------- Index of Articles
NUCLEAR
China Foreign Minister to Discuss Missiles in U.S.
Nuclear Tests Not Planned, Chinese Diplomat Says
China ready to deploy its first mobile ICBMs
">China denies violating nuclear agreement
Russia Warming to Missile Idea
Democrats to Pare Missile Fundsv
Russia Warming to Missile Idea
Russians flee raising of "radioactive" sub Kursk
MILITARY
Taiwan Wants U.S. Missiles
Germ attack 'dwarfs' missiles as threat
Russia Seeks More Time to Disarm
Colombia Calls for Drug War Study
Wider War in Colombia
Vieques to Vote on Halting Bombings
Thousands of former military sites clean-up slower
Decision Nears on Navy Sonar
Strap snaps as Navy tries to lift Japanese boat
OTHER
Executions Decrease For the 2nd Year
Critics condemn electric chair
Fueling benefits of ethanol
Investigator might take White House to court
U.S. Concedes Some Cell Lines Are Not Ready
Thompson: Stem Cell Work Viable Most Lines Unproven, HHS Chief Concedes
Text of Racism Conference Proposal
ACTIVISTS
Angry Nevadans Pack Yucca Mountain Hearing
Yucca hearings
NUCLEAR WASTE PLAN
Rally's turnout low, but emotions run high
Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste repository
Reid asks Bush to make DOE chief attend Yucca hearings
Abraham's no-show is par for the course
PRESERVE THE NUCLEAR TEST MORATORIUM
website called youngrebels.com
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- china
China Foreign Minister to Discuss Missiles in U.S.
September 6, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-china-usa.html?searchpv=reuters
BEIJING (Reuters) - China said on Thursday its foreign minister would pay an official visit to the United States from September 20 to 21 to discuss missile proliferation and prepare for a Sino-U.S. summit in October.
Tang Jiaxuan's visit is the latest evidence of a steady thaw in China-U.S. ties after a string of clashes in the first half of the year over human rights and defense, triggered by the April 1 collision between a U.S. spy plane and a Chinese fighter.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao told a news conference Tang would meet Secretary of State Colin Powell and other U.S. leaders before attending the U.N. General Assembly.
``We hope the (Powell) meeting will enhance mutual understanding and further promote cultural and social cooperation and exchanges to pave the way for summit in Shanghai and the visit by President (George W.) Bush,'' Zhu said.
China said on Tuesday it would hold military talks on the U.S. Pacific island territory of Guam with Washington from September 13-14 to discuss ways of avoiding such incidents as the plane standoff.
But relations are still clouded by disputes over U.S. plans to build a missile defense system, sell arms to Taiwan and impose sanctions on a Chinese firm which Washington says transferred missile technology to Pakistan.
TANG TO RAISE SANCTIONS
Tang would raise the sanctions issue with his U.S. counterpart, Zhu said.
China has already expressed its ``strong indignation and resolute opposition'' to the sanctions on the China Metallurgical Equipment Corp (CMEC), saying the United States acted on erroneous intelligence.
Pakistan's Foreign Ministry and CMEC have also denied the allegations. CMEC said it had exported machine tools and parts for civil and industrial use only.
U.S. officials have highlighted missile proliferation as a priority in rebuilding bilateral ties, but China denies breaking its international and bilateral commitments and demands the United States stop selling weapons to Taiwan.
Zhu attacked U.S. plans to sell Raytheon Co. AGM-65G Maverick air-to-ground missiles to Taiwan, which Beijing regards as a renegade province. ``We are deeply concerned,'' Zhu said.
The missile sales would violate the three joint communiques which form the basis of China-U.S. relations and would encourage independence activists on Taiwan, he added.
``The U.S. would be sending a wrong signal to Taiwan authorities as well as grossly interfering in China's internal affairs,'' he said.
``We hereby express resolute opposition against the act. The U.S. side should stop selling arms to Taiwan to avoid damage to Sino-U.S. relations as well as cross-Strait relations.''
The Defense Department notified Congress on Wednesday of a possible sale of Maverick missiles to help Taiwan's F-16 fighters defend the island against an amphibious assault.
China has threatened to invade Taiwan if it declares independence or drags its feet on reunification talks.
CHINA FIRM ON NMD
Zhu also said China had not changed its position of opposing U.S. plans to build a national missile defenseshield, which Beijing fears would neuter its limited nuclear arsenal.
A White House spokesman said on Sunday the United States, in an effort to win Beijing's acceptance, would brief China on its plans to test the system.
An editorial on the Web site of the official China Daily on Wednesday welcomed the proposal, saying it showed the United States was finally taking China's concerns about NMD seriously.
But Zhu said the United States had yet to officially propose the talks. ``Our position remains unchanged,'' he said.
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Nuclear Tests Not Planned, Chinese Diplomat Says
New York Times
September 6, 2001
By JANE PERLEZ
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/06/international/asia/06CHIN.html?searchpv=nytToday
WASHINGTON, Sept. 5 - China has no plans to test its nuclear weapons, a Chinese diplomat said today, responding to statements by Bush administration officials that tests were likely.
The diplomat, speaking to reporters at a background briefing, said China was a signer of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and as such would stand by the intent of the treaty. The official said China had some capacity to test the safety of those weapons by computer simulation.
The issue has arisen in the last several days because Bush administration officials told reporters that as China builds up its nuclear arsenal it may want to resume underground nuclear tests as a way to determine the safety and reliability of the weapons. The officials have also been quoted as saying that the United States may want to resume testing in the future, too.
"China is a signator to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty - even if China has not ratified the treaty - and China is not going to test nuclear weapons," the diplomat said.
"As you know," he added, "the purpose of the Comprehensive Test Ban treaty is to prevent the advancement of nuclear weapons. There are other ways you can prove the reliability of nuclear weapons, through computer simulation."
According to American intelligence estimates, China has from 20 to 24 long-range nuclear missiles created in the 1950's and 60's as a minimal deterrent. China is now in the process of replacing those missiles with mobile, solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Critics of the Bush administration's plans for missile defense argue that it will serve to encourage China to modernize its nuclear arsenal faster than it might otherwise feel compelled to do.
The Chinese diplomat said that it was reasonable for China to forge ahead with the modernization of its military, including its nuclear weapons. "Every country is doing that," he said. It was as normal, he said, as "buying new spring clothes if you can afford it."
As China's economic situation improves, the military would be modernized, the diplomat said.
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China ready to deploy its first mobile ICBMs
September 6, 2001
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20010906-16891927.htm
China will soon deploy its first road-mobile intercontinental ballistic missiles, a new long-range strategic weapon whose predicted range includes the western United States, The Washington Times has learned.
U.S. intelligence agencies detected the Chinese military's formation of the first missile units equipped with Dong Feng-31 missiles in July, and the Pentagon believes the first missiles will be fielded by the end of the year. Dong Feng means "East Wind" in Chinese.
The missile was last flight-tested in December, and several static tests were conducted earlier this year. An additional flight test is expected in the near future, according to intelligence officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
"This is a faster deployment schedule than was expected," said one intelligence official.
A second U.S. official disagreed with the Pentagon's assessment. This official said deployment by the end of the year is "in the realm of possibility but not likely" because of the need for more testing.
Deputy CIA Director John E. McLaughlin said in a speech Aug. 21 that China is "modernizing its strategic missile force" by shifting from reliance on some 20 long-range ICBMs "to the development and deployment of mobile ICBMs."
"We project that Beijing is already on a course to increase its strategic warheads several-fold by 2015, though to levels still well below those of the United States or Russia," Mr. McLaughlin said.
The key indicator of the pending DF-31 deployment was the formation in July of Chinese military units that will be equipped with the new ICBM. The units have begun what the officials described as "crew training" for the DF-31 units, which are part of the Chinese military's Second Artillery the part of the army in charge of all missile troops.
One classified U.S. intelligence report concluded that the DF-31 will have its first "operational capability" by the end of the year, the officials said.
Some of the missiles and launchers believed to be for the new units were photographed by a U.S. spy satellite on a train coming from a manufacturing plant, the officials said.
Disclosure of the DF-31 deployment comes amid reports the Bush administration was considering a proposal to give up any objections to China's strategic nuclear buildup in exchange for Beijing dropping its opposition to U.S. missile defenses.
White House and Pentagon officials vehemently denied the reports, first disclosed in the New York Times last week. President Bush opposes China's long-range missile buildup, administration spokesmen said Tuesday.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told Congress during a hearing yesterday that China is building up "not just ballistic missiles, longer-range and shorter-range and nuclear, but mostly non-nuclear" weapons.
Mr. Rumsfeld said no one in the Bush administration has given a "green light" to China to build up its nuclear arsenal.
The defense secretary said "it's unwritten exactly how China is going to engage the rest of the world and its neighbors."
"And certainly we ought to be doing everything we can to see that they engage the world in a peaceful and rational way," he said.
The DF-31 is the first of a new generation of Chinese strategic nuclear missiles. According to intelligence officials, the missile is expected to have a single warhead and a range of between 5,520 miles and 6,400 miles -- enough to hit the western United States.
A longer-range variant, the DF-41, is also under development and will have a range of up to 8,000 miles. China also is building a submarine-launched version of the DF-31 known as the JL-2.
The DF-31 was first flight-tested in August 1999. A second flight test was carried out Nov. 4 during a visit to China by Gen. Henry H. Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The last flight test took place in December.
China's government has said it has a policy of not being the first to use nuclear arms in a conflict.
China's official military newspaper, Liberation Army Daily, stated in a Feb. 28, 2000, article that it would launch "a long distance strike" on the United States if Washington backed Taiwan in a conflict with China.
Chinese President Jiang Zemin announced in 1998 that China would not target its nuclear missiles at the United States, and the United States agreed to do the same.
However, nuclear weapons experts said the gesture is not militarily significant because nuclear weapons can be retargeted in minutes.
China appeared to undermine the detargeting gesture by conducting war games in late 1999 that simulated nuclear attacks on U.S. forces in Asia, according to intelligence officials.
Richard Fisher, a specialist on the Chinese military, said DF-31 deployments have been expected for some time, and a longer-range version could be built because of problems with the DF-41 program.
"China's strategic nuclear missile modernization is a self-contained enterprise that cannot be influenced by any change in American policy with regard to missile defense," he said. "The bottom line is we need a robust missile defense in place to deter China."
A classified U.S. Air Force intelligence report in 1996 said, "DF-31 ICBM will give China a major strike capability that will be difficult to counterattack at any stage of its operation."
The DF-31 is part of a "steadily increasing" Chinese strategic missile force that is currently limited to about 20 CSS-3 missiles with a 3,400-mile range, and about 20 CSS-4s with an 8,000-mile range.
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China denies violating nuclear agreement
September 6, 2001
By David R. Sands
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20010906-75776069.htm
China yesterday rejected U.S. charges that a leading Chinese company had violated pledges not to supply nuclear-missile technology to Pakistan but added it hoped U.S. sanctions imposed over the weekend would not cloud the overall bilateral relationship.
"We were angry, we were stunned. This is not the way to do business between states," said a senior Chinese diplomat who spoke to reporters on the condition of anonymity yesterday.
Culminating a string of complaints about China's military export controls, the Bush administration last week slapped sanctions on the China Metallurgical Equipment Corp., a government-owned engineering company, accusing the firm of supplying missile-related parts to Pakistan.
For two years, the company will be denied all new U.S. licenses for production of electronics and military equipment and for material used to launch commercial satellites.
The senior Chinese diplomat in Washington and top Foreign Ministry officials in Beijing yesterday both said Beijing had conducted its own investigation of the company, inspecting invoices dating back to early 1999, and had found no violations of Chinese nonproliferation pledges.
The blowup comes a month before President Bush makes a brief but much-anticipated visit to China to attend an Asian-Pacific summit and hold talks with Chinese President Jiang Zemin.
The trip follows a rocky start to U.S.-China relations under Mr. Bush, with disputes over nonproliferation, human rights, a downed U.S. surveillance plane and Taiwan among the irritants.
But the diplomat said China's leaders hope Mr. Bush's visit will set the stage for better relations.
"What is needed now in the bilateral relationship is more impetus to move the relationship forward," the diplomat said.
The Chinese diplomat said Beijing will pursue the modernization of its military and nuclear arsenal, whether or not Mr. Bush proceeds with plans to build a missile-defense shield that China strongly opposes.
But he said China would be forced to consider a much larger expansion of its military assets beyond the modernization program if the American missile-defense program proceeds.
The White House announced Tuesday that it will brief China on the status of the missile-defense program and would also express its opposition to Beijing's offensive military buildup.
"No one should try to blame the modernization of China's offensive nuclear forces on our missile defense efforts," the White House said in a statement. China's military modernization effort "is unnecessary and it is not good for regional stability or for peace."
Analysts believe China has about two dozen nuclear missiles that can hit U.S. territory. Beijing fears that even a limited U.S. missile-defense shield could render its nuclear force irrelevant at current levels.
On Capitol Hill yesterday, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld emphatically rejected press accounts that the Bush administration is prepared to condone a Chinese effort to enhance its nuclear arsenal if Beijing steps off its opposition to the U.S. missile defense plan.
"The suggestion that the United States has or is poised to approve of China's military and nuclear buildup for some reason in exchange for something is simply not the case," Mr. Rumsfeld told a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing yesterday.
The Chinese diplomat said Beijing is still studying a U.S.-British plan to impose a refined set of "smart sanctions" on the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein.
U.S. diplomats had believed China was ready to vote in the United Nations in favor of the modified sanctions package, which has been shelved for now by Russian opposition.
The diplomat said Chinese experts are still combing through the proposed list of banned goods and services, but he said Beijing is more focused on keeping the U.N.'s five major powers -- the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China united behind whatever sanctions program is adopted.
-------- missile defense
Russia Warming to Missile Idea
September 6, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-US-Russia-Nuclear.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Russia may be on the verge of accepting the principle of limited anti-missile defenses as a protection against attack, a top Bush administration official says.
No agreement has been reached, no deadline set, the official said Wednesday.
But Russia has begun to share American apprehensions about the growing nuclear capability of several countries, and is particularly concerned about Pakistan, the official said.
In fact, President Vladimir Putin has interceded with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il to urge him to curtail or even abandon his push to develop long-range missiles, said the official, who spoke Wednesday on condition of anonymity.
Yet, despite urgent U.S. pleas, Russian companies still provide Iran with technology for weapons of mass destruction, the official said. The technology could help Iran in its programs to develop chemical, biological and especially nuclear weapons, he said.
U.S.-Russian negotiations will continue this month, with Secretary of State Colin Powell, Undersecretary of State John Bolton and Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith talking separately with Russian delegations.
Putin is scheduled to meet with President Bush in Crawford, Texas, in November, but there is no suggestion a deal will be struck by then.
Indeed, Oleg Chernow, deputy secretary of Putin's security council and point man on missile defense, told The Washington Post ``it's impossible'' that an agreement would be reached that quickly.
In an interview appearing in Thursday's editions of the Post, Chernow said Russia considers the Bush-Putin meeting to represent an ``intermediate stage'' in talks that probably will last at least until September 2002.
Russia wants to retain the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, which prohibits national defenses against missiles. Bush has declared the treaty a relic of the past and made clear it will be swept aside if he decides it conflicts with U.S. interests.
U.S. tests are expected to run counter to the treaty within months.
There may be a basis for compromise in a U.S. offer to share technology with Russia, to develop jointly a system to warn of imminent attack and to agree to cutbacks in nuclear weapons stockpiles.
The extent of U.S. reductions would be guided by a Pentagon review already under way.
The Pentagon is expected to conclude by this fall how many nuclear weapons the United States needs. Results of the overall review of U.S. military strength are due by the end of the year.
In any event, the official said, while progress is slow, the Russians are beginning to accept the idea of limited defenses against smaller potential enemies.
Meanwhile, a Pentagon official said Wednesday that a U.S.-Russian center aimed at avoiding accidental missile launches, already three years on the drawing board, won't open for at least another year.
Plans to convert a building on the outskirts of Moscow into a joint early-warning center are hung up on Russia's insistence the United States pay taxes on the equipment it takes into the country and accept liability for the construction, said Philip Jamison, deputy director of the Defense Department office on international security.
``It essentially boils down to diplomatic issues,'' he told a seminar at the Cato Institute. Jamison said the center could be open for testing at the end of 2002 if those matters can be resolved within the next two months.
When plans for the center were announced in September 1998, then-President Clinton said it was aimed at averting ``nuclear war by mistake.'' Officials said that because Russia doesn't have money to properly maintain its warning system, it could mistakenly think the United States had launched a nuclear missile and retaliate.
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Democrats to Pare Missile Funds
Panel's Planned $1.3 Billion Cut Opens Defense Budget Fight
By Vernon Loeb and Dan Morgan
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, September 6, 2001; Page A05
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A48371-2001Sep5?language=printer
Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee plan to cut $1.3 billion from the Bush administration's $8.3 billion request for ballistic missile defense this week as an opening shot in this fall's battle over defense spending, committee members and aides said yesterday.
Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), the committee chairman, said a move to cut missile defense would come, possibly today, as the panel crafts the fiscal 2002 defense authorization bill.
Levin said the administration's request for a 57 percent increase in missile defense funds is "unjustified" militarily and strategically, particularly since Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has yet to tell the panel whether any of the money would fund research activities that violate the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.
Levin revealed his plan as Congress began work in earnest on the budget for the coming fiscal year amid controversy over the dwindling surplus and whether Social Security and Medicare funds should be used for defense and other spending priorities despite pledges from leaders in both parties not to do so.
Sen. John W. Warner (Va.), the committee's ranking Republican, said he had been informed the Democrats plan to cut funds from missile defense and add language to the bill limiting President Bush's ability to pursue research that would violate the ABM Treaty with the Russians. Warner said these moves would ensure a veto of the bill.
Any successful effort by Senate Democrats to substantially reduce missile defense funding and restrict Bush's ability to modify or withdraw from the ABM Treaty would greatly complicate discussions the administration plans to hold with both the Russians and Chinese.
With Bush scheduled to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in November at Bush's ranch in Crawford, Tex., administration officials have been trying to fashion a new "strategic framework" with Moscow to replace the ABM Treaty, which prohibits numerous elements of the administration's missile defense plan. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said the moves contemplated by the Democrats would send a signal to the Russians that "they effectively have a veto over what we do, which enormously reduces their incentive to come to an understanding with us."
National security adviser Condoleezza Rice and other administration officials, meanwhile, are also preparing for extensive discussions on missile defense with the Chinese in preparation for the president's meeting with President Jiang Zemin in Beijing next month.
Speaking in an interview, Levin said he favors transferring the money cut from missile defense funding to other military programs and authorizing the administration's full $328.9 billion defense request for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1.
Full authorization of the administration's request, he added, would be contingent upon approval by Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) or by a vote by 60 senators to waive the requirement of this year's budget resolution, which ruled out using surplus Medicare funds to pay for defense increases.
Members of the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee clashed yesterday over the administration's defense request, with committee Democrats divided over whether the Social Security surplus should be used to pay for defense and other increases.
After listening to testimony from Rumsfeld and Gen. Henry H. Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Sen. Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii), the subcommittee's chairman, said he supports the administration's full spending request. He added he would, if necessary, recommend waiving the Senate budget resolution to dip into the Social Security trust fund.
"Many of our colleagues are going to be reluctant to cut into Medicare and Social Security to pay for defense," he said. "Politically, they worry that the voters will penalize them for raiding Social Security. I, for one, believe it is essential that we provide the resources necessary for defense."
But Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calf.), a subcommittee member, made it clear that she does not favor tapping Social Security and, echoing the position of Senate Majority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D), said Bush has an obligation to recommend cuts elsewhere in the budget to pay for the largest defense increase since the mid-1980s.
"He has said he does not want it coming from Social Security, he does not want it coming from the Medicare trust fund," she said. "Ergo, it has to come from something else that's cut."
Rumsfeld refused to speculate about what he might be willing to cut to pay for the defense request, saying that is an issue for Congress and the president to work out.
"The 2002 budget includes critical funding for military quality of life," he said. "It includes funding for training and readiness, for maintenance and repair of our aging equipment, for modernization and transformational research and development. Mr. Chairman, we need every nickel of it."
Across the Capitol, White House budget director Mitchell E. Daniels Jr. assured members of the House Budget Committee that the existing budget "will allow the funding of our nation's priorities -- defense, education, debt reduction -- all consistent with the full protection of the Social Security surplus for debt reduction."
But Democrats challenged Daniels to show how he could fund the president's request for additional defense funds in 2002 without using surplus payroll taxes from the account that pays Medicare benefits.
Ranking Democrat John M. Spratt Jr. (S.C.), citing the Congressional Budget Office, said it would be necessary to tap the Medicare surplus through 2008 to pay for defense and other priorities, such as a new Medicare prescription drug benefit.
"So [Republicans] have got to not just recant political rhetoric; they have got to violate the written letter of the budget resolution that the Congress had adopted just months ago," he said.
Daniels said he understood that the budget committees would have to make an "active decision" on how to get around the problem. But he argued that the Social Security and Medicare trust funds were protected whether or not their surpluses were tapped.
-------- russia
Russia Warming to Missile Idea
September 6, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-US-Russia-Nuclear.html?searchpv=aponline
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Russia may be on the verge of accepting the principle of limited anti-missile defenses as a protection against attack, a top Bush administration official says.
No agreement has been reached, no deadline set, the official said Wednesday.
But Russia has begun to share American apprehensions about the growing nuclear capability of several countries, and is particularly concerned about Pakistan, the official said.
In fact, President Vladimir Putin has interceded with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il to urge him to curtail or even abandon his push to develop long-range missiles, said the official, who spoke Wednesday on condition of anonymity.
Yet, despite urgent U.S. pleas, Russian companies still provide Iran with technology for weapons of mass destruction, the official said. The technology could help Iran in its programs to develop chemical, biological and especially nuclear weapons, he said.
U.S.-Russian negotiations will continue this month, with Secretary of State Colin Powell, Undersecretary of State John Bolton and Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith talking separately with Russian delegations.
Putin is scheduled to meet with President Bush in Crawford, Texas, in November, but there is no suggestion a deal will be struck by then.
Indeed, Oleg Chernow, deputy secretary of Putin's security council and point man on missile defense, told The Washington Post ``it's impossible'' that an agreement would be reached that quickly.
In an interview appearing in Thursday's editions of the Post, Chernow said Russia considers the Bush-Putin meeting to represent an ``intermediate stage'' in talks that probably will last at least until September 2002.
Russia wants to retain the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, which prohibits national defenses against missiles. Bush has declared the treaty a relic of the past and made clear it will be swept aside if he decides it conflicts with U.S. interests.
U.S. tests are expected to run counter to the treaty within months.
There may be a basis for compromise in a U.S. offer to share technology with Russia, to develop jointly a system to warn of imminent attack and to agree to cutbacks in nuclear weapons stockpiles.
The extent of U.S. reductions would be guided by a Pentagon review already under way.
The Pentagon is expected to conclude by this fall how many nuclear weapons the United States needs. Results of the overall review of U.S. military strength are due by the end of the year.
In any event, the official said, while progress is slow, the Russians are beginning to accept the idea of limited defenses against smaller potential enemies.
Meanwhile, a Pentagon official said Wednesday that a U.S.-Russian center aimed at avoiding accidental missile launches, already three years on the drawing board, won't open for at least another year.
Plans to convert a building on the outskirts of Moscow into a joint early-warning center are hung up on Russia's insistence the United States pay taxes on the equipment it takes into the country and accept liability for the construction, said Philip Jamison, deputy director of the Defense Department office on international security.
``It essentially boils down to diplomatic issues,'' he told a seminar at the Cato Institute. Jamison said the center could be open for testing at the end of 2002 if those matters can be resolved within the next two months.
When plans for the center were announced in September 1998, then-President Clinton said it was aimed at averting ``nuclear war by mistake.'' Officials said that because Russia doesn't have money to properly maintain its warning system, it could mistakenly think the United States had launched a nuclear missile and retaliate.
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Russians flee raising of "radioactive" sub Kursk
Thursday, September 06, 2001
By Konstantin Kozyr, Reuters
http://www.enn.com/news/wire-stories/2001/09/09062001/reu_44862.asp
ROSLYAKOVO, Russia - Russian naval officer Alexei Zaishely picked up a bag and walked with his wife and baby to the bus stop in their remote Arctic village, where the Kursk submarine will be hauled into dry dock this month.
Zaishely is one of several men sending their families away from run-down Roslyakovo on the Barents Sea to escape the radiation risk they fear from the return of the 18,000-ton wreck from the seabed.
"I'm not afraid for myself, you see," said Zaishely's wife Nina, as she left to stay with relatives in central Russia. "I fear for my baby, who has his whole life ahead of him, and I'm responsible for his health. That is why we decided to leave this place and stay away until the situation becomes clear."
President Vladimir Putin has pledged to raise the Kursk to allow decent burials for the 118 crewmen who died on board and to try to find out what sank one of Russia's most advanced submarines last August. He also said Russia has an obligation to get the Kursk's two nuclear reactors off the seabed and out of busy fishing lanes used by Russia and its Scandinavian neighbors.
But the people of tiny Roslyakovo and many of the 380,000 residents along the coast in Murmansk - the largest city above the Arctic Circle - say the salvage jeopardizes their future. "There have been several emergency situations during ordinary repair work on ships and submarines in dock," Zaishely said. "But to move a submarine with such damage to the dock safely ... well, I think it could be dangerous."
Officials insist the project is safe and have erected an electronic sign in Roslyakovo to display radiation levels. They say they have a contingency plan to bus residents to Murmansk should any radiation problems arise.
But the locals are unconvinced. "What that electronic board shows is rubbish," said local man Edik Kononchuk. "The real levels are different."
RELATIVES WANT ACTION ON BOTCHED RESCUE
Russia has promised to make the salvage a model of media openness, after withering criticism last year for its confused handling of the nation's worst submarine disaster.
The navy initially took two days to reveal a "malfunction" on board the Kursk, then delivered a rash of contradictory statements while refusing to accept foreign help in the attempted rescue of any surviving crew members.
A note found on the body of Dmitry Kolesnikov, one of a dozen men whose bodies were brought to the surface last autumn, showed that some of the crew had survived for at least a few hours after two explosions in the Kursk's torpedo bay.
"The people guilty of not saving them should be punished," Kolesnikov's father Roman told Ekho Moskvy radio Wednesday, adding that many victims' relatives had signed a letter to Putin and the prosecutor general asking them to open a criminal case over the matter.
Some in Roslyakovo said the authorities were taking more risks to try to atone for last year's mistakes.
"We fear for our kids but where could we go?" said resident Anna Zvezdina, adding that not everyone can afford to leave town.
Olga Lapina, another local woman, said the future was bleak. "Soon people in this town will start dying off like flies, and no one will tell us the reason."
-------- MILITARY
-------- asia
Taiwan Wants U.S. Missiles
September 6, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Taiwan-US-Missiles.html
TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) -- Taiwan wants to buy 40 Maverick air-to-ground missiles from the United States, a deal Beijing warned Thursday would harm U.S.-China relations and raise tensions in the Taiwan Strait.
The Taiwanese are considering arming their F-16 jets with the AGM-65G Maverick missiles so the planes would be better able to stop an amphibious attack, the U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency said in a news release. American jets have used the missiles on attacks on Iraq.
The arms deal, valued at $18 million, would also be important to Taiwan because it could expand ties between the U.S. and Taiwanese militaries, which do not have a formal alliance. The package would include maintenance and pilot training as well as logistics support.
American weapons sales to this island anger China because a well-armed Taiwan is better able to resist Chinese pressure to reunify. The two sides split amid civil war five decades ago, and Beijing has threatened to use force to reclaim Taiwan, which lies about 100 miles off China's southeastern coast.
In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao told reporters that China was ``seriously concerned'' about the missile request. He said selling the weapons would encourage Taiwan to seek independence.
``I think it will also have a negative impact on stability across the Taiwan Strait,'' Zhu said. ``It is not in the interests of cross-straits relations. It is not in the interests of bilateral relations between China and the United States.''
Zhu added that the missile sale would violate U.S.-China communiques. In 1982, Washington signed an agreement promising that America would gradually reduce the quantity and not upgrade the quality of arms sold to Taiwan.
However, the communique also specified that the arms sales would be reduced as long as China stuck to its ``fundamental policy'' to seek a ``peaceful resolution'' of the Taiwan issue. Washington has grown increasingly worried about China's military buildup and its rapid deployment of missiles directly across from Taiwan in recent years.
America is also required by the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act to sell the island weapons necessary for its defense.
Congress would have to approve the Maverick missile sale to Taiwan, and it appears that the Defense Security Cooperation Agency -- part of the Department of Defense -- has no objections to the deal.
Selling the missiles -- made by Raytheon Missile Systems Corp. of Tucson, Ariz. -- would not affect the basic military balance in the region, the agency said in the news release Wednesday.
The agency also said the requested Maverick missiles have a longer range than earlier models the Taiwanese already have, and that the new arms would be compatible with the island's existing military equipment.
The arms would also include 10 training missiles, 48 LAU-117 launchers, software support, spare parts, containers, adapters, publications and technical documents, the agency said.
-------- biological weapons
Germ attack 'dwarfs' missiles as threat
September 6, 2001
By Tom Carter
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20010906-93610055.htm
The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee yesterday called President Bush's planned missile defense plan "myopic," arguing that the threat from terrorists armed with anthrax, smallpox and other germs is far greater than the peril of nuclear-tipped missiles.
Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., Delaware Democrat, issued the warning at the first in a series of hearings called to emphasize national security threats.
"We do not have enough money for everything" and the United States "must prioritize" which threats are of greater importance, Mr. Biden said.
"In my view, the threat from anonymously delivered biological weapons and from emerging infectious diseases simply dwarfs the threat that we will be attacked by a Third World [missile] with a return address."
Former Sen. Sam Nunn, Georgia Democrat, who now heads the Nuclear Threat Initiative sponsored by CNN founder Ted Turner, told the committee of a "war game" called "Dark Winter" in which he recently participated.
He played the U.S. president in the exercise, held at Andrews Air Force Base, in a scenario that simulated National Security Council meetings following the release of smallpox by terrorists in several U.S. cities.
In the simulation, about 3,000 people initially were infected because the vaccinations most Americans received as children had worn off.
Every 10 days to two weeks, the number of people infected would increase tenfold, he said. While health care workers and doctors were immunized immediately, on day six of the game, the United States had run out of vaccine.
Among the conclusions in the nightmare scenario:
•Not enough vaccine is available.
•Top officials are not prepared to deal with this type of crisis.
•The public infrastructure is inadequate and health care workers are not adequately trained.
"We were out of vaccine. We were discussing martial law. Interstate commerce was eroding rapidly. The members of our simulated NSC, as well as state and local officials, were desperate," Mr. Nunn said.
He added that if the biological agent were anthrax, it would have required a completely different medical and official response - for which the United States was similarly unprepared.
"Biological terrorism is one of our greatest national security threats. ... Our lack of preparation is a real emergency," he said.
James Woolsey, while agreeing with Mr. Nunn's assessment, said U.S. laws have made it too hard for the intelligence community to obtain the information it needs to head off such threats.
He said the FBI and CIA are prohibited from dealing with human rights violators and individuals with violent pasts, precisely the type of people who join terrorist groups. In the end, intelligence agencies will know all about the local church and chamber of commerce, but little about clandestine terror cells, he said.
Sen. Jesse Helms, North Carolina Republican, said the United States should not have to make the choice between safety from nuclear missiles and safety from biological warfare.
"We must avoid false choices ... that some of these threats are more likely than others," he said. "When it comes to America's security, we must be prepared to deal with all threats."
-------- chemical weapons
Russia Seeks More Time to Disarm
September 6, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Russia-Chemical-Weapons.html
MOSCOW (AP) -- A top official acknowledged Thursday that Russia had delayed destroying its chemical weapons stocks but said Moscow is committed to doing so and deserves a five-year extension of an international deadline.
A former Russian prime minister, Sergei Kiriyenko now oversees the Volga River region, where five of Russia's seven chemical weapons storage sites are located. He also heads a new committee charged with leading the political effort to destroy Russia's 44,000 tons of chemical weapons, the world's largest arsenal.
Russia ratified the Convention on Chemical Weapons in 1997, committing itself to destroy the stockpile within a decade. But it had long complained that it could not afford the estimated $7 billion program despite pledges of aid from the United States, Europe and Canada.
Kiriyenko told reporters that until this year Russia had done too little to fulfill its obligations under the 1993 convention and the U.S. Congress had good reason to freeze its funding for the program over the last two years.
``We certainly understand that insofar as Russia, in the period from 1997 ... until 2000, did not devote itself to the problem, we ourselves are guilty,'' Kiriyenko said.
Now the Cabinet has approved a new, cheaper program that would allow Russia to destroy its arsenal by 2012, without having to seek international funding beyond what has already been pledged. The new program cuts the originally planned seven destruction sites to three, and halves the estimated cost to about $3.5 billion.
As evidence of the government's new attitude, Kiriyenko pointed out that Russia had transferred authority over the destruction effort from the defense ministry to a civilian agency, underlining its position that Russia no longer considered the weapons an active part of its military arsenal.
The Russian government devoted six times more funds to the program this year than last, and Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov has agreed to a further increase in next year's budget, Kiriyenko said.
This year, Russia completed destruction of the detonators used for its chemical weapons, and it is close to completing elimination of its stocks of phosgene, a so-called choking agent that disables or kills by making the lungs fill with fluid, Kiriyenko said. Destruction of these stocks is the least complex of all the weapons elimination processes.
But Russia will need five more years to complete the destruction, since some of the facilities have not even been built. Kiriyenko started Russia's campaign for a deadline extension in Tokyo earlier this week, and he is set to embark on a tour of the other Group of Seven capitals this month.
-------- colombia
Colombia Calls for Drug War Study
September 6, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Colombia-Pastrana.html
BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) -- President Andres Pastrana called Thursday for a review of the global war against drugs, saying it should extend beyond the U.S.-backed spraying of drug crops.
Pastrana -- who is to meet here with Secretary of State Colin Powell next week -- also said Washington's suspension of joint interdiction of drug flights with Colombia and Peru ``has allowed a lot of drugs to pass over our territory because there is no control of our air space.''
The program was suspended following the accidental shootdown of a U.S. missionary plane over the Peruvian amazon in April. Pastrana urged the United States and its allies to establish a policy on interdiction.
``I think we can truly hit the heart of the (drug) business, through interdiction and not simply through fumigation,'' Pastrana told a small group of foreign reporters.
The fumigation of drug crops -- mainly coca from which cocaine is made -- by U.S. State Department crop-dusters is the linchpin of Washington's $1.3 billion counternarcotics policy in Colombia, which makes most of the world's cocaine. But it has come under increasing fire recently amid allegations it is harmful to humans and the environment.
Pastrana gave no indication that he would backtrack on the spraying, but said he wanted to focus on coca plantations that are protected and taxed by leftist rebels and right wing paramilitaries in Colombia.
Speaking with the reporters in the presidential palace, Pastrana said President Bush should organize an international conference to re-evaluate anti-drug strategies.
Wiping out drug crops has had some success, Pastrana noted. But he said high drug demand in the United States and Europe makes the global narcotics business one of the largest in the world, worth some $500 billion annually.
Pastrana said the conference should look at past successes and ``errors'' of the global anti-drug strategy and should also focus on money laundering and nations that supply chemicals used to process cocaine.
--------
Wider War in Colombia
As Military Steps Up Attacks on Rebels, Conflict Spreads to Once-Stable Areas
By Scott Wilson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, September 6, 2001; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A48724-2001Sep5?language=printer
TAME, Colombia -- After years as a distant rumor, war has reached this lonely city on Colombia's eastern plains. Left-wing guerrillas have taken to assassinating strangers in the streets. Roadblocks have gone up on the edge of town where right-wing militiamen inspect cars and take names. Police have sand-bagged their headquarters.
The two guerrilla armies that have enjoyed uncontested control of this region for years have weathered a two-month campaign by the military. Now paramilitary forces that work hand in hand with the army have moved in, bringing what Tame's residents fear are the tactics of a dirty war that is spreading across once-stable areas of Colombia.
"The people want to be left in peace," said Tame's mayor, Jorge Antonio Bernal, who no longer keeps his office in town because of guerrilla death threats. "But that is not going to happen anytime soon."
By almost any measure, more people are fighting more frequently in more parts of Colombia than at any point in the four-decade conflict. Once confined to a cluster of central provinces sliced by guerrilla transportation routes, intense fighting now touches remote southwestern and eastern provinces and has become a permanent feature of the southern jungles where army and paramilitary forces are contesting rebel control for the first time.
The forecast from army generals and guerrilla commanders is for more fighting in the months ahead. The escalation is taking place despite President Andres Pastrana's controversial peace negotiations with the rebels, including a vast demilitarized zone in the south, and a $1.3 billion U.S. aid package designed to combat the flourishing drug trade that helps finance leftist rebels and right-wing paramilitary fighters alike.
"We are going to have a period of two or three years in which the situation is going to become more acute before we find a way to peace," said Gen. Fernando Tapias, head of the Colombian armed forces. "The state and society must be prepared for this."
In Colombia's four-sided war, the main actors are two Marxist-oriented rebel armies, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN), pitted against the army and a pro-government paramilitary force, the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC). Their clashes traditionally have occurred sporadically, often under cover of darkness, through quick strikes against civilians, sabotage and bombings or in accidental meetings in jungle settings.
But a number of factors are conspiring to change that. They include the enhanced capability of the Colombian armed forces, due in part to U.S. training and military aid that is by far the largest component of the $1.3 billion drug-fighting package. Added to that, a fading economy has contributed recruits to the growing guerrilla and paramilitary armies. And the U.S.-backed anti-drug effort has produced a balloon effect, in which squeezing the war in one part of Colombia has sent it bulging into other parts.
To the north of Tame (TAH-mee), for example, sit fresh coca fields controlled by the FARC, the country's largest left-wing guerrilla force. Coca cultivation has doubled here in the past year as the rebels find new places to plant cocaine's key ingredient, far from a U.S.-backed aerial spraying campaign in the south of the country.
The Bush administration has undertaken a review of the U.S. policy here that it inherited from the Clinton administration. A high-ranking delegation of U.S. diplomatic and military officials came to Colombia last week for talks to guide the reassessment. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell is scheduled to visit Sept. 11-12.
The U.S. aid, mostly devoted to military transport helicopters and training, was designed to help Pastrana's peace efforts by depriving the rebel army of its slice of Colombia's $6 billion-a-year drug industry. The peace talks have been fruitless so far, however, creating public disenchantment with the process. But Marc Grossman, the undersecretary of state for political affairs who led the U.S. delegation, restated support for Pastrana on Friday, adding that Plan Colombia, the president's program of negotiations combined with military pressure and social development, "remains the only way to peace."
The training and new equipment have turned the Colombian military into a more mobile and capable offensive force, encouraging predictions that fighting will intensify before it can diminish. The improvement was particularly visible last month in southern Colombia, where a rapid deployment unit killed 50 guerrillas in a sustained air and ground attack lasting two weeks.
But the FARC guerrillas and the rival AUC paramilitary forces are also improving, and they are reaching into new parts of the country. So far, the overtaxed military has shown an inability to stop the spread. A senior U.S. official said the Colombian military can do "set pieces," regional military operations like those in the south, but is not yet ready to take on the armed groups nationwide.
"It is a fact that the Colombian military and the Colombian police are not strong enough to provide security throughout the country," the U.S. official said.
An acute downturn in Colombia's economy, which had been remarkably resilient, has also contributed to intensifying violence. As unemployment hovers near 20 percent and the economy fails to produce enough new jobs to keep pace with population growth, the rebel and paramilitary organizations have provided job opportunities for hundreds of young men and women.
Recently, members of the paramilitary army's governing body said the force had grown by 5,000 members over the past year, a figure that if true would mean the AUC now numbers 13,000 armed troops. The 18,000-member FARC, a mostly rural insurgency that has fought the government since 1964, is also expanding at a rate its leaders say is outpacing their ability to finance it.
"The reason is the crisis that this country is in -- the shortage of schools, of spaces in universities, of employment," said Raul Reyes, a leading FARC commander. "Everyone is asking to join us: journalists, economists, politicians. One of the problems is that we are short of money to buy arms, so we have told people they have to wait. If not for this, we would be much bigger."
This town of 40,000 people, sitting on a treeless plain that runs north to the Venezuelan border, is on the leading edge of the war's expansion. Until recently, violence had rarely reached this place, 200 miles northeast of Bogota, the capital, and town residents had learned to accommodate passing guerrilla armies.
But last spring the main paramilitary leader, Carlos Castano, announced that his troops would control Arauca province, where Tame is located, by the end of the year. Since then, killings in the province have doubled.
The murders have included about 25 itinerant salesmen shot in Arauca city, the provincial capital, 80 miles to the northeast; police officials suspect they constituted an advance guard of paramilitary organizers and were killed by guerrillas. Last month in the town of Saravena, a door-to-door salesman, previously wounded, was pulled from a hospital bed by members of the FARC and shot 15 times.
"This town's opinions are very divided," said Bernal, Tame's mayor. "Some are afraid of the arrogance and death these paramilitary groups bring, but others are sympathetic because of the destruction and unemployment caused by the guerrillas."
The history of the guerrilla presence in Arauca is as complicated as in any other part of Colombia. The first guerrilla group to arrive was the ELN, Colombia's second-largest Marxist insurgency, which now numbers about 5,000 members. The ELN was drawn by the financial possibilities presented by a cross-country oil pipeline that began operating in 1986.
The guerrillas made money from the Cano Limon pipeline in two ways: They were paid not to blow it up, and they controlled companies hired for repair work after they did attack it. A portion of roughly $4 billion in oil royalties, paid by Occidental Petroleum and the state-run Ecopetrol to the provincial government, flowed into unions, government agencies and civic associations controlled by the ELN.
But military officials said the FARC, which has roughly 1,500 troops operating in Arauca and two neighboring provinces, began asking the ELN for a share about two years ago as part of a national search for funds. When the ELN refused, the FARC began blowing up the pipeline, something it has done more than 120 times this year alone. The pipeline has been inoperative for all but a month this year.
While competing for money, the FARC and ELN have formed military alliances here and in other strategic areas across the country to confront the army and paramilitary forces. In recent weeks, the guerrillas joined to bomb the heavily guarded 18th Brigade headquarters in Arauca city.
The military has been growing in Arauca and now tops 5,000 soldiers. But on any given day, according to Gen. Pedro Lemus Pedraza, who runs the 18th Brigade, 80 percent of his resources are devoted to protecting the flow of oil.
As the army has guarded the pipeline, vast new tracts of coca crops have emerged. The FARC has started ordering local farmers to grow a maximum of six acres of coca, according to government officials and sources close to the FARC. Coca is also appearing in other parts of the country for the first time -- in the Uraba region in the north and Narino province to the southwest, among others -- bringing with it an increased guerrilla presence, matched by paramilitary forces who arrive in reaction.
Most of the fields here have emerged between Tame and Saravena, another guerrilla stronghold. In the past year, officials say, the land under cultivation has risen from 10,000 acres to more than 25,000 acres.
Reyes, the FARC commander, said the guerrilla group charges drug traffickers a fee only to transport the coca base from guerrilla-controlled areas, although the Colombian government says the group is more deeply involved. But even if the FARC took only one cut from the coca proceeds, the crop in Arauca alone could bring the guerrilla group $50 million a year.
"The army says that all of this coca is essentially moving up from the south because of Plan Colombia," said a government ombudsman who asked to remain anonymous for safety reasons. "The spraying in [the southern province of] Putumayo is not killing the coca, just shifting it. So now we are a coca zone."
Despite the drug violence, Tame residents are most alarmed by indications of an impending paramilitary offensive similar to those that have recently swept through nearby guerrilla strongholds. Since the middle of August, paramilitary forces from neighboring Casanare province have been operating on the outskirts. They have established regular roadblocks, untouched by army forces stationed less than 30 minutes away, and assembled lists of the truckers, taxi drivers and others who pass to and from Puerto Rondon, about 50 miles southeast of Tame. Those stopped are asked to bare their shoulders so the paramilitary troops can check for the telltale sign of guerrilla membership: marks left by rifle straps.
The roadblocks appeared soon after the army's rapid deployment force withdrew from Tame after a two-month offensive against joint ELN and FARC forces.
"Why does the army always head out and find guerrillas, but never paramilitaries?" asked Juan Carlos Pacavita, a local musician who lives in a tin-shack village of displaced families on the outskirts of town. "I really want to know this. These groups are 15 minutes away and heading into our town."
-------- puerto rico
Vieques to Vote on Halting Bombings
Associated Press
Thu, Sep 06 11:40 PM EDT
http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/ap/010906/23/int-puerto-rico-vieques
VIEQUES, Puerto Rico (AP) - Puerto Rico's governor on Thursday ordered elections officials to start preparing for a federal referendum on the island of Vieques, where residents will vote on whether the U.S. Navy should halt decades of bombing exercises.
Vieques residents already voted overwhelmingly for the Navy to stop bombing exercises in a nonbinding referendum in July, and President Bush has said the Navy should leave Vieques by 2003.
While visiting Vieques Thursday, Gov. Sila Calderon ordered preparations for the binding referendum, approved last year by the U.S. Congress following mass protests against the bombing.
Vieques' 9,100 residents are to choose whether the Navy should end the bombing in 2003 or keep bombing and resume using live ammunition, while giving $50 million in aid for housing and development on the outlying island.
In the nonbinding vote called by Calderon in July, 68 percent of the voters supported an immediate end to bombing, an option that is not to be on the upcoming ballot.
-------- u.s.
Thousands of former military sites clean-up slower than Pentagon reported
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
From: "Free-Mail Subscription" <freemail-support@csmonitor.com>
September 6, 2001
http://www.csmonitor.com
Thousands of former military sites with contaminated soil and water or unexploded ammunition are being cleaned up much more slowly than the Pentagon reported, according to the General Accounting Office, an investigative arm of Congress. It said a Pentagon report on the $200 million-a-year program claimed half the work was finished when only one-third had been. The Army Corps of Engineers, which has run the project for 15 years, had yet to comment.
----
Decision Nears on Navy Sonar
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
September 6, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/science/AP-Whales-Sonar.html?searchpv=aponline
BAR HARBOR, Maine (AP) -- Eighteen months ago, the Navy deployed a powerful mid-range sonar during a submarine detection exercise in the deep water canyons of the Bahamas.
Within hours, at least 16 whales and two dolphins beached themselves on the islands of Abaco, Grand Bahama and North Eleuthera. Scientists found hemorrhaging around the brain and ear bones -- injuries consistent with exposure to extremely loud sounds. Eight whales died.
Now, the March 2000 strandings are being used as a battle cry for opponents of an even stronger low-frequency sonar the Navy wants to use to detect a new generation of quiet submarines.
A growing number of environmentalists and lawmakers want to stop deployment of the system because they fear it will harm whales, dolphins and loggerhead turtles. The state of Maine is particularly concerned about the impact on endangered northern right whales.
``I appreciate the nation's needs for national security, but I also believe that the evidence shows (this new) sonar is harmful to the marine environment,'' said Rep. John Baldacci, D-Maine.
The Navy, which has spent $300 million developing the system, is awaiting a review of its plan for a five-year deployment. A final decision by the National Marine Fisheries Service is expected this fall.
The Navy contends the sonar is imperative to national security because other nations, including Russia, Germany and China, are already developing super-quiet submarines that can avoid traditional detection.
It says it will protect whales with a 1,100-yard buffer zone backed up with traditional sonar and lookouts to determine the presence of whales.
Still, critics say the risk to whales and other marine life under those guidelines far outweighs any advances in submarine detection.
``Sonar is a very important defense, but it's like practicing dropping nuclear bombs -- it will have a very important environmental impact,'' said Ken Balcomb, a marine biologist who witnessed the Bahama stranding in front of his house.
Whales are more susceptible to sonar interference than many mammals because they rely on sound for communication, feeding, mating and migration.
The proposed sonar is a type of low-frequency active sonar called the Surveillance Towed Array Sensor System, or Surtass LFA. The Navy wants to use it on four warships capable of sweeping 80 percent of the world's oceans.
According to the Navy's proposal, the sonar would transmit signals as loud as 215 decibels -- the underwater equivalent of standing next to a twin-engine F-15 fighter jet at takeoff.
But the Navy contends the loudest noise a whale would encounter is 180 decibels because of the safety zone, said Joe Johnson, the Navy official in charge of managing the environmental tests.
The Navy's tests on four species were able to attain only an estimated level of 150 decibels. At that level, the sonar affected the length of humpback whale songs but didn't lead to other extreme behaviors, said Roger Gentry, an acoustics expert from the National Marine Fisheries Service.
But some biologists believe whales are irritated by sounds louder than 110 decibels. At 180 decibels, they contend, a whale's ear drums could explode -- similar to how an opera singer shatters glass.
The Navy admits the Bahamas stranding was likely caused by mid-range sonar but contends the low-frequency active sonar wouldn't harm whales.
Mid-range sonar, used in the Bahamas can be heard over shorter distances by many marine animals. Low-frequency sonar can travel several hundred miles but is audible to fewer animals; the downside is the transmissions are on the same frequency used for communication by many large whales, including humpbacks.
Critics believe there have been other strandings linked to sonar, but the whales in the Bahamas were the only ones to be fully examined.
In 1996, 12 Cuvier beaked whales beached themselves in Greece during NATO exercises involving the same low-frequency sonar the Navy wants to use. But those whales decomposed before scientists could conduct an investigation.
Marsha Green, an animal behaviorist with the Ocean Mammal Institute in Reading, Pa., fears the worst if the sonar is deployed.
``Can you imagine a world without whales?'' she said. ``It would be like a world without songbirds. We would all regret it.''
--------
Strap snaps as Navy tries to lift Japanese boat
USA TODAY
09/06/2001
The Associated Press
http://usatoday.com/news/nation/2001/09/05/boat.htm
HONOLULU (AP) - A giant strap split as it was lifting a sunken Japanese fishing vessel, thwarting for the third time in two weeks the Navy's unprecedented efforts to recover the ship sunk by a U.S. submarine.
The 830-ton Ehime Maru had been lifted 24 feet off the ocean floor before the steel strap split Tuesday night, according to the Navy, which announced the setback Wednesday afternoon on its Web site.
Two weeks ago, the Navy abandoned an unsuccessful effort to drill beneath the ship in order to raise it. The first attempt using a strap raised the ship 23 feet before the strap broke Friday night, dropping the ship.
"This time it had some reinforcing wires underneath it," Lt. Brian Curtis said Wednesday. "It didn't fall. They had the wires underneath it and they just lowered it back down."
The Navy is spending $40 million to recover the bodies of nine men and teen-age boys who were lost when the Ehime Maru was rammed by the USS Greeneville nine miles south of Diamond Head on Feb. 9. The vessel is sitting in 2,000 feet of water.
The Navy is trying to install rigging so it can raise the vessel off the ocean bottom and tow it 12 miles to shallower water. Divers then will try to recover the bodies believed to be entombed in the ship.
Navy and contract engineers on the civilian-contracted vessel Rockwater 2 returned to port Wednesday to swap out equipment and evaluate their next move, the Navy said. Curtis said it wasn't known how long the construction support ship would remain at port.
Curtis could not say whether the Navy and engineers would make a third attempt at using the lifting strap, but stressed that the plan to move the ship and recover the bodies was still on track.
-------- OTHER
-------- alternative energy
SCIENTISTS DEVELOPING SELF ASSEMBLING SOLAR CELLS
September 6, 2001
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/sep2001/2001L-09-06-09.html
TUCSON, Arizona, Photovoltaics - the high-tech approach to converting sunlight directly into electricity - could be low cost and practical if based on organic, self assembling thin film technologies, say scientists at the University of Arizona (UA).
UA chemists and optical scientists have been funded by two separate new grants totaling more than $1 million to develop organic molecules that self assemble, or self organize, from liquid into efficient solar cell coatings.
Neal Armstrong, Bernard Kippelen, David O'Brien, Seth Marder and Jean-Luc Brédas together have pioneered breakthroughs in related areas such as organic light emitting diodes and holographic storage technologies.
They are now applying their discoveries and new materials to unconventional photovoltaics (PV) - organic solar cell thin films. They are designing, synthesizing and characterizing molecules that will self organize from solution into coatings about 100 nanometers thick, or about one thousandth the thickness of a human hair.
Dye sensitized solar cell chip research undergoing tests at optical sciences laboratories (Photo by Bernard Kippelen, courtesy University of Arizona)
"What you'd really like is a solar panel array that would come on a flexible plastic substrate which would be extremely inexpensive and which you could roll out on your roof like wall paper," said chemistry professor Neal Armstrong. "It would be efficient enough at energy conversion to economically generate power."
Armstrong is principal investigator on a three year, $490,000 grant from the Department of Energy's National Energy Research Laboratory (NREL). The grant is aimed at developing new organic liquid crystal PV materials that could be wet processed into large area panels.
Ninety-nine percent of the photovoltaic market today is based on single crystal silicon, an efficient and reliable but expensive material for solar cells. Silicon PV powers satellites and space missions, but cost limits how much it is used to meet the world's energy demands.
Efficient new inorganic thin films such as cadmium telluride and cadmium-indium-galleium-selenide are entering the PV market, Armstrong said, and their efficiencies and lower cost are impressive. But the heavy metals - tellurium and selenium - in these PVs raise environmental concerns, both during their manufacture and ultimate disposal.
New organic solar cells would be a less toxic way to tap energy from the sun, Armstrong emphasized, because most of the target organic materials are environmentally benign when processed and when discarded.
-------- death penalty
Executions Decrease For the 2nd Year
Va., Texas Show Sharp Drops Amid A National Trend
By Brooke A. Masters
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 6, 2001; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A48702-2001Sep5?language=printer
Executions are down sharply across the country for the second year in a row, with dramatic declines in the leading death penalty states of Virginia and Texas, and if the trend continues, the United States would execute the fewest inmates since 1996.
Nationally, 48 people have been put to death in 2001, down 27 percent from this time last year. With 14 more executions scheduled, this year's total could be down a third from the 1999 high of 98.
The declines reflect the decade-long reduction in the crime rate and a public less enthusiastic about the death penalty. As discussion has grown about the fairness and reliability of capital convictions, judges and governors also have become more willing to stop executions and take a second look at questionable cases.
By far the most striking change has come in Texas, which executed a record 40 inmates last year. This year, 12 people have been put to death, and six more executions are scheduled. Virginia has executed one inmate this year -- compared with eight last year and 14 in 1999 -- and one execution is scheduled. In fact, executions are down in nine of the 11 states that historically have put the most inmates to death.
Though execution numbers often fluctuate, observers on both sides of the death penalty debate agree that the country may be on the cusp of changing the way the ultimate punishment is meted out. A Washington Post-ABC News poll found that public support for the death penalty is now at 63 percent, the lowest in two decades.
Twenty-one people have been released from death row in the past three years after DNA tests or other new evidence cast doubt on their convictions, and Texas cases involving underpaid, sleeping and incompetent lawyers gained widespread attention because of last year's presidential election.
This year, 23 of the 38 states that have capital punishment enacted reform measures. Congress is considering legislation, and Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, a swing vote on the U.S. Supreme Court, recently expressed "serious doubts" about the way the death penalty is applied.
"There is a growing acknowledgment generally that the death penalty should be reserved for the worst of the worst," said Oregon prosecutor Joshua Marquis, a board member of the National District Attorneys Association. "I think the degree of judicial scrutiny has increased and the political pressure on governors for clemency has increased . . . and juries and prosecutors are becoming more sophisticated about whom to put on death row."
Reasons for the decline in executions vary from state to state, but some broad similarities exist. The decade-long drop in crime and the mid-1990s decision to abolish parole in a number of big death penalty states have led to fewer people reaching death row and less public demand for executions. Federal legislation enacted in 1996 sped up death row appeals, leading to spikes in executions in 1998 and 1999 that couldn't be sustained.
"You had waves of cases that had backed up, and now the flood has gone through," said Jim Marcus, executive director of the Texas Defender Service.
Courts and governors have played a vital role in the slowdown, as judges and politicians who once turned a deaf ear to inmate complaints have proved more willing to step in. Oklahoma Gov. Frank A. Keating (R) last month granted an unheard-of second 30-day stay of execution to immigrant Gerardo Valdez after personal pleas from Mexican President Vicente Fox.
In Virginia and Texas, the state courts have intervened in a significant number of capital cases for the first time in years. Last month, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals stopped the execution of convicted carjacker Napoleon Beazley, the fifth such stay it has granted since October. And the Virginia Supreme Court overturned two death sentences in seven weeks this year.
"Increasing doubts about the reliability of verdicts have dampened the enthusiasm of public officials for executing people quickly," said University of Virginia law professor George Rutherglen.
It is not unusual for a state to see a major drop in executions in a single year, largely because of the way appeals courts operate.
When a court identifies a legal problem, judges often hold up similar cases until the issue is resolved. That happened in Texas in 1996 -- when three people were put to death -- and again this year. Several of the recent Texas stays appear to be related to the case of Anthony Graves, who argues that his state appeals lawyer was inadequate. Similarly, the Georgia high court has stopped executions while it considers whether the method the state uses -- electrocution -- violates the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment. The U.S. Supreme Court is holding four cases while it decides whether it is unconstitutional to execute mentally retarded convicts.
But this year marks the first time since the death penalty was restored in 1976 that executions have dropped significantly nationwide for two years in a row. And five of the 10 states that have executed the most people -- Louisiana, South Carolina, Alabama, Arizona and Georgia -- have not executed anyone in 2001. In Alabama, all four scheduled executions were stopped by the state or federal courts. Maryland has not carried out an execution since 1998.
There are clear exceptions to the trend. This year, Tennessee and the federal government executed their first prisoners since the restoration of the death penalty. And Oklahoma, Missouri, Delaware and North Carolina are all executing more inmates this year than last.
Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson said his state is moving through its backlog of old cases a few years after most others -- the state has carried out 26 of its 45 modern executions in the past 20 months. "Most Oklahomans still support the death penalty and are gratified that cases are not getting bogged down on appeal," he said.
Conversely, Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon said his state's execution totals have remained relatively stable, so the state missed both the late 1990s spike and the recent decline.
The growing concern about the death penalty has reached beyond execution totals, as state legislators tackled death penalty issues ranging from racial bias to bad lawyers. Fifteen states passed laws this year making it easier for inmates to get post-conviction DNA testing, and six banned, for the first time, executing retarded inmates.
The federal Innocence Protection Act, which would provide DNA testing and set minimum standards for court-appointed defense lawyers, also continues to make progress. The House version has 210 sponsors, close to a majority. In the closely divided Senate, several moderate Republicans have recently come out for the bill.
"The number of cases of inmates being taken off death row says to the public that this system has faults and we've got to take greater steps to ensure guilt beyond a reasonable doubt," said Sen. John W. Warner of Virginia, one of two Republicans from a death penalty state to sign on. (Sen. Gordon Smith of Oregon is the other.)
The legislative ferment may lead to further reductions in executions as courts struggle to apply new laws to old cases, said Dudley Sharp, resource director for the crime victims group Justice for All. But he predicts that eventually the execution tallies will rebound. "It's naive to say that there's a new political reality," he said.
Others are not so sure.
"Once you are talking about executions in practice, support for the death penalty is broad but shallow," said Ohio State University law professor Douglas A. Berman. "We don't feel comfortable about loving the death penalty, so when there are reasons to go slow, all the institutional players do."
--------
Critics condemn electric chair
09/06/2001
By Richard Willing,
USA TODAY
http://usatoday.com/news/nation/2001/09/07/electric-chair.htm
The electric chair is on the hot seat.
The chair, America's preferred method of execution for most of the past century, is coming under increasing attack from opponents and supporters of capital punishment.
Death penalty foes say electrocuting human beings, even murderers, is inhumane and possibly unconstitutional. Supporters of capital punishment, meanwhile, fear that fallout from grisly electrocutions could undermine public acceptance of the death penalty.
Such sentiment has taken a toll on the device that Thomas Edison helped to create and that was made famous by a generation of gangster movies. Once used in 25 states and the District of Columbia to carry out more than 4,200 executions, the electric chair now is the sole means of execution in only two: Alabama and Nebraska. Ten others allow it as an alternative to lethal injection.
At a time when questions about whether the death penalty is being applied fairly have contributed to a drop in executions nationwide over the past 2 years, injection is widely seen as a more humane punishment. Of the 230 executions carried out across the USA since January 1999, only nine have been electrocutions.
Now, an Ohio execution scheduled for Wednesday has put the electric chair in the spotlight again. A condemned murderer, John Byrd, 37, is demanding that the state kill him by using Ohio's 105-year-old electric chair rather than by lethal injection. Ohio law allows condemned inmates to choose between the two methods.
Byrd's lawyer says his client, who insists he is innocent in the slaying of a suburban Cincinnati convenience store clerk in 1983, has chosen electrocution to make a "statement" about the "barbarity of capital punishment."
"He says, 'I'm innocent in this case, and I'm not going to make it easy for them to put me down like some farm animal,' " says David Bodiker, Byrd's lawyer and the director of Ohio's public defender office. "His means of defiance is to say that society is going to have to do this in the most unpleasant manner possible."
The electric chair was called a humane alternative to hanging when it was developed in the 1880s. Alfred Southwick, a Buffalo dentist, proposed the idea after watching a drunken man stagger into an electrical generator and die quickly and apparently painlessly.
Electrical pioneers such as Edison got into the act, carrying out experiments on animals to test the effectiveness of different dosages of current.
The electric chair was first used in a prison in Auburn, N.Y., to dispatch William Kemmler of Buffalo in 1890. He had been convicted in the ax murder of his wife. To officials' surprise, the first jolt left Kemmler twitching and alive. A second charge was applied.
"Strong men fainted and fell on the floor," the New York Herald reported of the witnesses.
Even so, the chair caught on. It soon replaced hanging or firing squads in many states.
Famous criminals who died in the chair include Bruno Hauptmann, killer of the Lindbergh baby, who was executed in 1936; atomic bomb spies Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, executed in 1953, and Ted Bundy, who was executed in 1989 for slaying three young women. He claimed he killed 16 more.
Hollywood used the chair as a prop. In Angels with Dirty Faces (1938), a tough guy convict played by James Cagney is reduced to sniveling whines as the shadow of the electric chair falls across his path.
The chair became "shorthand for capital punishment" in America, says Richard Dieter, director of the Death Penalty Information Center, which opposes capital punishment.
The chair kills by sending at least 2,000 volts into the victim through an electrode placed on his head. The current stops the heart, then leaves the body via two "ground" electrodes on the victim's legs. Typically, the current is applied for about 1 minute. It is applied again if adrenaline restarts the heart. The voltage is more than 18 times that found in a typical household electrical outlet.
"When done correctly, the heart stops in 1/240th of a second - 24 times faster than the nervous system's ability to feel it," says Frederick Leuchter, a Malden, Mass., technician who helped several states remodel electric chairs in the 1980s.
But if equipment malfunctions, "you're literally boiling the person to death," he says.
Botched electrocutions are not unusual. In 1990, Florida convict Jesse Tafero's hair appeared to catch fire as he sat in Old Sparky, as the state's chair is known. In 1999, 300-pound Alan "Tiny" Davis' nose bled as he died in Old Sparky.
Later that year, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a Florida convict's argument that electrocution amounted to "cruel and unusual punishment" and should be forbidden by the Constitution's 8th Amendment. Before the Supreme Court could act, the Florida Legislature gave condemned killers the option of being executed by chemical injection. That voided the Supreme Court case.
Thirty-six of the 38 states that permit capital punishment, as well as the U.S. government and the military, have approved lethal injection.
Among death penalty opponents, the switch to lethal injection is controversial. Most consider it more humane than electrocution. But some, such as Alabama state Sen. Rodger Smitherman, fear that jurors will be more likely to impose the death penalty if it is carried out by injection rather than by electrocution. He has opposed efforts to make lethal injection an option in Alabama.
In Ohio, prison officials oppose using the electric chair for the Byrd execution. The machine has not been used since 1963, although it was refurbished in 1994, the year Byrd was originally scheduled to die. State law appears to require them to electrocute Byrd unless he changes his mind.
Ohio officials say an electrocution would be "traumatic for prison staff," Bodiker says. "I've got news for them: For the man in the chair, it's considerably past traumatic. Which is exactly John Byrd's point."
-------- energy
Fueling benefits of ethanol
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
Letters to the Editor
September 06, 2001 edition
http://www.csmonitor.com/2001/0906/p8s3-cole.html
Your editorial solicited a "clearer sense of the benefits" of the ethanol industry ("Politics in the tank," Aug. 22).
On the environmental front, we have a tough turn in the pipeline. When ethanol and gasoline are blended at low levels - up to 20 percent ethanol - there is an increase in vapor pressure, which causes evaporative emissions leading to ozone. There are ways around this problem, including ethanol-fueled vehicles and an ethanol derivative. But "big ethanol," rushing for profits and market control, has little interest in these solutions. Big ethanol has the clout and money to command the political process and the ethanol market - and it does not want to see the industry expand beyond its own control.
Ethanol and other biofuels have a great future, but a good measure of these benefits will be determined by the industry's ability to free itself from the negative political forces of big oil and big ethanol. William C. Holmberg Washington President, Global Biorefineries Inc.
----
Investigator might take White House to court
09/05/2001
By Susan Page,
USA TODAY
http://usatoday.com/news/washdc/sept01/2001-09-06-cheney.htm
WASHINGTON - The White House is likely to defy a deadline set for today by Congress' chief investigator, in effect daring the General Accounting Office to haul Vice President Cheney's energy task force into federal court over the administration's refusal to release information.
The confrontation could lead to the first court challenge over how much power the GAO has to demand information about who the administration consults and how it shapes policy.
The GAO gave the White House until today to release the names of people who met with Cheney and task force staffers while the administration was devising its proposal to encourage energy production and conservation. Cheney has refused. Some congressional Democrats accuse the administration of trying to cover up the influence wielded by energy industry executives and campaign contributors.
The White House could end the inquiry by sending a "letter of certification" signed by President Bush or Budget Director Mitch Daniels stating that release of the information would "substantially impair" government operations.
White House officials call the standoff a matter of principle. The administration doesn't believe the GAO has the right to demand the information, they say. And they say sending a letter would acknowledge GAO's authority. "The White House is disinclined to comply with a statutory power we don't think GAO has," says Mary Matalin, a top aide to Cheney.
If the White House doesn't respond by today, GAO Comptroller General David Walker will have to decide whether to drop the inquiry or pursue it in federal court. A GAO official says Walker hasn't decided what to do if that situation arises.
Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., who has pressed the issue, expects Walker to take the case to court. Aide Philip Schiliro says, "The GAO's intention has always been to go to court, and that's what Congressman Waxman thinks they should do."
Only five times in the past 2 decades has a GAO inquiry reached this stage. In three cases, the information sought was provided. In two cases - including one that involved Cheney when he was Defense secretary - the administration filed letters of certification.
In a letter to Congress last month, Cheney charged that Walker's actions "exceed his lawful authority" and "would unconstitutionally interfere with the functioning of the Executive Branch."
Walker then scaled back his request, eliminating a demand for the minutes and notes from the meetings held by task force staffers for consultation. But he continues to seek names of those who attended the meetings, and dates, locations and subjects discussed at the sessions.
-------- genetics
U.S. Concedes Some Cell Lines Are Not Ready
New York Times
September 6, 2001
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/06/politics/06STEM.html?searchpv=nytToday
WASHINGTON, Sept. 5 - Nearly a month after President Bush announced that he would permit federally financed scientists to study more than 60 colonies of human embryonic stem cells, the administration acknowledged today that fewer than half those colonies were fully established and ready for research.
Testifying before a panel of skeptical senators, Tommy G. Thompson, the secretary of health and human services, said that only 24 or 25 of the colonies, or lines, were ready for experiments. Mr. Thompson said more - he did not know how many - would be ready by the time government grant money became available in eight or nine months.
"We are confident that there is enough," he said, speaking to reporters after his testimony.
Noting that private research would continue despite Mr. Bush's restrictions, Mr. Thompson added, "And we are confident that the private sector will fill any voids if there are any voids."
The secretary also announced that the government had "knocked down the proprietary concerns" about whether scientists would have access to the cells. On Tuesday evening, just hours before Mr. Thompson was to go to Capitol Hill to defend the president's policy, his department signed an agreement with the owner of the patent on the cells that, both sides say, will allow scientists to use them freely.
Mr. Thompson called it "a ground- breaking agreement."
From the moment President Bush waded into the ethically divisive issue of embryonic stem cell research, with his first televised address to the nation on Aug. 9, scientists, patients' advocates and lawmakers have questioned whether his plan was adequate to support the science.
Although stem cells hold the potential for treatments and cures, Mr. Bush and many others have moral qualms about the work because the cells are extracted from human embryos, which are destroyed in the process. To ease those qualms, Mr. Bush decided to confine federal financing to work involving cell lines that were already established at the time of his speech.
The White House has said there are 64 such lines, developed in 10 laboratories in five countries: Australia, India, Israel, Sweden and the United States. The day after the president's announcement, Mr. Thompson declared of the lines, "They're diverse, they're robust, they're viable for research."
But their quality has been a matter of intense dispute, and today, Mr. Thompson told reporters that when Mr. Bush announced his decision, he was not aware that only about two dozen lines were fully developed.
"Nobody was," Mr. Thompson said. He did not elaborate.
Today's hearing was the first opportunity for lawmakers, just back from summer recess, to scrutinize Mr. Bush's plan. Senators questioned the secretary for nearly two hours, pressing him on whether Mr. Bush would revisit his policy if experiments revealed that the existing lines were insufficient.
The answer, Mr. Thompson said, was no. So several senators, in both parties, indicated that they might reopen the discussion themselves. While legislation that would broaden Mr. Bush's policy is unlikely this fall, Congress could take up the issue as soon as next year, once scientists have more to report on the usefulness of the cell lines.
"Millions of patients and their families expect that stem cell research will move forward as rapidly as possible," said Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, the chairman of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, which held the hearing. "It would be unacceptable to offer these patients and families the promise of effective stem cell research but deny them the reality of it."
Much of the discussion focused on whether any of the 64 lines would ever be suitable for use in patients. To grow the lines, scientists nourished them with mouse cells that had been killed with radiation.
This is a standard laboratory technique, but it raises concerns about safety, because the cells could harbor viruses that would infect people. While the Food and Drug Administration does not prohibit the use of mouse cells in human therapies, it imposes strict regulations on them, and officials do not know if the existing stem cell lines would meet the F.D.A.'s criteria.
At one point, Senator Tom Harkin, Democrat of Iowa, told Mr. Thompson that the lines had a "contamination problem."
"I don't classify them as contaminated," Mr. Thompson said.
"Well," Mr. Harkin said, "there's a cloud over them, a very dark cloud."
Stem cells, the human body's master cells, can grow into any one of the body's more than 200 cell types, and scientists hope to use them to create replacement tissue and body parts. Advocates for patients see the cells as their best hope for treating a range of disorders, from Parkinson's disease to juvenile diabetes.
Those advocates have been anxiously awaiting Congress's return to get a sense of how much support they have on Capitol Hill. Before Mr. Bush's announcement, more than 60 senators and 200 representatives had expressed support for stem cell research that would go beyond what the president has authorized.
"I had been hoping that the members were going to be sticking with us, but I didn't know for sure," said Larry Soler, a spokesman for the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research, which represents patients and researchers. Mr. Soler said today's hearing "confirmed that many members from both sides of the aisle are still very open to the need to revisit this policy."
But the back-and-forth over the number of lines left some patients' advocates disillusioned.
"There is this kind of numbers game, a kind of three-card monte, which one has the real stem cell under it?" said Daniel Perry, executive director of the Alliance for Aging Research, an advocacy group in Washington.
In describing the status of the cell lines, Mr. Thompson told senators they existed in three phases: the proliferation phase, in which they start to grow; the characterization phase, in which scientists identify their biological characteristics; and the fully developed stage.
So, for example, scientists at the University of Goteborg in Sweden have 19 cell lines. All meet the president's criteria, Mr. Thompson said. But only 3 are fully developed; 12 are proliferating, and 4 are in the characterization stage.
Mr. Thompson said a registry of all 64 cell lines, listing their properties and biological characteristics, would be posted on the the National Institutes of Health's Web site within the next two weeks. And he said the new intellectual property agreement "gives us even more momentum and incentive to get to work."
The agreement is between the government and the WiCell Research Institute, a nonprofit subsidiary of the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, or WARF. WARF, the patent owner, is an affiliate of the University of Wisconsin, where human stem cells were discovered in 1998.
The accord allows scientists who work at the National Institutes of Health broad access to the five cell lines created by Dr. James A. Thomson, a developmental biologist at the university. It applies only to government-employed scientists and covers only basic research; if scientists want to use the cells as therapies, they will have to renegotiate.
But the agreement is important for several reasons.
First, WiCell has said it will make the same terms available to academic scientists in university laboratories around the country. Second, the research institute has agreed not to use its patent to block federally financed scientists from studying stem cell lines developed in other laboratories - so long as the other cell line owners do not receive more favorable treatment from the government than WiCell does.
Third, it eliminates a so-called reach-through provision that WiCell imposed in the past. Under the provision, any scientist who made a discovery using the Wisconsin cells was required to offer WiCell the first chance at commercializing it.
Because the institute has granted important commercial rights to a California biotechnology company, Geron, some scientists had complained that those terms made them, in effect, employees of Geron. While Geron will undoubtedly still be involved in discussions with scientists who want to commercialize stem cell discoveries, Carl E. Gulbrandsen, WARF's managing director, said the new agreement gave academic researchers much more freedom.
"It's a boon to research," Mr. Gulbrandsen said, adding, "We are saying, `Here, take our cells, use your federal dollars, do your research, publish what you discover, patent what you discover.' "
--------
Thompson: Stem Cell Work Viable Most Lines Unproven, HHS Chief Concedes
By Ceci Connolly and Justin Gillis
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, September 6, 2001; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A48343-2001Sep5?language=printer
Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson acknowledged yesterday that almost two-thirds of the 64 stem cell colonies approved for federal funding by the Bush administration were only recently derived from embryos and their usefulness to scientists has not yet been proven.
Thompson, testifying before a Senate committee, stressed that the two dozen colonies ready for laboratories today are sufficient to conduct extensive basic research into the still untested promise of stem cell science.
"We're confident there are enough and we're confident the private sector will fill the voids where there are any voids," he said, predicting that more of the 64 will be ready by the time federal grants are awarded early next year.
But Thompson's comments represented the first time a high-ranking administration official has conceded that not all the cell colonies eligible for funding are as "robust" as initially advertised. That could bolster criticism by supporters of more aggressive research who say that President Bush has tied scientists' hands by imposing overly stringent restrictions.
Work on stem cells is controversial because they are derived from days-old human embryos -- usually those left over at fertility clinics -- that are destroyed in the process. Bush announced Aug. 9 he would allow the government to pay for such research only on cells derived before that date. The policy was designed to avoid encouraging the destruction of more embryos.
Scientists say the quantity, quality and availability of those cell "lines" will determine whether the Bush policy goes far enough in pursuing research on the cells, which, because they theoretically can become any kind of tissue, could provide new treatments for many illnesses.
"The question before Congress is whether the door is opened wide enough," said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, which called Thompson to testify. "Failure to seize this unprecedented medical opportunity would be a tragic betrayal of the hopes and dreams of the millions of patients who expect us to do all we can to develop these new cures."
Anticipating such skepticism, Thompson arrived with news that the National Institutes of Health has struck a deal granting government researchers broad access to five stem cell colonies developed at the University of Wisconsin. The agreement, he said, should alleviate concerns over access and will serve as the model for future agreements.
"This is a groundbreaking agreement," the former Wisconsin governor said. "It is an indication of how serious the owners of these lines are about making their products available."
In the agreement, the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation not only granted access to NIH scientists but also pledged to do the same for scientists at other nonprofit institutions that receive federal grants. Scientists would pay a one-time, $5,000 fee and would be free to publish their results. They would also retain ownership rights on new discoveries they make using the cells.
To those who argue many more cell lines are needed, Thompson pointed to comments by the Wisconsin foundation that it has enough material to supply every researcher with a federal grant. "That's a powerful statement," he said, "yet one many are choosing to ignore."
Before Thompson arrived at the crowded hearing room, two proponents of a broad federal research policy criticized Bush's decision.
The policy "impedes the potential of this nation's leading scientists," said Rep. James R. Langevin (D-R.I.), the first quadriplegic elected to Congress. Describing the surplus embryos at fertility clinics, he said: "To relegate these potentially life-saving cells to the trash heap after the arbitrary deadline of Aug. 9 is simply wrong."
Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) seized upon statements by scientists in San Diego, India and Sweden cautioning that many of the cell lines eligible for funding are too young and fragile to be considered "well-established."
"There are real questions about the accuracy of the facts presented to the president by the Department of Health and Human Services," Specter said.
But Thompson said that officials "have consistently said these lines are at different stages in development." Thompson said he hoped his testimony would "clear up misunderstandings," and he urged lawmakers to "move beyond the back and forth over the numbers."
After the hearing, he was asked whether Bush was aware when he announced his policy that fewer than half of the 64 colonies are ready for laboratory work. "Nobody was," Thompson replied. "I can't even say it's 24. But I can say the 64 meet the president's criteria."
Some lawmakers praised the Bush compromise. Like Thompson, Sen. Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) urged lawmakers "not to oversell the promise of this research to the American people."
Although it was not clear there is sentiment to change the Bush policy, many senators said they will continue demanding evidence that the Bush policy helps -- not hinders -- research.
The imposition of "arbitrary standards" could leave the United States trailing in the race to develop cures, said Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.). "Our own scientists, I'm fearful, will go abroad to where they can work on this," he said, adding he prefers a policy that would "move a step further."
-------- human rights
Text of Racism Conference Proposal
Updated: Thu, Sep 06 2:57 PM EDT
By The Associated Press
http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/ap/010906/14/racism-conference-text
Text of a compromise proposal at the World Conference Against Racism. There are two versions of paragraph No. 5, meaning one would have to be chosen or new wording agreed on.
---
DRAFT DECLARATION
1. We are conscious of the fact that the history of humanity is replete with major atrocities as a result of the gross violation of human rights and believe that lessons can be learnt through remembering history to avert future tragedies.
2. We recall that the Holocaust must never be forgotten.
3. We recognize with deep concern religious tolerance against certain religious communities, as well as the emergence of hostile acts and violence against such communities because of their religious beliefs and their racial or ethnic origin in various part of the world, which in particular limit their right to freely practice their belief.
4. We also recognize with deep concern the increase in anti-Semitism and Islamophobia in various part of the world, as well as the emergence of racial and violent movements based on racism and discriminatory ideas against Jewish, Muslim and Arab communities.
5. We are conscious that humanity's history is replete with terrible wrongs inflicted through lack of respect for the equality of human beings and note with alarm the increase of such practices in various parts of the world, and we urge people, particularly in conflict situations, to desist from racist incitement, derogatory language and negative stereotyping.
5. We are concerned about the plight of the Palestinian people under foreign occupation. We recognize the inalienable right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and to the establishment of an independent state and we recognize the right to security for all states in the region, including Israel, and call upon all states to support the peace process and bring it an early conclusion.
6. We call for a just, comprehensive and lasting peace in the region in which all peoples shall coexist and enjoy equality, justice and internationally recognized human rights, and security.
7. We recognize the right of the refugees to return voluntarily to their homes and properties in dignity and safety, and urge all states to facilitate such return.
-------- activists
Angry Nevadans Pack Yucca Mountain Hearing
By Sunny Lewis
September 6, 2001
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/sep2001/2001L-09-06-01.html
LAS VEGAS, Nevada, Nevadans will not accept the nation's high-level nuclear waste being dumped at Yucca Mountain 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Hundreds of angry people showed up at a Department of Energy public hearing in Las Vegas last night to express their objections. Simultaneous hearings were held in Carson City, Elko and Reno.
Led by Governor Kenny Guinn and the entire Nevada Congressional delegation, who testified via satellite hookup from Washington, DC, speakers continued until well after midnight.
A few expressed support for the construction of the permanent nuclear waste repository, but the overwhelming majority of the crowd was hostile to the Department of Energy (DOE) proposal.
The DOE proposes to haul 77,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel rods and other high level radioactive waste from 70 storage sites in 46 states by road and rail to Yucca Mountain, the only site being considered for its permanent storage.
Nevada Governor Kenny Guinn, a Democrat, delivers a grim, determined challenge to the Bush administration. (Photos (c) Sunny Lewis unless otherwise credited)
Governor Guinn characterized the outpouring of opposition by the crowd in a positive light. "This is honest, constructive and impassioned public input on an issue that is paramount to the health and safety of every Nevadan, and every American whose home, school or place of business sits along the proposed paths that the deadliest substance on Earth, if DOE has its way, will be brought to Nevada."
The governor and the overflow crowd expressed anger that the hearing was called with only a few days notice and before an environmental impact statement has been filed. The scientific evidence is not complete, Guinn said, yet the DOE has called this meeting to gather public comment on that evidence "prematurely" and over our "reasonable and faithful objections." He pledged to complain about the process in letters to President George W. Bush and Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham.
"This fight transcends party affiliations, transcends socio-economic class, race or gender and galvanizes all Nevadans from every corner of the state in opposition," the governor said to a standing ovation. "We in Nevada will not stand for it."
Nevada Senator Harry Reid (Photo courtesy Office of the Senator)
Senator Harry Reid, a Democrat, called the hearing "unfair from the beginning." He criticized Abraham for failing to attend the Nevada hearings and charged the Bush administration with rushing Yucca Mountain through by limiting the public comment period to an additional 15 days instead of the 60 day extension requested by the Nevada Congressional delegation. Public comments on the possible recommendation of Yucca Mountain as the nation's nuclear dump are now due by October 5.
Reid called transportation of the nuclear waste the most difficult issue. "It's in everybody's backyard," he said. "The Department of Energy won't tell us what railways they're going to use, what highways they're going to use because they know they would have to have an environmental impact statement, which I don't think they can get approved." Reid said the waste should be left where it is and dealt with in those locations.
Senator John Ensign, a Republican, expressed outrage and said the hearing process "may be technically legal, it is certainly not the morally right way to handle these hearings."
Ensign pointed out that DOE scientists differ from "outside scientists" on the safety of the Yucca Mountain proposal, and criticized the agency for holding the hearings before an official investigation into a possible conflict of interest on the part of one of its contractors is concluded.
Warning that Yucca Mountain would cost $60 billion dollars, making it the "most expensive construction project in the history of the world," Ensign said the safest and cheapest way to handle the spent nuclear fuel would be to put it in dry cask storage on the sites where it is currently located.
Dry cask storage is "good for 100 years," Ensign said which would give scientists time to explore promising new nuclear waste "recycling" technologies that would reduce the volume of the waste and the length of time it would be radioactive.
Republican Congressman Jim Gibbons called the Yucca Mountain plan "a misguided policy," and said "disaster is a very real possibility."
Congresswoman Shelley Berkeley, a Democrat, said the DOE's scientific evaluation concerning the repository's ability to safely contain the waste was "incredibly optimistic," and conformed only to the "lowest possible standards." The government should begin the decommissioning of Yucca Mountain, she said, because "Nevadans don't want this project."
Western Shoshone native leader Corbin Harney told the hearing that his people had enjoyed the lands which include Yucca Mountain for hundreds of years until the federal government began atomic weapons testing on Shoshone lands. He accused the DOE of "telling lies after lies."
Western Shoshone leader Corbin Harney
"Yucca Mountain is not a safe place to put any kind of nuclear waste," Harney said. "It's not a mountain to begin with, like they've been telling us, it's rolling hill. That's a moving mountain," said Harney. "It's got a snake there, it's going to continually move."
"There are seven volcanic buttes there," Harney warned. "Underneath it is hot water that's causing a lot of frictions in that tunnel, and today they're telling you it's not dangerous. But how come, if it's not dangerous, many, many of my people have died from cancer caused by radiation."
The crowd relentlessly heckled Gary Sandquist, a professor of mechanical engineering from the University of Utah who has spent 40 years monitoring nuclear weapons testing.
During a tense few moments, moderator Barry Lawson, threatened to close the public hearing if the angry shouts did not stop, and some order was restored.
Sandquist tried to convince the hostile audience that in what he called "this energy crisis" Americans need electricity, and that because 20 percent of the nation's power is generated by nuclear power plants, "we must store the nuclear fuel somewhere." Yucca Mountain is the best place to store it, he maintained in the face of hisses and boos.
Part of the standing room only crowd
Speaker Bill Vasconi, co-chairman of the non-profit Nevada Nuclear Waste Study Committee, has worked for 17 years at the Nevada Nuclear Test Site. He said Nevada should accept as a fact that Yucca Mountain will be the nation's nuclear repository and begin extracting financial concessions from the federal government. He envisioned federal funding for nuclear energy research centers and other educational institutions.
The crowd reserved its loudest cheers for Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman who said he is "the happiest mayor in the world" and wants to stay that way without worrying that a truck on its way to Yucca Mountain is going to turn over in Las Vegas spilling radioactive waste.
Mayor Goodman described his inspection visit to Yucca Mountain in the company of two DOE officials. "After we viewed the site, I said to them, 'Can you tell me with any kind of certainty that this nuclear repository is safe?' He quoted one of the officials, Dr. Ritkin, as saying, "No one could ever say that with certainty."
Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Gooodman said he will personally arrest any driver of a nuclear waste truck in his city.
"Well if they can't tell us that we're safe, how dare they even consider bringing this crap here?" Goodman challenged. "If there is a spill, the driver doesn't have to worry because he's wearing a uniform, but the people around here within 42 square miles are having carcinogens put into the air that can give them cancer and kill them, and that's not going to take place as long as I'm the mayor of Las Vegas."
Additional hearings will be held on September 12 in Amargosa Valley, adjacent to Yucca Mountain, and on September 13 in Pahrump, Nevada.
The Preliminary Site Suitability Evaluation, released August 21, and the Yucca Mountain Science and Engineering Report, release May 7, are available on the Yucca Mountain Project website at: http://www.ymp.gov/
Public comments are being accepted on the Yucca Mountain Project website or by mail or fax to: Carol Hanlon, S&ER Products Manager, U.S. Department of Energy, Yucca Mountain Site Characterization Office, P.O. Box 30307 M/S 025, North Las Vegas, NV 89036-0707. Fax: 1-800-967-0739.
Further technical information about Yucca Mountain is available at the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board website at: http://www.nwtrb.gov/
----
EDITORIAL: Yucca hearings
Las Vegas Review Journal
Thursday, September 06, 2001
Las Vegas Review-Journal
http://www.lvrj.com/lvrj_home/2001/Sep-06-Thu-2001/opinion/16933193.html
Last night, the Department of Energy hosted a public hearing in North Las Vegas on the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository. Notably absent from this event was Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, who remained in Washington.
The secretary's office cited a scheduling conflict -- the state visit of Mexican President Vicente Fox -- as the reason Mr. Abraham did not attend the local meeting.
But Nevada Sen. Harry Reid was not amused. "There is no reason for him to be back here (in Washington)," Sen. Reid said. "His presence can be handled by some other official."
Sen. Reid is right.
By attending last night's hearing, Mr. Abraham could have witnessed first-hand Nevadans offering their legitimate concerns about the dangers that could result from placing the waste dump in the Silver State.
Instead, Mr. Abraham's absence tends to confirm the notion that the department has already made up its mind about Yucca Mountain and is holding the hearings -- which will be replicated Sept. 12 in Amargosa Valley and Sept. 13 in Pahrump-- merely for show.
In last fall's presidential race, George W. Bush carried Nevada in part because, as the governor of a Western state, he promised to lend a sympathetic ear to the desires and interests of the people who live far from the nation's capital. If Mr. Bush wishes to be true to his word, he might make sure Mr. Abraham has booked travel plans to be in Amargosa Valley next week.
---
NUCLEAR WASTE PLAN:
Angry Las Vegans blast DOE Political leaders, residents speak out against Yucca Mountain project
Thursday, September 06, 2001
Las Vegas Review-Journal
By KEITH ROGERS REVIEW-JOURNAL
http://www.lvrj.com/lvrj_home/2001/Sep-06-Thu-2001/news/16938209.html
In a hearing that was tense and packed with emotion, a long list of speakers led by Gov. Kenny Guinn and Nevada's congressional delegation on Wednesday night lambasted the Department of Energy's plans to bury the nation's most lethal nuclear waste in Yucca Mountain.
"This is honest, constructive and impassioned public input on an issue that is paramount to the health and safety of every Nevadan, and every American whose home, school or place of business sits along the proposed paths that the deadliest substance on Earth, if DOE has its way, will be brought to Nevada," Guinn said at the hearing in North Las Vegas.
"We in Nevada will not stand for it," Guinn told the crowd of more than 300 that filled the DOE's National Nuclear Security Administration's meeting room and spilled into the hallway.
Hundreds of other people in a nearby room watched the proceedings on television. Gatherings in Carson City, Reno and Elko viewed the hearing on closed-circuit television.
A total of 132 people signed up to speak at the hearing that began shortly after 6 p.m. Fewer than three dozen people had spoken by 11 p.m.
As Guinn spoke, anti-nuclear demonstrators inside the hearing room held signs that said, "What does an active volcano do?" and "Why screw the Indians again?"
Guinn welcomed the support.
"Unlike many of the policy battles that grip Washington, this fight transcends party affiliation, socioeconomic classes, race or gender and galvanizes Nevadans from every corner of this state in opposition," he said.
Two-thirds of those in the room gave the governor a standing ovation as he castigated the federal plan to haul 77,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste to the mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, where safety guidelines require that it must be contained for at least 10,000 years.
The plan to accomplish that feat, transporting the waste by trucks and trains for disposal in a maze of tunnels deep within the ridge, is predicated on lies, said Corbin Harney, a Western Shoshone who described the mountain as a snake that's constantly moving. "Underneath, hot water is going to cause a lot of friction in that tunnel," he said.
Shortly before the hearing began, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, who will review 20 years of scientific work this fall to decide if the site is suitable, sent letters to Nevada's members of Congress informing them that he would extend the period for written comments by 15 days, until Oct. 5.
Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev. was joined by Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., and Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., and Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., in testifying at the hearing via television from Washington, D.C.
Reid criticized the hearing process, saying people had to pass DOE checkpoints to reach the facility and some were told they wouldn't be allowed to speak until after midnight.
"What kind of a hearing is this?" he asked. "This is not a fair hearing. This has been unfair from the very beginning.
"I don't believe President Bush knows how the people of the state of Nevada have been treated," Reid said, noting that transporting spent nuclear fuel to Nevada from reactor sites across the country will touch nearly every corner of the nation.
"Forty-six states will have this poisonous substance passing by their schools, businesses and bedrooms," Reid said.
Ensign urged the Energy Department to keep the waste at reactor sites while scientists continue to pursue less dangerous solutions.
"We have to look at new technology for recycling this waste," Ensign said, calling the estimated $60 billion Yucca Mountain geologic disposal effort "the most expensive construction project in the history of this world."
Gibbons said it is "the single most controversial project in Nevada's history, past and present."
He said extending the comment period by 15 days was not adequate. "We should have been given a 60-day extension at least," he said.
"The bottom line is, whether it's five years, 50 years or 40,000 years, disaster is a real possibility in this project," Gibbons said.
Berkley said the federal government should accept that the Yucca Mountain Project is fundamentally flawed.
"As a country, we must stop trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. Instead of trying to change the rules and dance around the law, we should immediately begin the decommissioning of the Yucca Mountain Project," she said.
Not all speakers were opposed to the project.
Bill Vasconi, co-chairman of the nonprofit Nevada Nuclear Waste Study Committee, said Yucca Mountain "is a viable solution to the nation's nuclear waste concerns."
"I don't think the location can be better," he said in an interview prior to the speech that was interrupted by hecklers.
He said Nevada's politicians, instead of opposing the planned repository, should explore financial concessions that could be extracted from the federal government. For instance, he said the project could benefit the state's educational system.
"There's opportunity for a railroad system and infrastructure that would alleviate nuclear waste coming through the greater Las Vegas area," he said.
His stance was mirrored by Gary Sandquist, an engineering professor at the University of Utah, and State Sen. Bill O'Donnell, R-Las Vegas.
Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, however, said he would personally arrest anyone who drives a truck with a cargo of high-level nuclear waste through the city.
"If they can't tell us we're safe, how dare they tell us they're bringing this crap here," Goodman said. "Let's see the driver try to get out of jail in my city."
John Wells, speaking for the Western Shoshone National Council, said the federal government has shown it cannot be trusted to fairly evaluate the suitability of Yucca Mountain.
"We believe that the DOE does not want to know the truth," Wells said. "For the DOE, their truth is from an origin in a culture of secrecy."
Pam Holden, of Las Vegas, brought her three daughters to the hearing "to make them aware of the environment and their community. I want them to understand this is something they're going to have to address in their lives," she said, with daughters, Kevyn, 11, Kylee, 9, and Taylor, 4, at her side.
"They should not put that in Yucca Mountain because it can make people have cancer and die," Kylee Holden said.
---
Rally's turnout low, but emotions run high
Thursday, September 06, 2001
Las Vegas Review-Journal
By JOE WESSELS REVIEW-JOURNAL
http://www.lvrj.com/lvrj_home/2001/Sep-06-Thu-2001/news/16937516.html
A wide assortment of politicians and protesters massed Wednesday in North Las Vegas to send the message that Nevada doesn't want a nuclear waste repository.
But few spoke as clearly and forcefully as the blond-haired boy toting a sign that read, "Don't gamble with my future."
"All the people who want to dump at Yucca Mountain are idiots," 10-year-old Orrin Medlin said. "Well, I hope it gets stopped. If it doesn't, I'm going to get really mad."
The groups that organized the rally acknowledged disappointment with the number of people who attended it.
About 60 empty parking spaces had been set aside for protesters outside the Department of Energy building.
As activists distributed pamphlets at one end of the parking lot, classic rock cover band Rock Steady entertained a crowd of about 100 at the other end of the lot.
In between, there was nothing but empty space and a few stragglers.
"We had two days' notice and the wrong address," Nevada Nuclear Waste Task Force Executive Director Judy Treichel said in reference to a Federal Register entry in which the Energy Department listed a nonexistent address as the site of the meeting.
Wenonah Hauter of Public Citizen, a Washington, D.C., anti-nuclear group, said opponents of the proposed nuclear waste repository could have mustered a far better turnout had the Energy Department not scheduled the hearing on such short notice.
The Energy Department on Aug. 21 released a preliminary site suitability report on Yucca Mountain. And the public hearing was switched to the department's North Las Vegas office after Suncoast officials decided last week that they could not accommodate the expected crowds.
"It's Labor Day weekend. People were on vacation. We should've had three months' notice for a meeting like this," Hauter said.
Despite the low attendance, organizers said they were otherwise pleased with the two-hour event.
"I think it was a great success," said Kalynda Tilges of Citizen Alert. "Success is going to be when the Department of Energy does the right thing."
Leaders from various organizations represented at the rally took to the stage between rock tunes to share their thoughts, occasionally yielding to one of the politicians present for the meeting.
Some in the crowd carried large signs, while other just listened quietly.
Brett Buerger and Gregor Gable, dressed as a judge and kangaroo, respectively, likened the federal government's treatment of the Yucca Mountain project to a kangaroo court.
Roger McGarvie, Rock Steady's lead guitar player and keyboardist, said he fears the repository will prove far more dangerous than the federal government allows.
"As a native Las Vegan, I'm completely against it. I don't think it's stable ground," he said. "The (Nevada) Test Site has already ruined enough land."
Former U.S. Sen. Richard Bryan made an appearance to a mostly welcoming crowd. He said the repository will be defeated only if Nevada residents unite in opposition.
"What the public is doing is the right thing," Bryan said shortly before addressing the crowd. "Nevada's best thing going is the public."
During his speech, one protester heckled Bryan. "You sold us at 87 percent," shouted Christopher Hanson of the Independent American political party.
Hanson said he was referring to the amount of Nevada land now controlled by the federal government. He and his son held signs reading, "Nevada is not an Indian reservation" and "Nevada knows best for Nevada."
Hanson said his political party vehemently opposes the proposed nuclear waste dump. He said state officials should use any available legal means to challenge the federal government's proposed use of the land.
"They're stealing our rights," he said.
Atop a small hill nearby, all six telephone lines stayed busy as KXNT radio aired its afternoon talk show.
Host Alan Stock said most callers were not as concerned about nuclear waste being stored at Yucca Mountain as they were about the prospect of the waste being transported through the state on its way to the proposed facility about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
"People are passionate about this," Stock said during a commercial break.
---
Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste repository
Locals rip DOE hearing
Pro-nuke speakers get first shot; more than 100 leave without speaking
By Mary Manning <manning@lasvegassun.com> and Jace Radke <jace@lasvegassun.com> LAS VEGAS SUN
Sept. 6, 2001
http://www.lasvegassun.com/dossier/nuke/
Saunnie Michael waited patiently. Wednesday ended and today began. She waited some more.
Michael, scheduled as the 69th person to speak during a public hearing to address a proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, listened as a Utah man, a university professor, explained his support for the repository.
The public comment of the hearing, held at the Department of Energy's Nevada Operations Office in North Las Vegas, began at 6 p.m. Five hours later just 36 people -- many of whom were elected officials -- had used their allotted five minutes to opine on the controversial project.
Of the first nine residents on DOE's list, six supported the Yucca project. Their testimony continued until 9:30 p.m.
The hearing attracted more than 500 residents, who by 4 p.m. had begun gathering at the DOE facility at 232 Energy Way. By 10 p.m. more than 100 had become impatient and left the meeting.
That was the DOE's plan, said Nuclear Waste Task Force Director Judy Treichel.
"We're not that dumb," she said. "We know these people (proponents of the dump) were brought in. This is insane. This is not the way to conduct a public hearing."
DOE spokesman Allen Benson said 36 individuals or groups had reserved a spot prior to the hearing. "It is on a first-come, first-served basis," he said.
Nathan Naylor, spokesman for Nevada Sen. Harry Reid, said the DOE apparently "stacked the deck" in favor of Yucca supporters.
"The whole thing was stacked up and down against getting a fair summary of public opinion," Naylor said. "We're going to watch the people who are running these things. This should not happen next time."
Public hearings are also scheduled Sept. 12 in Amargosa Valley and Sept. 13 in Pahrump.
The pace of the meeting, which continued for 8 1/2 hours, was slowed even further as people attending similar hearings being held simultaneously in Carson City, Reno and Elko, were given an opportunity to speak.
Gary Sandquist, the Utah professor and the second speaker of the night, said he had been asked to attend the meeting by the Nuclear Energy Institute, which has hired former Gov. Robert List to represent businesses and labor unions in Nevada on behalf of the nuclear industry.
Michael didn't allow Sandquist to finish, however. The 38-year-old Las Vegas resident and dealer at the Mirage interrupted the speaker several times. She was not alone, as others joined in to chide the professor.
"It just infuriates me that you have all these people here to speak and some guy from Utah goes first," Michael said. "I have to go to work and didn't have time to wait. I'm just so angry, and from now on I'm going to tell people that sit down at my table at work about Yucca Mountain, and the poison that's going to be rolling through their towns."
Michael did get her chance to speak -- at 12:30 a.m.
The suggestion that the DOE is ignoring public safety concerns was a consistent theme Wednesday night and this morning.
"'Sound science' is the Washington political establishment's favorite buzz word," Las Vegas resident Andy Harris said. "It is used for one thing: to screw Nevada."
"You've had 14 years to prepare for these hearings, and this is the best you can do?" Abby Johnson, nuclear waste coordinator for Eureka County in northeastern Nevada, asked.
"You bungled these hearings, and you want us to believe you can handle nuclear waste safely?" Johnson said.
Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, who also spoke Wednesday night, threatened to arrest anyone who attempts to haul nuclear waste through the city of Las Vegas.
"The most dangerous thing you can give to an old criminal defense lawyer is a badge," Goodman said. "Don't dare me because I'll be out there to make the arrest myself, and let's see that truck driver try to get out of jail in my city."
Gov. Kenny Guinn, the first speaker Wednesday, criticized the DOE's premise as it relates to the hearing process. He said the process is unfair because an environmental impact study on the Yucca project has yet to be completed. What's more, he said the timing of 370-page Preliminary Site Suitability Evaluation, released Aug. 21, interfered with the public's ability to comment.
Guinn vowed to take the fight to President Bush and Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, who is expected to decide later this year whether to recommend Yucca Mountain as a repository for 77,000 tons of the nation's waste.
Abraham, citing scheduling conflicts, did not attend Wednesday's meeting.
"Public comment in the absence of this all-important evidence is premature and grossly irresponsible," Guinn said. "We demand fairness, and we demand accountability in this process. We will not sit idly by and let the Department of Energy run roughshod over our citizens with empty promises and bad science."
The DOE did agree to extend the public comment period 15 days to Oct. 5, but Guinn, Reid and Clark County Commission Chair Dario Herrera said they will petition Bush for a 60-day extension.
Wednesday's hearing was originally scheduled at the Suncoast, but hotel officials, citing security concerns, canceled the meeting.
DOE Undersecretary Robert G. Card, the highest ranking federal official to attend Wednesday's meeting, said the DOE site was adequate.
"We would have preferred not to have it here," Card said of the North Las Vegas complex, which is surrounded by a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. "We've had many interesting difficulties with this meeting. Let's just leave it at that."
The state's elected officials, not to mention its residents, would rather not.
Craig Walton, a University of Nevada, Las Vegas ethics professor, said the meeting was poorly managed. The DOE made it difficult for the public to express its concerns, he said.
"The horrible thing is, it's like going to the sideshow in the circus," he said. "You know you're going to see a lot of creepy things."
Western Shoshone and Paiute tribal leaders, also in attendance, complained that they were not considered as representing sovereign nations.
"Our unfortunate experience as downwind victims informs our policy against the proposed high level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain no matter how much has been spent," Western Shoshone National Council spokesman John Wells said.
Reid, Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., and Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., commented from Washington via a video link.
The Nevada delegation expressed their disappointment over Abraham's absence.
"I don't think President Bush knows how the people in Nevada are being treated in this process, but this delegation will be informing him," Reid said.
Reid also criticized the DOE for not publicizing the routes to be taken by trains and trucks transporting the waste. "They won't tell us which railways and highways this poison will be transported on because it will be going by houses and schools. They have to have an environmental impact study for that, and I don't think they can do it."
About 40 people, including Guinn's wife Dema, Sen. Mark Amodei, R-Carson City, and former Sen. Ernie Adler, a Carson City Democrat, attended the meeting in the capital. Only four people registered to speak.
About a dozen people attended the Reno hearing, including Nevada Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa. Five people signed up to speak on the Yucca project.
---
Reid asks Bush to make DOE chief attend Yucca Mountain hearings
September 06, 2001 at 19:10:46 PDT
LAS VEGAS SUN
http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/nevada/2001/sep/06/090610500.html
LAS VEGAS (AP) - U.S. Sen. Harry Reid asked Thursday for President Bush to order Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham to attend next week's hearings on a proposal to bury nuclear waste in Nevada, 90 miles northwest of the Las Vegas Strip.
"My overall concern is that they aren't even trying to be fair," said Reid, a Democrat who has led the Nevada congressional delegation's opposition to the Energy Department proposal to build the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository.
Reid was the only one to sign the letter, which White House spokesman Ken Lisaius said late Thursday had not been received. Energy Department spokeswoman Jeanne Lopatto said Abraham also had not seen the letter.
Reid complained about a Wednesday night public hearing that drew about 500 people and stretched into early Thursday morning at the Energy Department's office in North Las Vegas.
Robert G. Card, an Energy Department undersecretary, attended the eight-plus hour hearing, along with Las Vegas-based DOE project managers. He had no comment on the proceedings.
The hearing was the first of three the Energy Department is holding before forwarding final environmental studies - and collected testimony - for Abraham's recommendation to Bush about whether the project should be built.
Other hearings are scheduled Wednesday in Amargosa Valley, the farming community nearest Yucca Mountain, and Thursday in Pahrump, a Nye County community west of the site.
Yucca Mountain - a volcanic ridge at the western edge of the Nevada Test Site - is the only site in the nation under study for entombment of 77,000 tons of radioactive commercial, industrial and military waste.
"Unfortunately, Secretary Abraham was not present to witness the heartfelt testimony of those who overcame significant logistical obstacles (to attend)," Reid said in the letter.
Reid referred to a "gauntlet of fences and guards just to get into the hearing," at the patrolled and gated DOE office.
Most in the partisan crowd said they opposed the project. In some cases, supporters of the project were nearly shouted down.
--
Editorial: Abraham's no-show is par for the course
Sept. 6, 2001
LAS VEGAS SUN
http://www.lasvegassun.com/opinion/
It was a bad move by Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham to miss Wednesday's public comment hearing in North Las Vegas on the Yucca Mountain Project. Abraham knew he would get an earful from Nevada residents if he attended, but isn't that what a representative democracy is all about? His absence reconfirms the public perception -- and reality -- that the U.S. Department of Energy couldn't care less about the concerns of Nevadans, and that it also will ignore sound scientific evidence that shows how dangerous it is to bury 77,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
Abraham claimed that he needed to be in Washington for Mexican President Vicente Fox's visit. Apparently President Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell just couldn't handle this on their own, and needed Abraham for his diplomatic skills. Then again, that can't be the reason, because if Abraham truly understood the art of diplomacy, he would have been here in Southern Nevada listening to the concerns of Nevadans, instead of hiding out thousands of miles away.
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PRESERVE THE NUCLEAR TEST MORATORIUM
Legislative Action Message (9/6/01)
From: fcnl-news@fcnl.org [mailto:fcnl-news@fcnl.org]
Thursday, September 06, 2001 3:15 PM
FCNL LEGISLATIVE ACTION MESSAGE - September 6, 2001
The following action items from the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL) focus on federal policy issues currently before Congress or the Administration.
PRESERVE THE NUCLEAR TEST MORATORIUM: Certain unnamed officials in the Bush administration are proposing to trade the nuclear testing moratorium for Chinese support of U.S. missile defense plans. In a front page story in the Washington Post (Sunday, September 2), an "administration official said that as a sweetener for China, the United States will signal that it recognizes both sides might want to resume nuclear weapons testing in the future." On the same day, the New York Times carried a similar, front-page story: "One senior official said that in the future, the United States and China might also discuss resuming underground nuclear tests if they are needed to assure the safety and reliability of their arsenals."
The suggestion by an administration official that the U.S. and China might agree to resume nuclear testing is extremely troubling. It is an idea that should be challenged immediately and laid to rest permanently.
The current moratorium on nuclear weapons testing is a logical, reasonable, and sane step toward reducing the nuclear danger-a step toward ending all nuclear test explosions and the development of new nuclear weapons. Conversely, if the U.S. and China resume nuclear testing, it will mark the beginning of the next nuclear arms race. Pakistan and India will not wait long to resume testing and to produce more nuclear weapons. Inevitably, Russia will respond in kind. The nuclear danger will increase dramatically. Is this the legacy we want to leave for our grandchildren?
ACTION: (1) Please write both your senators. Urge them to support the current nuclear testing moratorium. Bush administration officials will be testifying before Congress this fall in confirmation hearings and in budget hearings. Senators will have an opportunity to question officials about their intentions concerning nuclear testing. Strong, bipartisan opposition by senators to the resumption of testing will have an impact on the Bush administration's policy.
You can use FCNL's web site to make letter-writing easier. Start with a sample letter, personalize the language, then send your message as an email directly from our site or print it out and mail it. To view a sample letter, click on the link below, then enter your zip code and click <Go> in the <Take Action Now> box. Here is the link: <http://capwiz.com/fconl/issues/alert/?alertid=49359&type=CO&azip =>
(2) If possible, also alert your community to this important issue by writing a letter to the editor of your local paper. Urge your neighbors to consider the implications of ending the current nuclear testing moratorium.
You can use FCNL's web site to make letter-writing easier. Start with a sample letter, personalize the language, then send your message as an email directly from our site or print it out and mail it. To view a sample letter-to-the-editor, click on the link below, then enter your zip code. Select the media organization(s) to which you would like to send your letter, then selected the message <Preserve the nuclear testing moratorium>. Here is the link: <http://capwiz.com/fconl/dbq/media>.
BACKGROUND: The Washington Post and New York Times stories provoked a strong reaction in official circles in Washington, between both conservatives and liberals. The White House was forced to backtrack. They issued a statement last evening (Tuesday, September 4) that the Bush administration will not "acquiesce in any resumption of nuclear testing by China. We are respecting the nuclear testing moratorium and all other nations should as well."
While proponents of nuclear testing in the administration may have been slowed in the short-term, they will continue to push for an end to the current nuclear testing moratorium. The U.S. has not tested a nuclear weapon since 1992. All countries that possess nuclear weapons (Russia, China, United Kingdom, France, India and Pakistan) have informally pledged to honor the testing moratorium.
These unnamed officials are sending signals that the U.S. will not object to the resumption of testing by China. Nuclear testing by China would then be used as a rationale for the resumption of U.S. testing. Proponents of building U.S. missile defenses would also use it as a further excuse for deploying a system to counter a Chinese nuclear buildup.
The issue of nuclear testing will likely come up again this fall as the administration decides whether to develop a new nuclear weapon, or "mini-nuke." Development of such a weapon would require resuming underground testing. The administration is preparing a report to Congress on "mini-nukes" that will be completed in November.
CONTACTING LEGISLATORS
Capitol Switchboard: 202-224-3121
Sen. ________ U.S. Senate Washington, DC 20510
Rep. ________ U.S. House of Representatives Washington, DC 20515
Information on your members is available on FCNL's web site: http://capwiz.com/fconl/dbq/officials/directory/directory.dbq?com mand=congdi
CONTACTING THE ADMINISTRATION
White House Comment Desk: 202-456-1111 FAX: 202-456-2461 E-MAIL: president@whitehouse.gov WEB PAGE: http://www.whitehouse.gov
President George W. Bush The White House Washington, DC 20500
----
[This is an important bit of news, when you consider the reputation of this facet of anti-globalization.]
--
Ruckus Society Call for End to Violence
September 12, 2001
CONTACT: Nisha Anand, 510-772-3107
Han Shan, 510-772-3166
RUCKUS SOCIETY CANCELS ACTION CAMP CONDEMNS TERRORIST ATTACKS; CALLS FOR END TO VIOLENCE
"I believe violence will only increase the cycle of violence" -His Holiness the Dalai Lama, September 12, 2001
WASHINGTON DC -- Like people everywhere, we are shocked and appalled by the horrific acts of terrorism that occurred on September 11. We unequivocally condemn these abominable attacks. Out of respect for the victims of this tragedy, their families, and this country, we are canceling the Global Justice Action Camp.
The camp was scheduled for this weekend in Middleburg, Virginia in preparation for nonviolent demonstrations at the Annual Meetings of the World Bank and IMF in Washington D.C. The camp was to be co-sponsored by the Institute for Policy Studies, Jobs with Justice, and Global Exchange. All of these organizations believe that now is not the time to proceed with our camp.
We are calling on the political and military leadership of the United States and its allies to seek justice rather than revenge, and in doing so, break the horrible cycle of violence and suffering. During these difficult times, we call for tolerance and for people in the U.S. and around the world to stand firm against the persecution of innocent Arab and Muslim peoples.
We vow to redouble our collective efforts towards social, racial, economic, and environmental justice, civil liberties for all, and nonviolent conflict resolution. Our hearts and thoughts are with the victims and their families. We join people around the world in praying for peace.
For any questions regarding the Global Justice Action Camp, please email justice@ruckus.org or call (510) 595-3442.
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youngrebels.com
I thought you might be interested in a website called youngrebels.com.
From: "Tom McCann" <mccann10@bwn.net>
Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2001 19:54:33 -0600
Example of content:
"There are many of us who are determined to live a life of peace. We're not supposed to recognize each other. We're not supposed to hear about each other. We're not supposed to think for ourselves. It's simply not in the best interests of the dominators. But we are here. There are infant minds of all types in every direction desiring a peaceful existence in order to explore our minds, our lives and the universe we find ourselves in.
For the first time in human history, our technology allows us to witness the condition of life on Earth. We can choose to proceed along a destructive path, or we can reach out to each other and exist in peace. There's no reason why we should be anything other than a community of friends. It is our choice to make."
www.youngrebels.com
Please forward this e-mail to anyone interested in a peaceful future.
Thank you From: "Tom McCann" <mccann10@bwn.net>
------- OneList (submissions from subscribers)
------- Depleted Uranium Keeps On Killing!