarines and the substance on sale could have been stolen from the base of the northern fleet near the Arctic port of Murmansk.

In 1993, nuclear fuel rods thought to contain uranium-235 were stolen from a storage depot in Murmansk by two officers who simply walked past the old woman on duty.

Since then a series of American-funded programmes have radically improved security at most of Russia's nuclear stores."If such programmes continue, then the nuclear materials will be much more secure," Mr Kudrik said.

"But you still have to consider the current social problems in Russia. If the person who is supposed to be guarding these materials is unable to live on his salary, then no amount of sophisticated, hi-tech security equipment is going to offer any protection against theft."

Terror trail uncovered

A lot of uranium was smuggled in the mid-90s and there has been another surge in the past two years:

July 2001 French police find five grams of enriched uranium in the possession of a French swindler in Paris. A man is arrested in Germany for allegedly stealing contaminated plutonium

January-March 2001 20 cases of illegal trafficking in radioactive materials, with thefts in Germany, Romania, South Africa and Mexico.

April 2000 Detectives in Colombia seize £1m-worth of enriched uranium from an animal feed salesman. 920 grams of enriched uranium found in Georgia

July 1995-April 2000 13 seizures in western Europe and 41 along southern routes through Turkey, the Caucasus, Central Asia and Middle East.

May 1991-June 1995 53 seizures in western Europe and 11 along the southern routes.

1994 Colombian arrested in Frankfurt travelling from Moscow with plutonium in his suitcase. Turned out to be a sting by German intelligence.

• Sources including the World Today, published by the Royal Institute of International Affairs

-------- treaties

U.S. Will Not Seek To Alter ABM Treaty
Joint Withdrawal With Russia Is Goal

By Alan Sipress
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 25, 2001; Page A13
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A44090-2001Jul24?language=printer

The United States does not intend to amend the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty to allow for the development of a missile defense system but will instead seek Russia's agreement for both countries to withdraw from the accord, administration officials said yesterday.

If Moscow does not agree to mutual withdrawal, the officials said, the United States would seek to replace the 1972 ABM Treaty with a political declaration about the permissibility of missile defenses. But Bush officials repeated yesterday that this substitute would not be a new, full-blown arms control treaty.

Should Russia balk at both mutual withdrawal and a joint statement, the Bush administration would be forced to announce its unilateral pullout from the treaty. Such a move is allowed on six months' notice.

The officials' remarks provide the clearest explanation yet of the U.S. game plan for upcoming arms talks with Russia and underscore the Bush administration's deep-seated discomfort with arms control treaties, particularly those governing defensive weapons.

The question of what the administration seeks from Russia looms large as national security adviser Condoleezza Rice heads today to Moscow to set the schedule for the nuclear discussions. At their summit last Sunday in Genoa, Italy, President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to work toward a new "strategic framework" addressing both the planned U.S. missile shield and cuts in both countries' nuclear arsenals. Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell are to meet their Russian counterparts in coming months to craft this framework.

A senior administration official stressed yesterday that talks over offensive and defensive systems would be "interrelated, not linked." He said the United States could not immediately discuss the kind of deep cuts that Russia is seeking because the Pentagon is still conducting an internal review of U.S. nuclear strategy and weaponry. The United States now has more than 7,000 strategic warheads on missiles and bombers, while Russia maintains about 6,000.

The Pentagon review, which has caused some military brass to speak out vociferously against deep cuts in the U.S. stockpile, is due to continue for several months. This means the Bush administration would have to take a go-slow approach in talks with Russia about offensive weapons while racing ahead with discussions over defensive weapons so the restrictions of the ABM Treaty could be lifted in time for tests of the U.S. missile shield over the next year.

Under one scenario, the senior official said, the United States and Russia could address offensive systems by agreeing to accelerate the implementation of the 1993 START II treaty, requiring each side to cut back to between 3,000 and 3,500 deployed strategic nuclear warheads. Putin, however, has proposed reducing to 1,500 or fewer, in part because Russia can no longer afford its nuclear arsenal.

At a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing yesterday, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), the committee chairman, pressed several administration officials for specifics about the new framework they are proposing and asked when the upcoming missile defense tests would run afoul of the ABM Treaty.

Douglas J. Feith, undersecretary of defense for policy, testified that a Pentagon review committee would reach a preliminary finding by Monday on whether several aspects of the testing program would breach the accord.

He said the compliance review group was evaluating at least three issues previously identified as potential violations of the treaty, which was carefully written to prevent the development of a nationwide missile shield. These include the construction in coming months of a site in Alaska for testing a ground-based anti-missile system; the testing of ship-based radars to track long-range missiles; and the combined testing of multiple radar systems to track missiles.

"This process will permit us to take [treaty problems] into account as early as possible as we pursue our negotiations with Russia on a new strategic framework," Feith said. "By the time a planned development does encounter ABM Treaty constraints, we fully hope and intend to have reached an understanding with Russia."

John R. Bolton, undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, told the committee that the administration considers the treaty to be "fundamentally in conflict" with the goal of developing missile defenses. As a result, he said, "We do not believe seeking line-in, line-out amendments of the treaty to try to get the flexibility to conduct this or next year's test program is viable."

Nor, he said, was the United States prepared to negotiate new "formal agreements of hundreds of pages that count every warhead and pound of throw-weight." He said, "These are not going to be traditional arms control negotiations with small armies of negotiators inhabiting the best hotels in Geneva for months at a time."

Bolton warned that the administration does not intend to let the discussions with Russia delay the planned program of missile defense tests. "We are short on Pollyannas in the Bush administration, and it is our full intention to engage as robustly, as expeditiously and as sincerely as we can," he said. "We hope that the Russians will see this is as part of the new strategic framework in a cooperative mode that is both of our interests. But we will move ahead on our own if need be."

Staff writer Thomas E. Ricks contributed to this report.

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

Bush Approves Payments to Radiation Victims

Wednesday, July 25, 2001
BY ROBERT GEHRKE
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.sltrib.com/07252001/utah/116424.htm

WASHINGTON -- Forms were already in the mail as President Bush signed legislation Tuesday to make good on hundreds of IOUs issued to Utah residents and others suffering from illnesses caused by their role in Cold War-era nuclear weapons programs.

Payments to ailing uranium miners and those exposed to fallout from nuclear weapons tests -- or their survivors -- could be received as early as next month.

Through last week, there were 191 claimants in Utah alone -- either miners, Downwinders or their survivors -- holding IOUs worth $10 million, according to the Justice Department.

"The president's signature helps mitigate the embarrassment of Congress and the Justice Department for letting the trust fund run dry," said Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., who worked to secure the funding.

The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act was passed in 1990 to compensate victims of the Cold War nuclear weapons program or their survivors for illnesses caused by radiation.

The act provides $100,000 to uranium miners and $50,000 to "Downwinders" -- residents sickened by their exposure to radioactive fallout caused by nuclear weapons tests in Nevada.

Last year, the act was expanded to cover more people, but no new money was added. Since May 2000, qualifying claimants received letters informing them the program was out of money. Many have died while awaiting payments.

The legislation signed by Bush will cover IOUs worth an estimated $84 million. The House had resisted the funding but struck a deal with Senate negotiators last week approving the money.

Senators and representatives from several Western states had lobbied aggressively for the funding.

The Justice Department, which administers the program, sent forms Monday to the claimants who had been issued IOUs, in anticipation of Bush's action, said Charles Miller, a spokesman for the department.

A claimant requesting a direct deposit could receive the money two weeks after the Justice Department receives the completed form, Miller said. A check will take at least six weeks to process.

Bush signed the $6.5 billion spending bill at a rally before cheering American soldiers in Kosovo. The legislation includes $1.9 billion to boost pay, health care and benefits for American troops.

In Colorado, 71 claimants are owed $6.5 million. Sixty-eight claimants are owed $3.5 million in Nevada, 47 are owed $3 million in Arizona, 42 are owed $4 million in New Mexico, and 13 are owed $1 million in California. Other claimants are scattered across the country.

-------- us nuc politics

Carter 'Disappointed' With Bush Presidency

Associated Press
Wednesday, July 25, 2001
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A44810-2001Jul24?language=printer

PLAINS, Ga., July 24 -- In a rare instance of a former president criticizing a current one, Jimmy Carter is taking issue with just about everything George W. Bush has done in office.

Carter criticized Bush for not pressuring Israel to withdraw from the Gaza Strip, for threatening to abandon the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and for not supporting human rights more strongly.

He was also critical of Bush for not calling for the removal of Israeli settlements on the West Bank. "George Sr. took a strong position on that issue, and so did I," Carter said.

Carter said Bush has ignored moderates in both parties and calls Bush's proposed missile defense shield a "technologically ridiculous" idea that will "re-escalate the nuclear arms race."

"I have been disappointed in almost everything he has done," Carter told the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer in an interview last week at his home in Plains.

Asked to comment, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said: "President Bush is just returning from successful, productive meetings with European leaders, including a meeting with Mr. Putin where significant progress was made toward implementing new strategic framework that meets the threats of the 21st century. The president is looking forward and continuing to build upon the bipartisan progress we are making to achieve meaningful and real results for the American people."

Carter also was critical of President Bill Clinton during the fellow Democrat's administration, calling the Monica S. Lewinsky scandal an embarrassment and disparaging Clinton's policy in North Korea and Haiti.

Carter is "a guy with strong views," said presidential scholar Charles Jones of the University of Wisconsin. "What surprises me is [this is] a kind of a sweeping critical analysis, at what has to be said is an early stage."

Carter said he had volunteered to be one of the few Democrats at Bush's inauguration because he was optimistic about the administration.

"I hoped that coming out of an uncertain election, he would reach out to people of diverse views -- not just Democrats and Republicans, but others who had different points of view," Carter said. "I thought he would be a moderate leader, but he has been very strictly conforming to some of the more conservative members of his administration, his vice president and his secretary of defense in particular."

---

Commander Bush Takes Flak

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 25, 2001
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A48198-2001Jul25?language=printer

There was no rockets' red glare or bombs bursting in air, but it was a million-dollar photo op.

Every president wants to be seen as a commander-in-chief, a front-line kinda guy, and George W. projected that image yesterday by visiting American troops in Kosovo.

Television correspondents portrayed the drop-by as something of a flip-flop, since candidate W. had promised to pull the peacekeeping troops from Kosovo but now gives no sign of a withdrawal any time soon.

No matter. A short-attention-span country has long since stopped worrying about the Balkans. And the pictures, as Ronald Reagan learned long ago, are often more important than the text.

While Bush was wearing an olive-colored shirt and posing with the khaki-clad soldiers, the real warfare was taking place back home, especially over Social Security. His handpicked commission on fixing the retirement system held its first meeting, and the mortar shells were flying.

"A White House commission on Social Security, under intense criticism for pushing the creation of private investment accounts, backed off its claim Tuesday that the system is 'broken,'" says USA Today.

"The panel replaced it with a finding that the 66-year-old federal retirement program is on a fiscally unsustainable course and needs repair."

Sounds like a nice way of saying broken to us.

"Members of President Bush's Commission to Strengthen Social Security were on the defensive as they held their second meeting against attacks from Democrats, organized labor and others.

"Critics said the commission is trying to scare Americans by suggesting that future benefits are in jeopardy. They charged that it is laying groundwork for a recommendation that personal investment accounts be created with a portion of workers' Social Security payroll taxes. The panel adopted an interim report describing the Social Security system as in a state of fiscal crisis."

The Washington Post has the panel in more of an offensive mode: "In an uncommonly vitriolic exchange for a presidential commission early in its work, panel members called their opponents 'know-nothings' and 'Luddites.' In turn, a key House Democrat called on President Bush to 'throw out this commission that has no credibility' and begin direct, bipartisan negotiations over Social Security's future.

"The bitter exchange -- over an interim report intended merely to depict the condition of the nation's largest entitlement program -- foreshadows the opposition the Bush administration is certain to encounter once the commission completes its work late this year."

In Kosovo, the New York Times doesn't bury the lead: "Less than a year after he questioned during his presidential campaign whether American troops should remain in the Balkans, President Bush today told thousands of cheering troops at largest American military camp in Kosovo that 'America's contribution is essential, both militarily and politically.'

"Mr. Bush and his wife, Laura, spent three hours touring this sprawling camp southeast of Pristina, an hour's drive from the Macedonian border where the region's current troubles are erupting. It was the last day of their week-long European visit, and it took place under extraordinary security, as troops manned anti-aircraft weapons and scoured the green hills of Kosovo to make sure that there were no surprise attacks on Mr. Bush's helicopter. The president made it clear that while he would like to 'hasten the day' when American troops can leave, he did not expect that day would come anytime soon."

The Post takes a similar tack: "President Bush, who as a candidate talked of a need to withdraw U.S. peacekeepers from the Balkans, visited those troops in Kosovo today and declared that there remains considerable work in securing peace before they can come home."

The Philadelphia Inquirer finds Dubya on defense, and not in the military sense: "As George W. Bush marks the midpoint of his first year in the world's most powerful post, he undoubtedly has discovered the same hard truths that dogged his predecessors.

"Perks and prerogatives aside, presidents are often besieged by hostile political forces who can't be induced to surrender. They are sometimes hostage to events beyond their control, and they are powerless to do anything about it.

"Six months after taking the oath on a storm-tossed Saturday, the second President Bush has a stiff wind in his face, and even allies grudgingly agree that he will spend the next six months steering through similar weather.

"The plaudits for enacting a massive tax cut, in the teeth of public indifference and Democratic disdain, have already faded. Bush began his term with a proactive conservative agenda, but now, said George Edwards, a Texas-based presidential historian, 'he has lost control of the agenda. And a lot of what he's doing now is purely reactive.'...

"Already, Bush's pro-industry energy initiative has been sliced and diced by moderate congressional Republicans who want less drilling and more conservation. His bid to give federal money to faith-based charities has passed the House but could be treated rudely by the Democratic Senate. And his efforts to cap new federal education spending have been quashed by Democrats."

Other than that, he's sitting pretty.

Former presidents usually cut their successors considerable slack -- George Sr. almost never criticized Bill Clinton -- but the man who held the office two decades ago unloaded to Knight Ridder.

"Jimmy Carter said he is disappointed in President Bush's performance in the Oval Office and said the first-term Republican has ignored moderates in both parties -- including Secretary of State Colin Powell.

"Interviewed last week at his home in Plains, Carter criticized Bush for not pressuring Israelis to withdraw from the Gaza Strip, for threatening to abandon the antiballistic missile defense treaty, for not supporting human rights, and for 'strictly conforming' to the views of conservative Republicans. 'I have been disappointed in almost everything he has done,' Carter said.

"Carter said he volunteered to be one of the few Democrats at Bush's inauguration last January because of the high hopes he held for Bush's presidency. 'I hoped that coming out of an uncertain election he would reach out to people of diverse views, not just Democrats and Republicans but others who had different points of view,' said Carter.

"'I thought he would be a moderate leader,' Carter said, 'but he has been very strictly conforming to some of the more conservative members of his administration - his vice president [Dick Cheney] and his secretary of defense [Donald Rumsfeld] in particular. More moderate people like Colin Powell have been frozen out of the basic decision-making in dealing with international affairs."'

Quite a rocket there. And Knight Ridder held the interview since last week?

But all is not defensive, as Andrew Sullivan praises Bush's move on immigration: "Maybe the president was listening to the Pope. But the trial balloon of last week, offering amnesty to three million illegal Mexican immigrants, and the latest version of it (we're down to two million now), is perhaps the boldest initiative of the Bush administration yet. It's good policy - since many of these would-be Americans are now living under the penumbra of criminality. And it's great politics - managing to put the Democrats on the defensive and woo an important voting bloc.

"Bush and Rove realize that if they win the same share of the minority vote in 2004 as they did in 2000, they're finished. They need something big like this to make a real impression. I was glad my own magazine, The New Republic, saw this last week -- and were non-partisan enough to welcome it. One other small suggestion. Immigration issues could also help woo the gay vote. Most other western countries now allow some means of immigration for foreign same-sex spouses and all of them allow unrestricted immigration for people with HIV. If the Bushies found a way to move immigration law on these matters as well, the impact on another winnable bloc could be enormous."

---

[Was the issue of depleted uranium weapons contamination raised? et mailto:prop1@prop1.org]

Bush Trip Ends on Solemn Note

By Ron Fournier,
AP White House Correspondent
Wednesday, July 25, 2001
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20010725/aponline033659_000.htm

WASHINGTON -- With a trip to the battle-scarred Balkans, President Bush has concluded an eventful European trip in which he tangled with key allies over environmental policy and intensified anti-missile shield negotiations with Russia.

He chastised violent protesters at a summit of industrialized nations in Genoa, Italy, then was lectured himself by Pope John Paul II in Rome.

It was the second overseas trip of Bush's presidency and, like the first, the venture produced some success, some failure.

He ended on a solemn note. Standing just 50 miles from rebel fighting on Tuesday, he urged ethnic Albanians in Kosovo to stop sneaking weapons across the border to Macedonia, where rebel attacks on government forces threaten to spark a new Balkan civil war.

Hours later, the Macedonia government's army barracks in Tetovo came under rebel attack. Macedonia closed the Kosovo-Macedonia border.

More than 5,000 U.S. troops participate in the NATO-led effort to preserve hard-won peace in Kosovo, a province of the Serb Republic. Their mission was expanded in June to ferret out arms being smuggled across the 100-mile border shared with Macedonia.

As he spelled out U.S. involvement in the region, Bush seemed to be seeking a balance between his allegiance to NATO and long-held skepticism with peacekeeping missions.

"NATO's commitment to the peace of this region is enduring, but the stationing of our force here should not be indefinite," he said in the statement.

And so ended a trip that began a week ago with sightseeing in London. He toured the British Museum, Winston Churchill's war bunker and Buckingham Palace, where he and first lady Laura Bush ate lunch with the queen.

Barbara Bush, one of their 19-year-old twin daughters, joined her parents at the palace and received unwanted attention from the British press, which tut-tutted about her palace attire.

When he got down to work, Bush played down his differences with British Prime Minister Tony Blair and emphasized what aides say has become a surprisingly strong professional bond.

Blair was close to President Clinton, a fellow left-of-center politician, but U.S. officials say the prime minister has gone to extraordinary lengths to convince Bush that theirs can be a special relationship, too.

The meeting underscored that Bush will have a hard time selling his anti-missile system to key allies. He acknowledged that he has only "vague notions" of what the system would entail until he can set aside the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Russia that forbids advanced testing and deployment of missile shields.

In their private talks, Blair pressed Bush for details about his missile shield plan. "What do you want me to support? What are you proposing?" Bush quoted Blair as asking.

The issue was centerstage when Bush met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Genoa, Italy, later in the week. Theirs was the last session of an eight-nation summit, and produced a surprise agreement: Bush and Putin will link talks about reducing nuclear stockpiles - something they both favor - with tougher missile defense negotiations.

Despite the optimism of their news conference, two remain far apart on the missile defense issue. Neither did they agree on the size of nuclear cuts, a timetable or what weapons would be involved.

The Genoa summit was marred by violent protesters demonstrating against globalization, trade practices and economic policies pursued by the leaders working inside the palace walls of a 13th century palace.

Defiant, Bush said the leaders did a better job of representing the poor than the protesters.

"Instead of addressing policies that represent the poor, you embrace policies that lock poor people into poverty," Bush said on the opening day of a three-day summit.

One of the protesters was killed an hour later, shot by a member of the riot squad.

Issues of life and death were laid square at Bush's feet again Monday in Rome, when Bush met Pope John Paul II for the first time.

With the president close to deciding whether to ban government funding of embryonic stem cell research, the 81-year-old pontiff called the burgeoning science an "assault on human life."

Respectful but noncommittal, the president said, "I'll take that point of view into consideration."

And, then he was off to Kosovo. And home, arriving back at the White House Tuesday evening.

---

Bush Discusses Trip With Congress

By Ron Fournier,
AP White House Correspondent
Wednesday, July 25, 2001
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20010725/aponline123049_000.htm

WASHINGTON -- Reporting on an eventful European trip, President Bush reminded Congress Wednesday of the importance he places on bipartisan foreign policy and said his conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin raise hopes for a constructive relationship with Russia.

Bush also said that possible cuts of production and a consequent rise in fuel prices by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries could be damaging.

Bush said he had read statements from OPEC ministers that any new production cut will merely represent attempts to make sure the market remains stable and predictable.

"Obviously if it's an attempt to run the price of oil up we'll make our opinions very clear," Bush said. "Our economy is bumping along right now and a run-up in energy prices would hurt, and surely the OPEC leaders understand that," he said.

Bush said his talks with Putin were fruitful and full of "the hope and promise I see for a constructive relationship."

Bush spoke at the beginning of a meeting with members of Congress concerned with foreign policy including Sen. Joseph R. Biden, D-Del., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill., chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Bush complained during the trip about criticism of his foreign policy positions from Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., just as he was about to embark.

Although he did not repeat those complaints at the meeting Wednesday, he emphasized anew the importance he places on a bipartisan foreign policy. Daschle was not present at the meeting.

Bush ended his trip with a visit to the battle-scarred Balkans.

During the journey he also tangled with key allies over environmental policy and intensified anti-missile shield negotiations with Russia.

He chastised violent protesters at a summit of industrialized nations in Genoa, Italy, then was lectured himself by Pope John Paul II in Rome.

It was the second overseas trip of Bush's presidency and, like the first, the venture produced some success, some failure.

He ended on a solemn note. Standing just 50 miles from rebel fighting on Tuesday, he urged ethnic Albanians in Kosovo to stop sneaking weapons across the border to Macedonia, where rebel attacks on government forces threaten to spark a new Balkan civil war.

Hours later, the Macedonian government's army barracks in Tetovo came under rebel attack. Macedonia closed the Kosovo-Macedonia border.

More than 5,000 U.S. troops participate in the NATO-led effort to preserve hard-won peace in Kosovo, a province of the Serb Republic. Their mission was expanded in June to ferret out arms being smuggled across the 100-mile border shared with Macedonia.

As he spelled out U.S. involvement in the region, Bush seemed to be seeking a balance between his allegiance to NATO and long-held skepticism with peacekeeping missions.

"NATO's commitment to the peace of this region is enduring, but the stationing of our force here should not be indefinite," he said in the statement.

And so ended a trip that began a week ago with sightseeing in London. He toured the British Museum, Winston Churchill's war bunker and Buckingham Palace, where he and first lady Laura Bush ate lunch with the queen.

Barbara Bush, one of their 19-year-old twin daughters, joined her parents at the palace and received unwanted attention from the British press, which tut-tutted about her palace attire.

When he got down to work, Bush played down his differences with British Prime Minister Tony Blair and emphasized what aides say has become a surprisingly strong professional bond.

Blair was close to President Clinton, a fellow left-of-center politician, but U.S. officials say the prime minister has gone to extraordinary lengths to convince Bush that theirs can be a special relationship, too.

The meeting underscored that Bush will have a hard time selling his anti-missile system to key allies. He acknowledged that he has only vague notions of what the system would entail until he can set aside the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Russia that forbids advanced testing and deployment of missile shields.

In their private talks, Blair pressed Bush for details about his missile shield plan. "What do you want me to support? What are you proposing?" Bush quoted Blair as asking.

The issue was center stage when Bush met Putin in Genoa later in the week. Theirs was the last session of an eight-nation summit, and produced a surprise agreement: Bush and Putin will link talks about reducing nuclear stockpiles - something they both favor - with tougher missile defense negotiations.

Despite the optimism of their news conference, the two remain far apart on the missile defense issue. Neither did they agree on the size of nuclear cuts, a timetable or what weapons would be involved.

The Genoa summit was marred by violent protesters demonstrating against globalization, trade practices and economic policies pursued by the leaders working inside the walls of a 13th century palace.

Defiant, Bush said the leaders did a better job of representing the poor than did the protesters.

"Instead of addressing policies that represent the poor, you embrace policies that lock poor people into poverty," Bush said on the opening day of a three-day summit.

One of the protesters was killed an hour later, shot by a member of the riot squad.

Issues of life and death were laid squarely at Bush's feet again Monday in Rome, when he met the pope for the first time.

With the president close to deciding whether to ban government funding of embryonic stem cell research, the 81-year-old pontiff called the burgeoning science an assault on human life.

Respectful but noncommittal, the president said, "I'll take that point of view into consideration."

And, then he was off to Kosovo. And home, arriving back at the White House Tuesday evening.

-------- us nuc power

[To send Letter to Editor: mailto:austin@bizjournals.com -- et]

Nuclear plant has lowest fuel cost

Austin Business Journal
July 25, 2001
http://austin.bcentral.com/austin/stories/2001/07/23/daily34.html

Reports filed with federal regulators show the South Texas Project, a nuclear power plant, has the lowest average fuel cost of any electricity provider in the country.

The plant is partly owned by Austin Energy. Other owners include the City Public Service of San Antonio, Houston-based Reliant Energy HL&P and Corpus Christi-based Central Power and Light Co., a subsidiary of Columbus, Ohio-based American Electric Power Co. Inc. [NYSE: AEP].

The plant generated more than 19 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity with $76.4 million of fuel during 2000 -- 17 percent below the national average for nuclear plants.

South Texas Project officials says the low cost resulted from buying uranium during market price dips and by reusing fuel.

The project supplies electricity to nearly one-third of Texas, from Austin to Laredo.

-------- MILITARY

-------- asia

Rumsfeld affirms Asian presence

July 25, 2001
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20010725-1343626.htm

The United States needs to keep a strong military presence in Asia to deter any future threats from China, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said yesterday.

"I never believed that weakness was your first choice," he said during an interview with editors and reporters of The Washington Times in his office suite at the Pentagon. "I have always felt that weakness is provocative, that it kind of invites people to do things that they otherwise wouldn't think about doing.

"To those who would argue that the United States should be something other than strong, and capable of contributing to the peace and stability in the world, I would argue that history says the contrary," he said.

Mr. Rumsfeld said communist China is facing an uncertain future as it tries to balance economic reform with its political dictatorship.

"My view of China is that its future is not written, and it is being written," he said.

The defense secretary also revealed some of the internal discussions under way regarding the Pentagon's new military strategy for Asia, which is being drawn up by Andrew Marshall, the Pentagon's top strategic planner.

He said plans to shift the focus toward preparing for military operations in Asia do not diminish the importance of other regions, like Europe or the Persian Gulf.

The new strategy will seek to recognize that "Asia is different from Europe in terms of distances, in terms of the kind of countries that are there, and the nature of the political and economic systems," he said.

To deal with future military challenges in Asia, the Pentagon needs different capabilities "in the first instance, for the purpose of deterring, and in the second instance, for the purpose of prevailing" in a conflict, Mr. Rumsfeld said.

Defense officials said the strategy for Asia will involve moving more naval and air forces closer to the continent to be ready to deal with conflicts in Taiwan or North Korea.

The strategy also is likely to call for fewer land forces because of the wide expanses of the Pacific Ocean and the difficulty of rapidly moving heavy armored divisions long distances.

The overall strategy will involve a force structure to meet short-term threats, like Iraq or North Korea, and to meet mid- and longer-term problems that require developing military capabilities, he said.

Regarding the buildup of China's missile forces, Mr. Rumsfeld said it was "not surprising" as missiles are becoming a weapon of choice for many nations.

China has decided its missile force, which includes weapons of various ranges, is "important for their view of themselves to be the factor in the region, and they are making significant investments in not just in immediate capabilities, but they're making significant investment in future capabilities."

In addition to missiles, the Chinese are investing in information warfare technologies and "intelligence activities," he said.

"They're looking at things that are not being looked at by a lot of other countries in the world," Mr. Rumsfeld said, without elaborating.

Mr. Rumsfeld said the combination of an outward-looking Chinese economy moving toward capitalism and a communist dictatorship bent on self-preservation is a formula for instability.

Considered the Bush administration's hard-liner on China, Mr. Rumsfeld said he has no code words or doctrine to describe his outlook, other than what he termed "old-fashioned" realism.

The reality of China today, he said, is that it is reaching out to the world economically at the same time it is increasing its defense budget by "double-digit" percentages annually.

The economic outreach includes a relatively free-market economic system that is introducing new technology and exposing people in China to new freedoms, he said.

"Ask yourself how compatible that is with a dictatorial, rigid political system that lacks the political freedoms that many if not most successful economies enjoy," he said.

"I happen to be in the camp that suggests that's an awfully tough thing to do. Repression does work, and your can repress for a very long time. But if you try to do it while simultaneously achieving a high-growth economy with extensive interaction with other nations of the world, you're putting at risk your ability to repress. So I'm not wise enough to know how it's going to come out."

Chinese leaders in the future will face pressure for political reform brought on by greater economic freedom, but they may choose to halt reform rather than risk the collapse of their communist system, he said.

"Money's a coward. People vote with their feet, and if you create an environment that is inhospitable to investment, the inevitable result is that investment will dry up, as it should," he said.

The defense secretary said it is not clear what the United States can do to influence China's future.

"We as a country are not unimportant, but it takes an awful lot of countries behaving in a way that can conceivably moderate or affect the behavior of a country of that nature, that size, that location, that history, that view of themselves," he said.

Mr. Rumsfeld said he is "enamored" with military-to-military relationships generally, although they should produce "reciprocal" benefits for both sides.

"I don't think we ought to be so eager for military-to-military contact that we end up providing things to another country that they don't provide to us, or where the value is not roughly comparable," he said.

He defended his decision earlier this year to suspend Pentagon ties to the Chinese military during the detention of 24 American service members in China after the April 1 collision between a Chinese jet and a U.S. EP-3E electronic surveillance plane. Ties have since been resumed on a restricted basis.

The incident helped to sharpen his understanding of the internal dynamics at play between Chinese military and civilian leaders, Mr. Rumsfeld said.

Chinese leaders were "jockeying" for position and power in responding to the incident, he said.

"Here is a Chinese pilot who had no more idea in the world he was going to kill himself, hot-dogging up in front of the airplane," Mr. Rumsfeld said. "Only an idiot would stick their horizontal stabilizer in someone else's propeller. You know he didn't do that intentionally and there, he is gone, dead because he was doing that. And all of a sudden it was an enormous event in China in terms of their leadership, how it's handled, who says what."

Mr. Rumsfeld would not say whether the Pentagon will agree to pay the $1 million tab sought by Beijing for the removal of the EP-3E from China's southern Hainan island.

"I think what the United States ought to do is pay whatever it ought to pay, and that's probably what we'll pay," he said, noting that the EP-3E will be repaired and flown again.

"They're in short supply," he said of the monitoring aircraft. "We need those airplanes."

-------- balkans

Bush: Stop smuggling arms to Macedonia

The Associated Press,
Lincoln Journal Star,
July 25, 2001
http://www.journalstar.com/nation?story_id=5393&date=20010725&past=

CAMP BONDSTEEL, Yugoslavia - Fifty miles from heavy fighting, President Bush urged ethnic Albanians in Kosovo to stop sneaking weapons across the border to Macedonia where rebel attacks threaten to spark a new Balkan civil war.

The president, in his first trip to the troubled region, also renewed his commitment on Tuesday to the NATO-led peacekeeping mission here in Kosovo. Even so, he told cheering U.S. troops he hoped to "hasten the day" they can return home.

"Your diversity and close cooperation . . . in the cause of peace, is an example to the people of this region," he told 2,000 flag-waving soldiers, some of them from other countries in the NATO-led force. "And it's a rebuke to the ethnic intolerance and narrow nationalism that brought us here in the first place,"

More than 5,000 U.S. troops participate in the effort to preserve peace in Kosovo, a province of Serbia in Yugoslavia.

Their mission was expanded in June to ferret out arms being smuggled across the 100-mile border shared with Macedonia, where 500 more U.S. troops are based.

A supporter of the Macedonia government, Bush said, "We need you to keep patrolling the border and cutting off the arms flow" to rebels.

Hours after Bush spoke to the troops, ethnic Albanian rebels attacked an army barracks and surrounded four villages in Macedonia. At the same time, mobs in Skopje, the capital, attacked the U.S., British and German embassies. The protesters, who accused NATO of siding with the rebels, threw stones at the U.S. Embassy, breaking out windows, and smashed the main doors of the German and British embassies.

Macedonia closed the Kosovo-Macedonia border.

The militants launched their insurgency against government forces in February, demanding greater rights and recognition for minority ethnic Albanians who make up about one-third of Macedonia's population of 2 million.

"Those here in Kosovo who support the insurgency in Macedonia are hurting the interest of ethnic Albanians throughout the region," Bush said in a statement. "The people of Kosovo should focus on Kosovo" and build a peaceful, democratic society, he said.

The admonition was delivered on paper, not in person, a contrast to President Clinton's visit to Kosovo in 1999. Clinton, addressing an audience of Kosovo citizens, urged them to seek peace.

On the question of U.S. involvement in the Balkans, Bush seemed to be seeking a balance between his allegiance to NATO and long-held skepticism about peacekeeping missions.

"NATO's commitment to the peace of this region is enduring, but the stationing of our force here should not be indefinite," he said in the statement.

Separately, he told the troops: "Our goal is to hasten the day when peace is self-sustaining, when local democratically elected authorities can assume full responsibility and when NATO forces can go home."

At the same time, he said "there is still a lot of work to do" before the region can be peaceful and democratic without the NATO-led force.

"We will not draw down our forces in Bosnia or Kosovo precipitously or unilaterally," he said. "We came in together, and we will go out together."

Bush and his foreign policy team first coined that phrase in the spring, after early consultations with allies revealed concern about the president's commitment to southern Europe.

Those concerns gave way to anxiety over other shifts in U.S. policy under Bush, particularly his views on global warming and missile defense, both of which reversed Clinton policy.

Bush's weeklong European trip, which ended with the Kosovo stop, exposed those tensions.

He managed at an eight-nation summit in Genoa, Italy, to establish a framework for tough negotiation with Russia over missile defense. President Vladimir Putin agreed to link the talks to both nations' desire to reduce nuclear stockpiles.

But he offered no new environmental proposals to key allies angered by his refusal to back an international climate change treaty. In private talks, presidents and prime ministers of other leading industrialized nations told Bush they would ratify the pact without him.

Ending his second overseas trip, Bush made a plea for peace.

"We must not allow difference to be a license to kill, and vulnerability an excuse to dominate," Bush said in his speech.

Before cheering troops, he also signed into law a defense spending bill passed by Congress that includes $1.9 billion to boost pay, benefits and health care for American troops.

--------

Macedonia slides toward civil war

USA Today
07/25/2001
The Associated Press
http://usatoday.com/news/world/2001/07/25/macedonia-mobs.htm

TETOVO, Macedonia (AP) - Thousands of frightened Macedonians fled the country's second-largest city Wednesday after the government handed ethnic Albanian rebels an ultimatum: Pull back or face the threat of a new army offensive.

Late in the day, scores of anti-government protesters forced their way into parliament in Skopje, the Macedonian capital, to demand a government offensive to defeat the rebels.

Police kept the demonstrators - who were among about 3,000 people who had marched to the parliament - in the building's lobby.

Cars and buses jammed with people and their hastily packed belongings left Tetovo and headed for Skopje. More than 8,000 people fled the area over the past 24 hours, the government said.

The exodus widened after Macedonian ministers issued an ominous statement Wednesday, warning military action was possible if the insurgents didn't retreat.

Calling the situation ''critical,'' NATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson said he and European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana would fly to Macedonia on Thursday for urgent mediation to prevent the troubled Balkan country from descending into full-scale civil war.

''Any efforts to resolve the situation militarily can only result in the wreckage of the country and the inflicting of grave civilian casualties,'' Robertson said.

Later, a senior Western diplomat told The Associated Press that NATO special envoy Peter Feith had won agreement from the rebels to withdraw ''from certain areas'' they captured in recent fighting. He refused to be identified.

Details of the deal were not immediately available, but it apparently provides for the rebels to retreat to positions they held on July 5 when the latest cease-fire was agreed. Skopje's A1 TV network reported some shooting in Tetovo. A car carrying fleeing Slavic Macedonians reportedly also came under fire.

Hours earlier, the hard-line lawmakers in Prime Minister Ljubco Georgievski's governing party called for imposing a state of emergency and an ''urgent'' special session of parliament - a request unsuccessfully made by Georgievski several times before.

However, President Boris Trajkovski, apparently seeking to counterbalance the hard-liners who had accused international envoys of siding with the rebels, said, ''We have to realize that only partnership with the international community can restore peace and stability in Macedonia.''

Feith and other Western diplomats in Skopje were struggling to revive peace talks. But a frustrated Milina Stavreva, packing up to leave Tetovo, vowed bitterly never to return.

''Enough is enough,'' said Stavreva, 60, a lifelong resident. ''We can no longer live here.''

Underscoring how tensions have soared in the Albanian-majority city, 25-year-old ethnic Albanian Ilir Hoxha said simply of the Slavic Macedonians: ''Let them leave. They should never return. Tetovo is Albanian and it will remain Albanian.''

The exodus of majority Macedonians from the city came after fierce fighting there on Sunday and Monday between ethnic Albanian militants and government security forces.

The clashes, the worst in months, broke a fragile cease-fire and dimmed hopes that peace talks which collapsed last week could be revived.

''It makes no sense to continue the talks as long as the rebels are violating the cease-fire,'' government spokesman Antonio Milososki said. ''If they don't return to their previous positions, we will force them to do so.''

On Tuesday night, mobs of Macedonians in the capital angrily accused Western mediators of supporting the rebels. Mobs threw stones at the U.S. Embassy, smashed the entrances to the British and German embassies, and burned cars of international organizations.

Britain's Foreign Office said Wednesday it was advising against all travel to Macedonia.

Macedonia's insurgency began in February, when the militants launched what they called a crusade for greater rights for minority ethnic Albanians, who account for up to a third of Macedonia's 2 million people.

The government accuses the rebels of trying to carve out territory from Macedonia.

--------

Rioters Attack U.S. Embassy In Macedonia
Also Attack British, German Embassies

CBS2 (Channel2000)
July 24, 2001
http://www.channel2000.com/sh/news/stories/nat-news-88741620010724-160714.html

SKOPJE, Macedonia, -- CNN reports that hundreds of rioters attacked U.S., British, German embassies in the Macedonian capital of Skopje, accusing NATO of siding with ethnic Albanian rebels. Relative calm has since been restored.

According to Reuters News Service, a nationalist anti-Western rampage has torn across the areas surrounding Skopje after the Macedonian government accused NATO and international peace envoys of helping ethnic Albanian rebels tear the country apart. The country's U.N.-brokered cease-fire is in serious jeopardy.

CNN reports that other symbols of Western culture were under attack, including a McDonald's in Skopje.

Meanwhile, ethnic Albanian rebels attacked an army barracks and surrounded four villages, according to the Associated Press.

The Washington Post reports that Macedonian forces and guerillas from the National Liberation Army, comprised of ethnic Albanian rebels, exchanged fire earlier today in Tetovo, a predominantly ethnic Albanian city about 20 miles west of Skopje.

On the last stop of his European trip, President Bush told U.S. troops in Kosovo that their presence has been vital to Macedonia.

In his speech earlier today, Bush said that there's "a hope for peace" because border patrols by U.S. soldiers have helped keep weapons out of rebel hands.

But he said that troops must stay alert to keep Kosovo from becoming "a safe haven" for rebels elsewhere.

Bush said those in Kosovo who support Macedonia's rebel insurgency are hurting the cause of ethnic Albanians throughout the region.

He adds "The people of Kosovo should focus on Kosovo."

--------

Skopje accuses NATO of backing rebels, seeking to occupy Macedonia

Agence France-Presse
Wednesday July 25, 12:14 AM
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/010724/1/19o89.html

SKOPJE, July 24 (AFP) - The government accused NATO Tuesday of backing ethnic Albanian rebels in order to "turn Macedonia into an international protectorate" under the control of the defense alliance.

"The aim of the war in Macedonia is to ruin its territorial integrity in order to turn Macedonia into an international protectorate controlled by NATO," government spokesman Antonio Milososki told reporters.

"NATO is not an enemy of Macedonia, but, at the same time, it is a big friend of our enemies," he said following a government meeting.

-------- biological weapons

US Rejects Anti-Germ Warfare Accord

By Alexander G. Higgins
Associated Press Writer
Wednesday, July 25, 2001
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20010725/aponline112624_000.htm

GENEVA -- The United States - already facing European criticism for rejecting a climate change accord and insisting on a watered down agreement on small arms - said Wednesday it was abandoning a U.N. draft accord designed to give teeth to an anti-germ warfare treaty.

Nations have been negotiating since 1995 to develop an accord on how to enforce the germ warfare treaty, painstakingly working through disagreements over the 210-page document. The draft is intended to create a way to inspect sites suspected of developing biological weapons without interfering with legitimate industries and facilities.

"In our assessment, the draft protocol would put national security and confidential business information at risk," said U.S. chief negotiator Donald A. Mahley, effectively killing nearly seven years of negotiations.

The U.S. announcement as the sole country rejecting it went farther than many experts had expected and appeared to discourage other key countries, including those friendly to the United States.

"Even though I understand some of the rationale, I was rather surprised by the U.S. argument at this stage," said Ambassador Seiichiro Noboru, head of the Japanese delegation at the 56-nation meeting.

Noboru said the rejection of the whole approach meant that efforts to strengthen the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention would have to start all over.

"It does close the chapter on 61/2 years of negotiation," Indian Ambassador Rakesh Sood said. "Whether it closes the book or not we don't know."

The administration has been criticized domestically and internationally for similar stands on climate change and small arms trade. Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, a Democrat, has scolded President Bush as an isolationist who has been "minimizing" the United States' standing in the world.

Mahley said Washington still supported the U.N. treaty banning the use of biological weapons, and would come up with new proposals on how to enforce it. But he said the United States had concluded that it could not support the draft accord even if changes were made.

"The draft protocol will not improve our ability to verify Biological Weapons Convention compliance. It will not enhance our confidence in compliance and will do little to deter those countries seeking to develop biological weapons," he said.

He said the United States believes it can strengthen the convention through multilateral arrangements and "new, affirmative ideas."

"There is no basis for a claim that the United States does not support multilateral instruments for dealing with weapons of mass destruction and missile threats," he said. "To be valuable, however, we believe any approach must focus on effective, innovative measures."

When the treaty was created during the Cold War, negotiators left out enforcement details because no one seriously thought anyone would ever try to use germ warfare.

The United States has taken a leading role in the push for such provisions since Iraqi armaments discovered after the Gulf War showed the treaty had been useless in stopping countries from developing biological weapons.

Mahley said that, among the U.S. concerns, was that the draft accord did not protect commercially sensitive information. Countries or competitors could raise unfounded concerns about the creation of biological weapons, which would result in damage to national security and expense for private companies.

"We simply cannot agree to make ourselves and other countries subject to such risks when we can find no corresponding benefit in impeding proliferation efforts around the globe."

The nations that have ratified the treaty have set a November target to complete the enforcement provisions.

Tibor Toth, the Hungarian diplomat who chairs the negotiations, said he would not comment on the U.S. position until he had read Mahley's speech more closely.

Professor Graham Pearson of Britain's Bradford University, a retired British government biological weapons expert who has been following the negotiations, said he feared the United States was making a big mistake and would eventually have to reconsider.

--------

U.S. Explores Other Options on Preventing Germ Warfare

New York Times
July 25, 2001
By JUDITH MILLER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/25/international/25WEAP.html

A senior administration official said yesterday that although the White House rejects a draft agreement under discussion at talks in Geneva, it remains committed to strengthening a 1972 treaty banning biological weapons and has already begun exploring alternative ways of enforcing the ban and deterring and punishing cheaters.

Though hesitant to discuss in detail the alternatives that would soon be shared with American allies, the official said in an interview that the administration might seek to strengthen export controls on the sale of sophisticated, germ-production equipment and technology.

The United States might also pursue "international legal instruments" that would prevent terrorist groups or countries from getting and misusing dangerous germs and toxins.

He and other officials said the administration had decided that it was not feasible to verify whether states were abiding by the germ weapons ban given the rapid advances in biotechnology and the ability of cheaters to hide illicit activities.

"You can't apply traditional arms control thinking to biotechnology," one official said. "You need out-of- the-box solutions to stopping the spread of this kind of weapon because it is unlike any other."

He and other officials described the alternative approaches as the United States prepared to explain the administration's rejection of the draft agreement to enforce the germ weapons ban that is being weighed in Geneva. On Wednesday, Donald H. Mahley, the American representative to the protracted negotiations, is expected to announce America's opposition to the proposed monitoring accord, known as a protocol.

After an extensive review this spring, the Bush administration concluded that the proposed protocol was conceptually flawed beyond repair and that the United States would not be backed into a diplomatic corner by being forced to choose between approving the current version of the protocol or having no enforcement mechanism at all.

"The protocol does not stop the threat posed by the spread of biological weapons, or deter cheaters, or enhance verification," the official said. But the protocol's requirement that states declare facilities in which weapons could be made and permit them to be inspected "does put our bio-defense activities and proprietary commercial interests at risk."

This verdict has put the United States at odds once more with European nations and other powers, which have urged international support for the protocol. Though flawed, a spokesman for the European Union said on Monday, the protocol reflected compromises that most of the treaty's 143 members could accept and hence was the best way of strengthening the treaty.

The officials who spoke yesterday seemed eager to combat the contentions that the Bush administration is both hostile to arms control and is intent on pursuing a unilateralist foreign policy. Neither is true, they asserted.

"The administration remains firmly committed to the treaty and to stopping the spread of biological weapons, but through effective and innovative measures," the senior official said. "This protocol falls short of meeting these objectives."

The official echoed the Clinton administration's assertion that the treaty is already being violated by Iran and others who have signed it. "Iran has an offensive biological weapons program," the official said, contending that its enthusiasm for the draft protocol demonstrated the accord's inherent weakness.

"Iran would not be signing a document that prevents it from cheating," the official said.

Rather than try to draft a protocol that satisfies "cheaters," administration officials say, they want to work with the "99 percent" of countries that respect the ban to strengthen ways to stop the misuse of this rapidly developing technology and to share information about ongoing research.

Toward that end, the official said, the administration would support efforts to expand the surveillance and control of sensitive technology through, for example, the Australia Group. Begun in the mid-1980's as part of an effort to stop the spread of technology used in weapons of mass destruction, the approximately 30 members of this informal group screen and coordinate controls on the sale of such technology.

Officials said they would also endorse efforts by individual states to pass legislation and international treaties or conventions that make it a crime to buy, build, acquire or use a biological weapon for terrorist attacks.

Administration officials complained that they had had virtually no chance to affect the protocol that was drafted by the chairman of the negotiating group in Geneva. The draft was circulating less than six weeks after President Bush took office, the official said.

-------- colombia

UN wants audit of Colombia cocaine spraying

COLOMBIA: July 25, 2001
Story by Jason Webb
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11739

BOGOTA, Colombia - The United Nations has asked Colombia to accept an international audit of its anti-cocaine crop spraying program, which is under attack for hurting poor peasants, a senior U.N. official said yesterday.

The government, whose spraying offensive is backed by about $1 billion in mainly military U.S. aid under "Plan Colombia", is considering the proposal for an audit, the representative of the United Nations Drug Control Program (UNDCP) in Colombia, Klauss Nyholm, told a news conference.

"We believe that an international and neutral verification is needed," Nyholm said, voicing concern about spraying of plots tended by poor peasants and indigenous Indians and doubts over the health effects of the fumigation chemicals.

Colombia is the largest producer of cocaine in the world, and Nyholm revealed satellite data which showed that there is more of the drug's raw material - coca leaf - in the country than previously thought.

The U.N. study showed there were 402,000 acres (163,000 hectares) of coca in Colombia as of late last year, an increase of 2-3 percent from 1999 but significantly more than previous U.S. estimates of about 340,000 acres (136,000 hectares).

The United Nations opposes spraying of peasant plots of fewer than 7.4 acres (three hectares), which Nyholm called ineffective and "inhuman". It accepts fumigation of larger plantations - which the government says are grown by drug traffickers - but believes that spraying must be monitored for its environmental effects.

The program to spray crops of coca has caused increasing controversy here, with protests by peasant growers, some of whom claim their health has suffered from the spraying.

HEALTH CLAIMS MUST BE ANALYZED

Nyholm said that he could not assess the truth of those claims. The United Nations wants international auditors, together with UNDCP and the World Health Organization, to investigate and analyze the composition of spraying chemicals.

"There is lots of data, but the problem is that it all comes from people who have an interest in the issue. So that's why we need a verification committee, to find out what is true and what is not true," he said.

The government of President Andres Pastrana says it only sprays plantations of at least 25 acres (10 hectares). But peasant growers, who often bunch their crops together with other families', say they have been hit.

Plan Colombia also includes billions of dollars in aid to encourage peasants to grow legal crops, such as African palm or coffee.

Colombia's anti-drug struggle is complicated by involvement in the trade of leftist rebels and far-right paramilitaries, who use illicit proceeds to fund a bloody, 37-year-old war, which has claimed 40,000 lives in the past decade alone.

The United Nations is also concerned that a big fall in heroin production in Afghanistan might encourage Colombian peasants to start growing opium poppies.

While lacking exact figures, Nyholm said that there might be 30,000-37,000 acres (12,000-15,000 hectares) of opium poppies in Colombia. This would be a considerable increase on the recent past but would still not be enough to account for more than 2 percent to 3 percent of world heroin output.

Another concern is the spillover of the drug trade into Colombia's neighbor Ecuador. There is evidence of 2,500-5,000 acres (1,000-2,000 hectares) of coca in Ecuador, mainly in Sucumbios Province, Nyholm said.

-------- drug war

Limits on Medical Marijuana Plants

New York Times
July 25, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Medical-Marijuana.html

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) -- The City Council voted to cut in half the number of plants a medical marijuana grower can cultivate, but it left the limit at a still sizable garden.

The 6-0 vote cut the legal limit from its current 144 plants, set in 1998, to 72 plants.

Medical marijuana advocates said the stricter limits mean about 20 percent of local medical marijuana users will not be able to grow enough pot to meet their needs.

``The reason we agreed is because we were forced to,'' Jeff Jones, executive director of the Oakland of the Oakland Cannabis Buyers Cooperative, told the Oakland Tribune in Wednesday's editions.

With the changes, people who get a doctor's recommendation to use marijuana for their illnesses can grow 20 plants outdoors or on up to 32 square feet inside, enough for about 72 small plants or around 60 mature plants.

The Supreme Court ruled in May that there is no exception in federal law for medical use of marijuana. California prosecutors have said it's up to federal authorities to enforce the decision.

-------- iran

Iran Is Accused of Threatening Research Vessel in Caspian Sea

New York Times
July 25, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/25/international/25CASP.html

BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 24 - Azerbaijan said today that an Iranian warship had threatened an oil exploration ship off Azerbaijan's shores in the Caspian Sea, in a dispute that highlights rising tensions over the oil-producing inland sea.

British Petroleum announced that it was suspending oil exploration in the area and Prime Minister Artur Rasizade of Azerbaijan summoned the Iranian ambassador, Ahad Gazai, to protest the incident.

The Caspian oil field is being developed by a consortium including the Azerbaijani state oil company Socar, the Exxon Mobil, Norway's Statoil, Turkey's Trao, Alberta Energy and BP.

Iran's state-run radio said today that an unidentified official had said a warship from Azerbaijan approached Iranian waters but turned back after a warning from an Iranian warplane. It was the most serious confrontation to date between the nations. President Heydar Aliyev of Azerbaijan is scheduled to visit Tehran in several weeks.

The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry said that an Iranian air force plane flew over two Azerbaijani research vessels for two hours on Monday afternoon, and that an Iranian warship ordered one of the vessels to leave the area or face force.

The research vessels were in the Araz-Alov-Sharg oil field, about 90 miles southeast of the Azerbaijani capital, Baku. The field is the second- biggest oil project in Azerbaijani waters, with reserves estimated at $9 billion worth of oil and gas. Iran says the field is within its territory.

Mr. Gazai, the Iranian ambassador, said today at a news conference, "Iran more than once has stated the intolerability of carrying out such work in disputed territory." In Baku, about 100 demonstrators protested outside the Iranian Embassy today.

The Caspian Sea is estimated to hold the world's third-largest oil deposits. Russia, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan all claim a share of the oil.

Despite years of discussion, the five countries, four of them former Soviet states, have not agreed on how to divide the inland sea's oil, fisheries and other resources. The tensions are aggravated by both Russia and the United States jockeying for influence in the region.

Ties between Azerbaijan and Iran have been tense in the past. Azerbaijan has accused Iran of supporting Armenia in the war with Azerbaijan over the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijan's former president, Abulfaz Elchibey, repeatedly called for incorporating part of Iran into Azerbaijan.

Iran also contends that Azerbaijan is succumbing to pressure from the United States, a strong backer of a pipeline to carry Azerbaijan's Caspian oil to the Turkish port of Ceyhan, on a route that would bypass Russia and Iran and reduce their control over Caspian resources.

Iran proposes dividing the sea into five equal sectors.

-------- israel

Israeli Army Kills Hamas Activist in Missile Attack

New York Times
July 25, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-Palestinians.html?searchpv=aponline

JERUSALEM -- Israel's army fired missiles from a hillside position, killing a senior activist from the militant Islamic group Hamas as he drove his car in a West Bank town Wednesday, witnesses and Israeli military officials said.

The activist, Saleh Darwazeh, 38, was alone in his red Volkswagen when it was hit by five rounds in Nablus, the witnesses said. The car was destroyed in the attack, which sent black plumes of smoke rising over the town.

Palestinian ambulances rushed to the scene and recovered the body, which was torn to pieces by the force of the blast.

"This assassination is intended to hit the (Palestinian) uprising with the aim of stopping it," said Jamal Salim, a Hamas spokesman in Nablus. "Hamas will not hesitate to respond to this brutal crime."

Darwazeh belonged to Hamas' political wing, and was not part of the military arm, said Salim, adding that he had been arrested several times previously by Israel.

Israel's army described Darwazeh as a "senior terrorist" who was involved in the planning of multiple attacks that killed eight Israelis and wounded more than 100 in recent months.

Several Palestinians near the scene said initially that they believed an Israeli tank fired shells. But Israeli military sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said ground-to-ground anti-tank missiles were used.

Hamas has carried out repeated bomb attacks against Israeli targets during the current uprising and says it will continue its campaign despite a cease-fire declared last month.

Israel has often carried out targeted attacks against suspected Palestinian militants, a policy that has drawn widespread international criticism. Palestinians say more than 30 people have been killed in such attacks since the current wave of violence erupted last September.

Israel says it carries out the assaults because the Palestinian Authority has refused to crack down on militants waging attacks against Israel.

Israel has demanded that the Palestinian Authority, led by Yasser Arafat, arrest dozens of suspected militants. But Palestinians security chiefs have said they have no intention to do so amid the current conflict.

The two sides were scheduled to have a security meeting Wednesday night, and the Palestinians said they would present Israel with a list of 50 suspected Israeli militants that they want arrested.

"We will not let (Jewish) settlers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip kill and terrorize our people," Palestinian intelligence chief Tawfiq Tirawi told the Palestinian newspaper Al-Ayyam.

Jewish extremists are suspected in a shooting attack Thursday in which three Palestinians, including a baby, were killed. The attackers apparently escaped from the West Bank into Israel, but no arrests have been made.

Raanan Gissin, an aide to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, dismissed the list as a Palestinian publicity stunt.

In violence Tuesday near the Gaza-Egypt border, a 10-year-old Palestinian boy was critically wounded by Israeli gunfire, doctors said. The Israeli military said Palestinians fired guns and threw 13 grenades at an army post, and soldiers fired back.

Also Tuesday, a pregnant Israeli woman was killed near the West Bank settlement of Immanuel after a Palestinian taxi driver swerved after his car was hit by a stone, Israeli police spokesman Rafi Yaffe said.

It was not clear if Israelis or Palestinians threw the stone, he said. The taxi driver was injured and could not immediately answer police questions.

Since violence began in September, more than 500 people have been killed on the Palestinian side and more than 100 on the Israeli side.

-------- nato

Czechs, Slovaks and Poles to set up joint army

Times of India
WEDNESDAY, JULY 25, 2001
http://www.timesofindia.com/articleshow.asp?art_id=120406004

PRAGUE: An army brigade made up of Polish, Czech and Slovak troops will be set up late next year in time for the first NATO summit on the territory of the former Soviet bloc, Czech and Polish ministers said on Monday.

The announcement was made by Czech and Polish Foreign Ministers Jan Kavan and Wladyslav Bartoszewski and Defence Ministers Jaroslav Tvrdik and Bronislaw Komorowski.

The Czech Republic and Poland are now members of NATO.

Slovakia is not a member, and the brigade -- intended for NATO peace operations -- will be based on Slovak territory in order to strengthen Slovkia's case for membership, the ministers said.

Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia have already called for Slovakia's early entry into NATO. Slovakia is one of nine central eastern European countries seeking membership.

The unit is to be set up in time for a NATO gathering in Prague in November 2002, the first such summit by the alliance in the capital of a former member of the Warsaw Pact, which disappeared with the Soviet Union.

Poland and Czechoslovakia were both allies of the Soviet Union in the Warsaw Pact.

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

U.S. Air Force Linked to Electronic Warfare Attack in Tennessee

By Alfred Webre,
EcoNews Service
Vancouver, BC
http://www.ecologynews.com/cuenews31.html

HARTSVILLE, TENN - Newly released documentary and eyewitness evidence now links an apparent July 6, 2001 electronic warfare attack on a radio station and weekly newspaper in Hartsville, Tennessee to a nearby unacknowledged secret access project (USAP). This secret project, eyewitnesses say, includes the U.S. Air Force as paymaster, U.S. government aircraft as transportation and security craft; military troops in black uniforms; and black unmarked triangular aircraft. The project may also include a secret electronic warfare unit capable of disabling nearby media outlets with destructive electromagnetic energy.

It has now known that an official U.S. Air Force cheque was used to pay for the clandestine installation of massive telephone switching equipment at a defunct Tennessee Valley Authority nuclear power plant about five miles from the target media outlets. The private contractor who installed the unusually large switching system at a former nuclear power plant that is still officially defunct reported this to the WJKM investigators on condition of anonymity.

Historically, the U.S Air Force has pioneered in the development and use of electronic warfare against civilian targets and populations, notably in the NATO war in Yugoslavia.

Speaking to a live radio audience on July 21, WJKM general manager Ted Randall for the first time publicly released the results on his station's official on-going investigation of the attack. Dan Fluehe and Matt Aaron of WJKM, host Clyde Lewis along with this reporter, Alfred Webre, participated in the radio program.

WJKM's investigation has eliminated other possible causes of the electromagnetic blast, such as power transformer malfunction caused by birds or internal mechanical problems. Centrexnews reporter Joel Skousen, who initially reported that birds caused the electronic attack, declined to participate in the radio program.

Although the nuclear facility has been officially closed for some time, eyewitnesses now testify to clandestine activities going on at the site. These include sightings of tractor-trailer trucks entering and leaving the former nuclear power plant at 2 or 3 AM; sightings of C-130 military aircraft flying over the facility as if to land; sightings of unmarked black helicopters monitoring the area; sightings of military troops in unmarked black uniforms; and - yes - multiple witness reports of black triangular craft hovering over the former power plant. Civilians venturing near the site have also reported being aggressively ejected by a private police force of about 30 plain-clothes men.

Randall presented live and audiotaped eyewitness testimony of the destructive effects of the electronic attack, including a tell-tale flashing blue pulse that accompanied the destruction, and usually accompanies the discharge of electromagnetic pulse weapons. He also presented audio recordings of the audible electronic hum that accompanied the alleged attack, a clear electronic signature of an electromagnetic weapon attack.

The accompanying surges during the event fit the pattern of an electronic attack. According to WJKM, " These surges are not just coming into the power lines. They are also entering the radio station through phone lines and the antenna system. This is evident in blown telephone equipment. Sometimes the equipment is not destroyed but the program settings are scrambled or wiped out."

On the air, Randall described photographs of dead, electronically-fried birds that littered a mile-square area around the radio station, now posted on the station's Internet website at http://www.1090wjkm.com/

Randall stated that local residents are experiencing adverse health effects. Randall said, "It is also interesting that according listeners have called in, there has apparently been an increase in what they are calling fibromyalgia. This is a disease name appointed to the unexplainable severe and disabling pain throughout the entire body over recent years, as well as, an increase in headaches mimicking migraines that are not actual migraines."

Randall documented the 2.4 Richter underground seismic earthquake that struck the area on July 7, the day after the electronic attack, from 10-10:30 PM.

Randall also posted the HAARP magnetometer readings on the WJKM website for the two days - July 6 and July 7. Both the electronic attack and the unusual earthquake were accompanied by massive, anomalous bursts of electromagnetic pulse energy from HAARP, the U.S. Navy's electromagnetic pulse military facility and possible environmental weapons system in Gakona, Alaska. Coincidentally (and perhaps causally) HAARP's magnetometer showed massive spikes of electromagnetic energy for both days.

According to Randall, " At about 10:45 AM Friday [July 6], radio station WJKM and CMR (Country Music Radio), with studios in Hartsville, Tennessee was knocked off the air by a very powerful strange energy blast! There was a crystal clear blue sky, no clouds or rain. It was not lightning"

According to WJKM, in the attack, "All the radio station's lines were knocked out. Several power transformers were blown several blocks away from the studios (smoke seen billowing out of one). All phone lines at the newspaper (The Hartsville Vidette), the local farm co-op and all other phones in this small radius were knocked out! Radio station transmitter lost all MOSFETS and the output - tuning network. All computers at WJKM lost motherboards, network cards etc. ISDN was knocked out. Most all the equipment Zephyr codec and EAS all knocked out."

These effects on radio transmission systems closely resemble the effects on urban radio, television, power transmission and generation facilities attacked by U.S. Air Force electronic bombing in electronic warfare missions in recent military operations worldwide, including Yugoslavia and Iraq.

How and why was electronic warfare carried out in rural Tennessee?

From the known profile of electronic weaponry, the electronic attack upon WJKM appears to have been caused by a tactical electromagnetic weapon, emitting a directed electromagnetic plasma, beam, pulse, etc. at the target. Electronic weapons with this capability are known, and can be land mounted in a facility like the former power plant, mounted in portable facilities like vans, trucks, helicopters or airplanes.

Electronic weapons may even be space-based, on satellite platforms. This reporter has personally met with an Assistant Secretary of Defense at the Pentagon who confirmed the existence of such secret space-based weapons as early as 1977.

An alternative electronic warfare delivery system may involve newly constructed relays for the HAARP installation in Alaska. The potential tactical electronic warfare applications of HAARP are under investigation. Serious public interest researchers maintain that HAARP's electromagnetic energy may cause effects such as earthquakes, such as occurred on July 7 in Hartsville. Electromagnetic weapons have been used in tectonic warfare, intentionally causing earthquakes. Electromagnetic pulse energy accompanies most earthquakes. Research shows that ultra low frequencies emitted by the HAARP installation may affect the human limbic system, and be used for mood management and mind control.

The close resemblance of the Hartsville attack to other U.S. Air Force electronic warfare led to speculation that radio station WJKM may have been chosen as a test target for a clandestine electronic warfare unit located within the power facility, or to which the power facility serves as electronic relay point. The likelihood that the electronic attack was accidental, rather than an intentional military test, is low, given that the targets were media outlets.

One purpose of such test could be to evaluate the physical impact of electronic warfare on U.S. domestic radio installations, a well as the impact of intimidating the local community, as well as the U.S. media reporting of such attacks. The U.S. military has a long history of secretly testing weapons on its unsuspecting civilian population, a practice that is illegal.

Another clue to the motive behind the disinformation attacks may lie in eyewitness accounts of military troops in black uniforms, wearing light blue patches, and military vehicles bearing license plates with the letters "UN" on them. This scenario would be consistent with a disinformation mission, in which United States government troops would be disguised with mock United Nations insignia in order to spread propaganda rumours regarding the actual source of this state terror. In fact, it would appear that U.S. paramilitary troops are carrying out military attacks on the U.S. civilian population. This modus operandi has been characteristic of Central Intelligence Agency sponsored warfare in developing countries, notably Guatemala.

Randall, Dan Fluehe, Clyde Lewis, and this reporter, Alfred Webre, all noted that the electronic attacks targeted two media offices directly - a radio station and a newspaper - both protected entities under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Randall indicated that station WJKM and its parent corporation are pursuing an official investigation of the electronic attack, including surveillance of activities at the former TVA power plant. The U.S. Congress has legislative oversight over the many federal agencies that may be involved in this secret project, including the U.S. Air Force, the Tennessee Valley Authority, and other defense "black budget" agencies.

Asked if his company intended to contact its members of Congress to seek a congressional investigation, Randall responded that WJKM is taking this attack and its investigation most seriously. WJKM's Congressperson is Bart Gordon, Dean of the Tennessee Delegation, and currently serving his ninth term in Congress, representing the Sixth District, which includes 15 Middle Tennessee counties.

----

Military Cuts Are Implied in New Strategy
Rumsfeld, Joint Chiefs Alter Agreement on U.S. Forces

By Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 25, 2001
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A46034-2001Jul24?language=printer

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and the Joint Chiefs of Staff have revised the military strategy they adopted just a few weeks ago, a move that could lead to cuts in the number of U.S. troops, ships and planes stationed in the Middle East, the Mediterranean and elsewhere, Pentagon officials said yesterday.

One of the most significant changes in the key strategy and planning document is the removal of a sentence saying that U.S. forces stationed overseas should be capable of "swiftly defeating an enemy's effort with minimum reinforcement." That deletion points the way toward a smaller military than had been contemplated, and possibly to one less geared to operating overseas.

The changes, which have not been previously disclosed, were made by Rumsfeld and the Joint Chiefs last week after they reached an impasse over how to remake the military to deal with 21st century threats. Rumsfeld wants to boost spending on missile defense, satellites, counterterrorism and computer warfare. The service chiefs fear that this shift in budget priorities could force deep and risky reductions in conventional forces, such as cuts in the number of Army divisions, Navy aircraft carriers and Air Force fighter wings.

Some civilian Pentagon officials yesterday portrayed the changes in the classified strategy document -- known as the "Terms of Reference" -- as a mere clarification.

"We made a relatively small number of word changes" to eliminate "crucial ambiguities," Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz said in an interview. He added that he hoped the changes would result in "significantly different answers" about the future size and shape of the military. But, he insisted, "it's not a different strategy."

Several military officials, as well as some civilian officials, disagreed. They said the changes in wording clearly cut the strategic requirements for the size of the U.S. military.

The debate over the Terms of Reference is just the latest turn in a running battle inside the Pentagon over Rumsfeld's vision for the military. Immediately after taking office, he set in motion a series of reviews of strategy, procurement, personnel, nuclear weapons and other issues.

Earlier this summer, Rumsfeld and his aides decided to drop the formal requirement that the armed forces should be able to fight and win two major wars simultaneously. That requirement had been used for almost a decade to determine the size and capabilities of the U.S. military, including the need to keep 1.4 million troops on active duty.

The Terms of Reference were hammered out at the Pentagon this summer to provide a new strategic framework to replace the "two major war" formulation. Essentially, the document called for a high-tech military able to maintain a global presence in peacetime and to defeat any adversary quickly, while also changing to meet new threats from terrorism, computer attacks and the proliferation of missiles in the Third World.

But deciding what that force actually would look like -- in terms of numbers of troops, what weapons they would have, and where they would operate -- has proven unexpectedly turbulent, in part because of spending pressures resulting from the $1.35 trillion tax cut passed by Congress in May.

The differences between Rumsfeld and the top brass came to a head at the beginning of last week, when Pentagon analysts reported back to the defense secretary that putting the Terms of Reference into effect would require a military even larger than today's.

Specifically, the analysts told Rumsfeld that to execute his new strategy, the Navy might need 34 aircraft carriers, almost triple the current number. Rumsfeld's response, Pentagon officials said, was to tell the chiefs and top civilian officials: "We have a big problem."

In an attempt to break the deadlock, Rumsfeld and the Joint Chiefs revised the wording of the Terms of Reference. In addition to dropping the statement about U.S. forces stationed overseas being able to win wars without major reinforcements, officials said, they also revised some wording about what the military calls "concurrency," the need to be able to handle several major missions simultaneously, rather than sequentially.

The revisions are causing planners to revisit some basic assumptions about the size and shape of U.S. deployments overseas.

For example, one official said, planners are looking at the U.S. military presence around Iraq. "What is our long-term force construct for the area?" he said. "Do they really need the Army in Kuwait all the time? And do you really need that much of a naval presence in the Mediterranean, because you have a good shore-based presence?"

Amid all the disagreement inside the Pentagon, one point on which both sides concur is that the military isn't just mindlessly resisting change. Rather, officials said, the argument grows out of the military's focus on near-term threats. Rumsfeld and his aides believe there is little conventional threat in the short term.

When military planners survey today's world, they see many possible hot spots. They worry that the United States could wind up intervening if the North Korean regime falls apart violently, if China tries to bully Taiwan militarily, or if the nuclear faceoff between India and Pakistan worsens. They also fear that the Mideast could plunge again into war, and that Iraq's Saddam Hussein could acquire weapons of mass destruction.

Rumsfeld's response has been that no one is likely to challenge the U.S. military directly. Rather, he has said, he worries about "asymmetrical" threats: small nations acquiring long-range missiles or attempting to cripple U.S. computer networks, or terrorist groups attacking targets in the United States.

"We're unlikely to be attacked on the high seas because of the power of our Navy, and if . . . the past is prologue . . . we're unlikely to be surpassed in the air," Rumsfeld told reporters earlier this month. "Clearly it is the asymmetric threats that are a risk, and they include terrorism, they include ballistic missile, they include cyberattacks."

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Studies focus on cutting overseas deployments

July 25, 2001
By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20010725-9732282.htm

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said yesterday he has ordered three Pentagon studies of foreign troop engagements with an eye toward reducing the type of overseas deployments that multiplied during the Clinton administration.

"I have been looking around the world for any number of opportunities to try to reduce the so-called 'op-tempo,'" Mr. Rumsfeld said, referring to high rates of military operations that have worn out equipment and personnel. "[I] found a number of places and not surprisingly in almost every case it takes a little time to do it. You don't want to do those precipitously. I'm advised it's best to do them diplomatically. There's no question but that we were pretty well extended."

In an interview with editors and reporters of The Washington Times at his Pentagon office, the defense secretary drew sharp policy differences with the Clinton administration on other issues besides overseas peacekeeping.

He bemoaned the fact the last administration bought few weapons in the 1990s while wearing out equipment with a record number of peacekeeping and war missions.

President Clinton began office engaged in military social issues such as homosexuals in the ranks and women in combat. But Mr. Rumsfeld said no one has raised such contentious policy questions with him. He said his priority is to carry out President Bush's order to revamp military strategy and force structure for 21st-century threats.

"It is not something I have been able to invest sufficient time," he said. "I've got so many things that are pushed at me."

On overseas deployments, Mr. Rumsfeld said three studies are under way: one by Gen. Henry H. Shelton, Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman; one by the Institute for Defense Analyses, overseen by the undersecretary of defense for policy; and a general review into the number of military "detailees" scattered across the globe.

Mr. Rumsfeld said he wants the studies to address "where are we doing things around the world, country by country, and what are the things we are doing and how do we feel about those things? Are we doing things in countries we don't need to be doing?"

Mr. Bush campaigned for the presidency on a pledge to reverse Mr. Clinton's penchant to deploy troops to a number of foreign hot spots. Since taking office, however, the administration has reaffirmed the need to keep U.S. troops in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo as part of a NATO nation-building contingent.

Mr. Rumsfeld said this recommitment does not mean the administration is going back on a promise.

"We have not been inattentive to it. It's a heck of a lot easier to get into something than to get out of it," he said. "We have declined to become involved in a number of new activities that have occurred during this period."

As an example, he said, NATO wanted Americans to increase their numbers in Macedonia if Albanian rebels and government troops agreed to a cease-fire.

He said the administration is only willing to commit troops already in neighboring Kosovo: They would collect rebel weapons at the border, supply medical care at Camp Bondsteel, the American military headquarters in Kosovo, and provide intelligence and logistics support.

On a broader scale, Mr. Rumsfeld said he also wants a head count of soldiers assigned to individual jobs on foreign soil.

"I have a massive search out trying to find where all the defense department detailees are located around the world with the thought that we might try to modestly reduce our tail and increase our teeth." The "tail" in military jargon refers to support troops: The "teeth" are the combatants.

Mr. Rumsfeld also responded to complaints from Democrats, and a smattering of conservatives, that Mr. Bush's first defense budget falls short of the president's campaign pledge that "help is on the way" to an overworked military.

The defense secretary said the $329 billion budget for fiscal 2002 represents the largest defense increase since the military modernization of the 1980s under President Reagan.

He criticized the Clinton administration for sending warplanes, ships and armored vehicles on numerous deployments, while cutting the procurement money that should have been used to replace the worn-out equipment.

"The problem the president and I are facing really is the fact for a period of 10 years the peace dividend was being extracted and they overshot by a substantial margin," he said. "Instead of stopping at some rational point, the prior administration kept pulling it down and taking what they characterized as a 'procurement holiday.' The result is we have a situation with respect to the armed forces of the United States the inevitable result of year after year of serious underfunding."

Stuck with aging aircraft, he said, "we're just being eaten up with spare parts and maintenance and down time. You can't lower the average age of aircraft by 10 years in one year. It took us a decade to get there."

Mr. Rumsfeld is now supervising a complete review of force structure known as the Quadrennial Defense Review. He declined to say what the review may conclude before submission to Congress on Sept. 30.

-------- OTHER

-------- alternative energy

Dane wind turbines shares down amid tech worries

DENMARK: July 25, 2001
REUTERS
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11744

COPENHAGEN - Shares in the two Danish wind turbine manufacturers Vestas Wind Systems and NEG Micon fell for the second day in a row as investors fled highly priced growth shares amid worldwide tech jitters.

At 0930 GMT Vestas stood at 360 crowns ($42.1), down 11 crowns or three percent from Monday's close and significantly off a year-high at 495 set on January 30.

NEG Micon shares were four crowns down at 365 crowns, while the Copenhagen bourse's top 20 index KFX , of which both shares are constituents, was 0.1 percent off.

"The sour technology trend spills over into other high-growth sectors such as wind power," one trader said, adding that big foreign investors were seen selling Danish wind turbine shares.

Apart from the technology gloom, investors were also disappointed with the outcome of the climate conference in Bonn, where environmental ministers from the worlds' leading nations this week rescued the Kyoto deal after the United States rejection in March.

"They might have saved the Kyoto protocol but in a diluted version, denting investors' mood," said analyst at Spar Nord Claus Juul.

The Kyoto deal aims to bring down greenhouse gas emissions, believed to cause global warming, and favors green energy sources like wind power.

Juul said a fair price for Vestas would be 535 crowns and 475 crowns for NEG Micon.

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Univ. of Mich. entry wins 2,247-mile solar car race

USA Today
07/25/2001
The Associated Press
http://usatoday.com/news/nation/2001/07/25/solar-car.htm

CLAREMONT, Calif. (AP) - Driving a sleek, million-dollar car, a University of Michigan team completed a 2,247-mile sprint down America's Main Street on Wednesday to win what was billed as the world's most arduous solar car race.

The student-built M-Pulse took first place in the American Solar Challenge, traveling Route 66 from Chicago to this college town in 56 hours, 10 minutes and 46 seconds.

The University of Missouri-Rolla team finished second, with a cumulative time 80 minutes slower. It had led the race, but fell behind in New Mexico.

"We got caught in the clouds," said Eric Pieper, 19, one of the team's four drivers.

The cars raced from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily, starting July 15. The cars were powered solely by the sun's rays, which beat down on photovoltaic cells that covered the surfaces of the wing-shaped, single-passenger machines.

The cost of the cars ranged from $30,000 to more than $1 million.

The race course followed what remains of Route 66 through Illinois, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California. On flat stretches, the cars hit 70 mph.

"They're electric race cars," said Richard King of the Department of Energy, which was the race's primary sponsor.

Canada's University of Waterloo took third place. Twenty-eight of the 30 entries finished the race; the last-place car, entered by the University of Alberta in Canada, was 83 hours behind the winner.

The racers were all from universities in the United States, Canada and England, save two entries: one from Hacienda Heights, Calif., high school and a racing club from Italy.

-------- genetics

House Judiciary Panel Passes a No-Clone Bill

New York Times
July 25, 2001
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/25/politics/25CLON.html

WASHINGTON, July 24 - The House of Representatives moved one step closer today to tackling the thorny issue of cloning, when the Judiciary Committee, voting along party lines, approved a bill that would outlaw not only cloning people, but also the use of cloning technology to treat disease.

The vote, 18 Republicans in favor and 11 Democrats against, was expected. When the measure reaches the House floor, opponents are expected to argue that it should be limited to a simple ban on cloning humans. A vote could take place as early as next week.

"As Yogi Berra said, `It ain't over till it's over," said Representative Dave Weldon, a Florida Republican and the bill's author.

The central issue is whether researchers should be permitted to engage in so-called therapeutic cloning, creating embryos that are identical genetic copies of existing people. The intent is not to make babies, but to obtain cells, including embryonic stem cells, that might provide an exact tissue match for patients.

Supporters of Mr. Weldon's bill argue that cloning people is so morally reprehensible and unsafe that all uses of the technology should be banned. And many oppose research on human embryos, which they regard as nascent life.

"Opening the door to human cloning - even with good intentions - inevitably will lead to experimentation on the child-to-be," Representative F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., a Wisconsin Republican and the Judiciary Committee's chairman, said today.

Mr. Weldon's bill has the backing of the Bush administration; in a statement today, Tommy G. Thompson, the secretary of health and human services, said it "puts Congress on the right track" toward prohibiting human cloning.

But Representative James C. Greenwood, Republican of Pennsylvania, has introduced competing legislation that would prohibit cloning only when it is intended to initiate a pregnancy. The House Energy and Commerce Committee is scheduled on Friday to vote on Mr. Greenwood's bill.

Mr. Greenwood described today's Judiciary Committee vote as "a very dangerous step toward denying Americans the miracle cures of the future."

Therapeutic cloning is legal in Britain, and a Massachussetts company, Advanced Cell Technology, has said it is trying to use therapeutic cloning to derive embryonic stem cells.

Mr. Weldon's bill would make therapeutic cloning a crime and would prohibit the sale of any therapies produced as a result of human cloning, punishable by a fine and up to 10 years in prison.

-------- spying

Down to the Nuts and Bolts at NSC
Deputy Adviser Stephen J. Hadley Says His Job, and Agency's, Is to 'Facilitate' Foreign Policy

By Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 25, 2001
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A46319-2001Jul25?language=printer

Searching databases for news of Steve Hadley, President Bush's seldom-seen deputy national security adviser, one may come across a 1988 Los Angeles Times article:

"A 41-year-old man pleaded guilty Friday to three federal charges and agreed to pay restitution for embezzling about $1.1 million from an Iowa credit union in 1983." The perpetrator: Steven Hadley.

When the National Security Council's Steve Hadley -- actually Stephen J. Hadley -- is presented in his West Wing office with the article about the other Steve Hadley's misdeeds, he notes with amusement: "I might need a good lawyer."

Actually, Hadley is a good lawyer. A graduate of Yale Law School and a former partner at Shea & Gardner, a Washington law firm -- his practice covered international business and regulatory issues for corporations -- he is applying his orderly legal mind to a field more commonly associated with creativity and strategy.

Bush's NSC, with Condoleezza Rice in charge, has a redefined mission: Organize, don't strategize. And Hadley, as Rice's top lieutenant, is the man most responsible for the internal functioning of an NSC that has, by design, been turned into a smaller, less ambitious operation.

Being a lawyer, Hadley says, "gives you deliberateness in terms of your approach, and that's useful in the job. This job is much more of a COO [chief operating officer] job: making sure the NSC staff is working the way it should, making sure the kind of issues that need to be addressed are addressed, tasking things down, making sure the senior directors are addressing issues they need to, making sure we're serving up things to support the president."

Management-consultant words like "tasking down" and "serving up support" tumble from Hadley's lips. In a half-hour meeting, he uses the word "facilitate" dozens of times. And that underscores his -- and the Bush NSC's -- philosophy: managerial nuts and bolts, not grand plans and philosophy.

"There are a lot of things we don't do at the NSC staff because leaving them in the hands of a government agency is perfectly fine," Hadley says. "We don't try and reproduce the State Department or the Defense Department. We try to get out of the way to let them handle the things they do. We don't want to try to reproduce the stovepipes that appear across the government."

After all, the "stovepipes" at State and Defense -- Colin L. Powell and Donald H. Rumsfeld -- are not the types who would allow their functions to be "reproduced." And just down the hall from Rice and Hadley is Vice President Cheney, Hadley's former boss, who hardly needs the NSC to tell him what to do.

The Bush NSC has reduced its permanent policy staff to fewer than 60from the 70 serving in the Clinton administration. The new Bush administration has also limited the use of "special envoys" reporting to the White House, used in past administrations to keep the center of power away from the agencies. The arrangement is far different from the Clinton administration's NSC, which took a lead role in developing -- not just coordinating -- foreign policy.

"There's been a substantial delegation to the Cabinet secretaries," said Samuel "Sandy" Berger, who was President Bill Clinton's national security adviser.

Kenneth Adelman, a former Reagan administration official who knows Hadley well, said he is well suited to be a mediator in the lower-profile Bush NSC.

"It's less in the business of conceptualization and more in coordination," Adelman said of the new NSC. "It fits with Hadley, because he's a guy who can bring a lot of people together. He's always been interested in policy, but I don't see Steve having the real creative flair."

Not that Hadley lacks his own grand theories of foreign affairs. As assistant secretary of defense under former President George Bush, after having served in junior positions in the Nixon and Ford administrations, Hadley handled defense policy toward NATO and was responsible for nuclear weapons, missile defense and arms control. Hadley's negotiations helped launch the START I and II treaties.

Later, in addition to working in his law practice, he served as a principal in Brent Scowcroft's consulting firm and was one of the self-described "Vulcans" who briefed then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush on foreign affairs.

A wiry man with a Jack Nicholson rasp in his voice, Hadley wears many hats at the NSC. Because of his background, he plays a top role in coordinating the administration's missile defense initiative. After Bush began efforts to set aside the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, he dispatched a trio including Hadley to reassure allies.

Hadley is also seen as a high-level negotiator and, by some, as Cheney's eyes and ears at the NSC. Hadley says he's "not at all" Cheney's envoy, though he says his relationship with the vice president was "a factor" in his hiring.

Hadley chairs the "deputies committee," a collection of officials from State, Defense and the NSC who meet Mondays and Wednesdays in the White House situation room and prioritize issues for the senior national security team.

In the course of business, Hadley meets a couple of times each week with both Bush and Cheney. And when events turn tense overseas -- during the reconnaissance plane standoff with China or during Middle East unrest -- Hadley and Rice alternate traveling with Bush so one of them is at his side.

That's more face time than even Rumsfeld and Powell get. But Hadley notes face time doesn't equal clout.

President Bush's policy, he says, "is going to be carried out through his Cabinet officers." And the NSC? "We try to facilitate that process."

Hadley can't say the word enough. "We try and facilitate the White House piece of that." And: "The president really looks for [the NSC] to facilitate his getting the advice." And: "The job of the person in this chair is very much a facilitator."

Could Hadley, therefore, be called a conduit?

"Conduit is the wrong word," Hadley says without hesitation. "We facilitate." Hadley may be the deputy national security adviser now, but he still has a lawyer's way with words.

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Powell Expects Release of Scholar Convicted of Spying in China

New York Times
July 25, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reutersworld/international/usa-china-hint.html

HANOI, July 25 -- U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell strongly hinted after talks with his Chinese counterpart on Wednesday that a U.S.-based scholar jailed in China would be released in about 24 hours on humanitarian grounds.

``I am pleased that several of these cases are now on their way to resolution on humanitarian grounds and we will see that quite obviously in the next 24 or so hours,'' Powell told reporters after talks with Tang Jiaxuan in Hanoi on the sidelines of a regional meeting.

Powell did not specifically mention scholar Gao Zhan, who was sentenced to 10 years' jail on Tuesday, but U.S. officials have said Washington was seeking the release of the U.S. permanent resident on humanitarian grounds.

Asked about details of the talks, Tang said: ``We talked about two items that are very important to America -- non-proliferation and some individuals' cases.''

He did not elaborate.


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