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Politics : Clinton -- doomed & wagging, Japan collapses, Y2K bug, etc -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JJMM who wrote (314)	9/16/1998 9:33:00 AM
From: SOROS	Respond to of 1151

YES. Time / Pathfinder - 20 Nov 96 Just as businesses and federal agencies are feverishly rewriting billions of lines of code to ensure that their computers' two digit calendars don't treat "2000" like "1900," scientists are pointing to a new looming millennial crisis: Cycle 23. A panel of government researchers said Monday that the year 2000 falls on the cusp of an 11-year cycle of solar weather, and that humankind had better be prepared. Solar weather is the pattern of turbulence on the sun's surface that sends electromagnetic pulses and bursts of charged particles toward the Earth. The effects are not felt by humans, but by systems dependent on electronics--especially computers. Cycle 23 will be the worst yet, says Ernie Hildner, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Environment Center in Boulder, Colorado. "With each new solar cycle that comes along, new industries have crossed the threshold of vulnerability to space weather, and they don't even know it until something happens to them," said Hildner. As technology gets increasingly sophisticated it also becomes more vulnerable, and sudden surges from the sun can damage the electronics of computer networks, satellite cell-phone systems, even disrupting oil drilling directed by the earth's magnetic field. Indeed, any remote or wired system, even pipelines and other arrays of massive metal, can be affected by interference and induced current.

To: JJMM who wrote (314)	9/16/1998 9:35:00 AM
From: SOROS	Respond to of 1151

SEPTEMBER 16, 02:42 EDT CIA Losing Its Best Operatives By JOHN DIAMOND Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - The CIA is pumping money and people into recruiting efforts to battle a trend that the agency's departing inspector general says has sapped the clandestine service of its most experienced hands. Agency officials outlined Tuesday initiatives that CIA Director George Tenet announced internally last month to increase pay, provide hiring bonuses and shorten the waiting time for job offers. ''There are plenty of headhunters out there ready to pounce on strong candidates,'' Tenet told agency employees in his announcement. ''To delay is to lose.'' The program is intended to combat a problem outlined in an op-ed article by outgoing CIA Inspector General Fred Hitz who said the CIA's Directorate of Operations, the clandestine spy service, is losing its best people amid organizational drift and declining morale. ''The picture is not encouraging,'' said Hitz, the CIA's chief watchdog from 1990 until this year. Writing in an op-ed article in The Washington Post, Hitz said the Directorate of Operations ''has been shrinking in size and capability since the end of the Cold War.'' A recent study showed departures from the agency due to attrition ''involved high-quality officers the agency could not afford to lose,'' Hitz wrote. The number of CIA employees is classified, but the Federation of American Scientists, a Washington-based group that follows intelligence matters, estimates it has shrunk from more than 20,000 to about 16,000 since the Cold War. The clandestine service is estimated at several thousand. Agency and congressional officials said the critique may be outdated as the CIA pumps new money and energy into recruiting. But one knowledgeable congressional staffer said the problem got so bad that an entire incoming class of operatives - perhaps a few dozen recruits - had to be canceled for lack of money. Hitz pointed to the difficulty of recruiting in a booming economy and to low morale as a result of ''the lack of a clear mission'' at CIA. ''Nobody worth his or her salt is going to join an organization that has lost faith in itself, is confused about its mission and is trapped in the sclerosis of a middle-aged bureaucracy,'' he said. Rep. Porter Goss, R-Fla., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and a former CIA clandestine operative, said an instinct to blame the CIA every time a risky intelligence venture fails is taking its toll. ''With so many unyielding critics, the CIA has become gun-shy,'' Goss said. Sen. Bob Kerrey, D-Neb., vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Hitz has been a leading critic of the clandestine service and may himself be partly to blame for low morale. Still, Kerrey agreed recruitment is a serious agency problem. Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., the committee chairman, said the CIA must focus more clearly on defining its mission and outlining how it will use field operatives to combat terrorism, weapons proliferation and drug trafficking. In recent months, the House and Senate Intelligence Committees have pushed for more money for the CIA's so-called human intelligence efforts, including its field operatives.

To: JJMM who wrote (314)	9/16/1998 9:37:00 AM
From: SOROS	Read Replies (11) \| Respond to of 1151

.S.: Russia capable of chemical war WASHINGTON - U.S. intelligence warned lawmakers that Russia may be skirting its commitment to eliminate its chemical and biological weapons arsenal and doing little to prevent the export of weapons technology. The CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency told lawmakers in newly released written responses to questions that the basic building blocks of the former Soviet Union's chemical and biological weapons capability are being maintained by Moscow. In addition, the intelligence agencies said certain elements of the Russian government may be seeking to circumvent arms control agreements that limit development of new chemical and biological weapons. "Key components of the former Soviet biological warfare program remain largely intact and may support a possible future mobilization capability for the production of biological agents and delivery systems," the DIA reported in its written responses to questions posed by the Senate Intelligence Committee. "Moreover, work outside the scope of legitimate biological defense activity may be occurring now at selected facilities within Russia." If that activity is geared toward developing offensive biological weapons, the DIA said, Russia would be violating the 1972 Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention. The CIA cited evidence from Russian "whistleblowers" who have "alleged that Moscow is hiding a program designed to ensure a continuing offensive chemical weapons capability despite arms control commitments," including the Chemical Weapons Convention, which took effect in 1995. Some of these allegations have long been publicly aired, but the CIA cited other unspecified evidence corroborating the charges. "These allegations, when combined with other information, give rise to concerns that at least some factions within the Russian government desire to circumvent the Chemical Weapons Convention," the CIA concluded. The CIA said some biological weapons facilities have been deactivated in recent years but that other facilities remain able to produce biological weapons. "We cannot establish that Russia has given up this capability and remain concerned that some of the individuals involved in the old Soviet program may be trying to protect elements of it," the CIA said. Both the chemical and biological treaties require signatory countries to eliminate biological and chemical weapons stockpiles and production capabilities. The export of biological or chemical weapons technology is also forbidden by the pacts. The limits on biological capability leave some wiggle room, according to Spurgeon Keeny, director of the Arms Control Association, an arms control advocacy group based in Washington. The treaty allows research and development of vaccines used in protecting people from biological weapons attacks, and some of these treatments involve diluted versions of the same lethal substances banned by the treaty. As a result, Keeny said, it can be difficult to be sure that a vaccine production lab is not being used for weapons development. "There has been considerable suspicion over the years that their biological program, which was a separate activity, was moving slowly to be brought in compliance," Keeny said. For both the chemical and biological programs, a major problem facing cash-strapped Russia is the high cost - in the tens of billions of dollars - of dismantling huge weapons stockpiles. "The Russians don't have a ghost of an idea where they're going to get the money to do all this," Keeny said. The CIA also reported that private or quasi-governmental organizations in Russia are assisting other countries in weapons development with little oversight by law enforcement agencies seeking to prevent illegal arms technology exports. "The financial position of defense industries in the countries of the former Soviet Union continues to be shaky, prompting many entities to seek foreign contracts to keep operating," according to the CIA. "Government oversight of the activity of these firms appears to be spotty." Law enforcement "remains a major problem, given high levels of corruption, limited expertise and resource shortages." In addition, the CIA said, "Increasingly, scientists from the former Soviet Union appear to be providing their expertise and know-how to solving weapons development problems for foreign countries." By The Associated Press

To: JJMM who wrote (314)	9/17/1998 9:10:00 PM
From: SOROS	Respond to of 1151

HUMOROUS: BEIJING (Reuters) - ''Is Lewinsky with the KGB?'' screams a headline in a popular Chinese magazine. As the White House sex scandal unfolds, the racier publications on Beijing newsstands are having a field day with the story, even as staid newspapers such as the People's Daily report the simple facts without the tawdry details. Packed with gossip on President Clinton's plight, the latest issue of Guandong Writer magazine would make Western tabloid editors green with envy. The cover story is entitled ''Clinton's Sex Scandal: White House or Palace of Lust?'' Its most sensational allegation: Former White House intern Monica Lewinsky was sent to Washington, when she was a child in the 1970s, as a Cold War agent on a mission to sexually ensnare the president and destabilize U.S. politics. ''Information has exposed Monica Lewinsky as a spy assigned by the former Soviet Union. Her mission was to drag a U.S. president through the mud!'' the article said. The story was attributed to a retired KGB official who now runs a karaoke bar in Moscow. Beijing is buzzing with the story, which is taken as fact by many residents. ''Isn't Lewinsky a Russian spy?'' said 38-year-old Xu Tieliang, as he dug into his pockets for cash to buy cigarettes at a street market. ''I read it in one of the little papers. Maybe the American newspapers are scared to print it,'' he said. Clinton is a familiar and well liked figure in China, where he appeared uncensored on national television during a groundbreaking visit in June. Officially, China is silent on the sex scandal. ''We don't comment on that,'' said a foreign ministry official Tuesday in response to a reporter's question. State media largely ignored the story until U.S. independent counsel Ken Starr issued his report alleging potential grounds for Clinton's impeachment. Even then, stories in the Communist Party mouthpiece, the People's Daily -- a benchmark of political correctness in China -- have been terse and buried on the inside pages. Lurid details of oral sex have been ignored. The popular media, including tabloids and city broadsheets, tested the limits of official tolerance by initially running news briefs. Sensing the coast was clear, they abandoned caution, and now Clinton's follies are grist for radio talk-shows and full-page newspaper spreads. The subject matter has ranged from salacious gossip to poignant political commentary. The Yangcheng Evening News, a southern daily, Tuesday splashed fuzzy pictures apparently skimmed from the Internet portraying Clinton with a ''mystery woman'' it dubbed ''the second Monica Lewinsky.'' Other papers have taken a crack at putting the scandal in context for Chinese readers, while poking fun at U.S. hysteria. ''Sometimes you simply don't know whether to laugh or cry over Western democracy. In what is supposedly the 'sexually liberated' West, people are really making a mountain out of a molehill,'' said the Guandong Writer. A commentary in China Women's News entitled ''Poor Fellow'' starts out by moralizing about Clinton's excesses, but ends up praising the United States for having ''stricter supervision than any country on earth'' over its government. If a president could be skewered for something as slight as a character problem, the commentary said ''what official over there would ever dare to engage in corruption.'' In a wry jab at Chinese politics, the author suggested that Clinton could avoid public scrutiny if he were a Chinese official instead of an American one. ''It wouldn't hurt for you to give up the presidency and become head of a Chinese township or village. Maybe then you won't be sullied for a little 'morality problem,''' it said.

To: JJMM who wrote (314)	9/17/1998 9:13:00 PM
From: SOROS	Respond to of 1151

ALTER-EGO IS A GLOBALIST: Soros issues warning calls for U.S. aid in global crisis By Kimberly Seals McDonald/New York Post Billionaire investor George Soros headed to Capitol Hill yesterday to drum up support for the IMF's depleted coffers amid signs that the global economic crisis continues to take its toll. Yesterday, BankAmerica, the nation's fifth-largest bank, disclosed yet another round of losses related to the turbulence in global markets. Its third-quarter trading losses have ballooned to a total of about $330 million from a projected $220 million in August. BankAmerica said the losses won't cause a material hit to earnings, and still expects to report an after-tax profit. Still, BankAmerica is just the latest in a round of casualties from the rout in global markets and economies. In testimony before the House Banking Committee, Soros - whose own firm has admitted losing $2 billion from the turmoil - said the IMF programs in East Asia and Russia clearly did not work, and called for the creation of more international institutions to aid in rehabilitation efforts. So far our stock market has escaped relatively unscathed and our economy has actually benefited from the global crisis, Soros said. But make no mistake: Unless Congress is willing to support the IMF, the disintegration of the global capitalist system will hurt our financial markets and our economy as well because we are at the center of that system. One sector of the market where the problems have already been particularly intense is the bank and brokerage stocks. Over the past few weeks, a flurry of banks and brokerage firms warned that third-quarter profits would be trimmed because of turmoil in emerging markets like Russia and tough trading conditions. Although most of the companies have already made announcements, that does not mean that the negative impacts are over. The problems continue, said Diane Glossman, banking analyst at Lehman Brothers. Shares of financial services stocks have been hammered, dropping some 50 percent off their highs. But the fundamentals are stronger than the stock prices suggest. The turmoil impacts only a handful of banks directly, Glossman said. Last month, Soros' own Quantum fund admitted it lost $2 billion so far this year because of bad bets on Russian equities and currency. But the list of losers ballooned daily, as more banks, multinational consumer products companies, hedge funds, and mutual funds joined the parade. BankBoston said it lost $30 million so far this quarter in international and domestic trading, including $10 million related to Russia. Credit Suisse Group said its investment banking arm lost between $245 million and $500 million. Deutsche Bank, Europe's second-largest, disclosed it has uninsured credit risk of $750 million and that it increased provisions by $103 million for Russian losses. With the tally of casualties still growing, Soros said the IMF is still essential and echoed calls by President Clinton, who's seeking $17.9 billion to restore the IMF's depleted capital. Congress bears an awesome responsibility for keeping the IMF alive, Soros said. I am convinced that the attitude of the Congress was already an important element in the failure to deal with Russia. Investors yesterday focussed on growing hopes for a rate cut, sending stocks higher for a third day. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 79.04 to 8024.39, giving it a three-day lift of 5.4 percent. The S&P 500 gained 7.96 to 1,037.68 and the Nasdaq Composite closed 12.42 higher at 1,678.11.