***************************************************************** 09/06/04 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 12.213 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** Send News Stories to news@energy-net.org with title on subject line and first line of body NUCLEAR POLICY 1 AFP: Iran to send nuclear negotiator to Europe 2 Xinhuanet: S.Korea hopes to resolve nuclear issue via dialogue 3 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: S. Korean Uranium Enrichment Revives Fear 4 news24: Nuclear 'black market' probed NUCLEAR REACTORS 5 US: JOURNAL NEWS: Indian Point to use dry casks 6 US: JOURNAL NEWS: Entergy wants to boost Indian Point output 7 Kuensel Online: Nuclear Energy: An ‘atomic’ dream or a nightmare 8 Xinhuanet: China to invite bidding on nuclear power projects 9 Xinhuanet: New nuke power plants to slake nation's power thirst 10 AFP: French, Chinese power giants back nuclear power at World Energy 11 KoreaTimes: Seoul, Tokyo Seek to Keep KEDO Alive 12 ITAR-TASS: 4 Chernobyl-affected hunger strikers brought to hospital 13 Reuters: North Korea Nuclear Plant Suspended Again-Report 14 Reuters: Japan's Kansai Elec shuts nuclear generator early 15 Reuters: Canada's AECL says sidelined on Bulgarian n-plant 16 Reuters: TEPCO runs nuclear unit at lower capacity for repair 17 Sofia Morning News: Canadian Bidder Quits Second N-Plant Tender NUCLEAR SAFETY 18 US: The Register: Nevada nuke test fallout turns up in Hertfordshire 19 Scotsman.com News: Childhood Leukaemia on the Increase 20 TIME Asia Magazine: Awkward Fallout -- 21 ThisisLondon: Pollution 'triggers leukaemia in children' 22 US: Las Vegas RJ: Expert on radiation's health effects to lecture 23 Interfax: Burial sites for dangerous cargo studied in Sea of Kara 24 BBC: Plutonium traced in British soil NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 25 KVBC: Anti-Yucca Mountain Group in Nevada 26 US: St. Petersburg Times: Acidic, radioactive water spills into bay 27 McClatchy: Neither Bush nor Kerry dealing Nevada out NUCLEAR WEAPONS 28 CMAQ: Nuclear Solutions Lost In Ambiguity - US DEPT. OF ENERGY 29 Tri-City Herald: Energy NW to seal, abandon Plant No. 4 30 Cincinnati Enquirer: DOE Says Fernald Contractor Unprepared For Nucl OTHER NUCLEAR 31 Google News Alert - nuclear ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 AFP: Iran to send nuclear negotiator to Europe [http://www.spacewar.com/] TEHRAN (AFP) Sep 05, 2004 Iran said Sunday it was sending its top national security official to Europe to forestall US efforts to haul the Islamic republic before the UN Security Council over its nuclear programme. The foreign ministry said Hassan Rowhani would travel to the Netherlands -- current holder of the EU presidency -- on Monday. "Currently we are in very sensitive disccusions with the Europeans. Tomorrow Mr Rowhani wil got to the Netherlands to meet with Dutch officials," spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters. Rowhani's mission will follow a weekend meeting in the Netherlands of European leaders, who appeared to be torn between pursuing efforts to engage Iran and calls for a harder line over Tehran's nuclear aims. The International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN's nuclear watchdog, is due to discuss a new report on Tehran's atomic aims from September 13. All rights reserved. © 2004 Agence France-Presse ***************************************************************** 2 Xinhuanet: S.Korea hopes to resolve nuclear issue via dialogue www.xinhuanet.com www.chinaview.cn 2004-09-06 14:59:12 BEIJING, Sept.6 (Xinhuanet) -- South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun has said he expects further progress in the six-nation talks to end the nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula and hopes to see a diplomatic resolution, China Radio International reported Monday. Roh Moo-hyun told MBC TV that the issue will move slowly during the US presidential election, but it will eventually be solved peacefully, through dialogue. The remark came amid continuing efforts to organize a fourth round of six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear program, bringing together the two Koreas, the United States, China, Japan and Russia. Roh said that North Korea had come to "a point of no return" in its reform efforts and that further inter-Korean cooperation would help resolve the long-running nuclear crisis. He added that the planned cutback of U.S. troop strength in South Korea came at a time when Seoul needed a change to its defense system and "wasn't a bad change." Enditem (CRIENGLISH.com) Copyright ©2003 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 3 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: S. Korean Uranium Enrichment Revives Fears of Proliferation: Updated Sep.6,2004 18:50 KST The Financial Times (FT) pointed out in its editorial Monday that the uranium enrichment incident in South Korea has revived fears of arms competition in East Asia, and that stricter security rules are needed for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and U.S. to stop nuclear proliferation. FT said though ˇ°the quantity said to have been produced in South Korea sounds small, they presumably demonstrated that it would be possible to make more when needed,ˇ± and added that, ˇ°the news revived fears of an arms race in East Asia, given the animosities between the region's states, their big civilian nuclear power programs and their technical skills.ˇ± The editorial also pointed that, ˇ°China has nuclear weapons, and North Korea is believed to have made some too, leaving Japan, South Korea and Taiwan dependent on the U.S. for security.ˇ± FT claimed that though terrorists are eager to acquire a nuclear weapon, ˇ°the enrichment of uranium on an industrial scale appears to require the support of a well-organized state... It is essential for the IAEA to control the terrorists' likeliest source of supply: the world's nation states.ˇ± (englishnews@chosun.com ) ***************************************************************** 4 news24: Nuclear 'black market' probed [http://www.assist24.co.za/] Johannesburg - Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) are in South Africa helping local authorities with an investigation into an international nuclear component trafficking network, said a spokesperson on Monday. This follows the arrest and court appearance last week of Vanderbijlpark engineering firm director Johan Meyer on charges under the Non-Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction Act and the Nuclear Energy Act. IAEA public information person Peter Rickwood, speaking from Vienna, would not directly link the inspectors' visit to Meyer's arrest. "This is part of the broader investigation into the illicit trafficking network - the nuclear supply network." He said the investigation was the result of a probe into the importing through third parties of uranium enrichment equipment. Don't want to tip off suspects Rickwood said the inspectors were in South Africa to "offer technical expertise" as they had deep knowledge about nuclear technology, but the media would "not have access" to them. "We can't say too much because we don't want to tip off suspects." An employee at Meyer's company said: "I am not allowed to comment, I am not allowed to speak to the media," and his lawyer, Heinrich Badenhorst, said he did not have a list of items seized when his client was arrested. Beeld newspaper said an uranium enrichment plant was transported from a factory in Vanderbijlpark in 11 trucks to Pelindaba at the weekend. They were accompanied by an IAEA inspector. Pelindaba is the base of Necsa, a company which promotes research and development in the field of nuclear energy and radiation sciences. A Necsa spokesperson said she had been instructed to refer all queries to the department of foreign affairs. Last week, the department issued a statement on Meyer's arrest on behalf of the SA Council for the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. Two other people arrested Abdul Minty, chairperson the council, said he would not answer any further questions until "the next few days". Information was sketchy on two other people with South African connections reportedly arrested by international authorities. Asher Karni, formerly employed by a Cape Town engineering company, was arrested in Denver in the United States in January and released on $100 000 (about R660 000) bail into the custody of a rabbi. A South Africa-based man called Gerhard Wisser was reportedly taken in for questioning in Germany. Edited by Elmarie Jack News24 | ***************************************************************** 5 JOURNAL NEWS: Indian Point to use dry casks By ROGER WITHERSPOON THE JOURNAL NEWS (Original publication: September 6, 2004) A yearlong probe by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has concluded that massive steel and concrete casks can safely store 1,275 tons of highly radioactive waste now held in huge pools at the Indian Point nuclear power plants. Hubert Bell, the agency's inspector general, rejected charges that the 185-ton Holtec Dry Casks were improperly manufactured and that their welding could deteriorate and release contamination from the reactors' spent fuel rods. Bell said in a 20-page report that an examination of the manufacturing process and the NRC's oversight found "no violations of NRC regulations or safety significant deficiencies" in the manufacture of the casks. In addition, Bell stated that deficiencies found in the quality-control program of U.S. Tool &Die in Pittsburgh, which makes the casks, were minor and did not affect the casks' long-term ability to safely store spent nuclear fuel. "The casks were all pressure-tested and leak-tested after they were manufactured," said Wayne Hodges, deputy director of the NRC's Spent Fuel Projects Office. "If there had been problems with the manufacturing and the welding, they would have leaked during the testing. But the casks have been in use, and there has been no indication of any leaks, so we have high confidence in the integrity of the casks." Entergy Nuclear Northeast, which owns the two operating reactors at Indian Point in Buchanan, wants to empty most of the spent fuel now stored under 40 feet of water in pools on the site. The fuel — from the long-defunct Indian Point 1 and the working reactors at Indian Point 2 and 3 — would be moved into 75 casks that would be stored on a concrete pad the size of a football field on the bank of the Hudson River. Entergy plans to begin the transfer next year. Entergy officials declined to comment on the NRC's findings. The spent-fuel pools have been criticized as potential terrorist targets since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. An NRC study in 2001 concluded that a loss of the water in the pools could result in the irradiated rods' erupting into a fuel fire that could spread contamination up to 500 miles. "The inspector general's report does not ease our concerns," said Kyle Rabin, of the environmental group Riverkeeper, which opposes the use of the casks and is seeking to close the nuclear plants. "The NRC report was just a whitewash." Rabin said the report ignored Riverkeeper's security concerns about Entergy's plans to keep the casks in the open. "These 75 casks are just another bull's-eye on the banks of the Hudson River," he said. Allegations about the Holtec casks' safety were first raised by Oscar Shirani, the lead safety auditor and a storage expert on high-level waste at the Dresden nuclear power plant owned by Excelon Corp., the nation's largest nuclear plant operator. Excelon was installing the Holtec casks at Dresden, located about 50 miles outside of Chicago, when Shirani raised concerns about the casks. He was fired by Excelon in December 2001. Shirani alleged that the welding on the casks was faulty and could fail after long-term exposure to the heat and radiation from the spent fuel. His formal complaint, listing nine specific technical deficiencies, triggered the inspector general's probe. The inspector general's staff examined each allegation by reviewing NRC, Dresden and U.S. Tool &Die records and conducting its own inspection at the manufacturing site. In each case, the report states, "there was no significant safety or regulatory issue." Send e-mail to Roger Witherspoon [rwithers@thejournalnews.com] Home [http://www.thejournalnews.com] -Business Copyright 2004 The Journal News, a Gannett Co ***************************************************************** 6 JOURNAL NEWS: Entergy wants to boost Indian Point output By ROGER WITHERSPOON THE JOURNAL NEWS (Original publication: September 6, 2004) The owner of the Indian Point nuclear power plants is seeking federal permission to increase electrical output in time for next summer's peak demand. Entergy Nuclear Northeast, which owns the two plants in Buchanan, has asked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to approve an increase in the operating temperature and pressure in the aging reactors so they can produce about a combined 90 megawatts of additional electricity. That would be enough to power about 90,000 homes. Each reactor now produces about 1,000 megawatts of electricity. Since 1977, most of the nation's nuclear plants have sought permission to increase power as a means to improve the efficiency and output of their reactors. The NRC has approved 101 such requests since that time, resulting in the production of an additional 4,183 megawatts of electricity — about the output of four new nuclear power plants. Both Indian Point reactors have received smaller approvals in the past. NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said that to get the extra power, the Indian Point reactors would burn fuel with a higher percentage of enriched uranium — the nuclear equivalent of going from regular to premium fuel. Permission will be granted, he said, if Entergy can prove that Indian Point's miles of pipes and thousands of valves can withstand the added temperature and pressure. Nuclear power plants work by using the heat generated by splitting atoms to boil water. The steam produced turns a 40-ton turbine that generates electricity. "There are a lot of inefficiencies between the heat produced in this process and the power that goes out into the electrical grid," Sheehan said. "Steam loses a lot of its power as it travels through the piping between the reactor and the generating turbine. Only about a third of the power produced actually becomes electricity." In recent years, Indian Point 2 and 3 have been plagued with leaks and ruptures in their 30-year-old equipment. Entergy has spent more than $500 million replacing key equipment since it purchased the plants in 2001. "We have concerns that the change in temperatures and pressures would accelerate the degradation of the aging systems in that plant," said Kyle Rabin of the environmental group Riverkeeper, which is seeking to close Indian Point. "It could result in higher radiation exposures to workers." Entergy officials declined to comment on the company's request. The NRC expects to complete its review by spring. The electricity market in New York state is deregulated, and on days when demand for power is low, excess electricity is sold on a daily, spot market to customers of adjacent power grids in New England, New Jersey and Canada. At the time of last year's massive blackout, for example, about 5,000 megawatts of electricity produced in New York were being sold to Canada. The spot market rates vary according to the demand, but generally are higher than the long-term contracted rate between power producers such as Indian Point and Consolidated Edison, which transmits the electricity to homeowners and businesses. Send e-mail to Roger Witherspoon [rwithers@thejournalnews.com] Copyright 2004 The Journal News, a Gannett Co ***************************************************************** 7 Kuensel Online: Nuclear Energy: An ‘atomic’ dream or a nightmare [http://www.kuenselonline.com Posted on Monday, September 06 @ 13:28:02 CDT BST 6 September 2004 - Nuclear power as a source of energy is a controversial issue that will be widely discussed among global energy ‘hot shots’ who have gathered at the 19th World Energy Congress in Sydney, Australia. In a press release from the World Energy Council, the sponsor of the congress, the nuclear issue would be kept as an ‘all options open’ approach while discussing the future energy policy. Developing nations like India and China with their mammoth-sized population and increasing demand for energy see that nuclear power would secure their future supply of energy. Many feel that nuclear will play an important and a major role in delivering sustainable energy in both the developed and developing nations in the world. ‘We have to stop fretting about last minute statistical risks of cancer from chemicals or radiation”, said British scientist Professor James Lovelock to the Independent newspaper whilst calling for the energy industry to use the best technology, including nuclear energy. However, if there are nuclear energy supporters there are also a group of people among the congress delegates who are vehemently against the use of nuclear power. Their reason is straight and simple, nuclear power is ‘unsafe’ and their strong evidence is the 1986 Chernobyl power plant disaster. The uneconomic, unsafe and the growing radioactive waste problems, the reality of nuclear weapons proliferation and an increasingly informed and skeptical global community are some of the other arsenals that people carry against nuclear energy. A Sydney resident said that nuclear energy should be promoted since it provided a secure and optimum supply of energy for the future but ‘first the technology should be safer so that people do not lose lives in the quest for easy means of energy.’ The verdict whether nuclear energy is an ‘atomic’ dream or a nightmare will be out when the discussion session titled ‘Nuclear Energy: Inevitable or Irrelevant’ would be held on September 8 under the chairmanship of the director general of the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency, Luis Echavarri. By By Kinley Y Dorji in Sydney, Australia kins@kuensel.com.bt Home | [http://www.kuenselonline.com/user.php] ***************************************************************** 8 Xinhuanet: China to invite bidding on nuclear power projects www.xinhuanet.com www.chinaview.cn 2004-09-06 20:39:15 SYDNEY, Sept. 6 (Xinhua) -- China will put up a number of nuclear power projects for public bidding in the next one or two months, said a senior official here Monday. Vice Minister Zhang Guobao in charge of the State Development and Reform Commission told the World Energy Congress here that theprojects will involve mega-watts pressurized water reactor nuclear power stations. The projects will be the first in China's new nuclear power stations to be built over the next 16 years that will add a total of 30 million mega-watts to the country's power production capacity. China's nuclear power production now only constitutes about 1.8percent of the total electric power generated, but the rate will rise to 4 percent by 2020, he said. Coal will continue to be the main energy source for China in the future, while the production of nuclear and renewable energy will be "moderately increased" to deliver sustainability, said Zhang. China's rapid economic development and its huge demand of energy have created opportunities for world businesses, thus contributing to the world economy as a whole, he noted. The opening up of China's energy market will be stepped up as China fulfills its WTO commitments and the improvement of its market economy, he assured the 2,000 audience, who include senior government officials, energy industry leaders and researchers fromacross the world. He also described as inaccurate some reports which attribute the skyrocketing oil prices to China's huge fuel demand. The problem, he said, "has much to do with a complex of issues like the idle funds active in market speculation and the impact of the Iraq issue" instead. The five-day World Energy Congress which opened Sunday is themed Delivering Sustainability: Opportunities and Challenges for the Energy Industry. Enditem Copyright ©2003 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 9 Xinhuanet: New nuke power plants to slake nation's power thirst www.xinhuanet.com www.chinaview.cn 2004-09-06 20:39:15 SYDNEY, Sept. 6 (Xinhua) -- China will put up a number of nuclear power projects for public bidding in the next one or two months, said a senior official here Monday. Vice Minister Zhang Guobao in charge of the State Development and Reform Commission told the World Energy Congress here that the projects will involve mega-watts pressurized water reactor nuclear power stations. The projects will be the first in China's new nuclear power stations to be built over the next 16 years that will add a total of 30 million mega-watts to the country's power production capacity. China's nuclear power production now only constitutes about 1.8 percent of the total electric power generated, but the rate will rise to 4 percent by 2020, he said. Coal will continue to be the main energy source for China in the future, while the production of nuclear and renewable energy will be "moderately increased" to deliver sustainability, said Zhang. China's rapid economic development and its huge demand of energy have created opportunities for world businesses, thus contributing to the world economy as a whole, he noted. The opening up of China's energy market will be stepped up as China fulfills its WTO commitments and the improvement of its market economy, he assured the 2,000 audience, who include senior government officials, energy industry leaders and researchers fromacross the world. He also described as inaccurate some reports which attribute the skyrocketing oil prices to China's huge fuel demand. The problem, he said, "has much to do with a complex of issues like the idle funds active in market speculation and the impact of the Iraq issue" instead. The five-day World Energy Congress which opened Sunday is themed Delivering Sustainability: Opportunities and Challenges for the Energy Industry. Enditem Copyright ©2003 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 10 AFP: French, Chinese power giants back nuclear power at World Energy Congress [http://www.spacewar.com/] [http://www.spacewar.com/] SYDNEY (AFP) Sep 06, 2004 The head of France's monopoly power company said Monday it was wrong to "demonise" nuclear power as China confirmed plans to more than double its nuclear output. Electricite de France (EdF) chairman and chief executive Francois Roussely told the World Energy Congress that nuclear power remained an important part of the search to deliver sustainable power. "All energy options must stay open, we cannot idealise some and demonise others," Roussely said. "Will we have the courage to admit that nuclear power cannot be ignored?" he asked delegates at the congress. "There is a demagogy and essential contradiction in extolling a withdrawal from nuclear power while worrying, quite rightly, about global warming." Roussely said it was intolerable that two billion people around the world had no access to electricity. "Real political will, orchestrated on a world scale, and a long-term commitment over at least 20 or 30 years are essential to raise the several billion euros or dollars per year needed to fund significant progress," he said. Roussely refused to comment on his future as head of the state-owned power utility, which the French government wants to open up to private investment. The vice-chairman of China's state development and reform commission Zhang Guo-bao said his country planned to expand its power output from nuclear plants to 30 gigawatts in the next 16 years as industrial expansion continued. Speaking through a translator, Zhang said by 2020 nuclear plants would generate four percent of China's electricity needs, up from 1.8 percent currently. He said Beijing planned to call for tenders for new nuclear power stations in the next two months. The triennial congress, which is examining ways to deliver sustainable energy, continues until September 9. All rights reserved. © 2004 [http://www.afp.com/] . Sections ***************************************************************** 11 KoreaTimes: Seoul, Tokyo Seek to Keep KEDO Alive Hankooki.com > Korea Times > Nation By Reuben Staines Staff Reporter South Korea and Japan are striving to convince the United States to keep alive a suspended project to build two light-water reactors in energy-starved North Korea, despite the lingering dispute over its nuclear weapons programs. Unification Minister Chung Dong-young said Monday that talks will be held next month to discuss the future of the project, which is backed by the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO). The international consortium was set up to pursue the reactor project in 1995 as part of a package deal to resolve the first North Korean nuclear crisis. ``The South Korean government wants the suspension to be extended one more year,ˇŻˇŻ Chung told reporters during a briefing. ``We will talk closely with other KEDO board members on the issue.ˇŻˇŻ The unification minister denied a report by a Japanese newspaper that the projectˇŻs main sponsors had already agreed to an additional one-year freeze. ``There is still no conclusion on it,ˇŻˇŻ Chung said. The Yomiuri Shimbun reported Sunday that Seoul, Tokyo and Washington had agreed to extend the suspension and would formally adopt the agreement at a board meeting set to be held in New York on Oct. 13. The article, quoting unnamed Japanese government officials, said the three wanted to keep open the possibility of resuming the project as part of a new deal to persuade Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear weapons programs. It said the U.S. had agreed to not to scrap the project in light of the fact that Seoul and Tokyo have footed most of the costs. South Korea and Japan, which have already poured around $1.23 billion and $446 million into the project respectively, have expressed growing concern that the U.S. will push to dissolve KEDO. The U.S., which has invested $406 million so far, believes building the reactors is no longer appropriate as North Korea violated its commitment to the Agreed Framework, the 1994 dismantlement deal, by allegedly admitting to running a secret nuclear program in 2002. A Seoul official involved in the project yesterday said that the nuclear crisis remains a major stumbling block but the government still thinks the reactors can be part of a denuclearization pact. He said KEDO delegates will visit North Korea soon to review the project. Work on the two 1,000-megawatt reactors was halted in December last year as a result of the deepening standoff over North KoreaˇŻs resumed nuclear development. However, about 100 workers have continued to perform maintenance work and inspections at the unfinished nuclear facilities in Kumho on North KoreaˇŻs east coast. Six-party nuclear talks to negotiate a new dismantlement deal have appeared to stall in recent months. At the end of the third round of talks in June, delegates agreed to reconvene again before the end of this month but no meeting has yet been scheduled. Energy remains likely to be a key factor in any agreement to resolve the nuclear standoff. The KEDO project was initially supposed to be completed by 2003 but work did not begin until 2007. The total estimated budget of $4.5 billion is also expected to blow out if the project is resumed. rjs@koreatimes.co.kr 09-06-2004 17:27 ***************************************************************** 12 ITAR-TASS: 4 Chernobyl-affected hunger strikers brought to hospital in Gubkin [ITAR-TASS News Agency of Russia] 06.09.2004, 10.55 GUBKIN (Belgorod region), September 6 (Itar-Tass) -- Another four Chernobyl-affected handicapped people who went on a hunger strike were brought to a hospital in Gubkin on Monday morning. “There are irreversible changes in the organism of partakers of the action of protest who need urgent medical aid,” chief of the hospital department Valentina Sotnikova told Itar-Tass. Five out of six participants of the hunger strike that lasts already 21 days are already staying in hospital. Despite of a sharp deterioration of their state of health they do not intend to stop the action of protest. Six Chernobyl-affected handicapped people from Gubkin went on a hunger strike demanding to grant apartments to them and provide other benefits that they are entitled to under the federal law. The first hunger strike began in May 2004, but it was suspended when local authorities promised to consider these demands. But the situation remained unchanged, and they decided to resume the hunger strike. Fifteen partakers of the liquidation of the disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in 1986 who need better housing conditions live in Gubkin. © ITAR-TASS. All rights reserved. You undertake not to copy, ***************************************************************** 13 Reuters: North Korea Nuclear Plant Suspended Again-Report Mon Sep 6, 2004 12:38 AM ET TOKYO (Reuters) - The United States, South Korea and Japan have agreed to suspend work on the construction of nuclear reactors in North Korea for a second year but stopped short of scrapping the project, a Japanese newspaper said on Monday. The decision, which the Yomiuri Shimbun daily said was likely to be formalized at a meeting of the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO) in New York on Oct. 13, comes as Washington and its allies try to get Pyongyang to hold another round of talks this month on its nuclear arms programs. The three countries, along with the European Union, formed the power consortium KEDO as a reward for North Korea's pledge in 1994 to freeze its nuclear development programs. The United States had agreed to provide fuel oil as part of the deal. Quoting unidentified Japanese government sources, the Yomiuri said the United States had wanted to scrap the project entirely, but gave in to persuasion from South Korea and Japan to leave room to resume construction. South Korea and Japan have covered 90 percent of the $1.5 billion construction costs so far. More than 100 workers are still maintaining the site of the two partially built reactors. KEDO suspended construction work on the light-water reactors for an initial one year last December, after the United States said in October 2002 that North Korea had admitted working on a secret uranium-enrichment project. An attempt by North Korea to have the project restarted was rejected by KEDO's board in May. Six-way talks between North and South Korea, the United States, Japan, China and Russia aimed at solving the nuclear stand-off have so far failed to make significant progress. Washington has called for Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear program in a complete, verifiable and irreversible manner. ***************************************************************** 14 Reuters: Japan's Kansai Elec shuts nuclear generator early Mon Sep 6, 2004 02:45 AM ET TOKYO, Sept 6 (Reuters) - Japan's Kansai Electric Power Co. said on Monday it had shut a nuclear power generation unit at its Mihama plant two days earlier than planned after the government told it to check the safety of pipes. The 340,000-kilowatt Mihama No. 1 unit in Fukui prefecture, western Japan, was scheduled to close on Tuesday for safety checks following a fatal accident last month at the Mihama No. 3 unit. But Kansai Electric, Japan's second-largest power utility, shut it on Sunday after the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) told it to check the thickness of some of the unit's pipes, a company spokesman said. "We started shutting down the Mihama No. 1 unit immediately after we got the instruction from the agency," the spokesman said. NISA warned Kansai Electric that some of the unit's pipes might have been worn down and become thinner than the government's safety standard, the spokesman said. Two other units, the No. 1 at the Takahama plant and the No. 2 at Ohi, will shut on Tuesday for checks as scheduled, another spokesman said. Police searched Mihama No. 3 at the weekend as part of an investigation into the deadliest accident in Japanese nuclear industry history, which occurred on Aug. 9 when non-radioactive steam gushed from a ruptured pipe. Five workers were killed. The spokesman said he did not know when the accident-hit unit would be restarted. Kansai Electric also said it had restarted two other nuclear units as scheduled after safety checks. It restarted the 826,000-kilowatt No. 2 unit at Takahama and the 1.18 million-kilowatt No. 4 unit at Ohi on Sunday. The units were shut on Aug. 13 for inspections. All 11 of Kansai Electric's nuclear units are located at three plants -- Mihama, Takahama and Ohi -- in Fukui prefecture. Of those, only two units are currently generating power. Kansai has said it would buy a combined 700,000 kilowatts of electricity from Hokuriku Electric Power Co. from Sept. 6 to Oct. 1 to help offset lost nuclear capacity. Kansai Electric said on Monday that it had not decided whether to extend an existing contract with Chubu Electric Power Co. to buy 500,000 kilowatts from Aug. 30 to Sept. 10. ***************************************************************** 15 Reuters: Canada's AECL says sidelined on Bulgarian n-plant Mon Sep 6, 2004 06:54 AM ET SOFIA, Sept 6 (Reuters) - Canada's Atomic Energy Canada Ltd. said on Monday it saw little reason to continue in a tender to build a nuclear power plant at the Bulgarian Danube river town of Belene because the company had been sidelined in the process. The poor Balkan state aims to build the 2-billion-euro plant to replace ageing reactors it has promised to close ahead of EU entry in 2007 so it can keep its position as south-eastern Europe's main exporter of electricity. The Canadian firm and its partners propose to run the entire project as a single main contractor but AECL Regional vice president for Europe Ala Alizadeh said it appeared that Bulgarian authorities wanted to sign multiple deals with different contractors for each part of the project. The Bulgarian authorities also appear to want the state-run power generation monopoly NETC to oversee the project. NETC will keep a majority in the plant but is also seeking financial and strategic investors to take part in the deal. Alizadeh told a news conference that Bulgaria's energy ministry had stopped communication with his company. "We currently do not see the transparent, fair, and competitive process required for the continuation of our involvement," he told reporters. "AECL and its partners do not intend to continue to help provide only the appearance of a competitive process. As a result, we seriously question any further participation in the Belene project." The energy ministry was not immediately available for comment. It has launched a tender to seek a financial adviser for the deal, but has yet to seek construction bids for the plant. Alizadeh would not say whether AECL and its partners, Italy's Ansaldo Nuclear, had actually withdrawn from the tender. They had proposed supplying two 700-megawatt CANDU 6 reactors in a new project, while two other groups had offered to continue work on an existing site where a 1,000 megawatt, Russian VVER reactor has been supplied but not installed. Those consortia include one comprising France's Framatome and Czech Komercni Banka. Bulgaria sank $1.0 billion into Belene, located some 250 kilometres northeast of Sofia, when it began the project in the 1980s, but it later halted work due to a lack of funds and environmental protests. The government has said it wants Belene to provide 1,600-2,000 megawatts of energy by 2010, and preliminary indications from the ministry are that it intends to use the already existing site and supplied material for the plant. ***************************************************************** 16 Reuters: TEPCO runs nuclear unit at lower capacity for repair Mon Sep 6, 2004 02:43 AM ET TOKYO, Sept 6 (Reuters) - Tokyo Electric Power Co., Japan's biggest power utility, said on Monday it had reduced the operating rate of the No.2 nuclear power generation unit at its Fukushima Daiichi plant to carry out repairs. TEPCO will run the 784,000-kilowatt unit in Fukushima prefecture, northwestern Japan, at 350,000 kilowatts until Friday to fix a coolant part, a company spokesman said. TEPCO will bring the unit back to full capacity immediately after the completion of the repair work, he added. Currently 11 of TEPCO's 17 nuclear units are generating power. The 17 units have a total capacity of 17.308 million kilowatts. ***************************************************************** 17 Sofia Morning News: Canadian Bidder Quits Second N-Plant Tender [Sofia News Agency] novinite.com Business: 6 September 2004, Monday. The Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd (AECL), a potential bidder for the supply of Belene's nuclear units, has declared it quits plans to take part in the upcoming tender. The Vice-President of AECL for South Eastern Europe Ala Alizade announced Monday that the company retreats from the public contest, as it doubted the transparency of procedures set by Bulgarian government. The Canadian company has become hesitant over participating in the tender for the supply and construction of two nuclear units for the Belene plant after police launched probing into a letter describing an alleged corruption of Bulgarian officials concerning the tender. The AECL considers that the government casts information overshadow of the tender, thus placing potential contenders at unequal positions. The Atomic Energy of Canada is part of an international consortium interested in completing the construction of Bulgaria's second nuclear power station at a Danube site near the town of Belene. After the project was halted in 1992 over protest from environmentalists, the government ruled to resume its construction at the end of last year. Besides AECL, Czech and Russian companies have declared their interest to bid for the power plant construction.[ width=] Novinite.com (thebulgariannews.com also) is unique with being a real time news provider in English that informs its readers about the latest Bulgarian news. The editorial staff also ***************************************************************** 18 The Register: Nevada nuke test fallout turns up in Hertfordshire | + International Edition [http://www.theregister.com/] The Register Mobile By Lester Haines Monday 6th September 2004 Scientists from Rothamsted Research [http://www.rothamsted.bbsrc.ac.uk/] in Hertfordshire and the University of Southampton have identified plutonium from 1950s US nuclear tests in British soil, the BBC reports [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3630284.stm] . The team has also pinpointed fallout from Bikini Atoll and Chernobyl. The findings come as part of a soil-monitoring programme which began in 1843 - originally to study the effects of fertiliser use. Now, however, the boffins have been able to pinpoint the signature fallout from various nuclear events which proves that contamination from distant bomb tests did affect northern Europe - albeit at a very low-level. The University of Southampton used mass spectrometry to probe samples for plutonium, radium and caesium. Professor Keith Goulding of Rothamsted said: "Each weapons test has a characteristic signature of different isotopes; in this case [Nevada] it is two different plutonium isotopes, but it could be two different uranium isotopes." The research will be more fully expounded at this week's BA Festival of Science in Exeter. ® [http://www.theregister.co.uk © Copyright 2004 ***************************************************************** 19 Scotsman.com News: Childhood Leukaemia on the Increase Tuesday, 7th September 2004 By Jane Kirby, PA News Leukaemia is the most common cancer in children and, worryingly for families, is on the increase. The number of deaths from childhood leukaemia in England and Wales has been falling for more than 40 years but the number of new cases, particularly among the under-fives, has risen. About 500 youngsters under the age of 15 are diagnosed with leukaemia in Britain each year, with 100 dying from it. Research has shown boys are at a 10% higher risk than girls of contracting the cancer. Now scientists are trying to find out what is causing the increased number of cases, with attention turning to environmental factors. New research has shown that pesticides and other environmental pollution may affect unborn children and play a role in the cancer’s development. Scientists say that harmful agents can cross the placenta from mother to foetus, affecting the child’s early immune system. Leukaemia is widely believed to start in the womb, with a second event triggering its development later in childhood. Professor Alan Preece, from the University of Bristol, said scientists found that environmental agents could be a factor. However, he stressed that his experiment involved larger quantities of pollutants than would be found in everyday food. He said: “We are talking about the possibility that continued exposure over the long term could have an effect. It does accumulate. “Our research shows that all these materials do get to the foetus very easily, so the placenta is no barrier.” Prof Preece said levels of pesticides and other pollutants were much more controlled in the EU and America than in other countries such as Africa. “I suspect that levels on imported food from such areas may well not be monitored regularly,” he said. So is there anything mothers-to-be can do to protect the unborn child? “Home-produced food is less likely to be affected,” he says, but adds that most crops in the EU and America are likely to be “pretty good”. Eating organically and drinking filtered water when overseas may also provide protection. Studies carried out on the Danube River in Romania showed high levels of pollutants, he said. Leukaemia is a cancer of the white blood cells, which are produced in the bone marrow and fight infection. They develop from stem cells, which are blood cells at their very earliest stage of development, and grow into two types – lymphocytes or myeloid cells. White blood cells usually repair and reproduce in a systematic way, but when leukaemia strikes the process goes out of control. The cells divide but do not mature, filling up the bone marrow and stopping it from making healthy blood cells. This leads to an increased risk of infection. The bone marrow cannot make enough healthy red blood cells and platelets, and symptoms such as anaemia and bruising occur. Previous research has backed up the claim that environmental factors play a significant part in the development of childhood cancer. Last month French scientists suggested that living near a petrol station or car repairs garage may quadruple the risk. In 1990 Professor Martin Gardner and his colleagues in Southampton published a report into the factors that affected the development of leukaemia and lymphoma in young people living near the Sellafield nuclear plant in West Cumbria. Funded by the Department of Health and the Medical Research Council, the study said the higher incidence of disease in children there was linked with parents being employed at the site. The results suggested that the effects of radiation prior to conception of the child was a likely factor in the child then developing cancer. The charity Children with Leukaemia, which announced the latest research, is holding a conference in London this week. It has invited experts from around the world to discuss radiation, smoking, viruses and air pollution, as well as less popular areas of study such as the impact of diet in early childhood, light pollution and medicines in pregnancy. ***************************************************************** 20 TIME Asia Magazine: Awkward Fallout -- Seoul's admission of nuclear experiments raises uncomfortable questions BY [mail@web.timeasia.com] AHN YOUNG-JOON / AP PHOTO How far did Korea's nuclear research go? Monday, Sep. 06, 2004 Four years ago, a handful of scientists at a government-run South Korean nuclear research institute were experimenting with a gun that blasts laser beams at elements like gadolinium. The experiments weren't successful and the scientists decided to dismantle the equipment. But before they did, somebody suggested using the laser to enrich uranium—a process that produces the fuel for one type of nuclear bomb. "Scientists are full of curiosity," explains Chang In Soon, president of the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute, where the experiment took place. "They're interested in this kind of thing." That unlikely tale was Seoul's explanation last week for the startling news that its scientists had been caught enriching uranium—the very activity Washington is trying to get North Korea to halt. (Pyongyang also has a plutonium-based weapons program, the focus of continuing six-nation negotiations.) South Korea foreswore its nuclear weapons program in 1975, and has since been under the inspection regime of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency. Last February, the government signed a protocol giving the IAEA the right to more information and to inspect sites anywhere in the country. Seoul had six months to make a full declaration of its nuclear research, and the IAEA started asking uncomfortable questions about the institute in Daejon. On Thursday, a Science and Technology Ministry spokesman admitted that scientists there produced 0.2 grams of enriched uranium in 2000. (At least 10 kilos are needed to fuel a weapon.) Late last week, the government said it wasn't sure whether it had violated its nonproliferation commitments. There is no evidence that Seoul is trying to go nuclear, but the revelation couldn't have come at a more awkward time. "This incident is extremely unhelpful and damaging," says a Western diplomat in Vienna. He says Seoul must be dealt with sternly or countries like North Korea and Iran might reasonably object that they've been unfairly vilified for developing their own nuclear programs. Not surprisingly, Seoul is in serious spin mode. Across the DMZ, North Korea's Kim Jong Il must be enjoying a quiet chuckle at its expense. [http://ar.atwola.com/link/93190741/aol] Copyright © 2004 Time Inc. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 21 ThisisLondon: Pollution 'triggers leukaemia in children' thisislondon.co.uk By Rebecca Smith, Evening Standard Health Reporter 6 September 2004 Leukaemia in children could be triggered by pollution passing from the mother to the child in the womb, scientists said today. Research being presented at a conference in London shows harmful environmental agents can cross the placenta to reach the developing foetus. The study found that insecticides in food production and radioactive particles used in medical diagnosis during pregnancy had passed from the mother to the unborn child. The chemicals become more concentrated in the baby's body. Cases of the cancer have rocketed and children are now at a greater risk of developing the disease. Between 480 and 500 children under the age of 15 are diagnosed with leukaemia every year and about 100 die. Cases in under fives have risen by more than 50 per cent in the past 40 years. Scientists from Bristol were presenting the study today at the conference hosted by the Children with Leukaemia charity. copy;2004 Associated New Media [http://www.anm.co.uk] | Terms ***************************************************************** 22 Las Vegas RJ: Expert on radiation's health effects to lecture Monday, September 06, 2004 REVIEW-JOURNAL A national expert on the health effects of radiation will lecture Wednesday at the Atomic Testing Museum on the campus of the Desert Research Institute. Tony Brooks, professor of radiation toxicology at Washington State University, Tri-Cities, is scheduled to speak at 6:30 p.m. at the Frank H. Rogers Science and Technology Building, 755 E. Flamingo Road. He will describe his days of chasing fallout in southern Utah and his pursuit of understanding the potential health effects from such exposures. His lecture is titled "Defining Low-Dose Cancer Risk: Are We Slaying Dragons or Jousting at Windmills?" In his 40-year career, Brooks has served on numerous boards and panels, including the National Academy of Sciences and the Environmental Protection Agency's Science Advisory Board. Copyright Las Vegas Review-Journal ***************************************************************** 23 Interfax: Burial sites for dangerous cargo studied in Sea of Kara Interfax.com [http://www.interfax.com] Sep 6 2004 3:32PM ARKHANGELSK. Sept 6 (Interfax-Northwest) - The Professor Stockmann research ship is on the way to an area in the Sea of Kara where dangerous objects have been buried. A third expedition to the area will take samples of water near the bottom of the sea where potentially dangerous objects, such as a nuclear-powered submarine and three containers holding solid nuclear waste, have been buried, Yelizaveta Tsyvaryova, deputy head of the Russian Emergency Ministry's Arkhangelsk regional branch, told Interfax on Monday. "The goal is to evaluate environmental hazards," she said. "Radioactivity levels in that area do not exceed background values," but, because only a small part of the area has been surveyed, the studies will continue, Tsyvaryova said. © 1991-2004 Interfax ***************************************************************** 24 BBC: Plutonium traced in British soil Last Updated: Monday, 6 September, 2004 By Paul Rincon BBC News Online science staff, at the BA festival [Nuclear weapons test site in Nevada (AP)] Each blast carries its own atomic signature Radioactive fallout from nuclear tests and the Chernobyl disaster can be detected in UK soil and crop samples in an archive going back 160 years. The samples have been collected through one of the longest-running continuous field experiments in the world. Scientists matched fallout in them to specific nuclear tests conducted in the 1950s in Nevada, US, confirming the tests did in fact contaminate Europe. Details are given at the BA Festival of Science being held in Exeter this week. The study is a collaboration between the University of Southampton and Rothamsted Research, where the samples are stored. Finding the fingerprint It used mass spectrometry to measure levels of the radioactive elements plutonium, radium and caesium in the samples. The researchers were able to tie plutonium in the Rothamsted samples to tests conducted by the US military in the Nevada desert in 1952 and 1953. "Each weapons test has a characteristic signature of different isotopes; in this case it is two different plutonium isotopes, but it could be two different uranium isotopes," said Professor Keith Goulding of Rothamsted. The new mass spectrometers at Southampton enabled them to look at the ratios of the different isotopes in the Rothamsted samples and then compare those with the samples they have from the tests. Nuclear fallout from tests at Bikini atoll in the Pacific and from the reactor meltdown at Chernobyl in the former Soviet Union can also be detected. "By doing that, they were able to detect which tests produced which fallout," said Professor Goulding. Unexpected consequences Dr Ian Croudace, of Southampton, said the samples provided "the first evidence" that plutonium from the tests contaminated north-west Europe. However, Professor Goulding stressed the amounts of fallout were small and therefore of little health concern. The Rothamsted experiment was originally set up in 1843 to study the impact of different fertiliser regimes on crop yields and soil health. Scientists are also using the experiments to study patterns in air pollution and global warming. "A common feature of long-term field experiments is that they come to be used in ways their founders could never have predicted," said Professor Goulding. "Events such as the industrial revolution, the introduction of unleaded petrol and acid rain can all be seen in the changing chemistry of the sample archive." ***************************************************************** 25 KVBC: Anti-Yucca Mountain Group in Nevada September 6, 2004 An anti-Yucca Mountain group is hitting the road in Nevada in an effort to boost opposition to a planned national nuclear waste repository. Citizen Alert will haul its 20-foot mock nuclear waste cask to Rachel in rural Lincoln County on Monday in what will be the first of 25 stops in the state to increase membership, enlist volunteers and secure donations. The tour is called "Back to Our Routes," and is patterned after the 1975 journey of Susan Orr and Katherine Hale who went town-to-town to warn Nevadans about the dangers of nuclear waste. This year's final destination will be Las Vegas on October 22nd. Copyright 2004 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved [http://www.worldnow.com] All content © Copyright 2000 - 2004 WorldNow and KVBC. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 26 St. Petersburg Times: Acidic, radioactive water spills into bay Online: Hillsborough County [http://www.sptimes.com/] Hurricane Frances A breach in a dike at a phosphate company in Tampa lets loose 18,000 gallons of wastewater. By JANET ZINK, JONI JAMES and BILL VARIAN Published September 6, 2004 TAMPA - A dike holding millions of gallons of acidic phosphate water breached Sunday during hurricane rains, releasing at least 18,000 gallons of wastewater into Hillsborough Bay. Cargill Crop Nutrition, a phosphate company with a factory along the bay in Riverview, tried to protect against environmental damage by mixing a lime product with the acidic fluid to neutralize it. But state officials said they feared Sunday night that the wildlife in the bay might suffer because containment efforts had failed. At some point, the company ran out of the neutralizing agent, and a pump being used in the process stopped working, said Russell Schweiss, a spokesman for the state Department of Environmental Protection. State officials did not expect the release to harm residential areas or threaten public safety. "We feel terrible that this has happened. We're sick about it," said Cargill vice president Gray Gordon, who was protected from the driving rain by a long yellow rain coat as he spent Sunday afternoon monitoring the breach at the sprawling plant off U.S. 41. The 6-foot deep break at the top of a 100-foot-tall gypsum stack occurred when heavy winds created high waves that bashed the dike's southwest corner, said DEP secretary Colleen Castille. Although Cargill representatives said only 18,000 gallons of wastewater had been released, DEP officials say the potential remains for as much as 120 million gallons to escape from the retention pond through the breach. In the midst of the severe weather, communications between Cargill and the DEP apparently was spotty. DEP, which was not on site Sunday, said it believed caustic soda, not lime was being used to treat the discharge. The polluted water, Gordon said, is flowing from an opening at the top of the gypsum stack down its side and into a stormwater ditch that runs around its 400-acre base. Cargill decided to open a valve and release water from the ditch into Archie Creek, which flows into Hillsborough Bay, after consulting with the DEP. Releasing the water, he said, should prevent a break or overflow of the ditch, a situation that could have caused an uncontrollable flood of water. "Our goal is to limit the amount of water we're discharging," Gordon said. The treatment with lime and, perhaps, steady rainfall, should neutralize the discharge, Gordon said. Once the weather clears, crews will repair the break and test the creek and bay water to see how much damage has been done, he said. The repair should take less than a day. The wastewater, left untreated, would be toxic to fish, wildlife and humans. "It would give you burns if you walk through it ... like a sunburn," Castille said. Cargill alerted the state at 12:45 p.m. about the leak, immediately after it happened, Castille said. Hillsborough County Administrator Pat Bean said the county's Environmental Protection Commission also has been notified, along with the U.S. Coast Guard. "It's distressing. Gypsum stacks near the bay just don't work. They're a ticking time bomb," said Jan Platt, Hillsborough County commissioner and chairwoman of the Hillsborough County Environmental Protection Commission. The wastewater contains gypsum, or calcium sulfate, with a pH level of 1.8. Low pH levels indicate high levels of acid. By comparison, the pH number for orange juice is 2.5; for cola soft drinks, 2; drinking water, 7 to 8; lime, 12, a DEP spokesman said. The fluid is also radioactive, about two to three times the water quality standard, according to the DEP. Adding lime or caustic soda to the discharge would lower the acidity. It would also reduce some, but not all, of its radioactivity, Castille said. By early Sunday night, the company had gone through 5,000 pounds of neutralizer and the DEP had helped locate additional supplies that were in transit late Sunday, Schweiss said. Cargill makes fertilizer at the plant using phosphate mined from the central part of the state. Gypsum is a radioactive waste product of the process. Several ponds dot the Cargill property in Riverview. That water is constantly recycled and used to either make fertilizer or pump gypsum to the top of the stack. During the rainy season, Cargill keeps the ponds level by taking excess water to a huge retention pond at the top of the gypsum stack. Under normal circumstances, the water evaporates, Gordon said. But the abundant rains in recent months have made it difficult for Cargill to keep water levels under control. "We have been like everybody else. We've had a lot of excessive rain over the last several months," Gordon said. More than 2 feet of rain fell at Cargill in July and August, he said. To accommodate the water glut, crews over the past two weeks have been working to reinforce the dike. "Mother Nature just beat us," Gordon said, noting that the spill could have been worse. "I'm glad we got a two-week start." [Last modified September 5, 2004, 23:21:07] Hillsborough County headlines © 2004 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times 490 ***************************************************************** 27 McClatchy: Neither Bush nor Kerry dealing Nevada out By LES BLUMENTHAL McClatchy Newspapers September 06, 2004 LAS VEGAS - Less than a month before he flew a hijacked plane into the World Trade Center, Mohammed Atta checked into a $35-a-night motel amid the wedding chapels, adult bookstores and pawnshops of the Las Vegas Strip's north end. It was not the first time Atta had been in Las Vegas. In the months leading up to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, he and four other terrorists involved in the plot met here on occasion. Little is known publicly about their movements. Yet, their shadowy presence still haunts this desert city. And with new information surfacing about al Qaeda surveillance of Las Vegas, homeland security and the possibility of an attack on the Strip remain touchy subjects for Nevada voters as the race for president begins in earnest. No city outside of New York and Washington was more shaken by the terrorist attacks than Las Vegas. Fifteen thousand of the 90,000 workers on the Strip lost their jobs as tourism plummeted. Occupancy rates at casino hotels, which normally top 90 percent, plunged, in some cases, to less than 10 percent. "It was dead, it was a ghost town," said Tim Donovan, who heads security at the Monte Carlo casino and is president of the Las Vegas Security Chiefs Association. At first glance, Nevada might by the unlikeliest of presidential battleground states. With only five electoral votes, the state has rarely been on the radar screen when it comes to presidential politics. But President Bush won the state by fewer than 22,000 votes four years ago. Both sides are taking Nevada seriously and looking for traction among voters who are well aware of the implications of another terrorist attack. Unlike many of the other battleground states, Nevada's economy is booming. For 17 straight years, Nevada has been the fastest-growing state in the nation. The Clark County School District, which includes Las Vegas, is opening 12 to 15 new schools every year. Stucco and red-tile-roofed homes are spreading into the desert amid arid foothills. "It's the jobs, not the weather," said D. Taylor, secretary-treasurer of Culinary Local 226, the second-fastest-growing union local in the country. Among its 48,000 members are the maids, bartenders, bellmen, cocktail waitresses and cashiers at the Strip's casinos. Even before tips, they receive middle-class wages and pay no health premium. The Bush campaign will claim credit for the economic boom, pointing to the 95,000 jobs created in the state since 2002 and an unemployment rate well below the national average. Democratic challenger John Kerry will focus on a more parochial issue - his opposition to the Bush administration plan to have Yucca Mountain, 90 miles from Las Vegas, be the storage site of the nation's nuclear waste. The wildcard is the almost quarter of a million people who have moved to Nevada since the 2000 election. When it comes to terrorism, most are tightlipped about whether Las Vegas is actually in the crosshairs of al Qaeda. "Who knows what they have up their sleeves?" said George Togliatti, Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn's homeland security adviser. "We have so little information. We pray a lot." There are warning signs. Several recently discovered videotapes show terrorists casing Las Vegas casinos. In May, Las Vegas taxicab drivers were provided with photos of seven suspected terrorists. On New Year's Eve, federal officials banned air traffic over Las Vegas as 300,000 people guarded by 7,500 police and casino security personnel partied on the Strip. It's the nation's second-largest New Year celebration, topped only by the Times Square fete in New York City. F-16s and Black Hawk helicopters patrolled overhead and scientists tested for radiation and radiological "dirty" bombs. Casino operators turned over the names and other information on an estimated 270,000 guests to the FBI. Las Vegas was the only city where the FBI required hotel operators to provide guest lists. "You can assume what you want," William Conger said in an interview about whether Las Vegas remains a terrorist target. Conger is deputy chief of the Special Operations Department of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. Bush once had an overwhelming lead in the polls over Kerry when it came to questions about homeland security and the war on terrorism. But the margins have slipped and, depending on the poll, Kerry has gained credibility as a potential commander in chief. "It's still an issue that plays well for Bush, but Kerry has overcome some of his initial weakness," said Michael Dimock, associate director of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. Though once opposed to the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, Bush finally agreed to consolidate 22 agencies in one of the largest governmental reorganizations in decades. In the beginning, the department hit some rough spots as officials suggested people should buy duct tape and plastic wrap so they could seal themselves in their homes in the event of a biological or chemical attack. Of late, there has been unease over the motivation behind the decisions to elevate national terrorist threat levels. "We don't play politics in the Department of Homeland Security," said Tom Ridge, who heads the department. Even so, 40 percent of those questioned in a recent Time magazine poll said they believed the Bush administration was "not above" using terrorism alerts for political purposes. (Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service.) ***************************************************************** 28 CMAQ: Nuclear Solutions Lost In Ambiguity - propos du CMAQ | Discutez | Recherche | Liens | Supportez le www.cmaq.net Mary La Rosa, dimanche, 05/09/2004 - 01:41 While Mordechai Vanunu awaits further reprisals, perhaps further punishments for what he continues to declare proudly his act of good conscience, a dynamic new company in the same country that does not want him but also does not want to allow him to leave, has acquired a contract to clean up some of the nuclear mess for which Vanunu has sacrificed almost 20 years of his life. This nuclear clean up does not begin in the Negev, but will take place in Chernobyl and is projected to be only the beginning of an enormous projected profit as well as long awaited remedy for that which Vanunu has been trying to get our attention and that which his government has denied exists yet alone has ever acknowledged as a radioactive problem. Similar to Mr Vanunu's ambiguous existence as "free" man, and similar to the Israeli government's position on its nuclear weapons count and policy about its count, Israel's nuclear waste follows in much the same ambiguity, or perhaps until this future Plasma-Gasification-Melting process can begin to work an ambiguous miracle at home as well contracts abroad. Ambiguity is a word that serves political agendas better than it does justice to individual citizens, unless of course you live in a country where you are innocent until proven guilty. Ambiguity in Israel has not afforded Mordechai Vanunu any benefit, either in benefit of doubt for his good conscience or benefit of justice for his completion of eighteen and a half years' retribution, most of which was spent in solitary confinement with ongoing torture provided by an ambiguous prison authority. Mordechai Vanunu's unique case as a whistleblower in a country that seems not capable of even self scrutiny or criticism, further challenges that government's policies of ambiguity about a variety of legal, moral and ethical issues. But other Israeli citizens also make such challenges and continue to suffer from ambiguity in how a government assumes or will not assume its responsibility in assurances and /or compensation for complete, in depth reportage on public safety and illnesses that have predominated among those who have worked or live(d) near nuclear reactor activities. Israel's Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) has always denied any negligence or culpability with regards to radiation levels and the hazards of working with nuclear energy. And the AEC in Israel makes very good use of the state's policy of ambiguity by avoiding any sort of inspections while continuing to deny any problems from the past have ever existed. The average citizen is left to wonder about exposure and the official denials, especially as they become ill due to sicknesses associated with radiation. "The reactor said I did not work in radioactive elements but my medical records show I had uranium in my urine," said one former employee from Dimona. In 1999, while Mordechai Vanunu was still languishing in his prison cell, a Jerusalem lawyer named Reuven Laster questioned the authority of the state in its denial that any problem exists and began to represent groups of people who worked at the reactor in the early years, fifties, sixties and seventies. This American-born lawyer has a record for championing the environment as well as individuals who suffer from health hazards within the environment. Mr Laster represents clients who press for accountability of official but ambiguous policies involved in the failure to monitor workers who were specifically active in chemical or radioactive accidents. Obviously, trying to prove a link between the exposure and the illness has been extremely difficult for any kind of legal procedure and even after a struggle to obtain a review of all the medical records from the reactor during certain periods of time, Mr Laster found various years 'suspiciously' deleted. Now partner in a larger law firm, this advocate continues to pursue justice for employees who worked at risk at Dimona where exposure to harm seems to have led to cancers and/or early deaths. The number of clients he represents is growing but there are those who will never know just and fair compensation, because those in government who have been silent choose to remain silent and without the good conscience required to afford justice to those who have suffered illness and death by ambiguity and silence of government officials. Recent evidence of migratory birds seems to point to the suffering of wild life as well. In the midst of this dismal guessing about exactly how harmful old nuclear reactors are, comes such bright news and such hope for the world at large that one simply must pause and consider why hasn't there been a celebration in all mainstream medias around the world? One can also only wonder why entire countries and governments do not sell off every other project in order to get some clean up sooner rather than too later. Add to the discovery a way of turning harmful waste products into an energy source other than oil! A process called PGM, Plasma-Gasification-Melting works the remedy by using plasma (ionized gas) in a reactor in order to melt down the radioactive materials. A fairly new (2002) Israeli company called Environmental Energy Resources, Ltd. (EER) has developed the PGM method for changing nuclear waste into a variety of useful byproducts such as electricity. The contract for the Chernobyl clean up is spread over 20-25 years with annual gross revenues estimated presently at $30-35 million. EER is under management of Itschak Shrem, one of Israel's top financial wizards of venture capital and a partner in the premiere investment house, SFK (Shrem, Fudim and Kelner). Shrem has plans to raise money from international sources as well as homeland. According to Isra Cast Technology News, "The PGM process was originally designed and developed over twenty years ago at the Russian Research Center, 'Kurchatov Institute'. The development and adaptation of the PGM Technology involves active participation of Russian scientists who are among the original developers of this technology." The process by which to change radioactive waste into something less harmful, however, could NOT have come as revelation to the Institute of Industrial Mathematics in Beersheva, Israel, where previous to Environmental Energy Resources, IIM had worked out a deal to lease its technologies to an American nuclear physicist called Dr Paul M. Brown who had developed a process with similar end results called GHR in 2001. GHR tritium removal technology involves the irradiation of specific radioactive isotopes to force the emission of a neutron, thus producing an isotope of reduced atomic mass. On February 28th, 2001, Los Alamos National Laboratory also entered into a support contract with Paul Brown's company Nuclear Solutions. On November 14 of 2001 The Corporate Social Responsibility Newswire Service reported, "Japanese Scientists Corroborate Nuclear Waste Remediation Technology Owned by Nuclear Solutions" and confirmed the viability of photonuclear transmutation for nuclear waste remediation, and the development of a photonuclear-based system for transmutation of nuclear waste and safe, clean generation of electricity. Then on March 14, 2002, Dr Brown announced that a deal was made with Israel's Institute of Industrial Mathematics that involved the treatment of radioactive water (separate and different from GHR). "Upon conclusion of the commercialization phase, which is expected to last 12 to 15 months, IIM and NSOL will aggressively pursue the filling of worldwide patents. IIM will own the intellectual property and NSOL will have the exclusive worldwide rights for a period of 20 years." Dr Brown and the team at Nuclear Solutions seemed poised in leading the clean-up of nuclear waste and yet the company was troubled financially and Dr Brown was under personal attack. Tragically on April 7, 2002, Dr Brown was dead at 47 from a car accident about which there still lurks the previous threats he had received over a period of time just prior to the accident. Dr Brown's death put an odd tilt to the company's plans for the future and the company took another spiral plunge down. The company AND Dr Brown appear to have been victims of criminal extortion and racketeering via the machinations of an Egyptian-born financial analyst later charged in a nationwide stock swindle that involved FBI agents and FBI computers and who was also under suspicions for having made large amount of stock transactions just prior to 911. Lynn Wingate, an FBI agent assigned to the bureau's Albuquerque office; Jeffrey Royer, a former Oklahoma City agent who resigned late last year; and short-seller Amr "Tony" Elgindy were among five charged in a securities fraud indictment unsealed in federal court in Brooklyn, N.Y. In exchange for money, the two FBI agents used confidential databases to provide Elgindy and other co-conspirators with information about publicly traded companies, the indictment said. Elgindy then spread negative information about the companies on his Web site and to subscribers of his e-mail newsletter, InsideTruth.com, thus bringing down the price of the stock. According to the indictment, a FBI agent searched the agency's confidential National Crime Information Center database and discovered a "criminal" history of a top executive for a company called Nuclear Solutions. The same day, Elgindy began sending e-mail calling the executive "a convicted felon", he then sold the company's stock short. The indictment accused Messrs. Royer and Elgindy of repeatedly short selling stock. Mr Elgindy is also charged with extortion. There is no mention why a company directly involved with nuclear waste would be highlighted for such an operation as Elgindy had going but Mr. Elgindy spread info that Dr Brown was a convicted felon and the stock sold short six times. Mr Elgindy continued to personally threaten Dr Brown. But by the time Elgindy and the FBI agents were arrested, Brown was no longer alive to tell a different tale. Fortunately for Nuclear Solutions, just one month before his death, John Dempsey came on board. Dr Brown, while still under threat, announced the appointment of John Dempsey. Mr Dempsey was a graduate of the Naval academy and had served as a commissioned officer onboard nuclear submarines with an area of expertise in nuclear engineering followed by a 21-year-old career at Bechtel. Just before his untimely death, Brown made Dempsey executive vice president and chief operating officer. Did John Dempsey's appointment herald the trouble or anticipate it? How significant was his past at Bechtel? Since Brown's death, an office in Moscow has been opened. There is a "new" scientist at Nuclear Solutions named Boris Muchnik. He not only replaced Dr Brown but another original team member, Dr. Qi Ao, as former Vice President of Research and Development. Dr Muchnik's prior record of technology had less to do with nuclear physics claim and more to do with the invention of recordable and erasable CD and laser technology. In lauding the rising company, medias such as CNet News have made no mention of Brown and his life long creative effort to solve the problems of nuclear waste and his creation of nuclear solutions. Meanwhile, the National Labs at Los Alamos, where Dr Brown had serious relationship, especially in discussing his betavoltaic batteries, has now suspended all activities since it is in the throes of a security scandal proving how negligent and lax the lab has been with regards to equipment gone missing, credit card bills and now more recently, non-existent but missing disks and the unauthorized presence of international scientists allowed access to materials of high level security concerns. In other words, the National Lab at Los Alamos, dealing in particular with nuclear energy and weaponry has placed US national security at grave risk before, during and after the 9/11 attacks via careless that merited its closing and reassessment. Most of Dr Brown's life and creative talent had a practical focus in the present and dealt almost exclusively with the recycling of nuclear waste and including radioactive water remediation. But it is astounding that he also created a portable detection system for nuclear weapons. This particular invention was created well before his death but only now is being featured as important industry. Since 1999, he and his work was known to First International Conference On Free Energy US Dept of State hosts in Washington, DC. However, he simply could not get the backing, nor depend upon a government to protect him from FBI computers and extortion. Questions remain but will probably fade fast into the first couple of million dollars in profit that Nuclear Solutions potentially will be earning in the near future. The company will probably do every bit as well as its Israeli counterpart, EER, even if it did not get a Chernobyl contract. After all we do not need Vanunu's commitment to tell us all that there seems to be enough dangerous nuclear waste for everyone to make money. Dr Paul Brown's commitment to solution for a better environment remains a life's work lost in the ambiguity of business deals and political intrigue. Jerusalem lawyer Reuven Laster's ongoing advocacy for the environment and victims' rights struggles against the persistent ambiguity presented by a government that lacks moral and ethical concerns about its citizens' well being. Mordechai Vanunu's good conscience and less than free life continues to be currently threatened by ambiguity. Despite the advocacy of faithful supporters in Israel and the international community at large, Vanunu remains under restrictions meant to keep 20-year-old policies and wrongs camouflaged as present security risks. "I have no more secrets to tell" ..but YOU do!, YOU do! seems to keep coming from Vanunu. Without structure and scrupulous guidance, ambiguity in government and business practice does NOT protect the innocent but seems rather willfully inplace with specific intent to provide legal shield for all sorts of injustices and immoral and unethical acts. Ambiguity about nuclear weapons reflects unaccountability and irresponsibility not exclusive to Israel's government; it reflects the previous and ongoing potential disaster of an ambiguous nuclear presence and most recently it has led another country rushing into war without as much regard for human life as company contracts. Mary La Rosa is a librarian and artist living in ambiguity 20 miles from NYC. full links and references: http://lark.phoblacht.net/nuclearambiglarosa.html [http://lark.phoblacht.net/nuclearambiglarosa.html] www.nonviolence.org/vanunu/ [http://www.nonviolence.org/vanunu/] Ambiguity: Mordechai Vanunu; a lawyer in Israel representing Dimona employees; two solutions for nuclear waste that give us alternative viable energy; a portable nuclear weapons detection system since 1999; blackmail and extortion; another dead scientist mercredi 8 septembre, 18h30 [info@cmaq.net] ***************************************************************** 29 Tri-City Herald: Energy NW to seal, abandon Plant No. 4 This story was published Monday, September 6th, 2004 By Chris Mulick Herald Olympia bureau Crews have spent the past three months cleaning and sealing Energy Northwest's Plant No. 4, a partially completed nuclear power plant at Hanford that sat largely untouched for two decades. The hulking concrete structure sat empty, inhabited by birds and desert creatures and with pools of standing water. Plywood sheets dangled from unfinished walls of the containment building. Buckets, light fixtures and other equipment left from construction days lay at the bottom of deep concrete pits. Rusty metal rebar protruded through concrete. But much of that has been coming down, patched up or literally smoothed over since May. "There's quite a bit of it that's gone already," said Doug Culver, Energy Northwest's site manager for Plants Nos. 1 and 4. The plants are two of four nuclear power plants the utility -- then called the Washington Public Power Supply System -- began building in the 1970s but never finished. Only the nearby Columbia Generating Station, formerly known as Plant No. 2, was ever finished. Plants 3 and 5 at Satsop, west of Olympia, were turned over to a public redevelopment authority in the 1990s. Energy Northwest, the state and the Bonneville Power Administration reached a site restoration agreement earlier this year for the two unfinished plants at Energy Northwest's site in southern Hanford. That agreement essentially calls for preserving Plant No. 1, which was nearly two-thirds completed when construction stopped, for future industrial use. But there never has been much hope the 20 percent-completed Plant 4, which officially was terminated in 1982, could be used for much of anything. However, various support buildings in the area have provided storage and may be of use. The site restoration agreement does not require Energy Northwest to return the site to sagebrush. The public power consortium instead is simply sealing the containment building, removing various health and safety hazards and will let the giant piece of concrete sit in perpetuity. Its giant pits already have been filled in with dirt and a concrete slab will be poured over that. A walkway up to the operating floor has been removed, and the transformer yard is gone, as are foundations for nonexistent support buildings. Protruding rebar has been cut, and about a dozen support structures have been removed. Some building materials and equipment have been sold, while others will be trashed. Wood forms that encased the upper half of the concrete wall of the containment building are coming down. "It's changing rapidly," Culver said. Work to remove scaffolding and further seal Plant No. 1 is expected to begin within the next two months. Initial work on both plants is to be completed by June. Heavier demolition activities don't have to start until 2026, which will give Energy Northwest two decades to find alternate uses for Plant 1. Otherwise, total restoration costs for the two projects are expected to reach $45 million. © 2004 Tri-City Herald, Associated Press &Other Wire Services ***************************************************************** 30 Cincinnati Enquirer: DOE Says Fernald Contractor Unprepared For Nuclear Waste Cleanup ENQUIRER [http://www.enquirer.com] | POST Nuclear Waste Cleanup Reported by: A.P. [http://www.ap.org] Web produced by: Neil Relyea 9/5/04 11:00:32 PM The US Department of Energy (DOE) says the contractor responsible for cleaning up nuclear sludge sitting in silos near Cincinnati is unprepared to start the job. The DOE said in an August report that its contractor, Fluor Fernald Incorporated, failed to identify and correct significant deficiencies prior to declaring readiness. The contractor had said it was ready to begin moving radioactive sludge from two silos into temporary holding tanks at the former Fernald nuclear weapons plant in northwest Hamilton County. The waste would be mixed with concrete and taken elsewhere for disposal. Fluor Fernald officials say the criticism was warranted, but is not indicative of where the project is now. A project on a third silo is also on hold, due to a legal standoff between the federal government and the state of Nevada. Nevada's attorney general has threatened to sue to stop the disposal of the 153 million pounds of waste that the government plans to bury in the desert there. The dispute has not been resolved. Federal officials hope to complete the more than $4 billion cleanup at the site in 2006. Congress is currently providing annual funding of about $320 million. The plant processed uranium metal from 1951 until 1989 when production ended. The 1,050-acre site would eventually become be a wildlife area, with 123 acres housing permanent underground storage of lower-level radioactive wastes. All material © 2004 WCPO-TV Scripps Howard Broadcasting Company. All Rights Reserved. [http://scripps.com] ***************************************************************** 31 Google News Alert - nuclear Date: Mon, 06 Sep 2004 15:19:10 -0700 (PDT) IRAN Wants Dialogue to Resolve Nuclear Standoff Reuters - USA TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's top nuclear negotiator said on Monday talks, not threats, would resolve a standoff over a nuclear program Washington says is a cover ... See all stories on this topic: NUCLEAR 'black market' probed News24 (subscription) - South Africa ... Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) are in South Africa helping local authorities with an investigation into an international nuclear component trafficking network, a ... See all stories on this topic: NUCLEAR agency confirms probe in South Africa Independent Online - South Africa Vienna - The United Nations' nuclear watchdog on Monday said it had investigators in South Africa probing possible links with the international nuclear black ... See all stories on this topic: IRAN-EU nuclear talks to be held on schedule: Ramezanzadeh Tehran Times - Tehran,Iran ... Ramezanzadeh here Monday referred to the upcoming Iran-EU meeting in the Austrian capital of Vienna and said that talks on the country’s nuclear program are ... See all stories on this topic: CHINA to invite bidding on nuclear power projects China Daily - Beijing,China China will put up a number of nuclear power projects for public bidding in the next one or two months, said a senior official Monday. ... See all stories on this topic: NORTH Korea Nuclear Plant Suspended Again-Report Reuters - USA TOKYO (Reuters) - The United States, South Korea and Japan have agreed to suspend work on the construction of nuclear reactors in North Korea for a second year ... See all stories on this topic: S.KOREA hopes to resolve nuclear issue via dialogue Xinhua - China BEIJING, Sept.6 (Xinhuanet) -- South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun has said he expects further progress in the six-nation talks to end the nuclear crisis on ... See all stories on this topic: INDIA> Indo-US nuclear relationship growing Webindia123.com - India ... a sign of growing Indo-US cooperation, a team of Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) visited the US recently to continue the ongoing nuclear safety dialogue ... ‘INDIA raising special troops to handle nuclear threat’ Daily Times - Pakistan NEW DELHI: Indian Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Sunday said his country had a credible nuclear deterrent in place and revealed that specialised forces ... See all stories on this topic: IRANIAN Cabinet Pledges Greater Nuclear Transparency Radio Free Europe - Prague,Czech Republic 6 September 2004 -- A spokesman for Iran's reformist cabinet says the Islamic republic is willing to show greater transparency over its nuclear program in ... This daily-once News Alert is brought to you by Google News (BETA)... - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Remove this News Alert: http://www.google.com/newsalerts/remove?s=92d1672a1b037a07&hl=en Create another News Alert: http://www.google.com/newsalerts?hl=en Try Google News: http://news.google.com/ ***************************************************************** 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. 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