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                         NUCLEAR POLICY
 
1 Subject: ANNOUNCEMENT - PROTEST IN MOSCOW ON APRIL 22 (CHERNOBYL
2 BBC: Denmark reveals Iraq arms secrets 
3 BBC: Kim 'in China for secret talks' 
4 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: Kim Jong-il Must Learn His “Chinese Less
5 UPI: Analysis: Nuke-for-energy deal for Kim?
6 VANUNU -- EVEN CONTACT WITH PARENTS WILL BE FORBIDDEN 
7 Vanunu Prison Video Broadcast Irks Supporters
8 Amnesty Int'l - Vanunu must be free
9 [southnews] Vanunu ordered to stay in Israel
10 Vanunu restrictions eased a little
11 AFP: I'm not a traitor, says Israeli nuclear whistleblower on eve of
12 Reuters: Nuke Whistleblower Wants Israel's Reactor Destroyed        
13 Haaretz: Limits on Vanunu eased slightly ahead of release       
14 Haaretz: Ignore Vanunu; don't restrict him       
15 SFC: Vanunu's release refocuses attention on Israel's `bomb in the b
16 Reuters: What Nuke Whistleblower Doesn't Know Scares Israel         
17 Arutz Sheva: Ministers Instructed to Remain Silent on Vanunu Affair 
18 BostonHerald: Vanunu: Israel's nuclear reactor should be destroyed
19 Straits Times: Beijing pulls no punches with Cheney - 
 
                         NUCLEAR REACTORS
 
20 US: NRC: NRC Renews License for H.B. Robinson Steam Electric Plant, 
21 US: NRC: Report on the Independent Verification of the Mitigating Sy
22 Herald: Call to expand nuclear power use attacked by greens   
23 Pravda.RU: Vietnam modernizes its nuclear reactor
24 US: AP Wire: NRC approves license renewal for Pee Dee nuclear plant
25 US: PRN: Robinson Nuclear Plant's License Renewed by NRC Through Jul
26 US: NRC: NRC to Hold Predecisional Enforcement Conference to Discuss
27 US: NRC: NRC to Meet with Duke Energy Officials to Discuss Safety Pe
 
                          NUCLEAR SAFETY
 
28 [DU-WATCH] connecting dots in Iraq
29 US: [DU-WATCH] Thom Hartmann Radio Interview with Leuren Moret on
30 US: [DU-WATCH] why we didn't check before - chelation therapy (or
31 Records on DU Exposures Never Saw the Light of Day
32 US: [RADFOOD] good news and action item
33 DU contaminated vets return from Iraq
34 US: Gallup Independent: Ex-workers have health problems
35 US: New York Daily News: G.I.s press Army for uranium test
36 BBC: Nuclear sub surfaces in Arctic 
37 ITAR-TASS: Security at Moscow抯 nuclear facilities raises concerns
 
                         NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
 
38 US: Salt Lake Tribune: No more nuclear waste 
39 US: Zwire: EPA to revise Foote Mineral cleanup plan                 
40 KLAS: State Advises Yucca Workers to be Tested
41 US: NEWS.com.au: ERA apologises for contamination 
42 NRC: NRC Approves Restart of Final Stage in Uranium Hexafluoride Pro
 
                         NUCLEAR WEAPONS
 
 
                        US DEPT. OF ENERGY
 
43 Lenawee Online News GUEST EDITORIAL: A wasteful compensation program
44 Rocky Mountain News: Proposed land use near butte criticized
 
                          OTHER NUCLEAR
 
45 Google News Alert - nuclear
46 Scotsman.com: Wind power 'will cost taxpayer millions'
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                         FULL NEWS STORIES
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 1 Subject: ANNOUNCEMENT - PROTEST IN MOSCOW ON APRIL 22 (CHERNOBYL

Date: Tue, 20 Apr 2004 05:11:06 +0400 Ecodefense   Moscow,

April 20, 2004   

ANNOUNCEMENT
 
On Thursday, April 22, Ecodefense will stage non-violent 
anti-nuclear protest in Moscow (Russia). Action will take place 
at 1 pm (13-00), near the Ministry of industry and energy. 
(Address: Kitaigorodsky pr. 7)
 
Activists from 6 Russian cities will come down to Moscow to 
express its protest over plans of Russian government to build new 
nuclear reactors and import foreign nuclear waste.
 
After governmental reform occured earlier in 2004, Ministry of 
industry and energy became responsible for the strategy and 
policy of energy industries, including nuclear. Activists will 
call on minister Viktor Khristenko to stop construction of new 
nuclear reactors, and the import of nuclear waste (spent nuclear 
fuel) to Russia.
 
For more info in Moscow call 7766281, 2784642 (Vladimir Slivyak)
 
e-mail: ecodefense@online.ru   www.antiatom.ru
 
*****************************************************************
 2 BBC: Denmark reveals Iraq arms secrets 
 
  Last Updated: Monday, 19 April, 2004
 
[Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen]                                  

Mr Rasmussen says the reports vinidcate him                                                                

Denmark has declassified intelligence reports compiled before the 
Iraq war which show officials thought Iraq had weapons of mass 
destruction. 

In one report, Iraq was thought to have both chemical and 
biological weapons, as well as an active nuclear programme. 

The extracts appear to contradict claims leaked to a newspaper 
that there was no evidence to back up the theory. 

Former intelligence officer Major Frank Soeholm Grevil has been 
charged with breaching the official information act. 

The major told reporters at the Berlingske Tidende newspaper he 
had sent 10 reports to the prime minister which concluded that 
the coalition was unlikely to find weapons of mass destruction. 

Pressure 

The two journalists who published the leaks, Jesper Larsen and 
Michael Bjerre, have been charged with exploiting information 
emerging from a crime. 

Before the war, Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen 
supported the US-led invasion and told parliament that he was 
convinced Iraq was in possession of such weapons. 

I don't think we get complete picture of what the government knew 
Jeppe Kofod, Social Democrats spokesman      

Denmark sent a submarine and a warship to participate in the 
campaign. 

Since the leaks - and the failure to find any weapons of mass 
destruction - the prime minister has come under increasing 
pressure from opposition parties to declassify the reports. 

But Danish Defence Intelligence Service (DDIS) chief Rear Admiral 
Joern Olesen said: "These reports that have been made public 
document that Iraq, according to the entire DDIS's evaluation, 
probably had biological and chemical weapons just before the 
war." 

Mr Olesen said the documents were based on information gathered 
by the United Nations and Nato but the reports warned that "any 
evaluation is subject to uncertainties". 

Mr Fogh Rasmussen said the documents were proof that neither he 
nor anyone else in government had tried to mislead parliament. 

"The released documents remove any insistence of claims that the 
government could have misused, twisted or suppressed information 
received from the DDIS," he told reporters. 

Investigation 

But AP news agency says a Danish intelligence report dated 7 
March, 2003, concluded that there was no "certain information 
that Iraq has operative weapons of mass destruction". 

Spokesman for the opposition Social Democrats Jeppe Kofod said 
that in March the prime minister still insisted he "knew" Iraq 
had the weapons. 

"I don't think we get a complete picture of what the government 
knew," he said. 

He called for more details following the release of the documents 
and for an independent investigation into whether Mr Fogh 
Rasmussen deliberately misled MPs. 





*****************************************************************
 3 BBC: Kim 'in China for secret talks' 
 
  Last Updated: Monday, 19 April, 2004
 
		 		 		 
[North Korean spent nuclear fuel rods in Yongbyon] 
China has hosted six-nation talks on the continuing nuclear 
stand-off                                                               

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il is reported to have met Chinese 
President Hu Jintao for talks in Beijing. 

South Korean media reports said a special train took the 
reclusive Mr Kim and his entourage to the Chinese capital for a 
summit on Monday. 

China is a key mediator in the row over North Korea's nuclear 
programme. 

Talks have made little progress on how the programme could be 
dismantled, or how North Korea's energy and security concerns 
would be addressed. 

If confirmed, the North Korean leader's four-day visit to 
Pyongyang's old communist ally would be his first since May 2001. 

No mention of the visit was made on North Korea's official KCNA 
news agency or on China's official Xinhua news agency, but it was 
reported extensively in the South Korean media. 

Witnesses reported seeing a motorcade leaving the train station 
in Beijing. 

South Korea's Yonhap news agency said talks between Mr Kim and Mr 
Hu focused on North Korea's nuclear ambitions and Beijing's 
economic assistance to the North. 

Mr Kim was also expected to meet other Chinese leaders, including 
former President Jiang Zemin and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, 
Yonhap said. 

[Kim's armoured train] Mr Kim, who is scared of flying, likes to 
travel by special train                                                                

Mr Kim's special train crossed into China late on Sunday and 
travelled overnight to Beijing, South Korea's YTN cable 
television news said. The North Korean leader is scared of 
flying. 

"At the moment all parties are working together to find a way to 
set up a working group to address issues," Chinese Foreign 
Minister Li Zhaoxing told a news conference without confirming Mr 
Kim's visit. 

"China's objective is clear. The legitimate security concerns of 
[North Korea] should be properly addressed and the whole 
peninsula should be free of nuclear arms," he said. 

Mr Kim's two previous known trips to China since 2000 were 
confirmed by the two governments only after he returned home. 

Talks pressure 

Analysts say Pyongyang may be seeking economic and energy aid 
from its old communist ally. 

But Beijing is under pressure from Washington to step up the pace 
of diplomacy over North Korea's nuclear weapons programme. 

During his visit to Asia last week, US Vice-President Dick Cheney 
told Chinese leaders that time was running out to resolve this 
issue. 

He reportedly presented Beijing with new evidence regarding North 
Korea's nuclear capability. 

A North Korean foreign ministry spokesman responded on Sunday by 
describing Mr Cheney as "mentally deranged". 

He said North Korea was "seriously contemplating a measure" to 
counter the US' demand that Pyongyang irreversibly dismantles its 
nuclear programme before it will grant the North any concessions. 

China's role 

China has proved a crucial player in dialogue with Pyongyang, 
having hosted two rounds of six-nation talks in Beijing. 

In February, China said North Korea had agreed to push towards a 
third round of international talks on the region's nuclear 
crisis. 

The nuclear crisis was sparked in October 2002 when US officials 
said North Korea had admitted to having a secret uranium-based 
nuclear programme, in violation of a 1994 agreement. 

It has since restarted a mothballed nuclear power station, thrown 
out United Nations nuclear inspectors and pulled out of the 
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. 

North Korea says it has reprocessed thousands of spent nuclear 
fuel rods at the Yongbyon nuclear facility, from which extracted 
plutonium can be used to manufacture nuclear bombs. 

The US insists that Pyongyang must dismantle its nuclear 
facilities. But Pyongyang says it will only do so in return for 
economic and energy aid, and security guarantees from Washington. 

*****************************************************************
 4 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: Kim Jong-il Must Learn His “Chinese Lesson” This Time
Around   
 
      Updated Apr.19,2004 23:40 KST   
 
North Korea leader Kim Jong-il is in China, and while everything 
about his trip - including his schedule - is shrouded in secrecy, 
it can be surmised that its major goals are discussions of the 
North Korean nuclear issue and Chinese economic aid. 

Not more than a few days ago, U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney was 
in China and discussed the North Korean nuclear issue. With 
Kim’s visit following close behind, it’s enough to make some 
wonder whether we’re on the verge of some turning point in the 
discussions between the United States, China and North Korea over 
the nuclear issue. One suspects this even more when you see how 
China has recently been moving quite actively toward finding a 
solution to the nuclear crisis. This is a critical moment in 
which our government must pay close attention. 

North Korea is in such a situation that it would find it 
difficult to survive day to day without Chinese petroleum and 
food aid. In this situation, the Chinese leadership’s opinion of 
North Korea has grown increasingly negative and critical, and it 
seems to have grown even more so recently. In particular, this 
fourth-generation of Chinese leaders, led by President Hu Jintao, 
has been accelerating China’s market reforms and has attached 
considerable importance to the nation’s relationship with the 
United States. North Korea, which is tarnishing China’s 
international image through the defector issue and causing 
confrontation with the U.S. through its nuclear weapons 
development, can be nothing but a burden to China. 

During this visit, Kim must understand what it is that China’s 
leaders and citizens think of North Korea and what it is that 
they want of it. From this standpoint, it is quite significant 
that this is Kim’s first meeting with President Hu. If this is 
simply another incomprehensible example of North Korea’s 
internal and foreign strategy, then even this China trip will 
have very little chance of success. 

Concerning North Korea’s internal economic problems, too, Kim 
must listen to China’s advice on reform and deepen its “Chinese 
lessons.” It has become clear that the North’s “7.1 Economic 
Management Reform Measures” from two years ago have ended in 
almost complete failure. The biggest reason is that those reforms 
were emergency measures that totally avoided basic reform 
measures like the permission of private farming, and what’s 
more, the North was unable to secure outside aid. Rather than 
simply being envious of China’s vibrant economic growth and 
shallowly trying to imitate it like he did with the “Shinuiju 
Special Economic Zone,” he must deeply examine the substantive 
meanings behind the path of reform China has walked and gather 
lessons from that. 

*****************************************************************
 5 UPI: Analysis: Nuke-for-energy deal for Kim?

 United Press International: 

By Jong-Heon Lee UPI Correspondent Published 4/19/2004 11:40 AM
	 		
SEOUL, South Korea, April 19 (UPI) -- Will North Korean leader 
Kim Jong Il bring a breakthrough on the nuclear impasse? 

Kim's surprise visit to Bejing this week for a summit with 
Chinese President Hu Jintao raised hopes of progress in the 
long-stalled nuclear issue.

 China is considered one of few nations that have leverage over 
Kim's defiant regime, which has been heavily dependent on 
Beijing's food and energy aid. Beijing's economic assistance is 
vital for the North's tattered economy. China also needs North 
Korea to ease the nuclear standoff to boost its leverage in 
pressing for a more accommodating U.S. stance toward Taiwan.

 "The two nations need each other's help. The Beijing summit was 
arranged for mutual benefit," said Moon Heung-ho, a China expert 
at Hanyang University in Seoul. "We hope to see progress in the 
nuclear stalemate in the North Korea-China summit," Seoul's 
Foreign Ministry official said.

 Kim held talks with Chinese President Hu on Monday in Beijing 
after arriving in the Chinese capital by train earlier in the day 
for an informal visit, according to South Korea's media reports 
and diplomatic sources in Seoul.

 Neither the South Korean nor the Chinese government would 
confirm Kim's visit, which was cloaked in secrecy. But both sides 
are widely expected to announce his visit after Kim returns to 
Pyongyang, as they have done in the past.

 When Kim visited China in 2000 and 2001, neither side announced 
the visits in advance or commented on the trips until after he 
returned home. "North Korea has requested that Kim's schedule be 
kept secret due to security concerns," a diplomatic source in 
Seoul said.

 Kim crossed the border city of Sinuiju into China around 9 p.m. 
Sunday after leaving his office in Pyongyang at 1 p.m. that day 
by special train. Kim was greeted at the Chinese border city of 
Dandong by Wang Jiarui, the Communist Party's director of 
international relations, South Korea's official Yonhap News 
Agency said in a report from the Chinese capital that quoted 
"informed diplomatic sources." 

Kim's train, carrying an entourage of some 40 high-level ruling 
party, state and military officials, drew into Beijing's main 
railway station around 6 a.m. Monday amid tight security. 
Beijing's railway station was guarded by military police and a 
station official said it was closed for the arrival of a "special 
visitor."

 A convoy of unmarked cars, including a black Mercedes limousine, 
pulled out of the railway station and headed west towards the 
state guesthouse, where Kim has stayed on previous trips, said 
Yonhap and Seoul's state-run television, KBS.

 Kim reportedly met Hu over lunch at Zhongnanhai, the leadership 
compound in Beijing. It was the first summit between the two 
communist allies since the new Chinese leaders took office last 
year.

 No details of the summit were available, but media reports 
quoted sources as saying it was focused on how to end the 
standoff over Pyongyang's nuclear arms ambitions, Beijing's food 
and energy assistance, and North Korea's economic reforms.

 At the summit, Kim said his country was ready to give up its 
nuclear development program if the United States dropped its 
hostile policy towards Pyongyang. He also asked for economic and 
energy aid from China.

 In return, Hu reportedly called for Pyongyang to move to ease 
the nuclear crisis, saying U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney on a 
visit to Beijing last week warned that time was running out for a 
resolution on the issue. 

Analysts in Seoul said Beijing wanted to hear Kim's position on 
North Korea's nuclear program and use the summit to make progress 
toward six-party talks to end the nuclear crisis. "China invited 
the North Korean leader to visit Beijing to offer economic aid 
and persuade Pyongyang to make concessions to break the nuclear 
impasse," said Paek Seung-joo, an analyst at the Korea Institute 
for Defense Analysis in Seoul.

 China has been mediating between North Korea and the United 
States at the six-way talks, which also involve South Korea, 
Japan and Russia, aimed at seeking a peaceful resolution to the 
crisis. China hosted two rounds of six-party talks, the latest 
one in February, but no agreement has been reached. 

"North Korea is not in a position to dismiss Chinese pressure," 
said Lee Tae-hwan, a China specialist at the Sejong Institute, a 
private think tank in Seoul, "because China provides between 70 
percent and 90 percent of North Korea's oil and more than 
one-third of its imports and food aid."

 "Beijing wants to use its role in defusing the nuclear crisis as 
leverage in dealing with Washington over the Taiwan issue," a 
Western diplomat said, requesting anonymity. "With the North 
Korea card in hand, China would call for the United States to 
discourage Taiwan from adopting a confrontational stance with the 
mainland following Chen Shui-bian's re-election as the island's 
president.

 Kim Jong Il's China trip came after Cheney came to China last 
week armed with fresh evidence of North Korea's nuclear weapons 
capabilities and pressing Beijing to take a tougher line with its 
communist neighbor.

 After the summit, Kim visited Zhongguancun technology park, 
China's leading high-tech development zone. He is scheduled to 
have a series of meetings with Chinese leaders, including former 
President Jiang Zemin, Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, parliamentary 
leader Wu Bangguo and Vice President Zeng Qinghong.

 On his way back to North Korea on Wednesday, he is expected to 
visit Shenyang or Dalian in China's northeast to study government 
efforts to boost the economy with outside investment.

 



Copyright � 2001-2004 United Press International
*****************************************************************
 6 VANUNU -- EVEN CONTACT WITH PARENTS WILL BE FORBIDDEN 
 
Date: Mon, 19 Apr 2004 07:45:06 -0500 (CDT)

 
What kind of  vindictive retribution is this ?  

What kind of example do the terms of Vanunu's release set for what is
claimed to be a democratic State? 

Why bother with allowing him to appeal the conditions of his release ?

Wouldn't Israel's purpose be better served by assasination ? Perhaps a few  
other perpetual dissident rabble-rousers can be simultaneously offed !!

Michael 
 

======================
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20040419/VANUNU19/TPInternational/Africa

Israeli who spilled nuclear secrets to be kept on tight leash after
release

EVEN CONTACT WITH PARENTS IS FORBIDDEN

Glove and Mail (Toronto)  Monday, April 19, 2004
	By DOUG SAUNDERS

When Mordechai Vanunu ends his 18 years of mostly solitary confinement
Wednesday morning, he will likely be greeted with complete silence from
all four of his parents.

Mr. Vanunu, 50, became an international cause clbre in 1986, when he was
kidnapped by Israel's Mossad intelligence agency and imprisoned for
treason after telling the world about Israel's secret nuclear-weapons
program. Israeli officials believe Mr. Vanunu is one of the most dangerous
men in the country, and have ordered him not to leave his town in Israel,
to speak to foreigners, to use a cellphone or the Internet, or to come
within 100 metres of any embassy or border.

Those restrictions, which are indefinite in duration, are being appealed
in Israeli court this morning. But even if they are overturned, Mr. Vanunu
will step out of prison into an awkward political environment and a truly
bizarre family situation.

Standing outside the Jerusalem prison upon his release will be Nick and
Mary Eoloff of St. Paul, Minn., who adopted him as their son in 1997. But
the Eoloffs will have to remain silent and remote, because they are
forbidden to contact him by any means.

Mr. Vanunu's biological parents will also be silent. Patriotic Israelis,
they were against their son's decision to expose Israel's secret nuclear
labs, and even more offended when he converted to Christianity.

The Eoloffs, lifelong anti-nuclear protesters who want to bring Mr. Vanunu
to their home in Minnesota, visited him in prison yesterday and said he is
angry and depressed by the situation.

"More than anything, I think he believes he has a right to the life of a
normal citizen -- he wants just a quiet normal life, and he wants to live
in the United States," Mrs. Eoloff said in a telephone interview from
Jerusalem last night. "They took 18 years of his life, and I don't think
they have the right to take any more."

That sympathy is not widely shared in Israel. "The majority of people here
still see him as a traitor," Mrs. Eoloff said. " . . . His life is in
certain danger here."

Yesterday, when they announced the restrictions on Mr. Vanunu, Israeli
officials said they were worried he will try to provide more secret
information to the news media, or draw further attention to Israel's
nuclear program, which the country does not officially admit to having.

"The main consideration should be his intent to go on causing damage to
Israel," said Shabtai Shavit, a former Mossad chief who helped draft the
unusual set of restrictions. "Who will guarantee that he will only speak
the truth? Who is to stop him imagining things?" Mr. Shavit told the
Reuters news agency.

Mr. Vanunu's sudden re-emergence could prove awkward at a moment when
Israel has just won full co-operation from the United States in its war
against Palestinian militants and its ban on the return of Palestinian
refugees to Israel. The United States cannot legally provide aid to
countries that produce weapons of mass destruction; Israel has managed to
get around this restriction using a don't-ask-don't-tell policy that
became much more difficult after Mr. Vanunu released photos of desert
atomic-bomb labs to The Times of London.

Indeed, Mr. Vanunu, who worked from 1976 to 1985 at the Dimona
nuclear-power facility while it was secretly producing more than 200
nuclear warheads, has pledged to continue speaking out against the
weapons. His outspokenness led him to spend most of his sentence in
solitary confinement, which ended in 1998. Due to be released a year ago,
he spent another year in prison because he refused to agree not to talk
about nuclear weapons.

"He's very willing to join the opposition to nuclear development once he's
living in the United States," Mrs. Eoloff said.

The Eoloffs adopted the dissident after spending years organizing petition
campaigns to have him released. They believed adoption would give him U.S.
citizenship, but learned a year later that the United States does not
grant citizenship to adopted children over age 16. Mrs. Eoloff said
yesterday she hopes Mr. Vanunu will be granted political asylum in the
United States.

Mr. Vanunu's brother Meir said the dissident remains angry and depressed,
but that he does not have any information beyond what he revealed to The
Times.

"Mordechai is not crazy, but he is very angry and sometimes suffers from
notions that there is a vast Israeli conspiracy against him, all around,"
his brother said on Friday.

Some senior Israelis expressed fear that restrictions on Mr. Vanunu might
backfire. "I think it is a mistake to gag him," said David Kimche, a
former director-general of the Israeli Foreign Ministry. "It only bolsters
Vanunu's supposed credibility and, in turn, pretty much anything he may
choose to concoct about Israel."

=========================

INTERNATIONAL NEWS ARTICLE
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=4863226

Swiss Radio International.  April 19, 2004 1:45 PM
	By Allyn Fisher-Ilan JERUSALEM (Reuters)

Nuke whistleblower wants Israel's reactor destroyed

- Mordechai Vanunu, about to complete an 18-year jail term for spilling
Israeli nuclear secrets, has called for the destruction of Israel's
secretive Dimona reactor, newspapers have reported.

"Just like the Iraqi reactor was destroyed, I want the Israeli reactor
destroyed," Vanunu, referring to Israel's 1981 bombing near Baghdad, was
quoted as saying in a videotaped meeting recently with security officers.

"I am defending the Arab world," he said in the interview, according to a
transcript carried by newspapers on Monday. The tape was to be broadcast
later in the day.

Vanunu, a former technician at the Dimona reactor, was jailed in 1986 as a
traitor after disclosing information to Britain's Sunday Times which led
analysts to conclude Israel had produced as many as 200 nuclear bombs at
the facility.

Israel maintains a strategic ambiguity over its nuclear programme in an
attempt to ward off its foes while avoiding a regional arms race. It has
kept the Dimona facility, in southern Israel, closed to international
inspection.

Vanunu, 49, is expected to be placed under restrictions as soon as he is
released on Wednesday, the government having decided to bar him from
leaving the country, tap his phone and bar his access to the press for a
probationary period.

Release of the videotape appeared aimed at bolstering the government's
case in a court challenge Israel's civil liberties union is mounting on
Vanunu's behalf against the edicts.

Challenging Israel's right to exist, he declared: "There is no need for a
Jewish state. There should be a Palestinian state. Whoever wants to be
Jewish can live anywhere."

Vanunu said he hoped to fight the restrictions and move overseas. He
denied having anything sensitive left to divulge and threatened to defy
some restrictions using the Internet.

"I've been inside for 20 years, everything has changed. Science has
advanced...so what I saw seems very outdated to me," Vanunu said.

Vanunu also maintained he was neither a spy nor a traitor.

"I wanted to inform the world about what happened. It's not treason," --
outside Israel "five or six billion people (see me)...as a positive
figure."

Asked why he had chosen to convert to Christianity back in the 1980s,
Vanunu replied: "I think Islam and Judaism are both the same backward
religion...Christianity is progressive."

===============
*****************************************************************
 7 Vanunu Prison Video Broadcast Irks Supporters
 
Date: Mon, 19 Apr 2004 14:27:39 -0700

 
<x-flowed>
PRESS RELEASE

April 19, 2004   For immediate release

Contact: Rayna Moss, +972 051 368 236
Israeli Free Vanunu Campaign

For more information, see www.vanunu.co.uk, www.vanunu.com, www.vanunu.org

Vanunu Prison Video Broadcast Irks Supporters

The International Delegation currently in Israel to welcome Mordechai 
Vanunu after his release is appalled by the news that an interview 
videotaped last month with Vanunu at Ashkelon Prison will be broadcast on 
Israeli television this evening.  Without his knowledge or consent, this is 
the first public media communication to Israel and the world from a man who 
has been silenced for the past 18 years, the first 11 _ of which were in 
solitary confinement.

At a visit this afternoon with Mordechai Vanunu, American adoptive parents 
Nick and Mary Eoloff said he told them he did not give his permission for 
the tape to be used for broadcast, and was not told that was the 
intent.  He was told it was a routine procedure for prisoners nearing release.

The International Campaign to Free Vanunu continues to stand with Mordechai 
Vanunu in condemnation of nuclear weapons and all weapons of mass 
destruction in the Middle East and around the world.  We continue to look 
for a free and open debate on the more than 200 Israeli thermonuclear 
weapons his revelations exposed 18 years ago.

An international delegation, comprised of over 80 individuals from a dozen 
countries, will join together with Israelis at Ashkelon Prison when 
Mordechai Vanunu walks out of the prison gate on April 21, 2004.

The delegation will begin a vigil at Ashkelon Prison in anticipation of 
Vanunu's release at 1 p.m. on Tuesday, April 20, and will be joined by 
others at 3 p.m.  A press conference will be held across the street from 
the prison at 5 p.m.  The delegates who will be speaking at the press 
conference are marked below with an asterisk. (*)  In addition, Gideon 
Spiro of the Israeli Committee for Mordechai Vanunu and for a Middle East 
Free of Atomic, Biological and Chemical Weapons and Issam Makhoul, Member 
of Knesset will speak.

Restrictions to be faced by Mordechai Vanunu on release:
Mordechai Vanunu will face many restrictions on his release from Ashkelon 
Prison, so many that his new freedom will be seriously compromised.
" It is absolutely disgraceful that these restrictions are being imposed on 
a man who has finished his 18 year sentence, has no charges to face, and 
has suffered so much already" said Rayna Moss of the Israeli Free Vanunu 
Campaign.
These draconian restrictions have been imposed under the emergency 
regulations passed by the British mandate of 1945.
1. Vanunu will have to register to live in an Israeli city of his choice.
2. He will have to give notice to the authorities if he wishes to travel to 
another city.
3. He will not be allowed to leave Israel for 6 months.  This restriction 
will be reviewed at the end of 6 months and could be renewed.
4. He will not be allowed to contact foreigners either by phone or in person.
5. It is unclear whether his American adoptive parents, who have been 
allowed to visit him while in custody, will be allowed to speak to him when 
free.
6. He will not be allowed to go within 100 meters of any embassy, visit any 
port of entry, come within 300 meters of any international boundary and he 
may not be allowed to worship in a church of his choice.

International Noteworthy Delegates

Nick and Mary Eoloff: Mordechai Vanunu's adoptive parents since 1997, from 
St. Paul, Minnesota, USA
* Mairaed Maguire: Irish  Nobel  Peace Prize Laureate in 1976 for her work 
towards building peace in Northern Ireland and founder member of the Peace 
People. Present in Israel with a delegation from Belfast and Dublin.
Reverend Ed Browning: Retired Bishop Episcopal Church, 
USA
Felice Cohen-Joppa: Coordinator, U.S. Campaign to Free Mordechai Vanunu. 
Tucson, Arizona, USA
* Jeremy Corbyn: Labour Party Member of Parliament. Vice chair of House of 
Commons Human Rights Committee. Active in supporting many civil liberty and 
international peace causes. Longtime supporter of the Campaign to Free 
Vanunu. G.B.
Bruce Kent:  Past chairman of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, present 
vice chairman. Member of the International Peace Bureau, tireless peace 
campaigner. Trustee of Campaign to Free Vanunu. G.B.
* Susannah York: International actor, well known from Hollywood films, 
theatre, radio and T.V., supporter of human rights causes and Trustee of 
Campaign to Free Vanunu. G.B.
Art Laffin: Associate coordinator, U.S. Campaign to Free Mordechai Vanunu, 
Washington, D.C., USA.  Member of the Catholic Worker Movement.
Barry Roth: Psychiatrist, peace and anti-nuclear activist, Boston, 
Massachusetts, USA
* Colin Breed : Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament. Active supporter of 
peace campaigns and long time supporter of Mordechai Vanunu in the House of 
Commons. G.B.
Ben Birnberg:  Internationally known Civil Liberties and Human Rights 
Lawyer. Trustee of Campaign to Free Vanunu. G.B.
Ernest Rodker: Coordinator, British Campaign to Free Vanunu
Fredrik S. Heffermehl: lawyer, writer, translator and political organizer, 
Honorary President of the Norwegian Peace Alliance, Vice President of 
the  International Peace Bureau, Vice President of the International 
Association of Lawyers against Nuclear Arms, and other organizations, Norway
Pat Arrowsmith: Active in Campaign Against Nuclear Weapons since 1950's. 
One of the organizers of the first Aldermaston march and involved in many 
demonstrations against military bases involving arrest and imprisonment. 
Active in the Campaign to Free Vanunu. G.B.
Ole Kopreitan: executive director, Nei til atomvaapen (No to Nuclear Arms), 
longtime Vanunu campaigner, Norway.

-end-

</x-flowed>
*****************************************************************
 8 Amnesty Int'l - Vanunu must be free
 
Date: Mon, 19 Apr 2004 17:45:12 -0700

 
<x-flowed>
NEWS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 19, 2004

Contact:
Jack Cohen-Joppa, U.S. Campaign to Free Mordechai Vanunu
voice: 520-323-8697         e-mail: freevanunu@mindspring.com
Amnesty International's press office, London
Voice: +44 20 7413 5566

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL JOINS CALL FOR MORDECHAI VANUNU'S UNCONDITIONAL RELEASE

         Amnesty International today joined the global call for the 
unconditional release of Israeli nuclear whistleblower Mordechai 
Vanunu.  In a statement from their London office, the international human 
rights organization said it "urges the Israeli authorities not to impose 
any restrictions or conditions on former nuclear technician Mordechai 
Vanunu upon his release on Wednesday after 18 years in jail."
         "Mordechai Vanunu should be allowed to exercise his rights to 
freedom of movement, association and expression in Israel and should be 
allowed to leave the country if he wishes," said Amnesty International. 
"His release is long overdue and Israel must not continue to violate his 
fundamental human rights once he is released from prison."
         Their statement continues:
         "...In recent months Israeli officials have publicly supported and 
called for Vanunu to be detained beyond expiry of his sentence, or for his 
freedom to be restricted upon his release.  Available information indicates 
that the Israeli authorities intend to impose heavy restrictions on 
Vanunu's freedom upon his release, including banning him from leaving the 
country, confining him to assigned residence, and denying him the right to 
be in contact with journalists and foreigners.
         "Israel is bound by international law not to impose arbitrary 
restrictions on Mordechai Vanunu, including on his right to travel within 
the country or abroad, his right to peaceful association with others and 
his right to express his opinions," said Amnesty International.

Background
Article 12 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights 
(ICCPR), which Israel has ratified and is obliged to uphold, stipulates that:
"everyone lawfully within the territory of a State shall, within that 
territory, have the right to liberty of movement and freedom to choose his 
residence" and that "everyone shall be free to leave any country, including 
his own".
The rights to freedom of expression and association are guaranteed by 
Articles 19 and 21 of the same Covenant.

-end-
Felice Cohen-Joppa
Coordinator
U.S. Campaign to Free Mordechai Vanunu
POB 43384
Tucson, AZ 85733
Phone/Fax 520-323-8697
freevanunu@mindspring.com
www.nonviolence.org/vanunu

</x-flowed>
*****************************************************************
 9 [southnews] Vanunu ordered to stay in Israel
 
Date: Mon, 19 Apr 2004 18:31:42 -0500 (CDT)

 
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The Israeli Government has banned nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu 
from leaving the country for a year.

Mr Vanunu is due to be released from prison tomorrow after serving 18 
years for revealing details about Israel's secret nuclear program.

Much of Mr Vanunu's sentence has been served in solitary confinement and 
the convicted traitor has told friends he wants to leave Israel when he 
is freed from jail.

But Israel's Interior Minister Avraham Poraz has signed an injunction 
banning the nuclear whistleblower from leaving the country for one year.

The government fears that if Mr Vanunu moved overseas he could reveal 
more secrets about Israel's nuclear program.

Israel refuses to confirm or deny that it even has atomic weaponsbut 
foreign analysts believe the country could have more than 150 nuclear 
warheads.

_____________________________

I'm not a traitor, says Israeli nuclear whistleblower on eve of release
Mon Apr 19, 3:50 PM ET

JERUSALEM (AFP) - Mordechai Vanunu, who is to be freed Wednesday after 
18 years in prison for blowing the whistle on Israel's nuclear 
programme, remains unrepentant and does not regard himself as a traitor, 
according to new footage.

"I am neither a traitor nor a spy. I only wanted the world to know what 
was happening" at the Dimona nuclear plant in southern Israel, Vanunu 
said during an interrogation by security service agents which was 
broadcast on Israeli television Monday night.

Vanunu said that he had been motivated by a desire "to destroy the 
reactor", saying that he had acted "for the (good of the) world".

"Why did the world perceive me as a hero or appreciate what I did -- 
except for Israel?" he asked during the broadcast interrogation which 
was the first opportunity ordinary Israelis had had to see him 
throughout his long captivity.

"Just like they destroyed the Iraqi reactor, I want them to destroy the 
Israeli reactor," he said in reference to Iraq (news - web sites)'s 
Osirak nuclear plant which was the target of a 1981 Israeli air raid.

Vanunu, a former technician at Dimona, was sentenced in 1986 after 
leaking details of Israel's secret nuclear arsenal to Britain's Sunday 
Times newspaper. He spent 11 years of his incarceration in solitary 
confinement.

Israeli agents lured Vanunu from London to Italy where he was kidnapped 
and brought to Israel. He was tried in secret and found guilty of espionage.

He will be subjected to a series of unprecedented restrictions after his 
release, including a ban on leaving the country.

Interior Minister Avraham Poraz ruled the travel ban was essential to 
prevent him from "damaging state security", his ministry said in a 
statement.

But proposals to bar Vanunu from speaking to foreigners, including his 
American-born adoptive parents, or approaching any foreign embassy were 
dropped by Poraz, public television reported.

Vanunu's lawyers had appealed to the Israeli government to abandon the 
restrictions in their entirety.

The senior attorney for the Association for Human Rights in Israel 
(ACRI), Oded Feller, "submitted its reservations yesterday regarding the 
severe restrictions that state agencies are seeking to impose on Vanunu 
after his release", ACRI said in a statement.

Feller said in the appeal to the interior minister and the head of the 
Home Front Command, Major General Yaior Naveh, "that the prohibitions 
and restrictions ... are unreasonable, and constitute a severe and 
unjustified infringement of the freedom of the released prisoner."

Amnesty International also urged the Israeli government Monday not to 
impose any restrictions or conditions on Vanunu.

"His release is long overdue and Israel must not continue to violate his 
fundamental human rights once he is released from prison," it said.

Vanunu himself denied that he remained any threat to national security 
and said he had no more nuclear secrets to reveal.

"First of all, I've been on the inside for 20 years -- everything has 
changed already," he told his interrogators.

"Second, what I went through is a process the entire world knows about 
.. it's clear that everything has been published. Science has progressed.

"Technology has taken giant steps forward, so what I saw appears to me 
to be very old. I don't think the Americans are interested, or the 
Europeans."

Israel has firmly adhered to a policy of "nuclear ambiguity", never 
confirming or denying it possesses nuclear weapons. But foreign experts 
believe the Jewish state holds at least 200 atomic warheads.

Vanunu's brother Meir said it was "scandalous" that the security 
services had allowed the tape of the interrogation to be broadcast.

"This reminds one of the methods of a totalitarian country," he told AFP.

Despite the ban on talking to foreigners, many international supporters 
of Vanunu are expected to attend his release on Wednesday from Shikma 
prison in the southern port city of Ashkelon.

Israel keeps nuclear smokescreen

 From correspondents in Jerusalem
Agence France-Presse April 18, 2004

FOR the past 40 years, Israel has sought to maintain a veil of secrecy 
over its nuclear capacity even if Mordechai Vanunu's revelations erased 
any shred of doubt about its possession of an atomic arsenal.

Ever since the 1965 inauguration of the Dimona plant in the southern 
Negev desert, the one-time workplace of the whistleblower Vanunu, Israel 
has consistently refused to deny or confirm that it possesses nuclear arms.

But even before Vanunu, who is to be released on Wednesday after 18 
years in prison, leaked details of the program to Britain's Sunday Times 
newspaper in 1986, the official policy of ambiguity had left few people 
fooled.

Israel currently has two nuclear facilities, the reactor at Dimona in 
the Negev desert built with French aid and capable of producing 
weapons-grade plutonium and a smaller research reactor at Nahal Sorek, 
south of Tel Aviv.

Under an understanding with the United States dating back to 1969, 
Israel has committed itself to abstain from any comment on its nuclear 
potential and not to carry out nuclear tests.

In return, the United States does not pressure Israel to adhere to the 
nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which would oblige the Jewish 
state to submit its nuclear facilities to international supervision by 
the UN's atomic watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The agency's Director General Mohamed ElBaradei recently urged Israel to 
give up its nuclear arsenal, claiming it spurred a regional arms race.

I am not happy with the status quo, because I see a lot of frustration 
in the Middle East due to Israel's sitting on nuclear weapons or nuclear 
weapons capability, while others in the Middle East are committed to the 
NPT, he told the Israeli daily Haaretz.

As an extra precaution, the whole program is also covered by military 
censorship, which the Israeli media regularly bypasses by quoting 
foreign publications.

According to these foreign experts, Israel has used its reactor at 
Dimona to produce around 200 nuclear warheads.

Peter Hounam, the journalist who first broke the Vanunu story for the 
Sunday Times, criticised Israel's gall for still failing to come clean 
about its capabilities but said it was determined not to upset its 
allies in Washington.

But its decision to try to gag Vanunu at all costs even after his 
release was likely to backfire and serve to increase demands for 
clarity, he added.

I think that the international reaction to the way he is being treated 
will add to the impetus for the UN being given access to the Dimona 
plant, he told AFP.

Everything about this stinks of hypocrisy, he added.

No Israeli leader has ever broken the long-standing taboo by 
unequivocally recognising the existence of a nuclear arsenal, but 
allusions have become less and less oblique.

The former premier Shimon Peres, considered the father of Israel's 
nuclear program after reaching agreement with France back in 1956 for 
the provision of a nuclear reactor and uranium, effectively confirmed 
its existence in an interview with French television in 2001.

The suspicion and the fog which surround this project are constructive, 
for it increases our power of deterrence, said Peres in a documentary 
on Dimona.

Peres, who was director at Israel's defence ministry in the 1950s, has 
no sympathy for Vanunu's decision to turn the spotlight on the nuclear 
issue.

The archives of South News can be found at
http://southmovement.alphalink.com.au/southnews/ 

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*****************************************************************
 10 Vanunu restrictions eased a little
 
Date: Mon, 19 Apr 2004 19:57:37 -0500 (CDT)

 
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/417201.html

Ha'aretz (Israel ) Monday
	By Yossi Melman and Relly Sa'ar, Haaretz Correspondents

Limits on Vanunu eased slightly ahead of release [0.gif]

The defense establishment on Monday decided to ease some of the 
restrictions on nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu, who goes free on 
Wednesday after serving an 18-year sentence.

The move came after defense officials realized that some of the 
restrictions were legally untenable. Thus, the ban on discussing his 
abduction was lifted. The ban on going near embassies was also altered; 
Vanunu was told that he could go near them, but not enter them.

Interior Minister Avraham Poraz signed an injunction on Monday prohibiting 
Vanunu from leaving Israel for one year. Other restrictions imposed on him 
by the defense establishment will remain in effect for six months. Defense 
sources said the main reason for preventing Vanunu from leaving the 
country and not issuing him a passport was that he still knows state 
secrets that may jeopardize state security.

The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), which represents 
Vanunu, intends to petition the High Court of Justice against the 
restrictions, after Vanunu's request to revoke them were rejected.

Vanunu, who was convicted for revealing details of Israel's previously 
covert nuclearfacility in Dimona to Britain's Sunday Times newspaper in 
October 1986, will take up residence in Jaffa's luxurious Andromeda Hill 
apartment complex, security sources said Monday.

While some restrictions were eased, Vanunu was warned not to give 
interviews to the media about his work and to report to the police if 
anyone approaches him for this purpose.

Vanunu may not give anyone any classified information obtained while he 
was working in the Dimona nuclear facility or discuss issues related to 
his former workplace, even if he has released that information before (to 
the Sunday Times).

Vanunu must notify the authorities of his address in the Dan region and 
advise the police 24 hours in advance if he wants to sleep at another 
address. He must not be within 500 meters of border crossings, or partake 
in Internet chats unless permitted.

Officials from the Shin Bet security service and the Defense Ministry's 
internal security department on Monday gave Vanunu official papers 
outlining the restrictions he faces.

Legal sources said the restrictions were intended to test Vanunu's 
conduct. If he violates them, they said, the defense establishment will 
retaliate with severe sanctions.
*****************************************************************
 11 AFP: I'm not a traitor, says Israeli nuclear whistleblower on eve of release

+   [http://www.spacewar.com/]

JERUSALEM (AFP) Apr 19, 2004

 Mordechai Vanunu, who is to be freed Wednesday after 18 years in 
prison for blowing the whistle on Israel's nuclear programme, 
remains unrepentant and does not regard himself as a traitor, 
according to new footage.

"I am neither a traitor nor a spy. I only wanted the world to 
know what was happening" at the Dimona nuclear plant in southern 
Israel, Vanunu said during an interrogation by security service 
agents which was broadcast on Israeli television Monday night.

Vanunu said that he had been motivated by a desire "to destroy 
the reactor", saying that he had acted "for the (good of the) 
world".

"Why did the world perceive me as a hero or appreciate what I did 
-- except for Israel?" he asked during the broadcast 
interrogation which was the first opportunity ordinary Israelis 
had had to see him throughout his long capitivity.

"Just like they destroyed the Iraqi reactor, I want them to 
destroy the Israeli reactor," he said in reference to Iraq's 
Osirak nuclear plant which was the target of a 1981 Israeli air 
raid.

Vanunu, a former technician at Dimona, was sentenced in 1986 
after leaking details of Israel's secret nuclear arsenal to 
Britain's Sunday Times newspaper. He spent 11 years of his 
incarceration in solitary confinement.

Israeli agents lured Vanunu from London to Italy where he was 
kidnapped and brought to Israel. He was tried in secret and found 
guilty of espionage.

He will be subjected to a series of unprecedented restrictions 
after his release, including a ban on leaving the country.

Interior Minister Avraham Poraz ruled the travel ban was 
essential to prevent him from "damaging state security", his 
ministry said in a statement.

But proposals to bar Vanunu from speaking to foreigners, 
including his American-born adoptive parents, or approaching any 
foreign embassy were dropped by Poraz, public television 
reported.

Vanunu's lawyers had appealed to the Israeli government to 
abandon the restrictions in their entirety.

The senior attorney for the Association for Human Rights in 
Israel (ACRI), Oded Feller, "submitted its reservations yesterday 
regarding the severe restrictions that state agencies are seeking 
to impose on Vanunu after his release", ACRI said in a statement.

Feller said in the appeal to the interior minister and the head 
of the Home Front Command, Major General Yaior Naveh, "that the 
prohibitions and restrictions ... are unreasonable, and 
constitute a severe and unjustified infringement of the freedom 
of the released prisoner."

Amnesty International also urged the Israeli government Monday 
not to impose any restrictions or conditions on Vanunu.

"His release is long overdue and Israel must not continue to 
violate his fundamental human rights once he is released from 
prison," it said.

Vanunu himself denied that he remained any threat to national 
security and said he had no more nuclear secrets to reveal.

"First of all, I've been on the inside for 20 years -- everything 
has changed already," he told his interrogators.

"Second, what I went through is a process the entire world knows 
about ... it's clear that everything has been published. Science 
has progressed.

"Technology has taken giant steps forward, so what I saw appears 
to me to be very old. I don't think the Americans are interested, 
or the Europeans."

Israel has firmly adhered to a policy of "nuclear ambiguity", 
never confirming or denying it possesses nuclear weapons. But 
foreign experts believe the Jewish state holds at least 200 
atomic warheads.

Vanunu's brother Meir said it was "scandalous" that the security 
services had allowed the tape of the interrogation to be 
broadcast.

"This reminds one of the methods of a totalitarian country," he 
told AFP.

Despite the ban on talking to foreigners, many international 
supporters of Vanunu are expected to attend his release on 
Wednesday from Shikma prison in the southern port city of 
Ashkelon.

  WAR.WIRE
*****************************************************************
 12 Reuters: Nuke Whistleblower Wants Israel's Reactor Destroyed             

Mon Apr 19, 2004 06:35 AM ET                                                            

By Allyn Fisher-Ilan 

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Mordechai Vanunu, about to complete an
18-year jail term for spilling Israeli nuclear secrets, has
called for the destruction of Israel's secretive Dimona reactor,
newspapers reported on Monday. 

"Just like the Iraqi reactor was destroyed, I want the Israeli
reactor destroyed," Vanunu, referring to Israel's 1981 bombing
near Baghdad, was quoted as saying in a videotaped meeting
recently with security officers. 

"I am defending the Arab world," he said in the interview,
according to a transcript carried by newspapers. The tape was to
be broadcast later in the day. 

Vanunu, a former technician at the Dimona reactor, was jailed in
1986 as a traitor after disclosing information to Britain's
Sunday Times newspaper which led analysts to conclude Israel had
produced as many as 200 nuclear bombs at the facility. 

Israel maintains a strategic ambiguity over its nuclear program
in an attempt to ward off its foes while avoiding a regional
arms race. It has kept the Dimona facility, in southern Israel,
closed to international inspection. Vanunu, 49, is expected to
be placed under restrictions as soon as he is released on
Wednesday, the government having decided to bar him from leaving
the country, tap his phone and bar his access to the press for a
probationary period. 

Release of the videotape appeared aimed at bolstering the
government's case in a court challenge Israel's civil liberties
union is mounting on Vanunu's behalf against the edicts. 

Challenging Israel's right to exist, he declared: "There is no
need for a Jewish state. There should be a Palestinian state.

Whoever wants to be Jewish can live anywhere." 

Vanunu said he hoped to fight the restrictions and move
overseas. He denied having anything sensitive left to divulge
and threatened to defy some restrictions using the Internet. 

"I've been inside for 20 years, everything has changed. Science
has advanced...so what I saw seems very outdated to me," Vanunu
said. 

Vanunu also maintained he was neither a spy nor a traitor. 
"I wanted to inform the world about what happened. It's not
treason," and outside Israel "five or six billion people (see
me)...as a positive figure." 

Asked why he had chosen to convert to Christianity back in the
1980s, Vanunu replied: "I think Islam and Judaism are both the
same backward religion...Christianity is progressive." 		 		

*****************************************************************
 13 Haaretz: Limits on Vanunu eased slightly ahead of release       

[http://www.haaretz.com]          

  Last Update: 20/04/2004 04:17   
    
  By Yossi Melman [ymelman@haaretz.co.il] and Relly Sa'ar
[rellys@haaretz.co.il] , Haaretz Correspondents   	 
    
The defense establishment on Monday decided to ease some of the 
restrictions on nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu, who goes 
free on Wednesday after serving an 18-year sentence.    

The move came after defense officials realized that some of the 
restrictions were legally untenable. Thus, the ban on discussing 
his abduction was lifted. The ban on going near embassies was 
also altered; Vanunu was told that he could go near them, but not 
enter them.

Interior Minister Avraham Poraz signed an injunction on Monday 
prohibiting Vanunu from leaving Israel for one year. Other 
restrictions imposed on him by the defense establishment will 
remain in effect for six months. Defense sources said the main 
reason for preventing Vanunu from leaving the country and not 
issuing him a passport was that he still knows state secrets that 
may jeopardize state security.

The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), which 
represents Vanunu, intends to petition the High Court of Justice 
against the restrictions, after Vanunu's request to revoke them 
were rejected.

Vanunu, who was convicted for revealing details of Israel's 
previously covert nuclearfacility in Dimona to Britain's Sunday 
Times newspaper in October 1986, will take up residence in 
Jaffa's luxurious Andromeda Hill apartment complex, security 
sources said Monday.

While some restrictions were eased, Vanunu was warned not to give 
interviews to the media about his work and to report to the 
police if anyone approaches him for this purpose.

Vanunu may not give anyone any classified information obtained 
while he was working in the Dimona nuclear facility or discuss 
issues related to his former workplace, even if he has released 
that information before (to the Sunday Times).

Vanunu must notify the authorities of his address in the Dan 
region and advise the police 24 hours in advance if he wants to 
sleep at another address. He must not be within 500 meters of 
border crossings, or partake in Internet chats unless permitted.

Officials from the Shin Bet security service and the Defense 
Ministry's internal security department on Monday gave Vanunu 
official papers outlining the restrictions he faces.

Legal sources said the restrictions were intended to test 
Vanunu's conduct. If he violates them, they said, the defense 
establishment will retaliate with severe sanctions.      

  Mordechai Vanunu is set to be released on Wednesday, after 18 
years in jail. (Archives)   

  Home [http://www.haaretz.com]     |     News
  � Copyright  Haaretz. All rights reserved   
*****************************************************************
 14 Haaretz: Ignore Vanunu; don't restrict him       
 
[http://www.haaretz.com]          

  By  [rpedatzur@haaretz.co.il]   	 
    
Who is so afraid of Mordechai Vanunu? For 20 years he has had no 
connection with new information regarding Israel's nuclear 
program and the Dimona reactor, where he worked as a junior 
technician and from where he was fired in 1985. He has already 
passed on all the information he had to the Sunday Times, which 
published it in October 1986. Why, then, have so many of the 
powers that be from the defense establishment banded together 
with such decisiveness to restrict his freedom upon his release 
tomorrow, after 18 years of incarceration?      

Why does Yehiel Horev, chief or internal security (malmab) at the 
Defense Ministry, want to keep him under administrative detention 
and define him as a serious security risk? The answer appears to 
have nothing to do with the supposedly dangerous nuclear secrets 
Vanunu still has stored in his brain. Apparently, the defense 
establishment, and particularly the Shin Bet security service and 
the Defense Ministry's internal security department, simply wants 
to avoid embarrassment and criticism if Vanunu tells how he made 
a laughing stock of the system that was in charge of protecting 
secrets at the Dimona reactor.

To this day, there has been no serious probe into the failures of 
the Shin Bet and the internal security department, which share 
the responsibility for securing the reactor in Dimona. The joint 
internal examination committee of both bodies, which was 
established after the disclosure of the Vanunu affair, included 
Horev, the current chief of security and the individual appointed 
by the defense establishment to oversee security at the reactor 
during part of the period when Vanunu worked there. The 
committee's work was a whitewash. No one was found directly 
responsible for the failure and no one was held accountable for 
the fact that the information on Vanunu's political activities at 
Be'er Sheva University - his relationships with Arab students and 
his remarks against Israel's nuclear policy - never set off a 
warning bell among those responsible for the security of the most 
secret facility in Israel.

Since all this concerns nuclear matters, the discussion of which 
is taboo, there was also no demand for and accounting from those 
responsible for the serious failure. Everything could change if 
Vanunu talks. This may also be the reason for the fact that he 
was kept in solitary confinement for more than 11 years. Beyond 
the desire to take revenge on someone who embarrassed the system, 
there was apparently also the hope that he would lose his mind, 
and would therefore be unable to tell how he managed to deceive 
the security system.

The series of restrictions to be imposed on the "nuclear 
prisoner" would not put even Stalin's Soviet Union to shame. 
Vanunu will not be issued a passport and he will be forbidden to 
leave Israel. He will have to live in a certain city, of his own 
choosing, but will not be allowed to leave that city's 
jurisdiction without prior coordination with the local police 
station. He will not be allowed to approach any Israeli border 
crossing, including Ben-Gurion International Airport, the sea 
ports, crossings into the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank 
and Gaza, the crossings between the PA and Jordan and Egypt, the 
direct crossings between Israel and Jordan or Egypt, nor any 
marina at which there is a police checkpoint. And will also not 
be allowed any contact - face-to-face, by telephone, fax or 
e-mail - with foreign residents, even those living in Israel.

Immediately after his exit from prison, Vanunu will also have to 
learn the addresses of all the foreign embassies in Israel - 
because he is not allowed to go near them either; and if he 
doesn't not know their exact locations, he might accidentally 
walk down an adjacent street and come close enough to one of them 
to land himself back in jail.

The defense establishment continues to err in the Vanunu affair, 
just as it did in the 1980s. Instead of allowing him to wander 
around the world, speak about anything he wished to speak about 
and simply ignoring him, attention is being focused directly on a 
man who can cause absolutely minimal damage. What could happen 
anyway? Vanunu will claim that Israel has to be disarmed of her 
nuclear weapons. He would be invited to conferences and be 
honored by those who hate Israel. He would become a hero for a 
moment for those who want to pressure Israel on the nuclear 
issue. Well, so what? Will that harm national security? Of course 
not.

A similar mistake was made, by the way, in 1986, when the Sunday 
Times hesitated to publish Vanunu's revelations, fearing that 
they were a fabrication (this was a short time after the paper 
had fallen victim to fraud and published "Hitler's Diaries," 
which turned out to be forgeries). Only after the editor of the 
Times realized that then prime minister Shimon Peres had convened 
the editors' committee and had asked its members not to give the 
affair broad coverage, did the British newspaper become convinced 
that Vanunu was telling the truth and published his account and 
the photographs he had taken.

Vanunu is not a conscientious objector. He does not belong to the 
group of scientists and academicians working to rid the world of 
its nuclear weapons. He is a strange man with strange ideas who 
committed a very serious crime for which he was tried and 
imprisoned for a lengthy period. The restrictions imposed on him 
and the declarations of the terrible damage he could cause are 
unnecessary exaggeration. Leave Vanunu alone. Simply ignore him. 
Don't turn him into a cultural hero.        

    
   [http://www.haaretz.com]     |     
  � Copyright  Haaretz. All rights reserved   
*****************************************************************
 15 SFC: Vanunu's release refocuses attention on Israel's `bomb in the basement'
 
SF Chronicle [http://sfgate.com] 
 
KARIN LAUB, Associated Press Writer         

Monday, April 19, 2004
   
(04-19) 13:05 PDT JERUSALEM (AP) -- 

Eighteen years after he was kidnapped by Mossad agents for 
exposing Israel's secret nuclear program, Mordechai Vanunu will 
go free this week -- a moment Israel fears will refocus unwelcome 
attention on its "bomb in the basement." 

In remarks broadcast Monday, the 50-year-old Vanunu said he has 
no more secrets to reveal, but he'd like to see Israel's nuclear 
reactor destroyed. 

The audiotape of a recent conversation in prison between Vanunu 
and Shin Bet agents marked the first time Israelis heard him 
explain his actions. Vanunu's brother, Meir, said Monday the 
prisoner didn't know his remarks would be published. 

Anti-nuclear crusaders, including actors, legislators and a Nobel 
Peace Prize laureate, were flying in from Europe and the United 
States for Wednesday's release, but they won't be able to embrace 
their hero. 

Trying to quash any celebrations, the security services have 
barred Vanunu from speaking to foreigners, traveling abroad or 
even approaching foreign embassies for fear he might seek 
political asylum. 

Vanunu's campaign began in 1986, when he gave The Sunday Times of 
London a description and photographs of Israel's Dimona reactor, 
where he had worked for nine years. Based on his account, experts 
said at the time that Israel had the world's sixth-largest 
stockpile of nuclear weapons. 

The revelations undercut Israel's policy of "nuclear ambiguity." 

That policy was forged in the 1960s when Israel promised the 
United States it would not declare its nuclear status, test 
nuclear weapons or use them for political gain, wrote Israeli 
historian Avner Cohen. In exchange, Washington did not pressure 
Israel to disarm, he said. 

Israel has kept the pledge, neither confirming nor denying it has 
nuclear capability. Some say that by drawing attention to its 
nuclear capability, Vanunu actually boosted Israel's deterrence. 

Anti-nuclear campaigners were flying to Israel to greet Vanunu 
outside Shikma Prison in the coastal town of Ashkelon. Among them 
were Mairead Corrigan Maguire, a 1976 Nobel Peace Prize laureate 
from Northern Ireland, and British actress Susannah York. Others 
sent messages, including British playwright Harold Pinter who 
wrote: "You are a remarkable man, a man of principle and 
integrity." 

Vanunu received thousands of letters over the years, and was 
adopted by an American couple, Nick and Mary Eoloff of St. Paul, 
Minn. 

The prisoner proudly told Shin Bet interrogators the world 
considers him a hero, according to the audiotape. 

However, there is little sympathy for him in Israel, a country 
where just about everything is debated openly -- except nuclear 
weapons. The phrase "bomb in the basement" has been frequently 
used to describe Israel's secret nuclear program. It was also the 
title of a 2001 Israeli documentary, "A Bomb in the Basement -- 
Israel's Nuclear Option." 

Israelis believe the weapons are their last line of defense, "the 
ultimate guarantee that another Holocaust will not happen," said 
legal commentator Moshe Negbi. The consensus is that too much 
talk will only harm security. 

Still, critics say, Vanunu's punishment was excessive. 

Yossi Melman, a journalist who writes about espionage, said the 
security services were trying to deter others and distract 
attention from their own blunders. The Shin Bet ignored warning 
signs that Vanunu had been drawn into left-wing circles while 
working at the reactor, Melman said. 

Vanunu said Israel shouldn't have trusted him with classified 
material. "You gave information to the wrong man," he told the 
Shin Bet. 

Vanunu was snatched from Rome by the Mossad in 1986 after being 
lured into a rendezvous by a female agent. He was smuggled to 
Israel by yacht, tried behind closed doors and sentenced to 18 
years for treason. 

He spent 12 of those years in solitary confinement, earning him a 
mention in the 1998 edition of Guinness World Records. 

In the first 21/2 years, Vanunu was under 24-hour video 
surveillance, with fluorescent lights on at all times in his 
windowless cell, said his brother Meir. He was allowed a one-hour 
daily walk in a yard shrouded in canvas to prevent him from 
signaling other prisoners. His only human contact was a guard and 
a family visit every two weeks. 

The crushing isolation harmed Vanunu's mental health, according 
to his brother, an opinion backed by former Israeli legislator 
Yossi Katz, who met him in 1998. Vanunu improved after getting 
out of solitary. 

Israeli newspapers ran rare photographs of the white-haired, 
balding Vanunu on Monday, showing him in jeans, a brown prison 
uniform shirt and a blue ski jacket. Vanunu, a convert to 
Christianity, wore a gold cross around his neck. 

The prisoner, one of 11 children of working-class Jewish 
immigrants from Morocco, seems to have been an accidental spy. 

He was a loner who rebelled against his ultra-Orthodox Jewish 
upbringing. He studied at Ben Gurion University in the Negev 
desert while working at the reactor and earned an undergraduate 
degree in philosophy. 

In 1985, after getting fired from his job in Dimona, Vanunu flew 
to Thailand, where he stayed at a Buddhist monastery and 
considered conversion, then moved to Australia. He joined an 
Anglican congregation in Sydney, changed his name to John 
Crossman and met a freelance journalist who suggested Vanunu talk 
to the media about Dimona. 

With Vanunu's impending release, Israel's nuclear program has hit 
the headlines again, reviving demands that Israel disarm. Egypt 
says Israel's arsenal is spurring Arab and Muslim countries to 
develop their own bombs. 

In an attempt at damage control, Israel is imposing restrictions 
on Vanunu, with the implicit threat of re-arrest. 

"We just want to stop him from spreading state secrets," said 
Likud Party legislator Yuval Steinitz, chairman of parliament's 
Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee. "We think Vanunu still has 
information he hasn't revealed." 

  [Buy The San Francisco Chronicle]

�2004 Associated Press 
*****************************************************************
 16 Reuters: What Nuke Whistleblower Doesn't Know Scares Israel              
         
Mon Apr 19, 2004 08:43 AM ET                                                            

By Dan Williams 

TEL AVIV (Reuters) - With one newspaper interview, Mordechai
Vanunu blew away Israel's cherished nuclear secrecy. 

Now Israeli policy makers fear the 49-year-old whistle-blower
could emerge from prison with new claims about his work at the
Dimona reactor and that fantasy may be as harmful as fact. 

"Who will guarantee that he will only speak the truth? What is
to stop him imagining things?" Shabtai Shavit, a former chief of
Israel's Mossad intelligence agency, told Reuters. 

"The main consideration should be his intent to go on causing
damage to Israel," said Shavit, who took part in secret
deliberations on keeping Vanunu under surveillance when he ends
an 18-year jail term Wednesday, April 21. 

In statements made through relatives, Vanunu has said he has
nothing to add to his 1986 disclosures to Britain's Sunday Times
newspaper -- which led analysts to conclude Dimona had produced
as many as 200 nuclear bombs and made Israel a military
superpower. 

A mid-level Dimona technician, Vanunu was fired in 1985 and
converted to Christianity. After the Sunday Times interview, he
was abducted by Mossad and tried as a traitor. 

By all accounts, Vanunu is angry and distraught at his treatment
and vowed to continue campaigning to expose Israel's
nonconventional weapons capabilities. 

Israeli security veterans are worried by this mix of ideology
and ire. 

Some question the government's decision to keep Vanunu in the
country, tap his phone and bar his access to the press for a
probationary period after his release. 

"I think it is a mistake to gag him," said David Kimche, a
retired Mossad operative and Foreign Ministry chief of staff. 

"It only bolsters Vanunu's supposed credibility and, in turn,
pretty much anything he may choose to concoct about Israel."


*****************************************************************
 17 Arutz Sheva: Ministers Instructed to Remain Silent on Vanunu Affair  

IsraelNN.com

21:54 Apr 19, '04 / 28 Nisan 5764
 	   
(IsraelNN.com) On Wednesday nuclear spy Mordehai Vanunu is 
scheduled to leave prison after completing his 18-year sentence. 

The Prime Minister抯 Office today instructed cabinet ministers to 
refrain from granting interviews on the scheduled release, with 
the exception of Justice Minister Tommy Lapid. 

Cabinet Secretary Yisrael Maimon explained it is of the utmost 
importance that the cabinet voice be one, without hearing varying 
opinions from the different ministers due to the sensitivity of 
the case. Maimon added that Lapid is well informed regarding the 
imminent release and the restrictions being imposed on Vanunu 
following his release and therefore, the most qualified to deal 
with the media.
 
All rights reserved IsraelNationalNews �   
  Arutz Sheva Israel Broadcasting Network  			
webmaster@israelnationalnews.com 			 		     
[http://www.binamica.co.il/] 		   
*****************************************************************
 18 BostonHerald: Vanunu: Israel's nuclear reactor should be destroyed

Israeli nuclear whistle-blower Mordechai Vanunu has called for 
the destruction of Israel's secretive Dimona reactor, newspapers 
reported. (AP)  

By Associated Press

Monday, April 19, 2004JERUSALEM - Nuclear whistleblower Mordechai 
Vanunu said he has no more secrets to reveal, but he believes 
Israel's nuclear reactor near the desert town of Dimona should be 
destroyed, according to remarks published Monday.

      Vanunu is to be released Wednesday, after serving 18 years 
for treason.

      In 1986, the former Dimona technician provided photographs 
and descriptions of the reactor to The Sunday Times of London. 
Based on his information, experts at the time said Israel has the 
world's sixth-largest stockpile of nuclear weapons.

      Mossad agents kidnapped Vanunu from Italy in 1986, and he 
has largely been kept out of sight since then, except for 
occasional court appearances.

      On Monday, Israeli newspapers ran rare photographs of 
Vanunu, provided by Israel's Prisons Authority. The white-haired, 
balding Vanunu was shown in a prison courtyard, wearing jeans, a 
brown prison uniform shirt and a blue ski jacket. The convert to 
Christianity wore a cross on a gold chain around his neck.

      The Yediot Ahronot and Maariv newspapers published
excerpts from what they said was Vanunu's interrogation by Shin
Bet security agents two weeks ago. Vanunu appeared to be
rambling at times, sometimes referring to himself in the third
person and other times as ``we.''

      Vanunu spent 12 years of his term in solitary confinement,
and his mental health suffered during that time, his brother
Meir and his attorney have said. Vanunu has improved since
getting out of solitary, they said.

      Israel is concerned that Vanunu's release will refocus
attention on its nuclear program. As part of its policy of
nuclear ambiguity, Israel neither confirms nor denies it has
nuclear weapons.

      After his release, Vanunu will be prevented from traveling
abroad for a year, from contacting foreigners and from
discussing his work at the nuclear reactor and the circumstances
of his capture. Vanunu plans to appeal to the Supreme Court if
the restrictions are not rescinded.

      In his conversation with the Shin Bet agents, Vanunu said
the United States and Europe already know everything they need
to know about Israel's nuclear program.

      ``As for myself, I just want to repeat the things I
already said and that were published,'' Vanunu was quoted as
saying. He suggested it would be difficult for the Shin Bet to
monitor him, noting that he'll have access to a computer.

      Vanunu said he hoped the debate over Israel's nuclear
program would be revived, and he expressed disappointment that
Israel hasn't come under greater pressure to dismantle Dimona.

      ``I want them to take the reactor, more than that, I want
them to destroy the reactor, as they destroyed the reactor in
Iraq,'' Vanunu said. Israel bombed the Iraqi reactor in 1981, to
prevent Baghdad from obtaining nuclear weapons.

      Vanunu, who began working at Dimona in 1977, said Israel
should not have trusted him with sensitive information. While
working at Dimona, Vanunu studied philosophy at Ben Gurion
University and joined left-wing groups on campus.

      Vanunu said ``bigshot psychologists'' from the Shin Bet
and the Mossad should have spotted him as a potential security
risk. ``You gave information to the wrong man,'' Maariv quoted
him as saying. However, he insisted he was not a spy.

      Vanunu said he believes he is considered a hero by much of
the world.

      Asked about his political beliefs, Vanunu said there is no
need for a Jewish state, and that he would prefer for his family
- he is one of 11 children of Jewish immigrants from Morocco -
to live in Morocco or in a Palestinian state.

 ( � Copyright 2004 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This
 No portion of BostonHerald.com
*****************************************************************
 19 Straits Times: Beijing pulls no punches with Cheney - 

  APRIL 20, 2004	TUE   
    
He is told the US should not expect Chinese help on North Korea
unless it helps to curb Taiwanese separatism 				 					

By Ching Cheong                                                                             

HONG KONG - While in China last week, American Vice-President 
Dick Cheney was told, in no uncertain terms, what Beijing 
expected of Washington in containing separatism in Taiwan.                              
				 

He received broad hints from his hosts that the United States 
should not expect Chinese help over the North Korean nuclear 
issue unless Washington was prepared to reciprocate by helping 
Beijing check Taiwan's independence movement.                                                                                                   
						 					 						 
All four top leaders he met - President Hu Jintao, Vice-President 
Zeng Qinghong, Premier Wen Jiabao and military supremo Jiang 
Zemin - demanded that the US stop selling arms to Taiwan as a 
first step in regaining Beijing's cooperation in the Korean 
peninsula.                                                                

Reflecting the mood of the discussions, a Chinese Foreign 
Ministry spokesman urged Washington to scrap the Taiwan Relations 
Act (TRA), which empowers American arms sales to Taiwan, 
altogether.                                                              

Last Saturday, just before Mr Cheney's arrival in Beijing, the US 
marked the 25th anniversary of the Act.                                                               

A State Department statement said that the TRA had made 'a vital 
contribution to ensuring peace and stability in the Taiwan 
Strait, and provides a strong framework to help ensure Taiwan's 
security'.                                                               

The legislation effectively nullified the third Sino-US 
communique, which commits the US to reduce arms sales to the 
island gradually to nought.                                                              

However, for the past 25 years, arms sales have increased both 
qualitatively and quantitatively.                                                                

Previously, such arms were mainly defensive. But since 2000, they 
included offensive ones as well.                                                            

Beijing has tried to tolerate the breach, hoping that good 
Sino-US relations would curb Taiwanese separatism.                                                               

But the result of the March 20 presidential election in Taiwan 
dashed such hopes.                                                               

From Beijing's point of view, the election showed clearly the 
American hand behind the re-election of pro-independence 
President Chen Shui-bian.                                                                

In mid-last year, when his popularity was at an all-time low, the 
US helped bolster it by having Secretary of State Colin Powell 
shake hands with him twice - an unprecedented move since the US 
switched diplomatic recognition to Beijing in 1979.                              
				 

Late last year, when Mr Chen announced his plan to hold a 
referendum alongside the presidential election, the US, despite 
great Chinese pressure to intervene, was willing only to force 
him to drop the provocative tone but not the referendum itself.
				 				 

In February this year, when Chinese Vice-Foreign Minister Dai 
Bingguo visited the US, he was given an assurance that the US 
would not congratulate Mr Chen should he win re-election. 
Washington broke its promise.                                                            

And then early this month, the US announced the sale of 
long-range radar to Taiwan to boost its early warning capability.                                                              

To the Chinese, all these can only suggest that the US is happy 
to see Mr Chen re-elected.                                                               

Many Chinese scholars have pointed out that Chinese and American 
interests over Taiwan do not converge and so it would be futile 
for Beijing to rely on Washington to curb separatist sentiments 
in Taiwan.                                                               

Professor Zhu Liqun, of the Institute of Foreign Affairs Studies, 
said that such a policy would lead to nowhere and should be 
replaced by one that bolsters China's national defence 
capability.                                                              

His view is that as far as the US is concerned, the best scenario 
would be peaceful independence for Taiwan while the worst would 
be peaceful unification with China.                                                                  

And if peaceful independence is not possible, then the 
second-best scenario is preservation of the status quo, achieved 
by arming Taiwan to withstand Chinese pressure for unification.
				 				 

In maintaining the status quo, the US would prefer Mr Chen's 
pro-separation Democratic Progress Party (DPP) rather than the 
pro-unification opposition coalition to run the island because 
only the DPP could prevent the worst-case scenario from 
happening.                                                               

To the US, managing a rising China remains one of its core 
concerns for the next 50 years.                                                                  

A rising China unified with Taiwan means that the combined 
economic might of the two entities could well displace US 
influence in the region, not to mention the military implications 
of China entering the Pacific Ocean via Taiwan.
				 				 

Thus, while it is China's core interest to bring Taiwan into its 
fold, it is America's interest to see the two separated.                                
				 

The US would step in if and only if Taiwan's provocation was 
likely to lead to war between China and the US.                                                                  

According to Prof Zhu, this decade-long policy of relying on the 
US to restrain Taiwan only had the effect of allowing it to drift 
further away.                                                              

If China is serious about unification, then it should scrap the 
policy and build up its national defence, he said.                                                                
		     	 	 		
to The Straits Times

asia1.com.sg
*****************************************************************
 20 NRC: NRC Renews License for H.B. Robinson Steam Electric Plant, Unit 2, for an Additional 20 Years
 
News Release - 2004-04
U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION   
  Office of Public Affairs     Telephone: 301/415-8200   
  Washington, DC 20555-0001     E-mail: opa@nrc.gov
  No. 04-043     April 19, 2004   
  


The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has renewed the operating
license of Unit 2 of the nuclear power facility at the H.B.
Robinson Steam Electric Plant, located in Darlington County,
S.C., for an additional 20 years. The plant is operated by
Carolina Power & Light Company (CP&L). 

CP&L submitted its license renewal application to the NRC on
June 14, 2002. The renewal extends the license for H.B. Robinson
Unit 2 from July 31, 2010, to July 31, 2030. 

The NRCs environmental review is described in a site-specific
supplement to the NRCs Generic Environmental Impact Statement
for License Renewal of Nuclear Power Plants," (NUREG-1437,
Supplement 13). In the Final Supplemental Environmental Impact
Statement, issued in December 2003, the staff concluded that
there were no impacts that would preclude renewal of the license
for environmental reasons. Two public meetings to discuss the
environmental review were held near the plant on September 25,
2002, and June 25, 2003. 

In its Safety Evaluation Report Related to the License Renewal
of H.B. Robinson Steam Electric Plant, Unit 2, issued in
January 2004, the NRC staff concluded that there were no safety
concerns that would preclude license renewal, because the
licensee had demonstrated the capability to manage the effects
of plant aging. In addition, the NRC conducted inspections of
the plants to verify information submitted by the licensee. The
Safety Evaluation Report is available on the NRC Web site at
this address:
http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/licensing/renewal/applicati
ons/robinson.html. 

On March 18, 2004, the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards
-- an independent body of technical experts which advises the
Commission -- issued its recommendation that the operating
license for H.B. Robinson, Unit 2, be renewed. That
recommendation is contained in "Report on the Safety Aspects of
the License Renewal Application for the H.B. Robinson Steam
Electric Plant, Unit 2." A copy of this document is available on
the NRC Web site at this address:

http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/acrs/letters/2004/5
102069.pdf [PDF Icon] . 

The H.B. Robinson license renewal brings the total number of
renewals to 24 units. A complete listing of completed renewal
applications, as well as those currently under review, can be
found on the NRCs Web site at this address: 
http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/licensing/renewal/applicati
ons.html.   



  


 	Last revised Monday, April 19, 2004 	   
*****************************************************************
 21 NRC: Report on the Independent Verification of the Mitigating Systems 
 
                         FR Doc 04-8749 
[Federal Register: April 19, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 75)] 
[Notices] [Page 20953-20954] From the Federal Register Online via 
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr19ap04-98]                         
 
Performance Index (MSPI) Results for the Pilot Plants AGENCY: 
Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
 
ACTION: Request for comment.
 
SUMMARY: The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is announcing the 
availability of the draft document entitled: ``Report on the 
Independent Verification of the Mitigating Systems Performance 
Index (MSPI) Results for the Pilot Plants,'' dated February 2004 
for review and comment by external stakeholders. Interested 
individuals may obtain a copy of this document from ADAMS 
Accession ML040550036 via the public web site, or from the person 
identified under the caption: FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT.
 
 
DATES: Submit comments by June 15, 2004. Comments received after 
this date will be considered if it is practical to do so, but the 
Commission is able to ensure consideration only for comments 
received on or before this date.
 
 
ADDRESSES: Submit comments to: Chief, Rules and Directives 
Branch, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 
20555-0001.
 
Deliver comments to: 11545 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland, 
between 7:30 a.m. and 4:15 p.m. Federal workdays. The draft 
document and certain other documents related to this action, 
including comments received, may be examined in the NRC Public 
Document Room, 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland.
 
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Donald A. Dube, Division of Risk 
Analysis and Applications, Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research, 
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001.
 
Telephone: 301-415-5472, e-mail: dad3@nrc.gov [dad3@nrc.gov] .
 
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The Reactor Oversight Process (ROP) 
was created four years ago to improve the NRC's regulatory 
oversight of licensee operation of commercial nuclear power 
plants. It is intended to better risk-inform agency actions and 
bring more objectivity to the regulatory process. The ROP is 
consistent with the goals of the Commission's Probabilistic Risk 
Assessment (PRA) Policy Statement and the NRC's Strategic Plan 
(NUREG-1614), which include increased use of the PRA technology 
in ``* * * regulatory matters to the extent supported by the 
state-of-the-art in PRA methods and data and in a manner that 
complements the NRC's deterministic approach and supports the 
NRC's traditional defense-in-depth philosophy.'' The ROP is 
reflective of the NRC's efforts to better risk-inform its core 
processes.
 
SECY-99-007 and 99-007A, ``Recommendations for Reactor Oversight 
Process Improvements,'' described the ROP. The ROP was 
implemented in April 2000 following a six-month pilot program 
conducted in 1999. The results of this pilot program were 
described in SECY-00-0049, ``Results of the Revised Reactor 
Oversight Process Pilot Program.'' A fundamental aspect of the 
ROP is the use of both performance indicators and inspection 
findings to determine whether the objectives of the ROP's 
cornerstones of safety are being met on a plant-specific basis.
 
In light of the movement toward more risk-informed and 
performance- based oversight, draft Risk-Based Performance 
Indicators (RBPI) were developed to (1) address specific areas in 
the current ROP that were identified in SECY-00-0049 as possible 
enhancements and (2) potentially support any future development 
of performance indicators using improved risk analysis tools. 
NUREG-1753, ``Risk-Based Performance Indicators: Results of Phase 
1 Development,'' discussed the technical feasibility of using 
available risk models and data to enhance the NRC's ability to 
monitor plant-specific safety performance of reactors in a risk- 
informed and performance-based manner. This development activity 
was designed to fit into the ROP concept for indicators, 
thresholds, and performance monitoring while continuing to move 
the NRC's programs forward in accordance with the PRA Policy 
Statement and the goals of the Strategic Plan.
 
The Mitigating Systems Performance Index (MSPI) builds upon the 
insights and findings developed in the RBPI Program as discussed 
in NUREG-1753. The MSPI is described in ``NRC Regulatory Issue 
Summary 2002-14, Supplement 1 Proposed Changes to the Safety 
System Unavailability Performance Indicators,'' Attachments 1 and 
2, draft NEI 99-02, Rev. 0, ``Regulatory Assessment Performance
 
[[Page 20954]] Indicator Guideline,'' Section 2.2 ``Mitigating 
Systems Performance Index'' and Appendix F ``Methodologies for 
Computing the Unavailability Index, the Unreliability Index, and 
Determining Performance Index Validity''.
 
The MSPI was developed as a potential replacement for the Safety 
System Unavailability (SSU) performance indicator. The purpose of 
the MSPI is to ``monitor the performance of selected systems 
based on their ability to perform risk-significant functions * * 
*'' The NRC's Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research developed the 
MSPI to address several specific problems with the currently used 
performance indicators including: the use of fault exposure hours 
in the SSU, the omission of unreliability elements in the 
indicator, the use of mostly one-size- fits-all performance 
thresholds irrespective of risk-significance of the system, and 
the cascading of support system failures onto mitigating system 
unavailability. A twelve-month pilot program on the MSPI 
consisting of twenty nuclear power plant units was initiated in 
September of 2002. For the first six months, licensees submitted 
system and component performance data, and exercised the MSPI 
algorithm. Over the second six months of the pilot, the NRC staff 
worked to fully assess the results as well as to identify 
technical issues and to provide recommendations for their 
resolution. Numerous meetings involving both internal and 
external stakeholders have been held to discuss developmental 
details of the MSPI. The MSPI was extensively tested, evaluated, 
and reviewed during the pilot plant trial and evaluation period. 
Although the NRC staff recently announced that use of the MSPI in 
the ROP, as piloted, would not be pursued further, the subject 
draft report is being made available to document the results of 
the NRC evaluation of technical issues and detailed proposed 
changes to the MSPI methodology. The report can be found as ADAMS 
Accession ML040550036 via the NRC public Web site at 
http://www.nrc.gov 
[http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving 
FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.nrc.gov] . A briefing on the 
results of the MSPI pilot before the Advisory Committee on 
Reactor Safeguards Subcommittee on Reliability and PRA, and Plant 
Operations, is currently scheduled for April 14, 2004 from 8 a.m. 
to 11 a.m. at NRC Headquarters in T2B3 of Two White Flint, 
Rockville, MD. Separately, the Office of Nuclear Reactor 
Regulation intends to document the concerns with the piloted MSPI 
and conduct a public meeting to solicit further stakeholder input 
regarding the MSPI. Information regarding this public meeting 
will be provided at a later date.
 
At this time, we are interested in comments regarding all aspects 
of the subject report, particularly the following areas: 
Fundamental mathematical formulation of the MSPI.
 
Recommended improvements to the originally formulated MSPI 
methodology per draft revision to NEI 99-02.
 
Overall technical findings and results of the MSPI pilot, 
including validity of MSPI outcomes.
 
Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 7th day of April, 2004.
 
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
 
Charles E. Ader, Director, Division of Risk Analysis and 
Applications, Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research.
 
[FR Doc. 04-8749 Filed 4-16-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P

 
*****************************************************************
 22 Herald: Call to expand nuclear power use attacked by greens   
 
Web Issue 1986     April 19 2004      

  Herald [http://www.sundayherald.com/] 
           
  STEPHEN STEWART     April 19 2004   
    
  CALLS for the government to make greater use of nuclear power
instead of windfarms were denounced by environmental groups
yesterday.

 The Sunday Herald, The Herald's sister paper, reported that the
David Hume Institute, the Edinburgh-based economic think tank,
intends to publish a report urging ministers to reconsider
nuclear power and abandon renewable resources such as wind power.

 Professor David Simpson, founding director of the Fraser of
Allander Institute and former professor of economics at
Strathclyde University, commissioned the report, which was
leaked to the newspaper. He is due to deliver the report at the
Royal Society of Edinburgh this week.

 He claimed that the cost of generating electricity from wind
power was twice as high as from nuclear power and gas. Extra
costs generated by renewable energy were adding about 2% to
domestic electricity bills, he added.

 However, Friends of the Earth Scotland said calls for new
nuclear power plants in Scotland were "environmental and
economic madness".

 Dr Dan Barlow, Friends of the Earth Scotland's head of
research, said: "Claims that nuclear power would be better than
renewables, such as wind, simply don't add up. 

"For an organisation which puts so much faith in the ability of
the market to deliver, this report conveniently forgets that
when it comes to nuclear power the market has already spoken.
Despite decades of support and billions of pounds in public
subsidy nuclear power remains an uneconomic, unsafe and unwanted
energy technology.

 "A return to nuclear power would be environmental and economic
madness."
                    
theherald.co.uk
    
  Copyright � Newsquest (Herald & Times) Limited. All Rights
*****************************************************************
 23 Pravda.RU: Vietnam modernizes its nuclear reactor
 
[PRAVDA.RU]         Last update:04/20/2004 05:30 MSK     
                    
 15:29 2004-04-19

 Vietnam, with the help of the International Atomic Energy Agency 
(IAEA), began work to modernize its nuclear reactor. Yesterday, 
the Vietnamese Ministry of Science and Technology authorized the 
modernization project. 

According to the Vietnamese Atomic Energy Institute, a full 
evaluation of the technical condition of the reactor, especially 
its control systems, is envisaged within the framework of the 
project. Special consideration will be given to the technical 
variants of the modernization of the system and the possible 
replacement of old equipment, including protective devices. 

To realize the project, the IAEA will allocate over $240,000 to 
the Vietnamese Institute of Nuclear Research and the Institute of 
Atomic Energy. 

The project is scheduled to be completed in 2005. 

The reactor is in Da Lat, a city in central Vietnam. In 1963, the 
Saigon regime put the 240 kilowatt reactor into operation. 

After the regime was overthrown in 1975 and the Americans 
dismantled the main components, the reactor stopped operating. 
Soviet experts doubled its capacity (500 kilowatts) and put the 
reactor back into operation in 1984. 

In 20 years, the reactor has not had any technological or 
ecological failures. 

� RIAN

  Copyright �1999 by " [http://www.pravda.ru/] ". When
*****************************************************************
 24 AP Wire: NRC approves license renewal for Pee Dee nuclear plant

 | 04/19/2004 | 

Associated Press

COLUMBIA, S.C. - A nuclear power plant has received regulatory 
approval to continue operating until 2030, the Nuclear Regulator 
Commission said Monday. 

The H.B. Robinson nuclear facility's original license was set to 
expire in 2010. The NRC said there were no safety or 
environmental factors that should prevent the license renewal. 

"This is a significant achievement that positions the Robinson 
plant to continue to provide safe, reliable, efficient power to 
Progress Energy customers for many years to come," said John 
Moyer, the plant's vice president. 

Plant operator Carolina Power & Light Co. submitted an 
application to renew the license. 

The plant received its original license in 1970.   


*****************************************************************
 25 PRN: Robinson Nuclear Plant's License Renewed by NRC Through July 2030

[PR Newswire]   

Press Release    Source: Progress Energy, Inc.  

Monday April 19, 1:19 pm ET 

HARTSVILLE, S.C., April 19 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- The H.B. 
Robinson Nuclear Plant near Hartsville, S.C., is operating today 
with a renewed commitment to meeting the future energy needs of 
Progress Energy's customers. + (Logo: 
http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20020923/CHM008LOGO-c 
[http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20020923/CHM008LOGO-c] )

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has approved the 
renewal of the operating license for the Robinson Nuclear Plant 
through July 2030.

"This is a significant achievement that positions the Robinson 
Plant to continue to provide safe, reliable, efficient power to 
Progress Energy customers for many years to come," said John 
Moyer, vice president of the Robinson Nuclear Plant. "This 
accomplishment is a testament to the dedication of our plant 
employees who have established the excellent safety and 
environmental record that led to license renewal. We are 
committed to continuing our focus on safety and environmental 
stewardship each and every day, throughout the operation of the 
plant."

The Robinson Plant has consistently been ranked among the top 
nuclear plants in the nation in terms of safety, production and 
cost. The renewed operating license will allow the Robinson 
Nuclear Plant to continue to meet the energy needs of customers 
and provide economic benefits to both Progress Energy and the 
local community for decades to come.

"I am pleased to hear that the license has been extended, so that 
the Robinson Plant will continue its powerful partnership with 
Darlington County through 2030," said Anne Warr, chairwoman of 
the Darlington County Council. "Progress Energy is the largest 
taxpayer in Darlington County, annually paying more than $8 
million in property taxes in our county, with the majority going 
towards enhancing the county's education system, safety services 
and other public uses. The more than 400 employees at the 
Robinson Plant have an excellent record for keeping the plant 
running safely and reliably. They also are good citizens in our 
community, taking active roles in our schools and in our civic 
and community organizations. I'm pleased that we will continue 
this valuable partnership for many years to come."

The Robinson Nuclear Plant generates 710 megawatts of electricity 
for Progress Energy customers. The Robinson Plant received its 
operating license from the NRC in 1970. The plant's original 
license term of 40 years was set to expire July 31, 2010. The 
NRC's action renews the plant's operating license for an 
additional 20 years, through July 2030.

For license renewal, Progress Energy spent 21/2 years performing 
an extensive safety review of the Robinson Nuclear Plant's 
systems, structures and components. During that 21/2-year period, 
the company also performed a thorough review of the environmental 
impacts of license renewal.

Once Progress Energy filed for a renewal of the operating license 
in June 2002, the NRC began conducting its own review including 
onsite inspections. In addition, the NRC performed its own review 
of the environmental impacts of renewing the license for an 
additional 20 years.

Progress Energy (NYSE: PGN [http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=pgn&d=t] 
- News [http://finance.yahoo.com/q/h?s=pgn] ), headquartered in 
Raleigh, N.C., is a Fortune 250 diversified energy company with 
more than 24,000 megawatts of generation capacity and $9 billion 
in annual revenues. The company's holdings include two electric 
utilities serving more than 2.8 million customers in North 
Carolina, South Carolina and Florida. Progress Energy also 
includes nonregulated operations covering generation, energy 
marketing, natural gas production, fuel extraction, rail services 
and broadband capacity. For more information about Progress 
Energy, visit the company's Web site at www.progress-energy.com 
[http://www.progress-energy.com] . 


Source: Progress Energy, Inc.

Copyright � 2004 PR Newswire. All rights reserved. Republication
*****************************************************************
 26 NRC: NRC to Hold Predecisional Enforcement Conference to Discuss Apparent
                    Violation at Browns Ferry
News Release - Region II - 2004-03
 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 

Office of Public Affairs, Region II
  No. II-04-034   		        April 19, 2004   
  CONTACT:     Ken Clark (404) 562-4416
 Roger D. Hannah (404) 562-4417     E-mail:  [opa2@nrc.gov]   
  


The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will hold a
predecisional enforcement conference with Tennessee Valley
Authority officials on Wednesday, April 28, in Atlanta to
discuss an apparent violation of NRC safety requirements at the
Browns Ferry nuclear plant near Athens, Alabama. 

The enforcement conference will begin at 1:30 p.m. in the NRC
Region II office on the 24th floor of the Sam Nunn Atlanta
Federal Center at 61 Forsyth Street, SW. The meeting will be
open to observation by interested members of the public, and NRC
officials will be available before its conclusion to answer
questions from those who attend. 

NRC inspectors found deficiencies in the Unit 1 Recovery Quality
Assurance Program, specifically related to weld repairs in the
torus. The torus is a large hollow doughnut-shaped pressure
suppression pool which would be used to remove the heat released
from the reactor in the event of an accident. 

NRC inspectors found numerous examples of weld repairs that were
omitted due to failure to follow instructions and independently
verify. TVA initiated a 100% review of torus weld repairs, and
the NRC staff says that review and subsequent corrective actions
appear comprehensive enough to resolve the problem. 

The conference is an opportunity for company officials to
provide their perspective on the apparent violation and to
clarify or correct any information they feel may be inaccurate
or incomplete in the NRC inspection report. No decision on the
apparent violation or any enforcement action will be made at the
conference. Those decisions will be made later by NRC officials.
  



  


 	Last revised Monday, April 19, 2004 	   
*****************************************************************
 27 NRC: NRC to Meet with Duke Energy Officials to Discuss Safety Performance at Catawba
                       Nuclear Power Plant
News Release - Region II - 2004-03
 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 

Office of Public Affairs, Region II
  No. II-04-035   		        April 19, 2004   
  CONTACT:     Ken Clark (404) 562-4416
 Roger D. Hannah (404) 562-4417     E-mail:  [opa2@nrc.gov]   
  


The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will meet with Duke
Energy officials on Wednesday, May 12, to discuss the results of
NRC's annual assessment of safety performance at the Catawba
nuclear power plant near York, South Carolina. 

The meeting will be held at 1:00 p.m. in the City Council
Chambers at the Rock Hill City Hall. The public is invited to
observe the meeting, and NRC officials will be available before
the conclusion of the meeting to answer any questions.
 
The NRC said both Catawba reactors were operated safely and met
all objectives during the evaluation period which covered the
calendar year 2003. As a result, the NRC plans to conduct only
routine inspections at the Catawba plant in 2004. A letter from
the NRC to Duke Energy outlining the results of the most recent
evaluation is available from Region II Public Affairs and on the
NRC web site at
www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/LETTERS/cat_2003q4.pdf [PDF
Icon] . 

The NRC staff will also conduct inspections this year at Catawba
(not specifically related to the plants performance) related to
operator licensing examinations, inspections of the planned
spent nuclear fuel storage installation, and safety issues
concerning reactor pressure vessel lower head penetration
nozzles and the reactor containment sump. 

The agency will also continue to monitor plant actions in
response to NRC security orders and any newly developed portions
of the plant security program.
 
Current performance indicators for the two units at the Catawba
plant are available at
www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/CAT1/cat1_chart.html and
www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/CAT2/cat2_chart.html.   



  


 	Last revised Monday, April 19, 2004 	   
*****************************************************************
 28 [DU-WATCH] connecting dots in Iraq
 
Date: Mon, 19 Apr 2004 01:16:19 -0500 (CDT)

 
Can you connect the dots numbered below?

1.  Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) Order #37, Sec 3.2:  CPA
& all their retinue of contractors & subcontractors are exempted
from paying Iraq taxes.

CPA Order #40 outlines Central Bank domination of Iraq.  CPA Order
#39:  no limit on foreign ownership of Iraqi businesses or
profit-removal from Iraq.

http://www.alternet.org/print.html?StoryID=17364
http://cpa-iraq.org/regulations/index.html#Orders
http://www.ahkmena.com/New_Editorial/Details.asp?News=753
http://www.brengzethuis.nl

2. ~70% current Iraqi unemployment.

3.  No social safety net in Iraq now of food stamps, etc., & no
supply of tax money to allocate in that direction; none coming in
from abroad, no known plans from abroad to do so.

4.  +50% of US corporations didn't pay any US taxes in 1996-2000,
according to recent news report on California radio.

5.  US military in Iraq has rules of engagement permitting wide
civilian casulties, whereas British military in Iraq does not have
such rules of engagement, according to senior British officers in
Iraq, 4-11-04.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/04/11/wtact11.xml

Can someone connect the dots below?

1.  "During the years 1993 to 1999 - while Securacom was doing
contract work for the WTC, United Airlines and the Metropolitan
Washington Airport Authority, and while Bush, Walker and al-Sabah
were sitting on the board - a large and sometimes controlling
interest in the company was held by KuwAm.

And what is KuwAm, you ask? It is a Washington, D.C.-based,
Kuwaiti/American investment group whose board of directors has
included - you guessed it - Marvin Bush, Wirt Walker, and Mishal
Yousef Saud al-Sabah.

Let's briefly recap the coincidences, shall we? The Bush family
coincidentally has close business ties to the family that supplied
the mastermind of the terrorist attacks. The Bush family also
coincidentally had ties to the company that provided security for
the principal target of the attacks, the World Trade Center (this
company would, of course, have been afforded unprecedented and
unquestioned access to the buildings). And the Bush family
coincidentally had similar ties to United Airlines, which supplied
two of the hijacked flights, and Dulles International Airport, which
supplied a third.

The prime suspect, the weapons, the primary target ... I guess the
question that comes to my mind is then: is there any aspect of the
September 11 story that is not coincidentally covered with the
fingerprints of some member of the Bush family?"

http://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/JohnJudge/linkscopy/Stratesec.html

2.  7-6-03,  Promis security software provided for Saddam by Bush
Sr.

http://www.conspiracyplanet.com/channel.cfm?channelid=2&contentid=1104&page=2
7-6-03, 7-8-03, similar http://www.vdare.com/malkin/inslaw.htm
http://www.terpsboy.com/archives/001358.html

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 29 [DU-WATCH] Thom Hartmann Radio Interview with Leuren Moret on
 
Date: Mon, 19 Apr 2004 01:18:39 -0500 (CDT)

 
Interview with Leuren Moret on depleted uranium on the
Thom Hartmann radio program by local station, internet
radio or satellite radio.  Go to this website to find
out how to listen.
http://www.thomhartmann.com/showlisten.shtml

======================================================
RECENT ARTICLE:
http://www.awakenedwoman.com/moret_nuclear.htm

Awakened Woman e-Magazine

War on Iraq is a Nuclear War
And the fallout is coming this way, says independent
scientist Leuren Moret

by Stephanie Hiller
April 10, 2004

In May, 2003, the United States dumped 2,200 tons of
depleted uranium on Iraq, according to reliable
sources, and it's logical to assume that more depleted
uranium is being employed in the current attacks on
Faluja that began April 8 to put down Iraqi resistance
to the American presence there.

According to independent geoscientist Leuren Moret,
the war on Iraq - like the war on Afghanistan - is a
nuclear war. "Depleted uranium is a nuclear weapon and
it is a weapon of mass destruction under the U. S.
government's definition of weapons of mass
destruction," Moret says.

The Pentagon has repeatedly denied that DU is harmful,
despite the symptoms of half the returning veterans
from the first Persian Gulf Wars who are now disabled.
But researchers have shown that the Pentagon has been
fully aware of the consequences of what is called "low
level radiation" since 1943, when depleted uranium was
first suggested for development as a military weapon
under the Manhattan Project.

On Sunday, April 6, the New York Daily News reported
that nine soldiers who returned from Iraq last summer
had symptoms typical of DU poisoning. The News
arranged for them to be tested by Asaf Duracovic, a
former Colonel in the Army Reserves who served in the
1991 Persian Gulf War, and one of the world's foremost
experts on the medical effects of radioactive
weaponry. Depleted uranium was found in the urine of
four of the men - Sgt. Hector Vega, Sgt. Ray Ramos,
Sgt. Agustin Matos and Cpl. Anthony Yonnone - the
first confirmed cases of inhaled depleted uranium
exposure from the current Iraq conflict

Recently completed laboratory analyses show two
members of Uranium Medical Research Centre's (UMRC)
field investigation team are contaminated with
Depleted Uranium (DU). The two field staff, one from
Canada and the other, Beirut, toured Iraq for thirteen
days in October 2003; five months after the cessation
of Operation Iraqi Freedom's aerial bombing and ground
force campaign. Using mass spectrometry, UMRC's
partner laboratory in Germany measured DU in both team
members' urine samples. 
(Please see
http://www.umrc.net/UMRC_bulletin_07_Feb_2004.asp)

If short-term visitors and soldiers have been so
affected, what of the people, living near bomb sites,
breathing the air every day, drinking the water? What
of the children who play in these sites and collect
pieces of exploded material to sell so their families
can eat?

Using figures developed by Japanese physicist,
Professor Yagasaki from the University of the Ryukyus,
Okinawa, and explained in his presentation at the
World Conference on Depleted Uranium Weapons held in
Hamburg last October, the radioactivity of 2,200 tons
(or 440,000 pounds) of depleted uranium together with
some 1,000 tons used in Afghanistan, is the atomicity
equivalent of 400,00 Nagasaki bombs.

Depleted uranium is cheap and plentiful. When uranium
is processed for fission bombs or fuel rods for use in
power plants, only U-235, about half a percent of the
total, is used. Most of what's left over is U-238,
so-called "depleted" uranium. The US has over a
million tons of the stuff, and storage is becoming a
serious problem. 

Though less radioactive than U-235, DU is still highly
radioactive internally, and chemically toxic as well.
"There is no allowable level of risk," says Moret.
Nearly twice as dense as lead, DU is used in tanks and
airplanes, as well as bullets, handguns, cannons, all
the way up to large bombs weighing more than 5,000
pounds. 

It's not dangerous until it blows up.

Depleted uranium is pyrophoric. Relatively innocuous
as a metal alloy used in planes, tanks, missiles,
bullets and rounds, when depleted uranium burns, it
releases a radioactive gas. Larger particles may
settle to the ground, but winds blowing across the
desert may carry the fine particles to locations in a
1000-mile radius from the explosion. As a result,
areas as far west as Egypt and as far east as India
are likely to be contaminated. "The U.S. has staged a
nuclear war in the Middle East, from Iraq and Central
Asia, to the northern half of India. Half of Egypt,
Israel, the Saudi Arabian peninsula, Turkey, Iran, the
Russian oil-rich states, the Caspian oil region, and
northern are now, or will be, all contaminated."

Depleted uranium - U-238 - has a half-life of 4.5
billion years. It's effects will be with us forever.
It is in the soil, in the groundwater, in food, but
the worst of all, it is in the air. When inhaled, it
enters directly into the bloodstream. One uranium
particle behaves in the body like a tiny nuclear bomb,
sending out alpha and beta particles and gamma rays to
adjacent cells. These are permanently damaging to the
cells and chromosomes and lead to a host of deadly
diseases, including cancer and leukemia. They also
cause mutations of the genetic material that will show
up in subsequent generations as terrible birth
deformities, weakened health, and infertility.

Moret says the fallout from these foreign wars is
headed our way.  Spread by powerful desert winds, the
fallout will be carried certainly as far as Britain
(where dust storms from the Middle East commonly leave
residual dust) and then across the Atlantic Ocean. It
will also travel across Asia and the Pacific Ocean and
be slowly and silently deposited across the North
American continent.

American citizens have already been exposed to
radiation from a variety of sources including
malfunctioning nuclear power plants, the disasters at
Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, above-ground bomb
tests conducted from 1957 to 1963, and the enormous
existing pile of depleted uranium, about 1 million
tons, poorly stored in the United States. Radiation
has caused the geometric rise of cancers in the US - 1
in 3 Americans compared to 1 in 20 before the second
World War. It is also responsible for the rise in
autism, learning disabilities, chronic immune
deficiency disorders (chronic fatigue syndrome,
Epstein-Barr and so forth), higher rates of infant
mortality and the general weakening of the public's
health.

Leuren Moret was formerly employed at the Lawrence
Berkeley Radiation Laboratory in Berkeley, and the
Lawrence Livermore nuclear weapons lab. Since walking
out on her job to become a whistleblower at Livermore
in 1991, she has devoted her time to the study of the
effects of nuclear radiation. She has worked with
scientists like Dr. Ernest Sternglass, Marian Fulk,
Dr. Asaf Durakovic of the Uranium Medical Research
Center, Dr. Doug Rokke of Traprock Peace Center and
many others. Her testimony at the International
Criminal Tribunal for Afghanistan held December 13-14,
2003, in Tokyo was largely responsible for the
unanimous verdict on depleted uranium, and that the
President Bush and the United States is guilty of war
crimes against that country.

 
Leuren Moret will be interviewed by Janie Rezner on
her show, Women's Voices, this Monday, April 12, at 7
pm Pacific Daylight Savings time. You can listen to
the interview via the internet. Visit www.kzyx.org

 
MORE INFORMATION

http://www.mindfully.org

http://www.traprockpeace.org

http://www.umrc.net

http://www.uraniumweaponsconference.de/speakers.htm

The European Committee on Radiation Risk, within the
European Parliament, has just published an excellent
report on low-level radiation at
<http://www.euradcom.org>

	
		
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 30 [DU-WATCH] why we didn't check before - chelation therapy (or
 
Date: Mon, 19 Apr 2004 01:29:06 -0500 (CDT)

 
News Flash!  ......This article is a "call to the
healthcare industry"......
 
Chelation Therapy for Heavy Metals Poisoning is NOT
illegal in the State of Kentucky.  It is the
individual doctor's choice to treat patients with
Chelation Therapy, or not. (Says the Pharmacy
Department of the Drug Enforcement Branch of the
Kentucky Health Services Dept. in Frankfort KY)  
 
Chelation Therapy is a cleansing treatment by which
certain medicines, when injected, attract the
molecules and isotopes of harmful elements trapped in
the human body, force them back into the bloodstream
and out of the body through normal excrement's.
 
Many victims of Multiple Heavy Metals Poisoning, in
the State of Kentucky and across America, have been
told by different doctors, other health care persons
and even politicians (Lois Wineburg) that in Kentucky,
Chelation Therapy is illegal.
 
How many lives could have been saved if the truth was
made public and our doctors that are not familiar with
Chelation Therapy would take a few moments to learn
the truth about the limited risks (almost nil) related
to Chelation Therapy.
 
This independent investigative advocate for victims of
Depleted Uranium Poisoning and other Multiple Heavy
Metals Poisoning, has found through three years of
research that the only risk that Chelation Therapy
presents is with the use of Sulfur Drugs that enhance
the Chelation process.  All a doctor must do is either
"ask" the patient if he, or she is sensitive to Sulfur
drugs, or conduct a simple test to find out if the
patient is allergic to Sulfur.
 
In my discussion with dozens of victims across America
and three other nations, victims who in turn are
familiar with hundreds of other victims of Heavy
Metals Poisoning, not one person has reported negative
results from being treated with Chelation Therapy. 
Most victims report a drastic improvement in their
health.  Victims already suffering from Cancers, MS,
MD and other debilitating diseases have not had as
great success, but did show signs of increased
strength and quality of life.  To put it plainly, they
"felt" much better having these poisons out of their
bodies.  (One victim traveled to Costa Rica for four
weeks of treatments and reports being apparently
cured.)
 
So, why are our doctors not practicing Chelation
Therapy?  The only answer I have been able to find in
interviewing seven or eight, is that they were taught
in school that Chelation Therapy is "Alternative
Medicine", not "Traditional" and therefore, not to be
practiced by "Accepted" medical practitioners.  In
other words, if a doctor treats patients with
Chelation Therapy, he,or she runs the risk of being
branded a "Renegade", or labeled with another childish
name and thus have his, or her reputation ruined. 
Petty, at the least.
 
One doctor was kind enough to admit that his view was
that if he continued to avoid the use of Chelation
Therapy, he could continue to treat hundreds of
patients.  If he "bucked the system", his fellow
physicians would shun him, hospitals would curtail his
privileges and he would be reduced to treating a
handful of patients.  This is "petty politics in
medicine".   
 
One doctor in Tennessee that treated me with Chelation
Therapy and saved my life, and the lives of dozens
others, was forced to stop treating patients by a
Department of the United States Government threatening
his employer. (Names withheld as a courtesy)
 
Local Paducah area health food store employees have
told me that over the past twenty years the Food and
Drug Administration has targeted doctors and small
clinics that have tried to treat with Chelation
Therapy.  While the FDA could not stop these clinics
from using Chelation Therapy, because it was legal,
they spent days going through the clinic records until
they found some trivial questionable record and used
it to shut down the clinic.
 
This article is a "call to the healthcare industry", a
plea for life giving Chelation Therapy Treatments.  I
would be dead today, if I did not receive my three day
Chelation Therapy Treatment, three years ago.  I know
several other people in Western Kentucky that are
alive today ONLY because a caring doctor "bucked the
system" as long as he could, until he was forced to
stop, saving the lives of doomed victims of Heavy
Metals Poisoning.
 
Kentucky Doctors and Hospitals, PLEASE bring Chelation
Therapy to Kentucky.  PLEASE give us this life-saving
service.
 
Every person that I have talked too, EVERY ONE has
said that if their doctor would treat them with
Chelation Therapy, they would not consider malpractice
suits.  They would be so grateful for the treatments,
they would tell everyone to go to their doctor and be
treated.  This fallacy that Chelation Therapy is
dangerous is not true.  The real danger is trying to
survive without it.
 
This article is humbly submitted for copy, reprint and
publication in any news media anywhere in the world. 
I give my permission to reproduce in any manner, but
not to be altered in any way.
 
Blessings,
 
Charles M. Driver
10455 Old Lovelaceville Rd.
Paducah KY 42001
270-488-3999
gizmo@brtc.net  

	
		
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 31 Records on DU Exposures Never Saw the Light of Day
 
Date: Mon, 19 Apr 2004 01:16:43 -0500 (CDT)

 
From: Kirt Love
UMRC Information Bulletin
http://www.umrc.net/UMRC_bulletin_07_Feb_2004.asp  
February 6, 2004 
                  Warning of uranium contamination risks to
               NGO staff, Coalition forces, foreign contract
                         personnel and civilians in Iraq

      February 6, 2004  Recently completed laboratory analyses show
two members of Uranium Medical Research Centre's (UMRC) field
investigation team are contaminated with Depleted Uranium (DU). The
two field staff, one from Canada and the other, Beirut, toured Iraq
for thirteen days in October 2003; five months after the cessation of
Operation Iraqi Freedom's aerial bombing and ground force campaign.
Using mass spectrometry, UMRC's partner laboratory in Germany measured
DU in both team members' urine samples.

      The UMRC team surveyed US and British controlled combat areas
and bomb-sites in southern Iraq, including Baghdad, An Nasiriyah, As
Suweiriah and Al Basra (details can be found at UMRC.net, Abu Khasib
to Al Ah'qaf: Field Investigation Report). The conditions responsible
for the team's DU contamination are considered to be inhalation of
resuspended ultra-fine soil and dust particles saturated with uranium
and airborne uranium oxides and metallic particulate. Uranium was used
in anti-tank penetrators, suppression ordnance and bunker-defeat
warheads deployed during the 26 days of Operation Iraqi Freedom by
both US and UK forces. The contamination of UMRC's team members
occurring over a two-week period, many months after the main conflict,
represents a risk to civilians, non-governmental organisations' staff,
Coalition armed forces and foreign contractors and diplomatic staff.

      In 1997, UMRC was the first study group to detect DU in the
urine of Canadian, British and US troops who served in Gulf War I. The
urinary excretion of battlefield uranium was identified six years
following exposure. In January 2004, the US Department of Veterans
Affairs admitted it had detected DU in the urine of US forces who are
not retaining DU shrapnel, in 2000, eight years after Desert Storm. In
2001 and again in 2002, UMRC measured high concentrations of
artificial uranium containing the synthetic isotope, 236U, in Afghan
civilians exposed to the detonation plumes of bombs deployed during
Operation Enduring Freedom.

      In November 2003, the British Ministry of Defence (MOD) released
a formal statement to the Guardian disclaiming UMRC's Operation Telic
findings of high levels of radioactivity in British-led battlefields.
The MOD stated unequivocally that battlefield uranium residues remain
stable inside defeated Iraqi tanks and cannot be made biologically
available to humans. Since then, the MOD has found unusually high
concentrations of uranium excreted in the urine of its 1st Armoured
Division troops who served in Basra (September 2003, UK DU Oversight
Board Meeting minutes, Gulf Veterans Illnesses Unit, UK Ministry of
Defence). The MOD's recent findings in its troops now deployed back to
Germany, coupled with the contamination of UMRC's staff demonstrate
the need to initiate immediate solutions to protect exposed civilians
and foreign personnel in Iraq.

      Preliminary results of UMRC's laboratory analysis of field
samples of civilian urine, soils and water samples indicate uranium
contamination in several Iraqi cities and battlefields. Details of
UMRC's findings from US and British controlled battlefields and
bombsites will be released later this month (February 2004). UMRC has
offered its assistance to the United Nation's Environment Program
(UNEP) to guide UNEP's post-conflict study team to radiologically
contaminated bombsites and battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan. UMRC
urges UNEP to undertake immediate studies and lead the implementation
of a radiation protection program for Iraqi and Afghan civilians as
well as a supervised environmental clean-up program, as early as
possible.

For information: 
T Weyman
Iraq Field Team Lead
Info@UMRC.net
*****************************************************************
 32 [RADFOOD] good news and action item
 
Date: Mon, 19 Apr 2004 01:41:11 -0500 (CDT)

 
*GOOD NEWS: NEW YORK STATE UNITED TEACHERS UNION REJECTS IRRADIATED
MEAT*

On April 7, 2004 the New York State United Teachers union passed a
resolution calling for:
1) a moratorium on the use of irradiated meat in school food programs
until the long-term effects on children have been studied and
documented
2) distribution of factual, accurate and current information on food
irradiation to parents and guardians
3) notification to parents and guardians in those schools where
irradiated meat is or is intended to be used

This resolution is not binding, but is a strong recommendation to the
state Department of Education not to purchase irradiated meat.

click on the following link to read the text of the resolution
http://www.citizen.org/documents/nysutresolution.pdf

*TAKE ACTION! FAX PUBLIX!*

One of the most prominent food irradiation companies, SureBeam,
recently went bankrupt.  While SureBeam supplied many of the national
supermarket chains with irradiated meat, there are still other companies
in the business.  Publix is still stocking irradiated meat, and needs to
hear from their shoppers that this is a bad choice.

The company that Publix gets it's irradiated meat from - Food
Technology Service - uses Cobalt 60 (a nuclear material) to irradiate.
There are a host of problems with Cobalt 60 food irradiation facilities,
especially for surrounding communities.  In addition to a long list of
accidents impacting workers and surrounding communities, the presence of
cobalt 60 raises serious security questions for neighbors of such
facilities.  The Federation of American Scientists modeled the
detonation of a foot-long rod of Cobalt obtained from a food irradiation
plant, and found that it would result in the contamination of 1000
square kilometers, with a 10% risk of death from cancer for residents
living inside a 300-city block area for 40 years following the
detonation.

We need to pressure Publix to keep irradiated meat off their shelves.
Tell Publix that it is irresponsible to support a technology that has
negative impacts on your health and the safety of communities burdened
with irradiation facilities!  Publix stores are located in Florida,
Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, and Tennessee.

SEND A FREE FAX TO PUBLIX FROM OUR WEBSITE:
http://www.citizen.org/fax/background.cfm?ID=319&source=12

********************
If you would like to be removed from the radfood list, send an email to listserv@listserver.citizen.org with the words "unsubscribe radfood" in the message.

If you would like to be added to the radfood list, send an email to listserv@listserver.citizen.org with the words "subscribe radfood" in the message.

To learn more about food irradiation, visit our website at http://www.citizen.org/cmep/

Questions about the radfood list can be directed to RADFOOD-request@LISTSERVER.CITIZEN.ORG
-Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program
*****************************************************************
 33 DU contaminated vets return from Iraq
 
Date: Mon, 19 Apr 2004 01:46:40 -0500 (CDT)

 
Will DU be the "Agent Orange" of Iraq?
===

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/v-pfriendly/story/180333p-156685c.html

New York Daily NewsPoisoned? 
By JUAN GONZALEZ
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER 
Saturday, April 3rd, 2004 

Four soldiers from a New York Army National Guard company serving in Iraq 
are contaminated with radiation likely caused by dust from depleted 
uranium shells fired by U.S. troops, a Daily News investigation has 
found. 

They are among several members of the same company, the 442nd Military 
Police, who say they have been battling persistent physical ailments that 
began last summer in the Iraqi town of Samawah.

"I got sick instantly in June," said Staff Sgt. Ray Ramos, a Brooklyn 
housing cop. "My health kept going downhill with daily headaches, 
constant numbness in my hands and rashes on my stomach." 

A nuclear medicine expert who examined and tested nine soldiers from the 
company says that four "almost certainly" inhaled radioactive dust from 
exploded American shells manufactured with depleted uranium.

Laboratory tests conducted at the request of The News revealed traces of 
two manmade forms of uranium in urine samples from four of the soldiers.

If so, the men - Sgt. Hector Vega, Sgt. Ray Ramos, Sgt. Agustin Matos and 
Cpl. Anthony Yonnone - are the first confirmed cases of inhaled depleted 
uranium exposure from the current Iraq conflict.

The 442nd, made up for the most part of New York cops, firefighters and 
correction officers, is based in Orangeburg, Rockland County. Dispatched 
to Iraq last Easter, the unit's members have been providing guard duty 
for convoys, running jails and training Iraqi police. The entire company 
is due to return home later this month.

"These are amazing results, especially since these soldiers were military 
police not exposed to the heat of battle," said Dr. Asaf Duracovic, who 
examined the G.I.s and performed the testing that was funded by The News.

"Other American soldiers who were in combat must have more depleted 
uranium exposure," said Duracovic, a colonel in the Army Reserves who 
served in the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

While working at a military hospital in Delaware, he was one of the first 
doctors to discover unusual radiation levels in Gulf War veterans. He has 
since become a leading critic of the use of depleted uranium in warfare.

Depleted uranium, a waste product of the uranium enrichment process, has 
been used by the U.S. and British military for more than 15 years in some 
artillery shells and as armor plating for tanks. It is twice as heavy as 
lead.

Because of its density, "It is the superior heavy metal for armor to 
protect tanks and to penetrate armor," Pentagon spokesman Michael 
Kilpatrick said.

The Army and Air Force fired at least 127 tons of depleted uranium shells 
in Iraq last year, Kilpatrick said. No figures have yet been released for 
how much the Marines fired.

Kilpatrick said about 1,000 G.I.s back from the war have been tested by 
the Pentagon for depleted uranium and only three have come up positive - 
all as a result of shrapnel from DU shells.

But the test results for the New York guardsmen - four of nine positives 
for DU - suggest the potential for more extensive radiation exposure 
among coalition troops and Iraqi civilians.

Several Army studies in recent years have concluded that the low-level 
radiation emitted when shells containing DU explode poses no significant 
dangers. But some independent scientists and a few of the -Army's own 
reports indicate otherwise.

As a result, depleted uranium weapons have sparked increasing controversy 
around the world. In January 2003, the -European Parliament called for a 
moratorium on their use after reports of an unusual number of leukemia 
deaths among Italian soldiers who served in Kosovo, where DU weapons were 
used.

I keep getting weaker. What is happening to me?

The Army says that only soldiers wounded by depleted uranium shrapnel or 
who are inside tanks during an explosion face measurable radiation 
exposure.

But as far back as 1979, Leonard Dietz, a physicist at the Knolls Atomic 
Power Laboratory upstate, discovered that DU-contaminated dust could 
travel for long distances.

Dietz, who pioneered the technology to isolate uranium isotopes, 
accidentally discovered that air filters with which he was experimenting 
had collected radioactive dust from a National Lead Industries Plant that 
was producing DU 26 miles away. His discovery led to a shutdown of the 
plant.

"The contamination was so heavy that they had to remove the topsoil from 
52 properties around the plant," Dietz said.

All humans have at least tiny amounts of natural uranium in their bodies 
because it is found in water and in the food supply, Dietz said. But 
natural uranium is quickly and harmlessly excreted by the body.

Uranium oxide dust, which lodges in the lungs once inhaled and is not 
very soluble, can emit radiation to the body for years. 

"Anybody, civilian or soldier, who breathes these particles has a 
permanent dose, and it's not going to decrease very much over time," said 
Dietz, who retired in 1983 after 33 years as nuclear physicist. "In the 
long run ... veterans exposed to ceramic uranium oxide have a major 
problem."

Critics of DU have noted that the Army's view of its dangers has changed 
over time.

Before the 1991 Persian Gulf War, a 1990 Army report noted that depleted 
uranium is "linked to cancer when exposures are internal, [and] chemical 
toxicity causing kidney damage."

It was during the Gulf War that U.S. A-10 Warthog "tank buster" planes 
and Abrams tanks first used DU artillery on a mass scale. The Pentagon 
says it fired about 320 tons of DU in that war and that smaller amounts 
were also used in the Serbian province of Kosovo. 

In the Gulf War, Army brass did not warn soldiers about any risks from 
exploding DU shells. An unknown number of G.I.s were exposed by shrapnel, 
inhalation or handling battlefield debris.

Some veterans groups blame DU contamination as a factor in Gulf War 
syndrome, the term for a host of ailments that afflicted thousands of 
vets from that war.

Under pressure from veterans groups, the Pentagon commissioned several 
new studies. One of those, published in 2000, concluded that DU, as a 
heavy metal, "could pose a chemical hazard" but that Gulf War veterans 
"did not experience intakes high enough to affect their health."

Pentagon spokesman Michael Kilpatrick said Army followup studies of 70 
DU-contaminated Gulf War veterans have not shown serious health effects.

"For any heavy metal, there is no such thing as safe," Kilpatrick said. 
"There is an issue of chemical toxicity, and for DU it is raised as 
radiological toxicity as well."

But he said "the overwhelming conclusion" from studies of those who work 
with uranium "show it has not produced any increase in cancers."

Several European studies, however, have linked DU to chromosome damage 
and birth defects in mice. Many scientists say we still don't know enough 
about the long-range effects of low-level radiation on the body to say 
any amount is safe.

Britain's national science academy, the Royal Society, has called for 
identifying where DU was used and is urging a cleanup of all contaminated 
areas.

"A large number of American soldiers [in Iraq] may have had significant 
exposure to uranium oxide dust," said Dr. Thomas Fasey, a pathologist at 
Mount Sinai Medical Center and an expert on depleted uranium. "And the 
health impact is worrisome for the future."

As for the soldiers of the 442nd, they're sick, frustrated and confused. 
They say when they arrived in Iraq no one warned them about depleted 
uranium and no one gave them dust masks.

Experts behind News probe

As part of the investigation by the Daily News, Dr. Asaf Duracovic, a 
nuclear medicine expert who has conducted extensive research on depleted 
uranium, examined the nine soldiers from the 442nd Military Police in 
late December and collected urine specimens from each.

Another member of his team, Prof. Axel Gerdes, a geologist at Goethe 
University in Frankfurt who specializes in analyzing uranium isotopes, 
performed repeated tests on the samples over a week-long -period. He used 
a state-of-the art procedure called multiple collector inductively 
coupled plasma-mass spectrometry.

Only about 100 laboratories worldwide have the same capability to 
identify and measure various uranium isotopes in minute quantities, 
Gerdes said. 

Gerdes concluded that four of the men had depleted uranium in their 
bodies. Depleted uranium, which does not occur in nature, is created as a 
waste product of uranium enrichment when some of the highly radioactive 
isotopes in natural uranium, U-235 and U-234, are extracted.

Several of the men, according to Duracovic, also had minute traces of 
another uranium isotope, U-236, that is produced only in a nuclear 
reaction process.

"These men were almost certainly exposed to radioactive weapons on the 
battlefield," Duracovic said.

He and Gerdes plan to issue a scientific paper on their study of the 
soldiers at the annual meeting of the European Association of Nuclear 
Medicine in Finland this year.

When DU shells explode, they permanently contaminate their target and the 
area immediately around it with low-level radioactivity. 
*****************************************************************
 34 Gallup Independent: Ex-workers have health problems

April 17, 2004

Still paying for the good ol'days

 Part Two of Two 

By Kathy Helms Din� Bureau 

THOREAU  John W. Hardy and his wife Sarah of Chinle have been 
trying to get John's compensation for uranium-related illness for 
the last 14 years, ever since the 1990 Radiation Exposure 
Compensation Act came into being. Medically, he qualifies. 

But when you add up the total amount of time he worked for 
Arizona Mining Co. and El Paso Natural Gas, it amounts to only 
seven Working Level Months (WLM) not enough to qualify. 

Hardy, 78, said he worked over near the Grand Canyon "one whole 
summer and through the winter back to the summer. I know we spent 
a year there," he says. The last 14 years the couple have spent 
searching for records to document Hardy's case. 

But Melton Martinez, whose Eastern Navajo Uranium Workers office 
has been trying to help, said, "He has a year in El Paso Natural 
Gas but they're saying that El Paso Natural Gas did not go mining 
until 1954. He worked for them from 1953 all the way into 1956, 
and they're not counting that." 

Translating for Hardy, Martinez said, "He's got a real bad lung 
problem. He hasn't been able to really perform the duties he used 
to do, like walking. He's got problems with just even walking, he 
says. His breathing problem is pretty strong. They gave him an 
oxygen bottle but now he's back to inhalers. He said he qualifies 
from the medical, but he doesn't have enough time. And he's 
really suffering from what he has done. They're telling us that 
he has scarring in the lung, pulmonary fibrosis." 

Sarah, her mom, dad and family lived at the mining site. She said 
the company built a hut for the miners and their families, "one 
long hut with separate rooms that's what they built for them over 
at the mining site. They lived right there by the mining site for 
over a year. He says they used to blast right nearby,"a 
driveway's distance away, Martinez said. "That's how close they 
were living and they were blasting and all of the dust used to 
come over them." Nobody seemed to mind the dust. After all, it 
was a job. 

On the road The red rocks dance ahead as the truck rolls down the 
rutted dirt road. Martinez is riding shotgun, pointing out 
landmarks along the circuitous route that leads from Haystack to 
Bluewater and back again ."This is Haystack Road we're on. 
There's about 600 people living in this area," he said. "There 
were a lot of sheep that were grazing in those areas where mining 
had happened." 

Haystack, the mountain, lay just ahead. It was named by 
Martinez's grandfather, Paddy Martinez, who found the first 
uranium there in April 1950. Directly across from Haystack 
Mountain is another blip on the landscape a black-tipped mountain 
with roads winding back and forth across its great expanse. 


"It used to be a volcano. That tip right there at the top, it 
used to be a big bowl-like, but now all of those people that 
wanted gravel or whatever, they went up in there with heavy 
equipment and big trucks and they started destroying it," hauling 
it away by the truckload. 

When the uranium mining was going on, Martinez said, "they will 
blast and the dust will go up like maybe somewhere around 100-200 
feet up in the air. And all of that dust will travel right into 
where we're living, and we've been living there ever since our 
grandfather," Martinez said. Whether gravel hauled from the 
volcano was contaminated with radioactive dust is anybody's 
guess. 

Farther down the road is Martinez's house, situated on 160 acres 
of allotted land with the sacred Mount Taylor in the distance. It 
was his dad's land, and Grandfather Paddy's before that. 

Martinez points to various landmarks along the way. "All of this 
is Indian allotments. That's my sister's sheep. My brother's got 
a whole bunch of goats. From this corner here is my aunt's land 
but she passed away too. All of this is nothing but the kids 
living and all of the elders gone." 

Though he has been trying to get the Navajo Nation to test water 
in the area, because it's allotted land, he said, "the Navajo 
EPA, it seems like they're being blocked by that boundary line 
the Navajo Reservation line. So they can't really step out of 
there. I've been trying to get EPA out here. Finally they got to 
Church Rock and they did some testing there. They did 12 wells 
and only two of them passed, I heard. Then the other 10 are like 
'for livestock only' like we don't eat the livestock ..." he said 
sarcastically. "Somebody's going to eat it, no matter what. We 
sell it from here, it goes down to market." 

Soft, sweet water Just down the road is Martinez's Uncle Harold's 
homesite. "My uncle was probably the first person that started 
working for Anderson Development. Anderson started coming out 
here and they started contracting out all of these mining 
companies. They bought trucks. I think they had something like 80 
trucks hauling ore. A whole bunch of Navajos worked there." 

Martinez worked there too, as a laborer repairing tires, welding, 
operating heavy equipment. "At that time I was just learning how 
to use them big equipments. And then we'd go on a roadtrip after 
those trucks. Wherever they'd break down, we tried to fix their 
tires there and get them back on the road the transporters." 

On the right-hand side of the road loomed a windmill and water 
tank. "This water tastes real good. There's no water like it in 
this world. So soft, sweet. It's real good water," Martinez said. 
To the best of his knowledge, it's never been tested. 

The truck rumbles through a farm gate. "This is private land that 
my uncle leases. I think Kerr-McGee or somebody owns this 
property, but we're grazing on it. They're leasing it," he said. 
Goat Mountain is home to several doghole mines camouflaged amid 
the weathered sandstone cliff. "You really can't see yellowcake 
because it's mixed with sand," he said. "They used to call this 
place Junior Mine, because the guy that owned it, his name is 
Junior. He's a Navajo." 

Doghole mines came long before those with contemporary square 
openings. "Way back in the 50s they weren't really using lumber 
and stuff like that to brace the hole that they were digging, so 
they made it kind of like round-shaped so the ground would hold 
itself. You don't have to put no lumber inside. As they came 
closer to modern mining they started making it square and they 
started putting posts in there, lumber, mesh wire, stuff like 
that. That's how they started making all kinds of tunnels. 

"We used to walk into the mines far back," Martinez said as he 
climbed toward Junior Mine. "But now it's starting to change. The 
mines are starting to fill up with sand." At one time, it was 
possible to stand upright and walk into the dogholes. Not 
anymore. Junior Mine also has a distinct odor, he said. "I don't 
know if you can smell it or not, but it smells like rusted 
metal." 

Next stop, Wasteland About four to five miles from Goat Mountain 
is the haul road leading past a former Kerr-McGee mine site and 
Anderson Development to Ambrosia Lake "Ambrosia Lake had a town 
here. It was probably somewhere around 200-300 people. They had a 
trailer park. They even had a cafe. It's just a ghost town now. 

"The thing too that happened, this whole place is dead. Look at 
it the whole area became a wasteland. The grass used to grow 
thick in here, but now there's nothing. It rains but I don't know 
what happened to the grass. All of this area is probably 
contaminated off of the mill tailings manmade mountains," 
Martinez said. 

He pointed to an area adjacent to the highway intersection across 
from the mill site. "All this was where they used to stockpile 
the uranium ore higher than those telephone posts mountains of 
ore just waiting for shipment. Usually what a company did is if 
they hit low-grade uranium, they would just stockpile it until 
they hit a real rich bed, and what they would do is mix it to get 
more tonnage. There used to be a restaurant right there." 

Near one of the mine sites is a power substation. "I'm not sure 
what they're going to do with all of this electricity they put 
up. They're probably going to leave it here and wait for Bush to 
decide when to start mining again," Martinez said. Weekend April 
17, 2004 Selected Stories: Couple hit by train, man dies Tribal 
council to consider just who is Navajo Still paying for the good 
ol' days Man burned to death after fiery wreck on rez School, 
tribe try for more native culture
 
Giant employee still critical, but doing better First Navajo 
Nation voting deadline
 
the Gallup Independent feedback on this website and the paper in 
[gallpind@cia-g.com]   
*****************************************************************
 35 New York Daily News: G.I.s press Army for uranium test

Juan Gonzalez Exclusive: 
                                     
 Email: jgonzalez@ edit.nydailynews.com
[jgonzalez@edit.nydailynews.com] 
    
  How The News broke the story.   

Hundreds of soldiers back from Iraq have asked the Army to test 
them for radiation exposure after the Daily News revealed four 
members of a New York Army National Guard unit are contaminated 
with depleted uranium.

 Up to 800 G.I.s already have handed in their 24-hour urine 
samples, and hundreds more are waiting for appointments, 
according to a source at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

 But several independent uranium experts who reviewed one of the 
first official lab results that Walter Reed doctors provided to a 
soldier last week are questioning whether the Army's testing 
methods are adequate.

 "They are using an instrument that apparently isn't very 
accurate," said Glen Lawrence, a professor of biochemistry at 
Long Island University.

 "The instruments they used are just not sophisticated enough to 
give accurate readings," agreed Leonard Dietz, a retired 
scientist from the Knolls Atomic Laboratories who invented one of 
the instruments for measuring uranium isotopes.

 The demand for tests was sparked by a News investigation that 
found four soldiers from the 442nd Military Police Company are 
contaminated with radiation likely caused by dust from depleted 
uranium shells fired by U.S. troops.

 One of the soldiers, Staff Sgt. Ray Ramos, was told at Walter 
Reed last week that the Army's testing of his urine had come back 
negative.

 Ramos, who has suffered for months from unexplained ailments, 
demanded copies of reports from the two Army labs that analyzed 
his urine.

 One lab reported that different uranium isotopes in the sample 
were "not detectable." 

The other lab listed an error ratio so large in its analysis that 
it was impossible to tell for certain whether the uranium in 
Ramos' urine was natural, depleted or enriched.

 "We know the way this data is reported can be confusing," said 
Lt. Col. Mark Melanson, the program manger for health physics at 
the second lab.

 The main issue, Melanson said, is how much total uranium was 
found in Ramos - and his total was 6.3 nanograms (parts per 
billion) per liter.

 That "is within the dietary ranges reported by the Centers for 
Disease Control and Prevention and is safe," Melanson said.

 The Army, according to Melanson, does not even bother to analyze 
a sample for depleted uranium unless the total natural uranium 
concentration is more than 268 nanograms per liter.

 "That's an extraordinarily high cutoff," said Dr. Tom Fasy, a 
pathologist at Mount Sinai Medical Center.

 When told of the criticisms of the Army's methods, Melanson 
said, "As an additional check, we are sending samples to the CDC 
for independent analysis."

 This is not the first time the Army's depleted uranium screening 
operation has come under scrutiny. Last December, two congressmen 
demanded an investigation of the program by the General 
Accounting Office.

 Reps. Ciro Rodriguez (D-Tex.) and Robert Filner (D-Calif.) 
charged the Defense Department has previously misled 
investigators about soldiers' depleted uranium exposure during 
the 1991 Persian Gulf War. 

Originally published on April 19, 2004   

All contents � 2004 Daily News, L.P.
*****************************************************************
 36 BBC: Nuclear sub surfaces in Arctic 
 
  Last Updated: Monday, 19 April, 2004
 
[HMS Tireless]                                  

HMS Tireless has been a focus for protests                                                                

A Royal Navy nuclear submarine has surfaced at the North Pole 
after weeks beneath the ice. 

The Plymouth-based HMS Tireless returned to the Arctic Ocean for 
the first time in eight years for operational exercises with the 
US navy. 

A civilian scientist is with the crew on board to monitor global 
warming effects on the polar cap. 

The submarine has caused controversy and drawn protest in the 
past and was investigated after a collision at sea. 

Scientist Nick Hughes from the Scottish Association for Marine 
Science (SAMS) is on board the Tireless to take measurements of 
the thickness of the ice underwater. 

The permanent ice pack at the North Pole has retreated 100 miles 
north in recent years and can thin in the summer to as little as 
6ft. 

Arctic walkabout 

Ice on the Arctic has diminished by 40% in the past 20 years, 
according to research. 

For the past 30 years scientists from SAMS have travelled to the 
Arctic when a Naval vessel goes so they can monitor the effects 
of global warming. 

The Royal Navy said the vessel's 130 crew will be able to stretch 
their legs and take in the extraordinary beauty of the Arctic 
wilderness during the surfacing. 

The last time the craft surfaced was at the French port of Brest 
in February. 

A Royal Navy spokesman said: "They've been crammed on board the 
sub under the ice for weeks so they'll be dying to go for a 
walkabout. 

Bear danger 

"Let's hope there's not too many polar bears about." 

A previous US submarine mission crew had to watch in amazement as 
one inquisitive bear chewed the fin and external casing of their 
vessel. 

The Tireless has caused controversy in the past. 

In May 2003 it was taken to Scotland for repairs and prompted a 
Ministry of Defence inquiry after it collided with an object at 
sea. 

The craft has also been a target for anti-nuclear protesters in 
Plymouth who attempted to break into a naval base in 2003. 

In 2001, its presence in Gibraltar put a strain on relations with 
Spain and caused outrage among environmentalists. 

*****************************************************************
 37 ITAR-TASS: Security at Moscow抯 nuclear facilities raises concerns
 	 	 	 
[ITAR-TASS News Agency of Russia]     

19.04.2004, 20.20

MOSCOW, April 19 (Itar-Tass) -- The Federal Service of Atomic
Supervision has expressed concern about security at nuclear
facilities in Moscow. 

The service抯 spokesman, Valery Rozhnov, told Itar-Tass on
Monday, 揟here are 11 research reactors in Moscow, the combined
capacity of which is 20 megawatt � and part of them are
operating at higher educational institutions where it is hard to
cerate conditions for effective control over the production of
radioactive materials.� 

He stressed, 揝uch nuclear facilities as the Moscow Institute of
Engineering and Physics, which works with radioactive materials
on a daily basis, have a critical bench of two megawatt. The
productions generated by this bench may pose a threat if they
fall into the hands of potential terrorists.� 

In his words, 揟his requires constant control over the
activities of the institute by our service and its compliance
with our recommendations.� 

The Federal Atomic Energy Agency told Itar-Tass, 揟here is a
number of operating commercial reactors in Moscow that make
radioactive isotopes for various purposes, including medical
ones, which may be used in a 慸irty nuclear bomb�.� 

Federal Atomic Energy Agency spokesman Nikolai Shingarev said,
揑t is necessary to introduce strict control over isotope
products made in Moscow and experiments that involve radioactive
materials�. 

In his view, physical protection of these facilities and the
transportation of radioactive materials 揳re not properly
financed.� 

� ITAR-TASS. All rights reserved. You undertake not to copy,
*****************************************************************
 38 Salt Lake Tribune: No more nuclear waste 
 
April 19, 2004   
 
    I read "Hanford nuclear site workers' concerns prompt
investigation of facility, protocol" (Tribune, April 10) with
Rocky Flats and a number of other facilities that were used to
manufacture uranium and plutonium for the nation's nuclear
weapons are now contaminated with highly radioactive waste that
no one wants. Turns out, a lot of this waste has been dumped in
Utah. 
 
    An issue that is frequently glossed over in discussions of
resuming nuclear testing is waste generation. As the article
discusses, the cleanup at Hanford is expected to cost upward of
$50 billion in taxes and will not be finished until 2035 at
best. The administration is seeking nearly $30 million for the
construction of a new Hanford, known as the Modern Pit Facility.
What deadly waste and contamination will be generated there? How
much will the cleanup and decontamination of that site cost?
Could any of that waste be slated for Utah? 
 
    In upcoming months, Sens. Bennett and Hatch will have the
opportunity to vote on whether to appropriate funding for this
new nuclear bomb factory. If our senators are serious about
representing Utahns' interests, they will vote against funding
the Modern Pit Facility and against all government activities
that pave the way toward resuming nuclear weapons testing. 
 
    
 
   Vanessa Pierce 
 
   Salt Lake City 
 
    
 
    
 
    
 
  
 
 
 
  
 
   
 
   
			   				 	 "> 	                 				 
 
  
Copyright Salt Lake City Tribune
*****************************************************************
 39 Zwire: EPA to revise Foote Mineral cleanup plan                        

[http://www.zwire.com

  Monday 19 April, 2004        <font face="arial, helvetica"
       
DAVID BERNARD, Staff Writer                        

EAST WHITELAND -- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has 
announced plans to revise and reissue its proposed cleanup plan 
for East Whiteland抯 former Cyprus Foote Mineral plant as a 
result of the radioactivity detected there last year.
				 			
"As it stands now, the plan doesn抰 mention the possibility of 
radioactive material at the site," said Wendy Jastremski, 
community involvement coordinator for the EPA抯 Philadelphia 
office. "We want to have all of that documented in the final 
plan."

While the revision will delay the agency抯 record of decision, or 
final plan, and the polluted land抯 eventual remediation, 
township observers said they抮e satisfied with the attention the 
matter has received.

"We抮e really pleased at this point that this was done," said 
Bill Kolb, chairman of the East Whiteland Environmental Advisory 
Council, "because it抯 essentially what we were asking for in our 
comments to the EPA."

Township Manager Terry Woodman described the agency抯 
announcement as "good news."

"We抮e happy that they抮e going to rescind the proposed plan," 
she said. "And we抣l take a hard look at the revised plan, also."

According to Jastremski, the revision process will focus on 
whether the agency抯 current proposal offers viable solutions for 
the removal, transport and disposal of the radioactive material 
or whether federal regulations will require that other measures 
be taken.

"We抮e hoping that we抣l be able to re-release (the proposed 
plan) this summer," followed by another 30-day public comment 
period, she said. "But it抣l just depend on how smoothly things 
go and the suitability of the remedy."
z Developer Arnon Garonzik of Frazer Exton Development, which 
bought the Foote site in 1998 and plans to build 850 units of 
age-restricted housing there, declined comment on the revision 
and delay Friday. Having just returned to his office after eight 
days out of the country, he said he had not yet been notified of 
the EPA抯 plans.

In a recent interview, Garonzik said he抎 been expecting the 
EPA抯 record of decision to be issued this summer and to begin 
the site抯 cleanup in spring 2005.

The 79-acre site is located at Swedesford and Bacton Hill roads, 
near the routes 202 and 30 interchange. From 1942 to 1991, Foote 
produced lithium metal and other mineral and chemical products.

In 1992, the area was federally designated a Superfund 
environmental cleanup site. Three parties are financially 
responsible for the investigation and cleanup of the land under 
the EPA抯 supervision: Chemetall Foote, the company formerly 
known as Cyprus Foote Mineral; the U.S. government, which owned 
part of the company during World War II; and Frazer Exton 
Development.

The EPA issued its proposed remedial action plan in August 2003. 
The $3.8 million cleanup would have consolidated the site抯 
contaminated soil and filled and capped two quarries containing 
lithium and bromate. Nearby residents whose wells had tested 
positive for the contaminants would be connected to public water. 
The proposal would take about a year to complete and 13 years 
before the affected groundwater was free of pollution.

During the public comment period that followed the proposal, 
residents who had independently researched the site and others 
who had once worked in its now-demolished factories raised 
questions about the company抯 apparent role in manufacturing 
atomic weapon components and other radioactive materials.

After conducting additional studies, Frazer Exton Development抯 
environmental consultants reported finding six limited areas of 
radioactive elements such as uranium and thorium in soil samples. 
The radioactivity was found only shallowly in the soil, they 
said, with no evidence that radioactive waste had been buried at 
the site.

The amount of radioactivity detected at the site was minimal, the 
consultants said, less than that of a dental X-ray or flying in 
an airplane.

Kolb, whose Environmental Advisory Council reports to East 
Whiteland抯 board of supervisors at each month抯 meeting, said 
that council members had drafted 16 pages worth of comments on 
the EPA抯 proposed remedial action plan to assist the board in 
reviewing the record of decision.

"Many of the comments led us to believe that the proposed plan 
was just not acceptable," he said.

Fortunately, Kolb noted, the council would now be able to forward 
its comments, findings and suggestions to the EPA and perhaps 
have them incorporated in the revised proposal.

"I think the key thing is that our comments be considered in the 
next proposed plan," he said. "In my experience, there certainly 
has been more attention given to public comment for this project 
than to most."

Jastremski agreed. "The reason we investigated about the 
radiation was because of the public comment period," she said. 
"The more communication back and forth, the better." 

			  
〥aily Local News 2004                                    

Copyright � 1995 - 2004 PowerOne Media, Inc.
[http://www.poweronemedia.com] All Rights Reserved.
    
*****************************************************************
 40 KLAS: State Advises Yucca Workers to be Tested

April 19, 2004   

(April 19) -- The Nevada State Health Division is advising anyone 
who has worked in or near a tunnel at the Yucca Mountain site to 
be screened for possible silicosis and other lung disorders.

According to the state, a number of workers at the site have been 
diagnosed with the chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and 
other disorders related to their exposure to the dust in or near 
the tunnel.

The state is specifically interested in workers who were there 
from 1992 through 2003. The screening to detect silicosis and 
related disorders is being offered free of charge by the U.S. 
Department of Energy.

Anyone who meets the criteria should talk with their doctor or 
contact the DOE's Silicosis Screening Program at the University 
of Cincinnati at 1-866-716-1542 to arrange for screening.   

[http://www.klastv.com/

[http://www.worldnow.com]     All content � Copyright 2000 -
2004 WorldNow and KLAS. All Rights Reserved.

*****************************************************************
 41 NEWS.com.au: ERA apologises for contamination 

(April 19, 2004)

By Roz Alderton
 				 				 
ENERGY Resources of Australia (ERA) today apologised over an 
incident at its controversial Northern Territory mine where 28 
workers drank uranium-contaminated water.

"The company deeply regrets the incident and the distress caused 
to the people who have reported mild symptoms after having 
showered in or drunk some of the water," chief executive Harry 
Kenyon-Slaney told shareholders at ERA's annual general meeting 
in Sydney.

 ERA's Ranger Mine in Kakadu National Park was shut down on March 
24 after the process water system - containing uranium and 
chemicals - was mistakenly connected to the system that supplies 
drinking and showering water.

 Workers at the mine reported suffering nausea, headaches and 
stomach cramps after drinking the contaminated water.

 Mr Kenyon-Slaney said the number of people reporting symptoms 
was now 28. 

"The advice we have received to date is that anyone exposed to 
the affected water is unlikely to suffer any long term health 
effects," he said.

 The mine resumed full operations on April 6 after passing 
environmental and safety tests.

 Mr Kenyon-Slaney said several investigations were now underway 
into the cause of the incident and the company would comment 
further when the reports are complete.

 "What I can say is that the company will not shy away from 
tackling any management operational issues raised in the reports, 
whether this be a requirement for a thorough process integrity 
check or other comprehensive action," he said.

 He said the company's ongoing sales commitments in 2004 would 
not be affected by the incident.

 Today's meeting was attended by two shareholders representing 
the Australian Conversation Foundation (ACF) and Greenpeace, who 
both made statements criticising the water contamination 
incident.

 ACF representative Dave Sweeney suggested that the mishap was 
likely to be repeated, as the 24-year-old Ranger Mine aged 
further and mining operations went deeper.

 "I would like to make the observation that as the infrastructure 
ages, as you go deeper with greater amounts of waste rock... 
these problems are only going to exacerbate," Mr Sweeney said.

 "There is going to be more water to manage on site. There will 
be routine incidents like this."

 ERA chairman Brian Horwood said he believed Mr Sweeney's comment 
about the ageing of the mine was valid, but said the company was 
working to address the issues.

 Mining at the Ranger operation is expected to continue until at 
least 2008, with milling operations to produce uranium oxide to 
continue until at least 2011.

 Mr Horwood also told shareholders ERA would undertake an 
operational health and safety review in the coming months, but he 
refused Mr Sweeney's suggestion that the company agree to union 
representation in that review.

 At the end of 2003, 96 per cent of ERA's workforce was covered 
by individual workplace agreements.

 Looking ahead, Mr Horwood said the company had a strong forward 
order book and the nuclear generating industry remained strong.

 ERA shares were untraded, with the price steady at $3.68 by 
12.42am AEDT.                                                                   

AAP
 				 							 				 					 						 						

Copyright 2004 News Limited. All times AEST (GMT+10).                            
*****************************************************************
 42 NRC: NRC Approves Restart of Final Stage in Uranium Hexafluoride Process at Honeywell
                        Plant in Illinois
News Release - Region II - 2004-03
 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 

Office of Public Affairs, Region II
  No. II-04-033   		        April 17, 2004   
  CONTACT:     Ken Clark (404) 562-4416
 Roger D. Hannah (404) 562-4417     E-mail: opa2@nrc.gov
[opa2@nrc.gov]   
  


The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff informed officials of
the Honeywell International, Inc. uranium hexafluoride
processing plant in Metropolis, Illinois, on April 17 that the
agency has no objection to the restart of the final stage of a
three-stage process to produce the chemical compound. 

On March 27, the NRC staff authorized the company to resume ore
preparation, the first stage in a process that had been shut
down since a December 22 release of uranium hexafluoride to the
environment outside the plant. After reviewing additional
improvements, the NRC staff approved the second stage of the
process (the production of uranium tetrafluoride, or UF4, called
green salt) on April 14. The approval to restart the final
stage, called fluorination and distillation, allows the company
to produce the final product, uranium hexafluoride (UF6). 

The NRC sent the company a Confirmatory Action Letter following
the December 22 release which stated that Honeywell would
discuss with the NRC both the results of its own investigation
and proposed corrective actions prior to restarting the
processes involved in the incident. 

Based on NRC inspectors reviews of corrective actions and
observation of work activities, the agency is satisfied that the
companys actions have been adequate to allow the safe restart
of all three stages of production: ore preparation, uranium
tetrafluoride (UF4) or green salt, and fluorination and
distillation leading to uranium hexafluoride (UF6). 

As previously announced, the NRC has scheduled another public
meeting in Metropolis for April 21 to discuss the companys
improvement efforts, along with NRC inspections and review. The
meeting will begin at 6:00 p.m. in the large Second Floor
Courtroom at the Massac County Courthouse at 1 Superman Square.
NRC officials will be available prior to the meetings
conclusion to answer any questions from interested local
citizens.   



  


 	Last revised Monday, April 19, 2004 	   
*****************************************************************
 43 Lenawee Online News GUEST EDITORIAL: A wasteful compensation program

  Monday, April 19, 2004     __   

Daily Times-Call, Longmont, Colo.

How many investors would settle for a 0.0002 percent return on 
their money?

But that's exactly what ailing nuclear weapons plant workers have 
realized out of a taxpayer-funded Energy Department program 
created in 2000 to compensate employees sickened by radiation or 
toxic chemicals while on the job. 

To date, the DOE has spent $74 million essentially creating a 
fortress of paperwork that people who believe their jobs made 
them ill will have to scale. Since the program was created, one 
worker in Washington state has been paid $15,000. ...

To date, 23,000 people have applied for compensation. The DOE 
says it has rejected about 5 percent of those and moved forward 
on about 1 percent, or 230 cases. Which means 94 percent, or 
almost 22,000 people, are still waiting for their situations to 
be addressed.

These are people who, in many cases, don't have a lot of time. 
They are people who worked in weapons plants and developed 
cancers and other illnesses they believe were directly related to 
their work.

The ongoing expenditure of millions to administer a program that 
has benefited one single person in four years is shocking, it is 
shameful and it is an indictment of big government at its very 
worst.   

*****************************************************************
 44 Rocky Mountain News: Proposed land use near butte criticized

Sludge plant, fire center not welcome, Boulder told

By Berny Morson, Rocky Mountain News
April 19, 2004

BOULDER - Lois McGinty's ashes have been resting peacefully since 
1999 in the pioneer cemetery at the foot of Valmont Butte, just 
east of town. 

But members of her family told the Boulder City Council Saturday 
they'll move the ashes if a fire department training center and a 
sewage sludge processing plant are built on adjoining city-owned 
land. 

 "We feel it's tremendously disrespectful to her memory," said 
Lee Ann McGinty, Lois's daughter. 

Virtually ignored for decades by a city more concerned with 
preserving the mountain environment to the west, Valmont Butte 
has suddenly become controversial. 

In addition to members of pioneer families with ancestors or 
relatives in the cemetery, the 200-foot butte itself is sacred to 
Indian tribes, who still conduct sweat-lodge ceremonies just 
below the peak. 

McGinty's comments came as City Council members toured the area, 
which is just north of Xcel Corp.'s Valmont power plant. Council 
members viewed the cemetery and the sites where the fire 
department and sludge facilities would be built, but did not 
ascend the butte itself. 

Members of several Indian tribes prayed for the butte at a nearby 
location, said Sue Savage, a Navajo and Boulder native. "This 
area should be closed down and allowed to heal," she said. 

The city owns 101.6 acres in the area. Included is the place were 
stone was gouged out of the butte to pave Denver streets; a mill 
that processed gold and fluorspar; an abandoned railroad siding; 
twisted equipment left to rust decades ago; and a tailings pond 
that, among other effluent, holds radioactive soil. 

But the view of Boulder and the surrounding countryside remains 
spectacular. 

"It's a beautiful spot, no question about it," said council 
member Mark Ruzzin. Like all but two council members, he'd never 
visited the site. 

The city plans to preserve the butte itself, along with the old 
mill. The cemetery is privately held. 

The major issue before the council is whether a fire training 
center and a sludge plant are appropriate neighbors for the butte 
and cemetery. 

A vote is scheduled for the fall. A citizens committee is 
studying the issue and several review boards will also weigh in. 

The fire center would include 10 acres of concrete for drivers to 
practice maneuvering firetrucks. It would be at the foot of the 
plateau where the cemetery is located. 

The sludge plant, further from the cemetery, would turn treated 
waste from a nearby wastewater plant into compost. 

Council members were noncommittal on how they are likely to vote. 

Robin Bohannan said she's made no decision, but added, "I think I 
had an emotional reaction to the cemetery. That was very 
compelling." 

Hugh McGinty, Lois' widower and Lee Ann's father, said his own 
plans are hanging on what the council does. 

"I intended to be buried here," said McGinty, 81. "It depends 
what happens." 

morsonb@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-442-8729 
*****************************************************************
 45 Google News Alert - nuclear
 
Date: Mon, 19 Apr 2004 14:35:59 -0700 (PDT)

 
NUCLEAR spy to be freed
Melbourne Herald Sun - Melbourne,Victoria,Australia
EIGHTEEN years after he was kidnapped by Mossad agents, nuclear spy Mordechai
Vanunu will go free tomorrow -- a moment Israel fears will refocus unwelcome
...
<http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,9329366%255E663,00.html>
See all stories on this topic:
<http://news.google.com/news?ie=utf8&oe=utf8&persist=1&num=30&hl=en&client=google&newsclusterurl=http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,9329366%25255E663,00.html>

NATION watching Diablo nuclear plant lawsuit
Kansas City Star (subscription) - Kansas City,MO,USA
By DAVID SNEED. San Luis Obispo County has quickly become a national test
case for public involvement in nuclear power plant safety. ...
<http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/nation/8467265.htm>

KIM Jong-il may face nuclear quiz
The Age - Melbourne,Victoria,Australia
... yesterday for talks with Chinese leaders, who may raise recent reported
disclosures by a Pakistani scientist exposing his regime's nuclear weapons
activity. ...
<http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/04/19/1082357112198.html>
See all stories on this topic:
<http://news.google.com/news?ie=utf8&oe=utf8&persist=1&num=30&hl=en&client=google&newsclusterurl=http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/04/19/1082357112198.html>

SECURITY at Moscow � s nuclear facilities raises concerns
ITAR-TASS - Moscow,Russia
MOSCOW, April 19 (Itar-Tass) -- The Federal Service of Atomic Supervision
has expressed concern about security at nuclear facilities in Moscow.
...
<http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=713968&PageNum=0>
See all stories on this topic:
<http://news.google.com/news?ie=utf8&oe=utf8&persist=1&num=30&hl=en&client=google&newsclusterurl=http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html%3FNewsID%3D713968%26PageNum%3D0>

DROP wind farm plans for nuclear says report
The Scotsman - Edinburgh,Scotland,UK
ENVIRONMENTALISTS today attacked a report suggesting nuclear power as a
more viable option than wind farms to provide Scotland with power. ...
<http://news.scotsman.com/scitech.cfm?id=441802004>
See all stories on this topic:
<http://news.google.com/news?ie=utf8&oe=utf8&persist=1&num=30&hl=en&client=google&newsclusterurl=http://news.scotsman.com/scitech.cfm%3Fid%3D441802004>

FOUR ARRESTED IN ANTI-NUCLEAR PROTEST IN OAK RIDGE
WBIR-TV - Knoxville,TN,USA
... Complex in Oak Ridge. Three of those arrested yesterday were protesting
nuclear weapons research at the plant. The fourth person ...
<http://www.wbir.com/News/news.asp?ID=17847>
See all stories on this topic:
<http://news.google.com/news?ie=utf8&oe=utf8&persist=1&num=30&hl=en&client=google&newsclusterurl=http://www.wbir.com/News/news.asp%3FID%3D17847>

NO more nuclear waste
Salt Lake Tribune - Salt Lake City,UT,USA
I read "Hanford nuclear site workers' concerns prompt investigation of
facility, protocol" (Tribune, April 10) with great interest. ...
<http://www.sltrib.com/2004/Apr/04192004/public_f/158539.asp>
See all stories on this topic:
<http://news.google.com/news?ie=utf8&oe=utf8&persist=1&num=30&hl=en&client=google&newsclusterurl=http://www.sltrib.com/2004/Apr/04192004/public_f/158539.asp>

S.KOREA eyes China's booming nuclear power market
Forbes - USA
SEOUL, April 19 (Reuters) - South Korea's state-run nuclear power firm
said on Monday it had formed a consortium with local companies to bid
for nuclear power ...
<http://www.forbes.com/business/energy/newswire/2004/04/19/rtr1335713.html>
See all stories on this topic:
<http://news.google.com/news?ie=utf8&oe=utf8&persist=1&num=30&hl=en&client=google&newsclusterurl=http://www.forbes.com/business/energy/newswire/2004/04/19/rtr1335713.html>

FAZL blames Ahmedis for plotting against nuclear programme
Pakistani Newspaper - Pakistan
... of Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), Maulana Fazlur Rehman has alleged
that Qadianis (Ahmedis) are conspiring with US to eliminate the nuclear
programme of the ...
<http://thepakistaninewspaper.com/news_detail.php?id=673>

NRC renews Progress' SC Robinson nuclear plant
Forbes - USA
NEW YORK, April 19 (Reuters) - Progress Energy Inc. (nyse: PGN - news -
people) said Monday the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved a new
20-year ...
<http://www.forbes.com/business/energy/newswire/2004/04/19/rtr1336723.html>

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 46 Scotsman.com: Wind power 'will cost taxpayer millions'
 
[http://www.scotsman.com/]                                             

Mon 19 Apr 2004   			 			
 		   	 	
  Scotland鈥檚 largest wind farm, near Peebles, may not have the 
economic and ecological benefits that have been promised, says a 
new report. Picture: David Cheskin/PA  

JAMES REYNOLDS ENVIRONMENT CORRESPONDENT 

THE publication this week of a new report into renewable energy 
is set to raise serious questions over the economic and 
ecological benefits of wind power. 

According to the leading economist Professor David Simpson, the 
government鈥檚 strategy to promote wind power as a means of 
reducing carbon emissions is fundamentally flawed. 

His report Tilting at Windmills, a copy of which has been 
obtained by The Scotsman, goes on to suggest that nuclear power 
could be a better option for the future, as long as there was an 
"acceptable waste management strategy". 

Conducted on behalf of the influential Edinburgh-based think tank 
the David Hume Institute (DHI), the paper also claims using 
so-called "green power" would cost the taxpayer millions of 
pounds more than conventional power sources. 

In February last year, Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, announced 
a strategy to promote greener forms of energy in a bid to reduce 
carbon dioxide emissions by more than 60 per cent in the next 50 
years. 

Pledges to put a five-year block on planning new nuclear power 
stations and increase renewable energy sources such as wind and 
wave power were broadly welcomed by environmental pressure groups 
at the time. 

However, others dismissed the white paper as a "policy-free zone" 
and insisted "intermittent and unproven" renewable resources were 
no answer to Britain鈥檚 need for reliable, continuous 
electricity. 

The new paper, a severe criticism of the government鈥檚 
commitment to produce 20 per cent of electricity from renewable 
resources by 2020, predicts the consequences of investing in 
renewables will have costs over and above those of conventional 
fuelled energy. 

Prof Simpson writes: "Achieving a target of 20 per cent of 
electricity generated by wind power would cost consumers at least 
an extra 拢1.2 billion each year, and over 拢2 billion annually 
on less favourable assumptions." 

He adds that because of the cost of providing additional stand-by 
generating capacity - when the wind doesn鈥檛 blow - it is 
unlikely wind power will ever account for more than 20 per cent 
of electricity generation. 

However, Scottish Renewables, a trade association representing 
the renewable energy industry, last night dismissed the report as 
"a one-sided diatribe masquerading as an authoritative academic 
study". 

Jason Ormiston, a spokesman for the organistion, said: "The 
simple truth is that wind energy is clean, economic and has an 
important role, alongside other renewables and energy efficiency, 
in helping the UK in meeting climate change targets."
 
For and against: Prof Simpson's arguments, and the answers from 
Scottish Renewables
 
HERE are Professor David Simpson鈥檚 arguments with responses 
from the industry representative body, Scottish Renewables. He 
claims that: 

The cost of generating electricity from wind power is twice that 
of the cheapest conventional alternative source. By 2010 the cost 
of subsidising renewable forms of energy will be about 拢1 
billion a year. 

Response: This figure is correct, but the price support for 
renewables is paid for through the markets by suppliers and 
reflects the premium paid for green energy. Prof Simpson fails to 
quantify the high cost to society/environment of pollution from 
conventional generation. 

The government promotes wind energy through the Renewable 
Obligations scheme, the cost of which is some 2 per cent and 
falls on electricity companies who pass it on to consumers in 
higher bills. 

Response: The RO is designed to support electricity generation 
that has little or no environmental cost, whereas conventional 
generation is cheaper because it does not pay for other social 
and environmental costs. 

It is generally accepted that wind power will become competitive, 
but projections show that by 2020 a generation portfolio 
containing 20 per cent wind power will still cost more than a 
conventionally fuelled alternative. 

Response: The cost of wind power is falling and will continue to 
fall. 

Achieving a target of 20 per cent of electricity generated by 
wind power would cost consumers at least an extra 拢1.2 billion 
each year, and more than 拢2 billion on less favourable 
assumptions. 

Response: A recent EU study found that wind power had the least 
additional cost to society. 

It is most unlikely that realising the official targets for the 
output of renewables, of which wind power is the principle 
component, is the lowest cost way of achieving reductions in CO2 
emissions. 

Response: Renewable energy is one of several ways of tackling CO2 
emissions. The government has set CO2 reduction targets for 2020, 
and expects 50 per cent of the cut to come from energy 
efficiency. Renewables will be 20 per cent of this cut. 

Between now and 2010 overall CO2 emissions are expected to resume 
an upward path reflecting increasing emissions from the transport 
and household sectors and from power generation because of run 
down of nuclear power. 

Response: This sounds like an argument for more renewable energy. 
Denmark has increased GNP by 28 per cent since 1990 whilst CO2 
emissions have fallen by 11 per cent in the same period. 

A serious attempt to address the issue of a reduction in CO2 
emissions has yet to begin. When it does, it may raise wholesale 
electricity prices by up to 60 per cent in five years. 

Response: Unsubstantiated claim. Renewables will lead to a modest 
increase in prices of 2 per cent. If price shocks do occur they 
will come from price hikes in conventional generation. 

Because of the cost of providing additional stand-by generating 
capacity, it is unlikely wind power will ever account for more 
than 20 per cent of electricity generation through the National 
Grid, and will make no substantial contribution to a reduction in 
carbon emissions. 

Response: Combined with other renewables like hydro and biomass a 
significant cut in emissions can be expected. 

No matter how large the wind power capacity, the variable nature 
of its output means it can make no significant contribution to 
security of energy supply. 

Response: The key to security of supply is to have a mixture of 
different renewables working alongside conventional generation. 
All forms of generation have strengths and weaknesses. 

A 20 per cent share for wind and other renewables in power 
generation will require a major re-engineering of the electricity 
transmission and distribution networks, costing an extra 拢2.5 to 
拢4.5 billion. 

Response: Much of Scotland鈥檚 electricity grid was planned and 
built over 50 years ago. There has been chronic under investment 
so, yes, investment is needed, but why have a 21st century 
electricity system using old worn-out grid lines? 

The government should take advantage of the renewables review 
coming up in 2005-6 to reconsider the nuclear option. 

Response: Nuclear fuel is not a renewable source of power so 
should not form part of the review. 

Nuclear power avoids extra costs, emits no greenhouse gasses, and 
contributes to security of supply. 

Response: Nuclear power has many problems of its own. After 50 
years the public do not support nuclear energy. 

Wind power may have a valuable role in locations where grid 
connections are too expensive, notably in remote and 
sparsely-populated areas. 

Response: Small wind energy schemes can help isolated communities 
toward energy self-sufficiency whilst on a larger scale help cut 
emissions significantly, meet future demand and create thousands 
of jobs.                 

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