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                         NUCLEAR POLICY
 
1 Insight Mag: Investigative Report Saddam's WMD Have Been Found
2 WorldNetDaily: Israel to destroy Iran nuke plant?
3 US: [southnews] US pushes 'mini' nuke research
4 US: [DU-WATCH] Our hidden WMD program: Bush & Nuclear Weapons
5 US: Reuters: U.S. Said Pressing for Nuclear Pact Compliance         
6 US: Boston.com: Cheney aide now lobbyist on energy
7 [NYTr] Israel Has The Sixth-Largest Nuclear Arsenal
8 [DU-WATCH] Vanunu: The Fallout
9 BELLACIAO: EUROPEAN PETITION 1 MILLION EUROPEANS DEMAND THE EXIT OF 
10 IAEA: PrepCom Meeting for 2005 NPT Review Conference
11 AFP: Russia on verge of placing new-age mobile ICBMs into use
12 AFP: Pakistan "concerned" at draft UN resolution on WMD
 
                         NUCLEAR REACTORS
 
13 [NukeNet] Ukraine Health Ministry: 94.5% Of Liquidators Are
14 Chernobyl:_Remembering_The_World's_Worst_Nuclear
15 Annan Urges Continued International Support For Victims Of Chernobyl
16 Chernobyl's 18th Anniversary Today: CHERNOBYL MEDIA DISTORTIONS BY 
17 [NukeNet] Chernobyl's 18th Anniversary Today: CHERNOBYL MEDIA
18 US: NRC: NRC Amends Licensing, Inspection and Annual Fees Rule
19 National Geographic: Chernobyl Disaster's Health Impact Remains Clou
20 CNS: 18 years later, Chernobyl residents live on
21 US: NRC: Agency Information Collection Activities: Submission for th
22 BBC: Chernobyl victims remembered 
23 BNN: Bulgaria Puts Project of Second Nuclear Plant to Public Discuss
24 Globe and Mail: Science adviser against privatizing nuclear agency  
25 Mos News: Chernobyl — Eighteen Years Later - 
26 IAEA: The Code of Conduct on the Safety of Research Reactors
27 IAEA: Chernobyl: Clarifying Consequences
28 Globe and Mail: The power next door   
29 ITAR-TASS: Chernobyl-affected people worried about dwindling benefit
30 ITAR-TASS: Chernobyl tragedy for Belarus, Ukraine, Russia
31 US: NRC: NRC to Discuss Annual Performance Assessment of Susquehanna
32 Radio Netherlands: Lithuania's nuclear sacrifice
33 AU ABC: Ranger targeted as Greens remember Chernobyl. 
34 AFP: UN urges continued international help to Chernobyl victims
35 AFP: Ecologists not a force in Ukraine 18 years after Chernobyl
36 AFP: Flowers and sorrow as Ukraine marks Chernobyl disaster annivers
 
                          NUCLEAR SAFETY
 
37 US: [FOODIRRADIATIONCA] update on CA Safe School Lunch Act;
38 ITAR-TASS: Russia commemorates victims killed in radiation-related a
 
                         NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
 
39 NRC: NRC to Discuss Quality of Yucca Mountain Information with DOE M
40 US: Salt Lake Tribune: Envirocare propaganda 
41 US: Deseret news: Trio aiming to oust leader of Goshutes
42 UK Independent: Families blame toxic dumps for deformities
43 US: Charleston.Net: Opinion: Commentary Nuclear waste deal bad 
44 KRNV: DOE gives extra week to comment on Yucca Mountain rail plan
45 asahi.com: Experts: Reprocess less nuclear fuel 
 
                         NUCLEAR WEAPONS
 
46 [southnews] Anti-nuclear activists call on US to disarm
47 [NYTr] Australia Urged to Pursue Nuke Non-Proliferation
48 US: News Max: McNamara: Nuclear War Still Possible; NY No. 1 Target
 
                        US DEPT. OF ENERGY
 
49 DOE: Comment Period Extension and Additional Public Scoping Meetings
50 Oakland Tribune: Lab plans to expand disputed research
51 U.S. Newswire: DOE Officials to Testify Before Congressional Committ
52 Oak Ridger: ORNL reactor starting up 							 							 							
53 Oak Ridger: Cleaning up nuke junk 							 							 							
 
                          OTHER NUCLEAR
 
54 [DU-WATCH] VIEQUES CONFERENCE - D.C., May 15-18
55 Google News Alert - nuclear
56 China Daily: Control needed for radiation sources 
57 Newsday.com: NEUTRON RESEARCH: Reactors in demand
*****************************************************************
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                         FULL NEWS STORIES
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 1 Insight Mag: Investigative Report Saddam's WMD Have Been Found
  
[http://www.insightmag.com

Post April 26, 2004 By Kenneth R. Timmerman 

New evidence out of Iraq suggests that the U.S. effort to track 
down Saddam Hussein's missing weapons of mass destruction (WMD) 
is having better success than is being reported. Key assertions 
by the intelligence community that were widely judged in the 
media and by critics of President George W. Bush as having been 
false are turning out to have been true after all. But this 
stunning news has received little attention from the major media, 
and the president's critics continue to insist that "no weapons" 
have been found.
 
In virtually every case - chemical, biological, nuclear and 
ballistic missiles - the United States has found the weapons and 
the programs that the Iraqi dictator successfully concealed for 
12 years from U.N. weapons inspectors. 

The Iraq Survey Group (ISG), whose intelligence analysts are 
managed by Charles Duelfer, a former State Department official 
and deputy chief of the U.N.-led arms-inspection teams, has found 
"hundreds of cases of activities that were prohibited" under U.N. 
Security Council resolutions, a senior administration official 
tells Insight. "There is a long list of charges made by the U.S. 
that have been confirmed, but none of this seems to mean anything 
because the weapons that were unaccounted for by the United 
Nations remain unaccounted for."
 
Both Duelfer and his predecessor, David Kay, reported to Congress 
that the evidence they had found on the ground in Iraq showed 
Saddam's regime was in "material violation" of U.N. Security 
Council Resolution 1441, the last of 17 resolutions that promised 
"serious consequences" if Iraq did not make a complete disclosure 
of its weapons programs and dismantle them in a verifiable 
manner. The United States cited Iraq's refusal to comply with 
these demands as one justification for going to war.
 
Both Duelfer and Kay found that Iraq had "a clandestine network 
of laboratories and safe houses with equipment that was suitable 
to continuing its prohibited chemical- and biological-weapons 
[BW] programs," the official said. "They found a prison 
laboratory where we suspect they tested biological weapons on 
human subjects." They found equipment for "uranium-enrichment 
centrifuges" whose only plausible use was as part of a 
clandestine nuclear-weapons program. In all these cases, "Iraqi 
scientists had been told before the war not to declare their 
activities to the U.N. inspectors," the official said.
 
But while the president's critics and the media might plausibly 
hide behind ambiguity and a lack of sensational-
 
looking finds for not reporting some discoveries, in the case of 
Saddam's ballistic-missile programs they have no excuse for their 
silence. "Where were the missiles? We found them," another senior 
administration official told Insight.
 
"Saddam Hussein's prohibited missile programs are as close to a 
slam dunk as you will ever find for violating United Nations 
resolutions," the first official said. Both senior administration 
officials spoke to Insight on condition that neither their name 
nor their agency be identified, but their accounts of what the 
United States has found in Iraq coincided in every major area.
 
When former weapons inspector Kay reported to Congress in January 
that the United States had found "no stockpiles" of forbidden 
weapons in Iraq, his conclusions made front-page news. But when 
he detailed what the ISG had found in testimony before the House 
Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence last October, few took 
notice. Among Kay's revelations, which officials tell Insight 
have been amplified in subsequent inspections in recent weeks:
 

+ A prison laboratory complex that may have been used for human 
testing of BW agents and "that Iraqi officials working to prepare 
the U.N. inspections were explicitly ordered not to declare to 
the U.N." Why was Saddam interested in testing biological-warfare 
agents on humans if he didn't have a biological-weapons program?
 

+ "Reference strains" of a wide variety of biological-weapons 
agents were found beneath the sink in the home of a prominent 
Iraqi BW scientist. "We thought it was a big deal," a senior 
administration official said. "But it has been written off [by 
the press] as a sort of 'starter set.'"
 

+ New research on BW-applicable agents, brucella and 
Congo-Crimean hemorrhagic fever, and continuing work on ricin and 
aflatoxin that were not declared to the United Nations.
 

+ A line of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones, "not 
fully declared at an undeclared production facility and an 
admission that they had tested one of their declared UAVs out to 
a range of 500 kilometers [311 miles], 350 kilometers [217 miles] 
beyond the permissible limit."
 

+ "Continuing covert capability to manufacture fuel propellant 
useful only for prohibited Scud-variant missiles, a capability 
that was maintained at least until the end of 2001 and that 
cooperating Iraqi scientists have said they were told to conceal 
from the U.N."
 

+ "Plans and advanced design work for new long-range missiles 
with ranges up to at least 1,000 kilometers [621 miles] - well 
beyond the 150-kilometer-range limit [93 miles] imposed by the 
U.N. Missiles of a 1,000-kilometer range would have allowed Iraq 
to threaten targets throughout the Middle East, including Ankara 
[Turkey], Cairo [Egypt] and Abu Dhabi [United Arab Emirates]." 


+ In addition, through interviews with Iraqi scientists, seized 
documents and other evidence, the ISG learned the Iraqi 
government had made "clandestine attempts between late 1999 and 
2002 to obtain from North Korea technology related to 
1,300-kilometer-range [807 miles] ballistic missiles - probably 
the No Dong - 300-kilometer-range [186 miles] antiship cruise 
missiles and other prohibited military equipment," Kay reported.
 
In testimony before Congress on March 30, Duelfer, revealed that 
the ISG had found evidence of a "crash program" to construct new 
plants capable of making chemical- and biological-warfare agents. 
The ISG also found a previously undeclared program to build a 
"high-speed rail gun," a device apparently designed for testing 
nuclear-weapons materials. That came in addition to 500 tons of 
natural uranium stockpiled at Iraq's main declared nuclear site 
south of Baghdad, which International Atomic Energy Agency 
spokesman Mark Gwozdecky acknowledged to Insight had been 
intended for "a clandestine nuclear-weapons program."
 
In taking apart Iraq's clandestine procurement network, Duelfer 
said his investigators had discovered that "the primary source of 
illicit financing for this system was oil smuggling conducted 
through government-to-government protocols negotiated with 
neighboring countries [and] from kickback payments made on 
contracts set up through the U.N. oil-for-food program" [see 
"Documents Prove U.N. Oil Corruption," April 27-May 10].
 
What the president's critics and the media widely have portrayed 
as the most dramatic failure of the U.S. case against Saddam has 
been the claimed failure to find "stockpiles" of chemical and 
biological weapons. But in a June 2003 Washington Post op-ed, 
former chief U.N. weapons inspector Rolf Ekeus called such 
criticism "a distortion and a trivialization of a major threat to 
international peace and security."
 


  [Lt. Gen. Amer Rashid al-Obeidi (left) and Lt. Gen. Amer 
Hamoodi al-Saddi (right) speak to an unidentified French 
intelligence officer at the Baghdad International Arms Fair in 
April 1989, and another French officer listens in (behind 
al-Saadi, facing camera)] Lt. Gen. Amer Rashid al-Obeidi (left) 
and Lt. Gen. Amer Hamoodi al-Saddi (right) speak to an 
unidentified French intelligence officer at the Baghdad 
International Arms Fair in April 1989, and another French officer 
listens in (behind al-Saadi, facing camera)  


 The October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraqi Weapons 
of Mass Destruction concluded that Saddam "probably has stocked 
at least 100 metric tons (MT) and possibly as much as 500 MT of 
CW [chemical warfare] agents - much of it added in the last 
year." That assessment was based, in part, on conclusions 
contained in the final report from U.N. weapons inspectors in 
1999, which highlighted discrepancies in what the Iraqis reported 
to the United Nations and the amount of precursor chemicals U.N. 
arms inspectors could document Iraq had imported but for which it 
no longer could account. Until now, Bush's critics say, no 
stockpiles of CW agents made with those precursors have been 
found. The snap conclusion they draw is that the administration 
"lied" to the American people to create a pretext for invading 
Iraq.
 
But what are "stockpiles" of CW agents supposed to look like? Was 
anyone seriously expecting Saddam to have left behind freshly 
painted warehouses packed with chemical munitions, all neatly 
laid out in serried rows, with labels written in English? Or did 
they think that a captured Saddam would guide U.S. troops to 
smoking vats full of nerve gas in an abandoned factory? In fact, 
as recent evidence made public by a former operations officer for 
the Coalition Provisional Authority's (CPA's) intelligence unit 
in Iraq shows, some of those stockpiles have been found - not all 
at once, and not all in nice working order - but found all the 
same.
 
Douglas Hanson was a U.S. Army cavalry reconnaissance officer for 
20 years, and a veteran of Gulf War I. He was an atomic 
demolitions munitions security officer and a nuclear, biological 
and chemical defense officer. As a civilian analyst in Iraq last 
summer, he worked for an operations intelligence unit of the CPA 
in Iraq, and later, with the newly formed Ministry of Science and 
Technology, which was responsible for finding new, nonlethal 
employment for Iraqi WMD scientists.
 
In an interview with Insight and in an article he wrote for the 
online magazine AmericanThinker.com, Hanson examines reports from 
U.S. combat units and public information confirming that many of 
Iraq's CW stockpiles have indeed been found. Until now, however, 
journalists have devoted scant attention to this evidence, in 
part because it contradicts the story line they have been putting 
forward since the U.S.-led inspections began after the war.
 
But another reason for the media silence may stem from the 
seemingly undramatic nature of the "finds" Hanson and others have 
described. The materials that constitute Saddam's 
chemical-weapons "stockpiles" look an awful lot like pesticides, 
which they indeed resemble. "Pesticides are the key elements in 
the chemical-agent arena," Hanson says. "In fact, the general 
pesticide chemical formula (organophosphate) is the 'grandfather' 
of modern-day nerve agents."
 
The United Nations was fully aware that Saddam had established 
his chemical-weapons plants under the guise of a permitted 
civilian chemical-industry infrastructure. Plants inspected in 
the early 1990s as CW production facilities had been set up to 
appear as if they were producing pesticides - or in the case of a 
giant plant near Fallujah, chlorine, which is used to produce 
mustard gas.
 
When coalition forces entered Iraq, "huge warehouses and caches 
of 'commercial and agricultural' chemicals were seized and 
painstakingly tested by Army and Marine chemical specialists," 
Hanson writes. "What was surprising was how quickly the ISG 
refuted the findings of our ground forces and how silent they 
have been on the significance of these caches."
 
Caches of "commercial and agricultural" chemicals don't match the 
expectation of "stockpiles" of chemical weapons. But, in fact, 
that is precisely what they are. "At a very minimum," Hanson 
tells Insight, "they were storing the precursors to restart a 
chemical-warfare program very quickly." Kay and Duelfer came to a 
similar conclusion, telling Congress under oath that Saddam had 
built new facilities and stockpiled the materials to relaunch 
production of chemical and biological weapons at a moment's 
notice.
 
At Karbala, U.S. troops stumbled upon 55-gallon drums of 
pesticides at what appeared to be a very large "agricultural 
supply" area, Hanson says. Some of the drums were stored in a 
"camouflaged bunker complex" that was shown to reporters - with 
unpleasant results. "More than a dozen soldiers, a Knight-Ridder 
reporter, a CNN cameraman, and two Iraqi POWs came down with 
symptoms consistent with exposure to a nerve agent," Hanson says. 
"But later ISG tests resulted in a proclamation of negative, end 
of story, nothing to see here, etc., and the earlier findings and 
injuries dissolved into nonexistence. Left unexplained is the 
small matter of the obvious pains taken to disguise the cache of 
ostensibly legitimate pesticides. One wonders about the advantage 
an agricultural-commodities business gains by securing drums of 
pesticide in camouflaged bunkers 6 feet underground. The 
'agricultural site' was also colocated with a military ammunition 
dump - evidently nothing more than a coincidence in the eyes of 
the ISG."
 
That wasn't the only significant find by coalition troops of 
probable CW stockpiles, Hanson believes. Near the northern Iraqi 
town of Bai'ji, where Saddam had built a chemical-weapons plant 
known to the United States from nearly 12 years of inspections, 
elements of the 4th Infantry Division found 55-gallon drums 
containing a substance identified through mass spectrometry 
analysis as cyclosarin - a nerve agent. Nearby were 
surface-to-surface and surface-to-air missiles, gas masks and a 
mobile laboratory that could have been used to mix chemicals at 
the site. "Of course, later tests by the experts revealed that 
these were only the ubiquitous pesticides that everybody was 
turning up," Hanson says. "It seems Iraqi soldiers were obsessed 
with keeping ammo dumps insect-free, according to the reading of 
the evidence now enshrined by the conventional wisdom that 'no 
WMD stockpiles have been discovered.'"
 
At Taji - an Iraqi weapons complex as large as the District of 
Columbia - U.S. combat units discovered more "pesticides" 
stockpiled in specially built containers, smaller in diameter but 
much longer than the standard 55-gallon drum. Hanson says he 
still recalls the military sending digital images of the 
canisters to his office, where his boss at the Ministry of 
Science and Technology translated the Arabic-language markings. 
"They were labeled as pesticides," he says. "Gee, you sure have 
got a lot of pesticides stored in ammo dumps."
 
Again, this January, Danish forces found 120-millimeter mortar 
shells filled with a mysterious liquid that initially tested 
positive for blister agents. But subsequent tests by the United 
States disputed that finding. "If it wasn't a chemical agent, 
what was it?" Hanson asks. "More pesticides? Dish-washing 
detergent? From this old soldier's perspective, I gain nothing 
from putting a liquid in my mortar rounds unless that stuff will 
do bad things to the enemy."
 
The discoveries Hanson describes are not dramatic. And that's the 
problem: Finding real stockpiles in grubby ammo dumps doesn't fit 
the image the media and the president's critics carefully have 
fed to the public of what Iraq's weapons ought to look like.
 
A senior administration official who has gone through the 
intelligence reporting from Iraq as well as the earlier reports 
from U.N. arms inspectors refers to another well-documented 
allegation. "The Iraqis admitted they had made 3.9 tons of VX," a 
powerful nerve gas, but claimed they had never weaponized it. The 
U.N. inspectors "felt they had more. But where did it go?" The 
Iraqis never provided any explanation of what had happened to 
their VX stockpiles.
 
What does 3.9 tons of VX look like? "It could fit in one large 
garage," the official says. Assuming, of course, that Saddam 
would assemble every bit of VX gas his scientists had produced at 
a single site, that still amounts to one large garage in an area 
the size of the state of California.
 
Senior administration officials stress that the investigation 
will continue as inspectors comb through millions of pages of 
documents in Iraq and attempt to interview Iraqi weapons 
scientists who have been trained all their professional lives to 
conceal their activities from the outside world.
 
"The conditions under which the ISG is working are not very 
conducive," one official said. "But this president wants the 
truth to come out. This is not an exercise in spinning or 
censoring."
 
For more on WMD, read "Iraqi Weapons in Syria"
 
Kenneth R. Timmerman is a senior writer for Insight. 
[ktimmerman@insightmag.com] 

[http://www.townhall.com]   
*****************************************************************
 2 WorldNetDaily: Israel to destroy Iran nuke plant?
 
 APRIL 26 2004           
                            
FROM JOSEPH FARAH'S G2 BULLETIN

 Jerusalem considers pre-emptive strike by summer's end
 
Posted: April 26, 2004

[http://www.g2bulletin.com] is an online, subscription 
intelligence news service from the creator of WorldNetDaily.com – 
a journalist who has been developing sources around the world for 
the last 25 years. 

While Iran announced plans to begin building a heavy-water 
reactor that can produce weapons-grade plutonium, Israel began 
drawing up plans to demolish it – much as it destroyed an Iraqi 
nuclear facility more than a decade ago. 

Sources in Israel say the attack could come before the end of 
summer, according to Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin. 

While Tehran insists the facility is purely for research, the 
decision heightens concern about Iran's ability to produce 
nuclear aims. 

The 40-megawatt reactor could produce enough plutonium for a 
nuclear weapon each year, according to sources. 

While construction is set to begin in June, Iran already had 
previously announced plans to build such a reactor last year to 
the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency. 

The reactor site is at Arak, next to an already built heavy-water 
production plant. It is to replace a reactor using non-weapons 
grade enriched uranium that the Iranians mothballed because they 
said it was outmoded and lacked fuel. 

Because enrichment can be used both to generate power and make 
nuclear warheads, Iran has said it has suspended all enrichment 
activities to prove its peaceful intentions. It also cannot buy 
enriched fuel on legal markets because of international 
suspicions about its intentions. 

Observers wonder out loud why Iran, a nation with vast oil 
reserves, is so intent on producing nuclear power. 

G2 Bulletin [http://www.g2bulletin.com] is an online, weekly 
intelligence newsletter published by WorldNetDaily.com. 

webmaster@worldnetdaily.com
--> news@worldnetdaily.com--> Contact WND
*****************************************************************
 3 [southnews] US pushes 'mini' nuke research
 
Date: Mon, 26 Apr 2004 01:32:14 -0500 (CDT)

 
US Congress last year repealed laws banning the production of 'mini' 
nuclear weapons.

US pushes 'mini' nuke research

ABC News Monday, April 26, 2004. 9:35am (AEST)

The United States believes last year's repeal of a decade-old ban on 
developing low-yield "mini" nuclear arms has had no major impact on its 
efforts to see nuclear non-proliferation, according to an administration 
report to Congress.

''Although (the) repeal will slightly complicate US nonproliferation 
diplomacy...we anticipate no significant impact on US ability to achieve 
our objectives,'' says the unclassified report jointly submitted last 
month by the secretaries of state, defence and energy which was obtained 
by Kyodo News.

With Democrats opposed, the Republican-controlled Congress last
November repealed the 1993 ban, or so-called Furse-Spratt provision
prohibiting research, development and production of nuclear weapons
with a low explosive yield of less than 5 kilotons at the request of
the administration of President George W Bush.

Critics say the new US policy is apparently intended at potential use of 
such weapons in view of risks of nuclear technologies spreading to what 
Washington calls rogue states or terrorists.

The say the report rationalising the policy may accelerate research and 
development of new nuclear weapons in a move that could lead to a 
nuclear arms race with other countries.

The report, obtained by the Washington-based lobby Friends
Committee on National Legislation, says the prohibition on low-yield
warhead development ''undercut efforts that could strengthen our
ability to deter, or respond to, new or emerging threats".

The ban has had a "chilling effect" of impeding US scientists and 
engineers from exploring the full range of technical options, it adds.

Its repeal "literally cannot motivate others to remove similar
restraints because no other state has a comparable restraint," and
is unlikely to increase incentives for terrorists to acquire nuclear
weapons because "incentives are already high," it says.

Washington's nuclear disarmament effort, such as mutual cuts in
arsenals with Russia and a nuclear test moratorium, has not caused
North Korea or Iran to slow down their covert programs, it said.

The credibility of the US nuclear umbrella extended to allies,
meanwhile, is "extremely significant to the restraint of
proliferation" as it assures allies that they can count on the US
and do not need to seek their own, it says.

The lobby group regards the report as "a dishonest analysis" and the 
idea could give a boost to nuclear hawks not only in Russia but in North 
Korea and Japan, members said.

The US policy has also drawn criticism from Russia.

During his visit earlier this month to Washington, Russian Defence 
Minister Sergei Ivanov expressed concerns that the idea of using small 
or miniature nuclear arms against terrorists could considerably lower 
the threshold of using nuclear weapons.

As for the nuclear use threshold, the report says, "The nuclear
threshold for the United States has been, is, and will be very
high," arguing that no president would be inclined to employ any
nuclear weapon irrespective of its power "in anything but the
gravest of circumstances".

Defending its policy in relation to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty 
(NPT), the administration said in the report, "Nothing in the NPT...or 
any other treaty, however, prohibits the United States from carrying out 
nuclear weapons exploration research, or, for that matter, from 
developing and fielding new or modified nuclear warheads".

-- Kyodo
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s1094699.htm
__------------------------------------------------

AUSTRALIA URGED TO PURSUE NUKE DISARMAMENT AS NONPROLIFERATION MEETING 
OPENS IN UN

As the meeting of the preparatory committee for the 2005 review 
conference of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty opens in New York 
(Monday 26th NY time), nuclear disarmament organisations there are set 
to lobby  UN missions to emphasise nuclear disarmament by the nuclear 
weapons states as well as nuclear nonproliferation,  and in Australia 30 
organisations and parliamentarians wrote last week to foreign minister 
Downer calling for the same thing.

According to Australian nuclear disarmament groups:
" IAEA head Mohammad El Baradei has rightly pointed out that it is 
completely hypocritical for the nuclear weapons states - particularly 
the Bush administration - to on the one hand call for non-nuclear 
countries to abide by the nonproliferation aspects of the NPT, while on 
the other hand, refusing to abide by their clear obligations under that 
treaty to eliminate their own nuclear arsenals. Its clear to anyone that 
while the nuclear 'big boys' continue to build and improve their nuclear 
arsenals, countries like North Korea and Iran are going to want to have 
nukes of their own and sooner or later they are going to get them.  It's 
also clear that if a lot more countries obtain nuclear weapons, the 
probability that they will be used by accident, miscalculation, madness 
or malice increases to the point where it becomes all but certain."

"The worst-case risks in the current situation range from the loss of 
say, the Sydney CBD or Manhattan from a single terrorist warhead, with a 
death toll of say, 100-500,000, to a possible DPRK attack on a west 
coast US city, with a body count of 1-2 million, to an India Pakistan 
war with a death toll of 1.5million up to as much as 150 million."

"Meanwhile, the US and Russia continue to maintain and upgrade arsenals 
that still have the capacity to end not only civilisation but most life, 
and the US  takes steps toward the development of so-called 'mini-nukes. "

"If we are to move forward to a world free of nuclear weapons,  the 
nuclear weapons states must abide by their nuclear disarmament 
obligations under the NPT as well as pressing others to refrain from 
building nuclear weapons."

John Hallam FOE-A 9567-7533, 9319-4296, h9810-2598
Irene Gale APC 08-8364-2291
Pauline Mitchell CICD, 03-9663-3677
Cameron Schraner, PND  0415-202-060

The archives of South News can be found at
http://southmovement.alphalink.com.au/southnews/ 

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 4 [DU-WATCH] Our hidden WMD program: Bush & Nuclear Weapons
 
Date: Mon, 26 Apr 2004 01:43:04 -0500 (CDT)

 
Obviously he wants to push an arms race, forward the
cause of nuke proliferation, push the world over the
brink because he's a death cultist, nihilist,
annihilist, wanting to kill us all and
everything--let's stop dis admin now!:

Our Hidden WMD Program
Why Bush is spending so much on nuclear weapons.
By Fred Kaplan
Posted Friday, April 23, 2004, at 3:41 PM PT

The budget is busted; American soldiers need more
armor; they're running out of supplies. Yet the
Department of Energy is spending an astonishing $6.5
billion on nuclear weapons this year, and President
Bush is requesting $6.8 billion more for next year and
a total of $30 billion over the following four years.
This does not include his much-cherished
missile-defense program, by the way. This is simply
for the maintenance, modernization, development, and
production of nuclear bombs and warheads.

Measured in "real dollars" (that is, adjusting for
inflation), this year's spending on nuclear activities
is equal to what Ronald Reagan spent at the height of
the U.S.-Soviet standoff. It exceeds by over 50
percent the average annual sum ($4.2 billion) that the
United States spentagain, in real dollarsthroughout
the four and a half decades of the Cold War.

There is no nuclear arms race going on now. The world
no longer offers many suitable nuclear targets.
President Bush is trying to persuade other
nationsespecially "rogue regimes"to forgo their
nuclear ambitions. Yet he is shoveling money to U.S.
nuclear weapons laboratories as if the Soviet Union
still existed and the Cold War still raged.

Continue article @: http://slate.msn.com/id/2099425

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 5 Reuters: U.S. Said Pressing for Nuclear Pact Compliance                                  Mon

Apr 26, 2004 08:26 PM ET                                                                

By Carol Giacomo, Diplomatic Correspondent 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The international community must be 
prepared to act against states that violate a key U.N. nuclear 
weapons treaty if it is to stop nuclear arms proliferation, U.S. 
officials said on Monday. 

A high-level U.S. delegation intends to deliver a tough message 
on compliance obligations, aimed at Iran and other problem 
countries it accuses of pursuing nuclear weapons, at a U.N. 
conference this week to discuss the non-proliferation treaty. 

Members states are also expected to discuss President Bush's 
controversial non-proliferation initiative. 

The meeting at U.N. headquarters in New York is to prepare for a 
major review conference next year to examine progress under the 
Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty, a 34-year-old cornerstone pact 
that aims to halt the spread of nuclear arms. 

Undersecretary of State John Bolton, the senior U.S. delegate, is 
due to address the conference on Tuesday. His team also includes 
three assistant secretaries of state, a delegation officials said 
was unusually high-powered for this kind of mid-term review 
conference. 

The NPT, signed by 189 nations, is under severe strain, 
particularly following recent revelations by Abdul Qadeer Khan, 
father of Pakistan's nuclear program, of a vast nuclear black 
market. 

Iran and North Korea, which pledged not to develop nuclear 
weapons when they signed the pact, have used the treaty as a 
cover to pursue nuclear capabilities, according to U.S. and other 
officials, and Pyongyang has withdrawn from its treaty 
obligations. 

PUSHING HARD ON COMPLIANCE 

Under pressure from the U.N. watchdog -- the International Atomic 
Energy Agency -- Iran has permitted more intensive IAEA 
inspections of its nuclear facilities. 

But U.S. officials insist Tehran is still deceiving the world and 
is determined to produce nuclear weapons. Iran denies this and 
says its nuclear program is only for peaceful uses. 

Washington's repeated attempts to persuade the IAEA board of 
governors to find Iran in noncompliance of its NPT obligations, 
and send the issue to the U.N. Security Council for possible 
sanctions, so far has failed.                              

The IAEA in March deplored Iran's failure to disclose information 
on sensitive technology like the advanced P2 centrifuges capable 
of making bomb-grade uranium but stopped short of reporting 
Tehran to the Security Council. 

The board meets again in June and some European officials have 
said the session could be decisive. 

A U.S. official said "the United States will be pushing hard at 
the NPT preparatory conference on compliance." 

"One of our points is that verification (of nuclear activities) 
doesn't do much good if you're not then prepared to follow it up 
with actions necessary to respond to noncompliance," he said. 

One response would be to formally refer a noncompliance case to 
the U.N. Security Council, as called for by the NPT. Beyond that, 
"you want to be able to deny people benefits from their 
noncompliance," the official added. 

Under the NPT only five states are allowed to have nuclear 
weapons -- the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China 
-- although India, Pakistan and Israel are understood to also 
have this capability. 

All other states promised not to develop nuclear weapons. 

Last September, Bush urged the Security Council to criminalize 
the transfer of weapons of mass destruction. The proposal 
generated opposition from Pakistan and other countries but U.S. 
officials hope to allay some concerns during the New York 
sessions.                               

*****************************************************************
 6 Boston.com: Cheney aide now lobbyist on energy

Boston Globe WASHINGTON --

The executive director of Vice President Dick Cheney's energy
task force, whose closed-door meetings with industry executives
enraged environmentalists and prompted a Supreme Court showdown
this week, became an energy lobbyist just months after leaving
the White House, records show. Susan Milligan and Maud S.
Beelman April 25, 2004 --> <img
 
By Susan Milligan and Maud S. Beelman, Globe Staff and Globe

WASHINGTON -- The executive director of Vice President Dick 
Cheney's energy task force, whose closed-door meetings with 
industry executives enraged environmentalists and prompted a 
Supreme Court showdown this week, became an energy lobbyist just 
months after leaving the White House, records show. 

Andrew Lundquist, a native Alaskan who worked on Capitol Hill for 
both his state's senators, shepherded the development of the 
administration's energy policy as executive director of the 
National Energy Policy Development Group, a Cabinet-level task 
force chosen by President Bush and headed by Cheney. 

When the task force completed its work, Lundquist stayed on at 
the White House as Cheney's energy policy director, leading the 
vice president's effort to turn the task force's work into law. 

Then, a day after leaving government service, he opened a 
consulting business. Nine months later, Lundquist was a 
registered lobbyist for companies that stood to benefit from the 
energy policy he helped craft, according to 2003 lobby disclosure 
records reviewed by the Globe. 

Lundquist's corporate clients -- who paid him more than $300,000 
in 2003 -- included: 

Japan's Toshiba Corp., which is seeking to build a small, 
new-generation nuclear reactor in Alaska and would benefit from 
the administration's proposed extension of laws reducing 
corporate liability for injuries or death caused by nuclear 
accidents. 

British Petroleum, which stands to benefit from a $16.3 billion 
Alaskan natural gas pipeline that was promised government loan 
guarantees worth $2 billion in the pending energy legislation. 

Kennecott Energy Co., a coal-mining concern in Wyoming that would 
benefit from a plan to loosen proposed mercury pollution rules 
for coal-fired power plants. 

Duke Energy Corp., which helped secure a provision inserted in 
the energy legislation repealing a Depression-era law banning 
public utilities from making speculative investments, a law 
intended to protect rate payers from costly bankruptcies. 

Lobby records show Lundquist served as the energy task force 
executive director from Feb. 1, 2001, to Sept. 30, 2001, then 
stayed on as Cheney's director of energy policy from Oct. 1, 
2001, to March 26, 2002 -- during which time he worked with 
Congress as it drafted the landmark energy legislation, the 
nation's first comprehensive energy policy in more than a decade. 

The resulting bill stalled in Congress in late 2003 after a 
Democrat-led filibuster, but proponents have resubmitted it for 
further consideration this year. 

Lundquist's behind-the-scenes role as policy coordinator, vice 
presidential aide, and ultimately as a lobbyist for energy 
companies highlights some of the concerns that have led consumer 
groups to seek the opening of the task force's records. 

Environmental groups contend the task force met with companies 
seeking benefits under the bill but did not grant equal access to 
people challenging those positions. 

Cheney has refused to release the records. When a federal judge 
agreed to allow some records to be reviewed in the discovery 
process, Cheney did not comply, pushing the case all the way to 
the US Supreme Court, which will hear it on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, another environmental group, the Natural Resources 
Defense Council, drew on the fact that Lundquist was paid by the 
Department of Energy to seek his task force records under the 
Freedom of Information Act, which covers the department. When a 
court ordered the records released, the administration again 
refused, putting Lundquist in the middle of the administration's 
battle over the secrecy of its energy dealings.

As both cases move through the court system, Lundquist's lobbying 
reports, reviewed by the Globe, provide one of the few windows 
into the process surrounding the making of energy policies that 
could affect the nation for decades to come.

Government ethics law prohibits a former senior government 
employee from lobbying his former department or agency for one 
year.

''The purpose of this one-year 'cooling-off' period is to allow 
for a period of adjustment to new roles for the former senior 
employee and the agency he served, and to diminish any appearance 
that government decisions might be affected by the improper use 
by an individual of his former senior position," explained a 
February 2000 memorandum by the Office of Government Ethics.

Lundquist's position qualified him as a ''senior" government 
employee, according to documents reviewed by the Globe, but the 
lobby reports do not make clear whether he contacted his most 
recent former offices -- the White House and the Energy 
Department -- within the one-year prohibition.

Lundquist registered as a lobbyist as of Jan. 1, 2003, nine 
months after leaving the White House. In the filings, he named 
both the Executive Office of the President and the Energy 
Department as targets of his lobbying, along with the Senate, 
House, and Environmental Protection Agency.

The disclosure forms cover lobbying activity over six-month 
periods. So it is not clear when exactly Lundquist lobbied the 
Executive Office of the President and the Energy Department 
between Jan. 1 and June 30, 2003. He would have violated the law 
only if he approached them during the first three months of that 
period.

Lundquist, 43, declined requests for an interview, and said in a 
statement, ''I wouldn't have considered lobbying the vice 
president or the Department of Energy within a year. It just 
didn't happen."

Cheney spokesman Kevin Kellems said he could not say when 
Lundquist lobbied the Executive Office of the President, adding, 
''the EOP is a huge place."

By the time Lundquist left the White House, the negotiations over 
the 1,200-page energy bill had switched to another of his former 
work venues: Capitol Hill. As a former staffer to the chairmen of 
both the Appropriations Committee and the Energy and Natural 
Resources Committee, the panels most critical to shapers of 
energy policy, Lundquist was uniquely positioned to lobby 
Congress for specific provisions in the highly complex bill. 

At that time, Republican senators and congressmen were working 
behind the scenes to craft a bill acceptable to GOP majorities in 
both houses, and to the administration. And rather than simply 
melding the House and Senate versions of the bill, as is the 
usual practice, the conference committee was adding provisions 
that had appeared in neither version of the bill, making access 
to the process even more crucial than usual.

Lundquist offered a bonanza to potential clients: he had been 
involved in crafting the overall policy in the White House, he 
knew how to write legislation, and he had longstanding contacts 
with the people who would be creating and voting on the final 
package.

But Lundquist's quickly shifting roles, combined with the secrecy 
of a process that environmental and public interest groups could 
not penetrate, leaves many government ethics specialists 
concerned.

''Certainly, it's not in the spirit of the law, and it certainly 
looks like a serious conflict of interest and a classic case of 
revolving door," James A. Thurber, director of American 
University's Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies, 
said of Lundquist's role. ''It has the perception that he's 
taking advantage of his public service for personal benefit and 
for the benefit of his clients. And, of course, that's what this 
law is about. It's about keeping people from taking advantage, 
immediately taking advantage of their public service, for private 
gain. That's what I mean by the spirit of the law."

The Lundquist Group is based in a posh office building perched 
kitty-corner from the Capitol. Other lobbyists are in the 
building, including Joe Allbaugh, a close friend of the 
president, with whom Lundquist shares an office suite.

''Since many of these tenants make regular trips to lobby their 
powerful neighbors across the street, we're proud to think of the 
15 custom elevators that we fabricated for the building as the 
first stage in the journey towards the creation of new laws," the 
Gunderlin company, manufacturer of the building's elevator cabs, 
states on its website.

As of Jan. 1, 2003, according to the records, Lundquist was 
representing five energy-related companies. In addition to 
Toshiba and Duke Energy of Charlotte, N.C., they were Ion America 
Corp., a fuel cell technology company, and Real Energy Inc., a 
combined heat and power company, both based in California; and 
TXU Corp., an energy company headquartered in Dallas. Lundquist 
stopped representing Duke and Real Energy later in 2003, the 
records show.

Later that year, he picked up Kennecott, BP, and the state of 
Alaska.

Lundquist and his colleagues -- Kjersten Drager, who also worked 
on the White House energy task force, and Howard Useem, who 
worked with him on Capitol Hill -- lobbied primarily on the 
comprehensive energy bill. Drager and Useem declined to comment. 

In all, The Lundquist Group reported receiving about $330,000 in 
lobbying income in 2003. The figures are rounded to the nearest 
$20,000 or listed as ''less than $10,000," so precise amounts are 
not available.

Lundquist was one of an army of lobbyists and could not claim 
sole credit for items that made their way into energy legislation 
or federal regulations, but his clients fared well, according to 
a Globe review of their legislative agendas.

The state of Alaska won a legislative battle to run a natural-gas 
pipeline from Prudhoe Bay in the north down to the Alaskan-Yukon 
border, and secured a commitment of federal loan guarantees worth 
$2 billion. The energy bill specifically prohibits running the 
pipeline west-east through Canada, a shorter route that investors 
say would also be cheaper.

For Duke Energy and Real Energy, Lundquist's reports state that 
he was lobbying on the Public Utilities Holding Company Act of 
1935, a statute that restricts the kind of investments utilities 
can make. Power companies have been fighting for years to get the 
law repealed, and the energy package does just that.

But some consumer advocates insist the law is needed to avoid 
huge energy monopolies and to keep the flow of energy secure.

''The only thing between us and an oil, electric, and natural gas 
cartel is PUHCA," said Lynn Hargis, a former energy industry 
lawyer who now works for Public Citizen, a consumer group.

The industry contends the law, which also includes a host of 
other regulations and controls, actually damages the reliability 
of the energy supply by limiting investment.

''It's long been viewed as a fairly antiquated and unnecessary 
statute that has outlived its usefulness," said Peter Sheffield, 
a spokesman for Duke Energy.

Lundquist represented both TXU Corp. and Kennecott Energy on 
mercury emissions issues, according to the lobbying records. Both 
the administration's ''Clear Skies Initiative," which is 
languishing on Capitol Hill, and pending EPA regulations would 
weaken a negotiated agreement on the emission of mercury, a 
pollutant found to cause fetal damage and other health problems, 
and delay the compliance deadline for rules controlling mercury 
pollution.

Coal and power companies want the rules eased because of the cost 
of cleaning up sites that are saturated with mercury. In the 
highly competitive electricity market, an easing of the cleanup 
rules would boost the entire coal industry.

''As a coal company, the power plants are our business; that is 
99.5 percent of our business. It was strategically very important 
to us," said Patricia Britton, a Kennecott vice president, in 
explaining the company's interest in power plant emission rules.

Ion America did not respond to Globe inquiries, but Lundquist's 
lobbying report lists renewable energy funding and fuel 
cell/hydrogen funding among topics on which he lobbied. The 
pending Senate energy bill would provide $2.1 billion to develop 
hydrogen fuel-powered cars.

Toshiba paid Lundquist $80,000 in 2003 to lobby on nuclear 
issues, as well as to ''promote advanced nuclear reactor approval 
& construction," his filings show.

Toshiba, a leader in Japan's nuclear power industry, hopes to 
build a small, new-technology reactor in Galena, Alaska, said 
Doug Rosinski, a Washington, D.C., attorney representing the 
Alaska town of 700.

While the reactor is not mentioned in the energy legislation, 
Toshiba would benefit from provisions in the bill to extend 
liability protection to new plants.

Further, Lundquist's extensive Alaska connections would be 
helpful to Toshiba in its efforts to gain support for its 
reactor, said staffers on Capitol Hill. Efforts to reach Toshiba 
in Tokyo and New York were unsuccessful.

Lundquist also lobbied for British Petroleum on the Alaska 
natural gas pipeline. BP, which is involved in oil production in 
Alaska, has natural gas sitting on top of its oil reserves that 
could be sold if it could be transported, said Anna Aurilio, 
legislative director for the Massachusetts Public Interest 
Research Group, or Masspirg.

Aurilio said she finds the revolving door between policy making 
and lobbying deeply unfair.

''The bottom line is he represented the interests of the White 
House, and now he's representing their interests outside the 
White House," she said.

Stuart Gilman, president of the Ethics Resource Center, a 
nonprofit research group, and a former senior official at the US 
Office of Government Ethics, said the Lundquist case raises 
concern about appearances, regardless of the legality.

''I think you always, as a public official, need to worry about 
the appearance," he said. ''Being insensitive to that ultimately 
leads to a great deal of cynicism on the part of citizens."

Marc Shechtman of the Globe staff contributed to this report. 
c Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.
*****************************************************************
 7 [NYTr] Israel Has The Sixth-Largest Nuclear Arsenal
 
Date: Mon, 26 Apr 2004 11:05:34 -0500 (CDT)

 
Via NY Transfer News Collective  *  All the News that Doesn't Fit

http://wcbs880.com/topstories/topstories_story_115082834.html

Israel Hints At Nuclear Deterrent

    * Experts Conclude Israel Has The Sixth-Largest Nuclear Arsenal In
      The World

Apr 24, 2004 6:25 am US/Eastern

*JERUSALEM, Israel* *(AP)* Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon came 
close to ending four decades of secrecy about the country's nuclear-arms 
capability, saying the United States recognizes that Israel needs a 
credible deterrent to Iran and other hostile countries.

Sharon spoke Friday in an interview with Israel's Channel One TV, just 
two days after whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu ended an 18-year jail term 
for disclosing details of Israel's nuclear secrets.

"They understand that Israel's existence is still in danger," Sharon 
said, referring to the United States.

"Iran represents an existential threat, one of the existential threats 
or maybe the main existential threat," he said. "But the recognition of 
Israel's right -- and of the importance of Israel's ability -- to defend 
itself, by itself, these things are clearly understood."

Since acquiring a nuclear reactor from France in the 1960s, Israel has 
maintained a policy of "ambiguity," refusing to confirm or deny that it 
has nuclear weapons. But based on information Vanunu gave in a 1986 
newspaper interview, experts concluded that Israel has sixth-largest 
arsenal in the world.

Israel's military censors insist that any reference by Israel-based 
journalists to the question of Israel's nuclear capacity be attributed 
to foreign press reports. Sharon used the same formula in his Friday 
interview.

"If you read the foreign press you will see that they talk about a whole 
complex of defensive tools, which Israel needs in its hands," he said.

"Almost an admission," the TV anchor commented at the end of the taped 
interview.

2004 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

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*****************************************************************
 8 [DU-WATCH] Vanunu: The Fallout
 
Date: Mon, 26 Apr 2004 13:45:22 -0500 (CDT)

 
http://www.sundayherald.com/41523 25 April 2004 UK Sunday Herald
Vanunu: The Fallout

Mordechai Vanunu spent 18 years in prison for blowing the whistle
on Israel's secret nuclear programme. His release last week has now
re-ignited the storm over the state's atomic weapons stockpile.
Investigations Editor Neil Mackay reports

THERE was more than one reason for the Israeli government rekindling
its long-standing hatred of Mordechai Vanunu as he walked out of
Shikma prison in the town of Ashkelon on Wednesday at 11.10 in the
morning.

The resurgent hatred isn't just down to the fact that Vanunu is
seen by the Israeli government as the nation's worst ever spy - a
traitor who blew the whistle on the country's secret nuclear weapons
programme in 1986 - a crime for which he served 18 years in jail,
with 11 of those in solitary.

Israel has been dreading the release of Vanunu for quite a different
reason: the government knew and feared that Vanunu's release would
re-ignite the international clamour surrounding Israel's covert
nuclear weapons programme. Israel was right to be worried. Almost
immediately after Vanunu walked to freedom, the eyes of the world
turned to concerns surrounding what is happening within the
high-security walls of the Dimona nuclear research centre in the
Negev desert - the very facility which Vanunu exposed as a nuclear
bomb production plant almost two decades ago.

When Vanunu gave his story to The Sunday Times all those years ago,
Israel's foreign secret service, Mossad, lured him to Rome with a
classic honey trap after a female agent seduced him. He was drugged,
beaten and shipped to Israel, where his trial was held behind closed
doors. Vanunu says that during his detention his captors tried to
drive him mad using techniques like isolation and burning lights
in his cell for 24 hours a day.

Little has changed in nearly two decades. Today, only three nations
in the world are not signatories to the groundbreaking Nuclear
Weapons Non- Proliferation Treaty (NPT): Israel, India and Pakistan.
Israel is still creating nuclear weapons 18 years after Vanunu
exposed its active programme.

It is believed that the nation may have up to 300 warheads, which
would give Israel a greater nuclear arsenal than the United Kingdom.
United Nations resolutions have called on Israel to place its nuclear
facilities under international observers and for the establishment
of a nuclear-free Middle East. The calls have been ignored.

Dr Mohammed El Baradei, head of the International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA) - the UN's nuclear weapons inspection team - and one
of the world's leading diplomats, criticised Israel for its nuclear
weapons programme. A diplomatic source close to El Baradei said:
"El Baradei says that we need to get beyond the current narrow
legislative point of view that we take when it comes to nations
which have not signed up to the NPT.

"We need to treat the acquisition of nuclear weapons like we would
treat slavery. It is just unacceptable. If nuclear proliferation
is banned then it must be banned for all countries, not just those
who signed the treaty.

"El Baradei makes this comparison with slavery because that is how
strongly he feels. He feels that violating a commitment on nuclear
weapons is much different to breaking any other form of treaty. If
someone breaks a treaty on trade it is not going to be a threat to
international peace. But a country that illegally acquires nuclear
weapons poses a threat to world security. The question of nuclear
weapons is of the greatest magnitude, therefore we have to treat
it differently than any other international issue."

As Israel has not signed the NPT, it is impossible for weapons
inspectors to check any of the country's suspected nuclear facilities.
"The international community has little or no accurate knowledge
of what Israel does or doesn't have," a senior Western diplomatic
source at the UN said.

Israeli nukes are the worst kept secret on Earth. On Friday, Ariel
Sharon, the Israeli prime minister, came close to ending decades
of secrecy when he said that the United States recognised that
Israel needed a credible deterrent to Iran and other hostile
countries. "They understand that Israel's existence is still in
danger," he said. Israel has always maintained a policy of "ambiguity"
on the bomb - neither confirming nor denying that it has nuclear
weapons.

The senior Western diplomatic source added: "It's now 34 years since
the NPT was signed. There needs to be political will to push Israel
into compliance and that must come from countries making decisions
collectively through the UN."

Tomorrow dozens of representatives from the 188 countries which
have signed the NPT will meet at the UN's headquarters in New York
and call for Israel to destroy its nuclear arsenal and join the NPT
nations. Of the 188 NPT nations only five are legally deemed
nuclear-weapon states: the US, Russia, France, UK and China. More
countries have ratified the NPT than any other arms agreement in
world history.

Silvana De Silva, of the UN's department of disarmament affairs,
acts as secretary of the NPT committee. She said: "The three
non-signatory states [Israel, India and Pakistan] will be called
on to join the treaty. They will be called on to give up their
weapons and join the other states.

"The issue of the universality of the treaty is central to any
meeting of the NPT states. Israel, Pakistan and India will certainly
be discussed." The Sunday Herald has been told that the NPT meeting
at the UN will be characterised by "lots of Arab anger and pointed
comments" regarding Israel's nuclear weapons. "The Arabs are furious
with Sharon and the heat will go up on Israel to sign up to the NPT
and for a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East," one expert said.

David Albright is probably the world's leading authority on the
Israeli nuclear programme. He is a former UN weapons inspector and
president of the Institute for Science and International Security
in Washington DC. His organisation has worked as a consultancy for
the IAEA. Albright says Israel is still producing large amounts of
weapons-grade plutonium at the Dimona facility, which has been
operating for 40 years. Over its lifetime, he estimates, Dimona
could have produced up to 650kg of plutonium.

Although he believes that Israel could have overtaken the UK as a
nuclear power (the UK has around 200 bombs, and Israel, Albright
says, could have up to 300 bombs), the physicist tends toward a
more conservative estimate of Israel possessing 150 nuclear weapons.

"Weapons from the 60s and 70s have been retired and replaced and
that has kept up the need for plutonium coming off the production
line," said Albright. The maximum range of Israel's best rockets -
the Jericho II - can reach Russia. However, the country could also
be developing cruise missiles, which would make its nuclear capacity
much more deadly. "The Israeli nuclear strategy is far from certain,"
Albright added. "We believe that they view the bomb as a doomsday
weapon which would be employed to save the state of Israel from
destruction. However, there is speculation that the military may
be moving to a 'counter force doctrine' which would see nuclear
weapons being used to hit military targets."

The big concern, says Albright, is the ability of Israel to hold
the US hostage. In the cold war, Israel was able to target Russia
and could therefore threaten the Soviet Union if it helped the
Arabs. That scared the US so much that it was ready to intervene
early on Israel's side should any confrontation have occurred.

With Pakistan now a nuclear power, the same scenario could be played
out today. If Pakistan aided enemies of Israel, it could threaten
the Islamic country and force the US to step in on the side of
Israel to prevent nuclear war. That could also see China, another
nuclear power, dragged into a conflict with terrifying global
implications.

US intelligence services are terrified about the full facts of the
Israeli nuclear programme becoming known by the Islamic world,
believing that if the exact details of Israel's stockpiles were
revealed it could easily force Iran to dramatically increase the
pace and scope of its own nuclear programme.

The current "big question" regarding Israel's programme is whether
or not it has established a uranium-enrichment plant at Dimona.
Albright suspects the Israelis may have developed gas centrifuges
with this end in mind. "On paper the US is committed to getting
Israel to sign the NPT, but this administration doesn't really care
in practice," he said. "They see the nations of the world as either
friends or enemies and they don't want to bother about what is in
the arsenals of their friends."

The administration is, however, debating internally whether or not
to put pressure on Tel Aviv to sign up to an international agreement
entitled the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT), which would
effectively ban all signatories from producing plutonium and uranium
for bombs. Washington believes this may be one way to deal with
Israel, India and Pakistan.

"Israel has told the US it opposes this," said Albright. "The US
is under a lot of pressure to look fair on the international stage
even though [Israel signing the FMCT] may not be something that the
administration actually wants."

Whether the FMCT comes to pass or not is fairly irrelevant as there
is no element of verification in the treaty. So Israel or India
could say they were not producing any fissile material when they
were, in fact, still continuing to run plutonium off the production
line. It could be nothing more than "a paper exercise", Albright
said.

With India and Pakistan rapidly gaining warheads - top estimates
put Pakistan at 90 bombs and India at 110 - Albright says any delay
in pushing through the FMCT is a mistake. "We're not strong critics
of Israel," he said. "We want them to sign the NPT and FMCT but we
aren't pushing them. It is important to keep the pressure on. We
want to keep their arsenal as small as possible and we also want
to tamp down the nuclear ambitions of other states in the area. A
nuclear-free zone in the Middle East is our goal.

"The US has dropped the ball. We need to keep Israel aware that one
day they will have to give these things up, not that they will be
able to grow their arsenal. We certainly don't want to see Israel
as the third largest nuclear arsenal in the world."

Ironically, Albright believes the recent invasion of Iraq could be
a catalyst for the West forcing Israel to comply with the views of
the international community on its nuclear weapons. "Israel said
in the 1990s that nothing could change until Iraq and Iran were
dealt with," said Albright. "Well, now Iraq has been dealt with,
Iran is being dealt with and Israel is feeling very on edge as Arabs
can now say that the threats from Iraq and Iran are non-existent.
It is time to start talking."

In the 18 years since Mordechai Vanunu vanished inside the Israeli
penal system it seems, then, that little, if anything, has changed.
Vanunu told the world that Israel had sophisticated weapons of mass
destruction and the world was shocked and angry - those facts remain
the same today. Nothing said or done on the world's stage then, or
now, has changed Israeli policy;

the nation will not abandon its weapons, it will not allow inspectors
into Dimona and it will not sign up to international treaties seeking
disarmament - certainly not without sustained pressure, supported
by America, within the United Nations.

When Vanunu emerged into freedom last week, he was greeted by
simultaneous cries of "traitor" and "hero" (he was once nominated
for a Nobel prize) . To the Israeli government he is still a traitor;
for the man who spilled their secrets has come back to haunt them
- his release re-igniting fears and alarm over Israel's unmonitored
nuclear arsenal. For a state like Israel, which sees itself besieged
on all sides, the pressure to disarm prompted by Vanunu's release
is the last thing the Sharon government wants to deal with.

To many, though, Vanunu is still a hero, a man one step down, some
have said, from Nelson Mandela - a man who sacrificed his freedom
18 years ago to tell the world about Israel's secrets and who now,
nearly two decades later, has forced the world's nations to think
once again about what lies at the heart of the Dimona facility and
what risks those secrets pose to the safety of the entire planet.

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 9 BELLACIAO: EUROPEAN PETITION 1 MILLION EUROPEANS DEMAND THE EXIT OF NUCLEAR POWER - 

[http://bellaciao.org] 
                                
To rebel is right, to disobey is a duty, to act is necessary
! 

  Monday 26th April 2004 : 
1 comment(s). 			 		 						 	 					 

Sign it NOW : 

Almost 50 organisations and movements from some 20 European
countries are on the Chernobyl Memorial day April 26th launching
a European Campaign for collecting 1 million signatures against
nuclear power. 

For a period of maximum one year, the aim is to collect
signatures and activate more organisations to join the campaign
in order to convince all European countries to take the
following measures without delay : 
['- ' width=]  to stop or prevent the construction of new
nuclear power plants and facilities in the European Union, 
['- ' width=]  to launch a plan to abandon nuclear power within
the European Union, 
['- ' width=]  to invest massively in energy saving and the
development of renewable energies, 
['- ' width=]  to repeal the Euratom Treaty which massively
supports nuclear power in Europe by means of public funding 
Only these measures will make it possible to fight against
nuclear danger and global warming at the same time. 

Some of the organisations initiating the European ³1 million
signature campaign² are taking part in the launching of the
campaign in Helsinki in Finland on April 26th. The organisations
will be received by different ministeries, there will be a press
conference and a street action where speeches will be held and
signatures will be collected. The organisations have also sent
their complaints to the Finnish Ministry of Trade and Industry
about the plans to build a 1 600 MW EPR nuclear power plant in
Olkiluoto on the Finnish west coast. The EPR has not been built
anywhere; it exists only on paper. It is a prototype that will
be tested in Finland in spite of several warnings about severe
safety deficits and too optimistic cost calculation and
costruction schedule. 

The organisations visited St. Petersburg during the weekend
April 23rd 25th in order to promote the signature campaign also
in Russia, and in order to express deep worries about the plans
of the Russian government : 
['- ' width=]  to prolong the utility permit of the oldest
Chernobyl type reactor in the world at the Leningrad Nuclear
Power Plant in Sosnovy Bor 
['- ' width=]  to let the temporary nuclear waste storage of the
Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant - situated only 90 meters from the
Baltic Sea coast and containing radioactivity corresponding to
40 50 Chernobyl accidents - continue its existence 
['- ' width=]  to let harbours in Ust-Luga and Vysotsk be used
for transports of radioactive material. 

The organisations taking part in the events in Helsinki and
St.Petersburg are amongst others: 

['- ' width=]  Reseau ³Sortir du Nucléaire², a French
anti-nuclear network of some 700 organisations. This network had
launched on the 24th of April a one month anti-nuclear rally in
France and this rally will cover 4 000 kilometres and some 50
cities and localities. During the rally signatures will be
collected for the European petition, and protests will be made
against any construction of new nuclear power plants in France. 

['- ' width=]  the German section of the IPPNW (International
Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War). The IPPNW in
Germany is heavily critisising the use of nuclear power as a
source of material for producing nuclear weapons. IPPNW is
organising a big conference against nuclear power in Berlin May
7th 9th this year. 

['- ' width=]  the Austrian organisation Atomstopp
International, one of the coordinators of the European 1 million
signatures campaign. Also Atomstopp is organising a big
conference against nuclear power next autumn. 

['- ' width=]  The World Information Service on Energy (WISE)
sitauated in Holland, a large network of organisations against
nuclear power and for the use of renewable energy sources. 

['- ' width=]  Aktionsbündnis CASTOR-Widerstand from Germany,
having a long tradition of successful actions against nuclear
transports in Germany. 

['- ' width=]  The German party Liberale Demokraten 
['- ' width=]  The Green Party of Sweden 
['- ' width=]  The Peoples Campaign against Nuclear
Power/Nuclear Weapons from Sweden 
['- ' width=]  Women against nuclear power from Finland 
['- ' width=]  The No more nuclear power movement from Finland 
['- ' width=]  Women for Peace from Finland 

This campaigning against nuclear power all over Europe is
supported by a Youth action, an open-ended fast (hunger strike)
for a Nuclear-Free France, starting on the 21st of June 2004. 

A clear majority of the citizens of Europe are against the use
of nuclear power for energy production. Of the current EU Member
States (EU15) seven are not using nuclear power as and energy
source. In addition five Member States have decided to give up
the use of nuclear power. Amongst these is Spain where the new
Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero reaffirmed the Spanish
decision to phase-out nuclear power in a speech during his
swearing-in ceremony in Madrid on April 15th. 

Nuclear accidents do not respect geographical borders. An
accident anywhere in Europe or the rest of the world can affect
the lifes of millions of people living not only today but also
in the far future. 

Therefore organisations from all over Europe have joined forces
to fight nuclear projects by democratic means. 

WE DO NOT FIGHT INDIVIDUAL STATES OR ENERGY PRODUCERS, WE FIGHT
AGAINST NUCLEAR POWER IN THE NAME OF THE MAJORITY OF THE PEOPLE
IN EUROPE! 

Sign it NOW : For further information: Ulla Klotzer Women against 
nuclear power, Finland: +358-50-569 09 67 Lea Launokari Women for 
Peace, Finland: +358-50-55 22 330 Anna-Liisa Mattsoff - No more 
Nuclear Power movement, Finland: +358-50-468 2895 Jean-Yvon 
Landrac Réseau ³Sortir du nucléaire²: +33-699 562 967 Roland 
Egger Atomstopp International: +43-664 421 5613 Lars Pohlmeier 
IPPNW, German section: +49-171-416 0139 Maria Braig 
Aktionsbündnis Castor-Widerstand: +49-160-957 109 99 Sten 
Danielsson The Green Party of Sweden: + 46-70 362 3404 Published 
by : atom stop Monday 26th April 2004

  > EUROPEAN PETITION 1 MILLION EUROPEANS DEMAND THE EXIT OF
NUCLEAR POWER
 April 26th, 2004   
  
I am an American Mother an advocate for children with Autism. I
am agianst NUCLEAR power plants! Todays article below doesn't
represent Americans. We need to learn from Chernobyl. Below was
in the New York Times today! This is the insanity of George
Bush's government. Hopefully we elect new leaders that
understand the will of the people. 

April 26, 2004 

Energy Providers Seek Grant as Step to Build Nuclear Plant 

By MATTHEW L. WALD 

ASHINGTON, April 25 - Amid growing signs of interest in building
nuclear power plants, a consortium of companies plans to ask the
federal government on Monday for $400 million to help prepare an
application to build a reactor. 

Separately, six companies applied on Friday for a smaller grant
to study building an advanced reactor on the site of a
twin-reactor project abandoned in 1988 as too expensive. 

The consortium first announced its interest in building a
nuclear power plant on March 31, but it plans to tell the Energy
Department on Monday that it has added two big partners, the
Tennessee Valley Authority and Duke Power, a unit of Duke
Energy. It will also provide a firmer budget for its work. 

The group, which has named itself NuStart Energy Development,
initially included Exelon Nuclear, a unit of the Exelon
Corporation; Entergy Nuclear, a unit of the Entergy Corporation;
Constellation Energy; the Southern Company; and EDF
International North America, a subsidiary of Électricité de
France, which owns shares in reactors in the United States. 

The consortium also includes General Electric and the
Westinghouse Electric Company, a subsidiary of BNFL, which was
formerly British Nuclear Fuels Limited. 

The initial announcement by the consortium drew criticism from
antinuclear groups, who complained about safety, vulnerability
to terrorism and the problem of disposing spent fuel. 

According to people involved with the consortium, NuStart will
argue that the sum it is seeking is modest relative to what the
federal government has paid recently to subsidize other forms of
energy research or production. 

"The country needs fuel diversity, and it needs energy
independence from foreign energy sources," an executive involved
in the NuStart group, who asked not to be identified by name in
advance of the announcement. "This is an effort to provide the
nuclear option," he said. 

In the 10 years ended in 2002, Nu- Start will point out, the
Energy Department spent $482 million on fossil energy projects,
including "clean coal;" $538 million on energy efficiency; and
$446 million on solar and other forms of renewable energy. And
in 2003, the government gave the wind industry $280 million in
the form of a production tax credit. 

NuStart is applying for a dollar-for-dollar match, under a
program called Nuclear Power 2010, whose goal is to have at
least one reactor under construction by that year. It has not
picked a site or a design, or even committed to build anything. 

Under the same program, on Friday a different group asked for
help with a $4 million project to explore building a reactor in
northern Alabama at the site of the Tennessee Valley Authority's
Bellefont project. The T.V.A. stopped work on a twin-unit
nuclear plant at Bellefonte in 1988, after spending $2.5 billion
there. 

The new group includes T.V.A. and General Electric (which are
both members of the NuStart group as well); Bechtel, an
architect and engineering company; Toshiba; and USEC, a company
that processes uranium for nuclear reactor use. 

On March 17, another consortium - made up of Dominion Resources
Inc., Hitachi America, Bechtel and an American subsidiary of
Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. - also asked for financing. 

Joseph H. Davis, a spokesman for the Energy Department, said on
Friday, "We welcome any and all applications under this
program." But he added, "We haven't made a decision on when
we're going to make a decision." 

In addition, the Energy Department does not have the money in
hand to distribute. 

But there is some sympathy in Congress. In a statement, Pete V.
Domenici, the New Mexico Republican who is the chairman of the
Senate Energy Committee, said: "I am absolutely delighted. I
think that the market and regulatory forces that have put
nuclear back into play will continue in the coming decade, and I
think this is the first step in a continuing trend." Unplug the
Nukes in NJ 

  top |  [http://bellaciao.org/en] | 

*****************************************************************
 10 IAEA: PrepCom Meeting for 2005 NPT Review Conference
 
+ [IAEA.ORG :: Atoms for Peace] 
 
Preparing the Way for the NPT Review Conference in 2005
 
Final Preparatory Committee session opens 26 April at UN in New
York
 
[Inspector on the field] 
Safeguards inspections are part of the Agency's responsibilities
under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. (Credit:
P.Pavlicek/IAEA) 
  + Story Resources 
  + In Focus: IAEA & the NPT 
  +  [http://disarmament2.un.org/wmd/npt/2005/index-PC3.html] 
  + Treaty Full Text [pdf] 
  +  [http://disarmament.un.org:8080/TreatyStatus.nsf] 
  + Director General's Statement 

Nearly 190 States will meet at United Nations Headquarters in
New York from 26 April to 7th May 2004 to consider developments
affecting the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear
Weapons. The meeting -- referred to as a Preparatory Committee
or ‘PrepCom’ session -- comes at a time when the nuclear
non-proliferation and disarmament regime faces critical
challenges. During the session, NPT Parties will consider issues
affecting the purpose, operation and implementation of the
Treaty and agree on strengthening measures to be approved at the
Treaty's upcoming Review Conference in 2005. 

The NPT is the world’s most widely adhered to multilateral arms
control Treaty, and is considered a cornerstone of the nuclear
non-proliferation regime. However, in today’s climate the
multilateral nuclear non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament
process faces critical challenges that include: the continuing
refusal by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea to submit
its nuclear programme to IAEA verification; on-going IAEA
efforts to verify the nuclear activities of Iran and Libya; the
discovery of a sophisticated illicit market in nuclear
technology and materials; and slow progress in nuclear
disarmament. 

IAEA Director General, Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei, has said that the
"NPT has served us well since 1970" when it entered into force.
He expressed hope that at next year's NPT Review Conference,
"parties to the Treaty will consider urgently needed measures
and agree on a specific course of action that will help
re-engineer the nuclear non-proliferation regime and revive the
stalling nuclear arms control and disarmament process". (See:
'Director General Statements' in Story Resources.) 

The IAEA is not a party to the NPT but is entrusted with key
roles and responsibilities under it. The Agency has specific
roles as the international safeguards inspectorate and as a
multilateral channel for facilitating the transfer of peaceful
applications of nuclear technology. 

The Agency will make a statement on the opening day of the
Preparatory Committee on 26 April at the United Nations, and
other statements on a strengthened Agency safeguards system and
co-operation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy will be
issued throughout the week. In addition, the Agency is
organizing a briefing on verification under the NPT on 4 May
2004, also at the United Nations. 

This is the third and final PrepCom session in the run up to the
Treaty’s Review Conference to be held 2-27 May 2005 to review
its implementation. Copyright 2003-2004, International Atomic
Energy Agency, P.O. Box 100, Wagramer Strasse 5, A-1400 Vienna,
Austria 
Telephone (+431) 2600-0; Facsimilie (+431) 2600-7; E-mail: 
[Official.Mail@iaea.org] 
Disclaimer 
*****************************************************************
 11 AFP: Russia on verge of placing new-age mobile ICBMs into use

: minister

[http://www.spacewar.com/]

MOSCOW (AFP) Apr 26, 2004

 Russia next week will test-launch another mobile Topol-M 
intercontinental ballistic missile, perhaps the last one before 
putting it into use, Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said Monday.

The 47-tonne missile, which carries one nuclear warhead, is seen 
by Russia as a future backbone to its nuclear defenses. It 
compares to the US-built Minuteman-3.

Yury Solomonov, who heads the Moscow Institute of Technology that 
constructed the missile, said its mobile version could become 
operational by 2006, ITAR-TASS reported.

Russia already has ground-based Topol-M rockets on standby.

The last test of the mobile missile was accomplished last week, 
with it traveling its maximum distance of 11,500 kilometers 
(6,900 miles) before hitting a target on the Kamchatka peninsula.

"The test was successful," the Russian defense minister said in 
televised comments, reporting the mission's progress to President 
Vladimir Putin.

"We have one more test, after which point we can reach a decision 
on utilizing this weapon," Ivanov said.

Russia and the United States signed the "Moscow Treaty" in May 
2002 that obliged both countries to slash their nuclear arsenals 
by two-thirds over the next 10 years.

But Washington has since issued strong hints that it may use a 
loophole to abandon the treaty, and Russia has staged a series of 
test launches of ICBMs in recent months.

  WAR.WIRE
*****************************************************************
 12 AFP: Pakistan "concerned" at draft UN resolution on WMD

[http://www.spacewar.com/]

ISLAMABAD (AFP) Apr 26, 2004

 Nuclear-armed Pakistan does not oppose a draft United Nations 
resolution on weapons of mass destruction (WMD) but is 
"concerned" about certain clauses, the foreign ministry said 
Monday.

A central issue in the debate over the resolution, sponsored by 
the United States and Britain, is the veto power held by the 
council's five permanent members: Britain, China, France, Russia 
and the US.

All are nuclear powers which could use their vetoes to exempt 
themselves from legal obligations that the resolution would 
impose on other nations.

The US and Britain put forward the draft in March in an effort to 
keep WMD out of the hands of terrorists or "non-state actors" who 
are not addressed under existing non-proliferation treaties.

"Pakistan is not opposing the resolution," spokesman Masood Khan 
told a weekly news briefing.

"We have certain questions and concerns and we are trying to 
address in consultation with all members of the (UN) Security 
Council.

"These concerns range from the application of chapter seven, to 
the creation of a committee as a follow-up mechanism, to the 
definition of non-state actors and so on."

However, he added that Islamabad supported the draft's "general 
thrust". 

"We are constructively engaging with all principal actors and 
Pakistan is against proliferation and we would like to cooperate 
in the this process."

Pakistan is among several non-permanent members of the security 
council who have raised concerns and are taking time to evaluate 
the draft.

The US proposal would effectively make it illegal for WMD and any 
related technology to be developed by or transferred to non-state 
actors, a term which some council members said needed a more 
precise definition.

An analysis by Pakistan's mission at the UN said the resolution 
left "many legal and technical loopholes open and ... creates 
potential problems about where, when and how its provisions would 
be applied or implemented".

Pakistan, like its nuclear rival India, is not a signatory to 
nuclear non-proliferation treaties.

Its chief nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan was found to be at 
the centre of the world's worst nuclear proliferation scandal in 
a UN probe late last year, and in February confessed to selling 
nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea.

He was pardoned by Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf.

  WAR.WIRE
*****************************************************************
 13 [NukeNet] Ukraine Health Ministry: 94.5% Of Liquidators Are
 
Date: Mon, 26 Apr 2004 15:02:24 -0700

 
<x-flowed>

For whatever this is worth coming from Pravda &
the Ukranian Health Ministy. If anyone's got any
feedback and/or statistics I'd love to read them
[ smirnowb@ix.netcom.com ].



http://english.pravda.ru/world/20/92/370/12608_Chernobyl.html

http://english.pravda.ru/world/20/92/370/12608_Chernobyl.html
   Forgotten victims of Chernobyl
       04/23/2004 18:06
       On the verge of another anniversary of the
Chernobyl disaster, which took place in now Kiev,
Ukraine, Chernobyl victims plan to participate in
a national solidarity demonstration.

       The demonstrators plan to make public their
demands from an acknowledged proposal signed by
the president of "Union Chernobyl of Ukraine" Yuri
Andreev. The document states that the recently
adopted state budget-2004 does not guarantee even
elementary survival of Chernobyl victims. For
instance, Ukrainian government has given only $2,5
USD for ambulatory treatment of one of the victims
of the tragedy.

       In the meantime, according to the Ukrainian
Ministry of Health, 94,5% of those who took part
in liquidating the catastrophe (i.e. rescue
workers, volunteers), are all considered ill. At
the same time, significantly lower percentage
(89,8%) of local residents who have been evacuated
from the region have been diagnosed with illnesses
connected to high radiation> Latest News
               a.. Forgotten victims of Chernobyl
               b.. Bulgaria recalls 23 troops
               c.. Tribute to Naval Cold War
               d.. Poland considering Iraq pullout
               e.. Dominican Republic and Honduras
to withdraw troops from Iraq

       levels. 79,8% of children are also currently
sick. Real numbers. However, the actual numbers
appear to be even more frightening, since the
overall accuracy of Ukrainian medical statistical
analysis has been rather questionable in the past
few years.

       "The Ministry also notes that indicators of
mortality rate of Chernobyl victims have
drastically increased in recent years. Mortality
rate of the catastrophe liquidators is on the rise
as well. The highest death rate is among adults
who live within the radioactive territory."

       Health Ministry of Ukraine admits that this
year's Ministry's budget does not allow it to aid
all victims of the tragedy.

       As for the victims of Chernobyl, they are
also interested in social problems as well as the
medical ones. The above mentioned statement also
reveals that today the government can afford only
1 ticket to a sanatorium per 100 whoa re in need
of such treatment. They are also promised housing
"in 1000 years."

       Authorities however are getting ready for
the upcoming 18th anniversary of the Chernobyl
disaster.

       Andrey Lubensky

       Read the original in Russian:
http://world.pravda.ru/world/2004/5/73/207/16694_Chernobil.html
(Translated by: Anna Ossipova)





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*****************************************************************
 14 =?iso-8859-1?Q?Chernobyl:_Remembering_The_World's_Worst_Nuclear
 
Date: Mon, 26 Apr 2004 14:04:44 -0500 (CDT)

 
> Chernobyl: The World's Worst Nuclear Power Accident - Background
> The After-Effects
> The Toxic Legacy of Nuclear Power
> Chernobyl: The World's Worst Nuclear Power Accident - Background
> Alternatives in Energy Sources Resources
> Take Action
> Resources	 

"Chernobyl is a word we would all like to erase from our memory. It
[opened] a Pandora's box of invisible enemies and nameless anxieties in
people's minds, but which most of us probably now think of as safely
relegated to the past. Yet there are two compelling reasons why this
tragedy must not be forgotten...First, if we forget Chernobyl, we
increase the risk of more such technological and environmental disasters
in the future. Second, more than seven million of our fellow human
beings do not have the luxury of forgetting. They are still suffering,
every day, as a result of what happened 14 years ago. Indeed, the legacy
of Chernobyl will be with us, and with our descendants, for generations
to come."

- Kofi Annan on Chernobyl

Chernobyl: The World's Worst Nuclear Power Accident - Background | Top 

In Spring 1986, the world's worst nuclear power accident occurred at the
Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, 80 miles north of Kiev in Ukraine in the
former Soviet Union. The accident has been described by the United
Nations as "the greatest environmental catastrophe in the history of
humanity."

On 26 April 1986, at 1:23 AM, a core meltdown occurred at Reactor 4 of
the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, creating a chemical explosion and a
fireball which blew off the reactor's 1,000-ton steel and concrete lid.
Some 190 tons of highly radioactive uranium and graphite were expelled,
spewing radioactive substances to a height of more than 1kilometer into
the earth's atmosphere. 

It is estimated that the explosion released more than 200 times the
radioactive fallout of the two nuclear weapons used at the end of World
War II, spreading a radioactive cloud over large parts of the former
Soviet Union, including Belarus, Ukraine and Russia, across Europe, and
reaching as far as Greenland and parts of Asia. The radioactive plume
initially traveled in a northwest direction toward Sweden, Finland and
Eastern Europe, exposing the unsuspecting public to levels up to 100
times the normal background radiation.

For maps of the Chernobyl radioactive fall out: see
http://users.owt.com/smsrpm/Chernobyl/glbrad.htm
<http://users.owt.com/smsrpm/Chernobyl/glbrad.html> l  and
http://www.worldprocessor.com/53.htm  

The After-Effects | Top 

The Chernobyl accident killed more than 30 people immediately, and as a
result of the high radiation levels in the surrounding 20-mile radius,
some 135,000 people were evacuated. However, it was not until the third
day after the explosion that the Soviet authorities reported the full
scale of the accident, and the people of Ukraine did not learn the truth
until 3 May 1986. Early reporting of the accident could have enabled the
affected population to escape exposure to some radioactive particles
known to cause thyroid cancer, such as Iodine 131.

As a result of the Chernobyl accident, deadly radioactive material was
widely dispersed, affecting a vast area, practically the whole of the
northern hemisphere. In fact, today in the UK, hundreds of farms in
Wales are still subject to restrictions due to sheep eating radioactive
grass. 

Based on the official reports by the United Nations, up to 9 million
people in Belarus, Ukraine and Russia have been affected directly or
indirectly by the radiation fallout. The people of the affected areas
have received the highest known exposure to radiation in the history of
the Nuclear Age, the full consequences of which will not be seen for at
least another 50 years. While there are no definitive figures of deaths
resulting from the Chernobyl accident, reports vary from zero to over
100,000 fatalities. Since 1986, the rate of thyroid cancer in affected
areas has increased ten fold. Specifically, there has been a significant
increase in the number of thyroid cancer cases among patients age 15 or
younger.

About 155,000 sq. km in Belarus, Ukraine and Russia were contaminated,
which is almost half of the size of Italy. Agricultural areas covering
nearly 52,000 sq. km, which is more than the size of Denmark, were
contaminated with Cesium-137 and Strontium-90, with 30-year and 29-year
half-lives respectively. Despite the resettlement of 404,000 people,
millions continue to live in an environment where residual exposure has
created a range of adverse effects.

For first hand accounts by those who experienced the Chernobyl disaster
and now live with the consequences, go to
http://www.oneworld.org/index_oc/issue196/babel.html  and
http://archive.greenpeace.org/comms/nukes/chernob/read13.html  

The Toxic Legacy of Nuclear Power | Top 

The radioactive byproducts of the Chernobyl plant explosion will remain
in affected areas for some 48,000 years. An official exclusion zone
around the plant remains in place, extending for 18 miles. It is one of
the most dangerous regions on earth. 

The Chernobyl accident demonstrated an often overlooked facet of the
Nuclear Age: it is not only our warlike technologies that threaten
humanity, our so-called "peaceful" technologies can also cause
devastation to life and property.

"Inherently safe" nuclear power reactors are a myth. A devastating
accident can occur in any nuclear reactor, causing the release of large
quantities of deadly radioactive products into the environment. In
addition, one of the biggest problems facing the nuclear industry is
what to do with the radioactive waste generated in a nuclear reactor.
Also, any nuclear power plant capable of producing energy has the
capacity to breed weapons-grade materials for nuclear bombs. 

For a Nuclear Energy Fact sheet, go to :
<http://www.wagingpeace.org/menu/issues/nuclear-energy-&-waste/start/fac
t-sheet_ne&w.htm>
http://www.wagingpeace.org/menu/issues/nuclear-energy-&-waste/start/fact
-sheet_ne&w.htm
<http://www.wagingpeace.org/menu/issues/nuclear-energy-&-waste/start/fac
t-sheet_ne&w.htm>   

The causes of the Chernobyl accident have been described as a fateful
combination of human error and imperfect technology. The blast occurred
because of a flawed reactor design and inadequately trained personnel
acting without proper regard for safety. Sadly, although Chernobyl is
the largest civil nuclear disaster to date, it may not be the last.
There are currently 440 nuclear reactors in 31 countries and there are
32 nuclear reactors now under construction. Almost twenty years after
the Chernobyl accident, the world has yet to significantly invest human
and financial resources into developing alternatives to nuclear power,
the most dangerous and unsustainable of all energy sources.

Alternatives in Energy Sources | Top 

Sixteen percent of the world's electricity now comes from nuclear
energy, 85 percent of which is concentrated in industrialized countries.
In the US, 21percent of energy sources are derived from nuclear power.
The world must decrease its dependence on nuclear energy and advance a
global shift to clean, sustainable and environmentally benign sources of
energy that do not pose the accident risks inherent in nuclear energy
production. These sources include:

. Bioenergy: biomass, such as plant matter and animal waste, can yield
power, heat, steam and fuel. 
. Geothermal: renewable heat energy can be harnessed from deep within
the earth. 
. Wind: turbines turning in the air convert kinetic energy in the wind
into electricity. 
. Solar: the sun's energy can be captured and used to produce heat and
electricity. 
. Hydrogen: if produced by renewable sources, it can power fuel cells to
convert chemical energy directly into electricity, with useful heat and
water as the only byproducts. 
. Tidal: using the movement of the ocean to power turbines and generate
electricity. 

For more information on clean and sustainable energy sources, go to
http://www.eere.energy.gov/  

Take Action | Top 

1. Find out if there is a nuclear plant near you
If you are a US resident, go to
http://www.greenpeaceusa.org/bin/view.fpl/9161.html  

27% of California's electricity is derived from nuclear power. To find
out what happens if the Chernobyl nuclear accident is applied to the
Diablo Canyon nuclear plant in California, go to
http://www.mothersforpeace.org/resources/maps/maps/chernobylAppliedToDia
blo  

For a table of the world's nuclear power reactors, go to
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/reactors.htm  

2. Ask your government to support clean energy
Many more sustainable energy resources could be found and current
resources improved if better technology were available and if the
government and utilities actively promoted their development.

The proposed US budget for 2005 includes $375 million for the Department
of Energy's (DOE) renewable energy programs. This remains an inadequate
commitment to increasing the generation of electricity from clean
renewable sources such as wind, solar, wave, geothermal, and bioenergy.
In the US, write to your Congressional representatives and urge them to
support reduced dependence on nuclear power and increased funding for
the promotion of clean energy. To find out who your Congressional
representatives are, go to http://www.house.gov/
<http://www.house.gov/%20>   and http://www.senate.gov/  

Talking points include:

. Risk of Accident: On April 26, 1986 the No. 4 reactor at the Chernobyl
power plant in the former U.S.S.R., exploded, causing the worst nuclear
accident ever. According to the US House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Oversight & Investigations, "Calculation of Reactor
Accident Consequences (CRAC2) for US Nuclear Power Plants" (1982, 1997),
an accident at a US nuclear power plant could kill more people than were
killed by the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki.

. Environmental Degradation: Radioactive isotopes produced by nuclear
reactors are extraordinarily long-lived, remaining toxic for hundreds of
thousands of years. Presently, we are only beginning to observe and
experience the consequences of producing nuclear energy.

. Nuclear Waste: A typical reactor will generate some 20 to 30 tons of
high-level nuclear waste annually. There is no known way to safely
dispose of this waste, which remains dangerously radioactive until it
naturally decays. The hazardous life of a radioactive element (the
length of time that must elapse before the material is considered safe)
is at least 10 half-lives. For example, Plutonium-239 will remain
hazardous for 240,000 years.

. Nuclear Proliferation Risks: Any nuclear power plant is a potential
nuclear bomb factory. Every nuclear reactor capable of producing energy
has the capacity to generate fissile materials that can be processed for
nuclear bombs.

For further information go to the Foundation's Nuclear Energy Fact Sheet
http://www.wagingpeace.org/menu/issues/nuclear-energy-&-waste/start/fact
-sheet_ne&w.htm
<http://www.wagingpeace.org/menu/issues/nuclear-energy-&-waste/start/fac
t-sheet_ne&w.htm>   

3. Promote alternative sources of energy in your community
Take initiative to decrease your community's dependence on nuclear power
and find out if there are alternative sources of energy in your
community. Here are some examples:

Solar Power - Solar power is created when light from the sun shines on
solar panels and produces electricity. Solar power is the second fastest
growing source of electricity today and is so abundant that the amount
of sunlight the Earth receives in just 30 minutes is equivalent to all
the power used by humankind in one year. 
For more information on solar power, go to
http://www.eere.energy.gov/solar/  
To find out if solar energy is available in your state, go to
http://www.greenpeaceusa.org/energy/solar/  

Wind Power - A wind turbine uses the wind's energy to generate
electricity. Wind power is the fastest growing energy source in the
world. By the end of 2003, the total capacity for energy generated by
wind sources in the United States was enough to power 1.3 million
American homes.

For more information, go to
http://www.eere.energy.gov/windpoweringamerica/  

Wave Power - The ocean is a vast source of energy to be tapped for human
use in the coming years. The pull of the moon and the energy of the wind
create tides and waves that can provide clean renewable energy. The
technologies are still in experimental stages, but have the potential to
provide a significant portion of the world's energy needs in the near
future. There are different ocean technologies that are being developed.
If 0.1% of the energy of the oceans was harnessed for electricity it
could meet the world's demand for energy five times over. 
For more information, go to http://www.eere.energy.gov/RE/ocean.html  

Resources | Top 

For a personal account of the Chernobyl nuclear accident, read
"Chernobyl, the Forbidden Truth" by Alla Yaroshinskaya. The book is
available for sale at the Foundation, please call 805.965.3443 

International Chernobyl Research and Information Network
http://www.chernobyl.info/en  

The History of the United Nations and Chernobyl
http://www.un.org/ha/chernobyl/  

"Optimizing the International Effort to Study, Mitigate and Minimize the
Consequences of the Chernobyl Disaster: Report of the Secretary-General"
http://ods-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N03/485/92/PDF/N0348592.pdf?OpenE
lement  

Nuclear Power: Expensive and Deadly
http://www.greenpeaceusa.org/bin/view.fpl/7204/article/118.html  

Greenpeace "Clean Energy Now!" Campaign http://www.cleanenergynow.org/  

 

To be removed from this mailing visit:
http://www.optinpro.com/scripts/remove.asp?u=900&i=19552267
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*****************************************************************
 15 Annan Urges Continued International Support For Victims Of Chernobyl Disaster
 
Date: Mon, 26 Apr 2004 13:01:24 -0400

 
ANNAN URGES CONTINUED INTERNATIONAL SUPPORT FOR VICTIMS OF CHERNOBYL DISASTER
 
New York, Apr 26 2004  1:00PM
On the 18th anniversary of the explosion at the Chernobyl power plant, 
Secretary-General Kofi Annan led United Nations officials today 
in urging the international community to continue providing 
aid to the people and region affected by the world's worst nuclear 
accident.

"For nearly two decades, the people in the affected regions of Belarus, 
the Russian Federation and Ukraine have had to cope with farmlands 
rendered useless, acute economic difficulties and chronic 
health problems, especially among children," a spokesman for Mr. 
Annan said in a <"http://www.un.org/apps/sg/sgstats.asp?nid=891">statement.

To mitigate the toll on affected communities, the UN is focusing 
its programmes on laying the foundations for sustainable recovery 
and development, with the UN Development Programme (UNDP) taking 
the lead in such efforts.

"The Secretary-General reaffirms the resolve of the United Nations 
to ensure that the ongoing needs of the people of the region are 
not forgotten," spokesman Fred Eckhard said. "He urges the international 
community to provide the moral and financial support necessary 
to keep the affected communities from suffering the effects 
of this tragedy for decades to come."

Jan Egeland, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, 
echoed that thought, saying the international community must renew 
its efforts to help the people of the affected regions take control 
of their lives again.

"The aftermath of the Chernobyl accident is simply too much for people 
in the contaminated areas to cope with alone. We simply cannot 
turn our backs. We can and must do more to help bring development 
and hope to the affected people," said Mr. Egeland, who is also 
the UN's Coordinator of International Cooperation on Chernobyl.

Nearly 8.4 million people in Belarus, Ukraine and Russia were exposed 
to radiation when the nuclear plant blew up. Some 150,000 kilometres 
- an area half the size of Italy - were contaminated, while 
agricultural areas covering nearly 52,000 square kilometres - 
more than the size of Denmark - were ruined.
 2004-04-26 00:00:00.000 

________________

For more details go to UN News Centre at http://www.un.org/news

To change your profile or unsubscribe go to:
http://www.un.org/news/dh/latest/subscribe.shtml
*****************************************************************
 16  Chernobyl's 18th Anniversary Today: CHERNOBYL MEDIA DISTORTIONS BY JOHN LAFORGE   
 
Date: Mon, 26 Apr 2004 12:33:09 -0400

 

  Today, April 26, 2004 is the 18th anniversary of
the Chernobyl catastrophe.

 A few excerpts from article below:
A short review of Chernobyl's fallout pattern
shows how irresponsible the reporting has become.

AP, May 15, 1986: "Airborne radioactivity from the
Chernobyl nuclear accident is now so widespread
that it is likely to fall to the ground wherever
it rains in the United States, the EPA said."

AP, May 14, 1986: "An invisible cloud of
radioactivity spewed over the Soviet Union and
Europe, and has worked its way gradually around
the world."

AP, May 15, 1986: "State authorities in Oregon
have warned residents dependent solely on
rainwater for drinking that they should arrange
other supplies for the time being."

Star Tribune, May 17, 1986: "Since radiation from
the Chernobyl nuclear accident began floating over
Minnesota last week, low levels of radiation have
been discovered in . . . the raw milk from a
Minnesota dairy."

AP, April 4, 1996: "Plutonium and other dangerous
particles released in the accident . . . have now
found their way to Ukraine's major waterways . . .
. 'We have billions of tons of radiated earth that
can't be dumped anywhere, and which will pour
plutonium, cesium and strontium into Europe for
decades,' the chief consultant to the Ukrainian
Parliament's Chernobyl commission said."

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, May 1996:
"radiation contamination was detectable over the
entire Northern Hemisphere."


The pro-nuclear Time magazine reported in 1989
that perhaps "one billion or more" curies were
released, rather than the 50 to 80 million
estimated by Russian authorities.5 One curie is
the amount of radiation equal to the
disintegration of 37 billion atoms ¾ 37 billion
becquerels ¾ per second. It is a very large amount
of radiation.
The U.S. government's Argonne Nat. Lab has said
that 30 percent of the reactor's total
radioactivity ¾ 3 billion of an estimated 9
billion curies ¾ was released.6 And scientists at
the U.S. Lawrence Livermore Nat. Lab suggested
that one-half of the core's radioactivity was
spewed ¾ 4.5 billion curies, according the World
Information Service on Energy, quoting Science,
6-13-86.

Vladimir Chernousenko, the chief scientific
supervisor of the "clean up" team responsible for
a 10-kilometer zone around the exploded reactor,
says that 80 percent of the reactor's
radioactivity escaped, something like seven
billion curies.7 At the Union of Concerned
Scientists, senior energy analyst Kennedy Maize,
concluded that "the core vaporized" ¾ all 190 tons
of fuel, and all 9 billion curies.8

Former Chair of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission, Joseph Hendrie, concluded likewise,
saying "They have dumped the full inventory of
volatile fission products from a large power
reactor into the environment. You can't do any
worse than that."9


"After all, the IAEA is in the business of
promoting nuclear energy, not discouraging it. For
10 years the agency has attempted to downplay the
consequences of the accident," wrote Alexander R.
Sich in a cover story for the Bulletin of Atomic
Scientists [ see http://www.thebulletin.org ].
 The IAEA, still downplaying in 1995, said any
increase in cancer caused by Chernobyl would be
"undetectable."

Nineteen months after the disaster, in Nov. 1987,
the U.S. government
officially doubled its estimate of the
"background" radiation to which we
are exposed every year.11 [Part 2]

Chernobyl at Ten:
Half-lives and Half Truths

(Part one of two)


By John M. LaForgeã


With a heavy dose of half-truth, the commercial
press worked over-time to reduce the results of
the Chernobyl catastrophe to a "nervous disorder"
confined to the C.I.S. and Europe. Understated
reports on the 10th anniversary of the world-wide
radiation disaster help the nuclear reactor
industry hold on against overwhelming opposition,
in spite of what should have been the final insult
from nuclear power.

The latest psychological "clean up" often went
like this. Peter Crane, a lawyer at the U. S.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), said that
"...the explosion... sent a radioactive cloud into
the atmosphere of Eastern Europe." (1) This is a
true statement. It merely neglects to mention the
rest of planet Earth.

Reporter Michael Specter wrote that, "The fire
which burned out of control for five days, spewed
more than 50 tons of radioactive fallout across
Belarus, Ukraine and Western Russia." (2) This
loaded sentence is also literally true. The fact
that the fire burned uncontrolled for two weeks,
after a series of three explosions; that perhaps
190 tons of reactor fuel was catapulted into the
atmosphere; or that the radioactive fallout spread
world-wide ¾ reaching Minnesota's milk for example
¾ doesn't make of Mr. Specter a liar, only a miser
with the truth.

Associated Press (AP) correspondent Dave Carpenter
's description ¾ that "deadly reactor fuel shot
into the atmosphere, contaminating some 10,000
square miles and reaching as far as Western
Europe" (3) is likewise "correct," but Reuters
News Service reported on 28 Nov. 1995 that the
contaminated areas include about 61,780 square
miles.

Carpenter practiced perfect obfuscation in his
dispatch, saying of the reckless nuclearists over
there: "In a big lie, Soviet officials. . . first
hushed up the disaster then played down its
severity." What is it to understate the sum of
irradiated territory by a factor of six? It isn't
the pot calling the kettle black; it's the cesium
calling the strontium a cancer agent.

Carpenter's AP lullaby was published widely and
included the comment that, ". . .those living in
the shadow of Chernobyl will be living with its
deadly health and environmental legacy for years."
(4)

For years? The word centuries would have been more
accurate, if conservative, since radiation's
health affects are multi-generational and not
limited in time. Indeed, some genetic effects
appear to be increasing with each successive
generation.

The AP's Angela Charlson went so far as to say the
reactor sent "a radioactive cloud across parts of
Europe ..." (5) Understatement of the overwhelming
facts was practiced as well by the editors of The
New York Times, who said on April 21 that the
disaster "spewed radiation across much or Europe"
(6) and on the anniversary, that "...a plume of
toxic gases & dust...spread across the western
Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and Scandinavia." (7)
Although the contamination of the rest of the
world was hinted at as lately as 6 Oct. 1995, when
the Times reported that the radiation spread
across western Russia "and beyond," this
uncomfortable fact is nowadays passé.


The Disaster's in Your Head

While the explosions' long-lived carcinogens ¾
primarily cesium, plutonium, strontium and iodine
¾ are well known to be deadly for decades and even
centuries, Soviet officials, the U. N's
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and
U.S. editors have all ridiculed the common sense
fear of Chernobyl's radioactive fallout.

The official Soviet paper Izvestia said in 1988
that doctors in the Ukraine were, ". . .spending
more time on trying to dispel irrational fears
than on treating the effects of radiation." (8)

The IAEA which at first refused to conduct a
post-Chernobyl health study, claiming that all the
accident's effects were confined within Soviet
borders (9), dared to say in a 1991 study that
Chernobyl's health effects were mainly
"psychological." This heavily criticized report
didn't even consider the health of the
"liquidators," or the evacuees from the 18-mile
exclusion zone, 8,000 of whom are now known to
have died from radiation related diseases. (10)

The IAEA study failed to mention the lengthy
latency period for observed cancer incidence. This
cavalier white-wash of the disaster's inevitable
results came from a nominal nuclear watchdog,
which in fact is only the most prestigious booster
of nuclear power. "After all the IAEA is in the
business of promoting nuclear energy not
discouraging it. For ten years the agency has
attempted to downplay the consequences of the
accident," wrote Dr. Alexander R. Sich in a cover
story for the May/June Bulletin of Atomic
Scientists. (11) The IAEA, still sticking in its
vacuum, said in 1995 that any increase in cancer
caused by Chernobyl would be "undetectable."
(11.1)

Editors across the country have embraced the IAEA'
s dismissive attitude, distracting readers with
headlines like, "Area Frozen In Fear," "Citizens
Still Suffering Radiation Phobia," and "The Legacy
of Chernobyl: Fear is the Deeper Wound." A dread
of radiation doesn't appear irrational in view of
last year's report that "A second catastrophic
explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in
Ukraine could happen "at any time," Western
scientists have warned." (12)


Reality Officially Forgotten

A short review of Chernobyl's fallout pattern
shows how irresponsible the late reporting has
become. AP, 15 May 1986: "Airborne radioactivity
from the Chernobyl nuclear accident is now so
widespread that it is likely to fall to the ground
wherever it rains in the United States, the EPA
said." AP, 14 May 1986: "An invisible cloud of
radioactivity spewed over the Soviet Union and
Europe, and has worked its way gradually around
the world." AP, 15 May 1986: "State authorities in
Oregon have warned residents dependent solely on
rainwater for drinking that they should arrange
other supplies for the time being." Minneapolis
Star Tribune, 17 May 1986: "Since radiation from
the Chernobyl nuclear accident began floating over
Minnesota last week, low levels of radiation have
been discovered in... the raw milk from a
Minnesota dairy." AP, 4 April 1996: "Plutonium and
other dangerous particles released in the
accident...have now found their way to Ukraine's
major waterways. ... 'We have billions of tons of
radiated earth that can't be dumped anywhere, and
which will pour plutonium, cesium and strontium
into Europe for decades,' [the chief consultant to
the Ukrainian parliament's Chernobyl commission]
said." Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, May 1996, p.
38: "...radiation contamination was detectable
over the entire northern hemisphere."

With so much disparity among so many figures, we
may never know the true dimensions of Chernobyl's
radiation bomb.


Notes:

(1) NYT, Op-Ed, 5 April 1996.

(2) International Herald Tribune, 2 April 1996.

(3) Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, 14 April 1996.


(4) Minneapolis Star Tribune, 21 April 1996.

(5) St. Paul Pioneer, 27 April 1996.

(6) NYT, 21 April 1996, The Week In Review.

(7) NYT, 26 April 1996, signed editorial by Philip
Taubman

(8) Los Angeles Times, 11 Feb. 1988.

(9) In These Times, 22 April 1987.

(10) AP, 23 April 1992; WISE News Communiqué,
(Amsterdam) No. 449, 10 April 1996.

(11) Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, May 1996, p.
38.

(11.1) Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, May/June
1996, p. 8.

(12) The London Observer, 26 March 1995; Milwaukee
Journal, 27 March 1995.



-- John M. LaForge is codirector of Nukewatch, a
peace group based in Wisconsin, and editor of its
quarterly newsletter, the Pathfinder.

© Copyright 2000 Star Tribune. All rights reserved




Half Lives and Half Truths: Chernobyl Ten Years
On-Part 2:


By John M. LaForge ã

(Second of two parts)


The 10th anniversary was no party.

"I have seen the beginning of the end of the
world," is how Michael Mariotte, editor of The
Nuclear Monitor, put it after visiting Chernobyl's
doomed landscape, everything dead or dying for
miles around. "The end of the world begins in
Pripyat, Ukraine, a once-thriving city of 45,000.
Now it sits crumbling, abandoned, a mute but
overwhelming testament to technological arrogance
gone amok."1

Pripyat was the city nearest Chernobyl's Unit 4,
the reactor that exploded on April 26, 1986 and
burned dangerously until October, spewing tons of
cancer-causing isotopes around the world.2

Mr. Mariotte is not known for emotional writing in
The Monitor, but anyone who can stand to
investigate the unfolding human consequences of
the world's worst industrial catastrophe can
understand his choice of words. Izvestia called it
"the greatest technological catastrophe in world h
istory."3

Cancers and other disease caused by Chernobyl's
radioactive poisons are being recorded thousands
of kilometers from the reactor site. The ninety
million people who lived in the path of the very
worst fallout are learning the hard way that
damage done by ionizing radiation is unrelenting,
cumulative and irreversible.

In the first part of this article (Spring 1996
Pathfinder) I compared the recent trivialization
of Chernobyl's consequences to news accounts that
appeared soon after the explosions and fire. For
example, while the commercial press now tell us
that the disaster "spread radiation across parts
of Europe," the fact is that the federal EPA
announced in mid-May 1986 that, "Airborne
radioactivity from the Chernobyl nuclear accident
is now so widespread that it is likely to fall to
the ground wherever it rains in the United
States."4

In this part I look at how much radiation
Chernobyl evidently dumped added to the
"background," at official skewing of the its
inevitable long-term effects, and at recent
reports of its human health consequences.


Answers are Blowin' in the Wind

How much radiation was released? What percentage
of which isotopes were thrown into the atmosphere.
Was it mostly iodine-131? How much of the total
was made up of the far more dangerous cesium-137,
strontium-90 and plutonium?

Piecing together the truth is a dizzying job of
ferreting out bias and vested interest. The
pro-nuclear Time magazine reported in 1989 that
perhaps "one billion or more" curies were
released, rather than the 50 to 80 million
estimated by Russian authorities.5 One curie is
the amount of radiation equal to the
disintegration of 37 billion atoms ¾ 37 billion
becquerels ¾ per second. It is a very large amount
of radiation.

The U.S. government's Argonne Nat. Lab has said
that 30 percent of the reactor's total
radioactivity ¾ 3 billion of an estimated 9
billion curies ¾ was released.6 And scientists at
the U.S. Lawrence Livermore Nat. Lab suggested
that one-half of the core's radioactivity was
spewed ¾ 4.5 billion curies, according the World
Information Service on Energy, quoting Science,
6-13-86.

Vladimir Chernousenko, the chief scientific
supervisor of the "clean up" team responsible for
a 10-kilometer zone around the exploded reactor,
says that 80 percent of the reactor's
radioactivity escaped, something like seven
billion curies.7 At the Union of Concerned
Scientists, senior energy analyst Kennedy Maize,
concluded that "the core vaporized" ¾ all 190 tons
of fuel, and all 9 billion curies.8

Former Chair of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission, Joseph Hendrie, concluded likewise,
saying "They have dumped the full inventory of
volatile fission products from a large power
reactor into the environment. You can't do any
worse than that."9

The Russians and the International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA) claimed in a 1986 report, that 50
million curies of radioactive debris, plus another
50 million curies of rare and inert gasses were
discharged. However, the rocketing incidence of
cancers, leukemias and other radiation-induced
illnesses, leads scientists to suspect that the
higher radioactive fallout estimates are likely.
Pandemic numbers of thyroid cancers led even the
cautious Dr. Alexander Sich, in his Chernobyl
cover story for the May 1996 Bulletin of Atomic
Scientists to conclude that the "higher
[radiation] release estimates support the
conclusions drawn by medical experts."

Geneticist Valery N. Soyfer, founder of the former
Soviet Union's first molecular biology laboratory,
analyzed the 1986 report to the IAEA, which has
since been condemned as a cover-up. Dr. Soyfer
says that if only 100 million curies were vented,
then world "background radiation doubled at
once."10 This claim was unsupported by
accompanying evidence, but if "background" was
doubled by 100 million curies, then it was
multiplied 180 times by the release of Chernobyl's
"full inventory." Nineteen months after the
disaster, in Nov. 1987, the U.S. government
officially doubled its estimate of the
"background" radiation to which we are exposed
every year.11


Thyroid Cancers: More, Sooner, Untreatable

Dr. Soyfer further discovered that the Soviets
focused on and publicized the fallout's
radioactive iodine content, but understated the
amounts of other far more dangerous isotopes.
While 10 to 15 percent of the fallout was
iodine-131, the long-lived radionuclides
strontium-90 and cesium-137 made up more than two
thirds of the total contamination.12

Furthermore, the Soviet's 1986 estimate of future
cancer deaths was based only on the impact of
iodine-131, and then only on external doses. As a
result, the IAEA misled the world about Chernobyl'
s cancer threat. People contaminated with
iodine-131 ingested it, first by breathing, then
by drinking contaminated milk for six weeks.
Thyroid cancer is caused by the iodine-131. Its
rates are today ten times higher than the increase
any scientist had anticipated. The U. N. has said
that the number of thyroid cancers among children
in Belarus ¾ where 70 percent of the fallout
landed ¾ are 285 times pre-Chernobyl levels.13

The British Medical Journal reported in 1995 that
the rate of thyroid cancer in the region north of
Chernobyl¾ Ukraine and Belarus¾ is 200 times
higher than normal, and the (British) Imperial
Cancer Research Fund found a 500 percent increase
in thyroid cancers among Ukrainian children
between 1986 and 1993.14

Fear is growing among physicians treating the
young radiation victims, because the thyroid
cancers are appearing sooner than expected and
growing quicker than usual. Dr. Andrei Butenko, at
Kiev Hospital No. 1 in Ukraine, says of his
patients, "Routine chemotherapy seems to have lost
its effectiveness; something has changed in the
immune system."15


Cesium's Genetic Assault: the 300 Years War

Cesium-137 contamination is probably Chernobyl's
most devastating and ominous consequence. The body
can't distinguish cesium from potassium, so it's
taken up by our cells and becomes an internal
source of radiation. Cesium-137 is a gamma emitter
and its half-life of 30 years means that it stays
in the soil, to concentrate in the food chain, for
over 300 years. While iodine-131 remains
radioactive for six weeks, cesium-137 stays in the
body for decades, concentrating in muscle where it
irradiates muscle cells and nearby organs.16

Strontium-90 is also long-lived and, because it
resembles calcium, is permanently incorporated
into bone tissue where it may lead to leukemia.

The Soviet's acknowledged in 1986 that the
influence of cesium-137 on cancer death rates
would be nine times that of iodine-131. They said
that the effects of strontium-90 would "perhaps
have, along with cesium-137, the most important
meaning."17


Early Findings Go from Bad to Worse

Exposure to radiation more often results in
genetic and reproductive damage than cancer. These
hereditary disorders are unlimited in time, since
they pass from generation to generation in the
sperm and ovum. So, as geneticist Soyfer points
out, Chernobyl's enduring biological legacy will
be that of inherited diseases, deformities,
developmental abnormalities, spontaneous abortions
and premature births.

Some recent epidemiological studies confirm the
worst of these inevitable effects. The June 25,
1995 Washington Post reported that birth defects
in the areas most heavily poisoned have doubled
since 1986.

In a long page one story, the Aug. 2, 1995 New
York Times reported that life expectancy has
plummeted in Russia, making it the first nation in
history to ever experience such a public health
status reversal. Male life expectancy is now the
lowest in the world (below even India or Bolivia)
and, at the same time, infant mortality rose 15
percent in both 1993 and 1994, and there are now
epidemic rates of heart disease and cancer. dr.
David Hoel, an epidemiologist at the Medical
University of S. Carolina, is studying whether
Chernobyl's radiation is a major factor in the
spread in cancers and birth defects. "Everyone
assumes the connection," he said.

The journal Nature has published a study of
children born in 1994 to mothers exposed to
Chernobyl's fallout in 1986. Researchers studied
79 families 186 miles from Chernobyl and found
never-before-observed "germ-line" mutations:
changes in DNA of the sperm and ovum. Such
mutations are passed on from generation to
generation.18

Nature has also reported that in Greece, 2,800
kilometers from Chernobyl, where radiation
exposures were far lower than in areas close to
the reactor, leukemia has been diagnosed at rates
2.6 times the norm in young people who were in the
womb when the reactor exploded. The British
epidemiologist Dr. Alice Stewart found long ago
that only one diagnostic X-ray to the pregnant
abdomen increases the risk of leukemia in the
offspring by 40 percent.19 However, the report
from Greece is the first to link Chernobyl's
wreckage to increased leukemia incidence in
children exposed in utero.20 The report has moved
some experts to again warn that the low levels of
radiation to which people are exposed every day
"could contribute to cancer."

Even the stodgy New York Times has reported that
"cancers are now believed to be the result of
smaller [radiation] doses, and the amount of
damage inflicted by a given dose is now believed
to be larger."21

In a related study, two U.S. geneticists analyzing
animals inside Chernobyl's 6-mile radius found
that small rodents known as voles "sustain an
extraordinary amount of genetic damage." The study
found that "the mutation rate in these animals
is...probably thousands of times greater than
normal." Two findings called "ominous" were,
first, that one-third of the mutations that the
scientists expected to see were not even detected
¾ probably because they were lethal. "It could be
that the animals were never born," said Dr. Robert
Becker of Texas Technical Univ. Second, "the vole
mutations were cumulative, increasing with each
succeeding generation." Both researchers doubted
that any species could sustain such a mutation
rate indefinitely.22


Acceptable Whole-Earth Poisoning

The extent of Chernobyl's radioactive, biological
and ecological damage, and the depth its
psychological and economic devastation are
incalculable.

What everyone does know about nuclear reactors is
that they have a record of whole-earth poisoning,
and that their potential for more of the same is
considered acceptable ¾ authorized in advance.
This potential, for unlimited and uncontrollable
radiation "accidents," has been deliberately
developed, promoted, protected, ignored and then
denied, or forgotten.

Sadly, denial and forgetfulness only make another
Chernobyl inevitable.

Notes:

1 The Nuclear Monitor, newsletter of Nuclear
Information Resource Service (NIRS), April 1996.

2 St. Louis Post Dispatch (SLPD), 7-23-90.

3 SLPD, 4-26-90.

4 Associated Press, 5-15-86.

5 Time, 11-13-89.

6 The Chicago Tribune, 6-22-86.

7 "The Truth About Chernobyl," Critical Mass:
Voices for a Nuclear-Free Future, Ruggiero and
Sahulka, Eds., 1996 by Open Media, p. 127.

8 Not Man Apart, the journal of Friends of the
Earth, March 1987.

9 The Minneapolis Star Tribune, 5-19-86.

10 SLPD, 4-24-87.

11 The New York Times, 11-20-87.

12 SLPD, 4-24-87.

13 The New York Times, 11-29-96.

14 The Washington Post, 3-25-95.

15 Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, 12-12-94.

16 Caldicott, H., Nuclear Madness, 1994, Norton,
p. 137.

17 SLPD, 4-24-87.

18 The New York Times, 4-25-96.

19 Caldicott, Ibid., p. 43.

20 St. Paul Pioneer, 7-25-96.

21 The New York Times, 6-23-96.

22 The New York Times, 5-7-96, B6. --end--

(Part One ran in NUKEWATCH The Pathfinder, Summer
1996, part Two in Winter 1996/1997 EDITION; an
edited compilation of both parts is published in
Earth Island Journal, Summer 1997, EIJ, 300
Broadway, No. 28, San Francisco, CA 94133.)

JOHN LaFORGE

___________
Nukewatch
P.O. Box 649
Luck, WI 54853
Phone (715) 472-4185
Fax (715) 472-4184
Web http://www.nukewatch.com


*****************************************************************
 17 [NukeNet] Chernobyl's 18th Anniversary Today: CHERNOBYL MEDIA
 
Date: Mon, 26 Apr 2004 15:02:13 -0700

 
<x-flowed>

   Today, April 26, 2004 is the 18th anniversary of
the Chernobyl catastrophe.

  A few excerpts from article below:
A short review of Chernobyl's fallout pattern
shows how irresponsible the reporting has become.

AP, May 15, 1986: "Airborne radioactivity from the
Chernobyl nuclear accident is now so widespread
that it is likely to fall to the ground wherever
it rains in the United States, the EPA said."

AP, May 14, 1986: "An invisible cloud of
radioactivity spewed over the Soviet Union and
Europe, and has worked its way gradually around
the world."

AP, May 15, 1986: "State authorities in Oregon
have warned residents dependent solely on
rainwater for drinking that they should arrange
other supplies for the time being."

Star Tribune, May 17, 1986: "Since radiation from
the Chernobyl nuclear accident began floating over
Minnesota last week, low levels of radiation have
been discovered in . . . the raw milk from a
Minnesota dairy."

AP, April 4, 1996: "Plutonium and other dangerous
particles released in the accident . . . have now
found their way to Ukraine's major waterways . . .
. 'We have billions of tons of radiated earth that
can't be dumped anywhere, and which will pour
plutonium, cesium and strontium into Europe for
decades,' the chief consultant to the Ukrainian
Parliament's Chernobyl commission said."

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, May 1996:
"radiation contamination was detectable over the
entire Northern Hemisphere."


The pro-nuclear Time magazine reported in 1989
that perhaps "one billion or more" curies were
released, rather than the 50 to 80 million
estimated by Russian authorities.5 One curie is
the amount of radiation equal to the
disintegration of 37 billion atoms ¾ 37 billion
becquerels ¾ per second. It is a very large amount
of radiation.
The U.S. government's Argonne Nat. Lab has said
that 30 percent of the reactor's total
radioactivity ¾ 3 billion of an estimated 9
billion curies ¾ was released.6 And scientists at
the U.S. Lawrence Livermore Nat. Lab suggested
that one-half of the core's radioactivity was
spewed ¾ 4.5 billion curies, according the World
Information Service on Energy, quoting Science,
6-13-86.

Vladimir Chernousenko, the chief scientific
supervisor of the "clean up" team responsible for
a 10-kilometer zone around the exploded reactor,
says that 80 percent of the reactor's
radioactivity escaped, something like seven
billion curies.7 At the Union of Concerned
Scientists, senior energy analyst Kennedy Maize,
concluded that "the core vaporized" ¾ all 190 tons
of fuel, and all 9 billion curies.8

Former Chair of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission, Joseph Hendrie, concluded likewise,
saying "They have dumped the full inventory of
volatile fission products from a large power
reactor into the environment. You can't do any
worse than that."9


"After all, the IAEA is in the business of
promoting nuclear energy, not discouraging it. For
10 years the agency has attempted to downplay the
consequences of the accident," wrote Alexander R.
Sich in a cover story for the Bulletin of Atomic
Scientists [ see http://www.thebulletin.org ].
  The IAEA, still downplaying in 1995, said any
increase in cancer caused by Chernobyl would be
"undetectable."

Nineteen months after the disaster, in Nov. 1987,
the U.S. government
officially doubled its estimate of the
"background" radiation to which we
are exposed every year.11 [Part 2]

Chernobyl at Ten:
Half-lives and Half Truths

(Part one of two)


By John M. LaForgeã


With a heavy dose of half-truth, the commercial
press worked over-time to reduce the results of
the Chernobyl catastrophe to a "nervous disorder"
confined to the C.I.S. and Europe. Understated
reports on the 10th anniversary of the world-wide
radiation disaster help the nuclear reactor
industry hold on against overwhelming opposition,
in spite of what should have been the final insult
from nuclear power.

The latest psychological "clean up" often went
like this. Peter Crane, a lawyer at the U. S.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), said that
"...the explosion... sent a radioactive cloud into
the atmosphere of Eastern Europe." (1) This is a
true statement. It merely neglects to mention the
rest of planet Earth.

Reporter Michael Specter wrote that, "The fire
which burned out of control for five days, spewed
more than 50 tons of radioactive fallout across
Belarus, Ukraine and Western Russia." (2) This
loaded sentence is also literally true. The fact
that the fire burned uncontrolled for two weeks,
after a series of three explosions; that perhaps
190 tons of reactor fuel was catapulted into the
atmosphere; or that the radioactive fallout spread
world-wide ¾ reaching Minnesota's milk for example
¾ doesn't make of Mr. Specter a liar, only a miser
with the truth.

Associated Press (AP) correspondent Dave Carpenter
's description ¾ that "deadly reactor fuel shot
into the atmosphere, contaminating some 10,000
square miles and reaching as far as Western
Europe" (3) is likewise "correct," but Reuters
News Service reported on 28 Nov. 1995 that the
contaminated areas include about 61,780 square
miles.

Carpenter practiced perfect obfuscation in his
dispatch, saying of the reckless nuclearists over
there: "In a big lie, Soviet officials. . . first
hushed up the disaster then played down its
severity." What is it to understate the sum of
irradiated territory by a factor of six? It isn't
the pot calling the kettle black; it's the cesium
calling the strontium a cancer agent.

Carpenter's AP lullaby was published widely and
included the comment that, ". . .those living in
the shadow of Chernobyl will be living with its
deadly health and environmental legacy for years."
(4)

For years? The word centuries would have been more
accurate, if conservative, since radiation's
health affects are multi-generational and not
limited in time. Indeed, some genetic effects
appear to be increasing with each successive
generation.

The AP's Angela Charlson went so far as to say the
reactor sent "a radioactive cloud across parts of
Europe ..." (5) Understatement of the overwhelming
facts was practiced as well by the editors of The
New York Times, who said on April 21 that the
disaster "spewed radiation across much or Europe"
(6) and on the anniversary, that "...a plume of
toxic gases & dust...spread across the western
Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and Scandinavia." (7)
Although the contamination of the rest of the
world was hinted at as lately as 6 Oct. 1995, when
the Times reported that the radiation spread
across western Russia "and beyond," this
uncomfortable fact is nowadays passé.


The Disaster's in Your Head

While the explosions' long-lived carcinogens ¾
primarily cesium, plutonium, strontium and iodine
¾ are well known to be deadly for decades and even
centuries, Soviet officials, the U. N's
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and
U.S. editors have all ridiculed the common sense
fear of Chernobyl's radioactive fallout.

The official Soviet paper Izvestia said in 1988
that doctors in the Ukraine were, ". . .spending
more time on trying to dispel irrational fears
than on treating the effects of radiation." (8)

The IAEA which at first refused to conduct a
post-Chernobyl health study, claiming that all the
accident's effects were confined within Soviet
borders (9), dared to say in a 1991 study that
Chernobyl's health effects were mainly
"psychological." This heavily criticized report
didn't even consider the health of the
"liquidators," or the evacuees from the 18-mile
exclusion zone, 8,000 of whom are now known to
have died from radiation related diseases. (10)

The IAEA study failed to mention the lengthy
latency period for observed cancer incidence. This
cavalier white-wash of the disaster's inevitable
results came from a nominal nuclear watchdog,
which in fact is only the most prestigious booster
of nuclear power. "After all the IAEA is in the
business of promoting nuclear energy not
discouraging it. For ten years the agency has
attempted to downplay the consequences of the
accident," wrote Dr. Alexander R. Sich in a cover
story for the May/June Bulletin of Atomic
Scientists. (11) The IAEA, still sticking in its
vacuum, said in 1995 that any increase in cancer
caused by Chernobyl would be "undetectable."
(11.1)

Editors across the country have embraced the IAEA'
s dismissive attitude, distracting readers with
headlines like, "Area Frozen In Fear," "Citizens
Still Suffering Radiation Phobia," and "The Legacy
of Chernobyl: Fear is the Deeper Wound." A dread
of radiation doesn't appear irrational in view of
last year's report that "A second catastrophic
explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in
Ukraine could happen "at any time," Western
scientists have warned." (12)


Reality Officially Forgotten

A short review of Chernobyl's fallout pattern
shows how irresponsible the late reporting has
become. AP, 15 May 1986: "Airborne radioactivity
from the Chernobyl nuclear accident is now so
widespread that it is likely to fall to the ground
wherever it rains in the United States, the EPA
said." AP, 14 May 1986: "An invisible cloud of
radioactivity spewed over the Soviet Union and
Europe, and has worked its way gradually around
the world." AP, 15 May 1986: "State authorities in
Oregon have warned residents dependent solely on
rainwater for drinking that they should arrange
other supplies for the time being." Minneapolis
Star Tribune, 17 May 1986: "Since radiation from
the Chernobyl nuclear accident began floating over
Minnesota last week, low levels of radiation have
been discovered in... the raw milk from a
Minnesota dairy." AP, 4 April 1996: "Plutonium and
other dangerous particles released in the
accident...have now found their way to Ukraine's
major waterways. ... 'We have billions of tons of
radiated earth that can't be dumped anywhere, and
which will pour plutonium, cesium and strontium
into Europe for decades,' [the chief consultant to
the Ukrainian parliament's Chernobyl commission]
said." Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, May 1996, p.
38: "...radiation contamination was detectable
over the entire northern hemisphere."

With so much disparity among so many figures, we
may never know the true dimensions of Chernobyl's
radiation bomb.


Notes:

(1) NYT, Op-Ed, 5 April 1996.

(2) International Herald Tribune, 2 April 1996.

(3) Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, 14 April 1996.


(4) Minneapolis Star Tribune, 21 April 1996.

(5) St. Paul Pioneer, 27 April 1996.

(6) NYT, 21 April 1996, The Week In Review.

(7) NYT, 26 April 1996, signed editorial by Philip
Taubman

(8) Los Angeles Times, 11 Feb. 1988.

(9) In These Times, 22 April 1987.

(10) AP, 23 April 1992; WISE News Communiqué,
(Amsterdam) No. 449, 10 April 1996.

(11) Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, May 1996, p.
38.

(11.1) Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, May/June
1996, p. 8.

(12) The London Observer, 26 March 1995; Milwaukee
Journal, 27 March 1995.



-- John M. LaForge is codirector of Nukewatch, a
peace group based in Wisconsin, and editor of its
quarterly newsletter, the Pathfinder.

© Copyright 2000 Star Tribune. All rights reserved




Half Lives and Half Truths: Chernobyl Ten Years
On-Part 2:


By John M. LaForge ã

(Second of two parts)


The 10th anniversary was no party.

"I have seen the beginning of the end of the
world," is how Michael Mariotte, editor of The
Nuclear Monitor, put it after visiting Chernobyl's
doomed landscape, everything dead or dying for
miles around. "The end of the world begins in
Pripyat, Ukraine, a once-thriving city of 45,000.
Now it sits crumbling, abandoned, a mute but
overwhelming testament to technological arrogance
gone amok."1

Pripyat was the city nearest Chernobyl's Unit 4,
the reactor that exploded on April 26, 1986 and
burned dangerously until October, spewing tons of
cancer-causing isotopes around the world.2

Mr. Mariotte is not known for emotional writing in
The Monitor, but anyone who can stand to
investigate the unfolding human consequences of
the world's worst industrial catastrophe can
understand his choice of words. Izvestia called it
"the greatest technological catastrophe in world h
istory."3

Cancers and other disease caused by Chernobyl's
radioactive poisons are being recorded thousands
of kilometers from the reactor site. The ninety
million people who lived in the path of the very
worst fallout are learning the hard way that
damage done by ionizing radiation is unrelenting,
cumulative and irreversible.

In the first part of this article (Spring 1996
Pathfinder) I compared the recent trivialization
of Chernobyl's consequences to news accounts that
appeared soon after the explosions and fire. For
example, while the commercial press now tell us
that the disaster "spread radiation across parts
of Europe," the fact is that the federal EPA
announced in mid-May 1986 that, "Airborne
radioactivity from the Chernobyl nuclear accident
is now so widespread that it is likely to fall to
the ground wherever it rains in the United
States."4

In this part I look at how much radiation
Chernobyl evidently dumped added to the
"background," at official skewing of the its
inevitable long-term effects, and at recent
reports of its human health consequences.


Answers are Blowin' in the Wind

How much radiation was released? What percentage
of which isotopes were thrown into the atmosphere.
Was it mostly iodine-131? How much of the total
was made up of the far more dangerous cesium-137,
strontium-90 and plutonium?

Piecing together the truth is a dizzying job of
ferreting out bias and vested interest. The
pro-nuclear Time magazine reported in 1989 that
perhaps "one billion or more" curies were
released, rather than the 50 to 80 million
estimated by Russian authorities.5 One curie is
the amount of radiation equal to the
disintegration of 37 billion atoms ¾ 37 billion
becquerels ¾ per second. It is a very large amount
of radiation.

The U.S. government's Argonne Nat. Lab has said
that 30 percent of the reactor's total
radioactivity ¾ 3 billion of an estimated 9
billion curies ¾ was released.6 And scientists at
the U.S. Lawrence Livermore Nat. Lab suggested
that one-half of the core's radioactivity was
spewed ¾ 4.5 billion curies, according the World
Information Service on Energy, quoting Science,
6-13-86.

Vladimir Chernousenko, the chief scientific
supervisor of the "clean up" team responsible for
a 10-kilometer zone around the exploded reactor,
says that 80 percent of the reactor's
radioactivity escaped, something like seven
billion curies.7 At the Union of Concerned
Scientists, senior energy analyst Kennedy Maize,
concluded that "the core vaporized" ¾ all 190 tons
of fuel, and all 9 billion curies.8

Former Chair of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission, Joseph Hendrie, concluded likewise,
saying "They have dumped the full inventory of
volatile fission products from a large power
reactor into the environment. You can't do any
worse than that."9

The Russians and the International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA) claimed in a 1986 report, that 50
million curies of radioactive debris, plus another
50 million curies of rare and inert gasses were
discharged. However, the rocketing incidence of
cancers, leukemias and other radiation-induced
illnesses, leads scientists to suspect that the
higher radioactive fallout estimates are likely.
Pandemic numbers of thyroid cancers led even the
cautious Dr. Alexander Sich, in his Chernobyl
cover story for the May 1996 Bulletin of Atomic
Scientists to conclude that the "higher
[radiation] release estimates support the
conclusions drawn by medical experts."

Geneticist Valery N. Soyfer, founder of the former
Soviet Union's first molecular biology laboratory,
analyzed the 1986 report to the IAEA, which has
since been condemned as a cover-up. Dr. Soyfer
says that if only 100 million curies were vented,
then world "background radiation doubled at
once."10 This claim was unsupported by
accompanying evidence, but if "background" was
doubled by 100 million curies, then it was
multiplied 180 times by the release of Chernobyl's
"full inventory." Nineteen months after the
disaster, in Nov. 1987, the U.S. government
officially doubled its estimate of the
"background" radiation to which we are exposed
every year.11


Thyroid Cancers: More, Sooner, Untreatable

Dr. Soyfer further discovered that the Soviets
focused on and publicized the fallout's
radioactive iodine content, but understated the
amounts of other far more dangerous isotopes.
While 10 to 15 percent of the fallout was
iodine-131, the long-lived radionuclides
strontium-90 and cesium-137 made up more than two
thirds of the total contamination.12

Furthermore, the Soviet's 1986 estimate of future
cancer deaths was based only on the impact of
iodine-131, and then only on external doses. As a
result, the IAEA misled the world about Chernobyl'
s cancer threat. People contaminated with
iodine-131 ingested it, first by breathing, then
by drinking contaminated milk for six weeks.
Thyroid cancer is caused by the iodine-131. Its
rates are today ten times higher than the increase
any scientist had anticipated. The U. N. has said
that the number of thyroid cancers among children
in Belarus ¾ where 70 percent of the fallout
landed ¾ are 285 times pre-Chernobyl levels.13

The British Medical Journal reported in 1995 that
the rate of thyroid cancer in the region north of
Chernobyl¾ Ukraine and Belarus¾ is 200 times
higher than normal, and the (British) Imperial
Cancer Research Fund found a 500 percent increase
in thyroid cancers among Ukrainian children
between 1986 and 1993.14

Fear is growing among physicians treating the
young radiation victims, because the thyroid
cancers are appearing sooner than expected and
growing quicker than usual. Dr. Andrei Butenko, at
Kiev Hospital No. 1 in Ukraine, says of his
patients, "Routine chemotherapy seems to have lost
its effectiveness; something has changed in the
immune system."15


Cesium's Genetic Assault: the 300 Years War

Cesium-137 contamination is probably Chernobyl's
most devastating and ominous consequence. The body
can't distinguish cesium from potassium, so it's
taken up by our cells and becomes an internal
source of radiation. Cesium-137 is a gamma emitter
and its half-life of 30 years means that it stays
in the soil, to concentrate in the food chain, for
over 300 years. While iodine-131 remains
radioactive for six weeks, cesium-137 stays in the
body for decades, concentrating in muscle where it
irradiates muscle cells and nearby organs.16

Strontium-90 is also long-lived and, because it
resembles calcium, is permanently incorporated
into bone tissue where it may lead to leukemia.

The Soviet's acknowledged in 1986 that the
influence of cesium-137 on cancer death rates
would be nine times that of iodine-131. They said
that the effects of strontium-90 would "perhaps
have, along with cesium-137, the most important
meaning."17


Early Findings Go from Bad to Worse

Exposure to radiation more often results in
genetic and reproductive damage than cancer. These
hereditary disorders are unlimited in time, since
they pass from generation to generation in the
sperm and ovum. So, as geneticist Soyfer points
out, Chernobyl's enduring biological legacy will
be that of inherited diseases, deformities,
developmental abnormalities, spontaneous abortions
and premature births.

Some recent epidemiological studies confirm the
worst of these inevitable effects. The June 25,
1995 Washington Post reported that birth defects
in the areas most heavily poisoned have doubled
since 1986.

In a long page one story, the Aug. 2, 1995 New
York Times reported that life expectancy has
plummeted in Russia, making it the first nation in
history to ever experience such a public health
status reversal. Male life expectancy is now the
lowest in the world (below even India or Bolivia)
and, at the same time, infant mortality rose 15
percent in both 1993 and 1994, and there are now
epidemic rates of heart disease and cancer. dr.
David Hoel, an epidemiologist at the Medical
University of S. Carolina, is studying whether
Chernobyl's radiation is a major factor in the
spread in cancers and birth defects. "Everyone
assumes the connection," he said.

The journal Nature has published a study of
children born in 1994 to mothers exposed to
Chernobyl's fallout in 1986. Researchers studied
79 families 186 miles from Chernobyl and found
never-before-observed "germ-line" mutations:
changes in DNA of the sperm and ovum. Such
mutations are passed on from generation to
generation.18

Nature has also reported that in Greece, 2,800
kilometers from Chernobyl, where radiation
exposures were far lower than in areas close to
the reactor, leukemia has been diagnosed at rates
2.6 times the norm in young people who were in the
womb when the reactor exploded. The British
epidemiologist Dr. Alice Stewart found long ago
that only one diagnostic X-ray to the pregnant
abdomen increases the risk of leukemia in the
offspring by 40 percent.19 However, the report
from Greece is the first to link Chernobyl's
wreckage to increased leukemia incidence in
children exposed in utero.20 The report has moved
some experts to again warn that the low levels of
radiation to which people are exposed every day
"could contribute to cancer."

Even the stodgy New York Times has reported that
"cancers are now believed to be the result of
smaller [radiation] doses, and the amount of
damage inflicted by a given dose is now believed
to be larger."21

In a related study, two U.S. geneticists analyzing
animals inside Chernobyl's 6-mile radius found
that small rodents known as voles "sustain an
extraordinary amount of genetic damage." The study
found that "the mutation rate in these animals
is...probably thousands of times greater than
normal." Two findings called "ominous" were,
first, that one-third of the mutations that the
scientists expected to see were not even detected
¾ probably because they were lethal. "It could be
that the animals were never born," said Dr. Robert
Becker of Texas Technical Univ. Second, "the vole
mutations were cumulative, increasing with each
succeeding generation." Both researchers doubted
that any species could sustain such a mutation
rate indefinitely.22


Acceptable Whole-Earth Poisoning

The extent of Chernobyl's radioactive, biological
and ecological damage, and the depth its
psychological and economic devastation are
incalculable.

What everyone does know about nuclear reactors is
that they have a record of whole-earth poisoning,
and that their potential for more of the same is
considered acceptable ¾ authorized in advance.
This potential, for unlimited and uncontrollable
radiation "accidents," has been deliberately
developed, promoted, protected, ignored and then
denied, or forgotten.

Sadly, denial and forgetfulness only make another
Chernobyl inevitable.

Notes:

1 The Nuclear Monitor, newsletter of Nuclear
Information Resource Service (NIRS), April 1996.

2 St. Louis Post Dispatch (SLPD), 7-23-90.

3 SLPD, 4-26-90.

4 Associated Press, 5-15-86.

5 Time, 11-13-89.

6 The Chicago Tribune, 6-22-86.

7 "The Truth About Chernobyl," Critical Mass:
Voices for a Nuclear-Free Future, Ruggiero and
Sahulka, Eds., 1996 by Open Media, p. 127.

8 Not Man Apart, the journal of Friends of the
Earth, March 1987.

9 The Minneapolis Star Tribune, 5-19-86.

10 SLPD, 4-24-87.

11 The New York Times, 11-20-87.

12 SLPD, 4-24-87.

13 The New York Times, 11-29-96.

14 The Washington Post, 3-25-95.

15 Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, 12-12-94.

16 Caldicott, H., Nuclear Madness, 1994, Norton,
p. 137.

17 SLPD, 4-24-87.

18 The New York Times, 4-25-96.

19 Caldicott, Ibid., p. 43.

20 St. Paul Pioneer, 7-25-96.

21 The New York Times, 6-23-96.

22 The New York Times, 5-7-96, B6. --end--

(Part One ran in NUKEWATCH The Pathfinder, Summer
1996, part Two in Winter 1996/1997 EDITION; an
edited compilation of both parts is published in
Earth Island Journal, Summer 1997, EIJ, 300
Broadway, No. 28, San Francisco, CA 94133.)

JOHN LaFORGE

___________
Nukewatch
P.O. Box 649
Luck, WI 54853
Phone (715) 472-4185
Fax (715) 472-4184
Web http://www.nukewatch.com



_______________________________________________________________________
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</x-flowed>
*****************************************************************
 18 NRC: NRC Amends Licensing, Inspection and Annual Fees Rule
 
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. 04-048     April 26, 2004   
  

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is amending its regulations
for the licensing, inspection and annual fees it charges
applicants and licensees for Fiscal Year (FY) 2004. 

The agency is required to collect nearly all of its annual
appropriated budget through two types of fees. One is for
specific NRC services, such as licensing and inspection
activities, that apply to a specific license. The other is an
annual fee paid by all licensees, which recovers generic
regulatory expenses and other costs not recovered through fees
for specific services. These fees are contained in Commission
regulations 10 CFR Part 170 (fees for licensing and inspection
services) and 10 CFR Part 171 (annual fees). 

By law, the NRC must recover $545.3 million, which represents 92
percent of its budget for
 FY 2004 (October 1, 2003 - September 30, 2004) less the $32.9
million appropriated from the Nuclear Waste Fund for high-level
waste activities. The amount to be recovered in FY 2004 includes
$51.1 million appropriated for NRCs activities related to
homeland security. The total amount to be recovered is about $19
million more than last year, which will fund increases in
resources for homeland security activities, operating reactor
license renewals and new reactor licensing. 

The annual fees have been determined under the re-baselining
method. The Commission decided to re-baseline annual fees this
year based on the changes in the total budget and the magnitude
of the budget allocated to certain classes of licensees.
Re-baselined annual fees will result in increased annual fees
compared to FY 2003 fees for three classes of licensees (power
reactors, rare earth mills and transportation) and decreased
annual fees for three classes (spent fuel storage/reactor
decommissioning, non-power reactors, and fuel facilities). 

Finally, in two classes, material users and uranium recovery,
annual fees for most categories of licensees will decrease. 

The FY 2004 annual fees include the following representative
classes/categories of licensees: 


       Class/Category of Licensees     FY 2004 Annual Fee   
  Power Reactors     $3,283,000                 
  (Including spent fuel storage/reactor decommissioning annual
fee)   
  Rare Earth Mills     $157,600                 
  Transportation-Approvals     $91,300                 
  (Users and Fabricators)   
  Spent Fuel Storage/Reactor Decommissioning     $203,000       
         
  Non-Power Reactors     $62,500                 
  High-enriched Uranium Fuel Facility     $4,573,000            
    
  Low-enriched Uranium Fuel Facility     $1,533,000             
   
  Uranium Recovery (Conventional Mills)     $14,500             
   
  Radiographers     $11,900                 
  Broad Scope Medical     $25,000                 
  Distribution of Radiopharmaceuticals     $4,500               
 
  Certain Gauge Users     $2,500                 



The final rule was published in the Federal Register today,
April 26. The proposed rule was published February 2, with a
request for public comment. The agency received 14 comments,
which are summarized, along with the agencys responses, in the
final rule Federal Register notice.   



  


 	Last revised Monday, April 26, 2004 	   
*****************************************************************
 19 National Geographic: Chernobyl Disaster's Health Impact Remains Cloudy

Summary Eighteen years ago today, Reactor 4 of the Chernobyl 
nuclear power plant exploded. The accident killed at least 30 
plant workers, caused the hospitalization of hundreds of others, 
and exposed millions of people to harmful radiation. Yet today 
the true health costs of the nuclear disaster are still unknown. 
Earthpulse -----> +                       

[http://www.nationalgeographic.com/]

Stefan Lovgren for National Geographic News April 26, 2004

At 1:24 a.m. on April 26, 1986, Reactor 4 of the nuclear power 
plant in the Ukrainian town of Chernobyl exploded as engineers 
conducted a test to determine how long the plant's generators 
could run without power. 

It was the greatest technological disaster in history. Burning 
for ten days, the reactor released a cloud of radioactivity that 
some experts estimate was equivalent to that of 200 Hiroshima and 
Nagasaki bombs. 

The accident killed at least 30 plant workers, caused the 
hospitalization of hundreds of others, and exposed millions of 
people to ionizing radiation. This type of high-energy radiation 
can break apart molecules and atoms. 

[Chernobyl evacuee] In November 1986 the former postmaster of 
Chernobyl poses outside a new housing development west of Kiev, 
Ukraine. The World War II veteran was one of hundreds evacuated 
from Chernobyl after the April 1986 nuclear power plant disaster.

Photograph by Steve Raymer, copyright National Geographic Society 

But 18 years after the disaster, the true health costs of 
Chernobyl's radiation bomb are still unknown. 

Up to 2,000 children later developed thyroid cancer as a result 
of radiation. While some experts believe the cancer rate has 
peaked, others warn that it could take decades for all cancers to 
be detected. 

Thousands of other fatal illnesses have also been blamed on the 
disaster. Less controversially, it is widely accepted that the 
accident has caused great economic and psychological hardship, 
especially among the hundred thousand people who had to be 
resettled. 

"Eighteen years after the Chernobyl disaster, we are still unable 
to give an exhaustive picture of the consequences of this 
accident and its health implications," said Denise Adler, a 
radiation expert at the University of Geneva in Switzerland. "It 
can't be compared to any other environmental disaster." 

Contaminated Rains 

Chernobyl is located about 80 miles (130 kilometers) north of 
Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, and 7 miles (11 kilometers) south of 
the border with Belarus. At the time of the accident, Ukraine and 
Belarus were still part of the Soviet Union. 

Belarus was affected the most by the Chernobyl catastrophe. About 
70 percent of all released radioactive substances from Chernobyl 
fell on its territory. 

Some places in western Europe and Turkey received contaminated 
rains, and insignificant amounts of radiation even reached the 
United States. In Switzerland, it is still forbidden to eat 
mushrooms in some mountainous parts. 

The secretive Soviet government at first downplayed the magnitude 
of the disaster. Few residents were told to evacuate the area, 
even though a large swath of territory soon became heavily 
contaminated by radionuclides—atoms that emit ionizing radiation. 

"The actual radiation suffered by the populations is little 
known," said André Giordan, the director of the Didactic Science 
and Epistemology Laboratory at the University of Geneva. "It is 
therefore very difficult to quantify the health effects of the 
Chernobyl accident." 

Poor recordkeeping and corruption also prevented the accurate 
registration of the 600,000 so-called liquidators—the workers who 
helped put out the fire and entomb the smoldering nuclear plant 
in the spring of 1986. Significant international efforts by the 
United Nations and others have been underway to better understand 
public and worker exposure, and the possible effects on their 
health. 

Chronic Radiation 

A report published in the journal Nuclear Energy last year 
predicted that 4,400 people would develop thyroid cancer as a 
result of the Chernobyl accident, leading to 1,000 premature 
deaths. Most cases can be cured by surgically removing the 
thyroid and treating patients with tablets of thyroxin hormone 
for the rest of their lives. 

So far, only three people have died from Chernobyl-induced 
thyroid cancer, according to Ted Lazo, the deputy head of 
radiation protection at the Nuclear Energy Agency in Paris. There 
is no evidence yet of an increase in other cancers, such as 
leukemia. 

"This is not to say that the populations still living in 
contaminated territories are healthy," Lazo said. "It seems 
pretty clear that, in general, the health of these people has 
deteriorated and continues to do so." 

In Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it took, in some cases, 20 to 30 years 
to detect certain cancers. 

But studies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki victims may not be 
applicable to predicting the effects of Chernobyl. While the 
victims of those atomic bombs were exposed to radiation in a 
blinding flash, the people of Chernobyl have lived with chronic 
exposure—albeit at a lower dose rate—for years. The danger of 
such radiation is difficult to assess and is the topic of ongoing 
research. 

There are many noncancer health concerns, too. 

In a major study of children born in 1994 to mothers who had 
lived 186 miles (300 kilometers) from Chernobyl and had been 
exposed to radioactive fallout, researchers found never before 
observed "germ line" mutations: changes in the DNA of sperm and 
eggs. 

"Genetic defects may remain hidden for several generations," 
Adler said. "We have to expect more [of them] in the future." 

Fear of the effects of radiation had a significant effect. Around 
200,000 women reportedly aborted fetuses after being exposed to 
radioactive fallout, fearing that the children would have birth 
defects. So far, no such birth defects have been observed. 

Life Returning 

There is evidence that the Chernobyl disaster has led to 
increases in cardiovascular and gastrointestinal diseases, 
diabetes, and disorders of bone and connective tissue. Some of 
these diseases may be linked to stress. 

"A number of stresses are most likely contributing to the current 
degradation [of] public health," Lazo said. "Exposure to 
radiation and other toxic substances is a fact and probably is 
part of this biological and complex problem. But these are 
certainly not the only major contributors to public health 
decline. The people living in these territories feel that they 
and their children are, in some sense, doomed." 

Radiation doses in the area are still a dozen times higher than 
normal. Unable to make ends meet elsewhere, several hundred 
former residents have returned to Chernobyl, which once had a 
population of 120,000. Thousands more are shuttled into the 
so-called exclusion zone to work on the gradual powering down of 
the plant. 

Reactor 4 has been sealed. However, some experts have warned that 
nuclear fuel trapped in its remains could cause the structure to 
deteriorate, and radiation to be released once again. 
 				
[http://www.nationalgeographic.com/] © 2004 National Geographic 
Society. All rights reserved.        
*****************************************************************
 20 CNS: 18 years later, Chernobyl residents live on
 
RockyMountTelegram.com

 By SABRA AYRES 
Cox News Service

 CHERNOBYL, Ukraine -- Maria Dika lives just 18 miles from the 
site of the world's worst nuclear disaster, ignoring warnings 
about staying in the highly contaminated "exclusion zone" around 
the Soviet-era plant. 

Eighteen years after the catastrophic explosion and fire, there 
has been a sharp rise in the number of diagnosed cases of 
leukemia, thyroid cancer and other accident-related cancers in 
the region surrounding the site. 

But Dika, 42, has not altered her lifestyle. She still bathes in 
the local tap water, eats local foods and works for the power 
plant. Despite two stints in a treatment center for radiation 
poisoning, she is in perfect health now, she said. 

"Radioactivity has had to adjust to us," she said with a defiant 
smile. 

Dika is one of about 400 residents still living in the Chernobyl 
exclusion zone after the accident on April 26, 1986, released 30 
to 40 times the radioactivity of the atomic bombs dropped on 
Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The accident blew clouds of radioactive 
material across Ukraine, Belarus, Russia and other parts of 
Europe, exposing 8.4 million people to radiation, according to a 
U.N. estimate. 

Experts have said as many as 3 million people may still be living 
in various levels of contamination. 

Most of Chernobyl and its nearby villages were evacuated 
following the explosion and the subsequent fire that burned for 
days. The government evacuated 118,000 people living in 116 towns 
and villages within a 25-mile radius of the plant. Some of the 
residents were given apartments and resettled in cities in other 
parts of Ukraine and in Belarus. 

Today in the exclusion zone, roads connecting abandoned towns and 
villages are overgrown with weeds and shrubs. Schoolhouses and 
city halls have crumbled after years of neglect. 

Abandoned apartments in Pripyat, a model Soviet city built 
especially for the Chernobyl plant workers in the early 1970's, 
remain furnished but uninhabited since the city's 47,000 
residents were evacuated within days of the accident. 

Dika was born and raised in Chernobyl, a small city about 80 
miles north of Kiev where 20,000 people live before accident. She 
was living in Pripyat and working as a security guard three 
floors below the plant's fourth reactor when it exploded at 1:26 
a.m. The world would not learn of the accident until three days 
later, when Sweden detected abnormally high levels of 
radioactivity in the air. 

Thirty-one of Dika's coworkers died immediately. Thousands more 
were exposed to lethal doses of radioactive iodine and cesium as 
they scrambled to contain the fire within the reactor. 

Despite the hazardous conditions, Dika and most of the other 
employees on duty were instructed to remain at the plant until 
her shift ended at 7 a.m. She and hundreds of other plant workers 
then boarded a government plane and flew to Moscow for treatment 
at the Soviet Union's only radiation clinic. 

Dika stayed at the Moscow clinic for three months before 
returning to the deserted city of Pripyat. A year later she was 
back in the hospital for treatment. 

"I'm not scared at all about living here. Why would I leave? I 
don't want to live anywhere else," Dika said. 

Doctors say residents like Dika may simply be lucky. 

Cases of thyroid cancer are growing rapidly but the epidemic of 
Chernobyl-related diagnosis will not reach its peak until 2006, 
doctors said. 

In the first 10 years after the 1986 accident, doctors monitoring 
and testing thyroid cancer recorded about 20 to 30 cases a year 
in all of the nearby Zhitomer region, with a population of about 
350,000. By 2000, the number doubled to 63. Last year, there were 
68 cases. 

The cases are particularly prevalent in the Naradichi district of 
Zhitomer, about 50 miles from the plant. Unlike the town of 
Chernobyl, Naradichi region is not located in a mandatory 
resettlement zone. Its residents, mostly rural villagers, were 
advised to leave but were not given government assistance to 
relocate. 

"By 2006, we will see 100 cases a year in Zhitomer and will 
continue to see that many cases each year for until at least 
2016," said Dr. Volodymyr Sert, the director of the Red Cross' 
mobile testing facility in the region. 

The amount of radioactive material released by the Chernobyl 
accident was larger than any other nuclear disaster in history 
and very little is understood about it almost 20 years later. 

The former Soviet government covered up information about the 
accident and its health effects, making it difficult for doctors 
to accumulate data. Officially, only 31 workers at the plant 
died, though experts have estimated the number is as high as 
7,000. And countless more people have died from cancer and other 
health effects of the radioactive fallout. 

Doctors know that iodine 131, the kind of radioactive material 
released by Chernobyl, causes thyroid cancer but they do not 
understand why it takes several years for it to manifest into 
cancer cells. 

Treating the growing number of thyroid cancer patients has placed 
a heavy burden on Ukraine's already limited public health care 
budget. After the break up of the former Soviet Union, Ukraine's 
economy shrank as support from Moscow disappeared. 

Most patients undergo surgery to remove the thyroid and the 
surrounding lymph nodes, all paid for under the state health 
system. Patients are then given hormonal therapy, which costs the 
state about $6 a month for each patient. 

The Ukrainian government, under pressure from the United States 
and the European Union, shut down the plant's last reactor in 
2000. The plant still employs about 4,000 workers, however, to 
help with the containment of the fuel waste materials and the 
final stages of the plant's closure. Most of the workers live in 
Slavutich, a city about 50 miles from the 

plant, built after the accident to house the remaining employees. 

Immediately following the accident, emergency workers hastily 
constructed a sarcophagus around Chernobyl's burned out fourth 
reactor to prevent the escape of more radioactive material. Now, 
the structure is riddled with cracks and in need of immediate 
repair. 

The United States and European governments have already given 
billions of dollars to the project and will begin repair work in 
late 2004. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development 
has pledged to pay for a steel shell to cover the entire 
structure. The new shield will be completed by 2007. 

Nina Poddubna, 59, said she couldn't forgive the Soviet 
government for what they did to her and the rest of the villagers 
in Laski, population 650 in the Naradichi region. With a pension 
of only about $35 a month, she is too poor to move out of the 
village. Her daughters refuse to visit her because they are 
afraid of getting sick, she said. 

During a screening at a visiting Red Cross mobile diagnostic 
clinic, the doctors found eight nodules on her thyroid. She 
blames Chernobyl for her bad health and the government for not 
protecting them. 

"I'll be angry for the rest of my life," she said. "I'll never 
forget what they did to me." 

Sabra Ayres is a Moscow-based freelance journalist. 			
 			
© 2004 Cox Newspapers, Inc. - The Rocky Mount Telegram  
*****************************************************************
 21 NRC: Agency Information Collection Activities: Submission for the 
 
                         FR Doc 04-9355 
[Federal Register: April 26, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 80)] 
[Notices] [Page 22574] From the Federal Register Online via GPO 
Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr26ap04-124] [[Page 22574]]
 
Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Review; Comment Request 
AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).
 
ACTION: Notice of the OMB review of information collection and 
solicitation of public comment.
 
SUMMARY: The NRC has recently submitted to OMB for review the 
following proposal for the collection of information under the 
provisions of the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (44 U.S.C. 
chapter 35). The NRC hereby informs potential respondents that an 
agency may not conduct or sponsor, and that a person is not 
required to respond to, a collection of information unless it 
displays a currently valid OMB control number.
 
1. Type of submission, new, revision, or extension: Revision. 2. 
The title of the information collection: State Agreements 
Program, as authorized by section 274(b) of the Atomic Energy 
Act.
 
3. The form number if applicable: Not applicable. 4. How often 
the collection is required: One time or as needed.
 
5. Who will be required or asked to report: Thirty-three 
Agreement States whose governors have signed section 274(b) 
Agreements with NRC.
 
6. An estimate of the number of annual responses: 138 responses.
 
7. The estimated number of annual respondents: 33. 8. An estimate 
of the total number of hours needed annually to complete the 
requirement or request: 1,035 (7.5 hours per response).
 
9. An indication of whether section 3507(d), Pub. L. 104-13 
applies: Not applicable.
 
10. Abstract: Agreement States are asked on a one-time only or on 
an as-needed basis to respond to requests for information, e.g., 
to respond to a specific incident or to gather information on 
licensing and inspection practices and other technical 
statistical information. The results of such information 
requests, which are authorized under section 274(b) of the Atomic 
Energy Act, are utilized in part by NRC in preparing responses to 
Congressional inquiries. Agreement State comments are also 
solicited in the areas of proposed procedure and policy 
development.
 
A copy of the final supporting statement may be viewed free of 
charge at the NRC Public Document Room, One White Flint North, 
11555 Rockville Pike, Room O-1 F21, Rockville, Maryland 20852. 
OMB clearance requests are available at the NRC World Wide Web 
site: 
http://www.nrc.gov/public-involve/doc-comment/omb/index.html 
[http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving 
FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.nrc.gov/public-involve/doc-comm 
ent/omb/index.html] . The document will be available on the NRC 
home page site for 60 days after the signature date of this 
notice.
 
Comments and questions should be directed to the OMB reviewer 
listed below by May 26, 2004. Comments received after this date 
will be considered if it is practical to do so, but assurance of 
consideration cannot be given to comments received after this 
date. OMB Desk Officer, Office of Information and Regulatory 
Affairs (3150-0029), NEOB-10202, Office of Management and Budget, 
Washington, DC 20503.
 
Comments can also be submitted by telephone at (202) 395-3087.
 
The NRC Clearance Officer is Brenda Jo Shelton, (301) 415-7233.
 
Dated in Rockville, Maryland, this 19th day of April, 2004.
 
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
 
Brenda Jo Shelton, NRC Clearance Officer, Office of the Chief 
Information Officer.
 
[FR Doc. 04-9355 Filed 4-23-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P

 
*****************************************************************
 22 BBC: Chernobyl victims remembered 
 
  Last Updated: Monday, 26 April, 2004
 
[Woman cries by grave at Kiev memorial]   

Up to seven million people were affected by the disaster                                                              

People in the former Soviet Union have been commemorating the 
victims of the disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear plant 18 years 
ago. 

There were memorial services across Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, 
where millions were affected by the blast. 

Some experts say the shelter constructed over the damaged reactor 
needs urgent repairs, but Ukraine denies any serious safety 
threat. 

Many injured or displaced people still complain about inadequate 
benefits. 

I lost a town, friend people who were close to me Tatyana 
Lazarenko Former Pripyat resident         

Sergei Shvetsov, head of Russia's Chernobyl Union, said the 
40,000 people resident in Russia who were disabled by the 
disaster were seeing their welfare benefits effectively reduced 
each year. 

But Russian news agencies reported that President Vladimir Putin 
had signed a law index-linking benefits for Chernobyl victims to 
inflation. 

'Health problems' 

Hundreds of people attended a memorial service in a small chapel 
for the victims in the Ukrainian capital Kiev, where some placed 
flowers and photos of dead relatives. 

"Each year, there are fewer of us to attend this service," 
40-year-old Tatyana Lazarenko, who was evacuated from the nearby 
town of Pripyat following the disaster, told AFP news agency. 

"I lost a town, friends, people who were close to me. We all had 
health problems because of radiation," she said. 

Another service took place in the town of Slavutich, built to 
house Chernobyl workers displaced by the accident. 

Governments in the region estimate that up to seven million 
people were affected by the accident. 

There has been a dramatic increase in the number of thyroid 
cancers and leukaemias, as well as birth defects, especially in 
Belarus. 

However, the BBC's Steven Eke says the region is also affected by 
a serious ongoing lifestyle-related health crisis, and it is 
difficult to establish exactly how many people have died as a 
result of the nuclear accident. 

The Chernobyl plant remained in service until December 2000, when 
it was finally shut down under pressure form the world's richest 
nations. 



*****************************************************************
 23 BNN: Bulgaria Puts Project of Second Nuclear Plant to Public Discussion

Bnn, Bulgarian news network - online news agency \ Áíì,
 				 				 				 				 				 				
  ['www.bgnewsnet.com / Bulgarian News network' ]    				    
				     					 				   							
  13:30 - 26.04.2004

SOFIA (bnn)- The government said Monday it was putting to public 
discussion a project to build a second nuclear power plant in 
this country.

The Cabinet has decided to resume suspended construction of a 
plant near the Danube port of Belene, 250 kilometers (156 miles) 
northeast of Sofia. The project was frozen in 1990 under pressure 
from environmentalists and for lack of funds.
 
Discussions will be held in the cities of Sofia and Pleven and 
the Danube towns of Belene, Svishtov and Nikopol, said Krasimir 
Nikolov, an official in charge with the project.
 
An expert commission evaluating the environmental effect of the 
project has concluded that the Belene site allows to build a 
nuclear plant with a capacity of 2,000 megawatts.
 
The project is meant to replace four of a total of six reactors 
Bulgaria has agreed close at its only nuclear power plant in 
Kozlodui at accession talks with the European Union. 

The units in question are Societ-designed 440-megawatt 
pressurized water reactors without safety containment installed 
between 1974 and 1982. Bulgaria has closed two of them in Dec. 
2002 and is due to close another two in the end of 2006. The 
Kozlodui plant, 200 kilometers (125 miles) north of Sofia, has 
another couple of newer 1,000-megawatt reactors with safety 
containment.

  /bnn/  
    
Bulgarian News Network (BNN)
*****************************************************************
 24 Globe and Mail: Science adviser against privatizing nuclear agency   
 	 		 		 		 		 				 				 				 				 			 
[http://www.globeandmail.com]

  Monday, April 26, 2004 - Page A8 

Ottawa -- Prime Minister Paul Martin's new science adviser argues 
against privatizing Canada's nuclear agency, and says it needs 
much more government money to fulfill its mandate.

Arthur Carty, who became the government's science czar on April 
1, says in a letter obtained under the Access to Information act 
that Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. must remain within the 
government fold to uphold important policy goals. 

The letter, dated Aug. 27, 2003, was written when Mr. Carty was 
president of the National Research Council and before the 
announcement of his appointment as national science adviser. CP 
 





*****************************************************************
 25 Mos News: Chernobyl — Eighteen Years Later - 

MOSNEWS.COM

Created: 26.04.2004 23:37 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 23:37 MSK 

MosNews
 
On April 26, 1986, the worst nuclear catastrophe in the history 
of mankind occurred in the former Soviet Union, exposing millions 
of people in Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia to direct radiation and 
blowing clouds of nuclear particles all over the world. Eighteen 
years later, there are still people living in the disaster zone. 
There are still people exposed to levels of radiation many times 
higher than is considered safe, that will be there for years and 
years to come. There are still people receiving very little 
assistance — material or informational — from the government. 
There are still rumors of strange mutations — although thyroid 
cancer, a less lurid consequence is a much more common and scary 
consequence. There are still attempts to tie the Chernobyl 
disaster to a biblical prophecy. 

And there is still international effort to battle the unthinkable 
results of human error, there is research to study the long-term 
effects of radiation, there is eco/disaster tourism that helps 
people learn about the tragedy. Eighteen years later, there is 
some hope.

The tragedy in Chernobyl struck when the reactor broke down 
during routine testing. A chain reaction started inside the 
reactor, exploding and projecting radioactive particles into the 
atmosphere. The first few days after the explosion were the 
worst, in terms of radioactive exposure for miles around the 
power plant; it is those first few days when the Soviet 
government kept mum about the catastrophe, hoping to cover it up. 
Sweden blew the world’s whistle after analyzing radiation data 
and realizing that some sort of a nuclear accident must have 
taken place in the Soviet Union. The failed cover-up attempt 
denied people in the area information that could have saved lives 
— they were not informed immediately that the water they drank 
contained deadly amounts of radiation. 

Since then, the area around Chernobyl, which covers parts of 
Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia, is split up into several zones 
based on contamination level. The area closest to the reactor can 
be entered only with a special government permit and is unsafe 
for anything but a short trip. Government employees still working 
to maintain the plant and guarding the contaminated territory 
live in the next zone. Civilians live there, too — those who 
didn’t like the government’s attempt to remove them from the area 
or didn’t like their new homes. The next zone is populated with 
those who could apply for new housing or benefits but haven’t 
done so. The un-zoned space beyond could hardly be considered to 
have healthy amounts of radiation for miles on.

Chernobyl has become a legend, to some extent — there are 
computer games based on the ghost-like reality of the 
contaminated zone, as envisioned by hyper-imaginative video game 
artists. From day one, those who know their Revelations have 
expounded on the connection between the cataclysmic prediction of 
“a great star from heaven” by the name of “Wormwood” falling down 
to earth and making water bitter poison and the fact that 
Chernobyl means “wormwood” in Ukrainian. For years, there had 
been rumors of mutant two-headed or winged animals. Since 
disaster tourism has been slowly developing in the area, the 
apocalyptic scenes witnessed by thrill-seekers are more sad than 
macabre — abandoned houses in a ghost town where time had 
stopped.

Today, on the anniversary of the tragedy, demonstrations and 
rallies were held in Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, and all over the 
world. Victims were remembered and demands were made to curb the 
use of nuclear energy. Another sixty years must pass before the 
contamination zone around Chernobyl becomes somewhat livable 
again as strontium fall-out finishes up its first half-life and 
radiation is reduced. Until then, Geiger counters for measuring 
radiation will remain a must-have item for many Ukrainians, 
Byelorussians, and Russians. SEE ALSO
 
26.04.2004 18:22 MSK, MOSNEWS.COM Putin Approves Changes to 
Social Benefits of Chernobyl Victims
     
  Write us: <b>info@mosnews.com</b> [info@mosnews.com] Copyright 
© 2004 MOSNEWS.COM Designed by <b>kB "Gazeta.Ru"</b> 
[http://design.gazeta.ru/] 
*****************************************************************
 26 IAEA: The Code of Conduct on the Safety of Research Reactors
 
+ [IAEA.ORG :: Atoms for Peace] 
 
Staff Report
 14 April 2004 [Type Alternate Text Here] 
CEN Lo Aguirre Research Reactor in Chile. (Credit: K.
Hansen/IAEA) 
  + Story Resources 
  + IAEA Nuclear Safety & Security [http://www-ns.iaea.org/] 
  + New Life for Research Reactors? 
  + Research Reactors and Security 
  + What are Research Reactors?
[http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf61.htm] 
  + Benefits from Research Reactors
[http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev27-12/text/ansside4.html]
 
  + IAEA Safety Standards
[http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publications/sss.asp] 
  + General Conference Resolution (2000) [pdf] 

The Code of Conduct on the Safety of Research Reactors goes
before the IAEA General Conference in September for adoption,
having been approved by the Board of Governors at its March 2004
meeting. 

The Code establishes "best practice" guidelines for the
licensing, construction and operation of research reactors. At
its core, "the safety of the public, the environment and the
workers," said IAEA Director of Nuclear Installation Safety, Mr.
Ken Brockman. 

Research reactors were excluded from the Convention on Nuclear
Safety when it was drawn-up in the early 1990s. The need for an
overarching Code of Conduct came to a head in a resolution at
the 2000 IAEA General Conference, prompted by safety concerns as
many of the worlds' research reactors approached the end of
their originally planned lifespans. Increased fears of terrorist
threats following the 11 September 2001 attacks in the United
States also helped to fuel desire for a Code of Conduct, Mr.
Brockman said. Just less than half of the world's 272 research
reactors still operate using highly enriched uranium - a key
ingredient for a nuclear bomb. 

The Code is a non-binding international legal agreement, where
States determine their own level of commitment to its guidance.
The Code was derived from more detailed international standards
that have been promulgated for the safe day-to-day operation,
construction, shutdown and decommission of research reactors,
Mr. Brockman said. "It will pave the way for the continued
evolution of these standards," he said. 

The Agency has already carried out numerous safety and security
missions at research reactors which, among other things, has
helped to improve the security infrastructure at reactors.
Copyright 2003-2004, International Atomic Energy Agency, P.O.
Box 100, Wagramer Strasse 5, A-1400 Vienna, Austria 
Telephone (+431) 2600-0; Facsimilie (+431) 2600-7; E-mail:
Official.Mail@iaea.org [Official.Mail@iaea.org] 
Disclaimer 
*****************************************************************
 27 IAEA: Chernobyl: Clarifying Consequences
 
+ [IAEA.ORG :: Atoms for Peace] 

IAEA Chernobyl Forum Promotes Facts About Health &Environmental
Effects
 
Staff Report
 16 April 2004 [Dr. Gonzales] 
Mr. Abel González (left) addressing the meeting of the Chernobyl
Forum in March 2004. (Credit: D. Calma/IAEA) 
  + Story Resources 
  + In Focus: Chernobyl's Challenges 
  + Chernobyl Information [http://www.chernobyl.info/en] 
  + IAEA Chernobyl Timeline 
  + The Human Consequences of the Chernobyl Accident: A Strategy
for Recovery
[http://www.undp.org/dpa/publications/chernobyl.pdf] [pdf] 
  + Chernobyl 15 Years After 

Eighteen years after the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident,
people in the region still live with wildly varying reports
about what impact the accident will have on their families’
future health and the environment. The IAEA initiated 'Chernobyl
Forum' is working to give people in the affected villages
greater certainty, by issuing factual, authoritative statements
on the health effects caused by radiation exposure from the
reactor explosion and its environmental consequences. 

The Forum - comprising eight United Nations organisations, and
Belarus, Russia and the Ukraine - met in Vienna 10-11 March 2004
at IAEA headquarters. IAEA Director of Radiation and Waste
Safety, Mr. Abel González, said conflicting information had
caused tremendous confusion and suffering. 

"People living in the affected villages are very distressed
because the information they receive - from one expert after
another turning up there - is inconsistent. People living there
are afraid for their children. The aim of the Forum is not to
repeat the thousands of studies already done, but to give them
authorative, transparent statements that show the factual
situation in the aftermath of Chernobyl," Mr. González said. 

The Forum was set up in 2003 following discussions between IAEA
Director General Mohamed ElBaradei and the Prime Minister of
Belarus. It is part of broader efforts to help implement the UN
strategy on the Human Consequences of the Chernobyl Nuclear
Accident - A Strategy for Recovery. 

At its meeting in Vienna in March 2004, initial reports were
presented by the Forum’s expert groups for 'health' (led by the
World Health Organization) and the 'environment' (led by the
IAEA). It is expected the Forum will issue it findings at an
international conference to be held in 2005 or 2006. 

Another key aspect of the Forum’s work is to advise on, and help
to implement, programmes that mitigate the accident's impact.
For example, this could include: 


  + Remediation of contaminated land; 
  + Special health care of the affected population; 
  + Monitoring long-term human exposure to radiation; 
  + Environmental aspects of decommissioning the Chernobyl
nuclear reactor and the Shelter and; 
  + Addressing environmental issues related to radioactive waste
from the accident. 

For the Forum's Terms of Reference see related links. The UN
organizations involved in the Forum include the IAEA, Food and
Agriculture Organization, UN Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs, UN Development Programme, UN Environment
Programme, UN Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic
Radiation, the World Health Organization and the World Bank. 

The Forum is part of ongoing IAEA efforts to mitigate the
effects of Chernobyl. Since the 1986 accident it has assisted
with technical activities, environmental and agricultural
monitoring and rehabilitation. Copyright 2003-2004,
International Atomic Energy Agency, P.O. Box 100, Wagramer
Strasse 5, A-1400 Vienna, Austria 
Telephone (+431) 2600-0; Facsimilie (+431) 2600-7; E-mail:
Official.Mail@iaea.org [Official.Mail@iaea.org] 
Disclaimer 
*****************************************************************
 28 Globe and Mail: The power next door   
 	 		 		 		 		 				 				 				 				 			 
[http://www.globeandmail.com

  Monday, April 26, 2004 - Page A12 

Ontario has been preaching the need to improve its supply of 
electricity. A panel headed by former deputy prime minister John 
Manley issued a report on March 18 recommending that most of the 
province's future electrical demands be filled by nuclear power. 
Ontario Energy Minister Dwight Duncan said on April 15 that 
keeping the province's lights on would cost between $25-billion 
and $40-billion over the next 15 years, "one of the largest 
peacetime investments in Canadian history." The government plans 
to introduce a bill in June to create the Ontario Power 
Authority, whose mandate will be to anticipate the province's 
energy demands. 

In all the talk of building nuclear plants and shutting down 
coal-fired plants, little has been said of another option: 
helping Manitoba to create hydroelectric power to serve Ontario. 
Mr. Duncan didn't mention Manitoba. The Manley report didn't 
mention Manitoba, and in fact urged Ontario to aim for electrical 
self-sufficiency. But the prospect has been bubbling under for 
years, and a moment of reckoning may arrive in weeks or even 
days. 

The idea is that Ontario would sign a long-term contract with 
Manitoba to make possible the building of the $5-billion Conawapa 
dam, on the lower Nelson River east of Thompson, Man., and would 
pay for new interprovincial high-voltage transmission lines. In 
return, Ontario would have access to as much as 1,250 megawatts 
of power from Conawapa. Manitoba is keen not only on that project 
but on selling Ontario more of its existing power as well. 

In some respects, this would be a drop in the bucket. Ontario has 
30,500 megawatts of generating capacity. By 2020, Mr. Duncan 
says, it will need to replace 25,000 megawatts of capacity, in 
large part because of the retirement of nuclear plants and the 
government's stubborn insistence on shutting down all its 
coal-fired plants. Peak demand in the province is increasing by 
more than 500 megawatts a year. What's more, Conawapa's 
construction would take at least eight years, and longer if there 
were construction problems, environmental delays (the project 
would require flooding five square kilometres) or a failure to 
reach agreement with the area's aboriginal bands. 

But every megawatt helps. The price tag for Conawapa is high, but 
there is an advantage in clean, Kyoto-friendly power delivered 
from a renewable source and a plant that would last far longer 
than a nuclear plant, wouldn't require the same expensive safety 
systems and wouldn't present the same problems of 
decommissioning. 

Do the costs make sense? Ontario and Manitoba last year embarked 
on a feasibility study whose verdict is expected any day now. 
Assuming the numbers add up, the word Manitoba should cross Mr. 
Duncan's lips.   

[http://www.theglobeandmail.com

*****************************************************************
 29 ITAR-TASS: Chernobyl-affected people worried about dwindling benefits
 	 	 	 
[ITAR-TASS News Agency of Russia]     

26.04.2004, 11.17

 MOSCOW, April 26 (Itar-Tass) - April 26 marks 18 years since
the accident at Ukraine’s Chernobyl nuclear power plant. 

According to Russia’s Chernobyl Union public group, about 40,000 
people disabled in operations liquidate the nuclear disaster live 
in Russia, The union’s vice president Sergei Schvetsov told 
Itar-Tass that the “volume of benefits to which the Chernobyl 
people are eligible is narrowing every year”. 

”A law on social protect of is not implemented in a full
measure. Many Chernobyl people acutely need the housing and
expensive medical treatment. The 50 percent discount on services
of the municipal and housing sector is fulfilled not in all
regions,” he said. 

Meanwhile, ex-labour minister Alexander Pochinok, who had taken
part in drafting the federal law on social protection of
handlers of the Chernobyl accident said the “state in the recent
years has been fully meeting its obligations to the liquidators
and people affected as a result of the accident at the Chernobyl
nuclear power plant”. 

He said in an interview with Itar-Tass that the “state issued
about 10 billion roubles for needs of the Chernobyl people in
2004, including more than 7 billion 31 million roubles in
compensation and benefits and 2 billion 253 million roubles in
compensation of harm”. 

The liquidators and people left disabled by the accident get
about 30 benefits, Pochinok said. 

These include allowances, free medical care, use of public
transit, prosthetics, visits to health resorts and the 50
percent discount on municipal and housing bills. 

A few years ago, there were problems with the payment of
material compensation to this category of people, Pochinok said. 
He added that the state had been compensating to the Chernobyl
people “their lost wages for the 1990s”, and the size of
payments “has been substantially increased”. 

Shvetsov, the vice president of the Chernobyl Union, in turn
said former military liquidators of the nuclear accident were
paid 10,000 roubles a month. The size of compensation to
civilians depends on the amount of their lost wages and is
indexed according to the inflation rate. For most of the
Chernobyl people, who suffers severe chronic disease related to
radiation exposure, this is the sole source of income, Shvetsov
said. 

“Many Chernobyl people believe that the size of payments was not
calculated correctly for them and appeal to court,” Pochinok
said. 

He stressed that the “state fully agrees with all demands of
courts and always complies with their decisions”. 

© ITAR-TASS. All rights reserved. You undertake not to copy,
*****************************************************************
 30 ITAR-TASS: Chernobyl tragedy for Belarus, Ukraine, Russia

26.04.2004, 20.32

MOSCOW, April 26 (Itar-Tass) - Chernobyl is the tragedy for
Belarus, Ukraine and Russia, hold politicians and experts of the
three countries. President Kuchma stated more than once that
Ukraine expects assistance of the world community in overcoming
the consequences of the disaster. “Ukraine must not be left to
cope with the Chernobyl tragedy alone, be it grasping the sense
of this global warning or clearing the aftereffects of the
unprecedented disaster”, Kuchma said. 

In December 2000 Kiev fulfilled its pledge to the West to shut
down the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Seven major Western
countries promised “adequate aid” in eliminating the
consequences of the tragedy and in the construction of
compensating sources of energy. Ukraine, however, is coping with
these problems virtually on its own. 

Over 13 billion dollars from Ukraine’s budget has already been
spent on the elimination of the consequences of the tragedy.
About 5 percent of the budget expenditures are channelled for
these purposes every year. The new entombment over the destroyed
reactor, the potentially most dangerous facility in Ukraine,
will be built in the years ahead. 

Alexander Rumyantsev, the head of the Russian Federal Atomic
Energy Agency, told Tass Chernobyl is the common tragedy for
Ukraine and Russia. Russia’s atomic agency, the leading research
institution and building organizations of the branch will be
doing everything to eliminate the consequences of the Chernobyl
catastrophe, he said. 

Leading Russian nuclear experts, among them Yevgeny Velikhov,
the president of the Kurchatov research centre, hold that the
main task now is to reinforce in the preset time the bearing
structures of the Sarcophagus over the destroyed reactor and to
build the new entombment. 

Nikolai Shteiberg, the deputy head of the Ukrainian Ministry of
Fuel and Energy, stated in 2003 that ”these works are to be
completed in 2008”. Shteiberg explained a certain delay against
the earlier planned schedules by “Ukraine’s being short of funds
needed to provide proper safety for the staff of the nuclear
power plant and for other works above plan”. 

As is known, it is the European Bank for Reconstruction and
Development that distributes funds among the participants in the
international project for the construction of the entombment at
the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. 

According to the latest reports from Kiev Ukraine began
intensive work to re-enforce the Sarcophagus in 2004. Director
of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant Oleg Koloskov said the
Ukrainian-Russian consortium of several companies had recently
won the tender for eight operations to reinforce the entombment. 

The cost of the project is estimated at 125 million dollars,
including building works worth 76 million dollars. Koloskov said
the contract for these operations would be signed shortly.

However, the contractor has already begun preparation for these
works at the site of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. 

Meanwhile Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko said during
his visit on Monday to the country’s districts worst hit by the
nuclear disaster that “the contribution of the world community
to overcoming the consequences of the Chernobyl catastrophe
cannot be assessed positively”. He believes the reason for this
is also the lack of identical stand of Belarus, Ukraine and
Russia on overcoming the consequences of the accident. 

According to official information, the Chernobyl disaster caused
radioactive contamination of 23 percent of the territory of
Belarus, 5 percent of Ukraine and 0.6 percent of Russia. Over
1.5 million people now live in the contaminated territories in
Belarus. There are 2,800 populated localities in these areas. In
18 years since the Chernobyl tragedy Belarus spent 13.6 billion
dollars on coping with the consequences of the tragedy. 

© ITAR-TASS. All rights reserved. You undertake not to copy,
*****************************************************************
 31 NRC: NRC to Discuss Annual Performance Assessment of Susquehanna Nuclear Power Plant
 
News Release - Region I - 2004-02
 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 

Office of Public Affairs, Region I
  No. I-I-04-024   		        April 26, 2004   
  CONTACT:     Diane Screnci (610) 337-5330
 		Neil A. Sheehan (610) 337-5331   		   E-mail: opa1@nrc.gov
[opa1@nrc.gov]   
  


Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will meet with
representatives of PPL Susquehanna, LLC, on Tuesday, April 27,
to discuss the results of the agencys annual assessment of
safety performance at the Susquehanna nuclear power plant. PPL
operates the twin-reactor plant, which is located in Berwick,
Pa. 

The meeting, which will be open to the public for observation,
is scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. at the Susquehanna Energy
Information Center, 634 Salem Boulevard in Berwick. Before the
session is adjourned, NRC staff will be available to answer
questions from the public on the plants safety performance, as
well as the role of the NRC in ensuring safe operation of the
facility. 

The performance period to be discussed is January 1 to December
31, 2003. In addition, NRC staff will provide a brief overview
of how the agencys Reactor Oversight Process works. 

A letter sent from the NRC Region I Office to plant officials
addresses the performance of the plant during the period and
will serve as the basis for the meeting discussion. It is
available on the NRC web site at:
www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/LETTERS/susq_2003q4.pdf [PDF
Icon] . 

Overall, the Susquehanna plant operated safely and met all
cornerstone objectives during the period. (Cornerstones are
program areas where NRC measures plant safety performance.) As a
result, the plant will receive baseline-level inspections
through Sept. 30, 2005. 

The NRC has identified a substantive cross-cutting issue at the
Susquehanna plant in the area of problem identification and
resolution. It involves weak evaluations of some technical
issues and is based on six green, or very low safety,
inspection findings in which such evaluations either did not
identify relevant aspects of problems or did not specify
adequate corrective actions to prevent recurrence. Because the
findings highlight the need for improvement in this area, the
NRC will assess this issue through the baseline inspection
program, particularly in the periodic case reviews associated
with problem identification and resolution inspection efforts. 

In addition, the NRC has closed a previous cross-cutting issue
identified in the mid-cycle 2003 letter regarding the plant. The
issue was in the area of human performance and involved lapses
in following procedures. 

With regard to security issues, the NRC has issued several
orders and threat advisories to enhance security capabilities
and improve guard force readiness since the terrorist attacks on
September 11, 2001. The agency has also conducted inspections to
review the implementation of these requirements and has
monitored the action of plant operators in response to changing
threat conditions. The NRC will continue security inspections
during 2004. 

Current performance information for Susquehanna Unit 1 is
available on the NRC web site at:
www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/SUSQ1/susq1_chart.html. 

Current performance information for Susquehanna Unit 2 is
available on the NRC web site at:
www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/SUSQ2/susq2_chart.html.   



  


 	Last revised Monday, April 26, 2004 	   
*****************************************************************
 32 Radio Netherlands: Lithuania's nuclear sacrifice
 
www.rnw.nl

by Margreet Strijbosch, 26 April 2004  

Due to close: Lithuania´s Ignalina nuclear power plant  

The Baltic state of Lithuania has one nuclear facility, the 
Ignalina power plant, which meets 80 percent of the country's 
energy needs and is one remnant of the Soviet era which the 
Lithuanians are not unhappy with. But Ignalina is to be 
dismantled in 2005 to meet one of the conditions for Lithuania's 
joining the EU on 1 May this year. 

It's a politically necessary move, but where does it leave 
Lithuania's energy supply? 

According to economist Ugnius Trumpa of the Lithuanian Free 
Market Institute, the plant's enforced closure is the result of 
the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in combination with Lithuania's wish 
to join the EU. That view is shared by most of his fellow 
Lithuanians. 

[Viktor-Sevaldin]     	 	 
   
The man in charge at Ignalina: Viktor Sevaldin  

Meanwhile, Ignalina's director Viktor Sevaldin is indignant about 
the decision. He says Chernobyl was devastating for the entire 
nuclear energy sector, but maintains that so many security and 
safety checks have been introduced since then that there's no 
risk of a second such disaster. Furthermore, there are some 11 
reactors of the same type in Russia, and they'll stay in 
operation for at least another 15 years. 

The consequences The plant's closure will not only affect 
Lithuania's energy production, it will be disastrous for the 
immediate area. Ignalina is the only large employer in this part 
of the country, which is mainly populated by Russian speakers. At 
the moment it provides jobs for some 3,600 people. Around 1,000 
of them can count on continued employment at the plant for, as Mr 
Sevaldin says, it won't be shut down completely until 2013. Even 
after that there'll be some jobs left in connection with storing 
the nuclear waste. 

In the meantime, Mr Sevaldin has been trying to create new 
employment opportunities for his staff. While the nuclear 
physicists will head for Russia and the IT specialists can easily 
find a job anywhere, something has to be done for the other 
employees. Mr Sevaldin has helped found five new businesses, 
operating in fields ranging from transport to demolition, but 
they are also largely dependent on Ignalina for their contracts. 

[Ignalina3]     	 	 

The average person visiting Ignalina might well find the security 
measures there a good deal better than at Chernobyl. Armed guards 
at the entrance check every bag thoroughly, and – unlike 
Chernobyl – the control room is totally off-limits to visitors. 
But, in appearance, it is indeed reminiscent of Chernobyl, with 
the same Soviet-style concrete construction and signs in the 
Russian language visible all over the place. The personnel are 
clad in the typical white protective clothing as used in Soviet 
nuclear plants.  

Problematic location

The social problems are exacerbated by the location of the 
Ignalina plant. It's in a part of Lithuania which is the least 
integrated with the rest of the country, because the majority of 
the local population are native speakers of Russian. This also 
holds true inside the nuclear facility, where the nuclear 
engineers communicate in Russian. More unemployment in the region 
will not help the integration process. 

Yet the closure of Ignalina does not engender pessimism in 
everyone. Lithuania's former prime minister, Kazimiera 
Prunskiene, now a parliamentarian and chairperson of the energy 
commission, believes there's still a future for nuclear energy in 
her country. She says that the European Union is contributing the 
costs of dismantling the plant. However, the costs of its closure 
are greater than that, because Lithuania will lose the revenue 
from its exports of nuclear power and also find itself becoming 
dependent on energy imports. And much of that energy will 
probably come from Russia. 

A future for the nuclear industry?

Ms Prunskiene argues that the EU already depends on Russian gas 
for 30 percent of its needs, and that this is a good reason why 
Europe should want to help with the construction of a new and 
modern nuclear plant in Lithuania. That, she maintains, would be 
a useful development for Lithuania and for the EU, too, if the 
energy distribution system and connections to the rest of Europe 
are modernized.
    	 	 
Radio Netherlands
*****************************************************************
 33 AU ABC: Ranger targeted as Greens remember Chernobyl. 

26/04/2004. ABC News Online
 	
"Australian Broadcasting Corporation Online">
[http://www.abc.net.au/]     

The Northern Territory Greens want to remind people of the link
between uranium mining and the dangers of nuclear energy, as the
Ukraine marks the 18th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear
reactor disaster.

 The Greens' Justin Tutty says thousands of people have died and
are still dying as a result of radioactive poisoning after a
nuclear meltdown at the plant in the early hours of April 26,
1986.

 Mr Tutty is calling for the closure of the Ranger Uranium Mine
near Kakadu National Park.

 "We have this uranium mine here in Kakadu National Park, which
is causing a lot of local problems," he said.

 "The end result of that uranium is waste and a dangerous
product that goes into these dangerous nuclear reactors."

 Mr Tutty says the Territory has to get rid of the dangerous and
polluting uranium industry and cut the radioactive fuel off at
the source.

 "What we're looking for is... accelerated decommissioning," he
said.

 "We'd like to see the mine wound up as fast as possible. 
"It's been dragging on or quite a while. It hasn't really been
highly productive." 

© 2004 Australian Broadcasting Corporation 
*****************************************************************
 34 AFP: UN urges continued international help to Chernobyl victims

[http://www.spacewar.com/]

MOSCOW (AFP) Apr 26, 2004

 The United Nations urged the international community on Monday 
-- the 18th anniversary of the world's worst nuclear accident -- 
to remember people still affected by the Chernobyl disaster.

"The international community must renew its efforts to help the 
people of the affected regions take control of their lives 
again," Jan Egeland, the UN under secretary general for 
humanitarian affairs, said in a statement received by AFP in 
Moscow.

"The aftermath of the Chernobyl accident is simply too much for 
people in the contaminated areas of Belarus, the Russian 
Federation and Ukraine to cope with alone."

"We simply cannot turn our backs," said Egeland, who is also the 
UN coordinator of international cooperation on Chernobyl. "We can 
and must do more to help bring development and hope to the 
affected people."

In the early morning hours of April 26, 1986, the core of 
Chernobyl's fourth reactor exploded and for 10 days the station 
spewed radioactive materials into the air that were equivalent to 
more than 200 bombs exploded over Hiroshima and contaminated a 
large part of Europe.

Nearly 8.4 million people in Belarus, Ukraine and Russia were 
exposed to radiation and 150,000 square kilometers (60,000 square 
miles) were contaminated and today some six million people 
continue to live in affected areas, the UN said in its statement.

Some 2.3 million Ukrainians, including 450,000 children, suffer 
today from radiation-related illnesses, including many with the 
cancer of the thyroid, according to the Ukrainian health 
ministry.

  WAR.WIRE
*****************************************************************
 35 AFP: Ecologists not a force in Ukraine 18 years after Chernobyl

TERRA.WIRE<br> [http://www.terradaily.com/] 

KIEV (AFP) Apr 26, 2004

 Eighteen years after Ukraine was struck by the world's worst 
nuclear accident -- the Chernobyl disaster -- ecological 
movements remain almost non-existent in the former Soviet 
republic still reliant on nuclear energy.

Radioactivity spewed by the April 26, 1986 explosion of 
Chernobyl's fourth reactor contaminated most of Europe, where it 
sparked a debate on the problems and dangers of nuclear 
development.

For Ukrainians, however, the tragedy's consequences had more of a 
political resonance than an ecological one -- five years before 
the downfall of the Soviet Union, Chernobyl exposed the lies and 
irresponsibility of the Soviet authorities charged with dealing 
with the crisis.

But although cases of cancer of the thyroid multiplied tenfold 
since 1986, Ukraine's population, a quarter of which lives below 
poverty level, is more concerned about daily survival than 
"ecology which is an abstract notion," said Olga Honcharenko, 
expert in Kiev's international sociology institute (KMIS).

According to a poll by KMIS, environmental problems place only 
12th on the population's list of priorities.

Ukraine still has 13 nuclear reactors in four power stations, 
which produce nearly 45 percent of the national energy output.

Meanwhile the government has met little resistance in its plans 
to soon complete the construction of two VVER nuclear reactors -- 
a Russian design whose safety has been questioned in the West -- 
and its plans to build a third thereafter.

The political party who could logically raise such concerns on a 
national level -- Ukraine's Green party -- has lost electoral 
trust because voters see it as having colluded with industrial 
bosses, analysts say.

With 30,000 officially registered members, the Greens are the 
largest ecology party in Ukraine. They won 5.43 percent of the 
vote during the 1998 legislative elections -- but four years 
later failed to even enter parliament, scraping a meager 1.3 
percent.

While the Greens explain this setback by a poor electoral 
strategy, others see it as a well-deserved punishment for 
inaction and accuse the party of colluding with industrial bosses 
who own heavily-polluting factories.

The Greens' electoral list of 2002 in fact included Vasyl 
Khmelnitsky, who controls the important steel producer 
Zaporizhstal, and Olexander Koval, former chief of the iron alloy 
factory of Nikopol.

"They have discredited the Greens' ideology by selling places on 
their list," said Yuri Shzherbak, who had created the party in 
1990 and headed it until 1992.

Vitaly Kononov, current leader of the Greens, dismisses such 
charges, saying that all party members "behaved properly and 
voted like the party asked them to."

The long-haired Kononov said that the party's current priorities 
were fighting against genetically-modified products and boosting 
the quality of drinking water -- nuclear energy did not figure on 
the list.

ant-sb-cal/yad/bm 

  TERRA.WIRE
*****************************************************************
 36 AFP: Flowers and sorrow as Ukraine marks Chernobyl disaster anniversary

[http://www.spacewar.com/]

KIEV (AFP) Apr 26, 2004

 More than a thousand people throughout Ukraine Monday attended 
commemoration ceremonies to mark the 18th anniversary of the 
Chernobyl disaster, the world's worst nuclear accident.

In the early hours of April 26, 1986, the core of Chernobyl's 
fourth reactor exploded and for 10 days the station spewed 
radioactive material equivalent to more than 200 Hiroshima bombs 
into the air, contaminating a large part of Europe.

In the capital Kiev on Monday 100 people, many of them former 
Chernobyl employees or relatives of people who died in the 
tragedy, laid flowers at a memorial to firefighters dispatched to 
the accident site and who died soon afterwards.

According to a Soviet estimate at the time, 31 people died as a 
result of the accident. But since 1986 an estimated 25,000 people 
from all over the Soviet Union who came to clean up after the 
accident have lost their lives.

"Every year there are less of us to take part in the ceremonies," 
said Tetiana Lazarenko, who was evacuated with her family from 
the town of Pripiat, three kilometers (two miles) from Chernobyl, 
36 hours after the accident.

"I've lost a town, friends, relatives. All of us have problems as 
a result of the radiation. We cannot forget this tragedy," said 
Lazarenko, who today lives in Kiev with her husband and three 
children.

Some 2.3 million Ukrainians, including 450,000 children, today 
suffer from radiation-related illnesses, including many with 
thyroid cancer, according to the Ukrainian health ministry.

Each year on April 26 an open-air service is held at the Orthodox 
church in Kiev, where a memorial pays homage to Chernobyl's 
victims.

Early Monday President Leonid Kuchma placed flowers at the base 
of the monument and later in the day about 1,000 people gathered 
there.

Another religious service was held overnight in the northern town 
of Slavutich, where many of Chernobyl's employees live. 

Mykola Fessik, originally from the Ukrainian city of Poltava, was 
rushed to Chernobyl to help build the sarcophagus over the 
damaged reactor. He was 22 at the time.

"I ingested a huge dose of radiation and today I can no longer 
work. My legs no longer carry me. But I am a nobody and am worth 
nothing to my government," said Fessik, who receives about 40 
dollars a month as a victim of the disaster.

He is one of an estimated 600,000 people who were sent to 
Chernobyl between 1986 and 1990 to help with the clean-up after 
the accident. Some 130,000 residents had to be evacuated from 
around the station in the days following the disaster.

The United Nations on Monday urged the international community to 
remember the people affected by the disaster.

"The international community must renew its efforts to help the 
people of the affected regions take control of their lives 
again," Jan Egeland, the UN under secretary general for 
humanitarian affairs, said in a statement received by AFP in 
Moscow.

"We simply cannot turn our backs," said Egeland, who is also the 
UN coordinator of international cooperation on Chernobyl. "We can 
and must do more to help bring development and hope to the 
affected people."

The Chernobyl station was closed in December 2000 in return for 
international financial aid. But the station, with its 
sarcophagus covering about 200 tonnes of radioactive magma, 
remains a concern.

Kiev is due later this year to begin construction of a giant 
shell over the sarcophagus, which is due to be completed in 2008 
at a cost of more than a billion dollars.

  WAR.WIRE
*****************************************************************
 37 [FOODIRRADIATIONCA] update on CA Safe School Lunch Act;
 
Date: Mon, 26 Apr 2004 18:59:43 -0700

 
<x-flowed>
Update on AB 1988, the California Safe School Lunch Act
Last Wednesday, AB 1988, the California Safe School Lunch Act  was
amended and passed through the Assembly Health Committee.
The new bill requires the following:
1.  School board approval before irradiated food is served in a
school.
2.  Notification prior to serving irradiated food, and labeling of
irradiated food.
3.  A non-irradiated meal option if irradiated food is served.
This bill now goes to the Assembly Appropriations Committee.

TAKE ACTION!
Urge Assembly Member Chu, chair of the Appropriations Committee, to
support AB 1988!
**ORGANIZATIONS — Please FAX a letter of support to Assembly Member
Chu at 916-319-2181.  Contact Tracy Lerman for a sample letter
tlerman@citizen.org

**INDIVIDUALS — Please write Assembly Member Chu and your Member of
Assembly, and urge their support of AB 1988.
To find your Member of Assembly, visit www.assembly.ca.gov

Contact info for Assembly Member Chu:
The Honorable Judy Chu
Chair, Assembly Appropriations Committee
State Capitol, Room 2114
Sacramento, CA 95814
Fax - 916-319-2181

To read the text of the bill visit http://leginfo.ca.gov
To learn more about irradiated food in school lunches, visit
www.safelunch.org

********************************************************
Urge your State Senator to Support SB 1425 and SB 1585, two important
food safety measures!

SB 1425 (Machado) requires all beef and beef products sold in
California and all cattle slaughtered in California to  test negative
for mad cow disease.
SB 1585 (Speier) requires consumer notification in the event of a
recall of contaminated meat.

Please CALL or FAX your Senator, and urge their support of these
important measures to protect Californa consumers!
To find out who your senator is, visit www.vote-smart.gov

If you live in Senator Florez's or Senator Ducheny's districts, your
letters are especially important!!

Background
In December of 2003, the US Department of Agriculture announced the
first case of BSE in a cow that appeared healthy.  This incident
highlighted both the flaws in the current BSE testing requirements and
in the federal BSE prevention program.  The USDA's current BSE testing
program targets only sick or downer cows, even though cows that appear
healthy are more likely to be infected with BSE.  In addition, while the
FDA has outlawed certain high risk feeding practices, there are still
many practices in both feeding livestock and processing meat that
increase the risk of BSE contamination.

The BSE incident also highlighted problems in the system of notifying
the public about recalls of contaminated meat.  Prior to the December
2003 incident, the California Department of Health Services (DHS) signed
a Memorandum of understanding with the USDA that prohibited DHS from
releasing the names of retail outlets that received contaminated meat.
Despite the fact that potentially contaminated meat and meat products
had reached a number of retail outlets in California, local health
officers were not allowed to notify the public where the meat had been
distributed.

By requiring all cattle and beef products to be tested for BSE, and by
requiring the public to be notified in the event of a contaminated meat
recall, both SB 1425  and SB 1585 will remedy serious systemic flaws in
the food safety programming.

For more info, please visit www.foodactivist.org
To read the text of the bills, visit http://leginfo.ca.gov

Sample Letter
<date>

The Honorable _______________
California State Senate
P.O. Box 942848
Sacramento, CA 94248

Dear Senator __________:

I am writing to urge your support for SB 1425 and SB 1585, two
important food safety measures.  SB 1425 requires all beef and beef
products sold in California to test negative for bovine spongiform
encephalopathy (BSE), and requires all cattle slaughtered in California
to be tested for BSE before being sold.  SB 1585 will improve food
recall and public notification procedures in the event of future USDA
meat and poultry recalls.

The December 2003 case of BSE in a Washington state cow highlighted the
flaws in the federal BSE testing and prevention programs.  The USDA's
current BSE testing program targets only sick or downer cows, even
though cows that appear healthy are more likely to be infected with BSE.
  In addition, while the FDA has outlawed certain high risk feeding
practices, there are still many practices in both feeding livestock and
processing meat that increase the risk of BSE contamination.  Until the
federal programs are strengthened to adequately protect the public from
this disease, consumers need SB 1425 to provide them continued
confidence in the safety of our food supply.

The BSE incident also highlighted problems in the system of notifying
the public about recalls of contaminated meat.  Prior to the December
2003 incident, the California Department of Health Services (DHS) signed
a Memorandum of Understanding with the USDA that prohibited DHS from
releasing the names of retail outlets that received contaminated meat.
Despite the fact that potentially contaminated meat and meat products
had reached a number of retail outlets in California, local health
officers were not allowed to notify the public where the meat had been
distributed.  SB 1585 will put in place a system for quick action to
notify the DHS, local health officers, local environmental health
directors and, most importantly, the public  regarding recalled meat and
poultry.

SB 1425 and SB 1585 are common sense measures that will improve food
safety.  Once again, I urge your support for these important bills.

Sincerely,

<Name and Address>


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tracy Lerman
Senior Organizer
Public Citizen, California Office
1615 Broadway, 9th Floor
Oakland, CA 94612
ph: 510-663-0888 x 103  f: 510-663-8569
tlerman@citizen.org
www.citizen.org/california

Keep irradiated food out of your child's lunch!
Visit www.safelunch.org to find out more.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

**********
To unsubscribe, please send a email to tlerman@citizen.org with 
"unsubscribe foodirradiationca" in the subject line. 

</x-flowed>
*****************************************************************
 38 ITAR-TASS: Russia commemorates victims killed in radiation-related accidents
 	 	 	 
[ITAR-TASS News Agency of Russia]     

26.04.2004, 19.35

 MOSCOW, April 26 (Itar-Tass) - Russia has commemorated victims 
who were killed in radiation-related accidents. 

A wreath-laying ceremony was held in Mitino cemetery in Moscow 
near a chapel built in memory of 28 firemen who took part in 
elimination of after-effects of the Chernobyl nuclear accident. 

Deputy minister of the Russian Ministry for Emergency Situations 
Nadezhda Gerasimova, Chief of the Russian State Fire- fighting 
Service Yevgeny Serebrennikov attended the commemoration 
ceremony. 

The surviving liquidators of the Chernobyl accident and relatives 
of the victims who arrived in Moscow from other cities of Russia, 
Ukraine and Belarus paid homage to the Chernobyl victims. 

A commemoration ceremony was held in Kursk in central Russia for 
300 servicemen, doctors and firemen who sacrificed their lives in 
Chernobyl so as to avert more casualties as a result of the 
tragedy that might have claimed even more lives. 

Despite a heavy snowfall accompanied by a strong wind a 
commemoration ceremony was held in Tula. The ceremony was held 
near an obelisk to Chernobyl victims that was built on funds 
donated by Chernobyl liquidators themselves and other citizens of 
the Tula region. A radioactive cloud - the aftermath of the 
Chernobyl disaster, spread to almost half of the territory of the 
Tula region. Around 3,500 people from the Tula region worked on 
the scene of the Chernobyl tragedy, and 80 percent of them have 
become incapacitated since. 

A memorial ceremony was held in Cheboksary, Chuvashia. The 
surviving Chernobyl liquidators from all over Chuvashia attended 
a meeting near an obelisk to Heroes - Liquidators of the 
Chernobyl aftermath. 

A memorial to Chernobyl liquidators was unveiled in the Leningrad 
region on Monday. The ceremony was held in a nuclear research 
center of Sosnovy Bor, the Leningrad region. Around 1,200 workers 
from enterprises of Sosnovy Bor, including personnel of the 
Leningrad nuclear power station, worked on the scene of the most 
horrible technogenic catastrophe of the 20th century, In 
Kaliningrad - Russia’s westernmost region, commemoration 
ceremonies held on the occasion of the tragic anniversary were 
attended both by Chernobyl liquidators and veterans from "special 
risk " groups, people resettled to Kaliningrad from contaminated 
territories and representatives of regional bodies of power. The 
mourners laid wreaths to commemorate the Chernobyl victims. 

More than 300 Chernobyl liquidators or every fourth resident of 
Mordovia died during eighteen years after the Chernobyl tragedy, 
said the Chairman of the Saransk organization "Union of 
Chernobyl", Alexander Salichev. Every year people gather near the 
Alexander Nevsky chapel in the center of Saransk to attend a 
commemoration service for the people lost as a result of exposure 
to radiation. A total of 1,345 people from Mordovia that is 
situated hundreds miles from Chernobyl took part in the Chernobyl 
clean up. 

© ITAR-TASS. All rights reserved. You undertake not to copy,
*****************************************************************
 39 NRC: NRC to Discuss Quality of Yucca Mountain Information with DOE May 5 in Las Vegas
 
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. 04-049     April 26, 2004   

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will meet with the Department
of Energy May 5 in Las Vegas to discuss an NRC team evaluation
report concerning the quality of certain DOE technical
information that DOE is preparing to support its expected
application for a license to build and operate a high-level
radioactive waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. 

The meeting will be held in the Embassy Suites Conference
Center, Chancellor Ballroom, 3600 Paradise Road, Las Vegas,
beginning at 8:30 a.m. (PDT). Following introductory comments
from NRC staff and the meeting facilitator, the NRC evaluation
team will present and discuss its report with DOE. Afterwards,
at about 11:00 a.m., the NRC will entertain comments and
questions from members of the public. 

A copy of the NRC team evaluation report, U.S. Nuclear
Regulatory Commission Staff Evaluation of U.S. Department of
Energy Analysis Model Reports, Process Controls, and Corrective
Actions, is available on the NRC web site at
http://www.nrc.gov/waste/hlw-disposal/reg-initiatives/resolve-key
-tech-issues.html. 

An April 13 press release announcing issuance of the report is
available at
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/news/2004/04-041.ht
ml.   



  


 	Last revised Monday, April 26, 2004 	   
*****************************************************************
 40 Salt Lake Tribune: Envirocare propaganda 
 
April 26, 2004   
 
    So Envirocare's notorious paranoia and pit-bull tactics once
again rear their ugly heads in the latest attack ad (Tribune,
operation. "Get the facts before you read the propaganda," reads
the ad's subtitle. Right, and a three-quarter-page ad filled
with accusations with no supporting evidence is something other
than propaganda? 
 
    The ad then announces a public hearing with the Utah
Hazardous Waste Task Force, asserting that this meeting will
undoubtedly be attended by that "group of rabble-rousers, whose
only mission in life seems to be to attack Envirocare." Oh, boo
hoo! So the corporate elephant is whining about the pesky little
grass-roots activists who keep interfering with their grand
plans to bring hotter radioactive waste into the state. 
 
    They then question the motives of these opponents, wondering
"whose interests they are serving." Hey, that's an easy one. The
interest of HEAL Utah and other concerned citizens is to protect
the health and welfare of all of us, unlike Envirocare whose
interests are making money. 
 
    Finally, the ad reminds readers to take everything they read
in The Tribune about their company "with a grain of salt."
Again, who are we going to believe? The Tribune, which has no
vested interest in the matter, or a profit-making corporation
whose motives are entirely transparent? 
 
    
 
   Keller Higbee 
 
  
 
 
 
  
 
   Salt Lake City 
 
    
 
    
 
    
 
    
 
   
 
   
			   				 	 "> 	                 				 
 
  
Copyright Salt Lake City Tribune
*****************************************************************
 41 Deseret news: Trio aiming to oust leader of Goshutes
 
[deseretnews.com] 
 	
Monday, April 26, 2004
 	   	 
By Deborah Bulkeley Deseret Morning News 

SKULL VALLEY, Tooele County — Standing on her mother's land in 
the shadow of the Stansbury Mountains, Mary Allen gazes at a few 
neatly kept manufactured homes on land where she once planted 
crops with her late grandfather, Iby B. Bear.

       She points to aging trailers nearby — one with a torn-up
roof — evidence, she says, that funds aren't evenly distributed
to members of the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians.

       It's because of this alleged monetary misconduct by the
tribe's chairman Leon Bear, and a federal indictment against
him, that Mary Allen and Rex Allen, her brother and the tribe's
executive secretary, are asking the tribe's General Council, or
71 adult voting members, to oust Bear.

       "There's a lot of greed in everybody. It's a sad thing,"
Mary Allen said. "My grandfather said, never be greedy, it will
fall back on you. . . . You use the (chairman) position to help
the people first, then your family, then yourself."

      The Allens do not live on the reservation. Rex Allen never
did, but Mary Allen lived there until her parents decided to
move the family to Grantsville to get a better education.

       A separate petition, sponsored by Margene Bullcreek asks
for the Bureau of Indian Affairs to step in and mediate
negotiations for a new tribal government. Both the petition and
resolution were introduced at last week's General Council
meeting.

       Bear has pleaded innocent to the six-count federal
indictment, which includes allegations that he embezzled more
than $129,000 from tribal funds. A separate petition asks for
the Bureau of Indian Affairs to step in and mediate negotiations
for a new tribal government.

       While Bear declined to comment on the federal charges, he
did deny any favoritism in his distribution of tribal funds. He
said if anyone is missing out, it's because of a debt to the
tribe.

       Bullcreek and the Allens counter the debts to the tribe
were manufactured by Bear against those opposing his policy.

       Bear, who recently constructed a $100,000 home, said he
hasn't seen the petition or resolution, so "I can't tell you if
I'm concerned or not."

       Leslie Wash, who works at the reservation's store and gas
station, Pony Express Station, said the situation is just as
ridiculous as the infamous feuding neighbors, Hatfields and
McCoys.

       "It's a majority vote. They complain nothing's been
done," she said of the Allens.

       Wash said she was at the general council meeting but
never saw the petition or any proof of wrongdoing by Bear.

       Another resident of the reservation, Gary Bear, a cousin
of the chairman, said he hasn't seen any evidence of the alleged
wrongdoing. When asked if the chairman was doing a good job, he
replied, "as far as I can see."

       However, for Margene Bullcreek, Bear has done more than
violate federal law. She said the chairman continued doing
business for the tribe after a previous recall of the entire
executive council, which was not recognized by the Bureau of
Indian Affairs.

       Bullcreek claims she's been left out of the tribe's
coffers since she's opposed Bear's deal with Private Fuel
Storage, a consortium of eight utility companies, to locate a $3
billion nuclear waste storage facility here.

       "He stole from our children, our grandchildren and our
great grandchildren," Bullcreek said. "He's taken from their
mouths and got himself a house with some of this money."

       While the move to remove Bear from office is not
connected to the PFS deal, Rex and Mary Allen, who signed the
original PFS contract, now find themselves on the side of
Bullcreek, who opposed the project from the beginning.

       The Allens say the entire tribe will have to review the
contract and decide if it's worth continuing.

       "We're trying to make the people see we need better
government," Rex Allen said. "It really hurts how he misused
everything."

       PFS spokeswoman Sue Martin said she couldn't disclose
details of the lease agreement with the Goshutes. The $3 billion
project has just one more hurdle to clear before the Nuclear
Regulatory Agency decides whether to approve it.

       "The lease that we have is not with Leon Bear, it is with
the Skull Valley Band of Goshutes," she said.

       Chester Mills, superintendent of the Uintah and Ouray
Agency for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, said his agency does
not have authority over the tribe's government.

       "They have to follow their own procedures," he said.
"It's not within the authority of BIA to decide the leadership
of the tribe."

       Bear said those seeking to oust him have so far not
followed the tribe's proper procedures — he said the majority of
the tribe's eligible voting members must vote on the resolution
and then call a meeting so he can answer their questions.

       When asked if he'd resign, Bear answered: "I don't know.
They'd have to ask me first."

E-mail: dbulkeley@desnews.com [dbulkeley@desnews.com]       
	 
 © 2004 Deseret News Publishing Company 
*****************************************************************
 42 UK Independent: Families blame toxic dumps for deformities
 
By Robert Verkaik, Legal Affairs Correspondent
 
26 April 2004

 	 

The families of two dozen children born fingerless or with
webbed hands are celebrating a legal victory in their quest to
prove that the deformities are linked to toxic waste dumps left
over from Northamptonshire's once thriving steel industry. 

A High Court judge has ordered Corby Borough Council to disclose
documents to the families that their lawyers believe will help
prove that harmful chemicals escaped during the local
authority's alleged mismanagement of the sites. 

The case could lead to a multimillion-pound compensation payout
for 24 Corby children born over a seven year-period to 1999
during the council's chemical clean-up operation. Many of the
children face years of painful restorative surgery as doctors
remove some of their toes so they can graft them on to their
hands to act as fingers. 

Figures suggest the rate of upper-limb abnormality in Corby is
15 times higher than the national average. 

Joy Shatford, 30, the mother in one of the eight lead cases in
the legal action, recalled the air full of pungent fumes when
council engineers began re-opening some of the estimated eight
to 16 toxic pits scattered around Corby. 

Dozens of lorries were used to transport the poisonous waste -
mostly lead and zinc by-products from the steel-making industry
- to two sealed containers north-east of the town. 

"You could taste it in the air; it was sour, gassy and acidic.
Then it was common knowledge that this was because they were
digging up the pits," she said. 

A few months later, Ms Shatford, 30, a secretary at a Corby
accountants, gave birth to her first son, Daniel, now seven. 

"The nurses just wrapped him up and gave him to me. They didn't
say anything about his hand." 

It was only when Ms Shatford unravelled the tiny bundle of
blankets that she discovered her son had been born with no
fingers on his left hand. 

"I asked them, 'What's the matter with his hand?' It was such a
shock. I just felt numb. I was left thinking that I must have
done something wrong during my pregnancy. But I didn't smoke or
drink; I didn't even take an aspirin. It took me a long time to
come to terms with what happened." 

Years later, Ms Shatford discovered she was far from alone.
Other mothers who lived near the toxic sites had also given
birth to children with missing fingers or webbed hands. 

One of them was Susan MacIntyre, 35, whose son, Conor, now nine,
was also born without any fingers on his left hand. 

Ms McIntyre said: "It is difficult for him because other
children have started calling him names. I used to tell him to
be proud of his hand and not to hide it from people. At first,
he didn't seem to mind but recently, because of the teasing, he
leaves it in his pocket or covers it with his sleeve." 

The two toes taken from his foot to act as fingers have affected
Conor's balance. "He can fall over quite easily but the doctors
say that it will be all worth it in the long-run," Ms McIntyre
said. Bone from other parts of Conor's body has been used to
rebuild his foot. 

Ms MacIntyre says any compensation will pay for adaptations to
their home that will help Conor get about the house and lead a
normal life. 

The Legal Services Commission has awarded the families' lawyers
£20,000 in legal aid to investigate the claim. 

Des Collins, the solicitor running the case, said he had medical
evidence that proves the children's deformities are linked to
the toxic waste dumps left by the former steel industry. 

Corby became an important steel-making centre in the 1930s after
the discovery of rich iron ore deposits. Many of the present
inhabitants are related to Scottish steelworkers who moved to
the town looking for employment. 

Mr Collins said: "We have now got medical reports that rule out
alternative explanations for what caused the upper limb
deformities in these children." 

Mr Collins has found statistical evidence that undermines a
Northamptonshire Health Authority report four years ago which
rejected the idea that the births amounted to a cluster of
"congenital limb reduction defects" in and around Corby. 

Since the report was published, the families' lawyers have found
other cases and exposed what they believe are serious flaws in
the initial report. Mr Collins claims the health authority
ignored the fact that between 1990 and 1993 there were no cases
at all but by the following year there were four cases - a
pattern that was repeated in 1996 and 1997. 

Significantly, a district auditor's report, seen by The
Independent, concludes that none of the council engineers
involved in moving the toxic waste had professional experience
in toxic-waste disposal. 

The district auditor, Stephen Warren, said in his report: "The
reclamation programme at Corby was unique in the size and scale
of works proposed. While the council established a reclamation
group within the engineering department, the group was not
properly staffed." It was also under pressure from the council
and the Department of Environment to get on with the programme
within the planned financial years. "The failure to specify
reclamation works to be done accurately was widespread," he
said. 

In 1997, police investigated allegations of corruption in the
awarding of contracts during the reclamation programme. These
inquiries were dropped when the Crown Prosecution Service
advised that there was insufficient evidence to bring a criminal
prosecution. 

Last week, a High Court judge in the separate civil action
ordered the council to disclose documents to the families'
lawyers in connection with the management of the toxic pits.
However, potentially vital reports showing the levels of
chemicals at the sites around Corby during the decontamination
operation were destroyed in a fire at Northampton County Council
in 1995. 

Nevertheless, Mr Collins expects the disclosure order to force
the council to reveal other documents not previously known to
the claimants. 

For Daniel Shatford and Conor MacIntyre, it could be an
important legal breakthrough in the fight for compensation to
help them and similarly affected children lead normal lives. 

A spokesman for Corby Borough Council said: "The legal
department is studying the claims and a decision will be taken
shortly." Asked whether the council accepted liability for the
children's deformities the spokesman said: "We can't make any
comment on that." 	           


UK Independent Ltd.
*****************************************************************
 43 Charleston.Net: Opinion: Commentary Nuclear waste deal bad 
business for S.C. 

04/26/04
 
BY BEN JOHNSON 

I serve as one of South Carolina's commissioners and chairman of 
the Atlantic Low-Level Radioactive Waste Compact, and I am 
concerned about a move in the General Assembly that could 
undermine the state's nuclear waste disposal program.

 The budget recently approved by the House would allow another 
100,000 cubic feet of nuclear waste into the landfill in Barnwell 
County in 2005. This would be in addition to the 50,000 feet 
already authorized for next year by the Atlantic Compact Act.

 The Senate needs to stop this bad deal in its tracks. This 
proposal would undermine the Atlantic Compact Act, which was a 
real public policy achievement. Further, the deal with 
Chem-Nuclear to dispose of its waste at the Barnwell site is a 
poor business bargain for the state, the result of political 
influence that seeks to suspend the law of supply and demand.

 South Carolina's nuclear waste disposal program successfully 
serves a number of important objectives, including:

 -- Preserving disposal capacity for the state's own nuclear 
plants;

 -- Phasing out importation of waste from outside the region on 
an orderly schedule, with such shipments ending by 2008;

 -- Maximizing current market pricing to help meet South 
Carolina's general revenue needs.

 This program was the result of 18 months of study and hearings. 
It was cemented by permanent law in the Atlantic Compact Act 
passed in 2000. But now, it may be significantly altered by 
last-minute, ad hoc budget amendments.

 Chem-Nuclear's proposal raises three basic questions, the 
answers to which could have an enormous impact on the state's 
future:

 1) Should South Carolina allow more nuclear waste from across 
the nation to come into the state?

 The Atlantic Compact Act preserved capacity for South Carolina's 
future needs and signaled to the rest of the nation that other 
states must become more involved in solving the country's nuclear 
waste disposal problems. If South Carolina signals a weakness in 
its resolve to close the door on the nation's nuclear waste, 
other states will have no incentive to create new disposal 
solutions. And South Carolina would continue to be the nuclear 
waste dumping ground for the rest of the nation.

 2) Is the Chem-Nuclear proposal a good deal for South Carolina? 

Instead of a revenue gain of $6 million, the agreement with 
Chem-Nuclear is expected to net the state as little as $1 
million. This low-cost arrangement with Chem-Nuclear would have 
the added detriment of driving down the prices the Budget and 
Control Board can charge its customers for waste disposal and 
lowering projected revenues by as much as $3 million in 2005. 
Adding insult to injury, the cost of handling the extra waste 
from Chem-Nuclear could cost the state an additional $2 million.

 3) Is South Carolina getting a fair return for this valuable 
asset?

 South Carolina's disposal capacity is worth well over $500 per 
cubic foot. The state now is poised to sell this space to 
Chem-Nuclear at an unreasonably low price of $60 per cubic foot.

 When the Compact Act was passed in 2000, Barnwell's remaining 
disposal capacity was almost gone. South Carolina needed to join 
a congressionally approved compact to lawfully preserve disposal 
space for its own waste needs when its seven nuclear reactors are 
decommissioned beginning around 2040. Under the Act, 1.8 million 
cubic feet have been reserved for the future needs of the compact 
states -- South Carolina, New Jersey and Connecticut. Under the 
Act, unused capacity may not be sold.

 As South Carolina's import limits have taken effect, the price 
for disposing of waste at Barnwell has increased dramatically, 
from 80 cents per cubic foot in 1971 to today's prices of more 
than $500 per cubic foot.

 Chem-Nuclear now proposes to buy 100,000 feet of the remaining 
capacity at Barnwell for $6 million. This is $60 per cubic foot 
and a fraction of its real value.

 A poor business deal that could not stand on its own, this 
proposal was craftily paired by Chem-Nuclear's friends in the 
House with a measure to raise pay for law enforcement officers. 
The Senate should reject this cynical ploy.

 In 1987, Gov. Carroll Campbell wrote the nuclear waste industry 
and warned, "Any suggestion that South Carolina inevitably will 
amend its laws to allow continued operation of the disposal 
facility is speculation and should not be used as the basis for 
any state's plans to fulfill its disposal responsibilities."

 Our state's legislative leaders thus would be in very good 
company when they announce that South Carolina's nuclear waste 
limits will not be reversed.

 This one is an easy call.

Ben Johnson, a Rock Hill attorney, was appointed chairman of the 
Atlantic Compact Commission in 2000. He was a member of the South 
Carolina Nuclear Waste Task Force.         
	 	   	   		

webmaster@postandcourier.com [webmaster@postandcourier.com] 		 	
*****************************************************************
 44 KRNV: DOE gives extra week to comment on Yucca Mountain rail plan

April 27, 2004   

  LAS VEGAS, NV, April 26

The Department of Energy has added an extra week to comment on a 
plan to ship the nation's nuclear waste across Nevada by train. 

Notice appeared Monday in the Federal Register in Washington 
setting dates for two more public meetings on the so-called 
"Caliente corridor" rail plan. 

The new meetings will be May tenth at the Yucca Mountain 
Information Center in Las Vegas, and May 12th at the University 
of Nevada, Reno. 

The DOE already had three meetings scheduled, May third in 
Amargosa Valley, May fourth in Goldfield and May fifth in 
Caliente. 

The original 45-day comment period was extended from May 24th to 
June first. Nevada's congressional delegation had wanted an 
additional 45 days to collect comments. 

(Copyright 2004 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)   
  
[http://www.worldnow.com]     All content © Copyright 2001 -
2004 WorldNow and KRNV. All Rights Reserved.
*****************************************************************
 45 asahi.com: Experts: Reprocess less nuclear fuel 

  [asahi.com]      
     
The Asahi Shimbun 
  
A panel says Japan should store spent fuel for longer to reduce
costs. 

Japan could save a vast amount of money by permanently storing
some of its spent nuclear fuel instead of reprocessing it all,
according to a private nuclear energy association. 

The findings, presented at a meeting sponsored by Japan Atomic
Industrial Forum Inc., are expected to influence debate within
the Atomic Energy Commission of Japan, which is scheduled in
June to begin a review of its Atomic Energy Long-Term Plan. 

The private forum is made up of about 800 companies, research
institutes and organizations in the nuclear energy field. 
Its primary recommendation for long-term storage or disposal of
some spent fuel follows partial deregulation of the electric
power industry. 

Keiji Kanda, a professor emeritus at Kyoto University who heads
the Japan Energy Policy Institute, said reprocessing of spent
nuclear fuel should be limited to the amount that can be
reprocessed at a facility now under construction in Rokkasho,
Aomori Prefecture. 

``The rest of the spent nuclear fuel should be stored on a
long-term basis as a resource for future generations,'' Kanda
said. 

Under the Atomic Energy Commission's current Atomic Energy
Long-Term Plan, spent nuclear fuel that cannot be reprocessed at
Rokkasho is to be placed in intermediate storage facilities for
reprocessing in the future. A storage period of between 40 to 60
years is being forecast for such intermediate facilities. 

However, Kanda said that proposals have been made in France for
long-term storage of spent nuclear fuel of 100 to 300 years. 
Kenji Yamaji, an engineering professor at the University of
Tokyo, said: ``Utilizing plutonium would be a disadvantage
economically. The course of reprocessing all spent nuclear fuel
should be changed. There is a need to consider direct disposal
of spent nuclear fuel (by burying without reprocessing) as an
alternative for the future.'' 

The current long-term plan suggests construction of a second
reprocessing facility after Rokkasho from about 2010. 
A Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) official called that plan
uneconomical. 

Makoto Satake, deputy head of the Nuclear Power Division at
TEPCO, recommended reprocessing 3.2 tons of the 6.6 tons of
spent nuclear fuel that is expected to be generated over the
next 40 years and storing the remainder. 

``At this stage, the most realistic course would be reprocessing
half of the spent nuclear fuel and storing the rest,'' Satake
said.(IHT/Asahi: April 26,2004) (04/26) 

 [Copyright Asahi Shimbun. All rights reserved. No reproduction
*****************************************************************
 46 [southnews] Anti-nuclear activists call on US to disarm
 
Date: Mon, 26 Apr 2004 17:44:50 -0500 (CDT)

 
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Australian nuclear disarmament groups are calling on the Federal 
Government to urge the United States to eliminate its nuclear arsenal in 
line with treaty obligations.

Anti-nuclear activists call on US to disarm

ABC News Online: Tuesday, April 27, 2004. 6:37am (AEST)

Australian nuclear disarmament groups are calling on the Federal 
Government to urge the United States to eliminate its nuclear arsenal in 
line with treaty obligations.

The review conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty began in 
New York overnight.

A Friends of the Earth spokesman, John Hallam, says the focus should be 
on eliminating nuclear arsenals in the US, Russia, India and Pakistan.

He says Australia could have a significant influence on the US.

"Pine Gap plays an absolutely central role in US command and control, so 
in that sense we do have a certain amount of leverage," he said.

"Australia also had, largely thanks to the effort we put into promoting 
the comprehensive test ban treaty, a considerable reputation in terms of 
nuclear disarmament.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s1095249.htm
_____________________________________________________

26/04/2004
	Press Release
DC/2920

     FOLLOWING ARE SUMMARIES OF STATEMENTS MADE TO THIS MORNINGS 
PREPARATORY COMMITTEE FOR THE 2005 REVIEW CONFERENCE OF THE STATES 
PARTIES TO THE TREATY ON THE NON-PROLIFERATION OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS.  A 
COMPLETE SUMMARY OF THE COMMITTEES MEETING WILL BE AVAILABLE AFTER THE 
CONCLUSION OF THE AFTERNOON MEETINGAS PRESS RELEASE DC/2920.

     Background

     The Preparatory Committee for the 2005 Review Conference of the 
States Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons 
(NPT) today opened its third and final preparatory session for the 
upcoming Review Conference.  Taking into account the deliberations and 
results of the previous two sessions, the third session has been tasked 
to make every effort to produce a consensus report containing 
recommendations to the Review Conference.  (For details of the session, 
please see Press Release DC/2918 of 22 April).

     The Committee had before it the report of its second session 
(document NPT/CONF.2005/PC.II/50).  Annexed to the report, which 
contained mainly the procedural and practical aspects of the session, 
was the Chairmans factual summary.  It states that States parties had 
reaffirmed that the Treaty was the cornerstone of the global 
non-proliferation regime and the essential foundation for the pursuit of 
nuclear disarmament.  In the current international climate, where 
security and stability were increasingly challenged, both globally and 
regionally, by the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and 
their means of delivery, preserving and strengthening the Treaty was 
vital to peace and security.

     The summary notes, among other things, that States parties had 
stressed the increasingly grave threat to the Treaty and international 
security posed by the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction -- 
nuclear, biological and chemical
     -- and their means of delivery, as well as the possibility that 
non-State actors might gain access to those weapons.  The tragic events 
of 11 September 2001 had highlighted the dangers of those weapons 
falling into the hands of terrorists.  The gravity of that threat 
reinforces the need to strengthen the Treaty. Recent challenges to the 
Treaty and to the nuclear non-proliferation regime have further 
increased the necessity of full compliance and the need to actively work 
towards universal adherence, the summary states.

     According to the summary, States parties had welcomed the accession 
of Cuba, as well as of Timor-Leste, as States parties to the NPT, which 
brings the Treaty closer to its universality.  Efforts aimed at 
establishing nuclear-weapon-free zones in different regions of the world 
had also been welcomed.  Some States parties were encouraged by the fact 
that Central Asian countries had been engaged in consultations and 
reached a draft agreement to establish such a zone in the region, which 
would contribute to regional security and the prevention of nuclear 
terrorism.

     The summary also recalled that States parties had expressed concern 
at the increased tension in South Asia and the continuing retention of 
nuclear-weapons programmes and options by India and Pakistan.  The 
parties urged both States to accede to the NPT as non-nuclear-weapon 
States and to place all their nuclear facilities under comprehensive 
IAEA safeguards.  The parties noted that both States had declared 
moratoriums on further testing and their willingness to enter into legal 
commitments not to conduct any further nuclear testing by signing and 
ratifying the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT).

     A wide range of concerns had been expressed on the recent 
developments regarding the Democratic Peoples Republic of Koreas 
nuclear issue, the summary recalled.  In this regard, States parties 
called on that country to show its political will to cooperate with the 
international community in increasing mutual confidence.  In particular, 
States parties expressed concern about or deplored that countrys 
nuclear-weapons programme, which undermines peace and security on the 
Korean peninsula and beyond.

     The summary also reported, among other things, that all States 
parties, particularly those with advanced nuclear programmes, had been 
called upon to conclude, bring into force and implement an Additional 
Protocol to their comprehensive safeguards agreement under the 
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), at the earliest opportunity. 
  In that context, and in the light of the scope of its nuclear 
programme, Iran was called upon to sign an Additional Protocol and to 
ensure full and forthcoming cooperation with the IAEA, whose secretariat 
is expected to provide a comprehensive report at the June 2003 meeting 
of the IAEA Board of Governors.

     Statements

     SUDJADNAN PARNOHADININGRAT (Indonesia), speaking as Chairman of the 
Committees third session, said an effective review process was 
necessary in order to reach the goals of the NPT.  And it would soon be 
time, during either this session or the next, for that process to lead 
to a consensus report containing recommendations for the Review 
Conference.  Calling on delegates to keep that point in mind, he also 
encouraged them to take a balanced approach when addressing 
non-proliferation, disarmament, and peaceful nuclear cooperation.

     Turning to non-proliferation, the first pillar of the NPT, he 
recognized the existing concern that the Treaty was discriminatory.  To 
address that concern, governments needed to implement all the Treatys 
provisions.  Additionally, all parties had to take such themes as 
universality and compliance into account.  Referring to the second 
pillar, progress in nuclear disarmament, he urged States parties to 
discuss enhanced transparency and accountability when implementing 
disarmament obligations.  Regarding the third pillar, peaceful uses of 
nuclear energy, he suggested that delegations address assistance to 
developing countries, as well as the bringing into force of 
comprehensive IAEA safeguards -- the Additional Protocol.  Touching upon 
physical security at nuclear sites, he noted that today was the 
eighteenth anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster.

     Reminding delegates of the NPTs conclusion that the total 
elimination of nuclear weapons was the only absolute guarantee against 
the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons, he, nevertheless, 
expressed satisfaction with international efforts to eliminate such 
nuclear threats as the acquisition of nuclear arms by additional States 
and non-State actors.  He then acknowledged that the Treatys strength 
depended on the amount of public support it enjoyed.  In that context, 
he lauded the participation in the Committee and Review Conferences of 
representatives from civil society and nongovernmental organizations. 
Such involvement had brought new viewpoints and ideas to the review process.

     MARIAN HOBBS, Minister for Disarmament and Arms Control, New 
Zealand, said it was sobering to reflect that, by the time of the next 
Review Conference, the Treaty would have been in force for 35 years. 
Events since the last review clearly showed that the purposes of the 
Preamble and the provisions of the Treaty were not being realized, 
either in respect of non-proliferation or of nuclear disarmament.  The 
assurance sought by article VIII.3, which governs the review process, 
was absent.  The Decision on Strengthening the Review Process for the 
Treaty recorded the agreement of the 1995 Conference that review 
conferences should `look forward as well as back.

     Looking back and leaving aside concerns arising with respect to 
States not bound by the NPT, namely India, Israel and Pakistan, she 
said, proliferation concerns had become acute within the last two 
years, to a greater or lesser extent, in relation to the Democratic 
Peoples Republic of Korea, Iran and Libya.  Concerns about the 
fulfilment of the obligation to pursue negotiations on effective 
measures for nuclear disarmament had been of somewhat greater duration. 
  Efforts to inject urgency towards the fulfilment of article VI (which 
concerned nuclear disarmament) had been provided by the 1995 and 2000 
Conferences.  In addition, the Principles and Objectives for Nuclear 
Non-Proliferation and Disarmament agreed in 1995 contained a programme 
of action towards implementation of article VI.  None of those elements 
had been achieved.

     Despite the 1995 agreed programme, the Advisory Opinion of the 
International Court of Justice (concerning the obligation to pursue in 
good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear 
disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international 
control), and the 2000 outcome, few of those steps towards nuclear 
disarmament had been taken, she said.  The nuclear-weapon States - 
China, France, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, and the 
United States - were reminded that article VI made it clear that the 
obligation fell on each of the parties to the Treaty.  There was no 
scope for selective or deferred compliance.  Indeed, it was inherent in 
their capacity as permanent members of the Security Council that those 
States had special responsibilities for fulfilling their international 
obligations.

     Nor was the failure of several States to comply with their 
non-proliferation objectives a pretext for further deferral by the 
nuclear-weapon States of their unequivocal undertaking... to accomplish 
the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals (2000 Review 
Conference), or of the determined pursuit by them of systematic and 
progressive efforts to reduce nuclear weapons globally (1995 Review 
Conference), she said.  With that legal, moral and political backdrop in 
mind, it was untenable for the health of the NPT to allow the 2005 
Review Conference to result in an outcome as solemnly agreed, but as 
fallow as its predecessors in 1995 and 2000 had proved to be.  There had 
also been a number of instances of non-compliance with the proliferation 
obligations of the Treaty, as well as concerns about the possibility of 
vertical proliferation.

     Looking forward, she said, the underpinnings of the NPT should be 
emphasized as positively as possible.  Its parties numbered virtually 
the entire international community.  The five nuclear-weapon States, in 
word at least, continued to voice their support for it.  And, widely 
observed law should not be called into question simply because several 
of its subjects had acted outside of it.  On the contrary, it should be 
reinforced and strengthened.  On the other hand, would law that was not 
fully observed and complied with, stand the test of time?  That, in the 
case of the NPT, was where the obligations on nuclear disarmament and 
non-proliferation intersected.  She was greatly concerned about the 
proliferation of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction.  No 
nation could stand aloof from the current threats to international peace 
and security, especially from terrorists.

     She said she was also very concerned that the current emphasis on 
counter-proliferation measures should not overwhelm the need to take 
concrete steps toward nuclear disarmament.  Those were two sides of the 
same coin.  Ultimately, the only security would be the complete 
elimination of nuclear weapons and the assurance that those weapons 
would never be used or produced again.  At the same time, there was no 
doubt that proliferation was a big enough problem to warrant addressing 
it with all the legitimate tools in the toolbox.  That included 
through the positive power of example, namely through more strenuous 
efforts by the nuclear-weapon States to disarm and to persuade the 
non-NPT possessors to do likewise.  The review process was a chance for 
the parties to work together to address the nuclear-weapon threat.

     Several concrete practical steps could be taken by the 
nuclear-weapon States to build international confidence and negate the 
pretext of proliferating States that sought to justify their need for 
nuclear weapons on the grounds of fear of the development or use of 
weapons or mass destruction by their enemies, she said.  Referring to 
the omnibus resolution, tabled by the New Agenda Coalition and adopted 
at the last General Assembly session, she said that none of the steps 
proposed was impractical and each could be carried out straightaway. 
Among them were:  the irreversible destruction (rather than the storage) 
of non-deployed nuclear warheads; making verifiable, irreversible and 
transparent the potentially significant United States-Russian 
commitments under the Moscow Treaty (formally called the Strategic 
Offensive Reduction Treaty); and giving priority to reductions in 
non-strategic, or tactical, nuclear weapons.

     She said that permitting nuclear-weapons programmes to continue 
over long periods of time fostered a permissive environment for the 
proliferators.  More leadership from the nuclear-weapon States in 
reducing their nuclear arsenals and demonstrating compliance under the 
nuclear disarmament pillar of the NPT would strengthen their moral 
authority to put pressure on India, Israel and Pakistan to do likewise, 
thereby reducing tensions in troubled areas and perhaps lowering the 
incentive - or pretext - for neighbouring or other States to develop 
weapons programmes.  The 2005 Review Conference must be pursued as a 
fundamental opportunity to take concrete steps that allowed everyone to 
feel assured that the purposes of the preamble and the provisions of the 
Treaty were actually being realized.

     LUIS ALFONSO DE ALBA (Mexico), speaking on behalf of the New Agenda 
Coalition, said that certain developments since the last session 
highlighted the urgent need to proceed with international nuclear 
disarmament.  He also stressed his conviction that nuclear 
non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament were mutually reinforcing 
processes that required continuous and irreversible progress.  Turning 
to the current sessions task of producing a consensus report containing 
recommendations to the Review Conference, he stated that such 
suggestions should not be merely procedural.  After all, despite the 
existing opinion that the present session should only be a 
housekeeping exercise, he called for greater political will to reach 
more substantive results.  In that regard, he would introduce a working 
paper containing more dynamic recommendations.

     Stressing that the NPT made nuclear disarmament an obligation 
rather than an option, he reminded delegates of the unequivocal 
undertaking by the nuclear-weapon States to accomplish the total 
elimination of their nuclear arsenals, a provision affirmed at the 2000 
Review Conference.  In that regard, although the Moscow Treaty was a 
positive first step, he questioned its effectiveness, since it did not 
require the destruction of nuclear weapons, failed to address 
non-strategic nuclear weapons, and contained no verification measures. 
He also criticized the intentions of certain States to modernize their 
nuclear weapons, and reiterated his support for the moratorium on 
nuclear testing, pending the entry into force of the Comprehensive 
Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT).

     Lauding the decisions of China and the Russian Federation to allow 
the Conference on Disarmament to adopt its programme of work, he, 
nevertheless, questioned the leadership capabilities of the 
nuclear-weapon States, since they were not truly honouring their 
commitments under the NPT.  In that context, he urged those States to 
not merely pay lip service to their obligations.  He also highlighted 
the importance of transparency in building trust and, therefore, 
strengthening the nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation regime.

     Addressing specific country cases, he renewed his call for a 
nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Middle East and urged Israel to accede 
to the NPT and place all of its nuclear facilities under IAEA 
safeguards.  With respect to Iran, he welcomed its signing of the 
Additional Protocol, but called upon it to resolve the outstanding 
questions regarding its nuclear programme.  He also welcomed Libyas 
voluntary decision to abandon its weapons of mass destruction programme. 
  Turning to the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, he stressed that 
diplomacy should be used to reverse that countrys withdrawal from the 
NPT.  Additionally, regarding South Asia, he called on India and 
Pakistan to promptly accede to the Treaty.

     RICHARD RYAN (Ireland), speaking on behalf of the European Union, 
expressed his commitment to the NPT and stressed that a multilateral 
approach to disarmament and non-proliferation was the best way to 
preserve international order.  Nevertheless, noting that the NPT had not 
been able to completely prevent the spread of military nuclear 
capability, he declared that he supported a policy of reinforcing 
compliance with the Treaty and enhancing the international ability to 
detect violations.  In that context, he called for the strengthening of 
the Security Councils role in dealing with non-compliance.  He also 
said he backed measures aimed at preventing terrorists from acquiring 
weapons of mass destruction.

Deploring the withdrawal of the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea 
from the NPT, he called on that country to reverse its decision. 
Regarding Iran, he welcomed the positive steps it had taken to 
accommodate the IAEA, but noted with great concern that a number of 
questions remained unanswered.  Lauding Libyas decisions to abandon 
its clandestine weapons of mass destruction programme and ratify the 
CTBT, he, nonetheless, raised concerns that its arms-related progress, 
along with Irans, proved the existence of a network that sprang from 
the same sources.  In that regard, he stressed that supply routes had to 
be investigated and such illegal trading and information-sharing 
networks had to be suppressed.  Arms-selling States could help by 
implementing greater export controls.  Acknowledging the importance of 
the IAEAs international safeguards system, he informed delegates that 
all European Union Member States had now acceded to the safeguards and 
Additional Protocols and would work to ensure that other States followed 
suit.

Turning to South Asia and the Middle East, he called upon India and 
Pakistan to accede to the NPT.  He did, however, also welcome their 
declared moratoriums on nuclear testing, as well as their recent efforts 
to engage in dialogue with each other and implement nuclear-related 
confidence-building measures between themselves.  In the Middle East, it 
was necessary for all of the countries of that region to accede to the 
Biological and Chemical Weapons Conventions and join together in a 
nuclear-weapon-free zone.  In that context, he encouraged Israel to 
accede to the NPT and submit to IAEA safeguards.  Expressing regret over 
the continued deadlock in the Conference on Disarmament, he articulated 
his commitment to reaching a consensus on a programme of work.  In that 
regard, he attached importance to the negotiation of a 
non-discriminatory and universal treaty banning the production of 
fissile material.  Until such a treaty came into being, all States 
should declare a moratorium on producing such material.

     HU ZIAODI (China) said that the new century had seen far-reaching 
changes and increasing uncertainties in the international security 
landscape.  The world faced both traditional and non-traditional 
security challenges, with the latter on the rise.  The spread of mass 
destruction weapons, plus the risk that terrorists might acquire them, 
added complexity and challenge to global non-proliferation efforts. 
Thus, the authority and universality of the NPT should be strengthened 
in the new situation.   He welcomed the accessions of Cuba and 
Timor-Leste to the Treaty and called on those that had not done so to 
join the Treaty at an early date.  The IAEA played an irreplaceable role 
in ensuring the Treatys implementation.  He, thus, fully supported 
strengthened safeguards, and urged all countries to sign and ratify them 
and the Additional Protocol.

     He said that the disclosure of the nuclear smuggling network 
indicated loopholes in the international non-proliferation regime.  The 
growing risk of terrorists acquiring mass destruction weapons further 
demonstrated the significance and urgency to improve the international 
non-proliferation regime.  China supported speeding up negotiations to 
amend the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material, so 
as to strengthen physical protection of nuclear weapon and materials, 
and strengthen the ability of States to prevent the acquisition of 
radioactive materials by non-State entities.  His country supported the 
United Nations in playing a role in non-proliferation and favoured the 
adoption of resolutions by the Security Council, on the basis of full 
consultation, to prevent the smuggling of weapons of mass destruction by 
non-State entities.

     Nuclear weapons proliferation was a complex issue, which should be 
treated in a comprehensive way by solving simultaneously the superficial 
and substantive problems, he said.  It was of fundamental importance to 
constantly improve the global and regional security environment.  To 
achieve that goal, all States should commit themselves to a new security 
concept focused on mutual trust, mutual benefit, equality and 
cooperation.  An international environment of cooperation and trust, 
whereby security was safeguarded for all, should be created.  In that 
connection, we need to press ahead with the international nuclear 
disarmament efforts, he urged.  Nuclear disarmament and 
non-proliferation were mutually reinforcing.  In todays world, 
confrontation between countries, especially big countries, had declined, 
while cooperation had strengthened.  Meanwhile, however, international 
terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction had 
become important international security threats.

     In that situation, he said, such moves as adopting a pre-emptive 
strike strategy, explicitly listing other States as targets of nuclear 
strike, lowering the threshold of nuclear weapons use, the research and 
development of new types of easy-to-use nuclear weapons, and shortening 
the time of preparation for nuclear tests not only ran counter to 
international trends, but also harmed international non-proliferation 
efforts, which served no State.  His country believed that all 
nuclear-weapon States should explicitly reaffirm their commitments to a 
complete and thorough elimination of nuclear weapons, undertake to stop 
the research and development of new types of nuclear weapons, ratify the 
CTBT as soon as possible and observe the nuclear-testing moratorium, 
reduce the role of nuclear weapons in national security policy, and 
refrain from listing any State as a nuclear strike target.

     Continuing, he said that the two States with the biggest nuclear 
arsenals should implement nuclear reduction treaties and further reduce 
their nuclear arsenals in an effectively verifiable and irreversible 
manner, so as to create conditions for other nuclear-weapon States to 
join the nuclear disarmament process.  The Conference on Disarmament 
should agree on a programme of work as soon as possible and, on that 
basis, start negotiations on a treaty banning the production of fissile 
material for nuclear weapons.  The Conference should also establish an 
ad hoc committee on nuclear disarmament, security assurances and 
prevention of an arms race in outer space, and it should carry out 
substantive work.

     On assurances, he said that it was fully legitimate and reasonable 
for non-nuclear-weapon States to obtain assurances from nuclear-weapon 
States against nuclear threats.  Such assurances should be legally 
binding, since the non-nuclear-weapon States had given up the nuclear 
option.  History had proven that security assurances helped to boost the 
sense of security and reduce the motivation to acquire nuclear weapons. 
  That, in turn, served international non-proliferation efforts.  For 
those reasons, his country firmly supported the conclusion of an 
international legal instrument on security assurance as soon as 
possible.  At the same time, non-proliferation efforts must not impede 
legitimate activities of peaceful use, or be used as excuses for other 
purposes.

     As a nuclear-weapon State, China had never shunned its 
responsibility in nuclear disarmament, he said.  It had always supported 
a complete prohibition and thorough destruction of nuclear weapons, 
exercised the utmost restraint in developing nuclear weapons, and had 
maintained a minimum arsenal necessary for self-defence only.  China 
has never and will never take part in any arms race.  On the very 
first day it came into possession of nuclear weapons, China solemnly 
declared that, at no time and under no circumstances, would it be the 
first to use them.  Later, China undertook unconditionally not to use or 
threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapon States or 
nuclear-weapon-free zones.  In 1995, it provided positive security 
assurances to non-nuclear-weapon States.

     He said his country had consistently urged all nuclear-weapon 
States to enshrine their commitments in a legal form.  In addition, his 
country had signed all relevant protocols to the nuclear-weapon-free 
zone treaties and undertaken the corresponding obligations.  China and 
the countries of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) had 
reached an agreement on the South-East Asia Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone 
Treaty and its protocol.  Also, China had no difficulty with the text of 
the protocol to the Central Asian nuclear-weapon-free zone treaty. 
China had also been the first nuclear-weapon State to have the 
Additional Protocol of the IAEA in effect.  It was also active in the 
peaceful uses of nuclear energy and had engaged in cooperation with 
other Member States under IAEA safeguards.

     DAVID BROUCHER (United Kingdom) said that the past year in NPT 
history books would go down as both good and bad.  The year would be 
remembered for Libyas historic decision to acknowledge and renounce its 
weapons of mass destruction programme.  It would be remembered for 
Irans decision to sign the Additional Protocol.  But, many would also 
remember it as the year that A. Q. Khan admitted selling Pakistani 
nuclear technology over several years to a series of non-nuclear-weapon 
States, as well as the year that Iran had been found not to have 
declared significant elements of its nuclear programme to the IAEA. 
Such events had shown that multilateralism could pay great dividends in 
the field of counter-proliferation, but they had also demonstrated that 
much remained to be done.

     He said that loopholes in the international machinery were being 
sought by States to develop clandestine weapons programmes.  Terrorists 
were seeking nuclear materials, and those threats were not receding. 
Information from Pakistan that the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea 
was pursuing an undeclared uranium enrichment programme reinforced the 
importance of the six-party talks process under way in Beijing. 
Efforts must be redoubled to counter proliferation and work to 
strengthen the international machinery that supported them.  There had 
been calls recently from some quarters to introduce new NPT mechanisms, 
including annual conferences to replace the PrepComs and the creation 
of a standing bureau of the Treaty.  The idea was that such measures 
would strengthen the NPT process.  He disagreed.  Mechanisms to tackle 
proliferation and non-compliance already existed within the IAEA and the 
Security Council.  Efforts should be concentrated on strengthening 
those, rather than tinkering with core elements of the Treaty.

     The United Kingdom remained a staunch supporter of the IAEA, whose 
work on safeguards underpinned the NPT.  That was the front line of 
defence against States who would cheat on their international 
obligations, he said.  Calling on all States to complete and comply with 
the Safeguards Agreements and the Additional Protocols, he said that no 
country developing nuclear technology for purely peaceful purposes 
should have anything to fear from such a step.  The IAEAs work alone, 
however, would not solve todays problems.  A broad range of tools was 
required that would necessitate action by other international bodies and 
by national governments.  The Security Council, for example, was 
currently negotiating a resolution to advance the goal of enacting and 
enforcing effective domestic laws and controls that supported 
non-proliferation and criminalized proliferation, with stiff penalties 
for those that did not comply.  Hopefully, it would be adopted soon. 
His country stood ready to help States meet the obligations contained 
therein.

     He said that, while his country strongly supported the principle 
that States parties to the NPT should have access to the benefits of 
peaceful uses of nuclear energy, it felt that enjoying such benefits 
should be conditional on compliance with the relevant Treaty articles. 
In the case of failure to comply, it should be considered whether such 
States should lose the right to the nuclear fuel cycle, particularly the 
enrichment and reprocessing capabilities, which were so proliferation 
sensitive.  That did not mean that the States concerned could not 
construct and run civil nuclear power stations; those could still 
operate with fuel supplied by countries honouring their safeguards 
obligations.  The fuel would be subjected to Agency monitoring, while in 
the receiving country, and returned to the country of supply when spent. 
  That would prevent a seemingly civil programme from masking a weapons 
programme, he said.

     Welcoming recent efforts by India and Pakistan to work together to 
reduce nuclear tensions in the region through confidence-building 
measures, he said that was an essential step to avoiding the risk of 
escalation to a nuclear exchange.  It was vital that the two sides gain 
a realistic understanding of each others decision-making processes and 
red lines.  Pakistan had been a source of nuclear proliferation 
through the activities of Mr. Khan, and India had developed its domestic 
technological base to the extent that it could be an attractive target 
for procurement networks.  Effective ways should be found to work with 
both countries in the future.  In terms of nuclear disarmament, his 
country had made substantial progress on its global nuclear disarmament 
obligations under the NPT.  Those had included:  the withdrawal and 
dismantling of its maritime tactical nuclear capability and of the 
RAFs WE177 nuclear bomb; and the termination of the nuclear Lance 
missile and artillery roles that it undertook, with nuclear weapons held 
under dual-key arrangements.  That had left Polaris, later superseded by 
Trident, as the United Kingdoms only nuclear weapons system.

     Since 2000, he continued, his country had completed the dismantling 
of its Chevaline (Polaris) warheads.  It now held less than 200 
operationally available warheads, which amounted to a 70 per cent 
reduction in the explosive power of its nuclear weapons since the end of 
the cold war, taking the UK from four nuclear roles to just one.  It 
had announced that its nuclear forces patrol on reduced readiness; only 
a single Trident submarine was now on deterrent patrol at any one time, 
normally at several days notice to fire and with its missiles 
de-targeted.  Those measures built on actions previously taken by the 
United Kingdom.

     He said it would be wrong to conclude this statement without 
mentioning the threat of nuclear terrorism.  Recent events in Madrid, 
Turkey, Afghanistan and Iraq had demonstrated all too clearly that there 
were individuals or groups that were determined to wreak havoc on 
society and kill hundreds or thousands of innocent civilians in the 
promotion of their cause.  The threat of terrorist use of nuclear 
weapons was of concern to all.  He welcomed the work being carried out 
to reduce that risk by individual nations, the Counter-Terrorism 
Committee, the IAEA, the Group of Eight (G-8) and others.  Also welcome 
was the work under way to tackle the root causes of terrorism.  His 
country remained fully committed to the NPT, as it wanted to see a 
universal, verifiable instrument that guaranteed a world free from 
nuclear danger, thus providing the security that everyone here was 
seeking.  The NPT offered the best hope of achieving that goal.

     ABDALLAH BAALI (Algeria) said that four years had elapsed since 
sixth NPT Review Conference, which had given rise to new hope that the 
world would be freed from the looming threat of nuclear weapons, leading 
to collective security for all.  Since the thirteen agreed measures and 
the unequivocal commitment by nuclear-weapon States to totally eliminate 
their nuclear arsenals, hope had turned to doubt and even more ominous 
clouds had gathered with the emergence of new threats, such as the risk 
of the terrorist acquisition of mass destruction weapons.  Objective 
assessment of events since 2000 clearly showed little progress, and 
initiatives undertaken were still insufficient, because often those did 
not bear the stamp of irreversibility.  The setbacks and the pivotal and 
strategic role of nuclear weapons in security policies, as well as the 
risk of horizontal and vertical proliferation were hardly grounds for 
optimism.

     He said that the NPT was a major factor in the maintenance of 
international peace and security; that must be consolidated and its 
three pillars must be respected and applied.  Its ultimate universality 
was the goal.  Horizontal proliferation must be prevented.  States 
parties should adhere scrupulously with their obligations not to acquire 
nuclear weapons, and nuclear-weapon States must fulfil their nuclear 
disarmament obligations.  Balance between obligation and responsibility 
would only strengthen the Treaty.  Moreover, its text must be 
implemented as a whole, as selective implementation was fraught with the 
risk of erosion.  At the same time, the existence of nuclear arsenals 
and the vertical proliferation of nuclear weapons were contrary to the 
spirit and letter of the Treaty and represented challenges, which States 
parties were obliged to meet.

     The indefinite extension of the NPT in 1995 in no way permitted the 
indefinite possession of nuclear weapons and persistent division between 
those States entitled to possess them and those that did not, he said. 
Article VI of the Treaty was binding and required that nuclear 
disarmament in good faith must be pursued.  Disarmament could only be 
achieved once cold war doctrines were renounced.  The Conference on 
Disarmament, which had been dormant since the end of 1996, must be 
revived.  In that connection, he called on all parties to demonstrate 
flexibility and pragmatism to ensure the success of the proposal 
presented by the group of 5 ambassadors to revive that negotiating 
body.  Pending the elimination of all nuclear weapons, there was an 
imperative need to codify negative security guarantees in a binding 
legal instrument.  He endorsed the proposal by the Non-Aligned Movement 
(NAM) of countries to establish a subsidiary body during the 
Conferences next session to deal with that subject.

     Stressing that regional nuclear disarmament and the creation of 
nuclear-weapon-free zones were an effective contribution to nuclear 
disarmament and non-proliferation, he said that the nuclear-weapon 
States bore particular responsibility, by ratifying the various 
protocols of the nuclear-weapon-free zone treaties and by contributing 
to the establishment of such zones in various regions around the world. 
  The 1995 Review Conference had reaffirmed the importance of those 
zones and their role in non-proliferation and disarmament.  It had also 
recognized the contribution they played in strengthening peace. 
Nevertheless, the attempt to create a zone free from weapons of mass 
destruction in the Middle East had still not been realized.  A 
resolution adopted at the 1995 Review Conference, which called for the 
creation of a Middle East nuclear-weapon-free zone and demanded that 
Israel adhere to the NPT and submit its facilities to the IAEA, had 
remained a dead letter.  A strong signal must be sent to Israel to 
abide by international law and remove the ultimate obstacle to 
strengthening peace and stability in that particularly troubled region.

     He said, moreover, that preventing nuclear proliferation could not 
serve as a pretext for preventing countries from receiving technology 
for peaceful means.  Although he reaffirmed his fundamental support for 
all measures designed to strengthen non-proliferation and nuclear 
disarmament, they should not be carried out to the detriment of the 
rights of States to the peaceful use of nuclear energy, as stated in 
article IV of the NPT.  Todays world urged everyone to rethink and 
readapt their policies and base them on cooperation and independence. 
Collective welfare, including in the economic and social spheres, must 
be seen as underpinning peace and security.  Nuclear disarmament was the 
only way to preserve mankind from annihilation, and, thus, progress in 
that regard was crucial.

     JUAN MANUEL GOMEZ ROBLEDO (Mexico) said the Committees main 
objective should be to effectively pave the road towards the 2005 Review 
Conference, while working to identify the new global challenges at hand. 
  Referring to last weeks open debate in the Security Council, on ways 
to prevent terrorists from obtaining weapons of mass destruction, he 
noted that he had said then, as he was saying now, that the best way to 
prevent such a travesty was to completely eliminate those types of arms. 
  Turning to the consensus report about what the current session was 
meant to produce, he said the recommendations it would eventually 
include should demonstrate a balance between the three pillars of the 
NPT, since they were interdependent.

     Mentioning the Treaty of Tlatelolco, which set a precedent by 
promoting the idea of legally binding security assurances to 
non-nuclear-weapon States by their nuclear-weapon counterparts, he felt, 
along with other delegates from the New Agenda Coalition, that such 
assurances should be adopted by a negotiated agreement within the 
framework of the NPT, or through a new NPT protocol.  He also called 
attention to the Havana Declaration, which called for security 
assurances for members of nuclear-weapon-free zones.

     Despite the challenges faced by the IAEA safeguards regime, he 
stressed that it represented the best mechanism to ensure compliance 
with the non-proliferation obligations put forth by the NPT.  Last 
March, Mexico had decided to subscribe to the Additional Protocol. 
Soon, the Mexican Senate would have the opportunity to ratify that 
expressed commitment.  Convinced of the value of submitting national 
reports, he said that process built accountability, trust and 
confidence.  His Government would also continue to support international 
confidence-building by promoting communication and cooperation between 
different nuclear-weapon-free zones.  Before concluding, he voiced 
support for the continued participation of civil society in the NPT 
review process.

     RASTAM MOHD ISA (Malaysia), speaking on behalf of the Non-Aligned 
States Parties to the NPT, reaffirmed the notion that multilaterally 
agreed solutions, in accordance with the United Nations Charter, 
represented the best way to deal with disarmament and global security 
issues.  In that regard, he stressed the importance of full and 
non-selective implementation of the NPT.  Declaring that the indefinite 
extension of the Treaty did not necessarily entail the ongoing 
possession by the nuclear-weapon States of their nuclear arms, he 
emphasized that the total elimination of nuclear weapons was the only 
absolute guarantee against their use or threat of use.  Until the 
nuclear-weapon States destroyed their arsenals, they should extend 
legally binding security assurances to their non-nuclear-weapon 
counterparts, he said.

     Reaffirming the inalienable right of States Parties to the NPT to 
engage in research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful 
purposes, he articulated his understanding that nothing in the Treaty 
infringed upon that right.  He then echoed international calls to India 
and Pakistan to accede to the NPT as non-nuclear-weapon States and to 
submit to IAEA safeguards.  Turning to the Middle East, he voiced 
support for a nuclear-weapon-free zone in that region.  He also welcomed 
Timor-Lestes accession to the NPT, and he stated that dialogue should 
be used to bring the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea back into the 
regime.  Speaking about nuclear-weapon-free zones in general, he noted 
that States belonging to them should receive unconditional security 
assurances from nuclear-weapon States.

     He then addressed several problematic international developments 
since the Preparatory Committees second session.  For example, there 
had been a serious lack of progress towards the total elimination of 
nuclear weapons.  Noting the signing of the Moscow Treaty, he, 
nevertheless, stressed that reductions in deployment and operational 
status should not be seen as substitutes for irreversible disarmament. 
He also criticized the continuance of strategic defence doctrines to 
rationalize the maintenance of nuclear weapons, the abrogation of the 
Treaty on the Limitation of Anti-Ballistic Missiles, which could lead to 
a new arms race, and the stalemate in the Conference on Disarmament, 
which was preserved by the inflexibility of certain nuclear-weapon 
States.  Noting that the Committees first and second sessions had 
already dealt with most of the procedural matters required for the 2005 
Review Session, he expressed his hope that this session would allow for 
a substantive inter-State interaction, which went beyond the usual 
formal exchange of views.

The archives of South News can be found at
http://southmovement.alphalink.com.au/southnews/ 

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 47 [NYTr] Australia Urged to Pursue Nuke Non-Proliferation
 
Date: Mon, 26 Apr 2004 10:29:27 -0500 (CDT)

 
Via NY Transfer News Collective  *  All the News that Doesn't Fit

Sent by Friends of the Earth (Australia) - April 26, 2004

EMBARGOED TO MONDAY 26 APRIL

 FRIENDS OF THE EARTH AUSTRALIA
 AUSTRALIAN PEACE COMMITTEE
 PEOPLE FOR NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT (PND)
 CAMPAIGN FOR INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION AND DISARMAMENT (CICD)

AUSTRALIA URGED TO PURSUE NUKE DISARMAMENT AS NONPROLIFERATION 
MEETING OPENS IN UN

As the meeting of the preparatory committee for the 2005 review 
conference of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty opens in New York 
(Monday 26th NY time), nuclear disarmament organisations there are 
set to lobby  UN missions to emphasise nuclear disarmament by the 
nuclear weapons states as well as nuclear nonproliferation,  and in 
Australia 30 organisations and parliamentarians wrote last week to 
foreign minister Downer calling for the same thing.

According to Australian nuclear disarmament groups:

" IAEA head Mohammad El Baradei has rightly pointed out that it is 
completely hypocritical for the nuclear weapons states - particularly 
the Bush administration - to on the one hand call for non-nuclear 
countries to abide by the nonproliferation aspects of the NPT, while 
on the other hand, refusing to abide by their clear obligations under 
that treaty to eliminate their own nuclear arsenals. Its clear to 
anyone that while the nuclear 'big boys' continue to build and 
improve their nuclear arsenals, countries like North Korea and Iran 
are going to want to have nukes of their own and sooner or later they 
are going to get them.  It's also clear that if a lot more countries 
obtain nuclear weapons, the probability that they will be used by 
accident, miscalculation, madness or malice increases to the point 
where it becomes all but certain."

"The worst-case risks in the current situation range from the loss of 
say, the Sydney CBD or Manhattan from a single terrorist warhead, 
with a death toll of say, 100-500,000, to a possible DPRK attack on a 
west coast US city, with a body count of 1-2 million, to an India 
Pakistan war with a death toll of 1.5million up to as much as 150 
million."

"Meanwhile, the US and Russia continue to maintain and upgrade 
arsenals that still have the capacity to end not only civilisation 
but most life, and the US  takes steps toward the development of 
so-called 'mini-nukes. "

"If we are to move forward to a world free of nuclear weapons,  the 
nuclear weapons states must abide by their nuclear disarmament 
obligations under the NPT as well as pressing others to refrain from 
building nuclear weapons."

John Hallam FOE-A 9567-7533, 9319-4296, h9810-2598
Irene Gale APC 08-8364-2291
Pauline Mitchell CICD, 03-9663-3677
Cameron Schraner, PND  0415-202-060
 
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 48 News Max: McNamara: Nuclear War Still Possible; NY No. 1 Target
 
April 26, 2004 
      
Jon E. Dougherty, NewsMax.com

Tuesday, Apr. 27, 2004 The threat of devastating nuclear attack 
by Russia against the United States has not diminished, warns 
former Sec. of Defense Robert McNamara.

 Writing in Monday’s Los Angeles Times, McNamara and co-author 
Helen Caldicott claim that the threat of a nuclear catastrophe 
remains real, “whether by accident, human fallibility or 
malfeasance.”

 The Soviet Union collapsed on itself and the divide between 
Eastern communism and Western democracy disintegrated more than 
13 years ago. 

Because of that, the nightmare scenario is not on the minds of 
many Americans today. 

Missiles Still Pointed at New York, Cities

 Nevertheless, the threat remains serious, McNamara and Caldicott 
argue, because, despite the end of the Cold War in the early 
1990's, thousands of Russian nuclear warheads are still pointed 
at the U.S. targeting many civilian population centers. 

McNamara, defense secretary to presidents Kennedy and Johnson, 
U.S. and Caldicott, a pediatrician and head of the Nuclear Policy 
Research Institute, say that Russian nuclear targeting strategies 
haven't changed much — and certainly not enough to reflect the 
thaw in relations between both nations.

 The pair also cite a January 2002 document from the U.S. Foreign 
Military Studies Office at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., titled, 
"Prototypes for Targeting America, a Soviet Military Assessment." 

The study reports that New York City is the single most important 
target after military installations on the U.S. Atlantic coast.

 In addition, a report commissioned in the 1980s by the U.S. 
Office of Technology Assessment is still as relevant today. 

It said Soviet nuclear war plans called for aiming two 
one-megaton bombs at each of the following: The three airports 
serving NYC; Wall Street; each major bridge; all major rail 
centers; all power stations; four NYC-area oil refineries; and 
the NYC port facilities.

 Also, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, in a recent 
report on nuclear-attack preparedness, featured a map showing an 
obliterated New York City from nuclear blasts and the resultant 
firestorms and fallout. 

It predicted millions of people would instantly perish, while 
most survivors would die shortly thereafter from radiation burns 
and exposure.

 Russia, Leading Nuclear Superpower

 Russia, despite press reports to the contrary, remains a nuclear 
superpower, arguably the greatest nuclear superpower.

 Between Moscow and Washington, the two governments can lay claim 
to 96 percent of the world's 30,000 nuclear weapons.

 In Russia, says the National Resources Defense Council, most of 
the 8,200 nuclear warheads are pointing at American cities and 
defense sites. 

In return, most of the United States' 7,000 warheads are 
targeting Russian missile silos and command centers.

 Russia continues to lead the U.S. in smaller tactical nuclear 
warheads. The U.S. destroyed most of its tactical nuclear arsenal 
during the 1990s.

 Of the 7,000 warheads in the U.S. arsenal, 2,500 are maintained 
on a 24-hour ready alert status, and can be launched within 
moments. 

And, the commander of the Strategic Air Command has only about 
three minutes to decide if a nuclear attack warning is real or 
not. Then he has 10 minutes to find the president and give him a 
30-second attack briefing, including options. 

After that, the president has three minutes to decide whether or 
not to retaliate and if so, which targets will be hit. Once they 
were launched, U.S. missiles would reach their Russian targets in 
about 15 to 30 minutes.

 The situation is relatively similar in Russia, with the 
exception that Moscow's early warning system is rapidly aging. 

According to the McNamara and Caldicott, the systems of both 
countries sound alarms daily, in response to wildfires, satellite 
launchings and solar reflections off clouds or oceans. 

But as the Russian system continues to decay, it may be more 
difficult for Moscow to determine whether alerts are real or not. 

That's dangerous, argue experts, because it may mean in the 
future, Russian commanders and leaders may have to rely more on 
human judgment—a concept much less reliable than computerized 
early warning systems that operate without emotion.

 Russia Continues Missile Build-up

 Perhaps worse, as Russia's overall military structure continues 
to suffer from a lack of funding and crumbles, Moscow continues 
to pour scarce military funding into more nuclear weapons. 

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov told reporters Monday 
Moscow will test its mobile version of the Topol-M 
intercontinental ballistic missile once more before it is put 
into service. 

The missile, which will form the backbone of Russia's nuclear 
defenses, is 47 tons, will carry one warhead, and has an 
estimated range of 6,900 miles. Ground-based Topol-M rockets are 
already in use; the mobile version could be operational by 2006.

 The last test of the mobile missile came earlier this month, 
Ivanov said. It traveled its maximum distance before hitting a 
target on the Kamchatka peninsula.

 In addition, according to Agence France Presse, the U.S. has 
hinted it may use a loophole to get out of a treaty signed with 
Russia in 2002, which mandates both countries slash their nuclear 
arsenals by two-thirds over a decade.

 Give Them Up

 The liberal leaning McNamara and Caldicott say the best strategy 
now is to simply abandon nuclear weapons altogether.

 They say Russia and the U.S. are now allied in the global fight 
against terrorism. 

As such, "their first duty in this effort should be immediate and 
rapid bilateral nuclear disarmament, accompanied by the other six 
nuclear nations (France, Britain, China, India, Pakistan and 
Israel)," followed by U.N. Security Council action "to ensure no 
other nations, particularly Iran and North Korea, acquire nuclear 
weapons."

 "Time is not on our side," they wrote.

[http://www.newsmax.com/comments.shtml] 
  
All Rights Reserved © NewsMax.com 
*****************************************************************
 49 DOE: Comment Period Extension and Additional Public Scoping Meetings 
 
                         FR Doc 04-9524 
[Federal Register: April 26, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 80)]
[Notices] [Page 22496] From the Federal Register Online via GPO 
Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr26ap04-55] [[Page 22496]]
 
for an Environmental Impact Statement for the Alignment, 
Construction, and Operation of a Rail Line to a Geologic 
Repository at Yucca Mountain, Nye County, NV AGENCY: U.S. 
Department of Energy. ACTION: Notice of comment period extension 
and additional public meetings.
 
SUMMARY: On April 8, 2004, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) 
published a Notice of Intent (69 FR 18565) announcing its intent 
to prepare an environmental impact statement (EIS) under the 
National Environmental Policy Act for the alignment, 
construction, and operation of a rail line for shipments of spent 
nuclear fuel, high-level radioactive waste, and other materials 
from a site near Caliente, Lincoln County, Nevada, to a geologic 
repository at Yucca Mountain, Nye County, Nevada, and announced 
three public scoping meetings during a 45-day public comment 
period ending May 24, 2004. In response to a request from the 
State of Nevada, DOE is now announcing two additional public 
meetings, one in Las Vegas, Nevada, and one in Reno, Nevada, and 
extending the comment period to June 1, 2004.
 
 
DATES: The additional public meetings will be held at the 
following locations and times: Las Vegas, Nevada. Las Vegas Yucca 
Mountain Information Center, 4101 B Meadows Lane, May 10, 2004, 
from 4-8 p.m. Reno, Nevada. University of Nevada-Reno, Lawlor 
Event Center-Silver and Blue Room, 15th & North Virginia, May 12, 
2004, from 4-8 p.m. The comment period on the Notice of Intent is 
being extended to June 1, 2004. DOE will consider comments on the 
proposed scope of the Rail Alignment EIS received after June 1, 
2004, to the extent practicable.
 
 
ADDRESSES: Written comments on the scope of this Rail Alignment 
EIS, questions concerning the proposed action and alternatives, 
requests for maps that illustrate the Caliente corridor and 
alternatives, or requests for additional information on the Rail 
Alignment EIS or transportation planning in general should be 
directed to: Ms.
 
Robin Sweeney, EIS Document Manager, Office of National 
Transportation, Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, 
U.S. Department of Energy, 1551 Hillshire Drive, M/S 011, Las 
Vegas, NV 89134, telephone 1-800-967-3477, or via the Internet at 
http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov 
[http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving 
FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov]  under ``What's 
New.'' Issued in Washington, DC, on April 20, 2004.
 
Margaret S. Y. Chu, Director, Office of Civilian Radioactive 
Waste Management.
 
[FR Doc. 04-9524 Filed 4-23-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 6450-01-P

 
*****************************************************************
 50 Oakland Tribune: Lab plans to expand disputed research
 
Article Last Updated: Monday, April 26, 2004 
 
Proposal would double plutonium capabilities, increase
Livermore's work with radioactive tritium
By Douglas Fischer, STAFF WRITER

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory kicks off a listening
tour Tuesday on its plans for the next 10 years, a controversial
blueprint that could have the weapons lab doubling its plutonium
capabilities and upping its day-to-day work with tritium -- a
radioactive gas -- nearly tenfold. 

Those and other plans are outlined in a 2,500-page tome
examining all of Livermore's operations for the next 10 years,
along with potential impacts on human and environmental health. 

The public has an opportunity to comment on the blueprint
Tuesday in Livermore, Wednesday in Tracy and Friday in
Washington, D.C. 

Plans for expanded plutonium enrichment capabilities have drawn
sharp criticism from watchdog groups concerned about
proliferating nuclear arms and risk to the environment. 



One proposal on the table -- Atomic Vapor Laser Isotope
Separation -- calls for essentially vaporizing nearly 250 pounds
of plutonium, said Loulena Miles, staff attorney for one such
Livermore-based group, Tri-Valley CAREs. 

Activists successfully persuaded Congress to "zero-out" the
program's funding in 1990, Miles said. "Aside from very se-

 rious proliferation impacts, there's also the very serious
environmental effects of working with powdered plutonium." 

Tritium is another concern. Considerably more radioactive than
weapons-grade plutonium, the gas escapes so easily incidental
releases are almost unavoidable. 

Lab officials note that tritium releases declined dramatically
in the 1990s and the new environmental estimate of risk is quite
low -- about one-third of a millirem a year. An American's
average exposure to radiation, from airline flights, X-rays and
natural sources, is about 300 millirems. 

The public's thoughts on the lab's plans for the next decade are
considered very important, said Thomas Grim, document manager
for the U.S. Department of Energy. 

"We consider them and respond to them in a separate volume of
the environmental impact statement. That way they're all
together in a manner that the decision-makers can consider them
... and make a decision."

 Public hearings are at 1 and 6 p.m. Tuesday at the Double Tree
Club (formerly the Holiday Inn) at 720 Las Flores Road,
Livermore. Hearings also will be held at 1 and 6:30 p.m.
Wednesday at the Holiday Inn Express, 3751 N. Tracy Blvd, Tracy.
Comments can be e-mailed to lab officials at
tom.grim@oak.doe.gov [tom.grim@oak.doe.gov] or via fax at (925)
422-1776.

 
-----------------------------------------------------------------

-----------------------------------------------------------------


Contact Douglas Fischer at dfischer@angnewspapers.com
*****************************************************************
 51 U.S. Newswire: DOE Officials to Testify Before Congressional Committees
 
 4/26/2004 11:34:00 AM 

To: Assignment Desk, Daybooks 

Contact: Corry Schiermeyer of the Department of Energy,
202-586-5806 

News Advisory: 

The following Department of Energy officials are scheduled to 
testify before Congress on Tuesday April 27, 2004. 

Acting Under Secretary of Energy David Garman will testify before 
the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources regarding 
sustainable electricity generation on Tuesday. 

National Nuclear Security Administration Administrator Linton 
Brooks and Glen Podonsky, Director of Security and Safety 
Performance Assurance will testify before the House Government 
Reform Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and 
International Relations. 

Following are details of the events: 

TUESDAY, APRIL 27, 2004 

WHO: David Garman, Acting Undersecretary of Energy and Assistant 
Secretary of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy 

WHAT: Testimony before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural 
Resources WHERE: 366 DSOB 

WHEN: 10 a.m. 

TUESDAY, APRIL 27, 2004 

WHO: Linton Brooks, Administrator, National Nuclear Security 
Administration 

Glenn Podonsky, Director of Security and Safety Performance 
Assurance 

WHAT: Testimony before the House Government Reform Subcommittee 
on National Security, Emerging Threats and International 
Relations 

WHERE: 2154 RHOB 

WHEN: 10 a.m. (Open) 

/© 2004 U.S. Newswire 202-347-2770/ 			 		   		   			 		   		   
*****************************************************************
 52 Oak Ridger: ORNL reactor starting up 							 							 							
 
Story last updated at 12:10 p.m. on April 26, 2004

By: Paul Parson | Oak Ridger Staff
paul.parson@oakridger.com [paul.parson@oakridger.com] 

Oak Ridge National Laboratory officials were conducting a check 
phase this morning for the facility's powerful research reactor.

Jim Roberto, ORNL's associate laboratory director for Physical 
Sciences, said if all goes according to plan, the High Flux 
Isotope Reactor should be in action this afternoon.

When the reactor was shutdown in March for a regularly scheduled 
refueling outage, officials noticed there was a leaking seal 
around a reactor beam tube, which transports neutrons.

The reactor produces a beam of neutrons for research experiments 
and also irradiates materials for the purpose of creating medical 
isotopes.

Lab officials have worked to minimize the leak, which allowed 
water to go from a pressure vessel to the pool of water that 
houses the research reactor. However, an alternative method for 
the problem has been developed. 
*****************************************************************
 53 Oak Ridger: Cleaning up nuke junk 							 							 							
 
Story last updated at 11:25 a.m. on April 26, 2004

PROJECT: Washington Safety Management Solutions is in charge of 
the effort, but will get assistance from BNFL Inc. 

By: Paul Parson | Oak Ridger Staff paul.parson@oakridger.com 
[paul.parson@oakridger.com] 

An Oak Ridge nuclear junkyard - filled with more than 40,000 tons 
of scrap metal - will be cleaned up with a contract cost of 
around $11.6 million.

Located near the Clinch River and outside the fence of the Oak 
Ridge K-25 site, the scrap yard known as K-770 contains a "wide, 
wide variety of materials," including some vehicles, according to 
Dennis Hill, a spokesman for Bechtel Jacobs Co. The company 
oversees local cleanup work for the Department of Energy.

Some of the material in the scrap yard is contaminated, according 
to officials.

The scrap yard contract was awarded to Washington Safety 
Management Solutions, formerly Westinghouse. According to Hill, 
the goal is to have waste shipments heading from the scrap yard 
to an Oak Ridge disposal site - Environmental Management Waste 
Management Facility - by July.

BNFL Inc. will be assisting on the cleanup project. However, 
Judith Byrd, a BNFL spokeswoman, said the company's one-of-a-kind 
supercompactor likely won't be used for the project.

"I don't know the reasoning," Byrd said. "Maybe it's small enough 
material."

Powered by 2,200 tons of hydraulic force, the supercompactor can 
process up to 58 tons of metal per hour. In December, BNFL 
officials told The Oak Ridger that they were eying the scrap yard 
as a potential project for the supercompactor.

BNFL plans to wrap up its three-building cleanup project at the 
K-25 site in August. The end of that work means that the company 
has to figure out what to do with the supercomputer - whether its 
dismantling or selling it.

The other option is to find additional work. The company is 
reportedly looking at the inevitable decontamination and 
demolition of the massive, U-shaped K-25 building as well as the 
K-27 building.

"We are always looking at new work," Byrd said.

The K-25 building was the original gaseous diffusion facility at 
the K-25 site, and it covers 40 acres at the K-25 site.

Also on the horizon, BNFL could get a $500 million bail out on 
its three-building project due to cost issues. Byrd said she 
could not discuss this issue, but added that the company hopes to 
know something soon. 

*****************************************************************
 54 [DU-WATCH] VIEQUES CONFERENCE - D.C., May 15-18
 
Date: Mon, 26 Apr 2004 13:28:46 -0500 (CDT)

 
                     Vieques Support Campaign
      _______________________________________________________

          U.S. NAVY OUT OF VIEQUES & ALL OF PUERTO RICO!
      _______________________________________________________

                    -PLEASE FORWARD & SUPPORT-

            VIEQUES: TRANSFORMING DREAMS TO REALITIES:
                      THE STRUGGLE CONTINES!
                Invitational Conference on Vieques
                May 15  18th, 2004, Washington, DC

         Please join us Saturday May 15  Tuesday May 18
                  at Gonzaga College High School
                       900 North Capitol NW
           Washington, D.C. (near Union Station Metro)

Join the Puerto Rican community leaders who shut down the Navy bombing
range through massive civil disobedience and active nonviolence!

Last May 1st, 2003, the U.S. Navy transferred Vieques lands under its
use to the US Department of the Interior's Fish and Wildlife Service,
ending over sixty years of bombing and target practice on the
populated island. The Vieques community, through civil disobedience
and with support from organizations and religious denominations from
all sectors of civil society both nationally and internationally, was
finally able to rid itself of decades of pounding by live ammunition.

Please join us for a weekend of activity as we assess and develop
strategies for future work for Vieques. The strategies developed will
allow participants to go back to their organizations and communities
for follow-up.

This conference is by in vitation to plan strategies for the Vieques
struggle. Planning sessions will take place on Saturday and Sunday
during the day. Sunday, May 16th in the evening there will be a public
presentation by Vieques groups.

For those who participate on Monday, May 17, there will be meetings
with elected officials and national organizations to pursue action and
support for the strategies being developed.

Schedule:
Saturday, May 15: 9:00 a.m.  9:00 p.m. Strategy sessions
Sunday, May 16: 9:30 a.m.  2:00 p.m. Strategy sessions
2:00  5:00 p.m. Preparation for Mon/Tues meetings
7:00 - 9:30 p.m. Public event
Mon. May 17-Tues. May 18 Meetings with federal officials & national
groups

!Muivete!
For more information, contact Sonia Ivette Dueqo at
SDueno@U..., tel. (202)488-5613 or John Lindsay-Poland at
johnlp@i..., tel. (415)495-6334.

Convening Organizations

Judith Conde Pacheco
Vieques Women's Alliance

Armando Torres/Robert Rabin
Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques

Josie Pantojas/Che Paraliticci
Pilar Belindez
Todo Puerto Rico con Vieques

Wanda Colsn Cortiz
Caribbean Project for Justice and Peace

Conference Planning
Committee
Natalia Cardona/Denise Davis
Darryl Jordan
American Friends
Service Committee

Sonia Ivette Dueqo
John Lindsay-Poland
Fellowship of Reconciliation

Tara Thornton
Military Toxics Project

Marisol Morales/Alejandro Molina
National Boricua
Human Rights Network

Esperanza Martell/Frank Velgara
Pro-Libertad Campaign

Dr. Carlos Correa
United Church of Christ

Rev. Eliezer Valentmn-Castaqsn
United Methodist Church,
General Board of Church
and Society

Carlos Rovira
Vieques Support Campaign

David Cline, Chairperson
Veterans for Peace

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 55 Google News Alert - nuclear
 
Date: Mon, 26 Apr 2004 14:43:00 -0700 (PDT)

 
NUCLEAR operators seek US money for new reactor
Forbes - USA
NEW YORK, April 26 (Reuters) - A consortium of nuclear power companies
presented a proposal to the US Department of Energy on Monday to share
the estimated ...
<http://www.forbes.com/technology/networks/newswire/2004/04/26/rtr1347562.html>
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<http://news.google.com/news?ie=utf8&oe=utf8&persist=1&num=30&hl=en&client=google&newsclusterurl=http://www.forbes.com/technology/networks/newswire/2004/04/26/rtr1347562.html>

PAK nuclear scientist 'may be killed to silence him': Bhutto
Malayala Manorama - India
Canberra: Pakistan's disgraced top nuclear scientist could be murdered
to prevent him from revealing that he acted under government orders when
selling nuclear ...
<http://www.manoramaonline.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=manorama/MmArticle/CommonFullStory&c=MmArticle&cid=1082978493374&channel=News&p=1002194839100&count=7>
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NUCLEAR waste deal bad business for SC
Charleston Post Courier (subscription) - Charleston,SC,USA
... Atlantic Low-Level Radioactive Waste Compact, and I am concerned about
a move in the General Assembly that could undermine the state's nuclear
waste disposal ...
<http://www.charleston.net/stories/042604/com_26johnson.shtml>
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ACTIVIST renews warnings of nuclear threat
WMTW - Auburn,ME,USA
PORTLAND (AP) -- Anti-nuclear activist Helen Caldicott was in Maine this
weekend to warn of what she sees as a continuing global threat posed by
US and Russian ...
<http://www.wmtw.com/Global/story.asp?S=1813449>
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NO nuclear rollback, says Kasuri
Pakistan Link - Inglewood,CA,USA
... He categorically stated the Pakistan will never roll back its nuclear
programme. In reply to a question about foreign pressure on ...
<http://www.pakistanlink.com/headlines/April04/26/01.html>
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<http://news.google.com/news?ie=utf8&oe=utf8&persist=1&num=30&hl=en&client=google&newsclusterurl=http://www.pakistanlink.com/headlines/April04/26/01.html>

HOPES Fades For Finding Missing Nuclear Rods
Champlain Channel.com - Plattsburgh,NY,USA
-- Concern continued to escalate Monday that two missing pieces of a spent
fuel rod at the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant will never be found.
...
<http://www.thechamplainchannel.com/news/3208548/detail.html>

MCNAMARA : Nuclear War Still Possible ; NY No . 1 Target
NewsMax.com - West Palm Beach,FL,USA
Tuesday, Apr. 27, 2004 The threat of devastating nuclear attack by Russia
against the United States has not diminished, warns former Sec. ...
<http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2004/4/26/163503.shtml>

DIMONA Nuclear Reactor a Threat to the Region
Arab News - Saudi Arabia
... of Israel, issued orders for Mossad, the country’s intelligence agency,
to kidnap the scientist Mordechai Vanunu who worked at Israel’s Dimona
Nuclear Plant ...
<http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7&section=0&article=43838&d=26&m=4&y=2004>
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4/25/04 - BUSH ON IRAN AND NUCLEAR WEAPONS
Voice of America - Washington,DC,USA
President George W. Bush says that the world should deliver a strong message
to Iran about nuclear weapons: “The Iranians need ...
<http://www.voanews.com/Editorials/article.cfm?objectID=58937DF6-9828-4FF0-B9477D9EB79B1C09>

NUCLEAR medicine to continue at hospital
Stuff.co.nz - New Zealand
By DAVID COSGRIFF. Nuclear medicine scans would continue to be available
at Southland Hospital in Invercargill, chief operating officer Lexie O'Shea
said. ...
<http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,2888817a7144,00.html>

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 56 China Daily: Control needed for radiation sources 

 By Qin Chuan (China Daily)
 Updated: 2004-04-26 23:40 

About 2,000 sources of radiation scattered across China, or 0.025 
per cent of the total, are not completely under control, 
according to specialists in the field. 

But Li Ganjie, head of the management department for nuclear 
safety and radioactivity under the State Environmental Protection 
Administration, said most of the sources are at level four or 
five, which are not so dangerous. 

A majority of the sources of radiation in use in China are at the 
four and five level. 

Radiation sources are classified in five levels, with level one 
being the most dangerous and level five being the least 
dangerous. 

Sources at level four and five do not cause permanent harm to 
people, but long-time and close contact with level four sources 
can lead to temporary but reparable harm. 

More than 63,000 radiation sources across the country are used by 
more than 8,300 organizations and companies, statistics show. And 
there are about 13,800 abandoned sources that need to be 
controlled. 

Experts think at least 2,000 sources are not controlled. 

Nearly 20 to 30 per cent of the radiation sources in China are 
used in the medical and healthcare field and 70 to 80 per cent 
are spread through dozens of fields such as agriculture, 
scientific research and mine exploitation, Li said. 

Li said if people find suspect radiation sources, it would be 
better that they are not touched and distance kept from them. 

He said people finding such sources report to local environmental 
authorities about their findings. 

A nationwide check of radiation sources was launched Monday to 
provide clear data about their sites, to impose safe control on 
abandoned sources and to ward off radioactive pollution. 

The six-month strategy, being jointly carried out by Li's 
administration and the ministries of public security and health, 
includes registration of radiation sources and control of 
abandoned ones. 

According to Wang Yuqing, vice-minister of the administration, 
environmental protection authorities will next year adopt a 
qualification licensing system for organizations or companies 
that produce, export and import, sell, use, transport, store and 
dispose of radiation sources. 

They will also identify each newly produced or in-use radiation 
source with a code, which will remain unchanged. 

Wang said the country would also invest in building and improving 
radioactive waste storerooms during the next two years so that 
there would be one storeroom in each province. Currently only 25 
provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities have such 
storerooms. 

According to Li, more than 1,500 accidents involving 
radioactivity have occurred in the country since 1954. In four of 
those there were eight deaths. 

The most recent fatal accident occurred in October 1992, in 
Xinzhou, North China's Shanxi Province, said Zhou Qifu, an 
official with the nuclear safety centre under the administration. 

The accident killed a construction worker, who picked up a 
radiation source at his construction site and took it home. The 
worker's father and brother also died. 

One of the major reasons for the fatal accident was that the 
worker was unknowing about the source and local medical workers 
treating him did not know about radiation-caused symptoms, Zhou 
said. 

In recent years many radioactivity-related accidents have been 
caused by loss and theft of sources. 

Zhou attributed this to a lack of safety awareness among 
radiation source users and also imperfect management of the 
sources. 

Eighty to 90 per cent of people who steal radiation sources want 
the lead shields, which they can sell to get money, he said. 

   [http://app1.chinadaily.com.cn/static/2004tu/index.html]   
*****************************************************************
 57 Newsday.com: NEUTRON RESEARCH: Reactors in demand

[April 26, 2004] 
	       


After Brookhaven Lab closed its reactor, scientists are having a 
harder time accessing a few remaining sites
 
BY EARL LANE WASHINGTON BUREAU
 	 	
 GAITHERSBURG, Md. - In the five years since Brook- haven 
National Laboratory permanently shut down a nuclear reactor that 
was one of the nation's premier sources of neutrons for research, 
some scientists from the lab have become itinerants in pursuit of 
neutron beams elsewhere.

 The National Institute of Standards and Technology here operates 
one of a handful of facilities that fit the bill, a place where 
scientists can both study the fundamental behavior of the neutron 
and use it as a probe to explore the properties of diverse 
materials.

Chemists trying to create better catalysts and made-to-order 
polymers for auto tires or other products; biologists studying 
cell membranes and how to design drugs that move through them 
more readily; physicists looking to develop better materials for 
data storage or to learn just what goes on inside a fuel cell - 
all have benefited from the use of neutrons.

 The federally run institute, with a campus on former farmland 
adjacent to busy Interstate 270, has a small nuclear reactor as a 
source of neutrons. Brookhaven developed an alliance with the 
institute after the Department of Energy, which funds Brookhaven, 
decided in 1999 to shut down the lab's High Flux Beam Reactor. 
That followed a public outcry over a small leak of radioactive 
tritium from the reactor's spent fuel pool. The reactor was last 
available for experiments in 1996 and, even before the formal 
shutdown, lab scientists had begun looking elsewhere for 
neutrons.

 

Visitors from Brookhaven

 Jason Gardner, a Brookhaven physicist, works full-time at the 
standards institute's Center for Neutron Research. He serves as a 
liaison for others from Brookhaven who visit regularly, usually 
for a week or 10 days at a time. Where once they had a source of 
neutrons in their backyard, now the Brookhaven researchers have 
become what Gardner calls "suitcase scientists," traveling in the 
United States and abroad for access to neutron beams and 
competing for precious instrument time.

 That is a mixed blessing, according to John Tranquada, a 
Brookhaven physicist who heads the lab's 10-person group 
specializing in studies of neutron scattering in materials. One 
of the advantages, he said, is that the Brookhaven team members 
choose the best facility for a given experiment, regardless of 
location. But they no longer can count on a block of guaranteed 
time as when the lab had its own neutron source - an arrangement, 
Tranquada said, that occasionally allowed researchers to try 
experiments with less chance of paying off but worth the effort.

 Now, he said, "It can be difficult to get as much time as you 
want at any one place." The collaborative agreement here has 
helped. Brookhaven also has an arrangement for neutron research 
at a facility in France.

 There is good reason for such travels. Neutrons are ideal for 
probing the structure of materials. With no electric charge, they 
are unaffected by the charges of protons and electrons in the 
atoms of a sample. Neutrons penetrate much deeper into a sample 
than a beam of electrons, for example.

 Neutrons can deflect off the atoms in the sample, and the angles 
at which they scatter tells how those atoms are arranged. 
Neutrons also have a property called spin that makes them 
sensitive to magnetic fields, important for studying magnetic 
materials such as those used in data storage devices.

 

Sophisticated tools

 "We have a probe here that is very special for looking at all 
classes of molecular, biomolecular and polymer materials," said 
John J. Rush, a veteran specialist in neutron research at the 
National Institute of Standards and Technology.

 The institute has a 20-megawatt reactor as its source of 
neutrons. As they leave the reactor, the neutrons have passed 
through a moderator that slows them to about 5,000 mph, a speed 
that prevents them from damaging the samples they will penetrate. 
Such thermal neutrons, as they are called, can be slowed even 
more by passing through a frigid reservoir of liquid hydrogen. 
They then are called cold neutrons, moving at a speed of about 
1,500 mph. Each variety has its uses.

 The standards institute is the only facility in the United 
States with a hangar-sized "guide hall" for cold neutrons with an 
elaborate array of specialized instruments for exploiting such 
neutron beams.

 Nearly 2,000 researchers used the institute's neutron 
capabilities during the 2003 fiscal year, Rush said, including 
scientists from 127 U.S. universities, 47 industrial companies 
and 30 government laboratories.

 Work is under way on a large, new neutron source at Oak Ridge 
National Laboratory in Tennessee, scheduled to come on line in 
2006. It will be the world's most intense source of pulsed 
neutrons and will complement the work being done in Gaithersburg 
and elsewhere with continuous beams of neutrons, Rush said. 
Brookhaven already is developing a hybrid spectrometer for the 
new machine that will be well suited for studying small, single 
crystals of material.           

 	Copyright © 2004, Newsday, Inc. [http://www.newsday.com] 	   
    
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