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Send News Stories to news@energy-net.org with title on subject
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                         NUCLEAR POLICY
 
1 Guardian Unlimited: Iraq cash may be lost, says Weir
2 Guardian Unlimited: N. Korea Nukes May Not Be Resolved Soon
3 Korea Herald: Seoul expects little progress at nuke talks   
4 Korea Herald: Seoul official expects little progress at nuke talks  
5 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: Fourth Round of N. Korea Talks in Doubt  
6 KoreaTimes : Nuke Deal Unlikely Before US Poll 
7 AFP: Japan, SKorea, US to meet ahead of next six-nation nuclear talk
8 US: [du-list] a moral war over weapons
9 US: Guardian Unlimited Poll: Residents OK With Park Protests
10 US:  Capitol Hill Blue: Uncle Sam Hides More and More From Americans
11 US: PittsburghLIVE.com: Firm with deep defense ties coming here - 
12 MoJo: The Lie Factory
13 deepikaglobal: Nuclear research university on cards
14 US: Barnstable Patriot: College is serious about wind energy
15 PIB: India Nuclear development PR statement
16 asahi.com: EDITORIAL: The U.N. Security Council 
 
                         NUCLEAR REACTORS
 
17 Japan Times: Death toll from plant accident hits five
18 Border Mail: The nuclear core promise 
19 US: TheDay.com: NRC Dismisses One Of Coalition's Challenges To Mills
20 US: PL: Safe for use? NRC gives all clear to former nuclear plant si
21 US: PittsburghLIVE.com: NRC says former Parks plant is safe - 
22 PRN: Chernobyl Children More Hyperactive 
23 ThisisLondon: Going nuclear looks the option 
24 Whitehaven News: NUCLEAR POWER 
25 US: NRC: Entergy Operations, Inc.; Notice of Withdrawal of Applicati
26 US: NRC: Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards; Meeting Notice
 
                          NUCLEAR SAFETY
 
27 [du-list] aljazeera DU article
28 US: [du-list] A Scorecard page for you from Elaine Hunter
29 [du-list] Payday's submission to the Public Inquiry into Gulf
30 US: UPI: Little help for nuclear workers' bills - 
31 TIME - Leon Jaroff - : Strange Doings on Tunguska
 
                         NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
 
32 US: [NukeNet] Weapons Grade Plutonium Worries Some Democrats  
33 US: Las Vegas SUN: Plutonium Shipment Plan Worries Lawmakers
34 TCS: Tech Central Station - Kerry's Radioactive Flip-Flop
35 Las Vegas RJ: Kerry campaign wages counterattack to Bush ad on Yucca
36 Bellona: UK gives Murmansk 15 million pounds for spent nuclear fuel 
37 Las Vegas SUN: Another Yucca ad set to air in Nevada
38 FactCheck.org: Yucca Mountain Mudslide: Both Sides Dissemble on 
39 SNS: Bush, Kerry debate range of topics in battleground West
40 TheStar.com: Keep nuclear waste accessible, says report
41 US: Daily Herald: Groups question state's regulations on radium disp
42 Elko Daily Free Press: Citizen Alert plans 
43 US: SFBV: The rabble-rousers
44 US: KATU 2: Landfill may be more dangerous than originally thought 
45 US: KATU 2: Worker Comes Forward About Leaking Landfill 
 
                         NUCLEAR WEAPONS
 
 
                        US DEPT. OF ENERGY
 
46 Tri-City Herald: DOE honors Hanford project 
47 Tri-City Herald: Hastings criticizes Initiative 297 
48 The Daily Californian: Report: Lab Chemicals Threaten Rio Grande - 
49 Rocky Mountain News: Energy contract 'improper'
50 lamonitor.com: LANL takes its bearings 
51 Tri-Valley Herald: Lawrence Lab resumes disk use 
52 lamonitor.com: E-mail encourages LANL to start up 
 
                          OTHER NUCLEAR
 
53 [du-list] DU in the news - 26th Aug. 04
54 Google News Alert - nuclear
55 Las Vegas SUN: Gibbons passed over for post
56 Baltic Times: Uncertain economics of wind energy
*****************************************************************
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                         FULL NEWS STORIES
*****************************************************************
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 1 Guardian Unlimited: Iraq cash may be lost, says Weir
 
[UP] 

Terry Macalister
Thursday August 26, 2004
The Guardian [http://www.guardian.co.uk]  		
 		
Weir Group, the blue chip engineer at the centre of an Iraqi 
kickback scandal, said yesterday it might never trace Ł4.2m worth 
of "irregular" payments which may have ended up in the hands of 
Saddam Hussein. 

But chief executive Mark Selway insisted his business was 
unaffected by the problems, which knocked Ł35m off its share 
price when they were first confirmed. 

"The investigation continues and we have not yet determined where 
the cash ended up. We may never find out because it's all very 
murky," Mr Selway said. 

The Guardian reported in May that Weir's name appeared in an 
investigation in the United States into illegal payments under 
the oil for food programme. 

The scheme was set up by the United Nations but some contracts 
were renegotiated after Saddam was toppled, because the UN deemed 
"after-sales service fees" imposed by Weir and others were in 
reality kickbacks. 

Weir initially denied any connection with the controversy but 
last month the company admitted it had been involved and 
apologised. 

The Glasgow-based pumps and valves specialist, which counts 
former Nato secretary-general Lord Robertson as a board member, 
blamed a local agent for taking extra money from its Wesco Dubai 
business. Weir admitted this money might have found its way back 
to Iraq. 

Law firm Herbert Smith was brought in to review the case and 
confirmed 15 contracts had been tainted. 

Mr Selway said its customers had been very supportive and had 
appreciated that Weir had owned up "quickly and honestly" to 
these problems. 

There had been no impact on its financial performance so far and 
the company did not expect any in future. 

Mr Selway would not comment on whether any staff members had been 
disciplined or dismissed for legal reasons. 

Iraq contracts provided Ł6.9m worth of company revenues in the 
first half of the financial year and should provide a similar 
amount during the next six months. 

Interim group turnover was down by Ł2m to Ł392.4m, while 
underlying pre-tax profits came in at Ł24.6m, up by a mere Ł1m 
from 12 months earlier, it reported yesterday. 

Shares in the company dropped 2% to 273p, with analysts at Credit 
Suisse First Boston describing the financial results as "a little 
disappointing" and Deutsche Bank urging investors to sell. 

But Weir was upbeat, pointing to a 25% increase in its total 
order book, with particular opportunities recently emerging in 
China. 

The group said it was benefiting from increased spending by the 
oil companies as a result of the high world crude prices. 

Weir is also hopeful that the nuclear industry is taking off 
again following a contract win for a new reactor in Finland. The 
company is also building up its expertise in the renewables 
sector. 
	
Special report Iraq

Chronology Iraq timeline: Feb 1 2004 - present 
[http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/page/0,12438,1151021,00.html] 
Iraq timeline: July 16 1979 - Jan 31 2004 
[http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/page/0,12438,793802,00.html] 

Interactive guides
Click-through graphics on Iraq

Key documents
Full text of speeches and documents

Audio reports
Audio reports on Iraq

More special reports
Politics and the war
Aid for Iraq
Iraq - the media war
The anti-war movement
28.01.2003: Guide to anti-war websites

Useful links
Provisional authority: rebuilding Iraq
[http://www.rebuilding-iraq.net/] 
Iraqi-American chamber of commerce
[http://www.i-acci.org/main.shtml] 
cnn.com: David Kay's evidence to US Senate committee
[http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/01/28/kay.transcript/] 

[UP] 

Guardian Unlimited Š Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004
*****************************************************************
 2 Guardian Unlimited: N. Korea Nukes May Not Be Resolved Soon
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

Thursday August 26, 2004 1:46 PM

AP Photo SEL101 

By BURT HERMAN 

Associated Press Writer 

PANMUNJOM, Korea (AP) - Chirping birds no longer compete for 
attention with speakers blaring North Korean propaganda across 
its border with South Korea, and the view across the verdant 
landscape of the Demilitarized Zone is now uninterrupted by 
billboards that once boasted ``Our General is No. 1!'' 

But despite the recent concessions at the world's last Cold War 
frontier, the communist nation's war of words with the United 
States has heated up - and is casting doubt on a resolution of 
the nuclear crisis on the divided peninsula before the November 
U.S. elections. 

North Korea this week called President Bush a ``political 
imbecile'' after he referred to the North's leader Kim Jong Il as 
a ``tyrant.'' It also compared the American leader to Adolf 
Hitler for launching wars in Iraq and elsewhere. 

Bush spokesman Scott McClellan said Tuesday the comments were 
``more bluster'' and that the five countries in talks with 
Pyongyang on its nuclear program ``are sending a clear message'' 
that it should give up those ambitions in exchange for benefits 
dangled by the international community. 

North Korea is seeking energy aid, lifting of economic sanctions 
and removal from Washington's list of state sponsors of 
terrorism. 

North Korea has also blasted joint U.S.-South Korean military 
exercises now in progress, with the state-run Rodong Sinmun 
newspaper commenting Wednesday that ``the U.S. is performing 
dangerous rope-dancing which may drive the Korean peninsula into 
a war crisis in a moment.'' 

There have been three rounds of nuclear talks - which include 
representatives from China, Japan, Russia and South Korea - but 
so far no breakthroughs. The next meeting was set to take place 
by the end of September, but North Korea threw those plans into 
doubt last week by saying it won't attend working talks to 
prepare for the larger negotiations. 

South Korea's main negotiator on the nuclear issue, Deputy 
Foreign Minister Lee Soo-hyuck, conceded Thursday that no 
resolution to the issue was likely before the U.S. elections. 

``I don't think the situation will enable the U.S. to reach an 
agreement one month before the U.S. elections, and North Korea is 
also likely to want to see the outcome of the elections,'' Lee 
said after returning from a visit to China, according to South 
Korea's Yonhap news agency. 

Many analysts believe the North has no interest in continuing 
negotiations with the Bush administration and is waiting for 
concessions it thinks it would get if his Democratic opponent 
John Kerry wins the November vote. The North has denied that it's 
stalling on the talks. 

``There is little benefit for North Korea to make much effort for 
September's six-party talks since the result of the talks could 
change if the U.S. administration changes,'' said Cheong 
Seong-chang, a research fellow at Sejong Institute, a Seoul think 
tank. 

The United States wants North Korea to fully disclose its nuclear 
program and allow international inspections before granting any 
concessions. 

Further increasing tension, the U.S. House angered Pyongyang last 
month when it passed the North Korean Human Rights Act, which 
provides $124 million a year from 2005-2008 for humanitarian aid 
along with grants to promote democracy and increase the 
availability of information inside the isolated country. The bill 
is now being considered by the Senate. 

The North views that bill as seeking to weaken its regime, Cheong 
said. ``So it will be extremely hard for us to expect a positive 
result from the six-party talks,'' he said. 

The intense diplomacy doesn't mean things have heated up at the 
DMZ, where the billboards and speakers were removed in June under 
an agreement for both sides to dismantle propaganda aimed at 
enticing the other side's soldiers to defect. 

Now, the remaining speakers on the North Korean side are used to 
play music to workers there, said U.S. Army Capt. Ryan Roberts, 
personnel chief for troops in the Joint Security Area, or JSA - 
the only place on the border where North and South Korean troops 
stand nearly face-to-face. 

Almost all the Americans stationed here are to withdraw by 
October, and will make up just 7 percent of the some 600 troops 
in the JSA, although a U.S. officer will remain in command. The 
move is part of planned reductions of U.S. forces across South 
Korea to about 24,500 from previous deployment of 37,000 under a 
worldwide realignment of American troops. 

Those plans have raised concern in South Korea about its 
security, and Seoul has asked Washington to delay the moves and 
leave certain weapons behind including rocket launchers and 
Apache attack helicopters. 

Roberts said the U.S. forces are now training Korean troops to 
make sure they're up to the task of protecting the JSA on their 
own. The forces there are the South Korean military's elite and 
at least 80 percent have black belts in tae kwon do. 

``The Korean army can handle it themselves,'' Roberts said. ``I 
am confident that they can do the job.''         
  
Guardian Unlimited Š Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004
*****************************************************************
 3 Korea Herald: Seoul expects little progress at nuke talks   
 
2004.08.27
 
By Choi Soung-ah 
        
With a promised deadline to resume the six-nation disarmament 
talks just a month away, a top South Korean official voiced doubt 
yesterday of a breakthrough in the near future.

 Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Soo-hyuck, Seoul's chief negotiator 
to the talks, was bluntly skeptical there would be a concrete 
outcome in the 22-month-old North Korean standoff before the U.S. 
presidential election in November, or even a fourth round of 
talks.

 Speaking at a breakfast seminar a day after returning from a 
visit to China, he said the upcoming U.S. election is expected to 
avert Washington and Pyongyang from making any serious 
concessions for the time being.

 "Political circumstances are moving in a direction that makes it 
difficult to reach an agreement (before the election)," Lee said.


*****************************************************************
 4 Korea Herald: Seoul official expects little progress at nuke talks   
 
2004.08.27
 
By Choi Soung-ah
        
With a promised deadline to resume six-nation disarmament talks 
just a month away, a top South Korean top official voiced doubt 
yesterday of a breakthrough in the near future.

 Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Soo-huck, Seoul's chief negotiator 
to the talks, was bluntly skeptical there would be a concrete 
outcome in the 22-month-old North Korean standoff before the U.S. 
presidential election in November.

 Speaking at a breakfast seminar a day after returning from a 
visit to China, he said the election is expected to inhibit 
Washington and Pyongyang from making any serious concessions for 
the time being.

 "Political circumstances are moving in a direction that makes it 
difficult to reach an agreement (before the election)," Lee said.

 "The U.S. is not in a situation to come to agreement one month 
ahead of the election and the North is also expected to say it 
has to see the outcome of the election," he said.

 The Koreas, the United States, China, Japan and Russia have 
already held three rounds of the six-party talks in Beijing 
without any significant progress.

 At the last round in June, each presented a proposal and agreed 
to meet again before the end of September. They also agreed to 
hold working-level meetings to lay the groundwork for the main 
session.

 But many obstacles have surfaced since then, leading to the 
possibility that the promise to resume the talks next month may 
not be kept.

 Earlier this week, North Korea railed against U.S. President 
George W. Bush, calling him a "tyrant" and an "imbecile" working 
to overthrow Pyongyang behind the smokescreen of the six-way 
talks. 

Harsh invective from North Korea is not new ahead of important 
negotiations but its intensity has cast a gloom over the 
multilateral dialogue. And, many analysts believe the North 
prefers Democratic challenger John Kerry.

 But efforts to set the date for the working-level talks have 
stalled, apparently because of North Korea's unwillingness. There 
is also a spreading view that the communist state wants to bide 
its time until after the U.S. election. 

"We have to work out a direction at the fourth round of talks so 
as not to lose the momentum of the dialogue and based on that, we 
have to prepare for the fifth round of talks," Lee said.

 Lee also said he learned from the six-party talks that it is 
"impossible" to develop a proposal that can satisfy both the 
United States and North Korea. 

Under the current situation, he said, it is necessary to put 
together a proposal that is "unsatisfactory, but irresistible" to 
both sides. 

In Beijing, Lee met China's newly appointed vice minister, Wu 
Dawei, to discuss the six-talks. Wu, a former Chinese ambassador 
to South Korea, handles Asian affairs, including the North's 
nuclear issue. 

Lee is scheduled to visit Tokyo on Friday for similar 
consultations, and meetings with the United States and Russia are 
being scheduled, Seoul officials said. 

The latest nuclear row began in October 2002 after U.S. officials 
said the North had admitted to a covert weapons program in 
violation of the 1994 Pyongyang-Washington agreement on freezing 
the North's nuclear activities.

 (bluelle@heraldm.com)(yonhap)

2004.08.27
 
*****************************************************************
 5 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: Fourth Round of N. Korea Talks in Doubt   
 
      Updated Aug.26,2004 19:10 KST   
 

  Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Soo-hyuk commented on the fourth
round of six-way talks on the North Korean nuclear issue
scheduled late September at the breakfast meeting of the Korea
Chamber of Commerce and Industry on Thursday, Ą°Given political
situations in participating countries, like the upcoming U.S.
elections, it is truly doubtful whether the fourth round of
talks would be held. And even if they were held, it would be
difficult to reach an agreement.Ąą 

Lee also said, Ą°The U.S. will probably think that with its
presidential election one month away, it cannot afford to agree
on the North Korean nuclear issue. North Korea also seems to
think that it had better wait and see the results of the U.S.
election, and that it would not benefit by negotiating with a
crueler tyrant than 'Hitler.'" He added, "The North Korean issue
should be resolved peacefully by giving carrots.Ąą 

(Cho Hyung-rae, hrcho@chosun.com ) 

*****************************************************************
 6 KoreaTimes : Nuke Deal Unlikely Before US Poll 

Hankooki.com > Korea Times > Nation   

By Reuben Staines Staff Reporter

 Seoul's chief negotiator on the North Korean nuclear standoff 
Thursday admitted a resolution to the dispute is unlikely to be 
achieved before the November presidential election in the United 
States. 

``Political circumstances are moving in a direction that makes it 
difficult to reach an agreement (before the election),'' Deputy 
Foreign Affairs Minister Lee Soo-hyuck said during a breakfast 
seminar on the nuclear crisis. 

``The U.S. is not in a situation to come to an agreement one 
month ahead of the election and the North is also expected to say 
it has to see the outcome of the election,'' said Lee, who flies 
to Tokyo today to discuss the issue with Japanese officials. 

His comments are the first acknowledgement by South Korea of an 
apparent stalling in the six-party nuclear talks. Seoul usually 
puts a positive spin on prospects for the negotiations. 

North Korea has repeatedly said in recent weeks that it sees no 
point in resuming the nuclear talks until the U.S. drops what 
Pyongyang sees as a ``hostile policy'' towards it. 

On Monday and Tuesday it launched a barrage of criticism at U.S. 
President George W. Bush, calling him ``human trash'' and a 
``political idiot.'' The insults came after Bush last week 
referred to North Korean leader Kim Jong-il as a ``tyrant.'' 

At the third round of nuclear talks in June, delegates from the 
six participating nations agreed to reconvene in Beijing before 
the end of September. But scheduled working-level discussions to 
prepare for the talks have been delayed as North Korea refuses to 
participate. 

Experts and U.S. officials believe the North is seeking to 
put-off negotiations until after November in the hope that 
Democratic candidate John Kerry will win the election and adopt a 
more flexible approach to the issue. 

Lee said it is important that the six-party process does not 
breakdown, even if substantive progress is not possible until 
after the presidential poll. 

``Under these circumstances, the best thing we can do is to try 
not to lose the momentum of the multilateral dialogue formula,'' 
he said. 

He remained confident that a fourth round of talks will go ahead 
on schedule and hoped it will provide a direction for a 
resolution to the nuclear standoff once the U.S. presidency is 
decided. 

``Though it will be difficult for us to present a proposal that 
satisfies both the U.S. and the North, we'll make our best 
efforts to devise one that neither side can reject.'' 

Lee returned on Wednesday from a visit to China to discuss ways 
to convince Pyongyang to attend the working level talks. Similar 
meetings with U.S. and Russian officials are being arranged for 
after his trip to Japan. 

rjs@koreatimes.co.kr 08-26-2004 17:37         
*****************************************************************
 7 AFP: Japan, SKorea, US to meet ahead of next six-nation nuclear talks
: report

WAR.WIRE<br> [http://www.spacewar.com/] 

TOKYO (AFP) Aug 25, 2004

 Japan, South Korea and the United States will meet here early 
next month to prepare for the next round of six-nation talks on 
North Korea's nuclear drive, an official said in a report 
Wednesday.

The informal meeting will allow the three countries to exchange 
and arrange their views ahead of the Beijing talks in September, 
a senior Japanese foreign ministry said in a Kyodo news agency 
report.

The six-nation talks, which bring together China, the two Koreas, 
Japan, Russia and the United States, are aimed at persuading 
Pyongyang to give up its nuclear programme.


  WAR.WIRE
  
*****************************************************************
 8 [du-list] a moral war over weapons
 
Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2004 15:01:18 -0700

 
<x-flowed>
/*MNNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE*/, August 20, 2004


   Jeremy Iggers: A moral war over weapons

By Jeremy Iggers <>

*First of two parts*

The following news item seemed like good material for
columns about the
ethics of civil disobedience and corporate
responsibility: On July 30,
four peace activists, including Mike Miles, Green
Party candidate for
Congress from Luck, Wis., were arrested for
trespassing at the
headquarters of Alliant Techsystems in Edina. The four
had tried to
make
an appointment to talk to Alliant executives about the
company's role
in
manufacturing weapons that contain depleted uranium,
and were arrested
when they refused to leave.

The visit was necessary, Miles later told me, because
the company
refused to respond to letters or phone calls
requesting a meeting.

Civil disobedience raises interesting ethical issues:
How does breaking
the law in order to express opposition to laws or
policies that one
believes to be morally wrong harm or benefit society?
What ethical
boundaries do people accept when they choose to act
outside the law?

My initial plan was to contact Miles and ask him how
he justified his
act of civil disobedience, and then contact Alliant,
and find out how
they deal with the ethical issues surrounding the
manufacture and sale
of deadly weapons. But, it turns out, Miles doesn't
consider what he
did
to be civil disobedience - at least, not technically;
and second,
Alliant seems to have little interest in discussing
the ethics of
weapons manufacture - with Mike Miles, me or anybody
else.

Miles says that the protesters' actions were justified
under an old
Common Law doctrine called Claim of Right, which says
that actions that
may otherwise be illegal can be justified when they
are necessary to
uphold other laws - in this case, international
treaties governing
weapons of war. Miles says the use of depleted uranium
violates these
treaties.

"We are trying to send an alarm that these weapons are
so dangerous
that
they have to be banned," Miles told me. "They are not
only poisoning
people in the countries where we are trying to help
them, but they are
also poisoning American troops who are using the
weapons, and the use
of
these weapons is poisoning America's reputation around
the world."

Depleted uranium is used to make armor-piercing
munitions that explode,
creating a toxic radioactive dust. The details of the
issue are too
complicated to explore here, but experts disagree
about whether
depleted
uranium munitions pose a significant health hazard.
The Defense
Department says they have found no evidence that
depleted uranium has
caused illness in veterans exposed to it, while
opponents say it is
linked to numerous cases of illness among Gulf War
veterans and to
increased rates of birth defects among Iraqi children.
There does seem
to be widespread agreement for more research.

The evidence may not be conclusive, but even the
possibility that
depleted uranium may be harming civilians and U.S.
troops raises
ethical
issues for companies that produce it. It seems
reasonable to ask what
efforts, if any, Alliant has made to explore the
evidence, and what
ethical standards it sets for itself in deciding what
kinds of
munitions
to produce.

Says Miles: "During the Nuremburg trials, one of the
important things
that came out was that not only were individuals
prosecuted, but German
companies were prosecuted. What Nuremberg established
is that it is not
an excuse to say 'we were just following orders.' IG
Farben was found
guilty because they manufactured [the poisonous gas]
Zyklon B. We
attempted to warn Alliant that somewhere along the
line, you could find
yourself in the same position. Saying we were just
following orders, or
we were just filling a contract is not an excuse."

Miles and his co-defendants will appear in Hennepin
County District
Court on Wednesday. If convicted, they could face a
fine, and/or 90
days
to six months in jail. Previous jury trials in Alliant
trespass cases
have resulted in some convictions and some acquittals.
But in the most
recent jury trial, held in October, a six-member
Hennepin County jury
acquitted 19 defendants of trespassing. They argued
that the
manufacture
and sale of weapons containing depleted uranium is
illegal under
international treaties.

Next week, we will look at how Alliant responded to
the issues that
Mike
Miles and his fellow activists raised.

Staff writer Jeremy Iggers is at:
jiggers@startribune.com
<mailto:jiggers@startribune.com>.



	
	
		
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</x-flowed>
*****************************************************************
 9 Guardian Unlimited Poll: Residents OK With Park Protests
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

Thursday August 26, 2004 11:31 PM

NEW YORK (AP) - Democrats, who outnumber Republicans 5-to-1 among 
registered voters here, want their city to welcome not only 
Republican convention delegates but also the protesters who plan 
to demonstrate against the GOP. A sizable local contingent plans 
to join the marchers. 

Differing with their Republican-controlled city administration, 
71 percent of the city's registered voters think protesters 
should be allowed to demonstrate in Central Park during the 
Republican National Convention. And 11 percent plan to go to a 
demonstration themselves, according to a poll released Thursday. 

A state judge has rejected a bid by the group United for Peace 
and Justice to force the city to allow a rally in the park Sunday 
after a march past Madison Square Garden, the convention site. 
City officials have said such a rally, which could draw 250,000 
people, might damage lawns in the park. 

The Quinnipiac University poll found that most New Yorkers, 81 
percent, approve of lawful demonstrations during the convention, 
and 68 percent approve of nonviolent civil disobedience. Nearly 
all disapprove of violent protests, according to the poll. 

``The city is rolling out the red carpet for the Republican 
delegates, but most New Yorkers would roll out the green carpet 
of Central Park for the anti-Republican demonstrators,'' Maurice 
Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, 
said in a statement. 

``Lawful demonstrations - even nonviolent civil disobedience - 
are a time-honored tradition and still widely supported,'' he 
said. ``But 19 out of 20 New Yorkers draw the line at violence.'' 

Two-thirds think the convention and the protests surrounding it 
will cause major disruptions, but just 10 percent plan to leave 
during the event, the poll said. Half said they were worried 
about the convention being held in the city, and 31 percent said 
they thought a major terrorist attack during the convention is 
``very likely'' or ``somewhat likely.'' 

As for President Bush, the star of the event, 70 percent 
disapproved of the job he is doing, compared with 25 percent who 
approved. 

The poll surveyed 822 New York City registered voters between 
Aug. 20 and Aug. 24 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 
percentage points. 

^--- 

President Bush and John Kerry are engaged in a small-scale 
advertising war in Nevada over a big and divisive statewide 
issue: a planned national nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain. 

Bush approved the repository in Nevada and has been criticized 
for it by Democrats who say he broke his 2000 campaign promise to 
base a decision on whether to approve the site on sound science. 
Republicans say Bush kept his word. 

Kerry has vowed to block burying nuclear waste at the site 90 
miles northwest of Las Vegas. 

But Bush launched a TV ad in the state earlier this week claiming 
that Kerry supported putting the repository at Yucca Mountain and 
voted seven times ``to make it easier to dump waste at Yucca.'' 
It also claimed that Kerry ``tried to speed shipment of nuclear 
waste from Massachusetts to Yucca.'' 

In fact, every time the four-term Massachusetts senator has faced 
the simple choice of voting whether or not to send waste to 
Yucca, Kerry has voted against it. 

Kerry's campaign lashed back with an ad saying that Bush ``went 
back on his word'' after ``promising to keep a nuclear waste dump 
out of Nevada.'' Kerry vows in the ad, ``As president, I will 
oppose turning Nevada into a nuclear dump site. It's wrong. It's 
dangerous. And I will not let it happen.'' 

The Democratic National Committee was responding with an ad there 
as well on the issue. And the liberal MoveOn.org's voter fund has 
run an ad assailing Bush on Yucca Mountain, too. 

^--- 

Associated Press Writer Liz Sidoti contributed to this report. 
  
      Guardian Unlimited Š Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004
*****************************************************************
 10  Capitol Hill Blue: Uncle Sam Hides More and More From Americans
 
  What Price Freedom? 

 By LANCE GAY
 Aug 25, 2004, 22:44
     
Three years after 9/11, the shroud of government secrecy is 
spreading as agencies strip information from their Web sites and 
withhold public information on the grounds it could help 
terrorists. 

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, for instance, announced on its 
Web site this month that it will no longer provide its public 
scorecard of security at U.S. power plants. 

The agency has traditionally withheld details of security 
problems that federal inspectors find during routine inspections 
of power plants. But it used the scorecard every three months to 
provide the public a measurement of how power plants were doing. 
However, the panel decided even that limited information will no 
longer be published. 

"In the post-9/11 environment, we continue to review all 
information," said commission spokesman Scott Burnell. 

Having cable TV problems? Cell phone blacking out? Don't look to 
the Federal Communications Commission for reasons why. 

It voted to withhold from the public any news of communication 
blackouts involving cable TV operators, satellite operators and 
telephone companies on the grounds that such information could 
provide "a road map for terrorists." 

Releasing such information, the FCC said, would "seriously 
undermine national defense and public safety." 

Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge says he is considering 
removing hazardous-material signs from trains and trucks because 
the placards "could help a criminal or a terrorist identify a 
target." In a notice published in the Aug. 16 Federal Register, 
Ridge asked the industry and other interested parties to comment 
on that plan and on other changes in security measures they would 
like to see. 

Steven Aftergood, who monitors government secrecy for the 
American Federation of Scientists, said that taking hazmat signs 
from containers is a particularly silly idea. 

"It's poorly conceived because it places at risk the lives of 
millions of Americans," said Aftergood. The hazardous-material 
signs are there to alert police and firemen to take precautions 
if the trucks or trains are in an accident. 

Congress is considering even more sweeping transportation 
security measures. 

As part of a highway bill now in a House-Senate conference 
committee, lawmakers are pushing Senate-passed language that 
would allow the government to withhold any information from the 
public that would be "detrimental to the security of 
transportation, transportation facilities or infrastructure, or 
transportation employees." 

Karla Garrett Harshaw, president of the American Society of 
Newspaper Editors, says that the provision is so broadly drafted 
it could lead to the withholding of any information on contracts 
involving taxpayer-funded highway projects. 

The Environmental Defense organization protests that the 
Department of Transportation could use the provision to withhold 
information on hazardous-waste spills on the basis that it might 
provide information to terrorists about system vulnerabilities, 
and to restrict information about rail and transportation routes 
for nuclear waste. 

Moves to keep secret more government information come in the wake 
of the report by the 9/11 Commission, which found the government 
already had too much information that was over-classified. The 
Information and Security Oversight Office, an arm of the National 
Archives that oversees government classification programs, 
reported that the classification of government documents is 
increasing. 

In its first two years, the Bush administration made 44.5 million 
decisions to classify material, about the same number made in the 
last four years of President Bill Clinton's term in office. 

A coalition of Washington watchdog groups, led by the Project on 
Government Oversight, said in a new report that government 
over-classification costs taxpayers $6.5 billion a year. Each 
document costs $459 to secure and store. 

"Openness both preserves democracy and saves money," said Richard 
Blum, author of the report, who contends secrecy is often used to 
hide government mistakes and embarrassing information voters are 
entitled to know. 

(Contact Lance Gay at GayLSHNS.com. Distributed by Scripps
Howard News Service,  [http://www.shns.com] ) 
Š Copyright 2004 by Capitol Hill Blue 
*****************************************************************
 11 PittsburghLIVE.com: Firm with deep defense ties coming here - 

Thursday, August 26, 2004   

 [http://www.1800909trib.com/searchzips.php] 		  

 By Michael Yeomans TRIBUNE-REVIEW

What began as a partnership with Carnegie Mellon University last 
spring to build an unmanned Humvee for a race across the Mojave 
Desert has bloomed into the relocation of a division of one of 
the nation's largest defense research contractors to Pittsburgh 
from Denver. 

San Diego-based Science Applications International Corp., a $6.7 
billion employee-owned engineering systems development firm with 
deep ties to the nation's national security and defense 
apparatus, is moving its Center for Intelligent Unmanned Systems 
here. It will employ five people by year's end, with a promise to 
add more personnel in future years based on its success in 
obtaining federal contracts. 

"It became clear to us the business will be much better served in 
the Pittsburgh area," said Senior Vice President Ray O. Johnson 
Wednesday, referring to the robotics program within Carnegie 
Mellon, where it plans to hire three recent graduates -- in 
addition to two people it is relocating from Denver, one of whom 
is a Carnegie Mellon graduate. 

Science Applications' work for the federal government runs a wide 
gamut, and included a controversial contract to operate a 
national television network in Iraq called Al Iraquiya. The 
company's other specialties include developing surveillance 
technology for the National Security Agency and Central 
Intelligence Agency. It has developed data-mining programs for 
intelligence analysts to sort through phone and e-mail 
surveillance. 

It has also had contracts to train federal air marshals and to 
operate the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump in Nevada, 
in addition to building the Olympic Command Center in Salt Lake 
City for the 2002 Winter Olympics. It is currently providing 
security services for the Olympics in Athens, Greece. 

Its other experience in unmanned vehicles includes development of 
the Vigilante unmanned helicopter. 

A company spokesman could not be reached for comment yesterday 
regarding these contracts. 

The Department of Defense has outlined a goal to have nearly a 
third of all military vehicles be unmanned by 2015. The Grand 
Challenge, in which the Carnegie Mellon "Red Team" led by robot 
scientist William "Red" Whittaker outfitted a Humvee with sensor 
and guidance technology developed by Science International, is 
intended to test and validate these technologies. 

Johnson said perfecting these technologies could, for instance, 
allow military supply convoys in hostile territories such as 
Iraq, where supply trucks have come under ambush attacks and face 
threats from improvised explosive devices, to be performed with 
unmanned vehicles. 

The company is working with the Red Team to improve on this 
year's performance and enter another vehicle in the next Grand 
Challenge in October 2005. 

Bill Thomasmeyer, president of the nonprofit Robotics Foundry, 
which is aiming to establish a $1 billion robotics industry in 
Pittsburgh by 2012, said having Scientific International's 
presence will be a boon to fledgling area robotics firms. They 
can tap into its expertise when applying for government grants to 
fund research and development, as well as assistance in 
evaluating market opportunities and providing systems integration 
capabilities that many small firms lack, he said. 

Michael Yeomans can be reached at  [myeomans@tribweb.com] or 
(412) 320-7908. 

Images and text copyright Š 2004 by The Tribune-Review
Publishing Co.
*****************************************************************
 12 MoJo: The Lie Factory

 Mother Jones investigation late last year detailed how, only 
weeks after 9/11, the Bush administration set up a secret 
Pentagon unit to create the case for invading Iraq. Here is the 
inside story of how they pushed disinformation and bogus 
intelligence and led the nation to war. "> + 

  [MotherJones.com] [Mother Jones] [News]   

By Robert Dreyfuss and Jason Vest 
January/February 2004 Issue 

The Intelligence Chain

 How a Pentagon intelligence unit created to build the case for
war against Iraq funneled faulty information up the chain of
command, often all the way to the White House.
 
American Enterprise Institute

It's a crisp fall day in western Virginia, a hundred miles from
Washington, D.C., and a breeze is rustling the red and gold
leaves of the Shenandoah hills. On the weather-beaten wood porch
of a ramshackle 90-year-old farmhouse, at the end of a winding
dirt-and-gravel road, Lt. Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski is perched
on a plastic chair, wearing shorts, a purple sweatshirt, and
muddy sneakers. Two scrawny dogs and a lone cat are on the
prowl, and the air is filled with swarms of ladybugs. 

So far, she says, no investigators have come knocking. Not from
the Central Intelligence Agency, which conducted an internal
inquiry into intelligence on Iraq, not from the congressional
intelligence committees, not from the president's Foreign
Intelligence Advisory Board. All of those bodies are ostensibly
looking into the Bush administration's prewar Iraq intelligence,
amid charges that the White House and the Pentagon exaggerated,
distorted, or just plain lied about Iraq's links to Al Qaeda
terrorists and its possession of nuclear, biological, and
chemical weapons. In her hands, Kwiatkowski holds several pieces
of the puzzle. Yet she, along with a score of other career
officers recently retired or shuffled off to other jobs, has not
been approached by anyone. 

Kwiatkowski, 43, a now-retired Air Force officer who served in
the Pentagon's Near East and South Asia (NESA) unit in the year
before the invasion of Iraq, observed how the Pentagon's Iraq
war-planning unit manufactured scare stories about Iraq's
weapons and ties to terrorists. "It wasn't intelligence -- it
was propaganda," she says. "They'd take a little bit of
intelligence, cherry-pick it, make it sound much more exciting,
usually by taking it out of context, often by juxtaposition of
two pieces of information that don't belong together." It was by
turning such bogus intelligence into talking points for U.S.
officials -- including ominous lines in speeches by President
Bush and Vice President Cheney, along with Secretary of State
Colin Powell's testimony at the U.N. Security Council last
February -- that the administration pushed American public
opinion into supporting an unnecessary war. 

Until now, the story of how the Bush administration produced its
wildly exaggerated estimates of the threat posed by Iraq has
never been revealed in full. But, for the first time, a detailed
investigation by Mother Jones, based on dozens of interviews --
some on the record, some with officials who insisted on
anonymity -- exposes the workings of a secret Pentagon
intelligence unit and of the Defense Department's war-planning
task force, the Office of Special Plans. It's the story of a
close-knit team of ideologues who spent a decade or more
hammering out plans for an attack on Iraq and who used the
events of September 11, 2001, to set it into motion. 

Six months after the end of major combat in Iraq, the United
States had spent $300 million trying to find banned weapons in
Iraq, and President Bush was seeking $600 million more to extend
the search. Not found were Iraq's Scuds and other long-range
missiles, thousands of barrels and tons of anthrax and botulism
stock, sarin and VX nerve agents, mustard gas, biological and
chemical munitions, mobile labs for producing biological
weapons, and any and all evidence of a reconstituted
nuclear-arms program, all of which had been repeatedly cited as
justification for the war. Also missing was evidence of Iraqi
collaboration with Al Qaeda. 

The reports, virtually all false, of Iraqi weapons and terrorism
ties emanated from an apparatus that began to gestate almost as
soon as the Bush administration took power. In the very first
meeting of the Bush national-security team, one day after
President Bush took the oath of office in January 2001, the
issue of invading Iraq was raised, according to one of the
participants in the meeting -- and officials all the way down
the line started to get the message, long before 9/11. Indeed,
the Bush team at the Pentagon hadn't even been formally
installed before Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of
Defense, and Douglas J. Feith, undersecretary of Defense for
policy, began putting together what would become the vanguard
for regime change in Iraq. 

Both Wolfowitz and Feith have deep roots in the neoconservative
movement. One of the most influential Washington neo-
conservatives in the foreign-policy establishment during the
Republicans' wilderness years of the 1990s, Wolfowitz has long
held that not taking Baghdad in 1991 was a grievous mistake. He
and others now prominent in the administration said so
repeatedly over the past decade in a slew of letters and policy
papers from neoconservative groups like the Project for the New
American Century and the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq.
Feith, a former aide to Richard Perle at the Pentagon in the
1980s and an activist in far-right Zionist circles, held the
view that there was no difference between U.S. and Israeli
security policy and that the best way to secure both countries'
future was to solve the Israeli-Palestinian problem not by
serving as a broker, but with the United States as a force for
"regime change" in the region. 

Called in to help organize the Iraq war-planning team was a
longtime Pentagon official, Harold Rhode, a specialist on Islam
who speaks Hebrew, Arabic, Turkish, and Farsi. Though Feith
would not be officially confirmed until July 2001, career
military and civilian officials in NESA began to watch his
office with concern after Rhode set up shop in Feith's office in
early January. Rhode, seen by many veteran staffers as an
ideological gadfly, was officially assigned to the Pentagon's
Office of Net Assessment, an in-house Pentagon think tank headed
by fellow neocon Andrew Marshall. Rhode helped Feith lay down
the law about the department's new anti-Iraq, and broadly
anti-Arab, orientation. In one telling incident, Rhode accosted
and harangued a visiting senior Arab diplomat, telling him that
there would be no "bartering in the bazaar anymore. You're going
to have to sit up and pay attention when we say so." 

Rhode refused to be interviewed for this story, saying
cryptically, "Those who speak, pay." 

According to insiders, Rhode worked with Feith to purge career
Defense officials who weren't sufficiently enthusiastic about
the muscular anti-Iraq crusade that Wolfowitz and Feith wanted.
Rhode appeared to be "pulling people out of nooks and crannies
of the Defense Intelligence Agency and other places to replace
us with," says a former analyst. "They wanted nothing to do with
the professional staff. And they wanted us the fuck out of
there." 

The unofficial, off-site recruitment office for Feith and Rhode
was the American Enterprise Institute, a right-wing think tank
whose 12th-floor conference room in Washington is named for the
dean of neoconservative defense strategists, the late Albert
Wohlstetter, an influential RAND analyst and University of
Chicago mathematician. Headquartered at AEI is Richard Perle,
Wohlstetter's prize protege, the godfather of the AEI-Defense
Department nexus of neoconservatives who was chairman of the
Pentagon's influential Defense Policy Board. Rhode, along with
Michael Rubin, a former AEI staffer who is also now at the
Pentagon, was a ubiquitous presence at AEI conferences on Iraq
over the past two years, and the two Pentagon officials seemed
almost to be serving as stage managers for the AEI events, often
sitting in the front row and speaking in stage whispers to
panelists and AEI officials. Just after September 11, 2001,
Feith and Rhode recruited David Wurmser, the director of Middle
East studies for AEI, to serve as a Pentagon consultant. 

Wurmser would be the founding participant of the unnamed, secret
intelligence unit at the Pentagon, set up in Feith's office,
which would be the nucleus of the Defense Department's Iraq
disinformation campaign that was established within weeks of the
attacks in New York and Washington. While the CIA and other
intelligence agencies concentrated on Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda
as the culprit in the 9/11 attacks, Wolfowitz and Feith
obsessively focused on Iraq. It was a theory that was
discredited, even ridiculed, among intelligence professionals.
Daniel Benjamin, co-author of The Age of Sacred Terror, was
director of counterterrorism at the National Security Council in
the late 1990s. "In 1998, we went through every piece of
intelligence we could find to see if there was a link between Al
Qaeda and Iraq," he says. "We came to the conclusion that our
intelligence agencies had it right: There was no noteworthy
relationship between Al Qaeda and Iraq. I know that for a fact."
Indeed, that was the consensus among virtually all
anti-terrorism specialists. 

In short, Wurmser, backed by Feith and Rhode, set out to prove
what didn't exist. 
Continue... 

[http://www.motherjones.com/about/philanthropy/index.html] 
Š 2004 The Foundation for National Progress 
*****************************************************************
 13 deepikaglobal: Nuclear research university on cards

[http://www.deepikaglobal.com]     Friday, August 27, 2004   
 
Mumbai, Aug 26 (UNI) The Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) is 
planning to set up a deemed university for research in nuclear 
and allied fields, official sources said here today.

The university to be located at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre 
(BARC) at Trombay in North-East Mumbai, is likely to be named 
after Dr Homi Bhabha, the father of Indian nuclear programme. It 
will offer post-graduate MTech, MPhil and PhD degree and other 
specialised courses.

The BARC already has a full-fledged training school here, which 
conducts training annually.

The sources said that the deemed university will have linkages 
with other universities across the country and institutes like 
Indian Institutes of Technology.

Š Copyright DeepikaGlobal.com 1997-2003.
[webmaster@deepikaglobal.com] 

*****************************************************************
 14 Barnstable Patriot: College is serious about wind energy

Cape Cod & Islands - 
	
  August 26th 2004 09:26pm   	     	     --> 

Preliminary study shows site, winds sufficient for turbine
 	 	 
By Edward F. Maroney emaroney@barnstablepatriot.com                          

Maybe you thought the talk about an electricity-generating wind 
turbine at Cape Cod Community College was premature or 
farfetched. The wind power experts at Global Energy Concepts in 
Washington state beg to differ. 

Technically, it is feasible and the wind resource should be able 
to support the economics, said Mark Young, a project engineer 
with the company. 

The college and the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative have 
been gathering data on wind availability, speed and other 
measures for several years using a data tower on the campus. That 
tower would be dwarfed by the turbine being considered for the 
college; its blades, fully extended upward, would reach 400 feet 
above Route 6. 

Initially, the goal would be distributed generation, producing 
power that would go directly into the college system. Wendy 
Northcross, who wears two hats as CEO of the Cape Cod Chamber of 
Commerce and chair of the colleges board of trustees, said the 
chamber, which opposes Cape Winds proposed 130-turbine wind farm 
in Nantucket Sound, is behind such smaller-scale, distributive 
projects. 

Providing some context at Tuesdays public meeting at the college 
was Greg Watson, former state commissioner of agriculture who now 
works with the MTC. He said dwindling supplies of oil and natural 
gas, coupled with the high cost of creating an infrastructure to 
tap hydrogen energy, require a stark choice: energy from 
renewable resources such as wind or from nuclear power plants. 

President Kathy Schatzberg said the towering turbine would fit 
perfectly with the developing environmental technology program at 
the college, which not only wants to tap the power but also to 
educate technicians for the industry and the general public about 
the place of renewable energy sources in the nations power 
portfolio. Young, who works in the Seattle area, said he was the 
envy of his office mates for spending some summer days on the 
Cape. He used part of that time to drive around the campus and 
its environs, snapping pictures as he went and them matching them 
against the location of the tower. In a series of slides, he 
showed how trees would block the view from many perspectives. It 
appeared Route 6A would be sheltered from the view, but that it 
would be seen peeking over the trees at the Barnstable-West 
Barnstable Elementary School playing field. 

The view from other locations is more dramatic. A composite shot 
from the presidents parking space in the colleges Lot 1 
showed the turbine towering over the trees to the east of Lots 4 
and 5, and assuming its place among signs for Burger King and 
Mobil at the exit 6 rest area with some aplomb.. Questions were 
raised at the forum about noise from the machine and its 
potential to interfere with radio broadcasts. Schatzberg said MTC 
had told her it would make less noise than cars going by on Route 
6, and Young said modern wind turbines use fiberglass blades, 
which do not disrupt broadcasts the way the older metal blades 
did. 

The next step for the project is a deeper look at the expenses 
and benefits, and MTC will remain a partner with the college 
throughout. Watson said regulatory agencies such as the Federal 
Aviation Administration and the Cape Cod Commission will review 
any project, but he told a questioner it was unlikely the 
proposal would be subjected to the scrutiny received by Cape 
Winds. Cape Winds president, Jim Gordon, told the audience 
that, as a resident of South Yarmouth, he looks forward to 
peering over at the college and seeing the blades turning on a 
wind turbine.
 
Edward F. Maroney is Associate Editor of The Barnstable Patriot. 
Return To News                                                          

All information copyright Cornerstone Communications, Inc., 2003 
4 Barnstable Road - P.O. Box 1208 Hyannis, MA 02601 - (508) 
771-1427 - FAX: (508) 790-3997 EMAIL: 
editor@barnstablepatriot.com [editor@barnstablepatriot.com] or 
       
publisher@barnstablepatriot.com [publisher@barnstablepatriot.com]  
*****************************************************************
 15 PIB: India Nuclear development PR statement

PIB Press Release
 
Thursday, August 26, 2004   
  
Ministry of External Affairs           

Rajya Sabha 

The Minister of State in the Ministry of External Affairs, Shri 
Rao Inderjit Singh told the Rajya Sabha today that Expert level 
talks on Nuclear Confidence Building Measures between India and 
Pakistan were held in New Delhi on 19-20 June, 2004. The two 
sides agreed to establish a hotline between the Foreign 
Secretaries and improve communication links between the Director 
Generals of Military Operations. They also agreed to work towards 
an agreement on pre-notification of missile tests. 

There have been concerns expressed in this regard. Government 
constantly monitors developments in our neighbourhood and takes 
measures to safeguard the countrys security interests. 

The above information was given to Rajya Sabha today by the 
Minister in reply to a question by Shri Motilal Vora.   

  Site Content Administered by : Addl. PIO(Admin), Press 
Information Bureau "A" - Wing, Shastri Bhawan, Dr. Rajendra 
Prasad Road, New Delhi - 110 001
*****************************************************************
 16 asahi.com: EDITORIAL: The U.N. Security Council 

Koizumi should be prudent in seeking a permanent seat. 

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi will tell the United Nations 
General Assembly on Sept. 21 that Japan seeks a permanent seat on 
the U.N. Security Council (UNSC). 

Until now, Koizumi has been reluctant to seek a permanent UNSC 
seat because he felt Japan was not yet ready for it. 

Before he became prime minister, Koizumi's argument went as 
follows: Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution forbids the use 
of force to settle international disputes. It is one thing to 
revise the Constitution and enable Japan to exercise the right of 
collective self-defense and to reinforce the capabilities of the 
Self-Defense Forces, but until that process has been completed, 
Japan should not become a permanent member of the council. 

In other words, his point is that a permanent seat is not for 
Japan so long as it is forbidden from taking military action like 
a ``normal'' nation. 

Koizumi has said his speech before the U.N. General Assembly will 
be fully in keeping with the dictates of the Constitution. But 
could he have changed his basic idea? 

If not, then why is he seeking the permanent membership now? 

Koizumi has dispatched SDF personnel to Iraq and allowed them to 
join the U.S.-led multinational force. At home, moves to amend 
the Constitution are gaining momentum, with not only his Liberal 
Democratic Party but the opposition Minshuto (Democratic Party of 
Japan) drafting a constitutional amendment bill. Could Koizumi 
have judged that his conditions for seeking permanent UNSC 
membership are now being fulfilled, and that he is living up to 
the proverb of ``the wise adapt themselves to changed 
circumstances''? 

This is a truly grave matter that affects the nation's direction. 
The prime minister owes it to the public to explain exactly why 
he intends to state Japan's interest in becoming a UNSC permanent 
member now. 

On Aug. 12, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said, ``If Japan 
is going to play a full role on the world stage and become an 
active participating member of the Security Council, and have the 
kind of obligations that it would pick up as a member, Article 9 
would have to be examined in that light.'' Washington's ulterior 
motive was pretty transparent: The United States was using the 
UNSC membership issue as leverage for making Japan take on a 
greater militaristic role that would suit Washington's global 
strategy. 

A loyal supporter of the United States, Koizumi is only too happy 
to fall in step with what America says and does. Surely he could 
not be unaware of Washington's true intentions. 

Even if he were to boast about Japan's international 
contributions by outlining what the nation has been doing to help 
reconstruct Iraq, other UNSC member nations would probably shrug 
cynically at the prospect of Japan becoming ``another American 
vote.'' 

Making Japan a permanent member of the UNSC has been the Foreign 
Ministry's cherished dream. The ministry is obviously elated that 
the prime minister has committed himself to the cause. Japan is 
the United Nations' second greatest financial sponsor only after 
the United States. Should the UNSC permanent membership be 
expanded in connection with Security Council reforms, Japan is 
certainly qualified to join the council in a new capacity. And 
this would be a perfect opportunity for Japan to reinforce its 
influence in the United Nations. 

The important thing, though, is not just becoming a permanent 
member. It is what Japan will do once it gets there. To answer 
this question, the government must first consider very carefully 
whether whatever it intends to do can only be done as a permanent 
UNSC member, or if this status will eventually lead to 
involvement in military action overseas. 

Japan has a fine track record of economic cooperation and 
participation in U.N.-led peacekeeping operations. It is also one 
of the most advanced nations in Asia with the highest levels of 
technology and education in the region. Its pacifist Constitution 
is highly regarded around the world. And let's not forget that 
Japan is the world's only victim of nuclear bombing. 

It would make a lot of sense for Japan to be fully its ``own 
person'' in trying to tackle and fix global problems. But we 
certainly cannot endorse Koizumi's objective if all it amounts to 
is gaining ``status'' as a permanent UNSC member. In fact, if 
this is what motivates the nation's foreign policy, that's scary. 

Expansion of UNSC membership has been discussed for years, but 
nothing is really moving because of blatant rivalry among 
prospective members and differences in opinion about U.N. reforms 
in general. 

Even the United States, which has put conditions on Japan 
becoming a permanent member, is not really interested in 
expanding the membership, a subject that has been discussed for 
years. And China has remained silent on Japan's UNSC ambition. 

We insist that Koizumi act with every caution, bearing all these 
plain realities in mind. 

--The Asahi Shimbun, Aug. 25(IHT/Asahi: August 26,2004) (08/26) 
*****************************************************************
 17 Japan Times: Death toll from plant accident hits five

  Thursday, August 26, 2004   

 TSURUGA, Fukui Pref. (Kyodo) A 30-year-old worker died Wednesday 
from the severe injuries he sustained in a nuclear power plant 
accident in Fukui Prefecture on Aug. 9, local police said.

 The death of Masaru Kameiwa, who suffered burns to about 80 
percent of his body from superheated steam, brings the 
accident-related death toll to five.

 Kameiwa had been in critical condition at Fukui University 
Hospital.

 Another worker remains in serious condition.

 The accident at Kansai Electric Power Co.'s Mihama Nuclear Power 
Plant saw superheated steam burst from a ruptured coolant water 
pipe at the plant's No. 3 reactor. Four people died soon 
afterward and seven others were injured, including Kameiwa.

 All of the workers in question were employees of Kiuchi Keisoku, 
a company that specializes in services for power and 
petrochemical plants.

 The 11 workers were doing preparation work for regular reactor 
checks.

 Kameiwa, who was to disassemble the valve of the pipe, was 
carrying materials to the site when the accident took place.

 No radioactivity leakage was recorded as a result of the 
accident.

 The accident occurred because the damaged pipe had been corroded 
by coolant water to a thickness of just 0.6 millimeter, compared 
with its original thickness of 10 mm.

 Kepco, Japan's second-largest utility, had neglected to inspect 
the corroded pipe since the reactor went into operation in 1976.

 The Japan Times: Aug. 26, 2004 (C) All rights reserved 
*****************************************************************
 18 Border Mail: The nuclear core promise 
 
Thu, Aug 26, 2004
 
BECAUSE Indi is a safe Liberal seat we of Wodonga must be very 
vigilant to ensure nuclear waste is not dumped at our doorstep. 

There is sound logic from the aspect of a Government solely 
obsessed with fiscal policy and economic rationale for using the 
Bandiana site for nuclear waste disposal, such as: 

l Military land already is covered by government regulations and 
secrecy provisions; 

l Almost direct railway access from the Lucas Heights Atomic 
Research site, near Sydney, on the very edge of the Holsworthy 
military area and artillery practice range, via the standard 
gauge line, connecting with the Bandiana spur line from the main 
line in Wodonga; 

l South Bandiana Army Camp sits comfortably between Huons and 
Bear Hill rock outcrop elevations, above a very deeply buried 
underground valley between the two, with bedrock 300m down at the 
deepest point, somewhere under about the Army Museum, that could 
easily provide a deep underground nuclear repository; and, 

l Either Huons or Bears Hill range could easily be tunnelled from 
Bandiana Camp, without anyone being the wiser, for easy, secret 
disposal of toxic and nuclear waste brought by rail to Bandiana. 

With a government of such dubious honesty, can we be sure of core 
(we will) and non-core (we might if it suits us) election 
campaign promises? 

Can we be sure that Government denials about using Bandiana (or 
other military land in our area and there is plenty of it) are 
core promises? 

There are very good ecological reasons for any thought of 
disposing of nuclear waste in the Albury-Wodonga to be total 
resisted. 

They are: 

l Threats to the health and wellbeing of 100,000 inhabitants; 

l Threat to the continuing growth of Wodonga and Albury; 

l Known geological instability of this areas terrain; 

l A history of a dozen or so local minor earthquakes in that area 
in the past two decades; and, 

l There are indications a major river once flowed where Bandiana 
is now and strong signs of a deep aquifer in that area. 

The risk of contamination of vital Murray River waters from 
nuclear waste secreted in the Bandiana (or even more dangerously, 
the risks to Hume Reservoir, at Bonegilla military area) cannot 
be entertained. 

With such risks to Albury-Wodongas wellbeing, we must resist any 
contamination threat by any means we politically have. 

ALEC SAVIDGE, 

Wodonga 

  All content copyright Š The Border Mail and its respective
contributors, 2000. All rights reserved.
 Contact:  [webmaster@bordermail.com.au]   
*****************************************************************
 19 TheDay.com: NRC Dismisses One Of Coalition's Challenges To Millstone Licenses
 		 		 		
Thursday, Aug 26, 2004   								   									 										
												 												 												 										 										
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has dismissed an anti-nuclear 
activist's renewed request for a hearing to challenge the 
proposed re-licensing of two reactors at Millstone Power Station. 

Millstone owner Dominion Nuclear Connecticut has applied to 
extend license periods for two reactors, Millstone 2 and 3. If 
approved, licenses would remain in effect for 20 more years at 
each plant, through 2035 and 2045 respectively. 

On July 28 the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, a panel of 
three judges that answers to the NRC, denied requests from the 
Connecticut Coalition Against Millstone for a hearing in which it 
would challenge re-licensing.

NRC Secretary Annette L. Vietti-Cook dismissed the coalition's 
appeal because the ASLB is simultaneously reconsidering its 
denial, and must act before the NRC can consider an appeal, an 
attorney for the federal agency said. 

If again denied by the ASLB, the coalition could then appeal to 
the NRC. If then denied by the NRC, the group could sue in 
federal court, NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said.

The NRC issued its order to dismiss the appeal on Monday. The 
ASLB request for reconsideration is pending, Sheehan said.

Coalition leader Nancy Burton said Wednesday the NRC's technical 
decision should have no bearing on the merits of the case before 
the ASLB.   

About The Day Publishing Company

1998-2004 The Day Publishing Co.   	 	
*****************************************************************
 20 PL: Safe for use? NRC gives all clear to former nuclear plant site
in Parks - 

PittsburghLIVE.com 

 By Tribune Review Media Service
 Thursday, August 26, 2004 

PARKS  The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission has given its 
all clear to nearly 80 acres along Route 66 where NUMEC and its 
successors ran a nuclear fuels processing plant from 1960 to 
1996. 

Patty Ameno, a leading environmental activist from Leechburg, 
doesnt trust this government release for unrestricted use 
because the site is just downhill from a 44-acre dump where NUMEC 
buried low-level nuclear waste in the early 1960s. 

NUMEC, the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corp., produced 
nuclear fuel for submarines and other nuclear products in Apollo 
and Parks during the Cold War. Its successors were ARCO and 
Babcock &Wilcox. 

In making Tuesdays announcement, federal officials were careful 
to point out the 44-acre waste dump on the hill, also called the 
Shallow Land Disposal Area, is not what has been cleared. 

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has been sampling the air, soil 
and groundwater of the Shallow Land Disposal Area, and expects to 
release full results of its testing in spring 2005. Cleanup could 
be completed in 2009. 

Instead, the NRC cleared the property where NUMEC and successors 
had their buildings and labs. 

Radioactive material on this site has been cleaned up to meet 
our strict criteria, and the site is now safe for other uses, 
said Daniel M. Gillen, a deputy director for decommissioning with 
the NRC. 

We have verified this through independent radiation surveys by 
the NRC and its contractor. 

Based on Babcock &Wilcoxs remedial actions, and the governments 
review of Babcock &Wilcox records, the commission concluded the 
site is suitable for unrestricted release. 

According to the regulatory commission, Babcock &Wilcoxs 
remediation included removing nuclear fuel manufacturing 
equipment, soil remediation, removal of underground storage 
tanks, decontamination and dismantling of buildings, and shipment 
of low-level radioactive soil and materials to an appropriate 
waste disposal facility. 

Thats not the whole story, Ameno said. 

That site is no way safe, even if its clean, by virtue of its 
location of being downhill from the waste dump which has been 
migrating past that to the river, Ameno said. There is no way 
under the sun that that site will ever be safe for unrestricted 
use as long as that waste dump is on top of the hill. Newtons 
Law of gravity is applicable: What is up, comes down. Contents of 
those waste dumps are no exception. 

She also said residents werent given enough notice about the 
impending clearance to have a say in the matter. 

The regulatory commissions leader for this project, Amir 
Kouhestani, referred questions about downhill migration to the 
Army Corps of Engineers, which has responsibility for monitoring 
and cleaning up the waste dump. 

However, regarding Amenos contention there wasnt enough public 
notice, Kouhestani said: This action was the combination of many 
years of site cleanup beginning and dating back to essentially to 
when the facility ceased operations in 1996 and began full 
decommissioning in 1998, so there has been close to about eight 
or nine years of planning as well site cleanup leading to the 
(decision), Kouhestani said. 

Next to the cleared site, the Shallow Land Disposal Area has a 
series of 10 trenches  12 to 16 feet underground  where the 
highest concentrations of radioactive materials have been found. 

The trenches are still the greatest area of concern, according to 
the Corps project manager on the job, Dilip Kothari. 

In these trenches, the Corps has made about 100 soil borings and 
49 wells for testing. The Corps has discovered uranium-234, 
uranium-235 and uranium-238 as well as thorium-232 and 
radium-228. 

The waste is confined in the trenches, Kothari said. We didnt 
find any unsafe levels in the groundwater or the soil. 

Asked if Amenos concerns were well-founded, the Army Corps 
project manager for the waste dump said no. 

The only way it can migrate is through groundwater, and we 
didnt find anything in groundwater on SLDA site, Kothari said. 

Once last fall and also in June, the Corps took ground water 
samples of between a liter and a gallon. 

Based on the groundwater findings, we didnt see anything that 
would be a concern, Kothari said. 

Testing at the Shallow Land Disposal Area is largely finished, 
but more detailed information wont be released until Corps 
experts validate the data, Kothari said. These findings will 
probably be made public in spring 2005, when another public 
meeting will be scheduled, Kothari said. 

Thats not good enough for Ameno. There are 250 acres of 
abandoned mine underneath the facility and the waste dump, and 
she believes contaminants have gotten into the mine water. She 
wont be satisfied until deeper drilling is done  perhaps 35 to 
40 feet underground. 

Im telling you, there is a nightmare that lies beneath, Ameno 
said. 

Jonathan Szish is a staff writer for the Valley News Dispatch, 
Tarentum. 

Images and text copyright Š 2004 by The Tribune-Review
                         Publishing Co.
*****************************************************************
 21 PittsburghLIVE.com: NRC says former Parks plant is safe - 

 By Jonathan Szish VALLEY NEWS DISPATCH Thursday, August 26, 2004 

PARKS -- The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission has given its 
"all clear" to almost 80 acres along Route 66 where NUMEC and its 
successors ran a nuclear fuels processing plant from 1960 to 
1996. 

Patty Ameno, a leading environmental activist from Leechburg, 
doesn't trust the government release for "unrestricted use" 
because the site is downhill from a 44-acre dump where NUMEC 
buried low-level nuclear waste in the early 1960s. 

NUMEC, the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corp., produced 
nuclear fuel for submarines and other uses in Apollo and Parks 
during the Cold War. Its successors were ARCO and Babcock 
&Wilcox. 

In making Tuesday's announcement, federal officials were careful 
to point out the 44-acre waste dump on the hill, also called the 
Shallow Land Disposal Area, is not what has been cleared. 

The Army Corps of Engineers has been sampling the air, soil and 
groundwater of the Shallow Land Disposal Area, and expects to 
release results of its testing in the spring. Cleanup could be 
completed in 2009. 

Instead, the NRC cleared the property where NUMEC and successors 
had their buildings and labs. 

"Radioactive material on this site has been cleaned up to meet 
our strict criteria, and the site is now safe for other uses," 
said Daniel Gillen, a deputy director for decommissioning with 
the NRC. "We have verified this through independent radiation 
surveys by the NRC and its contractor." 

Based on Babcock &Wilcox's remedial actions, and the government's 
review of Babcock &Wilcox records, the commission concluded the 
site is suitable for unrestricted release. 

According to the regulatory commission, Babcock &Wilcox's 
remediation included removing nuclear fuel manufacturing 
equipment, soil remediation, removal of underground storage 
tanks, decontamination and dismantling of buildings, and shipment 
of low-level radioactive soil and materials to an appropriate 
waste disposal facility. 

That's not the whole story, Ameno said. 

"That site is no way safe, even if it's clean, by virtue of its 
location of being downhill from the waste dump, which has been 
migrating past that to the river," she said. "There is no way 
under the sun that that site will ever be safe for unrestricted 
use as long as that waste dump is on top of the hill. Newton's 
Law of gravity is applicable: What is up, comes down. Contents of 
those waste dumps are no exception." 

Ameno also said residents weren't given enough notice about the 
impending clearance to have a say in the matter. 

The regulatory commission's leader for the project, Amir 
Kouhestani, referred questions about downhill migration to the 
Army Corps of Engineers, which has responsibility for monitoring 
and cleaning up the waste dump. 

However, regarding Ameno's contention there wasn't enough public 
notice, Kouhestani said: "This action was the combination of many 
years of site cleanup beginning and dating back essentially to 
when the facility ceased operations in 1996 and began full 
decommissioning in 1998, so there has been close to about eight 
or nine years of planning as well site cleanup leading to the 
(decision)," Kouhestani said. 

Next to the cleared site, the Shallow Land Disposal Area has a 
series of 10 trenches -- 12 to 16 feet underground -- where the 
highest concentrations of radioactive materials have been found. 

The trenches still are the greatest area of concern, according to 
the Corps' project manager on the job, Dilip Kothari. 

In these trenches, the Corps has made about 100 soil borings and 
49 wells for testing. The Corps has discovered uranium-234, 
uranium-235 and uranium-238 as well as thorium-232 and 
radium-228. 

"The waste is confined in the trenches," Kothari said. "We didn't 
find any unsafe levels in the groundwater or the soil." 

Asked if Ameno's concerns were well-founded, the Corps' project 
manager for the waste dump said no. 

"The only way it can migrate is through groundwater, and we 
didn't find anything in groundwater on SLDA site," Kothari said. 

Once last fall and also in June, the Corps took ground water 
samples of between a liter and a gallon. 

"Based on the groundwater findings, we didn't see anything that 
would be a concern," Kothari said. 

Testing at the Shallow Land Disposal Area largely is finished, 
but more detailed information won't be released until Corps 
experts validate the data, Kothari said. These findings probably 
will be made public in spring 2005, when another public meeting 
will be scheduled, Kothari said. 

That's not good enough for Ameno. There are 250 acres of 
abandoned mine underneath the facility and the waste dump, and 
she believes contaminants have gotten into the mine water. She 
won't be satisfied until deeper drilling is done -- perhaps 35 to 
40 feet underground. 

"I'm telling you, there is a nightmare that lies beneath," Ameno 
said. 

Jonathan Szish can be reached at jszish@tribweb.com 
[jszish@tribweb.com] or (724) 226-4675. 

Images and text copyright Š 2004 by The Tribune-Review
                         Publishing Co.
*****************************************************************
 22 PRN: Chernobyl Children More Hyperactive 

 [http://www.prnewswire.com/]

[http://www.ats.org] 

              Study Also Finds No Impact on Cognitive Abilities

    HAIFA, Israel and NEW YORK, Aug. 26 /PRNewswire/ -- In an 
extensive study of children exposed to varying levels of fallout 
from the 1986 Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant accident, Israeli 
researchers have found that Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity 
Disorder (ADHD) scores are higher among those who were in-utero 
at the time of the accident -- regardless of their actual level 
of radiation exposure.  The study conducted at the 
Technion-Israel Institute of Technology appears in the August 30, 
2004 issue of the American Journal of Epidemiology.

    The researchers tested ADHD levels in both radiation-exposed 
and non-exposed children who emigrated from the former Soviet 
Union. There were no significant differences between the scores 
of children with high radiation exposure levels when compared 
with those who had moderate or very low exposure levels.  The 
researchers therefore hypothesize that the cause of the ADHD lies 
not in the radiation exposure itself; rather, they say, it might 
stem from a heightened level of anxiety transferred to these 
children by their mothers.

    "Immigrants to Israel from the Chernobyl region manifested 
high levels of anxiety and concern about radiation exposure," 
explains lead researcher Dr. Gad Rennert of the Technion Faculty 
of Medicine.  "This resulting anxiety could have been transferred 
to the children."

    The researchers also concluded that exposure to radiation 
does not affect children's cognitive abilities.  Using a battery 
of non-language-dependent tests, the researchers found no 
relationship between the children's intelligence scores and their 
radiation exposure level.

    "Children with higher levels of radiation exposure showed no 
significant differences in intellectual or neurophysical 
functioning when compared to those who had little or no 
exposure," notes Rennert.

    These findings contradict those from studies of survivors of 
the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which showed that 
fetal exposure to high doses of radiation increased the risk of 
mental retardation, small head size, subsequent seizures, and 
poor performance on conventional tests of intelligence.

    The researchers also found that the mothers -- especially 
those who were pregnant at the time of the accident -- showed 
inaccurate preconceptions about the physical and mental-health 
risks of radiation exposure. They sought extensive health care 
for what they feared would be long-term illnesses. While physical 
manifestations of radiation exposure -- such as a higher 
incidence of thyroid cancer among exposed children -- have been 
documented, the researchers found no differences in cognitive and 
neurofunctioning of exposed children when compared to those from 
non-contaminated areas.

    The subjects of the study were 1,629 children who immigrated 
to Israel from the former Soviet Union between 1989 and 2000.  A 
total of 667 (41%) of the children were from areas with high 
radiation exposure, and 408 (24%) from areas with low radiation 
exposure.  The control group was composed of 554 (34%) children 
from non-contaminated areas.  All were in-utero or up to 14 years 
of age at the time of the accident.

    The Technion-Israel Institute of Technology is Israel's 
leading science and technology university.  It commands a 
worldwide reputation for its pioneering work in computer science, 
biotechnology, water-resource management, materials engineering, 
aerospace and medicine.  The majority of the founders and 
managers of Israel's high-tech companies are alumni. Based in New 
York City, the American Technion Society is the leading American 
organization supporting higher education in Israel, with more 
than 20,000 supporters and 19 offices around the country.

 SOURCE The Technion-Israel Institute of Technology

 Web Site: http://www.ats.org [http://www.ats.org] 

 Copyright Š 1996-2004 PR Newswire Association LLC. All Rights
*****************************************************************
 23 ThisisLondon: Going nuclear looks the option 

Ruth Sunderland, Daily Mail 

26 August 2004 

THE dramatic price increases by British Gas this week highlight 
how the economics of the energy market have moved against us. 

The spike in oil prices has hogged most of the headlines though 
for now prices are sharply back from their peak.

But experts have been warning for some time that Britain is 
facing an underlying crisis as the golden era of self- 
sufficiency thanks to North Sea oil and gas comes inexorably to 
an end. 

It is too early to assess the impact of oil prices on the UK and 
the global economy.

The issue will no doubt be high on the agenda at the Wyoming 
mountain resort of Jackson Hole this weekend where policymakers 
will gather for the US Federal Reserve's summer retreat. 

Rising energy prices put upward pressure on inflation as firms 
seek to pass on higher costs to customers. Households, too, pay 
more for power and petrol, encouraging higher wage demands.

Although the most recent signals from Threadneedle Street are 
dovish, the risk is that rising inflation will push up borrowing 
costs. 

Fortunately, the oil price rise - which, if sustained, could 
shave around 0.6 points off global growth next year - comes when 
the world economy is robust, with expansion of 4.5% forecast by 
the International Monetary Fund for this year and next. 

Bank of England Governor Mervyn King reckons the UK is in 
particularly good shape to withstand a shock, though some believe 
he and other economists are underestimating the dangers. 

In any event, one can only hope that the current concerns prompt 
the Government to revisit its flawed energy policy and to address 
the deeper-seated issues facing Britain.

Last year's White Paper ducked the contentious subject of nuclear 
power, while setting wildly optimistic targets for the use of 
renewable sources.

The Government has arguably failed to address the realistic 
capacity of renewable sources or their implications in terms of 
extra costs and disruption.

Nuclear power is still a taboo for the sandal-wearing Left of the 
Labour Party, but many now believe it is a key part of supplying 
burgeoning energy needs while tackling global warming. The issue 
is pressing as ageing power stations take up to 12 years to 
replace.

Enthusiasm for nuclear power understandably remains tempered by 
memories of disasters such as Chernobyl and by terrorist threats. 
Nonetheless, the debate should at least be reopened. 

Reliable and affordable energy is the lifeblood of any modern 
economy. Without it, the lights go out, cars and lorries stay in 
the garage and businesses grind to a halt.

The White Paper was issued at a time when the energy market was 
much more benign. The price rises make it even more urgent that 
ministers address our looming energy problems before the 
situation gets worse.

BA grounded

IT would be a shame if the hard work of BA boss Rod Eddington to 
restore the airline's profitability and to repair industrial 
relations were thrown off course by the chaos at Heathrow. 

The fiasco has naturally raised questions as to whether his 
Future Size and Shape programme to slim down the flag carrier has 
gone too far with its 13,000 job cuts.

There is no denying that an August check-in crisis points to 
serious staffing issues and possibly botched recruitment. 

But he deserves credit for slashing BA's debts and for attacking 
its high cost base, allowing it to survive 11 September in 
relatively good shape. 

In today's BA staff magazine he pulls no punches, taking 
responsibility himself and refusing to blame the City for pushing 
him into the job cuts. 

In keeping with his hands-on Australian character, he will man a 
check-in desk over the Bank Holiday as part of a PR fightback.

The City was alarmed a couple of weeks ago at suggestions that 
Eddington is heading for the departure lounge, possibly in 2006. 
He is said to be looking for a quieter life after several years 
in one of the toughest jobs in British industry. 

After this week's events, who could blame him?

Ready for a close-up

THE newly-listed Pinewood Shepperton has made a debut with 
increased profits and ambitious plans to expand.

Chief executive Ivan Dunleavy is now waiting for the results of a 
Government review of funding for the UK industry. 

Gordon Brown, in his latest Budget, introduced a tax credit going 
straight to film producers, replacing an earlier tax break to 
financiers that had been abused.

The Chancellor is looking at providing further help. Film buffs 
are hoping for a happy ending. 

*****************************************************************
 24 Whitehaven News: NUCLEAR POWER 

By Margaret Crosby

RECENT national speculation about an increased role for nuclear 
power in electricity generation has prompted Copeland Council to 
express its support for the development of new nuclear power 
generators to replace those closed at Calder Hall.

It has put down the marker following statements by the Prime 
Minister on the need to deal with global warming and the positive 
role nuclear power generation could play.

Council leader Elaine Woodburn (Lab) said: I have asked the 
council to support, in principle, the development of new 
generators and in doing so highlight the importance of the 
government taking an early decision to embark on such a programme 
while the workforce and the world class skill that West Cumbria 
can provide to support it are still available.

Coun Woodburn raised the matter of the nuclear new build at a 
recent meeting with Steven Timms, the Department of Trade and 
Industry Minister.

Conservative leader on the council David Moore welcomed the 
councils declaration of support.

Nuclear new build is crucial, it would create a lot of 
construction jobs, this country is going to be crying out for 
energy, with nuclear generators it would not need all those 
eyesores of windfarms.

Coun Moore felt it would help the area considerably if the 
Ł1million business rates from the Sellafield site, which was paid 
into central government coffers, was returned to West Cumbria.

It used to come here, but it was taken away. It should be 
re-instated to put some valuable resources into this area, 
heBNFLs decision last year to close Calder Hall, the worlds 
first full scale nuclear power station, because it was no longer 
commercially viable to operate, has not squashed hopes that a 
modern and much more efficient alternative can be built on or 
near the site.

Meanwhile the Act establishing the new Nuclear Decommissioning 
Authority has now received Royal Assent and the organisation will 
become fully operational at the beginning of the next financial 
year. 

[http://www.whitehaven-news.co.uk/
*****************************************************************
 25 NRC: Entergy Operations, Inc.; Notice of Withdrawal of Application
 
                        FR Doc 04-19506 
[Federal Register: August 26, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 165)] 
[Notices] [Page 52530] From the Federal Register Online via GPO 
Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr26au04-83]                         
 
for Amendment to Facility Operating License The U.S. Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission (the Commission) has granted the request of 
Entergy Operations, Inc., (the licensee) to withdraw its April 2, 
2003, application as supplemented by letters dated November 21 
and December 31, 2003, for proposed amendment to Renewed Facility 
Operating License No. DPR-51 for the Arkansas Nuclear One, Unit 
No. 1, located in Pope County, Arkansas.
 
The proposed amendment would have revised the technical 
specifications pertaining to the fuel enrichment, the spent fuel 
pool (SFP) boron concentration and criticality analysis, the SFP 
regions (including the use of Metamic poison panels in a portion 
of the SFP) and loading restrictions, and the loading patterns in 
the new fuel storage racks.
 
The Commission had previously issued a Notice of Consideration of 
Issuance of Amendment published in the Federal Register on May 
13, 2003 (68 FR 25651). However, by letter dated June 24, 2004, 
the licensee withdrew the proposed change.
 
For further details with respect to this action, see the 
application for amendment dated April 2, 2003, as supplemented by 
letters dated November 21 and December 31, 2003, and the 
licensee's letter dated June 24, 2004, which withdrew the 
application for license amendment. Documents may be examined, 
and/or copied for a fee, at the NRC's Public Document Room (PDR), 
located at One White Flint North, Public File Area O1 F21, 11555 
Rockville Pike (first floor), Rockville, Maryland. Publicly 
available records will be accessible electronically from the 
Agencywide Documents Access and Management Systems (ADAMS) Public 
Electronic Reading Room on the Internet at the NRC Web site, 
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams/html 
[http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving 
FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams/html] 
. Persons who do not have access to ADAMS or who encounter 
problems in accessing the documents located in ADAMS, should 
contact the NRC PDR Reference staff by telephone at 
1-800-397-4209, or 301-415-4737 or by email to

 
pdr@nrc.gov [ pdr@nrc.gov] . Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 
19th day of August 2004.
 
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
 
Thomas W. Alexion, Project Manager, Section 1, Project 
Directorate IV, Division of Licensing Project Management, Office 
of Nuclear Reactor Regulation.
 
[FR Doc. 04-19506 Filed 8-25-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P

 
*****************************************************************
 26 NRC: Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards; Meeting Notice
 
                        FR Doc 04-19507 
[Federal Register: August 26, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 165)] 
[Notices] [Page 52530-52531] From the Federal Register Online via 
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr26au04-84]                         
 
In accordance with the purposes of Sections 29 and 182b. of the 
Atomic Energy Act (42 U.S.C. 2039, 2232b), the Advisory Committee 
on Reactor Safeguards (ACRS) will hold a meeting on September 
9-11, 2004, 11545 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland. The date 
of this meeting was previously published in the Federal Register 
on Monday, November 21, 2003 (68 FR 65743).
 
Thursday, September 9, 2004, Conference Room T-2B3, Two White 
Flint North, Rockville, Maryland 8:30 a.m.-8:35 a.m.: Opening 
Remarks by the ACRS Chairman (Open)-- The ACRS Chairman will make 
opening remarks regarding the conduct of the meeting.
 
8:35 a.m.-10:30 a.m.: Final Review of the License Renewal 
Application for the Dresden and Quad Cities Nuclear Plants 
(Open)--The Committee will hear presentations by and hold 
discussions with representatives of the Exelon Generation 
Company, LLC and the NRC staff regarding the license renewal 
application for the Dresden Nuclear Power Station, Units 2 and 3 
and Quad Cities Nuclear Power Station, Units 1 and 2, as well as 
the associated final Safety Evaluation Report prepared by the NRC 
staff.
 
 
[[Page 52531]] 10:45 a.m.-11:45 a.m.: Proposed Changes to the 
License Renewal Program (Open)--The Committee will hear 
presentations by and hold discussions with representatives of the 
NRC staff regarding proposed changes to the license renewal 
program related to scoping and screening processes.
 
12:45 p.m.-1:45 p.m.: Safety Evaluation for Proposed Amendment to 
Technical Specifications for Farley Units 1 and 2--Steam 
Generator Program (Open)--The Commission will hear presentations 
by NRC staff regarding the safety evaluation for a proposed 
amendment to technical specifications for Farley Units 1 and 
2--Steam Generator Program.
 
2 p.m.-5:45 p.m.: Safeguards and Security (Closed)--The Committee 
will hear presentations by and hold discussions with 
representatives of the NRC staff and Nuclear Energy Institute 
(NEI) regarding safeguards and security matters.
 
6 p.m.-7 p.m.: Preparation of ACRS Reports (Open)--The Committee 
will discuss proposed ACRS reports on matters considered during 
this meeting.
 
Friday, September 10, 2004, Conference Room T-2B3, Two White 
Flint North, Rockville, Maryland 8:30 a.m.-8:35 a.m.: Opening 
Remarks by the ACRS Chairman (Open)-- The ACRS Chairman will make 
opening remarks regarding the conduct of the meeting.
 
8:35 a.m.-10:30 a.m.: Assessment of the Quality of the Selected 
NRC Research Projects (Open)--The Committee will discuss the 
preliminary results of the cognizant ACRS members' assessment of 
the quality of the NRC research projects on Sump Performance and 
on MACCS Code.
 
10:45 a.m.-11:45 a.m.: Divergence in Regulatory Approaches 
Between U.S. and Other Countries (Open)--The Committee will 
discuss a draft White Paper prepared by Dr. Nourbakhsh, ACRS 
Senior Staff Engineer, regarding divergence in regulatory 
approaches between U.S. and other Countries.
 
12:45 p.m.-1:45 p.m.: Future ACRS Activities/Report of the 
Planning and Procedures Subcommittee (Open)--The Committee will 
discuss the recommendations of the Planning and Procedures 
Subcommittee regarding items proposed for consideration by the 
full Committee during future meetings. Also, it will hear a 
report of the Planning and Procedures Subcommittee on matters 
related to the conduct of ACRS business, including anticipated 
workload and member assignments.
 
1:45 p.m.-2 p.m.: Reconciliation of ACRS Comments and 
Recommendations (Open)--The Committee will discuss the responses 
from the NRC Executive Director for Operations (EDO) to comments 
and recommendations included in recent ACRS reports and letters. 
The EDO responses are expected to be made available to the 
Committee prior to the meeting.
 
2 p.m.-2:30 p.m.: Trip Report--AP1000 Workshop in China 
(Open)--The Committee will hear a report by and hold discussions 
with Dr.
 
Kress, ACRS member, who attended the International Workshop on 
AP1000 that was held in China on July 26-29, 2004.
 
2:45 p.m.-3:15 p.m.: Trip Report--Chalk River Facility in Canada 
(Open)--The Committee will hear a report by and hold discussions 
with Dr. Powers, ACRS member, who visited the Chalk River 
Facility in Canada.
 
3:15 p.m.-4:15 p.m.: Draft Final ACRS Action Plan (Open)--The 
Committee will discuss the draft final ACRS Action Plan.
 
4:15 p.m.-6:30 p.m.: Preparation of ACRS Reports (Open)--The 
Committee will discuss proposed ACRS reports on matters 
considered during this meeting.
 
Saturday, September 11, 2004, Conference Room T-2B3, Two White 
Flint North, Rockville, Maryland 8:30 a.m.-12 Noon: Preparation 
of ACRS Reports (Open)--The Committee will continue its 
discussion of proposed ACRS reports.
 
12 Noon-12:30 p.m.: Miscellaneous (Open)--The Committee will 
discuss matters related to the conduct of Committee activities 
and specific issues that were not completed during previous 
meetings, as time and availability of information permit.
 
Procedures for the conduct of and participation in ACRS meetings 
were published in the Federal Register on October 16, 2003 (68 FR 
59644). In accordance with those procedures, oral or written 
views may be presented by members of the public, including 
representatives of the nuclear industry. Electronic recordings 
will be permitted only during the open portions of the meeting. 
Persons desiring to make oral statements should notify the 
Cognizant ACRS staff named below five days before the meeting, if 
possible, so that appropriate arrangements can be made to allow 
necessary time during the meeting for such statements. Use of 
still, motion picture, and television cameras during the meeting 
may be limited to selected portions of the meeting as determined 
by the Chairman. Information regarding the time to be set aside 
for this purpose may be obtained by contacting the Cognizant ACRS 
staff prior to the meeting. In view of the possibility that the 
schedule for ACRS meetings may be adjusted by the Chairman as 
necessary to facilitate the conduct of the meeting, persons 
planning to attend should check with the Cognizant ACRS staff if 
such rescheduling would result in major inconvenience.
 
In accordance with Subsection 10(d) P.L. 92-463, I have 
determined that it is necessary to close portions of this meeting 
noted above to discuss and protect information classified as 
national security information as well as safeguard information 
pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 552b(c)(1) and (3).
 
Further information regarding topics to be discussed, whether the 
meeting has been canceled or rescheduled, as well as the 
Chairman's ruling on requests for the opportunity to present oral 
statements and the time allotted therefor can be obtained by 
contacting Mr. Sam Duraiswamy, Cognizant ACRS staff 
(301-415-7364), between 7:30 a.m. and 4:15 p.m., ET. ACRS meeting 
agenda, meeting transcripts, and letter reports are available 
through the NRC Public Document Room at pdr@nrc.gov [pdr@nrc.gov] 
, or by calling the PDR at 1-800-397-4209, or from the Publicly 
Available Records System (PARS) component of NRC's document 
system (ADAMS) which is accessible from the NRC Web site at 
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html 
[http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving 
FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html] 
or http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/ 
[http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving 
FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collecti 
ons/]  (ACRS & ACNW Mtg schedules/agendas).
 
Videoteleconferencing service is available for observing open 
sessions of ACRS meetings. Those wishing to use this service for 
observing ACRS meetings should contact Mr. Theron Brown, ACRS 
Audio Visual Technician (301-415-8066), between 7:30 a.m. and 
3:45 p.m., ET, at least 10 days before the meeting to ensure the 
availability of this service. Individuals or organizations 
requesting this service will be responsible for telephone line 
charges and for providing the equipment and facilities that they 
use to establish the videoteleconferencing link. The availability 
of videoteleconferencing services is not guaranteed.
 
Dated: August 20, 2004.
 
Andrew L. Bates, Advisory Committee Management Officer.
 
[FR Doc. 04-19507 Filed 8-25-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P

 
*****************************************************************
 27 [du-list] aljazeera DU article
 
Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2004 15:01:15 -0700

 
<x-flowed>
* *

**The article Elaine was trying to send.....
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/B93DF501-832A-423B-9E33-5F4325676A46.htm
Iraq's real WMD crime***
/By/ /Lawrence Smallman in Baghdad/


Wednesday 17 March 2004, 13:03 Makka Time, 10:03 GMT *

*Depleted uranium has a half life of 4.7 billion years *

* Related:
*
	UN nuclear inspectors return to Iraq
<http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/887734B9-B166-47C7-A17B-817A62BD33DC.htm> 


	Iraq and WMD: Timeline
<http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/E0727022-CAA6-462A-AB7B-00AB65E05CB6.htm> 


	Misery in Baghdad's ailing hospitals
<http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/DEED7CDE-9F22-4751-B027-A3191734AA1E.htm> 


	Iraqi victims of war: Fact sheet
<http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/F37A5384-E7C8-4EAD-8262-1727833C32B8.htm> 




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****

**There are weapons of mass destruction all over Iraq and they were used
this past year. Iraqi children continue to find them every day.**

*They have ruined the lives of just under 300,000 people during the last
decade - and numbers will increase.*

*The reason is simple. Two hundred tonnes of radioactive material were
fired by invading US forces into buildings, homes, streets and gardens
all over Baghdad. *

*The material in question is depleted uranium (DU). Left over after
natural uranium has been enriched, DU is 1.7 times denser than lead -
effective in penetrating armoured objects such as tanks. *

*After a DU-coated shell strikes, it goes straight through before
exploding into a burning vapour which turns to dust. *

*"Depleted uranium has a half life of 4.7 billion years ­ that means
thousands upon thousands of Iraqi children will suffer for tens of
thousands of years to come. This is what I call terrorism," says Dr
Ahmad Hardan.*

*As a special scientific adviser to the World Health Organisation, the
United Nations and the Iraqi Ministry of Health, Dr Hardan is the man
who documented the effects of depleted uranium in Iraq between 1991 and
2002. *

*"This has caused a health crisis that has affected almost a third of a
million people."
*
Dr Ahmad Hardan,
scientific adviser to the World Health Organisation

*But the war and occupation has doubled his workload.*

**Terrible history repeated**

*"American forces admit to using over 300 tonnes of depleted uranium
weapons in 1991. The actual figure is closer to 800.*

*"This has caused a health crisis that has affected almost a third of a
million people. As if that was not enough, America went on and used 200
tonnes more in Baghdad alone (last) April. I don't know about other
parts of Iraq, it will take me years to document that."*

*Hardan is particularly angry because he says there is no need for this
type of weapon ­ US conventional weapons are quite capable of destroying
tanks and buildings.*

*"In Basra, it took us two years to obtain conclusive proof of what DU
does, but we now know what to look for and the results are terrifying."*

*Leukaemia has already become the most common type of cancer in Iraq
among all age groups, but is most prevalent in the under-15 category. It
has increased way above the percentage of population growth in every
single province of Iraq without exception.*

*Women as young as 35 are developing breast cancer. Sterility among men
has increased tenfold.*

**Barely human **

*

*Depleted uranium has caused
severe deformities in babies*

*

*But by far the most devastating effect is on unborn children. Nothing
can prepare anyone for the sight of hundreds of preserved foetuses ­
barely human in appearance.*

*There is no doubt that DU is to blame. *

*"All children with congenital anomalies are subjected to karyotyping
and chromosomal studies with complete genetic back-grounding and
clinical assessment. Family and obstetrical histories are taken too.
These international studies have produced ample evidence to show that DU
has disastrous consequences."*

*Not only are there 200 tonnes of uranium lying around in Baghdad, the
containers which carried the ammunition were discarded. For months
afterwards, many used them to carry water ­ others used them to sell
milk publicly.*

*It is already too late to reverse the effects.*

*After his experience in Basra, Hardan says within the next two years he
expects to see significant rises in congenital cataracts, anopthalmia,
microphthalmia, corneal opacities and coloboma of the iris ­ and that is
just in peoples eyes.*

*Add to this foetal deformities, sterility in both sexes, an increase in
miscarriages and premature births, congenital malformations, additional
abnormal organs, hydrocephaly, anencephaly and delayed growth.*

*"A world famous German cancer specialist agreed to come, only to be
told later that he would not be given permission to enter Iraq" *

Dr Ahmad Hardan,
scientific adviser to the World Health Organisation

**Soaring cancer rates**

*"I had hoped the lessons of using DU would have been learnt ­
especially as it is affecting American and British troops stationed in
Iraq as we speak, they are not immune to its effects either."*

*If the experience of Basra is played out in the rest of the country,
Iraq is looking at an increase of more than 300% in all types of cancer
over the next decade.*

*The signs are already here in Baghdad - the effects are starting to be
seen. Every form of cancer has jumped up at least 10% with the exception
of bone tumours and skin cancer, which have only risen 2.6% and 9.3%
respectively.*

*Another tragic outcome is the delayed growth of children.
Skeletal age comparisons between boys from southern Iraq and boys from
Michigan show Iraqi males are 26 months behind in their development by
the time they are 12-years-old and girls are almost half a year behind.*

*"The effects of ionising radiation on growth and development are
especially significant in the prenatal child", adds Dr Hardan.
"Embryonic development is especially affected."*

**Action needed**

*Those who have seen the effects of DU hope the US and its allies will
never use these weapons again ­ but it seems no such decision is likely
in the foreseeable future.*

* *

**Many affected foetuses are so
deformed they cannot survive**

*"I arranged for a delegation from Japan's Hiroshima hospital to come
and share their expertise in the radiological related diseases we are
likely to face over time," says Hardan. "The delegation told me the
Americans had objected and they had decided not to come.*

*"Similarly, a world famous German cancer specialist agreed to come,
only to be told later that he would not be given permission to enter
Iraq." *

*Moreover, Hardan believes the authorities need to produce precise
information about what was used and where, and there needs to be a
clean-up operation and centres for specialist cancer treatment and
radiation-related illnesses.*

*Iraq only has two hospitals that specialise in DU-related illnesses,
one in Basra and one in Mosul ­ this needs to change and soon.*

*"I'm fed up of delegations coming and weeping as I show them children
dying before their eyes. I want action and not emotion. The crime has
been committed and documented ­ but we must act now to save our
children's future."*

*
Aljazeera

*


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*****************************************************************
 28 [du-list] A Scorecard page for you from Elaine Hunter
 
Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2004 15:01:09 -0700

 
<x-flowed>

Elaine Hunter (dutnkyoh@yahoo.com) thought you'd be interested in this page 
from Scorecard:

Scorecard Page
http://scorecard.org/health-effects/chemicals.tcl?short_hazard_name=cancer&all_p=t

Do folks know about this scorecard system? Here's the list of KNOWN 
carcinogens. Alluranium isotopes are listed.  One good news I live in a 
county of low pollution, however that did not keep me from geyying into big 
trouble with poison ivy this Spring!  How does you county rate?  All the 
neighbors I can see are "green oxygens machines"; such a blessing.  Piketon 
& Paducah rate very high as polluters.


**************************************************
For more information about pollution levels in your
neighborhood and what you can do about it, please
visit: www.scorecard.org.  To join with others and
speak up to protect the environment, please visit
www.actionnetwork.org.  To learn more about
Environmental Defense, which provides these web-based
services, please visit www.environmentaldefense.org.
**************************************************




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*****************************************************************
 29 [du-list] Payday's submission to the Public Inquiry into Gulf
 
Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2004 15:01:02 -0700

 
<x-flowed>

  Sent: Wednesday, August 25, 2004 1:48 PM

 > Subject: Payday's submission to the Public Inquiry into Gulf War
 > Illnesses, London
 >
 > ----Payday
 >    A network of men working with
 >
 > the Global Womens Strike
 >
 >
 > PO Box 287 London NW6 5QU England.  Tel  020 7209 4751  Fax  020 7209
 > 4761
 >
 > PO Box 11795, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19101, USA.  Tel  (215) 848
 > 1120
 > Fax  (215) 848 1130
 >
 > Email payday@paydaynet.org Web www.refusingtokill.net
 >  Paydays submission to the Public Inquiry into Gulf War Illnesses
 >
 > We write as an organization which supported Mr Alexander Izett during
 > his
 > 40-day hunger strike to press for an independent public inquiry into
 > Gulf
 > war illnesses.  Our website [ http://www.refusingtokill.net/
 > ]www.refusingtokill.net also reflects campaigns by war veterans and
 > their
 > families for the truth about and compensation for veterans illnesses,
 > disabilities and death caused by war and occupation.
 >
 > We welcome this Public Inquiry, which is a response to years of this
 > campaigning. This is a unique moment, our chance to make the case for
 > justice.  We want, therefore, to raise our deep concerns about
 > limitations
 > of the Inquiry which have emerged so far, and to make our
 > recommendations
 > for your consideration.
 >
 > The timetable and logistics of the Inquiry
 > When it was established, the Inquiry did not:
 > ˇ               publicise itself widely enough ­ some veterans told us
 > that they heard about it only by chance;
 > ˇ               give veterans and their carers enough time to prepare
 > testimonies;
 > ˇ               provide other venues in the UK ­ many potential
 > witnesses
 > could not travel to London because of disability and poverty;
 > ˇ               arrange a wheelchair accessible venue, the absence of
 > which is disrespectful of many the Inquiry claims to serve.
 >
 > Widening the Inquiry
 > High-ranking officers giving evidence to the Inquiry said they would
 > favour an ex-gratia payment to close the matter, and Major Gen.
 > Craig in
 > his evidence cast doubts on the claims and allegations of many
 > veterans.  They imply that there is no need for the Inquiry.  On the
 > contrary, the need is great and we are concerned that the Inquiry
 > should
 > be as far-reaching as possible in order to be most effective.
 >
 > The Inquiry must:
 > ˇ               allow more time to hear from veterans.  Of more than
 > 6,000
 > who suffer from Gulf war illnesses, just 32 were invited to testify;
 > ˇ               give greater prominence to partners and other carers of
 > veterans, whose contribution in terms of work and campaigning has been
 > largely hidden ­ only three testified;
 > ˇ               seek contributions from Iraqi women and men. If they
 > are
 > not heard, not only will the causes of hundreds of thousands of deaths,
 > disabilities and illnesses remain hidden, but also veterans and their
 > families will not be able to discover by comparison the full extent of
 > what happened to them.
 > ˇ              connect with the Parliamentary Inquiry now opening in
 > Italy
 > about the death of 28 Kossovo veterans, exchanging information about
 > the
 > effects on civilians and soldiers of depleted uranium weapons and
 > vaccines, used by the Allies both in the Balkans and in Iraq.
 >
 > ˇ              take evidence from Avigolfe, a French association of
 > civilians and soldiers ([ http://www.ilfrance.com/avigolfe
 > ]www.ilfrance.com/avigolfe) which has recently publicized that depleted
 > uranium (uranium isotope U-238) used in the first Gulf war also
 > contains
 > enriched uranium (uranium isotope U-236), which is used in H-bombs and
 > is
 > extremely radioactive and toxic.  The link between DU and U-236 raises
 > the
 > fundamental issue of military introduction by stealth of what amounts
 > to
 > nuclear bombing of civilian populations.
 >
 > We urge the Inquiry to acknowledge that:
 > ˇ        Gulf War illnesses can be related to vaccines, DU/U-236
 > exposure,
 > fall-out from chemical and bacteriological weapons the Allies
 > destroyed,
 > use of pesticides, fumes from burning oil-wells or a combination of
 > any of
 > the above;
 > ˇ        in most cases soldiers were simply ordered to take vaccines
 > and
 > NAPS (Nerve Agent Pre-treatment) pills and not warned of any possible
 > consequences;
 > ˇ        in many cases the vaccines they received were not registered
 > on
 > their vaccination card, risking a double dose;
 > ˇ        veterans have been treated shamefully by the MoD in having to
 > battle for the disability component of their War Pensions.
 >
 > We urge the Inquiry to recommend that:
 > ˇ        Members of the Armed Forces must not be used as guinea-pigs to
 > determine the effects of the drug cocktails;
 > ˇ        all compulsory vaccinations must be stopped; having them must
 > be
 > only on a voluntary basis;
 > ˇ        vaccines should only be taken when all possible side-effects
 > of
 > the cocktail are fully researched and explained to those taking them;
 > ˇ        all medical records related to vaccinations and other drugs be
 > released to those concerned so that they can receive proper treatment;
 > ˇ        all medical treatment (including complementary treatments) be
 > immediately and freely available to all victims of Gulf War illnesses
 > and
 > their families and carers;
 > ˇ        proper respectful benefits be given immediately to veterans
 > and
 > their carers and to widows of veterans, according to the length and
 > degree
 > of seriousness of their illnesses;
 > ˇ        all those affected get financial compensation for the years of
 > delay by the Ministry of Defence in admitting and dealing with the
 > truth;
 > ˇ        the government fund an independent public inquiry which would
 > be
 > accountable to Parliament, where officers and scientists, including
 > those
 > researching the health of soldiers in the present war, would be
 > allowed to
 > testify;
 > ˇ        a full and thorough investigation be conducted among the Iraqi
 > population to determine the extent of illnesses, disabilities and
 > deaths
 > caused by both the first and second Gulf wars and the current
 > occupation.
 >
 > We attach a petition which expresses some of the concerns and demands
 > expressed here.  It has been signed by Gulf war veterans from the UK,
 > USA,
 > Australia, Canada and Germany, by partners and carers, by Vietnam war
 > veterans, anti-war and peace activists, trade unionists and others
 > around
 > the world.  Many veterans and their partners who testified at the
 > Inquiry
 > are among the signatories.
 >
 > 5 August 2004
 >
 > -----------------------------------------------------------------------
 > ----Urgent
 > financial appeal for Alex Izett
 > Dear friends,
 >
 > Alex Izett has asked Payday to organize an appeal for money on his
 > behalf.  While Alex has been campaigning for an independent public
 > inquiry
 > into Gulf War Syndrome, he has incurred costs that he has not been
 > able to
 > meet out of his Ł61.50/week ($111.90) war pension.  He is unable to pay
 > the phone bill for the last two months and now both the phone and
 > internet
 > access have been disconnected, facilities which have been a vital life
 > line especially during his hunger strike.
 >
 > We want to raise Ł1000 ($1819) to pay this bill and cover expenses for
 > the
 > coming months. It is vital that he can be back in touch with his
 > family,
 > friends, supporters, media and politicians to continue his battle for
 > recognition of Gulf War Syndrome.
 >
 > Your contribution is therefore much-needed and urgent.
 >
 > You can send a donation by transferring directly to the Payday account:
 > Account  no: 41742478  Sort code: 60-12-13  National Westminster Bank,
 > Kilburn Branch, 74 Kilburn High Road, London, NW6 4HU
 >
 > Or make your check payable to "Payday" (earmarked Alex Izett) to:
 > Payday, PO Box 287, London NW6 5QU, UK   or
 > Payday, PO Box 11795, Philadelphia, PA 19101, US (checks will be
 > forwarded
 > to London).
 >
 > Many thanks for your support.

  

</x-flowed>
*****************************************************************
 30 UPI: Little help for nuclear workers' bills - 

(United Press International)
 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 
August 26, 2004                          

Washington, DC, Aug. 26 (UPI) -- An improper government contract 
fleeced taxpayers and stalled the progress of a program to treat 
former workers of Colorado's Rocky Flats nuclear plant. 

Computer-services firm Apogen charged the Department of Energy 
$35 an hour for mail clerks it called "data analysts" and $88 an 
hour -- $175,000 a year -- for nurses it called "senior 
management analysts," the Rocky Mountain News reported.

 The medical program was created in 2000 by Congress to assist 
workers who became sick by working with nuclear materials to 
create nuclear bombs for the nation's defense. So far the 
government has spent $95 million on paperwork and has only made 
payments to 31 of 24,000 applicants who have sought assistance 
for medical expenses.                                                                           

[UPI Perspectives]                                                                    
*****************************************************************
 31 TIME - Leon Jaroff - : Strange Doings on Tunguska
 		 		 		 		 		 		 		 		 				 	 /*red style for page links */ 	
1985 Current Issue Past 30 Days -Top Searches- Iraq George W.
Bush U.S. Military al-Qaeda Osama bin Laden 			 	   							    
   
Amazingly, some people still believe the devastating Siberian 
event was caused by space aliens

Thursday, Aug. 26, 2004

 If any people are more gullible about Unidentified Flying 
Objects than Americans, its the Russians. And if any group of 
professionals is more gullible than Russians about UFOs, its the 
journalists. This truism was confirmed again this month when, 
around the world, wire services and other press outlets 
straight-facedly reported a new claim that a UFO had been 
involved in the great Tunguska catastrophe. 

Tunguska? Thats the then-uninhabited region in Siberia where in 
1908 a mammoth explosion leveled and charred trees and killed 
wildlife over an area of 800 square miles. That night in northern 
Europe and western Russia, the skies glowed with an eerie light 
and in London, for example, it was light enough outside to read a 
newspaper. The lone human being in the area, a trapper living 
near the periphery of the blast, was blown off the porch of his 
shack, but survived. Had the explosion occurred over London, say, 
or New York, the casualties would have been counted in the 
hundreds of thousands. 

Most scientists today believe that the Tunguska event was caused 
by an asteroid or a comet that heated so rapidly upon plunging 
into the atmosphere that it blew up some five miles above the 
surface with an explosive force of 10 to 15 megatons. But that 
conclusion is far too rational for Russians like scientist Yuri 
Lavbin, who heads the Tunguska Space Phenomenon public state 
fund. It was Lavbin who in July announced that he would lead an 
expedition to Siberia and stated, We intend to find proof that 
not a meteorite but an extraterrestrial spaceship crashed with 
the Earth. 

Some might suggest that Lavbin was predisposed to making a 
remarkable discovery. And that is precisely what happened. A 
Russian scientific team headed by Lavbin scoured the Tunguska 
site early in August and breathlessly announced that it had found 
the remnants of an extraterrestrial spacecraft, in the form of a 
large metallic block. After sending a 50 kilogram chunk of the 
block to a laboratory for testing, Lavbin chose not to await the 
results. I can make an official announcement that we were saved 
by some forces of a superior civilization, he proclaimed. They 
exploded this enormous meteorite headed toward us with tremendous 
speed. Now this great object that caused the meteorite to explode 
is found at last. 

His announcement was greeted by loud raspberries from reputable 
scientists. Interviewed by Space.com, British researcher Benny 
Peiser, who runs the CCNet website, a scholarly forum devoted 
largely to asteroid impacts and other potential natural threats, 
called the Russian report a rather stupid hoax. He was equally 
critical of the press: Its a rather sad comment on the current 
state of anything-goes attitudes among some science 
correspondents that such blatant rubbish is being reported." 

All this came as no surprise to science writer James Oberg. In 
his 1982 book, UFOs and Outer Space Mysteries, he had traced 
the origins of the Russian Tunguska UFO obsession to a science 
fiction writer named Kazantsev, who wrote a story attributing the 
mighty blast to an exploding nuclear power plant of a spaceship 
from Mars. Other Russians took the bait. Astronomy lecturer 
Feliks Zigel, who was also a flying saucer enthusiast, became a 
spokesman for the spaceship theory of Tunguska, and a scientist 
named Aleksey Zolotov, began claiming, almost annually but 
without proof, that he had found radioactivity at the blast site. 

Oberg predicted that the Tunguska spacecraft story, in various 
forms, would endure and that gullible members of the press would 
continue to be hoodwinked by Russian UFOlogists. More than two 
decades later, his prediction stands unchallenged. 

  [letters@time.com]  | Leon Jaroff's Archive 

Leon Jaroff was the founding managing editor of DISCOVER, the 
newsmagazine of science, and was a longtime correspondent, writer 
and editor for TIME and LIFE.  

By: Maureen Dowd
 Published: 03 August, 2004   

 Copyright Š 2004 Time Inc. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 32 [NukeNet] Weapons Grade Plutonium Worries Some Democrats  
 
Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2004 15:01:07 -0700

 
<x-flowed>

   Mothersalert: http://www.mothersalert.org
   Videos: http://www.envirovideo.com


http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-US-France-Plutonium.html

Plutonium Shipment Plan Worries Lawmakers
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: August 25, 2004


Filed at 6:31 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Some congressional Democrats
raised security concerns Wednesday about a
proposed shipment of 300 pounds of weapons-grade
plutonium from the United States to France for
conversion into a mixed-oxide fuel.

The Energy Department plans to send the plutonium
by truck from the Los Alamos National Laboratory
in New Mexico to the navy yard in Charleston,
S.C., where it will be loaded on a ship bound for
Cherbourg, France, as part of a U.S.-Russian
nonproliferation program.

      Advertisement


Rep. Jim Turner of Texas, the ranking Democrat on
the Homeland Security Committee, said in a letter
to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham that he was
concerned about the security of the shipment,
especially when it reaches France.

``It is clear that extraordinary security is
planned for the shipment,'' Turner said in his
letter.

But, he said, he wants greater assurances that
security for the shipment in France would be of
the same level as planned for in the United
States. He also questioned whether there had been
adequate ``independent oversight and review'' of
the shipment plan by other agencies.

Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., also raised concerns
about the shipments. Markey, a member of the
Homeland Security Committee, questioned whether
the Department of Homeland Security has reviewed
the plan.

The Energy Department says the shipment has been
meticulously planned with high levels of security
incorporated.

Once the shipment arrives in Cherbourg, it is to
go by land to a French reprocessing facility,
where the plutonium can be turned into a less
dangerous mixed oxide. Then it is to be returned
to the United States.

The Energy Department plans to use that material
in four fuel assemblies at Duke Energy's Catawba
nuclear power plant in South Carolina. The test
assemblies are part of a U.S.-Russian program in
which each country has pledged to dispose of 64
metric tons of excess plutonium.

The United States plans to dispose of its material
by burning it in commercial nuclear reactors as
mixed oxide. However, the initial shipments have
to be sent to France because the United States has
yet to build a mixed-oxide processing facility.

Details of the shipment, including timing, are
classified, but it is expected to occur later this
year. According to the Energy Department, the
plutonium would be carried on two British vessels
guarded by specially trained British troops and
escorted by the U.S. Coast Guard in U.S. waters.

^------

On the Net:

Energy Department: http://www.energy.gov

   http://www.nirs.org
http://www.thebulletin.org






_______________________________________________________________________
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*****************************************************************
 33 Las Vegas SUN: Plutonium Shipment Plan Worries Lawmakers

 By H. JOSEF HEBERT ASSOCIATED PRESS 

WASHINGTON (AP) - Some congressional Democrats raised security
concerns Wednesday about a proposed shipment of 300 pounds of
weapons-grade plutonium from the United States to France for
conversion into a mixed-oxide fuel. 

The Energy Department plans to send the plutonium by truck from
the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico to the navy
yard in Charleston, S.C., where it will be loaded on a ship
bound for Cherbourg, France, as part of a U.S.-Russian
nonproliferation program. 

Rep. Jim Turner of Texas, the ranking Democrat on the Homeland
Security Committee, said in a letter to Energy Secretary Spencer
Abraham that he was concerned about the security of the
shipment, especially when it reaches France. 

"It is clear that extraordinary security is planned for the
shipment," Turner said in his letter. 

But, he said, he wants greater assurances that security for the
shipment in France would be of the same level as planned for in
the United States. He also questioned whether there had been
adequate "independent oversight and review" of the shipment plan
by other agencies. 

Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., also raised concerns about the
shipments. Markey, a member of the Homeland Security Committee,
questioned whether the Department of Homeland Security has
reviewed the plan. 

The Energy Department says the shipment has been meticulously
planned with high levels of security incorporated. 

Once the shipment arrives in Cherbourg, it is to go by land to a
French reprocessing facility, where the plutonium can be turned
into a less dangerous mixed oxide. Then it is to be returned to
the United States. 

The Energy Department plans to use that material in four fuel
assemblies at Duke Energy's Catawba nuclear power plant in South
Carolina. The test assemblies are part of a U.S.-Russian program
in which each country has pledged to dispose of 64 metric tons
of excess plutonium. 

The United States plans to dispose of its material by burning it
in commercial nuclear reactors as mixed oxide. However, the
initial shipments have to be sent to France because the United
States has yet to build a mixed-oxide processing facility. 

Details of the shipment, including timing, are classified, but
it is expected to occur later this year. According to the Energy
Department, the plutonium would be carried on two British
vessels guarded by specially trained British troops and escorted
by the U.S. Coast Guard in U.S. waters. 

--- 

On the Net: 

Energy Department: http://www.energy.gov [http://www.energy.gov] 

-- 



*****************************************************************
 34 TCS: Tech Central Station - Kerry's Radioactive Flip-Flop
 
By James K. Glassman      Published       08/26/2004    

Relaxing by the pool as Labor Day nears? 
  
Then consider that, as you read this, more than 100 million 
pounds of high-level nuclear waste is buried -- temporarily and 
not too safely -- at 131 separate sites in 39 states around the 
country. 
  
About two-thirds of Americans live within 75 miles of one of 
these sites, which are exposed to terrorism, corrosion and just 
plain accidents. If you live in New York, Chicago, Cleveland, 
Denver, San Francisco, Washington, Miami or dozens of other urban 
areas, you've got dangerous radioactivity right nearby. One big 
threat: the waste will start leaking into drinking-water 
supplies. 
  
But help is on the way! 
  
Actually, it's been on the way since 1956, when the federal 
government began studying the problem. Finally, in 1982, Congress 
passed the Nuclear Waste Disposal Act, which proposed that 
radioactive leftovers -- from submarines and power plants -- be 
stored in a secure, remote place. 
  
In 1987, a separate law established such a place -- in the 
distant desert, 1,000 feet inside Yucca Mountain, adjacent to the 
Nevada Test Site. Yucca is on federal land, surrounded on three 
sides by an Air Force base. You couldn't dream of a better venue. 
  
But it's not surprising that in Las Vegas and elsewhere in the 
state, the law designating Yucca is called the Screw Nevada Act. 
Among the Senators who voted for it -- responsibly, in my view -- 
was John Kerry. 
  
The 1987 law unleashed $4 billion worth of research, 100 public 
hearings, and 5.6 million pages of documents, all indicating that 
Yucca was as risk-free as anything in this life. For example, the 
shields covering waste buried there would corrode by an estimated 
0.03 inches over 10,000 years. 
  
The attacks of 9/11, in particular, lit a fire under 
policymakers, and, at long last, in February 2002, Energy 
Secretary Spence Abraham formally recommended that President Bush 
adopt Yucca Mountain as "the nation's first long-term geological 
repository for high-level radioactive waste." Bush agreed, and so 
did Congress -- but not, this time, Sen. Kerry. 
  
It's wise to be wary when one candidate accuses another of 
"flip-flopping," but Bush's characterization of Kerry is 
undeniable. This guy would make a Nevada desert chameleon 
jealous. 
  
When asked why he had switched positions, the late John Maynard 
Keynes, the most influential economist of the 20th century, once 
said, "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, 
sir?" 
  
In this case, the main fact that changed was that John Kerry was 
no longer merely a junior senator from Massachusetts but a 
serious candidate for president. Nevada, which Bush carried in 
2000 with just 51.9 percent of the vote, is in play. 
  
As a result, it is no exaggeration to say that Yucca Mountain 
could be ground zero on Nov. 2, 2004. 
  
Earlier this month, both presidential candidates were in Nevada. 
According to the Ely Times, Kerry said he would "do everything 
possible to halt the Yucca Mountain project." According to the 
Las Vegas Sun, Bush said that he backed Yucca because of "sound 
science" and pointed out that Kerry "says he is strongly against 
Yucca here in Nevada, but he voted for it several times. And so 
did his running mate." 
  
Bush added, "My point to you is that if they're going to change, 
one day they may change again. I think you need somebody who is 
going to do what he says he's going to do." 
  
That, in brief, is how Bush is trying to define himself against 
Kerry: "I say something, and I do it. He says something and 
changes his mind." Resolution is nice to have in a wartime 
president. 
  
Yucca is a defining issue, as well, because it shows the 
president is serious about making the nation safer from 
terrorists and establishing a rational energy policy -- which 
includes diversifying and enhancing supply, not just reducing 
demand (as Kerry wants). Waste storage is a major reason that the 
U.S. stopped building nuclear power plants, which now generate 
only 20 percent of our electricity. 
  
Could Yucca lose Nevada for Bush? Yes, indeed. But Nevada has 
only five electoral votes. Let me make a suggestion: Why not 
focus on winning supporters in the 39 states whose radioactive 
wastes would be removed to Yucca? Among them are such 
battlegrounds as Ohio, with three nuclear-waste sites; Missouri, 
three sites; Pennsylvania, six sites; and Florida, four sites. 
  
That's 79 electoral votes right there. 
  
*****************************************************************
 35 Las Vegas RJ: Kerry campaign wages counterattack to Bush ad on Yucca Mountain 
 
Thursday, August 26, 2004
 
By ERIN NEFF REVIEW-JOURNAL 

Just two days after the Bush campaign started running a
commercial criticizing John Kerry on his record on the planned
Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, the Kerry campaign
responded with a Nevada-only ad of its own. 

In the 30-second spot, Kerry calls the repository "wrong" and
"dangerous," while pledging: "I will not let it happen." 

The footage was shot before this week, but the Kerry campaign
chose to move the run date up to today to counter the Bush
campaign's initial 30-second piece, campaign officials said. 

"When you hear George Bush attack me, I want you to keep
something in mind," Kerry says in the ad. "Four years ago, he
promised to keep a nuclear waste dump out of Nevada and then
went back on his word." 

Actually in 2000, Bush issued a statement promising to base any
decision on a repository on "sound science, not politics." In a
Las Vegas appearance this month, Bush said he did rely on
science in making the decision. 

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., who introduced the Kerry ad at a news
conference Wednesday, said Kerry doesn't misrepresent Bush's
2000 position. 

"That's what the people of Nevada thought," Reid said. "But it
was just a ploy to get elected." 

Kerry campaign spokesman Sean Smith said the overall message
seeks to portray Kerry's "emphatic position" in opposition to
Yucca Mountain. 

During campaign events and an interview in Las Vegas earlier
this month, Kerry said he would not allow the repository to
proceed "on my watch." 

Kerry said he would withdraw an expected license application
from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and gut the project's
finances. He also said he would appoint Cabinet secretaries of
Interior and Energy who oppose the project and support
additional scientific study on what to do with the nation's
civilian and military nuclear waste. 

"We are not going to let this happen, and George Bush will,"
Smith said of Yucca Mountain. "That's the message of this ad." 

The Bush ad accuses Kerry of changing his position on Yucca
based on seven votes Kerry made in his Senate career that went
against the way Nevada's congressional delegation voted. The
biggest of those was his support of the 1987 bill that included
language singling out Yucca Mountain as the only national site
for study as a repository. 

The Bush ad makes no mention of five Kerry votes between 1996
and 2002 that sided with Nevada, nor does it mention that Bush
recommended Yucca Mountain as the repository after President
Clinton had twice vetoed congressional proposals to bury the
waste in Nevada. 

"It took a lot of courage for John Kerry to vote with me like he
did," Reid said. 

He also said the Bush campaign is trying to confuse Nevada
voters the same way he said the group Swift Boat Veterans for
Truth is trying to confuse voters nationwide about Kerry's
military record. 

"It's as if John Kerry hadn't been to Vietnam, as if he hadn't
been there for us on Yucca Mountain," Reid said. 

Asked for comment, Bush-Cheney spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt
referred to the Bush ad pointing out the seven past votes Kerry
has taken on Yucca and its highlighting of a letter Kerry wrote
in 1999 seeking to expedite waste shipments if Yucca were
approved. 

"John Kerry continues to place more value on his political
strategy than the facts," she said. 

In Washington, Bush campaign chairman Marc Racicot said
Republicans are in bounds to point out Kerry's mixed record on
Yucca Mountain. 

"Senator Kerry said let's examine the record, and we think
that's appropriate," Racicot said in a meeting with reporters on
Wednesday. "His record reveals he was on the opposite side of
this particular issue until such time as he became a
presidential candidate. What does that say about his character
and his capacity to lead?" 

Kerry voted against attempts to store waste at Yucca on an
interim basis in 1997 and in 2000. He also voted in 2002 to
sustain Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn's veto of Bush's decision to
site the waste at Yucca Mountain. Kerry began to seriously
explore his presidential campaign in 2003. 

Racicot said Bush has not gone back on his 2000 "sound science"
pledge. 

"We think we've spoken on this issue honestly, and we believe
the people of Nevada respect that," he said. 

Tad Devine, a Kerry senior adviser, said the Yucca Mountain
issue ultimately will break in favor of the Democratic candidate
among swing voters later in the campaign. 

In no other state is there a local issue that has the potential
to sway the election the way Yucca Mountain does in Nevada,
Devine said in meeting with reporters in Washington on Tuesday. 
"We have a very polarized electorate where the partisans on both
sides have coalesced behind their candidate at the earliest
point in time in history," Devine said. "People who are left
over are not going to engage in a vote decision until much
later." 

David Damore, a political science professor at the University of
Nevada, Las Vegas, said he thought the Kerry ad could be an
effective defense of the Bush campaign's flip-flopping
allegation. 

"This is him saying this is where I stand on this," said Damore,
a Democrat. 

Damore suggested the Bush campaign launched its ad now because
Kerry was not expected to spend any money in Nevada this month.

Since Kerry accepted public financing he cannot access new
contributions until the public money becomes available, next
Friday, the day after Bush accepts the Republican nomination and
also accepts public financing. 

"Kerry's been out of the money for a month and they've started
coming back with the swift boat issue," Damore said. "This is
strategy thinking that he's not going to defend, or that if he
does, he'll have to justify the expense later in the campaign
when he might need it more." 

Eric Herzik, political science professor at the University of
Nevada, Reno, said he thinks Kerry's ad not only misstates
Bush's position, but might exaggerate what Kerry is able to do.
Herzik, a Republican, also said it seems odd either campaign
would focus so much attention on the issue. 

"It seems that both sides are spending a lot of money going
after a very few votes," Herzik said. "The Yucca Mountain
issue's a great way to show that. The people who are going to
lay in front of the trucks, the ones so opposed to Yucca
Mountain, are not going to vote for George Bush." 

Stephens Washington Bureau chief Steve Tetreault contributed to
this report.
 
Copyright Las Vegas Review-Journal
*****************************************************************
 36 Bellona: UK gives Murmansk 15 million pounds for spent nuclear fuel facility
 
Trade and Industry Secretary Patricia Hewitt announced on June 
25th a Ł15 million grant to Russia to help pay for a storage 
facility for spent nuclear fuel. 

2004-08-26 13:36

According to the UK Government News Network, the money is part of 
the UK's contribution to a $20 billion pledge by G8 countries 
designed to counter proliferation of nuclear material, nuclear 
safety and ecological concerns in the former Soviet Union. It 
builds on Ł33 million already committed by the UK Government. 

The money will be used to pay for an interim nuclear storage 
facility and 50 storage casts at Atomflot base in Murmansk. This 
will allow spent fuel currently being stored on board the Lotta, 
a nuclear fuel supply ship, to be safely stored on shore. It will 
also allow the Lotta to collect further fuel from outlying sites 
such as Andreeva Bay for safer storage. Speaking from Moscow 
where she was on an official visit , Ms Hewitt said: "The spent 
nuclear fuel at Atomflot presents a major nuclear security and 
environmental concern for the area. Securing it safely on land is 
a high priority for the Russian Federation and the wider 
international community. I am pleased the UK is able to help as 
part of its G8 commitment." Construction is due to start this 
autumn, with completion due early 2006.
 
In 2002 G8 Leaders pledged to provide up to $20billion over 10 
years for a new global partnership against the spread of weapons 
of mass destruction. The Prime Minister announced that the UK 
would make up to $750 million available to fund projects in 
pursuit of the partnership's aims. 

According to the UK Government News Network, Great Britains 
funded work in North West Russia includes: 

- Ł2 million on management of spent nuclear fuel stocks at 
Andreeva Bay, a former waste nuclear materials site for the 
Russian Navy. 

- Ł11.5 to dismantle two nuclear submarines, The Murmansk and The 
Archangel. 

- Ł5 million on development of technical flotation solutions for 
transportation and storage of decommissioned submarines (funded 
jointly with the US and Norway 

- Arctic Military Environment Co-operation). 

- Ł10 million contribution to the EU Northern Dimension 
Environmental Partnership (to fund further environmental projects 
in north west Russia). 

Other projects supported by the UK in Russia include: 

- Ł5 million towards the Nuclear Safety Programme supporting some 
26 projects to encourage the adoption of Western standards of 
safety and regulation for their operating plant as well as 
providing systems, training and expertise. 

- More than 20 projects to to help retrain former weapon 
scientists and technicians with a commercial focus consistent 
with non-proliferation priorities.   

  Publisher:  [bellona@bellona.no] , President: 
[frederic@bellona.no] 
Information:  [info@bellona.no] , Technical contact: 
[webmaster@bellona.no] 
Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00 Telefax: +47 22 38 38 62  * P.O.Box
2141 Grunerlokka, 0505 Oslo, Norway
*****************************************************************
 37 Las Vegas SUN: Another Yucca ad set to air in Nevada

By Kirsten Searer <searer@lasvegassun.com 
[searer@lasvegassun.com] > and Suzanne Struglinski 
<suzanne@lasvegassun.com [suzanne@lasvegassun.com] > LAS VEGAS 
SUN

 It's Round 4 of the Yucca Mountain television war.

 The Democratic National Committee will launch its own 30-second 
television ad in Nevada defending Democratic presidential nominee 
John Kerry's record on the Yucca Mountain project.

 The ad will begin running tonight or Friday, two days after the 
Kerry-Edwards campaign released its own ad on the nuclear waste 
storage debate in response to one the Bush campaign starting 
airing one earlier this week.

 "We are not going to let George Bush continuously mislead the 
people of Nevada," said Nick Shapiro, committee spokesman in 
Washington, D.C. "Nevada remembers his promise from four years 
ago and, plain and simple, he broke that promise. John Kerry has 
stood with Nevada when it counted and when he's elected 
president, he will make sure the Yucca Mountain project is 
stopped."

 In the new spot, the DNC says Bush's ads have been deemed 
"false," "misleading," and "wrong" and "Now George Bush is 
attacking John Kerry on Yucca Mountain."

 The ad closes by saying, "It's John Kerry Nevada can count on. 
All we've gotten from George bush is broken promises and negative 
attacks."

 Shapiro did not know specific details on the cost of the ad, 
only that is was "significant" and the Yucca ad will replace a 
health care themed ad the committee is now airing in the state. 
The committee will still air an ad featuring retired Gen. Tony 
McPeak, former Air Force chief of staff, that focuses on Kerry's 
strong national security credentials.

 Meanwhile, the Kerry-Edwards campaign released its own 
television ad Wednesday to refute recent claims that Democratic 
Presidential nominee John Kerry has a tarnished record on Yucca 
Mountain.

 The 30-second spot shows a close-up of Kerry speaking plainly to 
the audience:

 "When you hear George Bush attack me, I want you to keep 
something in mind. Four years ago, he promised to keep a nuclear 
waste dump out of Nevada and then went back on his word.

 "As president, I will oppose turning Nevada into a nuclear dump 
site. It's wrong. It's dangerous. And I will not let it happen."

 This ad comes just two days after the Bush-Cheney campaign 
launched its own Yucca Mountain ad pointing out that Kerry voted 
for the 1987 "Screw Nevada" bill that singled out Nevada as the 
only site to be studied for the project.

 Kerry came out in support of a geologic repository several other 
times, as well, the ad points out.

 Democrats have reacted strongly to the ad, saying Kerry has made 
an absolute promise to stop the Yucca Mountain site.

 On Wednesday, Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said it was time to set 
the record straight on Kerry's Yucca position. He compared the 
issue to the questions over Kerry's service in the Vietnam War, 
saying that Republicans are trying to muddy issues where Kerry 
has compelling arguments.

 "They have tried their best to confuse the issue," he said, 
saying that Kerry voted with him on Yucca Mountain issues every 
time Reid asked him to.

 Yet even the Kerry ad isn't entirely accurate. Bush has never 
specifically promised to keep a nuclear waste dump out of Nevada, 
as Kerry's ad charges.

 While campaigning in Nevada in the 2000 election, Bush issued a 
release saying he believed that "sound science, not politics, 
must prevail in the designation of any high-level nuclear waste 
repository."

 "As president, I would not sign legislation that would send 
nuclear waste to any proposed site unless it's been deemed 
scientifically safe," he wrote. "I also believe the federal 
government must work with the local and state governments that 
will be affected to address safety and transportation issues."

 Bush reaffirmed his commitment to "sound science, not politics," 
while visiting Las Vegas several weeks ago.

 Another ad, paid for by Moveon.org, also charges that Bush 
promised to stop nuclear waste in Nevada.

 Despite the conflicting stories, Reid said the Nevada public 
doesn't have much to be confused about.

 "This is an issue that shouldn't be very confusing," Reid said. 
"One guy is with us and one guy is against us."

 He said he called Kerry's campaign to encourage them to run an 
ad to counter the Bush ad. Kerry's Nevada spokesman, Sean Smith, 
said Kerry had already taped footage in case the campaign needed 
it.

 On Wednesday, former Montana Gov. Marc Racicot, now the chairman 
of the Bush-Cheney campaign, said Kerry has made it "inescapable" 
to discuss his voting record on Yucca Mountain.

 "What is a fundamental element leadership? Whether or not you 
can articulate a position in a principle fashion and stay 
consistently dedicated to a steady course, or is it such that you 
simply mutate change and form your opinion to the circumstances 
that exist at the moment?" Racicot said.

 "(Kerry's) record reveals that in fact he was on the opposite 
side of that particular issue until such time he became a 
presidential candidate," he said. "Well, what does that say about 
his character and his capacity to lead? That makes it relevant."

 Racicot said the people of Nevada understand the Yucca issue and 
will "make a very careful, a very precise judgment" in November.

 "It is a difficult issue, but you know I believe the people of 
Nevada understand it very precisely, and they know when people 
are being opportunistic and they know when people have positions 
that are fluid and are an effort to ingratiate support rather 
than principle and I trust they will be able to differentiate on 
that basis."

 

*****************************************************************
 38 FactCheck.org: Yucca Mountain Mudslide: Both Sides Dissemble on 
Nuclear Waste Dump in Nevada          
 		 		
[FactCheck.org - Annenberg Political Fact Check]                               
 					 					 						 						
August 25, 2004
 							 							 							 							
Summary

An Aug 19 ad in Nevada from the liberal Democratic group 
Moveon.org Voter Fund attacks Bush for breaking a promise he 
never made, falsely claiming Bush vowed to veto legislation 
making Yucca Mountain a nuclear dump. Actually, all Bush promised 
was to veto temporary storage of nuclear waste in the state, 
pending final safety studies for permanent storage which he later 
approved.
 
Bush-Cheney '04 in turn attacked Kerry Aug. 23 with a misleading 
ad claiming the senator long supported a Yucca Mountain disposal 
site before promising recently do all he can to block it if 
elected. In fact, Kerry voted against singling out Yucca Mountain 
as a storage site as early as 1987.
 							
Analysis
 							
The Yucca Mountain [http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov/ymp/index.shtml] 
 issue might have changed history. Four years 
ago neither Bush nor Gore promised to block the Yucca Mountain 
site -- 100 miles outside Las Vegas -- as a permanent repository 
for used nuclear fuel rods, which are intensely radioactive.
  
Moveon.org Voter Fund
 "Waste"
 
Announcer: It's coming to Nevada...radioactive waste headed for 
Yucca Mountain. Why? Because in 2000, George Bush misled Nevada. 
That's right. After promising Governor Guinn he'd veto 
legislation making Yucca Mountain a nuclear dump Geoge Bush 
personally approved the disposal of radioactive waste in Nevada.
 
John Kerry's fighting to stop Yucca Mountain.
 
Moveon.org Voter Fund is responsible for the content of this 
advertising.

Gore now has reason regret not catering more strongly to Nevada 
voters' dislike for the nuclear dump. He lost Nevada by 46 
percent to Bush's 50 percent. Had just under 11,000 of those Bush 
votes gone to Gore instead, the Democrat would have won the 
state's four electoral votes -- and the presidency -- even 
without Florida.
 
This time John Kerry is promising what Gore didn't -- to keep 
nuclear waste out. It's a clear difference between the 
candidates: Bush signed 
[http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/07/20020723-2.html] 
 legislation July 23, 2002, clearing the way for the Department 
of Energy to go forward with the Yucca project despite objection 
from the state's governor, after earlier urging 
[http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/02/20020215-10.html 
]  Congress to clear the way.
 
Bush's Non-promise
 
The ad says those actions by Bush broke a promise to "veto 
legislation making Yucca Mountain a nuclear dump," but that's 
false. Bush never made such a promise. What he said during the 
2000 campaign, in a letter to Nevada's Gov. Kenny Guinn, is this:
 
Bush (letter to Gov. Guinn, September, 2000): The Department of 
Energy (DoE) has not completed its impact study of Yucca Mountain 
and important questions of environmental protection and safety 
have not yet been answered. Therefore, I would veto legislation 
that would provide for the temporary storage of nuclear waste at 
Yucca Mountain. (emphasis added).
 
That of course is not a promise to veto legislation making Yucca 
Mountain a permanent dump, and that was clear at the time. As the 
Las Vegas Review-Journal   <font face="Arial, 
Helvetica">reported</font> 
[http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2000/Sep-30-Sat-2000/news 
/14505409.html] :
 
Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sept. 30, 2000): On the question of 
permanent storage, the two presidential candidates have both said 
science should determine if the permanent repository is suitable. 
Neither has suggested they would block the permanent site if 
scientists say it is safe.
 
And that's what Bush reiterated in the letter which the ad 
mischaracterizes. The ad show the words, Dear Kenny, I would 
veto legislation& scrawled across the screen, but the ad leaves 
out Bush's crucial qualifier:
 
Bush (letter to Gov. Guinn, September, 2000): As I've said 
before, I believe the best science must prevail in the 
designation that would send nuclear waste to any proposed site -- 
either on a permanent or temporary basis -- unless it has been 
deemed scientifically safe.
 
The Review-Journal report noted that language, and said "That 
appears to suggest that if the environmental and safety questions 
were addressed to his satisfaction, Bush would approve such a 
bill" for permanent storage, which is exactly what Bush did two 
years later.
 
Of course, what constitutes scientifically safe is a matter of 
hotly debated opinion. Many Nevada residents maintain that the 
site isn't safe, and the matter is currently tied up in a court 
dispute over whether sufficiently strict standards are being 
applied. Still, Bush made clear he considered the safety issue 
settled when he approved the site July 23, 2002. At that 
time White House press secretary Ari Fleischer <font face="Arial, 
Helvetica">said</font> 
[http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/07/20020723-2.html] 
:
 
Fleischer (July 23, 2002): The successful completion of the Yucca 
Mountain project will ensure our nation has a safe and secure 
underground facility that will store nuclear waste in a manner 
that protects our environment and our citizens.
 
The measure Bush <font face="Arial, Helvetica">signed</font> 
[http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/07/20020723-2.html] 
 that day was a joint resolution passed overwhelmingly by the 
House (H.J. Res. 87) and Senate (S.J. Res. 34). The House <font 
face="Arial, Helvetica">passed</font> 
[http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2002/roll133.xml#Y] the resolution 
with a bipartisan margin of 306-117. The Senate passed the 
resolution by a voice vote, after a key procedural measure 
[http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_ 
vote_cfm.cfm?congress=107&amp;session=2&amp;vote=00167]   was 
approved 60-39.
 
Radioactive Waste Coming?
 
The ad says radioactive waste "is coming to Yucca Mountain" and 
shows trucks rolling, but the fact is that it would be years 
before any radioactive waste in actually transported, even if all 
legal hurdles are cleared.
 
The bill Bush signed in 2002 gave the green light for the 
Department of Energy (DoE) to apply for a license from the U.S. 
Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to start construction of 
permanent facilities at Yucca Mountain. Now, two years later, the 
DoE says it will apply by December. By law, the NRC must approve 
or disapprove the application in no more than 4 years, and Sue 
Gagner, an NRC spokesperson, said it would take at least 3.
 
Once the DoE completes construction, however, the agency would 
still need to obtain an additional operating license before 
transport of the waste could begin. The site recommendation 
[http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov/ymp/sr/documents.htm]   sent by DoE 
Secretary Spencer Abraham to Bush in 2002 set the total timeline 
at a minimum of 8 years before Yucca Mountain becomes 
operational.
 
A Kerry Flip-Flop?
 
The Bush campaign responded with an ad giving the false 
impression that Kerry was a long-time, strong supporter of Yucca 
Mountain before turning against it. In fact, though Kerry's 
record is indeed somewhat mixed, he cast a clear vote against 
singling out Yucca Mountain as early as 1987 and the Bush ad 
cites his votes selectively and in a misleading way.
 



  
Bush-Cheney '04 Ad
 
"Kerry's Yucca"
 
Bush: I'm George W. Bush, and I approve this message.
 
Announcer: Listening to John Kerry, you'd think he'd been against 
Yucca Mountain his entire career. But Kerry voted to establish 
the nuclear repository at Yucca Mountain. Kerry voted 7 times to 
make it easier to dump waste at Yucca and said, "A repository for 
nuclear waste could be established there and be made functional 
by 2015." He even tried to speed shipment of nuclear waste from 
Massachusetts to Yucca. There's what Kerry says and then there's 
what Kerry does...
   


The ad claims Kerry "voted to establish the nuclear repository at 
Yucca Mountain," a reference to huge 1987 budget bill that 
included a provision singling out Yucca Mountain as the only site 
to get further study as a nuclear waste facility. At the time, 
sites in Texas and Washington state were under study as well. The 
legislation has come to be known as the "screw Nevada" bill. 
Kerry did vote for the budget measure, and Nevada's senators 
opposed it because of that one provision. The budget measure 
was adopted 61-28 on Dec. 21, 1987. However, it was not a 
straight up-or-down vote on Yucca Mountain. The key vote came 
more than a month earlier, on Nov. 18. 
 
The "screw Nevada" provision was then part of an energy 
appropriations bill, and Kerry voted to remove it. That was 
the key vote on Yucca Mountain, and Kerry joined Nevada's two 
senators in voting "aye." The measure was defeated 34-61. As The 
Associated Press reported at the time, "That was the last of 
several attempts, including a short-lived filibuster, to scuttle 
the plan" to make Yucca Mountain the only site under study.
 
The Bush ad also says Kerry has "voted 7 times to make it easier 
to dump waste at Yucca," and the campaign cites seven votes in 
which Kerry voted one way while Nevada's Sen. Harry Reid, a 
die-hard Yucca opponent, voted the other. It is true that Kerry 
has sometimes voted for measures that included provisions for a 
nuclear dump at Yucca Mountain, including the 1987 budget bill. 
But  The Associated Press has reported, "Each time Kerry has 
faced the simple choice of voting whether or not to send waste to 
Yucca Mountain, he has voted against it."
 
That was true in 2002, when Kerry voted 
[http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_ 
vote_cfm.cfm?congress=107&amp;session=2&amp;vote=00167] 
 against the Senate version of the Yucca Mountain measure that 
Bush signed. And it was true two years earlier, when Kerry voted 
 in May 2000 against override of President Clinton's veto of a 
bill that would have provided for temporary storage of spent 
nuclear fuel rods in Nevada. The veto was sustained.
 
At one point the Bush ad quotes from a letter 
[http://www.factcheck.org/UploadedFiles/Kerry%20Letter%20To%20O'L 
eary%202-5-96.pdf]  that Kerry sent in 1996 stating that a 
nuclear dump could be "made functional by 2015." Not mentioned in 
the ad is that the letter urged the Clinton administration to 
follow congressional directives to provide more money for testing 
the Yucca facility. The ad also says Kerry "tried to speed 
shipment of nuclear waste from Massachusetts to Yucca," which 
refers to a 1999 letter 
[http://www.factcheck.org/UploadedFiles/KerryLetter%20to%20Murkow 
ski.pdf]   signed by the four senators from Massachusetts and 
Connecticut urging "an accelerated waste acceptance schedule" for 
waste from de-commissioned nuclear plants such as those in their 
two states. "This provision would give high priority to spent 
fuel currently stored at commercial reactor sites undergoing 
decommissioning," the letter said. However, both of those letters 
were sent at a time when Congress had already fixed on Yucca 
Mountain as the only site being considered for nuclear waste 
storage, despite Kerry's objection.

 							
Sources
 							

 
 
Federal Election Commission, "2000  <font face="Courier New, 
Courier" size="2">OFFICIAL PRESIDENTIAL GENERAL ELECTION 
RESULTS</font> [http://www.fec.gov/pubrec/2000presgeresults.htm] 
" Accessed 23 Aug 2004.
 
"President Signs Yucca Mountain Bill; Statement by the Press 
Secretary," White House Office of the Press Secretary, News 
Release 
[http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/07/20020723-2.html] 
 23 July 2002. 
 
George W. Bush, "Presidential Letter 
[http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/02/20020215-10.html 
]  to Congress: Text of a Letter from the President to the 
Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President of the 
Senate," 15 Feb 2002.
 
Saturday, September 30, 2000 Jane Ann Morrison, "Republicans hail 
Bush letter 
[http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2000/Sep-30-Sat-2000/news 
/14505409.html]   on nuclear waste; Guinn says presidential 
candidates' positions on issue now equal, but Democrats 
disagree," Las Vegas Review-Journal, 30 Sept 2000.
 
Cy Ryan,  <font face="Courier New, Courier" size="2">Bush Says 
He&#8217;d Veto Yucca as Interim Site</font> 
[http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/special/2000/sep/29/51 
0841396.html] , Las Vegas Sun, 29 Sept. 2000.
 
Ari Fleischer, " <font face="Courier New, Courier" 
size="2">President Signs Yucca Mountain Bill</font> 
[http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/07/20020723-2.html] 
," 23 July 2002.
 
Lee Byrd, "Senate Approves Major Overhaul Of Program For Dumping 
Nuclear Wastes," The Associated Press 18 Nov 1987.
 
U.S. House of Representatives, 107th Congress, 2nd Session, H.J. 
Res. 87, Proposed 11 April 2002.
 
U.S. Senate Roll Call Votes 107th Congress - 2nd Session On the 
Motion to Proceed (Motion to Proceed to Consider S.J. Res. 34 ) 
<font face="Courier New, Courier" size="2">Record Vote Number: 
167</font> 
[http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_ 
vote_cfm.cfm?congress=107&amp;session=2&amp;vote=00167]  9 July 
2002
 
U.S. House of Representatives Roll Call Votes 107th Congress - 
2nd Session H.J. Res. 87,  <font face="Courier New, Courier" 
size="2">Vote #133</font> 
[http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2002/roll133.xml] , 8 May 2002.
 
U.S. Senate Roll Call Votes 106th Congress - 2nd Session, On 
Overriding the Veto (Shall The Bill S. 1287 Pass, Over The 
Objections Of The President ) Veto sustained Vote #88 
[http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_ 
vote_cfm.cfm?congress=106&amp;session=2&amp;vote=00088] , 2 May 
2000.
 
"<font face="Courier New, Courier" size="2">Recommendation by the 
Secretary of Energy Regarding the Suitability of the Yucca 
Mountain Site for a Repository Under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act 
of 1982</font> [http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov/ymp/sr/documents.htm]  
," Feb. 2002.
 
John Kerry, " <font face="Courier New, Courier" 
size="2">Candidate Says Yucca a Non-Starter If He's 
Elected</font> 
[http://www.johnkerry.com/pressroom/news/news_2004_0516.html] ," 
Las Vegas Review-Journal, 16 May 2004.
 
"Face-to-Face with John Ralston," KLAS-TV, 17 May 2004.
 							
Copyright 2004 Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University 
of Pennsylvania
 
*****************************************************************
 39 SNS: Bush, Kerry debate range of topics in battleground West


 By JAMES W. BROSNAN
 Scripps Howard News Service
 August 26, 2004

 -      President Bush and Sen. John Kerry haven't yet promised 
to bring rain to drought-stricken rangeland, but they're arguing 
over almost every other issue in an attempt to round up votes in 
the West - from how to prevent forest fires to whether to store 
nuclear waste at Nevada's Yucca Mountain.

        Bush campaigned Thursday in New Mexico, one of a 
half-dozen Western battleground states where federal involvement 
with land, water, American Indian and energy concerns provides 
issues unique to the region.

        Western Republicans are highlighting Kerry's votes 
against Bush's "Healthy Forest" initiative, which they contend 
would make communities safer from wildfires but which Democrats 
say would give the timber industry carte blanche to cut down 
old-growth forests.

        The Democratic presidential nominee's vote this year 
against the Bush national energy bill is another hot topic. That 
legislation would have opened more of the West to drilling - at 
the expense, Democrats say, of rare wildlife and pristine 
environments.

        New Mexico is the fourth-largest producer of natural gas 
in the country and federal drilling permits contribute millions 
of dollars to the state's coffers for schools, said Senate Energy 
Committee Chairman Pete Domenici, R-N.M.

        Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., said Kerry supported the 
Democratic energy bill he authored the year before and backs his 
efforts to increase the federal budget for forest-thinning 
projects that protect communities from wildfires.

        This year, Bush also has promised voters in Oregon that 
he would deepen the Columbia River and targeted $105 million on 
Klamath Basin water problems.

        Not to be out-promised, Kerry went to the rim of the 
Grand Canyon in Arizona, another battleground state, to accuse 
the Bush administration of neglecting the tourist-drawing 
national parks in the West. Interior Secretary Gale Norton 
traveled at taxpayer expense to a national park in New Mexico on 
Wednesday to defend the National Park Service budget and Bush's 
future plans.

        The Massachusetts senator also has accused Bush of 
cutting budgets for American Indian housing, job training and 
higher education. Domenici said the administration has 
dramatically increased funding for tribal schools and the 
treatment of diabetes on reservations. 

	But can these issues make a difference in the election?

        Kerry senior adviser Tad Devine said that Yucca Mountain 
is the only issue potent enough to turn around a single state.

        Four years ago, Bush campaigned in Nevada with a pledge 
to consider only the "best science" before moving forward with 
designating Yucca Mountain as a nuclear-waste repository. 
Democrats say that, once in office, Bush broke his promise and 
bowed to demands of the nuclear lobby. 

        Domenici said the matter has hurt Bush in Nevada and 
could mean the campaign will put more of a focus on New Mexico, 
which Bush lost to Democrat Al Gore by only 375 votes in 2000.

        Last week, Bush tried for a comeback in Nevada by running 
television ads in the state that accused Kerry of flip-flopping 
on Yucca Mountain, first voting for the law that led to the 
waste-dump designation and now promising not to go forward with 
the dump. 

        "I believe the people of Nevada understand," said 
Bush-Cheney campaign chairman Marc Racicot. "They know when 
people are being opportunistic and when their positions are fluid 
and an effort to ingratiate support rather than principled." 

        On Thursday, the Democratic National Committee announced 
it would air ads in Nevada documenting Kerry's opposition to 
Yucca Mountain. 

        For all the attention, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, 
Nevada, Oregon and Washington state can thank the provision of 
the Constitution that decides the presidential election 
state-by-state in the Electoral College rather than by popular 
vote nationwide.

        "They wouldn't be talking about Yucca Mountain or any 
other issue in a state that wasn't closely contested in the 
Electoral College," said Bob Loevy, an expert on Electoral 
College politics at Colorado College in Colorado Springs.

(E-mail James W. Brosnan at BrosnanJ(at)shns.com.)
*****************************************************************
 40 TheStar.com: Keep nuclear waste accessible, says report
 
  Thu. Aug. 26, 2004. | Updated at 09:12 PM  

Canadians don't want it buried and forgotten
Ottawa to hear from `citizen dialogues' today

PETER CALAMAI SCIENCE REPORTER

OTTAWACanadians want the radioactive waste from their nuclear 
reactors stored within reach, not dropped down holes deep into 
the rocky Precambrian Shield and forgotten.

And they don't trust government, industry or existing regulators 
with the job.

These two stark messages will be delivered to Ottawa today by an 
agency that the federal government set up to recommend how to 
handle the 3.6 million bundles of used fuel eventually produced 
by the country's two dozen nuclear power reactors.

Nearly 90 per cent of the existing used fuel  enough to fill 
five hockey rinks to the top of the boards  is now stored in 
temporary facilities in Ontario, at sites like the Pickering 
nuclear power station. The waste remains dangerously radioactive 
for centuries.

The overwhelming public rejection of geological disposal deep in 
the Canadian Shield is a striking rebuff for the federal 
government which has been pushing that approach for more than 30 
years and financed costly studies at an underground lab in 
Manitoba. 

The messages were driven home by more than 450 adults who took 
part in day-long consultations early this year in Toronto and 11 
other cities.

 People with connections to the nuclear industry were excluded 
from these "citizen dialogues."

"They tell us what values Canadians believe should govern our 
decisions regarding nuclear waste," said Judith Maxwell in a 
prepared statement.

Maxwell is head of the Canadian Public Policy Research Networks, 
which organized the public consultations for the Nuclear Waste 
Management Organization, an industry-financed body set up under 
federal law.

The waste agency must pick a long-term solution by November, 
2005, choosing among deep disposal in the Canadian Shield, 
accessible "mausoleum" storage at a central site or several 
mausoleums at existing reactors. It must also recommend to the 
cabinet the general location for this long-term waste management.

Despite a steady stream of reports and public hearings about 
nuclear waste, most participants said they had heard little or 
nothing and were shocked to learn that no long-term plan was in 
place before Canada opted for electricity from nuclear power.

"How, they argued, can society manage these issues for centuries 
to come if nobody knows what is going on?" says a report on the 
consultations.

The report says most people want the spent fuel bundles to be 
accessible because they believe new technology will come up with 
better ways of handling radioactive waste.

 Widespread distrust of existing agencies led Canadians to call 
for a new independent, non-partisan oversight body to keep tabs 
on how both government and industry handle nuclear waste.

This message means that top elected officials in Ottawa and the 
provinces must "revisit the mandates of existing oversight bodies 
in the nuclear field," concludes the report. Bodies like the 
federal regulator, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, will 
need to have a "very public face."

Additional articles by Peter Calamai

Legal Notice: Copyright Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All
*****************************************************************
 41 Daily Herald: Groups question state's regulations on radium disposal 
 
[http://www.dailyherald.com]

By John Patterson Daily Herald State Government Editor
Posted Thursday, August 26, 2004                

SPRINGFIELD - Environmental groups said Wednesday that too many 
questions still remain to justify how the state wants to let 
communities dispose of radium that's been removed from drinking 
water.

The proposed state regulations would allow the low-level 
radioactive waste to be sent out with wastewater or processed 
with sewage sludge and likely spread on farmers' fields. Radium 
is a radioactive element found in many underground water 
supplies.

Albert Ettinger, a senior attorney with the Environmental Law and 
Policy Center, said the regulations are billed as a cost savings 
but no one has detailed how much will be saved. He said more 
information is also needed regarding the impact on aquatic life.

State environmental officials said the new rules would relieve a 
regulatory burden faced by many municipal wastewater treatment 
plants and that the proposals keep in place the standards for 
removing radium from drinking water. They contend radium is a 
health concern only in drinking water and those regulations are 
not being changed.

The issue emerged because more than 100 Illinois communities, 
including several in the suburbs, that get their drinking water 
from wells have been forced to comply with federal drinking water 
standards. That means getting rid of the radium in the water, 
which can pose a cancer threat.

In turn, that led to a debate on how best to dispose of the 
radium once it's out of the water. Some environmental groups 
argue it should be disposed of in an appropriate landfill rather 
than allowed back into the state's waterways or processed in 
sewage sludge.

[http://www.dailyherald.com/search] | Site Map
*****************************************************************
 42 Elko Daily Free Press: Citizen Alert plans 


ELKO - Citizen Alert will hold a town hall meeting in Elko on 
Oct. 11 for a "Back to Our Routes" presentation that is designed 
to step up opposition to the federal government's plan to use 
Yucca Mountain as the nation's nuclear waste depository.

Elko is just one of series of such meetings that Citizen Alert 
will be holding over the next two months throughout the state. No 
specifics about time and location of the Elko gathering are yet 
available.

Citizen Alert's Executive Director Peggy Maze Johnson said the 
use of Yucca Mountain as a nuclear waste dumping ground can still 
be prevented.

"The simple fact is that the Department of Energy does not yet 
have a license to transport and store high-level nuclear waste to 
Yucca Mountain," she said in a press release. "If concerned 
Nevadans stay united in opposition to this project, I believe we 
can prevent that license from ever being granted."

She said the "Back to Our Routes" presentation will provide 
up-to-date information that can be used to contest the Yucca 
Mountain project.Elko visit Oct. 11 <span class='print'>Print 
this story</span> 
[http://www.elkodaily.com/articles/2004/08/26/news/local/news3.pr 
t] <span class='print'>Email this story</span> 
[http://www.elkodaily.com/articles/2004/08/26/news/local/news3.em 
l]                                      
   
*****************************************************************
 43 SFBV: The rabble-rousers
 
  San Francisco Bay View - National Black Newspaper of the Year
 
8/25/04 

 [http://www.sfbayview.com] 

by Ahimsa Porter Sumchai, M.D. 

rabble (rabel) 1. a disorderly crowd or mob 2. the common people 

rabble-rouser (rouzer) a person who stirs the passions or 
prejudices of the public 

- Random House Websters Dictionary 
    
  An aerial view of the Hunters Point Shipyard looking down on 
submarines and ships docked in the piers on what is now Parcel B. 
Parcel B is still heavily contaminated with radiation. Photo: 
www.communitywindowontheshipyard.org   

The Hunters Point Shipyard Restoration Advisory Board enjoys a 
celebrated history of rambunctious activism and boisterous 
dissent. The RAB has emerged as an increasingly high profile 
source of political embarrassment and challenge to the U.S. Navy, 
environmental regulators and San Francisco city government. 

Like the new Untouchables, the RAB has assumed the conscience 
of the Bay View Hunters Point community in matters pertaining to 
the cleanup of the Hunters Point Shipyard. The RAB meets every 
fourth Thursday of the month from 6 to 8 p.m. at Dago Marys 
Restaurant at the Innes Avenue entry to the Shipyard. The public 
is invited to attend. 

The April 14, 1994, Management Guidance for Execution and 
Development of the Defense Environmental Restoration Program 
established guidelines for Restoration Advisory Boards at 
military installations undergoing environmental restoration. 
According to the September 1994 RAB Implementation Guidelines: 

RABs bring together people who reflect the diverse interests 
within the local community, enabling the early and continued flow 
of information between the affected community, the Department of 
Defense and environmental oversight agencies. RABs ensure that 
all stakeholders have a voice and can actively participate in a 
timely and thorough manner in the review of cleanup documents. 
RAB community members provide advice as individuals to the 
decision makers on restoration issues. It is a forum to be used 
for the expression and careful consideration of diverse points of 
view. 

Frederick Douglass, emancipated slave and publisher of The North 
Star anti-slavery newspaper, once said, Power concedes nothing 
without a demand. The RAB has been the determined source of 
demand for complete transparency, accountability and thoroughness 
in the Shipyard cleanup and the voice for the protection of the 
health and economic vitality of the BVHP community. 

On Nov. 7, 2000, a declaration of policy was passed by 87 percent 
of San Francisco voters. Proposition P was formulated by a 
committee chaired by former RAB community co-chair Lynne Brown. 
Its original wording enshrined the mandatory requirement for 
community acceptance of environmental cleanup standards under the 
federal Superfund law: 

The United States government should be held to the highest 
standards of accountability for its actions. The Bayview Hunters 
Point community wants the Hunters Point Shipyard to be cleaned to 
a level that would enable the unrestricted use of the property 
... the highest standard for cleanup established by the United 
States Environmental Protection Agency. 

The Hunters Point Shipyard is a deactivated military base located 
in southeastern San Francisco consisting of approximately 493 
land-based acres. According to the March 2, 2001, Health 
Consultation Report of the U.S. Department of Health and Human 
Services Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, the 
Hunters Point Naval Shipyard was originally established as a 
commercial shipyard in 1870. 

The Navy acquired the property in 1941, 11 days before the attack 
on Pearl Harbor. From 1941 to 1974, the major activities were 
shipbuilding, maintenance and repair of naval ships and 
submarines. Additionally, the facility was used for base housing, 
naval ordnance training exercises, radiological defense research, 
and research on exposure to radioactive fallout. 

For 25 years, the Shipyard was the site of the nations premier 
radiation research institute, the Naval Radiological Defense 
Laboratories. In the 1950s, the Shipyard employed 8,500 
civilians. 

The Navy deactivated the shipyard in 1974, and most of the base 
was leased to a private ship repair firm, Triple A Machine Shop. 
The lease was terminated in the wake of investigations by the San 
Francisco District Attorneys office, which successfullly 
prosecuted Triple A on thousands of documented environmental 
violations. 

In 1989, following the Navys environmental investigations, the 
U.S. EPA placed the Shipyard on its National Priorities List, 
thus designating it a federal Superfund site. In 1991, the 
Department of Defense listed the Shipyard for closure under the 
Base Realignment and Closure process. 

According to Sherlina Nageer of Literacy for Environmental 
Justice, more than 2,000 children attend the 21 schools and 
childcare facilities within three miles of the Shipyard. Writing 
in the August 2004 issue of Fault Lines, Nageer properly 
identifies the fact that these children can spend from six to 12 
hours a day in school or day care, and their health is at risk 
because of their proximity to a toxic site. 

Children are especially vulnerable because of their size, 
developmental stage and age-specific behaviors. Toxins can affect 
childrens physical and mental development and heighten their 
risk of disease and learning disabilities. In Bayview, rates of 
childhood asthma, cancer and other chronic illnesses are two to 
four times above state averages. 

African Americans together with Asian Pacific Islanders - many of 
whom have been ethnically categorized as Oceanic Negroid - 
comprise the majority population in BVHP. The health disparities 
evident among San Franciscos African American population have 
been documented by the U.S Census Bureau 2000 and Healthy People 
2010. 

African American death rates are significantly worse than other 
ethnic groups and rank highest in mortality for cardiovascular 
disease, cancer and AIDS. African Americans experience the 
greatest premature mortality from ischemic heart disease, AIDS, 
drug poisoning, stroke and homicide and the highest asthma 
hospitalization rates - a record 600 per 100,000 population. 

While these health disparities cannot be solely assigned to 
environmental causes, the impact of environmental injustice on a 
neighborhood where toxic contamination of food, air, water and 
soil combine with stress and immune system impairment to increase 
susceptibility to disease. New links between the environment, 
aggression and violence include post traumatic stress disorder, 
the use of drugs and alcohol, and sympathetic nervous system 
stimulation from asthma inhalers, steroids and toxic metals. 

Chinese revolutionary poet Lui Shun once said, I have no sword 
... only a pen ... and it is not for sale! In the May 2004 issue 
of the West Portal Monthly, Mayor Gavin Newsom touted the 
accomplishments of his administration and credited himself with 
having broken the log jam of the Hunters Point Shipyard 
Conveyance Agreement. 

Ironically, the April 2, 2004, issue of the San Francisco 
Chronicle reported that in early March of this year Darius 
Anderson, a lobbyist and Democratic Party fundraiser, held a 
lunchtime fundraiser with San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom 
inviting contributions of $750 to help retire Newsoms $400,000 
campaign debt. Anderson is the principal member of a development 
firm negotiating with the city for a redevelopment lease for 
Treasure Island and is a partner in the Treasure Island 
development deal with residential builders Lennar Corp. of Miami. 

Lennar Corp. held the exclusive negotiating agreement for Phase I 
development of Hunters Point Shipyard Parcels A and B. And on 
March 31, 2004, in clear violation of local, state and federal 
law, Newsom signed the Hunters Point Shipyard Conveyance 
Agreement granting Lennar Corp. of Miami exclusive development 
rights for the Shipyard. 

Rumors of bribes and political improprieties abound and include 
the recent report that Lennar has offered the local men of God 
a cut in the Shipyard development. The Black ministers are 
rumored to have been offered 15 percent of the deal. 

Environmental organizations like Arc Ecology have benefited from 
Lennar funding as well as funding from the Mayors Office of 
Economic Development. Once staunch advocates for the Shipyard 
cleanup and adversaries of the Navy, Arc Ecology now works openly 
to facilitate the Shipyard transfer and has become an ally of the 
Navy in its efforts to conceal the extent of residual 
contamination on Parcels A and B as well as the broadening impact 
of radiological operations on the base. 

In the face of recent opposition to the Shipyard transfer from 
organizations like the Community First Coalition, Mayor Gavin 
Newsom announced he was in receipt of a $2.25 million grant 
awarded by the Department of Defense last month to support the 
Citys plan to site community development activities, including 
community centers, artists studios and health care services, in 
a region of Shipyard Parcel B where a 1992 Navy investigation 
confirmed the presence of soils that emitted gamma radiation 
above background. 

The job myth 

On Nov. 2, 2000, former Mayor Willie Brown Jr. and Secretary of 
the Navy Gordon England signed the original Hunters Point 
Shipyard Memorandum of Agreement between the City and the Navy. 
This action triggered an avalanche of debate among a vast array 
of community, government and private interests regarding the 
health risks, economic benefits and legal authority governing the 
proposed phased cleanup and development of the Shipyard. 

In 1992 the Navy, state and federal regulators divided the 
Shipyard into six parcels to facilitate the environmental cleanup 
process. The parcels were sequenced A through F based on 
information available at that time and by the anticipated level 
of cleanup that would be required. Parcel A was auctioned as 
the least environmentally challenged. 

Since that 1992 FFA agreement, extensive evidence has surfaced 
negating the Navys claim that Parcel A meets standards for 
unrestricted residential development and reuse, including new 
documentation that six radiation impacted buildings are sited on 
the parcel and challenges to the cleanup standards that led to 
the Navys 1995 no further action determination on the Parcel A 
ROD. 

Most significantly, two years following the August 2000 Parcel E 
industrial landfill fire, flammable explosive methane gas was 
detected in concentrations exceeding 80 percent in air within 100 
feet of the Parcel A boundary with the extensively contaminated 
Parcel E. While the Navy has implemented a landfill gas removal 
action, the Parcel E landfill remains partially capped and no 
remedy has been proposed by the Navy to address it as a potential 
source of toxic migration onto nearby Parcel A. 

Even more seriously contaminated than Parcel A is nearby Parcel B 
where the IR-07 and IR018 former submarine base areas harbor 
toxic landfills and emit gamma radiation above background. On 
analysis, soils from this region were confirmed to contain 
elevated levels of the radionuclide Radium. 

In November of 2003, an addendum to the Environmental Impact 
Report for HPS Phase I Development was surreptitiously generated 
by the Planning Department and adopted as a negative declaration 
by the Redevelopment Commission in April of 2004. It purposely 
excludes the impact of radiological operations and investigations 
on Parcels A and B and is currently under investigation to 
determine a legal cause of action. 

On Aug. 7, 2002, a letter was sent to San Francisco Superior 
Court Presiding Judge Ronald E. Quidachay from the Redevelopment 
Agency in response to the 2001-2002 Civil Grand Jury report on 
the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard. The agency agreed with the 
findings and recommendations outlined by the Civil Grand Jury, 
including the following: 

1. The Restoration Advisory Board, the Citizens Advisory 
Committee and the BVHP Project Area Committee do not work 
together and do not have a direct process for communication. 

2. Concerning the nature and extent of health hazards at the 
Shipyard, there appears to be no agreement among the Department 
of Public Health, federal and state agencies, community 
organizations and the media. Lack of complete data and incomplete 
documentation of the extent of toxic contamination exacerbates 
the level of community mistrust. 

The Civil Grand Jury recommended that the Department of Public 
Health review what testing and monitoring of the Shipyard has 
been completed or was underway and asked DPH to identify the 
additional evaluations warranted at the site. 

The Grand Jury recommendations were never adopted or implemented 
by DPH; indeed, the Health Department has flagrantly neglected 
its mandate to protect the health interests of current and future 
Shipyard residents, tenants and workers and acts in full 
cooperation with the Mayors Office of Economic Development to 
facilitate the development of the Shipyard in the face of 
mounting documentation that Parcels A and B pose imminent threats 
to human health and safety. 

The DPH has contributed few comments to pertinent Navy cleanup 
documents and failed to implement the recommendations of the 
Civil Grand Jury, which stated, Using federal and state 
expertise and information, the City should work with Navy and 
environmental regulators to review available test data in 
determining whether collection, ventilation and or treatment 
systems are warranted at the site. Further, the City should 
clarify issues such as what effect the partial cap on the 
landfill has on pathways for migration of methane gas and other 
airborne contaminants. 

The Department of Public Health has acted to downplay the hazard 
of annual fires on the base and has conspired with the Navy to 
downplay in media reports the toxic hazards posed by both the 
August 2000 landfill fire and the methane gas detected at the 
Parcel A boundary emanating from the landfill. 

The DPH has failed to address the impact of radiological 
operations on artists and tenants on the base and has acted to 
downplay the impact of radiological operations on Parcels A and 
B. 

The DPH representative to the RAB, Amy Brownell, failed to review 
the November 2003 Addendum to the HPS Phase I Development 
Environmental Impact Report prior to offering supporting 
testimony to the Redevelopment Commission hearing in April 2004 
in support of the Conveyance Agreement and, indeed, was unaware 
of the existence of the report. 

Perhaps the most astute finding and recommendation of the Civil 
Grand Jury report on the Hunters Point Shipyard centered on the 
need for the immediate implementation of Redevelopment Agency, 
Navy and City contract policies and programs to prioritize 
training and hiring of local residents in Shipyard cleanup and 
development agreements. 

The vehement dissatisfaction that has fueled two recall efforts 
for District 10 Supervisor Sophie Maxwell this year finds its 
most legitimate concerns in Maxwells total disregard for 
Shipyard remediation, health and safety concerns as well as her 
lack of consistent attention to measures that would create 
immediate job opportunities in the Shipyard cleanup process by 
incorporating into HPS remediation and development transaction 
documents with city and agency policy makers and negotiators 
Equal Opportunity programs, non-discrimination contracts, 
prevailing wage, minimum compensation programs, health care 
accountability and the Citys First Source Hiring Program. 

The single most powerful recommendation of the Civil Grand Jury 
reads like writing on the wall: The Memorandum of Agreement 
between the Navy and the City should be amended to include 
training and hiring for the community to ensure employment in 
both cleanup and development activities. 

While the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency and Mayor Gavin 
Newsom tout the BVHP Redevelopment Plan and the Shipyard 
Conveyance Agreement as the answer to joblessness and a boost to 
the local economic vitality of the southeast corridor, the lack 
of community buy in in the development process and the reality 
of forced relocation of multigenerational inhabitants of the 
region support the growing sense of betrayal that the BVHP 
Redevelopment plan is a grand exercise in Negro removal. 

According to the Redevelopment Agency, the HPS Conveyance 
Agreement requires, to the maximum extent allowed under federal 
law, the Navy use its best efforts to give preference in 
contracts for remediation of the Shipyard to locally owned and 
minority and woman owned businesses in proximity to the Shipyard 
and to include local hiring data in required reports to the 
city. 

In reality, these goals have not been met. A Navy-sponsored 
Economic Development Workshop was held at the E.P. Mills 
Community Center in BVHP on March 27, 2002. According to Maurice 
Campbell, current community co-chair of the HPS RAB, the goal of 
the workshop was to discuss subcontracting opportunities. 

The Navy provided a dismal report. In fiscal year 2003, the Navy 
spent $38 million on the Shipyard and $700,000 locally. This year 
to date, the Navy has spend $28 million on the Shipyard and $2.5 
million has gone to local truckers and $144,000 to local 
businesses. This year only 28 local hires have been made. Last 
year only 39 local hires were made. Contrast this to the Naval 
Shipyard of the 1950s where 8,500 civilians were employed. 

The Hunters Point Shipyard Disposition and Development Agreement 
with Lennar Corp. was approved by the Redevelopment Commission in 
a hearing on Dec. 2, 2003, in which civil rights violations and 
constitutional violations to media access were committed by City 
officials. The DDA is faced with legal challenge. 

The DDA draft was unavailable to the public prior to its 
adoption, and the most significant revision to the Phase I 
Development of the Hunters Point Shipyard is the total exclusion 
of the primary economic engine driving the creation of new jobs 
under the Redevelopment plan - light industrial and maritime 
development. 

As summarized by Arc Ecology economist and planner Eve Bach, We 
believe the City should be clear that in revisions to the Reuse 
Plan the communitys job creating strategy that prioritized light 
industrial development has almost completely vanished from 
Hunters Point Shipyard Phase I Development. 

Contact Dr. Sumchai at (415) 835-4763 or asumchai@sfbayview.com. 
 

Dr. Sumchai saves a life 

by Maurice Campbell 

Thursday, while leaving a meeting, Ahimsa and I stumbled across a 
gentleman lying in the middle of the sidewalk unconscious. She 
decided to check the mans vitals and stated, This man is going 
into arrest. 

She proceeded to help him. Her cell phone batteries had run down, 
and she asked me to call 911 with my phone. We stayed with him 
until the paramedics arrived. 

During that period, we met the mans father, an elderly 
white-haired Russian gentleman who was deeply concerned about his 
son. After the paramedics arrived and they started their 
intervention, many Russian people thanked us for the care 
administered. 

Ahimsa, if it had not been for you, that man would have died. 
Thank you. 

Dr. Sumchai responds: Thank you, Maurice. A lot of people are 
presumed drunk in this city who are found lying in the street. 
Thats why so many homeless people die of cardiac arrest, drug 
overdose and hypothermia. This man had evidence of fresh head 
trauma and was not breathing, and it was clear he was more than 
just drunk. I appreciate that you were with me to troubleshoot 
a crisis at this time of night in a high risk neighborhood.   

San Francisco Bay View National Black Newspaper 4917 Third Street 
San Francisco California 94124 Phone: (415) 671-0789 Fax: (415) 
671-0316 Email: [editor@sfbayview.com]   

*****************************************************************
 44 KATU 2: Landfill may be more dangerous than originally thought 

Portland, Oregon
 
8/26/2004 

By Grant McOmie katu.com 

It's been nearly two months since our investigation began at the 
leaking landfill near Scappoose in Columbia County. We've hiked 
most of the 16-acre site noting black soil, green rocks, dead 
blackberries and an oily sheen on the surrounding wetlands. 

But it turns out we weren't the first to see the landfill 
problems. Nearby neighbors, Tony and Darlene Irving saw the 
problems too: ten years ago! 

"It was a slimey, oily sludge that was seeping out of the dike of 
the old landfill. It was killing the blackberries in the area, so 
obviously it was pretty hot and toxic." 

The Irvings live little over a quarter mile from the site along 
Scappoose Creek. Back in 1993, Tony Irving called the DEQ to 
report what he had seen coming out of the landfill. An 
investigator came out, saw the leaks, but as Irving told us, the 
investigator "didn't do much." 

"I offered to get him a jar and get samples of the material 
oozing out of the landfill. He said he didn't have the right 
hazardous chemical gear with him to take it. That was a little 
scary at the time 'cause if he can't take the samples, I don't 
want to be living next to it. That was the last we heard from 
him." 

Darlene Irving says after that she felt abandoned. 

It's our lives and this could be affecting our health. I couldn't 
believe that we weren't important enough.We weren't a priority." 

But Sally Puent, a DEQ Waste Manager, says there is no record of 
an investigator contacting the Irvings.

"I'm not aware of that incident - that's news to me. I can't 
speak to that - as to how that could have happened! Our strategy 
is to work with the public, respond to them and let them know 
what's going on." 

Meanwhile, at Pacific University's chemistry lab, biologist Deke 
Gunderson and chemist Jim Currie say the water and soil samples 
taken from the leaking landfill contain many toxic chemicals. The 
major chemical they have identified is called "Naphthalene." It 
appeared in quantities that exceeded EPA safe drinking water 
standards. Naphtalene is a toxic wood preservative that 
contaminates groundwater.

 Gunderson noted, "the fact that it's in the groundwater is 
worrisome because there are people a mile or less from the 
landfill that are using groundwater as their drinking water." 

Curre added, "I would be reluctant to drink water that had 
substances like naphthalene in it. Not only from the naphthalene 
itself, but that may be an indicator that there are other 
substances in smaller amounts that are more dangerous.It's a 
symptom of perhaps - a bigger problem." 



It turns out there are other problems - more serious problems - 
as cited in a new DEQ report that K-2 News requested from 
Columbia County's Public Record office. The report cites not only 
a so-called "witch's brew" of dangerous toxic chemicals and 
industrial waste, but it also notes the possibility that "low 
level nuclear radiation" was also dumped at the landfill.

 According to the DEQ's latest Strategy Recommendation Report for 
the Santosh Landfill, six 350-pound steel casks containing a 
boric acid nuclear test material were deposited at the landfill 
site in 1976. Portland General Electric, the owners of the Trojan 
Nuclear Power Plant, claim the casks were not radioactive. 
Trouble is, the DEQ cannot confirm this.

 "As we re-evaluated this site, that popped out from the old 
records," noted Puent. "We're going to persue this to make sure 
there isn't low-level nuclear radiation on the site. I don't 
believe there's probably radioactive waste in the landfill, but 
because of these records, we need to check for it.

 All of this has raised more questions than answers for the 
Irving family. They feel alone, scared and angry.

 "Whomever was in charge of DEQ and had that knowledge," said 
Tony, "I don't care who they are or where they're at - they need 
to have criminal charges brought on them for reckless 
endangerment of lives." 

Darlene nodded and added, "I just hope whoever is responsible 
steps up to the plate and gets this solved." 
				 	 	 				   

  



  


  	 	 	

 	
                 Cleanup crews working hard to contain oil spill 
Mayor unveils $350 million stadium finance plan Health advisories 
in effect at two beach areas Oregon State Fair kicks off in Salem 
Searchers Find Body Of Missing Hiker Worker Comes Forward About 
Leaking Landfill Bridgestone offers to replace tires that might 
cause wrecks VMA Awards may be a bit tamer in wake of Jackson 
debacle Flu vaccine is found tainted in factory, shipments 
delayed Tre Arrow applies for bail in Canadian court Audio tapes 
and records reveal new information about Enron Wildfire south of 
Reno burns homes before changing course Skull fragment found near 
Green River prompts investigation Oregon's sprawling state mental 
hospital to be downsized Judge orders Benton County to issue 
marriage licenses 
 
                 Four more dead birds test positive for the West 
Nile virus Recession and high unemployment leaving many uninsured
  
                 Backers of SAIF measure contest ballot wording 
Idea for 'RV Friendly' highway signs catches on fast John Kerry 
will be in Washington state over the next few days Police bust an 
identity theft ring in Milwaukie State police on the lookout for 
crab pots left in the ocean            

  KATU TV 2153 N.E. Sandy Blvd, Portland, OR 97232 Main Phone 
503-231-4222 News Desk 503-231-4264 Sales 503-231-4200
"Fisher Communications, Inc.
*****************************************************************
 45 KATU 2: Worker Comes Forward About Leaking Landfill 

 - Portland, Oregon
 
  August 26, 2004 

By Grant McOmie katu.com 

We now know that the Santosh Landfill in Columbia County is 
contaminating the environment. A crack in the landfill slope has 
been leaking toxic chemicals that turn the dirt black, the rocks 
green and kills all of the vegetation in its path. 

But what we havent known is how so much industrial waste, toxic 
chemcials and potentially deadly material could have been placed 
in a municipal landfill. A landfill that was meant for nothing 
more than household garbage. 

We havent known  until now! 

Darrell McReary is an ex-employee of the Santosh Landfill. He 
recently told K-2 News that he saw questionable materials go into 
the landfill in the 1970's He should know because he buried it 
there. 

Fresh out of the service, he went to work at the Santosh Landfill 
in 1969 because the pay was twice what he could make anywhere 
else. He worked on a bulldozer and buried garbage that came from 
all over the region.

 

He also remembers burying loads of thick, black, tar-like coke. 
He said that the material just didnt seem right for a 
landfill.

 Some of it had a lot of moisture in it so you could ball it up 
into clay. It had a strong odor, petroleum-like and seemed like 
it was oil soaked. Now that I think about it, it had to be really 
toxic.Theres no way it should have been put into that landfill 
especially with the wetlands down below and the creek so close 
by. 

In fact, the Santosh Landfill is surrounded by water and it even 
sits on water. McReary recalled that groundwater was constantly 
seeping up and pooling on the surface. The water made his job 
difficult. 



He also remembers something more: materials that came from the 
Trojan Nuclear Power Plant.

 Oh, absolutely! They brought in 2 or 3 dropbox loads from 
Trojan each day.Now, looking back, it kind of makes you wonder 
what I buried in there. Whether it was something close to the 
reactor vessel, I dont know, if the reactor was hot or not  I 
think we need to find out just whats in there. 

Sally Puent, Department of Environmental Quality Waste Manager, 
doesnt believe radioactive materials were placed in the 
landfill. She admits her agency has known of other pollution and 
contamination problems at the landfill for a long time. But only 
recently, not long after the K-2 News investigation began, did 
the DEQ change the investigation status of the site to high 
priority. 

DEQ is working closely with Columbia County officials now to 
determine if environmental cleanup is needed at the landfill. We 
want to make sure that it isnt a hazard, and if it is well take 
care of it. I think well be seeing activity within this week or 
the next week. 

That is welcome news to the many people who live near the 
landfill. But especially to Darrell McReary whos concern and 
conscience led him to tell the truth of what he saw happen on the 
site. 

  KATU TV 2153 N.E. Sandy Blvd, Portland, OR 97232 Main Phone 
503-231-4222 News Desk 503-231-4264 Sales 503-231-4200      
[http://www.fsci.com/] This site contains copyrighted material of  
[http://www.fsci.com/] (KATU TV) which may not be copied, 
*****************************************************************
 46 Tri-City Herald: DOE honors Hanford project 

This story was published Thursday, August 26th, 2004 

By Annette Cary Herald staff writer 

With work well under way on decontaminating Hanford's Plutonium 
Finishing Plant, managers are expecting that project to proceed 
as smoothly as the plant's plutonium stabilization and packaging 
project. 

Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham recognized the stabilization and 
packaging project with an honorable mention in the Department of 
Energy's annual Project Management Awards ceremony this month. 

For 30 years, the plant, called PFP, turned plutonium produced in 
nuclear reactors into metal buttons the size of hockey pucks for 
shipment to the nation's weapons production facilities. 

When production ceased in 1989, nearly 20 tons of material 
containing 4.4 tons of plutonium were left in the plant in 
various stages of production. Workers spent four years 
stabilizing the plutonium and packaging it, finishing in 
February. 

"One of our great successes has been a strong focus on the 
importance of sound and professional project management, which 
has required resourceful, innovative and dedicated, hard-working 
teams," Abraham said in a prepared congratulations to DOE's PFP 
team and seven other award winners. Fluor Hanford is the 
contractor in charge of the PFP project. 

Contaminated materials have been packed into containers and sent 
to an underground repository near Carlsbad, N.M. In addition, 
2,300 containers of plutonium are being guarded in a vault at 
Hanford until they can be shipped to the nuclear site in Savannah 
River, S.C., where other plutonium is being held. 

But an estimated 165 pounds of plutonium was left at PFP after 
packaging was completed. 

"It was spread through from years of production," said George 
Jackson, who managed the stabilization and packaging project for 
Fluor and now is executive vice president and chief operating 
officer at Fluor Hanford. 

About 6,000 feet of duct work, 190 glove boxes for safe handling 
of radioactive materials and thousands of feet of process and 
drain lines were contaminated with plutonium. 

About a third of that, which Fluor calls "hold-up" material, has 
been recovered. The legal deadline for removing all of that 
plutonium is Sept. 30, 2006. 

In addition, the 14-acre PFP complex has about 60 buildings. 
Fluor has begun work to clean those and demolish them down to 
slabs on the ground. 

The goal is to complete all work by March 31, 2009, Jackson said. 

The original stabilization and packaging project was one of the 
best Jackson has been associated with, he said. 

"All during it, the work force overcame one obstacle after 
another," he said. 

Work included designing the systems and coming up with new 
methods to stabilize the plutonium when those used elsewhere in 
the DOE complex proved inadequate. 

Many of the same workers will be doing the decontamination and 
decommissioning, giving Jackson confidence that the project will 
proceed with the same tenacious effort, he said. 

The staff will be expanded from about 500 to about 650. The 
additional employees will include Hanford and other nuclear site 
workers with expertise in decontamination and decommissioning, 
Jackson said. 

The three projects winning the top DOE awards for project 
management were the Stanford Positron Electron Asymmetric Ring 3 
Upgrade Project, the Tritium Facility Modernization and 
Consolidation Project Team at Savannah River and the Laboratory 
for Comparative and Functional Genomics Project Team at Oak 
Ridge, Tenn. 

n Reporter Annette Cary can be reached at 582-1533 or via e-mail 
at acary@tri-cityherald.com. 

Š 2004 Tri-City Herald, Associated Press &Other Wire Services
*****************************************************************
 47 Tri-City Herald: Hastings criticizes Initiative 297 

This story was published Thursday, August 26th, 2004 

By Annette Cary Herald staff writer 

Hanford could end up as the permanent burial ground for far more 
of the radioactive wastes produced during World War II and the 
Cold War if voters approve Initiative 297, Rep. Doc Hastings, 
R-Wash., warned Wednesday. 

The warning came as a break from the congressman's long-held 
policy of remaining publicly neutral on state ballot initiatives. 
Initiatives are for voters, not elected officials, to decide, he 
believes. 

But I-297 would be so harmful that he is publicly opposing it, 
Hastings said in a speech to the Tri-City Area Chamber of 
Commerce. 

"It is deeply flawed and should be defeated," he said. 

The initiative to be decided in November would attempt to block 
nuclear waste from being imported to Hanford from other 
Department of Energy weapons sites. Supporters want no more 
radioactive waste to be brought to Hanford while DOE still has 
massive amounts of waste to clean up there from the past 
production of plutonium for the nation's nuclear weapons program. 

"We in the Tri-Cities know that the most dangerous wastes at 
Hanford are on schedule to be shipped out of our community and 
out of our state for storage at national repositories in other 
states," Hastings said. 

But refusing to accept waste from other sites could jeopardize 
that plan, he said. 

Waste now scheduled to be shipped from Hanford to other states 
includes 10,000 canisters of glassified high-level waste from 
underground tanks, 104,000 nuclear reactor fuel rods, 18 tons of 
plutonium-bearing materials and 2,000 nuclear waste capsules, he 
said. In addition, work has started on shipping 120,000 drums of 
plutonium-contaminated waste to a repository in New Mexico. 

The planned shipments from Hanford would contain 90 percent of 
the radioactivity in the site's nuclear wastes, Hastings said. 
The materials would go to Nevada, New Mexico and South Carolina. 

Shipments planned to be sent to Hanford, some of which would be 
permanently buried there, would hold less than 1 percent of the 
radioactivity already at the site, he said. 

"The fundamental failure of I-297 is that while it tries to keep 
waste from coming into Washington state, it gambles all of 
Hanford's massive volumes of nuclear waste that other states 
won't do the same thing," he said. 

"If Washington loses the I-297 gamble, then we may get to forever 
keep the 90 percent of Hanford waste currently headed out of our 
state." 

That's not all that's wrong with the initiative, Hastings said. 

It also would establish a new tax on the federal cleanup dollars 
coming into the state and divert money away from cleanup of 
contaminated ground water, soil and buildings at Hanford, he 
said. 

Some of that tax would be required to be given away to interest 
groups, including the groups that wrote the initiative and put it 
on the ballot, he said. Heart of America has spent $446,000 on 
the initiative, according to state lobbying reports. 

More than twice that much money could be diverted annually to 
interest groups from cleanup money if the initiative passes, 
Hastings said. 

Some money also would be used to start a new public advisory 
board, he said. However, that would simply duplicate the Hanford 
Advisory Board, which has been providing Hanford advice for a 
decade, he said. 

Š 2004 Tri-City Herald, Associated Press &Other Wire Services
*****************************************************************
 48 The Daily Californian: Report: Lab Chemicals Threaten Rio Grande - 

   [http://www.dailycal.org/]       
  
By KELLY PAIK Contributing Writer Thursday, August 26, 2004

        Adding to a series of problems facing UC-managed Los 
Alamos National Laboratory, a report released last week found 
that low concentrations of high explosives and other chemicals 
from the lab are present in the springs that lead to the Rio 
Grande. 

        Independent hydrologist George Rices report shows that 
chemicals such as tritium and perchlorate are seeping into the 
river, which is used as drinking water by 10 million people. 

        Concentrations of the chemicals are low, but the rate at 
which the chemicals are moving toward the river is alarming, said 
Joni Arends, executive director of Concerned Citizens for Nuclear 
Safety, the organization sponsoring Rices research. 

        We need to take steps to protect the Rio Grande because 
we use it for farming, drinking and recreation, Arends said. 

        The concentrations of chemicals are not high enough to 
trigger any immediate clean-up but they are fast-moving, said 
Jon Goldstein, spokesperson for the New Mexico Environment 
Department. 

        This is a canary in a coal mine of more dangerous things 
ahead, Goldstein said. 

        Previous reports from the lab estimated that it would 
take hundreds to thousands of years for the chemicals to reach 
the Rio Grande. 

        But Rices report states that the chemicals can take as 
little as 26 years to travel there. 

        The discrepancy in the timeline of the chemical travel 
stems from the lab using different estimation methods, Rice said. 

        But laboratory officials said they will be developing an 
updated model for time transport to estimate how long it takes 
the chemicals to travel, said Kevin Roark, Los Alamos lab 
spokesperson. 

        Roark also said that Los Alamos laboratory may not be the 
the source of the contaminants. 

        Perchlorate is found all over the country in varying 
amounts, Roark said. Finding the exact source is an issue. 

        Roark said the only possible source of high amounts of 
perchlorate is in high explosive research areas, but the lab has 
filtration systems that clean up the waste in these areas. 

        In the past, the laboratory denied any possibility that 
it could contaminate the Rio Grande because the labs waste sites 
are located in areas that should not empty into the river, or any 
of its feeders, Goldstein said. But in the last decade, the lab 
has found that chemicals have been moving out of its waste sites. 

        Rice wants Los Alamos to keep a close eye on the springs 
and to clean up the ground water near the lab. 

        In reaction to Rices report, as well as its own 
findings, the New Mexico Environment Department created a 
fence-to-fence clean-up order, which will be imposed on the 
laboratory once it is finalized, said Goldstein. 

        Theres 18 million cubic feet of waste buried in Los 
Alamos, Arends said. The University of California has a 
responsibility to clean that up. 

	The UC Office of the President declined to comment.  

Berkeley, California
dailycal@dailycal.org  
*****************************************************************
 49 Rocky Mountain News: Energy contract 'improper'

Aid to Rocky Flats workers held up as a result, audit finds

By Ann Imse, Rocky Mountain News
August 26, 2004

The mail clerks were called "data analysts" and a contractor 
charged the government $35 an hour for their work. 

One hundred and twenty nurses were called "senior management 
analysts." They were charged at $87.84 an hour, or $175,000 each 
a year. 

 A new federal audit says the U.S. Department of Energy paid 
those charges under a contract improperly given to a computer 
company. 

The contract is one reason why a federal program meant to help 
Rocky Flats workers and other nuclear bomb makers sickened by 
their jobs has spent $95 million processing paperwork, while 
resulting in payments to only 31 of 24,000 applicants so far. 

Congress created the program in 2000, saying atom bomb makers put 
their lives on the line for the nation's defense. Many died 
young. Others ended up with huge medical bills for cancer and 
other illnesses they blame on exposure to radiation and toxic 
chemicals at work. 

The U.S. Senate, irate over the thousands of sick and dying 
workers left hanging by expensive delays, voted in June to 
transfer the program from the DOE to the Department of Labor, 
which has a history of success running workers compensation 
programs. 

This plan is in a conference committee, awaiting House approval. 
It is opposed by the Bush administration, which says the DOE has 
fixed the program's problems. 

DOE has speeded up its collection of records documenting each 
worker's exposure to deadly materials used in bomb making. But 
government physicians remain slow at ruling on whether an illness 
was job-related. 

Now the DOE's prime contract on the project has been ruled 
improper by the inspector general of the General Services 
Administration, the federal agency that oversaw the contract. 

In a letter to Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, Inspector General 
Daniel Levinson said the DOE used a computer-services company to 
hire nurses and clerks. Levinson said the company had never bid 
on providing such personnel. 

Specifically, the DOE piggybacked on a Navy-GSA computer-services 
contract with Science &Engineering Associates, now called Apogen. 

The DOE hired Apogen to write a computer program for the 
compensation program, and that part was legal, the inspector 
general said. 

But then, DOE violated the rules by using the computer company to 
hire nurses and clerks to process the workers compensation 
claims. 

To do so under an information technology contract, DOE and Apogen 
agreed to call the nurses "senior management analysts." Mailroom 
employees, scanner operators and case-management assistants were 
called "data analysts," the audit said. 

This was improper because Apogen did not compete against other 
firms for the noncomputer work, said Jack Lebo, of the Inspector 
General's Office. Other firms might have charged less for nurses 
and clerks. 

The review indicated that at least 72 percent of the $26.3 
million paid to Apogen was for noncomputer work. 

Mike Smith, a spokesman for Apogen, said the contract was correct 
because the nurses "were used to verify information and do a 
final review for the physicians panel," which rules on the cause 
of the workers' ailments. 

"They are truly part of the data-processing IT work," Smith said. 
"We believe the workers were classified properly for claims 
processing." 

Grassley disagreed. In a letter to DOE, he said nurses and clerks 
"were doing a completely different task than IT work." 

imsea@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-5438  

2004 Š The E.W. Scripps Co. Privacy 
*****************************************************************
 50 lamonitor.com: LANL takes its bearings 

The Online News Source for Los Alamos
 
[http://www.lac-nm.us]   

ROGER SNODGRASS, roger@lamonitor.com [roger@lamonitor.com] , 
Monitor Assistant Editor

As Los Alamos National Laboratory creaks back to life, the main 
project aimed at getting everybody on track to work as quickly as 
possible is called COMPASS, the Culture and Operations Model Plan 
and Surety System. But what does that mean?

Much of the 12,000-person workforce is now and will be dealing 
with directives and processes developed by the COMPASS project on 
the way to that coveted moment of rebirth for their 
organizational unit, known as restart. 

It may not be a coincidence that COMPASS' internal website, at 
http://int.lanl.gov/restart/ is said to be receiving 12,000 hits 
a day.

One hundred percent of the laboratory's level one operations, the 
office and administrative functions, restarted last week, but 
other units are still finding their bearings. COMPASS Project 
Director John C. Bretzke said Wednesday that the laboratory is on 
schedule to be fully operational again by the end of September.

Bretzke said laboratory director G. Peter Nanos shut the 
laboratory down on July 16 for a multitude of reasons. "There 
were a lot of different data points over the last several months; 
you could see patterns and trends," Bretzke said.

In fact, parts of the laboratory, like TA-18, where a nuclear 
criticality experiment had narrowly averted a serious accident, 
had shut down before the generalized security stand down was 
instituted, followed by the total suspension of operations after 
a laser accident.

Last fall, a mounting series of safety incidents had been met 
with an urgent response. A high level task force developed the 
Integrated Work Management Program, which was itself immediately 
beefed up after more accidents and close calls.

The director's description of the current stand down, Bretzke 
said, is the best one available:

"Set the sharpest tools down, back away from the table and take a 
few deep breaths."

In organizational terms, that translated into doing a risk 
assessment to understand "where we were too close to the cliff" 
and "areas where we accepted too much risk."

Higher risk operations in level two and three, he said, have been 
broken down into 42 separate projects.

"All but the last six of those are going through their risk 
analysis phase, and data is coming back in," Bretzke said.

In fact, a great quantity of data is coming back in.

And that needs to be prioritized, routed, remembered, funded, and 
communicated back to managers and employees.

COMPASS is meant to head the workforce in the right direction for 
now and keep them on course in the future.

Bretzke was working on something like COMPASS before the crisis 
erupted.

As the acting division leader in the Supply Chain Management 
Division, he was charged with looking at operational activities 
with an eye of how to develop programs to improve them in the 
future.

Significantly, the laboratory's main problem last year was in its 
business practices, and the supply chain management division was 
one of the organizational changes adopted to turn those problems 
around.

During the audits and investigations at that time, the laboratory 
learned that despite gaping holes in its financial controls, 
examples of employees exploiting the system were rare.

"In the end, what we are finding here is that we have great 
employees," said Bretzke.

A central assumption of the project has to do with a kind of 
cultural makeover of the staff that will lead to a new kind of 
behavior that is more consistent and predictable.

Bretzke described it as a behavior "that supports identifying 
problems, following procedures and celebrating success."

As Nanos has said, it is not intended to be punitive or 
retaliatory.

"We assume there are 12,000 people here who want to do great 
work, but we have a way to go to interpret what the new culture 
feels like," said Bretzke.

"The lab wants very much to resume operations quickly and safely, 
to understand where the risks are and to manage those risks."   

  Š 2003 Los Alamos Monitor All Rights Reserved.   
*****************************************************************
 51 Tri-Valley Herald: Lawrence Lab resumes disk use 
 
Article Last Updated: Thursday, August 26, 2004 -
 		   	 	
Some speculate disks may have never been missing at all 

By FROM WIRE REPORTS

 WASHINGTON -- Scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National 
Laboratory have resumed work with removable computer disks like 
those missing from the University of California's other federal 
nuclear weapons lab at Los Alamos, officials said Wednesday. 

Energy Department officials recertified work to begin at six of 
34 divisions at Livermore on Tuesday morning, lab spokeswoman 
Susan Houghton said. Work is expected to restart at the remaining 
divisions in coming weeks, she said. 

Use of the disks, known as "controlled removable electronic 
media" or CREM, was stopped July 23 at Energy Department 
facilities nationwide after two disks believed to contain 
classified information disappeared from Los Alamos National 
Laboratory in New Mexico. That investigation remains open, 
although Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., said earlier this month that 
it was possible the disks may never have been missing at all. 



Energy Department facilities that use CREM have been conducting 
inventories of the disks and reporting back to the department's 
National Nuclear Security Administration to get recertified to 
resume work with them. Work has resumed at various sites in 
addition to Lawrence Livermore, including the Savannah River 
nuclear facility in South Carolina and the Pantex facility in 
Texas. 

National Nuclear Security Administration spokesman Bryan Wilkes 
said he couldn't give details of when CREM work would restart at 
all of the up to two dozen facilities where it was stopped. 

"There is no specific timetable or due date. We have been in a 
rolling restart for the past two to three weeks, and each site 
has been announcing it locally," Wilkes said in an e-mail reply. 

Houghton said no missing disks or other problems have been found 
at Lawrence Livermore. 

"So far we've found we're doing things right and we're going to 
do whatever the secretary and NNSA want us to do to restore faith 
that our employees can handle this information and handle it 
correctly," she said. 

Visit sites within the ANG Newspapers network: InsideBayArea.com 
[http://www.trivalleyherald.com] | Vallejo Times-Herald 
*****************************************************************
 52 lamonitor.com: E-mail encourages LANL to start up 

The Online News Source for Los Alamos
 
   [http://www.lanl.gov/worldview] [http://www.lac-nm.us]   


ROGER SNODGRASS,  [roger@lamonitor.com] , Monitor Assistant 
Editor

Entering the sixth week of suspended operations, with most of its 
work still shuttered, Los Alamos National Laboratory may not be 
as broken down as it seemed to be last month. Monday, one of its 
persistent critics, the Project on Government Oversight released, 
an e-mail purportedly from the nation's top nuclear weapons 
official to LANL Director G. Peter Nanos and DOE's local site 
office director Edwin Wilmot.

The memo appeared to encourage the laboratory to resume 
activities sooner rather than later. 

Officials from LANL and DOE have refused to comment on the leak, 
but have not denied the validity of the e-mail.

The message, signed "Linton," apparently forwarded National 
Nuclear Security Administration Administrator Linton Brooks' 
impressions from a meeting with the Defense Nuclear Facilities 
Safety Board on Aug. 13. The message from DNFSB, as the board has 
expressed in other communications, was their concern that LANL 
start-up procedures are too demanding because "they call for 
fixing all existing problems."

In the e-mail, Brooks said he communicated the Nanos' philosophy, 
described parenthetically as - "if was OK before, we start up 
when it is OK with less risk but we also establish a long term 
program to fix other deficiencies." The board agreed with that, 
Brooks said, "but believe it is not being effectively transformed 
into start-up procedures."

He continues, "...it could be months before Los Alamos is back in 
business and they (DNFSB) see that as unacceptable."

The board's concern, as Chairman John Conway has said, is that 
lengthy shutdowns can lead to other kinds of safety problems.

The e-mail expresses this, as well:

"The board also said that we might run into snags (procedures, 
authorization) in starting up. They said they could and would be 
willing to help. We didn't discuss details," the e-mail 
concludes.

As reflected in recommendations to the department, the board's 
caution grows out of experience at Rocky Flats in Colorado and 
Hanford Site in Washington State. What was envisioned as a 
short-term suspension of activities turned into an indefinite 
period that ended up as permanent closure in the case of Rocky 
Flats.

POGO interprets the message from Brook as encouraging "speed over 
safety at Los Alamos," according to a news release accompanying 
the leaked memo.

"Why is the board shirking its duty to ensure safety?" POGO's 
Executive Director Danniell Brian asked. "They shouldn't be 
worried about getting Los Alamos back online quickly, but making 
it safe and secure."

"They've had a ton of violations in the last few years," said 
Peter Stockton POGO's principal investigator, who was a top 
advisor with DOE when New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson was 
secretary. "We were slightly shocked when Brooks sends a memo, 
saying in effect that LANL's got to get things on the road."

POGO has been a conduit and advocate of whistleblowers in the 
federal government. In 2002, POGO released the information that 
grew into LANL's property management scandals.

The DNSFB, charged by congress with independent oversight of 
health and safety in the nuclear weapons complex visited the 
laboratory last week, the local site representative Charles 
Keilers said.   

  Š 2003 Los Alamos Monitor All Rights Reserved.   
*****************************************************************
 53 [du-list] DU in the news - 26th Aug. 04
 
Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2004 15:00:16 -0700

 
<x-flowed>
MKM Wins Largest Contracts in Its Corporate History Valued at $142 ...
Yahoo News (press release) - USA
... Equipment Retrograde Team (ACERT) program. JMC deployed MKM to Kuwait
to clean up depleted uranium. As part of Operation Enduring ...
<http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/040825/daw027_1.html>

WAGING 'Lawfare': Some Good Unintended Consequences
Tech Central Station - USA
... July 20, in a transparent attempt to distract attention from the growing
domestic crisis, Arafat reportedly accused Israel of using depleted-uranium
bullets to ...
<http://www.techcentralstation.com/082504G.html>

<http://www.eastbayexpress.com/issues/2004-08-25/presshere.html>

CYPRUS, macedonia, imperial usa
Ammo City - UK
... kosovo, where we averted a 'genocide' (of wmd??), littered with
depleted uranium, a hotbed of nationalist-mafia activity, and whose only
growth industry is ...
<http://www.ammocity.com/artman/publish/article_192.shtml>

ON recent US-led attacks against Iraqi towns and particularly ...
Collective Bellaciao - Paris,France
... There is widespread concern that depleted uranium is being used in
these intensive rounds of attack, in which case, the current attacks will
continue to kill ...
<http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=2959>




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 54 Google News Alert - nuclear
 
Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2004 18:00:53 -0700 (PDT)

 
SOUTH Korea sees no nuclear breakthrough before US elections
Channel News Asia - Singapore
SEOUL : South Korea's top nuclear negotiator said he expects no breakthrough
in frustrating North Korea's quest for nuclear weapons before US presidential
...
<http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/103230/1/.html>
See all stories on this topic:
<http://news.google.com/news?ie=utf8&oe=utf8&persist=1&num=30&hl=en&client=google&ncl=http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/103230/1/.html>

RUSSIA Denies Iran's Nuclear Plant Facing Delays
Reuters - USA
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's top nuclear body rebuffed on Thursday Iran's
announcement that an atomic reactor Moscow is building for the Islamic
state, long an ...
<http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=6076798>
See all stories on this topic:
<http://news.google.com/news?ie=utf8&oe=utf8&persist=1&num=30&hl=en&client=google&ncl=http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml%3Ftype%3DworldNews%26storyID%3D6076798>

MOHAMED Sid-Ahmed discusses the growing threat of nuclear ...
Al-Ahram Weekly - Cairo,Egypt
The advent of the nuclear age, which began when America dropped two atom
bombs on Hiroshima and Nagazaki just before the end of World War II, introduced
an ...
<http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2004/705/op5.htm>

KANSAI Electric Nuclear Power Plant Accident Claims Fifth Life
Bloomberg - USA
... at its Mihama No. 3 nuclear reactor. Masaru Kameiwa died yesterday
from severe burns to his body in the Aug. 9 accident, said Youichi ...
<http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000101&sid=aJPS5NN4e_90&refer=japan>
See all stories on this topic:
<http://news.google.com/news?ie=utf8&oe=utf8&persist=1&num=30&hl=en&client=google&ncl=http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news%3Fpid%3D10000101%26sid%3DaJPS5NN4e_90%26refer%3Djapan>

SAFE for use? NRC gives all clear to former nuclear plant site in ...
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review - Pittsburgh,PA,USA
PARKS  The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission has given its all
clear to nearly 80 acres along Route 66 where NUMEC and its successors
ran a ...
<http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/trib/newssummary/s_244498.html>
See all stories on this topic:
<http://news.google.com/news?ie=utf8&oe=utf8&persist=1&num=30&hl=en&client=google&ncl=http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/trib/newssummary/s_244498.html>

GOING nuclear looks the option
This is London - London,England,UK
... Last year's White Paper ducked the contentious subject of nuclear power,
while setting wildly optimistic targets for the use of renewable sources.
...
<http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/business/articles/timid81839?source=>
See all stories on this topic:
<http://news.google.com/news?ie=utf8&oe=utf8&persist=1&num=30&hl=en&client=google&ncl=http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/business/articles/timid81839%3Fsource%3D>

BOTH Sides Lying About Yucca Mountain Nuclear Dump
Capitol Hill Blue - VA,USA
... Moveon.org Voter Fund attacks Bush for breaking a promise he never
made, falsely claiming Bush vowed to veto legislation making Yucca Mountain
a nuclear dump. ...
<http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_5118.shtml>
See all stories on this topic:
<http://news.google.com/news?ie=utf8&oe=utf8&persist=1&num=30&hl=en&client=google&ncl=http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_5118.shtml>

INDIA> Nuclear research university on cards
Webindia123.com - India
Mumbai, Aug 26 The Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) is planning to set
up a deemed university for research in nuclear and allied fields, official
sources said ...
<http://www.webindia123.com/news/m_details.asp?newscode=68660&catcode=ENG3&subcatcode=>
See all stories on this topic:
<http://news.google.com/news?ie=utf8&oe=utf8&persist=1&num=30&hl=en&client=google&ncl=http://www.webindia123.com/news/m_details.asp%3Fnewscode%3D68660%26catcode%3DENG3%26subcatcode%3D>

PRIME minister to launch work on nuclear reactor:
New Kerala - Ernakulam,Kerala,India
[India News] New Delhi, Aug 26 : Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will visit
Tamil Nadu Monday to lay the foundation stone for a fast breeder nuclear
reactor at ...
<http://www.newkerala.com/news-daily/news/features.php?action=fullnews&id=10039>

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 55 Las Vegas SUN: Gibbons passed over for post

SUN WASHINGTON BUREAU

 WASHINGTON -- Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., will not serve as 
chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, ending weeks of 
cautious speculation on who would be named to the post.

 House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., named Rep. Pete Hoekstra, 
R-Mich., as chairman Wednesday, choosing him over Rep. Ray 
LaHood, R-Ill., whose name had also come up as being on the short 
lists of possible chairman.

 Gibbons was reported to be out of the running earlier this 
month, but nothing could be confirmed.

 Gibbons, who made no secret of his desire to be chairman, said 
he was "obviously disappointed," Hastert did not choose him but 
that Hoekstra "is certainly capable of providing the necessary 
leadership required to meet the challenges before us today."

 Gibbons had more seniority than Hoekstra on the committee.

 If Gibbons had been named chairman he would not have considered 
running for governor in 2006, his spokeswoman Amy Spanbauer 
confirmed this morning. Gibbons name has been circulated as a 
possibile contender to succeed Gov. Kenny Guinn but he has made 
no official decision yet.

 The Congressional committee's chairmanship became vacant because 
President Bush nominated the former chairman, Rep. Porter Goss, 
R-Fla., to serve as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

 "Pete has big shoes to fill, but I am confident he will do an 
excellent job," Hastert said.

 

*****************************************************************
 56 Baltic Times: Uncertain economics of wind energy

http://www.baltictimes.com

August 27, 2004 	   	 	
 		   		 	   	 				 		 				
By Aaron Eglitis  	    	     
   
RIGA - As media institutions across Europe grapple with the
threat of global warming, politicians, NGOs and ministries in
the Baltic states are laying the groundwork to increase the
level of renewable resource energy. Indeed, all three Baltic
states will have to increase their supply of renewable resources
- wind, hydroelectric, biomass and geothermal - under EU
directives by 2010.One renewable energy source that Latvia,
Lithuania and Estonia have dabbled in is wind. Wind turbines
abound in Baltic Sea areas such as Grobina, near Liepaja (known
as the Land Where the Wind is Born) and along the Lithuanian
coast.

"At present we are developing plans to expand the production of
electricity from renewable sources," said Andrius Bulovas,
director of the energy development department in Lithuania's
Economy Ministry. "In the energy development plan approved by
the government, we forecast that by 2009, 7.4 percent of
electricity will come from wind power."

"One problem we have encountered with developing wind power is
the relative expense. Wind power is bought at 0.22 litas (0.064
euro) per megawatt, which is more expensive than nuclear," he
added.

Just last week the Estonian government approved its plan for
increasing renewable energy to 10 percent of the country's
annual consumption by 2020. By 2010, according to the draft,
renewable resources should account for 5.1 percent of total
kilowatt output. 

According to the draft, which was put together by the Economy
and Communication Ministry, the combined output of electric and
thermal plants should account for no more than 20 percent of
energy consumption.

In Latvia, wind energy already plays a key role in the country's
power output. The vast majority of wind turbines - the largest
of their kind in the Baltics according to Latvia's Energy
Builders, a private construction company - are found in the
western part of the country where 33 windmills have been
constructed in a single wind-park. The remaining two are located
in Ainazi on the Estonian border.

According to the Economy Ministry, wind power currently accounts
for a total of 23 megawatts toward the project. Other turbines
are in the works for Liepaja. 

Nevertheless, new wind-power parks are unlikely, as guarantees
on buying wind energy that were given to the first parks may not
be distributed again. 

To help finance wind power, the government mandated that state
energy company Latvenergo buy left over turbine energy at double
the tariff, in effect subsidizing their use, said Latvenergo
press officer Andris Siksnis. 

In practice, wind energy has not proven to be as profitable an
enterprise as many hoped, and policy makers are looking at other
sources of renewable resources to augment the current supply.

Still, Latvia already produces a considerable amount of energy -
a little over 40 percent, mostly from hydroelectric energy,
according to the Economy Ministry - of its energy from renewable
sources. 

Moreover, the country is set to increase its total up to the
high 40s by 2010. But Hydro-electric dams, located across the
country, have proved controversial over the years since they
have caused periodic flooding and damaged fish stocks.

"Some sources of renewable resources are not exactly
environmentally friendly," said Ronalds Bebris, head of the
environmental protection office.

    
*****************************************************************

NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 this 
material is distributed without profit or payment to those who 
have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for 
non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more 
information go to: 
<http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml> 
    
*****************************************************************