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                         NUCLEAR POLICY
 
1 Guardian Unlimited: Weapons inspectors' phones 'bugged' 
2 UK Independent: UN weapons inspectors 'were also bugged'
3 Hi Pakistan: Iran seeks Indian neutrality on N-issue     --> 
4 Las Vegas SUN: Pakistan Threatened to Give Nukes to Iran
5 AU SMH: Pyongyang baulks at US line - 
6 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: Negotiators Try To Hammer Out Joint State
7 Korea Herald: Nations labor over statement   
8 BBC: N Korea nuclear summit extended 
9 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: Six Nations on Third Day of Nuclear Talks
10 Hi Pakistan: Pakistan, North Korea may have jointly tested nuclear w
11 KoreaTimes: Nations Try to Save 6-Party Talks 
12 Las Vegas SUN: U.S. Promises to Stay at Nuclear Talks
13 Las Vegas SUN: China: Divide Narrowing in Nuclear Talks
14 Las Vegas SUN: Six-Nation Nuclear Talks to End Saturday
15 US: Washington Times: Change of climate a security factor
16 Guardian Unlimited: Did we bug Kofi Annan?
17 TOMPAINE.com: Climate Change Alert
18 Hi Pakistan: Nuclear-free world a must to ensure world peace     
19 Hi Pakistan: Nuclear-free world a must to ensure world peace
20 Hi Pakistan: Pakistan condemns all activities aimed at proliferation
21 Hi Pakistan: The nuclear imbroglio - 
23 Hi Pakistan: Nuclear free world dire need of the hour: Health Minist
 
                         NUCLEAR REACTORS
 
24 US: New TMI Study
25 US: [NukeNet] [Fwd: [JerseyShoreNuclearWatch] op ed a plant must
26 US: Las Vegas SUN: Retired admiral withdraws NRC bid
27 US: Beacon Journal: Davis-Besse plant gears up for restart
28 US: SLO Trib: Planners remove coastal access from Diablo project
29 CNSC: A Regulatory Perspective on Nuclear Energy – A Look at the Fut
30 Toronto Star:  Bruce reactor back in service
31 US: NRC: Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards Meeting of the ACR
32 US: NRC: PWR license modifications
 
                          NUCLEAR SAFETY
 
33 [DU-WATCH] war and children
34 [du-list] IAEA DU Kuwait Report
35 [DU-WATCH] studies link birth defects to gulf war
36 [DU-WATCH] Canada's Patriot Act
37 [DU-WATCH] Canada threat to US security ....
 
                         NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
 
38 IPS-English U.S.: Opposition Hardens as Bush Boosts Nuclear
39 US: NRC: Final rule on modular waste storage
40 US: Salt Lake Tribune: Power through fear 
41 US: Salt Lake Tribune: Oops plug that loophole: HB145 would have inc
42 UKAEA: Camera survey begins to reveal Windscale Pile core 
43 Las Vegas SUN: Editorial: Predictable irony
44 Las Vegas SUN: DOE under gun on Yucca questions
45 RGJ: Nevada seeking stable Yucca Mountain oversight funding from DOE
46 US: NRC: Foster Wheeler Environmental Corporation's Proposed Idaho S
47 US: Daily Herald: Panel OKs policy for $10 million fund 
 
                         NUCLEAR WEAPONS
 
 
                        US DEPT. OF ENERGY
 
48 Knox News: TVA adds $107M to proposed trim list
49 DOE: Proposed Agency Information Collection
50 DOE: Draft Site-Wide Environmental Impact Statement for Continued 
51 DOE: Worker Safety and Health Program; Suspension of Rulemaking
52 Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Hanford inquiry promised
53 Tri-City Herald: Top HEHF doctor cautious on claims 
54 Ohio News Network: Davis-Besse Agrees to Intensive Inspections      
55 Las Vegas SUN: Audit Released on Uranium Processing Plant
 
                          OTHER NUCLEAR
 
56 Google News Alert - nuclear
57 BW: Fusion technology can end world reliance on fossil fuels
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                         FULL NEWS STORIES
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 1 Guardian Unlimited: Weapons inspectors' phones 'bugged' 

[UP] 

Blix, Butler 'bugged': Australia Broadcasting Corporation             
		
Staff and agencies 
Friday February 27, 2004 		
		
The telephones of former UN chief weapons inspectors Hans Blix 
and Richard Butler were also tapped while on missions abroad, it 
was claimed today, amid the continuing fallout of Clare Short's 
claims that British spies bugged the UN secretary general.

Speaking on Australia Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) radio, Mr 
Butler said he was "well aware" that his phone calls were being 
monitored during his time as chief weapons inspector. 

Mr Butler told ABC: "Of course I was bugged. I was well aware of 
it. How did I know? Because those who did it would come to me and 
show me the recordings that they had made on others to help me do 
my job disarming Iraq."

ABC investigative reporter Andrew Fowler also claimed that 
sources had told him that Australia's Office of National 
Assessments had read transcripts of telephone conversations 
involving Mr Blix, Mr Butler's successor in the role during the 
Iraq crisis last year, while he was in Iraq.

Fowler said: "That's what I'm told, specifically each time he 
[Blix] entered Iraq his phone was targeted and recorded and the 
transcripts were then made available to the United States, 
Australia, Canada, the UK and also New Zealand."

It was reported that was bugged whenever he was in Iraq and the 
information shared between the United States, Britain and their 
allies. 

The claims followed yesterday's allegations by Ms Short, a former 
cabinet minister, that she had read transcripts of UN secretary 
general Kofi Annan's telephone calls. The UN reacted with outrage 
saying such spying would be illegal. The prime minister, who 
would not comment on the accuracy of the claims, called them 
"deeply irresponsible" and insisted that UK intelligence operated 
within domestic and international law. 

As the scandal rumbled on today, Mr Butler told ABC radio that he 
was forced to hold confidential talks with contacts on walks in 
New York's Central Park because of the phone tapping in his 
office at the UN headquarters while he was investigating Iraq's 
weapons programme. Mr Butler, who was chief weapons inspector in 
Iraq from 1997 to 1999, claimed at least four permanent members 
of the UN security council monitored his calls. 

He said that while he was weapons inspector he learned from 
unnamed sources that his office was bugged. He said: "I was being 
listened to by the Americans, British, the French and the 
Russians and they also had people on my staff reporting what I 
was trying to do privately." 

The UN has launched an investigation and Mr Annan's spokesman, 
Fred Eckhard, said yesterday: "We want this action to stop, if 
indeed it has been carried out ... it is not good for the United 
Nations' work and it is illegal."

Today former colleagues and ex-diplomats rounded on Ms Short.

Her one-time deputy at the Department for International 
Development, George Foulkes, said: "This is the latest outburst 
from Clare ... there has been a pattern, since she ceased being a 
minister, of constant attacks on the Labour government and 
particularly on Tony Blair. 

"She has got a clear political agenda here and this is just the 
latest part of it." 

Helen Liddell, a former Scotland secretary, said Ms Short's 
claims were "completely unsubstantiated". She said: "I think a 
period of silence from Clare might be appreciated. It is becoming 
increasingly difficult to work out where Clare is coming from. 
This is a pattern of behaviour that really is confounding her 
friends and colleagues, and I don't think it is doing the country 
any good." 

Sir Crispin Tickell, former British ambassador to the UN, told 
the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: "My conscience is quite clear 
about these matters and I would not think it necessarily a bad 
thing at all if it is in the national interest." 

Those concerned about the behaviour of the secret services had 
other options open to them than going public, he went on. 

"If there is a policy question which comes up about which you are 
uneasy, there are different ways in which you can go round and 
say, 'I am very unhappy about this'. 

"You can move me from my job or you can do whatever it is. But 
your prime loyalty is to your employer and, indeed, to the 
interests of the country." 

Mr Blair raised the prospect of party disciplinary action being 
taken against her. However some commentators said that it was 
unlikely there would be an attempt to prosecute her under the 
Official Secrets Act because this would only fuel the story. 

Downing Street announced a review of the workings of the Official 
Secrets Act yesterday after Ms Short's comments and the collapse 
a day earlier of the case against GCHQ whistleblower Katharine 
Gun, who claimed America had requested UK help in eavesdropping 
on UN Security Council members.

politics.editor@guardianunlimited.co.uk

Guardian Newspapers Limited
*****************************************************************
 2 UK Independent: UN weapons inspectors 'were also bugged'
 
By Jon Smith, Political Editor, PA News
 
27 February 2004

Claims of a United Nations bugging scandal sparked fresh
revelations today, with claims that the phones of former UN
chief weapons inspectors Hans Blix and Richard Butler were
tapped while on missions abroad. 

Australian radio reported that Mr Blix's phone was bugged
whenever he was in Iraq and the information shared between the
US, Britain and their allies. 

And Mr Butler said he was "well aware" that his phone calls were
being monitored during his tenure. 

He claimed he was forced to hold confidential talks with
contacts on walks in New York's Central Park because of the
phone tapping in his office at the UN headquarters while he was
investigating Iraq's weapons programme. 

He told ABC radio: "Of course I was bugged. I was well aware of
it. How did I know? Because those who did it would come to me
and show me the recordings that they had made on others to help
me do my job disarming Iraq." 

Mr Butler, who was chief weapons inspector in Iraq from 1997 to
1999, claimed at least four permanent members of the UN Security
Council monitored his calls. 

He said that while he was weapons inspector he learned from
unnamed sources that his office was bugged. 

He claimed: "I was utterly confident that when in my attempts to
have private diplomatic conversations trying to solve the
problem of the disarmament of Iraq, I was being listened to by
the Americans, British, the French and the Russians and they
also had people on my staff reporting what I was trying to do
privately." 

Sir Crispin Tickell, former British ambassador to the UN, said
on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: "My conscience is quite
clear about these matters and I would not think it necessarily a
bad thing at all if it is in the national interest." 

He said: "If there is a policy question which comes up about
which you are uneasy, there are different ways in which you can
go round and say 'I am very unhappy about this'." 

The former UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros–Ghali called for
more to be done to protect the holder of the post from spying,
saying it was seriously damaging to the work of the UN, saying:
"This is a violation of the United Nations charter." 

Responding to claims that Dr Blix's phone had been bugged, the
Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman Sir Menzies Campbell
said: "If these reports are true, they will constitute yet
another grave embarrassment for the British Government. 

"They raise a whole raft of questions, the most important of
which is, did such an activity take place with ministerial
authority and at what level?" 	           


UK Independent Ltd.
*****************************************************************
 3 Hi Pakistan: Iran seeks Indian neutrality on N-issue     --> 
 
February 27 2004     
    
NEW DELHI: Iran’s top nuclear negotiator on Thursday asked India 
to take a neutral stance as international pressure mounts on 
Teheran over its alleged nuclear weapons programme.

Hasan Rowhani, head of Iran’s powerful Supreme National Security 
Council, denied that Tehran was lobbying for New Delhi’s support 
at an upcoming meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency 
(IAEA). Indian officials said that Rowhani’s visit was scheduled 
long before the UN nuclear watchdog began investigating Iran’s 
nuclear programme.

India is a member of the 35-nation IAEA, whose board is convening 
in Vienna on March 8 and is expected to call a vote on whether 
Iran’s nuclear programme violates the Nuclear Non-Proliferation 
Treaty.

"India has always showed cooperation. We are hoping that India 
will continue with its non-aligned efforts," Rowhani told 
reporters. "There is a tradition among the non-aligned countries 
within the agency to discuss it among themselves ... to present 
unanimity."

Rowhani met Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and 
Brajesh Mishra, India’s national security adviser and Vajpayee’s 
principal secretary. Rowhani said he doesn’t expect the IAEA to 
pressure it over the alleged omission. "It is highly unlikely 
that in the upcoming meeting they will have a resolution," he 
said.

Copyright 1996-2002 . Hi Pakistan. All rights reserved. No part 
*****************************************************************
 4 Las Vegas SUN: Pakistan Threatened to Give Nukes to Iran

Today: February 27, 2004 at 11:20:32 PST 

 By MATT KELLEY ASSOCIATED PRESS 

WASHINGTON (AP) - 

Pakistan warned the United States 14 years ago that it might
give nuclear technology to Iran, but the administration of
President Bush's father did little to follow up, former Pentagon
officials say. 

Word of the 1990 threat from Pakistan's top general apparently
was not passed along to the Clinton administration when it took
office three years later, according to interviews by The
Associated Press. 

One of Pakistan's top nuclear scientists admitted last month
that he sold nuclear technology to Iran, as well as North Korea
and Libya - all nations on the U.S. list of terrorism sponsors.
President Bush said the underground nuclear network was exposed
by U.S. and British intelligence agencies' work over the past
few years. 

But former government arms control officials and declassified
documents show the United States knew about Pakistan's nuclear
procurement network since 1983 and suspected the transfers to
Iran since the mid-1980s. The United States had hints of the
transfers to North Korea in the mid-1990s, officials say. 

The clearest evidence of the Iran link came in January 1990,
when Pakistan's army chief of staff conveyed his threat to arm
Iran to a top Pentagon official. Henry S. Rowen, at the time an
assistant defense secretary, said Pakistani Gen. Mirza Aslam Beg
issued the warning in a face-to-face meeting in Pakistan. 

"Beg said something like, 'If we don't get adequate support from
the U.S., then we may be forced to share nuclear technology with
Iran,'" said Rowen, now a professor at Stanford University. 

Beg has acknowledged Iran approached him seeking nuclear
assistance that year and he publicly advocated military
cooperation between Pakistan and Iran to counter U.S. power in
the region. Beg said he never authorized nuclear transfers to
Iran or made threats to the United States. 

"I have said many times it's all pure lies," Beg said in a
telephone interview. "Am I a fool, to tell the U.S. what to do
or what not to do?" 

In recent weeks, evidence has emerged that Pakistani nuclear aid
to Iran began in the mid-1980s but accelerated after 1990 and
included transfer of some of Pakistan's most advanced nuclear
technology. 

The former Pentagon officials' accounts suggest the United
States may have missed an early opportunity to thwart some of
those transfers. 

"We knew they were up to no good," said Henry Sokolski, the
Pentagon's top arms control official in 1990. 

The Pakistani scientist at the center of the nuclear network,
Abdul Qadeer Khan, made a public confession this month and said
Pakistan's leadership was unaware and uninvolved. President
Pervez Musharraf pardoned Khan a day later. 

President Bush has said the United States became aware of Khan's
network only in the past few years through daring work by U.S.
and British intelligence agents. 

"We unraveled the Khan network and we are putting an end to its
criminal enterprise," Bush's national security adviser,
Condoleezza Rice, said in a speech Thursday. 

But Sokolski and Rowen said former President Bush's
administration did little to follow up on Beg's warning. "In
hindsight, maybe before or after that they did make some
transfers," Rowen said. 

Ashton Carter, an assistant defense secretary from 1993 to 1996,
said he doesn't remember even being told about the problem when
he joined the Pentagon. 

Rowen said he told Beg that Pakistan would be "in deep trouble"
if it gave nuclear weapons to Iran. Rowen said he was surprised
by the threat because at the time Americans thought Pakistan's
secular government dominated by Sunni Muslims wouldn't aid
Iran's Shiite Muslim theocracy. 

"There was no particular reason to think it was a bluff, but on
the other hand, we didn't know," Rowen said. 

Declassified documents and former officials say U.S. officials
knew since at least 1983 about Pakistan's extensive underground
supply network for its nuclear weapons program, which first
tested nuclear explosives in 1998. Former officials say
Washington had other murky clues about Pakistani help to Iran
and strong suspicions of the North Korea link by the late 1990s. 

Most of the middlemen for Khan's network in the 1990s were
either investigated or convicted in Europe for supplying
Pakistan's nuclear program in the 1980s. 

Pakistan never cracked down on its scientists when former
President Clinton and other U.S. officials shared their
suspicions with Pakistani leaders, former U.S. officials say. 

"The response was, 'Yes, we'll examine your concerns, but we
don't believe they are well founded,'" said Robert Einhorn, who
was the head arms control official in the State Department from
1999 to 2001. 

While Islamabad and Washington squabbled about the evidence, the
Khan network provided sophisticated technology to Libya, North
Korea and Iran, three countries the United States considered
among the most dangerous. 

A decade earlier, the Reagan administration had looked the other
way on Pakistan's nuclear program, said Stephen P. Cohen, a
State Department expert on the region from 1985 to 1987. Back
then, Washington used Pakistan as a conduit for sending weapons
and money to guerrillas fighting the Soviet invasion of
Afghanistan. 

"They were covering up our involvement in Afghanistan,
pretending we played no role in Afghanistan, so they expected us
to cover up their role in procuring a weapons system they saw as
vital to their survival," said Cohen, now with the Brookings
Institution think tank. 

American officials scolded Pakistan repeatedly for buying
nuclear technology from sources in Europe, Asia and the United
States, Cohen said. But often those warnings were with "a wink
and a nod" that Washington would tolerate those activities, he
said. 

A declassified State Department memo from 1983 says Pakistan
clearly had a nuclear weapons program that relied on stolen
European technology and "energetic procurement activities in
various countries." 

Cohen said the United States suspected Pakistan was helping Iran
in the late 1980s, in part because Pakistan had cooperated with
Iran on nuclear matters before Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution.
The evidence, however, was murky, Cohen said. 

-- 


 
*****************************************************************
 5 AU SMH: Pyongyang baulks at US line - 

World - www.smh.com.au [Sydney Morning Herald Online] 

February 28, 2004
 		 	   	   		
Chinese diplomats are trying to give forward momentum to talks in 
Beijing on North Korean nuclear disarmament as Pyongyang baulks 
at demands by the United States and its allies. 

The six-nation talks went into their third day yesterday after 
North Korea's ambassador to China complained late on Thursday 
that the "hardline" American position was stalling negotiations. 

"We will abandon our nuclear weapons program when the United 
States drops its hostile policy toward North Korea," hoe Jin-su, 
the ambassador, said. "The United States should take all the 
responsibility for the meeting not making progress." 

US officials said North Korea's chief delegate to the talks, Kim 
Kye-gwan, had earlier repeated denials that his country had a 
program to produce highly enriched uranium that could be used in 
nuclear bombs. 

At a full session with delegates from the US, China, Japan, 
Russia and South Korea, Mr Kim said "we have no highly enriched 
uranium" and in a separate bilateral meeting with the chief US 
delegate, James Kelly, he specifically disavowed any project to 
produce it. 

The denial of the uranium activity has become the main obstacle 
in efforts to get a North Korean nuclear freeze accepted as a 
starting point in the talks. 

Hamish McDonald 

Copyright  © 2004. The Sydney Morning Herald
*****************************************************************
 6 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: Negotiators Try To Hammer Out Joint Statement in Beijing   
 
      Updated Feb.27,2004 21:00 KST   
 
      North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Gye-kwan, who leads 
the North Korean delegation to the six-way talks on the North 
Korean nuclear program, leaves the North Korean Embassy in 
Beijing Friday morning./ Yonhap   

BEIJING - Chief negotiators from South and North Korea, the 
United States, Japan, China, and Russia who are now participating 
the second round of six-party talk have conducted Friday's 
general meeting and held a few separate meetings for chief 
negotiators and associate representatives to settle final issues 
before a joint declaration. It looks like negotiators are 
troubled, however, as the United States and North Korea refuse to 
back down from their stances on the scope of the North's nuclear 
program dismantlement. 

Reportedly, the goal of the United States is "the complete, 
irreversible, and verfiable dismantling (CVID)" of all nuclear 
facilities, including ones for highly enriched uranium (HEU). 
North Korea, on the contrary, insists that such measures would 
likely restrict peaceful nuclear activities as well. 

      Surrounded by reporters, South Korean chief delegate Lee 
Soo-hyuck leaves a hotel in Beijing Friday. To his right is Cho 
Sung-tae, another delegate./Yonhap   

North Korean negotiators' objective in this joint declaration was 
¡°to dismantle its military purpose-nuclear programs but allow 
international institutions to inspect nuclear facilities built 
for peaceful means," an official from the Russian delegation 
said. North Korea also requested economic compensation and the 
dropping of U.S.'s hostile policy towards the North. 

Commenting on this, China and South Korea proposed to arrange a 
neutral statement for the joint declaration that both the United 
States and North Korea could agree on and to conduct working 
group meetings for the associate representatives in March and a 
third round of six-way talks in April. South Korea reportedly has 
submitted an opinion wishing to include a plan to give energy aid 
to North Korea if they freeze all nuclear activities in the joint 
declaration. 

Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Collin Powell commented on the 
six-party talk while testifying before the Senate Budget 
Committee on Thursday. He said that although the outcome of the 
talks have been positive so far, diplomacy does not just happen 
in a few days. Powell added that even though negotiators would 
not see immediate success, a solution could be drawn out from 
failures and mistakes. 

(Yi Ha-won, may2@chosun.com ) 

*****************************************************************
 7 Korea Herald: Nations labor over statement   
        
Six-way talks seek to lay basis to ease nuclear tension 

BEIJING - As participants in six-party talks entered the third 
day of negotiations yesterday, they struggled to work out a joint 
statement they hoped would lay the foundation to ease prolonged 
nuclear tension. 

The two Koreas, the United States, China, Japan and Russia 
reconvened their plenary session in the morning while key 
representatives held separate meetings to discuss the envisioned 
document, South Korean spokesman Shin Bong-kil said. 

But despite a flurry of diplomatic contacts, the countries said 
they needed to continue the talks at least until today to narrow 
down remaining differences. 
    
  International Monetary Fund Managing Director Horst Koehler 
(right) talks with participants at an international conference to 
mark President Roh Moo-hyun`s first year in office in Seoul 
yesterday. From left: Nobel Laureate Lawrence Klein, Organisation 
for Economic Cooperation and Development Secretary General Donald 
Johnston and former Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke.  

The parties labored over wording of the statement, which would
contain the North's willingness to abandon nuclear weapons
development and promises by other countries to provide the
communist state with security assurances, a South Korean
negotiation official said on condition of anonymity. The
participants, especially Pyongyang and Washington, have
disagreed over how to express such intentions, he said. 

"The disputes over North Korea's nuclear program for peaceful
purposes have emerged as a contentious issue," the official
said. 

The United States wants the statement to contain the "complete"
elimination of all of North Korean nuclear programs including a
controversial uranium-based project, but the North wants to keep
its peaceful nuclear capability. 

North Korea continues to deny possession of the uranium program. 
Mindful that the disaccord could collapse the talks, South Korea
has proposed that the two sides agree on the term of
"comprehensive" dismantlement and urged the other countries to
agree on less sensitive issues. 

The South asked the parties to hammer out an "action" plan based
on the North freezing its nuclear activities in return for
energy aid and other corresponding measures from relevant
countries. 

Seoul, Beijing and Moscow already promised to offer energy to
Pyongyang as compensation for the impoverished country's freeze
of its nuclear activities. Washington and Tokyo expressed
support for the idea. 

Another issue being discussed was the regularization of the
multilateral talks and establishment of working groups that
would tackle technical issues in between talks. 

At the beginning of the nuclear talks, South Korea suggested
that six-way talks be convened every other month, and that
working groups composed of vice representatives hold a first
meeting within two weeks after this week's talks. 

In spite of North Korea's statement Thursday night criticizing
U.S. hard-line stance, the North and the United States
reaffirmed they would stay through the end of the crucial
negotiations. 

South Korea and the United States have expressed optimism over a
positive outcome of the second round of the talks at Daioyutai
State Guest House in this Chinese capital. 

President Roh Moo-hyun expected a peaceful resolution would be
reached during the negotiations to settle the 16-month nuclear
tension. 

"Our best efforts have been made to help find a peaceful
solution to the North Korean nuclear issue, and most problems
have either been overcome or are moving toward solutions," Roh
said at an international conference at a Seoul hotel to mark his
first year in office. 

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell was also upbeat. 

"The results of the first two days of meetings are positive,"
Powell told the Senate Budget Committee in Washington on
Thursday. "There is a positive attitude. 

"There's a promising attitude that is emerging from those
meetings and hopefully we can move in the right direction
there." 

By Seo Hyun-jin Korea Herald correspondent 

(shj@heraldm.com) 

2004.02.28
 
*****************************************************************
 8 BBC: N Korea nuclear summit extended 
 
  Last Updated: Friday, 27 February, 2004
 
[Satellite photo of Yongbyon nuclear reactor] 
Talks are focused on programmes at the Yongbyon nuclear site
			 			   		
Six-nation talks in Beijing aimed at resolving a crisis over 
North Korea's nuclear programme will continue longer than 
scheduled, officials say. 

China said the talks process was encountering "differences, 
difficulties and contradictions". 

China wants all parties to sign a joint statement as a basis for 
further talks. 

But it remained unclear whether a North Korean offer to stop 
nuclear activities would be enough to satisfy US demands it 
completely dismantle its programmes. 

The extension of the talks came amid a concerted effort to bridge 
the gap between North Korea and the US. 

China later announced that the talks - originally scheduled to 
end on Friday - would finish with a ceremony on Saturday morning, 
according to its state news agency, Xinhua. 

China's chief negotiator at the talks, Wang Yi, said the talks 
process was hitting stumbling blocks, although Chinese government 
spokesman Liu Jianchao stressed that "gaps between the various 
parties are gradually narrowing." 

The BBC's Charles Scanlon, in Beijing, says China, as the talks' 
host, is pushing hard for a concrete achievement after six months 
of hard diplomatic graft. 

China wants the parties to agree on a written statement and to 
sanction more regular meetings at a lower level. 

But one draft prepared by China has already been reportedly 
rejected by the US and Japan because it did not call for a 
"complete, verifiable and irreversible" end to North Korea's 
nuclear programmes. 

BEIJING TALKS            
[Six-nation talks underway i Beijing]                        
China, US, Russia, Japan, North and South Korea taking part Set 
to last until Friday        Saturday session added Parties sit at 
hexagonal table, US next to N Korea      

On Thursday, North Korea offered to halt its nuclear activities 
in return for "corresponding measures" by the US, but the Russian 
chief delegate said Pyongyang wanted to keep that part of its 
programme meant for "peaceful purposes". 

The offer did not appear to extend to a secret enriched uranium 
project which Washington alleges, but which Pyongyang continues 
to deny. 

Shortly afterwards, Pyongyang called on Washington to give up its 
"hostile policy" of demanding North Korea scrap all its 
programmes irreversibly before it gets anything in return. 

"The United States is saying that it can only discuss our demands 
after we give up all nuclear programmes, including for peaceful 
purposes, as it continues with its stale demand that we give up 
nuclear programmes first despite our flexible position," the 
North Korean embassy said in Beijing. 

STUMBLING BLOCKS                        N Korea wants compensatio 
for freezing nuclear programme  But US says freeze not enough US 
wants N Korean uranium programme dismantled  N Korea denies 
programme exists        Japan wants abductees discussed         N 
Korea says subject not relevant to nuclear talks           

"It is because of this that there has not been a breakthrough in 
the solution of the problems," it said. 

Nevertheless, US Secretary of State Colin Powell was upbeat. 

"The results of the first two days of meetings are positive," he 
told the Senate Budget Committee in Washington. 

"There's a promising attitude that is emerging from those 
meetings and hopefully we can move in the right direction there," 
he said. 

Energy aid 

South Korea, Russia and China have offered the North concessions 
it is demanding in the form of oil aid. 

North Korea's economic problems have led to severe energy 
shortages, which were exacerbated by a US-led decision to suspend 
shipments of fuel aid to the country. 

"The energy aid requires a presumption that North Korea freezes 
its nuclear activity as a beginning step to dismantle all of its 
nuclear programs completely, irreversibly and verifiably," South 
Korea's Lee Soo-hyuck said on Thursday. 

A similar deal was struck between the US and impoverished North 
Korea in 1994 but collapsed after Washington said in October 2002 
that Pyongyang had privately admitted to the enriched uranium 
programme. 
*****************************************************************
 9 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: Six Nations on Third Day of Nuclear Talks   
 
      Updated Feb.27,2004 14:27 KST   
 
Six-way negotiations are in full swing for a third straight day 
in the Chinese capital to ease tensions triggered by North 
Korea's nuclear drive. North Korea has offered to freeze its 
nuclear activities in what is considered the most dramatic 
concession to date. But at the same time, it accused the United 
States of stalling progress at the dialogue table in a hastily 
arranged press conference outside its embassy in Beijing late 
Thursday. "Despite our flexible attitude, the United States 
continues to demand that we abandon our nuclear program first, 
that is, all of our nuclear programs including our peaceful 
nuclear activity, then they will discuss our demands with us." 

Ironically, the about-face move drew little reaction from 
observers following the talks since the North Koreans have a 
history of making harsh rhetoric. But the statement does reflect 
a wide gap between the U.S. and North Korean positions on the 
nuclear standoff. 

In an unofficial one-on-one session following a full session 
Thursday, Pyeongyang reiterated its intention to maintain 
peaceful nuclear activity while dismantling only nuclear weapons. 
Washington, on the other hand, repeated its demands for the North 
to abandon all nuclear programs, including both its alleged 
uranium-based and known plutonium-based programs. 

Amid deep divisions in demands it's unclear whether the talks can 
end with a joint statement. Some analysts are hopeful about some 
kind of progress pointing to some flexibility from the U.S. and 
North Korean sides as well as the calm and sincere atmosphere at 
the table. They predict the six participating nations will at 
least agree to a date for a third round or a working group 
meeting and reaffirm the need for further multilateral 
negotiations. If there's one thing this latest round of six-party 
talks has proved it is that the road to diffusing nuclear 
tensions on the Korean peninsula will likely be a long one 
requiring not only continued diplomatic effort but also a sincere 
attitude on the part of North Korea. 

Arirang TV 
*****************************************************************
 10 Hi Pakistan: Pakistan, North Korea may have jointly tested nuclear weapon

Report (12:20 PST)     --> 
 
February 27 2004     
    
WASHINGTON: Pakistan may have helped North Korea test a 
plutonium-based nuclear device in 1998, The New York Times said 
today, quoting former and current US intelligence officials. 

The report could influence the ongoing six-party talks in Beijing 
over North Korea's alleged nuclear weapons program. Clues to the 
possible joint nuclear test followed underground nuclear tests 
carried out by Pakistan in May 1998, the paper said. 

According to the sources, a US military jet sent to sample the 
air over Balochistan, after the final nuclear test found traces 
of plutonium, which surprised US experts since Pakistan had 
openly stated that it was testing bombs fueled by highly enriched 
uranium. The explanations for the plutonium included the 
possibility that North Korea could have given Pakistan some of 
its plutonium to conduct a joint test of an atomic weapon, the 
sources said.                                                                                                                                                                                                                               
      
Copyright 1996-2002 . Hi Pakistan. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 11 KoreaTimes: Nations Try to Save 6-Party Talks 

Hankooki.com > Korea Times   


 US Presses North Korea to Dismantle Nuclear Programs   
      
By Ryu Jin Korea Times Correspondent

 BEIJING _ The six-nation talks on North Korea's nuclear programs 
are making progress, but major differences remain still 
unresolved, chief negotiators said Friday. 

``There still are differences, difficulties and contradictions, 
but it's essential to carry on the process of talks,'' China's 
Vice Foreign Minister and chief delegate Wang Yi was quoted as 
saying by his spokesman Liu Jianchao. 

Wang also described the atmosphere of Friday's discussions as 
``positive and beneficial,'' according to Liu, who took a very 
cautious attitude about the possibility of the second round of 
talks ending without a joint statement. 

South Korea's Vice Foreign Minister and chief delegate Lee 
Soo-hyuck also revealed the difficult course of drafting the 
statement among various parties. ``We are exerting efforts to 
draw up the statement, but it might not be issued if we fail to 
agree,'' he told a news conference. 

Lee added the ongoing round was likely to come to a close on 
Saturday. 

North Korea, the United States and the four other nations 
involved had an intense plenary session on the third day of the 
nuclear parley, as it entered the final phase of announcing 
results. 

High on the agenda were, according to sources, such substantial 
items as the exchange of verbal pledges of the North's nuclear 
dismantlement and other countries' security guarantee; a tradeoff 
between Pyongyang's nuclear ``freeze'' and other negotiating 
nations' ``compensation''; regularization of the six-nation talks 
and creation of a working group for contact in between the main 
conferences. 

But the six parties are expected to undergo a tough stage of 
negotiations at the last moment, as the two main sides, the U.S. 
and the North, are refusing to budge an inch from their 
positions. 

The U.S. wants a ``complete, verifiable and irreversible 
dismantling (CVID)'' of Pyongyang's nuclear programs, including 
the suspected uranium-based one. But, the North insists it would 
give up only its nuclear ``weapons'' program, while keeping those 
for ``peaceful'' purposes. 

Though authorized officials refused to confirm, the U.S. and 
Russian delegations were even said to have walked out of a vice 
chief delegates' meeting on Friday afternoon as they faced 
enormous difficulties in ironing out differences. 

The issue will be further discussed in Saturday's extra session 
of all parties, which will try to find some common ground for the 
joint statement. 

jinryu@koreatimes.co.kr 02-27-2004 16:34         
*****************************************************************
 12 Las Vegas SUN: U.S. Promises to Stay at Nuclear Talks

Today: February 27, 2004 at 2:35:31 PST 

 By TED ANTHONY ASSOCIATED PRESS 

BEIJING (AP) - 

The United States promised Friday to stay until the end of
six-country talks on North Korea's nuclear weapons development,
even without concrete signs yet that Pyongyang would meet
Washington's demands to completely dismantle its program. 

The statement from the U.S. Embassy in Beijing came after a
confusing 24 hours that showed signs of both major progress and
stalling in the attempts by six governments to resolve the
16-month dispute over the North's nuclear ambitions. 

"The American delegation is prepared to stay through the end of
the talks," said a U.S. Embassy spokeswoman in Beijing, speaking
on condition of anonymity. 

The six countries involved - the Koreas, the United States,
China, Russia and Japan - convened in two separate meetings
after the main session Friday morning, talking about issuing a
joint statement, according to the South Korean delegation. 

The talks will end Saturday with a closing ceremony, though
there no immediate indication of any settlement. Washington
wants the North to abolish its nuclear program, while Pyongyang
insists on aid and security guarantees first. 

The U.S. delegation in Beijing has made no public comment about
the substance of the talks. In Washington, Secretary of State
Colin Powell said that the meetings so far had displayed a
"promising attitude." 

However, a U.S. official familiar with the talks said North
Korea showed no interest in meeting the American insistence on a
complete and verifiable dismantling of its nuclear weapons
programs before the North can receive any concessions. 

In Tokyo, Japan's top diplomat said it had no plans to offer aid
to North Korea and expressed skepticism about any partial
dismantlement of its nuclear program. 

South Korea, China and Russia had made the aid proposal Thursday
during the second day of talks. Foreign Minister Yoriko
Kawaguchi said that while Japan would "understand and support"
other countries offering such aid, "we are currently not in a
situation to do so ourselves." 

The previous round of six-nation talks in August, which ended
without any substantial result, was scheduled for only three
days. But parties left the schedule open-ended this time, hoping
it would allow for more progress - which some saw happening. 

Already, China and other participants have begun talking about a
"regular framework" for continuing six-party talks at a lower
official level. 

In Seoul on Friday, South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun voiced
optimism for the talks, saying his delegation had "exerted our
efforts." 

"It seems that some of the major hurdles have been cleared and
things are moving toward a solution," he said during a speech at
a seminar in Seoul. "Still there remain problems, but things are
being sorted out and I am hopeful." 

Delegates returned to the bargaining table Friday after a heavy
- and occasionally confounding - day of developments Thursday. 

North Korea put an offer of nuclear disarmament on the
bargaining table, then struck a characteristically tough stance
by accusing the United States of blocking progress. 

The North's terse statement, read outside its Beijing embassy in
the dark before a hastily assembled press corps, came after
South Korea, China and Russia agreed to provide the impoverished
North with crucial energy aid if it would agree to disarm. 

"We will abandon our nuclear weapons program when the United
States drops its hostile policy toward North Korea," said a
statement read by an unidentified, clearly nervous North Korean
official. "The United States should take all the responsibility
for the meeting not making progress." 

The conflicting signs - progress and immediate public criticism
- are a hallmark of North Korea. But behind the rhetoric,
Pyongyang's offer to end a 16-month standoff by stopping its
nuclear activities was made unusual by a first - its delivery in
the formal six-nation talks. 

Powell said the first two days of talks were positive. "There's
a promising attitude that's emerging from those meetings, and
hopefully we can move in the right direction there," he said. 

North Korea's five negotiating partners all say they want the
Korean Peninsula to be nuclear-free. 

-- 


 
*****************************************************************
 13 Las Vegas SUN: China: Divide Narrowing in Nuclear Talks

Today: February 27, 2004 at 3:10:30 PST 

 By TED ANTHONY ASSOCIATED PRESS 

BEIJING (AP) - 

The six-nation talks over North Korea's nuclear program have
encountered "differences, difficulties and contradictions," and
will continue as long as necessary, China's government said
Friday. But it also said the divide was "gradually narrowing." 

As China said the talks would continue Saturday, its chief
negotiator, Vice Foreign Minister Wang Yi, said it was
"necessary to continue the process." 

He acknowledged there were "differences, difficulties and
contradictions." But Chinese spokesman Liu Jianchao, at a
briefing after the third day of talks concluded, also struck an
upbeat note. 

"Common ground is growing between the different parties," Liu
said. "Gaps between the various parties are gradually narrowing.
But it is still an objective fact that there are differences." 

The United States promised earlier Friday to stay until the end
of six-country talks on North Korea's nuclear weapons
development, even without concrete signs yet that Pyongyang
would meet Washington's demands to completely dismantle its
program. 

The statement from the U.S. Embassy in Beijing came after a
confusing 24 hours that showed signs of both major progress and
stalling in the attempts by six governments to resolve the
16-month dispute over the North's nuclear ambitions. 

"The American delegation is prepared to stay through the end of
the talks," said a U.S. Embassy spokeswoman in Beijing, speaking
on condition of anonymity. 

North Korea's five negotiating partners all say they want the
Korean Peninsula to be nuclear-free. 

The six countries involved - the Koreas, the United States,
China, Russia and Japan - convened in two separate meetings
after the main session Friday morning, talking about issuing a
joint statement, according to the South Korean delegation. 

The date for ending the talks "has not yet been set," Xinhua
said. The last set of talks that united the Koreas, the United
States, China, Japan and Russia, held in August, lasted three
days before they wound up with little progress. 

The South Korean delegation had said earlier that the talks
would end Saturday with a closing ceremony. But, Liu said, "The
meetings will continue tomorrow. As to when they will end, I
have no accurate information on that." 

Liu said the sides were still consulting over whether this round
of talks would end with a formal document - something China
initially said it wanted. That would represent a more formal
commitment even if it was not a binding agreement. 

There was no immediate indication of any settlement; Washington
wants the North to abolish its nuclear program, while Pyongyang
insists on aid and security guarantees first. 

Liu also made a point of reiterating language that suggested the
North would end its nuclear program entirely, not merely the
weapons portion of it. Russia's delegate said Thursday that the
offer consisted only of the military program. 

"The North Korean side came out with a proposal for the
comprehensive stopping of its nuclear activities, and it was
welcomed by the various parties," Liu said. 

The standoff began in October 2002 when the United States said
the North acknowledged a nuclear program that, according to
Washington, it promised not to have under a 1994 agreement. 

The U.S. delegation in Beijing has made no public comment about
the substance of the talks. In Washington, Secretary of State
Colin Powell said that the meetings so far had displayed a
"promising attitude." 

However, a U.S. official familiar with the talks said North
Korea showed no interest in meeting the American insistence on a
complete and verifiable dismantling of its nuclear weapons
programs before the North can receive any concessions. 

In Tokyo, Japan's top diplomat said it had no plans to offer aid
to North Korea and expressed skepticism about any partial
dismantlement of its nuclear program. 

South Korea, China and Russia had made the aid proposal Thursday
during the second day of talks. Foreign Minister Yoriko
Kawaguchi said that while Japan would "understand and support"
other countries offering such aid, "we are currently not in a
situation to do so ourselves." 

In Seoul on Friday, South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun voiced
optimism for the talks, saying his delegation had "exerted our
efforts." 

"It seems that some of the major hurdles have been cleared and
things are moving toward a solution," he said during a speech at
a seminar in Seoul. "Still there remain problems, but things are
being sorted out and I am hopeful." 

Powell also said the first two days of talks were positive.
"There's a promising attitude that's emerging from those
meetings, and hopefully we can move in the right direction
there," he said. 

-- 


 
*****************************************************************
 14 Las Vegas SUN: Six-Nation Nuclear Talks to End Saturday

Today: February 27, 2004 at 10:20:41 PST 

 By AUDRA ANG ASSOCIATED PRESS 

BEIJING (AP) - 

Another round of six-nation talks on North Korea's nuclear
weapons program will end Saturday without achieving a
significant breakthrough, but delegates tentatively agreed to
try again by April 30, news reports and Chinese officials said
Friday. 

The nations also agreed to create lower-level working groups
that would begin meeting within two weeks to discuss energy aid
for the impoverished North in return for a "comprehensive
nuclear abandonment" by Pyongyang, South Korea's Yonhap News
Agency said in a report from Beijing. 

It cited a joint draft document fashioned by delegates from the
United States, China, Russia, Japan and the two Koreas but not
yet officially endorsed by their governments. 

Yonhap's bulletins were issued minutes after Shin Bong-kil,
Seoul's chief spokesman, held a briefing exclusively for South
Korean reporters. Shin would not confirm the Yonhap report,
saying it was "way too ahead." 

China's official Xinhua News Agency said Friday that a closing
ceremony for the talks would be held at 11 a.m. Saturday. 

On the third day of negotiations, outward optimism was tempered
by fissures that for 16 months have undermined chances at an
agreement. North Korea stuck by its statement that the
Americans' "hostile policy" was to blame, and Friday's talks
produced no specific claims of progress toward the meeting's
goal. 

The United States repeatedly has demanded the "complete,
verifiable and irreversible" dismantling of the North's nuclear
program, and refuses to grant concessions if Pyongyang freezes
the program but does not abolish it entirely. 

North Korea and the United States have been at odds over
Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions for years and especially since
October 2002, when U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly
said the North told him it had a secret weapons program based on
enriched uranium - thus violating a 1994 agreement. 

North Korea publicly denies having a uranium program in addition
to its known plutonium-based program, but it brandishes the
threat of what it vaguely describes as its "nuclear deterrent"
in an effort to extract concessions. 

U.S. officials believe North Korea already has one or two
nuclear bombs and could make several more within months. The
North's five negotiating partners all say they want the Korean
Peninsula to be nuclear-free. 

The last negotiations between the six nations were held in
August and concluded after three days with little progress. 

Earlier Friday, Wang Yi, China's chief negotiator and a vice
foreign minister, acknowledged "differences, difficulties and
contradictions" during the current talks even as a Chinese
government spokesman said the divide was gradually narrowing. 

Lee Soo-hyuck, South Korea's head delegate, said the countries
were still trying to find "a common denominator" but offered no
details. 

"You can call it rough sailing, but we are spending a lot of
time on working it out," Lee said. 

Friday's talks followed a tumultuous second day of attempts at
dealmaking, with South Korea, China and Russia offering the
impoverished North crucial energy aid if it agreed to disarm. 

Pyongyang also took the striking step of offering formally, at
the negotiating table, to eliminate its nuclear program, but
lashed out hours later at what it called Washington's "hostile
policy." 

The conflicting signals are a hallmark of North Korean
diplomacy. 

Still, the United States promised Friday to see the negotiations
through even though there were no concrete signs Pyongyang would
meet Washington's demands to completely dismantle its program. 

Liu Jianchao, a Chinese government spokesman, sounded an upbeat
note Friday, saying "common ground is growing" among
participants. 

"Gaps between the various parties are gradually narrowing, but
it is still an objective fact that there are differences," Liu
said. 

Even before talks started Wednesday, participants - particularly
China - mentioned a "regular framework" for continuing six-party
negotiations at a lower official level. That would enable work
to be done beyond high-profile, high-security gatherings like
this week's. 

"It's China's hope that the process of the six-party talks can
go on and on," Liu said. 

In Tokyo, Japan's top diplomat said it had no plans to offer aid
to North Korea and expressed skepticism about any partial
dismantlement of its nuclear program. 

Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi said while Japan would
"understand and support" other countries offering such aid, "we
are currently not in a situation to do so ourselves." 

-- 


 
*****************************************************************
 15 Washington Times: Change of climate a security factor
 
  February 27, 2004 			   
			     		 		 		 		 		 		 
By Bill Gertz
 		 	 
    Abrupt global climate changes will lead to wars over food,
water and oil and leave the earth in a new ice age with raging
seas, storms and wind, according to a Pentagon-commissioned
study. 
    The report, "An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and its
Implications for U.S. National Security," concludes that
"substantial global warming" could lead to a breakdown of warm
ocean currents caused by reduced salt in the ocean. 
    That, in turn, would produce a drop in global temperatures
of as much as 6 degrees, creating catastrophic cold weather and
environmental calamities. And, as human populations struggle
over the changes, "tensions could mount around the world,
leading to two fundamental strategies: defensive and offensive,"
the report states. 
    It also presents a scenario where global warming through
2010 is followed by a major deep freeze in at least the Northern
Hemisphere that would last from a decade to several thousand
years. 
    The new colder, unstable weather would pose new threats to
national security. 
    "Military confrontation may be triggered by a desperate need
for natural resources such as energy, food and water rather than
by conflicts over ideology, religion or national honor," the
report says. "The shifting motivation for confrontation would
alter which countries are most vulnerable and the existing
warning signs for security threats." 
    A Pentagon spokesman said the report is a "speculative" look
at the future. 
    For the United States, the report suggests the country would
become a "fortress" committed to using resources to feed its
people, shoring up borders against starving migrants seeking
entry and managing world tensions. 
    China would be faced with "mega-droughts" and famines. 
    "Widespread famine causes chaos and internal struggles as a
cold and hungry China peers jealously across the Russian and
western borders at energy resources," the report says. 
    Europe would be hit hardest by quick climate changes that
would leave the continent "more like Siberia," the report says. 
    "Europe struggles to stem emigration out of Scandinavian and
northern European nations in search of warmth, as well as
immigration from hard-hit countries in Africa and elsewhere,"
the report states. 
    Energy-starved Japan would likely seize the large oil and
gas reserves in nearby Sakhalin island. 
    The report stated that nuclear-arms proliferation will
increase as a result of weather changes in what it called a
"world of warring states." 
    "Futurists" Peter Schwartz and Doug Randall of the
California-based Global Business Network, a consulting group,
produced the report for the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment. 
    The report recommends improving scientific research in
predicting climate change, researching nations' vulnerability to
abrupt climate change, and better preparing to respond to
climate change. 
    Abrupt climate change will require "new forms of security
agreements" dealing with energy, food and water, according to
the report. 
    "In short, while the United States itself will be relatively
better off and with more adaptive capacity, it will find itself
in a world where Europe will be struggling internally, large
numbers of refugees [will be] washing up on its shores and Asia
[will be] in serious crisis over food and water," the report
states. "Disruption and conflict will be endemic features of
life." 
    
*****************************************************************
 16 Guardian Unlimited: Did we bug Kofi Annan?

[UP] 

Ewen MacAskill, Patrick Wintour and Richard
Norton-Taylor 
Friday February 27, 2004
The Guardian 		
		
The UN expressed outrage yesterday after an extraordinary claim 
by the former cabinet minister Clare Short that British 
intelligence services were involved in bugging the private office 
of its secretary general, Kofi Annan. 

Mr Annan's team, after speaking to the British ambassador at the 
UN, launched an inquiry into the legal implications of the 
alleged bugging. 

"We want this action to stop, if indeed it has been carried out," 
said Mr Annan's spokesman, Fred Eckhard. "It is not good for the 
United Nations' work and it is illegal." 

It is believed to be unprecedented for covert action to have been 
taken against the UN secretary general. 

Ms Short, the former international development secretary, 
delivered her blow to Tony Blair while Downing Street was still 
reeling from the collapse of the court case against Katharine 
Gun, the GCHQ officer-turned-whistleblower. 

She claimed that the intelligence services had been bugging Mr 
Annan's private phone for years, especially in the pivotal period 
in the run-up to the Iraq war last year. She said she had seen 
the transcripts. 

Mr Blair, at his monthly Downing Street press conference, accused 
her of behaving irresponsibly but did not deny the allegation. He 
claimed that he could not comment out of duty to protect the 
intelligence services. 

Ms Short said later: "What is the PM going to say? Either he has 
to say it's true we are bugging Kofi Annan's office, which he 
doesn't want to say, or he's got to say it's not true and he'd be 
telling a lie, or he's got to say something pompous about 
national security. 

"There is no British national security involved in revealing that 
Kofi Annan's private phone calls have been improperly revealed 
and there is no danger to anyone working in the British security 
services by making this public. 

"What will happen is it will stop and Kofi Annan will have the 
privacy and respect he should have." 

Her allegation wrecked Mr Blair's press conference, which he had 
hoped would be a showcase for a new initiative on Africa. Ms 
Short's claim was a particular embarrassment to him, given that 
he described Mr Annan as a personal friend. 

Apparently furious, he said the "intelligence services were 
performing a vital task for our country and it really is the 
height of irresponsibility to expose them to this kind of 
scrutiny and questioning in a way that can do this country no 
good". 

The combination of Ms Short's allegation and the collapse of the 
court case against Ms Gun has left the Official Secrets Act in 
tatters. 

The government is to conduct a cross-departmental review to see 
if the legislation can be tightened to prevent further leaks. Its 
scale is not yet clear, and it may ultimately prove fruitless. 

Mr Annan's officials opted yesterday to present a relatively calm 
exterior in public, but behind the scenes they were raging. 

One UN official described the revelation as "outrageous". 

Another said: "We're looking at the legal side, whether 
intercepting by satellite is as illegal as bugging under the 
Vienna convention. 

"The initial reaction of the legal counsel was that it's against 
civil, criminal and international law. 

"But we're still going over the books." 

Mr Eckhard said Mr Annan's office was regularly checked for bugs 
but he did not say whether anything had been found. 

Ms Short chose to unleash her latest attack on Mr Blair on BBC 
Radio 4's Today programme, the same forum that led to the 
allegation of Downing Street tampering with Iraq intelligence and 
the Hutton inquiry. 

Asked whether Britain was involved in the bugging, she said: 
"Yes, absolutely." But in later interviews, she did not specify 
whether the intelligence gathering had been conducted by US or 
British agents. 

Any bugging would have probably been conducted by US agents, 
given that New York is on the doorstep of the US national 
security agency. 

Some cabinet ministers would like to discipline Ms Short for her 
repeated outbursts against the prime minister's integrity, but as 
she admitted yesterday, she is acting as a free agent. "I am not 
trembling in my shoes," she said. 

Party disciplinary action against her is likely to backfire by 
making her appear to be a martyr. 

The bugging row came as the government struggled with the fallout 
from the Gun affair. The attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, made 
an emergency statement to peers setting out the reasons the 
government dropped its case against the whistleblower. 

He insisted that the decision had been taken solely on legal 
grounds "free from any political interference". 

He also said the decision to abandon the case had nothing to do 
with his view on the legality of the war. 

But lawyers familiar with the case pointed out yesterday that the 
legality of the war would have been an important feature of the 
case, had it gone ahead. 
	
Guardian Newspapers Limited
*****************************************************************
 17 TOMPAINE.com: Climate Change Alert
 
  Patrick Doherty spent a decade in the field of international
conflict resolution, working in the Middle East, Africa,
Southeastern Europe and the Caucasus.   			 			
                                                                  
First Paul O’Neill, now Andrew Marshall. Marshall has just blown 
the lid off another Bush administration can of worms—namely, its 
unwillingness to acknowledge and address the massive threat posed 
by global climate change. 

Marshall is the founding director of the Pentagon’s Office of Net 
Assessment, a quiet but powerful think tank within the Pentagon. 
In 2001, Marshall was tapped by George W. Bush to lead the 
Pentagon’s military review that largely defined the scope of 
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s “transformation” agenda. 
Marshall, whose ONA has served every president since Nixon, 
introduced the term "revolution in military affairs." 

In an article published Jan. 26 in Fortune magazine, Marshall 
released the findings of an unclassified report—written by Peter 
Schwartz and Doug Randall of the Global Business Network—entitled 
"An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for 
United States National Security." 

Global Warming Happens 

Until now, the debate over climate change in the United States 
has focused on whether global warming exists and if so, whether 
it can be attributed to human activity. In their report, Schwartz 
and Randall close that debate and raise the stakes. They write 
that "the IPCC [International Panel on Climate Change] documents 
the threat of gradual climate change," deftly allowing Marshall 
to implicitly acknowledge that the IPCC findings have 
sufficiently established what the report calls "the 
scientifically proven link between CO2 and climate change" as 
well as the international consensus around climate change itself. 
But, while fully recognizing the reality of global warming, the 
report argues that the gradualist view "may be a dangerous act of 
self-deception." The real threat to national security is from 
global warming triggering an "abrupt climate change event." 

Abrupt climate change is an increasingly probable and, the 
authors show, a historically precedented event in which global 
atmospheric warming triggers a rapid modification in global 
oceanic patterns. The report focuses on the threat receiving the 
most concern from researchers, which occurs when atmospheric 
warming releases enough fresh water into the North Atlantic to 
shut down the "thermohaline conveyor"—currents including the Gulf 
Stream—that move warm water north from the tropics. That, in turn 
would send much of the Northern Hemisphere into a deep freeze, 
disrupting energy, agriculture and fresh water supplies around 
the world. 

This is no abstract hypothetical scenario. The Fortune article 
cites a presentation made by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute 
director Robert Gagosian who, at last year's World Economic Forum 
at Davos, "urged policymakers to consider the implications of 
possible abrupt climate change within two decades." 

Thankfully, Marshall did just that. The ONA-commissioned report, 
using the well-established scenario-planning techniques developed 
at Shell's planning unit, generated a plausible future scenario 
in which the thermohaline conveyor collapses in 2010. What 
follows that oceanic shut-down sounds apocalyptic and yet the 
authors contend, is quite plausible. 

By 2020, average rainfall in Europe drops 30 percent; 
"megadroughts" affect Southern China and Northern Europe; massive 
boatlifts of people from the Caribbean attempt to enter the 
United States and Mexico; China is unable to feed its population 
due to the combination of droughts and violent monsoons and 
flooding; Eastern European countries invade a weakened Russia to 
seek minerals and energy; nuclear India, Pakistan, and China go 
to war over water, land, and refugees. In all 400 million people 
could be forced to migrate from uninhabitable regions. In the 
United States, the East Coast population areas experience severe 
shortages of freshwater; flooding creates an inland sea in 
California's Central Valley and disrupts freshwater supplies for 
Southern California; and energy disruptions are commonplace due 
to storms, ice and conflict. The authors make the point clear: 
this is not a prediction, this is a plausible scenario given what 
we know now. 

Overcoming Resistance 

While the content of this release raises the alarm, Marshall is 
sending multiple messages. The timing of the Fortune article, for 
instance. For a man of Marshall's long legacy of discretion to 
directly challenge the current administration's line on global 
warming at the beginning of a presidential election year speaks 
volumes. That he chose to do so by releasing a report by 
respected business consultants in Fortune magazine seems to say 
he wants the business world, Bush's most important constituency, 
to understand clearly that the status quo is untenable. 

This extraordinary act by a senior Defense Department official 
implies high-level recognition that the Bush administration's 
resistance to the near global consensus on climate change—a 
consensus that includes the vast majority of the scientific 
community, many corporations including General Motors, Alcoa, 
IBM, DuPont, Johnson &Johnson, and all the remaining governments 
of the OECD—is a threat to national security itself. Indeed, last 
month in the journal Science, the United Kingdom's Chief 
Scientific Advisor declared that "climate change is the most 
severe problem that we are facing today—more serious even than 
the threat of terrorism." Perhaps inoculating itself from future 
criticism the report states, "Many scientists would regard this 
scenario as extreme. . . But history tells us that sometimes the 
extreme cases do occur, there is evidence that it might be 
[occurring] and it is DOD's job to consider such scenarios." 

And that resistance has been staunch. In the battle over climate 
change, according to a report from the group Environment2004, the 
Bush administration has both misrepresented the science and 
misled the public. According to The New York Times, the Bush 
administration acted to distort and omit EPA findings on global 
warming. The group notes that the administration has dismissed 
the findings of the International Panel on Climate Change set up 
by the first President Bush and the findings of a panel of the 
National Academy of Sciences that Bush himself requested. They 
document how administration has tried to mislead the public by 
substituting the absolute indicator of total emissions with 
emissions per unit of GDP, which can go down while total U.S. 
emissions continue to rise—and then asking emitters 
(unsuccessfully) to voluntarily commit to reducing emission 
intensity. And they highlight how the administration has stalled 
the debate by calling for a research agenda which The New York 
Times described as a "redundant examination of issues that had 
largely been settled, bereft of vision, executable goals and 
timetables—in short, little more than a cover-up for inaction." 

It's The Emissions, Stupid 

Ultimately, "Abrupt Climate Change" is a report for the 
Department of Defense. But not entirely. While DoD is primarily 
concerned with predicting the arrival of and managing the 
security nightmare caused by abrupt climate change, the report 
also calls for prevention measures which can only happen through 
a transformation of the U.S. economy. 

"It's important to understand human impacts on the 
environment—both what's done to accelerate and decelerate (or 
perhaps even reverse) the tendency toward climate change. 
Alternative fuels, greenhouse gas emission controls and 
conservation efforts are worthwhile endeavors." 

Only a month ago, Democrats' best chances in the 2004 general 
elections relied heavily on the undesirable combination of 
continued failure in Iraq and sustained economic 
underperformance. That began to change two weeks ago, when the 
Institute for America's Future brought together coalition of 
labor and environmental groups called the Apollo Alliance and 
issued a report describing the core of a new economic engine 
based on shifting America from suburban sprawl and fossil fuels 
towards smart growth and renewable energy. (See ) 

Democrats now have a powerful opportunity to reframe the 2004 
elections and focus their agenda around an integrated agenda of 
triage and transformation. Terrorism is still a real threat and 
Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel/Palestine and HIV/AIDS must be 
stabilized and resolved. The larger threat of abrupt climate 
change, however, means we must comprehensively transform our 
emissions-ridden economy. Apollo is a good start, but now 
Marshall's warnings make it clear that America has no time to 
waste on low emissions reduction targets and wasteful subsidies, 
much less Bush's stalling and deception. Global emissions markets 
are the best answer. Research has shown that emissions trading is 
the leading pathway to eliminating emissions, energy independence 
and reducing agricultural subsidies that impoverish the 
developing world-all of which will reduce conditions that fuel 
terrorism and the medium-term threat of abrupt climate change 
while building a booming new economic engine for America and the 
world. 

Marshall's sense of patriotic responsibility may just save the 
lives of hundreds of millions of people around the world and 
usher in a new era of prosperity, sustainability and peace—but 
only if Democrats reframe the 2004 elections starting now. 


and get the latest on what's new at TomPaine.com before everyone 
else! You can unsubscribe at any time and we will never 
distribute your information to any other entity. 

*****************************************************************
 18 Hi Pakistan: Nuclear-free world a must to ensure world peace     
 
February 27 2004     
    
ISLAMABAD – A nuclear-free world is imperative to ensure
sustainable peace and all nations would have to play their role
in this regard, said Minister for Health Nasir Khan while
talking to a delegation of International Physicians for
Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) here on Thursday.

The Minister said that the health policy of the government has
shifted from curative to preventive side but we are striving to
provide appropriate medical care also.

He said, the government has increased its Gross Domestic
Products from one per cent to 1.7 per cent in the health budget
which will have positive effects on health care system.

He told the delegation that for establishing peace in the
region, he has proposed to his Indian counterpart to form a
rapid re-deployment health team (RRST) for helping each other in
case of disaster. 

He said, Pakistan and India has agreed to exchange cardiac,
polio eradication and HIV/AIDS control team between the two
countries.

The President of IPPNW informed the Minister that the team is on
a world tour including India and Pakistan to reduce the use of
nuclear weapon and utilise the budget of nuclear weapon on the
social welfare and prosperity of the people.

If the budget used on Nuclear War is diverted for the health
care of downtrodden people, it will give a marvelous results for
the humanity, he added.

Dr Tipu Sultan, Vice President IPPNW, South Asia also informed
the Minister about the activities of the organisation.

The Minister further informed the delegation about health system
and threw light on national programmes like lady health workers,
polio eradication initiative, HIV/AIDS control programme, TB
DOTs &toll back of malaria control programmes.

The Minister said that Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PM)
would be asked to include disaster control and ethics of the
medical personal in the curriculum of medical students.

APP adds: Senate Chairman Mohammadmian Soomro on Thursday said
Pakistan was fully alive to its international responsibilities
and condemns all activities aimed at proliferation of nuclear
technology in strongest terms. 

He said this while talking to a delegation of International
Physicians for Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) led by Dr
Ronald Stephen Mc Coy which called on him here and discussed the
issue of hazards of nuclear explosion and armaments.

The Chairman observed it was gratifying that the entire
political leadership in Pakistan stood for peace and cooperation
with all as they were fully convinced of the impacts of war in
general and that of nuclear war in particular. 

He said it had never been the state policy under any government
to proliferate nuclear technology to any other state.
Dr Ronald Stephen Mccoy and the members of his delegation
apprised the Chairman of the aims and objectives of their
organisation. 

They appreciated the steps taken by Pakistan to eliminate the
possibility of nuclear proliferation.

Pakistan Doctors for Peace and Development (PDPD), the Pakistan
Chapter of IPPNW, is co-hosting this delegation alongwith
International Federation of Medical Students Association (IFMS).
					     							 				 				   				 				
Copyright 1996-2002 . Hi Pakistan. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 19 Hi Pakistan: Nuclear-free world a must to ensure world peace
 
February 27 2004     
    

ISLAMABAD – A nuclear-free world is imperative to ensure
sustainable peace and all nations would have to play their role
in this regard, said Minister for Health Nasir Khan while
talking to a delegation of International Physicians for
Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) here on Thursday.

The Minister said that the health policy of the government has
shifted from curative to preventive side but we are striving to
provide appropriate medical care also.

He said, the government has increased its Gross Domestic
Products from one per cent to 1.7 per cent in the health budget
which will have positive effects on health care system.

He told the delegation that for establishing peace in the
region, he has proposed to his Indian counterpart to form a
rapid re-deployment health team (RRST) for helping each other in
case of disaster. 

He said, Pakistan and India has agreed to exchange cardiac,
polio eradication and HIV/AIDS control team between the two
countries.

The President of IPPNW informed the Minister that the team is on
a world tour including India and Pakistan to reduce the use of
nuclear weapon and utilise the budget of nuclear weapon on the
social welfare and prosperity of the people.

If the budget used on Nuclear War is diverted for the health
care of downtrodden people, it will give a marvelous results for
the humanity, he added.

Dr Tipu Sultan, Vice President IPPNW, South Asia also informed
the Minister about the activities of the organisation.

The Minister further informed the delegation about health system
and threw light on national programmes like lady health workers,
polio eradication initiative, HIV/AIDS control programme, TB
DOTs &toll back of malaria control programmes.

The Minister said that Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PM)
would be asked to include disaster control and ethics of the
medical personal in the curriculum of medical students.

APP adds: Senate Chairman Mohammadmian Soomro on Thursday said
Pakistan was fully alive to its international responsibilities
and condemns all activities aimed at proliferation of nuclear
technology in strongest terms. 

He said this while talking to a delegation of International
Physicians for Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) led by Dr
Ronald Stephen Mc Coy which called on him here and discussed the
issue of hazards of nuclear explosion and armaments.

The Chairman observed it was gratifying that the entire
political leadership in Pakistan stood for peace and cooperation
with all as they were fully convinced of the impacts of war in
general and that of nuclear war in particular. 

He said it had never been the state policy under any government
to proliferate nuclear technology to any other state.

Dr Ronald Stephen Mccoy and the members of his delegation
apprised the Chairman of the aims and objectives of their
organisation. 

They appreciated the steps taken by Pakistan to eliminate the
possibility of nuclear proliferation.

Pakistan Doctors for Peace and Development (PDPD), the Pakistan
Chapter of IPPNW, is co-hosting this delegation alongwith
International Federation of Medical Students Association (IFMS).

Copyright 1996-2002 . Hi Pakistan. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 20 Hi Pakistan: Pakistan condemns all activities aimed at proliferation 
of nuclear technology: Chairman Senate     --> 
 
February 27 2004     
    
ISLAMABAD: Chairman Senate, Muhammedmian Soomro on Thursday said 
Pakistan was fully alive to its international responsibilities 
and condemns all activities aimed at proliferation of nuclear 
technology in strongest terms. 

He said this while talking to a delegation of International 
Physicians for Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) led by Dr. 
Ronald Stephen Mc Coy which called on the Chairman Senate here 
and discussed the issue of hazards of nuclear explosion and 
armaments.

The Chairman observed it was gratifying that the entire political 
leadership in Pakistan stood for peace and cooperation with all 
as they were fully convinced of the impacts of war in general and 
that of nuclear war in particular. He said it had never been the 
state policy under any government to proliferate nuclear 
technology to any other state.

Dr. Ronald Stephen Mccoy and the members of his delegation 
apprised the Chairman of the aims and objectives of their 
organisation. 

They appreciated the steps taken by Pakistan to eliminate the 
possibility of nuclear proliferation.

Pakistan Doctors for Peace and Development (PDPD), the Pakistan 
Chapter of IPPNW, is co-hosting this delegation alongwith 
International Federation of Medical Students Association (IFMS).
 					     							 				 				   				 				
Copyright 1996-2002 . Hi Pakistan. All rights reserved. No part 
*****************************************************************
 21 Hi Pakistan: The nuclear imbroglio - 

By Aisha Shahzad     --> 
 
February 27 2004     
    
Indo-Pak relations have been greatly influenced by the
nuclear policies of both the countries. India embarked on an
atomic energy programme as early as 1944. At that time Dr Homi
Bhabha, as chairman of the Atomic Energy Committee sought a ton
of uranium oxide from Canada. This Indo-Canadian collaboration
paved a way to build the Canada-India Reactor. But in 1974 the
plutonium derived from it (CIR) was detonated in the peaceful
nuclear explosion by India which Canada perceived a violation of
the spirit of Indo-Canadian agreement which had committed India
to use nuclear energy only for peaceful purposes. Therefore
further collaboration with Canada for the construction of the
Rajasthan atomic power plant was halted.

At the same time Bhabha sought collaboration on a turnkey basis
with USA to construct the Tarapur Atomic Power Station to
produce electrical power. India kept on increasing its nuclear
power with the passage of time with the help of other atomic
powers. It made agreements with China for the enrichment of
uranium and with USA for the supply of heavy water. All these
developments took place under the rules of International Atomic
Energy Agency. But after the Chinese nuclear test in 1964,
India’s nuclear policy underwent a great change i.e. India’s
refusal to sign NPT, its nuclear test in 1974, its pursuit of
enrichment technology etc. On the other hand from 1947 to 1958
there was a lack of clear policy about the potential of nuclear
energy by the Pakistani leadership.

Pakistan’s actual nuclear history begins with General Ayub
Khan’s takeover of the government in 1958. The Ayub regime was
determined to promote the use of nuclear energy for peaceful
purposes.

But in 1974 when India first exploded its nuclear device Dr
Abdul Qadeer Khan, founder of Khan Research Laboratories
contacted Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto saying that rapid
development in the nuclear field was very necessary otherwise it
would demoralise the Pakistani people, since the Bangladesh
crises had occurred only a few years earlier. So in December
1974 Dr AQ Khan (working in Holland at that time) came back to
Pakistan and established his institution with the help of the
government and army in Kahuta. Kahuta plant became operational
in 1980 mainly for uranium enrichment. Another plant was set up
at Sihala. During this period Pakistan signed an agreement with
France to acquire a plutonium reprocessing plant in 1976 under
the rules of IAEA. 

The plant was provided only for peaceful purposes but USA
started putting strong pressure on both Pakistan and France to
cancel that agreement because US atomic energy commission
reported the misuse of that plant by Pakistan. It was not the
whole truth and the Pakistani scientists with the help of the
government were determined to achieve their target. Even ZA
Bhutto said, “If India developed an atomic bomb we too will
develop one even if we have to eat grass or leaves or to remain
hungry. Because there is no conventional alternative to the
atomic bomb”. It was the time when the Carter administration had
terminated all economic and military assistance to Pakistan.

Because in the post cold war period US attention had refocused
on nuclear proliferation and South Asia became a target area for
US anti proliferation strategy. But India was not treated in
such a way, which caused for the controversy in US-Pakistan
relations.
Due to the discriminatory policy adopted by USA towards India
and Pakistan, Zia gave absolute assurance on the one hand that
Pakistan had no plan to develop nuclear weapons but on the other
he refused to promise the US leadership that Pakistan would not
conduct a nuclear explosion if his scientists considered that
necessary for the defence of the country. However the Reagan
administration renewed economic and military assistance to
Pakistan in 1981-82 due to Afghan issue because USA wanted to
use Pakistan strategically. It caused a lot of apprehensions in
India and Mrs lndra Gandhi suspected American involvement in
Pakistan’s quest for nuclear weapons capability. In December
1982 Washington Post reported Indian contingency plans to make
strikes at the Pakistani nuclear installations, particularly
Kahuta. Zia immediately reacted that any such attempt would be
considered an act of war and responded with full force.

Indian perception of the Pakistani nuclear challenge further
sharpened in June 1984 due to the Sino-Pak nuclear corporation
agreement. Mrs Gandhi emphasised upon the Indian army and the
scientists the new dimensions to Indian defence management. In
these circumstances US president decided to warn the Pakistan
leadership about the grave consequences if Pakistan produce
weapons-grade uranium at Kahuta. Reportedly Zia responded by
assuring the US government that Pakistan would not go beyond the
limits.

After Zia’s death in 1988 Benazir Bhutto came into power. She
assured the US congress during her visit to USA in 1989 that
Pakistan had neither developed nor intended to develop a nuclear
device. She reiterated her opposition to the development of a
bomb but without a willingness to sign the NPT. Meanwhile the
popular movement for the right of self-determination in occupied
Kashmir increased clashes on the lndo-Pak borders in early 1990.

So Pakistan assembled different components it had at hand and
developed a crude nuclear device. In these circumstances
President Bush invoked the Pressler amendment to cut off all
economic and military aid to Pakistan. But this amendment had
not been extended to India, which created a strategic imbalance
between India and Pakistan. Pakistani government raised this
issue and criticised the US discriminatory attitude towards
South Asia.

It made the US government to realise the facts, which resulted
in the renewal of economic and military aid to Pakistan under
Brown amendment. Contrary to Benazir the next Prime Minister
Nawaz Sharif adopted a different policy towards nuclear issue.
According to General Mirza Aslam Beg, “Nawaz Sharif’s government
has in all probability agreed to full safeguards on Pakistan’s
nuclear installations”.

After the dissolution of Nawaz government, Benazir came into
power and continued her nuclear policy. During her tenure
negotiations were carried out through frequent visits by high
ranking US officials e.g. Robin Raphal, S. Talbott to stop the
proliferation of nuclear weapons in South Asia. But Pakistani
government rejected any unilateral limit on its nuclear
programme. After her dismissal Nawaz Sharif again resumed power
while on the other hand BJP came into power in India and adopted
new dimensions in defence strategy i.e. India’s aggressive
missile programme. It forced Pakistan to maintain parity in the
region. So Ghauri missile was tested and after a few days
President Rafiq Tarrar urged the government to build even more
missiles to deter India. But the geo-strategic situation
entirely changed in South Asia after the Indian explosions on
May 11th and 13th 1998 at Pokhran in Rajasthan and put Pakistan
in a serious dilemma. The objectives behind India’s explosions
were described as to compete with China and to become a member
of the International Nuclear Club.

It was with this background that on May 28 and 30th 1998
Pakistan also made nuclear tests at Chaghi in Balochistan.
Sharif explained that it was necessary to avoid nuclear

blackmailing and to retain parity with India. These explosions
resulted in far reaching effects at regional and global level.
Major powers condemned both the countries to pacify the nuclear
confrontation in South Asia.

However both the countries have been making efforts to increase
their nuclear capability to deter each other because deterrence
is not a static phenomenon so we need to preserve our nuclear
assets for making our defense even more stronger. But now it’s
not a vague fact that Pakistan’s nuclear installations are
surrounded by dangers. IAEA started investigations from Iran’s
nuclear programme. 

During this process Iran’s government admitted that she has
acquired nuclear technology from various scientists. This issue
has been propagated by foreign media and our government has
faced this grave situation in such a perturbed manner which
caused instability within the country and damaged our national
prestige. These scientists made Pakistan a nuclear power and
always preferred their homeland. They strengthened our nation
after East Pakistan debacle when we were demoralised and had
become a victim of distress. But nowadays these national heroes
are labelled dishonest for illegal transfer of nuclear
technology to other countries. Even the head of IAEA Muhammad
Elbaradi has witnessed that no any Pakistani scientist was
involved in nuclear proliferation but our scientists are facing
media trial. 

Many other countries are involved in nuclear proliferation as
India provided nuclear technology to Iraq, Europe is also
involved in nuclear proliferation, even USA itself keeps on
enhancing nuclear power then why only Pakistan is pressurised by
international community? Why only Pakistan is threatened to make
roleback? The Pakistani nation is not supposed to make any
compromise at the cost of our national interest which can be
preserved through strong defense. Our nuclear programme is a
great asset of our country. Our government must ensure
cooperation to IAEA to stop nuclear proliferation while
preserving our nuclear programme. 					     							 				 				  
				 				
Copyright 1996-2002 . Hi Pakistan. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 22 Hi Pakistan: The nuclear imbroglio - 

By Aisha Shahzad     --> 
 
February 27 2004     
    
Indo-Pak relations have been greatly influenced by the nuclear 
policies of both the countries. India embarked on an atomic 
energy programme as early as 1944. At that time Dr Homi Bhabha, 
as chairman of the Atomic Energy Committee sought a ton of 
uranium oxide from Canada. This Indo-Canadian collaboration paved 
a way to build the Canada-India Reactor. But in 1974 the 
plutonium derived from it (CIR) was detonated in the peaceful 
nuclear explosion by India which Canada perceived a violation of 
the spirit of Indo-Canadian agreement which had committed India 
to use nuclear energy only for peaceful purposes. Therefore 
further collaboration with Canada for the construction of the 
Rajasthan atomic power plant was halted.

At the same time Bhabha sought collaboration on a turnkey basis 
with USA to construct the Tarapur Atomic Power Station to produce 
electrical power. India kept on increasing its nuclear power with 
the passage of time with the help of other atomic powers. It made 
agreements with China for the enrichment of uranium and with USA 
for the supply of heavy water. All these developments took place 
under the rules of International Atomic Energy Agency. But after 
the Chinese nuclear test in 1964, India’s nuclear policy 
underwent a great change i.e. India’s refusal to sign NPT, its 
nuclear test in 1974, its pursuit of enrichment technology etc. 
On the other hand from 1947 to 1958 there was a lack of clear 
policy about the potential of nuclear energy by the Pakistani 
leadership.

Pakistan’s actual nuclear history begins with General Ayub Khan’s 
takeover of the government in 1958. The Ayub regime was 
determined to promote the use of nuclear energy for peaceful 
purposes.

But in 1974 when India first exploded its nuclear device Dr Abdul 
Qadeer Khan, founder of Khan Research Laboratories contacted 
Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto saying that rapid development 
in the nuclear field was very necessary otherwise it would 
demoralise the Pakistani people, since the Bangladesh crises had 
occurred only a few years earlier. So in December 1974 Dr AQ Khan 
(working in Holland at that time) came back to Pakistan and 
established his institution with the help of the government and 
army in Kahuta. Kahuta plant became operational in 1980 mainly 
for uranium enrichment. Another plant was set up at Sihala. 
During this period Pakistan signed an agreement with France to 
acquire a plutonium reprocessing plant in 1976 under the rules of 
IAEA. 

The plant was provided only for peaceful purposes but USA started 
putting strong pressure on both Pakistan and France to cancel 
that agreement because US atomic energy commission reported the 
misuse of that plant by Pakistan. It was not the whole truth and 
the Pakistani scientists with the help of the government were 
determined to achieve their target. Even ZA Bhutto said, “If 
India developed an atomic bomb we too will develop one even if we 
have to eat grass or leaves or to remain hungry. Because there is 
no conventional alternative to the atomic bomb”. It was the time 
when the Carter administration had terminated all economic and 
military assistance to Pakistan.

Because in the post cold war period US attention had refocused on 
nuclear proliferation and South Asia became a target area for US 
anti proliferation strategy. But India was not treated in such a 
way, which caused for the controversy in US-Pakistan relations.

Due to the discriminatory policy adopted by USA towards India and 
Pakistan, Zia gave absolute assurance on the one hand that 
Pakistan had no plan to develop nuclear weapons but on the other 
he refused to promise the US leadership that Pakistan would not 
conduct a nuclear explosion if his scientists considered that 
necessary for the defence of the country. However the Reagan 
administration renewed economic and military assistance to 
Pakistan in 1981-82 due to Afghan issue because USA wanted to use 
Pakistan strategically. It caused a lot of apprehensions in India 
and Mrs lndra Gandhi suspected American involvement in Pakistan’s 
quest for nuclear weapons capability. In December 1982 Washington 
Post reported Indian contingency plans to make strikes at the 
Pakistani nuclear installations, particularly Kahuta. Zia 
immediately reacted that any such attempt would be considered an 
act of war and responded with full force.

Indian perception of the Pakistani nuclear challenge further 
sharpened in June 1984 due to the Sino-Pak nuclear corporation 
agreement. Mrs Gandhi emphasised upon the Indian army and the 
scientists the new dimensions to Indian defence management. In 
these circumstances US president decided to warn the Pakistan 
leadership about the grave consequences if Pakistan produce 
weapons-grade uranium at Kahuta. Reportedly Zia responded by 
assuring the US government that Pakistan would not go beyond the 
limits.

After Zia’s death in 1988 Benazir Bhutto came into power. She 
assured the US congress during her visit to USA in 1989 that 
Pakistan had neither developed nor intended to develop a nuclear 
device. She reiterated her opposition to the development of a 
bomb but without a willingness to sign the NPT. Meanwhile the 
popular movement for the right of self-determination in occupied 
Kashmir increased clashes on the lndo-Pak borders in early 1990.

So Pakistan assembled different components it had at hand and 
developed a crude nuclear device. In these circumstances 
President Bush invoked the Pressler amendment to cut off all 
economic and military aid to Pakistan. But this amendment had not 
been extended to India, which created a strategic imbalance 
between India and Pakistan. Pakistani government raised this 
issue and criticised the US discriminatory attitude towards South 
Asia.

It made the US government to realise the facts, which resulted in 
the renewal of economic and military aid to Pakistan under Brown 
amendment. Contrary to Benazir the next Prime Minister Nawaz 
Sharif adopted a different policy towards nuclear issue. 
According to General Mirza Aslam Beg, “Nawaz Sharif’s government 
has in all probability agreed to full safeguards on Pakistan’s 
nuclear installations”.

After the dissolution of Nawaz government, Benazir came into 
power and continued her nuclear policy. During her tenure 
negotiations were carried out through frequent visits by high 
ranking US officials e.g. Robin Raphal, S. Talbott to stop the 
proliferation of nuclear weapons in South Asia. But Pakistani 
government rejected any unilateral limit on its nuclear 
programme. After her dismissal Nawaz Sharif again resumed power 
while on the other hand BJP came into power in India and adopted 
new dimensions in defence strategy i.e. India’s aggressive 
missile programme. It forced Pakistan to maintain parity in the 
region. So Ghauri missile was tested and after a few days 
President Rafiq Tarrar urged the government to build even more 
missiles to deter India. But the geo-strategic situation entirely 
changed in South Asia after the Indian explosions on May 11th and 
13th 1998 at Pokhran in Rajasthan and put Pakistan in a serious 
dilemma. The objectives behind India’s explosions were described 
as to compete with China and to become a member of the 
International Nuclear Club.

It was with this background that on May 28 and 30th 1998 Pakistan 
also made nuclear tests at Chaghi in Balochistan.

Sharif explained that it was necessary to avoid nuclear 
blackmailing and to retain parity with India. These explosions 
resulted in far reaching effects at regional and global level. 
Major powers condemned both the countries to pacify the nuclear 
confrontation in South Asia.

However both the countries have been making efforts to increase 
their nuclear capability to deter each other because deterrence 
is not a static phenomenon so we need to preserve our nuclear 
assets for making our defense even more stronger. But now it’s 
not a vague fact that Pakistan’s nuclear installations are 
surrounded by dangers. IAEA started investigations from Iran’s 
nuclear programme. 

During this process Iran’s government admitted that she has 
acquired nuclear technology from various scientists. This issue 
has been propagated by foreign media and our government has faced 
this grave situation in such a perturbed manner which caused 
instability within the country and damaged our national prestige. 
These scientists made Pakistan a nuclear power and always 
preferred their homeland. They strengthened our nation after East 
Pakistan debacle when we were demoralised and had become a victim 
of distress. But nowadays these national heroes are labelled 
dishonest for illegal transfer of nuclear technology to other 
countries. Even the head of IAEA Muhammad Elbaradi has witnessed 
that no any Pakistani scientist was involved in nuclear 
proliferation but our scientists are facing media trial. 

Many other countries are involved in nuclear proliferation as 
India provided nuclear technology to Iraq, Europe is also 
involved in nuclear proliferation, even USA itself keeps on 
enhancing nuclear power then why only Pakistan is pressurised by 
international community? Why only Pakistan is threatened to make 
roleback? The Pakistani nation is not supposed to make any 
compromise at the cost of our national interest which can be 
preserved through strong defense. Our nuclear programme is a 
great asset of our country. Our government must ensure 
cooperation to IAEA to stop nuclear proliferation while 
preserving our nuclear programme.                                                                                                                                                                 
				 				
Copyright 1996-2002 . Hi Pakistan. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 23 Hi Pakistan: Nuclear free world dire need of the hour: Health Minister    
 
February 27 2004     
    
ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Health Mohammad Nasir Khan 
Thursday said without insuring nuclear free world, sustainable 
peace could not be ensured globally and it is dire time to raise 
voices for it.

Talking to delegation of International Physicians for Prevention 
of Nuclear war (IPPNW), here he said Ministry of health has 
shifted its policy from curative to preventive side.

He told the delegation that for establishing peace in the region, 
he has proposed to his Indian counterpart to form a Rapid 
re-deployment health team (RRST) for helping each other in case 
of disaster. 

"Pakistan and India have agreed to exchange Cardiac, Polio 
Eradication and NIV/AIDS Control teams between the two countries 
to exchange the information" he said.

He informed the delegation about health system and through light 
on the National Programs like, Lady Health Workers, Polio 
Eradication Initiative, HIV/AIDS control program, T.B DOTs &Toll 
Back of Malaria Control Programs. 

He also informed the delegation that he intends to ask Pakistan 
Medical Dental council to include in the curriculum of Medical 
Students regarding disasters control and ethics of the medical 
personal.

Copyright 1996-2002 . Hi Pakistan. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 24 New TMI Study
 
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2004 15:59:32 -0800

 
<x-flowed>
Feb 26

1 p.m. - 2 p.m.
Winston Richards to speak on Elevated Infant Death Rates in Dauphin County
Details:
At Penn State College of Medicine
Speaker: Winston Richards, Associate Professor of Mathematics, Penn State
Harrisburg
Title: Elevated Infant Death Rates in Dauphin County: A Product of Chance
Abstract: Attention has been focused on the South Central Pennsylvania
region since the occurrence of the Nuclear Accident at the Three Mile Island
Electricity Power Generating Plant in March of 1979. Today there is
continuing discussion on what may have been the adverse effects of this
accident on the population and immediate environment. The probability map
and techniques borrowed from Quality Control (the CUSUM chart) are used to
investigate the observed elevation of infant death rates in Dauphin County
after the accident. TMI is located in Dauphin County. This paper is jointly
written with Martin Beibel from the University of Freiburg.
Location: Penn State College of Medicine, Department of Health Evaluation
Sciences, Academic Support Building
For more information on this and other seminars in the Department of Health
Evaluation Sciences, please contact Allen Kunselman (akunselman@psu.edu)



---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.592 / Virus Database: 375 - Release Date: 2/20/2004

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 25 [NukeNet] [Fwd: [JerseyShoreNuclearWatch] op ed a plant must
 
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2004 15:59:42 -0800

 
<x-flowed>


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [JerseyShoreNuclearWatch] op ed a plant must shut now for health 
and safety
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2004 13:34:44 -0500
From: Edith <mailto:egbur@optonline.net><egbur@optonline.net>
Reply-To: 
<mailto:JerseyShoreNuclearWatch@yahoogroups.com>JerseyShoreNuclearWatch@yahoogroups.com 

To: 
<mailto:JerseyShoreNuclearWatch@yahoogroups.com>JerseyShoreNuclearWatch@yahoogroups.com 




<http://www.app.com/>logo_dark.gif
ASBURY PARK PRESS
THE JERSEY SHORE'S
LARGEST NEWS
SOURCE
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A-plant must shut now for health and safety of county's residents



Published in the Asbury Park Press 2/27/04

By EDITH GBUR

Jersey Shore Nuclear Watch wants to clarify its position regarding the 
shutdown and decommissioning of the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station 
in Lacey. The main concern of most citizens is closure of Oyster Creek.

On Feb. 17, the largest municipality in Ocean County, Dover Township, 
passed a resolution calling for the immediate shutdown and decommissioning 
of the plant. Since June, 16 towns have adopted resolutions regarding 
Oyster Creek. Eleven of them -- Berkeley, Brick, Dover, Ocean Township 
(Waretown), Beach Haven, Harvey Cedars, Lakewood, Little Egg Harbor, Point 
Pleasant, South Toms River and Surf City -- have passed resolutions calling 
for decommissioning the plant.

Ocean County municipalities in New Jersey are closest to the nuclear plant 
and are at high risk if there were a nuclear catastrophe.

Regardless of what the Nuclear Regulatory Commission decides on the 20-year 
license extension, Jersey Shore Nuclear Watch will continue to call for an 
immediate shutdown.

Even if the license were not to be extended beyond its expiration date of 
2009, the plant will still remain open for another five years. Safety, 
health and security are immediate concerns. An accident or a terrorist 
attack at Oyster Creek could make the area uninhabitable. High levels of 
strontium-90, which have been associated with cancer, have been found in 
samples of baby teeth of numerous children throughout Ocean and Monmouth 
counties.

We can't wait another five years until the license expires. If Oyster Creek 
shuts down tomorrow, the lights would still go on and washing machines 
would continue to work, together with all the other appliances. No one 
would miss the electricity it presently produces.

Regulations are in place to ensure a safe, permanent shutdown of Oyster 
Creek. A $350 million trust fund has been set aside for the decommissioning 
process, which follows the closure of the plant. At a minimum, security has 
to be maintained and the fuel rods would have to be removed from the reactor.

Since 1963, 19 nuclear plants have been shut down and are being 
decommissioned. This is due to economic factors and citizen opposition. The 
NRC has never been responsible for shutting down a nuclear plant.

We have been asked questions about the decommissioning process. Will the 
workers lose their jobs, how long will it take, will jobs be lost or 
gained, who needs to be involved?

On March 29, Jersey Shore Nuclear Watch is sponsoring meetings on "How to 
Decommission the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station." The evening 
session will take place at the Administration Building (Room 119) in Toms 
River. The afternoon sessions will be announced. The presenter, Ray Shadis 
from Maine, is an expert on decommissioning. He founded "Friends of the 
Coast," which helped to shut down the Maine Yankee Nuclear Plant in 1996. 
It is still being decommissioned.

Edith Gbur, Dover Township, is chairwoman of Jersey Shore Nuclear Watch. 
Its Web site is 
<http://www.jerseyshorenuclearwatch.org>www.jerseyshorenuclearwatch.org.

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<http://marketing.injersey.com/subscriptions.html>Subscribe to the Asbury 
Park Press
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Jersey Shore Nuclear Watch, PO Box 4283, Brick, NJ 08723 Phone 732-830-6565 
<http://www.jerseyshorenuclearwatch.org>www.jerseyshorenuclearwatch.org





----------
Yahoo! Groups Links
    * To visit your group on the web, go to:
    * 
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-- 
Coalition for Peace and Justice 
(<http://www.coalitionforpeaceandjustice.org>http://www.coalitionforpeaceandjustice.org); 
and the UNPLUG Salem Campaign 
(<http://www.unplugsalem.org>http://www.unplugsalem.org); 321 Barr Ave., 
Linwood, NJ 08221; 609-601-8583/37; 
<mailto:ncohen12@comcast.net>ncohen12@comcast.net. The Coalition for Peace 
and Justice is a chapter of Peace Action 
(<http://www.peace-action.org>http://www.peace-action.org). "You can say 
I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one" (Lennon). "Don't be late for your 
life" (Mary Chapin Carpenter).



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 26 Las Vegas SUN: Retired admiral withdraws NRC bid

Today: February 27, 2004 at 9:52:19 PST 

By Suzanne Struglinski 
<suzanne@lasvegassun.com>

 WASHINGTON -- A former Navy admiral has withdrawn his
nomination to serve on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the
White House announced Thursday.

 Last July President Bush nominated retired Navy Vice Adm. John
J. Grossenbacher, who most recently served as commander of the
U.S. submarine forces in the Atlantic, to finish out the
remainder of former NRC Chairman Richard Meserve's five-year
term, which ends June 30, and to serve another term that would
end June 30, 2008.

 There are two vacant slots on the five-member commission, one
of which must be occupied by a Democrat and one by a Republican,
under law. Grossenbacher was tapped to fill the Republican seat,
and President Bush nominated Greg Jaczko, a member of Democratic
Nevada Sen. Harry Reid's staff, to fill the Democratic seat.

 The commission regulates the commercial nuclear industry and
will ultimately decide whether the Energy Department will get a
license to operate the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste storage
site, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

 
 
*****************************************************************
 27 Beacon Journal: Davis-Besse plant gears up for restart

| 02/26/2004 | 

Five-year review mandatory at FirstEnergy facility

 By Jim Mackinnon

 Beacon Journal business writer

FirstEnergy Corp. has its fingers crossed that its Davis- Besse 
nuclear plant might get the federal green light to restart as 
soon as Monday. 

No matter when the plant restarts, the Akron utility will be 
required to conduct five years of ``unprecedented'' independent 
review of the troubled facility under an order from the Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission. 

The NRC in the next week or two could make a restart decision, an 
agency spokeswoman said. On Thursday, the NRC panel that has been 
overseeing Davis-Besse repairs and progress the last two years 
issued its restart recommendation to agency administrators who 
have final say on start-up. The recommendation was not made 
public. 

At the very least, the 883-megawatt plant is now being run on the 
assumption that restart is imminent, according to a memo sent to 
employees this week from plant manager Barry Allen. 

``It now appears unlikely that we will receive permission to 
restart this week. Therefore, we will target noon on Monday, 
March 1, as the (assumed) time we anticipate receiving permission 
to restart,'' the memo said. ``Based on the Monday target date, 
we will plan on commencing 24-hour coverage beginning with the 
Monday day shift.'' 

The reactor on Thursday was at normal operating pressure and 
slightly lower than normal temperature, about535 degrees, without 
using nuclear energy. 

Idle for two years 

The Davis-Besse reactor last made power in February 2002, just 
before it shut down for what FirstEnergy thought would be a 
routine refueling and safety inspection. 

Instead, the inspection in early March that year uncovered a 
pineapple-sized rust hole nearly all the way through the top of 
the reactor, and FirstEnergy has since spent about $600 million 
in repairs and to buy replacement power. 

``The plant is ready. The plant and the employees are ready,'' 
FirstEnergy spokesman Todd Schneider said. 

The plant manager's memo to employees does not mean the company 
has inside knowledge on a restart decision, but is intended to 
get employees on the proper schedule should the OK be given, he 
said. 

Also pointing to FirstEnergy's optimism -- the utility is giving 
a press tour of Davis-Besse today, the first such tour since the 
plant was first shut down. 

FirstEnergy has agreed to the terms of an NRC draft order issued 
Thursday that calls for the utility to pay for independent 
assessments of the plant for five years after restart, Schneider 
said. 

The utility did not have much say in the matter -- the NRC said 
``restart approval is contingent upon the conditions in the order 
being in effect. The NRC plans to issue the order regardless of 
the utility's consent.'' 

But in agreeing to the order's terms, FirstEnergy avoids any 
delay in a restart decision. 

Extensive checks 

The NRC-required assessments, which include surveying the plant's 
safety culture over five years, would be separate from any 
similar work or study done by FirstEnergy and the NRC. 

The order also requires FirstEnergy to do extensive examinations 
of the reactor during what is called a mid-cycle outage, between 
major refuelings. The NRC is not requiring the inspections and 
related items in the order be done before the plant is allowed to 
restart. 

``This is an unprecedented action on the part of the agency,'' 
NRC spokeswoman Viktoria Mitlyng said. ``It (the order) becomes 
part of the company's operating license for five years.'' 

Oversight needed 

The NRC said the independent oversight is needed because 
FirstEnergy's so-called self-assessments at Davis-Besse failed to 
uncover some problems at the plant. The assessment cannot be done 
by FirstEnergy employees, Mitlyng said. 

``Such an order was expected,'' Schneider said. ``The costs 
associated with the order are not significant.'' 

Restarting the plant would begin soon after any approval, 
Schneider said. Ramping up the reactor will be done in stages, 
with the company assessing the equipment and employee performance 
along the way, he said. 

``It's going to be between 10 and 14 days before we hit 100 
percent power,'' Schneider said. 

Davis-Besse typically begins supplying power to the electric grid 
when the reactor hits 15 to 18 percent of its rated power, he 
said. 

Dave Lochbaum, the nuclear safety expert with the watchdog group 
Union of Concerned Scientists, said the NRC's order does not make 
up for not forcing FirstEnergy to shut down and inspect 
Davis-Besse in the fall of 2001, months before the rust hole was 
found. 

But the order, particularly the part calling for a five-year 
survey on the plant's safety culture, has value, he said. 

Lessons learned 

While he continues to have concerns about Davis-Besse, Lochbaum 
also said he wished the NRC was further along in improving the 
agency's procedures and practices that contributed to 
Davis-Besse's problems. NRC staff on Thursday reviewed a 
``lessons learned'' task force report on Davis-Besse, telling 
commission members that while it has not yet resolved all issues 
named in the report, it continues to make progress. 

``They will get there. I just wish it was faster,'' Lochbaum 
said. 

Lochbaum and Ohio Citizen Action on Thursday asked the NRC to 
review the roles of FirstEnergy managers at Davis-Besse from 1996 
onward. 

A federal grand jury is reviewing whether there was any criminal 
wrongdoing on the part of FirstEnergy over the Davis- Besse 
problems. Lochbaum and Ohio Citizen Action, in their letter, said 
no nuclear plant has ever gotten permission to restart while a 
grand jury investigation was under way. 

In addition, the investigation arm of Congress, the General 
Accounting Office, is conducting its own review of the NRC and 
Davis-Besse. The GAO report is tentatively scheduled to be ready 
in April. 

Jim Mackinnon can be reached at 330-996-3544 or   

*****************************************************************
 28 SLO Trib: Planners remove coastal access from Diablo project

San Luis Obispo Tribune | 02/27/2004 | 

Commission disagreed PG&E should fund $12M in improvements

 David Sneed

 The Tribune

AVILA BEACH - County planning commissioners Thursday handed 
Pacific Gas and Electric Co. a victory in its effort to establish 
a storage facility for highly radioactive waste at Diablo Canyon 
nuclear power plant. 

In a 3-0 vote, with two members absent, the commission removed 
requirements to enhance public access to the coast around the 
plant as a condition for building the waste facility. 

Planning staff proposed requiring the utility to pay $12 million 
for improved coastal access at Port San Luis and guarantee 
further coastal access after the plant closes in 20 to 40 years. 

The three commissioners present agreed with PG&E's argument that 
there is no connection between the proposed waste facility and 
public access. 

The existence of the well-guarded nuclear plant already precludes 
public access, therefore the storage facility will not deprive 
the public of any further access to the 12 miles of coast around 
the plant, said Bob Schiebelhut, a San Luis Obispo attorney 
representing PG&E. 

He argued that there is no connection between the proposed 
storage facility and the loss of coastal access. So the county 
can't legally mandate improved coastal access as part of its 
permit conditions. 

"How is it that the storage facility results in loss of public 
access?" he asked. "It doesn't." 

David Weisman of Morro Bay, representing the San Luis Obispo 
Mothers for Peace, said the group will appeal the decision to the 
Board of Supervisors and eventually to the state Coastal 
Commission. 

Two commissioners who might have been more sympathetic to 
enhanced public access, Doreen Liberto-Blanck of Cambria and 
Sandra Neilsen of Pismo Beach, were absent. Liberto-Blanck was 
sick and Neilsen did not participate due to a conflict of 
interest with PG&E. 

Commissioner Robert Roos of Templeton said he was sympathetic to 
staff recommendations to increase public access to the Point San 
Luis Lighthouse, which is surrounded by PG&E land. The other two 
commissioners were not, however. 

Schiebelhut argued that, in addition to public safety reasons, 
the public should be excluded from the property to protect the 
fragile ecology of the coast and the agricultural resources 
there. 

He noted that the public already has limited access to the 
Diablo-area coast via docent-led hikes on the Pecho Coast Trail 
near Avila Beach. 

Tim McNulty, deputy county counsel, tried unsuccessfully to argue 
that any coastal development requires additional public access. 

The storage facility is likely to be on-site for many years to 
come and could restrict coastal access for generations. 

"By approving this project, are you making it more difficult for 
the public to access the coast?" he asked. "In my opinion, it 
does." 

In a symbolic victory for county planning staff, the commission 
voted to forward recommendations to the federal Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission about how the waste facility can be made 
more resistant to Sept. 11-style terrorist attacks, including 
making the storage casks more robust and enhancing firefighting 
capabilities at the storage site. 

Such safety precautions are strictly the responsibility of the 
NRC, and that agency is expected to issue its license to build 
the waste facility in March. 

The agency has shown no indications that it plans to heed the 
county's recommendations, and PG&E did not oppose sending them. 

After the hearing, PG&E officials said they were pleased by the 
planning commission's decision and want the Board of Supervisors 
to hear the appeal as soon as possible. 

Weisman said he thought the commission caved into pressure from 
PG&E. 

He noted that other states and communities have successfully 
imposed limitations on high level nuclear waste facilities. 

"There is precedent," he said. "You can do it if you have the 
will. I don't see the will." 

David Sneed covers environmental issues for The Tribune. E-mail 
story ideas and comments to him at dsneed@thetrib unenews.com   

*****************************************************************
 29 CNSC: A Regulatory Perspective on Nuclear Energy – A Look at the Future 
 	
[Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission / Commission Canadienne de

Notes for an address by 

Linda J. Keen 
President and CEO 
Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission 

to the 

Canadian Nuclear Association 

Thursday, 19 February 2004 
Fairmont Château Laurier (Ballroom) 
Ottawa  

Good morning. It is indeed my pleasure to be part of the
Canadian Nuclear Association’s Winter Seminar again this year.
Recently, I had an opportunity to meet with the CNA Board of
Directors and also with your new president, Murray Elston. 

The focus of my speech today will be on the theme of the
conference, but I will modify it slightly to give you a view of
the future from a regulatory perspective. 

Je vais faire ma présentation en anglais, mais une copie en
français est également disponible sur notre site web et je serai
disponible pour des questions en français à la fin. 

I would like to discuss two separate but related components of
the future. 

First, I will discuss where the Canadian Nuclear Safety
Commission is going in the future and what we are doing today to
prepare for it. 

Second, I will give you my perspective on how the CNA and its
members could address some future challenges. 

Before embarking on a discussion of the future, I would like to
recall the role of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission – the
CNSC. 

The CNSC regulates the use of nuclear energy and materials to
protect health, safety, security and the environment and to
respect Canada’s international commitments on the peaceful use
of nuclear energy. The CNSC’s mandate is bestowed on our
organization through legislation from Parliament. The Nuclear
Safety and Control Act and its associated regulations have
modernized nuclear regulation in Canada. 

Rest assured that as I discuss the future this morning, one
thing remains clear and constant: our focus on our mandate. We
intend to serve Canadians by being an effective regulator and we
will never lose this focus. 

The scope of the CNSC’s regulatory activities is both extensive
and broad. It can be summarized in many ways, but one of the
points I want to make is that while most CNA members are
regulated by the CNSC, your membership only makes up a portion
of the CNSC’s licensees. 

Presiding over 4,000 licences amongst 2,300 licensees, the CNSC
regulates the major players in the nuclear industry. This
includes large power and smaller research reactors, as well as
fuel fabrication companies, uranium mines, radioisotope
processing facilities and nuclear exporters. But we are also
responsible for regulating small radioisotope users such as
hospitals, universities and small industrial applications of
various types. As I will discuss in a few minutes, preparing for
the future requires being ready for the multitude of “futures”
across these different licensed activities. 

The CNSC consists of two parts: a Commission and a staff
organization. 

The Commission functions as a quasi-judicial regulatory
administrative tribunal. It sets regulatory policy direction and
establishes legally-binding regulations on matters relating to
health, safety, security and environment issues affecting the
Canadian nuclear industry. The Commission is also responsible
for making independent decisions on the licensing of
nuclear-related activities in Canada 

The CNSC staff organization is comprised of approximately 500
employees. It develops regulatory frameworks, makes
recommendations on licensing activities for the Commission,
carries out the inspections enforcing regulatory requirements
and generally supports regulatory effectiveness. The staff
organization consists of a headquarters here in Ottawa, with
site offices located at each of the five nuclear power reactor
facilities in Canada, and four regional offices throughout the
country. 

I would like to reiterate that the CNSC is fortunate in that our
governance is clear. In the year 2000, the Nuclear Safety and
Control Act specified the federal authority for nuclear
regulatory activities. For the CNSC, provincial interface is
limited to areas such as emergency preparedness and uranium
mining. 

Internationally, we have cooperative arrangements with the
International Atomic Energy Agency for safeguards implementation
in Canada. In addition, we have arrangements with our
counterparts in 37 different countries to implement bilateral
non-proliferation controls. The CNSC also works closely with the
Nuclear Energy Agency and other international fora. Preparing
for the future 

When I look at where the CNSC is going in the future, on the one
hand the answer is obvious: We will ensure that we regulate the
use of nuclear energy and materials and become one of the best
nuclear regulators in the world. 

However, it is not enough to look just at today’s licensees, but
at what the suite of licensees will be in the future. 

To this end, the CNSC has adopted a formal approach to
environmental scanning which we believe is a critical element of
our strategic planning process and our preparations for the
future. 

In our most recent Environmental Scan, we identified the
potential new knowledge and trends that could affect the CNSC
directly or indirectly. The environmental scan also pinpointed a
range of potential changes in the nuclear industry over the next
ten years. I am sure many of the components of our forecast will
be discussed during the course of this seminar. Our scan has
identified the following: 
  + the potential for new uranium mining projects and the
decommissioning of others; 
  + the potential for new uranium processing activities or
changes in existing activities; 
  + the possibility of new fuel designs and fuel mixes; 
  + the potential for various restart project scenarios over the
five remaining power reactor units currently de-fuelled or in a
guaranteed shutdown state; 
  + the possibility of refurbishments of varying degrees across
the entire fleet of operating nuclear power plants in Canada; 
  + the potential for “new build” projects, ranging from none,
to a few, or many over the period of the scan; 
  + the possibility of numerous licence applications to extend
the existing operating lives of various research reactor
facilities; 
  + new or expanded nuclear research facilities; 
  + the potential expansion of current waste management
facilities and decommissioning activities; and, 
  + new licence applications for long-term waste management
facilities. 

This is just a summary of the list relevant to the CNA and its
members. 

If you add to this list other activities such as the building of
new hospitals and clinics, and the use of nuclear devices
outside the CNA membership, you will see a broad, complex and
variable future that the CNSC must be prepared to face as the
regulator. 

To deal with this complexity and to limit some of the
variability in the scenarios I have just listed, we will need a
better dialogue with industry as we move forward. As a
regulator, our ability to respond to future challenges depends
on your ability to plan and keep us well informed. I will
elaborate on this further at the end of my speech. 

In addition to the projected workload on the domestic nuclear
safety front, there will be an unprecedented growth in demand
for assurances to international agencies and other countries.
Increasingly, we will be required to ensure all necessary
measures are being taken to safeguard nuclear materials and to
assist in international efforts to strengthen the nuclear
non-proliferation regime, including vigorous export controls. 

The second answer to the question of where the CNSC is going in
the future is the new approach we will take to deliver our
mandate. 

The approach the CNSC will take will be comprehensive. It will
be articulated in our forthcoming Report on Plans and
Priorities. Focused on delivering Results for Canadians, the
CNSC Report on Plans and Priorities will be tabled in Parliament
this spring and will be available on our website. 

This report will summarize the CNSC’s five planned outcomes that
stem from our legislated mandate. They can be summarized as
follows: 
  + A clear and actionable regulatory framework; 
  + The safe operation of licensed activities with conformity to
nuclear non-proliferation commitments; 
  + High levels of regulatory compliance; 
  + Effective national and international cooperation; and 
  + Stakeholder understanding of the regulatory program. 

The report outlines our priorities and plans under each of these
five outcome areas until the year 2007. You will note that these
link directly to some of the Government’s priorities, as
outlined in its Speech from the Throne. 

It is impossible in the short time that I have with you today to
do justice to this 35-page report on our plans. That said, I
expect that this report and the subject of “the future” will
generate good conversation during some future quarterly CNA/CNSC
regulatory affairs meetings. 

Together with the Environmental Scan and the Report on Plans and
Priorities, another important part of the equation for the
CNSC’s future direction is our commitment to modernizing our
management practices. We have developed a plan for the next two
years to guide the implementation of our Management Model, which
is based on the National Quality Institute’s Canadian Quality
Criteria for Public Sector Excellence. As part of this model,
the CNSC continues to formalize an integrated results-based
planning framework and performance management processes that
link plans to budgets and results. 

We also continue to make progress in the area of risk
management. In 2002, our Operations Branch staff began to
utilize a formal risk management approach for making decisions
on regulatory priorities. The approach is being implemented in
phases and will eventually be used to guide resource allocation
across the entire regulatory program. I am proud to note that
our risk management approach for nuclear substances is well
developed and is being considered for emulation in both the U.S.
and in France. We’re leading the way on this front. 

Back in 2002, the CNSC also made a commitment to licensees and
other stakeholders that it would develop regulatory performance
standards and publish its performance against these standards.
Last December, we presented our first set of proposed
performance standards to the CNA. 

Performance standards will provide predictability and enable
better planning. When they are implemented, they will help
increase the overall transparency of the CNSC’s programs. We are
making good progress and we expect to have key standards in
place within three years to coincide with the final phase-in of
the cost recovery regulations. We will continue to consult with
the CNA on the question of performance standards for both the
CNSC and industry. 

For our Commission tribunal, we continue to refine the hearing
process. This past year, for example, we held two hearings
outside Ottawa, in Chalk River and Saint John, in an effort to
provide individual Canadians and stakeholders alike with more
information and easier access to the tribunal. We are improving
scheduling activities and using more video-conferencing. And, in
response to concerns regarding the efficiency of the hearing
process, we are holding additional hearings and panels, when
required, to ensure that licences are issued in a timely manner. 

On the subject of smart regulation, our approach is consistent
with the Government of Canada’s and that of the External
Advisory Committee on Smart Regulation (EACSM). For example,
after consulting with various stakeholders, we have already
identified a number of ways to improve the effectiveness and
efficiency of meeting the requirements of the Canadian
Environmental Assessment Act (CEAA). 

Last June, staff presented the Commission with several
recommendations on how the environmental assessment program
could be improved. For example, certain fundamental authorities
could be delegated to CNSC staff. The Commission accepted those
recommendations and as a result, the CNSC’s environmental
assessment process has been modified and is articulated in
recently released guidelines. 

In a meeting with the CNA Board of Directors last fall, I agreed
that it would be useful to track two environmental assessments
to see what the impact of the guidelines will be in specific
areas. The results of these processes are expected to be tabled
with the Commission this fall. At that time, intervenors as well
as licensees will have an opportunity to provide input to the
Commission. 

The CNSC is also evaluating whether an independent review would
help to further improve the effectiveness and efficiency of
environmental assessment within the current legislative
framework. 

On another front, the CNSC is moving forward in the area of
safety culture to gain a better understanding of what must be
done to achieve good safety practices. By now many of you have
been informed or you may have noticed on our website that we
will be holding a symposium on safety culture at the end of
March. The symposium will deal with a variety of issues, from
clarifying the meaning of safety culture to the effect of safety
culture on an organization’s daily activities. I will be
personally involved in the symposium and hope you will join me
there. 

All the examples I’ve just raised are just a small sample from a
long list of areas of action within the CNSC. The complete list
is too long to mention today. However, we believe that all these
activities are essential for us to strive toward our vision of
being one of the best nuclear regulators in the world. Future
challenges for the industry 

My final topic today is how I see the CNA and its members making
a difference in the future. I would stress that I see your
future from a somewhat narrow focus – from that of a regulator
whose primary concern is safety. I have already shared some of
these perspectives with your Board of Directors last fall. 

First, I challenge the industry to develop approaches which
exceed regulatory standards. The CNSC standard is the standard
required for health and safety. You should be striving to exceed
this level in your day-to-day activities. I believe that you
need to implement your own standards for sustainable
development, for environmental protection, and for stakeholder
engagement. 

Secondly, I challenge the industry to develop a strategic
approach to both proactive and reactive communications. For
example, as a member of the Task Force established following
last August’s power outage, it is my opinion that you missed an
important opportunity as an industry to get in front of your
customers and speak directly to them about how your industry is
a safe one. The CNSC, as a regulator, cannot communicate on
industry’s issues. 

Finally, I challenge the industry to build on the “future” theme
of this year’s CNA Winter Seminar by providing specific input
into the CNSC’s planning processes. Only by having clear
indications of where the industry is planning to make changes or
additions can the CNSC plan to regulate these facilities
effectively and efficiently. This will also coincide well with
the CNSC’s efforts to plan and predict its regulatory and
resource requirements over the next decade. The time is past, I
believe for vague references to regulatory certainty and
efficiency. I urge you to offer balanced, specific proposals
which meet the broader criteria of effectiveness, transparency
and efficiency which must be the guiding principles for a
regulator. 

In summary, there is a very challenging future ahead for the
industry and for the CNSC as its regulator. Each of us has
different criteria to meet if we’re to be successful in meeting
the challenges. 

The success of the CNSC in the future will be based on whether
we can provide the effective regulatory regime and implement a
vigorous compliance program that will assure Canadians that
there is oversight in place as prescribed by our mandate. 

I strongly believe that the industry has, and will benefit from,
the trust that Canadians have in an independent and effective
regulator. The challenge will be to maintain this independence
and effectiveness while meeting the reasonable demands for an
efficient and transparent process. 

This is the challenge for me, the Commission over which I
preside, and the staff of the CNSC which I lead. Thank you very
much. 

-30- 	   	 	 	
*****************************************************************
 30 Toronto Star:  Bruce reactor back in service

TheStar.com - 
 
  Fri. Feb. 27, 2004. | Updated at 07:43 PM  

Revived unit adds 770 megawatts to power grid Operator stuck in 
legal tangle with British Energy

JOHN SPEARS BUSINESS REPORTER

Bruce Power has returned its sixth nuclear reactor to service 
following some unexpected start-up glitches.

The company said unit 3 at the Bruce A nuclear station north of 
Kincardine on the shore of Lake Huron returned to service at 
11:45 a.m. yesterday. 

It has taken Bruce Power longer than expected to get unit 3 and 
another mothballed reactor at the Bruce A station back into 
service. Each reactor can produce 770 megawatts, or about 3 per 
cent of Ontario's power on a day of very high demand. 

The company had hoped to get unit 4 in service last April, with 
unit 3 following a month or so later. In fact, unit 4 didn't 
return to service until October. Unit 3 came back briefly on Jan. 
8 but was shut down Jan. 12

 Unit 3 returned to service once again Jan. 27, but a leak in a 
unit that carries heated heavy water from the reactor core to the 
boilers forced another shutdown Feb. 4. At that point, Bruce 
Power opted to keep the unit out of action to perform maintenance 
work that had been scheduled for later in the year.

Units 3 and 4 had both been mothballed in 1998 by the Bruce 
station's owner, Ontario Power Generation Inc. Units 1 and 2 at 
the Bruce A plant remain shut down, but the firm is looking at 
the cost to restart them.

The four Bruce B reactors, each generating 800 megawatts, have 
operated continuously since they were commissioned in the 
mid-1980s except for maintenance shutdowns.

Bruce Power signed a deal in 2001 to lease the facility from OPG. 
It is a partnership of Cameco Corp., the station's uranium 
supplier; the OMERS pension fund; and TransCanada Corp., each 
with a 31.6 per cent stake. Two employee groups hold the 
remainder.

Meanwhile, British Energy PLC reported yesterday that Bruce Power 
has filed a claim against it for $64.5 million. Bruce Power 
claims that damage to parts of the boiler in a steam generator 
led to an extensive outage in one unit of the Bruce B station. 
Bruce Power bought British Energy's 82.4 per cent stake in the 
lease of the Bruce facilities in 2003.

British Energy says it expects to defend the claim. The two 
companies also dispute certain tax issues. 

British Energy says the Ontario government owes it money due to 
the restart of the two Bruce A reactors. British Energy would 
have received $100 million from the province had unit 3 gone back 
into service by June 15 and unit 4 by Aug. 1.

The payment was to drop by $5 million each month that each 
reactor was later than the agreed dates. A note in British 
Energy's financial statements says the payments haven't been made 
yet, and the company is "in discussion" with the province over 
the dates on which the reactors should be considered back in 
service. 

Legal Notice: Copyright Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All 
*****************************************************************
 31 NRC: Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards Meeting of the ACRS 
 
                         FR Doc E4-414 
[Federal Register: February 27, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 39)] 
[Page 9388] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access 
[wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr27fe04-96]                         
 
Subcommittee on Reliability and Probabilistic Risk Assessment; 
Notice of Meeting The ACRS Subcommittee on Reliability and 
Probabilistic Risk Assessment will hold a meeting on March 25, 
2004, Room T-2B1, 11545 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland.
 
The entire meeting will be open to public attendance.
 
The agenda for the subject meeting shall be as follows: Thursday, 
March 25, 2004--1 p.m. Until the Conclusion of Business The 
purpose of this meeting is to discuss the NRC staff's draft 
action plan for the implementation of the phased approach to PRA 
Quality. The Subcommittee will hear presentations by and hold 
discussions with representatives of the NRC staff regarding this 
matter. The Subcommittee will gather information, analyze 
relevant issues and facts, and formulate proposed positions and 
actions, as appropriate, for deliberation by the full Committee.
 
Members of the public desiring to provide oral statements and/or 
written comments should notify the Designated Federal Official, 
Mr. Michael R. Snodderly (telephone: 301-415-6927) five days 
prior to the meeting, if possible, so that appropriate 
arrangements can be made. Electronic recordings will be permitted 
during the meeting.
 
Further information regarding this meeting can be obtained by 
contacting the Designated Federal Official between 7:30 a.m. and 
4:15 p.m. (ET). Persons planning to attend this meeting are urged 
to contact the above named individual at least two working days 
prior to the meeting to be advised of any potential changes to 
the agenda.
 
Dated: February 23, 2004.
 
Sam Duraiswamy, Acting Associate Director for Technical Support, 
ACRS/ACNW.
 
[FR Doc. E4-414 Filed 2-26-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P

 
*****************************************************************
 32 NRC: PWR license modifications

 
                         FR Doc 04-4341 
[Federal Register: February 27, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 39)] 
[Page 9388-9398] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access 
[wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr27fe04-97]                         
 
shown in 
the Attachment), EA-03-009]

In the Matter of All Pressurized Water Reactor Licensees; First 
Revised Order Modifying Licenses I The Licensees identified in 
the Attachment to this Order hold licenses issued by the Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission (NRC or Commission) authorizing operation 
of pressurized water reactor (PWR) nuclear power plants in 
accordance with the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 and title 10 of the 
Code of Federal Regulations (10 CFR) part 50.
 
II The reactor pressure vessel (RPV) heads of PWRs have 
penetrations for control rod drive mechanisms and instrumentation 
systems.
 
Nickel- based alloys (e.g., Alloy 600) are used in the 
penetration nozzles and related welds. Primary coolant water and 
the operating conditions of PWR plants can cause cracking of 
these nickel-based alloys through a process called primary water 
stress corrosion cracking (PWSCC).
 
The susceptibility of RPV head penetrations to PWSCC appears to 
be strongly linked to the operating time and temperature of the 
RPV head.
 
Problems related to PWSCC have, therefore, increased as plants 
have operated for longer periods of time. Inspections of the RPV 
head nozzles at the Oconee Nuclear Station, Units 2 and 3 
(Oconee), in early 2001 identified circumferential cracking of 
the nozzles above the J-groove weld, which joins the nozzle to 
the RPV head. Circumferential cracking above the J-groove weld is 
a safety concern because of the possibility of a nozzle ejection 
if the circumferential cracking is not detected and repaired.
 
Section XI of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers Boiler 
and Pressure Vessel Code (ASME Code), which is incorporated into 
NRC regulations by 10 CFR 50.55a, ``Codes and standards,'' 
currently specifies that inspections of the RPV head need only 
include a visual check for leakage on the insulated surface or 
surrounding area.
 
These inspections may not detect small
 
[[Page 9389]] amounts of leakage from an RPV head penetration 
with cracks extending through the nozzle or the J-groove weld. 
Such leakage can create an environment that leads to 
circumferential cracks in RPV head penetration nozzles or 
corrosion of the RPV head. In response to the inspection findings 
at Oconee and because existing requirements in the ASME Code and 
NRC regulations do not adequately address inspections of RPV head 
penetrations for degradation due to PWSCC, the NRC issued 
Bulletin 2001-01, ``Circumferential Cracking of Reactor Pressure 
Vessel Head Penetration Nozzles,'' dated August 3, 2001. In 
response to the bulletin, PWR licensees provided their plans for 
inspecting RPV head penetrations and the outside surface of the 
heads to determine whether any nozzles were leaking.
 
In early March 2002, while conducting inspections of RPV head 
penetrations prompted by Bulletin 2001-01, the licensee for the 
Davis- Besse Nuclear Power Station (Davis-Besse) identified a 
cavity in the RPV head near the top of the dome. The cavity was 
next to a leaking nozzle with a through-wall axial crack and was 
in an area of the RPV head that the licensee had left covered 
with boric acid deposits for several years. On March 18, 2002, 
the NRC issued Bulletin 2002-01, ``Reactor Pressure Vessel Head 
Degradation and Reactor Coolant Pressure Boundary Integrity,'' 
which requested PWR licensees to provide information on their RPV 
head inspection and maintenance programs, the material condition 
of their reactor vessel heads, and their boric acid inspection 
programs. In their responses, the licensees provided information 
about their boric acid inspection programs and their inspections 
and assessments to ensure that their respective plant did not 
have reactor vessel head degradation like that identified at 
Davis- Besse.
 
The experience at Davis-Besse and the discovery of leaks and 
nozzle cracking at other plants reinforced the need for more 
effective inspections of RPV head penetration nozzles. The 
absence of an effective inspection regime could, over time, 
result in unacceptable circumferential cracks in RPV head 
penetration nozzles or in the degradation of the RPV head by 
corrosion. These degradation mechanisms increase the probability 
of a more significant loss of reactor coolant pressure boundary 
through ejection of a nozzle or other rupture of the RPV head. 
The NRC issued Bulletin 2002-02, ``Reactor Pressure Vessel Head 
and Vessel Head Penetration Nozzle Inspection Programs,'' dated 
August 9, 2002, requesting that licensees provide information 
about their inspection programs and any plans to supplement 
existing visual inspections with additional measures (e.g., 
volumetric and surface examinations). Licensees have responded to 
Bulletin 2002-02 with descriptions of their inspection plans for 
at least the first refueling outage following the issuance of 
Bulletin 2002-02 or with a schedule to submit such descriptions 
before the next refueling outage. Many of the licensees' 
responses to Bulletin 2002-02 did not describe long-term 
inspection plans. Instead the licensees stated that they would 
follow guidance being developed by the industry-sponsored 
Materials Reliability Program.
 
Inspections performed at several PWR plants in late 2002 found 
leakage and cracks in nozzles or J-groove welds that have 
required repairs or prompted the replacement of the RPV head. In 
addition, as discussed in NRC Information Notice 2003-02, 
``Recent Experience with Reactor Coolant System Leakage and Boric 
Acid Corrosion,'' issued January 16, 2003, leakage has recently 
occurred at some plants from connections above the RPV head and 
has required additional assessments and inspections to ensure 
that the leakage has not caused significant degradation of RPV 
heads.
 
The NRC issued an Order Modifying Licenses (Effective 
Immediately) (EA-03-009), dated February 11, 2003 (Order), to 
establish required inspections of RPV heads and associated 
penetration nozzles at PWRs. These requirements were necessary to 
provide reasonable assurance that plant operations did not pose 
an undue risk to the public health and safety. The requirements 
of that Order were expected to remain in effect pending long-term 
resolution of RPV head penetration inspection requirements, which 
is expected to involve changes to the NRC regulations, 
specifically 10 CFR 50.55a. Research being conducted by the NRC 
and industry is increasing our understanding of material 
performance, improving inspection capabilities, and supporting 
assessments of the risks to public health and safety associated 
with potential degradation of the RPV head and associated 
penetration nozzles. These research activities are important to 
the long-term development of revisions to the NRC regulations.
 
III Revising the NRC regulations will take several years. The 
licensees' actions to date in response to the NRC bulletins and 
the February 11, 2003, Order have provided reasonable assurance 
of adequate protection of public health and safety. That Order 
required inspections of RPV heads and associated penetration 
nozzles at PWRs which were necessary to provide reasonable 
assurance that plant operations do not pose an undue risk to the 
public health and safety.
 
Since the issuance of that Order, the NRC staff has reviewed and 
granted many requests for relaxation thereof. The arguments in 
the relaxation requests provide reasonable assurance of the 
continued structural integrity of the RPV head, and the 
associated nozzle penetrations and J-groove welds. As a result, 
it is appropriate to revise that Order with respect to bare metal 
visual inspections, penetration nozzle inspection coverage, 
flexibility in combining nondestructive examination (NDE) 
methods, flaw evaluation, and requirements for plants which have 
replaced their reactor pressure vessel head.
 
It is appropriate and necessary to the protection of public 
health and safety to establish a clear regulatory framework, 
pending the incorporation of revised inspection requirements into 
10 CFR 50.55a. To provide reasonable assurance of adequate 
protection of public health and safety for the interim period, 
all PWR Licenses identified in the Attachment to this Order shall 
be modified to include the inspection requirements for RPV heads 
and associated penetration nozzles identified in section IV of 
this Order. The NRC requirements imposed by this Order are based 
on the body of evidence available through December 2003. 
Continuing research and operating experience may support future 
changes to the requirements imposed through this Order.
 
IV Accordingly, pursuant to sections 103, 104b, 161b, 161i, 161o, 
182, and 186 of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended, and 
the Commission's regulations in 10 CFR 2.202 and 10 CFR part 50, 
it is hereby ordered that all licenses identified in the 
Attachment to this Order are modified as follows: A. To determine 
the required inspection(s) for each refueling outage at their 
facility, all Licensees shall calculate the susceptibility 
category of each RPV head to PWSCC-related degradation, as 
represented by a value of effective degradation years (EDY) for 
the end of each operating cycle, using the following equation:
 
[[Page 9390]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TN27FE04.000 Where: EDY = 
total effective degradation years, normalized to a reference 
temperature of 600 F [Delta]EFPYj = operating time in years at 
Thead,j Qi = activation energy for crack initiation (50 
kcal/mole) R = universal gas constant (1.103x10-\3\ kcal/mole R) 
Thead,j = 100 percent power head temperature during time period j 
(R = F + 459.67) Tref = reference temperature (600 F = 1059.67 R) 
n = number of different head temperatures during plant history 
This calculation shall be performed with best estimate values for 
each parameter at the end of each operating cycle for the RPV 
head that will be in service during the subsequent operating 
cycle. The calculated value of EDY shall determine the 
susceptibility category and the appropriate inspection for the 
RPV head during each refueling outage.
 
B. All Licensees shall use the following criteria to assign the 
RPV head at their facility to the appropriate PWSCC 
susceptibility category: High: (1) Plants with a calculated value 
of EDY greater than 12, or (2) Plants with an RPV head that has 
experienced cracking in a penetration nozzle or J-groove weld due 
to PWSCC.
 
Moderate: Plants with a calculated value of EDY less than or 
equal to 12 and greater than or equal to 8 and no previous 
inspection findings requiring classification as High.
 
Low: Plants with a calculated value of EDY less than 8 and no 
previous inspection findings requiring classification as High.
 
Replaced: Plants with a replaced RPV head and with a calculated 
value of EDY less than 8 AND no previous inspection findings 
requiring classification as High.
 
C. All Licensees shall perform inspections of the RPV head \1\ 
using the following frequencies \2\ and techniques: 
----------------------------------------------------------------- 
---------- \1\ This Order imposes additional inspection 
requirements. Licensees are required to address any findings from 
these inspections (i.e., perform analyses and repairs) in 
accordance with existing requirements in the ASME Code and 10 CFR 
50.55a. The NRC has issued guidance to address flaw evaluations 
for RPV head penetration nozzles (see letter dated April 11, 
2003, from R. Barrett, NRC, to A. Marion, Nuclear Energy 
Institute, ADAMS Accession No. ML030980322) and will, as 
necessary, issue revised guidance pending the updating of the NRC 
regulations.
 
\2\ The requirements of this Order are generally consistent with 
inspection plans that the NRC staff accepted in letters to some 
Licensees regarding their responses to Bulletin 2002-02. If the 
NRC staff has already accepted a specific variation from the 
requirements of this Order (e.g., inspections to less than 2 
inches above the J-groove weld), the Licensee may continue with 
the previously accepted inspection plan for the first refueling 
outage after February 11, 2003, provided that in its response to 
this Order the Licensee identifies all discrepancies between the 
requirements of this Order and the previously accepted inspection 
plan.
 
Licensees proposing to deviate from the requirements of this 
Order for subsequent refueling outages shall seek relaxation of 
this Order pursuant to the procedure specified at the end of this 
section.
 
----------------------------------------------------------------- 
---------- (1) For those plants in the High category, RPV head 
and head penetration nozzle inspections shall be performed using 
the techniques of paragraph IV.C.(5)(a) and paragraph IV.C.(5)(b) 
every refueling outage.\3\ 
----------------------------------------------------------------- 
---------- \3\ For repaired RPV head penetration nozzles that 
establish a new pressure boundary, the ultrasonic testing 
inspection shall include the weld and at least 1-inch above the 
weld in the nozzle base material. For RPV head penetration 
nozzles or J-groove welds repaired using a weld overlay, the 
overlay shall be examined by either ultrasonic, eddy current, or 
dye penetrant testing in addition to the examinations required by 
paragraph IV.C.(5)(a) and paragraph IV.(C).(5)(b). 
----------------------------------------------------------------- 
---------- (2) For those plants in the Moderate category, RPV 
head and head penetration inspections shall be performed such 
that at least the requirements of paragraph IV.C.(5)(a) or 
paragraph IV.C.(5)(b) are performed each refueling outage. In 
addition the requirements of paragraph IV.C.(5)(a) and paragraph 
IV.C.(5)(b) shall each be performed at least once over the course 
of every 2 refueling outages.
 
(3) For those plants in the Low category, RPV head and head 
penetration nozzle inspections shall be performed as follows. An 
inspection meeting the requirements of paragraph IV.C.(5)(a) must 
be completed at least every third refueling outage or every 5 
years, whichever occurs first. If an inspection meeting the 
requirements of paragraph IV.C.(5)(a) was not performed during 
the last refueling outage prior to February 11, 2003, the 
Licensee must complete an inspection meeting the requirements of 
paragraph IV.C.(5)(a) within the first 2 refueling outages after 
February 11, 2003. The requirements of paragraph IV.C.(5)(b) must 
be completed at least once prior to February 11, 2008, and 
thereafter, at least every 4 refueling outages or every 7 years, 
whichever occurs first.
 
(4) For those plants in the Replaced category, no RPV head and 
head penetration nozzle inspections shall be required during the 
outage for which the RPV head was replaced. Thereafter, until the 
replacement RPV head in accordance with paragraph IV.A reaches 8 
EDY, RPV head and head penetration nozzle inspections shall be 
performed as follows. An inspection meeting the requirements of 
paragraph IV.C.(5)(a) must be completed at least every third 
refueling outage or every 5 years, whichever occurs first. The 
requirements of paragraph IV.C.(5)(b) must be completed at least 
every 4 refueling outages or every 7 years, whichever occurs 
first.
 
(5) Inspections of the RPV head shall be performed as directed in 
paragraphs IV.C.(1), IV.C.(2), IV.C.(3) and IV.C.(4) using the 
following techniques: (a) Bare metal visual examination of 100 
percent of the RPV head surface (including 360 around each RPV 
head penetration nozzle). For RPV heads with the surface obscured 
by support structure interferences which are located at RPV head 
elevations downslope from the outermost RPV head penetration, a 
bare metal visual inspection of no less than 95 percent of the 
RPV head surface may be performed provided that the examination 
shall include those areas of the RPV head upslope and downslope 
from the support structure interference to identify any evidence 
of boron or corrosive product. Should any evidence of boron or 
corrosive product be identified, the licensee shall examine the 
RPV head surface under the support structure to ensure that the 
RPV head is not degraded.
 
(b) For each penetration, perform a nonvisual NDE in accordance 
with either (i), (ii) or (iii): (i) Ultrasonic testing of the RPV 
head penetration nozzle volume (i.e., nozzle base material) from 
2 inches above the highest point of the root of the J-groove weld 
(on a horizontal plane perpendicular to the nozzle axis) to 2
 
[[Page 9391]] inches below the lowest point at the toe of the 
J-groove weld on a horizontal plane perpendicular to the nozzle 
axis (or the bottom of the nozzle if less than 2 inches (see 
Figure IV-1)); or from 2 inches above the highest point of the 
root of the J-groove weld (on a horizontal plane perpendicular to 
the nozzle axis) to 1.0-inch below the lowest point at the toe of 
the J-groove weld (on a horizontal plane perpendicular to the 
nozzle axis) and including all RPV head penetration nozzle 
surfaces below the J-groove weld that have an operating stress 
level (including all residual and normal operation stresses) of 
20 ksi tension and greater (see Figure IV-2). In addition, an 
assessment shall be made to determine if leakage has occurred 
into the annulus between the RPV head penetration nozzle and the 
RPV head low-alloy steel.
 
(ii) Eddy current testing or dye penetrant testing of the entire 
wetted surface of the J-groove weld and the wetted surface of the 
RPV head penetration nozzle base material from at least 2 inches 
above the highest point of the root of the J-groove weld (on a 
horizontal plane perpendicular to the nozzle axis) to 2 inches 
below the lowest point at the toe of the J-groove weld on a 
horizontal plane perpendicular to the nozzle axis (or the bottom 
of the nozzle if less than 2 inches (see Figure IV-3)); or from 2 
inches above the highest point of the root of the J-groove weld 
(on a horizontal plane perpendicular to the nozzle axis) to 
1.0-inch below the lowest point at the toe of the J-groove weld 
(on a horizontal plane perpendicular to the nozzle axis) and 
including all RPV head penetration nozzle surfaces below the 
J-groove weld that have an operating stress level (including all 
residual and normal operation stresses) of 20 ksi tension and 
greater (see Figure IV-4).
 
(iii) A combination of (i) and (ii) to cover equivalent volumes, 
surfaces and leak paths of the RPV head penetration nozzle base 
material and J-groove weld as described in (i) and (ii).
 
Substitution of a portion of a volumetric exam on a nozzle with a 
surface examination may be performed with the following 
requirements: 1. On nozzle material below the J-groove weld, both 
the outside diameter and inside diameter surfaces of the nozzle 
must be examined.
 
2. On nozzle material above the J-groove weld, surface 
examination of the inside diameter surface of the nozzle is 
permitted provided a surface examination of the J-groove weld is 
also performed.
 
BILLING CODE 7590-01-P
 
[[Page 9392]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TN27FE04.001
 
[[Page 9393]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TN27FE04.002
 
[[Page 9394]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TN27FE04.003
 
[[Page 9395]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TN27FE04.004 BILLING CODE 
7590-01-C D. During each refueling outage, visual inspections 
shall be performed to identify potential boric acid leaks from 
pressure- retaining components above the RPV head. For any plant 
with boron deposits on the surface of the RPV head or related 
insulation, discovered either during the inspections required by 
this Order or otherwise and regardless of the source of the 
deposit, before returning the plant to operation the Licensee 
shall perform inspections of the affected RPV head surface and 
penetrations appropriate to the conditions found to verify the 
integrity of the affected area and penetrations.
 
E. For each inspection required in Paragraph C, the Licensee 
shall submit a report detailing the inspection results within 
sixty (60) days after returning the plant to operation. For each 
inspection required in Paragraph D, the Licensee shall submit a 
report detailing the inspection results within sixty (60) days 
after returning the plant to operation if a leak or boron deposit 
was found during the inspection.
 
F. In the response required by section V of this Order, all 
Licensees shall notify the Commission if (1) they are unable to 
comply with any of the requirements of section IV or (2) 
compliance with any of the requirements of section IV is 
unnecessary. Licensees proposing to deviate from the requirements 
of this Order shall seek relaxation of this Order pursuant to the 
procedure specified below.
 
Project Directors or higher management positions in the Division 
of Licensing Project Management of the Office of Nuclear Reactor 
Regulation may, in writing, relax or rescind any of the above 
conditions upon demonstration by the Licensee of good cause. A 
request for relaxation regarding inspection of specific nozzles 
shall also address the following criteria: (1) The proposed 
alternative(s) for inspection of specific nozzles will provide an 
acceptable level of quality and safety, or (2) Compliance with 
this Order for specific nozzles would result in hardship or 
unusual difficulty without a compensating increase in the level 
of quality and safety.
 
Requests for relaxation associated with specific penetration 
nozzles will be evaluated by the NRC staff using its procedure 
for evaluating proposed alternatives to the ASME Code in 
accordance with 10 CFR 50.55a(a)(3). V In accordance with 10 CFR 
2.202, the Licensee must, and any other person adversely affected 
by this Order may, submit an answer to this Order, and may 
request a hearing on this Order, within 20 days of the date of 
this Order. Where good cause is shown, consideration will be 
given to extending the time to request a hearing. A request for 
extension of time in which to submit an answer or request a 
hearing must be
 
[[Page 9396]] made in writing to the Director, Office of Nuclear 
Reactor Regulation, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 
20555, and must include a statement of good cause for the 
extension. The answer may consent to this Order. Unless the 
answer consents to this Order, the answer shall, in writing and 
under oath or affirmation, specifically set forth the matters of 
fact and law on which the Licensee or other person adversely 
affected relies and the reasons as to why the Order should not 
have been issued. Any answer or request for a hearing shall be 
submitted to the Secretary, Office of the Secretary of the 
Commission, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Attn: Rulemakings and 
Adjudications Staff, Washington, DC 20555. Copies shall also be 
sent to the Director, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, U. S. 
Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555; to the 
Assistant General Counsel for Materials Litigation and 
Enforcement at the same address; to the Document Control Desk at 
the same address; to the Regional Administrator for NRC Region I, 
II, III, or IV, as appropriate for the specific plant; and to the 
Licensee if the answer or hearing request is by a person other 
than the Licensee. Because of possible disruptions in delivery of 
mail to United States government offices, it is requested that 
answers and requests for hearing be transmitted to the Secretary 
of the Commission either by means of facsimile transmission to 
301-415-1101 or by e-mail to and also to the Assistant General 
Counsel for Materials Litigation and Enforcement either by means 
of facsimile transmission to 301-415-3725 or by e-mail to . If a 
person other than the Licensee requests a hearing, that person 
shall set forth with particularity the manner in which his 
interest is adversely affected by this Order and shall address 
the criteria set forth in 10 CFR 2.714(d). If a hearing is 
requested by the Licensee or a person whose interest is adversely 
affected, the Commission will issue an Order designating the time 
and place of any hearing. If a hearing is held, the issue to be 
considered at such hearing shall be whether this Order should be 
sustained.
 
In the absence of any request for a hearing, or written approval 
of an extension of time in which to request a hearing, the 
provisions specified in section IV above shall be effective and 
final 20 days from the date of this Order without further order 
or proceedings. If an extension of time for requesting a hearing 
has been approved, the provisions specified in section IV shall 
be final when the extension expires if a hearing request has not 
been received.
 
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
 
Dated this 20th day of February, 2004.
 
R. William Borchardt, Acting Director, Office of Nuclear Reactor 
Regulation.
 
Attachment 
----------------------------------------------------------------- 
------- Facilities                           Addressee 
----------------------------------------------------------------- 
------- Beaver Valley Power Station, Units 1     Mr. L. William 
Pearce, Vice and 2, Docket Nos. 50-334 and 50-412,    President, 
FirstEnergy Nuclear License Nos. DPR-66 and NPF-73.          
Operating Company, Beaver Valley Power Station, Post Office Box 
4, Shippingport, PA 15077.
 
Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant,      Mr. George Vanderheyden, 
Vice Units 1 and 2, Docket Nos. 50-317 and    President, Calvert 
Cliffs 50-318, License Nos. DPR-53 and DPR-69.  Nuclear Power 
Plant, Inc., Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant, 1650 Calvert 
Cliffs Parkway, Lusby, MD 20657-4702.
 
R.E. Ginna Nuclear Power Plant, Docket   Dr. Robert C. Mecredy, 
Vice No. 50-244, License No. DPR-18.          President, Nuclear 
Operations, Rochester Gas and Electric Corporation, 89 East 
Avenue, Rochester, NY 14649.
 
Indian Point Nuclear Generating, Units   Mr. Michael R. Kansler, 
2 and 3, Docket Nos. 50-247 and 50-      President, Entergy 
Nuclear 286, License Nos. DPR-26 and DPR-64.     Operations, 
Inc., 440 Hamilton Avenue, White Plains, NY 10601.
 
Millstone Power Station, Units 2 and 3,  Mr. David A. Christian, 
Sr.
 
Docket Nos. 50-336 and 50-423, License   Vice President and Chief 
Nos. DPR-65 and NPF-49.                  Nuclear Officer, 
Dominion Nuclear Connecticut, Inc., Innsbrook Technical Center, 
5000 Dominion Boulevard, Glen Allen, VA 23060-6711.
 
Salem Nuclear Generating Station, Units  Mr. Roy A. Anderson, 
President 1 and 2, Docket Nos. 50-272 and 50-      & Chief 
Nuclear Officer, PSEG 311, License Nos. DPR-70 and DPR-75.     
Nuclear LLC-X04, Post Office Box 236, Hancocks Bridge, NJ 08038.
 
Seabrook Station, Unit 1, Docket No. 50- Mr. Mark E. Warner, Site 
Vice 443, License No. NPF-86.                 President, c/o 
James M. Peschel, Seabrook Station, PO Box 300, Seabrook, NH 
03874.
 
Three Mile Island Nuclear Station, Unit  Mr. Christopher M. 
Crane, 1, Docket No. 50-289, License No. DPR-   President and 
Chief Executive 50.                                      Officer, 
AmerGen Energy Company, LLC, 4300 Winfield Road, Warrenville, IL 
60555.
 
Catawba Nuclear Station, Units 1 and 2,  Mr. Dhiaa Jamil, Site 
Vice Docket Nos. 50-413 and 50-414, License   President, Catawba 
Nuclear Nos. NPF-35 and NPF-52.                  Station, Duke 
Energy Corporation, 4800 Concord Road, York, South Carolina 
29745-9635.
 
Crystal River Nuclear Power Plant,       Mr. Dale E. Young, Vice 
Docket No. 50-302, License No. DPR-72.   President, Crystal River 
Nuclear Plant (NA1B), Attn: Supervisor, Licensing & Regulatory 
Programs, 15760 W.
 
Power Line Street, Crystal River, Florida 34428-6708.
 
Joseph M. Farley Nuclear Plant, Units 1  Mr. L.M. Stinson, Vice 
and 2, Docket Nos. 50-348 and 50-364,    President--Farley 
Project, License Nos. NPF-2 and NPF-8.            Southern 
Nuclear Operating Company, Inc., Post Office Box 1295, 
Birmingham, Alabama 35201-1295.
 
Shearon Harris Nuclear Power Plant,      Mr. James Scarola, Vice 
Unit 1, Docket No. 50-400, License No.   President, Shearon 
Harris NPF-63.                                  Nuclear Power 
Plant, Carolina Power & Light Company, Post Office Box 165, Mail 
Code: Zone 1, New Hill, North Carolina 27562-0165.
 
William B. McGuire Nuclear Station,      Mr. G.R. Peterson, Vice 
Units 1 and 2, Docket Nos. 50-369 and    President, McGuire Site, 
Duke 50-370, License Nos. NPF-9 and NPF-17.   Energy Corporation, 
12700 Hagers Ferry Road, Huntersville, NC 28078-8985.
 
North Anna Power Station, Units 1 and    Mr. David A. Christian, 
Senior 2, Docket Nos. 50-338 and 50-339,        Vice 
President--Nuclear, License Nos. NPF-4 and NPF-7.            
Virginia Electric and Power Surry Power Station, Units 1 and 2,       
Company, 5000 Dominion Blvd., Docket Nos. 50-280 and 50-281, 
License   Glen Allen, Virginia 23060.
 
Nos. DPR-32 and DPR-37. Oconee Nuclear Station, Units 1, 2, and  
Mr. Ronald A. Jones, Vice 3, Docket Nos. 50-269, 50-270 and 50-    
President, Oconee Site, Duke 287, License Nos. DPR-38, DPR-47 and     
Energy Corporation, 7800 DPR-55.                                  
Rochester Highway, Seneca, SC 29672.
 
 
[[Page 9397]] H.B. Robinson Steam Electric Plant,      Mr. J.W. 
Moyer, Vice President, Unit 2, Docket No. 50-261, License No.   
Carolina Power & Light DPR-23.                                  
Company, H.B. Robinson Steam Electric Plant, Unit No. 2, 3581 
West Entrance Road, Hartsville, South Carolina 29550.
 
St. Lucie Nuclear Plant, Units 1 and 2,  Mr. J.A. Stall, Senior 
Vice Docket Nos. 50-335 and 50-389, License   President, Nuclear 
and Chief Nos. DPR-67 and NPF-16.                  Nuclear 
Officer, Florida Power Turkey Point Nuclear Generating           
and Light Company, P.O. Box Station, Units 3 and 4, Docket Nos. 
50-  14000, Juno Beach, Florida 250 and 50-251, License Nos. 
DPR-31      33408-0420. and DPR-41.
 
Sequoyah Nuclear Plant, Units 1 and 2,   Mr. J.A. Scalice, Chief 
Nuclear Docket Nos. 50-327 and 50-328, License   Officer and 
Executive Vice Nos. DPR-77 and DPR-79.                  
President, Tennessee Valley Watts Bar Nuclear Plant, Unit 1, 
Docket   Authority, 6A Lookout Place, No. 50-390, License No. 
NPF-90.          1101 Market Street, Chattanooga, Tennessee 
37402- 2801.
 
Virgil C. Summer Nuclear Station, Unit   Mr. Stephen A. Byrne, 
Senior 1, Docket No. 50-395, License No. NPF-   Vice President, 
Nuclear 12.                                      Operations, 
South Carolina Electric & Gas Company, Virgil C. Summer Nuclear 
Station, Post Office Box 88, Jenkinsville, South Carolina 29065.
 
Vogtle Electric Generating Plant, Units  Mr. J.T. Gasser, Vice 
President- 1 and 2, Docket Nos. 50-424 and 50-      -Vogtle 
Project, Southern 425, License Nos. NPF-68 and NPF-81.     
Nuclear Operating Company, Inc., Post Office Box 1295, 
Birmingham, Alabama 35201- 1295.
 
Brainwood Station, Units 1 and 2,        Mr. Christopher M. 
Crane, Docket Nos. STN 50-456 and STN 50-457,   President, Exelon 
Nuclear, License Nos. NPF-72 and NPF-77.          Exelon 
Generation Company, Byron Station, Units 1 and 2, Docket      
LLC, 4300 Winfield Road, Nos. STN 50-454 and STN 50-455,          
Warrenville, IL 60555. License Nos. NPF-37 and NPF-66. Donald C. 
Cook Nuclear Plant, Units 1    Mr. A. Christopher Bakken III, and 
2, Docket Nos. 50-315 and 50-316,    Senior Vice President and 
License Nos. DPR-58 and DPR-74.          Chief Nuclear Officer, 
Indiana Michigan Power Company, Nuclear Generation Group, 500 
Circle Drive, Buchanan, MI 49107.
 
Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station, Unit  Mr. Lew W. Myers, Chief 
1, Docket No. 50-346, License No. NPF-   Operating Officer, 
FirstEnergy 3.                                       Nuclear 
Operating Company, Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station, 5501 North 
State Route 2, Oak Harbor, OH 43449- 9760.
 
Kewaunee Nuclear Power Plant, Docket     Mr. Thomas Coutu, Site 
Vice No. 50-305, License No. DPR-43.          President, Kewaunee 
Nuclear Power Plant, Nuclear Management Company, LLC, N490 State 
Highway 42, Kewaunee, WI 54216-9511.
 
Palisades Plant, Docket No. 50-255,      Mr. Daniel J. Malone, 
Site Vice License No. DPR-20.                      President, 
Palisades Nuclear Plant, 27780 Blue Star Memorial Highway, 
Covert, MI 49043.
 
Point Beach Nuclear Plant, Units 1 and   Mr. Gary Van 
Middlesworth, 2, Docket Nos. 50-266 and 50-301,        Acting 
Site Vice President, License Nos. DPR-24 and DPR-27.          
Point Beach Nuclear Plant, Nuclear Management Company, LLC, 6610 
Nuclear Road, Two Rivers, WI 54241-9516.
 
Prairie Island Nuclear Generating        Mr. Joseph M. Solymossy, 
Site Plant, Units 1 and 2, Docket Nos. 50-    Vice President, 
Prairie Island 282 and 50-306, License Nos. DPR-42      Nuclear 
Generating Plant, and DPR-60.                              
Nuclear Management Company, LLC, 1717 Wakonade Drive East, Welch, 
MN 55089.
 
Arkansas Nuclear One, Units 1 and 2,     Mr. Jeffrey S. Forbes, 
Site Docket Nos. 50-313 and 50-368, License   Vice President, 
Arkansas Nos. DPR-51 and NPF-61.                  Nuclear One, 
Entergy Operations, Inc., 1448 S.R. 333, Russellville, AR 72801.
 
Callaway Plant, Unit 1, Docket No. 50-   Mr. Garry L. Randolph, 
Vice 483, License No. NPF-30.                 President and Chief 
Nuclear Officer, Union Electric Company, Post Office Box 620, 
Fulton, MO 65251.
 
Comanche Peak Steam Electric Station,    Mr. Michael R. Blevins, 
Senior Units 1 and 2, Docket Nos. 50-445 and    Vice President & 
Principal 50-446, License Nos. NPF-87 and NPF-89.  Nuclear 
Officer, TXU Energy, Attn: Regulatory Affairs, P.O. Box 1002, 
Glen Rose, TX 76043.
 
Diablo Canyon Power Plant, Units 1 and   Mr. Gregory M. Rueger, 
Senior 2, Docket Nos. 50-275 and 50-323,        Vice President, 
Generation and License Nos. DPR-80 and DPR-82.          Chief 
Nuclear Officer, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Diablo Canyon 
Power Plant, P.O. Box 3, Avila Beach, CA 93424.
 
Fort Calhoun Station, Unit 1, Docket     Mr. R.T. Ridenoure, 
Division No. 50-285, License No. DPR-40.          
Manager--Nuclear Operations, Omaha Public Power District, Fort 
Calhoun Station FC-2-4 Adm., Post Office Box 550, Fort Calhoun, 
NE 68023-0550.
 
Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station,   Mr. Gregg R. Overbeck, 
Senior Units 1, 2 and 3, Docket Nos. STN 50-    Vice President, 
Nuclear, 528, STN 50-529 and STN 50-530,          Arizona Public 
Service License Nos. NPF-41, NPF-51 and NPF-74.  Company, P.O. 
Box 52034, Phoenix, AZ 80572-2034.
 
San Onofre Nuclear Station, Units 2 and  Mr. Harold B. Ray, 
Executive 3, Docket Nos. 50-361 and 50-362,        Vice 
President, Southern License Nos. NPF-10 and NPF-15.          
California Edison Company, San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, 
P.O. Box 128, San Clemente, CA 92674-0128.
 
South Texas Project Electric             Mr. James J. Sheppard, 
Generating, Station, Units 1 and 2,      President and Chief 
Executive Docket Nos. 50-498 and 50-499, License   Officer, STP 
Nuclear Operating Nos. NPF-76 and NPF-80.                  
Company, South Texas Project Electric Generating Station, P.O. 
Box 289, Wadsworth, TX 77483.
 
Waterford Steam Electric Generating      Mr. Joseph E. Venable, 
Vice Station, Unit 3, Docket No. 50-382,      President 
Operations, Entergy License No. NPF-38.                      
Operations, Inc., 17265 River Road, Killona, LA 70066-0751.
 
Wolf Creek Generating Station, Unit 1,   Mr. Rick A. Muench, 
President Docket No. 50-482, License No. NPF-42.   and Chief 
Executive Officer, Wolf Creek Nuclear Operating Corporation, Post 
Office Box 411, Burlington, KS 66839.
 
----------------------------------------------------------------- 
-------
 
[[Page 9398]] [FR Doc. 04-4341 Filed 2-26-04; 8:45 am] BILLING 
CODE 7590-01-C

 
*****************************************************************
 33 [DU-WATCH] war and children
 
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2004 00:49:50 -0600 (CST)

 
1. Impact of the Gulf war on congenital heart diseases in Kuwait

"...there was an increased incidence of CHD almost
immediately following the end of the Gulf War period. The cause of this
increase remains relatively obscure. "

2. Bosnia contaminated

[Thanks to Vera for rough translation work. I took the liberty of minor
polishing for enhanced readability. Serbian members, please check against
the original. - PB]

.one little girl from Sarajevo with swollen tongue ...Dalila - leukemia,
Sandra - also leukemia, Samina - bone cancer. One boy - brain cancer.

.www.report.rai.it ...cited the statement of one highly placed Pentagon
officer that a few such wars (Iraq, B&H, Somalia, and Kosovo and Metohija)
could solve the US problem of nuclear waste.

3. Iraqi MD exposes effects of war on Iraq

"...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"

1111111111111111111111111111111
1: Int J Cardiol.  2004 Feb;93(2-3):157-62.
Impact of the Gulf war on congenital heart diseases in Kuwait.
Abushaban L, Al-Hay A, Uthaman B, Salama A, Selvan J.
Cardiology Department, The Chest Hospital, Kuwait City, 13041 Safat,
Kuwait.

Background: There has been concern over the increase in the number of babies
born with congenital heart diseases (CHD) in Kuwait after the Gulf War.

Methods: We evaluated retrospectively the number of Kuwaiti infants who were
diagnosed to have CHD within the first year of life. The comparison was made
between those presented from January 1986 to December 1989 (preinvasion) and
those presented after the liberation of Kuwait (from January 1992 to
December 2000). The number of cases was considered per 10?000 live births in
that year.

Results: The numbers of cases were 2704 (326 before the invasion and 2378
after liberation). The mean annual incidence of CHD was 39.5 and 103.4 (per
10?000 live births) before and after the Gulf War, respectively (P<0.001).
There was an increase in the number of babies with CHD during the immediate
3 years postliberation with a relative reduction in the trend from 1995 to
2000, in some types of CHD.

Conclusions: In our series, there was an increased incidence of CHD almost
immediately following the end of the Gulf War period. The cause of this
increase remains relatively obscure. Environmental pollution may be a
contributing factor; others such as possible psychological trauma remain
subject to speculation.

PMID: 14975541 [PubMed - in process]
http://members.cox.net/jimmoss/index.htm

22222222222222222222222222222
From: Vera Vratusa(-Zunjic) [mailto:vvratusa@sezampro.yu] Sent: February 22,
2004 2:09 AM To: Piotr Bein; mdmiraki@ameritech.net Subject: Re: Confirm
please

Dear friends, here is the quick translation - I apologize in advance for
mistakes since I am not the professional translator and did not have time to
improve it. All the best, Vera

================================
Last night (5. January 2003), in the crucial evening period, on the third
channel of state television, RAI 3, I followed one retake of the report on
the effects of NATO bombardment with DU on the territory of Bosnia and
Herzegovina (B&H). In Italy, for several years already, public attention is
occupied by the fight for truth, waged by the association of Italian
soldiers and carabinieri who were the members of international military
forces stationed in B&H.

Italians were primarily in the region of Sarajevo. In the first moment when
the first cases of illness began to appear (mainly the cases of cancer,
different types of leukemia, Hickinson's illness, brain cancer, lymphoma and
similar) among those soldiers and carabinieri, military authorities claimed
that there was no proof that they were related to DU. Even those same people
were threatened for causing disturbance of the public. However, supported by
the media, they succeeded slowly to break the wall of silence that
surrounded them, and the truth began to come to light.

Pressed by the opinions of experts, the military authorities finally
admitted that illness of these people can be directly related to their stay
on the contaminated territory of B&H. In the beginning, they were occupied
just by their own cases, but in the end they began to get interested also to
the local population.

One crew of RAI journalists, with a few representatives of the soldiers'
association (the names I was not able to catch but one could look at RAI
site whether there is something about this report) and with parliamentarian
Edouard Ballaman, traveled to B&H in order to document the story about DU
and its effects. The thing that astonished me at one moment was the comment
by a journalist, Nella Bosnia molte cose vengono messe a tacere (In Bosnia
many things are being hidden away), but knowing our mentality this was not
after all so big a surprise.

There were many things in the RAI 3 retake that make every normal person
worried. The report begins with the picture of an Italian airport where a
crew of carabinieri is returning from from a routine task in B&H with a
group of children accompanied by representatives of the Italian Red Cross.
Asked how many children he accompanies from B&H annually, the leader of this
trip, Paolo Giampietro, answered, "Una cinquantina ma ogni anno sempre di
piu" (Around fifty, but each year ever more).

The report presented some children from Teocak and Cazin, one little girl
(maybe 2-3 years) from Sarajevo with swollen tongue. They are being taken
into a Red Cross headquarters near Viterba (Carpante), from where they will
be taken for care and treatment in some specialized hospitals. I noted down
the names of those kids in a hurry and what they suffered from: Dalila -
leukemia, Sandra - also leukemia, Samina - bone cancer. One boy (I did not
understand the name because Italians pronounce them in their own way) -
brain cancer.

After the interviews with the children, all of whom claimed they began to
feel bad after the war, followed the data that 10800 DU bombs were thrown on
B&H, out of which 7400 -- in the vicinity of Sarajevo. DU (U238) is used in
combat projectiles since it increases the penetrating power. It is used
against armoured vehicles, bunkers. Piercing of the armour develops
temperature of 3000 degrees Celsius. One earlier report about the same topic
(a paper report by a woman named Milena Gabanelli, www.report.rai.it) cited
the statement of one highly placed Pentagon officer that a few such wars
(Iraq, B&H, Kosovo and Metohija, Somalia) could solve the US problem of
nuclear waste.

Marco Saba, from the Comitato Stop Uranio 238 organisation, stated "...E'
stato utilizzato anche nei proiettili. Nella Guerra del Golfo, ad esempio,
sono state bruciate pi&ugrave; di 300 tonnellate di questi proiettili di
uranio. E un alto funzionario del Pentagono ha dichiarato che con dieci
guerre cos&igrave; si eliminerebbero le scorie nucleari degli Stati
Uniti..." (DU is used in projectiles, In the Gulf War, it more than 300,000
kg of DU in these projectiles burned. One high official of Pentagon declared
that with 10 such wars, the US will have no more radioactive debris.).
Source http://www.report.rai.it/servizio.asp?s=67

Next, the RTI report presented the crew that landed at Sarajevo airport and
went through the city. A carabinieri, who obviously served in Sarajevo,
explained the situation and where NATO bombed. The RTI crew went to
interview a woman doctor Bilalovic at the Sarajevo Faculty of Medicine, who
confirmed that the number of cancer cases grew very much, especially among
the younger population.

Next, a woman doctor, Jasmina Beric, the chief of the haematology
department. (Unfortunately, I did not understand whether this was still at
the Faculty or in some other Sarajevo hospital that sends the heaviest cases
for treatment abroad.) At one moment, the translator spoke about 15 children
come from Kazin, but this in fact is Cazin, because when explaining where
the children came from, the program simultaneously showed the map of B&H.

The RTI 3 crew then went to Hadzici, explaining that between the 5th and
11th of September 1995, 3405 projectiles enriched with DU were thrown on
that place, especially on a plant named REMONT. They interviewed the plants
director Mr. Zija, who explained that his plant used to repair tanks. Asked
about what happened to the tanks destroyed in the attacks, Mr. Zija said
that one of the tanks was transported to Italy (for recycling). After this
statement, the RTI 3 crew stood there like lightening-stricken, the
parliamentarian too.

Prompted to confirm his statement, Mr. Ziju shut up because probably he
understood that he had said something he should not have (commentary of the
author, Zeljko Golac). At the plant they met a crew of Japanese TV, equipped
for measuring radiation. The Japanese were obviously disturbed because they
saw high values of radioactivity on their counters. At one moment the value
passed over 120 microsievert per hour, which almost caused panic among the
journalists.

Mr. Zijo and local representatives were dismayed, because they did not
understand what it was all about. The Italian veteran explained to them that
in only one day they received the dose allowable for the entire year. Mr.
Zijo remained speechless, especially because he claimed he was told that
there was no danger. The author of this commentary notes that after the war
5000 Serbs left from Hadzici.

Then the delegation went to Belgrade where they interviewed orthopedist
Professor Dr. Branko Strugar (I hope I noted down his last name correctly)
who also confirmed the statement of his Sarajevo colleague about the
increase of neoplasmatic illnesses, citing even the percentage increase of
70%!!!

Serbian experience with the same problem can be added to the B&H story. At
one moment Professor Strugar noticed that out of those 5000 inhabitants of
Hadzici, almost 150 die annually. The majority of these people went to
Bratunac and the crew went there,  too. They interviewed some people from
Hadzici who gathered at Cafe Piccadilli, and noted down their stories. The
story sums up mainly to the fact that they did not know with what they were
bombarded and how very little it was spoken about in general. There are
rumours, but... The RTI crew was taken to the local cemetery to see the
fresh graves of some children. I also wrote down some names from these
graves, but will not cite them.

The RTI report ends here. About this There will surely be still much talk
here about it, since the associations that defend the rights of their
soldiers do not easily give in, and the pressure on the government to give
clear and precise answers is constant.

However, obviously some dirty things are at play here as well, some things
that the public still did not succeed to learn, since the transfer of
responsibility from one official to another is in progress. Be as it may,
the truth cannot be hidden anymore.

And how is it in B&H? How much is known about this? What are the authorities
doing to help these people? Is there talk in the Parliament about this
problem, or they think only how to increase their salaries because in this
way they can best defend the honour of this institution? Or we will be
silent not to disturb the Americans and the British too much. As if they
saved B&H, and we are impudent and ungrateful by bothering them with the
story about uranium with which violets are fertilized to grow better.

What does the high representative for Bosnia say about this? It must be the
Mafia business, cosa nostra and other scoundrels. As much as I went through
the B&H forums there is no talk about this. Probably this is not important
enough to bother our brains. Or maybe I missed something since I do not go
into each forum-cafe. Or is it true what the commentator of the Italian TV
said, " Nella Bosnia molte cose vengono messe a tacere." (In Bosnia, many
things are being hidden away.)

This entire story is based on the broadcast titled "Primo piano" (In the
first plan) emitted on January 5th, 2004, on RAI 3 at 23:00. This is in fact
a repeated report that was aired already on December 12 th, 2003.

You can see it here:
http://www.rainews24.rai.it/ran24/speciali/uranio_impoverito_2003/vittime.ht
m

You can see here viewers commentaries on the report:
http://www.rainews24.rai.it/ran24/speciali/uranio_impoverito_2003/commenti.h
tm

Links to related material on the Internet:
http://www.rainews24.rai.it/ran24/speciali/uranio_impoverito_2003/links.htm

This is in case somebody thinks of indicting me for disturbing the public.
Another interesting contribution in connection with this story is the public
indictment of the Italian general Fernando Termentini, whose units de-mined
regions in B&H (among other countries where they have been present). NATO
and governments have been doing rather many nauseating things. This report
can be found at
http://www.rainews24.rai.it/ran24/speciali/uranio_impoverito_2003/diario.htm
, where the tape of the talk with the general Termentin was published as
well.

Zeljko Golac

33333333333333333333333333333333333333
http://www.traprockpeace.org/jawad_al-ali_iraq.html
Iraqi MD exposes effects of war on Iraq

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@mtdata.com
http://traprockpeace.org

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 34 [du-list] IAEA DU Kuwait Report
 
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2004 15:59:29 -0800

 
<x-flowed>

RADIOLOGICAL CONDITIONS IN AREAS OF KUWAIT WITH RESIDUES OF DEPLETED  URANIUM

Report by an international group of experts

Still having a look at this one.  Interesting admission on page 7, implies 
that dirty DU has been put toward armaments for longer than I (in my 
innocence) would have guessed.


"There have been reports that the DU in munitions contains small amounts of 
other radionuclides, such as isotopes of americium and plutonium, as well 
as 236U. The presence of these human-made radionuclides indicates that some 
of the DU has been obtained from uranium that had been irradiated in 
nuclear reactors and subsequently reprocessed. Published information for 
other theatres of war indicates that the amounts of these radionuclides 
present in DU are very small [8, 9].

[8] ROYAL SOCIETY, The Health Hazards of Depleted Uranium Munitions, Part 
I, Royal Society, London (2001).

[9] UNITED NATIONS ENVIRONMENT PROGRAMME, Depleted Uranium in Kosovo, 
Post-Conflict Environmental Assessment, UNEP, Nairobi (2001). Radiological 
Assessments, Rep. NRPB-M636, National Radiological Protection Board, 
Didcot, UK (1996).

The ratios of Pu238 toPU239&240, and U234:U238 given in Table II, on Page 
8, should help when drawing inferences about the population dose commitment 
associated with DU weapons and remnants of war.


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 35 [DU-WATCH] studies link birth defects to gulf war
 
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2004 01:08:52 -0600 (CST)

 
Studies link birth defects, Gulf War  
Pentagon says there is no proven correlation 
09:22 AM CST on Tuesday, February 24, 2004 
By BYRON HARRIS / WFAA-TV 

News 8 has been looking at questions about birth
defects among the children of Gulf War veterans for
eight years. Vets said their kids had more birth
defects than non-Gulf War vets. WFAA producer P.J.
Ward has been gathering data from scientific journals,
and News 8 is now able to report that data. 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cedric Miller of San Antonio is now twelve years old,
conceived and born just after his father returned from
the first war in the Persian Gulf. 

Cedric suffers from Goldenhar Syndrome. He's had
sixteen surgeries to repair and construct his face and
body since he was born. 

"The face was underdeveloped," said Cedric's father
Steve Miller. "There was no eye on the left, there was
no ear, the thumbs didn't work and there were some
other things going on." 

Cedric is literally a poster child for a controversy
between veterans, scientists and the government. Just
after the first Gulf War, those returning from duty
said that their children were being stricken with
birth defects at an alarming rate. 

Steven Miller, Cedric's father, testified before
Congress. Like tens of thousands of other fathers who
served in the Gulf, he was exposed to a cocktail of
chemicals. 

Miller fathered a normal child before the war. After
he returned, Cedric was born. Goldenhar cases like
Cedric's were a signal to vets that something was
amiss. The Department of Defense said there was no
evidence, but many scientists said there was. 

"The Gulf War vets had a three time higher risk of
having Goldenhar Syndrome," said Maria Araneta, an
epidemiologist at the University of California at San
Diego. 

Araneta knows Goldenhar normally happens to just one
child in 26,000. But back in 1997, when she analyzed
the birth records of 34,000 babies born to Gulf War
vets, she found five cases of Goldenhar. 

The number was unusual, but not big enough to be
statistically significant, according to the Department
of Defense. To this day, Pentagon officials maintain
there's no correlation between Gulf War service and
higher birth defects. 

"There hasn't been any statistical difference in the
deployed and non-deployed populations as far as birth
defects in their children," said Dr. Michael
Kilpatrick of the Department of Defense. 

Pentagon researchers continue to study the issue. 

"They've funded a lot of studies," said Betty Mekdici
of the non-profit organization Birth Defect Research
for Children. "I think they've funded some studies so
that they could show us we were wrong and make us go
away." 

Mekdici's organization collects data from parents
across the country. She's now discovered 26 cases of
Goldenhar among Gulf War veterans. 

"Goldenhar is so rare that when we started to see that
blip, we knew that something was going on," Mekdici
said. 

Government officials said Mekdici's numbers aren't
valid. But the more studies Araneta does, the more
evidence she finds. 

"The results have changed, because the methods in
ascertaining birth defects have improved," Araneta
said. 

News 8 found documentation from an internal Veterans
Administration study, published within the last year,
that shows children of Gulf War vets have twice the
normal rate of birth defects. 

A Department of Defense-funded study showed children
of male Gulf War vets have three times the average
rate of heart defects. 

And a study just released this month shows women who
served in the first Gulf War suffered three times the
normal rate of miscarriages in the period just after
the conflict. 

Back in San Antonio, Cedric Miller faces five more
surgeries to lengthen his jaw and create a new left
ear. His sister and father help him face the emotional
minefield he navigates every day. 

"He wants to look like everybody else, but no matter
what happens, he's still the same to me," sister
Larissa Miller said. 

The military pays for none of his medical needs,
because his father is no longer in the Army. 

"If he needs me for any reason, no matter where I am,
I'll come," said Larissa. 

No one knows if the war exposures that may have harmed
Cedric are still in Iraq. But 100,000 potential
mothers and fathers are now returning from service in
the Gulf. This time, more women than ever were close
to the chemicals and toxins of the front lines. 

So, is this new crop of veterans potentially in
danger? 

"There are a lot of exposures in any warfare
environment that are reproductive toxins, so I think
that's something we have to take into account with any
returning army," Mekdici said. 

The Department of Defense is keeping better track of
returning vets than it did after the first Gulf War,
but the problem is complicated. More husbands and
wives are in the war together than ever before,
meaning that two parents, rather than one, may be
carrying the toxins that produce birth defects. 

More science needs to be done, and better statistics
need to be kept of birth defects to further research
into the issue. 

It should also be noted that Texas is one of the
largest states not to have a birth defect registry
program. 

E-mail: bharris@wfaa.com (reporter), pjward@wfaa.com
(producer) 

________________________________________________________________________
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 36 [DU-WATCH] Canada's Patriot Act
 
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2004 01:14:34 -0600 (CST)

 
1. Foreword
2. Introduction
[to be continued, without a doubt]

11111111111111111111111111111111111
From: Amarie [mailto:amarierosa@yahoo.com]
Sent: February 25, 2004 10:14 AM
To: du-watch@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [DU-WATCH] Canada threat to US security ....

"First, as a modern liberal democracy Canada possesses a number of
features that make it hospitable to terrorists and international
criminals. The Canadian constitution guarantees rights such as right
to life, liberty, freedom of movement, freedom of speech, protection
against unreasonable search and seizure, the protection against
arbitrary detention or imprisonment that make it easier for
terrorists and international criminal to operate."

Nations Hospitable to Organised Crime and Terrorists
Federal Research Division
The Library of Congress
Washington DC
October 2003

22222222222222222222222222222222222
Sent: Tuesday, February 24, 2004 4:09 AM
Subject: [Announce] Martial Law and Canada's Bill C-17

There is a new web page on 911review.org.

After 2 previous attempts at passing the worst of the Draconian War of
Terror legislation in Canada, the government has reintroduced Bill C-17.

    http://www.911review.org/Wiki/C17PublicSafetyAct.shtml

This bill purports to "enact measures for implementing the 1975 Biological
and Toxin Weapons Convention in order to enhance public
safety" which is the greatest hypocrisy as the only terrorists known to have
used biological weapons are American in the AnthraxAttacks:

   http://www.911review.org/Wiki/AnthraxAttacks.shtml

It was passed by the House of Commons 7 October 2003, and is now before the
Senate. This is the worst legislation of all the Canadian police state
agenda

http://www.911review.org/Wiki/FraudulentLegislation.shtml

If anything it's even worse than the corresponding US legislation; it gives
the Minister carte blanche to pass any order as law, without
submitting it to Parliament, and exempts it from review by the Statutory
Instruments Act which is the mechanism to make sure the
law, order or regulation is legal, and does not conflict with the Charter of
Rights.  Good for a year.

It also mends the Privacy Act that would allow all information collected by
airlines to be distributed to foreign powers without
their knowledge or consent (S.98). Between this bill and the Customs Act,
individuals arriving in Canada or leaving Canada, not only by aircraft
but by any kind public transport, will have all of their personal
information distributed to the police to check for warrants (even unrelated
to terrorism), and to foreign countries as well - the CappsII database of
the Pentagon's Total Information Awareness program.

It also creates a reserve pool of military judges in the case of martial
law, which combined with the unlimited powers for Interim Orders by the
Minister under the Quarantine Act, makes us ask:

      http://www.911review.org/Wiki/WhatsNext.shtml

All Canadians must act immediately to try to kill this legislation.

_______________________________________________
Announce@lists.911review.org
http://www.911review.org/mailman/listinfo/announce

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 37 [DU-WATCH] Canada threat to US security ....
 
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2004 01:11:12 -0600 (CST)

 
"First, as a modern liberal democracy Canada possesses a number of 
features that make it hospitable to terrorists and international 
criminals. The Canadian constitution guarantees rights such as right 
to life, liberty, freedom of movement, freedom of speech, protection 
against unreasonable search and seizure, the protection against 
arbitrary detention or imprisonment that make it easier for 
terrorists and international criminal to operate." 

Nations Hospitable to Organised Crime and Terrorists
Federal Research Division
The Library of Congress
Washington DC
October 2003

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 38 IPS-English U.S.: Opposition Hardens as Bush Boosts Nuclear
 
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2004 15:54:23 -0800

 
<x-flowed>
ROMAIPS NA IP SC HE EN
U.S.: Opposition Hardens as Bush Boosts Nuclear Waste Plan
By Daniel Porras

NEW YORK, Feb 26 (IPS) - Critics are condemning as irresponsible and 
illegal the Bush administration's recent proposal to increase the budget 
for the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Dump in western Nevada State despite 
unresolved safety issues and legal challenges.

After more than two decades of contesting the selection of their state as 
the nation's primary repository for high-level nuclear waste, many Nevadans 
feel they now possess the legal and scientific grounds to undo the project.

In addition to multiple pending suits brought by the State of Nevada, the 
indigenous Western Shoshone National Council is challenging the U.S. 
Government over land rights to the area, a case that has garnered the 
council international support from the Organisation of American States (OAS).

Washington hopes to store around 77,000 tons of high-level radioactive 
waste in metal containers beneath Yucca Mountain. Now, most of the nation's 
nuclear waste is kept above ground at hundreds of nuclear energy, military 
and former weapons facilities throughout the country.

Bush's 2005 budget, released earlier this month, increases spending on the 
Yucca Mountain storage facility by 50 percent to 880 million dollars, a 
move one Nevada State official called ''highly optimistic'', given the 
number of unanswered questions surrounding the project.

"The government is far from having the requisite amount of data required by 
the Nuclear Waste Policy Act to recommend Yucca Mountain as the primary 
repository for the country's nuclear waste," said Bob Loux, executive 
director of the Agency for Nuclear Projects at the Office of the Governor 
of Nevada.

Irrespective of claims by Loux and others that the Yucca Mountain site has 
not been proven geologically sound to serve as a long-term repository, the 
U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) recently formally recommended to Bush that 
the site be developed.

Citing "sound science" and "compelling national interests", Secretary of 
Energy Spencer Abraham said that more than 20 years and four billion 
dollars worth of scientific studies have demonstrated the site's 
suitability, according to a Feb. 14 DOE statement.

''The Department of Energy is obviously trying to sink so much money into 
this hole in the ground that the project becomes a self-fulfilling 
prophecy,'' said Wenonah Hauter, director of the Critical Mass Energy and 
Environment Programme of the non-profit group Public Citizen, in a statement.

But the DOE claims to be standing on firm scientific ground. ''I have 
considered whether sound science supports the determination that the Yucca 
Mountain site is scientifically and technically suitable for the 
development of a repository. I am convinced that it does,'' said Abraham in 
a letter to Bush.

Loux is unconvinced, and argues that science has proven that the site is 
not suitable. The State of Nevada brought multiple lawsuits against the 
DOE, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Environmental Protection 
Agency (EPA) and awaits ruling on the cases, which Loux feels could derail 
the project.

"One of our main concerns is that the DOE discovered that the physical 
characteristics of the site contribute less than one percent of the 
needed   isolation to contain the waste," he told IPS, adding that the law 
requires geology to be the primary factor in protecting the environment 
from nuclear waste.

To compensate, the DOE has used the largest aquifer in southern Nevada as a 
waste containment mechanism in its calculations, violating the Clean Water 
Act and a host of other regulations, according to Loux.

Also, the U.S. Geological Survey admits there are 33 known earthquake 
faults in and around the Yucca Mountain site and volcanoes dot the region, 
including one just 16 km away.

Water seeps quickly through the desert rock strata and both Loux and 
Shoshone Chief Raymond Yowell worry that radioactive water will contaminate 
nearby farms where food and livestock are raised and some of it shipped 
around the country.

Not surprisingly, most Nevadans are adamantly opposed to hosting the 
nation's high-level nuclear waste.

''For more than two decades the State of Nevada has protested its 
designation as the nation's high-level nuclear waste dump,'' said Loux.

"This governor as well as the last five governors have been adamantly 
opposed to Yucca Mountain, and over 75 percent of the population is telling 
the state to do all they can to stop the dump," he added.

The Western Shoshone National Council is challenging the U.S. Government on 
different grounds: that the federal government does not own the land where 
it proposes to build the nuclear waste dump.

That land, according to Yowell, is part of the Western Shoshone Territory 
that extends through six western states and was never legally ceded to the 
government.

"The U.S. can't show how they got it from us, so they don't own it," Yowell 
said in a telephone interview.

The OAS agrees with Yowell. In January 2003 its Inter-American Commission 
on Human Rights (IACHR) found Washington in violation of international law 
and infringing on the aboriginal land rights of the Western Shoshone.

Deborah Schaff, an attorney with the Indian Law Resource Centre, said that 
as a member of the OAS, the United States is subject to the jurisdiction of 
the commission and is obligated to abide by its charter.

Yowell cites other national and international laws to bolster his case.

In addition to an U.S. 1832 Supreme Court decision (Worcester v. Georgia) 
that found a treaty between an Indian nation and the United States 
''involves no surrender'' of the nation's independence or its ''national 
character'', he cites a principle of international law that states that the 
long-held possession of territory by one nation excludes the claim of every 
other nation.

Yowell says the Shoshone people and their ancestors occupied the territory 
that is modern Nevada thousands of years before the existence of the United 
States, and refuse to accept monetary compensation for the sacred land.

He is incensed at the idea of 77,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste being 
buried inside the Earth.

"Mother Earth is the most sacred thing in our religious beliefs," he said. 
"To store nuclear waste within her is not acceptable to us."

Successive administrations have sought to compensate the Shoshone for the 
use of the land and have attempted to establish U.S. ownership through 
legal manoeuvring. But the Shoshone remain steadfast in their claim to the 
territory.

The Nuclear Energy Institute's website quotes Bush as saying Yucca Mountain 
"is important for our national security and our energy future". Yowell 
disagrees, saying that to achieve national energy security, Washington must 
direct all funding of the nuclear and oil industries toward the development 
of renewable energy.

But he is not waiting for the Bush administration to transform its 
unsustainable energy policy, and has his own plans for the Yucca Mountain 
territory, including installing a solar energy farm.

"We'll be looking more into solar energy," said the chief. "We get quite a 
bit of sunshine on our land".
*****
+State of Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects (http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/)
+Western Shoshone Defence Project (http://www.wsdp.org/)
+Department of Energy 
(http://www.energy.gov/engine/content.do?PUBLIC_ID=12962&BT_CODE=PR_PRESSRELEASES&TT_CODE=PRESSRELEASE)

(END/IPS/NA/IP/SC/HE/EN/DP/ML/04)


= 02261822 ORP014
NNNN

</x-flowed>
*****************************************************************
 39 NRC: Final rule on modular waste storage

[RIN 3150-AH20]
 
                         FR Doc 04-4342 
[Federal Register: February 27, 2004 (Volume 0, Number 0)]
[Page 9199]
From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access
[wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:fr27fe04-2]                         
 

 
List of Approved Spent Fuel Storage Casks: Standardized 
NUHOMS[reg] -24P, -52B, -61BT, -32PT, and -24PHB Revision,
Confirmation 
of Effective Date
AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
 
ACTION: Direct final rule: Confirmation of effective date.
 
SUMMARY: The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is confirming 
the effective date of March 2, 2004, for the direct final rule 
that was published in the Federal Register on December 18, 2003. 
This direct final rule amended the NRC's regulations to revise 
the Transnuclear, Inc., Standardized NUHOMS[reg] Horizontal 
Modular Storage System (Standardized NUHOMS[reg] System) listing 
within the ``List of approved spent fuel storage casks'' to 
include Amendment No. 7 in Certificate of Compliance (CoC) Number 
1004.
 
EFFECTIVE DATE: The effective date of March 2, 2004, is confirmed 
for this direct final rule.
 
 
ADDRESSES: Documents related to this rulemaking, including 
comments received, may be examined at the NRC Public Document 
Room, located at One White Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike, 
Rockville, MD 20852. These same documents may also be viewed and 
downloaded electronically via the rulemaking Web site 
(http://ruleforum.llnl.gov). For information about the 
interactive rulemaking Web site, contact Ms. Carol Gallagher 
(301) 415-5905; e-mail CAG@nrc.gov. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION 
CONTACT: Jayne M. McCausland, Office of Nuclear Material Safety 
and Safeguards, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, 
DC 20555, telephone (301) 415-6219, e-mail jmm2@nrc.gov.
 
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: On December 18, 2003 (68 FR 70423), 
the NRC published a direct final rule amending its regulations in 
10 CFR part 72 to revise the Standardized NUHOMS[reg] System 
listing within the ``List of Approved Spent Fuel Storage Casks'' 
to include Amendment No. 7 to CoC No. 1004. This amendment 
incorporates changes in support of the Amergen Corporation plans 
to load damaged fuel and additional fuel types at its Oyster 
Creek Nuclear Station. Specifically, the amendment adds damaged 
Boiling Water Reactor spent fuel assemblies and additional fuel 
types to the authorized contents of the NUHOMS[reg]-61BT Dry 
Shielded Canister under a general license. In addition, the 
amendment includes three minor changes to the Technical 
Specifications to correct inconsistencies and remove irrelevant 
references. In the direct final rule, NRC stated that if no 
significant adverse comments were received, the direct final rule 
would become final on March 2, 2004. The NRC did not receive any 
comments that warranted withdrawal of the direct final rule. 
Therefore, this rule will become effective as scheduled. Dated at 
Rockville, Maryland, this 23rd day of February, 2004.
 
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
 
Michael T. Lesar, Chief, Rules and Directives Branch, Division of 
Administrative Services, Office of Administration.
 
[FR Doc. 04-4342 Filed 2-26-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P

 
*****************************************************************
 40 Salt Lake Tribune: Power through fear 
 
February 27, 2004   
 
    The storage of radioactive waste is a national problem, one
to be resolved for the greatest good. People living in crowded
their fears are not being considered instead of only those of
Utah's "concerned citizens." 
 
   You who oppose storage of almost everything here never
present facts in your arguments, never the results of
calculations. You do not trouble to learn the truth and you
reject it when presented to you. This is typical of persons who
use emotions as their criterion for truth. Your leaders gain
power through instilling fear. 
 
    You argue, "What if," and bring in speculative scenarios.
You certainly cannot govern your own life according to the worst
cases being probable. You should not want your laws to be based
on these, either. 
 
    I am a concerned citizen who is a retired scientist. Reading
your letters reveals that logical fallacies abound in your
thinking. Each of you concerned citizens needs to progress to
becoming informed citizens before you continue acting as
loudmouthed citizens. Lawmakers who align with these noisy
people show they are concerned only in getting votes, not in
doing their best at governing. 
 
    No one is calling Utah a waste dump except you Utahns. But
it could be taken, in context, as a compliment. 
 
    
 
   Duane Long 
 
   Stansbury Park 
 
    
 
   
 
   
 
              
 
  
Copyright Salt Lake City Tribune
*****************************************************************
 41 Salt Lake Tribune: Oops plug that loophole: HB145 would have increased the
permitted dumping concentration of volatile uranium-235 
February 27, 2004   
 
 By Judy Fahys 
 
    State officials have discovered a loophole in radioactive
waste legislation this week that might have allowed a worrisome
form of uranium to come to Utah in higher concentrations than
now permitted. 
 
    Lawmakers behind House Bill 145 plan to close the loophole
for uranium-235 with a substitute bill completed Thursday. But
the legislation also would allow regulators instead of political
leaders to decide whether Envirocare of Utah could receive
uranium-235 at higher concentrations than now permitted. 
 
    "It would have been a loophole," said Sen. Curt Bramble,
R-Provo. "But there was no intention to let a loophole stay in." 
 
    HB145 is a reaction to the federal government's plan last
year to exploit a jurisdictional snafu and bury highly
contaminated cleanup waste from Fernald, Ohio, and Niagara
Falls, N.Y., at the commercial landfill in Tooele County, even
though state law prohibits waste that hot. Envirocare bowed to
public pressure and backed off on that cleanup contract. 
 
    HB145 aims to prevent future such problems by capping waste
coming into Utah at "Class A," the lowest in the A-B-C scale
that states and the federal government use for rating the hazard
of low-level radioactive waste. Under the bill, anything more
hazardous would require the Legislature's and governor's
explicit approval. 
 
    Officials reviewing the version passed Feb. 20 by the House
of Representatives discovered HB145 overlooked uranium-235, a
type of waste the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission carefully
monitors in a special category. U-235 gets extra scrutiny
because, in high-enough concentrations, it can reach
"criticality" and result in uncontrolled chain reactions. 
 
    The substitute gives Envirocare "flexibility" with U-235,
Bramble said, rather than "micromanaging" the company, as
Envirocare claimed it did originally. 
 
    Envirocare's state and federal licenses now allow
concentrations of up to 1,900 picocuries of U-235 per gram of
waste, a standard measure of the concentration of radioactive
materials. While the company requested that substitute bill
allow up to 5,000 picocuries per gram, Bramble set it at 4,000,
a level he said state regulators deemed comparable in hazard to
other types of Class A waste. 
 
  
 
 
 
  
 
    "This is one of those must-pass bills in my opinion,"
Bramble said. 
 
    Any increase in U-235 concentrations between 1,900 an 4,000
would require approval by state and federal regulators, but not
elected leaders. 
 
    Envirocare did not respond to requests for comment. 
 
    fahys@sltrib.com
 
    
 
   
 
   
 
              
 
  
Copyright Salt Lake City Tribune
*****************************************************************
 42 UKAEA: Camera survey begins to reveal Windscale Pile core 
       
  23rd February 2004
 Ref: 2004/11     
Contact: Fee Wilson, 01946 772954   
   
 Modern optical technology is beginning to reveal the condition 
of the inner core of the Windscale Pile One reactor, damaged by 
fire in 1957. It is the first time that this part of the core has 
been seen since Pile One was constructed in the late 1940s. The 
results are important to the joint UKAEA/consortium 
decommissioning team now working on plans for the reactors 
decommissioning. 

Most of the fuel was removed from the Pile One core following the 
fire but around 15 tonnes of damaged fuel still remains. Over the 
last ten years UKAEA has cleared and sealed the air and water 
ducts and carried out other measures to ensure that the reactor 
is maintained in a safe, stable condition. A technical review of 
the options for dismantling the core and for treating and storing 
the resulting waste is now underway that will lead to a strategy 
for this work, considered by international experts to be one of 
the most challenging decommissioning tasks in the world. 

A thorough understanding of the condition of the core, 
particularly of the fire-affected zone, is essential to the 
project team in assessing the stability of the internal 
structure. Two existing holes in the biological shield were 
opened up to allow a view into the outside of the fire-affected 
zone. A long focal length camera and laser light provided 
pictures of the channel and a laser range finder measured the 
depth of the channel at 17 metres. The initial images reveal that 
there are no obstacles present and the condition of the graphite 
structure is relatively good. 

The team now plans to carry out a more ambitious survey using 
four cameras and a radiation dose meter that will be lowered into 
the reactor core to provide more information on the condition of 
the fire affected zone. 

For more information please contact Fee Wilson on 01946 772954. 

Copyright© UKAEA 2003 
*****************************************************************
 43 Las Vegas SUN: Editorial: Predictable irony

Today: February 27, 2004 at 8:54:35 PST 

 If a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain receives a license to
open, federal law requires that no more than 77,000 tons of
high-level nuclear waste can be stored there. The problem
confronting the Energy Department is that much more high-level
radioactive waste exists than legally could fit into the
proposed dump. So the Energy Department wants Congress to give
the department the power to reclassify high-level radioactive
waste at its nuclear weapons and nuclear production facilities
as being low-level instead.

 The upshot would be that more radioactive waste would then be
allowed to stay at nuclear facilities across the nation.
Currently there are 53 million gallons of radioactive material
at the Hanford site in Washington state, 34 million gallons of
the liquid waste at the Savannah River site in South Carolina
and 900,000 gallons at the Idaho National Engineering and
Environmental Laboratory. The Bush administration isn't above
playing hardball on this issue, warning that it will withhold
$350 million in cleanup funds at nuclear facilities unless it
gets its way in reclassifying the waste.

 Nevadans obviously have sympathy for residents in these other
states as the Energy Department tries to unfairly change the
rules in the middle of the process. But it also shouldn't go
without notice that Idaho, Washington state and South Carolina
had congressional delegations in 2002 that voted overwhelmingly
to approve President Bush's reckless plan to permanently entomb
nuclear waste in the geologically unsafe Yucca Mountain. Talk
about bad karma for them. 
 
*****************************************************************
 44 Las Vegas SUN: DOE under gun on Yucca questions

Today: February 27, 2004 at 11:36:56 PST 

By Suzanne Struglinski 
<suzanne@lasvegassun.com>

 ROCKVILLE, Md. -- The Nuclear Regulatory Commission may not
have enough time to review all of the answers the Energy
Department plans to submit to the remaining technical question
on the proposed Yucca Mountain Project before the license
application is submitted at the end of the year.

 The department plans to answer all 293 unresolved scientific
questions on its proposed Yucca Mountain project by August and
submit the site's license application to the commission by
December.

 So far the commission has deemed 90 of the original 293
completed, including three of some of the most important answers
the Energy Department needed to provide, Gregory Hatchett, of
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Division of Waste Management
today the Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste today.

 "DOE may submit answers to staff before the license
application, but that does not mean (NRC) staff will finish
before," Hatchett said during the committee's meeting this
morning, adding that commission officials will look at the
license application to see if answers could be in there.

 He did not return later calls asking for clarification.

 Hatchett's comments did not indicate whether a delay in
reviewing the Energy Department's answers would also push back
the license application process.

 Nevada has always argued that the questions need to be
completed before the application could be turned in, Bob Loux,
executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects,
said.

 "It isn't a matter of just submitting them (answers)" Loux
said. "They have to be reviewed and approved before the license
application can even be submitted."

 All of the data the department plans to use to support the
license application must be in the electronic license support
network by July 1, Loux said.

 But the department has said in the past that the license
application was not contingent on the closure of all 293 issues.

 The commission has not received any information on 80 of
remaining questions, and 123 are in various stages of review by
the commission, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

 Twenty of the questions the NRC is reviewing are critical, and
the Energy Department has not yet provided information on 18 of
the key questions.

 Hatchett said more answers under review have not been closed
partly because of problems in the department's documentation.

 "We can't make conclusions on documents that are not publicly
available," Hatchett said. "It's a wait-and-see game. I'm
confident DOE has done their work but they have not shown us how
they have reached their conclusions."

 Hatchett said the department's satellite office in Rockville,
Md., close to the commission headquarters, will also help close
more questions, but would not speculate how long it would take
for those under review now to clear.

 The office opened last week, said Yucca Mountain project
spokesman Allen Benson. 


 
*****************************************************************
 45 RGJ: Nevada seeking stable Yucca Mountain oversight funding from DOE
 
Reno Gazette-Journal] 
	
By Ken Ritter

ASSOCIATED PRESS
2/26/2004 10:36 pm 	

LAS VEGAS — The Energy Department said Thursday it was reviewing 
Nevada’s demand for an additional $4 million in Yucca Mountain 
oversight funding this year.

“We just got the letter and are evaluating it,” Allen Benson, 
Energy Department and Yucca Mountain project spokesman, said of a 
request Nevada’s top state Yucca Mountain oversight official sent 
Monday to Margaret Chu, head of the federal Office of Civilian 
Radioactive Waste Management.

Setting the stage for another lawsuit over a planned national 
nuclear waste repository in Nevada, Bob Loux, state nuclear 
projects director, said the Energy Department was short-changing 
the state in funding for oversight of the project.

“They not only short-changed us, they’ve basically put the screws 
to us,” Loux said Thursday. “Last year, the DOE proposed no money 
for state participation in oversight of the project. It was only 
through the intervention of Sen. Harry Reid (R-Nev.) that we got 
$1 million.”

Benson said the Energy Department has provided funding for state 
oversight. He pointed to the Congressional appropriation of $1 
million for the 2004 fiscal year and $2.5 million in 2003. Nevada 
counties were allocated $4 million and $7 million those years, he 
said.

Loux said the state needs at least $5 million to maintain current 
studies and might need $10 million or more during the three or 
four years the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is expected to spend 
evaluating an Energy Department license to operate the 
repository.

The Energy Department plans to submit its license application by 
December, and wants to open the repository in 2010. Congress in 
2002 approved building the national nuclear waste dump at Yucca 
Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Loux said the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 guarantees the 
state, but not the counties, a role in licensing. He said funding 
has fluctuated from year to year and the state wants to ensure 
regular funding as it prepares to challenge the Yucca Mountain 
project before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Nevada has received an average of about $5 million a year to 
evaluate the Energy Department’s science and engineering for the 
Yucca Mountain repository, Loux said.

Loux said the state intends to send the Energy Department a 
budget request each year during the licensing process.

The letter says the state “will promptly seek a judicial remedy” 
if it gets no response by March 15. Loux said similar letters to 
the Energy Department last year from Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn and 
in December from Attorney General Brian Sandoval have not been 
answered.

The state has three consolidated lawsuits and a constitutional 
challenge pending against the Yucca Mountain project in the U.S. 
Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

Oral arguments were made in January, with a decision possibly 
coming next month.      

© Copyright Reno Gazette-Journal, a Gannett 
*****************************************************************
 46 NRC: Foster Wheeler Environmental Corporation's Proposed Idaho Spent 
 
                         FR Doc E4-413 
[Federal Register: February 27, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 39)] 
[Page 9387-9388] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access 
[wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr27fe04-95]                         
 
Fuel Facility; Notice of Availability of Final Environmental 
Impact Statement AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
 
ACTION: Notice of Availability of Final Environmental Impact 
Statement.
 
SUMMARY: Notice is hereby given that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission (NRC) is issuing a Final Environmental Impact 
Statement (FEIS), ``Environmental Impact Statement for the 
Proposed Idaho Spent Fuel Facility at the Idaho National 
Engineering and Environmental Laboratory in Butte County, 
Idaho,'' NUREG-1773, January 2004.
 
This FEIS was prepared to evaluate the environmental impacts of 
the Foster Wheeler Environmental Corporation (FWENC) proposal to 
construct and operate an independent spent fuel storage 
installation as described in it's license application dated 
November 19, 2001, and docketed on June 27, 2002 (67 FR 43358). 
If approved, the proposed facility would be licensed in 
accordance with NRC regulations found at 10 CFR Part 72.
 
The FEIS discusses the purpose and need for the proposed facility 
and reasonable alternatives to the proposed action, including the 
no- action alternative. The FEIS also discusses the environment 
potentially affected by the proposed facility, presents and 
compares the potential environmental impacts resulting from the 
proposed action and its alternatives, and identifies mitigation 
measures that could eliminate or lessen the potential 
environmental impacts.
 
The FEIS is being issued as part of the NRC's decision-making 
process on whether to issue a license to FWENC. Based on the 
evaluation in the FEIS, the NRC environmental review staff have 
concluded that the proposed action will have small effects on the 
public and existing environment. This FEIS reflects the final 
analysis of environmental impacts of FWENC's proposal and it's 
alternatives, including the consideration of public comments 
received by the NRC. In addition, the FEIS provides summaries of 
the substantive public comments on the draft EIS, and responses, 
as appropriate.
 
 
ADDRESSES: The NRC maintains an Agencywide Documents Access and 
Management System (ADAMS), which provides text and image files of 
NRC's public documents. The FEIS and its appendices may be 
accessed through the NRC's Public Electronic Reading Room on the 
Internet at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html. If you do 
not have access to ADAMS or if there are problems in accessing 
the documents located in ADAMS, contact the NRC Public Document 
Room (PDR) Reference staff at 1-800- 397-4209, 301-415-4737, or 
by email to pdr@nrc.gov. The FEIS is also available for 
inspection at the Commission's Public Document Room, U.S. NRC's 
Headquarters Building, 11555 Rockville Pike (first floor), 
Rockville, Maryland. Upon written request and to the extent 
supplies are available, a single copy of the FEIS can be obtained 
for a fee by writing to the Office of the Chief Information 
Officer, Reproduction and Distribution Services Section, U.S. 
Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001; by 
electronic mail at DISTRIBUTION@nrc.gov; or by fax at (301) 
415-2289.
 
Information and documents associated with the Idaho Spent Fuel 
Facility project may also be obtained from the Internet on NRC's 
Idaho Spent Fuel Facility Web page: 
http://www.nrc.gov/waste/spent-fuel-storage.html (case 
sensitive).
 
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For environmental review 
questions, please contact Matthew Blevins at (301) 415-7684. For 
questions related to the safety review or overall licensing of 
the Idaho Spent Fuel Facility, please contact Randall Hall at 
(301) 415-1336.
 
 
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: A Settlement Agreement dated October 
17, 1995, among the Department of Energy (DOE), the U.S. Navy, 
and the State of Idaho requires, among other things, the transfer 
and dry storage of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) until it can be 
removed from Idaho. As part of it's efforts to meet the 
Settlement Agreement, the DOE has contracted with FWENC to 
design, license, construct, and operate the proposed Idaho Spent 
Fuel Facility for portions of the SNF currently in storage at the 
Idaho National Environmental and Engineering Laboratory (INEEL). 
Subsequently, FWENC submitted a license application to the NRC 
for the receipt, transfer, and storage of SNF at the proposed 
facility. The proposed facility would provide the ability to 
remove the SNF from existing canisters, place it in specially 
designed storage containers, then seal and place the loaded 
containers into interim storage.
 
The new containers are designed to be compatible with 
transportation systems and with future permanent disposal 
systems. The proposed facility would store SNF and associated 
radioactive material from the Peach Bottom Unit 1 
High-Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor, the Shippingport Atomic 
Power Station, and various Training, Research, and Isotope 
reactors built by General Atomics (TRIGA) reactors. The majority 
of this SNF is currently in storage at the Idaho Nuclear 
Technology Center located on the INEEL immediately adjacent to 
the proposed facility. DOE plans to transfer the SNF to the 
proposed facility using existing INEEL and DOE procedures. The 
transfers from DOE to the proposed facility would take place 
completely within the boundaries of the INEEL. Upon arrival at 
the proposed facility, the SNF would be (1) remotely removed from 
the containers in which it is currently stored, (2) visually 
inspected, (3) inventoried, (4) placed into new storage 
canisters, and (5) placed into interim dry storage.
 
The FEIS for the proposed Idaho Spent Fuel Facility was prepared 
by the staff of the NRC and its contractor, Center for Nuclear 
Waste Regulatory Analyses, in compliance with the National 
Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), and the NRC's regulations for 
implementing NEPA (10 CFR part 51). The proposed action involves 
a decision by NRC of whether to issue a license under the 
provisions of 10 CFR part 72 that would authorize FWENC to 
receive, transfer, and store SNF and associated radioactive 
materials at the proposed facility.
 
The NRC published a Notice of Intent to prepare an environmental 
impact statement (EIS) for the proposed Idaho Spent Fuel Facility 
and to hold a public scoping period in the Federal Register on 
July 26, 2002 (67 FR 48953). The NRC accepted scoping comments 
through September 16, 2002, and subsequently issued a Scoping 
Summary Report on December 2, 2002. The NRC published a draft EIS 
on June 26, 2003, and provided an opportunity to comment until 
August 18, 2003 (68 FR 38105, 68 FR 39940).
 
 
[[Page 9388]] The FEIS describes the proposed action and 
alternatives to the proposed action, including the no-action 
alternative. The FEIS assesses the impacts of the proposed action 
and its alternatives on human health, air quality, water 
resources, waste management, geology, noise, ecology, land use, 
cultural resources, socioeconomics, accident impacts, and 
environmental justice. Additionally, the FEIS analyzes and 
compares the costs and benefits of the proposed action.
 
After weighing the impacts, costs, and benefits of the proposed 
action and comparing alternatives (see Sections 2.6, 4.15, and 7 
of the FEIS), the NRC staff, in accordance with 10 CFR 51.91 (d), 
sets forth its final NEPA recommendation regarding the proposed 
action. The NRC staff recommend that, unless safety issues 
mandate otherwise, the action called for is the issuance of the 
proposed license to FWENC. In this regard, the NRC staff 
concludes (i) the applicable environmental monitoring program 
described in Section 6 of the FEIS, and (ii) the proposed 
mitigation measures discussed in Section 5 of the FEIS would 
eliminate or substantially lessen any potential adverse 
environmental impacts associated with the proposed action.
 
The NRC staff has concluded that the overall benefits of the 
proposed Idaho Spent Fuel Facility outweigh the disadvantages and 
costs, based on consideration of the following: --The proposed 
Idaho Spent Fuel Facility will have small impacts on the physical 
environment and human communities in the vicinity.
 
Long-term impacts of the no-action alternative are likely to be 
similar to the impacts of the proposed action.
 
--The proposed action is designed to support the INEEL mission 
and comply with agreements and commitments negotiated by DOE, 
including the 1995 Settlement Agreement among DOE, the State of 
Idaho, and the U.S. Navy to remove SNF from Idaho by 2035.
 
--Currently, most of the SNF to be received by the proposed Idaho 
Spent Fuel Facility is stored at the Idaho Nuclear Technology 
Center. Transfer distances from current storage locations to the 
proposed facility are relatively short.
 
--The current storage configuration does not prepare the SNF for 
shipment from INEEL to a national HLW repository.
 
NRC staff in the Spent Fuel Project Office are currently 
completing the licensing and safety review of FWENC's proposed 
action. The final licensing decision is currently scheduled for 
the Spring of 2004.
 
Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 3rd day of February 2004.
 
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
 
Lawrence E. Kokajko, Chief, Environmental and Performance 
Assessment Branch, Division of Waste Management, Office of 
Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards.
 
[FR Doc. E4-413 Filed 2-26-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P

 
*****************************************************************
 47 Daily Herald: Panel OKs policy for $10 million fund 
 
Friday, February 27, 2004   				 			

By Jake Griffin Daily Herald Staff Writer

 A much-anticipated policy regarding West Chicago's $10 million 
public benefit fund was handily recommended for approval by the 
city council's finance committee Thursday night.

The city council next month will vote on the citizens panel 
report passed by and amended by the committee. That report 
recommends a variety of uses that essentially would tap only 
interest and maintain the original principal amount.

The money was part of a settlement reached with chemical giant 
Kerr-McGee and the federal government to clean up radioactive 
material spread throughout West Chicago decades ago from a 
now-defunct gaslight company.

The finance committee Thursday night added a measure in the 
policy that forbids spending more than 40 percent of the fund - 
in order to keep a good bond rating for the city.

"We have to put some provision in there so that someone in the 
future can't come in and spend all the money," Alderman Michael 
Kwasman said.

Among the recommendations for spending the fund dollars are 
five-year interest-free loans to spur economic development, 
rent-free grants up to $2,500 a month to entice businesses into 
the community, and facade-improvement grants for commercial 
buildings in some areas.

Gene Rennels, a former mayor and one of the 16 members of the 
citizens task force, said loan programs would be managed by local 
banks.

"We want to make sure we're lending money to someone who can 
repay the loan," he said.

One of the policy items likely to be of some concern is a copycat 
provision that calls for a grant program to be set up allowing 
some of the funds to be spent on converting large houses now used 
as multi-tenant homes back into single-family dwellings. It's an 
idea the task force took from Aurora, officials said.

West Chicago is struggling with an over-occupancy problem and 
recently settled a federal lawsuit over a code enforcement raid 
that was prompted by occupancy concerns. As part of the 
settlement, the city hired a housing advocacy group to ensure any 
further ordinances relating to occupancy issues are not 
considered biased.

Aldermen said they were not worried about the residential grant 
provision but were unsure whether the advocacy group had seen it.

&copy; 2004 Daily Herald, Paddock Publications, Inc.
*****************************************************************
 48 Knox News: TVA adds $107M to proposed trim list

 Executive's internal memo raises total savings to at least $354
million

By REBECCA FERRAR, ferrarr@knews.com
February 27, 2004

An internal TVA memo identifies more than $100 million in added
cuts the agency can make to its budget, increasing the total
amount of proposed savings to at least $354 million. 

TVA earlier this week released plans to cut $247 million in
capital projects but did not mention the additional cost
savings. 

 The memo to employees from Ike Zeringue, TVA president and chief 
operating officer, referred to $107 million more in cuts that 
would affect operating and maintenance budgets, which includes 
salaries, benefits, administration, plant repairs and maintenance 
and similar costs. 

The memo, dated Feb. 23, did not mention if any jobs would be 
affected. 

But TVA spokesman John Moulton pointed out that the $107 million 
number is not a final number and will likely change, possibly 
rising. 

"That is a preliminary number," Moulton said. "It's definitely 
going to change." 

All TVA organizations are undergoing reviews to search for cost 
savings in an exercise TVA's board says is necessary to prepare 
the agency for deregulation and to improve cash flow. Those cost 
savings are expected to lead to layoffs if TVA doesn't receive 
enough voluntary resignations or retirements. 

However, one TVA critic, Stephen Smith, executive director of the 
Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, noted that Congress is not 
considering deregulation legislation. He blames possible layoffs 
on the $1.8 billion restart of Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant's Unit 
1 in northern Alabama, expensive pollution control work at the 
agency's power plants and the cost of servicing $25 billion of 
debt. 

On Monday, TVA told some organizations within the agency that 
their areas had been targeted for cost cutting. Other 
organizations will have to wait for the news. 

"So far, projected savings identified through the 
program/staffing reviews for (fiscal year 2005) total about $354 
million to be achieved largely through reductions in operating 
and maintenance costs of $107 million and $247 million in capital 
cost reductions," Zeringue wrote. "To obtain these additional 
savings, TVA organizations are completing their remaining program 
reviews, seeking volunteers for reductions in force and 
continuing to examine all operating and maintenance and capital 
spending." 

TVA has said it expects the reviews to be completed by the end of 
March and layoffs to be announced on April 22. 

Smith said TVA is "driving employees to the unemployment line" by 
insisting on the restart of Browns Ferry Unit 1. 

"The TVA board blames the layoffs in part on pending 
deregulation, but there is, in fact, no deregulation legislation 
on the horizon," Smith said. "It is more accurate to state that 
the layoffs and rate increases are a result of the voluntary 
restart of Browns Ferry Unit 1. That's what's causing the 
cash-flow problem." 

TVA Director Bill Baxter has said the utility "cannot put our 
heads in the sand and hope deregulation doesn't come." 

TVA is the nation's largest public utility, serving 8.3 million 
people in Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, 
Alabama and Mississippi. 

Business writer Rebecca Ferrar may be reached at 865-342-6357.
					
Copyright Clearance] Copyright 2004, Knoxville News-Sentinel Co.
*****************************************************************
 49 DOE: Proposed Agency Information Collection
 
                         FR Doc 04-4357 
[Federal Register: February 27, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 39)] 
[Page 9310] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access 
[wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr27fe04-45]                         
 
AGENCY: Department of Energy.
 
ACTION: Notice and request for comments.
 
SUMMARY: The Department of Energy (DOE) is amending the 
Department of Energy Acquisition Regulation (DEAR) to provide a 
standardized authorization and associated contract clause for use 
by DOE contractors when performing work for non-DOE entities. 
These requirements include a paperwork burden in the form of a 
summary listing of project information for each active Work for 
Others project, identifying (i) Sponsoring agency; (ii) Total 
estimated costs; (iii) Project title and description; (iv) 
Project point of contact; and, (v) Estimated start and completion 
dates. The requirements and procedures previously delineated in 
DOE Directives have been extensively reviewed and revised to 
ensure every effort to decrease overly prescriptive guidance 
previously contained in the DOE Order. Revised contractor program 
requirements previously found in DOE Order 481.1B are being 
relocated to the DEAR. The objective of this effort is to ensure 
that authorization to perform non-DOE funded work is performed in 
a consistent and uniform manner, while ensuring that the DOE's 
program continues to be compliant with applicable laws 
regulations and statutes. No change in the Department's Work for 
Others policy is being made.
 
 
DATES: Comments regarding the information collection package must 
be received on or before April 27, 2004. If you anticipate that 
you will be submitting comments, but find it difficult to do so 
within the period of time allowed by this notice, contact the 
person listed below as soon as possible.
 
 
ADDRESSES: Written comments may be sent to Richard Langston, 
Procurement Policy Analyst, Office of Procurement and Assistance 
Policy, Office of Procurement and Assistance Management, ME-61/ 
Germantown Bldg, 1000 Independence Ave, SW., Washington, DC 
20585-1290, or by fax 202-586-0545, or e-mail, 
richard.langston@hq.doe.gov Comments should also be addressed to 
Susan L. Frey, Director, Records Management Division, 
IM-11/Germantown Bldg., Office of Business and Information 
Management, Office of the Chief Information Officer, U.S. 
Department of Energy, 1000 Independence Ave, SW., Washington, DC 
20585-1290.
 
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Requests for additional 
information or copies of the information collection instrument 
and instructions should be directed to Richard Langston, 
Procurement Policy Analyst, Office of Procurement and Assistance 
Policy, Office of Procurement and Assistance Management, 
ME-61/Germantown Bldg, 1000 Independence Ave, SW., Washington, DC 
20585-1290.
 
 
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: This package contains: (1) OMB Control 
No. NEW; (2) Package Title: Work for Others by DOE Management and 
Operating Contractors; (3) Type of Respondents: DOE Management 
and Operating Contractors; (4) Estimated Number of responses: 20; 
(5) Estimated Total Burden Hours: 100; (6) Purpose: This 
information is required by the Department to ensure that 
programmatic and administrative management requirements and 
resources are managed efficiently and effectively. The package 
contains 1 information and/or recordkeeping requirement, that is, 
the provision proposed to be placed at 48 CFR 970.5217-1, Work 
for Others.
 
Statutory Authority: Sec. 3506(c)(2)(A) of the Paperwork 
Reduction Act of 1995 (Pub. L. 104-13). Issued in Washington, DC, 
on February 23, 2004.
 
Susan L. Frey, Director, Records Management Division, Office of 
Business and Information Management, Office of the Chief 
Information Officer.
 
[FR Doc. 04-4357 Filed 2-26-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 6450-01-P

 
*****************************************************************
 50 DOE: Draft Site-Wide Environmental Impact Statement for Continued 
 
                         FR Doc 04-4358 
[Federal Register: February 27, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 39)] 
[Page 9311-9312] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access 
[wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr27fe04-47]                         
 
Operation of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and 
Supplemental Stockpile Stewardship and Management Programmatic 
Environmental Impact Statement AGENCY: Department of Energy 
(DOE), National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA).
 
ACTION: Notice of availability and public hearings.
 
SUMMARY: NNSA announces the availability of the Draft Site-wide 
Environmental Impact Statement for Continued Operation of 
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Supplemental Stockpile 
Stewardship and Management Programmatic Environmental Impact 
Statement (DOE/EIS- 0348 and DOE/EIS-0236-S3) (LLNL SW/SPEIS). 
The Draft LLNL SW/SPEIS was prepared in accordance with the 
Council on Environmental Quality's National Environmental Policy 
Act (NEPA) Implementing Regulations (40 CFR parts 1500-1508) and 
the DOE NEPA Implementing Procedures (10 CFR part 1021). The 
Draft LLNL SW/SPEIS analyzes the potential environmental impacts 
associated with continuing current Lawrence Livermore National 
Laboratory (LLNL) operations and foreseeable new and/or modified 
operations and facilities. The Draft LLNL SW/SPEIS analyzes a 
Proposed Action and two alternatives; the No Action Alternative 
and a Reduced Operation Alternative. The No Action Alternative 
would continue operation of current LLNL programs in support of 
currently assigned missions. The Proposed Action includes 
operations discussed under the No Action Alternative plus new 
and/or expanded LLNL operations in support of reasonably 
foreseeable future mission requirements. The Reduced Operation 
Alternative includes an overall reduction of LLNL activities 
below the No Action Alternative level. This Notice of 
Availability also sets forth the dates, times, and locations for 
public hearings on the Draft LLNL SW/SPEIS.
 
 
DATES: NNSA invites Federal agencies, State and local 
governments, Native American tribes, and the public to comment on 
the Draft LLNL SW/ SPEIS. The comment period extends from the 
publication of this Notice of Availability through May 27, 2004. 
Written comments must be submitted by May 27, 2004. Comments 
submitted after this date will be considered to the extent 
practicable. The NNSA will consider the comments in the 
preparation of the Final LLNL SW/SPEIS. Public hearings to 
present information and receive comments on the Draft LLNL 
SW/SPEIS will be held at three locations. This information will 
also be published in local California newspapers in advance of 
the hearings. Any necessary changes will be announced in the 
local media and on the web site noted in the ADDRESSES section of 
this notice. Oral and written comments will be accepted at the 
public hearings.
 
The locations, dates, and times for these public hearings are as 
follows: Tuesday, April 27, 2004 at 1 p.m. and 6 p.m., Livermore 
Double Tree Club Hotel, 720 Las Flores Road, Livermore, CA, (925) 
443-4950; Wednesday, April 28, 2004 at 1 p.m. and 6:30 p.m., 
Tracy Holiday Inn Express, 3751 N. Tracy Boulevard, Tracy, CA, 
(209) 830-8500; Friday, April 30, 2004 at 10 a.m., U.S. 
Department of Energy, 1000 Independence Ave, SW., Room 1E-245, 
Washington, DC (202) 586-3012.
 
The following Web site may be accessed for additional 
information: http://www-envirinfo.llnl.gov/. For information or 
instructions on how to record comments call 1-877-388-4930.
 
 
ADDRESSES: Send written comments on the Draft LLNL SW/SPEIS or 
requests for copies of the Draft LLNL SW/SPEIS to: Mr. Thomas 
Grim, Document Manager, National Nuclear Security Administration, 
Livermore Site Office, L-293, 7000 East Avenue, Livermore, CA 
94550-9234. Phone (925) 422-0704 or toll free 1-877-388-4930. 
Comments can be mailed to Mr. Grim at the address above, faxed to 
(925) 422-1776, or e-mailed to tom.grim@oak.doe.gov. Please mark 
correspondence ``Draft LLNL SW/SPEIS Comments''. The Draft LLNL 
SW/SPEIS will be available on the LLNL Environmental Community 
Relations Web site at http://www-envirinfo.llnl.gov/ .
 
A copy of the Draft LLNL SW/SPEIS will be available at several 
locations: The Livermore Public Library, 1000 South Livermore 
Avenue, Livermore California. The Tracy Public Library, 20 East 
Eaton Avenue, Tracy, CA. The LLNL Public Reading Room, LLNL 
Visitors Center, Building 6525, located at the East Gate Entrance 
off Greenville Road, Livermore, California (925) 424-4026. The 
NNSA Energy Information Center, eighth floor, north tower, 
Oakland Federal Building, 1301 Clay Street, Oakland, CA 94612 
(510) 637-1762. The DOE Freedom of Information Act Office and 
Reading Room, Room 1E-190, 1000 Independence Ave, SW., 
Washington, DC 20585 (202) 586-3142.
 
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For general information on the 
NNSA NEPA process, please contact: Ms. Janet Neville, NEPA 
Compliance Officer, U.S. Department of Energy, NNSA Service 
Center, 1301 Clay Street, 700N, Oakland, CA 94612-5208, (510) 
637-1813 or Mr.
 
James J. Mangeno, NNSA NEPA Compliance Officer, U.S. Department 
of Energy/NNSA, 1000 Independence Avenue, SW., Washington, DC 
20585; 1-202-586-8395. For general information on the DOE NEPA 
process, please contact: Ms. Carol M. Borgstrom, Director, Office 
of NEPA Policy and Compliance, EH- 42, U.S. Department of Energy, 
1000 Independence Avenue, SW., Washington, DC 20585, (202) 
586-4600, or leave a message at 1-800-472- 2756.
 
 
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The primary purpose and need for 
continued operation of LLNL is to provide support for the NNSA 
stockpile stewardship missions. LLNL is also needed to support 
other DOE programs and Federal agencies such as the Department of 
Defense, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Environmental Protection 
Agency, and the Department of Homeland Security. The Draft LLNL 
SW/SPEIS analyzes the environmental impacts of these operations.
 
LLNL was founded in September 1952 as a second nuclear weapons 
design laboratory to support design of our Nation's nuclear 
stockpile. LLNL consists of two sites: The Livermore Site located 
in Livermore, California in Alameda County, and Site 300 a 
high-explosives test site, located near Tracy, California, in San 
Joaquin and Alameda counties. The Livermore Site is the primary 
LLNL site and is located approximately 40 miles east of San 
Francisco in the Livermore Valley on the east side of the city of 
Livermore. Site 300 is located 12 miles southeast of
 
[[Page 9312]] the city of Livermore between Livermore and Tracy, 
California.
 
The alternatives evaluated in the Draft LLNL SW/SPEIS represent a 
range of operation from the minimum level that maintains core 
capabilities (Reduced Operation Alternative) to the highest 
reasonable activity levels that could be supported by current 
facilities, plus the potential expansion and construction of new 
facilities for specifically identified future actions (Proposed 
Action). The No Action Alternative would continue operation of 
current LLNL programs in support of assigned missions and 
includes approved interim actions and facility construction, 
expansion or modification, and decontamination and 
decommissioning for which NEPA analysis and documentation already 
exists. All alternatives assume LLNL will continue to operate as 
an NNSA national laboratory. However, the Reduced Operation 
Alternative includes an overall reduction of LLNL activities to a 
level that would prevent LLNL from accomplishing the full scope 
of the currently assigned NNSA Stockpile Stewardship Program 
missions. The Proposed Action includes operations discussed under 
the No Action Alternative plus new and/or expanded LLNL 
operations in support of future mission requirements.
 
Use of Proposed Materials on the National Ignition Facility 
Paragraph 6 of the Memorandum Opinion and Order issued by the 
U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on August 19, 
1998 in NRDC v. Pena, Civ. No. 97-936 (SS) (D.D.C.), provides 
that: No later than January 1, 2004, DOE shall (1) determine 
whether any or all experiments using plutonium, other fissile 
materials, fissionable materials other than depleted uranium (as 
discussed in the Supplement Analysis for the Use of Hazardous 
Materials in NIF experiments, A.R. doc. VII.A-12), lithium 
hydride, or a Neutron Multiplying Assembly (NEUMA), such as that 
described in the document entitled Nuclear Weapons Effects Test 
Facilitization of the National Ignition Facility (A.R. doc. 
VII.A-4) shall be conducted in the NIF, or (2) prepare a 
Supplemental SSM PEIS, in accordance with DOE NEPA regulation 10 
CFR Sec.  1021.314, analyzing the reasonably foreseeable 
environmental impact of such experiments.
 
In November 2002, the NNSA proposed experiments on the National 
Ignition Facility (NIF) using plutonium, other fissile materials, 
fissionable materials, and lithium hydride. The Draft LLNL 
SW/SPEIS analyzes the reasonably foreseeable environmental 
impacts of these experiments. There is no NNSA proposal to use a 
NEUMA. In the Record of Decision, NNSA will address decisions on 
the use of any or all of these proposed materials in NIF 
experiments within the context of continuing LLNL operations.
 
After the end of the public comment period which ends on May 27, 
2004, the NNSA will consider and respond to the comments 
received, revise the Draft LLNL SW/SPEIS as appropriate, and 
issue the Final LLNL SW/SPIES. The NNSA will consider the 
analysis in the Final LLNL SW/ SPEIS, along with other 
information, in making a decision on the operation of the LLNL.
 
Issued in Washington, DC, this 30th day of January 2004.
 
Linton F. Brooks, Administrator, National Nuclear Security 
Administration.
 
[FR Doc. 04-4358 Filed 2-26-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 6450-01-P

 
*****************************************************************
 51 DOE: Worker Safety and Health Program; Suspension of Rulemaking

[Docket No. EH-RM-03-WSH]
 
                         FR Doc 04-4359 
[Federal Register: February 27, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 39)] 
[Page 9277] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access 
[wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr27fe04-22]                         
 
RIN 1901-AA99

 
AGENCY: Department of Energy (DOE).
 
ACTION: Proposed rule; notice of suspension.
 
SUMMARY: DOE today gives notice of the suspension of a rulemaking 
under the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 to promulgate worker health 
and safety regulations for DOE workplaces and procedures for the 
assessment of civil penalties for violations of standards under 
those regulations. Since DOE published its notice of proposed 
rulemaking on December 8, 2003 (68 FR 68276), DOE has become 
aware that the Defense Facilities Nuclear Safety Board (DFNSB), 
which has safety oversight responsibility with regard to DOE 
nuclear facilities, has concerns with regard to the proposed 
regulations. The purpose of today's notice of suspension is to 
allow time for DOE to consult with the DFNSB in order to resolve 
its concerns. DOE also will consider the concerns of other 
interested stakeholders as appropriate. Consistent with past 
practice, if DOE receives any significant communications from 
these other interested stakeholders yielding information not 
already in the comments that DOE has received, it will add those 
communications (or in the case of significant oral exchanges, 
memoranda summarizing those exchanges) to the public comment file 
in the DOE Freedom of Information Reading Room. The suspension 
will continue pending further notice by DOE.
 
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Jacqueline D. Rogers, U.S. 
Department of Energy, 1000 Independence Avenue, SW., Washington, 
DC 20585-0270, 301-903-5684, e-mail, jackie.rogers@hq.doe.gov. 
Issued in Washington, DC on February 23, 2004.
 
Beverly Cook, Assistant Secretary, Environment, Safety and 
Health.
 
[FR Doc. 04-4359 Filed 2-26-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 6450-01-P

 
*****************************************************************
 52 Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Hanford inquiry promised
 	 	 	 	 	 
  [seattlepi.com]     

Friday, February 27, 2004 

 Energy secretary to examine actions of medical contractor 
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON -- Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham vowed yesterday to 
"aggressively" investigate alleged misconduct by a private 
contractor that monitors and provides health care to workers at 
the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. 

"We certainly intend to conduct the investigation independently 
and aggressively, and we will take aggressive action if it is 
called for," Abraham told The Associated Press. 

Abraham's comments came after he testified yesterday before a 
House Appropriations subcommittee. 

Abraham told the panel the Energy Department is investigating 
allegations of fraud, supervisor misconduct and medical-records 
mismanagement at the Hanford Environmental Health Foundation, a 
non-profit DOE contractor that provides medical services to 
thousands of federal and contract employees at the nuclear site. 

Under questioning from Rep. George Nethercutt, R-Wash., Abraham 
said investigators are reviewing not only how workers were cared 
for, but how records were maintained and cases filed. 

A report by a government watchdog group said workers cleaning up 
nuclear waste at the long-contaminated site were denied adequate 
safety equipment, and that workers who reported problems were 
often told by Hanford doctors that they were suffering from 
allergies or even psychological fears. 

The investigation by the Energy Department's Office of 
Independent Oversight and Safety Assurance will go back at least 
until early 2002 and may go back even further if necessary, 
Abraham said. 

The investigation follows several inquiries in recent months into 
whether Hanford workers have been harmed by vapors from 177 
underground tanks that hold about 53 million gallons of 
radioactive waste. 

Allegations of misconduct by the environmental health foundation 
include violation of patients' medical privacy rights, employee 
harassment and mismanagement of employee medical care. 

The foundation, which has provided medical services at Hanford 
since 1965, has denied the allegations. Independent 
investigations last fall concluded the claims were false, the 
foundation said this week. 

Abraham, in his testimony, noted that the foundation recently 
lost out in a competitive bid process and will soon be replaced. 

The Energy Department's Richland office began reviewing the 
health foundation's work in September, after the non-profit 
Government Accountability Project asked the inspector general to 
investigate. Earlier that month, the watchdog group published a 
report contending toxic vapors escaping from the waste-storage 
tanks had hurt workers. 

While the federal review was initiated because of concerns about 
the tanks, it is being expanded because of the new allegations, 
Abraham said. 

Some of the underground tanks date back to World War II and have 
leaked into the groundwater.                 

  [Seattle Post-Intelligencer] 101 Elliott Ave. W. Seattle, WA 
98119 (206) 448-8000
 
 Send comments to newmedia@seattlepi.com ©1996-2004 Seattle 
Post-Intelligencer Terms of Service/Privacy Policy 
*****************************************************************
 53 Tri-City Herald: Top HEHF doctor cautious on claims 

This story was published Friday, February 27th, 2004 

By John Stang Herald staff writer 

Hanford's lead medical doctor warned his staff in 2000 that 
encouraging workers to file worker compensation claims could lead 
to their employer losing its contract at the nuclear site. 

Fluor Hanford and Bechtel Hanford were unhappy with Hanford 
Environmental Health Foundation staff members for encouraging 
workers to file claims, according to an Aug. 3, 2000, e-mail that 
Dr. Larry Smick, now HEHF acting medical director, sent to "all 
(HEHF) medical providers/nurses." 

"Several instances have been brought to my attention of providers 
actually encouraging workers to file stress claims, and the 
outrage of two of the major contractors that was reflected back 
to my office was swift," his e-mail said. "We could be invited 
off the site when our contract comes up for rebid if that 
behavior continues." 

Smick identified the two contractors as Bechtel Hanford and Fluor 
Hanford. 

"Due to the sword hanging over (Fluor Hanford's) head, please do 
not encourage workers to file workers' compensation claims," he 
added. "You can, and we must by law, state that they have the 
right to do so, but please, no frank encouragement, as you must 
remain neutral." 

That "sword" was a Fluor Corp. requirement that its subsidiary 
Fluor Hanford not exceed more than one "recordable injury" for 
every 200,000 hours worked at Hanford. Smick thought that 
standard was unfair. 

In fiscal 2004, Fluor Hanford posted 0.74 recordable injury cases 
for every 200,000 hours worked. A comparable Bechtel figure was 
not available Thursday. 

Fluor and Bechtel declined Thursday to comment on Smick's e-mail, 
citing a DOE investigation into allegations of HEHF mismanaging 
medical care. 

HEHF, a Hanford prime contractor, has been in charge of worker 
health matters since 1965. But in January, it lost a bid to renew 
that contract and is appealing DOE's decision to award the 
contract to another firm. 

HEHF declined to comment Thursday on Smick's e-mail, and it 
declined to make him available for an interview. 

A Hanford watchdog group, the Government Accountability Project, 
released a copy of the e-mail Thursday. 

For more than a year, GAP has investigated worker complaints 
about exposure to vapors emitted by Hanford's underground 
radioactive waste tanks. 

"The lack of external oversight means that Hanford contractors 
are able to ostensibly address chemical vapor and worker health 
problems without really making any significant changes," said Tom 
Carpenter, an attorney with GAP. 

GAP's probe has prompted the state and DOE to look into the 
matter, which now has blossomed into accusations of HEHF altering 
medical records to appease the contractors. 

The e-mail released by GAP reinforced a Thursday Washington Post 
story that raised questions about HEHF's practices. 

Smick's e-mail also said Hanford has "likely the most 
safety-minded work culture personally observed in my 15 years in 
occupational medicine experience." 

And he said that many recordable injuries were pre-existing 
health conditions aggravated over time by work activities, some 
of which could be minor. 

Hanford workers, on average, are in their late 40s. 

Smick noted worker health programs were ramping up at the time, 
but Hanford could not enforce fitness and health programs in the 
same way as the military. 

The emerging picture of HEHF's practices bothers retired Lockheed 
Martin Hanford engineer Fred Buck of Kennewick. Lockheed's work 
now is done by CH2M Hill Hanford Group. 

Buck said he developed carpal tunnel syndrome in his right hand 
in the mid-1990s from extensive use of a computer mouse. He went 
to HEHF to be checked out and to obtain paperwork that his boss 
needed to get Buck an ergonomically better mouse. 

In the late 1990s, Buck said he tried to get that paperwork from 
HEHF so he could get workers' compensation money to pay for an 
operation to fix his carpal tunnel. HEHF had no such records, 
which puzzled Buck because he obtained HEHF approval to get 
Lockheed to replace his mouse. 

"It was their word against mine," he said. 

Consequently, Buck had to pay the few thousand dollars for his 
operation out of his own pocket. 

The Washington Post story, which ran in Thursday's Tri-City 
Herald, caused Buck to wonder: "Maybe I wasn't alone (in not 
finding records at HEHF)." 

On Tuesday, DOE announced it has stepped up investigating 
allegations about HEHF and tank farm safety situation. HEHF has 
denied the accusations against it since that announcement, but 
HEHF President Lee Ashjian was not available Thursday for comment 
on Smick's e-mail. 

Last week, Washington's Attorney General's Office also voiced 
concerns and said the state will investigate as well. 

Smick has had three complaints filed against him with 
Washington's Department of Health since 1989. 

The 1989 complaint was declared closed with all information on it 
since purged from state records because seven years is the 
regulatory maximum for retaining such documents. An investigation 
into a 1996 complaint concluded Smick committed no legal 
violations, with the details also purged. 

There is one open complaint against Smick. But state health 
department policy forbids it from commenting on open complaints, 
including on when the complaints were filed. 

Tim Church, state health department spokesman, said no formal 
timetable exists for conducting such investigations, because such 
probes depend on the complexity of each case. 

Also on Thursday: 

n Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham told a subcommittee of the 
U.S. House's Appropriations Committee about DOE's probe into 
HEHF's practices. 

n U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., requested that Sen. Pete 
Domenici, R-N.M., chairman of the Senate's Energy and Natural 
Resources Committee, hold a hearing on worker safety at all DOE 
sites, citing Hanford as a symptom for concern. 

© 2004 Tri-City Herald, Associated Press &Other Wire Services
*****************************************************************
 54 Ohio News Network: Davis-Besse Agrees to Intensive Inspections                                                                                                                                                                                                
 
Oak Harbor                              

February 27, 2004

The operator of the closed Davis-Besse nuclear power plant has 
agreed to intensive inspections by outside contractors for five 
years in hopes it will clear the way for the reactor to get back 
on line.
                                
 Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokeswoman Viktoria Mitlyng says 
the agency felt the additional oversight was needed to make sure 
plant performance continues to improve.
                                
    FirstEnergy's decision to accept the requirement does not 
guarantee that the NRC will allow it to restart the plant along 
Lake Erie east of Toledo.
                                 
FirstEnergy has asked for permission to restart the plant, which 
has remained closed since February 2002 after it was discovered 
that corrosion had nearly eaten through a six-inch-thick steel 
cap covering the plant's reactor vessel.
                                
  © Associated Press and Dispatch Productions, Inc., 2004. All 
Dispatch Broadcast Group
*****************************************************************
 55 Las Vegas SUN: Audit Released on Uranium Processing Plant

Today: February 27, 2004 at 3:15:29 PST 

 By DUNCAN MANSFIELD ASSOCIATED PRESS 

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - The restart of bomb-grade uranium 
processing at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant in Oak Ridge is five 
years overdue and about $300 million over budget, according to an 
internal audit. 

Since Y-12 is the only facility in the United States capable of 
recovering and purifying highly enriched uranium for warheads, 
the delay may have greater significance than the cost. 

"As a result, the enriched uranium operations necessary for 
national security are not available to meet future mission 
needs," said the Energy Department's inspector general's office. 
The audit was released Thursday. 

Y-12 also is the country's primary storehouse for weapons-grade 
uranium. The delay in processing is causing a buildup of 
salvageable material that is placing enormous pressure on its 
storage facilities, the inspector general added. 

The National Nuclear Security Administration, the semiautonomous 
agency within the Energy Department that oversees the nuclear 
weapons program, blamed the delays on Y-12's previous managing 
contractor. 

A new contractor has gotten the program back on track, said 
Michael Kane, the NNSA's associate administrator for management 
and administration. BWXT, a partnership of BWX Technologies and 
Bechtel National, assumed Y-12's management contract in 2000. 

Y-12's uranium processing operation was shuttered in 1994 after 
an accidental release of hydrogen fluoride raised safety 
concerns. The original estimate was to restart the program by 
December 1998 at a cost of $119 million. 

Some processes within the program have been restored, but the 
inspector general's report said full operation may be at least 
three years away. 

-- 


 
*****************************************************************
 56 Google News Alert - nuclear
 
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2004 13:33:39 -0800 (PST)

 
COURT denies Riverkeeper appeal seeking nuclear plants' shutdown
Newsday - Long Island,NY,USA
NEW YORK, NY (AP) _ A federal court has denied an environmental group's
appeal to override the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and require the Indian
Point ...
<http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/ny-bc-ny--indianpoint0227feb27,0,5383342.story?coll=ny-ap-regional-wire>
See all stories on this topic:
<http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&client=google&num=30&newsclusterurl=http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/ny-bc-ny--indianpoint0227feb27,0,5383342.story%3Fcoll%3Dny-ap-regional-wire>

SIX-NATION Nuclear Talks to End Saturday
ABC News - USA
27 — Another round of six-nation talks on North Korea's nuclear weapons
program will end Saturday without achieving a significant breakthrough,
but delegates ...
<http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/ap20040227_994.html>
See all stories on this topic:
<http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&client=google&num=30&newsclusterurl=http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/ap20040227_994.html>

NUCLEAR Insecurities
Times of India - India
... of East-West Center, Washington DC, is a leading security expert on
Asia who has been tracking the fallout of the recent disclosures about
Pakis- tani nuclear ...
<http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/522085.cms>
See all stories on this topic:
<http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&client=google&num=30&newsclusterurl=http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/522085.cms>

ENERGY cooperation, one key to Korean nuclear issue: expert
Xinhua - China
They said the talks were constructive and provided an unprecedented opportunity
for the peaceful resolution of Korean nuclear issue. ...
<http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2004-02/27/content_1336102.htm>
See all stories on this topic:
<http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&client=google&num=30&newsclusterurl=http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2004-02/27/content_1336102.htm>

NUCLEAR talks hampered by NKorea's claim to "peaceful" programme ... 
SpaceDaily - USA
North Korea's insistence on its right to nuclear development for "peaceful
purposes" remains a bone of contention at six-nation talks on the country's
nuclear ...
<http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040227145333.puhy273l.html>
See all stories on this topic:
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NUCLEAR-FREE world a must to ensure world peace
Hi Pakistan - Lahore,Pakistan
ISLAMABAD – A nuclear-free world is imperative to ensure sustainable
peace and all nations would have to play their role in this regard, said
Minister for ...
<http://www.hipakistan.com/en/detail.php?newsId=en55598&F_catID=&f_type=source>
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CALL for criminalising nuclear proliferation
Daily Times - Pakistan
By Khalid Hasan. WASHINGTON: An American academic working on the legal
aspects of proliferation has suggested that nuclear proliferation be “criminalised”.
...
<http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_27-2-2004_pg7_42>
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<http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&client=google&num=30&newsclusterurl=http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp%3Fpage%3Dstory_27-2-2004_pg7_42>

COUNTY OKs permit to expand nuclear fuel storage
Lompoc Record - Lompoc,CA,USA
... Electric Co. to construct seven above-ground concrete storage pads
that will house Diablo Nuclear Power Plant's spent fuel rods. With ...
<http://www.lompocrecord.com/articles/2004/02/27/news/news17.txt>

N Korea nuclear summit extended
BBC News - London,England,UK
Six-nations talks aimed at resolving a crisis over North Korea's nuclear
programme will continue for an extra day, officials have said. ...
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3491814.stm>
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PAKISTANI lab "showed nuclear wares at arms fair"
Reuters - India
VIENNA (Reuters) - The Pakistani scientist at the centre of a black market
in nuclear weapons was able to display sensitive equipment and brochures
for atom ...
<http://www.reuters.com/locales/newsArticle.jsp;:403f2319:9b7c0599131ec89?type=worldNews&locale=en_IN&storyID=4453721>

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 57 BW: Fusion technology can end world reliance on fossil fuels

    Fusion technology can end world reliance on fossil fuels 
fusion technology can end world reliance on fossil fuels, 
environmental services news, ukaea culham"> Fusion technology can 
end world reliance on fossil fuels. An East of England research 
organisation has received the largest grant ever awarded by the 
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) for 
its work on green nuclear energy. "> + 


  [Business Weekly]   

28 February 2004     


By Business Weekly, 27 February 2004, viewed 118 times
  
An East of England research organisation has received the largest 
grant ever awarded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences 
Research Council (EPSRC) for its work on green nuclear energy. 

An East of England research organisation has received the largest 
grant ever awarded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences 
Research Council (EPSRC) for its work on green nuclear energy. 

The grant of £48M will fund the UKAEA Culham in Abingdon’s fusion 
research programme for a period of four years. 

UKAEA Culham is one of the world’s leading centres for fusion 
research, where scientists and engineers reproduce conditions in 
the sun and stars in a bid to create a new source of energy that 
is safe and environmentally benign. 

Prof Sir Chris Llewellyn Smith, director of UKAEA Culham, said: 
“It is essential that we have a wide range of energy options to 
meet the needs of our 21st century world with less reliance on 
fossil fuels. 

“Fusion has a key role to play alongside renewable sources of 
energy. The UK government and EPSRC have recognised this and this 
grant is a great vote of confidence in the UK’s own contribution 
to establishing fusion power.”

 In a fusion reaction, energy is produced when light atoms are 
fused together to form heavier atoms. This process takes place in 
the Sun and stars.

 To utilise fusion reactions as an energy source it is necessary 
to heat a gaseous fuel to temperatures in excess of 100 million 
degrees – several times hotter than the centre of the Sun. At 
these temperatures, the gas becomes a plasma.

 Under these conditions, the plasma particles, deuterium and 
tritium, fuse together to form helium and high speed neutrons, 
releasing significant amounts of energy. 

A commercial power station will use the energy carried by the 
neutrons to heat a blanket surrounding the plasma. This would be 
used to generate electricity.

 The plasma must be kept away from material surfaces to avoid it 
being cooled and contaminated; magnetic fields are used for this 
purpose. 

The most promising magnetic confinement systems are toroidal 
(doughnut shaped) and the most advanced is called the Tokamak. 
JET is the largest Tokamak in the world.

 The fuels used are virtually inexhaustible. Deuterium and 
tritium are both isotopes of hydrogen. 

Deuterium is extracted from water and in a fusion power station 
tritium would be generated from the neutrons reacting with the 
light metal, lithium, which is found all over the world.

 One kilogram of fusion fuel produces the same amount of energy 
as 10,000,000 kilograms of fossil fuel.

 The research programme is designed to provide vital data for the 
construction of the world’s first commercial fusion power 
station, known as ITER – possibly in France or Japan – and 
safeguard the UK’s position as a leading player in the technology 
area. 

ITER should provide a full scientific demonstration of the 
feasibility of fusion in power plant-like conditions. It would 
then be followed by a demonstration fusion power station. 

The choice of a site for ITER should be made in 2004. Bids from 
France and Japan to host the 4.5 billion Euro project are 
currently under consideration.

 Energy demands will increase even more dramatically over the 
next 50 years as the developing world comes to expect the same 
standard of living as the industrialised countries. 

The Kyoto protocol focused the world’s attention to the dangers 
of global warming from the unrestrained use of fossil fuels. 
Along with renewable sources nuclear fusion will be an important 
long-term energy source. 

Fusion will provide safe and environmentally friendly energy with 
the advantages of: -

 • No atmospheric pollution: the fusion reaction produces helium 
which is an inert gas; no greenhouse gas is produced

 • Abundant fuels

 • No long-lived radioactive waste

 • An inherently safe system: even the worst conceivable accident 
would not require evacuation of the surrounding population 

Business NewsWatch Options   

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