***************************************************************** 04/11/04 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 12.87 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** Send News Stories to news@energy-net.org with title on subject line and first line of body NUCLEAR POLICY 1 Haaretz: Ya'alon believes Iraqi WMD will be found 2 NYT: FIRST CHAPTER 'Disarming Iraq' By HANS BLIX 3 US: azcentral Republic: Officials explore energy issue 4 US: DallasNews.com: Oppenheimer's humiliation still haunts science 5 du-list: Statement from the Depleted Uranium Center Japan] 6 du-list: 3 Japanese to Be Freed 7 Bellona: Igor Sutyagin hit with 15-year hard labour sentence —FSB sa 8 WorldNetDaily: It's the Pakistanis, stupid! 9 Toronto Star: Pakistan's dirty nuclear secret 10 Daily Times: EDITORIAL: A US nuclear device to India on a platter? 11 BulletinWire News: Dzerzhinsky would be pleased 12 Middle East Newsline: U.S. URGED TO SHUT DOWN ALGERIA, EGYPT NUKES NUCLEAR REACTORS 13 Nuke Power Matastisizing In Asia 14 China To Build Up To 32 N-Reactors As Cheney Pitches Westinghouse 15 NukeNet: China To Build Up To 32 N-Reactors As Cheney Pitches 16 Bellona: Russia offers India floating nuclear power plants 17 US: azcentral Republic: Nuclear aging 18 US: YDR: NRC still watching Peach Bottom - 19 Reuters: Suppliers Readying for Asia Nuclear Power 20 US: St. Petersburg Times: Progress Energy, NRC staff to meet 21 Guardian Unlimited: Ukrainian Nuclear Reactors Shut Down 22 US: TCPalm: Union says nuclear plant security is lax around state NUCLEAR SAFETY 23 [DU-WATCH] Crimes in Iraq - Lest We Forget 13 years of 24 US: [DU-WATCH] US Whitewashes Warthogs Killing Marines 25 [du-list] Article: Dutch military in Iraq delays troop 26 [du-list] Sick guard members blame depleted uranium 27 Bellona: Nuclear and radiation safety remained normal in March 2004 28 Pioneer Press: The young liquidators 29 Calgary Herald: Health woes plague nuclear site NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 30 US: ABC News 4 Charleston: State Utilities Point The Finger At DOE 31 US: The Sun: Scana, Santee Cooper sue DOE over nuclear waste agreeme 32 US: NYT: In Reversal, U.S. Proposes to Remove Atom Waste 33 US: ITAR-TASS: Atomic agency chief to hold conferences in Krasnoyars 34 Reid: Reid And Ensign Demand Nevadans Have Time To Comment On Propos 35 ThisisLondon: Babcock chief to sort out BNFL NUCLEAR WEAPONS 36 US: Las Vegas SUN: Hawaiian Bomb Test Island Begins to Heal 37 BBC: 'Why I'm back to ban the 38 BBC: Final day of nuclear protest walk US DEPT. OF ENERGY 39 Island Packet Online: Contract doesn't target all SRS threats 40 Tri-City Herald: Energy Northwest begins work force cuts 41 AP Wire: South Carolina utilities sue DOE on nuclear fuel, waste 42 LA Times: Leung Indictment Is Too Vague, U.S. Judge Rules 43 KPVI: BONUS OFFERED FOR EARLY CLEANUP 44 Tri-Valley Herald: Nuclear labs up for grabs OTHER NUCLEAR 45 Google News Alert - nuclear 46 [DU-WATCH] US Weaponization of Space 47 Google News Alert - nuclear 48 [du-list] DU in the news - 11th April 04 ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 Haaretz: Ya'alon believes Iraqi WMD will be found News Updates Sun., April 11, 2004 Nisan 20, 5764 Israel By Amos Harel, Haaretz Correspondent Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Moshe Ya'alon still believes weapons of mass destruction will be found in Iraq. However, he said Israeli intelligence "always spoke of a capability, of small amounts," and not something greater. "When we heard inaccurate statements by the British and the Americans," Ya'alon told Channel Two's program Meet the Press on Saturday, "we made them aware of this, before the war. They said something on the nuclear subject and we made it clear to them that according to our information, this was not correct." Ya'alon said American actions in Iraq "serve the forces of moderation in the region and have a positive effect for us." He said the U.S. presence threatens extreme elements in the region, which are organizing resistance to make the Americans fail. "It is in our interest that the Americans succeed," Ya'alon said. "The U.S. comes with the message that those who want to be connected to the global village, to abundance, must accept certain values, among them, that they must be accountable for their actions, " Ya'alon said the Americans would will face "a hot summer" in Iraq "from all sorts of directions... even if there is a change in the American government, I don't see them leaving Iraq so quickly." Commenting on the East Jerusalem man kidnapped on Wednesday in Iraq, Ya'alon said, "Israel should not be at the forefront of this case unless we are asked to be." On the prime minister's Gaza disengagement plan, Ya'alon said: "It is obvious that even after disengagement we will operate against any place that threatens us, whether it is Lebanon, Syria, the Gaza Strip, or Nablus." Ya'alon added that the terror organizations will try to create the impression that "their opposition removed us from the Gaza Strip." IDF Chief of Staff Moshe Ya'alon: U.S. forces in Iraq serve the forces of moderation in the region. © Copyright Haaretz. All rights reserved ***************************************************************** 2 NYT: FIRST CHAPTER 'Disarming Iraq' By HANS BLIX Published: April 11, 2004 n the afternoon of Sunday, March 16, 2003, I was in my office on the thirty-first floor of the United Nations Secretariat building in New York, the headquarters of the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission for Iraq (UNMOVIC). Some of my close collaborators had joined me to put the final touches on a work program I was to submit to the Security Council. Advertisement When our commission was established by a Security Council resolution in December 1999, the Council had recognized that there might still be weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq, despite the fact that a great deal of disarmament had been accomplished through UN inspections after the end of the Gulf War in 1991. In November 2002, a new round of inspections had been initiated to identify key remaining tasks in the disarming of Iraq. Although the inspection organization was now operating at full strength and Iraq seemed as determined to give it prompt access everywhere, the United States appeared determined to replace our inspection force with an invasion army. After the terror attacks on New York and Washington on September 11, 2001, a policy of containment-keeping Saddam Hussein in his box-and ensuring the disarmament of Iraq through UN inspections was deemed no longer acceptable. The people around me were all solid professionals coming from different parts of the world. There was Dimitri Perricos, probably the world's most experienced inspector. A Greek and by profession a chemist, he had more than twenty years of experience with international nuclear inspections-in Iraq, North Korea, South Africa and many other places. He was the head of operations. Muttusamy Sanmuganathan, known to all as Sam, was from Sri Lanka. Both Dimitri and Sam had worked closely with me for many years in Vienna, when I was the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Ewen Buchanan, a Scot, was our manager of media relations and institutional memory. For years he had been a political expert and the spokesman of the previous inspection authority, the UN Special Commission (UNSCOM). There was Torkel Stiernl”f, who had been stationed in Baghdad and knew Arabic. He was about to return to his job at the foreign ministry in Stockholm after six intense months as my executive assistant. Lastly, there was Torkel's successor, Olof Skoog, an ambassador at the early age of 35 and on loan to me. The military invasion of Iraq was all but announced and here we were at the UN sketching a peaceful way to try to ensure the country's disarmament! The military force, whose buildup had begun in the summer of 2002 and had been an essential reason why Iraq had accepted the inspectors back, had reached invasion strength and was now waiting to be deployed. In the Security Council, all efforts to reach agreement on what might be demanded of Iraq in the next few weeks had collapsed. Proposals had been made by the British that Saddam Hussein should go before Iraqi television and declare his determination to disarm and to cooperate fully with the inspectors. The declaration would be accompanied by Iraq's fulfillment of a number of specific disarmament tasks within a very short time-perhaps ten days. (The approach had some similarity to the British efforts which ten months later would prompt Libya's leader, Colonel Muammar Qaddafi, to declare that Libya was stopping all efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction and would open up for thorough inspection.) The U.S./UK would consider themselves authorized to take armed action against Iraq if they determined that Iraq was in non-fulfillment of the demands. While the guidelines in the December 1999 UNMOVIC resolution were perfectly valid and called for a work program covering a first period of 120 days of inspections, the U.S., the UK and Spain had been taking their cues from Security Council Resolution 1441, adopted on November 8, 2002. In their reading, this resolution gave Iraq only a limited time and a last opportunity to cooperate to attain disarmament or else face "serious consequences." That limited time, in their view, had now expired. Others in the Security Council thought the process of inspections required more time. They were not ready, at this stage, to authorize "serious consequences"-armed action. Most member states of the Council were of the view that such a decision was for the Council collectively, not for individual members, as the U.S. and the UK insisted. On this Sunday, U.S. president George W. Bush, British prime minister Tony Blair and Spanish prime minister Jose Maria Aznar Lopez had met for an hour on the Azores islands in the middle of the Atlantic and, for the record, made a last appeal to reluctant members of the Security Council to go along with the draft resolution on Iraq. Blair had stressed that they had gone an extra mile for peace, but Bush seemed already to be describing the blessings that would follow from armed action. Most observers felt the war was now a certainty-and, indeed, it came. Although I thought the probability was very high, I was also, even at this very late date, aware that unexpected things can happen. I remembered how, in July 1991, after confrontations, the Iraqis had sent the IAEA a note admitting that they had tried several methods of enriching uranium. In October 1998, Kofi Annan, the secretary general of the United Nations, had secured an important concession from Iraq, prompting U.S. president Bill Clinton to call back bombers that had been sent to punish Iraq for its lack of cooperation. If, in the current situation, Saddam Hussein had made the kind of dramatic speech the British suggested, and offered quickly to solve a number of issues, there might well have been a suspension of the marching and flying orders and, instead, intensified inspections. Saddam did make a speech on his son's television channel, but it was not the dramatic gesture that the situation called for. In it, he noted that Iraq had had weapons of mass destruction in the past, but that it had none now. As we were sitting around the table in my office, the telephone rang. It was Assistant Secretary of State John Wolf in Washington, calling to advise me that it was time to withdraw our inspectors from Iraq. No further notice would be issued and expeditious action was suggested. Preparations for the Withdrawal of Inspectors We had been preparing for this situation since the end of February, and in the previous few weeks had deliberately decreased the total number of our staff in Iraq. The chartered helicopters had already been removed by their owners. We had one airplane sitting in Baghdad and another was chartered to enable us to assist the UN by airlifting staff dealing with humanitarian assistance. Jeeps and buses for land transport would also be available, if this were to prove necessary. It was now around 3 p.m. this Sunday in New York, and 11 p.m. in Baghdad. If Dr. Miroslav Gregovic, the head of our mission in Baghdad, were instructed immediately, the first planeload of staff would leave Baghdad the following morning. I was anxious to bring the people for whom I was responsibile to security as soon as possible. However, I was not the only one with responsibility. As secretary general, Kofi Annan had the highest managerial responsibility for all UN staff in Iraq. My colleague Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the IAEA, was responsible for the nuclear inspectors in Baghdad. I phoned both. Mohamed did not want to hasten the process. He was anxious that the withdrawal should not look like a retreat. Although the secretary general did not need permission from the Security Council to issue an order of withdrawal, he wanted to inform the Council before he gave the instruction. He decided that he would do so at a meeting the Council was scheduled to hold on Monday morning. This meant that the withdrawal could not take place until Tuesday morning. I was not happy about the delay, but I assumed Kofi had reasons to be confident that this delay did not increase the risks. Security Council, March 17: Resolution Authorizing War Withdrawn from Vote Our inspectors in Iraq continued to work on Monday, March 17. They supervised the destruction of two Al Samoud 2 missiles, bringing the total number destroyed to seventy-two. They conducted a private interview with a biological scientist, bringing the total number of such private interviews to eleven. Inspection teams visited a dairy factory 140 kilometers north of Baghdad and two sites northwest of Baghdad. I worried about the risk of any hitches in the arrangements for their withdrawal on Tuesday morning. We had earlier received assurances from the Iraqi side, but I remembered that, in 1990, hostages had been taken. The Security Council met at 10 a.m. To my dismay, Kofi Annan did not announce the withdrawal of UN staff from Iraq. It was already 6 p.m. in Baghdad and every hour's delay in issuing instructions from New York would make the preparations for departure more difficult. The tone in the Council was not combative or acrimonious. The struggle was over. The path of inspection had been blocked by the U.S., the UK and Spain, and a resolution implicitly blessing armed intervention had been blocked by the majority of states in the Security Council. The Azores meeting and all the working of telephones during the weekend had not brought any change in the positions of governments. The UK said that the draft resolution, which it had sponsored in the Council, would not be put to a vote. This was a tacit admission that it could not have passed. If the resolution had been submitted to a vote and rejected, the negative vote would have further undermined the doubtful claim by the sponsors that earlier resolutions by the Council authorized them to use armed force if and when they deemed that Iraq was in non-fulfillment. Even though the UK and the U.S. pointed to the threat of a veto from France as the reason for this debacle-ignoring the possibility that China and Russia might have joined France-a majority of the Council had, in fact if not in form, refused to legitimize armed action. The UK persisted in stating that although the chances for a peaceful solution were now slim, Saddam could still take action to save the situation. The U.S. confirmed the advice that the UN should take expeditious action to withdraw staff. France declared its opposition to any resolution that would authorize force and rejected the view that individual members could use armed force without Council authorization. France wanted UNMOVIC to present its work program for inspections and suggested the Council meet-perhaps at ministerial level, as Russia had urged-on Wednesday to approve the program. A time line should be set after which the Council would evaluate the results of the inspections. Mexico said there was at the time no justification for the use of force in Iraq. Angola said it had lived with war and insisted on the need to exhaust all peaceful means. War Justified by Iraq's Failure to Disarm; Moment of Truth Expected In a televised speech on the evening of Monday, March 17, President Bush issued an ultimatum to Saddam Hussein to leave Iraq with his family within forty-eight hours. Vice President Dick Cheney said that an offer by Iraq to disarm was no longer an option. Referring to Saddam Hussein, he said, "We believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons." His declaration was as firm as it was unfounded. Secretary of State Colin Powell was more nuanced. At a press conference on March 17, he said the U.S. had become concerned about Iraq's sincerity shortly after the adoption of the new resolution in November 2002. The 12,000-page declaration Iraq had submitted a month later had, he stated, been an incomplete and untruthful rendering of their weapons programs. The U.S. had cooperated loyally with and assisted the inspectors. Despite some improvements, Iraq had not, however, provided the kind of cooperation demanded. The resolution which the U.S., the UK and Spain had now decided not to put to the vote would have given Iraq yet another last opportunity, but it had been blocked by France's threatened veto. So, although the UN would remain an important institution, the Security Council, in this case, had not met the test. Perhaps it was convenient to blame the diplomatic failure on France, but it was evident that a majority of the members of the Council were against armed action at this juncture, though none of the states had excluded agreement on it at a subsequent stage. It is an interesting notion that when a small minority has been rebuffed by a strong majority, it is the majority that has failed the test. There was no reference in Colin Powell's statement to the U.S. asserting a right to strike preemptively against Iraq. Instead, his legal justification given for the armed action was the same as that claimed by the UK: namely, that Iraq had not fulfilled its obligations under binding Security Council resolutions to disarm and that this entitled individual members of the Council to take action without the need for any collective decision by the Council. With an expression used also by other U.S. spokesmen, Powell declared that the window on diplomacy was closing and that the "moment of truth" was arriving. Armed action, indeed, stands in contrast to diplomacy-but it does not necessarily stand for truth. There might be more to the saying "The first casualty in war is truth." Nor do I find it appropriate to make diplomacy the opposite of truth-to project it as lies or illusion. Diplomacy will often use language that understates the divergence of positions so as to minimize the gaps that have to be bridged and make reconciliation less difficult, but lying is not a part of diplomacy-at least not of good diplomacy. The most important truth that U.S. spokesmen had in mind and expected to be revealed through the war was undoubtedly the existence of stocks of biological and chemical weapons and other prohibited items, and the people and programs related to them. Withdrawal of UN Staff and Submission of Work Program to the Council On Tuesday, March 18, Dimitri Perricos phoned at 7 a.m. and told me that our first plane from Baghdad had arrived in Cyprus and that the second was due a little later. All had gone well! They had even been able to take along sensitive equipment. The Iraqis had been most helpful throughout the operation. What a relief! Our inspectors would now stay in Larnaca for some days before being released to go back to their home countries. As they remained formally in our service until their contracts expired, they would still be available in the rather unlikely case that UNMOVIC would be asked to perform some verification function during the coming occupation. ***************************************************************** 3 azcentral Republic: Officials explore energy issue Barry Massey Associated Press Apr. 11, 2004 12:00 AM SANTA FE - Western governors will gather with leaders from Mexico and Canada for a summit on how to meet future energy needs in a region rich with natural resources, from oil and natural gas to opportunities for wind, solar and geothermal power. Touted as a "North American Energy Summit" by the Western Governors' Association, the three-day meeting opening Wednesday in Albuquerque will bring together governmental and tribal leaders with energy company executives, environmentalists, researchers and other experts to consider an ambitious agenda of energy issues. Among the topics to be explored: the future of oil production, gasoline and natural-gas prices, the reliability of the Western electricity grid, the role of nuclear power, renewable energy sources, improving energy efficiency and cross-border collaboration on energy policies. A goal of the meeting is to "develop clean energy plans for the West to help meet our national energy needs and strengthen our economies," said New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, WGA chairman and an Energy secretary during the Clinton administration. The summit takes place against the backdrop of a presidential campaign and consumer complaints about skyrocketing gasoline prices. Other energy problems simmer. Almost a year ago, the nation experienced its worst blackout when all or parts of eight states and sections of Canada went dark. A U.S.-Canadian task force this month called for quick congressional approval of mandatory reliability rules governing the electric transmission industry. And in California, scene of an electricity market meltdown three years ago, there are warnings of energy shortages that could hit as soon as 2006 because the state lacks enough power plants to satisfy power demands. "I expect the summit will produce a plan for the Western Governors' Association to initiate a two-year clean energy project for the West, with targets for clean, renewable energy production and energy efficiency," Richardson said. "Such a plan will greatly diversify our energy sources, assist in reducing consumer gasoline and home heating oil prices, prevent unpredictability for state governments and institutions because of spiking energy prices like what has happened this year." The meeting begins Wednesday with a workshop focusing on financing clean energy technologies. There will be tours of energy projects, including the world's third-largest wind generation farm, which opened last year in eastern New Mexico, and solar energy technology tested at Sandia National Laboratories. Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano is scheduled to address the conference Thursday. Historically, Western states have been leading energy producers in oil and gas and coal mining. New Mexico, for instance, was the nation's No. 2 producer of natural gas and fifth largest oil producer in 2002, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said. The West also offers rich but mostly untapped resources for renewable energy: wind, solar, geothermal and biomass. New Mexico offers a tax credit for renewable energy ventures and a law was enacted this year that requires electric utilities to invest in renewable energy. The Arizona Republic Copyright 2004, azcentral.com. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 4 DallasNews.com: Oppenheimer's humiliation still haunts science News for Dallas, Texas | Health/Science Columnist Tom Siegfried Bio 05:30 PM CDT on Sunday, April 11, 2004 By TOM SIEGFRIED / The Dallas Morning News Science embodies human intellect at its best. But it's no match for the power of politics at its worst. Historically, whole fields of science have been stifled in nations with leaders who insisted that scientific substance be distorted to serve political correctness. The denial of Darwin and Mendel in Stalin's Soviet Union eviscerated biological science in that country. Nazi Germany's insistence on denouncing "Jewish science" drove its best scientists away  and left it without the brainpower to build the atomic bomb that eventually shortened the war for America. The bomb success, though, was the beginning of a story about how the United States itself has not avoided political interference with science, and with its scientists. Half a century ago this month, the man who made the atomic bomb project successful was humiliated because he refused to align his moral compass to the prevailing political winds. J. Robert Oppenheimer, the nation's top theoretical physicist in the 1930s, directed the crash program to develop the bomb at the secluded lab in Los Alamos, N.M., during World War II. He guided brilliant minds and conflicting egos in a common pursuit to turn new science into a working technology in record time. Only someone of Oppenheimer's intellectual capacity and intimidating style could have steered a horde of physicists to such a quick and dramatic success. "Because of his ability in physics, and his astonishing charisma, he did at Los Alamos what I think no one else would have been able to do," writes physicist-author Jeremy Bernstein. "If Oppenheimer had not been the director at Los Alamos, I am persuaded that, for better or worse, the Second World War would have ended very differently  without the use of nuclear weapons. They would not have been ready." But less than a decade after the war, Oppenheimer was recast, from hero to villain, in a power play by politicians determined to put a scientist in his place. Oppenheimer's politics had never been his strong suit. He had been selected by Gen. Leslie Groves to lead the bomb project despite the fact  known to Groves  that Oppenheimer had friends and relatives who belonged, or had belonged, to the Communist party. In the 1930s, of course, communism was something of a casual pastime for many in the academic world. And during World War II, the Soviet Union and the United States were allies, albeit only out of necessity. After the war, though, when the new Cold War began, past communist leanings were regarded with much more suspicion. Nevertheless, Oppenheimer received security clearance to serve on an advisory committee to the new Atomic Energy Commission in 1947. No dissent was recorded from the five AEC commissioners, including one named Lewis Strauss. But later, Strauss advocated a scientifically bogus policy of denying export of radioactive isotopes for use by some foreign researchers. In a 1949 hearing about the risk that such isotopes might have military applications, Oppenheimer ridiculed Strauss, declaring that a shovel or bottle of beer would be just as useful. Although maybe, Oppenheimer allowed, isotopes would be more useful than vitamins. Joseph Volpe, the AEC general counsel, watched closely as Strauss seethed during Oppenheimer's testimony. "Well, Joe, how did I do?" Oppenheimer asked Volpe after the hearing. "Too well, Robert," Volpe answered. "Much too well," as Dr. Bernstein recounts in his new book, Oppenheimer: Portrait of an Enigma. Over the next few years, Oppenheimer courted controversy by his reluctance to endorse efforts to build the superpowerful hydrogen bomb. Conflict in particular came with Edward Teller, a physicist whom Oppenheimer had angered back in Los Alamos by denying him a coveted job. Oppenheimer's loyalty was called into question, and this time Strauss spearheaded efforts to declare the father of the A-bomb a security risk  based on the same evidence available when Oppenheimer had been declared trustworthy in 1947. Supported by testimony from Teller, the AEC stripped Oppenheimer of his security clearance, the political equivalent of ripping a medal off a war hero's chest. Years later, President Lyndon Johnson presented Oppenheimer the AEC's Enrico Fermi award, a belated effort to rectify an injustice. But the stigma of Oppenheimer's downfall remains palpable for scientists today. Most scientists depend on federal funding for their research, and the fear of political retribution inhibits many from speaking out about the government's current scientific stupidities. True, you'll see the occasional petition, such as the recent manifesto reflecting the common belief among scientists that the current administration rejects the best scientific expertise on numerous significant technical issues. But few individuals speak out with clarity on the repercussion of political meddling in science. Half a century after Oppenheimer's trial, scientists still fear the power of politics. It's ironic, perhaps, because science has for so long, and so willingly, turned its own powers over to the politically powerful  often for the benefit of society, but all too often to be badly misused. Oppenheimer had to be humiliated because he attacked the politically powerful with intellectual invective. And in the real world, power trumps intellect. © 2004 Belo Interactive Inc. ***************************************************************** 5 [Fwd: [du-list] Statement from the Depleted Uranium Center Japan] Date: Sun, 11 Apr 2004 08:03:04 -0700 -------- Original Message -------- Subject: [du-list] Statement from the Depleted Uranium Center Japan Date: Mon, 12 Apr 2004 03:21:35 +0900 From: hisataka yamasaki Organization: nifty/factive To: du-watch@yahoogroups.com, du-list@yahoogroups.com References: <200404111533.i3BFXwD25993@ethan.morris.com> Statement from the Depleted Uranium Center Japan Shocking news came from Iraq. A group calling itself the "Saraya al-Mujahidin" kidnapped three Japanese civilians; Koriyama Soichiro, a freelance journalist, Imai Noriaki, leader of the $B!H(BNo to Small Nuclear Weapons Sapporo Project$B!I(B, and Takato Naoko who has continued supporting Iraqi children. The group brought to $B!H(BAl-Jazeera$B!I(B, a satellite TV station in the Middle East, an Arabic message, $B!H(BWe will burn the hostages alive unless Japan withdraw its forces from southern Iraq$B!I(B and a video showing that they were detaining and threatening the three. $B!!(B The three hostages entered Iraq, whose situation had been worsened, in order to support the people who were injured and lost their houses and family members in the Iraq War or suffered from serious damage to health due to depleted uranium; to inform this tragedy to the world; and to make an illustrated book that lets the danger of DU be known to the public. The occupation forces led by the US and UK Armies are still hurting and killing the Iraqi citizens, and destroying and plundering their houses and assets. The three Japanese civilians came into the country to be helpful for the people even in such dangerous circumstances. However, it is ironic and irrational that they were kidnapped and detained, and even had their lives put in danger by the $B!H(Binsurgents$B!I(B in Iraq. We strongly demand that the three be released unconditionally and immediately. $B!!(B $B!!(B At the same time, we demand the Japanese government that it withdraw the Self Defense Forces immediately. $B!!(B Our latter demand is not an exchange with the lives of the three. Since before, many have suggested that the dispatch of the SDF to Iraq, which are virtually the armed forces, has nothing good not only for the country but also for Japan, and that $B!H(Ba battle breaks out wherever forces are stationed$B!I(B. This anxiety has now come true. Iraq is in the state of war again due to the US and UK-led occupation forces. In Samawah, the etape of Japan$B!G(Bs SDF was bombarded and the headquarters of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) was attacked with anti-tank shells. If these were not called a $B!H(Bbattle$B!I(B, what will be called it? $B!!(B In other words, there have already appeared $B!H(Bwar zones$B!I(B as mentioned in the $B!H(BSpecial Measurements Law on Iraq$B!I(B that was forcibly passed by the Japanese government. Therefore, the actions by the SDF have to be $B!H(Bover$B!I(B. It has been seen that the three Japanese civilians have been detained in a $B!H(Bsuburb of Fallujah$B!I(B. Al-Jazeera reported that indiscriminate attacks by the US Army that had continued for 6 days killed more than 450 citizens and injured more than a thousand. Its report shows us the sad and terrible sufferings of the Iraqi citizens. $B!!(B The kidnapping of the three Japanese civilians and the attacks on Fallujah are related with each other. It is easy to understand with a piece of imagination that this hostage crisis would never have happened without the presence of the US Army that indiscriminately massacres innocent people, or that the Japanese civilians would never have been targeted without the dispatch of the SDF to Iraq. $B!!(B In the background of this crisis lie war crimes repeated by the US Army and the dispatch of the SDF in violation of the Japanese Constitution. Therefore, what we should do is to make utmost efforts to change this situation that has become the background. $B!!(B We demand the "Saraya al-Mujahidin" that the detention of the three hostages be stopped and they be released immediately, who have strongly opposed the war on Iraq itself, having nothing to do with the occupation forces, and have positively addressed the devastation caused by the war and occupation. $B!!(B We demand the Japanese government that it humbly admit its inability to continue the dispatch of the SDF even under the law it enacted and decide the withdrawal of the forces. $B!!(B We strongly demand the United States that it take responsibility of having committed war crimes repeatedly, leaving great many citizens dead and injured, and moreover, having contaminated the whole land of Iraq with uranium. $B!!(B We the Depleted Uranium Center Japan continue every possible effort to change the situation in which our fellows are being exposed to danger. 10 April, 2004 ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Buy Ink Cartridges or Refill Kits for your HP, Epson, Canon or Lexmark Printer at MyInks.com. Free s/h on orders $50 or more to the US & Canada. http://www.c1tracking.com/l.asp?cid=5511 http://us.click.yahoo.com/mOAaAA/3exGAA/qnsNAA/FGYolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> To unsubscribe from this groups send a message to du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com. In the body of the message type unsubscribe and send. Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/du-list/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ***************************************************************** 6 [du-list] 3 Japanese to Be Freed Date: Sat, 10 Apr 2004 19:55:16 -0700 Well done every one! Seems the Iraqi resistance realised they can't kill people who are on their allies. Let this set back for humanitarian aid not deter us from our struggle for peace, justice and a nuclear free future. (lets hope the Fox news story is tru) Ludd http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,116750,00.html 3 Japanese to Be Freed; Other Hostages Taken Saturday, April 10, 2004 BAGHDAD, Iraq — An Iraqi insurgent group which had abducted three Japanese nationals will release the hostages within 24 hours, an Arab television network reported. This news came as kidnappings of foreigners continued to spread across Iraq Saturday as insurgents in many cities resorted to unorthodox tactics against coalition forces and non-combat personnel. A group calling itself the "Mujahedeen Squadrons" told Al Jazeera, the television network, that they had agreed to release the hostages after mediation by the Islamic Clerics Committee (search), an Iraqi Sunni Muslim organization. In a statement, the kidnappers urged the Japanese public to press their government to withdraw its troops from Iraq, the station said. Videotape delivered to Al-Jazeera, as well as Associated Press Television News, on Thursday showed the three Japanese — two aid workers and a journalist — blindfolded and threatened by masked men with guns and knives. The kidnappers threatened to burn the hostages alive if Japan did not promise within three days to pull its troops out of Iraq. Elsewhere, Reuters also reported that a group calling itself the "Marytr Ahmed Yassin Brigades" in the city of Ramadi was holding 30 foreigners from a variety of countries hostage and threatening to decapitate them if American forces did not retreat from Fallujah (search). The abduction of the three Japanese in Iraq has plunged Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi into his deepest crisis since taking office three years ago, as relatives of the hostages and thousands of protesters pressed the government Friday to withdraw Japanese troops from Iraq. Ruling party officials vowed not to give in to terrorists and reiterated that Japanese soldiers would continue their humanitarian mission in Iraq. Koizumi denounced as "cowardly" the Iraqi captors' threat to burn the three civilian hostages alive unless Tokyo gives in. Thousands massed near the prime minister's official residence and held a candlelight vigil for captive aid workers Noriaki Imai, 18, and Nahoko Takato, 34; and photojournalist Soichiro Koriyama, 32. "As a parent, it would be just unbearable to see my child being burned alive, if that really happens," Koriyama's mother Kimiko said at a news conference. "Time is running out," said Ayako Inoue, Takato's younger sister. "My uneasiness and anxiety grows as the time passes." In a video obtained by Associated Press Television News, four masked men threaten the blindfolded captives with guns and knives. The Arab TV network Al-Jazeera (search) also received the video and said it was accompanied by a statement saying the hostages would be burned alive if Japan's troops were not pulled from Iraq within three days. Koizumi pushed forward with the deployment of 1,100 troops to Iraq this year despite deep public reservations about sending Japanese soldiers to a combat zone for the first time since World War II. Critics said dispatching troops to Iraq violated Japan's pacifist constitution, which bans the use of force to resolve disputes. Many Japanese also said they feared the troops could come under attack and suffer casualties, something Japan's military has not experienced since 1945. Nearly 2,000 people turned out for the candlelight vigil in the heart of Tokyo's political district, shouting "Defense troops, withdraw right now!" Three thousand more activists demonstrated at nearby Hibiya park. Opposition leaders said they want to help Koizumi bring the captives home safely, but would hold him liable for the outcome. "We foresaw trouble like this when the government decided to send troops to Iraq," said Katsuya Okada, secretary-general of the Democratic Party. "Prime Minister Koizumi bears a serious responsibility for inviting a situation like this." Tokyo's stock average declined amid worries the crisis could destabilize Koizumi's leadership. "If you're willing to assume something bad happens, then the public will be very upset and Koizumi and the ruling Liberal Democratic Party will be exceptionally vulnerable," said John Richards, Japan Strategist at Barclays Capital. "Just the feel of that is bad for stocks." Koizumi called an emergency meeting of his Cabinet and created a task force to formulate a response to the kidnappings. Vice President Dick Cheney visits this weekend, and the prime minister is expected to make a strong request for help. To protect against further kidnappings, the government has started preparing for the possible evacuation by C-130 military transport plane of some 70 Japanese believed to be in Iraq, Kyodo News agency reported. Twenty-one Japanese journalists and their support staff have sought refuge in the Japanese military compound in southern Iraq. The troops have offered to transport them to Kuwait. "We cannot give in to the cowardly threats of terrorists," Koizumi said. But he added: "We don't know who this group is. Right now what we need to do is gather accurate information and bring them [the hostages] home safely." The government has had no contact with the hostage-takers. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda stressed that going along with the withdrawal demand was not under consideration. Many Japanese voiced support for Koizumi. "Japan should not give in to this kind of terrorism," said Koichi Yoshida, a 43-year-old executive in Tokyo. "Japan has international responsibilities and national interests that are served by the military's presence there." Jiro Yamaguchi, a political science professor at Hokkaido University, said the public now supports Koizumi's tough stand. But he said public opinion could be swayed by what happens. "If Koizumi missteps, he will lose his grip on power," Yamaguchi said. "It all depends on what happens to public emotion." Elsewhere, TV pictures showed Iraqi insurgents holding a foreigner, apparently American, prisoner in a car after fighting outside Baghdad the day before, the latest in a rash of kidnappings of foreigners in Iraq during this week's violence. The prisoner, who spoke with a southern American accent and was apparently wounded in the arm, spoke to a cameraman from the back seat of a car with a masked gunman next to him, on the main highway on Baghdad's western edge where fighting took place Friday. The videotape apparently was shot Friday. The prisoner identified himself to the cameraman, from Australia's ABC television, and said he was part of a convoy that was attacked. When asked by an ABC reporter what happened, the man said: "They attacked our convoy. That's all I'm going to say." The car then drove off down the highway with him still in the back seat, passing a burning tanker truck on the road. The prisoner wore what appeared to be a light flak jacket of the sort worn by private security guards, who are often contracted to protect convoys. Gunmen attacked a fuel convoy Friday in Abu Ghreib (search) on the main highway outside Baghdad, setting a tanker on fire and killing one U.S. soldier and an Iraqi driver. Insurgents elsewhere in Iraq have kidnapped three Japanese, a Canadian and an Arab from Jerusalem. Those holding the Japanese have threatened to kill them unless Tokyo withdraws its troops from Iraq by Sunday, a demand Japan's prime minister has refused. A British citizen and two German security officials from their country's embassy in Baghdad are also missing, but, "there is no evidence of a kidnapping," the spokeswoman said, on customary condition of anonymity. She would not give further details, but ZDF and ARD television reported that the missing were two Germans, 38- and 25-years-old, who were traveling from Amman, Jordan to Baghdad on a routine trip Wednesday and were ambushed. The stations reported that other vehicles in the convoy reached the embassy later. ARD television reported that the two were agents with GSG-9, an elite counterterrorism unit trained for freeing hostages and other commando missions. The Associated Press contributed to this report. -- \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ http://scotland.motherearth.org ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Buy Ink Cartridges or Refill Kits for your HP, Epson, Canon or Lexmark Printer at MyInks.com. Free s/h on orders $50 or more to the US & Canada. http://www.c1tracking.com/l.asp?cid=5511 http://us.click.yahoo.com/mOAaAA/3exGAA/qnsNAA/FGYolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> To unsubscribe from this groups send a message to du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com. In the body of the message type unsubscribe and send. Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/du-list/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ***************************************************************** 7 Bellona: Igor Sutyagin hit with 15-year hard labour sentence —FSB says verdict is a ‘warning’ ST. PETERSBURG—The Moscow City court sentenced Russian weapons specialist Igor Sutyagin to 15 years in jail for spying for the United States—the latest in a series of controversial espionage trials under President Vladimir Putin that have caught the attention of ecological and human rights groups throughout the world, as well the US government. Igor Sutyagin listens to the Moscow City Court read his 15-year sentence to hard labour from the barred cage in which defendants sit during trial in Russia. Reuters Rashid Alimov, Charles Digges, 2004-04-07 20:35 The verdict, which came Monday—after an 11-day closed trial—and the harsh sentence delivered at Wednesday’s sentence hearing have served as bone-chilling reminder to Russian scientist, researchers, environmentalists and international human rights groups that the power of Russia’s Soviet-style secret services are on an upsurge with ex- KGB Colonel President Vladimir Putin—and an obsequiously pro-Putin State Duma—at the helm. The US State Department questioned the fairness of Sutyagin's closed trial, criticizing it for its "lack of transparency and due process." "The way it was handled has to raise questions about the conclusions of the case," deputy State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said in a statement after a jury convicted Sutyagin on Monday. Boris Kuznetsov, one of Sutyagin’s lawyers, quickly fingered the Russian government as having planted emissaries among the jurors, and said that they worked throughout deliberations to influence the outcome against Sutyagin. “I have such information,” said Kuznetsov with the Russian news web site Strana.ru after the sentencing. “I got a phone call from a person who introduced himself as one of the jurors and he said that among them were two informal leaders that were pressuring the other jurors.” Kuznetsov, however, was quick to point out that he could not be sure if these two men represented Russia’s secrect services or if they were just people who were talked into assisting the government’s case. He said he planned to thoroughly review the list of jurors on the case in the coming days for possible connections between jurors and the Russian secret services. Sutyagin defense attorney Boris Kuznetsov, picuted here in front of the Moscow City Court, suspects jury tampering. Strana.ru 15 years’ hard labour The Moscow City Court ordered that Sutyagin—who was convicted of spying while he worked for Russia's respected USA-Canada Institute—should serve his sentence in a prison camp with a special hard labour regime. It is as yet unclear, said a spokesman for the Prosecutor General’s office, what prison camp he will be sent to. The FSB accused Sutyagin of collecting material on nuclear submarines and missile warning systems and passing it on to US Central Intelligence Agency, or CIA, officers through a British consultancy firm called Alternative Futures. The FSB claims Alternative Futures was a front operation for the CIA. Sutyagin maintained the information he gathered came exclusively from open sources and had been passed onto the British firm on the basis of a legal freelance contract. Sutyagin, who has been in jail since his arrest in October 1999 by Russia's Feral Security Service, or FSB—the successor organization to the KGB—protested his innocence in court Wednesday. Sutyagin was found guilty of espionage on Monday in a unanimous decision by a 12 member jury that many rights activists in Russia say was stacked with agents from the FSB agents. Sutyagins trial by jury—a right guaranteed in the Russian Constitution, but seldom practiced—was one of the first jury trials to be conducted after the Russian judiciary started experimenting with them in 2002. "The only thing I am guilty of is that I had contacts with foreigners," he said, the RIA Novosti news agency reported. One lawyer on his defence team, Anna Stavistkaya told reporters that Sutyagin was “in a state of shock” after hearing the sentence. "He had hoped for more than four years that a jury would understand this case." Sutyagin defence attorney Anna Savitskaya. Sergei Kharitonov/Bellona The verdict and the harsh sentence were even more unthinkable following the acquittal by jury of Valentin Danilov, a professor at Krasnoyarsk Technical University in Siberia, who had been charged with selling classified information on space technology to China and misappropriating university funds—a major defeat for the FSB. FSB colonel calls the verdict and sentence a ‘warning’ The FSB and prosecutors, who had pushed for a 17-year jail term, expressed satisfaction at the outcome. “Of course we are pleased with the outcome,” said an FSB lieutenant colonel that asked his name not be used, in a telephone interview with Bellona Web. “We have worked on this case for a number of years, and finally proved we are right—he is a spy.” Asked whether researchers, environmentalists and scientists working in Russia should consider this a warning, the FSB Colonel said “absolutely.” “This should serve as warning to scientists, ecological organizations, journalists and others who often exchange information with foreigners. There has been far too much of that over the past few years and that will change,” he added. He also denied that the FSB had tampered with the jury. But his triumphant words echo a growing sentiment that was begun two yeas ago when Putin declared during public remarks that foreign environmental organizations frequently engage in espionage work. FSB ‘vents’ its rage on Igor Sutyagin with a guilty verdict A Russian jury on Monday found arms control researcher Igor Sutyagin guilty of treason for passing secrets to the United States, sending a chill through the Russian scientific community and confirming fears of a resurgence of Soviet-era KGB tactics. The unanimous verdict of guilt—which human rights groups world-wide have decried as part of a witch hunt by ex-KGB Colonel and President Vladimir Putin’s re-emerging secret services— came after three hours of deliberation by the 12-member jury. Some human rights activists in Russia have even accused the prosecution of stacking the jury with FSB agents in order to assure a conviction. Defence says jurors manipulated The defence team has accused the prosecutors of pressuring the jurors and Judge Marina Komarova of manipulating them by asking them to consider the wrong questions when evaluating Sutyagin’s alleged guilt of espionage. Indeed, of the four questions Komarova asked jurors to consider in deciding their verdict, none contained a reference to state secrets—even though the prosecution alleged that Sutyagin sold information containing state secrets to Alternative Futures, the alleged British cover for US intelligence. The first two questions given to the jury by Komarova asked whether Sutyagin had been recruited by a "foreign defence intelligence service" and whether he had been paid for the information he passed over to that service, according to Kuznetsov, who spoke to Bellona Web in a telephone interview from Moscow Tuesday. The third question was whether Sutyagin should be found guilty based on the answers to the first two questions, while the fourth was whether he deserved leniency. The jury was unanimous on the first three questions and split, with four for and eight against leniency—something Komarova would legally have had to act on had the jurors voted for it when sentencing Sutyagin. Wednesday’s sentence makes clear lenience was not on Komarova’s mind. Defense to mount an appeal Sutyagin’s lawyers say they will appeal the case to the Russian Supreme Court and, if that fails, to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasborg. "It was an expected ruling after the jury's verdict, the court had grossly violated the due process of the trial," said Sutyagin defence lawyer Kuznetsov to reporters in Moscow outside the courtroom, Agencie France Press reported. Sutyagin’s employer offers tepid support USA-Canada Institute Director Sergei Rogov said in an interview Wednesday with the Russian radio station Ekho Moskvy that Sutyagin’s contact with the British firm was his undoing, and had Sutyagin approached him prior to contracting with Alternative Futures, Rogov said he would have advised Sutyagin against it. And, although Sutyagin remains on the USA-Canada Institute staff as a vote of support, Rogov’s comments fell short of a ringing endorsement of his colleague’s innocence. “You can’t do such things,” as make contracts with foreigners, said Rogov. “[Sutyagin] of course, didn’t transfer any information of a secret nature because he didn’t have access to it. But he is a good analyst and could fully, gathering information from open sources, newspapers, magazines, produce analyses and prognoses for his foreign partner that could damage the interests of Russia.” Despite several calls by Bellona Web, Rogov could not be reached for further comment. Sutyagin’s arrest, previous trials, and judicial irregularities While working for the Moscow-based USA and Canada Institute, Sutyagin was arrested by FSB agents in Kaluga in October 1999 and was charged with selling information on nuclear submarines to Alternative Futures. Sutyagin has said repeatedly that he did not have any reason to believe the British company was an intelligence cover. Sutyagin’s trial initially began in the Kaluga regional court in February of 2001, two years after his arrest. The trial proceeding in fits and starts, and was delayed several times. During the hearings, several violations of procedure were evident. In December 2001, the court declared the case against Sutyagin groundless, and sent the case back for further investigation. Sutyagin, meanwhile, remained in jail. Sutyagin's lawyers got the case transferred to the Moscow City Court last year, and the court agreed to their request for a jury trial in October. The new trial—closed because of secrecy concerns about involved documents—began in November of 2003 In February of 2004, Judge Pyotor Shtunder withdrew himself from the case without giving any reason and was replaced by Komarova. The original jury, chosen in November 2003, was also dismissed and a new one selected under Komarova, who has jailed a number of high-profie accused spies. Transcripts of the 'Ecology, State Secrets and Human Rights in Russia' conference On April 7th 2004, the Moscow City Court sentenced researcher Igor Sutyagin to 15 years of hard labor for allegedly spying for the United States. The court hearings were closed to the public. Because the public has in fact been deprived of information about the details of the case, Bellona has published a full transcript of a discussion of the Sutyagin case taken during a conference of lawyers, human rights advocates that was called “Ecology, State Secrets and Human Rights in Russia.” Sutyagin’s lawyers took part in the discussion. Human rights activists rally around Sutyagin In January, four international rights groups protested to the Council of Europe democracy body that Sutyagin was "the target of politically-motivated treason charges" and was being denied the right to a fair trial. One man who has been through that legal meat-grinder is investigative journalist Grigory Pasko, who, in 1997, exposed the illegal dumping of radioactive waste by the Russian navy in the Pacific Ocean to Japanese media, and received a four-year jail sentence for "espionage" and "high treason" before being released on parole last year. He is now editor of Bellona’s Russian-language “Environment and Rights” magazine. “Fifteen years for an innocent man [Sutyagin] is payback for all the case they have lost, and two, the [Alexander] Nikitin and the Danilov case, which they lost spectacularly,” said Pasko in an email interview with Bellona Web. Bellona’s Nikitin fought a five year legal battle with Russian authorities for publishing open information about submarine accidents in a Bellona report. He was fully acquitted in January 2000. “That [Sutyagin’s] sentence would be unequivocally guilty has been clear for a long time: the Soviet KGB spook system is not accustomed to exonerating a person after they have already been sitting in jail for several years,” Pasko said. Internationally renowned Russian human rights lawyer Yury Schmidt. Viktor Teryoshkin/Bellona Yury Schmidt, one of Russia’s most respected human rights lawyers agreed with Pasko’s assessment. “I am very disappointed that it all came to this,” he told Bellona Web in telephone interview Wednesday. “They dragged out the case for such a long time that to count on an exoneration was impossible. especially after the exoneration of Danilov. I don’t think that the court was objective.” Pasko added his voice to the many who insist that jury selection was manipulated by the FSB. “I won’t believe for anything that people chosen at random by a computer unanimously found a person guilty just because the FSB said the documents [composed by Sutyagin] were secret,” he said. “Then eight of these 12 people didn’t find cause for leniency [in the sentencing portion of the trial].” Maria Lipman of the Moscow office of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and editor of the Russian quarterly “Pro et Contra,” was, like other human rights activists, amazed by the length of the sentence and its disproportion to the alleged crime in a phone interview with Bellona Web. “Today’s sentence was a surprise because all previous events with accusations of espionage ended either with exoneration, or a softer sentence—and that despite the fact that the FSB was demanding the maximum sentence,” said Lipman, who is also a frequent contributor to such respected western publications as The Washington Post newspaper and “The New Yorker” magazine. “One wants to believe that this is not a turn in state policy, but a personal agreement of the judge with certain agencies.” Indeed, agreements between courts and security services would not represent a turn in state policy at all. It would be a reminder that Russian justice is still conducted behind closed doors where prosecutors target individuals and do everything possible to get them convicted. Even jury trails—Russia’s most hopeful step toward normalizing its legal system in many years—remain subject to the backroom agreement. Charles Digges reported from Oslo and Rashid Alimov reported from St. Petersburg. Publisher: , President: Information: , Technical contact: Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00 Telefax: +47 22 38 38 62 * P.O.Box 2141 Grunerlokka, 0505 Oslo, Norway ***************************************************************** 8 WorldNetDaily: It's the Pakistanis, stupid! APRIL 10 2004 © 2004 WorldNetDaily.com Former counterterrorism "czar" Richard Clarke outlined to the 9-11 Commission the strategy he urged on Condoleezza Rice – the incoming director of the National Security Council staff – a strategy he had developed for her predecessor. Now, Rice has testified under oath that, far from rejecting Clarke's strategy, she immediately accepted it and President Bush began acting on it. According to Rice, she was directed to: "Ensure that contingency planning processes include plans against al-Qaida and associated terrorist facilities in Afghanistan – including leadership, command control and communications, training and logistics facilities – and against Taliban targets in Afghanistan – including leadership, command control, air and air defense, ground forces and logistics. "And to eliminate weapons of mass destruction – which al-Qaida and associated terrorist groups may acquire or manufacture – including those stored in underground bunkers." Rice claims she and the president were well aware that: "Al-Qaida was both a client of and a patron to the Taliban, which in turn was supported by Pakistan. Those relationships provided al-Qaida with a powerful umbrella of protection, and we had to sever that. "Within a month of taking office, President Bush sent a strong private message to President Musharraf urging him to use his influence with the Taliban to bring bin Laden to justice and to close down al-Qaida training camps. Secretary Powell actively urged the Pakistanis – including Musharraf himself – to abandon support for the Taliban." In June of 2001, Condi-baby says she personally delivered what she considered to be a very tough message to the Pakistani foreign minister: "He met that message with a rote answer and with an expressionless response." Now, recall that in 1998, Pakistan – the Taliban-al-Qaida protector – had become a nuke power. Clinton slapped sanctions on Pakistan, but launched cruise missiles at Iraq. Recall also that in 1999 – upon assuming power – Musharraf informed Clinton that Pakistan's nuke scientists had long been playing footsies with North Korean and OIC scientists. Clinton passed that information along to President-elect Bush and then bombed Iraq. Recall also that in 2000, shortly after al-Qaida had almost sunk the USS Cole, Clinton fired cruise missiles at suspect tents and caves in Afghanistan. And bombed Iraq. Finally, recall that – way back in 1993 – al-Qaida had attempted to bring down the World Trade Center with high-explosives and had failed. Well, on Sept. 11, 2001, they tried again. This time they succeeded. So picture the scene in the NSC meeting on Sept. 12, 2001. What to do? Al-Qaida had tried to destroy the Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz Pentagon, but had failed. Obviously, al-Qaida would try again. But, the Pentagon is built – literally – like a fort. It would probably take a 10 kiloton nuke to destroy it. How would al-Qaida get the nuke to the Pentagon? Probably in a truck or van. So, within hours, a company of machine-gun armed military police and dozens of Virginia state troopers were stationed 24/7 on roads near the Pentagon. Almost three years, later every truck or van that comes anywhere near the Pentagon is stopped and searched at gunpoint. But where on earth could al-Qaida get a nuke? Pakistan. Now, recall that Pakistan – protector of the Taliban in Afghanistan – is not an NPT-signatory and hence its nuke programs are not subject to the IAEA Safeguards and Physical Security regime. So our nuke program experts were sent to Pakistan to urge them to immediately install safeguards and security equipment, which we would provide. Energy Secretary Abraham was sent to the IAEA headquarters to assure them that the U.S. and Russia were in agreement that the IAEA must continue to be the first line of defense against nuke proliferation. Presidents Putin and Bush declared that "urgent attention must be given to improving the physical protection and accounting of nuclear materials of all possessor states, and preventing illicit trafficking." All nuke possessor states. Now, that definitely includes Pakistan, but it most definitely does not include Iraq. And according to Condi-baby's sworn testimony, the tragedy of 9-11 occurred because "America's al-Qaida policy wasn't working because our Afghanistan policy wasn't working. And our Afghanistan policy wasn't working because our Pakistan policy wasn't working." Well, it appears our al-Qaida-Afghanistan-Pakistan policy still isn't working. Now, whose fault is that? Well, who allowed Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz to – as Richard Clarke charged – "take advantage of this national tragedy to promote their agenda about Iraq"? Physicist James Gordon Prather has served as a policy implementing official for national security-related technical matters in the Federal Energy Agency, the Energy Research and Development Administration, the Department of Energy, the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Department of the Army. Dr. Prather also served as legislative assistant for national security affairs to U.S. Sen. Henry Bellmon, R-Okla. -- ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee and member of the Senate Energy Committee and Appropriations Committee. Dr. Prather had earlier worked as a nuclear weapons physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and Sandia National Laboratory in New Mexico. [WorldNetDaily.com] ***************************************************************** 9 Toronto Star: Pakistan's dirty nuclear secret TheStar.com Sun. Apr. 11, 2004. | Updated at 09:43 PM AP Abdul Qadeer Khan, the founder of Pakistan's nuclear program, admitted to selling nuclear secrets. SANDRO CONTENTA EUROPEAN BUREAU VIENNA—When Libya ratted out the biggest global network in nuclear smuggling, among the thousands of black market items it turned over to U.N. inspectors were the blueprints for a nuclear warhead. Libyan officials handed over the stack of documents in the very same way they had received them — stuffed into two shopping bags from "Good Look" tailors in Islamabad. The U.N. inspectors were flabbergasted: the designs were for a bomb that could, if "properly" unleashed, devastate a city. The plans had arrived in Libya more than two years ago through a nuclear proliferation racket that spanned at least nine countries on three continents. The full extent of the racket remains unknown. To dismantle it, authorities are now feverishly working to track down the middlemen, scientists and companies that comprise the network. But the most pressing concern is the deadly design itself. How many times were the blueprints and instruction manuals photocopied as they travelled the smuggling route to Tripoli? And to how many other countries — or extremist groups — were they sold? Those questions fuel nightmarish scenarios. "Stopping nuclear proliferation is a race against time," says a Vienna-based diplomat. The plot of this real-life thriller unfolds on a global stage where most members of a small nuclear elite consider their weapons vital for national security, yet expect everyone else to feel safe without them. With disarmament ruled out by the eight or nine countries that have nuclear weapons, getting them has become the goal of a growing number that don't. The smugglers in this ring also took strategic advantage of U.S. governments turning a blind eye to nuclear proliferation from an ally — Pakistan — and an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that failed to investigate troubling early warning signs. The racket's mastermind was scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan's atomic bomb. It was Khan who put together a smuggling network suspected of operating for at least 15 years. In a televised confession Feb. 4, Khan admitted selling nuclear technology to Libya, Iran and North Korea. Paris-based expert Bruno Tretrais says: "I would not be surprised if at least one other country was involved, like Syria, Egypt or Algeria." IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei describes Khan's network as a nuclear Wal-Mart, providing one-stop shopping in technology, know-how, and uranium hexafluoride, the gas that is processed to enrich uranium for bomb making. At times, Khan shipped nuclear technology directly from Pakistan. But often he used middlemen and suppliers from at least a dozen companies in Japan, Malaysia, Pakistan, Dubai, South Africa, Spain, Turkey, Germany and Switzerland. It's unclear how many of the firms actually knew they were involved in the illegal ring because some of the equipment they made could be used for both nuclear and non-nuclear purposes. Hard evidence about Khan's activities finally began to emerge last year after Iran caved in to international pressure and showed its nuclear facilities and black market equipment to IAEA inspectors. By late December, as part of a bargain with the U.S. and Britain to end Tripoli's international isolation, Libya directly fingered Khan. And much of the technology Libya turned over was identical to equipment IAEA inspectors had seen in Iran. Libya also named some of Khan's middlemen and suppliers as the source of more than $100 million (U.S.) in nuclear bomb-making technology that had been smuggled into Tripoli since 1998. That technology included designs for an early model nuclear bomb that could be dropped from a plane or launched by missile. Libya told IAEA inspectors it had received the designs free, as a kind of bonus for being a good customer. But Western diplomats remain skeptical. According to one unconfirmed report, they cost Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi $20 million. And although an IAEA report in November said it had found no evidence of nuclear weapons being produced in Iran, last week ElBaradei travelled to Tehran to ask officials there whether they had received the same blueprints as Libya. Iran's ruling Shiite Muslim clerics insist their program is exclusively designed to generate much needed power from the country's nuclear reactors, despite being an oil-rich nation. They blame the U.S.-led trade embargo for forcing them to buy Khan's black market goods, beginning in the late 1980s. They have since mastered the complex "centrifuge" technology used to enrich uranium, but insist they have never pushed it to the 90 per cent level necessary to produce nuclear weapons. But what has heightened the IAEA's suspicions is a massive uranium enrichment facility the government secretly began building in the desert south of Tehran that is big enough to power several nuclear reactors. IAEA inspectors want to know why Iran built the facility before building the reactors — especially since Russia had already agreed to provide it with enriched uranium. "The only logical conclusion is that the uranium will be for another purpose — nuclear weapons," a Western diplomat says. Unless these vexing questions are resolved, some observers fear the U.S. or Israel may blast the facility sky high in a replay of the bombing of an Iraqi nuclear facility by Israeli warplanes in 1981. In his confession, Khan chalked up his smuggling activities to "errors in judgment" and a desire to divert Western pressure from Pakistan's nuclear program by spreading the problem around, especially to Muslim countries. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf insists Khan acted without the knowledge of top security or government officials. Most experts consider that claim laughable. Musharraf immediately pardoned the 67-year-old scientist, calling him a hero for his services to the country, and let him keep the fortune he amassed from smuggling. He also prevented Khan from being interviewed by IAEA inspectors or U.S. officials. U.S. President George W. Bush accepted Musharraf's handling of the matter in return for information about the type of technology smuggled, as well as assurances that Khan would be put out of business, says Gary Samore, who advised Bush's predecessor, Bill Clinton, on non-proliferation issues. Bush feared that pressing the matter further would weaken Musharraf domestically and reduce his commitment to hunting down Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda loyalists, believed to be hiding along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan. While Bush was prepared to launch a war against Iraq on a claim that its alleged weapons of mass destruction could fall into the hands of terrorists, he appears to have taken a more tolerant and patient approach with a ring that makes the possibility of a nuclear nightmare all the more real. There's no hard evidence yet that Al Qaeda-linked groups shopped at Khan's network. But in 2001, two Pakistani nuclear scientists reportedly met bin Laden twice in Afghanistan. In October that year, Pakistani authorities detained a group of scientists, including a once senior member of its nuclear program, on suspicion of passing on nuclear secrets to Afghanistan's Taliban government, hosts to bin Laden's Al Qaeda terror network until the Taliban was ousted by U.S. forces. Later, bin Laden told a Pakistani journalist Al Qaeda actually had nuclear weapons, a claim most experts doubt. Nuclear weapons are made from either highly enriched uranium, or processed plutonium, both extremely complex procedures requiring precise scientific skills. Al Qaeda has tried to buy fissile material for a bomb on the black market. It made several failed attempts to buy enriched uranium in the mid-1990s in Africa, Europe and Russia. "If Al Qaeda were to build nuclear weapons, it would likely build relatively crude, massive nuclear explosives, deliverable by ships, trucks, or private planes," writes David Albright, a former IAEA inspector who is now head of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security. Al Qaeda's nuclear quest has also refocused attention on the hundreds of tonnes of nuclear bomb material kept in insecure facilities in the former Soviet Union, mainly Russia. A declassified CIA report two years ago stated that an unknown amount of Russia's fissile material had been stolen over the past decade. Since 1993, the IAEA has documented 18 cases of trafficking in the kind of enriched uranium or plutonium needed for nuclear bombs. But the quantities involved have not been enough to produce a nuclear weapon. They could produce a so-called "dirty bomb," a makeshift process in which radioactive materials are attached to conventional explosives and dispersed by the blast. But the bigger the blast, the more the radioactive material disperses, and, surprisingly, the less deadly it becomes. Whatever the scientific calculation, anxiety over Khan's smuggling ring is high and rising. He initially set up his clandestine operations to serve Pakistan's nuclear ambitions. The country launched its quest for nuclear weapons after 1974, when rival India conducted its first atomic test using plutonium processed from Canada's Candu reactor technology. Khan was then working in the Netherlands at Urenco, a European nuclear power consortium. He returned to Pakistan before a Dutch court convicted him of stealing company blueprints for centrifuges. The U.S. was aware Pakistan was illegally bringing in equipment for its nuclear program by at least 1983, according to a recently declassified state department document. But Washington turned a blind eye throughout the decade, deciding it was more important to keep Pakistan as an ally in the battle against the Soviet army in Afghanistan, says Jon Wolfsthal, deputy director for non-proliferation at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. In 1989, when the Soviets left Afghanistan, the U.S. imposed sanctions on Pakistan. At about the same time, Khan's network began exporting nuclear technology to Iran, partly to finance Pakistan's nuclear drive. To gain favour and the financial backing of oil-rich Arab countries, Khan stressed the strategic importance of an Islamic state acquiring a nuclear bomb. Saudi Arabia was a key backer, in part by providing oil at cut-rate prices. Most experts believe Pakistan — which is not a signatory of the U.N.'s non-proliferation treaty — had enough enriched uranium for nuclear weapons sometime between 1989 and 1994. The IAEA had both the mandate and the power to investigate suspicions about a black market. But the agency had by then settled on a practice that made it an auditing agency verifying only those nuclear sites that countries declared, says Vilmos Cserveny, director of its policy co-ordination office. In 1995, IAEA inspectors came across Khan's name when dismantling Iraq's nuclear program after the 1991 Persian Gulf War. They discovered a memo written by a member of Iraq's intelligence service saying Khan had offered to help Iraq build nuclear weapons. The memo was dated Oct. 6, 1990 — when Saddam Hussein's army had occupied Kuwait and a U.S. coalition was building up forces to drive it back. A related document said the "upfront" cost of assistance in enriching uranium and manufacturing nuclear weapons would be $5 million. The IAEA inspectors halted their investigation after Pakistan denied making the offer described in the memo and Iraqi officials described it as a hoax. But throughout the 1990s, Khan also made several trips to North Korea — trips that would have required Pakistani government approval. During those years, Pakistan obtained intermediate-range ballistic missiles from North Korea, likely in exchange for nuclear technology. Most experts believe North Korea built one or two nuclear weapons by 1994 with Pakistan's help. Last year, North Korea abruptly pulled out of the non-proliferation treaty, which had made it subject to international inspections. Pakistan tested some of its North Korean missiles in May, 1998, and declared itself a nuclear weapons state. Interestingly, the biggest blow to Khan's network came last October when a German-owned ship destined for Libya was seized in the Mediterranean. Its containers, which the manifest said were full of "used machine parts", were instead packed with equipment for sophisticated centrifuges. Bush claims the seizure was a result of U.S. and British intelligence. But by then, Gadhafi was negotiating his return to relative respectability with London and Washington, and some diplomats believe he decided to sacrifice the ship's cargo as a goodwill gesture. Bush is calling on the U.N. Security Council to pass a resolution requiring all states to criminalize proliferation and enact strict export controls. But experts say countries are not likely to sit idly by while the U.S. and others continue to develop their nuclear arsenals. "As long as you keep developing new weapons like U.S. bunker busters or mini nukes, this will always make other countries react," Cserveny says. Legal Notice: Copyright Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All ***************************************************************** 10 Daily Times: EDITORIAL: A US nuclear device to India on a platter? Monday, April 12, 2004 India’s prime minister A B Vajpayee has said that his government spurned an offer by the United States in May 1998 to let India have a nuclear device if it ever wanted one on the condition that New Delhi desisted from testing its own nuclear potential. “I told them [Americans] frankly this bomb needs to be made and not borrowed,” Mr Vajpayee was reported by a reliable international wire agency as saying Friday to an election rally. The offer, according to Mr Vajpayee, came in the run-up to India’s decision to test in May 1998. This is a most interesting revelation for a lot of reasons. As the statement stands, it belies the Clinton administration’s assertions at the time India tested its bomb that it (the US administration) was caught unawares and learnt about the tests after the event. Indeed, just after the tests and in the run-up to Pakistan’s tests, when the United States made a feeble effort to isolate India and a serious effort to persuade Pakistan to desist from following suit, there was heated debate about whether India had misled the US into thinking that the tests were not imminent. In his book, ‘India’s Nuclear Bomb’, George Perkovich discusses in detail the perceptions on both sides and quotes an American official as saying that India definitely ‘set up’ the Clinton administration on the issue. Even so, there were not many takers in Pakistan of the US administration’s assertions that it knew nothing about the impending tests. It is now widely known that the Congress-led government under then-prime minister Narasimha Rao toyed with the idea of testing in the winter of 1995 because that would have given a domestic boost to the Congress’ waning political fortunes. The Americans picked up the activity and the then-US ambassador to India, Frank Wisner, was tasked with impressing upon the Rao government quietly that the act would not go down well with the US and also the European Union. Indeed, but for the New York Times’ stories on December 15th and 16th, this would probably have remained a secret. The Indian government, of course, accused the US administration of leaking the story to the press but American officials maintained that the NYT had picked it up independently. Their reasoning was that they feared that publicity might in fact force the Indian government’s hand into going ahead. In the event, Mr Rao got cold feet for a number of reasons and did not conduct the tests even though at least one device had been emplaced during the preparations for the tests. The next challenge to the US non-proliferation agenda came with the Indian elections for the eleventh Lok Sabha, conducted in stages from April 27th to May 30th 1996. The BJP emerged as the top party with 186 seats but needed to build a coalition to reach the magic number of 273 to form the government. It had 15 days to do so and the prime minister-designate Mr Vajpayee immediately set about the task of preparing to test. However, for reasons of legal propriety he later decided to keep the tests pending until the outcome of the vote of confidence. Since he lost the vote on May 28th, India returned from the brink of testing once again. His successor H D Deve Gowda, who was approached by a frustrated ‘strategic enclave’, did not think testing was a high priority for India. Following this second miss by the scientific community, the device emplaced the year before was removed. The BJP got its second chance after coming to power in 1998. Between the first two attempts and the fateful year, the Clinton administration had successfully pushed through the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and started discussions in the Conference on Disarmament on a Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty. Earlier, in 1995 (17th April-12th May) the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty had been extended indefinitely. The Indian strategic enclave knew, as did the BJP, that the window for India to test its weapons potential was fast closing. September 1998 was the cut-off date for the signing and ratification of the CTBT and its entry into force (EIF) clause required India, as one of the 44 countries, to sign and ratify the treaty for it to come into effect. It was a coercive measure and violated the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties 1969. But the United States got it through by getting Australia to use the device of the single hijack and take the issue as a fresh resolution to the UN General Assembly to find the consensus that could not be had at the CD. India was livid but could do nothing short of flouting the norm that was developing on the issue. This is what the BJP did in May 1998. Shortly after the Vajpayee government won the confidence vote on March 28th 1998, it signalled to the strategic enclave to go ahead with the tests. The April 6th test of Ghauri by Pakistan was a good political ploy to justify the tests in May but India’s preparations for the tests had begun much before Pakistan’s missile test. During this period India gave mixed signals talking about the necessity of having a nuclear weapon capability but declining to give any timeframe. There were many articles in the Indian press looking at the approaching September deadline for ratifying the CTBT and asking New Delhi to take a clear line on what it wanted to do. Thus there were many indicators for the United States in what was coming out of India, not just in relation to what was being written but also in view of previous attempts by Delhi to cross the Rubicon. Yet, when India tested, the US administration expressed surprise and ignorance about the event. Now Mr Vajpayee has something else to say. We do not know whether the US offered India extended deterrence or whether he was actually offered a device ‘as and when India needed it’. The latter interpretation raises its own questions, not least how the US intended to offer one to India on a silver platter. Neither is it clear to us how the administration might have assessed Pakistan’s reaction to such an offer to India. But it’s clear that following Mr Vajpayee’s statement, someone in the US needs to come clean on this issue. * Daily Times - All Rights Reserved Site developed and hosted by WorldCALL Internet Solutions ***************************************************************** 11 BulletinWire News: Dzerzhinsky would be pleased BulletinWire | April 9, 2004 As an ominous warning of the renewed power of Russias secret services, researcher Igor Sutyagin was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor this week after a Moscow jury found him guilty of treason and espionage. The jury found that Sutyagin had sold information about Russias submarine program and missile warning system to a British company that prosecutors alleged was a front for U.S. intelligence. But defense attorneys continued to maintain Sutyagins innocence, repeating the claim that their client did not have access to classified government information and only gave the British company information that was already available to the public. After the court handed down Sutyagins sentence, the Norwegian watchdog group Bellona quoted an officer of Russias Federal Security Services (FSB)—the successor to the KGB—saying that the FSB was pleased with the verdict. This should serve as a warning to scientists, ecological organizations, journalists and others who often exchange information with foreigners. There has been far too much of that over the past few years, the unnamed officer said. Defense attorneys alleged government interference in the trial and accused the judge in the case of failing to instruct the jury to consider the type of information Sutyagin sold to the company. Im shocked that the jury members didnt get it. At the same time, I understand that the judge did everything to make them come up with this verdict, Vladimir Vasiltsov, one of Sutyagins attorneys, told the Washington Post (April 6). Sutyagin has been behind bars since being arrested in October 1999. In late 2001, a regional court failed to convict Sutyagin, ruling that the FSB did not present enough evidence against him and had violated legal procedures. The court also decided to keep Sutyagin in prison until he could be retried. In the September/October 2002 Bulletin, Michael Flynn reported that the prosecution of Sutyagin and other researchers accused of spying has more than a few observers concerned. The price for [the FSBs] success, however, is growing mobilization of activists and international human rights groups who charge that the agencys actions are reminiscent of the dark days of the Soviet police state, Flynn reported. A growing majority of Britons believe that their country should move toward a foreign policy separate from U.S. positions, which they believe pay little or no attention to their own countrys interests, according to a recent poll taken by the Pew Research Center one year after the invasion of Iraq. Fifty-six percent of Britons who responded to the poll said they supported an independent European foreign policy, compared to 48 percent of respondents polled the same time last year. The percentage of Britons holding anti-American views a year after the war, 34 percent, is comparable to the percentage who held the same views when the war started. But the number is still significantly greater than the 16 percent who held anti-American views after the 9/11 attacks. In Britain, where the majority is predisposed to be pro-American, it has been astonishing to see how quickly the Bush administration managed to squander the immense sympathy and goodwill felt after the 9/11 attacks, wrote Rebecca Johnson in an opinion article in the March/April Bulletin. Undoubtedly, the perception of Bush and his cohorts, notably Donald Rumsfeld, John Ashcroft, and Dick Cheney, as arrogant, corrupt, venal bigots, pursuing greedy policies of short-term benefit to their friends and long-term cost to the rest of the world, has acted as a lightning rod, making anti-Americanism almost fashionable. Johnson characterized British discontent with Americas global leadership on foreign policy and a variety of other issues, including many Britons growing, underlying fears about Americas unwillingness or inability to address its own role in undermining human rights and civil liberties, international agreements and security regimes, from its gas-guzzling habits to its nuclear irresponsibility and arms sales. Pro-American No More? by Rebecca Johnson, March/April 2004 ***************************************************************** 12 Middle East Newsline: U.S. URGED TO SHUT DOWN ALGERIA, EGYPT NUKES WASHINGTON [MENL] -- The Bush administration has been pressed to launch a diplomatic campaign to scale down the nuclear programs of Egypt and Algeria. The effort has been proposed as Algeria completed its first open presidential elections and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak prepares for a summit in the United States next week. The issue of the nuclear programs of the two North African states was said to have been recently discussed in the State Department and White House as part of a U.S. review of its relations with Algiers and Cairo. The first public appeal for such a U.S. effort came during a congressional hearing last week. A leading nonproliferation analyst warned of the growing nuclear capability of Algeria and Egypt and the prospect that the latter might assemble nuclear weapons. "Build on the successful precedent of Libya's nuclear renunciation by getting its neighbors, starting with Algeria, to shut down their largest nuclear facilities," Henry Sokolski, executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, said. NOTE: The above is not the full item. This service contains only a small portion of the information produced daily by Middle East Newsline. For a subscription to the full service, please contact Middle East Newsline at: editor@menewsline.comfor further details. ***************************************************************** 13 Nuke Power Matastisizing In Asia Date: Sun, 11 Apr 2004 16:58:00 -0400 Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh. CRAC-2 Report: http://www.mothersalert.org/crac.html NRC Admitted To Meltdown Probabilities: http://www.mothersalert.org/probability.html http://www.mothersalert.org/moreinfo http://www.nytimes.com http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/business/business-utilities-asia-nuclear.html Suppliers Readying for Asia Nuclear Power By REUTERS Published: April 10, 2004 Filed at 9:11 p.m. ET SINGAPORE (Reuters) - From India to China, energy-deficient Asia is spending billions of dollars to build nuclear power plants, sparking fierce competition among global equipment makers for the bonanza. The blossoming of nuclear power in Asia, where 18 of the world's 31 units under construction are located, is dubbed by some as a renaissance of the sector and has become a massive magnet for European, Canadian and Russian suppliers. Advertisement The lure is so strong that the United States may relax this year its curbs on the sensitive technology transfer to select Asian nations as China has other sources of nuclear expertise. ``Nuclear power will certainly continue to increase as a share of the region's capacity and that's mainly driven by activities in China and India,'' said Charles Chang, Asia power and gas analyst at rating agency Fitch. Nuclear fuel makes up 1.4-3.7 percent of the power output in Asia's two most populous nations, below the 35-40 percent for Japan and South Korea and 78 percent for France. Few projects have broken ground in the West in the past few years as environmental, health and security concerns have persisted since the Chernobyl accident in 1986. A growing number of aging nuclear plants in Europe are reaching their expiry dates and it has not been decided if they would be replaced. To clinch the lucrative contracts in Asia, nuclear equipment suppliers have focused on their safety records as well as competitive investment and production costs, analysts said. Suppliers also have to convince their own governments to let them export such sensitive technologies. The governments must also build good ties to win such deals, industry experts said. The suppliers include Framatome ANP, a venture between France's Areva and Germany's Siemens, Electricite de France, and Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd, an unlisted global nuclear equipment maker, and Russia. Framatome said on its Web site it ``is ready to take part in the new development phase of the Chinese nuclear program'' and ``is ready to issue the most suitable proposal to allow the Chinese industry to become more and more self-sufficient.'' POWER CHINA Washington bars firms such as Pittsburgh-based Westinghouse Electric Co, a unit of state-owned British Nuclear Fuels Ltd, and General Electric, from building reactors in China. But industry sources said Washington was expected to ease its control on China in September. ``U.S. firms are not allowed to provide a whole set of equipment to China, let alone signing contracts and providing loans to build the plants for us. But this September the restriction is expected to be lifted,'' said Liu Changxin, deputy secretary general with the Chinese Nuclear Society in Beijing. China is about to build four 1,000-megawatt (one million kilowatt) plants costing $6 billion as part of its drive to quadruple nuclear capacity to 32,000 MW between 2005 and 2020. Beijing plans to tender the projects in 2005, said the World Nuclear Association (WNA). Westinghouse would bid to supply its latest reactors, known as AP 1000s. The projected cost for the AP 1000, scheduled to get design approval in September, will be $1,000-$1,200 per kilowatt. Framatome would also make a bid, said the WNA, which represents nuclear companies and organizations. Gilbert Vaughn, a Westinghouse spokesman, said the use of ``a series of AP 1000s in China'' could support as many as 5,000 skilled U.S. jobs over the course of construction. ``These jobs would help to load Westinghouse design-and-manufacturing facilities as well as those of U.S.-based suppliers, including major architectural, design and construction organizations,'' Vaughn said in an email to Reuters. U.S. firms are now allowed to provide engineering services for China, which uses reactors from France, Canada and Russia. Russia's equipment is cheaper and Moscow has political clout over its neighbor due to China's demand for its arms, Liu said. SELF-SUFFICIENCY Most of the world's 440 nuclear plants, which supply 16 percent of global electricity, are in Japan, Europe and North America. The cost of building a nuclear plant is high but its fuel is cheaper than other alternative fuels. China and India are trying to emulate Japan and South Korea, which built their first nuclear power plants decades ago with U.S. or European technology, but are now capable of making their own reactors and even exporting them, analysts said. Japan's Mitsubishi Corp, Toshiba Corp and Hitachi Ltd supplies nuclear power parts to China. India, which began construction on six plants in 2002 and aimed to have 20,000 MW of nuclear capacity by 2020, mainly uses equipment and technology from Canada and Russia. Russia is supplying India's first large nuclear power plant via a Moscow-funded $3 billion contract, the WNA said. In India and China, nuclear equipment makers are usually required to bid with proposals to fund the projects. The funds are normally via loans from the bidding firm's governments. Although China and India are tapping the domestic bond market, the projects will remain largely out of reach of private capital, analysts said. ``They will never get project finance. It is too political,'' said Vijay Sethu, Asia power banker at ANZ Investment Bank. ***************************************************************** 14 China To Build Up To 32 N-Reactors As Cheney Pitches Westinghouse Date: Sat, 10 Apr 2004 15:45:47 -0400 Its plan calls for building as many as 32 large 1,000-megawatt reactors over the next 16 years. So, China is being viewed by the U.S. industry as a potential bonanza. http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-US-China-Reactors.html Cheney to Promote Nuke Reactors to China By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: April 10, 2004 Filed at 12:52 a.m. ET WASHINGTON (AP) -- On a trip to China next week to talk about high-stakes issues like terrorism and North Korea, Vice President Dick Cheney will have another task -- making a pitch for Westinghouse's U.S. nuclear power technology. At stake could be billions of dollars in business in coming years and thousands of American jobs. The initial installment of four reactors, costing $1.5 billion apiece, would also help narrow the huge U.S. trade deficit with China. Advertisement China's latest economic plan anticipates more than doubling its electricity output by 2020 and the Chinese government, facing enormous air pollution problems, is looking to shift some of that away from coal-burning plants. Its plan calls for building as many as 32 large 1,000-megawatt reactors over the next 16 years. No one has ordered a new nuclear power reactor in the United States in three decades and the next one, if it comes, is still years away. So, China is being viewed by the U.S. industry as a potential bonanza. Cheney's three-day visit to Beijing and Shanghai next week is part of a weeklong trip to Asia that will also include a stop in Tokyo. He departed Washington on Friday. A senior administration official, briefing reporters about the trip, said Cheney will not ``pitch individual commercial transactions.'' But he intends to make clear ``we support the efforts of our American companies'' and general access to China's markets, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity. Some critics are concerned about such technology transfers. ``This pitch could not be more poorly timed,'' Henry Sokolski, executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, told a hearing of the House International Relations Committee recently. Citing recent Chinese plans to help Pakistan build two large reactors that are capable of producing plutonium, he said it is not the time for China to be rewarded with new reactor technology. U.S. officials said the Chinese have given adequate assurances that such sales will not pose a proliferation risk. Bid solicitations for four new reactors are expected to be issued by the Chinese within months. The leading competitors are U.S.-based Westinghouse Electric Co. and a French rival, Areva, which is peddling its next-generation reactor built by its Framatome subsidiary. Westinghouse is putting its hopes on its 1,100 megawatt AP1000 reactor, an advanced design that is still waiting approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission before it can be built in the United States. Westinghouse, owned by the British nuclear firm BNFL, is the only U.S.-based manufacturer of a pressurized water reactor, the type of design China has said it wants to pursue. ``Clearly the China market is very important to the industry and a supplier like Westinghouse,'' said Vaughn Gilbert, a spokesman for the Pittsburgh-based reactor vendor. ``The Chinese market is one that we're pursuing.'' Each of the AP1000 reactors are expected to cost about $1.5 billion. ``We would assume there would be more than one order,'' Gilbert said, since China has indicated it wants a standardized design across its reactor program. A successful bid could mean 5,000 American jobs, Gilbert said in an interview. For the nuclear industry, the potential windfall goes beyond building the power plants. ``The opportunity is not just in selling the Chinese a number of reactors, but engaging them for a longer term in a strategic partnership,'' says Ron Simard, who deals with future plant development at the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry trade group. That could mean future construction contracts as well as plant service business. The reactor business has been nonexistent in the United States since the 1970s. No American utility has ordered a new reactor since the 1979 Three Mile Island nuclear accident. So, vendors like Westinghouse are relying on business elsewhere, especially Asia. China currently has nine operating reactors, including French, Canadian, Russian, and Japanese designs as well as their own model, producing 6,450 megawatts of power, or about 1.4 percent total capacity. Chinese officials have estimated that by 2020 the country will need an additional 32,000 megawatts from its nuclear industry, or about 32 additional reactors. Even with the surge in reactor construction, nuclear power will only account for 8 percent of China's future electricity needs. Chinese officials said at an energy conference in Washington last year their country must more than double its coal-fired generation and build more dams, erect windmills and tap natural gas to meet future electricity demands. ***************************************************************** 15 [NukeNet] China To Build Up To 32 N-Reactors As Cheney Pitches Date: Sat, 10 Apr 2004 19:55:18 -0700 Its plan calls for building as many as 32 large 1,000-megawatt reactors over the next 16 years. So, China is being viewed by the U.S. industry as a potential bonanza. http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-US-China-Reactors.html Cheney to Promote Nuke Reactors to China By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: April 10, 2004 Filed at 12:52 a.m. ET WASHINGTON (AP) -- On a trip to China next week to talk about high-stakes issues like terrorism and North Korea, Vice President Dick Cheney will have another task -- making a pitch for Westinghouse's U.S. nuclear power technology. At stake could be billions of dollars in business in coming years and thousands of American jobs. The initial installment of four reactors, costing $1.5 billion apiece, would also help narrow the huge U.S. trade deficit with China. Advertisement China's latest economic plan anticipates more than doubling its electricity output by 2020 and the Chinese government, facing enormous air pollution problems, is looking to shift some of that away from coal-burning plants. Its plan calls for building as many as 32 large 1,000-megawatt reactors over the next 16 years. No one has ordered a new nuclear power reactor in the United States in three decades and the next one, if it comes, is still years away. So, China is being viewed by the U.S. industry as a potential bonanza. Cheney's three-day visit to Beijing and Shanghai next week is part of a weeklong trip to Asia that will also include a stop in Tokyo. He departed Washington on Friday. A senior administration official, briefing reporters about the trip, said Cheney will not ``pitch individual commercial transactions.'' But he intends to make clear ``we support the efforts of our American companies'' and general access to China's markets, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity. Some critics are concerned about such technology transfers. ``This pitch could not be more poorly timed,'' Henry Sokolski, executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, told a hearing of the House International Relations Committee recently. Citing recent Chinese plans to help Pakistan build two large reactors that are capable of producing plutonium, he said it is not the time for China to be rewarded with new reactor technology. U.S. officials said the Chinese have given adequate assurances that such sales will not pose a proliferation risk. Bid solicitations for four new reactors are expected to be issued by the Chinese within months. The leading competitors are U.S.-based Westinghouse Electric Co. and a French rival, Areva, which is peddling its next-generation reactor built by its Framatome subsidiary. Westinghouse is putting its hopes on its 1,100 megawatt AP1000 reactor, an advanced design that is still waiting approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission before it can be built in the United States. Westinghouse, owned by the British nuclear firm BNFL, is the only U.S.-based manufacturer of a pressurized water reactor, the type of design China has said it wants to pursue. ``Clearly the China market is very important to the industry and a supplier like Westinghouse,'' said Vaughn Gilbert, a spokesman for the Pittsburgh-based reactor vendor. ``The Chinese market is one that we're pursuing.'' Each of the AP1000 reactors are expected to cost about $1.5 billion. ``We would assume there would be more than one order,'' Gilbert said, since China has indicated it wants a standardized design across its reactor program. A successful bid could mean 5,000 American jobs, Gilbert said in an interview. For the nuclear industry, the potential windfall goes beyond building the power plants. ``The opportunity is not just in selling the Chinese a number of reactors, but engaging them for a longer term in a strategic partnership,'' says Ron Simard, who deals with future plant development at the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry trade group. That could mean future construction contracts as well as plant service business. The reactor business has been nonexistent in the United States since the 1970s. No American utility has ordered a new reactor since the 1979 Three Mile Island nuclear accident. So, vendors like Westinghouse are relying on business elsewhere, especially Asia. China currently has nine operating reactors, including French, Canadian, Russian, and Japanese designs as well as their own model, producing 6,450 megawatts of power, or about 1.4 percent total capacity. Chinese officials have estimated that by 2020 the country will need an additional 32,000 megawatts from its nuclear industry, or about 32 additional reactors. Even with the surge in reactor construction, nuclear power will only account for 8 percent of China's future electricity needs. Chinese officials said at an energy conference in Washington last year their country must more than double its coal-fired generation and build more dams, erect windmills and tap natural gas to meet future electricity demands. _______________________________________________________________________ Subscribe/Unsubscribe Here: http://www.energyjustice.net/nukenet/ Change your settings at: http://energyjustice.net/mailman/listinfo/nukenet_energyjustice.net ***************************************************************** 16 Bellona: Russia offers India floating nuclear power plants In March this issue was discussed in India by Vladimir Asmolov, Russian Nuclear Agency representative, ITAR-TASS reported. 2004-04-10 08:50 Russia has offered to supply floating nuclear plants to India as a way of bypassing international restrictions on nuclear technology transfers. The NSG restrictions will not be broken as Russia plans to build a floating nuclear power plant and trawl it to India's shores. The plant will be operated by Russian personnel and India will only buy electricity.One 70-MW floating unit can generate enough electricity and thermal energy to support a town of 50,000 people or provide enough fresh water for one million people. Mounted on a barge it can be towed to any point along India's coastline and operate for four years without reloading nuclear fuel. However, the cost of electricity produced by the $150-million floating plant will be twice as high as for onland reactors. Russia is planning to construct a full-fledged floating nuclear plant by the year 2008 to supply power to the country's remote northern areas. Russia is now constructing two nuclear reactors at Koodankulam in Tamil Nadu under an accord signed before the NSG clamped down its restrictions in 1992. Being a member of the NSG, Russia cannot have any new nuclear deals with India, but floating reactors are different. Publisher: , President: Information: , Technical contact: Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00 Telefax: +47 22 38 38 62 * P.O.Box 2141 Grunerlokka, 0505 Oslo, Norway ***************************************************************** 17 azcentral Republic: Nuclear aging Tom Tingle/The Arizona Republic Workers reload the nuclear fuel in Unit 3 at the APS Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station on Wednesday morning. Older plants like Palo Verde generate fears about safety Max Jarman The Arizona Republic Apr. 11, 2004 12:00 AM When it began producing energy in 1985, Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station became America's largest nuclear power plant. The Three Mile Island nuclear accident in Pennsylvania in 1979 was a fresh memory. And only 800 people lived within a 10-mile radius of Palo Verde, 50 miles west of downtown Phoenix. Almost 20 years later, no new nuclear power plant is on the drawing board, Three Mile Island remains the lone major industry mishap, and West Valley growth is encroaching ever closer to the plant's reactors. Palo Verde, with a stellar operating record for most of the 1990s, is headed toward midlife in the next few years, posing new regulatory and maintenance challenges. The units, built at a cost of $9.3 billion, initially were licensed for 40 years in the mid-1980s. Both the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and plant operator Arizona Public Service Co. are confident they are capable of safely extending the plant's life. But there have been unanticipated problems. In February and March, each of the plant's three units was shut down on separate occasions for minor radiation leaks. Two of those were related to aging. And the NRC plans an investigation at the plant, citing a fractured relationship between management and employees that could affect the plant's safety culture. Although the recent problems are relatively minor, the fact that Palo Verde and other nuclear plants across the nation are getting older is a growing concern to regulators. "Nothing works as well as it did when it was new," said Victor Dricks, a spokesman for the NRC's regional headquarters in Arlington, Texas, which oversees Palo Verde. Some question whether the NRC can adequately handle the situation. "There are a lot of resources going into inspections, and there are signs that things aren't working just right," said David Lochbaum, a nuclear safety engineer with the industry watchdog Union of Concerned Scientists. However, Lochbaum said that he believed that Palo Verde was a well-run operation and one of the better plants in the country. Operators appeared to be on top of problems and able to anticipate potential issues, he said. The NRC routinely grants 20-year extensions to initial 40-year licenses, raising the specter of an industry eventually running on 60-year-old infrastructure. James M. Levine, APS' executive vice president in charge of generation, said the company would likely seek to extend its licenses as well. Palo Verde is owned by seven utilities, but APS has the largest share, 29.1 percent, and manages the plant for the other owners. Although problem-plagued during much of its first 10 years, Palo Verde since has enjoyed a strong operating record. Its units now operate at 90 percent efficiency, compared with 60 to 70 percent in the early years. And a review by The Republic of dozens of inspections, conducted by the NRC at Palo Verde over the past four years, found only minor infractions with minimal safety consequences. That compares with the early 1990s when the NRC was considering replacing APS as the plant's operator because of a string of safety problems. During that period, APS was fined $230,000 for retaliating against three employees who raised safety concerns. APS also paid a $100,000 fine in 1994 for allowing three people, including two felons, unescorted access to the plant without adequate security checks. Even as APS considers extending the life of the plant, the three Palo Verde units are starting to show their age. Besides the problems early this year, an 800-ton steam generator that was supposed to last the life of the plant had to be replaced in Unit 2 in 2003. The $230 million component that converts nuclear energy into steam and electricity was found to be prone to radiation leaks due to a faulty material called Iconel 600. The nickel alloy, used to make thousands of components in the huge steam generators and in the plant's nuclear reactors, is prone to stress corrosion cracking under pressure and heat. Scheduled replacements Levine said the huge generators in Palo Verde's other two units are scheduled to be replaced in 2005 and 2007. APS and the NRC have developed programs for monitoring and testing the Iconel 600 components, which include 13,000 heating tubes in each of the steam generators. Levine and the NRC believe Units 1 and 3 can be operated safely until the scheduled replacement of the steam generators in 2005 and 2007. "It's a well understood issue, and there are comprehensive guidelines for dealing with this," Dricks said. Levine explained that the steam generator in Unit 2 deteriorated faster than the other two, possibly due to contaminates in the water that is turned into steam when it comes in contact with the heating tubes. The 13,000 tubes carry pressurized water that is heated to more than 600 degrees by the reactor. In 1993, one of the tubes burst in Unit 2 and dumped 100 gallons of radioactive water per minute into the reactor's steam generator, which was vented to the outside atmosphere. Stress corrosion cracking caused the tube to rupture. It also was blamed for a small leak in February. On Feb. 29, workers found traces of boric acid on a heater sleeve in the Unit 3 reactor cooling system. Boron, which forms boric acid, absorbs neutrons and is used to control the rate of nuclear fission inside the reactor. Its presence on the heater sleeve indicated a leak of radioactive material. APS quickly shut down the unit where the acid was found to make repairs. But NRC rules would have allowed the continued operation of the plant. At the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station near, Toledo, Ohio, the plant continued to operate despite evidence of a leak in the top of a vessel that holds the plant's reactor. In 2002, it was discovered that the boric acid had eaten through the six-inch steel head. That left only a three-eighths-inch strip of stainless steel to protect the reactor from rupturing and causing a devastating accident. The plant was shut down by the NRC and restarted only last month. The plant's operator, First- Energy Corp., acknowledged to regulators that it put production ahead of safety and had deferred inspections and corrective-action programs. The Davis-Besse investigators found that managers weren't involved in fixing problems and rarely went into the reactor building, and operators justified potential problems to keep the plant running instead of making repairs. Ironically, the NRC had enough safety concerns to shut Davis-Besse down in 2001, but allowed it to remain operating. Culture of safety vital While regulators point to Palo Verde's impressive safety and operating record in the past decade, they are concerned that issues between Palo Verde's management and its employees potentially could lead to an erosion of the plant's "culture of safety," similar to what occurred at Davis-Besse. It's a scenario that was expounded by several Palo Verde employees at a recent meeting called by the NRC to discuss Palo Verde's performance over the past year. The employees say that safety concerns brought to management have gone unheeded. Dysfunctional eyewash stations and safety showers near areas where acid is handled, for example, were not repaired for weeks after their conditions were reported. Palo Verde led the industry last year with the number of allegations filed by employees with the NRC. The so-called allegations are generally filed with the NRC because the employee could not get satisfaction from management or they feared retaliation. The 28 allegations, kept secret by the NRC, ranged from safety concerns such as the showers and eyewash stations to more generic human resource issues. Silverio Garcia, a longtime Palo Verde employee, attributed the rise in allegations to a culture of mistrust between management and employees. "How can you have a safety-conscious work environment with a trust problem?" Garcia asked at the April 1 NRC hearing. In January, Palo Verde's managers were called to the NRC's Arlington headquarters to answer questions about the high number of allegations and whether employees at Palo Verde felt free to raise safety issues with the plant's management. After interviewing a number of employees, the regulators concluded that in matters of nuclear safety, the workers felt comfortable about going to management. But, they noted, the employees might not feel as free to bring up other concerns. It's a situation regulators are concerned could lead to a deterioration of the plant's safety culture. As a result, they plan to visit Palo Verde in May to determine whether the management-employee disconnect is isolated to one or two departments or widespread. "We don't regulate employee-management relations," said Mark Satorius, an NRC deputy director in its reactor projects division. "But we see a strong correlation between management style and employee awareness of safety issues." Levine acknowledged that the situation with the eyewash stations could have been handled better. Instead of simply fixing the problem, managers went on the defensive and insisted the showers met regulations. He added that in response to the NRC's concerns, APS has initiated training programs aimed at improving relations between management and employees. No security concerns After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the plant raised its security to a heightened level, but the NRC said it had no concerns in that area. Another issue facing the plant is the growing store of spent radioactive fuel rods stored at the site. Plans call for the removal of the rods to a planned facility in Nevada, but that site may not be ready for years. Rising natural-gas prices and growing concern about global warming is casting once-stigmatized nuclear power in a more favorable light. New technology that has brought down the cost of the plants and the government's pledge to reduce permitting red tape also has improved the climate for new nuclear facilities. Less than a week after the 25th anniversary of the worst nuclear mishap in U.S. history, a consortium of seven companies said it would file the first application for a new nuclear power plant since 1973. The five energy companies and two reactor vendors emphasized that none of the companies has made a commitment to build a new plant, but are taking the move to test the government's streamlined licensing process. Interest in new reactors faded after the nuclear accident at the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania on March 28, 1979. Many projects were canceled after the accident, although 51 reactors in the pipeline were completed. Three of those were at Palo Verde. Levine said that the site easily could accommodate additional reactors. But, he added, two factors stand in the way. While the plant was built with excess transmission capacity, that has been used up and new transmission to California and to the Valley would have to be built to handle an increase in power production at Palo Verde. The other obstacle is water. The plant now uses effluent purchased from Phoenix to cool the plant. Levine said it would be difficult to acquire a sufficient quantity of effluent to support additional reactors. The Arizona Republic - Copyright 2004, azcentral.com. All rights reserved. | | | ***************************************************************** 18 YDR: NRC still watching Peach Bottom - York Daily Record [ydr.com] Four unplanned shutdowns in about a year netted the reactor a 'white' violation, which gets it extra oversight. By SEAN ADKINS Daily Record staff Saturday, April 10, 2004 At bottom: · IF YOU GO A low to moderate safety violation discovered last year means additional regulatory oversight for Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station's Unit 2. The unit will face a Nuclear Regulatory Commission supplemental inspection later this year as a result of deficient performance based on its number of unplanned shutdowns. The commission will follow a normal inspection schedule for the power station's third unit through Sept. 30, 2005. Based on the assessment of an NRC inspection team, the commission cited Unit 2 with a "white" violation for the failure of the emergency diesel generator. Following a Sept. 15 unplanned shutdown of Units 2 and 3, a reserve generator seized. The generator, one of four, helps power the plant's vital equipment and offices. A commission inspection team later found that deficient procedures were followed during the 1992 installation of generator adapter gaskets. Gas leaked into the equipment's jacket water cooling system — a problem that led to the automatic tripping of the generator Sept. 15. The NRC team determined that corrective actions Exelon took to repair the observed low jacket water pressure conditions in March and April 2003 were inadequate. The problem was not resolved. Since that time, the plant has created corrective actions to ensure the operation of the generators, said Pete Resler, spokesman for Exelon Nuclear, which co-owns and operates the power station. For example, the plant has revised maintenance, testing and inspection procedures for the diesel generators. Training materials regarding the generators have been updated, Resler said. Aside from the low to moderate safety breach, five "green" violations at Unit 2 in 2003 caught the attention of the commission. A green violation is characterized as being of very low safety significance. Some of the green infractions include problems with the second unit's safe shutdown emergency lights and the emergency diesel generator fire protection system. "These findings highlight a need for Exelon to improve this area," according to a March 3 letter sent by the NRC to the utility. Commission officials will make another trip to Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station's Unit 2 in September to review the causes behind the reactor's four unplanned shutdowns per 7,000 critical hours, or roughly one year of operation. The shutdowns occurred between the fourth quarter of 2002 and the fourth quarter of 2003, said Diane Screnci, spokeswoman with the NRC. The fourth shutdown that occurred during the third quarter of 2003 netted the second reactor a white performance indicator, she said. Reach Sean Adkins at 771-2047 or sadkins@ydr.com. IF YOU GO The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will meet with Exelon Generation officials to discuss the results of the annual assessment of safety performance at Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Peach Bottom Inn. The agency will open the meeting for public observation that will cover the plant's performance between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31, 2003. The NRC staff will review the inner workings of the commission's reactor oversight process. Commission officials will field questions from the public concerning the plant's safety performance. Copyright © York Daily Record 2004 122 S. George St., P.O. Box 15122 York, PA 17405, (717) 771-2000 ***************************************************************** 19 Reuters: Suppliers Readying for Asia Nuclear Power Reuters.com 10, 2004 09:11 PM ET By Charlie Zhu SINGAPORE (Reuters) - From India to China, energy-deficient Asia is spending billions of dollars to build nuclear power plants, sparking fierce competition among global equipment makers for the bonanza. The blossoming of nuclear power in Asia, where 18 of the world's 31 units under construction are located, is dubbed by some as a renaissance of the sector and has become a massive magnet for European, Canadian and Russian suppliers. The lure is so strong that the United States may relax this year its curbs on the sensitive technology transfer to select Asian nations as China has other sources of nuclear expertise. "Nuclear power will certainly continue to increase as a share of the region's capacity and that's mainly driven by activities in China and India," said Charles Chang, Asia power and gas analyst at rating agency Fitch. Nuclear fuel makes up 1.4-3.7 percent of the power output in Asia's two most populous nations, below the 35-40 percent for Japan and South Korea and 78 percent for France. Few projects have broken ground in the West in the past few years as environmental, health and security concerns have persisted since the Chernobyl accident in 1986. A growing number of aging nuclear plants in Europe are reaching their expiry dates and it has not been decided if they would be replaced. To clinch the lucrative contracts in Asia, nuclear equipment suppliers have focused on their safety records as well as competitive investment and production costs, analysts said. Suppliers also have to convince their own governments to let them export such sensitive technologies. The governments must also build good ties to win such deals, industry experts said. The suppliers include Framatome ANP, a venture between France's Areva and Germany's Siemens, Electricite de France, and Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd, an unlisted global nuclear equipment maker, and Russia. Framatome said on its Web site it "is ready to take part in the new development phase of the Chinese nuclear program" and "is ready to issue the most suitable proposal to allow the Chinese industry to become more and more self-sufficient." Washington bars firms such as Pittsburgh-based Westinghouse Electric Co, a unit of state-owned British Nuclear Fuels Ltd, and General Electric, from building reactors in China. But industry sources said Washington was expected to ease its control on China in September. "U.S. firms are not allowed to provide a whole set of equipment to China, let alone signing contracts and providing loans to build the plants for us. But this September the restriction is expected to be lifted," said Liu Changxin, deputy secretary general with the Chinese Nuclear Society in Beijing. China is about to build four 1,000-megawatt (one million kilowatt) plants costing $6 billion as part of its drive to quadruple nuclear capacity to 32,000 MW between 2005 and 2020. Beijing plans to tender the projects in 2005, said the World Nuclear Association (WNA). Westinghouse would bid to supply its latest reactors, known as AP 1000s. The projected cost for the AP 1000, scheduled to get design approval in September, will be $1,000-$1,200 per kilowatt. Framatome would also make a bid, said the WNA, which represents nuclear companies and organizations. Gilbert Vaughn, a Westinghouse spokesman, said the use of "a series of AP 1000s in China" could support as many as 5,000 skilled U.S. jobs over the course of construction. "These jobs would help to load Westinghouse design-and-manufacturing facilities as well as those of U.S.-based suppliers, including major architectural, design and construction organizations," Vaughn said in an email to Reuters. U.S. firms are now allowed to provide engineering services for China, which uses reactors from France, Canada and Russia. Russia's equipment is cheaper and Moscow has political clout over its neighbor due to China's demand for its arms, Liu said. SELF-SUFFICIENCY Most of the world's 440 nuclear plants, which supply 16 percent of global electricity, are in Japan, Europe and North America. The cost of building a nuclear plant is high but its fuel is cheaper than other alternative fuels. China and India are trying to emulate Japan and South Korea, which built their first nuclear power plants decades ago with U.S. or European technology, but are now capable of making their own reactors and even exporting them, analysts said. Japan's Mitsubishi Corp, Toshiba Corp and Hitachi Ltd supplies nuclear power parts to China. India, which began construction on six plants in 2002 and aimed to have 20,000 MW of nuclear capacity by 2020, mainly uses equipment and technology from Canada and Russia. Russia is supplying India's first large nuclear power plant via a Moscow-funded $3 billion contract, the WNA said. In India and China, nuclear equipment makers are usually required to bid with proposals to fund the projects. The funds are normally via loans from the bidding firm's governments. Although China and India are tapping the domestic bond market, the projects will remain largely out of reach of private capital, analysts said. "They will never get project finance. It is too political," said Vijay Sethu, Asia power banker at ANZ Investment Bank. c Reuters 2004. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 20 St. Petersburg Times: Progress Energy, NRC staff to meet By Times Staff Writer Published April 11, 2004 CRYSTAL RIVER - The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will meet with Progress Energy officials at 11 a.m. Tuesday to discuss the results of NRC's annual assessment of safety performance at the Crystal River nuclear power plant. The meeting will take place at the Crystal River Nuclear Operations Training Facility, 8200 W Venable St. The public is invited to observe the meeting, and NRC officials will be available before its conclusion to answer any questions. The NRC told Progress Energy that the Crystal River plant operated safely during 2003 and that plant performance was at a level requiring no additional NRC oversight beyond routine inspections. A letter from the NRC to Progress Energy detailing the results of the evaluation is available on the NRC Web site at /NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/ LETTERS/cr_2003q4.pdf. [Last modified April 11, 2004, 01:05:45] ***************************************************************** 21 Guardian Unlimited: Ukrainian Nuclear Reactors Shut Down Saturday April 10, 2004 2:46 PM KIEV, Ukraine (AP) - Two Ukrainian nuclear reactors were shut down Saturday for regular maintenance and energy conservation during the Easter holidays, officials said. The No. 1 reactor at the Rivne nuclear power plant was pulled off the power grid in the early hours Saturday for regular maintenance, the state nuclear power company Energoatom said. The reactor is expected to be switched on Friday. The generator of the No. 4 reactor at the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, Europe's largest, was switched off the power grid until Thursday to save energy during the religious holiday. Many enterprises will not be operating because of Easter, Energoatom said. The No. 1 reactor at the Khmelnitsky nuclear power plant is still undergoing a major overhaul, which is expected be completed in late May. Ukraine was the site of the world's worst nuclear disaster in April 1986, with an explosion and fire at a reactor at the Chernobyl atomic plant. It was closed in 2000. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004 Guardian Newspapers Limited ***************************************************************** 22 TCPalm: Union says nuclear plant security is lax around state The labor group raises concerns over Wackenhut's methods at sites including the St. Lucie facility By Marcia Heroux Pounds Sun-Sentinel April 10, 2004 A labor union for security guards has issued a white paper raising concerns about Wackenhut Corp.'s security at nuclear power plants including the St. Lucie Nuclear Plant operated by Florida Power &Light Co. The research report, which describes incidents at St. Lucie in 2000 and 2002, says Wackenhut is the link between guard training problems and lax security reported at several nuclear plants nationwide. The Service Employees International Union, part of the AFL-CIO, points to problems including training cutbacks, cheating on security drills, security lapses, poorly maintained weapons inventories and falsified weapons tests and drug screening. The union does not represent any guards at South Florida's nuclear plants, though some employees belong to other labor unions. Palm Beach Gardens-based Wackenhut, which is owned by Group 4 Falck of Denmark, declined to comment on the report. Eric Weinstein, spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said he had not seen the white paper but "if we were aware of security lapses such as those, we would have taken significant action to see they were rectified." Weinstein said he was not aware of any current concerns with security at South Florida's nuclear power plants. "We take security issues at St. Lucie and all our sites very seriously. It's our highest priority," FPL spokesman Bill Swank said. In the cited incidents, "we were able to take corrective action and learn from it," he said. In the 2000 incident, which involved a Wackenhut officer being absent from his post, the situation was corrected as soon as it was discovered, Swank said. No one entered while the area was unprotected, he added. In the 2002 incident, reported to the NRC, an unattended visitor had completed a thorough background review and was supposed to be met by a plant escort. The visitor went to a building where he was supposed to attend a meeting before the escort reached him, Swank said. "In neither of the cases was the safety of St. Lucie compromised," Swank said. The union launched a public relations campaign attacking Wackenhut's security practices at nuclear plants last fall. The white paper, released Thursday, was the culmination of information the union has been gathering from sources including the NRC, Department of Energy and Wackenhut publications. Particularly after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, security guards "are very concerned about standards in their industry right now," union spokesman Andrew McDonald said. "Security officers face more pressure than ever before." "We think it's significant that all these incidents have occurred at Wackenhut facilities. They need to explain it," he said. McDonald said the union is not trying to discredit Wackenhut in order to recruit new members. Some Wackenhut guards are represented by a different labor union. "We have not been trying to organize those guards in Florida," he said. TCPalm.com traffic is audited by the Audit Bureau of ***************************************************************** 23 [DU-WATCH] Crimes in Iraq - Lest We Forget 13 years of Date: Sat, 10 Apr 2004 00:25:27 -0500 (CDT) Crimes in Iraq - Lest We Forget Thirteen Years of Sanctions By Felicity Arbuthnot Freelance Journalist ?London 08/04/2004 Islam Online http://www.islamonline.net/english/In_Depth/Iraq_Aftermath/2004/04/article_03.sh\ tml When Martti Ahtisaari, then Special Rapporteur to the UN, visited Iraq in March 1991 just after the end of the Gulf War, he wrote, #25560;othing we had heard or read could have prepared us for this particular devastation - a country reduced to a pre-industrial age for a considerable time to come.?br> UN reports on Iraq#25263; water, electricity, health care, and education in 1989 described Iraq as near First World standards. The country was regarded as having the most sophisticated medical facilities in the Middle East. The embargo, implemented on Hiroshima Day 1990 to pressure Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait, had an almost instant negative impact. Iraq imported a broad range of items, 70 percent of everything, from pharmaceuticals to film, educational materials to parts for the electricity grid, water purifying chemicals to everything necessary for waste management; and at the consumer level also, almost everything that a developed society takes for granted was imported. With all trade denied, the Iraqi dinar (ID), worth US$ 3in1989 , became virtually worthless: ID250 , formerly US$ 750did not even buy a postage stamp in neighboring Jordan. Staple foods multiplied up to11 ,000-fold in price. With no trade, unemployment spiraled and many - in a country where obesity had been a problem - faced hunger and deprivation. The US and UK-driven UN sanctions, in fact, mirrored a pitiless Middle Ages siege. With Iraq#25263; withdrawal from Kuwait the embargo should have been lifted, but a further relentless US and UK-driven #25624;ar of moving goal posts?br> began, and the majority of children in Iraq - who are fourteen years old now - have never known a normal childhood. Even birthday parties,`eid celebrations - and Christmas and Easter celebrations for Christians -became victims; few had the money for the feast or the gifts. In a country where obesity had been a problem, many faced hunger and deprivation. Ten months after the war, I stood in the pediatric intensive care unit of Baghdad#25263; formerly flagship Pediatric Teaching Hospital. A young couple stood, faces frozen with terror, as a nurse tried frantically to clear the airway of their perfect, tiny, premature baby. There was no suction equipment. #25553;t is at a time like this, all your training becomes a reflex action,?remarked my companion, Dr. Janet Cameron, from Glasgow, Scotland, #25587;nd in a unit like this, you know exactly where everything will be - but there is nothing here.?The fledgling life turned from pink to an ethereal grey, to blue, flickered, and went out. Since then, over a million lives have gone out due to #25594;mbargo related causes,?a silent holocaust initiated on Hiroshima Day. Doctors were remarking in bewilderment at the rise in childhood cancers and in birth deformities, which they were ironically comparing with those they had seen in textbooks after the nuclear testing in the Pacific Islands in the1950 s. In1991 , only the United States?and the United Kingdom#25263; top military planners knew that they had used radioactive and chemically toxic depleted uranium (DU) weapons against the Iraqis. Just weeks later, the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Agency wrote a #25618;elf initiated?report and sent it to the UK government, warning that if #25595;ifty tonnes of the residual DU dust?had been left #25603;n the region?there would, they estimated, be half a million extra cancer deaths by the end of the century (i.e., the year 2000 ). The Pentagon eventually admitted to an estimate of 325 tons; some independent analysts estimate as much as 900 tons. Estimates of the added burden of last year's illegal invasion are that up to a further2 , 000tons of the residual dust remain to poison water, fauna, flora and to be inhaled by the population and the occupiers, causing cancers and genetic mutations in the yet-to-be-conceived. DU remains radioactive for4 . 5billion years. Some scientists estimate that it will still be poisoning the earth, the unborn, the newborn #25624;hen the sun goes out.?Iraq, the land of ancient Mesopotamia - like Afghanistan and the Balkans - has become a silent potential weapon of mass destruction for the population and geographical neighbors. Ironically, as cancers spiraled, the UN Sanctions Committee added to its limitless list of items denied to Iraq, treatment for cancers (and heart disease) since they contain minute amounts of radioactive materials. Iraqi scientists, they argued, might extract the radioactive materials from these medications and make weapons from them. One exasperated expert commented, #25544;ven were the technology available - and it is not - one would probably need to extract the radioactivity from every pill and intravenous treatment on earth, to make one crude device.?So little Iraqis, in their irradiated land, could only suffer the most lethal effects of radiation but were denied all of the therapeutic ones in the name of #25624;e the people of the United Nations?- a United Nations to which, incidentally, Iraq was one of the first signatories. In the West, 70 percent of cancers are now largely curable or with long remissions. In Iraq they are almost always a death sentence. On another early visit after the war, I went to a ward where just two small boys, aged three and five lay alone, in an attempt to isolate them. They had acute myeloid leukemia and hopelessly compromised immune systems, rendering them vulnerable to any infection. The three-year-old, whose name translated as #25621;he vital one,?br> was covered with bruises from the leaking capillaries bleeding internally and rigid with pain. There was not even an aspirin available. His eyes were full of unshed tears and I realized he had taught himself not to cry - sobs would rack his agonized little body further. #25553; now know it is actually possible to die of shame.?br> Leaving, I stooped to stroke the face of the five-year-old, who was in an identical condition. In a gesture that must have cost more than could ever be imagined, he reached and clutched my hand tightly, as do children everywhere, responding to affection. I left the ward, leaned against a wall and prayed that the ground would open and swallow me. I wrote at the time, #25553; now know it is actually possible to die of shame.?br> Families would sell all they had to buy cancer and other vital medication on the black market, and since hospitals no longer had the requisite equipment to test it, could not even check to ensure it was safe. I remember an enchanting three-year-old, the bane of the doctors, his energy levels and mischief belying his precarious health. As I was talking to Dr. Selma Haddad, a man burst through the door and thrust a small packet into her hand. She looked at it, then said to me, #25567;his is his uncle, he is the last one in the family with anything left to sell. He has sold all he has for 500 milligrams of medication. This child needs 800 milligrams a month, for a year.?br> When, occasionally, pitiful amounts of medication came in, doctors gave half the needed dose so the next patient would have some, too - rendering effectiveness virtually nil. They would meticulously write the patient's protocol (dosage, medication, amount, time to administer) on used paper, writing between the lines, and between the between, on cardboard, on anything (paper was vetoed by the UN Sanctions Committee) then solemnly write under each item, N/A, N/A, N/A - not available. Sometimes just one would be available - in half a dose. I remember Ali, eighteen months, lying nearly unconscious in his mother's arms in the packed child cancer clinic. #25573;ith bone marrow transplant, we could do something, but there is nothing,?said Dr. Haddad. The mother begged and pleaded, but beds and even palliative care were for the glimmer of chances, not for the small no-hopers, such was the total destruction of a fine, free, sophisticated health service. Leaving the hospital, I found Ali's mother sitting on the ground, leaning against one of the great white entrance pillars, in her black abaya, her tears streaming onto his small, still face. #25548;ow do you cope??I asked Dr. Haddad on one visit: doctors who have all the skills and knowledge yet no ability to treat those they care so passionately about. She thought for a moment, then said quietly, #25553; take them all home with me, in my heart.?In a way, she said, the older children were the hardest. She sat on Ezra#25263; bed, holding her hand and stroking her hair. #25567;hey know they are going to die.?Ezra was beautiful, 17 years old, and the cancer had paralyzed her central nervous system. But it had not prevented her crying. She had been crying for three weeks, because she wanted to go home, to complete her studies, to go to university and graduate. Most of all, she wanted to live. As I left, her grandmother grabbed my hand, #25562;lease,?she begged, #25621;ake her with you, make her better.?Parents, grandparents, made the same plea, again and again. They did not ask where you were from, who you were, or for their beloved back, just, Please, take him or her and make them well again. #25553; asked death, #24934;hat is greater than you??Death replied, #24929;eparation of lovers is greater than me,#25347; was one of his collected phrases. He was 13. Then there was Jassim. In the same ward as Ezra, he lay with his huge eyes and glossy hair, listlessly viewing the barren ward. He had been selling cigarettes on the streets of Basra to support his family until he became ill. #25567;his is Felicity and she writes for a living,?said Dr. Haddad. Jassim was transformed; he glowed and showed me the poems he spent his days writing, when he still had the energy. He collected phrases, too, to incorporate where he thought appropriate. I told him all writers collect words and phrases, they are our tools. He glowed again, delighting that he was being understood and that his instincts were guiding him correctly along his passionate path. #25553; asked death, #24934;hat is greater than you??Death replied, #24929;eparation of lovers is greater than me,#25347; was one of his collected phrases. He was13 . One of his poems was called #25567;he Identity Card.?In translation, it reads: The name is love, The class is mindless, The school is suffering, The governorate is sadness, The city is sighing, The street is misery, The home number is one thousand sighs. He watched my face for reaction. Lost for words, eventually I said, #25555;assim, if you can write like this at thirteen, think what you will do at twenty.?I asked him if I could incorporate his poem in articles from that visit and said I would send them back to him, so he would see it in print. Some weeks later, I did just that and sent cuttings back to him with a friend and imagined him glowing again. He had fought and fought, but lost his battle just before my friend arrived. He never saw his poem in print and became just another statistic in the #25591;ollateral damage?of sanctions by the most inhuman regime ever overseen by the United Nations, which arguably condemned the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child - the most widely signed convention in history - to the dust, to the mass of graves of Iraq's children, resulting from the embargo years. Children that survived, wrote Professor Magne Raundalen, possibly the world's foremost expert on children in war zones, who heads the Centre for Crisis Studies, in Bergen, Norway, were #25587;mongst the most traumatised child Population?br> on earth. And there was no chance of recovery. Count Hans von Sponeck, who resigned as UN Co-ordinator in Iraq, like his predecessor Denis Halliday (who had cited the sanctions he was there to oversee as generating #25621;he destruction of an entire nation, it is as simple and terrifying as that?, spoke of not only of medical and nutritional problems, but #25603;ntellectual genocide.?br> School books were vetoed. All professionals - doctors, engineers, architects -qualified from 1989 course material. An Iraqi doctor qualifying in 2003 was fourteen years behind in clinical developments, though never in commitment. Children, Iraq's future, were also marooned in the academia of the1980 s. Isolation was searing. On one visit, this writer was asked for a radio interview and the usual ground rules were laid down: no politics. It was a pleasant half-hour of history, culture - and only mildest current politics. Then the presenter said that all guests were asked to select a piece of music and dedicate it to whom they wished. (#25573;e like to think of ourselves as Baghdad's BBC Radio3 .? I chose Stevie Wonder's #25553; Just Called to Say I Love You?and dedicated it to the children of Iraq. Children that survived were #25587;mongst the most traumatised child Population?on earth. The next day I had a crash course in human relations. I was repeatedly stopped in the street, whispered to at a conference, by people from all walks of life. Was I the lady on the radio last night? On affirmation, the comment was always virtually the same: #25567;hank you so much, we are so isolated, my wife (or husband) was in tears, I was in tears, my children#21372;hank you.?And no, I know orchestration; this was not. Several years ago, I talked to the young who should have had all before them - a social mixture, between 18 and 21 years old - and asked them about their hopes, dreams and fears. None had a dream. #25553; dream of having enough milk for my baby,?said a young mother. #25553; am too tired to dream,?said a youth who had dreamed of being a doctor, but was working in a smelt, in the searing heat of a Baghdad summer, to help support his family. A vibrant, beautiful young woman from a formerly privileged family waited until her mother had left the room and whispered, #25560;othing awaits us, only death.?She was18 . And for much of the country there were the often daily, ongoing bombings of the patrolling by the United States and United Kingdom of the #25609;o fly zones?or misnamed #25618;afe havens?in the north and south, an illegal exercise not sanctioned by the United Nations. For reasons unknown, aircraft returning to their bases in Turkey and Saudi Arabia routinely bombed flocks of sheep - and with them the child shepherds who minded them. An abiding memory is of watching a tiny illiterate woman, who had lost her three children -the youngest 5 and the oldest 13 - her husband and father-in-law to one of these bombings, as she walked with leaden feet to their graves in a tiny dusty cemetery near the northern city of Mosul. She sat hunched, fetal, on the smallest grave, that of five-year-old Sulaiman. Their flock of nearly 200 sheep were also blasted to pieces on a barren plain where they would have been visible for exactly what they were. #25573;e searched all day for parts to bury,?said a villager who had rushed down to help, on hearing the bombing. Then he lowered his eyes and whispered, #25567;here was so little recognizable, we still don't know whether the graves contain all human or some sheep remains.?br> Asked why flocks of sheep were being bombed, the British Ministry of Defence - surreally - responded, #25573;e reserve the right to take robust action, when threatened.?At St. Matthew's Monastery on Mount Maqloub, which overlooks the plain, the priest in charge commented of the bombings, #25544;very day, there are new widows, new widowers, new orphans.?Then he said solemnly, #25562;lease, will you tell your Mr. Tony Blair that he is a very, very bad man.?The ancient monastery is Iraq's Lourdes, where people of all religious beliefs bring their sick to the site of the saint's believed burial, to benefit from the healing powers legend holds he still possesses from the grave. The ongoing grief and carnage on the plains below were in contrast to all the monks and monastery stood for. The gentle, sorrowful admonition from a spiritual soul was especially poignant. Forgotten, too, are the major bombing blitzes over the years. In 1993 there were two massive attacks on Baghdad: one a good-bye from outgoing George Bush Senior and the other a hello from incoming William Jefferson Clinton. The second one killed, among others, the talented artist Laila Al-Attar. Days later I stood by the crater that had been her home. #25573;hen they lifted her out, she looked like a beautiful broken doll,?a friend said quietly. Al-Attar ran the Museum of Modern Art. She was also the artist responsible for the mosaic face of George Bush Senior on the steps of the Al-Rashid Hotel. The death of her and her family by a precision guided missile can, of course, only be a freak coincidence. The year 1996 saw further bombings, as did1998 . All the planners predicted the ' 98bombing would begin on February23 , #25621;he darkest night? maximum cloud cover for the planes. That day I went to interview Leila, yet another of the embargo#25263; victims with a tragic tale to tell. Her large front room was empty: she had sold all her furniture to survive and provide. As we talked, the room filled up with neighborhood children, creeping in, quiet as proverbial mice, sitting on the floor, watching my every move - a stranger and foreigner was a treat in isolated Iraq. When I left, dusk was falling, and they followed me out to the battered car (spare parts vetoed), about 50 of them, between maybe 3 and 13 years old. In 1993there were two massive attacks on Baghdad: one a good-bye from outgoing Bush Senior and the other a hello from incoming Clinton. As we pulled away, they ran beside the car in a joyous wave, laughing, waving, and blowing kisses. When they could no longer keep up, I looked back: they had formed a little group in the center of the road, still laughing, waving, and blowing kisses. Photographer Karen Robinson and I looked at each other, stricken, and said in unison, #25573;e are going to bomb them tonight#21424; I went back to my hotel, lay on the bed, and wept. In the event, public protest halted a February blitz. In December, Prime Minister Blair stood in front of a resplendent Christmas tree outside 10 Downing Street and announced a seasonal gift for Iraq: a four-day onslaught on a decimated country, where nearly half the population were under 16 years and the average nutritional values were below those of Eritrea. February 2000 saw another attack, another hello, from another George Bush. An elegant school principal broke down in front of me, encapsulating the pain and desperation: #25559;y son is a doctor in Washington, why are they doing this to us??She sobbed. Earlier, a10 -year-old pupil had told me, poignantly, #25573;hen there is a bombing, my father goes and stands outside the gate to protect us and our home.?br> #25573;hen there is a bombing, my father goes and stands outside the gate to protect us and our home.?br> In July 2001, a shameful admission was extracted from Benon Sevan, head of the United Nations Iraq Program: the money allotted for food for Iraqis was US$ 100per capita per year, less than that allotted for the United Nation#25263; sniffer dogs used in de-mining in northern Iraq. In spite of the grinding misery for most of the embargo years, one event changed the national psyche. In1999 , Baghdad International Airport re-opened, with the those of Mosul and Basra, rebuilt with creativity and inventiveness. The United Nations, under pressure from the United States, did all it could to prevent international flights. Lloyd's of London mysteriously withdrew insurance; airlines were threatened that if they flew to Baghdad, they would be denied landing rights in the United States. In one case - a flight from Athens to Baghdad, arranged by former Greek First Lady, Margarita Papandreou - the United nations demanded the names and occupations of all passengers. Assured by the United Nations that it was entirely confidential to them, the passengers agreed. In less than three minutes, Madam Papandreou's phone rang: It was the US Embassy complaining about some names on the passenger list. Like others, though, the flight finally arrived. #25567;here are tears in our eyes, every time a plane lands,?remarked an Iraqi friend. Isolation had been as grinding as deprivation. Iraqi Airways was integral to the national psyche. Many of its offices stayed open during the embargo years, even though its aircraft were stranded throughout the Middle East. International flight manuals, too, were vetoed, so courteous staff perused August 1990 schedules and then solemnly said it might be more accurate to telephone Jordan. With the airports opening, and a single proud Iraqi Airways plane again flying between Mosul, Baghdad, and Basra, the collective consciousness visibly changed, pride and hope returned. Shop windows began to sparkle again, traders rose at dawn and hosed the pavements, stock was dusted and rearranged, shutters, blinds, and buildings were repainted and refurbished, and the arts again flourished. Francois Dubois, heading the UN Development Program, had a passion for Iraq equaling that of Halliday and von Sponeck. A fluent Arabic speaker, he had spent the years of the Lebanese civil war there, then headed for the complexities of Iraq. Almost single-handed, he encouraged, funded, and advised the restoration of art galleries, sculpture exhibits, music, and theater. Where artistic life had sunk under the weight of everyday living, it was rekindled and nourished, and it flourished. Few could afford to buy exhibits, but the spirit grew again and haunting beauty was born again. Creativity flourished at every level - inventive architecture, superb woodwork. Iraqis were looking forward and outward again. A week before last year's invasion, in Mosul, I watched the joyous flocks of birds sweep and sing across the corniche in peach-streaked dawns and dusks. As I left for Baghdad, I jumped at the sound of a bird of a different kind, the roar of a low-flying aircraft, having come within minutes of annihilation from the US and UK bombings on several occasions. The driver and translator laughed and pointed skywards with a tangible pride. #25553;t is ours, ours,?they said as the sun glinted on the great white form with its green Iraqi Airways insignia. Less than a month later, I sat in London with a sociology professor from Mosul University as she drew her breath in horror as Saddam's statue toppled, his head pulled along the street. It was not the destruction of Saddam's image, but of what - like many statues and monuments built in the mists of time - made Mesopotamia. It was destruction of future history. Flicking channels, we watched as Mosul University, Museum, and Library were looted, ransacked, burned. #25560;o, no, not my university, not my home#21424; She was inconsolable and incredulous. Then came the scenes of Baghdad Airport: #25618;ecured,?destroyed, with a great white broken bird, the green insignia just visible, lying on the runway. The airport immediately became a symbol of repression, not freedom, Iraq's own Guantanamo, with the imprisoned largely unaccounted for. Reports are that 300 people are also buried there, equally unaccounted for. The great, regal, centuries- old palm groves that fringed the road and perimeters have been bulldozed, like Palestine's olives. There is a memorial in Basra to Iraq Airways. It reads, #25553;raqi Airways -1947 -1990.?Iraqi Airways rose from the ashes, like Iraq itself has done after so many invasions. Both surely will again. In the phoenix year of Iraqi Airways, I gained an interview with Tareq Aziz on behalf of Middle East International. It included a modern history lesson: #25553;raqis are very quick to revolt, as they did in1921 ,1931 , 1947 , 1957 and1968 ,?he said (neatly omitting the US-encouraged uprising of1991 ). Watching ominous recent #25607;iberation?linked events, one is tempted to add #25587;nd 2004 .?br> Ironically, it is the residents of Sadr City, who were bribed by the Americans to fill the square as the statue fell, who are now leading the uprising against them. Viceroy Bremer and the planners of this dangerous, feckless oil grab would have done well to have read up on Iraq's modern history. Felicity Arbuthnot is a journalist and activist who has visited Iraq on numerous occasions since the1991 Gulf War. She has written and broadcast widely on Iraq, her coverage of which was nominated for several awards. She was also Senior Researcher for John Pilger's award-winning documentary - Paying the Price Killing the Children of Iraq http://pilger.carlton.com/iraq/film --------------------------------- Post your free ad now! Yahoo! Canada Personals [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Buy Ink Cartridges or Refill Kits for your HP, Epson, Canon or Lexmark Printer at MyInks.com. Free s/h on orders $50 or more to the US & Canada. http://www.c1tracking.com/l.asp?cid=5511 http://us.click.yahoo.com/mOAaAA/3exGAA/qnsNAA/Sj.0lB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> [Brought to you by HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK] Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/du-watch/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: du-watch-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ***************************************************************** 24 [DU-WATCH] US Whitewashes Warthogs Killing Marines Date: Sat, 10 Apr 2004 00:28:42 -0500 (CDT) US Whitewashes Warthogs Killing Marines http://www.traprockpeace.org/du_friendly_fire_add.html The US Central Command has issued its investigative report on the attack on Marines at An Nasiriyah by 2 A-10 Warthogs on March 23, 2003. Initially, Americans were told, and US media reported, that the Marines died as a result of Iraqi's pretending to surrender, and then firing on the Marines. It was then revealed that two A-10's had attacked the Marines during the worst so-called 'friendly' fire incident of the war. 18 Marines died and 17 were wounded during the engagement with Iraqi forces and the US A-10's. The A-10's fired Maverick missiles at vehicles and strafed vehicles and US Marines on the ground with 30 mm 'depleted' uranium rounds. One Marine witnessed 9 strafing runs. On March 19, 2004, NPR had broadcast accounts by Marines given shortly after the battle to Marine historians. Marines described multiple deaths from the A-10's; a sergeant said that most of the Americans deaths were caused by the A-10's. Col. Reed Bonadonna, Marine historian, described the devastating effect of the 30 mm DU rounds and called for a legitimate investigation of the incident: "I think that most of the Marines felt that with the kind of price that is being paid by this war, by a lot of people, and with the stakes being what they are, that falling back on some kind of no comment or bland, evasive or euphemistic language is really inadequate to the situation. That this kind of sacrifice, only the truth is good enough. That to try to protect somebody's nasty little career or to try to throw a gloss over this as if it didn't exist. The proper function of military history is to instruct people so we do it better next time, save people's lives." (transcription from NPR broadcast.) Yet, the Central Command report did not confirm a single death caused by the A-10's. It found that the cause of death for 10 Marines was "indeterminable." Of Marines wounded, the Central Command said in its press release: "Of the 17 wounded, only one was conclusively determined to have been hit by friendly fire." Further, that "three Marines were wounded while inside vehicles that received both friendly and hostile fire, and the exact sequence and source of their injuries could not be determined." It is unbelievable that the military could not confirm if these Marines were injured by an A-10's strafing, as DU is radioactive. There was barely a mention of 'depleted' uranium in the report itself, even though it played a key role. It was mentioned in connection marking vehicles that had been hit by the 30 mm rounds as radioactive. It seems clear that the military has minimized this deadly incident. Why? http://www.traprockpeace.org/du_friendly_fire_add.html covers this controversy. It also provides exclusive commentary by Dr. Doug Rokke (retired Major USAR); Tedd Weyman, Iraq Field Team leader for the Uranium Medical Research Center, and Ross Wilcock, MD., as well as links to the NPR and Central Command original resources and media accounts. Charles Jenks, attorney at law President of the Core Group Traprock Peace Center 103A Keets Road Deerfield, MA 01342 413-773-1633; Fax 413-773-7507 charles@mtdata.com http://traprockpeace.org ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Buy Ink Cartridges or Refill Kits for your HP, Epson, Canon or Lexmark Printer at MyInks.com. Free s/h on orders $50 or more to the US & Canada. http://www.c1tracking.com/l.asp?cid=5511 http://us.click.yahoo.com/mOAaAA/3exGAA/qnsNAA/Sj.0lB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> [Brought to you by HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK] Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/du-watch/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: du-watch-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ***************************************************************** 25 [du-list] Article: Dutch military in Iraq delays troop Date: Sat, 10 Apr 2004 19:55:17 -0700 Please find below the following article posted recently at RISQ | www.risq.org Dutch military in Iraq delays troop transfer from suspected DU contaminated area When Dutch marines arrived in a base camp near the town of As Samawah, Iraq, to replace American troops last summer, they measured unacceptably high levels of radioactivity. Yet, troop transfer from the area was delayed by three weeks, putting both Dutch and American troops at risk of exposure to depleted uranium (DU). See: http://www.risq.org/article320.html Maarten H.J. van den Berg Editor RISQ | www.risq.org Review of International Social Questions info@risq.org +31 (0)294 458 011 The Netherlands RISQ is an independent foreign policy think tank. Dutch military in Iraq delays troop transfer from suspected DU contaminated area RISQ News, 08 April 2004 by M.H.J. van den Berg When Dutch marines arrived in a base camp near the town of As Samawah, Iraq, to replace American troops last summer, they measured unacceptably high levels of radioactivity. Yet troop transfer from the area was delayed by three weeks, putting both Dutch and American troops at risk of exposure to depleted uranium (DU). On July 24th last year, Dutch troops arrived in 'Camp Smitty', a base set up by the Americans in an abandoned train depot near the town of As Samawah. Located along the railway track from Basra to Baghdad, and consisting of several concrete buildings big enough to lodge both troops and their vehicles, the location seemed a perfect outpost. Set to replace the 442nd US Military Police Brigade stationed in the depot since early June, the Dutch troops put up their field beds inside, granting them at least some shelter from the ever-present desert heat and sand storms in the area, even though the buildings were dirty, dusty, vermin-infested and most windows were broken. Meals and other collective gatherings were held outside on the yard along the railway tracks amidst abandoned train engines and carriages, wrecked Iraqi tanks, unexploded ordnance, and other remnants of war. Settled all right thus by military standards, the Dutch troops could have made Camp Smitty their 'home', just as the Americans had done for months. Yet shortly after their arrival, they made an alarming discovery, which according to Sgt. Juan Vega, senior medic with the US 442nd, led the Dutch "to pitch camp in the desert instead". As Mr Vega told the New York-based Daily News "the Dutch swept the area around the train depot with Geiger counters and their medics confided to [me] they had found high radiation levels". According to Mr Vega and other soldiers interviewed by the paper, the radiation may have come from the remains of DU shells scattering the compound or one of the wrecked Iraqi tanks, which had been hauled onto railroad cars just outside the depot. Yet, since DU can take the form of a very fine, toxic and radiocative dust that easily spreads, a much greater part of the compound may have been contaminated. As quite a few of the American troops who were based in Camp Smitty, are still suffering from chronic nausea, skin rashes and migraines, they suspect they may have inhaled a toxic dosis of DU dust during their stay. Already, four out of nine veterans who volunteered for a test, were found to have higher than normal levels of uranium in their urine. While the US Department of Defence has recently announced it will investigate the case of the veterans from Camp Smitty, military personnel representatives in the Netherlands have raised concerns about the health of Dutch troops that have stayed there. Yesterday, a spokesperson of the Dutch Military of Defence merely conceded that "upon arrival, the marines declared part of the compound off-limits", assuring that "all necessary precautionary measures were taken". A source in one of the military personnel unions confirmed that they were informed by the Ministry about "certain measurements, which led the troops to close off a building on the compound". However, the source said, "no reference was made to the possibility of DU contamination there". As the new camp out in the desert was still under construction, the Dutch troops stayed in the train depot at least until mid August. Pictures archived on the website of the Ministry of Defence show marines resting on field beds set up inside one of the buildings and sharing meals on the yard outside as late as 6 August 2003. By that time, they had been on the compound for over two weeks, even as 90 of them fell ill - some so much so that they had to be IV-fed. According to the Ministry they had contracted a virus, "due to the high temperatures, the change in food and lifestyle, and the higher concentration of viruses in the air of hot countries such as Iraq". Noot: All over Iraq, the remains of spent DU shells and DU-contaminated debris have been found littering the streets in urban areas. Some wrecked vehicles have been towed away, and the most obvious contaminated sites are marked. However, most locations have not even been identified let alone cleaned, even though there is a widely shared consensus that DU contamination can be a potential health hazard. To minimize the risk of exposure, foreign troops have been instructed to stay away from potentially contaminated areas as much as possible or to wear, at least, respiratory protection and gloves when it is inevitable to enter such sites. As for Iraqi civilians, there is no indication that the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) has properly informed the population about DU contamination. The British Ministry of Defence merely affirms that Iraqi locals have been warned "that they should not go near or touch any debris they find on the battlefield" Perhaps this would have sufficed, were it not for the fact that quite a few battles have been fought in densely populated areas, where it is virtually impossible for residents to avoid all remnants of war. For earlier RISQ reports on DU and links to external resources, please refer to our DU Dossier: http://www.risq.org/link-61.html. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Buy Ink Cartridges or Refill Kits for your HP, Epson, Canon or Lexmark Printer at MyInks.com. Free s/h on orders $50 or more to the US & Canada. http://www.c1tracking.com/l.asp?cid=5511 http://us.click.yahoo.com/mOAaAA/3exGAA/qnsNAA/FGYolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> To unsubscribe from this groups send a message to du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com. In the body of the message type unsubscribe and send. Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/du-list/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ***************************************************************** 26 [du-list] Sick guard members blame depleted uranium Date: Sat, 10 Apr 2004 19:55:20 -0700 Might be worth folk letting the army times that their doctors aren't particular quoting good medicine here in their diagnosis? davey http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-2810214.php April 09, 2004 Sick Guard members blame depleted uranium By Jane McHugh Times staff writer Headaches and joint aches, ever-present nausea, overpowering fatigue and pain when swallowing. Those are among the symptoms reported by a group of military police officers who were evacuated out of Iraq for other injuries, mostly orthopedic. Must be radiation poisoning, the sick soldiers from the New York National Guard's 442nd MP Company think. The Army says that tests so far don't support that, though medical experts continue to test 442nd soldiers. "The Army basically said it was battle fatigue, that it was all in my head," said Sgt. Agustin Matos of the 442nd, who is in medical hold at Fort Dix, N.J. He said he and three buddies tested for above-average levels of toxic depleted uranium. Depleted uranium is formed when enriched uranium is separated from natural uranium in the making of fuel for nuclear reactors. The "DU" is recycled by the defense industry into anti-tank projectiles and tank armor plating. During war fighting, when the projectiles are fired or the plating blown up, DU particles become airborne, seep into the water and sink into the ground, entering the food chain. People ingest DU without even knowing it. Some veterans groups blame DU for Gulf War syndrome. The 442nd, whose soldiers are mostly police officers, firefighters and prison guards from the New York City area, is supposed to report back to the Dix demobilization station in a few weeks. Because of the evacuated soldiers who have complained about DU-type symptoms, the entire company will be tested for radiation exposure upon arrival, said a senior Army physician who spoke on condition of anonymity. Late last year, nine stateside medical hold soldiers in the 442nd were tested by one of the world's preeminent authorities on nuclear medicine, Dr. Asaf Durakovic, who is on the staff at Georgetown University Medical School. Durakovic is an Army veteran of Operation Desert Shield and has worked at Veterans Affairs hospitals. Durakovic couldn't be reached for comment. But according to The New York Daily News, which hired him to do the testing, four of the nine, "almost certainly" in Durakovic's words, inhaled radioactive dust, probably from exploded American shells made from DU. Matos was identified as one of the four. "Basically, it's in our lungs and there's no treatment. It's almost like asbestos, there's nothing you can do about it," he told Army Times. Sgt. Jerry Ojeda said he was one of the five who tested for "acceptable" levels of DU. Yet he said in a telephone interview that he feels sick, with tiredness during the day and sleeplessness at night, pounding headaches, body aches and lack of sex drive. The Army physician said urine samples collected by the Army on April 2 will be tested at Walter Reed, the Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine (CHPPM), and the Centers for Disease Control. "These soldiers have a lot of medical concerns and we're going to help them as best we can," the doctor said. "But exposure to depleted uranium does not cause headaches, rashes, overactive bladder or anything like that. Uranium naturally occurs in the environment and every day you eat, drink and breathe it." The 442nd soldiers in medical hold were in Samawah, Diwanaya and Najaf. In Samawah last summer, they camped at a huge dilapidated train depot and train repair yard. Coalition soldiers from the Netherlands looking for a place to camp had measured "high levels of radioactive material" at the depot and moved far away from it, Ojeda said. ________________________________________________________________________ Yahoo! Messenger - Communicate instantly..."Ping" your friends today! Download Messenger Now http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com/download/index.html ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Buy Ink Cartridges or Refill Kits for your HP, Epson, Canon or Lexmark Printer at MyInks.com. Free s/h on orders $50 or more to the US & Canada. http://www.c1tracking.com/l.asp?cid=5511 http://us.click.yahoo.com/mOAaAA/3exGAA/qnsNAA/FGYolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> To unsubscribe from this groups send a message to du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com. In the body of the message type unsubscribe and send. Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/du-list/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ***************************************************************** 27 Bellona: Nuclear and radiation safety remained normal in March 2004 No radiation or nuclear accidents, which could result in nuclear or radiation safety reduction, were registered by the Russian Nuclear Regulatory (GAN) in March. 2004-04-10 10:20 Automatic safety shutdown system was triggered once at the Kalinin NPP unit no.2 on 27.03.2004 due to the failure in the circulation pump. Safety and radiation levels remained normal. Automatic safety shutdown system at the research reactors was triggered four times last month. According to GAN, no serious safety violations or radiation consequences took place. A geophysical device IBN-8-5 with a source of ionizing radiation was accidentally dropped in the borehole in the Urals, Surgut, Tyumen region on 17.03.2004. The personnel were trying to get the device from the whole. Radiation levels remained normal in the area. Publisher: , President: Information: , Technical contact: Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00 Telefax: +47 22 38 38 62 * P.O.Box 2141 Grunerlokka, 0505 Oslo, Norway ***************************************************************** 28 Pioneer Press: The young liquidators | 04/11/2004 | The nickname belies a ghastly episode in Russia's history, when children were forced to clean up a nuclear disaster with their bare hands. BY MARK McDONALD Knight Ridder Foreign Service KARABOLKA, Russia One of the world's ghastliest nuclear accidents happened just upwind of here, in a secret atomic city that didn't have a name and never appeared on any maps. An explosion of radioactive sludge sent up a toxic plume that contaminated a quarter-million people. This was the Soviet Union in 1957, but only now are the voices of the victims being heard. Communist authorities responded to the accident with a global cover-up and a scorched-earth cleanup. Even as they evacuated entire Russian communities, they were sending 1,500 ethnic Tatar farmers into the hot zones to do the dirty work. Children were pressed into service, too, from fourth-graders on up. Many of the "young liquidators," as the children came to be known, died from radiation-related diseases soon after the explosion, which few people know about even today. They came down with afflictions they couldn't have imagined, illnesses they couldn't even pronounce. Finally, however, the surviving liquidators are starting to win victories in the Russian courts. It's taken nearly half a century for Moscow to admit any sort of responsibility for the disaster, but three Karabolka residents recently won absurdly small but perhaps precedent-setting judgments that give them reparations of $8 a month, plus an annual stay at a Russian spa. The children and grandchildren of the liquidators inherited a sad array of congenital health problems. They, too, have begun filing damage claims. The Karabolka farmers never were told about the dangers of the explosion at the secret nuclear lab called Mayak ("The Lighthouse"). Authorities told the villagers the cleanup was necessary because crude oil somehow had seeped into their fields and groundwater. Even if the villagers had been told the truth, terms such as "atom," "radiation" and "nuclear" simply weren't part of the vocabulary of a remote village in the southern Urals circa 1957. VOMITING AND BLEEDING The Karabolka children helped with the nuclear triage alongside their parents. Week after week they dug potatoes and carrots out of the ground with their bare hands, then buried the contaminated crops in deep pits. They cleaned bricks that were covered in radioactive soot. They buried dead cattle, filled in poisoned wells and dismantled clapboard houses. "Our hands were bleeding. Everybody was vomiting," said Glasha Ismagilova, a 57-year-old paramedic who was an 11-year-old tomboy at the time. "My vomit was very green. The doctor looked at it and said I had eaten too many peas, and he sent me back to work. But of course, I hadn't eaten any peas at all." The explosion wouldn't be the only nuclear disaster to befall the area. People living along the nearby Techa River now are suing for the damage caused by decades of Mayak engineers dumping radioactive waste into the water. That practice, which began in the late 1940s, ended only recently. Environmental experts have called the Techa district the most polluted place on earth. Radiation levels once reached the rough equivalent of four Chernobyl accidents. "But this was no accident," said Alexander Aklayev, the director of a small, underfunded research hospital in Chelyabinsk that studies and treats radiation diseases. "The Techa discharges were authorized." Aklayev's database, developed with help from the U.S. National Cancer Institute, is tracking 69,000 documented victims from the Mayak disasters. They've even issued ID cards to the sufferers. Glasha Ismagilova spoke calmly about her own various illnesses, about the new 3-inch tumor on her liver and the painful crumbling of her knees and hips. She's a strong, plainspoken woman, but the tears started to come when she remembered borrowing her mother's orange sundress on that morning 47 years ago when the Mayak cleanup began. She wanted to look nice that day because she thought she and her fourth-grade class were headed off on a special field trip. They were headed, of course, to their doom. "We were treated like laboratory rabbits," she said. "This was a horrible crime by the state. What kind of monsters would assign children to do such work?" The secret Mayak lab, hidden in the closed city now known as Ozersk, was the epicenter of the Soviet nuclear-weapons program. A heavily guarded city of some 80,000, Ozersk is still operating full-bore, and it's still off-limits to nonresidents. Sept. 29 arrived hot and hazy that year, another muggy Sunday in the southern Urals, another typical workday down on the collective farm. But then in midafternoon, 70 tons of superheated atomic waste blew the lid off its concrete storage vault. The ground in neighboring Karabolka, 12 miles away, shook so badly that one resident said "the teacups were flying." World War II combat veterans in the village thought Cold War hostilities had broken out. Women hurried their children indoors while the men climbed onto barn roofs and haystacks to look for approaching American tanks. All they could see was a strange cloud — black and low, and coming their way. The cloud was gone the next morning — it rained during the night — but a few days later a squad of Red Army soldiers arrived to seal off the Tatar half of Karabolka. Nobody in, nobody out, except to help in the decontamination effort on the far side of the village, where there was a native Russian community. The initial cleanup lasted throughout the fall of 1957, then began again in the spring of 1958 when the winter snows receded. BIAS AGAINST MUSLIMS Once again, the kids were taken out of school and put to work. Almost all of them were Muslims, the children of ethnic Tatar and Bashkir families that had lived in the area for centuries. A couple hundred Russian families lived across town; these "Volga Russians" were relative newcomers who'd come to work in the foundries and chemical plants in the nearby industrial center of Chelyabinsk. "But when we got there, not a single soul was left in Russian Karabolka," Ismagilova said. "They had all been evacuated and resettled." Aklayev, the clinic director, said 10,000 people from seven villages were resettled after the blast. "No one knows why some were resettled (from Karabolka) and others were not," he said. "Even for the evacuees, though, it was too late." Ismagilova doesn't buy the government's explanation that the Tatar side of her village was safe enough while the Russian side had been contaminated. She said it was genocide. Only 520 destitute villagers remain from an original population of 2,900. Even now, more than four decades on, the irradiated fields and pastures remain dangerous and unplantable: no hay, no potatoes, no carrots. "Almost all the people here were liquidators, but they're too old and sick to press their claims," she said, the tears coming again. "They did the state's dirty work 45 years ago and now they have no money. Not even enough for bread. They have no future." ***************************************************************** 29 Calgary Herald: Health woes plague nuclear site canada.com network Herald News Services Sunday, April 11, 2004 Washington State and federal officials are investigating procedures at the nation's most contaminated nuclear site amid allegations that workers aren't being adequately protected against exposure to chemical vapours. More than 90 workers have sought medical care for exposure at Hanford nuclear site tank farms in the past two years, according to data gathered by the Government Accountability Project, a nonprofit watchdog group. Few workers will speak publicly. Symptoms of exposure to chemical vapours include headaches, nosebleeds and a metallic taste. A 1997 draft report by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory concluded that the risk of contracting cancer from exposure to the vapours could be as high as 1.6 in 10. In the industrial world, normal risk is for one worker in 10,000 to contract cancer from exposures in the workplace, according to Tim Jarvis, a former researcher at the laboratory. © The Calgary Herald 2004 [ /] ***************************************************************** 30 ABC News 4 Charleston: State Utilities Point The Finger At DOE abcnews4.com State Utilities Point The Finger At Federal Energy Dept Sunday April 11, 2004 1:14pm Charleston (AP) - Two South Carolina utilities say the federal Energy Department broke deals to take spent nuclear fuel and waste off their hands. That's why Santee Cooper and Scana Corporation filed a lawsuit in January. The two state utilities operate the V-C Summer power plant just north of Columbia. They say that they are storing about three thousand tons of nuclear fuel at V-C Summer. The Energy Department was supposed to store the waste but has not so far. About 50 nuclear plant operators have pursued similar lawsuits around the nation that seek about 56 billion dollars. The Energy Department plans to put the waste at an underground facility at Yucca Mountain near Las Vegas. That plan has been delayed by project opponents. TM &© WCIV, LLC All rights reserved. Any reproduction, duplication, or ***************************************************************** 31 The Sun: Scana, Santee Cooper sue DOE over nuclear waste agreement 04/11/2004 | S.C. UTILITIES The Associated Press CHARLESTON - Two S.C. utilities are suing the federal Department of Energy about the spent nuclear fuel and waste accumulating at the V.C. Summer power plant they operate near Columbia. They say the DOE broke deals to take the waste off their hands. Moncks Corner-based Santee Cooper, the state-owned utility, and Columbia-based Scana Corp., a publicly traded utility, took their action Jan. 28, three days before a deadline to sue for breach of contract. There are nearly 3,000 tons of nuclear fuel at V.C. Summer. Spent fuel must be stored in basins of water or in dry storage vaults and containers. In all, about 50 nuclear plant operators have pursued similar lawsuits across the nation that seek about $56 billion. Charlotte-based Duke Energy owns two S.C. nuclear power plants and has had its suit pending since the late 1980s. Progress Energy, a Raleigh-based utility that owns a nuclear plant in Hartsville, also has sued. Nuclear power plant operators began contributing to the federal Nuclear Waste Fund in the 1980s. Through 2002, the fund had generated $13.4 billion, with $1.6 million of that coming from S.C. plant operators. The government was obligated to start taking waste from them beginning in 1998. The DOE planned to bury the radioactive material at Yucca Mountain, Nev., a site about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Opposition from environmentalists and others delayed approval until 2002. Now the DOE says the site won't be ready until 2010 at the earliest. Early on, the Energy Department said it had not broken its agreement because it encountered "unavoidable delays" at the Yucca Mountain site. A federal appellate court rebuffed that argument in a 1997 ruling in a lawsuit brought by Northern States Power Co. The contract defines "unavoidable delays" as acts of God or "of the public enemy." The first legal cases on the delay went to trial last month, and a decision on those disputes is expected in coming weeks. ***************************************************************** 32 NYT: In Reversal, U.S. Proposes to Remove Atom Waste By BRUCE LAMBERT Published: April 10, 2004 hen the federal government suggested that the easiest way to take care of tons of radioactive material at a long-closed Long Island nuclear reactor was to just leave it there and let it decay over time - the next 87,000 years - critics blanched. So now, the Department of Energy, which owns the reactor and the research facility where it is situated, the Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, is drafting a recommendation to remove and dispose of the material, a project that could take about four years and cost $97 million. Advertisement "We think it's the right thing to do," said Frank J. Crescenzo, deputy site manager for the Department of Energy. Once the proposal is issued, the public will be invited to comment, and then a decision will be made, he said. And the critics, who include environmentalists, elected officials and civic groups, are cheering. "It came as somewhat of a surprise, and everybody was very pleased," said Thomas Talbot, who heard the announcement Thursday night at a meeting of the laboratory's Citizens Advisory Committee. He represents the Longwood Alliance, a group of residents and businesses. Richard Amper, executive director of the Pine Barrens Society, an environmental group, said, "Time they got it right." But he cautioned that the cleanup "is not a done deal" until approved and financed by Congress. Even then, the work will take four or five years, he said, "but 5 years looks good next to 87,000." A chorus of elected officials also praised the plan. "Local families will not have to wait 87,000 years wondering about the safety of their drinking water," said United States Representative Timothy Bishop, who represents parts of Suffolk County. Joining in support were three fellow Democrats: Senators Charles E. Schumer and Hillary Rodham Clinton, and Steve Levy, the Suffolk County executive. The reactor, the nation's first graphite research reactor, operated throughout the 1950's and 1960's until it was eclipsed by newer reactors, closing in 1969. It had operating problems and leaked radioactive material into the soil and groundwater on the southeastern part of the sprawling 5,300-acre laboratory campus. The laboratory has already excavated contaminated soil around the building and shipped out contaminated fuel, cooling fans and a leaking underground sump. Remaining inside is a radioactive cube, 25 feet on each side, made up of 75 layers of graphite blocks, each 4 inches high and 4 inches wide, of varying lengths. To shield against the radiation, that cube was covered by a huge box, 55 feet by 37 feet and 33 feet high, with a 6-inch inner layer of steel, a 51-inch layer of high-density concrete and an outer 3-inch steel plate. Eventually, the shield absorbed some radioactivity. A risk assessment concluded last year that one option was to simply leave the graphite and shield in place, maintain the building to prevent air and water contamination, and let the radioactivity gradually dissipate. Mr. Crescenzo said, "You could essentially leave it there indefinitely, and it would pose no danger to humans or anything else." But Mr. Talbot said: "That's absolutely bizarre, totally irresponsible to even consider that. We would have created a nuclear waste facility on Long Island." In the next stage of review, federal officials went beyond the risk assessment to consider factors like cost and public acceptability. Under the expected cleanup plan, the graphite and shield would be dismantled and shipped out of state to a regulated disposal site. Former fuel canals and additional contaminated soil would also be removed. The building would remain for reuse. Another cleanup project at the laboratory is also proceeding. Mr. Crescenzo said that work would soon begin on excavating, disposing of and replacing a layer of silt from the bed of the Peconic River on the laboratory grounds that is contaminated with mercury, PCB's and cesium 137. A second stage will do a similar cleanup on stretches of the river beyond the laboratory property. ***************************************************************** 33 ITAR-TASS: Atomic agency chief to hold conferences in Krasnoyarsk [ITAR-TASS News Agency of Russia] 10.04.2004, 02.32 KRASNOYARSK, April 10 (Itar-Tass) -- The chief of Russia’s Federal Atomic Energy Agency Alexander Rumyantsev will visit the mining and chemical combine in Zheleznogorsk, near Krasnoyarsk, on Saturday to hold several business meetings of the commissions of the mining combine, the Zelenogorsk Electrochemical Plant and the Angarsk Electrolysis Chemical Combine, of the Irkutsk Region. The main purpose of Rumyantsev’s visit to the Krasnoyarsk Territory will be to review the performance of atomic industry enterprises, the mining and chemical combine’s public relations office chief Pavel Morozov told Tass. Rumyantsev’s schedule includes inspections of several facilities of the mining and chemical combine – Russia’s first plant for the production of polycrystalline silicone, a spent nuclear fuel storage and the place of a future dry storage of nuclear fuel. © ITAR-TASS. All rights reserved. You undertake not to copy, ***************************************************************** 34 Reid: Reid And Ensign Demand Nevadans Have Time To Comment On Proposed Rail Line Thursday, April 8, 2004 Washington, D.C. – In a letter to Interior Secretary Gale Norton, Nevada Senators Harry Reid and John Ensign called on the agency to allow local residents more time to comment on a proposed rail corridor to transport high-level nuclear waste. The proposed line would have significant impact on residents and businesses in Lincoln County. In addition to asking Norton to extend the comment period, Sen. Harry Reid has created a section on his website where Nevadans can note their concerns. Reid’s office will collect the comments and deliver each of them to the Department on Interior to ensure those affected are heard. The comment page on Reid’s website can be found at: http://reid.senate.gov/yuccamtn_comments.cfm A copy of the letter follows: April 8, 2004 The Honorable Gale Norton Secretary of the Interior U.S. Department of the Interior 1849 C Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20240 Dear Secretary Norton: We are writing to express our concern with the Department of Interior’s plan to review a proposed land withdrawal by the Department of Energy to study a rail corridor for transporting high-level nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain, Nevada. On December 29, 2003, the Department of Interior published a notice in the Federal Register stating its intent to withdraw land around the rail route, known as the Caliente Corridor, for potentially transporting nuclear waste to the proposed repository at Yucca Mountain. The Department of Energy intends to restrict public access to a 319-mile stretch of land, 1 mile wide, for 20 years to study the feasibility of constructing a rail line through this corridor. After the DOI published its notice, the public was given only 90 days to comment on this proposal. Also, the BLM forbid new mining claims on the land for two years while the DOE conducts environmental studies. Once again, the Departments of Interior and Energy appear to be disregarding concerns of Nevadans as they try to force this project forward. The public, including landowners along this corridor, was not consulted or even notified before this proposal was published in the Federal Register. Landowners who have spent several generations living here are understandably outraged at their exclusion from decisions the Energy and Interior Departments are making about their homes. In addition, the DOI would halt mineral exploration and grazing in the corridor, stifling the ongoing mineral exploration in the area and restricting access to grazing land that ranchers have used for generations. The 90-day comment period is not long enough for them to both familiarize themselves with the land withdrawal proposal and explain their concerns about it. Although the DOE wants to withdraw a corridor a mile wide, the Department itself estimates that it would only use a space “a couple hundred feet†wide. The DOE has not explained why it needs a mile-wide corridor that would put additional constraints on local interests. As we have unfortunately seen in the DOE’s treatment of its own workers who have contracted silicosis, the DOE has a long history of steamrolling Nevadans to push its agenda. The Department of Interior, which manages these lands, should not allow the DOE to steamroll Nevadans affected by this land withdrawal. We urge you to extend the public comment period on this proposal by at least another 90 days, allowing local residents and businesses enough time to fully express their concerns. If you have any questions about our concerns, please contact us or have your staff contact our staffs. We appreciate your consideration of our request and look forward to hearing from you. Sincerely, HARRY REID JOHN ENSIGN United States Senator United States Senator ********** You can contact Senator Reid's Press Secretary at tessa_hafen@reid.senate.gov You can subscribe/unsubscribe yourself from particular email lists at my website at: http://reid.senate.gov/email_list.cfm By sending an e-mail message to the following e-mail address, you will automatically unsubscribe yourself from all lists and receive another e-mail that will notify you of your removal: reid-elists-unsubscribe-request@email-lists.senate.gov Complaints can be directed to Senator Reid's Webmaster at webmaster@reid.senate.gov ***************************************************************** 35 ThisisLondon: Babcock chief to sort out BNFL Andrew Leach, Mail on Sunday 11 April 2004 GORDON Campbell, chairman of defence services group Babcock International, will be appointed chairman this week of BNFL, the troubled state-owned nuclear energy business. He succeeds Hugh Collum, who announced last year that he would step down this summer, and his appointment completes a change in the company's top two jobs in the past year. Michael Parker replaced Norman Askew as chief executive last summer and he and Campbell will now implement the group's strategic plan. Campbell, who has been a non-executive director at BNFL since 2000, will bring substantial engineering experience to the role. The Government shut the door on any full or part-privatisation of BNFL last year, though it had previously considered selling a 49% stake. But BNFL's profitable American arm, Westinghouse, is to be run as a separate business and could attract outside investments or even be sold. As part of its review of BNFL, the Government plans to set up the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) to clean up nuclear installations at present managed by BNFL and the UK Atomic Energy Authority. The move will help to reduce provisions for decommissioning liabilities in the accounts of BNFL, whose biggest customer is British Energy. ***************************************************************** 36 Las Vegas SUN: Hawaiian Bomb Test Island Begins to Heal Today: April 11, 2004 at 10:21:04 PDT By MATT SEDENSKY ASSOCIATED PRESS KAHOOLAWE ISLAND, Hawaii (AP) - When Emmett Aluli first set foot here nearly three decades ago, the barren land was so littered with the remnants of years of military test bombings that he shed tears for an island he considers sacred. On Friday, the Navy hauled off its last barge full of equipment and debris after an unprecedented 10-year, $460 million cleanup. And though significant amounts of ordnance remain, Aluli and others now see Kahoolawe as a place of hope. "Environmentally and visually, it was the worst thing we could ever see on an island, on our land," said Aluli, a Molokai physician and member of the state-run Kahoolawe Island Reserve Commission. "We've tried our best to get the complete cleanup. We understand the shortfalls. We're just looking at the future." The uninhabited patch of red dirt rising from the Pacific is sacred to native Hawaiians who feel the island, untouched by tourists, connects them with the spirits of their ancestors. For nearly five decades after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the land was ravaged by bombs from U.S. planes and warships. But after years of protests and lawsuits, President George H.W. Bush ordered a halt to the exercises in 1990. Today, Hawaii's wet winter is evident in the swaths of green across Kahoolawe's typically barren plains and hills. For Davianna McGregor, an ethnic studies professor at the University of Hawaii and a member of the grass-roots Protect Kahoolawe Ohana, it's a sign of hope. "You feel like the island is finally at rest and can begin healing," she said. Anthropologists say the wind-swept island of Kahoolawe (pronounced ka-HO'oh LA-vay) was first settled and established into small fishing communities around 1000 A.D. Its lack of fresh water always posed a problem, and led to a decline in its inhabitants. King Kamehameha III made Kahoolawe - at 45 square miles, the smallest of the Hawaiian archipelago's eight major islands - a prison colony for about two decades beginning around 1830. Prisoners moved out, goats and sheep moved in, and it didn't take long after ranching began in 1858 for overgrazing to leave the landscape barren. Then came Pearl Harbor, the declaration of martial law in Hawaii, and the military's takeover of Kahoolawe as a training range. Soldiers got real-life training here that military officials say saved American lives in World War II and beyond. But the use of the land offended many native Hawaiians, who regularly hold religious ceremonies on the island, chanting and praying that ancestors grant forgiveness for allowing the land to be disrespected. It was returned to local control last November. The massive cleanup - on a land area far greater than the high-profile bombing site of Vieques in Puerto Rico - was limited by funding, technology and time. Still, more than 100,000 ordnance items were collected and destroyed, contributing to a tally of 12.9 million pounds of scrap metal. Some 22,114 acres of Kahoolawe's surface have been cleared of ordnance - about 84.5 percent, according to the Navy, which does not count 2,600 acres it deems completely inaccessible. Only 2,650 acres - 9 or 10 percent, depending who's counting - has been cleared to four feet below ground, a level where native plants can possibly be grown as a first step in ending erosion. Work remains to be done on the island, said Stanton Enomoto, the acting executive director of Kahoolawe Island Reserve Commission. "That's always going to be a reminder to us," he said. "There's still an obligation on the part of the United States that they have to finish the job." Rear Adm. Barry McCullough, commander of Navy Region Hawaii, said he understood the concerns of some who felt more could have been done, but insisted "the Navy did what it was chartered to do." A similar cleanup will turn the island of Vieques into a wildlife refuge following the Navy's withdrawal from the training base last year. Tensions rose there in 1999 when two errant bombs killed a civilian guard, and a surge of protests followed. For all the desolation of Kahoolawe, it's also a place of beauty. There are stretches of white sand beaches, high cliffs plunging to sapphire waters, and fields of spindly tamarisk, spurts of ilima flowers and kiawe trees. It's unlikely the island and its waters will ever - or at least not soon - be freed of the reminders of the bombings that scarred the land. But some say the remaining ordnance may actually be a blessing. "It provides an ironic sense of protection from the kind of commercial development that has happened on the other islands," said McGregor. "It's never going to be safe for hotel development or golf course development or other commercial uses that have ruined very sacred spaces on the other islands." All manner of suggestions have surfaced on how the land should be used - from a homeland for Palestinians to a massive casino in a state that bars all gambling but whose people favor Las Vegas vacations. For now, though, access will be limited. Small groups will visit for cultural and educational purposes, but widespread use will likely be restricted until the fragile environment is restored. Ultimately, control is to be transferred to a Native Hawaiian sovereign entity. Aluli said the wrongs done to Kahoolawe are no longer the focus. "The main thing is the island is at peace again." --- On the Net: Kahoolawe Island Reserve Commission: http://kahoolawe.hawaii.gov/ Navy Region Hawaii: http://www.hawaii.navy.mil/ -- ***************************************************************** 37 BBC: 'Why I'm back to ban the Last Updated: Sunday, 11 April, 2004 [Rene Henry (now Gill) and then fiance David Gill on the first Aldermaston march] Rene Gill (right): "My feet ached, I got blisters, I longed to stop" Rene Henry, 71, a part-time teacher from Oxford, was a 25-year-old postgraduate student when she and fiancé David Gill marched together on the first Aldermaston protest. Nearly 50 years later, the couple, who are now married with three children and five grandchildren, are taking part in a revival of the historic 50-mile march to the Berkshire village. Campaigners set off from London on Good Friday to protest against the development of what they call a new generation of nuclear weapons. It was a paper on a notice board at college that alerted me to the plan to march from London to Aldermaston, where Britain's nuclear bombs were being made. I'd earlier read an article by JB Priestley arguing that Britain was ideally suited to lead the world away from the nuclear holocaust. I spent the first night und a grand piano in somebody's house in west London Compared to the USA and USSR, he maintained that our arsenal was insignificant and we could well afford to get rid of it without affecting the "balance of terror". I was completely convinced and so were millions of others. It was Good Friday 1958 when my fiancé David and I gathered with a few other students on the steps of University College London and walked to Trafalgar Square, which was packed. After listening to speeches from Priestley, Canon Collins, Michael Foot and others, we set out on the long and gruelling march. [Route of the Aldermaston march] Marchers set off on Good Friday and expect to arrive on Easter Monday We had breaks at the Albert Memorial and Turnham Green and spent the first night under a grand piano in somebody's house in west London. When we woke up the next morning, it was snowing - the worst Easter weather in living memory. As we marched along the Great West Road to Maidenhead, we were cheered along by bands playing jazz at the road side, or by singing Oh When The Saints Go Marching In. My feet ached, I got blisters, I longed to stop - as we did, eventually. All the accommodation the Quakers in Maidenhead had prepared was full, so some of us were taken back to Slough, where we slept in the Methodist church. Then it was on to Reading, where we were fed and taken to a primary school for the night. There was some hostility fr bystanders along the way, especially in Reading One had to bend down to reach the little wash basins and sitting on one of the tiny children's toilets was like sitting on a crocus. There was some hostility from bystanders along the way, especially in Reading, but in general people looked at us with astonishment and sometimes clapped and smiled. Even hostile tabloid newspapers grudgingly admired us for turning out in such awful weather - it was cold and the snow gave way to rain. Our banners, mostly home-made, read: "Ban the bloody bomb!", "Use H-bomb money to feed the world's starving kids!", "Reading says no!". At last, very tired, very footsore, we got to the village of Aldermaston and walked past the huge base and its grim security fence until we got to the locked gates, a motley, weary, shabby crowd. Later we listened to speeches, before setting off again for the comforts of civilisation. 'New generation' That was the first of very many demonstrations. David and I are marching to Aldermaston again, this time with the youth march from Oxford. We spoke at the opening rally and are now running a tea stall for people who have marched all the way from London. Since 1958, things have got so much worse and a new generation of nuclear bombs is being designed at Aldermaston - so-called "usable" weapons that are small enough for battlefield use. Despite the verbiage about disarmament, India, Pakistan and Israel now have nuclear weapons, we still have ours, while George Bush is breaking the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. It seems so lunatic and expensive. I feel so sorry for those poor sub-mariners in our Trident submarines, ready and able to destroy cities - why are they still here? [ /] Interview by Hannah Bayman ***************************************************************** 38 BBC: Final day of nuclear protest walk Last Updated: Monday, 12 April, 2004 [The first Aldermaston march] Some 10,000 people joined the 1958 rally march to Aldermaston Hundreds of marchers are preparing for the final day of their 52-mile march to Aldermaston to revive a 1958 protest over nuclear weapons. CND fear "the next generation of nuclear weapons" are to be researched and tested there. Some 10,000 people marched from London to what is now the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) on the original anti-nuclear protest 46 years ago. Campaigners say fresh investment at Aldermaston is a worrying development. As many as 300 people have completed the 52-mile march, having set off from Trafalgar Square in London on Friday. Aldermaston provides warheads for the UK's nuclear deterrent. CND chairwoman Kate Hudson told the BBC there had been major investment at Aldermaston with new scientists, computers and a new laser system. "This is all in line with what would be required to build new nuclear weapons... so we're very concerned. "We've had very broad political support. We believe that the use threshold for nuclear weapons has been lowered." Marchers spent their first night in a Sikh temple in Southall and Saturday night in church halls in Slough. On Sunday morning, sunshine lifted marchers' spirits as they began their longest stretch along the A4 to Reading, stopping off in Maidenhead where they were met by local Mayor Councillor Mike Bruton. Speaking at the opening rally at Trafalgar Square on Friday, veteran campaigner Bruce Kent said: "This event is to wake up a sleeping population that is unaware of the dangers of nuclear weapons." Veteran Labour politician Tony Benn, also speaking at the rally, said: "Fifty-nine years ago Hiroshima and Nagasaki were destroyed by the most terrifying weapons ever devised and tens of thousands were killed." Aldermaston pictures were provided to BBC News Online courtesy of BECTU History Project. ***************************************************************** 39 Island Packet Online: Contract doesn't target all SRS threats [Island Packet Online] HILTON HEAD ISLAND - BLUFFTON S.C. Southern Beaufort County's News & Information Source Sun, April 11, 2004 Water supply vulnerable, group says BY KATE TEMPLIN, Special to The Packet WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Department of Energy's contract for the construction of a waste storage facility at the Savannah River Site does not address the real threat to the area's water, according to the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability. "The Savannah River Site has so many different types of waste and environmental threats. The facility will deal with a part of one of them, but it doesn't deal with the kinds of problems that are immediately threatening the river," said Bob Schaeffer, a spokesman for the alliance. The U.S. Department of Energy on March 31 awarded a $55 million contract for the construction of a waste storage facility at the Savannah River Site, one day after the release of a report detailing the risks of toxic contamination to the Savannah River. "We continue to make significant progress in cleaning up the Cold War legacy sites, and we need the infrastructure to support this ongoing priority," Jessie Roberson, the Energy Department's assistant secretary of environmental management, said in a statement released last week. The announcement came after harsh criticism from the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability, the coalition of almost 30 environmental, health and safety organizations that released the report. The alliance follows issues of waste cleanup near U.S. nuclear weapons sites like the Savannah River Site. According to the report, the Energy Department has not fulfilled its commitment to clean up these sites, although the department has spent almost $200 billion on the effort. "Cleaning up the legacy of U.S. nuclear weapons production is the biggest environmental project in the nation's history, but DOE has failed to eliminate the threat of contamination to major water supplies," said Susan Gordon, the alliance's director. Seepage of radioactive and toxic byproducts into the Savannah River is endangering the health of thousands of workers at nuclear facilities and area residents, according to the alliance. Almost 635,000 people live within 50 miles of the Savannah River Site, which employs 13,000 people. The Beaufort-Jasper Water and Sewer Authority relies on water from the Savannah River. Two utilities on Hilton Head, Hilton Head No. 1 Public Service District and Broad Creek Public Service District, draw water from the river under contracts with the authority. Chuck Gorman of the state Department of Health and Environmental Control's Division of Site Assessment and Remediation said Beaufort County residents do not need to worry about water pollution from the Savannah River Site. He said the levels of the contaminant tritium present in the local water supply are not dangerous. Tritium is a radioactive element found naturally in air and water, according to the Savannah River Site. "There are measures keeping the tritium levels from getting unacceptably high," Gorman said. "The goal is zero, of course. It always is." According to the Savannah River Site, a person who drinks Savannah River water from the Beaufort-Jasper Water and Sewer Authority's treatment plant will consume less than 3 percent of the tritium limit established by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. But the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, which researched the Savannah River Site in connection with the alliance, said tritium has been linked to health problems even in low levels, especially for pregnant women. The glass waste storage facility under construction, the second at the site, temporarily stores high-level radioactive waste until permanent transfer to a repository, according to the Energy Department. The storage facility will ensure the protection of future facility workers, the public and the environment. The first storage facility has been in use since 1996 and is nearing capacity. The Krog Corp., a small engineering and construction firm from Orchard Park, N.Y., will complete the project, which will run through June 30, 2006. Kate Templin writes for Medill News Service in Washington. Copyright © 2004 The Island Packet | Privacy Policy | ***************************************************************** 40 Tri-City Herald: Energy Northwest begins work force cuts This story was published Saturday, April 10th, 2004 By Chris Mulick Herald staff writer Energy Northwest has begun issuing layoff notices to 39 workers after targeting 66 positions for elimination to cut costs. The remaining 27 positions being eliminated will be made up through vacancies, planned retirements and normal attrition. All laid off workers will receive at least two weeks notice, and all but two of the layoffs will become effective before the fiscal year ends June 30. Most will be eligible for severance packages. All laid off workers are expected to have been notified by the end of next week. The public power consortium which operates the nuclear power plant north of Richland, is trying to trim about 5 percent of its work force. The Columbia Generation Station's only customer, the Bonneville Power Administration, is under heavy pressure to cut costs so it can lower its bloated wholesale electric rates, which are about 50 percent higher than they were 2 1Ú2 years ago. It's not just a short-term exercise. Bonneville's utility customers expect the agency to cut its rates almost all the way back to where they were once the current rate period ends in September 2006. But in an interview last week BPA Administrator Steve Wright said it's "not a slam dunk" the agency will be able to cut rates at all. Though he's hopeful some relief will be possible, "I don't expect it to be close to what it was before," he said. That budget pressure is now trickling down to Energy Northwest. "Our employees are sensitive to the power rates as much as anyone in the region," said Energy Northwest spokesman Brad Peck. "We have to do everything we can to keep the cost down." The layoffs will leave Energy Northwest with a work force near 1,150. Those jobs are among the highest-paid in the Tri-Cities. Energy Northwest is trying to cut $5 million out of its next annual budget, though nuclear safety programs and security, including the organization's security force, will not be affected. © 2004 Tri-City Herald, Associated Press &Other Wire Services ***************************************************************** 41 AP Wire: South Carolina utilities sue DOE on nuclear fuel, waste | 04/10/2004 | www.thestate.com Associated Press CHARLESTON, S.C. - Two South Carolina utilities are suing the federal Department of Energy about the spent nuclear fuel and waste accumulating at the V.C. Summer power plant they operate near Columbia. They claim the DOE broke deals to take the waste off their hands. Moncks Corner-based Santee Cooper, the state-owned utility, and Columbia-based Scana Corp., a publicly-traded utility, took their action on Jan. 28, three days before a deadline to sue for breach of contract. There are nearly 3,000 tons of nuclear fuel at V.C. Summer. Spent fuel must be stored in basins of water or in dry storage vaults and containers. In all, about 50 nuclear plant operators have pursued similar lawsuits around the nation that seek about $56 billion. Charlotte-based Duke Energy owns two South Carolina nuclear power plants and has had its suit pending since the late 1980s. Progress Energy, a Raleigh-based utility that owns a nuclear plant in Hartsville, also has sued. Nuclear power plant operators began contributing to the federal Nuclear Waste Fund in the 1980s. Through 2002, the fund had generated $13.4 billion, with $1.6 million of that coming from South Carolina plant operators. The government was obligated to start taking waste from them beginning in 1998. The DOE planned to bury the radioactive material at Yucca Mountain, Nev., a site about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Opposition from environmentalists and others delayed approval until 2002. Now the DOE says the site won't be ready until 2010 at the earliest. Early on, the Energy Department argued it had not broken its agreement because it encountered "unavoidable delays" at the Yucca Mountain site. A federal appellate court rebuffed that argument in a 1997 ruling in a lawsuit brought by Northern States Power Co. The contract defines "unavoidable delays" as acts of God or "of the public enemy." The first legal cases on the delay went to trial last month and a decision on those disputes is expected in coming weeks. Robert Shapiro, a partner in the Washington-based Spriggs & Hollingsworth law firm, is representing nine utilities in similar lawsuits. "The government has done a decent job of bollixing up these cases," Shapiro said. --- Information from: The Post and Courier, http://www.charleston.net ***************************************************************** 42 LA Times: Leung Indictment Is Too Vague, U.S. Judge Rules April 10, 2004 LOS ANGELES Jurist says the accused double agent is entitled to clarification to guard against prosecution surprises at trial. By David Rosenzweig, Times Staff Writer A federal judge has ruled that the criminal indictment brought against an accused Chinese double agent was unduly vague and has ordered prosecutors to provide a more detailed explanation of the charges. In approving a defense request for a so-called bill of particulars, U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper said Katrina Leung was entitled to the clarification to guard against any unfair surprises by the prosecution when the case goes to trial. A bill of particulars is issued when a judge finds a criminal indictment so vague or broadly worded that the defendant can't prepare an adequate defense. Cooper's written ruling was made public Friday and followed arguments conducted behind closed doors earlier in the week. Prosecutors had objected, arguing that a bill of particulars would give Leung information to which she was not entitled. But Cooper disagreed, saying the defense was only seeking "an articulation of the government's theory of the case" and that the indictment suggested many theories the prosecution could advance. She gave prosecutors until April 29 to answer 19 questions about three classified documents that form the basis of the case. They were seized in a search of Leung's San Marino home before her arrest last year. The 49-year-old woman is charged with illegally copying and possessing national security papers that she allegedly intended to use, or could have used, to harm the interests of the United States. She is accused of having lifted the papers from the briefcase of the FBI agent who was her handler and longtime lover, James J. Smith, 60, now retired. Smith is also charged. Leung, a naturalized citizen, was recruited by Smith in the early 1980s to gather intelligence for the FBI on her frequent business trips to China, where she ingratiated herself with high-ranking government officials. But starting about 1990, she began working for the Chinese too, prosecutors say, feeding sensitive, unauthorized information about the FBI to China's Ministry of State Security. One of the documents cited by the judge in her ruling relates to the FBI's six-year investigation of Dr. Peter Lee, a TRW Inc. physicist who pleaded guilty in 1997 to providing Chinese scientists with classified information about nuclear weapons. The document was prepared while Lee was under investigation and, according to prosecutors, included a list of agents assigned to the case, the locations where they worked and their assignments, as well as their office, cell and home phone numbers. Cooper directed the prosecution to explain how the document was connected to national security, how Leung knew that was so, and what evidence existed to show that she intended to use or did use the document to injure the United States. The judge posed similar questions in connection with the other two documents. One is a secret, seven-page communique from the FBI's legal attache in Hong Kong written in 1997. In recent legal filings, prosecutors said the letter contained information from a confidential informant about China's intelligence-gathering capabilities and counter-surveillance methods, along with a discussion of a possible FBI response to China's spying. The other document is a five-page verbatim transcript of two telephone calls and summaries of six others between Leung and her alleged handler at the Chinese ministry in 1990 and 1991. The calls were apparently intercepted by a U.S. intelligence agency. Prosecutors have stated in legal papers that the pair talked about an FBI agent's upcoming trip to China on a counterintelligence assignment, the flight to the U.S. by relatives of a Chinese defector, and the travel to China by the subject of an FBI counterintelligence investigation. In ordering the prosecution to prepare a bill of particulars, Cooper said Leung's lawyers had the added burden of having to "navigate a minefield of procedural requirements" under the federal Classified Information Procedures Act. Under the act, the judge said, defense lawyers John Vandevelde and Janet Levine may view classified documents provided by the government in discovery, but can't talk about their contents with Leung. ***************************************************************** 43 KPVI: BONUS OFFERED FOR EARLY CLEANUP Apr 11, 2004 Bechtel Idaho employees could earn a big bonus for speedy cleanup work at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory. The Department of Energy has offered the company up to $27-million if it completes the work before its contract ends next year. To earn the bonus, Bechtel has to use its existing budget and still meet safety regulations. The projects include tearing down several old facilities and cleaning up areas where high-level radioactive waste was stored. Managers can earn up to $5,000 each. Other workers can earn up to $3,500. The projects were scheduled to be completed over five years; now, the company is trying to finish in ten months. NBC Newschannel 6 CyberSurvey © Copyright 2004 Oregon Trail Broadcasting KPVI ***************************************************************** 44 Tri-Valley Herald: Nuclear labs up for grabs 4/11/2004 Energy Department opens management of Livermore, Los Alamos to multiple competing interests By Ian Hoffman, STAFF WRITER In the Cold War, scientists at two labs, one in California and one in New Mexico, eyed each other warily. They ridiculed and often back-stabbed each other at the Pentagon in a race to provide the U.S. Navy, Air Force and Army with nuclear weaponry. The two labs, both run by the University of California, evolved into different cultures: Los Alamos in New Mexico more conservative and academic, and Livermore, flashier, more prone to take risks. They clashed often -- over nuclear testing, over the feasibility of X-ray lasers for the Reagan administration, over laser fusion. They were, in the words of a senior weapons scientist, "scorpions in a bottle." Yet Lawrence Livermore lab and its elder sibling propped one another up, setting their enmity aside to collaborate and swap secrets on humankind's tiniest and most lethal explosives. Now after 61 years, the U.S. Department of Energy is opening the door to bids from other contractors to run one or both of the labs. More than a dozen defense contractors, engineering firms and universities are considering forging alliances to challenge UC's dominion over the two labs. In fending off these aspiring nuclear weaponeers, the university and its nuclear scientists argued last week that awarding one or both of the labs to private, corporate contractors could subordinate U.S. nuclear policy to profits. Competing contractors also could plunge the labs into a fight-to-the-finish race for weapons and national-security work. Lab scientists told a panel of the National Academy of Sciences that only a single contractor can make the two labs work together even as they compete for weapons designs and an array of other national-security missions, ranging from intelligence analysis to energy and anti-terrorism research. And they insist that only the University of California or a contractor untainted by desire for profits and market share can be trusted to advise the United States on the reliability of its nuclear weapons and whether to restart explosive nuclear testing after a 12-year hiatus. A U.S. return to nuclear testing could reverberate around the world and spark rounds of nuclear tests in Russia, China and perhaps South Asia. It's a decision with implications for nuclear proliferation. Livermore director Michael Anastasio suggests that no profit-driven corporation should have a hand in it. "The potential is there for the contractor to be influenced by the (financial) interests of the contractor in extension of the contract or other business," he cautioned. His counterpart at Los Alamos, Adm. Pete Nanos, sounded a similar warning. The National Academy panel faces huge questions in advising the Energy Department on how to run a competition for the labs, and high on the list is a deceptively simple one: One contract or two? "These labs have to compete technically but cooperate in the end," said panelist David Campbell, dean of engineering at Boston University and former Los Alamos scientist. Without the University of California as a common manager of the labs, "it's pretty clear there would have to be some new system in place." John Sommerer, chief technology officer at Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory, says preservation of the labs' "constructive, competitive relationship" in a period without nuclear testing is a central issue, especially since it appears the university may lose management of at least one lab. "There's a lot of comfort in leaving it the way it is. But frankly, I think the probability of that is low from a game standpoint and from the track record on lab-contract competitions," Sommerer said. "The question is, what can we do to make sure the competition (between the labs) will still be healthy?" Hugh Gusterson, an MIT anthropologist who has studied scientists at both labs, said it's unclear why the University of California and its scientists think their interests are purer than a defense contractor's. "It's a fallacy that universities are somehow immune from material pressure. There is no ivory tower," Gusterson said. "What's true here is that over a period of 50 years, an old boys' network has grown up to manage the labs. So when we're talking about deregulation, if you're in that network, it can be a little worrying." The argument that you can't trust defense contractors is awkwardly timed for the university. Until recently, university executives were close to sealing their own alliance with private defense and nuclear contractors to run the two labs. The planned partnership -- with defense contractor Honeywell, nuclear-materials handler BWXT and Washington Group International, an Idaho-based architecture and engineering firm -- fell apart, leaving the university scrambling for new partners, including defense contractors. In making its argument, however, lab executives are offering rare insight into the 50-year clash of wills between two major Cold War powers -- not the Soviet Union and the United States, but between Livermore and Los Alamos. It is a rivalry that outlasted the Cold War. Some Livermore H-bomb designers still use the old saw, "The Russians are the competition, but Los Alamos is the enemy." Los Alamos scientists took snapshots of the mangled steel tower that stood testament to Livermore's first failed attempt at a nuclear bomb. In truth, says veteran Los Alamos weapons and testing manager John Hopkins, "Los Alamos shouldn't have laughed so much. They were trying something that Los Alamos couldn't have done at the time." Los Alamos executives had bitterly opposed Edward Teller's push for creating a second weapons lab. Los Alamos director Norris Bradbury soon offered his lab's help, even supplying the atom bomb for Livermore's third attempt at a hydrogen bomb. Out of their competition and the service rivalry between the Air Force, Army and Navy came a nuclear smorgasbord -- backpack charges, torpedoes, grenades, artillery shells, neutron warheads, depth charges, bazooka rounds and ICBM warheads. In the late 1950s, Livermore invented a novel detonation scheme and egg-shaped nuclear components for the world's first sub-launched ballistic missile warhead that became the forerunner to all modern U.S. thermonuclear weapons. "We revolutionized the stockpile," said Bruce Goodwin, a former Los Alamos designer who is now nuclear-weapons chief at Livermore. In the late 1960s, Livermore sent its top designer to Los Alamos, bearing blueprints, computer software and nuclear test data for the W68, representing the pinnacle of multiple-warhead advances. It was everything Los Alamos would need, and its scientists funneled those ideas into their bombs and warheads, which now comprise 80 percent of the U.S. arsenal. "Much of the major, primary contributions over the last 40 years are based on pioneering work that Livermore did. Los Alamos was slow to adopt that," said Los Alamos' Hopkins said. But once it did, "I think the whole stockpile is better off for it." In the 1970s, Los Alamos returned the favor. The lab invented explosives that wouldn't detonate if cooked in an airplane fire or hit by shrapnel or bullets. Its scientists gave the recipe to Livermore, which tinkered with it and used its version of the new, insensitive high explosives in its future weapons. "The directors of the laboratories very much knew this was the right thing to do, that if one lab went away, the other lab would become moribund," Goodwin said. "We were scorpions. We were living in a bottle at the time, and if one of us died, both of us would." It became obvious that, unlike the automobile and aerospace industries, the two labs would remain the only places in the United States to teach nuclear weapons design, and both were needed to critique each other's work. "I would say the competition has been intense and productive and acrimonious and good, and in the long run the country has benefited," said Los Alamos' Hopkins. "It would have been much harder to develop this collaborative environment with two separate contractors." After 20 years, the government agency charged with overseeing the labs, the Atomic Energy Commission, was disbanded, and its successors took on other missions in energy and basic research. Weapons lab executives saw the AEC's weapons expertise vanish over time and took a stronger hand in mapping the nation's weapons research, deciding the location for billions of dollars worth of experimental machines and supercomputers. That's the situation today, even though the government once again has a dedicated weapons agency, the National Nuclear Security Administration. If labs were split into two contracts and run by different contractors, the NNSA would have to become more like the AEC and mediate between them, said George Miller, a former weapons designer and head of the National Ignition Facility di "You could imagine the type of competition there would be, like between Oracle and PeopleSoft, where they try to put each other out of business. We think it's important for national security that there be two voices (on nuclear weapons)," Miller said. "You would hate for the nuclear-weapons program to have a Microsoft." Tri-Valley Herald All Rights Reserved ***************************************************************** 45 Google News Alert - nuclear Date: Sun, 11 Apr 2004 13:39:51 -0700 (PDT) THIRD day of nuclear protest walk BBC News - London,England,UK Hundreds of marchers began the longest stretch of their 52-mile march on Sunday to Aldermaston to revive a 1958 protest over nuclear weapons. ... See all stories on this topic: PAKISTAN'S dirty nuclear secret Toronto Star - Toronto,Ontario,Canada VIENNA—When Libya ratted out the biggest global network in nuclear smuggling, among the thousands of black market items it turned over to UN inspectors were ... See all stories on this topic: SCANA, Santee Cooper sue DOE over nuclear waste agreement Myrtle Beach Sun News - Myrtle Beach,SC,USA CHARLESTON - Two SC utilities are suing the federal Department of Energy about the spent nuclear fuel and waste accumulating at the VC Summer power plant they ... See all stories on this topic: NUCLEAR labs up for grabs Tri-Valley Herald - Pleasanton,CA,USA ... They ridiculed and often back-stabbed each other at the Pentagon in a race to provide the US Navy, Air Force and Army with nuclear weaponry. ... See all stories on this topic: ASIAN nuclear 'renaissance' has global suppliers licking their ... Economic Times - New Delhi,India SINGAPORE : From India to China , energy-deficient Asia is spending billions of dollars to build nuclear power plants, sparking fierce competition among global ... See all stories on this topic: NUCLEAR aging Arizona Republic - Phoenix,AZ,USA When it began producing energy in 1985, Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station became America's largest nuclear power plant. The ... See all stories on this topic: THREE held in nuclear probe released Hi Pakistan - Lahore,Pakistan They were detained under the Security Act of Pakistan 1952 for allegedly supplying nuclear materials, designs and codes to North Korea, Libya and Iran. ... See all stories on this topic: KHARAZI seeks EU support to settle nuclear row Gulf Daily News - Manama,Bahrain TEHRAN: Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi discussed Iran's nuclear case with the foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany, seeking their support ... See all stories on this topic: FINAL Salute: Nuclear engineer put family first The Columbian - Vancouver,WA,USA ... years. Jack Sprouse was a nuclear engineer. ... He came into the nuclear era when it was a miracle for peaceful means," Harriett said. But ... EDITORIAL: A US nuclear device to India on a platter? Daily Times - Pakistan India’s prime minister AB Vajpayee has said that his government spurned an offer by the United States in May 1998 to let India have a nuclear device if it ... See all stories on this topic: This daily-once News Alert is brought to you by Google News (BETA)... - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Remove this News Alert: http://www.google.com/newsalerts/remove?s=92d1672a1b037a07&hl=en Create another News Alert: http://www.google.com/newsalerts?hl=en Try Google News: http://news.google.com/ ***************************************************************** 46 [DU-WATCH] US Weaponization of Space Date: Sat, 10 Apr 2004 00:58:22 -0500 (CDT) US forward deloyment, sabre-rattling and genocidal follow-thru is already fueling mass nuclear proliferation as defense against US, the world's undeniable rogue (who else has been targeting and attacking nations in any, let alone every, hemisphere?). Space weaponization threatens other nations with what the US might do with first-strike impunity. Meaning the extreme advantage of seizing the highground of space gives what the US already almost has: the ability to strike with confidence any repercussions can be thwarted. this ratchets up terror the world feels, while acting as one pillar to prop the US economy from collapse. certainly you can see the econ numbers don't add up for anything but a most reckless nosedive. nothing saves crapitalism like war. Remember your history on the segue between the Great Depression and WWII. That was certainly relevant on 9/11 because of what naturally ensued from this worse-than-Pearl Harbor incident: Dark Matter As the presidential campaign reaches critical mass, the United States will break a long-held taboo and launch the first weapon into the global commons of outer space. By Chris Floyd This summer, the human race will pass a sinister milestone. It will come quietly, creeping like a thief in the night -- a starless night, the sky blanked by a minatory shadow. For while the world's attention will be turned this July toward the bloody carnage erupting in Iraq after the illusory turnover of "sovereignty" by the still-entrenched occupation force, and riveted by the flood of sewage pouring from the White House as the presidential campaign reaches critical mass, the United States will break a long-held taboo and launch the first weapon into the global commons of outer space. It's a small step, a test satellite called the "Near Field Infrared Experiment," set for launch -- by a Minotaur missile, no less -- this summer from a NASA base in Virginia. NFIRE is part of the Bush Regime's multibillion-dollar, crony-feeding boondoggle known as "missile defense." The satellite's primary mission is to gather data on the exhaust fumes of rockets in space, information that will then be used to help future space weapons differentiate more clearly between a target and its trailing plume. But NFIRE is itself weaponized, carrying a projectile-packed "kill vehicle" that can destroy passing missiles -- or the satellites of the United States' military and commercial rivals, as ABC News reported last week. This marks the first time in history that any nation has put a weapon in space, despite America's still-official policy against such a practice. And as Pentagon officials made clear in an eye-opening presentation to Congress in February, NFIRE's test is just the first spark of a conflagration that will soon set the heavens ablaze with American weaponry capable of striking -- and destroying -- any spot on earth. As one top Pentagon official -- opposed to this lunatic proliferation, thus remaining anonymous -- said: "We're crossing the Rubicon into space weaponization." The ABC report -- largely ignored, except by the Irish Examiner and some specialist web sites -- was strangely incomplete, however. It noted only that there is a $68 million appropriation for NFIRE buried in the 2005 military budget -- leaving the implication that the project is still on the drawing board. But in fact, NFIRE is already operational. It began in August 2002 and has moved steadily toward its long-established Summer 2004 launch date, according to NASA and press releases from the private contractors involved. The Pentagon's own published specs for the mission state clearly: "The Generation 2 kill vehicle will be integrated into the near-field experiment payload" when the spacecraft launches in summer 2004. The Minotaur missile that will haul the weapon into orbit was ordered by the Pentagon in January 2003, Orbital Sciences Corporation reports. Doubtless there will more NFIREs burning in 2005 as well, but the weaponization of space is not some distant prospect: That dark future is now. And the boys in Space Command are just getting warmed up. They wowed the salivating Bushist faithful in Congress with highly detailed plans for a whizbang space arsenal led by the "Rods From God" -- bundles of tungsten rods fired from orbiting platforms, hurtling toward earth at 3,700 meters per second, accurate within a range of 8 meters and able to destroy even the most hardened targets, the Center for Defense Information reports. They could be launched at only a few minutes' notice at any target on the planet. "God's Rods" will be accompanied by orbiting lasers, "hunter-killer" satellites, and space bombers that needn't bother with silly-billy legal worries about "overflight rights" from other countries, but can descend out of the ether to swoop down on any uppity nation that displeases the world-Caesar in Washington. This belligerent Buck-Rogering, long a gleam in many a militarist's eye, gained relentless momentum with the arrival of Don Rumsfeld as Pentagon war chief. In the late 1990s, while helping Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz plot their "Project for the New American Century" -- wholesale militarization of U.S. policy, aggressive war (including the invasion of Iraq even if Saddam Hussein was no longer there), "global dominance" of "vital energy resources," etc. -- Rumsfeld also headed a "blue-ribbon panel" of the usual Establishment worthies looking into "the role of space in national security." Their conclusion? You guessed it: Rummy said America must garrison the heavens to prevent a -- wait for it -- "space Pearl Harbor." Oddly enough, over at PNAC, at about the same time, Rummy and Cheney were speaking openly about the possibility of a "new Pearl Harbor" that would "catalyze the American people" into supporting their plans, which were published in September 2000. Space weaponization -- via "missile defense" -- was an essential part of the scheme. Once in office, they shoveled billions to their favored defense cartels and fast-tracked space-weapon programs. Indeed, National Security Advisor Condi Rice intended to crown these early efforts with a major speech enshrining the Bush Regime's "top priority" for national security: "missile defense." Unfortunately, the speech -- scheduled for Sept. 11, 2001 -- had to be canceled due to the "new Pearl Harbor" that struck that day, the Washington Post reported last week. But the plan and its long-standing priorities -- invasion of Iraq, military control of Central Asia, space weaponization -- continued without missing a beat, though clothed now in the expedient rhetoric of a "global war on terror." Of course, with each passing day, Bush's PNAC centerpiece -- the rape of Iraq -- is actually breeding more terror, more hatred for America, more risk for the people he rules with such ignorant, blood-flecked insouciance. But this doesn't matter; what matters is the plan, the dominance. And so space too must be conquered, at any cost, until the whole world is under cosmic military occupation -- a global Fallujah, seething with chaos and fury. Annotations Reining in our Weaponry San Francisco Chronicle, March 15, 2004 Shooting Stars ABC News, March 30, 2004 U.S. Takes First Steps to Weaponize Space Spacedaily.com, March 30, 2004 US Creeping Toward Weapons in Space Irish Examiner, March 31, 2004 NFIRE Mission Description [page 3] U.S. Department of Defense, February 2003, U.S. Military Launch Manifest Small World Communications, March 22, 2004 Rods From God: Possible Space Weapons of the Future Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 28, 2003 21st Century Gunboat Diplomacy The Nation Institute, March 30, 2004 Top Focus Before 9/11 Wasn't Terrorism Washington Post, April 1, 2004 Rebuilding America's Defenses Project for the New American Century, September 2000 Rumsfeld Commision Warns Against 'Space Pearl Harbor Agence France Presse, Jan. 11, 2001 U.S. Military Moves to Control Space EnviroVideo, Feb. 24, 2001 Orbital Wins $60 Million in New Small Launch Vehicles Order Orbital Sciences Corporation, Jan. 23, 2003 Star Wars: Protecting Globalization From Above CorpWatch, Jan. 18, 2002 Ballistic Missile Defense Interceptors U.S. Missile Defense Agency, Jan. 30, 2004 SAIC Wins NFIRE Contract U.S. Department of Defense, Jan. 21, 2003 Near Field InfraRed Experiment NASA, August 2002 The Minotaur Missile Gunter's Space Page, Jan. 16, 2004 USN Selected for NFIRE Mission Universal Space Network, Inc., December 18, 2003 MDA Plans to Launch Sattelite to Assist in Missile Defense Tests Space News, December 9, 2002 Spectrum Astro Forming Industry Team for Targets and Countermeasures Bid Spectrum Astro, Jan. 7, 2003 --------------------------------- Post your free ad now! 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Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ***************************************************************** 47 Google News Alert - nuclear Date: Sat, 10 Apr 2004 13:35:40 -0700 (PDT) SOUTH Carolina utilities sue DOE on nuclear fuel, waste The State - Columbia,SC,USA CHARLESTON, SC - Two South Carolina utilities are suing the federal Department of Energy about the spent nuclear fuel and waste accumulating at the VC Summer ... See all stories on this topic: UKRAINIAN Nuclear Reactors Shut Down Kansas City Star (subscription) - Kansas City,MO,USA KIEV, Ukraine - Two Ukrainian nuclear reactors were shut down Saturday for regular maintenance and energy conservation during the Easter holidays, officials ... See all stories on this topic: PAKISTAN releases nuclear suspects Washington Times - Washington,DC,USA ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, April 10 (UPI) -- Pakistan has released three officials detained earlier on suspicion of passing nuclear secrets and equipment to Iran ... See all stories on this topic: RUSSIA offers India floating nuclear power plants Bellona - UK In March this issue was discussed in India by Vladimir Asmolov, Russian Nuclear Agency representative, ITAR-TASS reported. Russia ... See all stories on this topic: TREK against nuclear arms Gulf Daily News - Manama,Bahrain LONDON: Some 300 peace activists set off from central London yesterday on an Easter weekend trek to a British nuclear arms facility to denounce the ongoing ... See all stories on this topic: CHENEY to promote US nuclear reactors The Olympian - Olympia,WA,USA ... stakes issues like terrorism and North Korea, Vice President Dick Cheney will have another task -- making a pitch for Westinghouse's US nuclear power technology ... See all stories on this topic: NO compromise on Kashmir, nuclear assets, says Musharraf Daily Balochistan Express - Quetta,Pakistan ... settle all issues including Jammu and Kashmir but stated that the country would never compromise on its vital national interests on Kashmir and nuclear assets. ... See all stories on this topic: US wants to hold DPRK nuclear working group talks this month Xinhua - China ... April 9 (Xinhuanet) -- The United States, Japan and South Korea have agreed to hold the six-party working group talks on dismantling the nuclear programs of ... See all stories on this topic: US offered to supply India with nuclear weapons: PM The Globe and Mail - Canada Bhubaneshwar, India — The United States offered to supply India with nuclear weapons in an attempt to dissuade it from launching nuclear tests in 1998 ... See all stories on this topic: OCONEE Nuclear Station Receives Notice of Violation and Fine From ... Yahoo News (press release) - USA CHARLOTTE, NC, April 9 /PRNewswire/ -- Duke Power was notified today by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) of a $60,000 proposed fine for the violation ... This daily-once News Alert is brought to you by Google News (BETA)... - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Remove this News Alert: http://www.google.com/newsalerts/remove?s=92d1672a1b037a07&hl=en Create another News Alert: http://www.google.com/newsalerts?hl=en Try Google News: http://news.google.com/ ***************************************************************** 48 [du-list] DU in the news - 11th April 04 Date: Sat, 10 Apr 2004 19:55:22 -0700 18 of 115 articles GIs: Dust made us ill Newsday, NY - 11 hours ago BY WIL CRUZ. David Rodriguez's symptoms started with muscular back pain last summer. By the end of his seven-month stint in Iraq ... Ill US soldiers claim military ignored their complaints London Free Press, Canada - 13 hours ago NEW YORK -- Six US soldiers who have fallen ill since their return from Iraq said yesterday the army ignored their complaints about depleted-uranium poisoning ... Soldiers: Army Ignores Illness Complaints Kansas City Star (subscription), MO - 21 hours ago NEW YORK - Six soldiers who have fallen ill since their return from Iraq said Friday that the Army ignored their complaints about uranium poisoning from US ... Soldiers say their health suffering from uranium-filled weapons Newsday, NY - 23 hours ago By VERENA DOBNIK. NEW YORK -- Six Iraq war veterans charged Friday that the Army ignored their complaints about uranium poisoning ... Army promises testing for depleted uranium KESQ, CA - 5 hours ago New York-AP -- The Army now says it will test soldiers returning from Iraq who fear they might have been contaminated by depleted uranium. ... Soldiers criticize depleted-uranium response The Journal News.com, NY - 12 hours ago By VERENA DOBNIK. NEW YORK — Six Iraq war veterans charged yesterday that the Army ignored their complaints about uranium poisoning ... Sick Guard members blame depleted uranium ArmyTimes.com (subscription) - 22 hours ago Those are among the symptoms reported by a group of military police officers who were evacuated out of Iraq for other injuries, mostly orthopedic. ... NY soldiers say uranium complaints ignored New York Newsday, United States - 22 hours ago By Wil Cruz. Sen. Charles Schumer said Friday he would ask the Army to upgrade its treatment of soldiers who may have been exposed ... Schumer: Soldiers may have been exposed to uranium WHEC-TV, NY - Apr 9, 2004 Some National Guard troops from New York State may have been exposed to depleted uranium while serving in the Middle East. Senator ... Soldiers sick since return from Iraq complain about Army's ... San Francisco Chronicle, CA - 3 hours ago Six soldiers who have fallen ill since their return from Iraq said Friday that the Army ignored their complaints about uranium poisoning from US weapons fired ... Ill soldiers claim army denied tests Calgary Sun, Canada - 12 hours ago By AP. NEW YORK -- Six US soldiers who have fallen ill since their return from Iraq said yesterday the army ignored their complaints ... We Were Ignored, Ailing Soldiers Say Los Angeles Times (subscription), CA - 13 hours ago NEW YORK — Six soldiers who have fallen ill since their return from Iraq said Friday that the Army ignored their complaints about uranium poisoning from US ... Iraq soldiers say Army ignored uranium poisoning complaints Houston Chronicle, TX - 15 hours ago By VERENA DOBNIK. NEW YORK -- Six soldiers who have fallen ill since their return from Iraq said Friday that the Army ignored their ... Soldiers: Army Ignores Illness Complaints Guardian, UK - 21 hours ago By VERENA DOBNIK. NEW YORK (AP) - Six soldiers who have fallen ill since their return from Iraq said Friday that the Army ignored ... Soldiers: Army Ignores Illness Complaints Atlanta Journal Constitution, GA - 21 hours ago By VERENA DOBNIK. NEW YORK (AP)--Six soldiers who have fallen ill since their return from Iraq said Friday that the Army ignored ... Soldiers say their health suffering from uranium-filled weapons Boston Globe, MA - 23 hours ago By Verena Dobnik, Associated Press, 4/9/2004 17:08. NEW YORK (AP) Six Iraq war veterans charged Friday that the Army ignored their ... GIs: Depleted Uranium Dust Made Us Ill Common Dreams - 4 hours ago by Wil Cruz. David Rodriguez's symptoms started with muscular back pain last summer. By the end of his seven-month stint in Iraq ... To unsubscribe from this groups send a message to du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com. In the body of the message type unsubscribe and send. Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ADVERTISEMENT 10d5c3f.jpg 10d5c86.jpg ---------- Yahoo! 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