inner Mongolia, a blizzard of calamity ittissiii to remove some
troopi from Chechnya
by Philip P. Pan
The Washington Post
January 22, 2001
ABAG QI, China - It began last
winter with a blizzard that buried
this region under an unusually
thick blanket of snow. Then a sum
mer drought parched the land,
turning green prairies a dusty yel
low brown. The plague of locusts
came next, consuming much of
what grass stubble remained. And
in autumn, cyclone-like winds tore
up homes and tossed small goats
into the air.
Now nature has inflicted an
other catastrophe on the unlucky
herdsmen of Inner Mongolia's vast
Xilin Gol grassland. A deadly
snowstorm struck as the year be
gan, leaving behind a frigid moon
scape dotted with herds of sheep
frozen into ice statues, homes bur
ied in a pale yellow mix of sand
and snow and nearly a half-mil
lion people short of food in tem
peratures more than 60 degrees
below freezing.
None of the elders here can re
call a storm so devastating, much
less such an awful string of mis
fortune. And as residents begin to
tally their losses, many are asking
whether they somehow brought
this series of natural disasters
upon themselves.
"It's as if nature is taking re
venge on us," said Biligung, 39, a
herdsman who lost a quarter of his
flock of 400 sheep to the storm
and a large patch of his face to
frostbite saving the rest of his
flock. "We're not scientists, but
we've never seen anything like
this. ... I think it has to do with
what we've done to the environ-
ment."
Located along China's northern
border with Mongolia and Siberia,
this region is no stranger to snow.
But the storm that began on New
Year's Eve and continued for three
days whipped sand as well as
snow into the air, a blinding com
bination that herdsmen said they
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
Stopping
light
The Washington Post
January 22, 2001
Two teams of physicists have for
the first time found a way to slow
light to a complete stop.
Ronald L. Walsworth of the
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for As
trophysics and colleagues, and Lene
Vetergaard Hau of the Harvard/
Rowland Institute of Science and
colleagues, achieved the feat by
sending pulses of light into specially
prepared, super-cold gas vapors of
sodium and rubidium. The tech
niques succeeded in slowing the
light pulses, which normally travel
at 186,000 miles per second, to a
dead stop. The researchers released
the light to continue on its way.
The work, being published in the
Jan. 25 issue of Nature and the Jan.
29 issue of the journal Physical Re
view Letters, could help researchers
develop new ways to use light for
faster, more efficient types of com
puters and communications systems,
the researchers said.
"Hau and her colleagues suggest
that their newly demonstrated abil
ity to control the flow of optical in
formation may have technological
relevance to quantum computing,"
wrote Eric A. Cornell of the Univer
sity of Colorado in Boulder in an
article accompanying the Nature re
port. "Whether this will turn out to
be true is not clear."
had never witnessed before
They blamed the sand on one of
China's most serious environmen
tal challenges, the steady transfor
mation of grasslands into deserts
from overgrazing, clear-cutting of
forests and other man-against-na
ture development policies. Each
year an area about the size of
Rhode Island turns to dust in
China, threatening to leave mil
lions of families with nowhere to
go in a crowded country where ar
able land is already scarce.
The government has made stop
ping the desert a national prior
ity, especially after Beijing was
choked last spring by dust storms
carrying sand down from the
north. Prime Minister Zhu Rongji
even warned that the country
might one day be forced to move
the capital if the deserts contin
ued their march toward the city.
The government has tried to
slow the expansion of the desert
by marking land as off limits to
herders and replanting trees and
grass in arid areas, but local offi
cials and scientists said the series
of disasters in Inner Mongolia
will surely set back
these efforts
"It's a vicious
cycle," said Song
Yuqin, an environ-
mental scientist at
Beijing University
"These disasters
make people poorer,
and then they try to
clear more land or
raise more live-
stock. That only
contributes to deser
tification, which de-
stroys their land and
makes them poorer
Song said there is
little evidence that
overgrazing is caus
ing the disasters in
Inner Mongolia, but
he said such activity
is making naturally Most of herder Wang Yu's sheep perished earlier this year in a blizzard, including
several that froze while huddled in their pen.
Where we see
ourselves
The Washington Post
January 22, 2001
Only humans, monkeys and other
higher apes can recognize their own
faces. Now, scientists think they've
identified the part of the brain that
enables us to do that.
Julian Paul Keenan of Harvard
Medical School in Boston and col
leagues studied five patients who
were having each hemisphere of
their brains anesthesized to try to
determine what was causing their
epileptic seizures.
During the procedure, the re
searchers showed the subjects pho
tographs of themselves that had
been "morphed" to blend their faces
with that of a famous person - Bill
Clinton, Albert Einstein, Marilyn
Monroe or Princess Diana. After
ward, the researchers showed them
photos of themselves and of the fa
mous person with whom their face
had been morphed, and asked them
to identify which one they had been
shown before.
"Following anaesthesia of the left
hemisphere, all five patients se
lected the 'self' face as the one they
thought had been presented; how
ever, after anaesthesia of the right
hemisphere, four out of the five se
lected the famous face," the re
searchers reported in the Jan. 18 is
sue of Nature.
In addition, when the researchers
showed 10 normal subjects'
morphed photographs, they had
more activity in their right hemi
spheres when the faces looked most
like themselves, the researchers
found.
"It is conceivable that a right
hemisphere network gives rise to
self-awareness, which may be a
hallmark of higher-order conscious
ness," they wrote.
WORLD & N A TION
occurring droughts and snow
storms worse. And many local
residents agree
"The snow we've seen has al
ways been white, but this was yel
low snow. It froze quickly on the
animals - and on me," said herds
man Chaoketu, 39, waiting in a
hospital for his blackened, swol
len feet to be amputated.
He said he left his home during
the storm to check on his sheep
and cattle, and on his 73-year-old
father, who lives about 200 yards
away. But after taking only a few
steps into the cold air, he realized
he had made a terrible mistake.
Surrounded by swirling sand
and snow, he could barely see his
hands in front of his face and
quickly became disoriented. When
he couldn't find his way back
home, he decided to continue
walking in a straight line. A day
and a half later, he walked into the
wall of another herdsman's home.
"I didn't even see it before I hit
it," he said.
Others were not so lucky. Two
children froze to death while walk
ing home from school. A mother
California power struggles sap electric program
California has long exported its
trends and ideas to the rest of the coun
try. Its disastrous experiment in elec
tricity deregulation, however, likely
will have no takers.
At times last week, the nation's rich
est and most populous state looked
more like the struggling province of a
developing country.
Blackouts rolled through towns and
cities. Utilities teetered on bankruptcy.
Industrial plants were idled. The state's
main gasoline pipeline slowed to a
trickle for want of pumping power, and
elected officials were reduced to beg
ging for electricity from Canadian
dams.
California's four-year-old electricity
deregulation plan, the nation's first,
was the troubled product of sharply
conflicting political ideologies. It was
born of conservative convictions in the
benefits of unfettered competition. But
it was ultimately laced with price caps
and controls demanded by lawmakers
who didn't trust the energy industry.
The result was a Rube Goldberg
structure - half free-market, half regu
lation - that new U.S. Treasury Secre
tary Paul O'Neill has called "lunacy."
California's plan depended on hav
ing a comfortable margin of supply
over demand, which was the case when
the state started the move to deregu
late in the early 19905.
But by last summer, California faced
power shortages and a chronic crisis.
Planners didn't anticipate how fast
electricity demand would grow in
California's Internet-fed economy.
Power plant construction stopped be
cause of strict environmental restric
tions and uncertainty about how de
regulation would work. Power imports
from outside the state, on which Cali
fornia depended, shrank as its neigh
bors' economies flourished.
Finally, the system crashed when
power shortages struck during the hot,
dry 2000 summer and continued
through the winter.
California Gov. Gray Davis, D, said
the program was sunk by greedy power
generating companies. Company ex
by Peter Behr
The Washington Post
January 22, 2001
and her young daughter perished
while trying to retrieve heating fuel
located just yards from their house.
A teacher died in a van stranded in
the snow. And several herders suc
cumbed while trying to save their
livestock or sleeping in their tradi
tional felt tents.
At least 39 people died in the
blizzard, the Chinese Red Cross
said, though the figure is expected
to rise as reports come in from
more isolated areas.
Major roads in the affected re
gions have been cleared and relief
convoys are getting through, but
smaller roads leading to the vast
majority of the 2.2 million people
in distress remain difficult to
traverse without the help of trac
tors, which local officials say are
in short supply.
The blizzard left behind haunt
ingly beautiful vistas of desolate,
snow-covered hills, but also eerie
flocks of sheep, cattle and horses
that froze to death while standing.
Others died huddled together in the
corners of their pens. Some remain
buried in tall drifts of snow, with
only a head or a leg sticking out.
ecutives said the crisis wouldn't have
happened had the state accelerated
power plant construction.
But all agree a mess this big had a lot of
causes
Miscalculations came first.
The idea was familiar: Take electric
ity generation away from regulated mo
nopoly utilities and turn it over to hun
gry, cost-conscious energy companies,
and consumers will get more power at
lower prices. It worked in airlines and
long-distance phone service, said Craig
Goodman, a former senior energy offi
cial in the Reagan and Bush administra
tions.
But new power plants didn't appear
when they were needed. No major new
plants were built in California during the
19905.
Stringent siting laws and powerful en
vironmental interests clearly were ob
stacles, as California's critics point out.
But that critique overlooks the fact that
only two plants were proposed from
1995 through 1997, as the rules for
California's new energy markets were
being written. In those years, generators
couldn't be sure how an investment in a
power plant would pay off. That gap in
initiating plant projects would become
critical.
The program was put in place and the
rules became clear in 1998. Since then,
nine plants have been approved by state
regulators and six are under construc
tion. They are expected to add nearly
2,400 megawatts, enough to power 2.4
million homes, by the end of this year,
but not enough to keep pace with ex
pected growth.
Duke Energy, now building three
plants in the state, has worked through
long negotiations with communities
about its projects.
"Given the sensitivities around envi
ronmental impacts, it is even more dif
ficult" to build power plants in Califor
nia than elsewhere, said Bill Hall,
Duke's vice president for California
operations. California creates "a stake
holder process, where everyone is in
volved. We understand that, we respect
the process, but it takes time."
California's polarized politics - the
perennial clash of free-market conser
by Sharon tarrantere
The Washington Post
ianuity 22; 2001
drawal, no more than 20 percent. It
MOSCOW - President Vladimir is more a change of emphasis than
Putin announced Monday that Rus- of operation."
sia will pull some of its troops out Skirmishes over the past week
of Chechnya and bolster civilian show how little the conflict has
control of the fractious region, even abated. Rebels fired on Russian
as Chechen separatist guerrillas re- checkpoints and strongholds more
newed attacks in two cities suppos- than 120 times, according to the
edly subdued by the Russians a year Interfax news agency.
ago. • In Gudermes, Chechnya's second
The promise of troop reduction largest city, several Chechen offic
seemed designed to show an in- ers working under Russian corn
,
oteaaingly weary Russian public wand were killed Sunday when
that the f6-month-long war will militants opened fire on a hospital
end 'one day. The war was im- at midday. And in Grozny on Mon-
.ISI.
report: technya.
killitt, tough it won't alter the con
.
chechen CA , major way, analysts said,
1 * Thr " i plan represents at least a
)s estimal ,hift in strategy. Putin trans
,
eluding' control of the anti-rebel op
.
tens of , from the military to the Fed
istry, , . , , era,. ,ectitity Service, the successor
Sergei 'Yastrzhembakit, the:," to the KGB. That gives at least the
I
Krentlih's ' chief spokesman on appearance of a reduced military
Chechnya, said the witlidrawal is role.
already underway. Putin did not - On Friday Putin also approved a
specify in his announcement how new structure for the Chechen civil
many servicemen would remain, ian government, increasing the
saying only that 22,000 soldiers power of pro-Russian Chechens
will.eventually be left as a perma- who serve along with representa
nent contingent, lives of the Russian government.
Pavel Felgenhauer, an indepen- Kremlin officials have said they
dent military analyst, ptedicted the hope to hold elections in the region
actual reduction * Will be Minor. l)ur- next fall,
, .
ing the fitst Chechen war of 1994-
vatives with powerful consumer inter
ests - contributed hugely to a conflicted
deregulation plan.
In marketplace theory, conservatives
noted, if the price of electricity went
up, consumers would conserve, and
there would be an incentive for gener
ating companies to build more plants,
helping balance supply and demand.
But California lawmakers produced the
other half of the doomed marriage: a
tight rate cap that froze electricity
prices below 1996 levels to protect con
sumers. It was raised an average of 10
percent this month in response to the
current emergency.
The cap meant that when prices rose,
the utilities would pay higher rates to
wholesalers to supply the electricity but
couldn't collect higher monthly pay
ments from consumers, who had no in-
centive to conserve
Now the state's two largest utilities,
Southern California Edison Co. and Pa
cific Gas & Electric Co., are nearly $l2
billion in debt and on the verge of bank
ruptcy, creating a financial emergency
that many experts believe has made
some power generators unwilling to
sell electricity to the state.
A tragedy usually comes with a vil
lain, and the state's independent power
generators have been cast in that role
by Davis and other officials.
The California plan forced the utili
ties to sell many of their power plants
to a new group of for-profit generating
companies that have campaigned for
deregulation nationwide.
The generators - led by Reliant En
ergy Inc. of Houston; Calpine Corp. of
San Jose, Calif.; Duke Energy Corp. of
Charlotte, N.C.; Southern Energy Inc.
of Atlanta; Dynegy Inc. of Houston;
and AES Corp. of Arlington, Va. - now
produce up to 40 percent of California's
electricity. Other members of the new
power industry include marketer Enron
Corp. of Houston and Williams Co. of
Tulsa, which buys and sells power.
Generators' and marketers' charges
for wholesale electricity rocketed up
ward, beginning this summer. Average
monthly prices charged by the genera
tors and other power suppliers jumped
to 16.6 cents per kilowatt hour in Au-
FRIDAY, JANUARY 26, 2001
96, "these withdrawals were an
nounced time and time again," he
said, "This will be a token with-
gust, from 4.7 cents in May, according
to a study co-authored by Massachusetts
Institute of Technology economist Paul
Joskow. California regulators do not dis
close specific prices charged by indi
vidual power providers.
Joskow's study estimated that whole
sale power prices were nearly double
production costs last June, including en
vironmental compliance charges, and 36
percent higher in August.
Meanwhile, the profits of Dynegy,
Williams and Calpine for the third quar
ter of 2000 were all more than 300 per
cent higher than for the same period in
1999.
"The governor has referred to them
as pirates and plunderers. Those are mild
terms," said California Public Utilities
Commissioner Carl Wood, a Gray ap
pointee and longtime energy industry
critic.
Top company executives deny they ei
ther colluded to raise prices or took ad
vantage of the system.
"We are having strong earnings, no
question," said Joe Bob Perkins, presi
dent of Reliant's wholesale power op
erations. "It wasn't gaming going on."
Prices for natural gas, a key power plant
fuel, have jumped astronomically in re
cent months, inflating power prices, he
said. And generators had to pay very
high prices for state-designed "pollution
permits" that allow them to run plants
where air quality restrictions are tight,
he added.
But the Market Surveillance Commit
tee of California's power distribution
grid said evidence suggests some gen
erators took advantage of the power
shortage.
"The MSC could provide a number
of instances of what it suspects are sus
picious bidding and (power) scheduling
behavior during the summer and autumn
of 2000," the committee said in a Dec.
1 report.
It asked federal regulators to investi
gate why some generators' prices were
so high in those instances. Federal Regu
latory Energy Commission officials de
clined to say whether such an inquiry
was underway, but there's no public sign
of one.
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