***************************************************************** 06/13/04 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 12.140 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** Send News Stories to news@energy-net.org with title on subject line and first line of body NUCLEAR POLICY 1 CNN.com Senators: CIA stalling on review of Iraq report - 2 AFP: Iran facing increasingly united UN atomic agency over nuclear 3 Las Vegas SUN: Iran Seeks to Blunt U.N. Censure on Nukes 4 AU ABC: Iran toughens nuclear stance. 5 Deseret news: Iran rejecting N-restrictions 6 UPI: Iran rejects new nuclear commitments - 7 AFP: North Korea condemns G8 declaration on nuclear program 8 BBC: N Korea defies G8 nuclear appeal 9 Japan Times: Kim told Koizumi he is eager for talks with U.S. 10 AU ABC: Bush rejects N Korean offer 'to dance' - report. 11 UPI: N. Korea 'desperate' for talks with U.S. - 12 herald tribune: Nuclear shell game A smaller stockpile, but not smal 13 US: Washington Times: Funding nuclear research 14 Times of India: 'Akhtar first tried to sell nukes in 1990s' - 15 baltimore sun: Mullahs with nukes 16 Sify: Nuke leaks: Ahmed grilled for 18 hours 17 Sify: Indian tries to sell nuke secrets; arrested 18 MSNBC: Tackle the Nuke Threat NUCLEAR REACTORS 19 US: Fwd: Encore Presentation! See MELTDOWN ON FX today (SATURDAY 20 US: Nuclear Power as Green Solution? 21 US: YDR: REGULATIONS: NRC plans changes - 22 Reuters: Iran Rejects Demand to Drop Heavy-Water Reactor NUCLEAR SAFETY 23 US: Dramatic increase in thyroid cancer,call to reassess nuclear 24 More US Lies about Gulf War Syndrome 25 US: The Progress-Index: Temporary water relief comes to subdivisions NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 26 Las Vegas RJ: Bush adviser says Yucca decision did not violate pledg 27 ABCNEWS.com: Official Suggests 'Grouting' Nuclear Waste 28 New York Times: Agency Is Seen as Unfazed on Atom Waste NUCLEAR WEAPONS 29 Scotsman: Einstein's monster is a real blast 30 US: New York Times: Capturing the Rosenbergs US DEPT. OF ENERGY 31 CS Monitor: Nuclear-weapons challenges rise OTHER NUCLEAR 32 Google News Alert - nuclear 33 Google News Alert - nuclear ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 CNN.com Senators: CIA stalling on review of Iraq report - Jun 13, 2004 'Not a flattering picture,' Intelligence Committee chief says SPECIAL REPORT [special report] Timeline: Search for Iraq's WMD WMD and Iraq: What they said Iraq's past WMD program The mole, the BBC and WMD Special report: WMD in Iraq WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Senate Intelligence Committee members are accusing the CIA of hindering the release of a report that gives an unflattering assessment of pre-war intelligence on Iraq. Committee chairman Pat Roberts, a Kansas Republican, said Sunday that his committee plans to approve the report with "almost unanimous" support this week. But the CIA is still reviewing the document to prevent the release of classified information and intelligence methods. Roberts said the agency was supposed to have completed its review two weeks ago, and committee staffers are saying additional delays are likely. "It's taking too long," Roberts said. The committee's ranking Democrat, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, said the CIA appears to be stonewalling. "I'm not sure that they would necessarily disagree with a lot of the facts that we have in there," the West Virginia Democrat said. "But for some reason, they're delaying it. They don't want it out." A CIA official said Sunday that clearing the report for publication is "a very exacting process." "You have to take care to ensure intelligence sources are not inadvertently released that can prove damaging to collection efforts," the official said. "But we continue to work with [the] committee on this." Roberts would not discuss report details, but said, "It's not a flattering picture." "The report by itself is not a good-news report," he said. "But on the other side of it, it will allow us to set the predicate to move immediately to the reform issues." The Intelligence Committee spent about nine months investigating how U.S. and other intelligence agencies concluded that Iraq was maintaining stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and long-range missiles, and was trying to develop nuclear weapons, all in violation of U.N. resolutions. That conclusion was the principal reason for the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003 that deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. But more than a year after Saddam's fall, all that has been found of those suspected stockpiles are two chemical artillery shells. "It was an assumption train, and the assumptions were wrong," Roberts said. Although U.S. inspectors found evidence that Iraq had concealed weapons research from the United Nations, the former chief of the U.S. inspection team told Congress in January that he believed it unlikely that any large stockpiles of banned weapons would turn up. Meanwhile, with the Senate report pending and the commission investigating the attacks of September 11, 2001 due to report next month, CIA Director George Tenet has announced he will step down in mid-July. Rockefeller said he believed Tenet's explanation that his resignation was for personal reasons, but added, "I don't think he was looking forward to this report." © 2004 Cable News Network LP, LLLP. ***************************************************************** 2 AFP: Iran facing increasingly united UN atomic agency over nuclear program WAR.WIRE VIENNA (AFP) Jun 13, 2004 Iran has rejected restraint on its nuclear program ahead of a meeting Monday of the UN atomic agency but the United States and Europe are increasingly united in insisting Tehran dispel suspicions it is secretly developing nuclear weapons, diplomats said. Even non-aligned nations seem ready to sign on to a draft resolution Europe's big three -- Britain, France and Germany -- are to present when the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) 35-nation board of governors meets in Vienna. The resolution raps Iran for hiding sensitive nuclear activities but also presses for continued cooperation with Tehran. "Everyone realizes what's at stake," a diplomat close to talks on the resolution told AFP about the need to determine whether Iran is hiding a nuclear weapons program, as the United States claims, or developing nuclear power for peaceful purposes, as Tehran says. The diplomat said "no one questions the work of the agency" in finding omissions and discrepancies in Iran's reporting on its atomic activities. And no one expects the Iranian issue to be decided this June, the diplomat said, as the investigation is far from being completed. After a year of reports on Iran by the IAEA, diplomats at the board realize that next week's meeting is just "another stage in the process," despite Iran's desire to have the issue closed, the diplomat said. The board meeting will also review Libya, with the IAEA vowing to persist in investigating Tripoli's now abandoned nuclear weapons program, as much to discover new facts about Libya as about the international smuggling network that supplied it, as well as Iran. A tough Washington-inspired IAEA board resolution in March had condemned Iran for omitting to report its work into sophisticated P-2 centrifuges which can enrich uranium to bomb-grade levels. But it drew protests from Iran that included delaying crucial agency investigations, a delay that makes it difficult for the IAEA to draw conclusions this June. The United States looks ready to sign on this time to the British-French-German draft resolution as it feels the tough language is "moving towards where the United States wants to be." The United States wants to cut off cooperation with Iran and take it to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions but Washington does not have support at the IAEA for its hardline stance. The United States clearly expects more revelations to come forth of Iran hiding weapons development, diplomats said. Diplomats said even the EU-3 were getting impatient with Iran, as the IAEA has been investigating the Iranian program since February 2003 with Iran consistently failing to deliver on promises for full disclosure. Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi complained on Saturday that ongoing pressure from the IAEA was "unacceptable" and that the draft resolution was "unacceptable unless there are changes made so that it can be acceptable for all parties." The Euro-3 draft urges Tehran to clarify urgently the origin of contamination by highly enriched uranium (HEU) found by inspectors at three sites in Iran. Iran admitted Thursday at an IAEA technical briefing to higher levels of contamination by HEU than previously thought, 54 percent instead of 36 percent, but still insisted this came from imported equipment rather than from Iranian enrichment activities, diplomats said. Uranium enriched to over 20 percent can be used as nuclear fuel but also to make a nuclear bomb. Most nuclear weapons are made with levels of over 80 percent enrichment. The Iranians also said they had told international black marketeers they would be interested in buying tens of thousands of magnets for P-2 centrifuges, with two magnets used in each centrifuge, the diplomats said. Two thousand P-2 centrifuges can produce enough HEU for two nuclear devices per year, experts said. The Iranians have told the IAEA, however, that they were inquiring about such a large purchase of magnets only to get the price down. WAR.WIRE ***************************************************************** 3 Las Vegas SUN: Iran Seeks to Blunt U.N. Censure on Nukes June 13, 2004 By GEORGE JAHN ASSOCIATED PRESS VIENNA, Austria (AP) - Iran mixed public bluster with quiet diplomacy in a drive to soften U.N. criticism for its nuclear program. But on the eve of the 35-nation International Atomic Energy Agency conference, diplomats insisted Sunday that Tehran would be censured. The diplomats said Iran hoped to temper the language of a draft resolution laden with negative terms for the Islamic republic's lack of cooperation with a probe by the U.N. nuclear watchdog. The draft "deplores" omissions and delays by Iran or notes them with "serious concern." The resolution will likely be presented during a meeting of the IAEA board of governors starting Monday. The gathering will review an agency report that acknowledges Iran's granting IAEA inspectors access to sites but otherwise gives Tehran low marks in eliminating concerns about activities the United States and its allies say point to attempts to make nuclear weapons. Iran denies the charges, insisting its uranium enrichment program - which can be used to make bombs - is geared solely to generating electricity. Under pressure since the start of international scrutiny a year ago, Iran has suspended uranium enrichment and stopped building centrifuges, and allowed IAEA inspections of its nuclear facilities without notice. The draft resolution, written by France, Britain and Germany, urges Iran to halt operations of a plant it inaugurated in March that processes uranium into gas. The demand also calls for aborting plans to build a heavy water reactor. But sounding a tough note, Iran's Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi insisted the government would not give up its development of the nuclear fuel cycle. Iran says it has achieved the full cycle, but is not now enriching uranium. "We can't accept such an additional demand, which is contrary to our legal and legitimate rights," he said Saturday in Tehran. Kharrazi also condemned the draft as "unacceptable unless changes are made so that it can be acceptable to all parties." In Amman, Jordan, Iran's ambassador to that country accused Israel on Sunday of being behind international concerns about Tehran's nuclear program and threatened Israel with a "painful" response if it attacked Iranian nuclear installations. "Israel is behind politicizing Iran's program for developing peaceful nuclear technology because of our positive stances regarding many issues in the region, including our support for the oppressed Palestinian people," ambassador Mohammad Irani said. He claimed that Israel - which has never confirmed or denied having nuclear weapons - has often threatened to strike Iranian nuclear installations, "but we don't imagine they would carry out such a foolish act." An Israeli air strike in 1981 destroyed an Iraqi nuclear reactor near Baghdad before it became operational. In Vienna, home to the IAEA, diplomats representing agency board member countries said they had heard that Iran was seeking a meeting with France, Germany and Britain to have the draft's language toned down ahead of Monday's meeting. One of the diplomats - who like the others spoke on condition of anonymity - said that to his knowledge, no such meeting had been held in Vienna by late Sunday. But another suggested that representatives of the four nations could have met in another European capital or Tehran. The first diplomat said small changes were made Friday to the draft including a reference to a "time element." But that fell short of U.S. hopes for a deadline on Iran to come clean or a "trigger mechanism" to allow additional pressure if Tehran failed to satisfy board demands within a given time. "We expect at the end of the day a firm resolution acceptable to the entire board of governors," said another diplomat. The two major IAEA concerns are contradictory, missing or withheld information on the scope of Iran's enrichment program and the source of enriched uranium found inside the country. The latest agency report, written by IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei, says Iran inquired about buying thousands of magnets for centrifuges on the black market - casting doubt on Iranian assertions that its centrifuge program was purely experimental and not geared toward full enrichment. On the traces of enriched uranium - which include minute amounts at weapons-grade levels - Tehran says they were not domestically produced but inadvertently imported on purchases through the nuclear black market. But IAEA investigators have not been able to fully test that claim because Pakistan, the main source of the equipment, has blocked free access to its nuclear material. That means the agency cannot match isotope samples to the traces found in Iran. At a closed-door meeting Thursday, IAEA officials complained that the agency has in some cases waited in vain for information from Iran on enrichment since October. They also said Iran inquired about buying "tens of thousands" of centrifuge magnets - even more than the ElBaradei report had mentioned. Iran long has rejected U.S. allegations its nuclear program is for military purposes. ElBaradei said last month his agency had not found proof to date of a concrete link between Iran's nuclear activities and its military program, but "it was premature to make a judgment." --- On the Net: International Atomic Energy Agency, www.iaea.org -- All contents copyright 2004 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 4 AU ABC: Iran toughens nuclear stance. 13/06/2004. ABC News Online "Australian Broadcasting Corporation Online"> Iran has rejected new international demands that it halt plans to build a heavy water nuclear reactor. Britain, Germany and France have submitted a draft United Nations resolution on Iran's nuclear plans. The resolution requests that Iran shut down a uranium conversion facility near Isfahan and reverse its decision to construct a nuclear reactor near the central city of Arak. Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi says his country insists on acting independently. "Iran has to be taken seriously, Iran is powerful and has to be recognised as a responsible member of the atomic club, this is inevitable," he said. "Iran will not give up its rights to the peaceful use of atomic energy as well as its right to supply nuclear fuel to its power plants." -- Reuters/BBC © 2004 Australian Broadcasting Corporation ***************************************************************** 5 Deseret news: Iran rejecting N-restrictions [deseretnews.com] Sunday, June 13, 2004 By Ali Akbar Dareini Associated Press TEHRAN, Iran — Toughening its stance in advance of a meeting of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency, Iran on Saturday said it would reject international restrictions on its nuclear program and challenged the world to accept Tehran as a member of the "nuclear club." Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi rejected further outside influence on Tehran's nuclear ambitions two days before the International Atomic Energy Agency board of governors meets to discuss Iran's highly controversial program. "We won't accept any new obligations," Kharrazi said. "Iran has a high technical capability and has to be recognized by the international community as a member of the nuclear club. This is an irreversible path." Iran has repeatedly insisted its nuclear program is geared toward generating electricity, not making weapons, but the United States and its allies say Tehran has a secret nuclear weapons program. The IAEA has wrestled with the dilemma for more than a year. Iran has already suspended uranium enrichment and stopped building centrifuges. It has also allowed IAEA inspections of its nuclear facilities without prior notice, part of the additional protocol to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty that still must be approved by parliament. Kharrazi insisted that Iran would not give up its development of the nuclear fuel cycle, the steps for processing and enriching uranium necessary for both nuclear energy and nuclear weapons. Iran says it has achieved the full cycle, but is not now enriching uranium. "That somebody demands that we give up the nuclear fuel cycle . . . is an additional demand," Kharrazi said, apparently referring to demands by U.S. and European countries that Iran halt operations of a plant it inaugurated in March in Isfahan, central Iran, that processes uranium into gas. The demand also calls for aborting plans to build a heavy water reactor in Arak, another city in central Iran. "We can't accept such an additional demand, which is contrary to our legal and legitimate rights," he said. "No one in Iran can make a decision to deny the nation of something that is a source of pride." Iran has confirmed possessing technology to extract uranium ore, processing it into a powder called yellow cake and then converting it into gas. The gas is then injected into centrifuges for low-grade enrichment that turns it into fuel for nuclear reactors. Uranium enriched to low levels has energy uses, while highly enriched uranium can be used in bombs. Iran suspended uranium enrichment last year under mounting international pressure. In April, it said it had stopped building centrifuges. IAEA inspectors had found traces of highly enriched uranium at two sites, which Iranian officials have maintained was from contaminated imported materials. Kharrazi condemned a draft resolution critical of Iran drawn up by Germany, France and Britain and being debated before the IAEA board meeting Monday which says Iran's cooperation has not been complete. "The draft resolution is unacceptable unless changes are made so that it can be acceptable to all parties," he said. The minister said insistence by Europeans on "very tiny issues is contrary to the spirit of cooperation." He said that by doing so, the European countries are bowing to U.S. pressure and showing a "lack of independence." Kharrazi warned that failure in settling the debate over Iran's nuclear dossier will be a "failure for all," including Iran, Europe and the IAEA. The minister confirmed Iran's efforts to buy 4,000 magnets needed for uranium enrichment equipment, saying the issue was blown out of proportion. He did not say where the magnets were bought. Diplomats told The Associated Press in Vienna that Iran had acknowledged inquiring about 4,000 magnets needed for uranium enrichment equipment with a European black-market supplier and had dangled the possibility of buying a "higher number." "If everybody is looking to settle this issue (Iran's nuclear dossier), they have to look at it in a broad outlook," Kharrazi said. IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei said last month his agency had not found proof to date of a concrete link between Iran's nuclear activities and its military program, but "it was premature to make a judgment." © 2004 Deseret News Publishing Company ***************************************************************** 6 UPI: Iran rejects new nuclear commitments - (United Press International) June 12, 2004 Tehran, Iran, Jun. 12 (UPI) -- Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi said Saturday his country will not make any new commitment regarding its nuclear program. "There is no deviation in our peaceful nuclear program and Tehran cannot accept to make any new commitment in that regard," Kharrazi said, according to the Iranian news gency IRNA. He urged the European Union to fulfill the commitments it made in helping Iran develop nuclear technology for peaceful purposes stressing "its success necessitates cooperation between Iran, Europeans and the International Atomic Energy Agency." He said Iran agreed to the additional protocol of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty that allows snap inspections by IAEA experts in order to "prove its good intentions of using nuclear power for peaceful goals." Kharrazi reiterated his country has the legitimate right to benefit from nuclear technology for peaceful ends, stressing that "we will not ever give up that right." Member countries of the G-8 summit rebuked Iran this week for its nuclear program. [UPI Perspectives] ***************************************************************** 7 AFP: North Korea condemns G8 declaration on nuclear program WAR.WIRE SEOUL (AFP) Jun 13, 2004 North Korea condemned the leaders of Group of Eight Sunday for demanding the complete dismantling of the communist country's nuclear program. "We cannot but wake up to all those attempts to divide and devour our country like they did Iraq," a North Korean foreign ministry spokesman said through the country's state media. "It will never be possible for them to make another Iraq case in (North Korea)," the spokesman said in a statement monitored by South Korea's Yonhap news agency. The G-8 countries -- Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States -- agreed last week at their summit in Savanna, Georgia, to reinforce a global regime to halt the spread of weapons of mass destruction. In a joint declaration, the G8 called for a one-year ban on new transfers of uranium enrichment and reprocessing know-how while they work up permanent rules restricting access to technology tied to that key step in nuclear weapons development. The G-8 backed Washington's demand Pyongyang dismantle its nuclear program in a complete, verifiable and irreversible manner. The spokesman said "such a demand is, mysteriously, the same thing as they sought on Iraq, and this is ultimately to make another Iraq case" in North Korea. A fixed schedule has yet to be announced, but South Korean officials have said North Korea may sit down this month for new six-nation talks aimed at ending the 20-month-old nuclear stand-off. The two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States have met twice in Beijing -- in August last year and in February -- since the nuclear stand-off flared in October 2002 when Washington accused North Korea of running a secret nuclear program based on enriched uranium. The second round of talks ended with agreements to set up a preparatory working group and hold a third round by the end of June. At the first working group meeting held last month, Pyongyang insisted it would never accept US demands for a complete dismantling of its nuclear programs without receiving rewards first. Pyongyang says it is ready to freeze its nuclear weapons drive if Washington abandons its "hostile policy" towards the communist country and signs a non-aggression accord. WAR.WIRE ***************************************************************** 8 BBC: N Korea defies G8 nuclear appeal Last Updated: Sunday, 13 June, 2004 [North Korean spent nuclear fuel rods in Yongbyon] New six-nation talks on the nuclear issue are due to start this week North Korea has replied defiantly to a new international call to dismantle any nuclear weapons-related programmes. State media criticised last week's statement by the G8 nations, saying the group was trying to spark another Iraq crisis by imposing nuclear inspections. It said North Korea would be justified in strengthening its nuclear deterrent. A new round of six-nation talks aimed at ending the standoff over the North's nuclear ambitions is set to resume in Beijing this week. "We cannot but wake up to all those attempts to divide and devour our country like they did Iraq," said a North Korean foreign ministry spokesman. Enriched uranium The G8 backed Washington's demand that Pyongyang dismantle its nuclear programme in a complete, verifiable and irreversible manner. The North Korean spokesman said "such a demand is, mysteriously, the same thing as they sought on Iraq, and this is ultimately to make another Iraq case", in North Korea. The G8 call "only provides [North Korea] with enough justification to increase its nuclear deterrent force for self-defence with the help of a strong catalyst" the spokesman said. North Korea has acknowledged a plutonium programme but has denied a uranium one. Enriched uranium can be used to fuel nuclear power stations, but if enriched further, it can also be used in weapons. Washington wants North Korea to completely dismantle its nuclear programme, while Pyongyang has said in the past it will only do so in return for aid and security guarantees. The two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States have met twice in Beijing - in August last year and in February - since the nuclear stand-off flared in October 2002. ***************************************************************** 9 Japan Times: Kim told Koizumi he is eager for talks with U.S. Sunday, June 13, 2004 North Korean leader Kim Jong Il told Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in Pyongyang last month that his country desperately wants to hold talks with the United States, sources familiar with the meeting said Saturday. According to the sources, Kim told Koizumi that North Korea wants to talk to the United States to such an extent that his negotiator's "voice will become hoarse." Kim reportedly made the remarks during his May 22 summit with Koizumi in reference to North Korea's stance on the six-nation talks aimed at resolving Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions. Kim was also quoted as telling Koizumi that he wants other participants in the multilateral talks -- China, Japan, South Korea and Russia -- "to play music" for both North Korea and the United States so they can "dance well." In their meeting last Tuesday on the sidelines of the summit of the Group of Eight nations at Sea Island, Ga., Koizumi told President George W. Bush that Kim is eager to have talks with Washington. Koizumi is believed to have briefed Bush on last month's talks and directly forwarded Kim's remarks. But Bush told Koizumi the United States plans to settle issues involving North Korea within the six-way framework. During the summit with Kim in Pyongyang, Koizumi stressed the importance of resolving the standoff over North Korea's nuclear programs through the six-nation talks. However, Kim was more eager to have bilateral negotiations with the United States, the sources said. The Japan Times: June 13, 2004 (C) All rights reserved ***************************************************************** 10 AU ABC: Bush rejects N Korean offer 'to dance' - report. 12/06/2004. ABC News Online "Australian Broadcasting Corporation Online"> US President George W Bush has rejected a passionate offer from North Korea's supreme leader Kim Jong-Il for direct talks between their countries, press reports in Japan say. The offer has been conveyed to Mr Bush by Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who met Mr Kim on May 22. "He [Kim] wanted to dance [with Bush] so much as to get thirsty," Mr Koizumi told the US President. The Asahi Shimbun quotes a source close to the Premier as saying Mr Bush replied that the US would not negotiate with North Korea bilaterally. The report also says Mr Bush says the US would seek to solve a 20-month standoff over North Korea's nuclear arms development in an existing six-nation forum in Beijing. Another major daily, the Mainichi Shimbun, also reports that Mr Koizumi has used the unusual expression to convey Mr Kim's wish for bilateral dialogue. The Japanese Foreign Ministry says Mr Koizumi has told Mr Bush that Mr Kim has a "strong desire" for bilateral talks. The United States claims that North Korea has been pursuing a clandestine uranium-based nuclear program despite its 1994 pledge to freeze nuclear development. It vows not to reward North Korea for a compromise on the stand-off. -- AFP © 2004 Australian Broadcasting Corporation ***************************************************************** 11 UPI: N. Korea 'desperate' for talks with U.S. - (United Press International) June 12, 2004 Tokyo, Japan, Jun. 12 (UPI) -- North Korea's leader desperately wants to talk with the United States, according to officials who attended a meeting of the North Korean and Japanese leaders. Kim Jong Il told Japan's Junichiro Koizumi on May 22 that he wants to talk to the United States to such an extent that his negotiator's "voice will become hoarse," the Kyodo news agency reported Saturday. Kim also told Koizumi he wants the other participants in the multilateral talks -- China, Japan, South Korea and Russia - to "play music" for both North Korea and the United States so they can "dance well." For his part, Koizumi raised the issue of North Korea's abduction of Japanese nationals and its nuclear and missile programs. Koizumi also reportedly stressed the importance of resolving the standoff over Pyongyang's nuclear programs through the six-nation talks, but Kim pushed for bilateral negotiations with the United States, the sources said. [UPI Perspectives] ***************************************************************** 12 herald tribune: Nuclear shell game A smaller stockpile, but not smaller weapons The Bush administration intends to set into motion a plan to cut America's stockpile of nuclear weapons almost in half over the next eight years. As welcome as that news is, the plan is missing a critical element -- a pledge to scuttle development of so-called mini-nukes for battlefield use. The Department of Energy informed Congress a few days ago that the administration wants to begin eliminating weapons soon, eventually reducing the stockpile to what one official called "the smallest in several decades." The exact number hasn't been disclosed, but Tom Cochran, an expert at the Natural Resources Defense Council, told The New York Times that it appears the stockpile of nuclear weapons would drop from the current level of 10,000 to about 6,100. Unfortunately, administration officials are trying to use the plan to justify a new "pit facility," where plutonium would be shaped for use in nuclear arms. The plutonium pits, located in the heart of nuclear weapons, break down over time. The Energy Department contends a new facility will be needed to ensure the safety and effectiveness of remaining weapons. Linton F. Brooks, who heads the National Nuclear Security Administration, says the pit facility could be smaller than originally proposed but still must be built. He expressed frustration with the administration's inability to convince some members of Congress that the facility isn't being proposed to build new weapons. There's a very good reason for that skepticism. President Bush and others have talked repeatedly of developing "mini-nukes" that theoretically could be used to reach deep bunkers hiding weapons or outlaws like Osama bin Laden. But there's no research indicating that these weapons could be used effectively or that their destructive power could be contained. The mini-nukes would carry roughly one-third of the power of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Congress should continue to push for constraints on America's nuclear program. Perhaps a convincing argument can be made that a new pit facility is needed to stabilize a scaled-back stockpile of weapons. But the Bush administration should be blocked, at every turn, from pursuing any program that might lead to a mini-nuclear arms race. Last modified: June 13. 2004 12:00AM Missed a day's news? Choose Serving the Herald-Tribune newspaper and SNN Channel 6 © Sarasota Herald-Tribune. All rights reserved. Initializing : 219ms Starting first parse .Build 0: 266 ms (Misc) .Build 9: 609 ms (Content) Retrieve categories: 79ms Read templates: 0ms Read objects: 0ms Scripts: 0ms Read cache: 77ms Parsing templates: 1344ms End Performance data. --> ***************************************************************** 13 Washington Times: Funding nuclear research Editorials/OP-ED - June 13, 2004 is currently in the second year of a project expected to last three years. The purpose is to investigate the feasibility of developing an earth-penetrating nuclear warhead capable of destroying deeply buried weapons of mass destruction developed and/or hidden by rogue regimes or their stateless terrorist allies. The study needs to go forward to completion. It is essential for Congress, which sliced in half the Bush administration's $15 million funding request for fiscal 2004, to fully fund the $27 million requested for fiscal 2005, the final year of the study. Regrettably, on Wednesday a House appropriations subcommittee that is chaired by Republican Rep. David Hobson of Ohio, deleted the funds for the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator. The subcommittee also eliminated $9 million in funding for researching the feasibility of a low-yield nuclear warhead of less than five kilotons. Last month, the House passed a defense authorization bill after rejecting an amendment that would have transferred funding for both projects to other areas. Meanwhile, in the Senate, Democrats Dianne Feinstein and Edward Kennedy are leading the charge against both research projects. We can fully appreciate the distinction between nuclear and non-nuclear weapons. But we also fully understand the importance of deterrence. Thus, we heartily disagree with the House subcommittee's action and the Kennedy-Feinstein amendment in the Senate. Remember: Both of these projects are research programs, not deployment decisions. As Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld emphasized at a February appropriations hearing in the House, "There's no funds in here to deploy it, since it doesn't exist." Sens. Feinstein and Kennedy argue that such research sends the wrong message to potential enemies and actually encourages nuclear proliferation. Yet recent history reveals quite clearly that the likes of North Korea and Iran have not been deterred by conventionally armed "bunker busters." In fact, the Pentagon's current nuclear arsenal contains powerful nuclear weapons that were developed to deter a superpower of the Soviet Union's caliber. Those weapons are so destructive that the United States might be deterred from using them against much smaller states. Hence, they have little deterrent value. The purpose of the research into the nuclear earth penetrator and the low-yield "mini-nuke" is to determine if it is even possible to develop smaller, mission-specific weapons. Any subsequent deployment decision would require congressional approval. In these uncertain times, unilaterally limiting potential deterrence options is not in the security interests of the United States. ***************************************************************** 14 Times of India: 'Akhtar first tried to sell nukes in 1990s' - SUNDAY, JUNE 13, 2004 DUBAI: Akhtar Hussain Qutbuldin, who has been deported to India by Dubai authorities after being found allegedly trying to sell Indian nuclear secrets to some embassies, made his first attempt in 1990's and had tried to contact UAE ambassador to India for the purpose. This was stated by Dubai police Chief Lt Gen Dhahi Khalfam Tamim at a press conference on Saturday while announcing the arrest of the 35-year-old Dubai-based Indian businessman, who owned a general trading shop. Tamim said that Akhtar made his first attempt in early 90's and was continuously put under strict surveillance, which, however, was stepped up in recent years as he intensified his contacts from time-to-time with a number of embassies in UAE. He said that Akhtar took advantage of his brother, who he claimed was a scientist with an Indian atomic energy concern, to promote his efforts. A lecture was arranged for his brother at the UAE university, which was attended by a number of students and officials. The police chief claimed that after his arrest, Akhtar confessed voluntarily of his attempts to sell nuclear secrets and gave information that should have been dealt seriously, particularly that his brother was working with an Indian Atomic energy concern. UAE media quoted Tamim as saying that Akhtar tried to contact the UAE ambassador to India in a bid to sell nuclear secrets, but the ambassador informed the concerned authorities and consequently the businessman was put under surveillance. Failing to attract the attention of UAE officials, Akhtar tried to contact a number of diplomatic missions of some "brotherly" countries offering to sell them nuclear secrets, but those countries reported the matter to the concerned authorities. He said that security authorities put Akhtar under strict surveillance to ensure that he was not a member of an international network engaged in activities inside and outside UAE. Tamim said that after making sure that he did not possess any material or documents of sensitive and hazardous nature, the security authorities arrested him for deportation to his original country to be treated in accordance with laws there. ***************************************************************** 15 baltimore sun: Mullahs with nukes Opinion > op/ed Mullahs with nukes By Bennett Ramberg Originally published June 13, 2004 IT'S BEEN nearly two years since the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) initiated efforts to determine Iran's nuclear weapons status. Iranian dissidents prompted the investigation when they revealed the revolutionary regime's secret nuclear enrichment program. The disclosure set off alarms in Washington and other capitals. It is now evident that Iran, despite intense international pressure, will not fully divulge its nuclear enterprise. The scheduled IAEA Board of Governor's meeting tomorrow will have little impact in changing this. Rather, the time is approaching when we will have to acknowledge that international efforts to halt the mullahs' nuclear ambitions have failed. A harbinger of Tehran's effective indignation and sham cooperation strategy to deflect international demands emerged when it contested the IAEA decision to investigate the dissidents' claims. Iran called the action "selective" and "discriminatory." It stammered that the IAEA based the decision on "false attributions," "arm-twisting at many capitals" and U.S. "partisan politics." Feigned interest in collaboration emerged when Iran announced its "full" commitment to the nuclear nonproliferation treaty (NPT). Subsequent events belied the representation. On June 6, 2003, drawing on international inspections and new documentation, the IAEA revealed its initial findings: Iran had "failed to meet its obligations under its Safeguards Agreement with respect to reporting of nuclear material, the subsequent processing and use of that material and the declaration of facilities where the material was stored." In August, the IAEA said that Iran had increased its cooperation by providing better access to facilities and information. But the finding of high enriched uranium residues - suggesting an effort to acquire nuclear weapons material - generated concerns. Continuing reticence to release information also raised eyebrows. However, a visit to Iran in October by the foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany resulted in Tehran's commitment to halt production of uranium hexafluoride, a feed material for enriching uranium, prompted hope that Tehran might mend its ways. But November brought more serious revelations about centrifuge testing, laser experimentation and plutonium generation. This prompted the IAEA board to "strongly" deplore Tehran's failed safeguards' compliance. Despite Iran's apparent violation of the NPT, most board members resisted calls to bring the matter before the U.N. Security Council for action. Iran would be given more time to come clean. Iran fed the hope by agreeing to sign the Additional Protocol. By the March IAEA meeting, it became apparent that Iran was stalling. True, it had provided access to military installations and new data on its enrichment program. But the IAEA expressed serious doubts over "a number of discrepancies and unanswered questions concerning the source for centrifuge components and high enriched uranium contamination uncovered on components." The findings raised the troubling question: Was Tehran close to acquiring weapons-usable high enriched uranium? Tension between the IAEA and Iran may be coming to a head. The mullahs recently declared that they had honored their NPT commitments and the time to halt further investigations had arrived. But inspectors report yet more traces of increasingly enriched but not quite bomb-grade uranium. They have evidence that Iran continues to produce centrifuge components despite its declared suspension. Separate reports that Iran seeks to import magnets to make 4,000 centrifuges prompt further concerns. Iranian President Mohammad Khatami recently threw down the gauntlet when he threatened to resume enrichment uranium production unless the IAEA becomes more accommodating. Ominously, the Iranian parliament also called for the abandonment of the NPT should international pressure continue. This game of chicken presents the IAEA with a stark choice. It can continue to press Iran to pry loose the smoking nuclear gun - which is wishful thinking - or it can refer Iran's noncompliance to the U.N. Security Council for action. Unfortunately, Iran has the Security Council over an oil barrel in the current tight energy market. Aside from rhetorical reprimands, material action from the squeamish council is unlikely. The United States normally would pick up the gauntlet. But wounded in Iraq, it will be unable to mobilize either international or domestic support for bold measures. Britain, France and Germany could take the lead, as they tried in October. But the latter two would prefer to stay in the shadow of the American bogeyman taking the heat. Israel's response, however, is an unknown quantity. More likely, the Iranian atomic weapons die is cast. Therefore, it's not too early to ponder strategies to prevent the nuclear Middle East from exploding. Bennett Ramberg served in the State Department's Bureau of Politico-Military Affairs in the administration of President George H. W. Bush. Copyright © 2004, The Baltimore Sun | Get home ***************************************************************** 16 Sify: Nuke leaks: Ahmed grilled for 18 hours PTI Sunday, 13 June , 2004, 18:14 Mumbai: The Central intelligence agencies, that were interrogating Akhtar Ahmed, arrested on Saturday night for allegedly selling Indian nuclear secrets, have not been able to establish his proximity to any official concerned with Atomic Energy, sources said. Although Dubai police has claimed that Ahmed, who was deported to Mumbai, was provided nuclear secrets by his brother, who is a nuclear scientist, central agencies have reportedly not succeeded in deriving the name of his brother during Ahmed’s questioning, sources added. The Dubai-based businessman was grilled for over 18 hours inside the Terminus building at Sahar International airport, sources said. Meanwhile, the Atomic Energy Commission has started a probe to find out if any person, as described by Dubai police as Akhtar Ahmed’s brother was working at any of its establishments, sources added. An important factor that has impeded the probe by central agencies has been lack of documentary evidence against Ahmed. Mumbai police officials told PTI that they had held Ahmed on oral instruction from Dubai police and there was no written communication from Dubai so far. Mumbai police, who were involved in Ahmed’s interrogation, withdrew themselves after the case was taken over by the Central agencies. "We had given back-up support to central agencies last night. We were also interested in the probe since one person by name Akhtar Ahmed is wanted in the 2002/2003 bomb blast, but we are confident that this Akhtar Ahmed is not the one we need," a senior Mumbai police official told PTI. Meanwhile, sources in central agency, said the Sunday holiday has also slowed down the probe since most of the offices in Delhi are closed and verification is taking time. Sources also denied that Ahmed was being taken to Delhi, stating that he was still being held in Mumbai. © Copyright Sify Ltd, 1998-2004. All rights reserved. See ***************************************************************** 17 Sify: Indian tries to sell nuke secrets; arrested Sunday, 13 June , 2004, 09:10 Dubai: An Indian national has been arrested for trying sell nuclear secrets to Arab embassies in the United Arab Emirates, the Wam official news agency reported Saturday citing police. Police arrested Akhtar Hussein Qotb Ahmed following close surveilance of his activities, Dubai police commandant general Dhahi Khalfan Tamim told the Emirates news agency. Ahmed, a businessman who has been based in the Emirates for several years, offered to sell information from his brother, a nuclear specialist in India, said Tamim. "Akhtar contacted Arab diplomatic missions in the Emirates and offered to sell nuclear secrets, but they informed the authorities and he was arrested and handed back to India," he said. Tamim said Ahmed had no sensitive information and admitted during interrogations he couldn't obtain the nuclear secrets he offered to the embassies. Sify.com hosted at SifyHosting India's first Level 3 Internet Data Centre © Copyright Sify Ltd, 1998-2004. All rights reserved. See ***************************************************************** 18 MSNBC: Tackle the Nuke Threat Bin Laden has called it a 'duty' for Al Qaeda to get a nuclear bomb. But policies to prevent nuclear terror have hardly changed since 9/11 By Fareed ZakariaNewsweek June 21 issue - The G8 Summit in Sea Island, Ga., produced no new cooperation on Iraq. No surprise there. The rifts over it are deep, and though the United States has changed course, it will take time before other countries jump in. What is less excusable is that there was no real progress on a crucial issue to which the G8 pays lip service: preventing nuclear proliferation. President George W. Bush has often said that the greatest danger we face is that "the world's most dangerous people" will get their hands on "the world's most dangerous weapons." He's right. Osama bin Laden has called it a "duty" for Al Qaeda to acquire a nuclear bomb. But the truth is that our policies to prevent nuclear terror have not changed much since 9/11. This is particularly surprising when you consider that the problem of nuclear terrorism is actually solvable. Making a nuclear bomb requires fissile materials—weapons-grade plutonium or uranium. To produce either, you need reprocessors, reactors and enrichment facilities. These are out of the reach of even a large, well-funded terrorist organization. Terrorists can get such materials only by buying them from states. So, if all fissile material around the world were locked up and monitored and no new material were made, it would eliminate the worldwide threat of nuclear terrorism. Obviously it's easier said than done, but it can be done. We lack not the means but a clear goal and the determination to get to it. In a recent speech John Kerry proposed setting out this objective, comparing it to putting a man on the moon. Actually it would take less time and would certainly be much less expensive. For America, the additional cost of such an effort would run about $1 billion a year. We spend $10 billion every year on a national missile defense that doesn't work. When it does eventually work, it will guard us (sort of) against the least likely means of delivering a nuclear bomb—a missile. Why not spend 10 percent of that to thwart the most likely method of delivery—a suitcase bomb? But this is not simply an American problem. The European Union is searching for a way to play a major role in combating terrorism different from some of the Bush administration's bellicose strategies. Fine. Here is a policy that is preventive and nonviolent, and requires broad cooperation. To work, it must have several components: + Secure the former Soviet Union's arsenal and destroy what is supposed to be destroyed. The former Soviet Union accounts for more than 90 percent of all existing fissile material outside the United States. Russia still has 20,000 nuclear missiles and enough material to make 50,000 Hiroshima-size bombs. The Nunn-Lugar program, which works with Russia to destroy or secure these materials, should be dramatically expanded. + Stop using highly enriched uranium in research reactors. The United States and the former Soviet Union have furnished dozens of reactors around the world that are used for scientific research. Most use bomb-grade uranium as fuel. These reactors should be closed or converted so that they require non-bomb-grade uranium. + Ban new enrichment and reprocessing. To his credit, President Bush recently proposed a version of this idea. Countries that want nuclear energy for peaceful purposes should agree to forgo enrichment and reprocessing. In return, existing nuclear exporters will provide them with the nuclear fuel they need for their production process. + Allow the International Atomic Energy Agency to check that all states with nuclear programs have strict safeguards and controls. The case of Pakistan's A. Q. Khan, who set up a nuclear supermarket, is a scary example of what can happen without such checks. + Prevent Iran from gaining access to these materials and reverse North Korea's nuclear program. These are the two most difficult cases. In Iran's case, Kerry proposes to call its bluff and offer it nuclear fuel. Tehran should happily accept, unless it wants a nuclear program for some reason other than to produce energy. Even if North Korea and Iran prove intractable problems, the rest of these measures would safeguard 99 percent of the world's fissile material. This would not solve all our problems—bioterror is at least as scary. But it would take one of the greatest dangers the world faces off the table. Ashton Carter, the Harvard expert who is John Kerry's adviser on this issue, argues that "our current path is unfocused and 'effort oriented.' We measure progress by how much we have spent, how many nukes we have secured, etc. Instead let's become 'goal oriented.' We know what the end zone would look like. Why don't we define it? How close are we to eliminating the danger of nuclear terror?" Right now, not very close. © 2004 Newsweek, Inc. © 2004 MSNBC.com ***************************************************************** 19 Fwd: Encore Presentation! See MELTDOWN ON FX today (SATURDAY Date: Sat, 12 Jun 2004 13:18:06 -0500 (CDT) Date: Sat, 12 Jun 2004 00:41:45 -0700 From: "Russell D. Hoffman" Subject: Encore Presentation! See MELTDOWN ON FX today (SATURDAY JUNE 12TH, 2004 -- check local listings) June 12th, 2004 Dear Readers, If you have not seen MELTDOWN on FX, PLEASE DO SO today (Saturday, June 12th, 2004)! Check your local listings. Activism is hard. Reading is an effort. Watching a movie is easy, and thousands -- or perhaps millions -- of people will do it for each one of you who has worried along with this author about these problems all these years. So sit back and watch for a change. This movie can really be thought of as your reward for your patience and effort. It says so much of what we've all been trying to say all this time. And it's clear some people worked very hard to produce MELTDOWN. Reward their efforts -- see it -- and tell your friends to see it, too. One thing that was not mentioned at all in MELTDOWN was Dry Cask Storage. I prefer to call it "Dry Casket Storage". Dry Cask Storage is supposed to be temporary -- until Yucca Mountain opens. But in reality, once dry casks are authorized for any site, that site will have dry casks indefinitely. In addition, Yucca Mountain might NEVER open because it is a scientifically irresponsible and technically infeasible political hot potato. Terrorism against Dry Cask Storage systems would be even easier than against the spent fuel pool or the reactor! Sure, the Spent Fuel Rod Assemblies in dry casks have "cooled down" a little, in the thermal sense. But they are still highly radioactive and will be for -- NOT 10,000 years, as many people believe, but for MILLIONS of years! Compared to Dry Cask Storage, Spent Fuel Pools are incredibly expensive to make and must be monitored and maintained. That's why they don't just build more pools! It's not SAFETY! It's MONEY! Inside a dry cask, the deadly (and still very hot) fuel rods can catch fire SPONTANEOUSLY if they become overly embrittled, warp, crack, fall to the bottom of the cask, or otherwise clump together. If that happens, they would burn in a deadly conflagration which would be every bit as bad as a meltdown or a spent fuel pool accident, and which no fire company in the world is capable of extinguishing. Fire departments don't have the necessary "rad suits" needed to get close enough to fight the fire without getting a lethal dose of radiation within MINUTES, and they don't have the chemicals and tools to put it out if they do manage to get close somehow. Perhaps they expect to call in every helicopter pilot in the country and have them overfly a dry cask fire one by one and drop sand on it, like the Russians did with Chernobyl. The pilots were, of course, all killed, dying gruesome deaths shortly after the event. Diablo Canyon's plans for Dry Cask Storage call for bolting the beasts to the ground. (Apparently, despite there being earthquakes now and then just about anywhere, this is not normally done!) These casks will stick out like sore thumbs and can be destroyed in all the ways mentioned in MELTDOWN and many more -- by bombs, by explosives, by airplanes crashing into them, by God. Diablo Cyn's owners claim that their casks will be able to withstand a 7.2 earthquake, and they claim that nothing as strong as that is predicted anywhere in the area. Anyone in the business of repeatedly and accurately predicting a significant number of earthquakes' locations and severity -- and/or successfully guaranteeing a location's lack of earthquakes for a significant period of time -- would be the most famous person in history. No such person exists at this time, or has ever existed. Why will Diablo Cyn's proposed Dry Cask Storage system be built to withstand a 7.2 earthquake, rather than, say, 7.3 or 7.5 -- or 9.2, for that matter? They answer is: MONEY. Each whole unit increment represents an order of magnitude increase in the earth's shaking from the earthquake. Thus, an 8.2 earthquake is ten times as bad as 7.2. A 9.2 is 100 times as violent as a 7.2, and thus, extremely expensive to protect against. And even that level of protection might not be enough. Recently, I read that the last earthquake-related studies of Diablo Cyn were done 13 years ago. Since then, there have been at least a dozen magnitude 7.0 or greater earthquakes in the U.S. alone. That's a lot of new data to compare and analyze, but it hasn't been done. Dry Cask Storage is just about the stupidest idea since The Bomb. It MUST be stopped in California and everywhere else. This week, HUNDREDS AND HUNDREDS of Californians came out to protest nuclear power at government hearings around Diablo Cyn. From: Lompoc Record (as seen in RADBULL): ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Some of the answers given by officials were met with boos from the crowd and after resident David Weisman handed out colored plates in order to grade the answers - red for disbelief, yellow for maybe and green for complete belief - many statements were met with a sea of red. Weisman, who is concerned about a lack of communication between emergency agencies, the plant and the NRC, told officials he came up with the grading system that mimics one the NRC uses to gauge the facility operations. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Someone has to tell the nuclear power industry that The Jig Is Up. That job SHOULD fall on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Department of Energy, but they are woefully irresponsible, to a point well past treason, because it's also suicidal, murderous, and undemocratic. And unAmerican, which isn't treason, but when you're in a position with that kind of power, it's pretty close. We all need to work harder on this issue. Now is the time. Tomorrow, when everyone knows about it, will be too late. The accident that wakes everyone up must NEVER happen! Sincerely, Russell Hoffman Concerned Citizen Carlsbad, CA Visit the FX web site: http://www.fxnetworks.com/shows/movies/ My Flash home page: http://www.animatedsoftware.com/mx/index.swf (Activists and reporters: Please feel free to ask for a free password to all my software any time. Thank you for reading.) My recent review of MELTDOWN, + Jack Shannon's letter to Senators: http://www.animatedsoftware.com/environm/onofre/2004/meltdown_on_fx_review.htm A correction from Michael Mariotte of NIRS regarding my review of MELTDOWN: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Russell, Small correction. While the Chernobyl exclusion zone is indeed 18 miles, there are many villages and areas outside the exclusion zone that have been permanently evacuated and abandoned--victims of "hot spots". When these areas are added to the exclusion zone, the area that has been rendered uninhabitable by Chernobyl is actually quite close to the size of Kentucky. Michael Mariotte NIRS ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ NIRS' web site: www.nirs.org ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ On a related subject, NIRS is looking for dedicated members: NIRS, founded in 1978 and now joined with WISE (also founded in 1978) is seeking to expand their "Core Group", and are looking for nominations. Current members of the Core Group include Dr. Helen Caldicott and actor Ed Asner. The Board of Directors of NIRS/WISE includes Karl Grossman, Judith Johnsrud, and Harvey Wasserman. Michael Mariotte is the Executive Director. To nominate someone, contact: nirsnet@nirs.org ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ************************************************* ** THE ANIMATED SOFTWARE COMPANY ** Russell D. Hoffman, Owner and Chief Programmer ** P.O. Box 1936, Carlsbad CA 92018-1936 ** (800) 551-2726 ** (760) 720-7261 ** Fax: (760) 720-7394 ** Visit the world's most eclectic web site: ** http://www.animatedsoftware.com ************************************************* rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Search /RENEGADE/ for articles that mention nukes - http://fornits.com/renegade/peaars.cgi?keywords=NUKES&increment=weeks&many=26 [only articles for the last six months will be indexed] /RENEGADE/ Search - GO TO: http://fornits.com/renegade/peaars.cgi? and just type in your topic. For differing results you may uncheck "article" and search on just "subject," etc. /RENEGADE/ also has "time-frame" in the search, so you can tailor your results that way, too. ----- -- Peace! *STRIDER* Sector Air Raid Warden at /RENEGADE/ http://fornits.com/renegade/ DEDICATED TO SPIRIT, TRUTH, PEACE, JUSTICE, AND FREEDOM Articles posted in the last 10 days: http://fornits.com/renegade/peaars.cgi?search=Search&increment=days&many=10 Bay_Area_Activist list ---- Membership by invitation only - moderated / archives for members only Contact bay_area_activist-owner@yahoogroups.com to request membership. EF! list --------------- earthfirstalert - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/earthfirstalert List-Subscribe: usenet: news:misc.activism.progressive e-mail: mailto:strider@fornits.com strider@fornits.com No War! No Nukes! Impeach! WHEN SPIDERS UNITE, THEY CAN TIE DOWN A LION -- Ethiopian Proverb ***************************************************************** 20 Nuclear Power as Green Solution? Date: Sat, 12 Jun 2004 12:35:13 -0500 (CDT) Forwarded with Compliments of Government of the USA in Exile (GUSAE): Free Americans Resisting the Fourth Reich on Behalf of All Species. NOTE: Thanks to Martine Algier for this; I'm as surprised by it as Ralph Metzner below; I hope we can hear from other scientists in this overwhelmingly important matter. -- kl, pp Date: Thu, 27 May 2004 00:13:02 -0700 From: Ralph Metzner I was not happy to see this article from The Independent newspaper, UK, by James Lovelock, one of the world's most prominent and highly regarded scientists. Like many other Greens, I have a visceral fear reaction to nuclear energy; but Lovelock's argument is very strong, and deserves to taken very seriously. It seems our goose is cooked. --- Ralph NUCLEAR POWER IS THE ONLY GREEN SOLUTION By James Lovelock The Independent 24 May 2004 http://argument.independent.co.uk/commentators/story.jsp?story=524230 We have no time to experiment with visionary energy sources; civilisation is in imminent danger. The writer is an independent scientist and the creator of the Gaia hypothesis of the Earth as a self-regulating organism. ............. Sir David King, the Government's chief scientist, was far-sighted to say that global warming is a more serious threat than terrorism. He may even have underestimated, because since he spoke, new evidence of climate change suggests it could be even more serious, and the greatest danger that civilisation has faced so far. Most of us are aware of some degree of warming; winters are warmer and spring comes earlier. But in the Arctic, warming is more than twice as great as here in Europe and in summertime, torrents of melt water now plunge from Greenland's kilometre-high glaciers. The complete dissolution of Greenland's icy mountains will take time, but by then the sea will have risen seven metres, enough to make uninhabitable all of the low-lying coastal cities of the world, including London, Venice, Calcutta, New York and Tokyo. Even a two-metre rise is enough to put most of southern Florida under water. The floating ice of the Arctic Ocean is even more vulnerable to warming; in 30 years, its white reflecting ice, the area of the US, may become dark sea that absorbs the warmth of summer sunlight, and further hastens the end of the Greenland ice. The North Pole, goal of so many explorers, will then be no more than a point on the ocean surface. Not only the Arctic is changing; climatologists warn a four-degree rise in temperature is enough to eliminate the vast Amazon forests in a catastrophe for their people, their biodiversity, and for the world, which would lose one of its great natural air conditioners. The scientists who form the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reported in 2001 that global temperature would rise between two and six degrees Celsius by 2100. Their grim forecast was made perceptible by last summer's excessive heat; and according to Swiss meteorologists, the Europe-wide hot spell that killed over 20,000 was wholly different from any previous heat wave. The odds against it being a mere deviation from the norm were 300,000 to one. It was a warning of worse to come. What makes global warming so serious and so urgent is that the great Earth system, Gaia, is trapped in a vicious circle of positive feedback. Extra heat from any source, whether from greenhouse gases, the disappearance of Arctic ice or the Amazon forest, is amplified, and its effects are more than additive. It is almost as if we had lit a fire to keep warm, and failed to notice, as we piled on fuel, that the fire was out of control and the furniture had ignited. When that happens, little time is left to put out the fire before it consumes the house. Global warming, like a fire, is accelerating and almost no time is left to act. So what should we do? We can just continue to enjoy a warmer 21st century while it lasts, and make cosmetic attempts, such as the Kyoto Treaty, to hide the political embarrassment of global warming, and this is what I fear will happen in much of the world. When, in the 18th century, only one billion people lived on Earth, their impact was small enough for it not to matter what energy source they used. But with six billion, and growing, few options remain; we can not continue drawing energy from fossil fuels and there is no chance that the renewables, wind, tide and water power can provide enough energy and in time. If we had 50 years or more we might make these our main sources. But we do not have 50 years; the Earth is already so disabled by the insidious poison of greenhouse gases that even if we stop all fossil fuel burning immediately, the consequences of what we have already done will last for 1,000 years. Every year that we continue burning carbon makes it worse for our descendants and for civilisation. Worse still, if we burn crops grown for fuel this could hasten our decline. Agriculture already uses too much of the land needed by the Earth to regulate its climate and chemistry. A car consumes 10 to 30 times as much carbon as its driver; imagine the extra farmland required to feed the appetite of cars. By all means, let us use the small input from renewables sensibly, but only one immediately available source does not cause global warming and that is nuclear energy. True, burning natural gas instead of coal or oil releases only half as much carbon dioxide, but unburnt gas is 25 times as potent a greenhouse agent as is carbon dioxide. Even a small leakage would neutralise the advantage of gas. The prospects are grim, and even if we act successfully in amelioration, there will still be hard times, as in war, that will stretch our grandchildren to the limit. We are tough and it would take more than the climate catastrophe to eliminate all breeding pairs of humans; what is at risk is civilisation. As individual animals we are not so special, and in some ways are like a planetary disease, but through civilisation we redeem ourselves and become a precious asset for the Earth; not least because through our eyes the Earth has seen herself in all her glory. There is a chance we may be saved by an unexpected event such as a series of volcanic eruptions severe enough to block out sunlight and so cool the Earth. But only losers would bet their lives on such poor odds. Whatever doubts there are about future climates, there are no doubts that greenhouse gases and temperatures both are rising. We have stayed in ignorance for many reasons; important among them is the denial of climate change in the US where governments have failed to give their climate scientists the support they needed. The Green lobbies, which should have given priority to global warming, seem more concerned about threats to people than with threats to the Earth, not noticing that we are part of the Earth and wholly dependent upon its well-being. It may take a disaster worse than last summer's European deaths to wake us up. Opposition to nuclear energy is based on irrational fear fed by Hollywood-style fiction, the Green lobbies and the media. These fears are unjustified, and nuclear energy from its start in 1952 has proved to be the safest of all energy sources. We must stop fretting over the minute statistical risks of cancer from chemicals or radiation. Nearly one third of us will die of cancer anyway, mainly because we breathe air laden with that all-pervasive carcinogen, oxygen. If we fail to concentrate our minds on the real danger, which is global warming, we may die even sooner, as did more than 20,000 unfortunates from overheating in Europe last summer. I find it sad and ironic that the UK, which leads the world in the quality of its Earth and climate scientists, rejects their warnings and advice, and prefers to listen to the Greens. But I am a Green and I entreat my friends in the movement to drop their wrongheaded objection to nuclear energy. Even if they were right about its dangers, and they are not, its worldwide use as our main source of energy would pose an insignificant threat compared with the dangers of intolerable and lethal heat waves and sea levels rising to drown every coastal city of the world. We have no time to experiment with visionary energy sources; civilisation is in imminent danger and has to use nuclear - the one safe, available, energy source - now or suffer the pain soon to be inflicted by our outraged planet. ============================================================================= ***************************************************************** 21 YDR: REGULATIONS: NRC plans changes - York Daily Record [ydr.com] Saturday, June 12, 2004 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will change its regulations on the use of the agency's electronic Licensing Support Network and electronic hearing docket for the expected licensing hearing on the potential disposal of high-level radioactive waste at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. The primary purpose of these regulations is to establish standards for the electronic submission of documents for the hearing. The NRC regulates Three Mile Island is Dauphin County and Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station. Copyright © York Daily Record 2004 122 S. George St., P.O. Box 15122 York, PA 17405, (717) 771-2000 ***************************************************************** 22 Reuters: Iran Rejects Demand to Drop Heavy-Water Reactor Sat Jun 12, 2004 09:03 AM ET By Christian Oliver and Parinoosh Arami TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran on Saturday rejected European demands that it freeze additional parts of its atomic program, saying it would push on with plans to build a heavy-water reactor. "We will not accept any new obligation," Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi told a news conference. "If anyone asks us to give up Isfahan industries to change yellowcake into uranium hexafluoride gas or to give up heavy-water facilities in Arak, we cannot accept such an extra demand that is contradictory to our legal rights." Yellowcake is processed uranium ore, mined near the central desert city of Yazd. Uranium hexafluoride gas is pumped into centrifuges that enrich uranium by spinning it. The United States says Iran is using its program as a smokescreen for building an atomic bomb, but the Islamic Republic insists its scientists are working only on ways to meet booming domestic electricity demand. Britain, Germany and France penned a tough draft resolution this week deploring Iran's failure to cooperate fully with the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The document, to be debated at an IAEA board meeting starting on Monday, asked Iran to freeze its operation of a uranium conversion facility near Isfahan and reverse its decision to construct a heavy-water reactor near the central industrial city of Arak. Kharrazi said he hoped IAEA board members would resist U.S. pressure and not only soften the resolution but also drop Iran's case. "It is not fair that Iran's case remains on the agenda for two minor issues," he said. Iran must explain how traces of bomb-grade uranium came to be found on components, and what it plans to do with advanced uranium-enriching centrifuges it initially failed to declare. The heavy-water reactor Tehran has decided to build would be capable of producing weapons-usable plutonium. Kharrazi said the reactor was still being designed and he did not know when construction work would start. Iran promised to suspend its uranium enrichment last year but the call by the three European powers to halt work at Isfahan and drop plans for the Arak reactor is new. The United Nations does not define Isfahan and Arak as enrichment sites, but European diplomats have argued that the gas pumped into centrifuges is integral to the enrichment process. Low-enriched uranium can be used in nuclear power stations such as the one Iran is building at Bushehr on its south coast, but if enriched further it can be deployed in warheads. If Iran cannot resolve its nuclear wrangle with the IAEA, it can be referred to the U.N. Security Council, which could impose sanctions on it. Hossein Shariatmadari, an influential hardline newspaper editor, appointed directly by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said Iran should do away with U.N. interference and follow North Korea's lead. "Finally the only logical way is to pull out of the Non-Proliferation Treaty," he wrote in the Kayhan newspaper. © Reuters 2004. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 23 Dramatic increase in thyroid cancer,call to reassess nuclear Date: Sat, 12 Jun 2004 07:19:10 -0500 (CDT) Study finds dramatic increase in thyroid cancer Public release date: 11-Jun-2004 Contact: Charles Sheehan-Miles charles@nuclearpolicy.org 202-822-9800 Nuclear Policy Research Institute http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2004-06/npri-sfd061104.php Bush administration called to reassess nuclear power commitment WASHINGTON, DC - The Nuclear Policy Research Institute (NPRI) today called on the Bush administration to reassess its commitment to the expansion of nuclear power; based on new study reported in the June edition of the International Journal of Epidemiology. The study documents a dramatic increase in thyroid cancers following the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. According to the study, published in the International Journal of Epidemiology, rates of thyroid cancers among women in Belarus have increased 12-fold in the years since the April 1986 explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine. The authors noted that "the magnitude of increases observed is remarkable given the relatively limited time interval since Chernobyl." Additionally, the study points out that children two years and younger at the time of the accident were even more vulnerable, and that their cancers tended to be more invasive and expanded beyond the thyroid gland. A number of nuclear power plants in the United States have recently faced public safety problems that were unexpected by industry officials. These problems could have had catastrophic effect for the American people. Inspectors at Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Plant, located 21 miles southeast of Toledo, Ohio, identified a six-inch deep football-sized hole in the reactor vessel. This hole was initially missed by years of inspections, and would have resulted in a meltdown had it not been identified. At the time the hole was found, 95% of the steel protecting the reactor from meltdown had been eaten away by acid. In 2003 cracks were found in the instrumentation tubes which measure the operations of the South Texas Project nuclear reactors, 90 miles southwest of Houston, Texas, allowing the reactor to leak. Had these leaks not been identified by routine inspection, they could also have eventually resulted in a meltdown. "Given the disastrous consequences of a major nuclear accident as demonstrated by this new study, we call on the Bush administration to halt its push for funds to subsidize the nuclear power industry, and shift those funds into safe and renewable energy sources such as solar and wind," said Charles Sheehan-Miles, executive director of Nuclear Policy Research Institute. Pointing out the risk of terrorist attack against one of the 103 operating nuclear plants in the United States, NPRI President Dr. Helen Caldicott said, "Terrorists don't need nuclear weapons. Thanks to the nuclear power industry, they are already deployed all over America, and even terrorists with limited knowledge could cause a meltdown at one of these plants." ### The Nuclear Policy Research Institute will host a symposium, Nuclear Power and Children's Health, in Chicago, Illinois October 15-16, 2004. More details are available at www.nuclearpolicy.org INTERVIEWS AVAILABLE Experts are available now for interviews to discuss this study and its implications. Helen Caldicott, MD President, Nuclear Policy Research Institute Dr. Caldicott is a pediatrician and founder of NPRI. She is a 35-year expert on radiation and public health issues. Dr. Caldicott is available for phone interviews from Australia to discuss the medical impact of radiation exposure and the risk of nuclear accident in the United States. Charles Sheehan-Miles Executive Director, Nuclear Policy Research Institute Mr. Sheehan-Miles, a 1991 Gulf War veteran, is a former President of the National Gulf War Resource Center, Inc. Sheehan-Miles is available for interviews to discuss the risk of nuclear accident in the United States and the increase in the use of nuclear power sought by the Bush administration and the nuclear power industry. ***************************************************************** 24 More US Lies about Gulf War Syndrome Date: Sat, 12 Jun 2004 12:07:48 -0500 (CDT) Forwarded with Compliments of Government of the USA in Exile (GUSAE): Free Americans Proclaiming Total Emancipation and Working Towards Democracy. 'Fears over Gulf War Chemicals' More people may have been exposed to chemical warfare agents during the 1990 Gulf War than previously thought, a report says. The US government revealed in 1996 that some people may have been exposed to chemicals when troops destroyed a stockpile of agents in southern Iraq. As well as Iraqis, officials said over 100,000 troops, including 9,000 Britons, may have been affected. But the US General Accounting Office says the figures could be much higher. The GAO is the investigative arm of the US Congress. It has carried out an investigation into how the US and UK governments came up with their figures on how many troops may been exposed to these agents. The figures are largely based on how many troops were in the direct path of the plume of smoke that was produced when these agents were destroyed at Khamisiyah, in southern Iraq in 1991. 'Figures Flawed' But in a report, the GAO says the figures, which were drawn up by the US Department of Defense, "cannot be adequately supported". It says the plume of smoke travelled further than officials have suggested. "The plume heights used in the modelling were underestimated and so were the hazard area," it says. The report dismisses the estimates on how many troops may have been exposed to the agents as "uncertain, incomplete and non-validated". The report raises serious questions about UK government claims that only 9,000 British troops were in the direct path of the plume of smoke. "Since the Ministry of Defence relied exclusively on Department of Defense modelling and since we found that Department of Defense could not know who was and who was not exposed, the MOD cannot know the extent of British troops' exposure." The Ministry of Defence said it was considering the findings of the report. "We will publish a paper in September reviewing the results of the US modelling and our response to the GAO report," a spokeswoman told BBC News Online. More than 5,000 British veterans who served in the Gulf War have reported illnesses, which they believe may have been caused by vaccines or exposure to chemicals. The government has so far refused to acknowledge that Gulf War syndrome exists. Inquiry Demand The UK's National Gulf War Veterans and Families Benevolent Association renewed their calls for a public inquiry into gulf war syndrome in light of the GAO findings. "It is possible that the majority of troops deployed in the Gulf in 1991 may have been exposed to these chemicals," said Shaun Rusling, its vice-chairman. "We need a full public inquiry. The Ministry of Defence has known about this for years." ==================================================================== --- BBC ***************************************************************** 25 The Progress-Index: Temporary water relief comes to subdivisions Monday 14 June, 2004 By: Ben Bagwell ,Staff Writer 06/12/2004 KATE COSBY/STAFF PHOTO Mary Beth Ondra, who spoke at the Wednesday public hearing regarding uranium in the water, is seen filling up containers and putting them in her little red wagon yesterday. The water is being supplied by Fox Run Water Company. DINWIDDIE - Water supplies were being provided Friday for residents of two subdivisions where the community well water was declared unsafe a week earlier. The district health department had declared there was too much uranium in the water. People should drink bottled water. But on Friday free bottled water was being distributed by the Chesdin Manor Homeowners Association and a water tanker was brought in through the cooperation of the Fox Run Water Company, Dinwiddie County, the Crater Health District and the Virginia Department of Health. Del. Fenton Bland, D-Petersburg, is assisting local officials in this process. Carol Bowman of the Chesdin Manor Homeowners Association coordinated the arrival of bottled water from Bleu Christal Water of Richmond. Fox Run Water Company was paying for the tanker full of portable water. Mary Beth Ondra filled up her little red wagon with water containers. She said, "I know they are trying. I'm glad they got the tanker here. It does help a lot." But she said the long-term solution may take much, much longer. Letters were handed out in the community so everyone would know where the free water could be found. Residents of Chesdin Manor and River Road Farm subdivisions were notified a week earlier about elevated levels of uranium in two community drinking water wells that serve the area. Uranium is a radioactive metal that is normally present in low amounts in rocks, soil, water, plants and animals. On Thursday Dinwiddie County officials declared a local emergency. The Board of Supervisors are expected to ratify this declaration at the 2 p.m. meeting on Tuesday. A Local Situation Report has been sent to the State Emergency Operations Center seeking state assistance. The staff of Crater Health District will be available to offer guidance to private well owners regarding well testing, including private lab resource information. Citizens can call 863-1652, ext. 242 for information. The Dinwiddie County Water Authority will continue to provide free water to residents of these communities at two watering stations located at their facility, 23008 Airpark Drive across from Rohoic Elementary School. The county water supply does not contain uranium, an official source said. A spokesman for Fox Run Water Company said the water tanker contains about 6,000 gallons of drinking water. The water is available 24 hours a day. Residents must bring their own containers. Bernard McNamee, who has been named spokesperson for the water company, said, "Fox Run's first concern is that the customers be supplied with safe drinking water." The Virginia Department of Health is forming a community advisory group to provide input as this issue progresses. Citizens may call 863-1652, ext. 276 for more information. Within the next few weeks, the health department will begin collecting information on residents' exposure to uranium in the water supply. This information will include health and exposure histories as well as urine tests. McNamee said the water company received a letter from the Health Department saying the water was safe to drink in 2000. "It was scheduled to be tested again this August. Then the company was contacted in May that an earlier test would be needed,"McNamee said. "The water company has been in daily contact with the health department and Dinwiddie County since this problem developed. We are seeking safe drinking water for the residents. The company has a record of always being in compliance with state health department requirements." In answer to some reporter questions, McNamee said, "The average bill throughout the year per month is $15, but it would be higher when people are watering their lawn. The total income to the water company from these two wells in 2003 was $22,000. Well Number 1 was installed in 1976 and Well Number 2 was installed in 1980. The company was formed in 1976 and the current owners bought it in 1991. "There are 30 of these community well systems operated by the company in Virginia and there are 1,350 connections operated by the company, including a few in North Carolina." * Ben Bagwell may be reached at 732-3456, ext. 260. ©The Progress-Index 2004 ***************************************************************** 26 Las Vegas RJ: Bush adviser says Yucca decision did not violate pledge Sunday, June 13, 2004 Process relied on 'sound science,' Rove says By ERIN NEFF REVIEW-JOURNAL Karl Rove Bush adviser was in Las Vegas and Reno on Saturday Karl Rove, top political adviser to President Bush, speaks to the media Saturday at the Nevada Republican Party Headquarters in Las Vegas. Photo by John Locher. President Bush's top political adviser said the administration's approval of Yucca Mountain as the nation's nuclear waste repository did not violate a 2000 promise to Nevada voters to base such a decision on "sound science, not politics." "He believed then, as he did after the laborious process that he went through after becoming president to review the recommendations and to ask questions of the Department of Energy and others, that this is a decision based on sound science," Karl Rove said in an interview during a day of fund-raising events in Las Vegas and Reno on Saturday. Rove said Bush dealt with low-level nuclear waste siting issues in Texas when he was governor, and learned "that he really had to keep politics out of it and keep the science in mind." The man called "boy genius" by the president and "Bush's brain" by critics, said Bush also was satisfied that any decision he made on Yucca Mountain would be vetted in the courts or during the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's licensing proceedings, which themselves could take three years. "The courts are going to deal with the question of, 'Was this done in the proper basis?' " Rove said. "This issue ought to be dealt with straightforward and without politics." Rove, 54, lived in Sparks from 1961 to 1966 and attended Dilworth Middle and Sparks High schools. He has a sister and a brother in Northern Nevada and said he looked forward to eating Basque food with them Saturday night. During the interview in Las Vegas, Rove criticized, although not by name, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry for telling Nevadans during a fund-raising trip last month that if he is elected president, "Yucca Mountain will not be a repository." "Anybody who comes to Nevada and pledges it's not going to be there is going to have to explain how he's going to achieve that result," Rove said. "They'll need to explain to Nevada and to the rest of the country what they're going to do with the material that's at 111 sites and in 39 states. "I do think he has a responsibility to explain how he hopes to achieve that goal because there is a law, a process in place, that has been validated time and time again over the last 20 years by votes of Congress," Rove said. "And he also has an obligation to explain to the people of 39 other states what's going to be done with the material in 39 other states. "If you want to take it out of politics and you want to address it, and it just so happens to be an election year, you're obligated to offer up those kinds of details. This is not a bumper-sticker issue. This is an issue that requires a great deal of serious thought and explanation." Rove got to see some very large bumper-sticker slogans about Yucca Mountain, the war in Iraq and gas prices as he made his way into the Rancho Bel Air home of developer Barry Becker to raise campaign money for freshman Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., just before 1:30 p.m. He gave a thumb's up to a group of 25 protesters outside the gated community and smiled at a woman whose sign said "Peace is Patriotic" and to several men holding a banner that said: "Bush/Rove &Co. = Four More Wars." One protester dressed as Yucca Man, wearing a silver hazardous materials suit complete with protective helmet and face shield. When told Rove said Bush based his Yucca decision on science, Democratic Party Chairwoman Adriana Martinez lowered her protest sign and said: "Lies again. Lies, lies, lies." Yucca Mountain is about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Rove spoke to about 75 people inside the house, raising $50,000 for Porter, according to Republican consultant Mike Slanker. During the interview, Rove also defended a legal memo that said torture "may be justified" when interrogating suspected terrorists. Jay Bybee, then a Justice Department official and now a federal judge in Las Vegas, signed the memo. "The president did not authorize torture," Rove said, adding that the United States is meeting its obligations under international law. "I think that Americans understand that terrorists don't consider themselves uniform services bound by the Geneva Convention," Rove said. "The people who cut off Nick Berg's head in front of a video camera did so not because they felt bound by any international agreement. They're killers. They're cold-blooded killers." Rove also defended the president's call to renew the Patriot Act, saying the measure has been politicized into something it's not. He said roving wiretaps authorized by a judge, for example, are used in other cases. "I frankly don't see that terrorists are less dangerous to us than drug dealers, Medicare fraud or organized crime," Rove said. After his activities in Las Vegas, Rove flew to Reno to raise money for the state party. The amount raised in Reno was not immediately available. Copyright Las Vegas Review-Journal ***************************************************************** 27 ABCNEWS.com: Official Suggests 'Grouting' Nuclear Waste June 11, 2004 [Columbia River] The sun sets as the Columbia River flows through the Columbia River Gorge near Corbett, Ore., Sept. 29, 2003. (Don Ryan/AP Photo) Nuclear River Run-OffCongress Wrangles Over Clean-Up of Nuclear Waste Sites By John Cochran [ABCNEWS.com] June 13, 2004 — The Columbia River is one of the glories of the Pacific Northwest. It is also home to the sprawling Hanford nuclear site with its 53 million gallons of radioactive waste, some of it leaking from underground tanks. More than 1 million gallons of waste has already seeped into the soil, and more leakage is likely from the aging underground tanks, according to environmentalists who believe it is a danger to those relying on the river — including the Yakima Indians. "It has always been the lifeline of the Pacific Northwest," said Russell Jim of the Yakima Nation. "The salmon and the marine life in the Columbia have been the lifeline of the Yakima Nation for thousands of years." The clean-up problem is one more legacy of the atomic era. The production of nuclear weapons left behind liquid and solid nuclear waste at plants in Washington, Idaho and South Carolina. Until recently, the government's plan has been to collect all the dangerous residue and bury it in Nevada. But removing the solid waste is difficult and will cost billions. The Energy Department has a cheaper plan: leave the radioactive sludge where it is. "Where there's a small amount of residual, let's grout it and cap it, and monitor it," Deputy Energy Secretary Kyle McSlarrow told ABC News. "And if there is any leakage in the future, we can deal with it." Washington's junior senator thinks that's a terrible idea. Sen. Maria Cantwell, a Democrat, recently joined a group of environmentalists on a boat trip along the Columbia River to publicize the fight against the administration's plan. Said Cantwell: "I think for most Americans grout is something they see in their bathroom, not something that they do with nuclear waste." A federal judge has ruled that under present laws the Energy Department's plan is illegal. So the Bush administration is urging Congress to pass a new law declaring that nuclear sludge at the South Carolina nuclear weapons plant is not really so dangerous. 'If It's Hot, It's Hot' Congress is seriously considering reclassifying the sludge at the South Carolina site as low-level waste. That has alarmed environmentalists, including those in Washington state, who fear the administration will soon want more laws affecting the Washington and Idaho plants. "I don't quite understand how you can go from high-level waste one day, and the next day it's low-level," said Rich Steele, a former engineer at the Hanford Plant. "If it's hot, it's hot." The fight over nuclear sludge is another thing that's hot. Cantwell tried to kill the administration's proposal, which is sponsored by South Carolina Republican Lindsay Graham. Sen. Graham insists the proposal would save $16 billion without harming the environment. After a vigorous debate on the Senate floor, the vote on killing the measure ended in a tie, 48-48. The deadlock spelled victory for the administration and defeat for Cantwell. Deputy Secretary McSlarrow said, "We are very pleased that the Senate approved DOE's scientifically sound plans to empty, clean, stabilize and dispose of nuclear waste currently stored in tanks at its Savannah River site in South Carolina." McSlarrow would not say whether the administration would also attempt to follow a similar strategy in Idaho and Washington. Cantwell and Washington's other senator, Patty Murray, also a Democrat, say they will keep fighting. More votes are expected, and neither side can be certain of victory. ABCNEWS.com ***************************************************************** 28 New York Times: Agency Is Seen as Unfazed on Atom Waste By MATTHEW L. WALD Published: June 12, 2004 [W] ASHINGTON, June 11 - The plan to bury nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain may need major revisions, but the Energy Department is pressing ahead with the project, according to some independent scientists appointed by to review the project. The Yucca repository, near Las Vegas, is years behind schedule and the Energy Department is facing financial penalties for its failure to begin accepting waste from civilian reactor operators in 1998, as mandated under contracts the department signed with utility companies two decades ago. Many of those reactor operators are incurring substantial extra costs as they run out of storage space. The Energy Department acknowledges some uncertainty about the design, but is promising to apply by the end of this year for a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build the repository. Supporters argue that if the repository turned out not to work as expected during its first few decades of operation, physical changes could be made and that, for now, the plan should proceed. But the design concept is vulnerable to corrosion, according to the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, a panel of scientists appointed to review work of the Energy Department. Last year the board warned that humidity in Yucca Mountain's tunnels could dissolve salt from the rock there, which could then corrode "drip shields," metal tents made of a sophisticated alloy that are meant to keep the containers that would hold the waste dry. The idea that the drip shields will protect the containers "is based mostly on assumptions that could be unrealistic and overly optimistic," the board said, and the Energy Department's predictions of how the drip shields would perform for thousands of years "are speculative." After months of criticizing the design, the board on Tuesday issued a report that spoke highly favorably of the way Belgium was planning its own nuclear repository. There, the report said, pressure to build a repository is not strong, and thus when changes are made in the design, "the changes do not appear to be viewed as a failure of or a roadblock to the program." "Rather, the changes seem to be part of an incremental learning process of developing a design that is both safe and implementable." Norman L. Christensen Jr., a professor at Duke who is on the board, said that the Energy Department was far more "schedule driven" than nuclear waste agencies in other countries, largely because of the pressure from Congress and the nuclear industry to get the job done. Professor Christensen said the observation about Belgium was not meant to be critical of the Energy Department, but the schedule "certainly makes it more difficult" to pick the best approach. "They don't have the luxury of saying, golly, maybe we need to go back and revisit some of these basic ideas about design," he said. Another scientist, Paul P. Craig, who served on the board from 1996 until January of this year, wrote in an article to be published in a few days in the newsletter of an environmental group that "the Department of Energy is rushing ahead with a defective Yucca Mountain design." He predicted that the containers would leak their radioactive materials into the rock, where it would be carried by underground water flows to wells used for drinking water and irrigation. "What's needed now is a presidential decision instructing the D.O.E. to slow down the Yucca Mountain program and to get the science right," he wrote in the newsletter, Science for Democratic Action, published by the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, a nonprofit group based here. The geology of the mountain, a volcanic structure 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is more complicated than anticipated, he said, and the chemical reactions that would occur in the repository are not clear. But since Congress chose the site and the department has spent billions of dollars on the program, finding that it is not suitable "would present an enormous political problem." The board has been arguing that corrosion might be more likely because of the department's plan to space the waste canisters close together, so that heat given off by the waste would boil water. That would keep the canisters dry in the early years, but scientists disagree about what would happen as the wastes cooled. But Michael D. Voegele, the chief science officer for the project, said that building a larger repository, so that the wastes could be spaced farther apart, could add $15 billion to the cost, would raise the risk of an accident during construction, and would raise worker exposure to radiation. And a cooler repository would have a different set of risks, he said, no smaller than the current design. "It's very obvious to ask, is the reason we are staying with the design, we've got the need to meet those schedules," Dr. Voegele said. "The answer is no." Dr. Craig, the eight-year member of the board, compared the Energy Department to NASA, and said that the flaws in the space agency that came to light after the shuttle crash last year were similar to the Energy Department's. Both agencies, he said, were hard at work on technically complicated, first-of-a-kind projects, with financing problems and high expectations by outsiders for on-time delivery. But Dr. Voegele rejected the comparison, and he said the nuclear waste repository was mostly a passive structure, and could be changed as time went on. "This isn't something we've shot into space and can't get back," he said. One supporter, Steven P. Kraft of the Nuclear Energy Institute, the trade association of the nuclear utilities, said that the belief that the design could not change as the years went by, even after the first wastes were loaded into mountain tunnels, was like "suggesting that the automobile you'll drive today is the automobile your kids will drive 50 years from now." Simple changes like adjusting the ventilation of the tunnel could compensate if problems were found in the first few decades, he said. "If they were so schedule-driven," he said, "we'd be moving fuel by now, and we're not." ***************************************************************** 29 Scotsman: Einstein's monster is a real blast 6/13/04 Andrew Crumey THE BOMB: A LIFE Gerard DeGroot Jonathan Cape, œ18.99 ON AN August morning in 1945, an 11-year-old Japanese boy was swimming in a river with his schoolmates. He dived down to the riverbed, and when he surfaced, the whole world had changed. "There were bodies of his friends on the riverbank, and beyond them he saw that all the houses had been knocked down. What had been a beautiful city a moment before was now a wasteland." The city was Nagasaki, where the world's second atomic bomb had just exploded, killing 40,000 people in a flash. Gerard DeGroot's superb `biography' of mankind's most terrible weapons does something that has rarely, if ever, been attempted. Bringing together the scientific, political, cultural and historical threads, he looks at the Manhattan Project and its rivals in Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia; and he widens the net to take in the efforts of Britain, France and other members - official or not - of the nuclear club. Ranging from atomic physics to rock'n'roll, the result is a book that is pacey, readable and enormously wide-ranging. There is also a good deal of black humour - something that comes naturally to anyone who can remember Protect and Survive, the government pamphlet pushed through every British letterbox in 1980, which advised citizens that in case of impending nuclear war, they should paint their windows white and hide under a table. The same sinister naivety afflicted propaganda films. One, called This Little Ship, is described by DeGroot as being "as if Thomas the Tank Engine had been written by Edward Teller." Teller, the "high priest" of thermonuclear weapons, looms large in any account of the subject. A brilliant physicist, he fled Hungary for the United States, where he was instrumental in getting Einstein to sign the letter that set the Manhattan Project rolling. Often described as the real-life model for Dr Strangelove, Teller perfectly illustrates the capacity of nuclear weapons to render intelligent, rational people barking mad. Seeking alternative uses for bombs in a post-war world that had gone off the idea of killing people, Teller was among those who foresaw nuclear locomotives or even bomb-powered spaceships. A big hole in Nevada is all that remains of his scheme to blast out lakes and canals. The obvious drawback - lethal radiation - worried him little. In an interview towards the end of his life, Teller maintained that a little radiation could even be good for you. The same inverted logic runs through other episodes DeGroot discusses. This was how it all started - Allied physicists such as Robert Oppenheimer and Enrico Fermi didn't want to make bombs, but feared they had to have one before Hitler. At the same time, the German bomb master Werner Heisenberg was saying the same thing (or so he later claimed). Equally, the Soviet bomb programme was made necessary by the US's position in 1945 as the world's only nuclear superpower. Andrei Sakharov applied his genius to making a hydrogen bomb, only to plead that it would never be used. One feels sympathy for the Soviet bomb makers, given that their boss was Lavrenti Beria, a psychopathic murderer who believed in dealing with insubordination using bullets, but who, in handling some of the world's finest scientists, gave way to Stalin's advice - "Leave them be, we can always shoot them later." Even so, Sakharov's own remarks, quoted by DeGroot, show he and his comrades, just like their Western counterparts, positively enjoyed the big bangs they made. It was only when a nuclear test claimed the life of a civilian that Sakharov seems to have had his first qualms. He felt "an irrational yet very strong emotional impact", asking: "How not to start thinking of one's responsibility at this point?" Why were these brilliant minds unable to do their thinking a little sooner? In America, Hans Bethe worked on the hydrogen bomb while simultaneously writing articles denouncing the whole idea. If people of such intelligence could be flummoxed, one can hardly blame politicians for spiralling into similarly self-defeating circles of intellectual sophistry. Indeed, one almost admires Harry Truman, who emerges from DeGroot's account as a man untouched by any moral doubts. When Oppenheimer came into his office pleading: "I've got blood on my hands," Truman told him: "It'll wash off," and gave him a handkerchief, afterwards insisting the "cry baby" be kept away. Truman's justification of the Hiroshima bomb is still repeated to this day: it saved countless American and Japanese lives that would have been lost in a land invasion. Truman also at first described Hiroshima as a "military base", which it evidently was not. The city was only chosen because it was largely untouched by bombing raids because it was of little military significance. Nagasaki got picked because bad weather rendered the first choice unavailable, and the crew didn't want to take their bomb all the way home again. For this reason, the 11-year-old swimmer saw his world destroyed. When it comes to nuclear madness, though, it is hard to beat the crassness of the pop-culture spin-offs that DeGroot describes, such as the mushroom-cloud shaped "atomic earrings" that went on sale after Hiroshima. Bars and motels across America took to calling themselves "Atomic", and an unfortunate child was even named Atomic Victory. Four days after the first nuclear test on Bikini Island, a new swimsuit appeared in honour of the event - and is still being worn. Among many Hollywood examples, the most sobering DeGroot cites is an epic about Genghis Khan, filmed in the Utah desert 150 miles from the test site of a bomb called "Dirty Harry" on account of its high radiation. Of the 220 people working on the film, 91 subsequently developed cancer - the stars John Wayne and Susan Hayward both died of it. Other causes (such as smoking) no doubt played a role, but as DeGroot says, "it does make you think". And that, above all, is what his excellent book does, putting the whole nuclear history into a human context, and reminding us of the countless thousands of lives that have been silently damaged by it. This is a book that really makes you think, as well as being hugely entertaining. I have read many books about different aspects of this enormous subject, but none that brings the diverse pieces together so well, in such an absorbing and truly masterly way. Andrew Crumey's latest book is Mobius Dick ***************************************************************** 30 New York Times: Capturing the Rosenbergs Associated Press Three days before the Rosenbergs were executed, their lawyer, Emanuel H. Bloch, left Sing Sing with their sons, Michael, 10, and Robbie, 6. By SAM ROBERTS Published: June 13, 2004 [A]  HALF CENTURY after the Rosenbergs were executed as atom spies, there's really only one nagging question left about the case: Why did two seemingly ordinary people from Manhattan's Lower East Side sacrifice their lives for a distant cause when it meant orphaning the two young sons they claimed to love? What did they die for? "Heir to an Execution: A Granddaughter's Story," Ivy Meeropol's sometimes teary 99-minute documentary film about her grandparents, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, provides some answers. While still unsatisfying, they may be as definitive as we're ever going to get. (The film has its television premiere tomorrow night at 8 on HBO.) Despite portentous newsreel narration and archival footage that morphs into modern characters and locales, "Heir to an Execution" isn't really journalism or historical documentary. Instead, it's a "Capturing the Friedmans"-style home movie: Reclaiming the Rosenbergs. Like "Capturing the Friedmans," the film refuses to issue a definitive judgment about the legal guilt or innocence of the accused. Instead, it generally gives the Rosenbergs the benefit of the doubt, by dwelling on their unalloyed idealism. It does so less, though, than defenders of the Rosenbergs who for decades invoked largely tangential questions to justify their shrinking claim of innocence (it's now narrowed to "Julius did not steal the secret to the atomic bomb") or to suggest dismissively that he was a hapless victim of a witch hunt. Hapless? As Ms. Meeropol and her cousin Rachel, a daughter of the Rosenberg's younger son, Robert, visit the courtroom where the couple was tried, Rachel, a civil liberties lawyer, remarks: "I can't really imagine anyone in our family being a completely hapless victim." I asked Ms. Meeropol over coffee last week whether the on-camera revelations of Abe Osheroff — a friend (though he refers to Julius as a "drip-nose") and to this day a Rosenberg defender, but one who boasts that Julius provided the Soviets with vital specifications of an airplane propeller — persuaded her that, indeed, Julius had been a Soviet spy. She replied with the circumspection of a hostile witness. "If he did it," she replied, "I would say, yes, that's a spy." Let's stipulate that he did not steal the secret to the atomic bomb. Was he still an atom spy? "I have accepted the ambiguities," Ms. Meeropol replied. Forget the ambiguities, I said. Assume that he conspired to deliver even inconsequential classified information about nuclear weapons research, would that define him as an atomic spy? "I could accept that that could be true," she said. Veronica Ethel Meeropol (Ivy was derived from Hi, "V") wasn't even a teenager when her father, Michael, and her uncle Robbie, who used their adoptive name, revealed publicly that they were the sons of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. While she was mostly shielded from publicity while growing up in western Massachusetts, by the time she enrolled at Sarah Lawrence College, and later when she was mobbed in Florida by elderly constituents of the Democratic congressman she wrote speeches for, she had been elevated into what she dubbed a "bizarre royalty" — descendants of the best-known martyrs of a movement spawned when capitalism appeared to have failed many Americans and communism, embodied by the Soviet Union, commanded a utopian appeal. "You had to be dead from the neck up not to be radical," Miriam Moskowitz, a defendant at a dress rehearsal for the Rosenberg trial, recalls in the film. (Unfortunately, while the film explains the motivation for radicalism, it doesn't give equal context for the government's over-reaction to the radicals. Paranoia about atomic warfare, coupled with blanket denials by pro-Soviet apologists that any communists were subversive, fueled McCarthyism — a noun that the senator himself is seen defining with beguiling disingenuousness as "calling a man a communist who is later proven to be one"). Ms. Meeropol, who is 35 and married to a film production designer and lives in the Park Slope section of Brooklyn, bravely pursued the documentary despite the resistance of relatives who even now refused to be interviewed (one cousin, a software designer in California, apologizes on camera because the family abandoned Michael and Robbie after their parents were imprisoned) and despite the reluctance of potential producers, at least one of whom expressed concern about further inciting anti-Semitism. (Sheila Nevins, the HBO executive producer, was supportive; when she was a child, she carried a placard at a rally in Union Square that pleaded: "Please Don't Kill the Rosenbergs.") The film offers few factual revelations (Michael acknowledges that the letter he wrote to President Eisenhower appealing for clemency was copied from someone's typed script) and a few flashes of irony. The Rosenbergs lived in Building G at Knickerbocker Village in apartment 11E (when Michael and Robbie visit, it's home to three generations of immigrant Chinese); Ethel referred to the apartment as "General Electric," which happened to have helped make the electric chair. The Rosenbergs' endearing fellow defendant, Morton Sobell, his gray hair pulled tightly into a ponytail, recalls that Michael Meeropol, reflecting the family's ambivalence about the impact of any new evidence on what it wants to believe, had asked him more than once, "Do you know something I don't know?" "Do you?" Ms. Meeropol presses gently. Mr. Sobell, who served nearly 19 years in prison, laughs evasively, (but, as if for the record, states: "I have no private knowledge"). Then, whatever he knows privately, he reiterates his public doubts: "People ask me was he innocent and you know as much as I do." Ms. Meeropol grew up believing the Rosenbergs were completely innocent, but had doubts even before she interviewed Mr. Osheroff. Her film might be even more powerful, if less tearful, were certain now generally established facts stipulated up front: Julius Rosenberg was a spy. He delivered valuable military and industrial secrets to the Soviets, mostly when they were our World War II allies. He recruited his brother-in-law, David Greenglass, an army machinist at Los Alamos, to gather classified information about the atomic bomb. That the Soviets had already stolen those secrets from other sources and that it was relatively minor (though confirmatory) would not have mitigated the Rosenbergs' legal guilt because they were charged with conspiracy to commit espionage. Still, the government framed a guilty man. It also cynically prosecuted Ethel on flimsy evidence to bludgeon the couple into confessing and implicating other Soviet agents. To justify the death penalty, not as punishment but as the ultimate weapon to win their cooperation, the government grossly exaggerated their offense - claiming the couple had stolen the secret to the atomic bomb. Ms. Meeropol might have learned more if she had confronted her great-uncle, David Greenglass, Ethel's brother, who lives under an assumed name and whose most incriminating testimony - false testimony, he admitted to me when I interviewed him for a book about the case - doomed the Rosenbergs to the electric chair. "What I would have wanted from him was some sign of remorse," she says. Instead she proceeds down Mr. Greenglass's suburban block, pauses briefly in front of his house, and then drives off. "I grew up with him representing the ultimate evil," she explains. "I say in the film I'm letting go of that. I didn't go after him, not because I sympathize with him but I do see him as another victim." Still, when Ms. Meeropol asks rhetorically in the film, "I wonder if his neighbors know," you can't help but suspect that she is making sure that they do. "Maybe," she told me, "that's my own little revenge." It is jarring to be reminded that the Rosenbergs were in their 30's - about Ms. Meeropol's age - when they were executed and, like Mr. Greenglass and his wife, Ruth, were only in their 20's when most of the spying took place. Also, that if they were alive today they would be grandparents and that some of the same policies they challenged still resonate. "If he was trying to shore up the Soviet Union to ensure the United States wasn't the only superpower who held the potentially devastating secret," Ms. Meeropol said, "then they - and I say they because she was not the na‹ve housewife and mother, she would have known and believed in it too - they probably believed they were saving humanity from the destructive force of a single American superpower, and their fears have come true. The notion that if you criticize your government you're a traitor is also very similar." Advertisement Ms. Meeropol says she started off hoping to raise more questions than she could answer. She succeeded. She doesn't quite address how Julius could have been such a loving father and doting husband and still have placed his family in such jeopardy. But she does help answer that one bedeviling question: why her grandparents were willing to sacrifice themselves and abandon their children to strangers. "I absolutely think they thought it was a gamble," Ms. Meeropol said, "that my dad and Robbie would be O.K., and that we as a family would somehow understand their actions. I do, I didn't before, but when you see how we live in our family, compared to how the Greenglasses live, in shame and fear of being exposed . . . I think they died because they believed that would be a greater legacy to leave for all of us than if they named names. I don't think they died for communism, even necessarily to make some kind of statement. It was a simple equation: they couldn't do anything else." Abe Osheroff says their refusal to cooperate was a form of bonding, and adds, apparently without irony: "They became loyal comrades in the deepest sense of the word." Michael Meeropol goes even further, telling his daughter: "Think of your grandmother. She would have had to repudiate her marriage, basically, testify against her own husband. She would have then had to live her entire life bringing up Robbie and me having testified against our own father. She would know that someday as we got to be adults we would hate her for it." Imagine if Julius had confessed and spent 10 years in prison, Ethel had gone free and then the family had been secreted in a witness protection program. "If your grandfather had been another David Greenglass and your grandmother had been another Ruth Greenglass," Michael says, "I have to say I'm happy I didn't lead that life." Ms. Meeropol says that while most Rosenberg descendants remain ashamed of their heritage, she is proud of her grandparents: "Yeah, I am, for being incredibly strong in the face of death. If they were `spying' I believe they were doing it out of great love for humanity. There was nothing cynical, nothing motivated by self-interest. I can look now from our vantage point and say maybe they were myopic, but I wish I had some of their idealism." Suppose she could ask them one question today, what would it have been? Ms. Meeropol paused. "Was it worth it?" What does she think their answer would be? "I think," she said, "it would probably be yes." Sam Roberts, an editor at The Times, is the author of "The Brother: The Untold Story of the Rosenberg Case." Try The New York Times ***************************************************************** 31 CS Monitor: Nuclear-weapons challenges rise | csmonitor.com 06/14/2004 from the June 14, 2004 edition DIFFICULT CLEANUP: Workers on the Hanford Nuclear Reservation near Richland, Wash., enter an area known to have hazardous vapors. The Senate voted to allow the Energy Department to reclassify the waste so it can remain there. Some containers are leaking. JACKIE JOHNSTON/AP Bush and Pentagon call for new kinds of nukes - and a missile defense system - as bombs' toxic legacy lingers. By Brad Knickerbocker | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor At a time when all eyes are on fighting what the Pentagon calls the "Global War on Terrorism," the United States is having to address the past, present, and future of nuclear conflict. " Sixty years after the Manhattan Project produced the first and only atomic bombs ever dropped on an enemy, the US continues to struggle with how to permanently dispose of the radioactive and chemical byproducts of its cold-war weapons of mass destruction. The Senate recently voted to allow the Energy Department to reclassify such waste so that it could stay in place, even though some of it is leaking into the air and ground water. " As the nature of warfare changes, the Bush administration is considering new kinds of nuclear bombs. These include smaller "tactical nukes" meant to pack a bigger punch than any conventional weapon, as well as "bunker busters" designed to penetrate an enemy's deep command and weapons-storage sites. " And in case Russia, North Korea, or some other nuclear power should fire missiles at the US, the administration is pushing ahead on ground-based systems to try to knock down incoming warheads. Some experts see signs that space-based missile defenses - of the type envisioned in former President Reagan's "star wars" initiative 20 years ago - may be in the works as well. All of this is highly controversial and very expensive. Defending against missile attack Last month, 31 former government officials urged the Bush administration to delay the national missile-defense deployment scheduled for later this year. Interceptor missiles are to be deployed in Alaska and California. These former senior defense and arms-control officials, representing every administration since Dwight Eisenhower's, say the Bush program is "missing major components." "This is like rolling out a new automobile that is missing tires, steering wheel, and brakes and hasn't been tested on the open road," says Philip Coyle, former Pentagon chief of operational test and evaluation. In his first year as president, Mr. Bush unilaterally withdrew the United States from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, which had been designed to preserve the longstanding regime of "mutual assured destruction" by denying either the US or the former Soviet Union the ability to launch a first strike and survive. Like Mr. Reagan, Bush and other critics of the ABM Treaty believe the US should be able to defend itself not only from Russian missiles but from those launched by North Korea or other "rogue states." Critics point to more likely threats not addressed by ballistic missile defenses: low-flying cruise missiles or "dirty bombs" filled with smuggled radioactive material. Still, many see deployment of missile defenses as logical if not required for national security. "The threat has changed since the cold war," says military analyst Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute. "There are more countries with ballistic missiles, and their behavior is less predictable." Nukes that go smaller, deeper This same concern about a more complicated and more dangerous world also drives the administration's desire to accelerate research on nuclear weapons designed for 21st-century threats. "Nuclear attack options that vary in scale, scope, and purpose will complement other military capabilities [to deter] adversaries whose values and calculations of risk ... may be very different from and more difficult to discern than those of past adversaries," states the Pentagon's most recent Nuclear Posture Review. That range of options is reflected in the Defense Authorization Bill now being considered by the Senate. It includes $27.6 million for the development of the 100-kiloton bunker buster and $9 million for new "low yield" weapons (less than 5 kilotons, or about one-third the size of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima). The programs don't cost much, in Pentagon terms. But much is scheduled to be spent in coming years. And, coupled with Bush's attack-first approach to dealing with perceived enemies, a modernized nuclear arsenal raises alarms. "I am deeply concerned that this administration may well be encouraging the very nuclear proliferation we seek to prevent - through its policy of preemption combined with the pursuit of new nuclear weapons," says Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D) of California. A House subcommittee last week refused to provide money for a bunker buster, a low-yield nuke, and for a new plant to produce plutonium triggers for the warheads. The spending is also under attack in the Senate, as Senators Feinstein and Edward Kennedy (D) of Massachusetts seek this week to eliminate this year's funding for next-generation nukes. Reclassifying weapons-site waste Meanwhile, dealing with the oldest generation of nuclear weapons remains a serious problem. In South Carolina, Idaho, and Washington State, nuclear waste - some of it highly radioactive - has been stored for decades, waiting for a more permanent solution. In Washington, some of those buried storage tanks at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation have begun leaking, sending their toxic brew of radioactivity and chemicals used to produce plutonium into the ground water that flows into the nearby Columbia River. A federal judge has ruled that under the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act, the US Department of Energy (which oversees nuclear weapons programs) must dispose of high-level radioactive waste in deep underground vaults beneath Yucca Mountain, Nev. But as part of a defense authorization bill, the Senate recently voted to allow the Energy Department to reclassify sludge in some tanks so that it can stay in place. Safely turning it into a grout-like substance, proponents argue, could save billions of dollars. Sen. Maria Cantwell (D) of Washington tried to amend the bill to remove that provision, but lost on a tie vote. She vows to keep fighting. "There are 50 million gallons of radioactive waste at Hanford and I want it cleaned up," Senator Cantwell says. www.csmonitor.com | Copyright © 2004 The Christian Science Monitor. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 32 Google News Alert - nuclear Date: Sat, 12 Jun 2004 12:20:43 -0700 (PDT) IRAN Rejects New Demands To Curb Nuclear Program Radio Free Europe - Prague,Czech Republic 12 June 2004 -- Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi said today that Iran has rejected new international demands to curb its nuclear program. ... See all stories on this topic: DUBAI Indian 'sold' nuclear tips, held Mid-Day Mumbai - Bombay,India Dubai: A 35-year-old Indian businessman has been arrested by Dubai police for allegedly trying to sell secrets of Indian nuclear development programme obtained ... See all stories on this topic: US Nuclear Policies Belie Peaceful Goals Los Angeles Times (subscription) - Los Angeles,CA,USA Re "We Need a Global Attack on Nuclear Proliferation," Commentary, June 7: Thank you, Madeleine Albright and Robin Cook, for concisely outlining the crucial ... See all stories on this topic: WORLD News > US company fined for selling nuclear tech component ... New Kerala - Ernakulam,Kerala,India An American company has been fined 300,000 dollars for exporting a nuclear technology component to Bhaba Atomic Research Centre (BARC) after the US had imposed ... See all stories on this topic: DECADES-OLD nuclear weapons dismantling plant draws mixed review Fort Worth Star Telegram (subscription) - Fort Worth,TX,USA ... technicians work with radioactive and explosive materials around the clock at the 25-square-mile Pantex complex - the nation's only nuclear weapons assembly ... See all stories on this topic: US, China share concern on Korean nuclear arms Daily Times - Pakistan ... They talked about Taiwan, trade and North Korea’s weapons programmes and agreed that they had shared concerns about nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula ... See all stories on this topic: IRAN terms UN nuclear watchdog pressure 'unacceptable Financial Express.bd - Bangladesh TEHRAN, June 12 (AFP): Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi complained Saturday that ongoing pressure from the UN nuclear watchdog was "unacceptable", and ... IRAN rejects new nuclear commitments Washington Times - Washington,DC,USA 12 (UPI) -- Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi said Saturday his country will not make any new commitment regarding its nuclear program. ... EU FMs To Discuss Iran's Nuclear Program Merh News Agency - Tehran,Iran BRUSSELS (MNA) -- Iran's nuclear program will once again be on the EU Foreign Ministers Council agenda when it meets in Luxembourg on Monday. ... This daily-once News Alert is brought to you by Google News (BETA)... - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Remove this News Alert: http://www.google.com/newsalerts/remove?s=92d1672a1b037a07&hl=en Create another News Alert: http://www.google.com/newsalerts?hl=en Try Google News: http://news.google.com/ ***************************************************************** 33 Google News Alert - nuclear Date: Sun, 13 Jun 2004 13:12:42 -0700 (PDT) IRAN'S Growing Nuclear Threat Men's News Daily - Guerneville,CA,USA For years, the Iranian government has been playing games with the world about its nuclear program, claiming that they were only interested in peaceful nuclear ... See all stories on this topic: TEXAS A&M part of team vying for nuclear laboratory contract News 24 Houston - Houston,TX,USA ... AP) -- The Texas A&M University System and a team of corporations are vying for a multibillion dollar contract to run a new national nuclear laboratory in Idaho ... See all stories on this topic: N Korea defies G8 nuclear appeal BBC News - London,England,UK North Korea has replied defiantly to a new international call to dismantle any nuclear weapons-related programmes. State media criticised ... See all stories on this topic: PAK-INDIA nuclear CBMs talks on Saturday PakTribune.com - Pakistan ... Islamabad of its commitment to the bilateral peace process, India and Pakistan are all set to hold the expert level dialogue on nuclear confidence building ... See all stories on this topic: INDIAN accused of trying to sell nuclear secrets in UAE Jerusalem Post - Jerusalem,Israel ... interrogated an Indian businessman on Sunday after he was extradited from the United Arab Emirates amid suspicions that he tried to sell nuclear secrets, a ... See all stories on this topic: INDIA questions alleged nuclear secrets salesman ABC Online - Australia Immigration authorities at Bombay's international airport have detained an Indian man suspected of leaking nuclear secrets to countries in the Middle East, a ... See all stories on this topic: SHYAM Saran optimistic about peace with Pakistan Webindia123.com - India Top officials of the arch-rivals are to meet in New Delhi next weekend for two-day talks on nuclear issues and Confidence Building Measures (CBMs). ... DISCUSSION of Nuclear Weapons No Longer Taboo in Japan Chosun Ilbo - South Korea Japan, as the first and only nation to be the target of wartime atomic weapons, has long had what is called a "nuclear allergy." The country has vowed never to ... INDIA News > Nuclear issues, Kashmir figured in Dixit-Aziz lunch ... New Kerala - Ernakulam,Kerala,India A broad range of ideas, on Kashmir to nuclear confidence building measures, figured in the unpublicised meeting that India's National Security Adviser JN Dixit ... See all stories on this topic: IRAN says UN nuclear watchdog pressure ``unacceptable'' Utusan Malaysia Online - Malaysia TEHERAN June 12 - Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi complained on Saturday that ongoing pressure from the UN nuclear watchdog was ``unacceptable'', and ... 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