Editorials
Wednesday, September 23, 1998

Converting Russian
nukes into plowshares

RUSSIA's financial collapse has not paralyzed all Western investment in that country along its bumpy road to economic reform. Moscow and Washington have announced a partnership in redeploying highly skilled workers from Rus-sia's deteriorating nuclear arsenal to civilian endeavors. The agreement should provide needed assistance to Russia while calming Western nerves about the future of its nuclear arsenal and caretakers.

Arms reduction treaties have done much to lessen the risk of a Russian convulsion. Also, Russia's nuclear arsenal has been decaying at a dramatic rate, as the country can ill afford the high cost of maintenance.

A greater threat has been that economic hardship would prompt Russian nuclear weapons scientists to accept lucrative offers from rogue countries such as Iran and North Korea.

At the core of Russia's nuclear weapons complex are 10 cities, mostly in the Ural Mountains and Siberia, that have continued to be secret since the Soviet period. U.S. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson and Russian atomic energy minister Yevgeny Adamov signed an accord that includes $30 million of U.S. funding next year to bring high-technology jobs and businesses to those cities. U.S. officials expect Russian and Western corporate investors will spend triple that amount on the effort.

Twenty-two pilot projects already under way include development of a device for food sterilization and techniques for dismantling and decontaminating mothballed nuclear reactors.

The agreement is a timely signal to Russia that the West is not about to abandon it during its most severe financial crisis since the fall of communism. Indeed, involvement such as that involved in this nuclear-weapons-into-plowshares pact may be preferable to the Western loans that have been eaten up by Russian corruption and organized crime.

Police recruiters

THE spectacle of mainland police departments sending recruiters to Hawaii to sign up local cops is a dismaying one for local residents. The combination of better pay and lower living costs can be hard to resist for officers having trouble making ends meet here. But every cop who leaves the Honolulu Police Department represents a major loss in terms of training and experience that will be hard to make up. Somehow or other that is bound to affect law enforcement.

The local police union, the State of Hawaii Organization of Police Officers (SHOPO) is taking some undeserved criticism for helping recruiters from the Pacific Northwest. In a flier distributed at the HPD, a dissident officer, David Yomes, asks, "Can you believe our own union is encouraging a mass exodus to the Northwest?"

SHOPO officials confirm that they have cooperated with the recruiters, making union facilities available for their use. But that's because many of their union members are interested. They're simply providing a service for their members. That doesn't add up to encouraging an exodus.

It's not SHOPO's fault if Hawaii's police departments don't pay enough to hold their officers. Certainly SHOPO tries to win pay increases, but the counties don't have the money and the politicians are afraid to raise taxes to fund bigger raises.

Unlike some other occupations, police officers are enjoying a sellers' market. Experienced Hawaii officers can increase their income by moving, and no one can reasonably blame them if they do. Nor can SHOPO be blamed for helping them make their decision.

Mistaken attack

WHEN the United States bombed terrorist camps in Afghanistan and a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan on Aug. 20, the Clinton administration charged that the plant made chemical weapons financed by the Saudi multimillionaire Osama bin Laden.

Now administration officials say they had no evidence directly linking bin Laden to the factory. In addition, they concede that a soil sample revealing the presence of a chemical used to make nerve gas did not prove that the chemical was made at the plant -- it might have merely been shipped through there. The officials admit inaccurate statements were made about the plant at the time of the attack.

If the United States was wrong and the attack was unwarranted, it should say so and, if appropriate, pay reparations.

Australian election

PAULINE Hanson's anti-Asian diatribes and their enthusiastic reception have raised concerns that Australia might revert to the discredited "White Australia" policy. In July Hanson's One Nation party reached a high of 13 percent in national opinion polls. But with the general election two weeks away, the anti-immigration party has fallen to 6 percent in the latest poll.

Hanson had been expected to make a strong showing in the election, possibly winning the balance of power in the upper house, but her support has waned with her exclusionist policies under the election spotlight.

The latest poll shows the two major parties in a virtual dead heat in public support. But bookmakers have installed conservative Prime Minister John Howard as the odds-on favorite to win the election. Hanson is expected to lose her seat.

Australia has made impressive strides in opening up to Asian immigrations. It would be a pity if people like Hanson succeeded in turning back the clock.

---

Published by Liberty Newspapers Limited Partnership

Rupert E. Phillips, CEO

John M. Flanagan, Editor & Publisher

David Shapiro, Managing Editor

Diane Yukihiro Chang, Senior Editor & Editorial Page Editor

Frank Bridgewater & Michael Rovner, Assistant Managing Editors

A.A. Smyser, Contributing Editor