***************************************************************** 02/23/04 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 12.46 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** Send News Stories to news@energy-net.org with title on subject line and first line of body NUCLEAR POLICY 1 Hi Pakistan: Tehran insists IAEA fully informed of N-dealings -- 2 Las Vegas SUN: China Seeks Progress As Host of Nuke Talks 3 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: High Hopes for Talks With Unclear Prospec 4 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: CIA, Drudge Report: North Has 2-4 Nukes 5 BBC: N Korean 'offer' on nuclear talks 6 Xinhuanet: Delegations arrive in Beijing for 6-party talks 7 Las Vegas SUN: U.S. Mulls N. Korea Nuclear Proposal 8 US: DR: Former manager accuses Lockheed company of fraudulent billin 9 Hindustan Times: Khan's confession covered up for Musharraf - Bhutto 10 Hindustan Times: Rumsfeld to visit Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhst 11 Las Vegas SUN: CIA Chief Visited Pakistan for Talks 12 Hi Pakistan: PPP demands probe into ‘N-export scandal’ --> 13 Las Vegas SUN: U.N. Nuke Inspector Seeks Clues in Libya 14 Las Vegas SUN: U.N. Watchdog Gets Nuke Data From Libya NUCLEAR REACTORS 15 allAfrica.com: South Africa: Nuclear Power Debate is Far From Over 16 US: Chattanoogan.com: Wamp Tells Technology Council Push Needed To H 17 US: toledoblade: NRC to study new criticism of Davis-Besse's communi 18 US: toledoblade: New federal power plant edict seeks to save fish 19 Daily Times: OP-ED: Development potential of nuclear energy — 20 Hi Pakistan: Shut down of N-power plants recommended 21 US: Las Vegas SUN: Panel Relaxes Nuke Plant Inspection Rules 22 US: NRC: NRC Modifies Order Requiring Inspection of Pressurized Wate NUCLEAR SAFETY 23 [du-list] Audio and Powerpoint - Iraqi MD exposes effects of 24 [DU-WATCH] Scandal of Gulf war guinea pigs 25 [DU-WATCH] MOD accepts DU has the potential to cause ill health 26 [du-list] Japanese split over Iraq mission 27 [du-list] This time, depleted uranium questions are coming 28 US: Philadelphia Inquirer: More radiation found at Chesco Superfund 29 Vancouver Sun: radioactive material stolen NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 30 US: ahimsa sumchai: Hunters Point Transfer controversy Heats Up 31 US: NMBW: Gallup-area uranium mines to be reclaimed for wildlife, gr 32 SIFY: Vast US Nuke waste dump kicks up row 33 courier-journal: Sweet deal won uranium plant from Kentucky 34 AU ABC: States to pay for nuclear waste dump in SA NUCLEAR WEAPONS 35 US: Salt Lake Tribune: Demos zero in on nuke testing US DEPT. OF ENERGY 36 DOE: Office of Science; Fusion Energy Sciences Advisory Committee 37 Oak Ridger: Oak Ridge still trying to wrestle money from DOE 38 lamonitor.com: The Online News Source for Los Alamos 39 Las Vegas SUN: U.S. Shelves Nuke Safety Rules Proposal 40 DOE: Oak Ridge health committee MOU meting OTHER NUCLEAR 41 Google News Alert - nuclear 42 AU SMH: Glossy brochures helped Khan sell nuclear secrets - 43 USATODAY.com - U.S. Air Force contemplates space battles ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 Hi Pakistan: Tehran insists IAEA fully informed of N-dealings --> February 24 2004 TEHRAN: Iran’s foreign ministry on Sunday stood by its assertions that it had fully informed the UN’s atomic energy agency of its buying of sensitive nuclear components on the black market. "What we have said from the beginning is that we have acquired some equipment from dealers, from brokers," said spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi. But he asserted that Iran was not aware of which countries the components came from. Asefi said, the middlemen were from the Indian subcontinent. Copyright 1996-2002 . Hi Pakistan. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the written permission and prior consent of the webmaster. ***************************************************************** 2 Las Vegas SUN: China Seeks Progress As Host of Nuke Talks February 22, 2004 By STEPHANIE HOO ASSOCIATED PRESS BEIJING (AP) - As host of a new round of talks this week on North Korea's nuclear program, China has more than just diplomatic prestige at stake. Chinese leaders have grown increasingly alarmed as North Korea revealed it was building a "nuclear deterrent" against U.S. attack and as Washington demanded the North disarm if it wants aid for its decrepit economy. Analysts say China worries that social unrest could cause turmoil in an impoverished but potentially nuclear-armed North Korea and that South Korea or Japan might feel compelled to acquire the bomb themselves, upsetting the regional military balance. That drove China out of its traditional reluctance to take part in global affairs and into an unaccustomed role as mediator - and added urgency to its diplomatic offensive. "The probability of a very bad outcome to their interests is deemed to be too high," said Ron Huisken, a visiting fellow at the Strategic and Defense Studies Center at Australian National University in Canberra. The last round of talks involving China, the United States, both Koreas, Japan and Russia in August produced no settlement and only vague agreements to meet again. China has held more than 60 meetings in a flurry of shuttle diplomacy to arrange the second round, said Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue. The talks are due to start Wednesday. "Our purpose is to solve the DPRK nuclear issue and maintain peace and stability in the Korean Peninsula," Zhang said, referring to North Korea by the initials of its formal name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. With Chinese officials forced onto center stage, "they're obviously attracted to doing it well and getting a lot of kudos as a result," Huisken said, adding that the effort dovetails with China's effort to raise its global profile. China's message is, "We want to be an insider. We'll play from inside," Huisken said. And it's working: "Most people now are visibly more relaxed about China, just in the space of two years," he said. The United States has been more than happy to let China wave the carrot while it wields the stick. "I think it should be clear that China has been in the lead in this activity among the six parties," John Bolton, U.S. undersecretary of state for Arms Control and International Security Affairs, said last week in Beijing. China is North Korea's last major ally, but much has changed since the days when they were communist comrades-in-arms during decades of Cold War. China is increasingly capitalist and intertwined with the outside world, while the regime Pyongyang is as hardline and isolated as ever. Beijing keeps its ally afloat with oil and food aid, but its own top foreign policy aim is to maintain good trading relations with the rest of the world. China's increasing pragmatism has also strengthened its political ties with the United States, with Beijing agreeing to U.S. efforts to fight terrorism and halt weapons proliferation. If anything, China's challenge at the six-nation talks is to use its influence with North Korea without appearing to help other countries gang up on Pyongyang. China initially tried to stay out of the dispute over the North's nuclear program. But the Chinese stepped in after the United States rejected negotiating with North Korea one-on-one and insisted on a multilateral approach, arguing that Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions defied the world community. "I don't think these countries really enjoy China's role, but then they found that without China's role they can do nothing," said Yan Xuetong, director of the Institute of International Relations at Tsinghua University in Beijing. "China can persuade North Korea to continue these talks," Yan said. But, he added, "I don't think China's influence on North Korea is strong enough to tell North Korea to do what it should." -- ***************************************************************** 3 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: High Hopes for Talks With Unclear Prospects Updated Feb.23,2004 23:04 KST The second round of six-way talks on the North Korean nuclear issue are set to open in Beijing on Wednesday, and many are optimistic about the outcome. In an interview with the daily Maeil Gyeongje, President Roh Moo-hyun said the six-way talks would "turn out well" and that North Korea would come to the table willing to yield. "North Korea has said on several occasions that it could give up its nuclear [program]," said Roh. He said it would be a problem of "What demands would be implemented in what order," and thanked China for its efforts with the North. Senior delegates of South Korea, the United States and Japan had a preparatory meeting in Seoul Monday ahead of the six-way conference on the North Korean issue to be held in Beijing Wednesday. From left are Japanese Foreign Ministry¡¯s director-general Mitoji Yabunaka, South Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Soo-hyuck and U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly. The Japanese press is saying that Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi told Japanese Vice Foreign Minister Ichiro Aisawa that North Korea told him it is willing to freeze its nuclear program. This and other development suggest the North might behave differently in the second round of six-way talks. The North has told Australia and other countries that it will be more actively interested in a resolution this time around. However, each country participating in the talks is making different predictions on whether it will be willing to forgo all of its nuclear programs, including those involving highly enriched uranium (HEU), and so they might each take a different approach at the talks, or at least take positions different from that of the Korean government. At a meeting of diplomats from Korea, Japan, and the United States held in Seoul on Monday, Japan and the U.S. agreed to Korea's proposal for compensation should the North give up all of is nuclear programs, though all three sides disagree on the details. Reports are suggesting the U.S. will push for a very detailed proposal regarding a verification scheme, as HEU is known to be particularly difficult to monitor. The Korean government wants to give the North three major conditions; that freeze all nuclear programs including HEU, that it allow an international organization to inspect for verification, and that there be a minimum of time between the initial freeze and the final abolition of all nuclear capabilities. In return, the North would receive energy assistance. As recently as two days before the talks, however, the North continues to completely deny the very existence of an HEU program, so friction is expected. The North's Korean Central News Agency said Saturday that "claims about highly enriched uranium are false propaganda with no basis," and are "the result of a conspiracy of about ten days of meetings by America's neo-conservatives." It said they U.S. is "going about a show of deception" with "accusations of a transfer of nuclear technology by a Pakistani scientist." Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Soo-hyuck said Monday that the goal of the six-way talks will be the North declaring its willingness to quite its nuclear programs, a joint statement, the creation of a working group to continue with the details, and determining a date for a third round of talks. "We will use intra-Korean contact to the greatest advantage, make the U.S. and Korean position better understood, and try to convince the North" to cooperate, said Lee. (Yi Ha-won, may2@chosun.com ) ***************************************************************** 4 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: CIA, Drudge Report: North Has 2-4 Nukes Updated Feb.23,2004 15:24 KST The Internet news site Drudge Report reported Sunday that CIA reports reveal that North Korea possesses between two to four nuclear weapons of limited yield and one factory producing biological agents for use in weapons. The Drudge Report made the claim based on a CIA report cited by veteran Washington Times Pentagon reporter Rowan Scarborough in his soon to be released book, "Rumsfeld's War." The piece also forecasts that within 20 years, China's ICBM stockpile will grow from its current 40 missiles to 220. In the meantime, Chinese Vice-Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Monday that North Korea is prepared to completely dismantle its nuclear programs. He said, "On that premise [of completely dismantling its programs], it will completely freeze its nuclear activity." According to Japan's Kyodo News Agency, Wang said this Monday to Japanese Senior Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs Aizawa Ichiro, who currently visiting China. The phrase "complete freezing of its nuclear activity" would seem to suggest the inclusion of its highly enriched uranium program, and by stressing efforts to get the North to completely dismantle its nuclear weapons programs, Kyodo believes China will try to promote an agreement during the coming six-party talks. Robert Koehler, internetnews@chosun.com ***************************************************************** 5 BBC: N Korean 'offer' on nuclear talks Last Updated: Monday, 23 February, 2004 [South Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Soo-hyuck, right, and Japanese Foreign Ministry Director General Mitoji Yabunaka ] Delegates have met in Seoul ahead of the Beijing talks on Wednesday North Korea has reportedly offered to scrap its nuclear weapons programme if it gets its way at six-nation talks due to open in Beijing on Wednesday. The offer was reported by China, which is keen for the talks it has brokered to succeed, after months of stalemate. It was not clear if the North's offer went beyond earlier offers to freeze its programme if given concessions. Hopes for the talks are muted, with several parties calling for the US and North Korea to show more flexibility. The US is seeking the total dismantlement of North Korea's alleged plutonium and uranium programmes, in return for certain concessions. But North Korea has always denied, in public at least, having a uranium project. Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Monday told Japanese Senior Vice-Foreign Minister Ichiro Aisawa that North Korea has told China it would ''freeze all of its nuclear activities as a step'' toward total abolition, Kyodo news agency reported. It was not clear whether Pyongyang was referring to just the plutonium programme, or also to the alleged uranium programme. Ahead of the talks, South Korea has proposed that the North freeze its nuclear programme as part of a three-step procedure to scrapping it altogether, according to South Korea's delegate, Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Soo-hyuck. The steps are reported to be: + Phase 1: North Korea states its readiness to dismantle its nuclear programmes, in return for which, the US states its readiness to provide security guarantees for North Korea + Phase 2: North Korea freezes its nuclear programmes. This, once verified, earns North Korea energy aid and other rewards + Phase 3: The verified dismantling of all North Korea's nuclear facilities and the resolution of all related issues But the BBC's correspondent in Seoul, Charles Scanlon, says that Washington appears to have a different approach to the crisis. He says the US is reluctant to spell out possible rewards for North Korea. There is also nervousness in Seoul about the Bush administration's apparent plan to confront the North over the alleged uranium programme. Some diplomats fear a breakdown in dialogue if the North continues to deny the existence of this second programme. North Korea has agreed before to halt activities at its plutonium generator - at Yongbyon, 90 kilometres (50 miles) north of the capital, Pyongyang. But the 1994 deal with the United States broke down in late 2002, and since then North Korea has claimed to have finished reprocessing 8,000 spent fuel rods stored at Yongbyon - enough to help it build up to six more nuclear weapons. ***************************************************************** 6 Xinhuanet: Delegations arrive in Beijing for 6-party talks www.xinhuanet.com www.chinaview.cn 2004-02-23 20:03:04 BEIJING, Feb. 23 (Xinhuanet) -- The US and Japanese delegations arrived here Monday evening to attend the second round of six-party talks on the nuclear issue of the Korean Peninsula. The US delegation is headed by James Kelly, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, while Mitoji Yabunaka, director-general of the Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau of the Japanese Foreign Ministry, heads the Japanese delegation. The talks are to open on Wednesday, Feb. 25. Enditem Russia shows "cautious optimism" on six-party talks BEIJING, Feb. 23 (Xinhuanet) -- Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Losiukov said here Monday that he showed "cautious optimism" on the upcoming six-party talks on the nuclear issue of the Korean Peninsula. Losiukov said that he will head for the Chinese Foreign Ministry for further consultation soon after arrival. Losiukov admitted there were "a number of uncertainties" aroundthe talks. All sides will fully state their stance in the first day of the talks, due to open on Feb. 25, and Russia hopes to score progress in this round of talks, he told press at the airport. He said that the stand of Russia is "very close" with the standheld by China so today's consultation can "create conditions" for the future talks, adding that the two countries had already had effective cooperation after the first round of talks. Russia will consult with other four parties, the United States,the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the Republic of Korea and Japan Tuesday, Losiukov said. The Russian delegation is the first to arrive here besides the Chinese delegation. Enditem Copyright ©2003 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 7 Las Vegas SUN: U.S. Mulls N. Korea Nuclear Proposal Today: February 23, 2004 at 2:55:25 PST By SOO-JEONG LEE ASSOCIATED PRESS SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - The United States is considering a proposal by Seoul to encourage North Korea to freeze its nuclear weapons program, a top South Korean negotiator said Monday ahead of six-nation talks on the issue. Lee Soo-hyuck did not give details of the proposal, but said it entailed delivering "countermeasures" to North Korea in exchange for stopping and eventually dismantling its nuclear programs. The development came as diplomats from the United States, South Korea and Japan gathered in Seoul to fine tune a common position before talks in Beijing aimed at easing tensions over North Korea's nuclear programs. "The United States shares a significant understanding of the conditions we attached to the proposed North Korean nuclear freeze," Lee said after a morning meeting with U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly and their counterpart Japanese Foreign Ministry Director General Mitoji Yabunaka "We understand that the United States does not have a strong objection to taking the countermeasures proposed by South Korea as long as the nuclear freeze comes with such conditions." Maureen Cormack, spokeswoman of the U.S. Embassy in Seoul, said she would have to check on Lee's statement before commenting on the U.S. position. North Korea had previously proposed freezing its nuclear programs as a first step toward easing tensions. But the impoverished communist nation had demanded energy aid, a lifting of U.S. sanctions and being delisted from Washington's list of terrorism sponsoring nations. The United States had demanded that North Korea first start dismantling its nuclear programs before any concessions are extended. At the coming talks, Lee said South Korea will push a three-stage plan to resolve the 16-month-old nuclear standoff. The plan will start with North Korea declaring its willingness to give up its nuclear programs and Washington and its allies expressing readiness to provide a security guarantee. The second stage will start with North Korea freezing its nuclear programs and then dismantling them in a verifiable way; the other countries would offer corresponding measures. "The third stage is more of a comprehensive proposal in which resolution of other issues following the dismantlement are discussed," Lee said. Japan's Kyodo news agency, citing Japanese government officials, said South Korea had proposed extending energy aid in return for a freeze linked to eventual dismantlement. In Beijing, meanwhile, the top Chinese negotiator Wang Yi told Japanese Vice-Foreign Minister Ichiro Aisawa that North Korea has expressed readiness for complete dismantlement, Japanese media reported Monday. As its first step, Pyongyang said it would freeze all its nuclear activities, according to Kyodo news agency and public broadcaster NHK. The nuclear crisis flared in late 2002 when U.S. officials said North Korea acknowledged privately to U.S. representatives that it had the program in violation of a 1994 agreement. It also has a plutonium-based one. North Korea later denied having a uranium program, and on Saturday called the accusations a "whopping lie." The United States, South Korea and Japan insist that any solution to the nuclear dispute address the uranium program. -- ***************************************************************** 8 DR: Former manager accuses Lockheed company of fraudulent billing - Peter Geier The Daily Record Baltimore, MD January 22, 2004 Thursday A former Lockheed Martin Energy Systems Inc. manager is pressing ahead with claims the company bilked the U.S. government out of hundreds of millions of dollars while mismanaging enriched uranium byproduct waste at plants in Ohio and Kentucky. Kenneth P. Brooks of Erin, Tenn., is taking on his former Oak Ridge, Tenn.-based, employer, as well as defense industry giant Lockheed Martin Corp. of Bethesda and Lockheed Martin Utility Services Inc. of Rockville in his False Claims Act lawsuit in Baltimore. In his first amended complaint filed Monday, Brooks alleges that the company invoiced the government for disposal of radioactive and toxic waste it simply hid on its premises, then billed the government for a clean-up that allegedly never occurred. Furthermore, it operated the government's uranium enrichment program for weapons and naval propulsion reactors in a manner which depressed the value of its gaseous diffusion plants at Paducah, Ky. and Piketon, Oh., when they were placed for public auction and bought by Lockheed Martin in 1998, Brooks alleges. Gail E. Rymer, a Lockheed Martin Corp. spokeswoman, said the company does not discuss pending litigation. Brooks admits that his four and a half year employment with the company was "a rocky road from the beginning" when he was first hired in January 1990 as to head the quality assurance department. Accounting irregularities Brooks said he discovered in his first six months on the job further revealed to him that the company had no quality assurance program in place, which he in turn communicated to the U.S. Department of Energy, the contracting authority, his complaint says. He was "admonished" for this action, and nearly terminated, Brooks claims, though he weathered this storm by transferring to another division at the Piketon plant, where about six months later he was promoted to facility safety manager. Brooks claims he subsequently was promoted beyond his competence and later, after it was discovered that he kept in touch with safety personnel, ordered "not to talk with lower level employees." However, he continued to look into a range of activities involving alleged facility non-compliance with OSHA and nuclear safety standards. His superiors' retaliation against him prompted him to address his concerns in writing to the chairman and chief executive of Martin Marietta, Lockheed Martin's predecessor, in April 1993. From this time until his termination in June 1994, Brooks claims he was among company officials ordered to "sanitize" their databases of information relating to health and safety violations -- an order he claims he was determined to resist. Brooks' actions -- including his superiors' finding out that he had told the government about the purported destruction of files -- caused him to suffer harassment and retaliation his final year at the company, he claims. He first filed his three-count complaint in U.S. District Court in Baltimore in April 2000 asserting a False Claims Act claim, conspiracy by and between Lockheed Martin and its two subsidiaries, and discrimination. U.S. District Chief Judge Benson E. Legg sealed the case a week later, ordering the government to be served and the issuance of summonses to the defendants withheld. Last February, the government elected not to intervene in this case. Legg then unsealed the case. Summonses were issued to Lockheed in August. A defense motion to dismiss the case, filed the following month, is pending with the court. Brooks could not be reached for comment. Candace S. McCall, his Fairfax, Va.-based lawyer, did not return calls for comment before press time yesterday. Copyright 2004 Dolan Media Newswires ***************************************************************** 9 Hindustan Times: Khan's confession covered up for Musharraf - Bhutto HindustanTimes.com Agence France-Presse London, February 23 Former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto said on Sunday the architect of the country's atomic bomb Abdul Qadeer Khan was "covering up" for President Pervez Musharraf by publicly confessing to transferring nuclear technology to other countries. Bhutto, an arch-foe of Musharraf, suggested that Khan's life could be in danger "because he knows too much about the people who ordered him to export nuclear technology." "We believe that he's covering up for Musharraf," Bhutto, the Pakistan People's Party leader, told BBC television's Breakfast with Frost current affairs programme. "And we think that if Musharraf has endangered our nuclear assets and endangered our country's reputation by involving himself in the export of nuclear technology he has no business to remain in power. "People in my country think that Mr Qadeer Khan is being made a scapegoat and they believe that he's being kept under arrest and he could even be killed to silence him forever because he knows too much about the people who ordered him to export nuclear technology," Bhutto claimed. She added "I know Qadeer Khan and I found it very hard to believe that he could have exported nuclear technology on his own. One person could not do it because of the enormous security." Musharraf on February 4 pardoned Khan, considered a national hero in Pakistan for guiding the programme which built the country's nuclear bomb, after the scientist confessed to giving nuclear information for groups working for Iran, Libya and North Korea. © Hindustan Times Ltd. 2004. feedback@hindustantimes.com ***************************************************************** 10 Hindustan Times: Rumsfeld to visit Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan HindustanTimes.com Rumsfeld to visit Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan for security talks Agence France-Presse Tashkent, February 23 US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld will visit Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Afghanistan this week to discuss security issues, the Uzbek foreign ministry said on Monday. Rumsfeld will arrive in Uzbekistan on Tuesday for talks with president Islam Karimov, a key Central Asian ally of Washington, the foreign ministry said in a written statement. The defence secretary will then make two excursions out of Uzbekistan, to Kazakhstan on February 25 and to Afghanistan on February 26, before leaving Tashkent for Ireland later on February 26, the statement said. This schedule was confirmed by a US embassy official in Uzbekistan. Rumsfeld's talks in Uzbekistan will focus on "current and future Uzbek-American relations... regional security problems and the situation in Afghanistan," the Uzbek foreign ministry statement read. Uzbekistan, a former Soviet republic, departed dramatically from its traditional pro-Moscow stance in 2001 when it allowed US forces to set up camp at a vast military base in the south of the country close to the border with Afghanistan. Uzbek officials have recently hinted that they may be prepared to contemplate a long-term US presence at the Khanabad airbase in southern Uzbekistan. Uzbekistan's northern neighbour Kazakhstan retains close ties with Moscow, but has deployed around 25 military specialists to help US reconstruction work in Iraq. Kazakh officials contacted on Monday declined to comment on Rumsfeld's visit. Continued concerns about remnants left over from Soviet-era weapons programmes are also likely to feature during Rumsfeld's talks. In recent years Washington has contributed millions of dollars to helping to clean up and convert former Kazakh nuclear test sites. An Soviet-era anthrax production facility on an island in an Uzbek section of the blighted Aral Sea continues to cause concern. Campaigners have singled out for criticism Washington's alliance with Uzbekistan, pointing to Tashkent's widespread breaches of international human rights conventions. But as US policy makers continue discussion of its foreign aid allocations for this year there is little sign that Uzbekistan will be subject to the kind of punitive reduction in aid campaigners have called for. © Hindustan Times Ltd. 2004. ***************************************************************** 11 Las Vegas SUN: CIA Chief Visited Pakistan for Talks Today: February 23, 2004 at 1:10:24 PST By MUNIR AHMAD ASSOCIATED PRESS ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) - CIA Director George Tenet visited Pakistan earlier this month to share information on Osama bin Laden and discuss ways to combat nuclear proliferation, senior government officials said Monday. The visit came more than a week before Pakistan began pouring troops into its remote tribal regions in an operation to round up al-Qaida suspects. It has long been believed that bin Laden, the prime suspect in the Sept. 11 terror attacks, is hiding in the region along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan. "Both sides shared views and information," an intelligence official familiar with the agenda of the meeting told The Associated Press. He spoke on condition of anonymity. The U.S. Embassy in Islamabad declined to comment and the Foreign Ministry refused to confirm the visit. Tenet visited just days after the father of Pakistan's nuclear program, Abdul Qadeer Khan, acknowledged leaking nuclear technology to Libya, North Korea and Iran. News of the scope of Khan's activities has caused worldwide alarm and embarrassed this South Asian country. Tenet discussed the implications of the nuclear black market with Pakistani intelligence officials, the official said. Khan was pardoned by President Gen. Pervez Musharraf on Feb. 5 following his confession. Washington has said the pardon was an internal Pakistani decision, and that it was most concerned with shutting down Khan's network. Paramilitary forces in recent days have boosted security in the lawless border region, in Pakistan's ultra-conservative North West Frontier Province. But authorities insist bin Laden is not the military's immediate target. Still, troops have stepped up patrols in the rugged area, placing heavy guns on key roads and taking positions in sandbagged bunkers in the key town of Wana in tribal South Waziristan. The operation is the fourth of its kind since the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks in the United States. It will center on suspected Taliban and al-Qaida men who authorities believe have married Pakistani women and are living in the tribal areas. Pakistan has been a key ally of the United States in its war on terror, and Pakistani security forces have captured more than 500 suspected al-Qaida and Taliban fugitives since the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Among the captured are key figures in bin Laden's terrorist network. Musharraf escaped two assassination attempts in December which he blamed on al-Qaida. The government has provided no evidence to support his claim. -- ***************************************************************** 12 Hi Pakistan: PPP demands probe into ‘N-export scandal’ --> February 24 2004 ISLAMABAD: The Central Executive Committee of the Pakistan People’s Party has demanded a full-scale parliamentary inquiry into the "nuclear export scandal". The two-day London meeting was chaired by PPP Chairperson Benazir Bhutto and attended among others by Makhdoom Amin Fahim, Mian Raza Rabbani, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Barrister Sultan Mahmood, Raja Pervez Ashraf, Syed Khursheed Shah, Syed Qaim Ali Shah and all the four provincial presidents. The meeting adopted a number of resolutions recalling that the sale of nuclear hardware was publicly advertised through open tenders in July 2000 under General Pervez Musharraf. The meeting, in a resolution, suspected General Musharraf of being responsible for the export of nuclear technology and noted that he must be stepped down for undermining the country’s security and integrity. It decided to appoint shadow spokesperson of parliamentary party to collect and coordinate information on issues relating to various ministries and departments. The meeting demanded the release of Senator Asif Ali Zardari and other political leaders. Copyright 1996-2002 . Hi Pakistan. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 13 Las Vegas SUN: U.N. Nuke Inspector Seeks Clues in Libya Today: February 23, 2004 at 0:05:24 PST By GEORGE JAHN ASSOCIATED PRESS TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) - The chief United Nations nuclear inspector took his search for the key players in the atomic black market to Libya on Monday, where he is seeking to determine who supplied Moammar Gadhafi's government with technology to develop weapons of mass destruction. Mohamed ElBaradei began a two-day visit officially focused on monitoring the progress of dismantling Libya's illicit nuclear program - a process that began in December when Gadhafi's government agreed to scrap its weapons effort. "He's going to take stock of what's happening and review the next steps," said Melissa Fleming, a spokeswoman for the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency. But diplomats said ElBaradei would also be looking for new clues about the clandestine nuclear network that for decades provide technology and equipment to Libya, North Korea and Iran. There was no official IAEA comment. But Fleming said information provided by Libya was crucial to identifying the network, its key players and their roles in getting equipment and expertise to nations willing to pay for the means to acquire nuclear arms. Since Libya revealed the extent of its efforts in December, Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program, has acknowledged heading the network described by ElBaradei as a "nuclear supermarket" with middlemen extending to five continents. Libya's openness on the illicit trade network helped the IAEA "understand the most serious case of proliferation in recent time," said Fleming. Khan and dozens of associates circumvented national export controls in Europe, Asia and elsewhere to ship nuclear technology to Libya, which managed to hide experiments geared toward making weapons for nearly two decades. Among the most startling discoveries were engineers' drawings of a 1960s warhead of Chinese design apparently provided by those linked to Khan, who originally turned to China to develop Pakistan's country's nuclear weapons. While far from building such arms, Libya managed to process minute quantities of plutonium, used in the core of nuclear warheads, says a report by ElBaradei written for an IAEA board of governors meeting next month. Centrifuge designs and other technology originating from Pakistan and found in Libya also were apparently sold to Iran, which has acknowledged hiding nearly two decades of nuclear activity but insists its programs are meant to produce power not weapons. North Korea denies any link to Khan, but U.S. intelligence and the Pakistani scientist's associates have said that it also received help in its nuclear weapons program from his network. A diplomat said the Libya revelations helped the agency link Iran's illicit program to the Khan operation. "Things that the IAEA was learning from Iran strongly implicated Pakistan but finding another country ordering from the same network exposed the whole workings and international connections of that network," including ties to Iran, said the diplomat, asking for anonymity. Iran has been less forthcoming than Libya on its sources. It confirmed Sunday that it has purchased nuclear equipment from international dealers, including some from the Indian subcontinent, but said it doesn't know where the components came from. It has made the same argument to the IAEA, saying only the intermediaries that supplied it know the origins of the parts. Still, the statements Sunday by Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi appeared to corroborate a report that Malaysian authorities released last week after they completed a three-month investigation into the Khan network. The report said Iran had bought $3 million worth of used uranium centrifuge parts from that operation. Iran's decade of covert nuclear activities came to light last year, with the discovery that it had set up thousands of centrifuges to enrich uranium - a process that can be used to generate power or make nuclear warheads, depending on the level of enrichment. A report on Iran is expected next week, ahead of the IAEA board of governors' meeting on March 8. -- ***************************************************************** 14 Las Vegas SUN: U.N. Watchdog Gets Nuke Data From Libya Today: February 23, 2004 at 17:40:32 PST By GEORGE JAHN ASSOCIATED PRESS TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) - The head of the U.N. atomic watchdog agency said Monday that meetings with Libyan officials were producing more names and companies involved in supplying renegade nations with the technology for their nuclear arms programs. Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, also said key elements of Libya's nuclear weapons program remain in place three months after its government pledged to scrap them, though Tripoli is committed to their elimination. ElBaradei did not elaborate, but another delegation member said centrifuge equipment that can enrich uranium to weapons grade still remains assembled and in Libya. He spoke on condition of anonymity. ElBaradei arrived in Tripoli on Monday where about a dozen U.S. and British experts are overseeing what needs to be removed to strip Libya's nuclear program of all weapons applciations. After meeting with Libyan officials, ElBaradei said he was confident that stage would be reached by June. "I think it is going very smoothly, very well, and the Libyans have confirmed again their full cooperation, their readiness to settle all the questions we have," ElBaradei told reporters after meeting with Deputy Prime Minister Matoug M. Matoug, who heads the nation's nuclear activities. Other equipment already has been shipped to the United States, which along with Britain negotiated the process that led in December to Libya declaring its nuclear weapons programs - and its desire to scrap them. Also in the United States, under IAEA seal, are drawings of a 1960s nuclear warhead. ElBaradei said new countries with illicit nuclear arms programs may be revealed in investigations by his agency and national intelligence services into the nuclear black market. Libya, one of the nuclear black market's key customers, has blown the whistle on its head, the father of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program, Abdul Qadeer Khan, and more than a dozen of his middlemen. Another delegation member said much of the investigative work into the nuclear supply chain would likely be wrapped up within three months. But ElBaradei urged caution. "We are still trying to understand the network, we are still trying to see whether other countries have received technology, have received weapons designs," he said. "We are putting the pieces of the puzzle together and trying to understand whether there is any additional work ... for us in the future." He did not elaborate. But Iran has been named by diplomats familiar with the IAEA's work as being suspected of buying nuclear warhead drawings, along with the uranium enrichment equipment it now acknowledges having. Iran, which was also supplied by the Khan network, denies nuclear weapon ambitions, insisting it wanted to enrich uranium to lower grades for power and not produce the highly enriched version used in weapons. North Korea - the third country linked so far to the network - denies any connection, but U.S. intelligence and Khan's associates have said it also received help in its nuclear weapons program from his network. "We are getting the names of more individuals, more companies," not only from Libya but "many different sources," ElBaradei said. Since the first revelations from Libya in December, Khan has confessed to heading the operation described by ElBaradei as a "nuclear supermarket." Khan and dozens of associates circumvented export controls in Europe, Asia and elsewhere to ship nuclear technology to Libya, which managed to hide experiments geared toward making weapons for nearly two decades. Among the most startling discoveries were the warhead drawings, and findings in a report by ElBaradei that Libya also managed to process minute amounts of plutonium that - in much larger quantities - are used in the core of nuclear warheads. Talks in Tripoli also were focusing on shipping highly enriched uranium - an alternative to plutonium in warheads - from a Libyan research reactor back to Russia, the original supplier, and replacing it with less-enriched fuel without weapons applications. A diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Libya revelations helped the agency link Iran's illicit program to the Khan operation. Iran has been less forthcoming than Libya on its sources. It confirmed Sunday it has purchased nuclear equipment from international dealers, including from the Indian subcontinent, but said it doesn't know where the components came from. It has made the same argument to the IAEA, saying only the intermediaries that supplied it know the origins of the parts. A report from Malaysian authorities last week said Iran had bought $3 million worth of used uranium centrifuge parts from the Khan operation. --- On the Net: IAEA, www.iaea.org -- ***************************************************************** 15 allAfrica.com: South Africa: Nuclear Power Debate is Far From Over Business Day (Johannesburg) Posted to the web February 23, 2004 Khulu Phasiwe, Public Policy Correspondent Johannesburg Like the arms deal, costs of the technology will mushroom, say critics in SA THE debate over the storage and disposal of nuclear waste has been going on for more than 25 years, ever since the first major nuclear accident at Three Mile Island in the US raised worldwide concern about the safety of nuclear energy. Nuclear energy proponents say a chest X-ray or a long- distance flight exposes a person to more radioactivity than one would experience in a year living close to a nuclear plant. Environmental lobby groups, on the other hand, say the technology is expensive and fraught with risks. In SA, environmental activists want Eskom and its partners in the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor mini-nuclear power station to abandon the project and explore renewable sources of energy instead. Eskom is projected to run out of surplus capacity by 2007. The state-owned utility is investigating various electricity supply options such as nuclear and renewable energy in addition to its existing coal-fired power stations. Industrialised countries, such as the US and those in western Europe, use nuclear power for electricity generation. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Lithuania and France produced about 80% of their electricity needs from nuclear plants in 2002. The US produced 20% of its needs from its 104 nuclear power stations. The Environmental Justice Networking Forum says SA's proposed demonstration mini- nuclear power plant will cost taxpayers R12bn. This is money that could be used to explore alternative energy or be diverted to social upliftment programmes. Thabo Madihlaba, national director of the forum, says: "Like the arms deal, the current cost estimate is unrealistic and South Africans can expect the costs to mushroom. "International experience has shown that reactors cost five to 10 times more to complete than their original estimates." The forum says SA is "rich" in wind, sun, and wave and tidal resources for clean, renewable energy that should be tapped. However, nuclear proponents say there has been a "continual improvement" in safety records of the nuclear power industry since the Three Mile Island accident and the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine. John Walmsley, honorary president of the South African branch of the Institution of Nuclear Engineers, says the proposed Pebble Bed Modular Reactor, like the Koeberg power plant in Cape Town, has been designed to deal with nuclear waste efficiently and safely. He says the disposal technologies being developed can completely isolate nuclear waste for 10000 years, during which period more than 99% of the radioactivity dies away. "There is no doubt that with modern technology and billions of rands, this is achievable. Local residents will have nothing to fear from leakage," says Walmsley. Currently low-level radioactive waste from Koeberg is securely sealed in steel drums and disposed of in 7m-deep trenches at Vaalputs, an arid and sparsely populated area near Springbok in Northern Cape. "In the 19 years of the opera- tion at Vaalputs no man-made isotopes that could have come from the waste have ever been detected," says Walmsley. Copyright © 2004 Business Day. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). Click ***************************************************************** 16 Chattanoogan.com: Wamp Tells Technology Council Push Needed To Hydrogen posted February 23, 2004 Congressman Zach Wamp told the Chattanooga Technology Council on Monday that the nation needs strong leadership to make a 10-year push toward development of hydrogen fuels. The speaker at the luncheon at the Convention Center said moving away from petroleum dependence will help America avert some future wars. He said, "President Bush has said we need a 15-20-year drive toward hydrogen. I say we need to do it in 10 years." Rep. Wamp said hydrogen appears to be the most promising technology, but he said fusion or another new idea could jump ahead of it. He said in America's energy use there has been a trend away from carbon emissions, which he said is a positive move. He said hydrogen would be "clean as a whistle." Rep. Wamp said there are some promising developments in solar, including solar shingles that are effective in cold weather parts of the country. He said a number of hybrid vehicles are being introduced by major carmakers, and the vehicles get about twice the gas mileage. He said nuclear is the most reliable component of TVA's energy system, but he said there are no new reactors being built in the country because after the Three Mile Island diaster "we became scared to death of it." The speaker said, "TVA needs to bring nuclear back." Rep. Wamp also told the group that the U.S. "is becoming a nation of consumers." He said China has a strategy of taking over manufacturing from the U.S., and it subsidies its factories by up to 20 percent. He said Wal-Mart has become the nation's leading employer with 1.3 million workers, and he said Wal-Mart is increasingly getting its products from China. news@chattanoogan.com (423) 266-2325 © 2004 Site designed and copyrighted by Three HD ***************************************************************** 17 toledoblade: NRC to study new criticism of Davis-Besse's communication Monday, February 23, 2004 By TOM HENRY BLADE STAFF WRITER The Nuclear Regulatory Commission could take up to a month before it responds to the latest internal criticism about a communication breakdown within the agency that may have contributed to Davis-Besse's shutdown. By then, the Ottawa County nuclear plant on the Lake Erie shoreline, 30 miles east of Toledo, could well be back in full operation. It has been idle since Feb. 16, 2002, because of management, equipment, and design issues but is awaiting restart authorization. In a Feb. 2 letter to NRC Chairman Nils Diaz, agency Inspector General Hubert T. Bell said NRC management simply hasn't done enough to improve communications. Mr. Bell said efforts have been taken to minimize acid leakage at nuclear plants in the wake of Davis-Besse's high-profile reactor head problem. Acid from that plant's reactor had been allowed to leak for years, nearly burning a hole through the device's massive steel head. But the letter said such efforts "do not address the underlying, more generic, communication failures identified during our inquiry." The inspector general's office has claimed there was poor communication between the NRC's headquarters and its Midwest regional office that oversees Davis-Besse, as well as between those offices and former resident inspectors assigned to the plant. Mr. Diaz must have senior-level NRC officials address a "lack of communication between the various levels of NRC management," the letter said. "We believe that to fully address the shortcomings identified as a result of the Davis-Besse incident, the associated corrective actions by the agency should include an expectation of improved communication between and among headquarters and regional staff and should outline specific guidance to achieve this goal," Mr. Bell wrote. NRC headquarters spokesman Dave McIntyre declined to comment on the letter, other than it is being reviewed and Mr. Diaz has 30 days to respond. "The point we're trying to make is that almost everything that happened can be traced back to the root cause of lack of communication," said George Mulley, the inspector general's senior assistant for investigative operations. The Associated Press contributed to this report. © 2004 The Blade. The Toledo Blade Company, 541 N. Superior St., Toledo, OH 43660 , (419) 724-6000 ***************************************************************** 18 toledoblade: New federal power plant edict seeks to save fish Monday, February 23, 2004 By TOM HENRY BLADE STAFF WRITER Western Lake Erie could reap benefits from a U.S. EPA edict to protect more fish from massive power plant water intakes. Although some experts said they are puzzled by how the agency plans to achieve its goal, they welcome anything that could result in even a marginal improvement for Erie’s western end - by far the warmest and most productive part of the Great Lakes for fish reproduction. Lake Erie alone produces more fish than the other four Great Lakes combined. But the lake’s western end also is home of two coal-fired power plants that are among the most notorious for killing or injuring Great Lakes fish: FirstEnergy Corp.’s Bay Shore plant in Oregon and Detroit Edison Co.’s massive plant in Monroe, according to Dr. Jeff Reutter, director of Ohio Sea Grant and Ohio State University’s Stone Laboratory on Gibraltar Island. Dr. Reutter, who also heads the Center for Lake Erie Area Research and the Great Lakes Aquatic Ecosystem Research Consortium, said he can’t think of any two power plants on the Great Lakes where more fish have been imperiled by water intakes. Millions of fish, larvae, and eggs have been impacted at those two sites over the years. Bay Shore draws water from the mouth of the Maumee River, one of the shallowest parts of the Great Lakes and near much of that massive tributary’s spawning. The Maumee is Lake Erie’s largest tributary and one of the largest in the region. The Monroe facility draws from the River Raisin. That power station is one of the nation’s largest. The two facilities are among 550 nationwide that will be affected by the new rule, announced last Monday. U.S. EPA Administrator Mike Leavitt claimed it could provide benefits to the nation of about $80 million a year in terms of enhancing recreational and commercial fishing. Billed as the first major effort to address the problem in the 32-year history of the Clean Water Act, the rule will require power plants withdrawing more than 50 million gallons of water a day to meet performance standards aimed at reducing the number of fish pinned against intake screens by 80 to 95 percent. Certain facilities also will have to achieve a 60 to 90 percent reduction in the number of tiny organisms small enough to slip through the screens. The variance depends upon factors such as location, the amount of water withdrawn, and energy generation, the U.S. EPA said. Facilities will be given several options to achieve goals, the agency said. The rule is the second of three the U.S. EPA committed itself to achieve as part of a consent decree in 1995 that stemmed from a lawsuit filed by numerous environmental groups. The third rule, which is to be announced in November, will apply to electric generating plants using smaller amounts of cooling water and for other manufacturers, the agency said. The U.S. EPA said the latest regulation alone will protect more than 200 million pounds of fish and other aquatic organisms from being drawn into heavy currents and either banged up against intake screens or drawn through a plant’s cooling system. Some fish survive when drawn through a plant, but the vast majority die. Many of those pinned against intake screens die from fatigue or related ailments, officials said. Ellen Raines, FirstEnergy spokesman, said the utility plans to spend 31/2 years on a study to assess how many fish are affected at Bay Shore and what improvements could be made to meet the U.S. EPA regulation. John Austerberry, Detroit Edison spokesman, said he anticipates some type of physical enhancement will be made to the Monroe facility’s intake. He said he did not believe the problem is worse at Monroe than at other coal plants, although the Monroe facility once had to shut down in the mid-1980s because of partial blockage by shad. The issue has long been a concern to Frank Reynolds, a commercial fisherman from Oregon who said he’s focused much of his attention on the problem at Bay Shore for years. "It’s not only killing fish, but the whole ecosystem. Every different type of aquatic life is being destroyed," Mr. Reynolds, who has fished Lake Erie for 30 years, said. The latest rule does not apply to FirstEnergy’s Davis-Besse and Detroit Edison’s Fermi II nuclear plants. Neither draws in more than 50 million gallons of water a day, because both re-circulate water within their plants and replace it only as it evaporates. Both likely will be affected by the rule due out in November. Davis-Besse draws in fewer than 29 million gallons a day. The amount of Fermi II’s draw was not immediately known, but Mr. Austerberry said it is well below 50 million gallons. © 2004 The Blade. The Toledo Blade Company, 541 N. Superior St., Toledo, OH 43660 , (419) 724-6000 ***************************************************************** 19 Daily Times: OP-ED: Development potential of nuclear energy — Tuesday, February 24, 2004 Syed Mohammad Ali The key issue is not whether the use of nuclear technology will grow worldwide but whether it will grow in a manner that it can make a decisive contribution to the global imperative of sustainable development While it is impossible to ignore the international clamour over the risks of nuclear proliferation, the converse endorsement of its potential benefits in meeting growing human energy needs remains relatively unnoticed. In view of the population growth and the escalating pace of economic development, it is estimated that the world is bound to generate about 10 times as much electricity in 50 years time as it does today. In addition to the relatively distant prospect of depletion, use of fossil fuels comes at a heavy environmental cost. Yet the global obsession with increasing productivity remains undeterred. Unfortunately, renewable sources of energy seem incapable of replacing the cheap and efficient output of fossil fuels any time in the near future. Professor Lovelock, a prominent academic and activist, famous for applying a holistic approach to understanding the Earth’s biosphere, considers atomic energy as the only feasible replacement for fossil fuels. He justifies the need for atomic energy by pointing out how oil and gas burning poison the Earth. Ecologists alone do not highlight the sense of impending disaster implied by continued use of fossil fuels. The former UN weapons inspector in Iraq, Hans Blix, is also on record for stating that global warming poses a greater danger than proliferation of nuclear weapons. Such is the serious nature of the energy crisis facing our world today. Lack of energy can bring the entire edifice of contemporary life to a grinding halt. The energy guzzling developed world is reluctant to compromise its productivity and consumption patterns for the sake of the environment. Similarly it is difficult to convince developing countries to sacrifice rapid growth in order to prevent pollution. The pursuit to secure fossil fuel reserves is still compelling enough to shape geo-strategic calculations of major world powers. Yet there is growing anxiety concerning the need to obtain more clean energy on a vast and expanding scale. Proposing to address global energy requirement needs, proponents of nuclear technology show comparative cost trends indicating an increasing advantage in using nuclear rather than fossil fuels. They convincingly advocate many other valuable applications of nuclear science and technology: stressing its value in agriculture, medicine, nutrition, industrial development, management of fresh water resources and environmental protection. According to the World Nuclear Association, nearly a sixth of the world electricity is being generated through 439 reactors situated across the world. With major countries expanding nuclear energy’s role and new countries poised to introduce it, it seems that the key issue is not whether the use of nuclear technology will grow worldwide but whether it will grow in a manner that it can make a decisive contribution to the global imperative of sustainable development. Despite concerns over the long-term storage of radioactive waste and the possibility of accidents, nuclear science and technology is becoming pervasive in advanced and in modernising economies. A number of developing countries including China, India and Pakistan are also pressing ahead with their reactor building programmes. Perhaps the biggest irony of nuclear power is that its tremendous output and even its environmental benefits contribute directly to its political weakness. The huge multiplier that works to convert so little uranium into so much energy with so little waste works in reverse when it comes to political power. The nuclear fuel cycle that produces so much electricity gives rise to neither jobs nor wealth on a massive scale. Nuclear power is instead dependent upon knowledge and a handful of people who know how to use this knowledge. Then there is the possibility of nuclear capacity being transferable into weaponry, due to which this knowledge has been so fiercely guarded. But the proponents of nuclear energy maintain that if world leaders were to realise the value of nuclear technology in terms of health, environment or energy security, arguments over its use would have been over long ago, and the whole world could benefit from the careful management of this precious knowledge. However, the risk potential of using nuclear power even for peaceful means is substantial. If the world wants to avoid disasters such as that in Chernobyl, there is undoubted need to first fortify the capacity for safe use of nuclear power. An important question that deserves consideration in this context is whether the existing institutional support for nuclear power can effectively be configured so as to realise the full environmental and developmental value of this technology. Moreover, one wonders if using nuclear power can actually become so prevalent without being hijacked by less productive aspirations or without being another means for differentiation, which results only in increasing disparities. Such issues are not just being speculated upon conceptually. A World Nuclear University has already been inaugurated by representatives of the global atomic energy industry at a meeting in London at the end of last year. Hans Blix is its vice-chancellor. The WNU has been established to create a worldwide network that can coordinate, support and draw on the strengths of established institutions of nuclear learning. It aims to promote academic rigour and high professional ethics in all phases of nuclear activity, from fuel and isotope supply to waste management. While looking to the future, the WNU plans to strengthen capabilities to manage the legacy of early weapons and power programmes in compliance with rigorous standards of custodianship and environmental protection. The WNU aspires to undertake a long termed role of fortifying institutional and technological barriers against misuse and ultimately of decommissioning nuclear weaponry. Contestable implications may be squirming under the proposal for a regulatory framework to prevent misuse, and the purported goal of decommissioning in present circumstances seems rather good to be true. However the fact remains that like the discovery of fire, human beings have also discovered the awesome power of nuclear energy. It is a discovery that cannot be left alone and it is only a matter of time before the know-how concerning its use will spread even further. It thus makes more sense to focus on creating judicious and universally applicable conditions regarding use of nuclear technology, and to ensure that the tensions which may make its use as a weapon of mass destruction likely, are minimised across the world. Such aspirations would prove more fruitful than trying to guard against the spread of nuclear knowledge, since there has never been a dearth of the likes of Prometheus in this world. The writer is a researcher with diverse experience in the development sector. He can be reached at syedmohdali555@yahoo.com EDITORIAL: Education under siege? OP-ED: Riyadh in the eye of the storm —Ahmad Faruqui OP-ED: Development potential of nuclear energy —Syed Mohammad Ali SECOND OPINION: Losers on TV —Khaled Ahmed’s TV Review PURPLE PATCH: Jesters Who Insult —Dario Fo LETTERS: ZAHOOR'S CARTOON: Daily Times - All Rights Reserved Site developed and hosted by WorldCALL Internet Solutions ***************************************************************** 20 Hi Pakistan: Shut down of N-power plants recommended February 24 2004 BERLIN: The German nuclear watchdog on Saturday recommended shutting down five of the country’s 18 nuclear power plants because their reactors were not protected enough against an attack by an aircraft. The aging equipment of the atomic plants did not offer sufficient protection (in case of) terrorist attack with a passenger plane," Wolfram Koenig of the Federal Office for Radiation Protection told the daily Berliner Zeitung. Koenig, the president of the agency, which reports to the German environment ministry, based his recommendations on a study by the German Institute for Nuclear Safety. About Us | Private Policy | Advertise on HiP | Copyright 1996-2002 . Hi Pakistan. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the written permission and prior consent of the webmaster. ***************************************************************** 21 Las Vegas SUN: Panel Relaxes Nuke Plant Inspection Rules Today: February 23, 2004 at 17:55:36 PST By MALIA RULON ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON (AP) - The Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced Monday that it is relaxing visual inspection requirements at the nation's nuclear power plants. The move comes two years after inspectors found that boric acid corrosion on the reactor head at the Davis-Besse plant along Lake Erie east of Toledo, Ohio, had nearly eaten through the 6-inch-thick steel cap. In response to that, the NRC issued requirements one year ago for operators at the 69 plants with pressurized water reactors to inspect the entire reactor head visually for cracks or leaks. The rules announced Monday would lower that requirement to at least 95 percent of the plant's reactor head. An NRC release said it was changing the requirement because of "information provided in numerous requests for deviation from portions of the inspection regime." Still, however, if boron deposits were found near structures that obstructed the full view of the plant's reactor head, operators would be required to remove the structure and examine the full reactor head, the NRC said. Operators already are required to perform either chemical or ultrasonic tests on reactor heads. Plants identified as being at high risk of acid corrosion must perform these and the visual tests more often. Another change announced Monday would exempt plants that replace their reactor heads, such as the Davis-Besse plant, from having to do the inspections when the plant is shut down for replacement. Going forward, those plants would be required to complete inspection requirements for the low risk category. The Ohio plant, which is owned by FirstEnergy Corp., has been closed since February 2002. --- On the Net: Nuclear Regulatory Commission: http://www.nrc.gov -- ***************************************************************** 22 NRC: NRC Modifies Order Requiring Inspection of Pressurized Water Reactor Vessel Heads News Release - 2004-02 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC 20555-0001 E-mail: opa@nrc.gov No. 04-025 February 23, 2004 inspection requirements for reactor pressure vessel heads at pressurized water reactors. The change is part of the Commissions ongoing efforts to provide a clear regulatory framework to ensure public health and safety. The revised Order primarily addresses requirements for bare-metal visual inspections and non-visual examination of reactor pressure vessel heads. The discovery of degradation in the vessel head at the Davis-Besse reactor in Oak Harbor, Ohio, and discovery of leaks and cracking at other plants, reinforced the need for more effective reactor vessel head inspections, leading the NRC to issue an Order in February 2003. The original Order required visual inspection of the entire bare-metal surface of a vessel head. Based on information provided in numerous requests for deviation from portions of the inspection regime, the NRC concluded that a revised Order, which requires at least a 95 percent bare-metal inspection for those vessel heads with portions obscured by certain support structures, was warranted. If any boron deposits or corrosive residue are identified in the vicinity of the support structure, the licensee must examine the vessel head under the obstruction to ensure the head is not degraded. In addition, the revised Order adds a Replaced category of vessel head degradation susceptibility to the existing High, Moderate and Low ratings. The categories determine the required frequency of vessel head inspections for plants during refueling outages, which typically occur about every 18 to 24 months. Plants in the High category must perform inspections during every refueling outage. Those in the Moderate category must perform inspections during at least every other refueling outage. Plants in the Low category must perform bare-metal inspections at least every third outage or every five years, whichever occurs first. Penetration nozzle non-visual inspections must be performed every fourth outage or every seven years, whichever occurs first. Plants in the Replaced category need not perform inspections during the outage when the head is replaced. However, these plants must thereafter perform the same inspections as the Low category. The revised Order continues to provide reasonable assurance of vessel head integrity and protection of public health and safety. The revised Order retains the requirement for licensees to submit a report to the NRC detailing the inspection findings within 60 days of restarting the plant. A copy of the revised Order (EA-03-009, Rev. 01) will be available through the NRCs Agencywide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS) on the agencys web site, by entering accession number ML040220391 at this address: http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams/web-based.html. Last revised Monday, February 23, 2004 ***************************************************************** 23 [du-list] Audio and Powerpoint - Iraqi MD exposes effects of Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 14:45:21 -0800 ** http://www.traprockpeace.org/jawad_al-ali_iraq.html Dr. Jawad Al-Ali, manager of the Oncology Center in Basrah, Iraq, has exposed the health effects of wars on Iraq. He has presented the results of cancer studies in Iraq at the World Uranium Weapons Conference in Hamburg and the recent Japan Peace Conference, Naha, Okinawa January 29 - February 1, 2004. He reveals that cancer mortality has increased 19 fold since Gulf War I in Basra, and the occurrence of unusual phenomena, such as familial clusterings of cancers, double and triple cancers in one patient, and cancers usually associated with elderly patients occurring in the young. Rates of cancer and radiation activity have both shown sharp increases since Gulf War I, when about 340 tons of uranium munitions were expended in Iraq, much of this in the Basrah area. (The US refuses to disclose how much tonnage of uranium weapons it used I Iraq during Gulf War II. Estimates have ranged from over 100 tons up to 2000 tons.) You can hear and read his presentation at http://www.traprockpeace.org/jawad_al-ali_iraq.html The page includes a link to the audio of his talk to the World Uranium Weapons Conference, the slide show in pdf format, the text of his talk to the Japan Peace Conference in Haha, Okinawa, January 29-Feb 1, 2004 and photographs of Dr. Jawad Al-Ali from the World Uranium Weapons Conference. The slide show contains tables and graphs explaining the health effects of the war, pictures of Iraq after bombings, and very graphic pictures of Iraqi cancer victims. (Warning: many of these photos are horrific and are not suitable for children in this writer's opinion.) The slide show photographs are the work of Japanese photo journalist Takashi Morizumi. Thanks to the efforts of Canadian physician Ross Wilcock, we've made available this easy to download 2.25 mg pdf version of the slide show. This version is friendly for download to people with dial-up connections while preserving the content, including photographs, of the original. You could also download the audio of his presentation, and listen to his talk while scrolling through the slide show. The talk and visual presentation cover most of the same ground do not exactly match given time restraints of his talk (he needed to skip or change the order of some slides.) The webpage above has a key to assist in going through the presentation while listening to the talk. AFSC has published a 42 mg version of the presentation in Powerpoint format. http://www.afsc.org/newengland/pesp/effects-of-wars.ppt We have audio of other speakers from the World Uranium Weapons Conference that we will be uploading to the Traprock site over the next few weeks. For more information on the conference, including conference reports, go to http://www.uraniumweaponsconference.de/ For the audio, we wish to thank Martin Voelker, who converted and edited audio we recorded at the Hamburg conference, and Marion Kuepker, a convener of the Hamburg conference and with Gewaltfreie Aktion Atomwaffen Abschaffen (GAAA) - http://www.gaaa.org/ She kindly provided their conference recordings. Thank you, Charlie Jenks Charles Jenks, attorney at law President of the Core Group Traprock Peace Center 103A Keets Road Deerfield, MA 01342 413-773-1633; Fax 413-773-7507 charles@mtdata.com http://traprockpeace.org ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Buy Ink Cartridges or Refill Kits for your HP, Epson, Canon or Lexmark Printer at MyInks.com. Free s/h on orders $50 or more to the US & Canada. http://www.c1tracking.com/l.asp?cid=5511 http://us.click.yahoo.com/mOAaAA/3exGAA/qnsNAA/FGYolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> To unsubscribe from this groups send a message to du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com. In the body of the message type unsubscribe and send. Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/du-list/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ***************************************************************** 24 [DU-WATCH] Scandal of Gulf war guinea pigs Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 23:34:23 -0600 (CST) Scandal of Gulf War guinea pigs http://www.sundaypost.com/news1.htm EXCLUSIVE By Jackie Bytheway THE Ministry of Defence breached the Nuremberg Code by carrying out medical tests on soldiers during the first Gulf War. Injections with a cocktail of drugs were given to thousands of soldiers prior to being sent to the Gulf. But one medical unit 205 General Hospital, now 205 Field Hospital, based in Govan, Glasgow was used for vaccine experiments without being told. Immunisation The Nuremberg Code states that voluntary consent is absolutely essential before such experiments are carried out. Britain is bound by the code yet two of the soldiers in 205GH were unaware they were used as guinea pigs until told by The Sunday Post. A Government report into the immunisation of soldiers during the first Gulf War states, HQ British Forces Middle East decided a trial should be conducted at 205 General Hospital to assess how many personnel would suffer severe reactions as a result of plague immunisation before other units in theatre began the administration of plague vaccine. Tony Flint. The results of the trial would give an indication of the number of personnel who would be affected by severe vaccine reactions. Tony Flint, who was attached to the unit, added, We were guinea pigs and we are all pretty angry about it. We had no choice and they had no right to do that to us. It is against the Nuremberg Code. We all assumed this vaccine had been safe and tested out at Porton Down not on the battlefield. Symptoms Tony, from London, has not been able to work for 10 years and is only 56. He attributes all his symptoms to the vaccines he received for anthrax, whooping cough and the plague. Tony now suffers from a long list of ailments including flu-like symptoms every six to eight weeks and chronic fatigue. One Glasgow soldier, who served with 205 General Hospital and does not want to be named, said, There was a lot of peer pressure applied by comrades and senior officers. I wasnt aware of mass testing and if we had been told a lot of people would have refused. There were a lot of professional people in 205 such as doctors, nurses and lab technicians and there would have been a full-scale riot if they knew they were being tested. Emeritus Professor of Medicinal Chemistry, Malcolm Hooper, said, Its extremely disturbing that a number of situations in the first Gulf War were clearly experimental without the proper research being carried out. Prof Hooper, who retired from Sunderland University, is now chief scientific advisor to the National Gulf Veterans and Families Association. He said there is clear evidence of damage to the nervous system that he believes has been caused by the injections. Cold heart He added, The veterans are fighting for their lives, sanity and families. They have not received justice, theyve been met with a tin ear, cold heart and a closed mind. They are just asking that their health is taken care of properly. Now the National Gulf Veterans and Families Association plan to take legal action against the MoD. The MoD initially maintained personnel had given informed consent for the injections. But after we disputed their facts, they admitted the immunisations were meant to be voluntary. However, they accept that when the instruction was passed down the chain of command it may have led to the belief the immunisations were mandatory. An MoD spokesman said, It appears the voluntary nature of the anti-biological weapons immunisation programme was clearly understood in some cases but not in others. He added that a combination of leadership by example, peer pressure and lack of clear instructions left some personnel with the belief they could not refuse the immunisations. We are holding our hands up. In some cases the Nuremberg Code may have been breached, he added. ________________________________________________________________________ Yahoo! Messenger - Communicate instantly..."Ping" your friends today! Download Messenger Now http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com/download/index.html [Brought to you by HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK] Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/du-watch/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: du-watch-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ***************************************************************** 25 [DU-WATCH] MOD accepts DU has the potential to cause ill health Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 23:38:42 -0600 (CST) Dear all this wrning card (see below) was sent out by a Gulf Veteran, please circulate cheers MoD Accept DU has the potential to cause ill health British Troops serving in Iraq are now being issued with an F Med 1018. Why not before the Iraq war, Balkans or Gulf War? Are service personnel from other nations aware that British Troops carry this warning card? Are Iraqi Civilians aware of this warning card? Are Civilians aware of this warning card who around the world live near test firing range's. Copies of this card should be made for the Iraqi civilians to turn up at British & American Military establishments in Iraq and ask for testing as it was the US and the UK that used Uranium Munitions. Please distribute the faxed, photo-copy of the card that was sent to me. REMEMBER The MoD have always told Gulf War 1 Vet's DU IS SAFE another demonstration of an UNTRUTH It was said that DU was experimental during Gulf War 1 - then is this another demonstration of the breaking of the Nuremberg Code by observing the health effects on the Veterans after the War? MOD Card: DU Information Card (introduced 03/03) F Med 1018 You have been deployed to a theatre where Depleted Uranium(DU) munitions have been used. DU is a weakly radioactive heavy metal, which has the potential to cause ill health You may have been exposed to dust containing DU during your deployment Further Information You are eligiable for a urine test to measure uranium. If you wish to know more about having this test, you should consult your unit medical officer on return to your home base. Your medical officer can provide information about the health effects of DU. Information is also available on the MOD web site: www.mod.uk/issues/depleted_uranium/index.htm ________________________________________________________________________ Yahoo! Messenger - Communicate instantly..."Ping" your friends today! Download Messenger Now http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com/download/index.html ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Buy Ink Cartridges or Refill Kits for your HP, Epson, Canon or Lexmark Printer at MyInks.com. Free s/h on orders $50 or more to the US & Canada. http://www.c1tracking.com/l.asp?cid=5511 http://us.click.yahoo.com/mOAaAA/3exGAA/qnsNAA/Sj.0lB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> [Brought to you by HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK] Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/du-watch/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: du-watch-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ***************************************************************** 26 [du-list] Japanese split over Iraq mission Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 20:35:19 -0800 Japanese split over Iraq mission Chalmers Johnson, for the L.A. Times February 23, 2004, Minneapolis Star Tribune http://www.startribune.com/stories/1519/4620598.html Japan may have regained its sovereignty in 1952, but the decision to dispatch Japanese troops to Iraq earlier this month has reminded many of its citizens just how little independence the country really has -- and just how much control the United States retains. If British Prime Minister Tony Blair is President Bush's poodle, then Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi is his cocker spaniel. "We are still occupied by the American military," said an acquaintance of mine who is a former official of Japan's Ministry of Education and now a university president. "We are a satellite. Our foreign policy revolves entirely around the wishes of Washington." Like many other Japanese, he believes that Koizumi ordered Japan's first military sortie into an active combat zone since World War II because he was too weak to stand up to Bush. According to a recent Japan Broadcasting Corp. poll, 51 percent of the country opposes getting involved in Washington's war against Iraq, while only 42 percent supports Koizumi's decision. What's more, 82 percent of those polled said they did not trust the prime minister's explanations for marching into the Iraqi quagmire. Most believe that Koizumi had to go along with Bush or risk damaging the alliance with the United States. There's no question that the United States takes Japan for granted. The Bush administration likes to boast about how successful the U.S. Army was in democratizing Japan after World War II, and it likes to suggest that it will accomplish the same feat in Iraq. But it fails to note that the U.S. military kept the Japanese prefecture of Okinawa as a Pentagon colony for more than 25 years -- until 1972 -- and that the United States still has 38 military bases on that small island. Okinawa is home to 1.3 million Japanese citizens who since 1945 have repeatedly had to bear the burdens of violent crimes by American soldiers, continuous environmental and noise pollution, hit-and-run accidents, bar brawls and behavior that would never be tolerated in the United States or the mainland of Japan. The Washington official charged with keeping Japan in the U.S. orbit is Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage. His name probably appears in the Japanese media more frequently than any other U.S. government figure. Armitage has been hammering Koizumi for more than a year "not to miss the boat" this time, referring to Japan's failure to support the United States militarily in the 1991 war against Iraq. (He has apparently forgotten that Tokyo bankrolled operations to the tune of $13 billion.) After his reelection as prime minister in September, Koizumi railroaded a vote through the Japanese Parliament endorsing the dispatch of Self-Defense Forces troops to Iraq, even though he acknowledged that this was probably a violation of Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution. Article 9, a key part of Japan's post-World War II constitution, prohibits Japan from using force in the conduct of its foreign relations. Koizumi tried to get around this by endorsing future efforts to amend the constitution and by claiming that the Japanese army would undertake "only humanitarian and reconstruction work" in Iraq. But this is hardly a risk-free operation -- militarily or politically. Domestic critics charge that sending the troops before amending the constitution suggests that Japan does not believe in the rule of law. Two former secretaries-general of Koizumi's Liberal Democratic Party, Koichi Kato and Makoto Koga, and the party's former policy chief, Shizuka Kamei, declined to vote for the troop deployment. The first of about 1,000 Japanese troops arrived Feb. 8 in Samawah, 168 miles south of Baghdad, Iraq. Four days later, they came under mortar attack. They've also been threatened by Al-Qaida for joining the U.S.-led coalition -- and given that Al-Qaida delivered painful blows to the Turks in Istanbul after issuing similar warnings, Japan should be braced for military and civilian casualties. Perhaps even more serious for the Japanese, Samawah was hit by U.S. depleted-uranium ammunition in both 1991 and 2003. Japanese journalist Mamoru Toyoda, equipped with a Geiger counter, found radiation levels in the town 300 times greater than normal. The Dutch troops also based there have refused to remove or go near any of the radioactive debris in the area. Death and disability because of radiation sickness is a particular horror for all Japanese after the World War II bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The British and Australian governments ignored their populations to join Bush's might-makes-right adventure, when they could have stood aside like France and Germany. It is too bad that Japan has now done the same thing, permanently destroying the idealism behind its antiwar constitution. Chalmers Johnson, president of the Japan Policy Research Institute and author of "The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic," wrote this article for the Los Angeles Times. -- Posted for educational and research purposes only, ~ in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 ~ See NucNews Links and Archives - http://nucnews.net ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Buy Ink Cartridges or Refill Kits for your HP, Epson, Canon or Lexmark Printer at MyInks.com. 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Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ***************************************************************** 27 [du-list] This time, depleted uranium questions are coming Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 20:35:20 -0800 This time, depleted uranium questions are coming from the Army first By Kevin Dougherty, Stars and Stripes European edition, Monday, February 23, 2004 http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=20636 As concerns over depleted uranium grew in the aftermath of the Persian Gulf War, Army doctors were largely in a reactive mode, waiting for soldiers to broach the subject of radiation exposure. That approach was partly due to an absence of health and deployment data, which impeded efforts to cure and compensate people. Now, as the Army manages the largest force rotation in decades, troops returning from Iraq are being asked about depleted uranium — as well as other potentially dangerous toxins — before most have a chance to raise the issue themselves. This and other health-related questions form the basis of an Armywide post-deployment questionnaire. “We are doing more testing,” said Capt. James Mancuso, chief of epidemiology at the U.S. Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine-Europe in Landstuhl, Germany. Mancuso said officials are not finding any significant exposure, however, to depleted uranium, a dense substance used in projectiles to improve armor-piercing capability. But up and down the clinical chart, medical personnel are doing more these days to check and document a soldier’s health before and after deployment. The pace has accelerated in recent months to better capture baseline medical data on the waves of troops leaving and entering Iraq. Officials say servicemembers are also more involved in the process, partly because they are better educated about possible health threats. “We have a better trained soldier population,” said Army Lt. Col. Gary Matcek, chief of the center’s health physics division, “not just on DU, but on the whole litany of toxicants.” The effort to improve the process of collecting health and deployment data comes on the heels of a Government Accounting Office report that focused on 1,071 troops who deployed to Kosovo or Afghanistan between January 2001 and May 2002. Released in September, the GAO’s review found the Army and Air Force not in compliance with Defense Department policies on health protection and surveillance. The report, based on data covering four stateside bases, noted deficiencies in health assessments, immunizations and record-keeping. It also criticized the Defense Department for a lack of “oversight of department-wide efforts to comply with health surveillance requirements.” The Defense Department concurred with the report. The report “disclosed that 38 to 98 percent of servicemembers [sampled] were missing one or both of their [pre- or post-deployment] health assessments. ...” The basis of the GAO review, the second in six years, is rooted in health problems that arose after the 1990-91 Persian Gulf War, giving rise to what is known as Gulf War syndrome. One of the culprits, some say, was the use of depleted uranium by U.S. and British forces. DU is a byproduct of the enrichment process of natural uranium, and, because of its density, is highly effective in penetrating armored vehicles. But a lack of deployment data frustrated efforts to fully investigate the matter, the GAO later found. Today, troops wrapping up their Iraq tour are required to complete a four-page form that includes, among other things, a question about possible exposure to depleted uranium. The number of soldiers answering “yes” is “very low,” said Army Col. Allen Kraft, director of force health protection for Europe Regional Medical Command and U.S. Army Europe. Exposure to depleted uranium “is just one of the many, many things we are covering” in the survey, Kraft said. “Some are as innocuous as sand and dust.” Regarding health assessments and data collection, Kraft acknowledged Army doctors “learned some good lessons from Gulf War I.” But, he adds, people need to keep things in perspective. Ingesting particles of depleted uranium certainly isn’t desirable, Kraft said, but he noted that people who smoke do their body more harm. In a place such as Iraq, medical officials are just as concerned about other toxicants, from oil field emissions to lead paint. DU, Kraft said, “is on the low end of the totem pole” of things to worry about. “The word ‘radiation’ scares people,” Kraft said, “but you are exposed to [levels of] radiation every time you step outside.” By anyone’s measure, the greatest threat of depleted uranium exposure occurs when a soldier has the added misfortune of being in a vehicle struck by a DU shell, possibly from friendly fire. Upon impact, a round will pierce the metal and then mostly vaporize, sending fragments as well as particles of DU oxides flying. Matcek, the CHPPME health physics division chief, said the immediate threat soon dissipates and that even rescue personnel are not at serious risk when following basic safety standards. Troops who simply pass by are at no great risk of exposure, either. A measure of uranium, Matcek said, is in everyone’s body: “It’s part of the air we breathe.” “The conflict was different than the first time,” Matcek said. “… We did a much better job identifying between friend and foe.” Medical officials, Mancuso said, walk a fine line when talking to troops about DU. If you show too little interest, people wonder; if you show too much interest, people wonder. He said just because troops were near inert DU munitions or pass by an impact site doesn’t mean they’re in danger. Among departing troops, “no health affects have been seen relating to depleted uranium,” Mancuso said. “… Nothing has been seen so far.” -- Posted for educational and research purposes only, ~ in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 ~ See NucNews Links and Archives - http://nucnews.net ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Buy Ink Cartridges or Refill Kits for your HP, Epson, Canon or Lexmark Printer at MyInks.com. Free s/h on orders $50 or more to the US & Canada. http://www.c1tracking.com/l.asp?cid=5511 http://us.click.yahoo.com/mOAaAA/3exGAA/qnsNAA/FGYolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> To unsubscribe from this groups send a message to du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com. In the body of the message type unsubscribe and send. Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/du-list/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ***************************************************************** 28 Philadelphia Inquirer: More radiation found at Chesco Superfund site | 02/23/2004 | The owner said the levels do not pose a health risk. The EPA has not yet reviewed the latest results. By Benjamin Y. Lowe Inquirer Staff Writer EAST WHITELAND - Tests at the Cyprus Foote Mineral Co. Superfund site have revealed more radioactive hot spots. The site's owner said last week that detailed testing conducted since the fall showed four more areas where radiation was higher than background levels. These are in addition to hot spots found in tests conducted in November. The owner, Frazer Exton Development L.P., based in West Goshen, said the levels were not a health risk to anyone living near the site. The newer results, however, have not yet been filed with the Environmental Protection Agency. "The EPA will evaluate the report and make a determination later on its validity," said Jim Feeney, the agency's caseworker for the site. Feeney said it was too early to determine whether the studies would affect how the agency cleans up the site, which is at the intersection of Routes 30 and 202. The 79-acre tract is across the street from the Valley Creek Corporate Center and next to the Malvern Hunt subdivision. Frazer Exton Development has proposed building an 800-home, age-restricted community once the site is cleaned up. The company said the readings could be associated with places where Cyprus Foote Mineral, a processing company that once used the site, stored mineral ores. "The site processed rare earth minerals, and there's always small amounts of radioactive ores included among rare earth minerals," said Arnon Garonzik, president of Frazer Exton Development. He also said that soil samples suggest that the radioactivity is confined to the surface. Garonzik said some of the results would be available for public review at an open house scheduled for tomorrow night at Great Valley Middle School. Representatives from the EPA, which is supervising the cleanup, a health physicist, and the environmental engineering firm that conducted the tests will be at the meeting. The meeting is scheduled to run from 7 to 9 p.m. There will be no presentations, but experts will be stationed at booths to answer questions. The site, used primarily for lithium processing for about 50 years, closed in 1991 after Cyprus Minerals Co. bought the company. It was declared a Superfund site a year later because bromate and other contaminants were running off the site. Lithium is a metal frequently used in batteries and chemical production. The EPA proposed a plan to clean up the site in August. But the agency put the plan on hold when it found out about work done there during the 1950s by the now-defunct U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. EPA officials have said that previous tests indicate that the radioactive portions of the site are confined and do not pose a health risk. Feeney has said the readings also could be coming from remnants of radioactive sand once stored at the site. Contact staff writer Benjamin Y. Lowe at 610-701-7615 or blowe@phillynews.com. ***************************************************************** 29 Vancouver Sun: radioactive material stolen vancouversun.com Chad Skelton February 23, 2004 Potentially dangerous radioactive material was stolen from a military van last October after the vehicle was left unattended and unlocked all night at a hotel in Parksville, according to internal military documents obtained by The Vancouver Sun. According to military regulations, any time a nuclear-powered ship is docked at a naval base, a nuclear emergency response vehicle -- outfitted with several thousand dollars worth of nuclear-detection equipment -- must be on hand in case of an accident. That vehicle -- a military-owned Chevy Suburban -- was parked at the Sandcastle Inn in Parksville around 10 p.m. on Oct. 7 last year and left there overnight. When its occupants returned at 6:30 a.m. the next day, they discovered that approximately $13,000 worth of equipment had been stolen from the van. The stolen items included two small disks of radioactive material that are used to calibrate the detection equipment and could be dangerous if mishandled. At the time of the theft, a media release was sent out by the RCMP and military police. The release stated only that a "National Defence Suburban was broken into" -- but not how. However, internal military documents obtained under the Access to Information Act indicate that the vehicle was apparently left unlocked. "The RCMP reported that evidence gathered at the scene was indicative that force was not used to gain entry into the vehicle," states a case summary of the incident. "This was supported by the discovery that the passenger side door and the rear doors of the vehicle were closed, but not locked. ... The only locked door was the driver's side door." Reached Sunday, navy spokeswoman Captain Allison Delaney said she couldn't comment on whether any disciplinary action was taken against those responsible for leaving the vehicle unlocked. "I can't tell you if anything has occurred in terms of any disciplinary action," Delaney said. She also said she couldn't say if the navy had a specific policy on whether military vehicles should be locked when they are left unattended. "Off the top of my head, I can't tell you what the policy is," Delaney said. In all, $12,869 worth of material was stolen from the vehicle, including: - A radiation detector known as a Gamma Scintillation Probe (GSP), valued at $4,337.38. - Two more detectors known as General Purpose Survey Meters (GPSM), valued at $1,869.36 each. Both the GSP and one of the two GPSM kits included a small disk of radioactive material known as a "check source." Those disks -- about the size of a dime -- are sealed in plastic and emit a small amount of radiation that is used to ensure detection equipment is working properly. The military documents indicate that the disks "would not pose any immediate health risk" unless they were removed from their packaging and ingested or inhaled -- or kept in someone's pocket for a long period of time. According to a summary of the case, written in mid-November, the material stolen from the vehicle was never recovered. In a letter to commanding officers at CFB Esquimalt, the investigating officer urged senior officers to "review security measures for these vehicles and take appropriate action to prevent re-occurrences of this nature." The military documents obtained by The Sun detail several incidents of weapons and equipment that were stolen or went missing in B.C. last year. The incidents include: - On Feb. 6, a ranger with the 4th Canadian Rangers Patrol Group reported losing his rifle. The rifle was later found. - On Feb. 21, a thief cut a hole in the fence surrounding the military compound in Chilliwack and broke into several storage sheds. Several items were stolen, including a chainsaw, an electrical generator, two Coleman lanterns, 10 military rucksacks, four military radios, two tents, eight wool blankets and several gas and water containers. - On April 15, two marine batteries were stolen from an inflatable boat in the military dockyard. - On June 18, a pair of binoculars and a Canadian flag were reported missing from a military boat at CFB Esquimalt. The binoculars were later recovered. - On Sept. 24, a soldier reported he had lost several pieces of equipment, including a rifle magazine and two Canadian Rangers baseball caps. - On Oct. 23, a rifle was stolen from a soldier's residence in Port McNeil during a break and enter. - On Nov. 11, an officer's vehicle was stolen in Courtenay. The vehicle was recovered two days later, but with several items of military equipment missing, including a water canteen, a combat coat, a field pack, three cases of small-arms ammunition and a gas mask. cskelton@png.canwest.com © The Vancouver Sun 2004 ***************************************************************** 30 ahimsa sumchai: Hunters Point Transfer controversy Heats Up Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 14:50:27 -0800 PARCEL A IS NOT SUITABLE FOR TRANSFER! "Ensure that no racial, ethnic or socioeconomic group bears a disproportionate share of environmental consequences resulting from industrial, municipal, and commercial activities; or from the execution of federal, state, local programs and policies." Environmental Protection Agency - Preliminary National Enforcement and Compliance Assurance Priorities for Fiscal Years 2005, 2006 and 2007 On February 11, 2004 the Department of the Navy released a controversial document which proposes to resolve problematic issues surrounding its attempts to transfer Parcel A of the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard to the City and County of San Francisco for early development. The principle concerns raised by regulators and members of the public are driven by the health and safety issues evident in the Navy and the City and County of San Francisco's aggressive efforts to transfer ownership of property that is both radiation impacted and adjacent to a toxic landfill for which a remedy has not been proposed under Federal Superfund laws. The landfill is producing toxic gases including methane, small concentrations of carbon dioxide and volatile organic compounds. In March of 2002, despite the detection of dangerous levels of methane gas from the landfill, the Navy attempted to approve a Finding of Suitability to Transfer for Parcel A. The Environmental Protection Agency refused to concur with the Navy's contention that the landfill gas posed no current or future threat to Parcel A. Additionally, the EPA required the Navy to obtain clearance from the California Department of Health Services for re-use of buildings on Parcel A utilized by the Naval Radiological Defense Laboratories in the post World War II era and found to harbor residual radiation contamination above background levels. Parcel A is not suitable for transfer and the Navy continues to minimize and ignore the fact that nearby Parcel E poses dangerous "adjacency" issues that will never be resolved without a timeline and plan for clean up of the most polluted parcel on the base. The proposed construction of new residential units on toxic property in a low income ethnic neighborhood screams of environmental injustice and efforts by city government officials and corporate development interests to repress and oppress opposition to the civil and human rights violations evident in their illegal will continue to spawn protest and rebellion. The Navy has failed to address legitimate concerns raised by community members, regulators and members of the Restoration Advisory Board of the shipyard, including myself. The most serious of these matters are as outlined: 1. The failure of the Navy to clear radiation impacted buildings by EPA standards. The standards used by the Navy are those adopted by the California Department of Health Services and have been challenged in civil courts and by the California State legislature. 2. The Navy was required to complete a document called the Historical Radiological Assessment and to conduct surveys to identify potential new sources of radiation exposure on the base. As a result of this additional research new radiation contaminated buildings were identified on Parcel A including Building 813, Building 819 and sanitary sewer lines associated with Building 819 along Fisher and Spear Avenues. Rather than bow to clean up demands by neighborhood and environmental activists, the Navy has taken the easy way out by revising the Parcel A boundaries to exclude these radiation impacted sites to advance the proposed transfer of the parcel for early development. In the words of Secretary England, eager to put Hunters Point back in civilian hands, "The Navy's business is not land management". 3. The failure of the Navy's landfill gas extraction and control system, instituted as a time-critical removal action to rapidly remove dangerous levels of methane gas, to offer sound assurance that Parcel A is not subject to continued toxic airborne emissions from the landfill. The Navy admits that "gas control has been achieved primarily by passive venting; however active extraction has been required occasionally within the vent trench to prevent gas migration" The Navy is performing regular gas monitoring to verify the performance of the gas control system. Just last month, in January of 2004, the Navy was forced to perform active extraction within the vent trench to address elevated methane concentrations detected along the fence line adjacent to property owned by UCSF laboratories. The Landfill Gas Removal Action is little more than a "bandaid" on the "gaping wound" of the Parcel E industrial landfill which is the most serious source of toxic emissions at the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard. ******* Representative Nancy Pelosi had a party last month. She invited her friends, Senator's Barbara Boxer, Dianne Feinstein and former Mayor Willie Brown to a ceremony with Secretary of the Navy Gordon England to sign a Conveyance Implementation Plan to delineate the final terms for cleanup, revitalization and transfer of ownership of the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard. She did not invite me. In fact, The "Gang of Five" failed to invite any representatives from the growing opposition to the proposed transfer of "dirty" property on a federal Superfund site in a neighborhood where environmental justice violations have mounted to a level of undeniable legal potency. ******* The Redevelopment Plan for the Bayview Hunters Point Redevelopment Project is an exercise in ethnic cleansing. It will forcibly remove current low income residents- predominantly people of color- and transform a total of 936 acres into a new mixed used neighborhood with over 1,400 residential units. The "bulldozer" mentality evident in efforts by the city to develope a parcel of land adjacent to radiation impacted property and a partially capped toxic landfill, played out in San Francisco City Hall during the final desperate days of former Mayor Willie Brown whose blazing conflicts of interest in the shipyard's development have been well documented and may soon come back to haunt his well deserved retirement. On December 2, 2003 I attended the hearing of the Redevelopment Commission on the Approval of the proposed Disposition and Development Agreement between the SFRA and Lennar Developers for the Shipyard. I waited graciously at the door of the hearing room and was told there was no room for seating. I was directed to an overflow room upstairs. I decided, instead, to wait for seating and within minutes a security gaurd opened the door and informed me that I had permission to take a seat next to a man in a blue shirt in the hearing. That man was Willie Ratcliff and when I entered the hearing room I was astounded to find that there were a number of vacant seats. When I attempted to sit down next to Mr. Ratcliff, a very angry man in front of me refused to remove his belongings from the open seat the uniformed security gaurd had just directed me to occupy. I removed his items and sat down. An argument ensued and Mr. Ratcliff came to my defense. Ultimately the angry man removed his personal property from the public seat in the City government hearing room and allowed me to sit down. I listened politely to the presentations and testimony at the public hearing that was obviously being conducted in violation of Brown Act and Sunshine Act stipulations that the public be allowed access to government proceedings. At one point I was astounded to hear a Redevelopment Agency representative state for public record that an Environmental Impact Report had been conducted and approved for Parcel A. I was further astounded to witness a woman enter the hearing and take one of a number of unoccupied seats. She was forcibly handcuffed, removed from the hearing room and sited for arrest. I expressed my outrage and left the hearing and followed the three security gaurds who were attempting to subdue the woman into a small room adjacent to the Board of Supervisors main chamber. The woman was physically resisting the arrest and the three officers were absorbed in their efforts to control her. The DDA for the Shipyard is a powerful example of a developer "giveaway" of property that in the words of community activist Kevyn Lutton, "they have no right to own. Nor does the City itself have a right to dispose of it for profit. To do so is illegal, and any entity that supports this current plan is either corrupt or ignorant of the law. There are many laws and regulations, Federal, state, and City that are being violated in the actions of the Redevelopment Agency. Some of these violations included, but are not limited to the Base Realignment and Closure Act, the Base Closure Community Redevelopment and Homeless Assistance Act of 1994, and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964." ***************************************************************** 31 NMBW: Gallup-area uranium mines to be reclaimed for wildlife, grazing - 2004-02-23 - New Mexico Business Weekly NMBW Staff Two closed uranium mines near Gallup may be getting a second lease on life. The state's Mining and Minerals Division of the Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department has received reclamation and closeout plans from the United Nuclear Corporation, the company operating the closed mines. The proposed plans, which were submitted to the division in January, include removing mining holes and shafts, reclaiming roads and evaluating and restoring soil and surface water conditions for the Northeast Church Rock and Section 27 mines, owned by Gallup-based United Nuclear Corporation. "Our priority is to assure that the reclamation plans for the areas will meet or exceed our requirements for bringing wildlife and vegetation back to the area," said Bill Brancard, division director for Mining and Minerals, in a press release. "We know how important it is to the community that the reclamation efforts be successful." A plan for the area's third closed uranium mine, St. Anthony, is due to be submitted by January of 2005. Plans for the reclaimed mines stipulate that the area be used for wildlife and grazing purposes. The public can view and respond to each of the closeout plans during a 60-day public comment period running through April 5. Each of the plans can be viewed at Mining and Minerals Division Web site at www.emnrd.state.nm.us/Mining. After about seven years of litigation, the New Mexico Court of Appeals decided in 2002 that the three mines, which have been closed for several years, are subject to the New Mexico Mining Act. Since then, the United Nuclear Corporation has been working with the division to prepare its closure assessments, according to a division press release. © 2004 American City Business Journals Inc. New Mexico Business Weekly email: albuquerque@bizjournals.com ©2004 American City Business Journals, Inc. and its licensors. ***************************************************************** 32 SIFY: Vast US Nuke waste dump kicks up row By Maxim Kniazkov in Yucca Mountain Monday, 23 February , 2004, 07:52 It's nondescript, really. And not that much of a mountain by Nevadan standards. A retiree in good shape could probably climb to its crest in about an hour to behold clusters of silvery bristlebush and hear the howling wind. But Yucca Mountain, nestled on the western edge of the Nevada Nuclear Test Site, is hardly about vistas. Ever since the US Congress picked it as the proposed site of a national nuclear waste repository in the late 1980s, it's been all about politics. It's technology vs ecology, federal vs local, red meat vs tofu. It is already one of the most recognizable geographical names in the US capital and is drawing about 7,000 visitors a year. Camouflage-clad guards in James Bond sunglasses peer at laminated passes at the main nuclear site checkpoint. "No cameras pointed north or east!" warns John Hartley, an Energy Department geologist, nodding toward surrounding mountains. "If you try to walk here alone, you'll see how quickly black helicopters will close in on you." The rugged range conceals some of the most closely-guarded US secrets: a underground labyrinth, in which the government tested nuclear warheads during the Cold War, and famous Area 51, a secret weapons site, whose very existence the government denies. Yucca Mountain fits into this classified picture. If the US Energy Department has its way, in 2010 the mountain will begin receiving in its belly casks of spent atomic fuel from aircraft carriers, submarines and power plants and will eventually become the largest repository of nuclear waste in the world. An experimental tunnel wide enough to accommodate a subway train leads into the mountain's inner sanctum. It's cold, gray and empty, with only a far-away blinking light betraying human activity. "Most studies are pretty much done," said Abraham Van Luik, an government science advisor showing visitors around. "There are just some remaining experiments." The eight-kilometer (five-mile) long underground gallery has 12 alcoves dug out along its length that serve as laboratories. Here, rock is measured for consistency and water content, heated and frozen, and every crack is closely watched. If all licenses are granted, the underground testing facility is bound to dramatically expand. A 60-to-80-kilometer (40-to-50 mile) long grid of tunnels will be excavated through Yucca Mountain's core to house hermetically sealed containers holding up to 77,000 tonnes of deadly waste. "It's a legal but not by any means geological constraint," explains Hartley. The 77,000 tonnes are stipulated by federal law, but the storage site can be easily expanded to hold up to 140,000 tonnes of radioactive material, officials said. Given the government's projection that the United States will generate about 108,000 tonnes of spent nuclear fuel by 2040, up from the 47,000 tonnes that are already stored around the country, the repository here could present a long-term solution to the problem. But Nevadans of every political stripe are up in arms. A recent poll conducted by KVBC television showed 65 percent of the population remains firmly opposed to what local residents refer to as "a nuclear dump in our backyard." Practically every state official -- from Governor Kenny Guinn on down -- blasts the project as a mortal threat to the environment and local tourism industry. "I will continue cutting the budget, making it difficult for Yucca Mountain to open," promises Nevada's Democratic US Senator, Harry Reid. "And we will continue to raise awareness of the dangers of transporting nuclear waste," said Reid. There have been demonstrations and petition drives, sit-ins and noisy rallies. So far, to no avail. Having failed to stop the 58-billion-dollar project in Congress last year, the state is now trying its luck to courts, challenging the plan on environmental grounds. Energy officials counter by saying that Yucca's volcanic rock is so hard that the chance of water seeping into storage tunnels is practically nil. But the idea of living next to millions of pellets radiating death still does not sit well with many Nevadans, although a sense of inevitability appears to be settling in. A survey by the Nuclear Energy Institute has found that 76 percent of local residents now think it's time to start negotiating acceptance terms with the rest of the country.   Say It!   ['' width=45 height=45] Say it for Kamal Hassan   Also in Say It   . VVS Laxman   . Priyanka Gandhi   . K Karunakaran Sify.com hosted at SifyHosting India's first Level 3 Internet Data Centre © Copyright Sify Ltd, 1998-2004. All rights reserved. See ***************************************************************** 33 courier-journal: Sweet deal won uranium plant from Kentucky www.courier-journal.com Monday, February 23, 2004 Bottom-line cost advantage aided Ohio's courtship By MALIA RULON Associated Press Ohio's successful campaign for a new uranium enrichment plant started with a lunch at the governor's mansion in 2002 and included a $125 million-plus incentive package of tax breaks and job-training funds. WASHINGTON Ohio's successful campaign for a new uranium enrichment plant will cost taxpayers $15million for state trips and meals, road and water infrastructure projects, worker-training grants, and other enticements. Paducah, Ky., also had sought the plant. The $15million is part of a $125million-plus incentive package of state and local tax breaks in Ohio and about $7,500 spent on meals, trips, newspaper advertisements and gifts for company officials, according to state documents released at the request of The Associated Press. "This is probably one of the most attractive packages that we have offered," Gov. Bob Taft said. The total value of the package for USEC Inc. is expected to be higher than $125million once several of the tax incentives are calculated. In 1998, the state helped secure a new Jeep plant in Toledo with state and local tax breaks worth about $185million. USEC announced Jan. 12 that it would build a $1.5billion plant at its southern Ohio site to use updated centrifuge technology to enrich uranium. The plant is expected to employ 500 people and be operating by the end of the decade. Ohio's incentives come to $250,000 a job. They include $64.3million in state tax incentives for creating new jobs, buying new manufacturing machinery, and conducting research and development; $26million in local property tax breaks and other incentives; and $20million in state financing assistance. The decision came a year after USEC announced that it would operate a $150million plant at the Piketon, Ohio, site that would test its centrifuge technology and employ 50 people. The state had offered an $11.6million incentive package for that project, which Kentucky also sought. But winning the test plant gave Ohio an advantage. Other advantages of the Ohio site, according to USEC, also didn't come from the incentive package. Buildings that remained from Energy Department tests of the technology in the 1980s would save about $300million. The cost of securing the Kentucky plant, which is near the New Madrid earthquake fault, was estimated at $75million. "It's very difficult to recover from that kind of disadvantage and then put an incentive on top of that," said Kentucky Secretary of Economic Development Gene Strong. He would say only that Kentucky's offer for the plant was considerably larger than Ohio's $125million package. "We broke out every item and put it into a formula," said USEC spokeswoman Elizabeth Stuckle. "There was a significant economic difference between the two sites." William V. Ackerman, an economic development professor at Ohio State University, said extras, such as lunches and gifts, help when wooing a business, but cost is the most important factor. "What they are looking for is keeping their bottom-line costs as low as they can keep them, so they compare all the tax breaks and other incentive packages and whatever gives them the best deal," he said. "Everything else is just one more thing on the pot." The Ohio Legislature passed two bills specifically to beef up the state's bid, providing a job-creation tax credit, extending a credit for buying new manufacturing machinery and extending from 10 to 15 years the amount of time communities can grant property tax exemptions. The campaign to get the plant started with an October 2002 lunch at the governor's mansion with Taft, U.S. Rep. Rob Portman, whose district includes the plant, and USEC President Nick Timbers. It was followed by a 10-person steak and potato luncheon served with buckeye ice cream for dessert at the governor's mansion a year later. It was after the first lunch, however, that Portman, excited about the prospect of winning the plant, drove 2½ hours to Piketon with Timbers to meet with union President Dan Minter. Community leaders also personally pitched Timbers on the plant. When USEC cut 530 jobs and shut the Piketon plant to consolidate operations at Paducah, tempers among union workers and community leaders had flared. Eager to put the bad feelings to rest as USEC considered where to put the new plant, seven community leaders took time off from work and drove seven hours to USEC's headquarters in Bethesda, Md., to meet with Timbers. "We wanted to show him that any misgivings that might have been there in the past were gone and ... we were totally in support of them doing this project here," said Bob Huff, executive director of the Portsmouth Area Chamber of Commerce. Community leaders also spent $3,500 on advertising in five newspapers so they could collect and send to USEC 8,000 letters supporting the plant from businesses and residents. Several letters also came from West Virginia and Northern Kentucky, where residents would benefit from the permanent plant. Stuckle said while these efforts were helpful, the final decision was based on an analysis of how each state would affect the cost, schedule and risk of the project. "If the packages were economically more equal, other kinds of issues would have played a larger role," the spokeswoman said. "We appreciated tremendous community and state support in both locations." Copyright 2003 The Courier-Journal. ***************************************************************** 34 AU ABC: States to pay for nuclear waste dump in SA "Australian Broadcasting Corporation Online"> The World Today - Monday, 23 February , 2004 12:39:10 Reporter: Nance Haxton HAMISH ROBERTSON: The revelation that the states will be charged for use of the proposed national radioactive waste repository in South Australia's north has angered South Australia's politicians. The State Government has been waging a constant battle against the nuclear waste dump ever since the Federal Government confirmed its preferred site near Woomera. South Australia's Environment Minister John Hill says the states were not informed of the planned charges of $1,000 to dispose of each cubic metre of low-level radioactive waste. He says it highlights the lack of transparency in the entire process of establishing the dump, which is awaiting final approval by Australia's independent radiation agency ARPANSA. However Federal Science Minister Peter McGauran says the states are in denial about the need for a national approach in dealing with nuclear waste, as Nance Haxton now reports from Adelaide. NANCE HAXTON: The South Australian Government is livid about the latest revelation that it will be charged for use of the proposed national radioactive waste repository, when they have been opposed to it from the outset. State Environment Minister John Hill says he thinks it extraordinary that South Australia will have to pay to dispose of its waste, even though the dump is being built within state boundaries. JOHN HILL: I think it just is indicative that the Commonwealth Government has been very desperate to put this dump into our state, they've been pretty secretive about it, they haven't taken the people of South Australia into their confidence, there's no consensus about this dump, the other states have supported us in our opposition to it, it's really the Commonwealth that's trying to find a place to store its own material, basically the material from Lucas Heights. The states themselves have a relatively small amount of waste under their control, this is really about the Commonwealth wanting to find a place to put their waste which is currently at Lucas Heights. Our view is they should leave it there, but I have no confidence about the process that has been taken and there's just no consent in South Australia for it to be placed in this state. NANCE HAXTON: Could this raise the possibility that the State Government may not use the repository even when it is established? JOHN HILL: We're looking at the moment of where we would store our waste ourself if we're successful in our campaign not to have the facility built. I mean, the place we're looking at is at Roxby Downs at the mine site at Olympic Dam and there's waste there from the tailings operation, and to put the small amount there we have under our control, it's 22 cubic metres or thereabouts, at that site would seem to be a logical possibility and we're going to explore that thoroughly. NANCE HAXTON: Science Minister Peter McGauran was visiting his electorate today and was unable to comment. However his spokeswoman says charges for the use of the repository have been publicly known since 1995 and were also mentioned in the dump's environmental impact statement. The spokeswoman says the charges are minimal and in no way cover the expenditure involved in establishing the repository or ongoing disposal costs, and also act to encourage the states to minimise their waste. She says regardless of where the dump is sited, it is appropriate that the Federal Government charge a fee for its use as it is ultimately responsible for the long term management of the nuclear waste. However State Australia's Environment Minister John Hill says the least the Federal Government should do is give South Australia a discounted rate as compensation for the damage that such a dump would cause to the state's image. He says they will continue with a Federal Court Appeal against the dump and other measures to stop it going ahead in South Australia. JOHN HILL: It's pretty rich for charging South Australia for storing our waste in our state. We can do it for nothing ourselves, and secondly it just indicates there's a whole lot of detail about this process that's yet to be made public. What else don't we know? One thing we don't know for example, is which private company will be running this facility and under what conditions they will be operating? Nor do we know how frequently or to what opportunities the proposed dump will be open and under what conditions waste will be put into it. So there's a whole range of things about the dump that just aren't clear yet. HAMISH ROBERTSON: South Australia's Environment Minister John Hill. That report by Nance Haxton. ***************************************************************** 35 Salt Lake Tribune: Demos zero in on nuke testing February 23, 2004 Matheson warns Utah could face radioactive fallout again Rep. Jim Matheson, who blames radiation from nuclear weapons testing for causing the death of his father, former Gov. Scott Matheson, said Monday the danger could return from possible federal testing of smaller nuclear weapons. (1:12:00 PM) [PHOTO] Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich talks to supporters and a lot of media Sunday at Salt Lake City International Airport. Kucinich, who has won only slivers of the vote in Democratic presidential primaries, is the only candidate to visit the state leading up to Utah's primary on Tuesday. (Danny Chan La/Tribune) By Thomas Burr The Salt Lake Tribune During a brief stop in Salt Lake City two days before the Utah Democratic primary, presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich vowed that if elected he would stop any nuclear tests and work to rid the world of atomic weapons. Calling Tuesday's party-run election a referendum on nuclear testing, Kucinich asked voters to check his name to show Utahns oppose tests in the adjacent Nevada desert. Past tests and their fallout have been blamed for cancer throughout the region. "I want the people of Utah to know that as president of the United States, I will bring an end to all the nuclear testing," Kucinich said Sunday during a rally at Salt Lake City International Airport. "We will stop the sacrifice of the health and the welfare of the people of Utah and every other state [who] would be affected by the testing of nuclear weapons. This must stop." Kucinich, an Ohio congressman who has yet to win any primary or caucus contests, shook hands with supporters and made a short speech to stump for votes before the primary, at which 23 Utah delegates are at stake. He is the only candidate to visit the state in recent months. During a telephone news conference earlier Sunday, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic front-runner, said he also opposed the resumption of nuclear tests, as proposed by the Bush administration. Kerry said computers could be used for further simulations. "I have consistently been opposed to the testing," Kerry told Utah media outlets. "The notion that you have to have domestic ground testing, or any kind of testing beyond simulation, is ridiculous, given the redundancy and the threat level that our redundancy carries compared to any other nation on the planet today." Campaign officials for North Carolina Sen. John Edwards said he planned to make himself available to Utah reporters today. His and Kerry's campaigns have focused on the bigger states in the March 2 "Super Tuesday" primaries that will yield 1,151 delegates. Kucinich, who surrounded himself with children for the rally, told about 40 supporters that if elected he would stop the development of biological and chemical warfare agents in the United States. He referred to reports saying the Pentagon was quietly setting up four germ labs at Dugway Proving Ground, west of Salt Lake City. "Your state is being used as kind of a guinea pig on all of these tests," Kucinich said. Kerry didn't address that issue Sunday. He attacked President Bush on economic issues, saying Bush is ignoring the outsourcing of jobs to other countries and the increase in deficit spending. "There is nothing conservative or mainstream Republican about the fiscal policies of this administration," Kerry said. "Their priority is tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans," he said. "We should roll back George Bush's unaffordable tax cuts for the wealthiest people and protect the middle class." The Kerry campaign has five national staffers in the state working with local officials to promote the candidate. And Kucinich has recorded a voice message that is being sent to Utahns urging them to vote for him. © Copyright 2004, The Salt Lake Tribune. ***************************************************************** 36 DOE: Office of Science; Fusion Energy Sciences Advisory Committee FR Doc 04-3818 [Federal Register: February 23, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 35)] [Notices] [Page 8191] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr23fe04-64] AGENCY: Department of Energy. ACTION: Notice of open meeting. SUMMARY: This notice announces a meeting of the Fusion Energy Sciences Advisory Committee. The Federal Advisory Committee Act (Pub. L. 92-463, 86 Stat. 770) requires that public notice of these meetings be announced in the Federal Register. DATES: Monday, March 29, 2004, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Tuesday, March 30, 2004, 9 a.m. to 12 noon. ADDRESSES: The Marriott Gaithersburg Washingtonian Center, 9751 Washingtonian Boulevard, Gaithersburg, Maryland 20878, USA. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Albert L. Opdenaker, Office of Fusion Energy Sciences, U.S. Department of Energy, 1000 Independence Avenue, SW., Washington, DC 20585-1290; telephone: 301-903-4927. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Purpose of the Meeting: The purpose of this meeting is to complete work on the charges dealing with Workforce Development, the review of Inertial Fusion Energy program, and the Committee of Visitors' review of the theory and computations program. A preliminary report from the Panel dealing with the process for setting program priorities is also scheduled. Tentative Agenda: Monday, March 29, 2004. Office of Science Perspective; Office of Fusion Energy Sciences Perspective; Final report from the Workforce Development Panel; Final report from the Committee of Visitors-- Theory and Computations Program; Final report from the Inertial Fusion Energy Review Panel; Public comments. Tuesday, March 30, 2004. Preliminary report from the Panel Dealing with the Process for Setting Program Priorities; ITER Project Status. Public Participation: The meeting is open to the public. If you would like to file a written statement with the Committee, you may do so either before or after the meeting. If you would like to make oral statements regarding any of the items on the agenda, you should contact Albert L. Opdenaker at 301-903-8584 (fax) or albert.opdenaker@science.doe.gov (e-mail). You must make your request for an oral statement at least 5 business days before the meeting. Reasonable provision will be made to include the scheduled oral statements on the agenda. The Chairperson of the Committee will conduct the meeting to facilitate the orderly conduct of business. Public comment will follow the 10-minute rule. Minutes: We will make the minutes of this meeting available for public review and copying within 30 days at the Freedom of Information Public Reading Room, IE-190, Forrestal Building, 1000 Independence Avenue, SW., Washington, DC, between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m., Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays. Issued in Washington, DC on February 18, 2004. Rachel M. Samuel, Deputy Advisory Committee Management Officer. [FR Doc. 04-3818 Filed 2-20-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 6450-01-P ***************************************************************** 37 Oak Ridger: Oak Ridge still trying to wrestle money from DOE Story last updated at 11:45 a.m. on February 23, 2004 LAW FIRM OFFICIAL: 'They have greater latitude and ability to move money around than other departments of government.' By: Stan Mitchell | Oak Ridger Staff The Oak Ridge City Council Intergovernmental Relations Committee met Friday to receive an update on gaining additional federal funding and to discuss a trip to Washington, D.C. The Council members heard from representatives of Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell &Berkowitz, both in person and by phone. At the federal level, John Tuck of Baker Donelson's Washington office said U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., had submitted a request asking how the Department of Energy would resolve language in a Energy and Water Appropriations Bill. The Bill states in part, "Unfortunately, Oak Ridge has not achieved the level of self-sufficiency envisioned by the Atomic Energy Community Act of 1955." Tuck said the answer, which he expected in about a week, would be beneficial. The response should provide a clue as to DOE's internal deliberations about the Oak Ridge request and allow Baker, Donelson and the city to see which DOE program would be responsible. Asked how realistic it might be that Oak Ridge could receive funds from DOE's current budget, Tuck said he thought they have the ability to distribute money if they choose to. "They have greater latitude and ability to move money around than other departments of government," Tuck said. Also discussed during the meeting was a trip to Washington, D.C., which is tentatively planned for March 3 or 4. Oak Ridge Mayor David Bradshaw, Council member Lou Dunlap and Government and Public Affairs Coordinator Amy Fitzgerald are scheduled for the trip, where they plan to meet with congressional members and DOE. During the trip, a 14-page presentation will be given, which lays out Oak Ridge's need for additional money. Currently, the 14-page presentation requests $15 million a year for 10 years. But, that amount was removed during Friday's meeting. "I think that's such a large request that it doesn't serve us well," Bradshaw said. Bob Worthington, also with Baker, Donelson, also said the number should be reduced. "We've had some feedback that said, 'Hey, that's way too high," Worthington said. "My personal opinion is that we don't mention the number or back off some." Council member Leonard Abbatiello agreed. "I'm not completely sure we need to have a number in the presentation," Abbatiello said. Members of the Intergovernmental Relations Committee plan to meet with local DOE contractors before heading to D.C., in order to inform them of their request. On the state level, a member of Baker, Donelson said a city representative could soon be appointed to the Natural Resource Damage Assessment council. Oak Ridge officials have wanted a member on the council ever since a 3,000-acre conservation easement was set aside inside the city, without the knowledge of the city, according to City Council. Not mentioned during the meeting was reducing the contract with Baker, Donelson. Council member Tom Beehan has asked that the $12,000-a-month contract be reduced. Council member David Mosby has said he no longer believes Baker, Donelson will gain Oak Ridge additional money. More than $280,000 has been paid to the firm. ***************************************************************** 38 lamonitor.com: The Online News Source for Los Alamos Los Alamos County /02/23/04 Headline News LANL, state continue discussions By ROGER SNODGRASS, roger@lamonitor.com, Monitor Assistant Editor The running legal battle between Los Alamos National Laboratory and the New Mexico Environment Department saw some positive steps last week, after a flurry of fines and a hail of citations calling for additional penalties for environmental infractions the week before. On Monday, Environment Secretary Ron Curry and LANL Director G. Peter Nanos met briefly. "The director and I met informally at the Round House, in the conference room of (Rep.) Jannette Wallace," Curry said. "We chatted for about 20 minutes." Curry said it was part of an encouraging dialogue that had begun in December. "The thing that we, as a state, seek from LANL is the same as from any entity, that's transparency in their operations regarding environmental issues," he said. Meanwhile in the background, negotiations have resumed over the underlying matter of contention between the two organizations, having to do with NMEDs authority and prescription for the long-term environmental cleanup at the lab. That remedy is spelled out in a 227-page administrative order issued by NMED in November 2002, describing the investigation, monitoring and corrective action required by the state. The order has subsequently been challenged by the lab in multiple venues of state and federal courts. Those negotiations, between NMED and the Department of Energy and National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) that oversees the nuclear laboratories for DOE, broke down on Dec. 23, Curry said, because they refused to accept the administrative order. Now, Curry said, "NNSA has agreed to work within the framework of the order." Wallace said, "Citizens don't understand about this and that compliance order or violations, or whatever. Nanos is talking to them, and it's all one big fat mess. Some of us have felt that DOE is not cooperating. That to me is the important thing." The most recent and perhaps most heated public exchange took place just after NMED alerted the media at the end of the workday on Feb. 13, a Friday, that they had issued a compliance order "for numerous violations of state hazardous waste management regulations." The civil penalties imposed by the state regulator in that notice totaled $1.4 million dollars in fines, resulting from infractions identified during an inspection in April 2003. This elicited a strong reaction from laboratory spokespersons and others, who charged that NMED had acted hastily, while lab officials were trying to determine if the "inspection was conducted properly according to the lab's RCRA permit." NMED has provided a copy of a certified letter, dated Dec. 16, that notifies the laboratory that it was in violation of state hazard waste management regulations as well as the lab's hazardous waste permit issued by the state. The letter warned the laboratory that "a Compliance Order will be issued following issuance of this Notice of Violation," which would entail certain requirements and assess civil penalties." NMED also made available a letter from LANL, dated Jan. 29, stating that during the inspections of 2003, "it became apparent that the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) copy of the permit was not the same as LANL's" and repeating previous requests for a review of the corrected version in order to "facilitate the preparation of potential future permit modifications." Linn Tytler, a lab spokesperson said, based on the request for the additional information, "We thought we were still in discussions." The most recent list of 21 citations, comes on top of an announcement on Jan. 16, that NMED and LANL had agreed on a total civil penalty of $282,033, that resolved 32 violations identified in an inspection in 1998. LANL admitted 12 violations and resolved the others. On Feb. 3, the department issued a compliance order related to seven hazardous waste violations found during an inspection in 2001. That one assigned $854,087 in fines. In the case of the last two compliance orders, including the one that surprised the laboratory, an additional appeal process is spelled out, granting the lab 30 days to request a hearing and/or a settlement conference, before a final order goes into effect. © 2003 Los Alamos Monitor All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 39 Las Vegas SUN: U.S. Shelves Nuke Safety Rules Proposal Today: February 23, 2004 at 16:45:24 PST By NANCY ZUCKERBROD ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON (AP) - The government shelved a proposal Monday that would have let contractors at federal nuclear facilities pick which safety rules they should follow. The idea had come under fire from lawmakers, a government safety board and even some contractors themselves. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said in a letter to John Conway, chairman of the department's Defense Nuclear Safety Board, that he was suspending the drafting of new regulations for implementing the proposal to get more suggestions. Abraham said he was "deeply concerned by the perception" that the rule proposed by the agency two months ago would have endangered workers. After The Associated Press reported on the plan last month, the safety board, members of Congress, union officials and other safety advocates came out in opposition to replacing long-standing government safety requirements at the plants. "It's a lot like you're going down the highway and you can set your own speed limit," said Richard Miller, a policy analyst with the Government Accountability Project, a private Washington-based watchdog group. Agency officials previously had said that the government would retain the authority to approve or reject any contractor-provided safety plans that recommended waiving requirements they thought should not be applied to them. Abraham emphasized Monday that contractors would not be writing the safety standards themselves. Conway said he told Abraham in a meeting last week that the government must be responsible for setting safety rules. "In no way does the secretary want to give away that authority," Conway said Monday. He said a board hearing on the proposed rule scheduled for Friday probably would be canceled. Lawmakers who represent some of the more than 100,000 workers at Energy Department nuclear facilities nationwide seemed pleased with the reversal. They had accused the agency of twisting an amendment they added to the 2002 defense bill directing the government to fine contractors who don't comply with safety requirements. "I applaud the Department of Energy's decision to suspend its proposed regulations - regulations that would have weakened worker safety protections," said Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass. He said the department should immediately issue revised regulations that "truly reflect the intent of Congress to protect the safety and health of our nation's energy workers." Many of the basic safety standards the Energy Department generally requires from contractors mirror Occupational Safety and Health Administration regulations at private industrial sites, including commercial nuclear power plants. Two large contractors - Battelle Memorial Institute, based in Columbus, Ohio, and the University of California - criticized the Energy Department proposal, saying the agency should rely more heavily on OSHA guidelines. The Energy Department can fine contractors who expose workers to hazardous levels of radiation, but until the changes in the law two years ago, it had no authority to levy fines for failing to protect workers from other industrial dangers, such as exposure to toxic chemicals. --- On the Net: Energy Department: http://www.doe.gov/engine/content.do Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board: http://www.dnfsb.gov/ -- ***************************************************************** 40 DOE: Oak Ridge health committee MOU meting FR Doc 04-3795 [Federal Register: February 23, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 35)] [Notices] [Page 8200-8201] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr23fe04-75] DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) Public Meeting of the Citizens Advisory Committee on Public Health Service (PHS) Activities and Research at Department of Energy (DOE) Sites: Oak Ridge Reservation Health Effects Subcommittee In accordance with section 10(a)(2) of the Federal Advisory Committee Act (Pub. L. 92-463), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announces the following committee meeting. Name: Public meeting of the Citizens Advisory Committee on PHS Activities and Research at DOE Sites: Oak Ridge Reservation Health Effects Subcommittee (ORRHES). Time and Date: 12 p.m.-3 p.m., March 9, 2004. Place: This is a conference call. Telephone toll-free (866) 687- 0087. Status: Open to the public, limited only by the space available on the conference call. The call can accomodate up to 50 participants. Please call the Executive Secretary or Committee Management Specialist to obtain the passcode for the conference call. Background: A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was signed in October 1990 and renewed in September 2000 between ATSDR and DOE. The MOU delineates the responsibilities and procedures for ATSDR's public health activities at DOE sites required under sections 104, 105, 107, and 120 of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA or ``Superfund''). These activities include health consultations and public health assessments at DOE sites listed on, or proposed for, the Superfund National Priorities List and at sites that are the subject of petitions from the public; and other health-related activities such as epidemiologic studies, health surveillance, exposure and disease registries, health education, substance-specific applied research, emergency response, and preparation of toxicological profiles. In addition, under an MOU signed in December 1990 with DOE and replaced [[Page 8201]] by an MOU signed in 2000, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has been given the responsibility and resources for conducting analytic epidemiologic investigations of residents of communities in the vicinity of DOE facilities, workers at DOE facilities, and other persons potentially exposed to radiation or to potential hazards from non-nuclear energy production and use. HHS has delegated program responsibility to CDC. Community Involvement is a critical part of ATSDR's and CDC's energy-related research and activities, and input from members of the ORRHES is part of these efforts. Purpose: The purpose of this meeting is to address issues that are unique to community involvement with the ORRHES, and agency updates. Matters to be Discussed: Agenda items will include a presentation and discussion from the Public Health Assessment Workgroup on the Public Health Assessment for White Oak Creek Radionuclide Release from the DOE Oak Ridge Reservation, and a recommendation and endorsement from ORRHES to release it for public comment, and agency updates. Agenda items are subject to change as priorities dictate. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Lorine Spencer, Executive Secretary, or Marilyn Horton, Committee Management Specialist, Division of Health Assessment and Consultation, ATSDR, 1600 Clifton Road, NE., M/S E-32, Atlanta, Georgia 30333, telephone 1-888-42-ATSDR (28737), fax 404-498- 1744. The Director, Management Analysis and Services Office, has been delegated the authority to sign Federal Register notices pertaining to announcements of meetings and other committee management activities, for both CDC and ATSDR. Dated: February 17, 2004. Joseph E. Salter, Acting Director, Management Analysis and Services Office, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. [FR Doc. 04-3795 Filed 2-20-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 4163-18-P ***************************************************************** 41 Google News Alert - nuclear Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 13:34:37 -0800 (PST) AUSTRALIA backs US as world's nuclear sheriff Sydney Morning Herald - Sydney,New South Wales,Australia Australia has aligned itself more strongly with the United States on nuclear proliferation, declaring that the superpower should be free to act without the ... See all stories on this topic: REPORT: Israel has 82 nuclear warheads Jerusalem Post - Jerusalem,Israel Israel has 82 nuclear warheads, according to a report published Monday in the US. Previous estimates by foreign agencies puts the ... See all stories on this topic: MALAYSIA Opposition Seeks Nuclear Probe Kansas City Star - Kansas City,MO,USA KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - Opposition parties Monday demanded a parliamentary inquiry into a Malaysian company's role in making nuclear parts for Libya, saying a ... See all stories on this topic: US ready to soften stand on nuclear crisis: South Korea Hindustan Times - New Delhi,India The United States may be ready to soften its stand and offer concessions to North Korea in return for a nuclear freeze at upcoming six-nation talks in Beijing ... See all stories on this topic: NUCLEAR devices kept apart to allay US concerns: Benazir Pakistani Newspaper - Pakistan ... Feb 23: PPP leader Benazir Bhutto today conceded that under US pressure she asked the army and the President during her regime not to assemble a nuclear bomb. ... See all stories on this topic: IRAN reveals nuclear secret ABC Online - Australia TONY JONES: The Iranian Government today confirmed what many had long suspected - that they have been actively trying to build nuclear weapons. ... See all stories on this topic: GLOSSY brochures helped Khan sell nuclear secrets Sydney Morning Herald - Sydney,New South Wales,Australia While Western intelligence policed the world to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, a Pakistani company that specialised in enriching uranium was offering its ... See all stories on this topic: VAJPAYEE stresses on checking secret nuclear tech. proliferation Deepika - India ... Bihari Vajpayee today said he was hopeful that the United Nations would make the necessary arrangements to check theft and subsequent proliferation of nuclear ... See all stories on this topic: NUCLEAR Power Debate is Far From Over AllAfrica.com - Africa THE debate over the storage and disposal of nuclear waste has been going on for more than 25 years, ever since the first major nuclear accident at Three Mile ... NEW book claims Israel possesses 82 nuclear warheads Ha'aretz - Israel A book recently published in the US claims Israel has 82 nuclear warheads, a figure which is substantially lower than previous figures published in the past ... This daily-once News Alert is brought to you by Google News (BETA)... - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Remove this News Alert: http://www.google.com/newsalerts/remove?s=92d1672a1b037a07&hl=en Create another News Alert: http://www.google.com/newsalerts?hl=en Try Google News: http://news.google.com/ ***************************************************************** 42 AU SMH: Glossy brochures helped Khan sell nuclear secrets - World - www.smh.com.au [Sydney Morning Herald Online] February 24, 2004 While Western intelligence policed the world to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, a Pakistani company that specialised in enriching uranium was offering its expertise to interested buyers in glossy brochures. One pamphlet from Khan Research Laboratories had a picture of Abdul Qadeer Khan, Pakistan's top nuclear scientist, in front of missiles, rocket launchers and mountains where Pakistan held nuclear tests. "The main focus of our expertise/service is on the promotion of joint ventures for the manufacturing of advanced defence weapons/ equipment," one brochure says. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and Western diplomats say Libya, Iran and North Korea were his top nuclear customers. "This was a massive intelligence failure," a non-aligned diplomat said. "Where was the intelligence?" But a Western diplomat said the US "had its eyes on Khan for a long time" and knew about a Malaysian plant building centrifuge parts based on Dr Khan's blueprints for Libya. Dr Khan has admitted he and scientists at his laboratories leaked nuclear secrets. Diplomats said Dr Khan provided Libya with the centrifuge technology and weapons designs. He appeared to have sold many of the same things to Libya and Iran, they said. Libya never built a weapon or enriched uranium, but an IAEA report said it developed the expertise to make plutonium. The IAEA chief, Mohamed ElBaradei, said Dr Khan, a key player, was "the tip of an iceberg". One diplomat said: "Signing contracts with governments and international agencies? It's hard to believe Pakistan's Government didn't know." Reuters Copyright © 2004. The Sydney Morning Herald. advertise| ***************************************************************** 43 USATODAY.com - U.S. Air Force contemplates space battles Posted 2/23/2004 8:36 AM U.S. Air Force contemplates space battlesBy Leonard David, SPACE.com The U.S. Air Force has filed a futuristic flight plan  one that spells out need for an armada of space weaponry and technology for the near-term and in years to come. The U.S. Air Force is developing a Space Operations Vehicle for use in rapidly launching smaller space craft. DARPA via SPACE.com Called the Transformation Flight Plan, the 176-page document offers a sweeping look at how best to expand America's military space tool kit. The use of space is highlighted throughout the report, with the document stating that space superiority combines the following three capabilities: protect space assets, deny adversaries' access to space, and quickly launch vehicles and operate payloads into space to quickly replace space assets that fail or are damaged/destroyed. From space global laser engagement, air launched anti-satellite missiles, to space-based radio frequency energy weapons and hypervelocity rod bundles heaved down to Earth from space – the U.S. Air Force flight plan portrays how valued space operations has become for the warfighter and in protecting the nation from chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and high explosive attack. Now to far-term needs A number of space-related transformational capabilities are described in the document. While some of these are seen as needed in the near-term (until 2010), others are described as mid-term efforts in 2010-2015, while some efforts are viewed as far-term, beyond 2015. Among a roster of projected Air Force space projects: " Air-Launched Anti-Satellite Missile: Small air-launched missile capable of intercepting satellites in low Earth orbit and seen as a past 2015 development. " Counter Satellite Communications System: Provides the capability by 2010 to deny and disrupt an adversary's space-based communications and early warning. " Counter Surveillance and Reconnaissance System: A near-term program to deny, disrupt and degrade adversary space-based surveillance and reconnaissance systems. " Evolutionary Air and Space Global Laser Engagement (EAGLE) Airship Relay Mirrors: Significantly extends the range of both the Airborne Laser and Ground-Based Laser by using airborne, terrestrial or space-based lasers in conjunction with space-based relay mirrors to project different laser powers and frequencies to achieve a broad range of effects from illumination to destruction. " Ground-Based Laser: Propagates laser beams through the atmosphere to Low-Earth Orbit satellites to provide robust, post-2015 defensive and offensive space control capability. " Hypervelocity Rod Bundles: Provides the capability to strike ground targets anywhere in the world from space. " Orbital Deep Space Imager: A mid-term predictive, near-real time common operating picture of space to enable space control operations. " Orbital Transfer Vehicle: Significantly adds flexibility and protection of U.S. space hardware in post-2015 while enabling on-orbit servicing of those assets. " Rapid Attack Identification Detection and Reporting System: A family of systems that will provide near-term capability to automatically identify when a space system is under attack. " Space-Based Radio Frequency Energy Weapon: A far-term constellation of satellites containing high-power radio-frequency transmitters that possess the capability to disrupt/destroy/disable a wide variety of electronics and national-level command and control systems. It would typically be used as a non-kinetic anti-satellite weapon. " Space-Based Space Surveillance System: A near-term constellation of optical sensing satellites to track and identify space forces in deep space to enable offensive and defensive counterspace operations. Rapid launch needs The newly issued Air Force document makes the following point: "The U.S. space capability rests on the foundation of assured access." There is need to deploy, replenish, sustain, and redeploy space-based forces in minimum time to allow them to accomplish the missions assigned to them  through all phases of conflict. In this regard, the Air Force is exploring various future system concepts to launch, operate, and maintain space assets responsively. These include the Air Launch System, a dedicated, weather avoiding, on-demand (within 48 hours) system that can rocket into the sky at a wide variety of trajectories and can loft a Space Maneuver Vehicle, Common Aero Vehicle, or a conventional payload. As explained in the Air Force document, a Space Operations Vehicle (SOV) enables an on-demand spacelift capability with rapid turnaround. This SOV can be one of the vehicles that could deploy the Space Maneuver vehicle  a rapidly reusable orbital vehicle capable of executing a range of space control missions. In addition, the SOV can be utilized to deploy the Common Aero Vehicle, or CAV. The CAV is an unpowered, maneuverable, hypersonic glide vehicle deployed in the 2010-2015 time period. The CAV could be delivered by a range of delivery vehicles such as an expendable or reusable small launch vehicle to a fully reusable Space Operations Vehicle. It can guide and dispense conventional weapons, sensors or other payloads world wide from and through space within one hour of tasking. It would be able to strike a spectrum of targets, including mobile targets, mobile time sensitive targets, strategic relocatable targets, or fixed hard and deeply buried targets. The CAV's speed and maneuverability would combine to make defenses against it extremely difficult. Directed energy beams Given the growing number of nations that utilize space, Air Force strategists see that trend as worrisome. "The ability to deny an adversary's access to space services is essential so that future adversaries will be unable to exploit space in the same way the United States and its allies can. It will require full spectrum, sea, air, land, and space-based offensive counterspace systems capable of preventing unauthorized use of friendly space services and negating adversarial space capabilities from low Earth up to geosynchronous orbits. The focus, when practical, will be on denying adversary access to space on a temporary and reversible basis," the document states. Air Force scientists and technologists are busy in the labs exploring the possibility of putting a warning energy "spot" on any target worldwide that could be rapidly followed with varying levels of effects. A possible breakthrough, the document adds, deals with a solid-state directed energy beam systems, operating at 100-kilowatt levels. "If the generation of large quantities of heat could be managed, the Air Force could develop highly effective, cheap, high power energy weapons." For example, Air Force researchers are looking at ways to collect or generate large quantities of energy on orbit in order to rely on space-based platforms for more missions and provide a greater degree of true global presence. "This would change many equations about traditional ideas of rapid response," the document explains. Sensor-to-shooter The report emphasizes that space capabilities are integral to modern war fighting forces, providing critical surveillance and reconnaissance information, especially over areas of high risk or denied access for airborne craft. Space capabilities also provide weather and other Earth observation data, global communications, precision position, navigation, and timing to troops on the ground, ships at sea, aircraft in flight, and weapons en route to targets. Space assets are critical to achieving information superiority as they enable predictive and dominant battlespace awareness. As a result there can be a reduction in the "sensor-to-shooter" cycle to minutes or even seconds, the document explains. Real-time picture of the battlespace would involve an initial space-based Ground Moving Target Indicator capability. This capacity provides U.S. global strike forces with the ability to identify and track moving targets anywhere on the surface of the Earth. Also desirable is the ability to detect, locate, identify, and track a wide range of strategic and tactical targets that the United States currently has minimal capability to detect. These include weapons of mass destruction, hidden targets, and air moving targets. A real-time picture of the battlespace enables a commander to know where all friendly forces are, not only to better coordinate operations and avoid fratricide  accidentally injuring or killing your own troops. Roadmap to the future In a February 17 press statement issued from the office of the Secretary of the Air Force, the public document on Air Force transformation is described as "a roadmap to the future". The Air Force flight plan is a reporting document that enables the Secretary of Defense to evaluate and interpret the Air Force's progress toward transformation. "Transformation is using new things and old things in new ways, and achieving truly transformational effects for the joint warfighter," said Lt. Gen. Duncan McNabb, Air Force director of plans and programs. The newly issued, publicly releasable report is the one unclassified document that presents an overarching picture of Air Force transformation, added Lt. Col. James McCaw, from the plans and programs directorate's transformation branch. "It will help the reader understand where the Air Force is going, and why we chose this path," McCaw concluded. ***************************************************************** NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: *****************************************************************