Government and opposition members of Britain’s House of Commons joined forces today to express grave concern over last week’s U.S. Senate rejection of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. An early-day motion signed by 157 members of the Commons, nearly a quarter of the total, urged the government, which has already criticized the vote on the treaty that bans nuclear tests, to make further representations to Washington. The motion says the U.S. vote could undermine nuclear nonproliferation, and urged the Senate to reconsider.
Meanwhile, the United States stores about 12,000 nuclear weapons in at least 15 other nations, at Pacific U.S. bases and on Navy ships at the height of the Cold War, this according to a report published today in a scientific journal. The report in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists says U.S. nuclear bombs, missiles or depth charges were in Canada, Cuba, Iceland, Japan, Morocco, the Philippines, Spain, South Korea, Taiwan and a half-dozen NATO states between 1955 and the late 1970s. The weapons were stationed in some countries, including Iceland, without the knowledge of the officials there, this according to the authors of the report, William Arkin, Robert Norris and William Burr, largely based on a tightly edited official Pentagon history of the custody and deployment of U.S. nuclear arms between the mid-1945 and September 1977.

And this news from East Timor: More Indonesia militiamen are slipping into East Timor, and shooting has been heard near the border, where thousands of refugees are expected to try to return, this according to the U.N.-backed multinational force. Sources there say the militiamen may be trying to prevent the return of thousands of refugees expected to try to cross the border on foot or in convoys in coming days.

Federal officials have approved a five-day mission to Cuba to be led by Illinois Governor George Ryan, who will become the first governor to visit the nation since Fidel Castro came to power. Ryan is to leave Saturday with more than 40 legislators, various state officials and representatives of Illinois-based companies, including food manufacturer Archer-Daniels-Midland Corporation and the pharmaceutical maker Baxter International. The approval, granted late Monday by the Treasury Department, comes months after President Clinton loosened restrictions on U.S. contact with the island nation. Trade with Cuba has been embargoed since 1960. Ryan is a first-term Republican who has been opposed to the ban and has called for a trip, a trade mission, with the group planning to deliver $1 million in food, medicine and supplies. He has recently called his trip a humanitarian mission.

A federal judge in New York has given a green light to a lawsuit over police frisks. The class-action suit alleges New York City police officers subject people in high-crime areas to frisks based on their race. The suit was filed on behalf of six African American and Latino men. It seeks to eliminate frisks that occur without probable cause and also seeks unspecified money damages. It was filed after four police officers were accused of fatally shooting an unarmed East African immigrant, Amadou Diallo, 19 times outside his home in February. The federal judge says the police department may have a pattern of unconstitutional stops and frisks.

The Amsterdam News, one of the nation’s oldest and largest newspapers serving African Americans, filed a legal brief yesterday supporting the Ku Klux Klan in its efforts to hold a white pride rally in New York City. The papers were filed in Manhattan Federal Court as part of free speech litigation against New York City over its denial of a parade permit to the Church of the American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. Klan members hope to hold a rally wearing robes and hoods in front of a state courthouse in lower Manhattan on Saturday. The legal brief says the Klan’s message of white supremacy is especially repugnant to those who read and publish the Black press; however, the Amsterdam News says it feels it’s necessary to file the brief supporting the Klan because of New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s continuing assault on free speech rights.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation said yesterday it is warning local police about the danger of apocalyptic violence by white supremacist groups spurred by the dawn of the year 2000. In a statement, the FBI said it had wrapped up Project Megiddo, a study of potential crimes by individuals or domestic groups who attach special significance to the year 2000. The study highlights the dangers of fringe white supremacists who seek to initiate a race war, it said. It was being distributed to law enforcement personnel nationwide.