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NUCLEAR POLICY
1 [du-list] Accuracy of casualty figures from Iraq
2 [NYTr] China Alliance Thwarts US Pressure on Iran
3 IPS-English POLITICS-IRAN: Doubts Persist as Tehran Makes
4 BBC: Iran to halt nuclear enrichment
5 Guardian Unlimited: Watchdog welcomes Iran nuclear move
6 Guardian Unlimited: Q: Iran's nuclear programme
7 Korea Herald: Nuclear bombs for defense?
8 Korea Times: IAEA Board Split Over Seoul's Lab Tests
9 US: [du-list] Electricity too cheap to meter: Celebrating the
10 US: [CMEP] Govt. $ for Nukes; Dereg. Bumps Rates in DC
11 US: News article on bio-warfare lawsuit
12 US: SUCCESS! Nuclear weapons budget cuts
13 US: www.GovExec.com: White House reaches agreement to free up nomina
14 BBC: Bush targets nuclear ambitions
15 US: Las Vegas SUN: Reid adviser granted limited role on NRC
16 US: Capitol Hill Blue: Congress Passes 'Thanksgiving Turkey' Spendin
17 US: EnergyPulse: The Business Electric: Unfinished Business at DOE
18 US: Waxman: Special Investigations
19 [du-list] Map of Australian Nuclear Sites
20 [du-list] [Fwd: Depleted Uranium website - a must see!]
NUCLEAR REACTORS
21 [du-list] Chernobyl Link to Rising Cancer Rates
22 US: [NukeNet] AC Press, Front Page article on Dr Harvin - The
23 US: [NukeNet] Is Hope Creek Gambling With Danger? Wilmington News
24 Times Online: Clean-coal technology could cut CO2 bill by £3 billion
25 US: NRC: Notice of Availability of Environmental Assessment and Find
26 Manchester Online: New cancer fears over Chernobyl
27 Bellona: New Bellona report on Russia’s nuclear industry to be prese
28 Sofia Morning News: Ukrainian Nuke Plant on Emergency Overnight
29 US: NRC: Dr. Michael T. Ryan and Allen G. Croff Elected to New Posit
30 US: NRC: NRC Extends Comment Period for Environmental Impact Stateme
31 US: NRC: Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards; Subcommittee Meet
NUCLEAR SAFETY
32 [du-list] 11/22 Iraq Watch: Destroying Iraq to Save It & Mass
33 US: [du-list] CT Legislator backs DU tests
34 US: [du-list] 300,000 US possibly exposed to DU and 20,000
35 [du-list] 73 women and children in USUK mass grave were "
36 [du-list] Inquiry Urges Recognition of Gulf War Syndrome
37 [du-list] A day in the life of the British armed forces
38 [du-list] IRAQ: High levels of radioactive pollution seen in
39 [du-list] MoD must pay up now, says Gulf War veteran
40 High levels of radioactive pollution seen in the south
41 AU NineMSN: Nuclear workers are safe - ANSTO
42 The Australian: Radiation workers' exposure 'safe'
NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
43 [NukeNet] Uranium Tests at Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant
44 Las Vegas SUN: DOE to miss its Yucca deadline
45 AU Ninemsn: Last nuclear rods leave Sydney
NUCLEAR WEAPONS
US DEPT. OF ENERGY
46 lamonitor.com: Bill will benefit LANL
OTHER NUCLEAR
47 Fw: UN Treaty to Ban Space Based Weapons
48 Guardian Unlimited: Fusion power faces big crunch
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FULL NEWS STORIES
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1 [du-list] Accuracy of casualty figures from Iraq
Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 15:35:33 -0800
Falluja Arithmetic Lesson
By Prof. Greg Palast
GregPalast.com
Monday 15 November 2004
Today's New York Times, page 1:
"American commanders said 38 service members had been killed and 275 wounded
in the Falluja assault."
Today's New York Times, page 11:
"The American military hospital here reported that it had treated 419
American soldiers since the siege of Falluja began."
Questions for the class:
If 275 soldiers were wounded in Falluja and 419 are treated for wounds, how
many were shot on the plane ride to Germany?
We're told only 275 soldiers were wounded but 419 treated for wounds; and
we're told that 38 soldiers died. So how many will be buried?
How long have these Times reporters been embedded with with military? Bonus
question: When will they get out of bed with the military?
Today's New York Times, page 1:
"The commanders estimated that 1,200 to 1,600 insurgents had been killed."
Today's New York Times, page 11:
"Nowhere to be found: the remains of the insurgents that the tanks had been
sent in to destroy. ...The absence of insurgent bodies in Falluja has
remained an enduring mystery."
"Every time I hear the news
That old feeling comes back on;
We're waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the Big Fool says to push on."
- Pete Seeger, 1967
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2 [NYTr] China Alliance Thwarts US Pressure on Iran
Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 16:24:41 -0600 (CST)
Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
sent by John Clancy
The Washington Post via Sydney Morning Herald - Nov 20, 2004
China Alliance Thwarts US Pressure on Iran
By Robin Wright in Tehran
A new alliance is emerging between Iran and China that threatens to
undermine US ability to pressure Tehran on its nuclear program, its support
for extremist groups and its refusal to back Arab-Israeli peace efforts.
The relationship has grown out of China's soaring energy needs - crude oil
imports rose nearly 40 per cent in the first eight months of the year - and
Iran's growing appetite for consumer goods for a population that has doubled
since the 1979 revolution.
China, which exported oil until 1993, now produces only for domestic use.
Its proven oil reserves could be depleted in 14 years, so the country is
trying to secure future suppliers. Iran is now China's second-largest source
of imported oil.
The economic ties between two of Asia's oldest civilisations have broad
political implications.
China's veto in the United Nations Security Council has become the key
obstacle to putting international pressure on Iran.
During a visit to Tehran this month, the Chinese Foreign Minister, Li
Zhaoxing, said China does not want the Bush Administration to press the
council to debate Iran's nuclear program.
The burgeoning relationship is reflected in two huge oil and gas deals that
are expected to deepen the ties for at least 25 years. Last month the two
countries signed a preliminary accord worth up to
$US100 billion ($128 billion) that will see China purchase Iranian oil and
gas and help develop Iran's Yadavaran oil field near the Iraqi border.
Earlier this year, China agreed to buy $US20 billion in liquefied natural
gas from Iran over the next 25 years.
Iran wants trade to grow even further. "Japan is our No. 1 energy importer
for historical reasons ... but we would like to give preference to exports
to China," the Iranian Oil Minister, Bijan Zanganeh, said recently.
Meanwhile, China has become a main exporter of manufactured goods to Iran,
including computer systems, household appliances and cars.
China's growing influence is weakening the impact on Iran of various US
economic embargoes. "Sanctions are not effective nowadays because we have
many options in secondary markets, like China," said Hossein Shariatmadari,
a leading conservative theorist and editor of the Kayhan newspaper group.
Beijing has also provided Iran with advanced military technology, including
missile technology, US officials say. This led the Bush Administration to
impose sanctions in April on Chinese manufacturers of equipment that can be
used to develop weapons of mass destruction. The Iran-China ties may be
partly a response to these sanctions.
President George Bush's strategy has been to contain China and the Islamic
republic, said Siamak Namazi, a political and economic analyst in Tehran,
"so that's created natural allies".
The growing presence of US and other Western troops in the Middle East and
parts of Asia is another shared concern, as is the problem of radical
Muslims. Most Iranians are Shiites; China, which has more than 20 million
Muslims, has been facing unrest in some of its western cities where Muslims
allegedly receive support from Islamic groups in Afghanistan and the former
Soviet Central Asia countries - the region that straddles Iran and China.
Ties between China and Iran have not always been good. In the midst of
unrest that led to Iran's revolution, one of the last foreign leaders to
visit the Shah before he was overthrown in 1979 was the Chinese Communist
Party chief, Hua Guofeng.
"The visit left a very strong negative feeling about China among Iranians,"
said Abbas Maleki, director of the Caspian Institute, a Tehran think tank.
The Washington Post
*
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3 IPS-English POLITICS-IRAN: Doubts Persist as Tehran Makes
Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 15:29:17 -0800
ROMAIPS AP MM WD IP SC
POLITICS-IRAN: Doubts Persist as Tehran Makes Nuclear Commitment
Analysis - By Praful Bidwai
NEW DELHI, Nov 22 (IPS) - As Iran promised to meet Monday's deadline for
suspending a uranium enrichment process that could be used for making
nuclear weapons -- a freeze that could spare it U.N. Security Council
sanctions - two questions still remain unanswered.
Does Iran already possess blueprints for a nuclear bomb and a certain
quantity of enriched uranium, which were transferred to it by Pakistani
nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan as part of his global black market in
atomic materials?
Or is this claim, made by a dissident Iranian group in exile, timed
primarily to sabotage a deal which has just been worked out between Tehran
and three European Union states to suspend all uranium enrichment in Iran
in return for certain incentives?
Equally important, will an investigation into this allegation lead to
the further interrogation of Khan and fuller disclosures of the truth about
his clandestine network?
''One way or another the Pakistan establishment has a lot to answer
for,'' said leading peace activist and independent physicist Pervez Hoodbhoy.
''The Pakistan state gave Dr. Khan a free run of the nuclear programme.
He was turned into a national hero. He had huge funds at his disposal and
was answerable to no one. The public has a right to know more so that the
Pakistani establishment is made accountable,'' Hoodbhoy who is on a visit
to the Indian capital told IPS in an interview.
Hoodbhoy who teaches physics at Pakistan's Quaid-e-Azam University
thinks that coming clean is ''part of the agenda of democratisation''.
It was largely because of U.S. pressure that Pakistan acted against
Khan and put him under house arrest. But much of his activity has been
hushed up.
The new questions on Iran's programme are posed just days before a
crucial meeting of the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic
Agency (IAEA) on Nov. 25. Washington has been at the forefront of moves to
persuade the IAEA to refer the country to the U.N. Security Council, which
has the power to impose sanctions. But other permanent Security Council
members and the EU are resisting this U.S. move.
Iran emphatically denies that the alleged clandestine nuclear facility
exists, and says it will cooperate with the IAEA if a request is made. Iran
has already submitted a 1,030 page report, '' in which we declared all our
nuclear sites and all our nuclear activities''.
On Monday, the head of Iran's nuclear energy organisation said work
would stop at two nuclear facilities in the central cities of Isfahan and
Natanz.
The head of Iran's nuclear agency, Gholam Reza Aghazadeh, said
enrichment activities would stop as agreed with the IAEA's Monday deadline.
''I believe Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation has carried out whatever
measures are required for confidence-building,'' he told reporters in the
Iranian capital Tehran.
On Nov. 17, a senior official for the National Council for Resistance
in Iran (NCRI) said Teheran had black market blueprints for a nuclear bomb
and was deceiving the United Nations by secretly continuing activities
meant to give it atomic arms by next year.
Farid Soleimani, of the opposition group said the bomb diagrams --
along with an unspecified amount of weapons-grade uranium -- was provided
by Khan, the Pakistani head of the nuclear network linked to both Iran and
Libya.
''He gave them the same weapons design he gave the Libyans as well as
more in terms of weapons design,'' Soleimani told reporters in Vienna.
The startling allegations were made at two separate press conferences
by the NCRI, which is the political front of the People's Mujahedeen - a
group classified as ''terrorist organisation'' by Washington.
Since then, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell has said that he has
seen reports that Iran has been trying to develop systems to deliver a
nuclear weapon, and match its existing missiles to possible nuclear warheads.
Some of the NCRI's past disclosures have proved true. For instance, in
2002, it disclosed that Iran had two secret nuclear installations,
including a uranium enrichment facility in Natanz town.
However, the timing of its new claim raises intriguing questions. Why
were they made two days after Iran signed an agreement with Britain,
Germany and France under which it suspends all uranium enrichment,
including for peaceful purposes, in return for a package of economic,
political and technological incentives, including a nuclear power reactor?
There is a probability that the disclosure was meant to derail Iran's
agreement with the EU states so that the People's Mujahideen does not face
a ban and other restrictions in Western Europe. As it is, the People's
Mujahedeen is put on a par with Al-Qaeda as a ''terrorist organisation''.
Experts who have followed Iran's nuclear activities are divided in
assessing the claims made by the NCRI's senior spokesperson Soleimani. For
instance, David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and
International Security, a Washington NGO, says the NCRI's information is
usually accurate when identifying locations of suspect sites, but not about
the activities taking place there.
He told 'The New York Times' that the NCRI's allegation that Pakistan
transferred highly enriched uranium to Iran in 2001 ''seems preposterous,
given the fact that was the year when the United States was really cracking
down on Pakistan's nuclear export activities.''
However, Paul Leventhal, president of another Washington NGO, Nuclear
Control Institute, defends the NCRI.
''It has proven to be correct with regard to major disclosures about
the Iranian nuclear programme that were not known to the IAEA and perhaps
not known to intelligence services either,'' he said.
It is only right to be sceptical of unsubstantiated claims in Iran's
polarised situation, especially when hawks in Washington are pressing for a
tough stance vis-à-vis the 'Axis of Evil' state. Besides, Soleimani himself
says that he ''would doubt'' if the quantity of highly enriched uranium
given by Pakistan was ''enough for a weapon''.
The IAEA has evidence, going back to 1995, that Pakistan provided Iran
with designs for gas centrifuges with which to spin uranium at high speeds
and enrich it. Highly enriched uranium can be used as fuel in a nuclear weapon.
But it is far from clear that Iran successfully implemented the designs
by fabricating centrifuges which are high-speed devices (which rotate at
enormous speeds like 600 revolutions per second) without special materials
and extremely fine machined and balanced components.
Khan is also known to have passed outdated or unworkable centrifuge
designs to some governments, which had no way of telling the genuine
article from fakes.
Of all the states with which Khan's ”Nuclear Wal-Mart” did business,
North Korea was the closest collaborator. There is strong suggestive
evidence that North Korea transferred missile blueprints and components, if
not whole assemblies, to Pakistan, in exchange for uranium enrichment
technology.
The Pakistan-Iran collaboration is unlikely to have been as close as
that between Pakistan and North Korea given the lack of such a strong
strategic barter arrangement. Besides, Iran is predominantly Shia, whereas
Pakistan is Sunni. The two are not strategic allies and have backed rival
groups in Afghanistan.
The NCRI claim about secret nuclear transfers does not appear highly
credible, but must not be dismissed. It demands an independent, thorough
investigation by the IAEA, which in turn, must make its report public,
unlike its usual practice of sharing ''sensitive information'' only with
governments. (END/AP/MM/WD/IP/SC/PB/SI/04)
= 11220706 ORP004
NNNN
*****************************************************************
4 BBC: Iran to halt nuclear enrichment
Last Updated: Monday, 22 November, 2004
[Preliminary installation of a turbo generator at Iran's Bushehr
nuclear power plant]
Iran denies claims that it wants to build nuclear weapons
Iran says it is suspending its uranium enrichment programme, in
line with a deadline agreed with European nations.
The suspension has been welcomed as "a good step in the right
direction" by the head of the UN's nuclear watchdog.
Earlier, the head of Iran's nuclear energy body said work would
stop at two nuclear plants in Isfahan and Natanz.
Tehran agreed a week ago to suspend its enrichment operations in
a deal with the three European nations to allay fears about its
nuclear ambitions.
Iranian state television announced on Monday that work on uranium
enrichment had been halted.
Verification
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is now checking
that "everything has been stopped", said Mohamed ElBaradei,
director general of the UN-backed agency.
[A worker inside Iran's Isfahan nuclea facility]
Iranians' nuclear views
[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/04/middle_
east_iranian_views_on_tehran0s_nuclear_plans/html/1.stm]
Viewpoints: Bush's foreign challenges
The IAEA is due to discuss Iran's compliance at a meeting on 25
November.
Iran still risks a referral to the UN Security council - which
could lead to sanctions - if it fails to comply, the British
foreign secretary warned on Monday.
Britain, France and Germany brokered the deal with Tehran to
suspend uranium enrichment.
"If there is a failure by Iran to meet its obligations then
Britain and also Germany and France reserve our collective right
to refer the matter to the Security Council," said UK Foreign
Secretary Jack Straw.
Iran has reacted angrily to recent reports it was speeding up
uranium enrichment before the suspension took effect.
Tehran also hit back at outgoing US Secretary of State Colin
Powell's assertion that it was trying to adapt its ballistic
missiles to carry nuclear warheads.
"I believe Powell has understood his remarks were false," Iran's
nuclear chief Hassan Rohani told state television on Sunday.
"Such claims are totally baseless."
But Mr Powell refused to back down, telling reporters on a flight
to the Middle East: "I stick with it."
Sanctions threat
Iran has always denied US claims that it is developing a nuclear
weapons programme, saying its intentions are peaceful.
The head of Iran's nuclear agency, Gholam Reza Aghazadeh, said
enrichment activities would stop as agreed.
"I believe Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation has carried out
whatever measures are required for confidence-building," he told
reporters.
He also rejected diplomats' claims that Iran was exploiting the
window until Monday to rush production at Isfahan processing
facility.
"The Isfahan plant has a specified capacity and cannot operate
beyond what has been planned," he said.
"The plant has no enrichment activity. Raw materials are just
processed there and it has started activities in this field since
a few months ago."
"They need to build confidence and the suspension of uranium
enrichment is a good step in the right direction," IAEA head
Mohamed ElBaradei told BBC Radio on Monday.
He said that Iran had made two tons of uranium gas used in
enrichment, but that this was not enough to produce a nuclear
weapon.
Washington has been at the forefront of moves to persuade the
IAEA to refer the country to the UN Security Council, which has
the power to impose sanctions.
*****************************************************************
5 Guardian Unlimited: Watchdog welcomes Iran nuclear move
| Special reports |
Staff and agencies
Monday November 22, 2004
[Mohamed ElBaradei] Mohamed ElBaradei, Photograph: AP
Downing Street today gave a cautious welcome to Iran's
announcement that it has suspended its uranium enrichment
programme.
Tehran's statement came amid mounting international concern that
it may be trying to develop nuclear weapons.
The suspension has yet to be verified by the International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA), but its chef inspector, Mohamed ElBaradei,
said he accepted "pretty much everything has come to a halt" in
terms of enriched uranium production in Iran.
The IAEA is due to meet on Thursday to decide whether to refer
Iran to the UN security council for sanctions.
The official spokesman for the prime minister, Tony Blair, said:
"Clearly the important thing is that on the one hand Iran is
showing signs of compliance. But equally, the important thing is
that it does [comply].
"Therefore we look forward to the IAEA report to the board of
governors' meeting and to seeing that Iran's voluntary suspension
of all enrichment and processing activities is in place. The
important thing is implementation."
Mr ElBaradei told BBC radio Iran's government still had a lot of
work to do but added: "They need to build confidence, and the
suspension of uranium enrichment is a good step in the right
direction."
The move was announced on Iranian state television today in line
with a deadline agreed with the EU a week ago. It could save Iran
from UN sanctions for failing to honour the deal, which was
brokered by Britain, France and Germany last year.
Mr ElBaradei praised Iran's cooperation with the IAEA, saying
that so far the agency had been able to visit all the facilities
it wanted to. "I would like Iran to continue to demonstrate
maximum transparency," he said. "The more transparency they show,
the more confidence we can build and the more assurance we can
provide for the international community."
He had urged Iran to go further and allow IAEA inspectors to
visit facilities so far closed to them that they suspected may be
linked to nuclear weapons programmes. "So far, we have been
successful," he said.
The US has led calls for Iran to face sanctions, accusing the
oil-rich nation of trying to develop atomic weapons behind the
veil of a civilian nuclear programme. Iran denies the charge,
saying all it wants to do is generate electricity.
US officials are concerned about Iran's continuing production of
quantities of uranium hexafluoride, which can be used to make
weapons. Although not explicitly barred in the accord, US
officials believe the manufacture of the substance amounts to a
serious show of bad faith by Iran.
Speaking on the fringes of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation
forum meeting in the Chilean capital, Santiago, yesterday, the US
president, George Bush, said: "It is very important for the Iran
government to hear that we are concerned about their desires and
we are concerned about reports that show that before a certain
international meeting they are willing to speed up the processing
of materials that could lead to a nuclear weapon."
He added that the European countries that negotiated the deal
with Iran "do believe that Iran has got nuclear ambitions, as do
we, as do many around the world. This is a very serious matter.
The world knows it's a serious matter and we are working together
to solve this matter."
Mr ElBaradei said Iran was facing scepticism, particularly from
the US, but that his agency had to continue working on the basis
of fact. "I'm not ready to jump to conclusions and say this is a
weapons programme unless I see a diversion of nuclear material to
such a programme or I see clear-cut proof that this is a weapons
programme."
[UP]
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004
*****************************************************************
6 Guardian Unlimited: Q: Iran's nuclear programme
As Tehran offers to suspend uranium enrichment ahead of a meeting
of the UN's nuclear watchdog, Simon Jeffery explains all you need
to know about the country's capabilities
Monday November 22, 2004
Does Iran have a nuclear programme?
The country is close to completing a civilian nuclear programme
that would allow it to generate electricity, but western
governments fear that Tehran intends to use this technology to
help it build a bomb. Ahead of a meeting this week of the
International Atomic Energy Agency - the UN's nuclear watchdog -
that could have referred Iran to the UN security council for
sanctions, the agency's head, Mohammed ElBaradei, announced that
Iran had suspended its contentious work on uranium enrichment.
Does that mean Iran is in the clear?
It means Iran will not be referred to the security council when
the IAEA board meets on Thursday. Mr ElBaradei welcomed the
suspension as "a good step in the right direction". An IAEA
report leaked criticised Iran last week for a litany of
"extensive concealment, misleading information and delays". But,
it said, as far it could tell, no materials had been diverted
into an illicit bomb programme. While Iran is in the clear for
now, diplomats working on the IAEA board's resolution are likely
to include an indirect "trigger mechanism" to involve the
security council if Iran breaks the terms of the suspension deal.
Could Iran build a bomb?
The nuclear material used in a civilian nuclear reactor is a
less enriched version of that needed for a warhead. A civilian
nuclear programme that includes enrichment could therefore act
as cover for a weapons programme.
Enrichment is permitted by the IAEA, but most countries with
civilian programmes choose to import their fuel and suspicion
over Iran's programme grew when it was changed to incorporate
enrichment. The original plan - intended to prevent such
suspicion - was for Russia to supply nuclear fuel to Iran and
take it away when it was spent, meaning that all the nuclear
materials would all be accounted for.
The change came in early 2003 when the Iranian president,
Mohammad Khatami, announced ahead of an IAEA inspection that
Iran was mining uranium ore and intended to take control of the
entire fuel cycle, meaning it would be able to enrich nuclear
material to various levels.
The European nations, the US and Israel - who had never been
entirely happy with the Russian-based programme - argued that
Iran could not be trusted with such capabilities. Revelations
later that year from the investigation of rogue Pakistani
nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, who ordered reconditioned
nuclear equipment to be sent to Libya, North Korea and Iran, did
nothing to allay the fears.
How far had Iran's enrichment programme got?
The IAEA lost confidence in the country around the same time
that it discovered a secret centrifuge programme and evidence of
weapons-grade fuel. Iran, which had spent 18 years illicitly
buying and importing much of the equipment, insisted the traces
of high-enriched material were the result of buying already
contaminated units on the black market. Iran has 1,000
centrifuges at present with plans for 50,000 to provide fuel for
its reactors and, despite the suspension, Tehran has said it has
no intention of not resuming enrichment at some point so it is
not dependent on outside sources.
So why has it suspended the programme now?
International dealings with Iran were led by a European trio of
Britain, France and Germany and guided by a policy of
"constructive engagement". That reached a low-point recently
when a year's diplomacy appeared to have produced no results,
and the Europeans were said to be moving towards the more
hardline US position and sanctions. A breakthrough came soon
after when Iran - possibly sensing its last chance for a deal -
made an agreement with the EU nations to suspend enrichment as a
sign of good faith while more rigorous inspection methods were
implemented. It was also promised nuclear fuel and help with its
civilian programme.
Would Iran want a nuclear weapon?
Senior Iranian clerics have insisted it would not, since nuclear
weapons are un-Islamic. But with nuclear-armed nations including
China, Pakistan and Israel on or close to its borders, it is not
unimaginable that Iran would also want a similar armoury. Like
Saddam Hussein's Iraq - which never made it entirely clear it
did not have WMD - it may have hoped to gain some defensive
advantage from uncertainty about its military capability, or
simply developed nuclear weapons to guarantee it against a US
attack. There was another theory that Iran would ask the US for
an agreement not to attack it, in return for which it may also
offer to assist in stabilising Iraq and Afghanistan. But
Washington is unlikely to wish to be seen to be rewarding such
nuclear brinkmanship.
What is the US reaction to the suspension?
Washington still has concerns over Iran's intentions. George
Bush said "many around the world" were convinced of its nuclear
ambitions and US diplomats are particularly concerned about
Iran's continuing production of substantial quantities of
uranium hexafluoride, the main raw material used in enrichment,
right up to the suspension. The procedure does not violate the
letter of the EU deal but its continuation is regarded as an act
of bad faith.
The US has a more hawkish stance on Iran than the EU nations and
the Pentagon put together a new attack plan for Iran that seeks
to achieve a regime change by targeting political figures. The
US secretary of state, Colin Powell, said last week that US
intelligence agents had seen hard evidence that Iran was close
to putting a nuclear warhead on a long-range weapons system. The
allegation was immediately challenged by officials in the state
department, who said the information, which had come from a
single "walk-in" source, had yet to be verified.
The foreign secretary, Jack Straw, described the prospect of US
strikes on Iran as "inconceivable", but neither Israel nor the
US are likely to tolerate the development of a nuclear bomb in
the region. Israel has warned it could mount a pre-emptive
strike against an Iranian nuclear reactor in much the same way
as it attacked Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor in June 1981.
Israel is the only country in the Middle East to have nuclear
weapons - although it neither confirms or denies it has them as
part of a policy of ambiguity - but an Iranian bomb, or real
fears of an Iranian bomb, could prompt it, or other countries,
to arm themselves even further. The German foreign minister,
Joschka Fischer, has described the prospect of a nuclear arms
race in the Middle East as a "nightmare scenario".
[UP]
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004
*****************************************************************
7 Korea Herald: Nuclear bombs for defense?
2003-11-18 ±è´ë¸® ¼öÁ¤ -->
Cho Se-hyon was a former reporter at the Associated Press. He has
been contributing articles on political, economic and social
issues in Korea to various publications.
E-mail : [khw@koreaherald.co.kr]
It would be an exaggeration, I must admit, if I said I've lost
some sleep in the past, worrying about North Korea's reported
efforts to build nuclear weapons. But the feeling of uneasiness,
if not insidious anxiety, has always been at the back of my mind
as we have been constantly reminded of North Korea's nuclear
threat. I'm sure I am not alone.
With a bold and sweeping stroke, however, President Roh Moo-hyun
tried to dispel those concerns when he declared in Log Angeles
the other day, that there was a "reasonable" side to North
Korea's claim that it was developing nuclear weapons for
self-defense. The North, in other words, is not making nuclear
bombs to kill us or anyone else. Nor is it going to use them to
threaten the South and other countries or extort money or food
from them.
President Roh's understanding of the North Korean claim
notwithstanding, though, one would think that the North's
possession of nuclear weapons paradoxically would jeopardize,
rather than safeguard, the Kim Jong-il regime for obvious
reasons.
Personally, I have worried about the North's atomic bombs
because it was the North Koreans who threatened to turn Seoul
into "a sea of fire," if we didn't stop being hostile toward
them. But now, I guess I can go to bed, rest assured that the
North Koreans won't fire their missiles with nuclear warheads at
Seoul and other places in the South.
But when you really think about it, you cannot be quite sure if
there is such a thing as a "defensive" weapon. From time
immemorial, men have been making weapons to kill other living
beings, including their fellow humans. Anyway, if North Korea has
no intention of attacking others with atomic bombs, why try to
produce them in the first place? Why, for that matter, should
they build missiles to carry the warheads?
Besides, what about those hundreds of long-range artillery they
said were ready to shower conventional bombs on Seoul from across
the Demilitarized Zone, reducing the South Korean capital to
ashes in a matter of few hours? As though it was not enough, the
North Koreans are also suspected of having a stockpile of
chemical and biological weapons that could turn the entire
peninsula into one big mass grave. Are these "defensive" weapons,
too?
But of course, seeking an answer to the question whether these
are defensive or offensive weapons is pointless because by the
time we find it out, it would be too late anyway.
I know the minute I say these things, the leftists will jump all
over me, as usual, labeling me an "anachronistic" conservative
pig with a Cold War mentality. But who are more conservative and
who are more anachronistic? Those who stick to the principles of
democracy and a free market economy or those who are clinging to
worn-out socialistic ideals and a state-controlled economy that
went bankrupt more than a decade ago?
Whenever someone talks about South-North confrontation, the
leftists immediately accuse the conservatives of resorting to the
so-called "color theory," an overused and misused cliche for the
Korean version of McCarthyism. But how can we not talk about
ideologies at a time when the two sides seem to be still living
in the 1950s, confronting each other across an ideological
divide?
It takes two to tango, as the saying goes. Since President Kim
Dae-jung introduced the naive fairy-tale "sunshine policy," the
people in the South have undergone an enormous change. North
Korea, therefore, should have shown some reciprocal change, if we
are to make any kind of progress toward peace on the peninsula.
Sadly and regretfully, though, the North Koreans have not changed
an iota in all those years; they have been developing nuclear
weapons on the sly; they have not moved any of their troops and
artillery from the DMZ to the rear; and most importantly, they
have not changed the Workers Party charter that calls for
unification of the country by communizing the South by force.
And yet, President Roh's administration and the ruling Uri Party
are planning to stop regarding North Korea as our "main enemy."
They are also trying to scrap the National Security Law, the last
legal safety net that would keep the country from North Korea's
subversive schemes to overthrow the Republic of Korea.
They are trying to ram the bills aimed at realizing these goals
through the ruling party-controlled National Assembly, despite
the strong probabilities that they violate the nation's
Constitution. But if they are true advocates of democracy, as
they claim to be, they should know that they can't always do what
they want, especially when it comes to important issues that
determine the fate of the nation.
That is why there is a judicial branch of government, instituted
to check the actions being taken by the executive and legislative
branches in violation of the Constitution, the highest law of the
land. Also, there is the democratic system of holding a national
referendum when the nation is faced with such important issues
as, for instance, scraping the National Security Law.
In a recent public opinion poll, some 20 percent of those polled
were reported to have said that they would side with the
Communist regime in Pyongyang and fight with North Koreans if the
United States launched an attack on the North over the nuclear
issue. This, of course, is a shocking result. But these people as
well as the current government and ruling party leaders don't
seem to realize that there is a vast majority of citizens who
oppose or at least reserve their approval of the administration's
North Korea policy with regard, especially, to the National
Security Law. In this respect, it seems to me that the president
and all other responsible government officials should not make
any unmeasured, or reckless, statement that not only they but
also the entire country will regret.
For most of his career, the writer was a reporter working in
Tokyo, New York and elsewhere for an American news agency. He
returned to his native Korea in the early 1990s. His e-mail
address is choseh@hotmail.com. - Ed.
2004.11.23
[http://www.heraldcampus.co.kr/Premium/]
*****************************************************************
8 Korea Times: IAEA Board Split Over Seoul's Lab Tests
Hankooki.com > The Korea Times
By Reuben Staines Staff Reporter
The 35-nation governing board of the International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA) is split over whether to refer South Korea to the
U.N. Security Council for its late disclosure of controversial
nuclear experiments since the early 1980s.
According to officials at the Ministry of Science and Technology,
Seoul will have the backing of Japan and IAEA's secretariat when
the nuclear watchdog convenes a board meeting in Vienna on
Thursday to make its judgment on the controversial tests.
China, Russia, Brazil and Malaysia have also indicated that they
do not believe Seoul should be sent to the U.N. Security Council
for failing to report the experiments, officials said.
However, South Korea is concerned that the United States,
Britain, France, Canada and possibly Australia will push for the
case to be taken up by the top U.N. decision-making body, they
said.
A Security Council referral would be hugely embarrassing for
Seoul as it seeks to persuade communist North Korea to scrap its
own nuclear weapons programs.
The government disclosed the experiments in early September,
setting off international speculation of a clandestine nuclear
weapons program in South Korea.
In a bid to assert its innocence, the government has dispatched a
large delegation led by Vice Foreign Minister Choi Young-jin to
the crucial three-day board meeting.
The team of diplomats _ which includes Oh Joon, Foreign Ministry
director general for international organizations, and other
senior officials from the Science and Technology Ministry and the
National Security Council _ departed for Vienna in two groups on
Sunday and yesterday.
Choi said they will seek to convince IAEA member nations that the
unreported plutonium extraction and uranium enrichment
experiments were purely academic exercises and South Korea has no
intention of developing nuclear weapons.
``We will actively try to persuade board members so that the
experiments will not be referred to the U.N. Security Council,''
he said yesterday before boarding a plane for Vienna. ``This case
has an unfavorable side for us. But, in terms of nuclear
nonproliferation, we've made a lot of contributions to the
international community.''
Seoul officials last week said that Japan has promised through
informal diplomatic channels to vouch for South Korea at the
board meeting.
In a meeting in Vienna with Oh Myung, minister of science and
technology, IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei also said he hoped South
Korea would be cleared.
But Oh's attempt to woo representatives from key member nations
to a luncheon on Friday proved less successful.
The U.S., Canada, Britain and France all declined the minister's
invitation, while an Australian diplomat attended but did not
express support. China, Japan, Russia, Brazil and Malaysia gave
South Korea their backing.
Sources said Washington is pressing hardest for Security Council
involvement, despite top U.S. officials initially saying that the
small-scale tests were not a major concern.
Last month, John Bolton, Washington's top nonproliferation
official, suggested that sending Seoul to the U.N. would be an
effective way for it to prove its innocence.
South Korean officials believe the IAEA's decision could go
either way but are worried that the U.S., France and Britain
could sway others in the vote.
A report circulated among IAEA members earlier this month found
that the experiments were not evidence of a nuclear weapons
program but said Seoul's failure to report them was a ``matter of
serious concern.''
The findings were the result of three onsite inspections of South
Korean nuclear facilities carried out by officials from the U.N.
nuclear watchdog over the past two months.
rjs@koreatimes.co.kr 11-22-2004 16:16
Vice Foreign Affairs-Trade Minister Choi Young-jin, center,
answers reporters¡¯ questions at Incheon International Airport,
Monday, before leaving for Vienna, Austria, to attend a board
meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency. / Korea Times
Photo by Kim Hyun-tae
*****************************************************************
9 [du-list] Electricity too cheap to meter: Celebrating the
Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 15:39:29 -0800
Today's announcement, that the US Congress has blocked the development of
new nuclear weapons designs, is a major victory for us, even though it
doesn't diminish our DU problems significantly in the short-term.
If any of you ever had any doubt about the purpose of the US nuclear energy
program, read below.
I had set out on several occasions to transcribe this item, which I have had
for over 20 years, but it took a victory to energise me. There are several
FoIlow-up actions which instantly occur to me. I'm hoping someone else beat
me to the draw 2 decades ago. I can no longer remember how I got my
photocopy of this issue of Reactor Science and Technology, but it was no
ground-breaking exercise. The immediate action would be to trim the fat off
this and forward the substance to your nearest legislators, congratulating
them on their wise decision (assuming they voted in favour, of course)!
Cheers,
Robert
= = = = = =
Reactor Science and Technology October 1952 TID-2003 (DEL) Vol. 2 No. 3
[US] Atomic Energy Commission
Page 5 T Keith Glennan - Editorial
Paragraphs 2 - 5
"The Atomic Energy Commission and its staff, during its early stewardship of
the [atomic energy] program, speculated at length on ways of bringing
industry into the atomic energy picture on a more realistic basis,
consistent with our normal competitive private enterprise economy. It
remained, however, for Dr Charles A Thomas, the Executive Viice-President of
Monsanto Chemical Co., to crystallize this thought into a definite, concrete
proposal. On June 20, 1950, Dr Thomas sent the Commission a letter, stating
that he believed the time was ripe for industry, with its own capital, to
design, cnstruct and operate reactors for the production of plutonium and
power. This suggestion was based on the following assumptions: that the
long-term military requirements for plutonium exceeded the then existing
and planned production facilities; that it would be desirable to reduce the
cost of this metal to the government; that it would likewise be desirable to
make use of the large quantities of heat attending the production of
plutonium and not being utilized under existing conditins; and finally; that
the most nearly practicable use of such heat would be for the generation of
useful quantities of electric power. It was Dr Thomas's contention that the
program he envisioned would accomplish these objectives, and at the same
time, would offer industry an opportunity to contrubute to the reactor
program directly and to earn a profit which could be related to the effort
put forth"
"Meantime, a second proposal, rather similar in objective to the Monsanto
approach, had been recceived from the officers of the Dow Chemical Co. and
the Detroit Edison Company. The Commission addressed itself to a serious
consideration of these suggestions and arrived at a basis onwhich it was
willing to support the study phase of such programs. A public announcement
was issued by the Commission on Jan 28, 1951, setting forth the general
policy which had guided the consideration of these propositiionbs and
opening the door for further proposals from qualified groups. It was
emphasized that in agreeing to such studies the Commission was not entering
into any commitment to continue beyond the study phase. This public notice
elicited further interest, and on May 16, 1951, it was announced that a
maximum of four industrial study groups would be considered for the initial
program. By early June, agreements had been signed with the four groups and
the studies which are digested in the following pages [pp9 - 114, see below
for titles] had been set in motion. A maximum period of one year was
permitted for the study. Under the terms of the agreement the contracting
parties were to carry out a survey and study of the Commission's reactor
development activities: (1) to determine the engineering feasability of
their designing, constructing and operating a materials-and-power-producing
reactor; (2) to examine the economic and technical aspects of building this
reactor in the next few years; (3) to determine the research and development
work needed, if any, before such a reactor project could be undertaken; and
(4) to offer recommendations in a report to the Commission concerning such a
reactor project and industry's role in undertaking it and carrying it out.
So much for the background involved. What do these studies show?"
"It would be futile in this space to attempt an assessment of the
conculsions reached. [eg reservations about waste disposal and population
radiation exposure?]. However a few points do seem to warrant comment.
First, the sophisitication and engineering excellence of these reports stand
as a real tribute to the scientists and engineers associated with the
Commission's reactor program. Because of these efforts, a wealth of
technological information was available, enabling the study groups to move
rapidly on their assignment."
"Second, all parties concur in the belief that dual-purose reactors are
technically feasable and could be operated in such fashion that the power
cost would reduce the cost of plutonium by a considerable amount.
CONVERSELY, ALL GROUPS AGREE THAT NO REACTOR COULD BE CONSTRUCTED IN THE
VERY NEAR FUTURE WHICH WOULD BE ECONOMIC ON THE BASIS OF POWER GENERATION
ALONE. [emphasis mine, for the sake of those skimming this item] The
segnificance of these conclusions should not be overlooked. They imply
imply that there now exists a basis for the creation of a semirisk
industrial nuclear power enterprise while the military demand for plutonium
continues. In pointing up the many paths by which one can approach this
goal, it is interesting to note that each of the groups settled on a
different reactor type as holding greatest promise from the group's point of
view."
"As a final comment on the reports, it should be noted that all four groups
wish to continue their efforts into a second phase. This would seem to
represent a vote of confidence for the future of nuclear power. Were this
concept of a dual-purpose reactor devoid of substance, it hardly seems
likely that all parties would show interest in the field."
Monsanto Chemical Company - Union Electric Company
Plutonium-Power Reactor Feasability Study [page 9]
Commonwealth Edison - Public Service Company
Report on Power Generation Using Nuclear Energy [page 29]
Pacific Gas and Electric Company - Bechtel Corporation
Industrial Reactor Study [page 81]
Dow Chemical Company - Detroit Edison Company
Study of Materials-and Power-Producing Reactors [pp105 - 114]
>From FCNL Nuclear Calender 21-11-2004
Congress deleted all funds for new nuclear weapons in the omnibus
appropriations bill, which passed the House of Representatives this
afternoon. It is expected to pass the Senate shortly. This includes funds
for the Robust Nuclear Earth penetrator, or nuclear bunker buster, and for
the Advanced Concepts Initiative for new nuclear designs.
Friends Committee on National Legislation
Nuclear Calendar
Special Bulletin
Congress deleted all funds for new nuclear weapons in the omnibus
appropriations bill, which passed the House of Representatives this
afternoon. It is expected to pass the Senate shortly. This includes funds
for the Robust Nuclear Earth penetrator, or nuclear bunker buster, and for
the Advanced Concepts Initiative for new nuclear designs.
The Nuclear Calendar is published every Monday when Congress is in session.
To subscribe click here, or send an e-mail to
nuclearcalendar-subscribe@fcnl.org with "subscribe NuclearCalendar" (without
the quotation marks) in the message body. To unsubscribe click here, or send
an e-mail to nuclearcalendar-unsubscribe@fcnl.org with "unsubscribe
NuclearCalendar" (without the quotation marks) in the message body.
Published by the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL) and the
FCNL Education Fund. Address: 245 Second Street, N.E., Washington, D.C.
20002-5795. Phone: (202) 547-6000. Fax: (202) 547-6019. E-mail:
fcnl@fcnl.org. Web site: http://www.fcnl.org.
Editor is David Culp. Publication is made possible by contributions from the
Lippincott Foundation of the Peace Development Fund, Ploughshares Fund, Town
Creek Foundation, Turner Foundation, Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation,
and the contributors and supporters of the Friends Committee on National
Legislation and the FCNL Education Fund.
We encourage readers to copy and distribute the Nuclear Calendar. When doing
so, please include the following credit: "Reprinted from the Nuclear
Calendar, published by the Friends Committee on National Legislation and the
FCNL Education Fund."
----- Original Message -----
From: "Felice & Jack Cohen-Joppa"
To:
Cc: "Robert Rands"
Sent: Sunday, November 21, 2004 1:40 PM
Subject: Re: [du-list] US EPA Integrated Risk Information System...
>
> p.s. Our web site finally got updated - check out the current issue of the
> Nuclear Resister at
> http://www.serve.com/nukeresister/
> _____________________________________
> the Nuclear Resister
> "a chronicle of hope"
> P.O. Box 43383
> Tucson AZ 85733
> - information about and support for
> imprisoned anti-nuclear and anti-war activists -
> Jack & Felice Cohen-Joppa, editors
> phone/fax (520)323-8697
> email: nukeresister@igc.org
> US$15/year/US$20 Canada/US$25 overseas
> - selections from recent issues
> - updated prisoner addresses
> - & archived issues can be read at:
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> * FREE SAMPLE ISSUE ON REQUEST *
> (please supply a postal address for samples)
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10 [CMEP] Govt. $ for Nukes; Dereg. Bumps Rates in DC
Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 13:59:55 -0600 (CST)
*** Apologies for cross-posting ***
*** P R E S S R E L E A S E ***
Nov. 22, 2004
This e-mail contains three items:
(1) A media alert on a $50 million provision for new nukes included in
the FY05 Omnibus Appropriations conference report (HR 4818).
(2) A press release on an impending electric rate increase for D.C.
residents due to deregulation.
(3) A National Academies survey on public outreach for a radioactive
waste transportation study.
===================
PUBLIC CITIZEN MEDIA ALERT
Contact: Brendan Hoffman, 202-454-5134; Erica Hartman, 202-454-5174
Extra Nuclear Funding in Budget Bill Quietly Passes
The FY05 Omnibus Appropriations conference report (HR 4818), passed out
of conference committee Saturday, includes as part of the Energy and
Water Development section $50 million for the Nuclear Power 2010 program
-- five times what the Bush administration requested. This money is
the pool from which funds are drawn to support 50 percent of the cost of
the three Early Site Permit applications in Virginia, Illinois, and
Mississippi, as well as the three consortia that have announced their
intention to apply for a combined Construction and Operating License.
One consortium, NuStart Energy Development, has requested $400 million
in COL support over the next few years, and a second, led by Dominion,
has asked for $250 million.
"This is yet another example of the Bush administration subsidizing a
mature industry that should sink or swim on its own merits after fifty
years of market failures," said Michele Boyd, legislative director of
Public Citizen's energy program. "The money would be better spent
developing truly clean and renewable forms of energy generation."
Nuclear power will not alleviate our major energy problems of the day:
high oil prices and a reliance on oil imports from politically unstable
regions. Only 1.4 percent of our electricity is generated from oil, so
greater reliance on nuclear power will have essentially no impact on
demand for oil.
For more information, please visit www.energyactivist.org
###
===================
For Immediate Release: Nov. 22, 2004
Contact: Tyson Slocum (202) 454-5191; Erica Hartman (202) 454-5174
D.C. Regulators Should Counter PEPCO's Rate Hikes by Halting Disastrous
Deregulation Experiment
Public Citizen Urges the Re-Purchase of PEPCO's Power Plants
WASHINGTON, D.C. - D.C. government regulators are powerless to protect
consumers from PEPCO's proposed 17.7 percent electric rate hike because
deregulation has allowed unregulated companies to set higher prices,
Public Citizen said today. The consumer advocacy organization is urging
the D.C. Public Service Commission (D.C. PSC) to reject the requested
rate hike and work toward re-regulation, so the District once again will
have the regulatory power to ensure that prices consumers pay are tied
to the true costs of producing power.
The only way for D.C. to adequately protect consumers is to re-regulate
the region's electricity system by ordering PEPCO to re-purchase the
power plants it sold to Atlanta-based Mirant, because the commission is
less able to control rates if PEPCO is buying power from another entity
than if PEPCO re-acquires the plants it sold. Such a move would restore
the city's ability to regulate power prices and implement the cost-based
rate system that successfully protected consumers for 100 years.
Further, taking steps to re-regulate the system would be consistent
with national trends; nine states have either repealed or delayed their
deregulation laws in the past couple of years. Those states are Arizona,
Arkansas, California, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Oregon and
West Virginia.
"This would put D.C. on the path of lower costs for consumers while
maintaining reasonable profits for PEPCO," said Tyson Slocum, research
director for Public Citizen's energy program. "Controlling rates is
particularly important for those on fixed or lower incomes, because they
are hit even harder by rate hikes."
PEPCO voluntarily sold four of its six D.C.-area power plants to Mirant
in December 2000. Mirant, which has paid $17.8 million to settle
allegations of Enron-style market manipulation, filed for Chapter 11
bankruptcy protection in July 2003. The sale of PEPCO's power plants
meant that D.C. no longer had any ability to regulate power prices as it
had for 100 years, because the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that states
cannot regulate prices from power plants unless they are part of a
vertically integrated system.
PJM Connection -- regional transmission organization coordinating the
movement of electricity in all or parts of Delaware, Illinois, Indiana,
Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee,
Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia -- is the largest
centrally controlled dispatch area in the United States. PEPCO must buy
all its power through the PJM market, and power prices in PJM have
skyrocketed 75 percent under deregulation, with inflation-adjusted
electricity prices rising from $25.92 per megawatt hour in 1998 to
$45.33 per megawatt hour over the first 10 months of 2004. These high
prices are rising far above the actual cost to produce electricity,
meaning unregulated power companies reap record profits while consumers
pay more.
"The sole reason PEPCO is seeking a rate increase is because PEPCO is
now forced to buy its power from unregulated power producers like Mirant
in the regional PJM market," said Slocum.
The D.C. PSC originally supported PEPCO's decision to sell its power
plants in an attempt to foster competition for consumers. The problem
is, "competition" isn't occurring in D.C. or in any states that have
deregulated.
For example, consider the benchmark used to measure the relative
success of such "competition": the share of D.C.'s residential consumers
who have chosen an alternative electricity supplier to PEPCO. The
highest "choice" rate achieved in D.C. was in December 2002, when 12
percent of the city's residents "chose" an alternative supplier to
PEPCO. Nearly two years later, by October 2004, nearly 10,000 fewer
D.C. residents were "choosing" an alternative supplier, reducing the
share of residential customers "choosing" to 7 percent. Nationally,
just 5 percent of residential consumers in the remaining 15 deregulated
states have switched suppliers because wholesale prices continue to
climb and retail competitors have shown little interest in serving
residential consumers.
There is little cost savings in choosing alternative providers serving
residential consumers in the District. The average annual price per
kilowatt hour for residential customers is 5.04 cents with PEPCO; 6.4
cents with Pepco Energy Services (PES), an unregulated subsidiary of
PEPCO, when 51 percent of the power comes from renewable energy sources;
7 cents with PES' option of providing electricity generated 100 percent
from renewable energy sources; 4.53 cents with Washington Gas Energy
Services (WGES), an unregulated subsidiary of Washington Gas, D.C.'s
regulated natural gas company; and 4.58 with WGES' option of providing
electricity in which 5 percent comes from windpower.
Although consumers may save a nominal sum by selecting an alternative
supplier, most residential consumers haven't made the switch because
they will be even less protected than if they were to stay with PEPCO.
For instance, the prices charged by alternative suppliers are wholly
unregulated, and alternative suppliers can raise prices dramatically
after a contract ends.
Under PEPCO's proposed rate increase, PEPCO's residential customers
will pay an average of $120 more per year on bills of approximately $690
per year.
"Deregulation is clearly a failed experiment in D.C's electricity
market," said Slocum. "It is time to recognize this colossal error and
stop a trend that harms consumers instead of helping them. We urge D.C.
to work towards fixing this broken system."
For more information about PEPCO and deregulation, go to
www.citizen.org/cmep/pepco.
###
Public Citizen is a national, nonprofit consumer advocacy organization
based in Washington, D.C. For more information, please visit
www.citizen.org
===================
*** N O T I C E ***
National Academies Survey on Public Outreach for Radioactive Waste
Transportation Study
The National Academies -- which advises the federal government on
technical matters of science, engineering, and medicine -- is conducting
a survey gauging the public's concerns regarding the transportation of
radioactive waste. The information gathered in this survey will be
employed to craft public outreach materials on a forthcoming study on
this issue by the National Academies. The survey is available at:
http://www8.nationalacademies.org/survey/nap/napinternetsurvey.htm
Please note that Public Citizen has not necessarily endorsed the
contents of this report, as they are not publicly known at this point.
**********
If you would like to be removed from the CMEP ListServ, send an email to listserv@listserver.citizen.org with the words "unsubscribe CMEP" in the message.
Questions about the CMEP ListServ can be directed to CMEP-request@LISTSERVER.CITIZEN.ORG.
To learn more about this and other Public Citizen Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program campaigns, visit our website at http://www.citizen.org/cmep/
-Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program
*****************************************************************
11 News article on bio-warfare lawsuit
Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 15:36:12 -0800
This is one of several newspaper articles on the Dept. of Energy's plans to
operate bio-warfare agent research facilities at its nuclear weapons labs
-- and our ongoing lawsuit. Tri-Valley CAREs (Livermore, CA) and Nuclear
Watch of New Mexico recently filed an appeal in that suit. Read on...
-- Marylia Kelley
>From the Independent Newspaper
Nov. 11, 2004
Environmental Groups Appeal Decision on Biosafety Facility
Late Monday Tri-Valley CAREs of Livermore, California and Nuclear Watch of
New Mexico filed an appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals
challenging a ruling on September 10, 2004, by Federal District Judge
Saundra Armstrong allowing the federal Department of Energy (DOE) to
operate a contested bio-warfare agent facility at Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory in California.
The bio-warfare agent research facility, styled a Biosafety Level-3
(BSL-3), would be used for experiments, including genetic modification,
with live anthrax, botulism, bubonic plague and other agents.
The environmental groups oppose these experimentation facilities because
they say that the DOE failed to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement
(EIS) evaluating the impacts on the environment.
Tri-Valley CAREs and the Nuclear Watch of New Mexico have an additional
motive in filing the appeal. Although DOE withdrew its approval of a
similar BSL-3 laboratory in Los Alamos last January in response to this
litigation, the environmental groups are concerned that the government
might decide to reapprove and begin operation of that facility without
preparation of an EIS.
"Although we are very pleased that DOE has withdrawn its approval of the
Los Alamos bio-warfare agent facility, we remain concerned that
construction continues on the Livermore facility," stated Marylia Kelley,
the Executive Director of Tri-Valley CAREs. "This laboratory is located
adjacent to the active Las Positas and other earthquake faults, and next to
a large metropolitan area," explained Kelley.
The groups' litigation, filed August 26, 2003 in the Federal District Court
in Northern California, charges DOE with violating NEPA by approving
advanced research on bio-weapon agents at its two principal nuclear weapon
design labswithout conducting a thorough review of the resulting
environmental risks and impacts. Their lawsuit asked the Court to order
DOE to prepare an EIS on each proposed bio-warfare facility.
ends
Marylia Kelley
Executive Director
Tri-Valley CAREs
(Communities Against a Radioactive Environment)
2582 Old First Street
Livermore, CA USA 94551
- is our web site address. Please visit us
there!
(925) 443-7148 - is our phone
(925) 443-0177 - is our fax
*****************************************************************
12 SUCCESS! Nuclear weapons budget cuts
Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 15:36:25 -0800
GOOD NEWS -- and we peace and environmental advocates can use some good
news these days!
Dear friends and colleagues:
Tri-Valley CAREs, along with colleague groups, sent out action alerts
asking you to call for cuts in the 2005 budget for nuclear weapons
programs.
Many of you responded -- sending letters and making phone calls over the
past few months. A number of you also responded to the "last minute" action
alert that I sent out on Friday. First, let me say THANK YOU.
And, even better, let me tell you that it all made a difference!
The latest word from Washington, DC is that the fiscal year 2005 Energy and
Water Appropriations bill (which was added at the last minute to the
omnibus bill) contains cuts to several of the key nuclear weapons programs
we targeted. Here is the list of cuts --
1. The funding for the Dept. of Energy's (DOE) "Robust Nuclear Earth
Penetrator" (RNEP), which is being developed at Livermore and Los Alamos
Labs, is cut for fiscal year 2005 to zero. Yes, zero for 2005.
Please join me in a toast to celebrate successfully cutting this dangerous,
high-yield nuclear bunker-buster! (Though, of course, we will need to stay
vigilant to prevent the DOE from sliding over the funds from other budget
accounts to cover ongoing RNEP development.)
2. The funding for the DOE's "Advanced Concepts Initiatives," which is the
program devoted to mini-nukes and other new, high-tech nuclear weaponry at
Livermore and Los Alamos Labs, is cut for fiscal year 2005 to zero. Yes,
zero for 2005.
Please join me in a second toast (or at least a second sip of whatever you
are drinking) to celebrate cutting the funding for mini-nukes and other
so-called "more usable" nuclear weapons.
Again, we will have to stay vigilant -- but this is a major victory.
3. The funding for DOE's Modern Pit Facility (to build new plutonium bomb
cores by the hundreds each year) is cut to $7 million -- a significant
reduction. And, reportedly, the omnibus contains language specifying that
none of the funds can be used to select a DOE site on which to build it.
This keeps the facility at a "conceptual" stage -- at least for 2005.
Not a complete victory on this one -- but it is a very important budget
cut. And, we will continue our work to prevent the DOE's Modern Pit
Facility from becoming a reality.
I am still hunting up some of the details on the bill -- and I will try to
include some of it in the next newsletter. But, why wait to celebrate? You
deserve it now! Congratulations!
If you have a spare moment on Monday, please call CA Senator Dianne
Feinstein's office -- and tell her "thank you" for her ongoing work to stop
new nuclear weapons. Senator Feinstein worked on all three of the above
budget cuts. The capitol switchboard is (202) 224-3121.
If you have two spare moments, please use the other one to call
Representative Ellen Tauscher. She worked on getting the funding cut for
RNEP and for the Advanced Concepts Initiative -- we are still working to
get her as an ally to cut the Modern Pit Facility. Use the same capitol
switchboard number -- (202) 224-3121.
Let me add a final note -- the budget process is a complicated affair, and
it gets more complicated any time there is an omnibus involved.
However, pending confirmation of details on Monday, this email contains
what are believed to be the FINAL Congressional budget numbers for Energy
and Water Appropriations. The next steps should be pretty "pro forma" --
so, essentially, we can consider these budget cuts a done deal for 2005.
By the way, the fiscal year 2006 nuclear weapons budget is due to go from
DOE and the White House to the Congress in February 2005 -- so celebrate
now but please stay tuned for the next round!
Hooray!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We did it!!!!!!!!! You did it!!!!!!!!!!!
Peace,
Marylia Kelley
Marylia Kelley
Executive Director
Tri-Valley CAREs
(Communities Against a Radioactive Environment)
2582 Old First Street
Livermore, CA USA 94551
- is our web site address. Please visit us
there!
(925) 443-7148 - is our phone
(925) 443-0177 - is our fax
*****************************************************************
13 www.GovExec.com: White House reaches agreement to free up nominations
(11/22/04)
DAILY BRIEFING
By Darren Goode, CongressDaily
The White House has struck a deal to free up dozens of federal
nominations and allow incoming Senate Minority Leader Reid's
nominee to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to move forward.
The deal, reached Saturday, will pave the way for Reid's top
science adviser, Greg Jaczko, to take a two-year recess term on
the NRC in January. The dispute over Jaczko's nomination had
threatened to hold up 172 of President Bush's nominees, as Reid
had placed holds on nominees until Jaczko's nomination was
vetted. Supporters of the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste
site protested Jaczko's appointment because he, like Reid,
opposes the nuclear dump in Nevada.
Sixteen senators, 15 Republicans and Sen. Zell Miller, D-Ga., had
signed a letter Saturday to Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn.,
saying they would prevent the Senate from reaching a unanimous
consent agreement on Jaczko and Republican NRC nominee Albert
Konetzni.
"We cannot agree to allow Mr. Jaczko or Mr. Konetzni, the
Republican nominee to the Commission, to be confirmed without so
much as a hearing and the opportunity for senators to ask him
questions on the record," the letter stated.
Jaczko would fill one of two vacant spots on the five-member
commission. Saturday's deal also paves the way for Konetzni to
fill the other vacant slot. Commissions normally are appointed by
the president for five-year terms, but under Saturday's deal
Jaczko cannot be renominated after his two-year recess term and
must recuse himself from matters involving Yucca Mountain for the
first year.
Reid said, "I am extremely pleased that we were able to reach a
deal that places a strong, independent voice on the NRC, while
ensuring that nearly 200 other federal posts will be promptly
filled."
Meanwhile, in other key nominations as the Senate wrapped up this
past week, Deborah Majoras won confirmation to serve as Federal
Trade Commission chairwoman until 2008, after Sen. Ron Wyden,
D-Ore., dropped his hold. In August, Bush had given Majoras a
recess appointment -- good through the end of next year -- to get
around Wyden's move.
Wyden had cited concern about the effect of oil mergers approved
by the FTC over the past decade in blocking the nomination. In a
statement dropping his objection, Wyden said Majoras had assured
him she would "get to the bottom of why consumers in my part of
the country are paying such high gasoline prices."
Also confirmed Saturday was Federal Communications Commissioner
Jonathan Adelstein, who will now remain a Democratic member of
that panel until the middle of 2008. Adelstein, formerly an aide
to departing Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., first
was appointed in 2002 to fill the unexpired term of then-FCC
Commissioner Gloria Tristani. If Bush had not reappointed him,
Adelstein would have had to leave the FCC when Congress adjourned
for the year.
*****************************************************************
14 BBC: Bush targets nuclear ambitions
Last Updated: Sunday, 21 November, 2004
By Paul Reynolds World affairs correspondent, BBC News
President Bush's concentration on North Korea's nuclear programme
at the meeting of Asian and Pacific countries in Chile shows that
stopping the spread of nuclear weapons will continue to be a high
priority for the second Bush administration.
[Yongbyon plant, North Korea]
Bush wants more talks on North Korea's nuclear programme
North Korea and Iran represent the most immediate major
challenges.
The North Koreans have left the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
which is supposed to prevent nuclear weapons from being developed
by nations which do not have them. The belief among experts is
that North Korea now has several nuclear devices.
The effort to persuade North Korea to change direction is
concentrated on the so-called six party talks involving North
Korea, the United States, China, Japan, Russia and South Korea.
So far these talks have not produced any progress.
Bargaining chip
Dr Gary Samore of the International Institute for Strategic
Studies in London, who worked on these issues in the Clinton
administration, said: "I think the most likely prognosis for the
future is that the stalemate will continue.
"North Korea seems absolutely determined to retain a nuclear
hedge and for the time being it feels very well protected against
the threat of sanctions or any kind of military action."
Sanctions or military for are really not even plausible or
attractive options and the US has its hands full in the Middle
East Dr Samore
How to make a nuclear bomb
[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/world/2003/nuclear_fuel_cycl
e/mining/default.stm]
What nobody knows is what the United States might do if North
Korea does not agree to abandon its nuclear programme.
Dr Samore thinks that the stalemate is in the interest of both
the US and North Korea right now.
"North Korea may be quite content to just keep on talking without
causing any crisis. And Washington as well doesn't really have
any good alternative to the six-party talks.
"Sanctions or military force are really not even plausible or
attractive options and the US has its hands full in the Middle
East."
Military option?
On the other hand, there is the statement from one of the
lower-level hawks in the Bush administration, John Bolton, Under
Secretary for Arms Control and International Security.
He wrote in the Financial Times in September: "We are determined
to use every resource at our disposal - using diplomacy
regularly, economic pressure when it makes a difference, active
law enforcement when appropriate and military force when we must"
The risk of attacking North Korea is that a general war might
start on the Korean peninsula which would dwarf the war in Iraq.
Tehran quandary
The question of Iran's nuclear ambitions is an open one.
It says that it has no intention of making a nuclear bomb but it
is still ambiguous about whether it might resume the enrichment
of fuel for nuclear power one day.
[Preliminary installation of a turbo generator at Iran's Bushehr
nuclear power plant]
Iran denies it intends to build a nuclear weapon
The same technology used for enriching fuel can be used for
making weapons grade material.
Iran was found to have been developing a secret nuclear fuel
enrichment programme but has now agreed to suspend this while
talks develop with three European countries, Britain, France and
Germany, on trade and other incentives.
The issue here is whether the suspension will develop into a
permanent agreement. Otherwise the crisis will resurface.
Libya success
It is not known whether this was a tactical move by Iran to avoid
the UN nuclear agency the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA) referring it to the Security Council for possible
sanctions.
If Iran resumes enrichment, and we will not know until next year,
the US may well call for sanctions and if they do not work then
the possibility of an air strike by the US or Israel will have to
be considered though it would not be easy.
Not only are Iran's nuclear facilties spread out in different
locations but an attack would precipiate a new crisis in the
Middle East.
There were successes in the first Bush term with the decision by
Libya to abandon its secret efforts to develop a nuclear
capability and in the rolling up of the private network organised
by the Pakistani nuclear expert A Q Khan.
He had been selling nuclear technology, certainly to Libya and
possibly to Iran.
Loophole
There are two other items on the Bush non-proliferation agenda.
The first is to continue its "Proliferation Security Initiative".
This is an attempt by a group of like-minded countries to disrupt
the sale and shipment of nuclear components, by interceptions if
necessary.
One such interception led to the discovery of the Libyan
programme.
The
US wants enrichment a reprocessing plants to be limited to those
countries which already have them
The other is the next NPT review conference in 2005. The US wants
a major loophole in the treaty closed.
This loophole - its "Achilles heel" in the words of the head of
the IAEA Mohammed ElBaradei - allows a member state to develop a
fuel enrichment ability for its peaceful nuclear reactors.
However that ability could then be used for weapons manufacture.
The US wants enrichment and reprocessing plants to be limited to
those countries which already have them.
*****************************************************************
15 Las Vegas SUN: Reid adviser granted limited role on NRC
By Benjamin Grove < [grove@lasvegassun.com] > SUN WASHINGTON
BUREAU
WASHINGTON -- A top aide to Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., will take
a seat on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission but with
significantly limited power to block Yucca Mountain, under a
deal struck in Congress during the weekend.
Reid has battled for about a year to win Senate approval for
one of his top advisers, physicist Greg Jaczko.
Yucca advocates in Congress opposed the nomination, figuring
that Jaczko would thwart the project.
The appointment to the commission is important to Nevada
because it would give the state a voice on the agency panel
responsible for licensing and regulating Yucca, the Energy
Department project proposal to construct a high-level nuclear
waste repository under construction 90 miles northwest of Las
Vegas.
The department aims to open Yucca as early as 2010, but it must
first win approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The
department had planned to submit an application to the
commission for a license to construct the underground facility
to the NRC by year's end so the commission could begin reviewing
it, a process that would likely take several years.
Jaczko will be limited in his power to take a critical approach
to the proposed nuclear waste repository project under an
unusual compromise forged by Reid, White House officials and
Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., chairman of the Energy and Natural
Resources Committee and a leading Yucca advocate in the Senate.
Jaczko will have to recuse himself from all Yucca Mountain
matters for the first year of his two-year appointment,
according to the agreement. That point has long been part of
ongoing deal-making over Jaczko's appointment, Reid spokeswoman
Tessa Hafen said.
"It was all part of the negotiations and compromises," she said.
Further, Jaczko likely will be limited to a two-year stint.
White House officials assured Domenici that Bush would not
renominate Jaczko, Domenici spokeswoman Marnie Funk said. Most
appointments to the five-member NRC are for five years.
"We made it clear that a nominee as controversial as Greg
Jaczko will not be confirmed by the Senate for the sake of
political expedience regardless of the pressure exerted by his
advocate, Sen. Reid," Domenici said in a statement.
Domenici added, "I hope we have ensured the impartiality and
fairness of the NRC."
In two years, Reid plans to use his powers as Democratic leader
to fight to get Jaczko more time on the commission, Hafen said.
Despite the limits on Jaczko's nomination, the deal on the
nomination was still a good one, Hafen said.
"It allows Greg to to do good work on the NRC and prove that he
is fair and objective," she said.
It is not immediately clear just how much opposition Jaczko
could mount, even behind the scenes, against the project with
limited power during a limited term.
"It just shows how much power the nuclear power industry has,"
said Kevin Kamps, nuclear waste specialist with the anti-Yucca
group Nuclear Information and Resource Service, who has long
argued the industry has powerful friends in Congress. "They can
set the terms for the commissioners that oversee them."
A spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, the leading
industry lobby group, today said he could not comment on
Jaczko's nomination.
Nominees to federal posts, including the NRC, must be approved
by the Senate.
President Bush nominated Jaczko in February under a deal made
with Reid to drop his hold on other nominees, including
opposition to Environmental Protection Agency administrator
nominee Mike Leavitt, who was confirmed to that post.
Under the deal reached during the weekend, Reid agreed to
release a hold he had placed on another slate of nominations to
federal posts. Domenici said Reid had been holding 172
nominations "hostage" in an effort to win approval for Jaczko.
Senate Republicans wanted a Republican named to the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission, and a number of senators wanted full
congressional hearings on any nominees before confirmation to
full five-year posts.
As part of the agreement, Jaczko and Republican nominee Albert
H. Konetzni will serve for two years to fill the two empty seats
on the five-member panel. President Bush likely will make the
appointments under special rules during January, a Domenici aide
said.
Jaczko likely would begin serving immediately after Bush's
appointment, Hafen said.
Jaczko is a scientist with the experience necessary for the
job, Reid said in a statement. He will be an "independent" voice
on the commission, Reid said.
"Greg understands and cares deeply about nuclear safety issues,
and he will put the welfare of the American public above
everything else," Reid said.
*****************************************************************
16 Capitol Hill Blue: Congress Passes 'Thanksgiving Turkey' Spending Bill
[http://www.capitolhillblue.com]
By Staff and Wire Reports
Nov 22, 2004, 04:43
Congress Saturday passed a $388 billion package financing
government programs in this fiscal year after days of battling
over spending cuts and priorities for programs including foreign
aid, energy and a presidential yacht.
The Senate voted 65-30 for the legislation late on Saturday but a
last minute snag means it will not be sent to President Bush for
several days for signing into law.
It is one of the last pieces of work for the 108th Congress
although lawmakers could return to finish a spy agency overhaul
before the end of the year.
The House of Representatives passed the spending bill 344-51
earlier on Saturday. But will return on Wednesday to correct part
of it that would have allowed lawmakers access to Americans'
income tax returns, and that vote will clear the way for Bush's
signature.
To fit into limits demanded by Bush as part of his effort to trim
the record budget deficit, Republicans agreed to make an
across-the-board cut in spending levels backed earlier by the
House and Senate, provoking anger among some lawmakers.
"It's been a terrible bill to handle," said outgoing Senate
Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens, an Alaska
Republican.
Some last minute increases were allowed for favored White House
projects like NASA space programs.
Democrats fumed that Republican leaders had cut crucial funding
for education, health and the environment.
Democratic Rep. David Obey, from Wisconsin, called the bill a
"Thanksgiving Turkey" which he said was "totally inadequate to
meet the nation's needs."
Although lawmakers found common ground during the 108th Congress
on tax breaks for companies and families there was also plenty of
election-year gridlock.
Partisan fighting continued on Saturday as Democrats raged over a
Republican-introduced measure in the spending bill making it
easier for hospitals to refuse to provide abortions or abortion
counseling.
"This provision is nothing more than a payoff to the religious
right," said Lynn Woolsey, a California Democrat.
The spending bill wraps together 9 bills that Congress failed to
pass before the election, financing most government agencies in
the 2005 fiscal year that started Oct. 1.
The bill sets aside $23 billion for the Department of Energy
while foreign aid programs will get $19.4 billion. Those were
increases from 2004 but less than Bush requested. The bill
funding the Departments of Transportation and Treasury will get
$89.9 billion, less than last year and Bush's request.
The Bush administration threatened to veto the massive bill if
the cost of its programs pushed spending for all 13 bills above
an $821.9 billion limit.
In a victory for the White House, lawmakers agreed to open up
some government agency jobs to the private sector.
The bill also dropped language that would have challenged new
Bush rules on overtime and travel to Cuba and to extend milk
subsidies for small dairy farmers.
On another tricky issue, the compromise bill included $577
million in funding for a nuclear waste site at Yucca Mountain in
Nevada but dropped language that would reclassify fees paid into
the Nuclear Waste Fund.
The bill also included a measure to make Mexican trucks operating
in the United States safer. And it added $403 million dollars to
ease the crisis in Sudan.
But it cut $1 billion from Bush's $2.5 billion request for the
Millennium Challenge Account, a new program to encourage economic
and political reforms in poor countries. Advocacy groups were
disappointed with the level of funding for the Global Fund to
fight HIV/AIDS.
The NASA space agency, a priority of House Majority Leader Tom
DeLay, found a last minute boost to $16.2 billion, an increase of
$822 million over last year's levels. © Copyright 2004 by Capitol
Hill Blue
*****************************************************************
17 EnergyPulse: The Business Electric: Unfinished Business at DOE
Insight Analysis and Commentary on the Global Power Industry
[http://www.energypulse.net]
Dateline: Washington, D.C. No one in this constantly speculating
town was surprised when Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham joined
the exodus from the recently re-elected Bush administration. For
the general public, Abraham's departure seemed overshadowed by
the shuffle at State, in which Colin Power gave up his chair to
Condi Rice. For Beltway energy insiders, it was clear that
Abraham was more than ready to leave as soon as a replacement
can be named.
He goes out with a record, of sorts, as the longest tenured
Secretary of Energy since the department was created. After
looking over Abraham's recent travel and speechmaking schedule
on the DOE Web site, I can understand completely his desire to
stay closer to home for a little while to watch his young
children grow before they stop recognizing him.
Without missing a beat, the chattering classes among lobbyists
and media were tossing out possibilities for a replacement and
guessing what it would mean for future energy policies. The
possible promotion of assistant secretary Kyle McSlarrow would
be the smoothest transition, some said, maintaining the status
quo of having energy policy directives begin at the White House
for faithful execution by federal functionaries.
Others suggested that a higher-profile name, such as former
senators J. Bennett Johnston (D-LA), or John Breaux (D-LA),
would be in keeping with the tradition at DOE of offering
employment to the underemployed in return for some political
traction. In this case, further cementing relations with the
Senate just in time for another round of energy bill
formulation, with an appointee most friendly to oil and gas
interests. There’s also the symbolic outreach of putting a
Democrat in the cabinet.
Then there’s the possibility that Bush will turn to Tom Kuhn,
currently president of the Edison Electric Institute. While
there’s been no direct overture from the White House at this
point, those in the know say, Kuhn might take the position, if
offered, purely out of loyalty to his long-time friend and
despite a rather substantial hit to income. But it certainly
would be novel to have DOE headed by someone who represents the
electric power business rather than someone tied to fuels.
Or, it could be someone that no one has even considered. That’s
always a possibility when it’s political payback time on the
Potomac.
In Abraham’s November 14 letter of resignation, he thanked the
President for the opportunity to serve and expressed optimism
that “a much needed energy legislation will finally be passed”
in the upcoming 109th Congress. He also pointed to a list of
accomplishments since coming on board in 2001, including
development of “the first comprehensive energy plan in over a
decade, and implementing 90 percent of its recommendations.”
The “mission accomplished” list might be considered like its War
in Iraq correlate, still a work-in-progress: putting DOE
research funding to development of hydrogen and FutureGen (clean
coal) technologies; continuing the clean-up of former weapons
manufacturing facilities; pressing ahead with nuclear waste
disposal at Yucca Mountain; and accelerating nuclear
non-proliferation activities with Russia. Not mentioned in the
letter, but frequently cited in the secretary’s speeches are
DOE’s commitments to encouraging a next generation of nuclear
power and continued work on fusion reactors, along with its
practical day-to-day approach to energy efficiency and renewable
power markets.
I also like to point out that well before the August 2003
blackout, DOE had already identified the reliability threat
posed by under-funded power and gas delivery infrastructure and
had a plan on the table for fixing the holes.
While Abraham has been criticized in some quarters for the
failure of the Bush administration to get anything like a
comprehensive energy bill through Congress, the more
knowledgeable observers I’ve spoken with here say that it’s
unfair to blame DOE for what has been an impossible situation.
Besides, with the original terms of an energy plan dictated by
Vice President Dick Cheney’s secret society, there was little
that DOE could do to influence outcome besides being a
cheerleader for the home team.
To its credit, the Department under Abraham has continued to do
what it does best, focus its resources on research and
technologies development. In a recent speech, Abraham—who did
not enter the job with an energy pedigree—said that the agency
ore appropriately should be called the department of Energy,
Science and Technology. “The Department is not just about
electricity and windmills and gas stations,” he said. “The
department is actually all about science.”
To my mind DOE is also about -- or should be about -- liaison
between the federal government and state and local efforts to
better manage our energy use and delivery systems. And as a
bridge between government and industries that produce, deliver
and consume energy in all its forms.
I think the record of the agency under Abraham is quite mixed in
this regard, and certainly for some key, if less
influential–than-before-the-election lawmakers, DOE’s adamancy
on siting Yucca Mountain outweighs most of the positive things
it has done. Other hold lingering resentments for a DOE
roll-back of air-conditioning efficiency standards that have
forced states like California to continue setting their own
preferred levels of appliance efficiency attainment.
There’s always something of a tug-of-war between the federal
agencies and the Congressional committees that hold the
appropriations purse strings and confirmation power over
Presidential appointments. We’re seeing a silly impasse right
now that holds up the confirmation of FERC appointee SueDean
Kelly because of Yucca Mountain—an issue that has absolutely
nothing to do with Kelly’s job.
There also appears to be some hang-up in finalizing the FY05
Energy and Water appropriations bill during the lame duck
session of Congress currently playing in Washington. Whatever
the issue, it puts DOE’s budget on hold long past the start of
the fiscal year, last October 1 (certainly it’s not the only
federal agency budget currently on ice).
In one of my many interviews here in town this week, my
attention was drawn to one aspect of the energy appropriations
bill that might seem minor, if not inconsequential. The issue is
continued funding for DOE’s Office of Energy Assurance (OEA), a
$22 million per year effort to provide states and local energy
agencies with the tools they need to provide emergency response
and system security.
Attorney Jeff Genzer, a partner in the firm of Duncan, Weinberg,
Genzer &Pembroke, and outside counsel to the National
Association of State Energy Officials (NASEO), described the
importance of having adequate resources for energy emergency
preparedness. “From an energy policy maker’s standpoint, it
doesn’t matter whether the cause for the pipeline going out is a
terrorist strike, a hurricane or human error,” he said. “We
still have to deal with an energy situation that is severe.”
Another form of preparedness is to try to head off the impacts
of expected high prices for heating fuels this coming winter.
The most recent estimate from the Energy information
Administration is that heating oil prices were going up 37
percent this winter. “That’s a significant increase. Those kinds
of situations affect real people very quickly,” Genzer said.
“Congress needs to act. We see significant problems: the fact of
increasing price volatility, the fact of increasing dependence
on oil from foreign sources, we don’t have sufficient fuel
diversity…moves up toward greater volatility. People on lower
incomes feel that more acutely. Our delivery system is
antiquated, out infrastructure is inadequate and we really need
as a country to focus on our energy emergency preparedness, our
energy security and our fuel diversity.”
The need for price volatility protection has caused a coalition
of Northeast and Midwestern states to seek up to $600 million in
additional low-income home energy assistance program (LIHEAP)
funding for the coming year. LIHEAP is not a DOE program, but
comes under the Health and Human Services Department.
Late last month, NASEO delivered letters to the relevant House
and Senate committees that are considering the Energy &Water
Bill, almost pleading for reauthorization of OEA’s budget. “Good
planning by public and private sectors . . . makes the
difference between fast response and crisis in the return of
normal service for users of electricity, natural gas, gasoline,
propane and heating oil,” wrote Sara Ward, chair of NASEO.
Given that fact that it represents just 0.1 percent of DOE’s
nearly $25 billion annual budget, a $22 million project is not
much money, but OEA has become the key liaison between federal
and state energy actions. NASEO has credited OEA in the pat year
with:
+ Creating a secure national emergency communications network
among state assurance experts, to share high level information
an during emergency situations;
+ Helping transform outdated emergency plans into
comprehensive energy assurance plans;
+ Working on emergency transportation fuels allocation plans
and waivers on environmental requirements and driver hours;
+ Conducting the first national assurance exercises in 10
years.
“A modest federal investment in these efforts would show a great
return in preventing disruptions to our energy system and in the
form of improved recovery from potential disruptions should they
occur,” Ward wrote.
The Bottom Line: Too often, when we look at the work of a huge
agency like the Department of Energy, we focus exclusively on
the big guy (or gal) at the top, the cutting-edge technology or
the most controversial initiatives. In its day-to-day
activities, though, DOE is most effective in a thousand smaller
projects that support and extend more localized efforts.
Truthfully, if I had the budget authority, I’d switch the $350
million annual appropriation now devoted to hydrogen research
over to state emergency plans and subsidies for low-income
homes’ utility bills. But I don’t and, really, neither do
Spencer Abraham or his successors. Most important is for whoever
heads DOE to keep pressing for the realistic programs that deal
with real people’s needs. That’s an energy policy I can support
wholeheartedly.
Arthur O’Donnell is Energy Central’s Editorial Director. The
Business Electric is found exclusively on Energy Central.
Copyright 2004 CyberTech, Inc.
Copyright © 2002-2004, CyberTech, Inc. - All rights
*****************************************************************
18 Waxman: Special Investigations
[Rep. Henry A. Waxman]
[http://www.waxman.house.gov]
Iraq Contracting
Rep. Waxman and other members of Congress have been seeking
information on contracts entered into by the Administration for
reconstruction and development work in Iraq, including several
billion dollar contracts with a subsidiary of Halliburton
Corporation. Many questions have been raised about the Iraq
contracting process, including questions on the seemingly
inflated prices charged by Halliburton to import gasoline from
Kuwait into Iraq and Halliburton's admission of kickbacks to
company officials.
Fact Sheets
July 22 Full Committee Hearing, Rep. Waxman's
Opening Statement
June 15 Full Committee Hearing, Rep. Waxman's
Opening Statement
CPA IG Finds Halliburton Mismanaged Government
Property in Iraq
CPA IG Issues Report on Halliburton Overcharging
New GAO Report Finds Multiple Iraq Contract Abuses
Chronology
Wednesday, November 10, 2004
New Evidence of Political Interference in Halliburton Contracts
Rep. Waxman calls for hearings into new State Department
documents that disclose efforts by senior Administration
officials, including the Ambassador to Kuwait, to steer a
lucrative Halliburton fuel subcontract to a favored Kuwaiti
company. The documents also describe allegations of widespread
bribes and kickbacks sought by Halliburton officials.
- Letter to Chairman Davis
Thursday, October 14, 2004
Problems Found in Bush Administration Management of Iraqi Funds
A new audit by the International Advisory and Monitoring Board
finds that the Bush Administration has not properly accounted
for the expenditure of hundreds of millions of dollars in Iraqi
oil proceeds.
- IAMB Audit
- Fact Sheet
Tuesday, October 05, 2004
House Subpoenas Documents on Administration Mismanagement of
Iraqi Funds
The Government Reform Committee has issued a subpoena sponsored
by Rep. Waxman to obtain key documents from the Federal Reserve
Bank relating to the Bush Administration's mismanagement of
approximately $20 billion in Iraqi oil proceeds and other funds.
The Committee also writes Defense Secretary Rumsfeld to insist
that he produce documents related to the Administration's use of
these Iraqi funds for secret, no-bid contracts with Halliburton
and other companies.
- Rep. Waxman's Statement
- Letter to Secretary Rumsfeld
Monday, September 20, 2004
Value of Halliburton Troop Support Contract Continues to
Increase
Data from the Army Field Support Command indicates that more
than $7.2 billion has now been committed to Halliburton for
troop support in Iraq under the Logistics Civil Augmentation
Program (LOGCAP) contract. The records show that between Aug. 3
and Sept. 8 of this year, the obligated value of the company’s
Iraq task orders increased by nearly $800 million.
- LOGCAP Spreadsheet
Tuesday, August 24, 2004
Pentagon Auditors Urge Withholding of Halliburton Payments
In an August 16 memorandum released by Rep. Waxman, the Defense
Department Audit Agency “strongly encourages” the Defense
Department to begin withholding 15% of Halliburton’s
reimbursements, citing “significant unsupported costs” totaling
over $1.8 billion and “numerous, systemic issues” with
Halliburton’s cost estimates.
- Attachment: DCAA Memo
- Letter to Defense Department
Thursday, July 29, 2004
Investigation of Iraq Funds Mismanagement Needed
A new report from the Inspector General of the Coalition
Provisional Authority finds multiple problems in how the United
States managed the Iraqi oil proceeds deposited into the
Development Fund for Iraq, leading Rep. Waxman to renew his call
for a congressional investigation.
- CPA IG Report
- Letter to Chairman Davis
Saturday, July 24, 2004
Two New Reports Criticize Halliburton’s Iraq Contracts
Reps. Waxman and Dingell release two reports on Halliburton’s
work in Iraq. The first report, prepared by GAO, finds
systematic problems in the planning, implementation, and
oversight of Halliburton’s contract to provide troop support
services. The second report, by the minority staff, finds
extensive overcharges in Halliburton’s gasoline prices.
- Fact Sheet on Troop Support Contract
- GAO Report on Troop Support Contract
- Minority Staff Report on Gasoline Overcharges
- Press Release
Friday, July 09, 2004
Audit Finds U.S. Administration of Iraqi Oil Funds "Open to
Fraudulent Acts"
Rep. Waxman releases a preliminary audit of the Development
Fund for Iraq by KPMG that finds serious deficiencies in U.S.
accounting practices and criticizes CPA officials for failing to
cooperate with the U.N.-approved audit. Rep. Waxman asks
Chairman Davis to subpoena documents relating to U.S.
expenditures from the fund.
- Letter to Chairman Davis
- KPMG Preliminary Audit
- UN Letter
Monday, June 14, 2004
New Evidence of Halliburton Overcharges
Five former Halliburton employees and one former executive of a
Halliburton subcontractor describe egregious examples of waste,
fraud, and abuse involving Halliburton’s Iraq contracts. A new
Pentagon audit finds serious deficiencies in Halliburton’s
billing practices.
- Bunting Statement
- DCAA Audit Report
- DeYoung Statement
- Letter to Chairman Davis
- Warren Statement
- West Statement
- Wilson Statement
Sunday, June 13, 2004
Vice President's Chief of Staff Received Early Briefing on
Halliburton Contracts
Rep. Waxman discloses that a senior Defense Department official
briefed I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the Vice President’s chief of
staff, and other senior Administration officials in October 2002
about the Department’s proposal to award lucrative Iraq
contracts to Halliburton. This new information appears to
contradict the Vice President’s repeated assertions that he and
his staff were not informed prior to the award of the
Halliburton contracts.
- Letter to the Vice President
Tuesday, June 01, 2004
Waxman Raises Questions about Halliburton's Iraq Oil Contracts
and VP Cheney's Involvement
In a letter to Secretary Rumsfeld, Rep. Waxman raises questions
about the legality of the decision to award Halliburton a task
order to develop contingency plans for Iraq’s oil
infrastructure, citing new GAO findings that Secretary
Rumsfeld’s office overruled Army officials who questioned the
issuance of the task order. Rep. Waxman’s letter also asks for
information about the recently disclosed communications between
the Defense Department and Vice President Cheney’s office
regarding Halliburton’s oil contracts.
- Letter to Secretary Rumsfeld
Tuesday, May 18, 2004
Conflicts of Interest Leave Iraq Reconstruction Vulnerable to
Waste, Fraud, and Abuse
A joint report released by Rep. Waxman, Sen. Dorgan, Rep.
Dingell, and Sen. Wyden reveals that the private contractors
hired to oversee the reconstruction of Iraq have ongoing
business relationships with the construction firms they are
supposed to supervise.
- Letter to Sec. Rumsfeld
- Rep. Waxman's Statement
- The Report
Thursday, March 11, 2004
Rep. Waxman Details Halliburton Audit, Other New Information on
Iraq Contracting
At a Committee hearing and in a briefing memo to colleagues,
Rep. Waxman details new information from the Defense Contract
Audit Agency, GAO, and the Defense Energy Support on
Halliburton’s work in Iraq.
- Briefing Memo
- Rep. Waxman's Statement
- DCAA Audit
Friday, February 27, 2004
Halliburton Unit Reportedly Finds Company Cost Controls "Weak"
Reps. Waxman and Dingell request a copy of Halliburton's
internal "Tiger Team" memo which reportedly describes major
deficiencies in the company's accounting and control systems.
- Letter to Halliburton
Tuesday, February 24, 2004
Halliburton Fuel Waiver Granted Under Suspect Circumstances
Reps. Waxman and Dingell ask the DOD IG to investigate the
December 19 waiver given by the Corps of Engineers to
Halliburton, citing new evidence that this unusual waiver --
which relieved Halliburton of its obligation to provide data to
justify its high gasoline prices -- may have been awarded on
false premises.
- Letter to Defense Department Inspector General
Thursday, February 12, 2004
Whistleblowers: Halliburton Routinely Overcharged
Two Kuwait-based former employees report that Halliburton
systematically overpaid for goods and services and then passed
these overcharges on to the U.S. taxpayer.
- Letter to Defense Contract Audit Agency
Saturday, January 24, 2004
Waxman Calls for Congressional Investigation of Halliburton
Kickbacks
Rep. Waxman reveals that the Administration may have been
informed of the kickbacks to Halliburton officials before
awarding the company a new billion-dollar contract last week and
calls for a congressional investigation of this and other issues
related to Iraq reconstruction.
- Letter to Chairman Davis
Friday, January 16, 2004
Halliburton Contract Referred for Criminal Investigation
The Defense Department Inspector General has referred the
Halliburton fuel contract to the Defense Criminal Investigative
Service for investigation of possible criminal violations.
- Letter to Defense Department Inspector General
Thursday, January 15, 2004
New Details on Use of Obscure Kuwaiti Company to Import
Gasoline into Iraq
One day after the Defense Contract Audit Agency announced it
has referred Halliburton’s gasoline contract to the Inspector
General for investigation into potential wrongdoing, Rep. Waxman
reveals new details about the unusual facts surrounding the
decision to use Altanmia, an obscure Kuwaiti company, to import
hundreds of millions of dollars worth of gasoline into Iraq at
grossly inflated prices.
- Letter to NSA Rice
Tuesday, January 06, 2004
Halliburton Waiver Ties Hands of Federal Authorities
Reps. Waxman and Dingell urge the Army Corps of Engineers to
reverse its decision to excuse Halliburton from justifying the
pricing of gasoline imported into Iraq.
- Letter to the Army Corps of Engineers
Friday, December 19, 2003
Defense Department Asked for Subcontractor Records
Reps Waxman and Dingell ask Defense Secretary Rumsfeld to
produce documents regarding subcontractors hired by Halliburton
to import gasoline into Iraq.
- Letter to Secretary Rumsfeld
Thursday, December 18, 2003
Reps. Waxman and Dingell Detail Fundamental Flaws in
Administration's Contracting Approach
In a significant policy letter, Reps. Waxman and Dingell
criticize the Administration's procurement strategy for Iraq.
- Letter to Admiral Nash
Wednesday, December 10, 2003
Army Corps Itemization of Halliburton Pricing Raises Serious
Concerns
New information from the Army Corps of Engineers raises
questions about the prices Halliburton and its subcontractor are
charging at every step of importing gasoline from Kuwait into
Iraq, including why they are buying gasoline for far more than
the wholesale price, charging many times what it costs other
companies to import gasoline into Iraq, and adding a significant
markup to each gallon.
- Follow-Up Letter
- Letter to NSA Rice
Tuesday, November 25, 2003
DOD Asked to Investigate Use of Development Fund to Pay
Inflated Fuel Prices
Rep. Waxman, Sen. Lieberman, and Rep. Dingell ask the DOD IG to
investigate the high gasoline prices being charged by
Halliburton and the appropriateness of using $725 million from
the Development Fund for Iraq to pay these inflated fuel costs.
- Letter to DOD IG
Thursday, November 06, 2003
USAID Refuses to Cooperate with Congressional Request for
Information on Work in Iraq
Despite assertions to the contrary, USAID continues to deny
Congress basic information on Iraq contracting.
- Letter to USAID
Wednesday, November 05, 2003
Army Corps Considers Terminating Halliburton Fuel Importation
Responsibilities
Reps. Waxman and Dingell reveal that the U.S. Corps of
Engineers is planning to transfer the responsibility to import
gasoline into Iraq from Halliburton to the Defense Energy
Support Center, which has said that it can bring gasoline into
Iraq for less than half the price.
- Letter to Army Corps of Engineers
Wednesday, October 29, 2003
Halliburton Paid Exhorbitant Price Per Gallon
Reps. Waxman and Dingell reveal that Halliburton was paid $2.65
per gallon to import gasoline from Kuwait into Iraq -- much more
than previously estimated. The Administration's role in
approving these exorbitant prices is questioned.
- Letter to NSA Rice
- Rep. Waxman's Statement
Tuesday, October 21, 2003
Iraqi Oil Company Imports Gasoline for Far Less Than Price
Charged by Halliburton
Reps. Waxman and Dingell disclose that the Iraqi oil company
SOMO has imported gasoline into Iraq for just 90 to 98 cents per
gallon, which is far less than the price of $1.59 or more per
gallon charged by Halliburton.
- Letter to Army Corps of Engineers
Thursday, October 16, 2003
Amendment Reduces Amount Paid to Halliburton by $250 Million
Reps. Waxman and Dingell introduce an amendment to the
Supplemental Appropriations Act to reduce by $250 million the
amount paid to Halliburton to purchase gasoline.
- Rep. Waxman's Statement
Wednesday, October 15, 2003
Industry Experts Call Halliburton Gasoline Prices "Highway
Robbery"
Reps . Waxman and Dingell reveal the prices that Halliburton
has charged to import gasoline into Iraq. Oil industry experts
say Halliburton's prices are "outrageously high," "a huge
ripoff," and "highway robbery."
- Letter to OMB
- Rep. Waxman's Statement
Wednesday, October 08, 2003
Reps. Maloney and Waxman Introduce Bill to End Contracting
Abuses
Reps. Maloney and Waxman introduce the Clean Contracting in
Iraq Act to prevent a continuation of contracting abuses.
- Fact Sheet
Tuesday, September 30, 2003
OMB Questioned on Overspending, Lack of Oversight and
Transparency in Iraq Reconstruction
Rep. Waxman asks OMB Director Bolten to respond to concerns of
overspending and lack of oversight and transparency in the
reconstruction operations in Iraq. The letter details evidence
that indicates that waste and gold-plating is enriching
Halliburton and Bechtel while costing the U.S. taxpayers
millions and imperiling the goal of Iraqi reconstruction.
- Letter to OMB
Friday, September 12, 2003
Questions on Administration's Supplemental Request for Iraq Oil
Reconstruction Funds
Reps. Waxman and Dingell raise questions about the
Administration's $2.1 billion request for additional Iraq oil
reconstruction funds. The new request more than doubles previous
cost estimates and was apparently prepared without consultation
with the Army Corps of Engineers, the agency in charge of Iraqi
oil reconstruction.
- Letter to OMB
Tuesday, June 24, 2003
Army Corps Questioned on Plans to Mortgage Iraq Oil to Fund
Reconstruction
The Administration is considering a plan to mortgage future
Iraqi oil revenue to pay the expenses of U.S. contractors, such
as Halliburton and Bechtel, now operating in Iraq -- despite
past Administration claims that Iraq's oil "belongs to the Iraqi
people."
- DOD Response
- Letter to Army Corps of Engineers
Friday, June 06, 2003
Reports: Army Corps May Drop Plan to Issue Competitive Contract
for Iraq Oil Work
Rep. Waxman asks for more information regarding reports that
the Army Corps of Engineers may, contrary to its prior
assurances, drop its plan to rebid the secret contract awarded
to Halliburton for oil work in Iraq.
- Letter to Army Corps of Engineers
Thursday, May 29, 2003
Halliburton Subsidiary Received $425 Million under Obscure
LOGCAP Contract
Rep. Waxman reveals that a Halliburton subsidiary has received
$425 million from the Army for work in Iraq under a little-known
but lucrative contract called "LOGCAP." It appears that much, if
not all, of this work was awarded to Halliburton without
competition from other qualified companies.
- Letter to Acting Secretary of the Army
Tuesday, May 06, 2003
Halliburton Iraq Contract Considerably Broader than Previously
Known
Rep. Waxman raises questions about a letter from the Army Corps
that reveals that the agency's contract with Halliburton allows
the company to produce and distribute Iraqi oil.
- Army Corps Response
- Letter to the Army Corps of Engineers
- Army Corps May 2 Letter
Wednesday, April 30, 2003
Questions on Halliburton Ties to Countries that Sponsor
Terrorism
Rep. Waxman asks Defense Secretary Rumsfeld about evidence that
Halliburton has profited from business with three nations known
for their support of terrorism: Iran, Iraq, and Libya.
- Letter to Secretary Rumsfeld
Monday, April 28, 2003
USAID Asked to Explain Decision to Forgo Open Competition in
Awarding Iraq Contracts
In a letter to USAID, Rep. Waxman asks the Administration to
provide basic information about the contracts for work in Iraq
it has awarded or is in the process of awarding.
- Letter to USAID
Wednesday, April 16, 2003
Army Corps Asked to Clarify Cost of Contracts with Halliburton
Subsidiary
In a letter to the Army Corps of Engineers, Rep. Waxman asks
for clarification of recent press reports regarding the contract
with Kellogg Brown &Root to perform work in Iraq.
- Army Corps Response
- Letter to Army Corps of Engineers
Thursday, April 10, 2003
Questions on Multi-Year, Multi-Billion Dollar Iraq Oil Fire
Contract Awarded to Halliburton Subsidiary
Rep. Waxman asks for more information on an Administration
contract, entered into with Kellogg Brown &Root for
extinguishing oil fires in Iraq, that the Army Corps of
Engineers has estimated to be worth up to $7 billion.
- Army Corps Response
- Letter to Army Corps of Engineers
Tuesday, April 08, 2003
GAO Asked to Investigate Halliburton Contracts, Review
Contracting Process
Reps. Waxman and John Dingell ask GAO to investigate Defense
Department contracts awarded to Halliburton over the past two
years and to review the process by which the Administration has
signed or intends to sign contracts with private firms for
development work in Iraq.
- Letter to GAO on Halliburton Contracts
- Letter to GAO on Iraq Contracts
Wednesday, March 26, 2003
Questions on Iraq Oil Fire Contracts Awarded without
Competition or Notice to Congress
In a letter to the Army Corps of Engineers, Rep. Waxman asks
why the Administration has entered into a new multi-million
dollar contract with Kellogg Brown &Root, a Halliburton
subsidiary, for extinguishing oil fires in Iraq without any
competition or notice to Congress.
- Army Corps Response
- Letter to Army Corps of Engineers
Photo of Rep. Waxman: [c] 2004 Kay Chernush
*****************************************************************
19 [du-list] Map of Australian Nuclear Sites
Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 15:39:26 -0800
Posted at..
http://sydney.indymedia.org/
Version Two of the Map of Australian Nuclear Sites and the Anti-Nuclear
Movement is now available at http://www.australianmap.net/. This map
illustrates all the major nuclear sites in Australia and includes links and
contact information of various Australian anti-nuclear groups.
The map was created by Anti-Nuclear Alliance of WA and various other
anti-nuclear groups.
[ More Info | The Map ]
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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20 [du-list] [Fwd: Depleted Uranium website - a must see!]
Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 15:36:23 -0800
Subject: Depleted Uranium website - a must see!
Date: Sun, 24 Oct 2004 22:38:52 +0100 (BST)
From: hussein al-alak
Hi all,
I have sent this link around to people on the
contact list of the Iraq Solidarity Campaign (UK) and found
it useful in informing people about the dangers of Depleted
Uranium.
I feel that this is useful in light of the International Day
of Action Against Uranium Weapons which is coming up and is
being organised by the International Coalition to Ban
Uranium Weapons.
People may have already seen it, so I'm sorry if you have
but for those who have not then....................
http://www.ericblumrich.com/pl_lo.html
best,
Hussein Al-alak
The Iraq Solidarity Campaign (UK)
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21 [du-list] Chernobyl Link to Rising Cancer Rates
Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 15:39:13 -0800
http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=3785239
2:49am (UK)
Chernobyl Link to Rising Cancer Rates
By John von Radowitz, PA Science Correspondent
Scientific evidence that fallout from Chernobyl may have raised
cancer rates in western Europe has emerged for the first time.
Researchers in Sweden identified a suspicious increase in cancer
incidence in parts of the country exposed to the radiation cloud from the
nuclear disaster.
They said the trend, though not dramatic, was "somewhat unexpected".
It showed a statistically relevant correlation between the degree of
fallout and an observed rise in the number of total cancer cases.
This was despite a relatively short exposure time and low doses of
radiation. An estimated 300 extra deaths may have occurred as a result of
cancers acquired between 1988 and 1996, said the scientists.
Britain's radiation watchdog, the National Radiation Protection
Board (NRPB) is to study the research.
The explosion at the Chernobyl power plant in the Ukraine on April
26, 1986, was the world's worst nuclear accident. It killed 31 people and
released a plume of radioactive caesium that was blown across Europe.
In the Ukraine, 3.7 million people were affected by radiation and
more than 160,000 inhabitants had to be resettled.
The radiation cloud drifted for thousands of miles. Several days
after the explosion a blanket of poisonous caesium fell over England, Wales
and the south and west of Scotland.
Restrictions were imposed on about 10,000 sheep farms, costing the
British taxpayer an estimated £13 million in compensation.
Last year sheep on almost 400 British farms were still having to be
monitored with radiation detectors before being sold for human consumption.
Fish were also affected. Three years after the accident,
contaminated trout, pike and perch continued to turn up in British rivers.
The impact on human health emerged from studies in Belarus, Ukraine,
and western Russia which showed dramatic increases in thyroid cancer
incidence in children.
But the Swedish study is the first to produce evidence of illness
linked to Chernobyl outside the former Soviet Union.
Five per cent of the radioactive caesium was deposited on northern
Sweden by heavy rainfall on April 28 and 29, 1986.
The fallout was unevenly distributed and involved much lower
exposure than occurred in eastern Europe.
A team of scientists led by Martin Tondel, from Linkoping
University, divided the parishes of seven northernmost Swedish counties
into six classes based on ground coverage of the radioactive isotope,
Caesium-137.
Of a total of 450 parishes, 333 were affected by the fallout. One
class, comprising 117 parishes, received no fallout and the people living
there were used as a baseline comparison group.
Individuals up to the age of 60 who were resident in the parishes at
the time of the disaster were included in the study.
Out of a total of 1,143,182 people, 22,409 cases of cancer were
registered during the years 1998 to 1996.
Analysis of the data showed that cancer rates rose alongside
elevated levels of radiation exposure.
A 0.11-fold excess risk was observed for every 100 kiloBecquerels of
radiation per square metre.
The scientists, who took account of confounding factors such as
smoking and population density, wrote in the Journal of Epidemiology and
Community Health: "Unless simply representing a chance phenomenon, the
findings in our study are somewhat unexpected indicating a possible cancer
effect of the Chernobyl fallout in north Sweden despite a short latency
period and low degree of exposure."
The scientists said if the effect was real, it showed that the risk
from low dose radiation may be greater than that predicted by international
guidelines.
However they acknowledged that a "crucial question" was whether some
unidentified risk factor for cancer might have swayed the results.
Another factor was that the trend only applied to total cancer
rates, not the risk of individual cancers - including thyroid which is
particularly sensitive to radioactive caesium.
Dr Mike Clark, scientific spokesman at the NRPB, which advises the
Government on radiation issues, said: "We will look at this work carefully.
They report an increase in general cancer rates in northern Sweden after
Chernobyl but not in thyroid cancer.
"This is unexpected, given the definite increase in thyroid cancer
observed in the former Soviet Union due to Chernobyl. The authors comment
themselves on this rather odd result."
He added that there was no clear increase in leukaemia rates, which
might be expected if radiation was involved.
However no obvious impact on leukaemia has yet been seen in even the
most heavily polluted areas of the former Soviet Union.
The association between leukaemia and radiation is based on the
effects of the atomic bombs dropped on Japan at the end of the Second World
War.
It has been suggested that the leukaemia danger might be unique to
the very high-dose, short-duration radiation exposures experienced after a
nuclear bomb blast.
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22 [NukeNet] AC Press, Front Page article on Dr Harvin - The
Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 15:39:18 -0800
November 21, 2004
The price of blowing the whistle in Salem
By JEROME MONTES Staff Writer, (856) 794-5115
Dr. Kymn Harvin's pulse raced as she slipped a tape recorder under a file
folder on her office desk.
In the corridor next to her office she could hear the footsteps of Larry
Wagner, a director at Salem's nuclear power plant, as he walked toward her.
Moments before he walked in, Harvin hit the record button on the hidden
device.
"What did you mean yesterday when you said this place is 'dangerous?'"
Harvin asked after Wagner sat down in front of her desk. "Is it the
decision-making ... like muddled?"
Wagner had spoken to her about company officers nearly deciding to restart
an offline reactor without repairing a malfunctioning bypass valve.
"Yes, I meant it from a nuclear-safety standpoint," Wagner replied. "When
I say dangerous, we almost talked ourselves on Monday of just starting
right back and not going into the bypass valve."
Wagner said he was shocked company officers would even consider such an
action.
"If we had done that ... that would have been grounds for taking the keys
away," he said. "That would be grounds for 'You guys aren't safe.'"
Moments after Wagner left her office, Harvin began trembling. Tears rolled
down her cheeks.
"I felt awful, feeling I was betraying someone I cared about, someone who
was confiding in me," she said.
***
The taped conversation took place March 20, 2003. Eight days later, Harvin
left Public Service Enterprise Group, the Newark-based company that owns
the Salem County nuclear plant.
The plant in Lower Alloways Creek Township is the second-largest in the
country. Two reactors are located on the plant's Salem facility; another
is located on the adjacent Hope Creek facility.
About 1,800 employees work on the 292-acre site. The plant provides
electricity for about 60 percent of PSEG's 2 million customers.
Harvin, who has a Ph.D. in organizational development, had worked for AT&T
and Pennsylvania's government and was running her own consulting firm when
she came to work for PSEG in 1998.
The 48-year-old Watchung resident was given the role of manager of
development, quality and culture transformation at the Salem nuclear
plant. Harvin said employee morale was low because of harsh working
conditions and the perception that upper management did not value workers.
Harvin coached Salem plant executives on leadership and worked to improve
communication and accountability throughout the site. She said the
resulting boost in employee morale helped generate millions of dollars in
cost savings and revenue.
But things unraveled after she stood up for a group of employees concerned
about an improper repair action taken by an operations manager in late
2002 at the Salem plant.
Harvin said there was a growing perception that senior leadership valued
production over safety and would go to dangerous lengths to keep the plant
running. Over the next several months, she frequently urged senior leaders
to address employee safety concerns.
Harvin was given her 45-day termination notice Feb. 26, 2003. The notice
said her position was eliminated in a force reduction.
She consulted an attorney, who advised her that it was legal in New Jersey
to tape conversations without another party's consent.
At first, she wasn't sure about secretly taping conversations with
colleagues, especially those she respected.
It took a conversation with Wagner on March 19, 2003, to convince Harvin
that someone had to gather evidence about the plant's safety practices.
The facility's Hope Creek reactor had been offline. When Wagner complained
to Harvin about the company officers' push to bring the reactor online
prematurely, she decided to get his comments on tape.
Harvin taped Wagner on March 20, 2003, and went on to record conversations
with other colleagues.
The recordings are now evidence in a whistleblower lawsuit she filed
against PSEG in September 2003. Harvin has alleged that PSEG retaliated
against her for raising safety concerns.
Harvin said she felt less guilty about a tape she made directly after
Wagner's.
After her conversation with him March 20, Harvin walked into the office of
her direct superior, then-PSEG Chief Nuclear Officer Harry Keiser.
She had butted heads with Keiser over safety issues and was convinced that
he had betrayed both her and the site. But Harvin also wanted a final
chance to relay Wagner's concerns to him.
"The message that's being sent, whether intended or not, is that
production and getting the Hope Creek unit back online is more important
than nuclear safety," Harvin told her boss that day.
"Yeah, I appreciate that feedback," Keiser replied. "I don't believe it,
but I appreciate it, right?"
"So when the guys with the licenses say that they are being pressured to
start the unit back up and don't believe it is safe, I owe you that
feedback," Harvin said. "The word that got spoken to me this morning is
'dangerous.'"
"It's a bunch of (expletive)," Keiser said. "I mean, you've got an
operator who doesn't know (expletive) ... saying he's being pushed, right?
And he's not putting out the effort to begin with."
The next day, PSEG informed Harvin that her termination date had been
moved up to March 28, 2003.
The message stung, but it made her even more determined to gather as much
evidence as possible before her final day as an employee.
On March 27, 2003, Harvin taped a heated, tearful conversation with
then-PSEG Vice President Timothy O'Connor, a colleague she respected.
"Are they after me?" Harvin asked O'Connor.
"They are after you and they are after others," he replied. "And it is
only a matter of time and I will be in the same position."
PSEG officials said O'Connor left voluntarily after Harvin's termination;
O'Connor could not be reached for comment.
***
Harvin said she made no more recordings after she left PSEG, but won't
comment on the number of tapes in existence.
In her civil lawsuit, Harvin contends that she was fired because of her
refusal to keep silent on issues of industrial and nuclear safety. Such
expression is protected under the state's Conscientious Employee
Protection Act.
Harvin said she contacted PSEG Chairman of the Board Jim Ferland to
request an independent investigation into the Salem facility's safety and
her termination.
But she felt the result was a whitewash. That convinced her to approach
the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission in September 2003 and to file
her own lawsuit against the company that month.
NRC officials said Harvin's testimony helped launch recent investigations
into general working conditions at the plant. The commission also is
investigating Harvin's specific allegations that she was retaliated
against for raising safety concerns.
Since her dismissal, the PSEG plant has drawn criticism, citations and
calls for corrective action from federal regulators and independent
consultants on issues ranging from faulty equipment to workers being
reluctant to report maintenance problems.
Federal investigators are looking into an Oct. 10 steam leak that prompted
the shutdown of the Hope Creek reactor. The reactor has remained idle
since then for repairs and refueling.
Hope Creek suffered other mishaps after the leak. A Freon leak Oct. 28
temporarily restricted access to the building's second floor. On Nov. 3, a
worker was hospitalized after fracturing his fingers and suffering slight
radiation contamination.
PSEG spokesman Skip Sindoni said Harvin's termination had nothing to do
with retaliation.
"Her position was eliminated in a company reorganization," Sindoni said.
Calls to Keiser, who is no longer with the company, and Wagner, who is now
manager of plant support at the Salem facility, were not returned.
Harvin returned to consulting after leaving the company, and is in the
process of writing a book about leadership. She wants to return to the
nuclear industry but believes she has been blacklisted.
And she continues to pay an emotional price for speaking out.
Harvin said former co-workers phone and e-mail her, fearful that they have
been caught on tape.
When she plays the tapes she took so much trouble to conceal, she can't
help breaking into tears.
"I thought I might be a doctor or a senator when I grew up," Harvin said.
"I never thought I'd be a whistleblower."
To e-mail Jerome Montes at The Press:
JMontes@pressofac.com
--
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UNPLUG Salem Campaign; 321 Barr Ave, Linwood
NJ 08221; 609-601-8583; cell 609-742-0982
ncohen12@comcast.net; www.unplugsalem.org
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23 [NukeNet] Is Hope Creek Gambling With Danger? Wilmington News
Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 15:39:19 -0800
Two front page stories on PSEG in one day. We certainly have the media's
attention. Now what about NRC and PSEG?
Kudos to News Journal reporter Jeff Montgomery for working so hard on this
story and to the
News Journal for allowing him to pursue it.
Norm
http://www.delawareonline.com/newsjournal/local/2004/11/21ishopecreekgamb.html
Is Hope Creek gambling with danger?
Failure of 'bent and broken' pump could be 'worst-case scenario'
By JEFF MONTGOMERY / The News Journal
11/21/2004
Deep inside the riot of metal, concrete, pipe and wire that makes up the
Hope Creek nuclear plant, a 20-foot-high pump has emerged as the flash
point in a public battle over nuclear power safety and corporate
risk-taking.
The pump, capable of moving more than 100 million pounds of radioactive
water an hour, is said to vibrate and sometimes roar "like a freight
train." It rattles knobs off valve stems and switches off walls. Its
7-inch-thick, rotating central shaft has cracks, scratches and a
microscopic bow that creates a slight wobble when the 1,100-megawatt plant
is up and running.
The vibrations have left some workers shaken and one nuclear safety group
alarmed. The problem also threatens to further rattle public confidence in
PSEG Nuclear, a company already reeling from costly breakdowns and
mounting reform demands from the Nuclear Reg- ulatory Commission as it
recovers from a premature shutdown on Oct. 10.
Late last week, company Chief Nuclear Officer Chris Bakken publicly denied
that managers are neglecting safety by putting off the estimated $7
million pump overhaul. Bakken said a consultant had found the delay safe
and the pump problems within industry standards, and said that PSEG could
use the time to better prepare for work on the highly radioactive unit,
which would involve increased exposures for employees.
"We believe that the pump is safe. We believe that there's a commercial
risk we're taking - we may have to shut the plant down before the next
refueling outage," Bakken said. "I'm willing to take the commercial risk
[in order] to not overstress my organization, give them more [radiation]
exposure than they need and increase their probability of making a
mistake."
The company's defense followed charges from the Union of Concerned
Scientists, a national scientific and environmental group, that PSEG's own
consultant found that a key part of the pump is "bent and broken," causing
sometimes intense vibrations that affect other parts of the reactor. The
scientists said pump failure could cause a massive leak of cooling water.
That, in turn, would put to the test backup systems that also have had
trouble.
Norm Cohen, who directs the New Jersey watchdog group Unplug Salem, urged
Bakken in a letter to abandon plans to restart without a replacement.
"By allowing this aging, vibrating and soon to be defective pump to
continue to run, you are putting the citizens of South Jersey at risk,"
Cohen said. "Do the right thing. Stand up to the PSEG bean counters and
fix or replace the pump, and fix all the other problems at Hope Creek.
Then do the same at Salem I and II."
James Shields, who lives north of Odessa, said he also has concerns about
PSEG's decisions.
"I'm four miles from the place. They have to do a lot better job than
they've been doing," Shields said. "You can only explain so much away. You
certainly wouldn't run your vehicle like that. Somebody said the
crankshaft was going, you'd probably want to do an overhaul."
Nuclear plants identify recirculation pump failures as their worst-case
scenario when designing safety systems, making the troubled and sometimes
leaky unit at Hope Creek a serious concern.
"It's not right to say they can limp along until it meets their schedule,"
said David Lochbaum, a nuclear safety engineer for the Union of Concerned
Scientists. "The better thing to do is face that challenge now."
Michael Gitaitis, a farmer whose home is near the Delaware River, within
sight of the plant, agreed.
"I think they ought to fix it immediately when they see a problem,
especially when they see that it could affect the environment of the
people who live around it," Gitaitis said. "I have concerns about the
safety over there, the reliability and the age of the plant. I certainly
don't like the view, because I can remember what it looked like before it
was there."
Delawareans at risk
Hope Creek is a boiling water reactor. Operators carefully manipulate
bundles of nuclear fuel to heat and boil water, creating super-hot steam
that turns four turbines and generates 1,100 megawatts of electricity.
Nearby, the older twin Salem Units I and II are pressurized water
reactors, using nuclear fuel to heat water, then using that water to make
nonradioactive steam in a separate piping system. The three plants compose
the nation's second-largest nuclear power complex.
More than 25,000 Delaware residents live inside the 10-mile emergency
planning zone that federal regulators consider at greatest risk from a
nuclear plant accident.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission last week said it is reviewing the PSEG
consultant's pump inspection report at its Rockville, Md., headquarters.
The commission plans at least two public meetings on PSEG Nuclear's
problems in coming weeks, including one rare session in Delaware, planned
for Dec. 2.
Delaware's congressional delegation has called for close federal study of
the problem. They pointed out that PSEG safety problems led to a prolonged
shutdown at both Salem units in the 1990s. Charges were made at the time
that PSEG was placing financial considerations ahead of safety. But
Bakken, in a briefing for news reporters and analysts on Friday, denied
that the $7 million cost for the Hope Creek pump was a consideration. He
acknowledged public concerns about the pump, however, and about wider
problems involving repair backlogs and concerns that managers had been
glossing over worker warnings about safety problems.
"I think what people felt was, when they had concerns about issues, they
weren't heard. Management would listen and then would issue an edict
without explanation," Bakken said.
Hope Creek stopped producing electricity Oct. 10 because of maintenance
and communication breakdowns.
A pipe support that had been broken or disconnected as long ago as 1989
caused a valve to open in a pipe that contained steam and hot water.
Workers noticed the problem without being aware of the cause and asked
engineers if the steam flow was safe. Engineers found the flow safe, but
were unaware that pulses of steam were about to break a weld in the
unsupported pipe.
"We had the right questions asked by the operators, but the wrong
questions answered by the management team," Bakken said.
PSEG discovered the scope of the hazard when the pipe opened and mildly
radioactive steam began filling a room in Hope Creek's turbine building.
Attempts to shut down the reactor revealed other concerns with backup
systems as plant operators struggled to manually control critical water
levels in the 71-foot reactor core.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission would later describe the incident as a
"shutdown with complications" and is conducting an investigation.
Persistent problem
Concern about the pump, meanwhile, was mounting. PSEG had been wrestling
with the vibration problem for years.
"We had people who wrote into our corrective action system their concerns.
I got a number of personal e-mails and I had discussions with senior
operators and equipment oper- ators," Bakken said. "We're doing a lot of
work."
PSEG hired Chicago-based Sargent & Lundy LLC, a global power industry
consultant, to assess the problem. Sargent & Lundy found that the pumps
had 130,000 to 140,000 hours of operation without a major inspection,
compared with a recommended 80,000-hour goal. When the pump speed is
minimized in an effort to reduce vibrations, the flow of cooling water
also drops, which the company said was a "concern." Conditions were not
worsening, Sargent & Lundy concluded, and Hope Creek could "likely"
operate for another 18 months, until a scheduled replacement of spent fuel.
Lochbaum rejected the conclusions, pointing out that vibrations had
continued despite the consultant's finding that conditions were stable. He
pointed out that PSEG's consultant had advised the company to have
shutdown, replacement and repair plans and equipment at the ready if
vibrations increase because "the window between the rise and potential
shaft failure is expected to be small."
Michael Barrett, who has lived on St. Augustine Road within sight of the
nuclear power plants since 1968, said he was not concerned by the latest
reports of problems.
"I don't pay much attention to it," Barrett said. "I figure I'll be the
first to go, so it won't matter. I found out it was shut down when I went
out fishing. I always check which way the wind's blowing by the steam
coming out of the cooling tower, and it wasn't there."
Bakken denied suggestions that PSEG was postponing the work for economic
reasons. Hope Creek already is spending $60 million to $70 million and
320,000 working hours on the refueling and repair effort, far above the
average of $26 million and 110,000 hours for a typical refueling in
reactors.
"In the overall scheme of things, another $7 million isn't the issue,"
Bakken said. "I can spend that $7 million if I need to. I'm fundamentally
back to trying to make the right decision for my team at the site, and to
explain it to them in a manner that they can understand."
One of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's demands to PSEG early this year
was a reform of the company's workplace, which the commission thought
discouraged worker warnings about safety. Complaints and problems at the
plant led the commission to place the complex on oversight status.
Nancy Kymn Harvin, a former PSEG employee who filed a federal
whistle-blower complaint about safety problems at Salem and Hope Creek,
said PSEG's actions contradict their assurances.
"They've known there were problems with this pump for several years,"
Harvin said. "The fact that they're not ready to fix it now makes no
difference to the public. They should get ready and fix it and take
whatever time it takes rather than risk the health and safety of the
public."
Art Bready, a senior reactor operator at Hope Creek, said he had
confidence in PSEG's decision.
"Two years ago it was not very good. The environment was pretty
stressful," Bready said. "We were not getting things fixed. The turning
point in my mind was we did do some pretty significant changes in the
management team."
Bakken said that PSEG plans to install an array of new vibration sensors
around the pump and reactor piping, and would toughen areas that appear to
be threatened by vibrations.
"If the sensors tell us we have a problem, I'll shut the plant down, go
back in and make another adjustment until we can prove with these sensors
that we've solved that problem," Bakken said. "The commitment I've made to
the organization is that we will absolutely do the shaft next outage. I
want to be well prepared to do this."
Contact Jeff Montgomery at 678-4277 or jmontgomery@delawareonline.com.
The News Journal/JENNIFER CORBETT
More than 25,000 Delaware residents live within the 10-mile danger zone of
the Hope Creek nuclear power plant on the Delaware River.
R E C E N T A R T I C L E S
11/19/2004
• Scientists want Hope Creek restart postponed
11/13/2004
• Safety at Hope Creek questioned
10/28/2004
• Liquid gas plan worries nuclear plant
10/27/2004
• Access to nuclear plant documents cut
10/26/2004
• Del. lawmakers question nuclear plant
10/23/2004
• Hope Creek plant profits likely to lag
10/21/2004
• Nuke plant's neighbors should get the pill
10/19/2004
• Hope Creek plant staying closed
The cooling tower at Hope Creek looms behind a farmhouse on Staves Landing
Road east of Odessa.
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--
Coalition for Peace and Justice
UNPLUG Salem Campaign; 321 Barr Ave, Linwood
NJ 08221; 609-601-8583; cell 609-742-0982
ncohen12@comcast.net; www.unplugsalem.org
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24 Times Online: Clean-coal technology could cut CO2 bill by £3 billion
[http://www.timesonline.co.uk]
November 22, 2004
By Angela Jameson, Industrial Correspondent
BRITAIN could cut the cost of reducing greenhouse gases by £3
billion if it fitted clean-coal technology to its ageing power
stations, rather than building wind farms.
Some 2,000 wind turbines will be put up in Britain over the next
six years at a total cost of approximately £9 billion as power
companies seek to comply with a government demand to increase
supplies of renewable energy.
However, Mitsui Babcock, the British-based power station
manufacturer, is urging the Government to invest in clean-coal
technology, which it argues could be fitted to the UK’s 16
coal-fired power stations for only £6 billion.
Iain Miller, chief operating officer of Mitsui Babcock, said:
“Coal will continue to be a critical source of power in the
medium term but has been largely ignored since the introduction
of the energy White Paper last year.
“The UK Government must take the lead on delivering a balanced
energy policy which recognises the importance of coal to
achieving security of energy supply and of clean-coal
technologies in reducing carbon emissions to meet current
targets.”
Coal provides about 32 per cent of Britain’s electricity, but
that proportion could halve after 2011, when new emissions
legislation comes in. To fill the gap the Government is
encouraging billions of pounds of investment in onshore and
offshore wind farms by requiring that each power company produce
a proportion of its electricity from renewable sources.
However, Britain may be in danger of missing the demanding Kyoto
targets and risking future power shortages if it continues to
rely on wind energy to replace both ageing coal plants and
decommissioned nuclear power stations. At best, the detractors
argue, wind turbines produce on average a third of their maximum
power capacity.
“The cost of installing clean-coal technology across the
coal-fired fleet could be achieved at almost half the cost of
achieving equivalent reductions using renewable sources,” Mr
Miller said.
Mitsui Babcock wants the Government to introduce a form of
incentive, similar to the renewable obligation certificate, for
power generators to invest in clean-coal technology.
“Solutions are available now that will allow us to secure our
electricity supply and cut emissions but the industry will not
commit to carbon-abatement improvements without active leadership
from Government,” Mr Miller said.
Green coal technology could cut carbon dioxide emissions by 50
per cent to 60 per cent from current levels, Mitsui Babcock says.
Mitsui says that its technology , applied across the existing
fleet of UK coal-fired power stations, would be similar to the
impact of erecting 7,000 to 10,000 wind turbines.
According to Mitsui, wind power is six times more expensive than
its technology in delivering the same CO2 reduction throughout
the life of the power station.
[http://www.timesonline.co.uk/
The Sunday Times and Times Online
*****************************************************************
25 NRC: Notice of Availability of Environmental Assessment and Finding
FR Doc 04-25780
[Federal Register: November 22, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 224)]
[Notices] [Page 67964-67965] From the Federal Register Online via
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr22no04-125]
of No Significant Impact for License Amendment for Belair Quartz,
Inc.'s Facility in Christiansted, St. Croix AGENCY: Nuclear
Regulatory Commission.
ACTION: Notice of Availability.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Orysia Masnyk Bailey, Materials
Security & Industrial Branch, Division of Nuclear Materials
Safety, Region I, 475 Allendale Road, King of Prussia,
Pennsylvania, 19406, telephone (404) 562-4739, fax (404)
562-4955; or by e-mail: omm@nrc.gov [omm@nrc.gov] .
[[Page 67965]]
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: I. Introduction The Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (NRC) is terminating Materials License No. 55-23732-02
issued to Belair Quartz, Inc. and authorizing release of its
facility in Christiansted, St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands for
unrestricted use. NRC has prepared an Environmental Assessment
(EA) in support of this action in accordance with the
requirements of 10 CFR part 51. Based on the EA, the NRC has
concluded that a Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) is
appropriate.
The license will be terminated following the publication of this
notice.
II. EA Summary The purpose of the action is to terminate the
license and authorize the release of the licensee's
Christiansted, St. Croix facility for unrestricted use. Belair
Quartz, Inc. (Belair Quartz) was authorized by the NRC from April
27, 1995, to use watch dials and hands containing luminous paint
activated with tritium for the manufacture and repair of
timepieces. On October 31, 2001, Belair Quartz requested that the
NRC release the facility for unrestricted use. Belair Quartz has
conducted surveys of the facility and provided information to the
NRC to demonstrate that the site meets the license termination
criteria in Subpart E of 10 CFR part 20 for unrestricted release.
The NRC staff has prepared an EA in support of the license
amendment. The facility was remediated and surveyed prior to the
licensee requesting the license termination. The NRC staff has
reviewed the information and final status survey submitted by
Belair Quartz and performed a confirmatory survey. Based on its
review, the staff has determined that there are no additional
remediation activities necessary to complete the proposed action.
Therefore, the staff considered the impact of the residual
radioactivity at the facility and concluded that since the
residual radioactivity meets the requirements in Subpart E of 10
CFR part 20, a Finding of No Significant Impact is appropriate.
III. Finding of No Significant Impact The staff has prepared the
EA (summarized above) in support of the license amendment to
terminate the license and release the facility for unrestricted
use. The NRC staff has evaluated Belair Quartz, Inc.''s request
and the results of the surveys and has concluded that the
completed action complies with the criteria in Subpart E of 10
CFR part 20. The staff has found that the environmental impacts
from the action are bounded by the impacts evaluated by
NUREG-1496, Volumes 1-3, ``Generic Environmental Impact Statement
in Support of Rulemaking on Radiological Criteria for License
Termination of NRC-Licensed Facilities' (ML042310492,
ML042320379, and ML042330385). On the basis of the EA, the NRC
has concluded that the environmental impacts from the action are
expected to be insignificant and has determined not to prepare an
environmental impact statement for the action.
IV. Further Information Documents related to this action,
including the application for the license termination and
supporting documentation, are available electronically in the
NRC's Agencywide Document Access and Management System (ADAMS),
which provides text and image files of NRC's public documents.
The ADAMS accession numbers for the documents related to this
Notice are: The Environmental Assessment (ML042720034), and the
Letter dated October 31, 2001, transmitting the Final Status
Survey Report (ML013120531). On October 25, 2004, the NRC
terminated public access to ADAMS and initiated an additional
security review of publicly available documents to ensure that
potentially sensitive information is removed from the ADAMS
database accessible through the NRC's web site. Interested
members of the public may obtain copies of the referenced
documents for review and/or copying by contacting the Public
Document Room pending resumption of public access to ADAMS. The
NRC Public Documents Room is located at NRC Headquarters in
Rockville, MD, and can be contacted at (800) 397-4209, (301)
415-4737 or by e-mail at
pdr@nrc.gov [ pdr@nrc.gov] . These documents may be viewed
electronically at the NRC Public Document Room (PDR), O 1 F21,
One White Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, MD,
20852. The PDR reproduction contractor will copy documents for a
fee. The PDR is open from 7:45 a.m. to 4:15 p.m., Monday through
Friday, except on Federal holidays.
Dated in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, this 15th day of
November, 2004.
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
John D. Kinneman, Chief, Materials Security & Industrial Branch,
Division of Nuclear Materials Safety Region I.
[FR Doc. 04-25780 Filed 11-19-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P
*****************************************************************
26 Manchester Online: New cancer fears over Chernobyl
[ManchesterOnline]
Monday, 22nd November 2004
Rashid Razaq
FURTHER research to discover whether fall-out from the Chernobyl
nuclear explosion has caused an increase in cancer in the north
west has been demanded by the region's public health boss.
Scientists have revealed a "suspicious increase" in cancer cases
in areas of Sweden exposed to the radiation cloud from the
disaster in 1986.
North West director for public health Prof John Ashton, who edits
the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health in which the
findings were published, said: "This is the first study to
suggest increased cancer rates because of Chernobyl outside of
the Soviet Union.
"It is important we see if lessons need to be learned.
"I have visited the area north of Stockholm, which was exposed to
the fall-out. Parts of North Wales and Cumbria were affected by
the radiation because of weather conditions at the time.
Disaster
"It is difficult to monitor as the health impact of exposure to
radiation may not become clear for many years into the future."
Britain's radiation watchdog, the National Radiation Protection
Board (NRPB) is to study the Swedish findings, which estimated
300 extra deaths might have occurred as a result of cancers
acquired between 1988 and 1996.
The radiation cloud from the Chernobyl explosion drifted for
thousands of miles several days after the disaster and a blanket
of poisonous caesium fell over England, Wales and the south and
west of Scotland.
Restrictions were imposed on about 10,000 British sheep farms
over fears that contaminated meat could enter the food chain.
Last year sheep on almost 400 British farms were still having to
be monitored with radiation detectors before being sold for
eating.
Prof Ashton said: "I will be looking at the NRPB research as
anything that affects my population is of concern.
"However to put it in perspective tobacco is a far bigger cause
of cancer than radiation."
[http://business.manchesteronline.co.uk]
© Copyright 2004 GMG Regional Digital.
*****************************************************************
27 Bellona: New Bellona report on Russia’s nuclear industry to be presented
in EU Parliament Wednesday
The Bellona Foundation and Member of European Parliament (MEP)
Diane Wallis will co-organize a hearing where the latest Bellona
report, The Russian Nuclear Industry—The Need for Reform, will be
presented. The report’s presentation will take place at the
European Parliament in Brussels this Wednesday, November 24th in
room ASP 1 H1 at 14:30.
The Bellona Foundation's new report, "The Russian Nuclear
Industry—The Need for Reform.
Bellona
Charles Digges, 2004-11-22 13:25
Interested parties are invited and can contact paal@bellona.org.
The report, which comprises the work of six Bellona researchers
and over a year and a half of research and study, is among the
most comprehensive studies of the Russian civilian and military
nuclear industry yet published. It distinguishes itself from
other works in this field, however, by its in-depth scientific
analysis of the environmental, economic and political aspects of
the industry, and by making suggestions to aid in Russia’s
recovery from its Cold War Legacy.
The report was written by Bellona’s Igor Kudrik, Charles Digges,
Alexander Nikitin, Nils Bøhmer, for Russian nuclear regulator
Vladimir Kuznetsov and environmental journalist Vladislav Larin.
The presentation of the report will be followed by addresses
from some of Europe’s most eminent nuclear policy officials,
including Jean Paul Joulia of the EC’s European Aid Co-operation
Office, Barbara Rhode of DG Research’s Multi-lateral
Co-operation Activities, Norbert Jousten, executive director of
the International Science and Technology Centre’s Moscow office,
and Vince Novak of the European Bank of Reconstruction and
Development.
Policy responses will be delivered by MEP Terence Wynn (PES-UK),
Bart Staes (Greens-BEL) and Wallis (ELD-UK). More responses will
be presented by assistant to Russian State Duma Member Sergei
Filippov, Nikitin, who heads Bellona’s Environmental Rights
Center in St. Petersburg, and Bellona Foundation President
Frederic Hauge.
The aims of the report
The goal of the report is to present and analyse new
developments in the Russian military and civilian nuclear
complexes based on open sources and independent research. The
report also seeks to guide policy makers and nuclear authorities
to solutions based on sound, objective reasoning founded on open
information. We also hope to inform general readers about the
hazards the world faces as a result of the Cold War legacy, and
how these threats are being addressed. In the report you will
find:
*The history of Russia ailing nuclear industry from its
inception until today
*A description of the closed nuclear fuel cycle that Russia
inherited from the Soviet Union;
*A description of the effects—both beneficial and
detrimental—that international and domestic nuclear remediation
projects have had on the Russian nuclear industry;
*A description of what drives the nuclear industry’s economy;
*Bellona’s conclusions on what should be done to realize the
reforms the Russian nuclear industry so dramatically needs.
ORDER THE REPORT
Order the paper version of the Bellona's report vol. 4 2004:
Russian Nuclear Industry—The Need for Reform.
Go to order form »
[http://www.bellona.no/en/international/russia/waste-mngment/3624
5.html]
The report devotes a special focus to the Mayak Chemical Combine
and the facility’s seemingly insurmountable problems of
radioactive contamination, both within the facility, and via
water sources into which the Combine dumps radioactive waste,
spreading contamination through rivers and tributaries as far as
the Arctic Ocean. It also investigates incidents and accidents
at nuclear industry sites described in the report, as well as
analyses the physical protection the Russian nuclear industry
has against would-be nuclear thieves and terrorists.
The report’s analysis of assistance programmes, especially
international ones, will be of special interest to states and
organisations that provide funding for post Cold War nuclear
remediation in Russia. Though much has been done with this
funding to secure Russia’s nuclear legacy, the report also
concludes that the funding will fail to meet its goals unless an
international coordinating structure and domestic Russian master
plan are in place to define Russia’s nuclear remediation
priorities.
Conclusions for donor nations and the general public
The new report also concludes that the world’s currently
massive donor potential will not be realised unless Russia
possesses truly independent and transparent nuclear regulation
that will not be hindered by the newly formed Rosatom.
Most of all, the report highlights not only the Russian nuclear
industry’s problems, but suggestions for helping to solve them.
Bellona believe this report to be required reading for every
nuclear policy maker in Russia and in the West in order that
environmental nuclear security problems are better addressed.
The report is also intended for the general public, with whom
the ultimate power to pressure policy makers lies. For that
reason the report will be available in both printed form by
order, and eventually on Bellona’s web pages at www.bellona.org.
The report will also be distributed to precisely those
government policy makers who guide Russia nuclear dismantlement
process.
Publisher: Bellona Foundation [bellona@bellona.no] ,
President: Frederic Hauge [frederic@bellona.no]
Information: info@bellona.no [info@bellona.no] , Technical
contact: webmaster@bellona.no [webmaster@bellona.no]
Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00 Telefax: +47 22 38 38 62 * P.O.Box
2141 Grunerlokka, 0505 Oslo, Norway
*****************************************************************
28 Sofia Morning News: Ukrainian Nuke Plant on Emergency Overnight
[Sofia News Agency]
novinite.com
Politics: 22 November 2004, Monday.
The fourth unit of Ukraine's nuclear plant Rovena was shut down
automatically due to technical emergency at 20:40 local time on
Sunday, RIA Novosti news agency informed.
The state Energoatom nuclear company announced in a press
statement that the radiation and environmental state of the
nuclear plant's industrial platforms are within the normal
indicators.
This is the second emergency case in the Ukrainian nuclear plant
this year after its third unit went off normal operation March
29.[ width=]
novinite.com Forum Google Tourism Business
All Rights Reserved © Novinite Ltd., 2001-2004 - Copyright
Bulgaria news Novinite.com (Sofia News Agency -
www.sofianewsagency.com) is unique with being a real time news
provider in English that informs its readers about the latest
Bulgarian news. The editorial staff also publishes a daily
*****************************************************************
29 NRC: Dr. Michael T. Ryan and Allen G. Croff Elected to New Positions on NRC Advisory Committee
News Release - 2004-14 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office
of Public Affairs Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC
20555-0001 E-mail: [opa@nrc.gov] No. 04-145 November 18,
2004
The Nuclear Regulatory Commissions Advisory Committee on
Nuclear Waste (ACNW) has elected Dr. Michael T. Ryan as chairman
and Allen G. Croff as vice chairman. They will serve in these
new positions for one year. ACNW provides independent technical
advice on activities, programs and issues associated with
regulating, managing and disposing of radioactive waste.
Dr. Ryan is an independent consultant in radiological sciences
and health physics, and an adjunct faculty member in the College
of Health Professions at the Medical University of South
Carolina and at the College of Charleston. He has more than 25
years of experience in radioactive waste management and
radiation protection. Dr. Ryan has served on the Board of
Directors of the National Council on Radiation Protection and
Measurements and as the Scientific Vice President for the
Council's Radioactive and Mixed Waste Management program. He has
authored numerous articles and publications in such areas as
radiation dosimetry, radioactive waste management, regulatory
compliance for radioactive materials, and environmental
radiation assessment. He has been a member of ACNW since June
2002.
Croff worked at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory for 29 years,
retiring in 2003. He held positions in staff, line management,
and program management concerning waste management research and
development, analysis of nuclear fuel cycles and nuclear
materials management, and strategic planning. He remains
involved with international review and oversight related to
nuclear waste. One of Croffs significant achievements was
creating the ORIGEN2 computer code used worldwide to calculate
radionuclide buildup and decay, and its application to nuclear
material and waste characterization, risk analysis and nuclear
fuel cycle analysis. Croff previously served as chair for a
committee of the National Council on Radiation Protection and
Measurements. He has been a member of ACNW since July 2004.
Last revised Friday, November 19, 2004
*****************************************************************
30 NRC: NRC Extends Comment Period for Environmental Impact Statement on Proposed Uranium Facility in
New Mexico
News Release - 2004-14 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office
of Public Affairs Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC
20555-0001 E-mail: opa@nrc.gov No. 04-146 November 19,
2004
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has extended until Dec. 18 the
public comment period for its draft environmental impact
statement on a proposed uranium enrichment facility to be built
in Lea County, N.M. The deadline was extended because of the
temporary unavailability of the agencys public document library
on its Web site.
The original public comment period began Sept. 17 and was to
expire Nov. 6. However, the NRC initiated a security review Oct.
25 of publicly available documents to ensure that potentially
sensitive information is removed from the agencys Web site.
Documents are being restored in stages as they are screened for
sensitive information.
The NRC remains committed to being an open regulatory agency,
said Daniel M. Gillen, acting director of NRCs Division of
Waste Management and Environmental Protection. Extending the
public comment period is appropriate to allow members of the
public to have time for access to relevant documents while
developing their comments on the draft environmental impact
statement.
The draft environmental impact statement on the proposed
National Enrichment Facility is available on the NRC Web site at
this address:
http://www.nrc.gov/materials/fuel-cycle-fac/ml042510184.pdf [PDF
Icon] . Public comments should be postmarked by Dec. 18 and
submitted to the Chief, Rules Review and Directives Branch, Mail
Stop T6-D59, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington,
D.C. 20555-0001. Please note docket number 70-3103. Comments may
also be submitted by e-mail to nrcrep@nrc.gov [nrcrep@nrc.gov] ,
or by facsimile to (301) 415-5397, attention Anna Bradford.
Last revised Monday, November 22, 2004
*****************************************************************
31 NRC: Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards; Subcommittee Meeting
FR Doc 04-25778
[Federal Register: November 22, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 224)]
[Notices] [Page 67965] From the Federal Register Online via GPO
Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr22no04-126]
on Planning and Procedures; Notice of Meeting The ACRS
Subcommittee on Planning and Procedures will hold a meeting on
December 1, 2004, Room T-2B1, 11545 Rockville Pike, Rockville,
Maryland.
The entire meeting will be open to public attendance, with the
exception of a portion that may be closed pursuant to 5 U.S.C.
552b(c) (2) and (6) to discuss organizational and personnel
matters that relate solely to the internal personnel rules and
practices of the ACRS, and information the release of which would
constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.
The agenda for the subject meeting shall be as follows:
Wednesday, December 1, 2004--11:30 a.m.--1 p.m. The Subcommittee
will discuss proposed ACRS activities and related matters. The
Subcommittee will gather information, analyze relevant issues and
facts, and formulate proposed positions and actions, as
appropriate, for deliberation by the full Committee.
Members of the public desiring to provide oral statements and/or
written comments should notify the Designated Federal Official,
Mr. Sam Duraiswamy (telephone: 301-415-7364) between 7:30 a.m.
and 4:15 p.m. (ET) five days prior to the meeting, if possible,
so that appropriate arrangements can be made. Electronic
recordings will be permitted only during those portions of the
meeting that are open to the public.
Further information regarding this meeting can be obtained by
contacting the Designated Federal Official between 7:30 a.m. and
4:15 p.m. (ET). Persons planning to attend this meeting are urged
to contact the above named individual at least two working days
prior to the meeting to be advised of any potential changes in
the agenda.
Dated: November 16, 2004.
John H. Flack, Acting Branch Chief, ACRS/ACNW.
[FR Doc. 04-25778 Filed 11-19-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P
*****************************************************************
32 [du-list] 11/22 Iraq Watch: Destroying Iraq to Save It & Mass
Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 15:40:36 -0800
Fallujah: Ugly the War
Iraq Watch Specials: From Peace No War Network
November 22, 2004
URL: _http://www.PeaceNoWar.net_ (http://www.peacenowar.net/)
July 2003, Peace No War Visit and Video Interview in Fallujah
_http://www.actionla.org/Iraq/IraqReport/video.html#fallujah_
(http://www.actionla.org/Iraq/IraqReport/video.html#fallujah)
1) Commentary: Destroying Iraq to Save It (Michael Kinney)
2) Alert! Falluja women, children in mass grave (aljazeera)
Commentary: Destroying Iraq to Save It
Michael Kinney
Los Angeles Times
November 21, 2004
_http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-kinsley21nov21,0,7794529
.column?coll=la-news-comment-opinions_
(http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-kinsley21nov21,0,7794529.column?coll=la-news-comment-opinions)
Has there ever before been a war that so many people disapproved of but so
few wanted to stop? Have the reasons for starting a war ever been so
thoroughly discredited without turning into reasons for ending it?
The Vietnam-era antiwar movement had an agenda: Bring the troops home. Or,
in two words — suitable for a picket sign or a T-shirt — "” "Out now."
What seems to be today's antiwar position — it was a terrible misttake and
it's a terrible mess, but we can't just walk away from it — was acctually the
pro-war position during Vietnam. In fact, it was close to official government
policy for more than half the length of that war.
Today's antiwar cause doesn't even have a movement, to speak of, let alone
an agenda. It consists of perhaps 47% of the citizenry — the ones who voted
for John Kerry — who are in some kind of existential opposition too the
war but
don't know what they want to do about it.
Meanwhile, U.S. soldiers die by the hundreds and Iraqis — military and
civilian — by the thousands in a cause these people (and I'm one off
them) believe
to be a horrible mistake.
Kerry spent months untangling the knots of his Iraq position while tangling
new ones even faster. He pounded George W. Bush over the phantom weapons of
mass destruction, and he mocked Bush's confusion of Osama bin Laden with
Saddam Hussein. Kerry said, famously, that Bush's invasion of Iraq was
"the wrong
war in the wrong place at the wrong time." So was he in favor of ending it?
No, his position was that he would try, but not promise, to bring the troops
home in four years. Four years! U.S. involvement in World War II lasted 3
1/2.
Bush had a good point when he wondered how, as commander in chief, Kerry
could ask American soldiers to die for the wrong war in the wrong place at
the
wrong time. Of course, that problem does not vindicate Bush's belief that
Iraq
is the right war in the right etc. etc. etc.
But Bush's apparently sincere belief does relieve him from needing to
explain why he doesn't want the war to end now. Kerry's studiously confused
position was not, or not just, a political stratagem. It was an accurate
reflection
of the views of his constituency. Most of them deplore the war, but only a
tiny fraction favor an immediate pull-out. Anyone who opposes the war but
isn't
ready to demand peace needs an answer to the question, "Why on Earth not?"
There are answers, possibly even adequate answers. But none of them shine
with the kind of obvious truth that makes the question unnecessary, let alone
uninteresting, which is how it is being treated. The answers fall in two
categories, each associated with a secretary of State.
The Henry Kissinger answer is, in a word, credibility. A superpower that
announces a goal and gives up without achieving it will not be super for
long.
In the end, President Nixon and Kissinger added five years to the length of
the
Vietnam War, and we lost it anyway. Did that add to our superpower
credibility? Well, maybe. In the Kissingerian world of High Strategy, a
reputation for
pigheaded stupidity can be almost as valuable as a reputation for wise
persistence. What could be more credible than a reputation for staying
the course
no matter how disastrous it turns out to be?
The Colin Powell answer goes by the nickname "Pottery Barn," referring to
the alleged policy of that purveyor of yuppieware that "if you break it, you
own it." In fact, Pottery Barn's breakage policy is much kinder and gentler
than that. But it's certainly true that a well-brought-up foreign policy
doesn't
occupy a country, wreck it and move on like a rock band checking out of a
hotel room. The question is whether at this point we're actually helping to
tidy up, or only making a bigger mess.
The lead Page 1 headline in Monday's Los Angeles Times was, "Iraqi City Lies
in Ruins." That would be Fallouja, a city of 300,000 (metro area) that
Americans had never heard of until we felt impelled to destroy it. And
our reasons
were neither trivial nor contemptible. They followed with confident logic
from the premise that Hussein was an intolerable danger to the United States.
If so, he had to be taken down. And if that destabilized the country, we had
to occupy it for a while and calm it down. And you can't run a national
occupation with rebels occupying a major city, so you have to besiege the
city and
kill a lot of people and leave the place "in ruins."
An American general in Vietnam famously said, "We had to destroy the village
to save it." This has become the definitive expression of the macabre
futility of war. Last week, we destroyed an entire city in order to save it
(progress!), but our capacity to find that sort of thing ironic seems to
have become
shriveled and harmless.
GI entered and step (with shoes) at one of the Fallujah's Mosque last week.
People entering Mosque with shoes and weapons are consider great religious
offense in Islam (photo: LAT)
Alert! Falluja women, children in mass grave
Sunday 21 November 2004
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/24EBE5BB-CA3F-462B-8279-546BC1D9B7E6.ht
m
Residents of a village neighbouring Falluja have told Aljazeera that they
helped bury the bodies of 73 women and children who were burnt to death by
a US
bombing attack.
"We buried them here, but we could not identify them because they were
charred by the use of napalm bombs used by the Americans," said
one resident of
Saqlawiya in footage aired on Aljazeera on Sunday.
There have been no reports of the US military using napalm in Falluja and no
independent verification of the claims.
The resident told Aljazeera all the bodies were buried in a single grave.
Late last week, US troops in Falluja called on some residents who had fled
the fighting to return and help bury the dead.
However, according to other residents who managed to flee the fighting after
US forces entered the city, hundreds more bodies still lay in the streets
and were being fed on by packs of wild dogs.
Danger zone
Meanwhile, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said Falluja
remained too dangerous to secure proper retrieval and burial of corpses.
"We could not enter Falluja city so far due to the security measures and the
continuing battles," Muain Qasis, ICRC spokesman in Jordan, told Aljazeera.
When asked about the security measures, Qasis said: "In order to carry out
an independent and acceptable humanitarian action, we must have guarantees
ensuring the safety of the humanitarian staff.
"The humanitarian situation in Falluja city is very difficult.
"The city is still suffering shortage of public services. There is no water
or electricity. There is no way to offer medical treatment for the injured
families still surrounded inside the city," he added.
Detained civilians released
In related news, the US military in Falluja announced that it had released
400 of the 1450 men it had detained in the war-ravaged city.
"More than 400 detainees have since been released after being deemed
non-combatants," the military said, adding that 100 more were due to be
released on
Sunday.
Aljazeera + Agencies
(Pile of believed to be dead bodies of Fallujah's resistance)
Useful Links:
Los Angeles Times has a complete biographical Information on U.S. Soldiers
Killed:
_http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/external/fmmac2.mm.ap.org/war2/adv_search.php?SI
TE=CALOS&SECTION=MIDEAST_
(http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/external/fmmac2.mm.ap.org/war2/adv_search.php?SITE=CALOS&SECTION=MIDEAST)
For more photos and Videos from Iraq, visit:
"Report from Baghdad" July, 2003
_http://www.actionla.org/Iraq/IraqReport/intro.html_
(http://www.actionla.org/Iraq/IraqReport/intro.html)
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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33 [du-list] CT Legislator backs DU tests
Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 15:40:31 -0800
Legislator Takes Up Veterans' Cause
Will Back Depleted Uranium Tests
November 21, 2004
By THOMAS D. WILLIAMS, Courant Staff Writer
Eddie Miles' legs were blown off in Vietnam. Despite his injuries, the
Army veteran spent much of the rest of his life obtaining artificial
limbs for Vietnamese and Cambodian children injured by the landmines the
war left behind.
Inspired by the work of Miles, a high school friend of hers, state Rep.
Patricia Dillon, D-New Haven, says she is committed to helping those
Connecticut National Guard veterans who were exposed to depleted uranium
during the wars in Iraq.
"What [Miles] taught me," Dillon said, "was that the war never ends,
because the people who are affected by it continue to suffer, but the
politicians forget about it."
Dillon, Democratic deputy majority whip in the House, will propose a
bill in the General Assembly to provide for independent laboratory
health screening of service members from Connecticut who may have been
exposed to depleted uranium munitions dust. The bill probably would have
to go through the health and appropriations committees.
During the past three years, Dillon has obtained documents and searched
the Internet to find what she considers proof of the health dangers
those exposed to depleted uranium, or DU, dust can face. The dust is a
byproduct of exploding DU munitions used by the United States and Great
Britain in Iraq.
As a legislator and community activist, Dillon, 56, has been involved
with financial and other issues for the veterans hospitals in Rocky Hill
and West Haven. Her husband, Dr. Jack Hughes, teaches at the Yale
University School of Medicine and is an internist and part-time
physician at the VA hospital in West Haven.
Dillon said she decided to get involved because veterans hospital
administrators and veterans advocates constantly discussed the health
crisis faced by veterans of the 1991 Persian Gulf War, including
illnesses they believed were related to depleted uranium dust. As
planning began for the present war in Iraq, Dillon said, she began to
worry that more soldiers would be exposed.
In April, Dillon said, she read in the New York Daily News that
independent tests determined that four soldiers from a New York Army
National Guard unit probably had become contaminated with dust from the
depleted uranium shells fired by U.S. troops in Iraq. When her
legislative aides called New York Guard officials to find out what was
wrong with the soldiers and what the state was doing about it, Dillon
said, they "hit a brick wall of silence and bureaucracy."
The same month she read in the British newspaper The Guardian that
British soldiers returning from the war in Iraq were being tested for
depleted uranium exposure. That convinced Dillon that Connecticut needs
to do the same.
Even though federal law requires blood and health tests for returning
war veterans, Dillon said she is not convinced the Pentagon or the U.S.
Department of Veterans Affairs is properly screening service members for
possible DU poisoning.
Dillon said she plans to lobby hard for her bill when the legislative
session opens in January because the health effects of depleted uranium
are a "hot button issue." The U.S. Department of Defense has long
ignored DU's toxic dangers just as it ignored landmines after Vietnam,
Dillon said.
The Defense Department insists the dust is only dangerous when inhaled
in large quantities, usually an unlikely event.
The United States and Great Britain used tons of DU to destroy tanks and
bunkers in the 1991 Persian Gulf War. They continued to use it in the
Balkans, Afghanistan and the present war in Iraq. The inhalation of DU
dust by soldiers and civilians has long been suspected as one of the
causes of the illness known as gulf war syndrome.
Depleted uranium is a toxic, heavy metal byproduct of uranium enrichment
for use in nuclear weapons and reactor fuel. It is also used in
munitions, ballast for airplanes, tank armor and other products. It has
a half-life of 4.5 billion years. Its use on the tip of shells fired at
tanks is lauded by the military because it ignites a fiery mass that can
destroy or disable a tank with a single shot.
But the fine DU dust created by the blast can blow in the wind for many
miles and if inhaled, ingested or absorbed through the skin in
sufficient quantities can cause lung cancer or kidney ailments. In 2002
at the Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute in Bethesda, Md.,
researchers found that even though the alpha radiation from depleted
uranium is relatively low, internalized DU as a metal can induce DNA
damage and carcinogenic lesions in the cells that make up bones.
Last December at a national conference of state legislators, Dillon
asked Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld about the states' partnering
with the Defense Department to pay for health care for returning troops.
Rumsfeld, she said, promised to consider less wartime reliance on the
National Guard, but did not comment on partnering with states on funding
military health care.
One urine screening test for depleted uranium exposure by an independent
lab can cost as much as $2,500, said Tedd Weyman, who works for the
Uranium Medical Research Center in Toronto. Because his center does not
make profits from the tests, it charges $1,100 per test, he said. But if
a state has an available mass spectrometer capable of measuring isotopes
in parts per billion, he said, it could reduce that cost to $500.
Federal urine tests presently performed on veterans are insufficient to
do the job, he said.
More than 32,000 veterans of the recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are
said to have illnesses many of whose causes have not been identified.
Dillon is not convinced federal help is on the way. After talking to
administrators in state hospitals and veterans advocates, she decided to
offer the bill, which, if adopted, would require depleted uranium
exposure screening for all state service members returning from the war.
Dillon's friend, Eddie Miles, died in January at age 60. An obituary in
the Manhasset Long Island Press said Miles' quest for artificial limbs
for the children took him throughout the world raising money, generating
medical research and support and, in 1991, establishing a prosthetics
clinic at Kien Khleang, outside Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
Michael Bennett, a spokesman for Miles' organization, the Vietnam
Veterans of America Foundation, said: "We certainly support any and all
efforts to ensure the health and welfare of our troops as they return
home. This [legislation would be] a great step toward recognizing the
risks of depleted uranium on the battlefield."
Jose Llamas, a spokeswoman for the VA in Washington, said the VA does
not screen veterans specifically for DU exposures, but its
representatives and literature make the veterans aware of DU's potential
health dangers.
Dillon said the DU bill is in part dedicated to Miles. "I don't want
this war to be like Vietnam, where public officials waved the flag and
no one did anything about it [except the veterans]," she said. "We
should learn from our mistakes."
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34 [du-list] 300,000 US possibly exposed to DU and 20,000
Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 15:40:21 -0800
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/11/19/60minutes/main656756.shtml
(CBS) Approximately 300,000 American men and women have served at one time
or another in Iraq.
Most will return to the United States more or less intact. But some come
home the hard way - on a stretcher, bloody and broken.
And, as Correspondent Bob Simon says, there are few bloodier or more broken
than Chris Schneider.
Schneider says he believed in the war in Iraq, and liked wearing the
uniform. "[I was] proud to wear it. I loved wearing it," says Schneider, a
Kansas boy straight off the recruitment poster.
He went to college on a wrestling scholarship, started a family, and joined
the Army Reserves. This past January, his unit was providing security for a
supply convoy traveling through 100 miles of dangerous Iraqi desert. He was
riding in a two-and-a-half ton cargo truck, armed to the teeth.
"In my vehicle there was my driver, there was my 50-cal gunner who was in a
turret on top," says Schneider. "And then there was myself and another
individual in back. We both had M249 machine guns."
Schneider saw another convoy coming in his direction - a line of HETS
(heavy equipment transports), big rigs on steroids, hogging the road. The
first HET just missed hitting his truck. The second one did not.
"It threw me up over my vehicle, over the HET and about 50 feet into the
field on the left," says Schneider. "When I landed, the next HET in line
had locked up their brakes to keep from rear ending the one that we hit.
And when he came to rest, the first set of tires on his trailer were parked
on my pelvis. And the second set had my lower leg wedged in it to the axle.
I've been told a rough estimate of approximately 120,000 to 140,000 pounds."
Today, Schneider walks with a limp, on his artificial leg. But even though
he was injured while on a mission in a war zone - and even though he'll
receive the same benefits as a soldier who'd been shot - he is not included
in the Pentagon's casualty count. Their official tally shows only deaths
and wounded in action. It doesn't include "non-combat" injured, those whose
injuries were not the result of enemy fire.
"It's a slap in the face. Although it was through no direct hostile action,
I was on a mission that they'd given me in hostile territory. Hostile
enough that we had to have a perimeter set up at the time of my accident to
prevent from an ambush or an attack," says Schneider. "For those of us that
were unfortunate enough to get injured. Whether it was hostile action or
not, we're all paying the same price."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
How many injured and ill soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines - like Chris
Schneider - are left off the Pentagon's casualty count?
Would you believe 15,000? 60 Minutes asked the Department of Defense to
grant us an interview. They declined. Instead, they sent a letter, which
contains a figure not included in published casualty reports: "More than
15,000 troops with so-called 'non-battle' injuries and diseases have been
evacuated from Iraq."
Many of those evacuated are brought to Landstuhl in Germany. Most cases are
not life-threatening. In fact, some are not serious at all. But only 20
percent return to their units in Iraq. Among the 80 percent who don't
return are GIs who suffered crushing bone fractures; scores of spinal
injuries; heart problems by the hundreds; and a slew of psychiatric cases.
None of these are included in the casualty count, leaving the true human
cost of the war something of a mystery.
"It's difficult to estimate what the total number is," says John Pike,
director of a research group called GlobalSecurity.org.
As a military analyst, Pike has spoken out against both Republican and
Democratic administrations. He's weighed all the available casualty data
and has made an informed estimate that goes well beyond what the Pentagon
has released.
"You have to say that the total number of casualties due to wounds, injury,
disease would have to be somewhere in the ballpark of over 20, maybe
30,000," says Pike.
His calculation, striking as it is, is based on the military's own
definition of casualty - anyone "lost to the organization," in this case,
for medical reasons. And Pike believes it's no accident that the military
reports a number far lower than his estimate.
"The Pentagon, I think, is afraid that they're going to lose public support
for this war, the way they lost public support for Vietnam back in the
1960s," says Pike. "And minimizing the apparent cost of the war, I think,
is one way that they're hoping to sustain public support here at home."
60 Minutes asked the assistant secretary of Defense for Health Affairs
about that claim - that casualties are being underreported, for political
reasons. And we got a flat denial. In a letter, he told us, "We in the
Department of Defense categorically reject the notion that we are
underreporting casualties from Operation Iraqi Freedom."
He pointed out that he'd already provided us with some figures - the 15,000
evacuations of non-combat injured and ill. Still, Pike says the military is
trying to minimize the casualty count. It's an effort Pike believes is
misguided, because he says that even if Americans understood the full human
cost of the war, public support would not weaken.
"I think that all of the public opinion polling that we're seeing suggests
that the public is prepared to sustain far higher casualties than
politicians give them credit for," says Pike. "I think that it's basically
that the politicians and the Pentagon, don't have confidence in the
American people."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Department of Defense did not include non-battle injuries in its
casualty reports in other recent wars, either. But that's of little comfort
to Joel Gomez, who was riding in the back of a Bradley fighting vehicle,
looking for insurgents, when disaster struck.
"Unfortunately, the Bradley was too heavy for the road, a dirt road, and
the ground gave way. And we wound up flipping down the mountain. And it
landed upside-down in the Tigris River," says Gomez.
His two buddies were killed. Gomez made it out, but he's now paralyzed.
"[It's] a horrific change. I can't move my legs. I can't move my arms,"
says Gomez. "It just totally changes your life in a manner that you could
never imagine."
Even though Gomez tumbled into the Tigris while looking for insurgents, he
is, by the Pentagon's definition, "non-combat injured."
"They blow it off and say it's just an accident," say Gomez. "I'm sure that
somebody getting shot in the back would just be an accident. But that's how
they see it."
The Department of Defense says the injuries and illnesses suffered by Gomez
and thousands of other troops should not be taken out of context. In their
letter to 60 Minutes, they said: "In order to understand rates of injuries
and diseases, it is necessary to understand what the normal or usual rates
of injuries and diseases might be in other situations."
What does this mean? That there are always going to be a certain number of
accidents and injuries, war or no war - though they offer no numbers for
comparison.
"Soldiers and Marines are gonna get sick. They're gonna get into accidents.
But there's gonna be more disease, more accidents, more psychiatric stress
in Iraq than if they were back here," says Pike, who adds that hundreds of
troops in Iraq have been so paralyzed by stress that they've had to be
medically evacuated - though you won't see them reported in the casualty
count.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Traditionally, that count has not included combat stress. It was long
thought, in the military's macho culture, that psychological trauma is best
suffered in silence.
Graham Alstrom has been back from Iraq for over a year, but he's still
haunted by what he saw - and what he did to other people. "Some of them I
shot. Some of them I blew up with grenades. Some of them were stabbed,"
says Alstrom.
The memories of killing invaded his mind. Soon after he returned home,
Alstrom's life began to unravel.
"The drinking started immediately. I stopped sleeping. And I started
getting very angry. I didn't want to talk to my family anymore. I didn't
want them to see me. I didn't want to see them. I felt like they were
ashamed of me," says Alstrom. "I was partly ashamed of some of the things I
had done. .I couldn't separate the killing people and killing them in combat."
He says he's frustrated that the military says his illness is not
combat-related. "I know what I was like before I went to combat. I had a
life beyond the Army," says Alstrom. "I talked to my family. I'd share
feelings and emotions with people I cared about. I lived a very regular life."
Alstrom won't get a Purple Heart for his service in Iraq. It was only his
mind that was wounded in battle. "It doesn't matter what the paperwork
says. We know what happened over there. We know what we did over there,"
says Alstrom. "And no piece of paperwork saying that I'm not a casualty
could ever take that away. For any of us."
They've had so much taken away already, but both Alstrom and Schneider
insist that what remains inside them is the heart of a good soldier.
"I'm very supportive of why we're there. I'm very supportive of what we did
while I was there," says Schneider. "I believe wholeheartedly that not only
should we have gone, but that we've done the right thing."
Now, he'd like the military to do the right thing, too.
"Every one of us went over there with the knowledge that we could die,"
says Schneider. "And then they tell you - you're wounded - or your
sacrifice doesn't deserve to be recognized, or we don't deserve to be on
their list - it's not right. It's almost disgraceful."
© MMIV, CBS Worldwide Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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35 [du-list] 73 women and children in USUK mass grave were "
Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 15:40:26 -0800
QburntXtoQdeath"byausQbombingXattackmayQhaveXbeenXusukXduQvapourisingasintheQphotosXof"highwayXofQdeath"QvictimsX(retreatingXira
X-Temp-Subjectphrase2: YES reX"
X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.1 (2004-10-22) on darwin.ctyme.com
X-Spam-Level:
X-Spam-Status: No, score=-7.0 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,FORGED_RCVD_HELO,
FROM_ORG,SUBJ_GROUP,SUBJ_PHRASE2,SUBJ_WHITELIST autolearn=no
version=3.0.1
May have been USUK DU vapourising, as in the photos of "Highway of Death"
victims (retreating Iraqi conscripts)
http://digitaljournalist.org/issue0212/pt04.html
No Second USUK Falluja massacre samples tested available as yet
"The ICRC and other relief groups
are unable to enter the city. "
With a half-life of 4.6 billion years, it can wait.
*************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
Falluja women, children in mass grave
Sunday 21 November 2004, 18:42 Makka Time, 15:42 GMT
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/24EBE5BB-CA3F-462B-8279-546BC1D9B7E6.htm
Residents of a village neighbouring Falluja have told Aljazeera that they
helped bury the bodies of 73 women and children who were burnt to death by
a US bombing attack.
"We buried them here, but we could not identify them because they were
charred by the use of napalm bombs used by the Americans," said one
resident of Saqlawiya in footage aired on Aljazeera on Sunday.
There have been no reports of the US military using napalm in Falluja and
no independent verification of the claims.
The resident told Aljazeera all the bodies were buried in a single grave.
Late last week, US troops in Falluja called on some residents who had fled
the fighting to return and help bury the dead.
However, according to other residents who managed to flee the fighting
after US forces entered the city, hundreds more bodies still lay in the
streets and were being fed on by packs of wild dogs.
Danger zone
Meanwhile, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said Falluja
remained too dangerous to secure proper retrieval and burial of corpses.
"We could not enter Falluja city so far due to the security measures and
the continuing battles," Muain Qasis, ICRC spokesman in Jordan, told
Aljazeera.
When asked about the security measures, Qasis said: "In order to carry out
an independent and acceptable humanitarian action, we must have guarantees
ensuring the safety of the humanitarian staff.
"The humanitarian situation in Falluja city is very difficult.
"The city is still suffering shortage of public services. There is no water
or electricity. There is no way to offer medical treatment for the injured
families still surrounded inside the city," he added.
Detained civilians released
In related news, the US military in Falluja announced that it had released
400 of the 1450 men it had detained in the war-ravaged city.
"More than 400 detainees have since been released after being deemed
non-combatants," the military said, adding that 100 more were due to be
released on Sunday.
Aljazeera + Agencies
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36 [du-list] Inquiry Urges Recognition of Gulf War Syndrome
Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 15:34:59 -0800
Inquiry Urges Recognition of Gulf War Syndrome
PANews
By Gavin Cordon and Neville Dean, PA
17 Nov 2004
http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=3770038
An independent inquiry into illnesses suffered by veterans
of the first Gulf War today called on the Ministry of
Defence finally to recognise the existence of a “Gulf War
syndrome”.
The inquiry, headed by the former law lord Lord Lloyd of
Berwick, said it was clear the cocktail of health problems
suffered by an estimated 6,000 veterans were a direct result
of their service in the 1991 conflict.
It urged the MoD to establish a special fund to make one-off
compensation payments to those affected.
The inquiry’s report was warmly welcomed by Gulf veterans
who called on the Government to accept its findings.
Tony Flint, of the National Gulf Veterans and Families
Association, said: “To have Gulf War syndrome recognised
means a hell of a lot to us.
“We’ve said all along that it exists now we have an
eminent body saying it as well.
“We call on the Ministry of Defence to accept the
conclusions of the committee and take on board its
recommendations.
Veteran Noel Baker added: “This report vindicates the
veterans and it shows that we are not malingerers, we are
not making it up there is a real problem.”
The inquiry report admitted it had not been able to
establish the scientific cause of the various symptoms
suffered by the veterans, but said that should not prevent
the acceptance that there was a “Gulf War syndrome”.
It said that studies carried out by the MoD had shown that
veterans who had served in the Gulf were twice as likely to
suffer from ill-health as those who had not.
“We can see no good reason why they (the MoD) should not
accept Gulf War syndrome,” the report said.
“It does not imply a single disease with a single cause. It
will not expose them to any new claims. It will make no
practical difference. But it will make a great difference to
the veterans and their families, if only for symbolic reasons.”
Lord Lloyd told a news conference at Westminster to launch
the report that even if there was more than one cause for
the problems suffered by the veterans, there was no medical
reason why they should not be described as a syndrome.
“Gulf War Syndrome means something, it has a certain
resonance,” he said. “As they (the veterans) are the ones
who are ill it seems reasonable that they should name their
disease.
“There is no medical objection to it and it is the name
which seems to be the most convenient.”
The report said that more scientific research was needed
into the causes of the various conditions suffered by the
veterans.
The most likely explanation was that they were the result of
a combination of factors which had had a “potentiating
effect on each other”.
These included multiple injections of vaccines, including
anthrax and plague; the indiscriminate use of
organophosphate pesticides to spray tents; low level
exposure to nerve gases such as sarin; and the inhalation of
depleted uranium dust.
“All these causes are directly related to the veterans’
service in the Gulf, in what was a very toxic environment.
No other possible causes have been proposed,” Lord Lloyd said.
The inquiry was set up at the request of Labour peer Lord
Morris of Manchester, the parliamentary adviser to the Royal
British Legion, after the MoD refused an official inquiry.
The MoD prevented serving military personnel and officials
from appearing before the inquiry although it did submit
written evidence.
However, the inquiry was still able to take evidence from
former personnel including the commander of the British
forces in the Gulf, General Sir Peter de la Billiere,
scientific experts, and some 35 veterans or their families.
Lord Lloyd was scathing about the MoD’s failure to
co-operate fully with his investigation.
“The MoD thus lost a valuable opportunity to start the
process of reconciliation with the ill veterans, an
opportunity which would have cost them nothing,” he said.
Asked if he thought the MoD should apologise to the
veterans, he said: “No doubt if they take our
recommendations to heart and set up a fund to compensate the
veterans that will be tantamount to an apology.”
Lord Morris today hailed the report and said that the
inquiry showed that it was possible to challenge the
Government if it would not accept the case for an official
investigation into a particular issue of concern.
“Until now, if executive government refused an independent
inquiry it was ‘end of story’. Lord Lloyd’s report ends that
veto. We owe this tilting of the balance against executive
government principally to him and those who have worked in
fellowship with him,” he said.
The Ministry of Defence today said it had just received Lord
Lloyd’s report and would consider its response once it had
had a chance to fully assess his findings.
-----
Peer's report: Gulf War Syndrome 'exists'
telegraph.co.uk
17/11/2004
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/11/17/usyndrome.xml&sSheet=/portal/2004/11/17/ixportaltop.html
Gulf War Syndrome does exist, according to the findings of
an independent inquiry into illnesses suffered by thousands
of veterans of the 1991 conflict.
The inquiry, headed by Lord Lloyd of Berwick, said there was
"every reason" to believe about 6,000 Gulf War veterans who
have complained of a huge range of symptoms do suffer from a
syndrome linked to their service 13 years ago.
It called on the Government to accept "not before time" that
"the illnesses of those who were deployed to the Gulf were
caused by their deployment" and urged it to set up a
compensation fund.
The report said all scientific studies agreed veterans sent
to the "very toxic environment" of the Gulf were twice as
likely to suffer from ill health than if they had been
deployed elsewhere.
Illnesses suffered by the veterans were likely to be due to
a combination of causes, including multiple injections of
vaccines, the use of organophosphate pesticides to spray
tents, low level exposure to nerve gas and the inhalation of
depleted uranium dust.
Illnesses reported have included cancers, motor neurone
disease, chronic fatigue, skin rashes, traumatic stress and
aching joints - and the report said only a "small
proportion" could be attributed to post traumatic stress.
It is the second report in a week to come to the same
conclusion, following publication of a report in America.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has maintained that
insufficient evidence exists to prove a link.
Veterans said today the results were better than they had
hoped for and called on the ministry to accept the report's
findings without delay.
Noel Baker, 38, from Kent, said he had suffered multiple
sclerosis, a cyst in his spleen and episodes of skin cancer
since 1991.
He added: "This report vindicates the veterans, the people
who have given evidence and it shows we are not malingerers,
we are not making it up - there is a real problem."
Elizabeth Sigmund, from the Gulf Syndrome Study Group, said:
"I think the MoD have got to come out and say 'we have made
some terrible mistakes. We want people who have served in
the Gulf to know that we believe them and we are going to do
the best we can for them.'"
The inquiry was set up at the request of Lord Morris of
Manchester, the Labour peer and parliamentary adviser to the
Royal British Legion, after the MoD refused an official inquiry.
He said: "I profoundly hope there will be no delay now in
giving full effect to Lord Lloyd's findings.
"Those left in broken health and bereaved by the conflict
have already suffered more than enough."
Lord Lloyd said his report did not compel the Government to
act, but he hoped the MoD would seize the opportunity to say
"now is the time to bring this to an end".
--
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37 [du-list] A day in the life of the British armed forces
Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 15:39:08 -0800
A day in the life of the British armed forces
independent.co.uk
18 November 2004
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=584030
Red Caps deaths inquiry
Families of six Royal Military Police killed by a mob in
Iraq in June last year react angrily to an Army Board of
Inquiry which identifies a catalogue of failures before the
attack. Although the board finds there was "no conclusive
evidence" their deaths could have been prevented, it
expresses "serious concern" over the way the Red Caps had
been operating.
Gulf War syndrome report
An independent inquiry calls on the Ministry of Defence to
admit the existence of Gulf War syndrome and sets aside
millions of pounds to compensate sick veterans, who hail the
report as vindication. More than 6,000 men and women who
served in the 1991 war claim their illnesses are due to a
combination of vaccines, sprays, nerve gas and depleted uranium.
Suicide attack in Iraq
Six troopers of the Queen's Dragoon Guards escape unscathed
after a suicide bomber targets them west of the British
military base at Camp Dogwood. Six hours earlier, a Black
Watch soldier is seriously injured when his Warrior armoured
fighting vehicle strikes a roadside bomb. Since the start of
the war in March 2003, 74 soldiers have died in Iraq.
A soldier's funeral
Hundreds of mourners attend the funeral in Fife of Private
Paul Lowe, one of three members of the Black Watch killed in
a suicide bomb attack in Iraq two weeks ago. The
congregation at Kelty Parish Church includes the
19-year-old's mother, Helen, and his four younger brothers.
Six comrades carry his coffin into church as a lone piper
plays 'My Home'.
-----
'I only wish my dead comrades were here to hear this verdict'
independent.co.uk
By Terri Judd
18 November 2004
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=584028
An independent inquiry called on the Ministry of Defence
yesterday to admit the existence of Gulf War syndrome and
set aside millions of pounds to compensate sick veterans.
In a major victory for campaigners, who have fought for 13
years to have the illnesses officially recognised, an
independent public investigation found their complaints to
be justified.
Lord Lloyd of Berwick, the former law lord heading the
inquiry, said it was time for defence staff to stop
"assuming blithely that everyone else was wrong" and start
restoring the trust and confidence of the Gulf War veterans,
who felt "let down and rejected".
The Government had already missed one opportunity to begin
building bridges by refusing to take part in the anonymously
funded inquiry, he added. While stopping short of blaming
the MoD for sending the forces into a "very toxic
environment", Lord Lloyd said: "We are not in the business
of establishing blame ... Whether they are culpable in a
wider sense, it is a matter for you to make up your own
minds after reading the report."
In a conclusion which campaigners said went beyond their
greatest hopes, he continued: "All that the veterans want
now is an admission from the MoD that they are ill because
they served in the Gulf and that admission has never been made."
Major Christine Lloyd, who went to war in peak fitness and
returned a physical wreck, said she was "absolutely
delighted" by Lord Lloyd's report.
"It is the fact that someone independent, an ex-law lord,
believes in us. It does mean so much. We have been at this
for such a long time."
The nursing officer was a 43-year-old reservist when she
went to Saudi Arabia to set up a field hospital. She went
through two batches of multiple injections such as anthrax
and plague and lived in quarters constantly sprayed with
pesticides, including organophosphates. Upon her return she
had developed so many neurological conditions that she had
to give up her job the following year.
She said yesterday: "I only wish Major Ian Hill, Major
Hilary Jones and Petty Officer Nigel Thompson [who have
since died] were here to hear this report."
At least 640 previously fit members of the services have
died since the 1991 war, 6,000 are receiving war pensions
and 272 have had their cases rejected. Lord Lloyd estimated
it would cost the Government approximately £3m to offer
ex-gratia payments to sufferers. Rejected cases should also
be reviewed, he added.
In a controversial step, the chairman revealed that the
inquiry had decided, after considerable deliberation, that
the term "syndrome" was appropriate for illnesses that
formed a characteristic pattern but might not necessarily be
due to the same pathological cause.
Various factors have been blamed for the syndrome, including
the cocktail of vaccines such as anthrax injected into
servicemen and women, the indiscriminate use of
organophosphate sprays, exposure to nerve gas and depleted
uranium dust from exploded munitions.
Lord Lloyd called on the MoD, which in the words of the
Commons Defence Select Committee, had been "quick to deny
but slow to investigate", to commission new research into
the subject. He said that he remained hopeful the Government
would take his recommendations seriously, but acknowledged
that public pressure would have to be sustained.
-----
Call to recognise Gulf War effect
Onlypunjab.com
11/18/2004
http://www.onlypunjab.com/fullstory1104-insight-Call+to+recognise+Gulf+War+effect-status-22-newsID-429.html
The inquiry said there probably were a number of causes -
but said it was fair to describe the illnesses collectively
as Gulf War syndrome.
It called on the MoD to establish a special fund to make
compensation payments to veterans of the 1991 conflict whose
health had been damaged.
The inquiry was headed by the former law lord Lord Lloyd of
Berwick.
It was funded by private parties who do not wish their
identity to be exposed.
Veterans Minister Ivor Caplin criticised a lack of
transparency behind the report's funding.
About 6,000 veterans of the conflict are believed to be
suffering from ill-health.
However, despite paying pensions to thousands of veterans,
the MoD has never accepted that their illnesses are linked
to their service.
The inquiry report said all the scientific studies agreed
Gulf veterans were twice as likely to suffer from ill health
than if they had been deployed elsewhere.
It accepted the illnesses suffered by the veterans were
likely to be due to a combination of causes.
These included multiple injections of vaccines, the use of
organophosphate pesticides to spray tents, low level
exposure to nerve gas, and the inhalation of depleted
uranium dust.
Recognition
Stress may have been a contributory factor, but could not
alone explain the illnesses.
Further research was needed to try to pinpoint the causes
more precisely, the report said.
However, that was no reason for the MoD not to accept that
the illnesses were the result of service in the Gulf.
Announcing the findings of the inquiry, Lord Lloyd said:
"What the veterans now want above all else is a clear
recognition by the MoD that they are ill because they served
in the Gulf.
"Are they entitled to that recognition? In our view they are."
Lord Lloyd said many veterans had been told they were not
ill, and that their problems were all in the mind.
"A small proportion of those who are ill have the classic
symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder, but this could
not account for the great majority of those that are ill,"
he said.
Any doubt had been removed by a top-level US report
published earlier this month, he said.
"It is not acceptable for the MoD to say 'yes you are ill,
but since we do not know which of the possible causes has
caused your particular illness, we are not going to admit
your illness is due to your service'."
Is it a syndrome?
Lord Lloyd said even though the illnesses suffered by the
veterans were probably caused by a variety of factors, there
was no medical reason not to describe their ailments
collectively as Gulf War syndrome.
"People who are ill like to have a name for their illnesses.
Rather than tell a child that his father died of symptoms
and signs of ill-defined conditions, it is surely better to
tell him that he died of Gulf War syndrome."
The inquiry was set up at the request of Labour peer Lord
Morris of Manchester, the parliamentary adviser to the Royal
British Legion, after the MoD refused an official inquiry.
The MoD refused to allow serving officials or military
personnel to appear before the inquiry although it did
submit written evidence.
However, the inquiry was still able to take evidence from
former personnel including the commander of the British
forces in the Gulf, General Sir Peter de la Billiere,
scientific experts, and some 35 veterans or their families.
Tony Flint of the National Gulf Veterans and Families
Association said the report conclusions justified what the
veterans had been saying about Gulf war syndrome for years.
He said it was now time for the MoD to take heed of Lord
Lloyd's proposals and compensate the veterans for the
illnesses they have suffered.
"We've said all along that it exists now we have an eminent
body saying it as well. "We call on the Ministry of Defence
to accept the conclusions of the committee and take on board
its recommendations."
Government response
Veterans Minister Ivor Caplin said: "What I need to with
officials at the Ministry of Defence is to give the report
proper consideration.
"I have always said, as has the government, that there are
Gulf veterans who are ill. That's never been denied.
"What I'm keen make sure we do is ensure that there are the
right levels of pension support and benefits given to
veterans. That's what is important."
He said more research was needed and questioned the
financial backing behind the independent inquiry.
"It didn't have the backing of government.
"There's concern that whilst we as a government have been
completely open with the Gulf veterans since 1997, that Lord
Lloyd consistently refuses to tell us how this enquiry was
funded.
"He should be open and transparent."
Ian Townsend, secretary general of the Royal British Legion,
said: "We asked for an independent public inquiry. The
government denied us that.
"What we have actually got is as independent an inquiry as
we could possibly have got and I do not think anyone could
have been more independent than Lord Lloyd."
--
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38 [du-list] IRAQ: High levels of radioactive pollution seen in
Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 15:39:10 -0800
IRAQ: High levels of radioactive pollution seen in the south
Nov 19, 2004 Axis of Logic
http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_13724.shtml
BASRA, - Iraqi environmental scientists investigating
radioactive pollution around the southern city of Basra are
finding alarmingly high levels of radiation left by the use
of depleted uranium (DU) in recent wars.
But given the lack of a permanent, elected government in
Iraq and poor security, they are finding it difficult to get
permission to remove contaminated material amid growing
instances of cancer and birth defects in the area.
One such scientist is Khashak Wartanian, a researcher at the
University of Basra on radioactive pollution, who also works
for the city's Environmental Direoctory. While carrying out
a survey during the summer on radiation levels in the Qibla
area near Basra, he found two Iraqi tanks which had been hit
by DU-tipped ammunition. They found children playing near
the site, which was then fenced off and marked by warning signs.
"These tanks are just two in a series of tanks and
ammunition we have uncovered since the Radiation Unit at the
Environmental Directory was set up in 2001," he told IRIN.
DU is an extremely dense, heavy metal, and a waste product
of atomic bomb production. It has a half-life of over 4
billion years. It contains trace amounts of plutonium and is
60 percent as radioactive as naturally occurring uranium.
According to local residents, the area was a military target
during the 1991 Gulf war and again in 2003, when it came
under heavy fire from US aircraft. Wartanian took a
radiation reading of 0.6 mR/h on one tank and 0.5mR/h on the
other. "This is 1,000 times more radioactive than average
background radiation," the researcher said.
He also checked radiation levels in nearby residential areas
and found they were worringly high. In the home of
Abdel-Zahra Shindy, a resident living near the polluted
site, he took a reading of 0.2 mR/h-0.3 mR/h, compared with
normal levels of 0.008R/h.
DU occurs naturally in the environment but when used in
weapons it burns releasing uranium oxide dust into the air.
Officials at the Environment Directory in Basra told IRIN
that although they were collecting data on areas exposed to
radioactive debris, the lack of government direction was
making it hard to take measures to remove material.
They added that there was also a lack of reliable
information about areas contaminated. "We only know about
tanks in areas hit more than 10 years ago, during the Gulf
war in 1991," an official at the directory said. "There were
more concerns with pollution during the former regime. Two
radiation units were established in Baghdad and Basra in
2000 and were provided with the needed modern equipment,"
the official said.
The Pentagon admits to dropping 320 mt of DU in Iraq,
although the environmental organisation Greenpeace puts the
estimate at over 800 mt. Immediately after last spring's war
to oust the former regime, residents said the US military
cleared the area, picking up unexploded ordnance and other
debris. However, they refused to remove many artillery pieces.
In the aftermath of the war, Wartanian made a reading around
a tank in the centre of Basra, which picked up evidence of
Thorium (th324), a DU equivalent. "Since May 2003 we have
been trying to search for more contaminated areas. We met
with the WHO [World Health Organisation], as well as with
British troops, to investigate the matter but things have
moved slowly due to a continuous deterioration in security,"
Wartanian said.
In December 2003, 22 DU-polluted tanks were found in an area
5 km away from Basra city, close to the Iranian border. So
far his team have found DU-polluted tanks across the south
in Basra, Muthana, Abu al-Kahsib and in Samawa.
Some local residents, unaware of the radiation danger, cut
scrap metals from DU-polluted tanks and sell them. An
Environmental Directory official said that they were trying
to warn people of the dangers of using such metal. Scrap
metal plants may also have released contaminants from
destroyed military vehicles, he said.
In conjunction with the now defunct Coalition Provisional
Authority (CPA), the directory succeeded in banning licences
to sell scrap metals to other countries last June, but it is
uncertain how effective this has been given the lack of a
proper government to enforce the law.
"It was sold for 50,000 Iraqi dinars [US $34] per ton, but
some people may still be doing the business unofficially,"
the official said.
Another serious problem, which has long been linked to the
use of DU, is the rise in cancer and birth defects in the
area. Wartanian said that although many of the residents
close to radio-polluted sites may have registered cases of
cancer, skin sensitivity and respiratory diseases, the
relation between radiation and cancer was still controversial.
However, doctors in Basra have registered an increase of
incidences of colon cancer and thyroid cancer, in addition
to leukemia and lymphomas.
According to Dr Janan Hassan, an obstetrician at the Basra
Maternity and Children's Hospital, malignancies and leukemia
among children under the age of 15 have more than tripled
since 1990.
Whereas in 1990 young children accounted for only 13 percent
of cancer cases, today over 56 percent of all cancer in Iraq
occurs among children under the age of five.
"Also, it is notable that the number of babies born with
defects is rising astonishingly. In 1990, there were seven
cases of babies with multiple congenital anomalies. This has
gone up to as high as 224 cases in the past three years,"
she said.
Dr Jawad al-Ali, director of the Oncology Centre of Sadr
Educational Hospital in Basra, told IRIN that there were a
number of cases that led some doctors to assume DU's adverse
effects on human health in Iraq.
"There has been a sharp rise in cancer, birth defects,
miscarriage, and in neurological disorders, muscular disease
and kidney failure; causes have not been identified but they
could be assumed to be caused by the toxicity of DU
munitions," the doctor said.
According to a study of cancer patients in Basra carried out
by the doctor in 1988, cancer rates were 11 per 100,000
people. The number went up to 116 in 1991 and 123 in 2002.
There was also a sharp rise in the leukemia patients in 1996
and there has been another rise in recent years. Many cases
are near places where DU weapons were used, he said.
--
Posted for educational and research purposes only,
~ in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 ~
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39 [du-list] MoD must pay up now, says Gulf War veteran
Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 15:40:42 -0800
MoD must pay up now, says Gulf War veteran
nwemail.co.uk
MERVYN GRAY
20/11/2004
http://www.nwemail.co.uk/news/viewarticle.aspx?id=155860
A WALNEY war veteran has demanded the government accepts the
findings of an inquiry which asserts that Gulf War Syndrome
does exist.
The independent inquiry, headed by former law lord, Lord
Lloyd of Berwick, called on the Ministry of Defence to
recognise the existence of a Gulf War syndrome.
The inquiry said it was clear the cocktail of health
problems suffered by an estimated 6,000 veterans were a
direct result of their service in the 1991 conflict, and
urged the MoD to establish a special fund to make one-off
compensation payments to those affected.
Mervyn Gray, 55, of Eamont Close, Walney, claims to suffer
from Gulf War Syndrome after being given antidote drugs
before the conflict in Kuwait.
He said he suffers from headaches and neuralgia, and wants
the government to pay him and fellow sufferers compensation
and a war pension.
He said: "I'll say it until the day I die, my service in the
Gulf has led to my illness.
"I want the government to acknowledge the fact.
"We want money and the war pension.
"It's not just the soldiers who suffered, but their wives
and children."
Next week Mr Gray will undergo a test for depleted uranium
at a private clinic in Manchester.
--
Posted for educational and research purposes only,
~ in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 ~
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40 High levels of radioactive pollution seen in the south
Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 15:39:01 -0800
From: Karim A G
To: Karim A G
Sent: Saturday, November 20, 2004 11:57 PM
Subject: IRAQ: High levels of radioactive pollution seen in the south
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=44210&SelectRegion=Iraq_Crisis
IRAQ: High levels of radioactive pollution seen in the south
[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]
BASRA, 18 Nov 2004 (IRIN) - Iraqi environmental scientists investigating
radioactive pollution around the southern city of Basra are finding
alarmingly high levels of radiation left by the use of depleted uranium
(DU) in recent wars.
But given the lack of a permanent, elected government in Iraq and poor
security, they are finding it difficult to get permission to remove
contaminated material amid growing instances of cancer and birth defects in
the area.
One such scientist is Khashak Wartanian, a researcher at the University of
Basra on radioactive pollution, who also works for the city's Environmental
Direoctory. While carrying out a survey during the summer on radiation
levels in the Qibla area near Basra, he found two Iraqi tanks which had
been hit by DU-tipped ammunition. They found children playing near the
site, which was then fenced off and marked by warning signs.
"These tanks are just two in a series of tanks and ammunition we have
uncovered since the Radiation Unit at the Environmental Directory was set
up in 2001," he told IRIN.
DU is an extremely dense, heavy metal, and a waste product of atomic bomb
production. It has a half-life of over 4 billion years. It contains trace
amounts of plutonium and is 60 percent as radioactive as naturally
occurring uranium.
According to local residents, the area was a military target during the
1991 Gulf war and again in 2003, when it came under heavy fire from US
aircraft. Wartanian took a radiation reading of 0.6 mR/h on one tank and
0.5mR/h on the other. "This is 1,000 times more radioactive than average
background radiation," the researcher said.
He also checked radiation levels in nearby residential areas and found they
were worringly high. In the home of Abdel-Zahra Shindy, a resident living
near the polluted site, he took a reading of 0.2 mR/h-0.3 mR/h, compared
with normal levels of 0.008R/h.
DU occurs naturally in the environment but when used in weapons it burns
releasing uranium oxide dust into the air.
Officials at the Environment Directory in Basra told IRIN that although
they were collecting data on areas exposed to radioactive debris, the lack
of government direction was making it hard to take measures to remove material.
They added that there was also a lack of reliable information about areas
contaminated. "We only know about tanks in areas hit more than 10 years
ago, during the Gulf war in 1991," an official at the directory said.
"There were more concerns with pollution during the former regime. Two
radiation units were established in Baghdad and Basra in 2000 and were
provided with the needed modern equipment," the official said.
The Pentagon admits to dropping 320 mt of DU in Iraq, although the
environmental organisation Greenpeace puts the estimate at over 800 mt.
Immediately after last spring's war to oust the former regime, residents
said the US military cleared the area, picking up unexploded ordnance and
other debris. However, they refused to remove many artillery pieces.
In the aftermath of the war, Wartanian made a reading around a tank in the
centre of Basra, which picked up evidence of Thorium (th324), a DU
equivalent. "Since May 2003 we have been trying to search for more
contaminated areas. We met with the WHO [World Health Organisation], as
well as with British troops, to investigate the matter but things have
moved slowly due to a continuous deterioration in security," Wartanian said.
In December 2003, 22 DU-polluted tanks were found in an area 5 km away from
Basra city, close to the Iranian border. So far his team have found
DU-polluted tanks across the south in Basra, Muthana, Abu al-Kahsib and in
Samawa.
Some local residents, unaware of the radiation danger, cut scrap metals
from DU-polluted tanks and sell them. An Environmental Directory official
said that they were trying to warn people of the dangers of using such
metal. Scrap metal plants may also have released contaminants from
destroyed military vehicles, he said.
In conjunction with the now defunct Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA),
the directory succeeded in banning licences to sell scrap metals to other
countries last June, but it is uncertain how effective this has been given
the lack of a proper government to enforce the law.
"It was sold for 50,000 Iraqi dinars [US $34] per ton, but some people may
still be doing the business unofficially," the official said.
Another serious problem, which has long been linked to the use of DU, is
the rise in cancer and birth defects in the area. Wartanian said that
although many of the residents close to radio-polluted sites may have
registered cases of cancer, skin sensitivity and respiratory diseases, the
relation between radiation and cancer was still controversial.
However, doctors in Basra have registered an increase of incidences of
colon cancer and thyroid cancer, in addition to leukemia and lymphomas.
According to Dr Janan Hassan, an obstetrician at the Basra Maternity and
Children's Hospital, malignancies and leukemia among children under the age
of 15 have more than tripled since 1990.
Whereas in 1990 young children accounted for only 13 percent of cancer
cases, today over 56 percent of all cancer in Iraq occurs among children
under the age of five.
"Also, it is notable that the number of babies born with defects is rising
astonishingly. In 1990, there were seven cases of babies with multiple
congenital anomalies. This has gone up to as high as 224 cases in the past
three years," she said.
Dr Jawad al-Ali, director of the Oncology Centre of Sadr Educational
Hospital in Basra, told IRIN that there were a number of cases that led
some doctors to assume DU's adverse effects on human health in Iraq.
"There has been a sharp rise in cancer, birth defects, miscarriage, and in
neurological disorders, muscular disease and kidney failure; causes have
not been identified but they could be assumed to be caused by the toxicity
of DU munitions," the doctor said.
According to a study of cancer patients in Basra carried out by the doctor
in 1988, cancer rates were 11 per 100,000 people. The number went up to 116
in 1991 and 123 in 2002. There was also a sharp rise in the leukemia
patients in 1996 and there has been another rise in recent years. Many
cases are near places where DU weapons were used, he said.
*****************************************************************
41 AU NineMSN: Nuclear workers are safe - ANSTO
[http://ninemsn.com.au]
19:41 AEDT Mon Nov 22 2004
The highest radiation doses measured on nuclear industry workers
in Australia in the past year were well within safe dose limits,
the national nuclear science body said.
The Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation
(ANSTO) reported on the extensive testing of 924 workers,
principally based at the Lucas Heights reactor site in Sydney.
The effect of radiation on the human body is called a dose and
this is measured in sieverts, often expressed in millisieverts
(mSv) because they are so small.
"In 2003-04, the service monitored 924 workers, 84 per cent of
whom received less than one mSv. No person received more than 10
mSv," the ANSTO annual report said.
"The highest dose is well below the regulatory annual dose limit
of 20 mSv (averaged over five years) for radiation workers."
The report said 17 of the 18 workers with doses between five and
10 mSv were involved in the production of radiopharmaceuticals
either at ANSTO's Lucas Heights site or at its national medical
cyclotron.
It said the average dose an Australian received from natural
background radiation, excluding medical sources, was 1.5 mSv per
year.
ANSTO said it also routinely monitored staff who worked with
unsealed sources for possible internal exposures.
Overall, the organisation ran 173 courses covering 42 different
safety topics for a total of 2,455 participants last year.
©AAP 2004
© 1997-2004 ninemsn Pty Ltd - All rights reserved
*****************************************************************
42 The Australian: Radiation workers' exposure 'safe'
[November 22, 2004]
THE highest radiation doses measured on nuclear industry workers
in Australia in the past year were well within safe dose limits,
the national nuclear science body said.
The Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation today
reported on the extensive testing of 924 workers, principally
based at the Lucas Heights reactor site in Sydney.
The effect of radiation on the human body is called a dose and
this is measured in sieverts, often expressed in millisieverts
(mSv) because they are so small.
"In 2003-04, the service monitored 924 workers, 84 per cent of
whom received less than one mSv. No person received more than 10
mSv," the ANSTO annual report said.
"The highest dose is well below the regulatory annual dose limit
of 20 mSv (averaged over five years) for radiation workers."
The report said 17 of the 18 workers with doses between five and
10 mSv were involved in the production of radiopharmaceuticals
either at ANSTO's Lucas Heights site or at its national medical
cyclotron.
It said the average dose an Australian received from natural
background radiation, excluding medical sources, was 1.5 mSv per
year.
ANSTO said it also routinely monitored staff who worked with
unsealed sources for possible internal exposures.
Overall, the organisation ran 173 courses covering 42 different
safety topics for a total of 2455 participants last year.
© The Australian
*****************************************************************
43 [NukeNet] Uranium Tests at Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant
Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 15:40:28 -0800
CNIC's Protests Signing of 'Safety Agreement' for Rokkasho Reprocessing
Plant Uranium Tests
22 November 2004
Aomori Prefecture, Rokkasho Village and Japan Nuclear Fuel Ltd. have signed
a 'Safety Agreement' for uranium tests at the Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant.
Entitled 'Agreement to Ensure Safety of the Surrounding Area and Protection
of the Environment', it is in fact an agreement to endanger the safety of
the surrounding area and the environment by commencing uranium tests. It is
an agreement to contaminate all the facilities at the Rokkasho Reprocessing
Plant along with the surrounding environment with a radioactive substance,
namely depleted uranium. As such, we protest against this 'agreement'.
Many commentators, from a wide range of positions have pointed out that,
even if, against all odds, the plant ever commences operations, it will be
unable to continue to operate, either because of the unreliability of the
technology and the inadequacy of the quality assurance system, or because
of international concern about the extraction of plutonium for which there
is no foreseeable end use. If, regardless of these problems, it is once
contaminated with radioactivity, the subsequent clean-up will become much
more difficult. It is all too easy for the citizens of Aomori Prefecture
and Rokkasho Village to become dependent on the taxes that will flow from
the reprocessing plant, but inevitably the burden of its financial collapse
and the danger of the radiation it entails will weigh heavily upon them.
How, one wonders, do the Governor of Aomori and the Mayor of Rokkasho
propose to take responsibility for this state of affairs?
A committee of the Atomic Energy Commission is currently developing a new
Long-Term Nuclear Program. A majority of the members of this committee
agreed to an intermediate report which supported a nuclear fuel cycle
policy based on the reprocessing of spent fuel. However, from the outset
this majority was selected so that it would make precisely this decision.
Nevertheless, the committee's chairperson, Shunsuke Kondo pointed out that
the committee's role 'only relates to basic policy' and that it is not
empowered to approve the construction and operation of the Rokkasho
Reprocessing Plant. None of the basic conditions for operating the plant,
including the allocation of responsibility in the case of an accident, have
been met.
It is still not too late. We appeal in the strongest possible terms to the
Governor, the Mayor and to the citizens, in order to truly ensure safety
and security, to stop these uranium tests. We also appeal to JNFL to cancel
plans for the construction and operation of the reprocessing plant.
Notes:
1. In fact, agreements still have to be signed with six other local
councils before the tests can begin. This may take some time.
2. Construction of the Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant is essentially complete,
but it is officially said to be 95% complete until these tests are over.
3. For more information on the deliberations for the new Long-Term Nuclear
Program see the following page:
http://cnic.jp/english/data/longterm12Nov04.html
Citizens' Nuclear Information Center
3F Kotobuki Bdg, 1-58-15, Higashi-Nakano, Nakano-ku, Tokyo 164-0003
Phone: 81-3-5330-9520
Fax: 81-3-5330-9530
http://cnic.jp/english/
cnic@nifty.com
_______________________________________________________________________
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*****************************************************************
44 Las Vegas SUN: DOE to miss its Yucca deadline
Officials unclear when license application will be submitted
By Suzanne Struglinski SUN WASHINGTON BUREAU
ROCKVILLE, Md. -- The Energy Department will not file the Yucca
Mountain project's license application next month as planned,
said Margaret Chu, the department official who oversees the
project.
It was the first time the department has said it will not meet
its goal of turning in the application by the end of 2004.
Chu, the director of the civilian radioactive waste program,
said the department is "revising our original intent," by not
submitting the application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
She did not give a specific reason for the delay.
Chu did not specify when the department plans to turn in the
application.
"We do not expect long delays," Chu said at a management
meeting between the Energy Department and Nuclear Regulatory
Commission today at the commission's headquarters. She said the
department hopes to have an tentative new schedule by the next
quarterly management meeting.
The department said it has a draft of the application done.
W. John Arthur, the deputy director of the department's Las
Vegas-based Office of Repository Development, told the
commission staff that a lot of progress has been made on the
application but not enough to meet next month's deadline.
"We do not believe the delay will be significant," Arthur said.
"We'll take no more time than is absolutely required."
Arthur said department staff has been reviewing each page of
the application's draft. It is "technically sound and adequate"
but needs more transparency, readability and consistency
throughout the document.
The department sent documents to back up its license
application to the NRC earlier this year, but an NRC licensing
board found the information inadequate. The commission will not
put a license application on its docket until six months after
the backup information is certified.
Arthur said the department could recertify its material on the
License Support Network, a database of documents supporting
technical aspects of the project, by spring 2005.
C. William Reamer, director of the commission's High Level
Waste Repository Safety Division, asked Chu if the department
would not be handing in the application by the end of 2004. Chu
said it would not.
Reamer later asked the department to put in writing any new
decisions that are made on the schedule, especially if they are
made before the next meeting, so that those involved are aware
of them.
Meanwhile, the department is trying to figure out how to
allocate the $577 million earmarked for the project by Congress
over the weekend.
This is the same level it received in 2004 but $303 million
less than the department's request for 2005.
Chu said it will take some time to study how the decrease from
its request will affect the program and the department is
already planning its budget request for 2006.
"We have reached a point where historical levels of funding no
longer work," she said.
*****************************************************************
45 AU Ninemsn: Last nuclear rods leave Sydney
[http://ninemsn.com.au]
15:40 AEDT Mon Nov 22 2004
The last shipment of spent nuclear fuel rods under a
French-Australian reprocessing agreement left Sydney by ship on
Monday.
Under the agreement, the rods from Australia's only nuclear
reactor at Lucas Heights in Sydney's south are reprocessed and
later returned to Australia as low or medium level radioactive
waste for storage.
Future shipments of rods will go to the United States, but they
will not be reprocessed or returned.
"The rods, stored in shielded casks, were taken by road to Port
Botany at 2am (AEDT) today, and the ship left for France about
4am," the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation
(ANSTO) said.
The shipment contained 276 spent fuel elements. A further 387
spent fuel rods remain at Lucas Heights, along with 82 new
elements still to be used.
All of these rods will eventually be shipped to the US.
ANSTO spokesman Craig Pearce said the rods were transported
safely through Sydney, but community concern was understandable.
"Since 1971 there's been 7,000 shipments of spent fuel around the
world, but there's never been an incident resulting in the
release of radioactivity," he said.
"It's a pretty good safety record.
"You can't blame anyone for being concerned about radioactive
material passing through where they live, but the safety record
speaks for itself."
Greenpeace campaigner James Courtney said there was no truly safe
method of transporting the fuel rods.
"ANSTO should take responsibility and admit that there are always
risks surrounding these transports, and they should be telling
the community the truth about what those risks are," he said.
"That's the only way that you can have adequate emergency
planning.
"If something happens to one of these casks, the people living
near it need to know what to do in an emergency."
The Australian Conservation Foundation called for a halt to the
licensing of the replacement nuclear reactor being built at Lucas
Heights.
©AAP 2004
© 1997-2004 ninemsn Pty Ltd - All rights reserved Terms of use -
*****************************************************************
46 lamonitor.com: Bill will benefit LANL
The Online News Source for Los Alamos
[http://www.lac-nm.us]
CAROL A. CLARK, lanews@lamonitor.com [lanews@lamonitor.com] ,
Monitor Staff Writer
A key appropriations bill that will both sustain weapons and
scientific work at Los Alamos National Laboratories and provide
$10 million for a fund to settle homesteaders' claims from the
acquisition of land for the Manhattan Project should finalize
this weekend.
Domenici gained the $10 million appropriation for the
homesteaders fund following the successful effort by him and
Sen. Jeff Bingaman to have the fund authorized in the FY2005
Defense Authorization Act.
"The Pajarito Plateau homesteaders have asked for fair and just
compensation for land that was taken by the government for the
Manhattan Project more than 50 years ago," Domenici said. "This
bill creates a substantial fund to settle those claims and end
years of litigation that are still pending in the legal system."
Nancy Bartlitt, Los Alamos Historical Society president, said
the Romero Cabin to the north of the Los Alamos Historical
Museum in the Fuller Lodge complex was moved from the plateau
some 10 to 20 years ago.
"Gov. Bill Richardson has promised to provide us with $30, 000
to restore the cabin, which is a significant part of that
history," Bartlitt said. "The Historical Society is in the
process of compiling historical data for Richardson to present
to the legislature."
Domenici chairs the Senate Energy and Water Development
Appropriations Subcommittee that finally reached an agreement
with House counterparts to finalize the FY2005 Energy and Water
Development Appropriations Bill.
The $28.79 billion measure funds the DOE and the national
laboratory complex, and Army Corps of Engineers and Bureau of
Reclamation water projects.
"Putting this bill together has been particularly difficult and
trying," Domenici said in a news release. "In the end, we have
produced a spending bill that is fairly crafted and well
balanced given our very tight resources. We have worked to give
priority treatment to the work that will ensure our national
security, invest in greater energy production, and continue the
important water projects supported by the federal government."
The Energy and Water Bill is among nine bills being rolled into
a massive $388 billion omnibus appropriations package that
Congress is expected to pass this weekend.
The omnibus package will complete the FY2005 appropriations
process.
For New Mexico, Domenici used this spending measure to provide
funding for a wide variety of projects, including LANL and the
Sandia National Laboratory, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant
(WIPP) and Bureau of Reclamation and Army Corps of Engineers
water projects throughout the state.
Domenici gained a $10 million appropriation for the
homesteaders' fund, following the successful effort by him and
Bingaman to have the fund authorized in the FY2005 Defense
Authorization Act.
"The Pajarito Plateau homesteaders have asked for fair and just
compensation for land that was taken by the government for the
Manhattan Project more than 50 years ago," Domenici said. "This
bill creates a substantial fund to settle those claims and end
years of litigation that are still pending in the legal system."
About 70 percent of the land that was taken from the
homesteaders was used to construct what is now LANL.
Those living on that land were paid between $7-$15 for land and
personal property, far below the appraised value.
Many of the homesteaders did not speak English and were unaware
of what was happening to them.
The final agreement bill provides $23.3 billion overall for DOE
in FY2005, $150 million above the budget request and $1.34
million more than FY2004. The measure has $964 million for the
Bureau of Reclamation in FY2005 ($21 million over FY2004) and
$4.7 billion for the Army Corps of Engineers ($125 million more
than FY2004).
The bill has $9.11 billion, a $62.2 million increase over the
budget request, for DOE National Nuclear Security Administration
(NNSA), including weapons and stockpile-stewardship activities.
Within this amount, $1.42 billion, a $71.7 million increase, is
allowed for NNSA nonproliferation activities.
Both LANL and Sandia in New Mexico are key participants in this
work, Domenici said.
The bill provides level funding, $577 million, for the Yucca
Mountain project in Nevada, but drew back on the National
Ignition Facility, earmarking $46 million for the project and
requiring an independent review of the program.
Domenici said he is pleased with funding increases provided for
energy research and development, particularly added resources to
develop better renewable energy technologies.
The bill also provides $513.2 million, a $100 million increase,
for the DOE Office of Nuclear Energy to support advanced
permitting, new licensing procedures, and advanced reactor and
fuel research and development.
"We are looking to the national labs to give us a clearer path
to greater energy diversification," Domenici said. "The
increases we've provided for energy R is an investment that
could alleviate some of the pressure caused by a growing
reliance on foreign oil and natural gas."
The following are highlights of the northern New Mexico-related
spending included by Domenici in the FY2005 Energy and Water
Development Appropriations Bill:
Los Alamos National Laboratory:
+ $37.3 million to continue construction of the new National
Security Sciences Building (new lab headquarters). Domenici
gained $12 million in FY2003 and $50 million in FY2004 for this
project
+ $40 million to continue work on replacing the Chemistry and
Metallurgy Research Facility, $16 million over the budget
request in order to try to complete the project by 2010.
Domenici secured $10 million for the project in FY2004
+ $8 million for the Los Alamos County Schools.
+ $10 million for a Pajarito Plateau homesteaders claims
settlement fund.
+ $50 million for LANL facility upgrades, including $20 million
for perimeter security, $10 million for power grid
infrastructure upgrades and $20 million for RED computer
safeguards and reduce need for CREM. Within overall funding
increases within the DOE Facilities Infrastructure
Recapitalization Program (FIRP), LANL is expected to address
more than 300 trailer offices.
+ $7.2 million for the additional Environmental Clean-up of lab
property and encourage economic development. Domenici secured $4
million for this in FY2003 and $4 million in FY2004.
+ $7 million as part of the Advanced Nuclear Fuel Cycles
initiative for the material test station at the LANCE facility
at LANL. This account was provided $68 million in FY2003, and
traditional Environmental Management has been shifted from this
office to free an additional $18 million within the program.
+ $1.2 million for a Centers for Disease Control/Los Alamos
Historical Document Retrieval Project to locate, review, catalog
and copy records that contribute to historical off-site
radiological and chemical releases.
DOE New Mexico Water Supply Technologies include $12.5 million
overall, which includes funding for DOE laboratory involvement
in arsenic removal technology (involves Sandia), desalination
and water purification (Sandia involvement in cooperation with
Bureau of Reclamation project in Otero County, and a Water for
Energy Technology Roadmap project).
NNSA Stockpile Stewardship Program includes $6.52 billion for
nuclear weapons Stockpile Stewardship activities, $290 million
over FY2004. This program is carried out at LANL, Sandia,
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the Nevada Test Site,
and at plants in Texas, Missouri, Tennessee and South Carolina.
Facilities and Infrastructure Recapitalization Program include a
Domenici priority, $273.5 million to continue rebuilding the
facilities and infrastructure of the weapons complex and labs.
Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation and Counter-Terrorism
Activities include $1.42 billion, an increase of $72 million
over the budget request and $101 million over FY2004, for
programs to address the danger should hostile nations or
terrorist groups acquire weapons of mass destruction or
weapon-usable material, technology or expertise.
Defense Environmental Management includes $7.32 billion, an $81
million increase over the budget request and $492 million over
FY2004.
Science Research includes $3.63 billion in basic scientific
research, which is $197 million over the budget request and $195
million over FY2004. This includes $10 million, a $5 million
increase over the budget, for genome research.
Nuclear Energy includes $513.2 million for nuclear energy
initiatives, a $100 million increase over FY2004. With $50
million for Nuclear Power 2010; $40 million for the Generation
IV Nuclear Energy Initiative; and $88 million for the advanced
fuel cell initiative (includes a $7 million for the LANCE
program at LANL).
Renewable Energy Technologies includes $389 million overall for
renewable energy technologies, with $353.4 million for research
and development, including $82.1 million for biomass; $25.8
million for geothermal; $95.3 million for hydrogen; $5.0 million
for hydropower; $41.8 million for solar; and $17.0 million for
wind.
High Temperature Superconductivity R includes $55.0 million, a
$10 million increase over the budget request, for this research.
LANL plays a big role in this superconductivity research.
Editor's Note: The Associated Press contributed to this article.
© 2003 Los Alamos Monitor All Rights Reserved.
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47 Fw: UN Treaty to Ban Space Based Weapons
Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 15:35:24 -0800
From: ISIS Consulting
To: cwolman@mcn.org
Sent: Friday, November 19, 2004 9:49 PM
Subject: UN Treaty to Ban Space Based Weapons
Peace IS possible - A positive option for our global human family.
We seek support to network a U.N. Petition to ban space based weapons and
consider a link from your site. To this end we attach a U.N. Petition
Poster and free U.N. Petition Banner
at
http://www.ecologynews.com/u.n._banner.html
This U.N. Petition is about transcending competition to create a new
reality based on integrity, cooperation and peace. Its about redirecting
military funds, personnel, equipment and technology toward solving pressing
human and environmental challenges facing us now.
Please confirm willingness to network the U.N. Petition. Thank you for
consideration and world service.
Doreen Agostino
Change is inevitable, growth is optional
CAMPAIGN FOR COOPERATION IN SPACE
Nov 04, 2004
Sign U.N. Petition!
· Fellow Supporters - Let's transform the war industry into a
peaceful, sustainable, cooperative Space age society and stop the arms race
before it escalates into space;
· This U.N. Petition requests U.N. General to produce a Space
Preservation Treaty banning space-based weapons and all warfare in space by
United Nations Day October 24, 2005;
· Similar to the 1997 Ottawa Conference that resulted in the Land
Mines Treaty, if the General Assembly fails to meet the Oct 24.05 deadline
our U.N. Petition requests a Space Preservation Treaty-Signing Conference
to ban space-based weapons and all warfare in space to be held at the World
Peace Forum June 2006 in Vancouver, B.C. CANADA;
· Peace is possible by taking 30 seconds to sign this Petition;
· Help further by requesting family, friends and others to sign as
well.
· Sign U.N. Petition Online at
www.peaceinspace.org or
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/832338563
Thank you!
CAMPAIGN FOR COOPERATION IN SPACE
EMAIL: info@peaceinspace.com
CAMPAIGN: http://www.peaceinspace.org
Attachment Converted: "c:\program files\eudora\attach\UN Petition Poster Peace is Possible.doc"
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48 Guardian Unlimited: Fusion power faces big crunch
Europe poised to decide whether to go it alone on £3bn trial
reactor
Alok Jha, science correspondent
Monday November 22, 2004
The Guardian [http://www.guardian.co.uk]
It is the power source for every star in the universe - something
that scientists have longed to bring to Earth. Success would mean
huge rewards: cheap, clean and almost limitless electricity for
an increasingly energy-hungry planet.
But, in more than half a century of hard scientific slog,
nuclear fusion has been a tough nut to crack.
On Friday, decades of research, argument, false dawns and
political wrangling over one of the world's most expensive
scientific projects will reach a decisive stage.
European Union ministers will meet in Brussels to decide whether
to push ahead with the International Thermonuclear Experimental
Reactor (Iter), an ambitious, £3bn project that aims to prove,
once and for all, that fusion power offers the best solution to
future energy needs.
At the meeting, EU politicians will consider whether to continue
long and difficult negotiations with five international partners
over where to build the vast trial reactor - or to draw a line
under the talks and go-it-alone with the project. If the latter
decision is made, Iter could be built by the end of the decade,
and, if it is successful, commercial fusion power could come on
stream by mid-century.
Iter was conceived in the 1980s as an international
collaboration of the best scientific minds in the field. But
nearly two decades of cooperation in designing the machine has
been beset in the past year by infighting among the partners.
The shortlist for the Iter site has been whittled down to two
candidates: Cadarache in France and Rokkasho in Japan. Both
countries are desperate for the prestige the project would bring
and neither wants to back down.
The final decision should have been made at the end of last
year, but the six partners - the EU, China, Japan, South Korea,
Russia, and the United States - remain divided. Russia and China
favour Cadarache, while the US and South Korea want Iter built
in Japan. After months of fraught negotiations, the EU in
September set a deadline of November 26 for a decision.
At a meeting in Vienna last week, the EU and Japan were still at
loggerheads, despite both claiming to have made significant
concessions.
Iter's job is to prove that fusion can work commercially. So
far, experimental reactors around the world, such as the Joint
European Torus (Jet) in Culham, Oxfordshire, have proved that
fusion can work in principle. But they have not been able to
produce more energy than is required to get the reactions going
in the first place. Iter - a towering 55 ft high - aims to
produce 500 megawatts of energy, or 10 times its predicted
input.
The reactor will work by fusing two isotopes of hydrogen:
deuterium and tritium. The fuel is placed inside a doughnut
shaped vessel and heated until to 100m degrees C. The isotopes
fuse to form helium - releasing lots of energy. As well as
virtually limitless fuel, proponents argue that fusion is
environmentally friendly because it produces very little
radioactive waste.
But creating a mini-star on Earth has, perhaps unsurprisingly,
proved to be one of the biggest challenges physicists have faced
since work began in the 1950s.
"People underestimated the amount of new physics they had to
learn," said Sir Christopher Llewellyn Smith, director of the
research facility in Culham. "There was some early optimism in
the 50s, but it was misplaced."
Scientists soon realised that strong magnetic fields would be
needed to contain the fuel in a reactor, but, 50 years ago, they
had no reliable way of producing them. These problems, among
others, led many scientists to denounce fusion research as a
waste of time - a sentiment that colours the work to this day.
Iter is the fusion physicists' last chance to prove that the
technology is viable.
Wherever Iter is built, British scientists are gearing up to bid
for the contracts to build components for it. Sir David King,
the government's chief scientific adviser, is a vocal supporter
of the technology. "I believe it's got a very good chance of
success or I wouldn't be backing it," he told the Guardian last
year.
A senior British fusion researcher said: "We are well-positioned
to contribute fully. We see no particular threat [from the
political rows]."
The EU's most recent move has been to offer Japan a "privileged
partner" status, whereby Tokyo would have the pick of the
contracts to make the instrumentation and components of the
reactor if it were built in southern France, with Europe
shouldering more than half the costs.
But Japan's chief negotiator, Satoru Ohtake, told Science
magazine last week that being the host would be like winning the
lottery, while losing out would be like winning nothing.
On the surface, EU officials seem convinced that the Iter
partners will agree to the Cadarache site, not least because of
the established community of 300 fusion physicists already
working there. If the European ministers come to the conclusion
that the six partners cannot hammer out a deal, however, the EU
seems prepared to go with whichever countries will support the
French site, and that could mean it will go it alone.
"The proposed negotiation mandate is thus aimed at achieving
agreement to construct Iter in Cadarache with all six parties,"
said a statement issued by the European Commission last week.
"Should the parties fail to attain this hoped-for consensus, the
EU would pursue Iter construction in the broadest possible
partnership."
The fusion research community want the politicians to get on
with it.
"If we had to decide, it would probably be slightly easier for
us to be involved if it was in Cadarache," said the senior
fusion researcher. "[But] the overriding feeling is that we want
Iter to be built."
[UP]
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004
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