*****************************************************************
10/13/04 ****     RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL)       **** VOL 12.245
*****************************************************************
   RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE
*****************************************************************
Send News Stories to news@energy-net.org with title on subject
line and first line of body

                         NUCLEAR POLICY
 
1 UPI: U.S. to probe missing Iraqi nuclear stock - 
2 AU ABC: Blair denies he 'misrepresented' Iraq intelligence. 
3 Las Vegas SUN: Iraq Calls Nuclear Sites 'Well Protected'
4 IPS-English IRAN-NUCLEAR PROGRAMME: No time to play hide and
5 Korea Herald: South Korea's nuclear experiments 'not illegal'   
6 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: U.S. Official Says North Korea Stalling T
7 Korea Times: Ruling Party Wants Kim to Play Decisive Role as NK Envo
8 AU ABC: China continues efforts to salvage NKorea nuclear talks 
9 US: IndyStar: Terror beyond terrorism
10 US: Newsday.com: Erasing The RULES
11 Reuters: Gazprom Power Grab Sets Off Alarm Bells
12 Las Vegas SUN: Taiwan Conducted Plutonium Experiments
 
                         NUCLEAR REACTORS
 
13 US: NRC: Sunshine Act Meeting
14 US: Boston.com: Nuclear plans stir concern in Vermont
15 US: APP.COM Independent: GOP should oppose nuclear plant license ren
16 US: BostonHerald.com: Rep scorns mock nuke plant raids
17 UK The Times: British Energy £5bn plan is on target
 
                          NUCLEAR SAFETY
 
18 US: New Radioactivity Limit Could Sink Shellfish 
19 [du-list] UNEP request $2.5 to look for DU in Iraq
20 [du-list] Scrap of Mass Destruction
21 [NukeNet] Artic Threatened By Russian Nuclear Sources As Rad
22 The Hindu: Radioactivity workshop 
23 US: BJP: UPCO to clean up contaminants at Phoenix site - 
24 US: Hawk Eye: Claims bill reaches Bush's desk 
25 AGI: SARDINIA: HEALTH COMMISSION, YES TO URANIUM INVESTIGATION 
26 AU ABC: Marshalls nuclear compensation fund nears empty 
27 US: Las Vegas SUN: Exhibit Pays Tribute to Atom Bomb Workers
 
                         NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
 
28 NRC: NRC Approves Third License Amendment for Nuclear Fuel Services'
29 Nevada Appeal: Yucca Mountain project may be on last legs
30 Las Vegas RJ: Court refuses to delay radiation ruling 
31 Las Vegas RJ: Group admits violating state open-meeting law 
32 Las Vegas RJ: YUCCA MOUNTAIN PROJECT: Money request approved 
33 US: Beaufort Gazette: Citizens board requests one more nuclear waste
34 Las Vegas SUN: Examiners OK added funds to fight Yucca
35 Las Vegas SUN: Columnist Jeff German: GOP lacks courage to fight Yuc
36 US: CANOE.CA: Saskatchewn uranium discovery announced
37 US: The Ledger: Duke Power has no plans to dismantle controversial M
38 Scotsman.com: EU Threatens Legal Action over Radioactive Waste
39 AU ABC: Conservation group welcomes NT nuclear dump ban 
40 FOX5: Emergency Funds OK'd For Nevada's Fight Against Yucca
41 US: TownOnline.com: Perchlorate testing continues
 
                         NUCLEAR WEAPONS
 
 
                        US DEPT. OF ENERGY
 
42 lamonitor.com: Laboratory restructures operations 
 
                          OTHER NUCLEAR
 
43 [du-list] DU in the news 13th Oct 04 - live links
*****************************************************************
*****************************************************************
                         FULL NEWS STORIES
*****************************************************************
*****************************************************************
 1 UPI: U.S. to probe missing Iraqi nuclear stock - 

(United Press International)
 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 
  October 13, 2004 			   

Washington, United States, Oct. 13 (UPI) -- Surprised U.S. 
government officials say missing Iraqi nuclear material reported 
by the United Nations will be investigated, the Washington Times 
reported. 

In a letter to the U.N. Security Council Monday, Mohamed 
ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, 
warned whole buildings had undergone "systematic dismantlement" 
and sensitive equipment subject to U.N. verification and 
monitoring had disappeared.

 That caught the Bush administration off guard, with some 
officials saying they had not seen the letter before Tuesday.

 State Department spokesman Richard Boucher was cautious in his 
response.

 "I think we share the general concern that some material might 
have gotten out into the market immediately after the war," 
Boucher said. "But to the extent that all of us have been able to 
bring it under control, we have done that ... I think the Iraqis 
have been able to put in place the kind of monitoring safeguards 
and control systems that are necessary to prevent any further 
leakage."

[UPI Perspectives]                                                                    
*****************************************************************
 2 AU ABC: Blair denies he 'misrepresented' Iraq intelligence. 

14/10/2004. ABC News Online
 	
Australian Broadcasting Corporation Online

British Prime Minister Tony Blair has angrily denied allegations 
from his political foes that he "misrepresented" intelligence in 
making the case to join the US-led invasion of Iraq last year. 

Mr Blair's defence came in a lively duel in Parliament following 
the release of a new US report on Iraq and his Government's 
formal withdrawal of a claim that Saddam could mount a chemical 
or biological attack in 45 minutes. 

With general elections widely expected for next May, the main 
opposition Conservatives and the smaller Liberal Democrats have 
increased their criticism of Mr Blair's Labour Government, which 
consistently leads in opinion polls. 

His critics pointed to the findings of the Iraq Survey Group 
report. 

The group released a 1,000-page report last week that found 
Saddam had destroyed most of his chemical and biological weapons 
after losing the 1991 Gulf War and that his nuclear program had 
"progressively decayed." 

Sparring with Conservative leader Michael Howard during a weekly 
question period in the House of Commons, Mr Blair said: "I cannot 
bring myself to say that I misrepresented the evidence, since I 
don't accept that I did." 

Mr Howard had asked Mr Blair to apologise for "misrepresenting" 
the intelligence, rather than for actually waging a war which the 
Conservative Party supported. 

He pressed Mr Blair to "say sorry" for telling the country that 
the intelligence showed that Saddam continued to produce chemical 
and biological weapons. 

The Conservatives accuse the Government of presenting 
intelligence labelled "sporadic, patchy and limited" by an 
official British inquiry in July as if it were authoritative. 

"I indeed apologise for any information given in good faith but 
which subsequently turned out to be wrong," Mr Blair said. "I've 
already done so." 

"What I don't in any way accept is that there was any deception 
in any way," Mr Blair said.

 Mr Blair accused the Conservative leader of trying to capitalize 
on anti-war sentiment despite having originally supported the 
conflict. 

In a separate duel, anti-war Liberal Democrat leader Charles 
Kennedy accused Blair of having lead Britain into "an illegal 
war" and asked him again whether he gave Washington a pre-war 
promise to back the overthrow of Saddam. 

But Mr Blair replied that regime change had only ever been a 
means to enforce UN resolutions requiring Saddam's disarmament of 
weapons of mass destruction. --AFP 

© 2004 Australian Broadcasting Corporation This service may 
include material from Agence France-Presse (AFP), 
AAP(International), APTN, Reuters, CNN and
*****************************************************************
 3 Las Vegas SUN: Iraq Calls Nuclear Sites 'Well Protected'

Today: October 13, 2004 at 2:38:30 PDT 

 By ALEXANDRA ZAVIS ASSOCIATED PRESS 


BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - A senior Iraqi official on Wednesday played
down concerns about the reported disappearance from Iraq's
nuclear facilities of high-precision equipment that could be
used to make weapons, saying all sites under the interim
government's control have been secured. 

Iraq's interim science and technology minister, Rashad Omar,
invited the International Atomic Energy Agency to visit the
sites at any time and promised full cooperation with the U.N.
watchdog. 

In a letter to the U.N. Security Council on Monday, IAEA
director-general Mohamed ElBaradei said satellite photos and
follow-up investigations show "widespread and apparently
systematic dismantlement" at sites related to Iraq's nuclear
program that had once been subject to stringent monitoring. 

Omar said the missing equipment - which the IAEA says includes
milling machines and electron beam welders - was taken in the
looting spree that broke out immediately after last year's
invasion, which the United States said aimed to rid Iraq of its
weapons of mass destruction. The sites were quickly secured by
coalition forces before they were turned over to Iraqi
authorities with the formal handover of sovereignty in June, he
said. 

"The locations under my control are very well protected," Omar
said in an interview with The Associated Press. "Not even a
single screw is being taken away without my knowledge." 

He said if anything did go missing, Iraq would inform the IAEA
itself. 

While some industrial material that Iraq sent overseas has been
located in other countries, ElBaradei said no high-precision
items, which can be used both commercially and in nuclear
weapons production have been found. 

Since the equipment's disappearance could be "of proliferation
significance," he said "any state that has information about the
location of such items should provide IAEA with that
information." 

The United States said Tuesday it will conduct "a full
investigation" along with the Iraqi government into the reported
disappearances. 

IAEA inspectors left Iraq just before the war began in March
2003. President Bush's administration then barred U.N. weapons
inspectors from returning, deploying U.S. teams in an
unsuccessful search for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. 

Nonetheless, IAEA teams were allowed into Iraq in June 2003 to
investigate reports of widespread looting of storage rooms at
the main nuclear complex at Tuwaitha, and in August to take
inventory of "several tons" of natural uranium in storage near
Tuwaitha. 

ElBaradei said satellite photos showed entire buildings that had
held precision equipment were being dismantled at some sites. 

Omar refuted the report, saying eight buildings at Tuwaitha were
being renovated to turn the site into a "peaceful, scientific
research park." Hundreds of security guards trained by U.S.
forces were protecting the facility, he said. 

"We are transparent," he said. "The IAEA can come at any time to
look at the facilities." 

-- 


 
*****************************************************************
 4 IPS-English IRAN-NUCLEAR PROGRAMME: No time to play hide and
 
Date: Wed, 13 Oct 2004 14:33:54 -0700

 
<x-flowed>
  LA HD IP CU
IRAN-NUCLEAR PROGRAMME: No time to play hide and seek, says UAE paper
Att.Editors: The following item is from the Emirates News Agency (WAM)

DUBAI, Oct. 13 (WAM) - A United Arab Emirates (UAE) daily has warned Iran
against playing the dangerous game of hide and seek at a time when a high
profile team from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) landed in
Teheran yesterday as part of the UN watchdog's new initiative to resolve the
row involving Iran's nuclear ambitions.

    "The visit is a sign that things have not thankfully reached a no-return
point in the international community's dealing with Iran's nuclear
programme," said 'Khaleej Times' of Dubai in an editorial today.

    This is an opportunity for the Islamic republic to come clean on its
nuclear programme ahead of the crucial November meeting of the IAEA, notes
the paper.

    The English language newspaper suggests that the U.S. and UN are
softening their stances on Iran's nuclear programme, citing a report in the
'New York Times' that the U.S. is in talks with its European allies on a
possible deal with Iran that would give Teheran access to imported nuclear
fuel in return for suspension of uranium enrichment.

    "The U.S., which had earlier strongly opposed the EU's moves to engage
Iran, appears to have come around to the idea of a compromise deal with the
country. The new turn in Iran-West relations may have been inspired by the
new geo-political realities in the Middle East and the realisation in the
U.S. that it has to engage Iran for a mutually favourable relationship. It's
no secret that the U.S. has vital stakes in Iraq and Afghanistan and the two
fronts in the U.S. war on terror happen to be Iran's immediate neighbours."

    The newspaper predicts that a breakthrough will only be possible after
the U.S. presidential poll on November 2, which may be fine as the IAEA has
set November 25 as the deadline for Iran to comply with its demands. It
added that the UN watchdog appears to have lately softened its stand on
Iran.

    "Now it is up to Iran to use this opportunity presented by the IAEA team
visit to Teheran by taking necessary steps to resolve the dispute. It's no
time to play the dangerous game of hide and seek," concludes 'Khaleej Times'
  . (WAM)


  

</x-flowed>
*****************************************************************
 5 Korea Herald: South Korea's nuclear experiments 'not illegal'   

2003-11-18 ±è´ë¸® ¼öÁ¤          -->   
      
banner="http://www.koreaherald.co.kr

 The recent nuclear experiments disclosed by South Korea were not 
illegal and cannot be compared to North Korea's weapons program, 
International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei said 
on Friday as reported in the Saturday (October 10) edition of The 
Australian.

Mohamed ElBaradei, the director general of the IAEA said, "I 
don't think we have seen any intentions to develop nuclear 
weapons" (by South Korea), to reporters in Tokyo following an 
official trip to South Korea. He added, "What we have seen are 
experiments that have to do with separation of plutonium and 
making uranium." 

According to The Australian, concerning the experiments it said, 
"Four years ago the scientists enriched a sample of uranium to 
near weapons grade and South Korea has also admitted a plutonium 
extraction experiment in 1982." 

The Minister of foreign affairs and trade, Ban Ki-moon said that 
the experiments were purely scientific. Ban explained that one of 
the experiments, "Occurred in 2000 when a few scientists, an 
independent body, conducted a laboratory-scale laser isotope 
separation using uranium instead of the usual non-nuclear 
materials. This was reported to the Korean government in June, 
and we, in turn, reported it to the IAEA under the safeguard 
standards called the Additional Protocol, to which we voluntarily 
acceded early this year." 

The Minister added, "The other incident, occurring in 1982, 
scientists, carried out an experiment on irradiated fuel, 
resulting in the extraction of a few milligrams of plutonium, in 
an effort to analyze the chemical characteristics of the heavy 
metal that had not existed in Korea until then. The amount of 
nuclear material involved was too trivial to have had any 
military relevance."

Dr ElBaradei said, "These experiments are completely legal, they 
are not illegal per se," "The problem is they were not reported 
(to the IAEA), We haven't seen any cover up."

So far, the IAEA has conducted two inspections, with at least one 
more left to be carried out, before a report on its findings is 
submitted to the 35-member IAEA board next month.

Dr ElBaradei was eager to stress the difference between South 
Korea's scientific researches from the North's apparent full 
scale breaching of the International non-proliferation regime. 
"South Korean activities are simply experiments, while North 
Korea has a fully fledged re-processing process," he said.

"I am getting full cooperation and transparency from the South 
Korean governments but the north has moved out of the non 
proliferation regime over two years ago." 

2004.10.13
 
*****************************************************************
 6 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: U.S. Official Says North Korea Stalling Talks   
 
      Updated Oct.13,2004 08:22 KST   
 
U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage   

A senior U.S. diplomat has accused North Korea of deliberately 
stalling negotiations on ending its nuclear ambitions. 

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage told reporters in 
Tokyo that it appears the North Koreans don't have much interest 
in holding talks before the U.S. presidential elections. He 
called that a miscalculation on Pyongyang's part. 

Mr. Armitage is in Tokyo for talks with Japanese officials on the 
best way to re-energize the six-party negotiations on North 
Korea's nuclear program. 

A Japanese foreign ministry spokesman says Washington and Tokyo 
agreed to continue to urge North Korea to take part in the 
six-way talks without preconditions. 

VOA News 

*****************************************************************
 7 Korea Times: Ruling Party Wants Kim to Play Decisive Role as NK Envoy 

Hankooki.com > The Korea Times   

By Jung Sung-ki Staff Reporter

 A possible visit to Pyongyang by former President Kim Dae-jung 
would be the last step in finding a breakthrough in North Korea's 
two-year-long nuclear impasse, the leader of the governing party 
said Wednesday. 

While worried at the possibility of instability on the peninsula 
after the U.S. presidential election next month, Uri Party 
chairman Lee Bu-young said his party would ``pursue active and 
many-sided efforts to resume the stalled six-way talks aimed at 
resolving the North's nuclear issue as well as reviving the 
currently strained inter-Korean relations.'' 

``As a first step, we are considering a plan to send special 
envoys to the countries concerned, including the United States, 
China, Japan and Russia,'' said Lee. ``After setting the stage 
for the peaceful resolution of such efforts, I hope former 
President Kim Dae-jung will play a decisive role, at the most 
crucial moment, in resolving the dispute over Pyongyang's weapons 
programs.'' 

Lee paid a visit to Kim at his residence in the afternoon to ask 
him to accept the party's request, as well as to seek advice on 
pending national affairs and inter-Korean relations. The outcome 
of the meeting was not revealed. 

The 63-year-old political heavyweight also stressed that peace 
and security directly affect the nation's economy, noting he will 
visit China and Japan late this month to discuss certain imminent 
issues with the countries' leadership. 

During a forum for senior journalists on Tuesday, the Uri Party 
leader expressed his official support for appointing the Nobel 
Peace laureate as a peace envoy to the communist regime, stoking 
speculation over whether Kim will accept the proposal to 
negotiate a second summit meeting between the two Koreas. 

Lee also left open the possibility of opposition leader Park 
Geun-hye's role as Seoul's special envoy. Park, the daughter of 
former President Park Chung-hee, has also been referred to as one 
of the best candidates to visit North Korea to boost inter-Korean 
ties as she visited Pyongyang two years ago and met North Korea's 
leader Kim Jong-il. 

Meanwhile, Seoul doesn't yet have a plan to send representatives 
to neighboring countries, according to a government official. 

Presidential spokesman Kim Jong-min told reporters that ``the 
government hasn't yet reviewed and prepared to send special peace 
envoys to other countries,'' reiterating that there also haven't 
been discussions regarding the issue at government level. 

gallantjung@koreatimes.co.kr 10-13-2004 16:59         
*****************************************************************
 8 AU ABC: China continues efforts to salvage NKorea nuclear talks 

China's top envoy on North Korea is in South Korea for talks on 
the standoff over Pyongyang's nuclear program.

Beijing's special envoy for Korean Peninsula affairs, Ning Fukui, 
is on a three-nation tour that includes the United States and 
Japan.

A foreign ministry official says his trip is part of Chinese 
efforts to salvage six-nation talks aimed at resolving the 
standoff over North Korea's nuclear ambitions.

Mr Ning is the deputy chief of the Chinese delegation to the 
talks, which also include the two Koreas, Japan, Russia, and the 
United States.

The parties last met in June in Beijing but their scheduled 
fourth round of talks in China last month failed to materialize 
when North Korea refused to take part.

Pyongyang blamed US hostility for its boycott. 

The row over the North's nuclear program has been simmering since 
October 2002 when Washington accused it of breaking a 1994 
nuclear freeze by launching a secret weapons drive. 


13/10/2004 22:52:35 | ABC Radio Australia News 

"http://www.abc.net.au/
*****************************************************************
 9 IndyStar: Terror beyond terrorism
 
Dan Carpenter 

October 13, 2004  
 
While a presidential election may hinge on whether Americans
really think George W. Bush really thought Saddam Hussein might
be thinking about nuclear weapons, two nations are capable of
destroying the Earth before this article goes to press. 

The United States and Russia have thousands of missiles on
hair-trigger alert, aimed at each other just as in Cold War
days; they've already had close calls that would have been last
calls, unleashing enough explosive power, heat, radiation,
mega-hurricane winds and cloud cover to turn the planet into
something much worse than Hiroshima. 

This reality, alongside which such issues as taxes and ISTEP
don't quite seem so pressing, was very much in our consciousness
back in the 1980s, when an Australian doctor named Helen
Caldicott was leading a young organization called Physicians for
Social Responsibility. 

Though the nuclear freeze movement can take credit for helping
prod governments well down the road to disarmament, cocked
nuclear weapons, shaky preemptive warning systems and aging
nuclear power plants remain in force. So does Caldicott. 

Last weekend, the 66-year-old author and Nobel nominee addressed
the fourth annual Earth Charter Summit held by Indiana
supporters of the Earth Charter, a widely endorsed global
manifesto of environmental protection, economic development,
human rights and peace. 

If the couple hundred activists in Unitarian Universalist Church
needed passion and punch to rally them in this election year,
Caldicott delivered. But she served food for discouragement as
well. 

"I am sad," she said, "at what has happened to the planet. Sad
that almost all politicians are scientifically illiterate . . .
Sad that this country, with so much potential not just to save
the Earth but to save itself and become civilized, is going
backward." 

Not exempting her own country, Caldicott decried powerful
nations in thrall to a military-industrial complex that profits
from death at the expense of the sick and hungry. Mocking the
pious hand-wringing over nations such as Iran and Iraq, which
possess a negligible share of the global arsenal, she declared,
"The real rogue nations in the world today are Russia and
America, threatening extinction." 

Caldicott, who knows more about nuclear warfare than any
president, maintains that it is going on in Iraq now -- tons of
depleted uranium left by coalition shelling, toxic for
millennia. 

"Wouldn't you say the people in charge need to be removed from
office for the public health of the planet?" she cried to a
round of cheers. 

But she admonished that the defeat of President Bush would not
fundamentally change a political culture of "corporate
prostitutes" beholden to military, economic and environmental
violence. 

"You are providing the weapons that kill lots and lots and lots
and lots and lots of people," she told these liberal taxpayers.
"War is good for business." 

To accomplish a "second revolution" and turn away from
destruction, she said, Americans must awaken spiritually. 
"Why would God specifically bless one country to the exclusion
of all others when only 5 percent of the world lives here?

That's antithetical to what Jesus would do." 

By implication, the other 95 percent depend upon how the blessed
ones use their power. 

"We are the curators of life on Earth," the famed physician
pleaded. "We have the most profound responsibilities the human
race has ever had." 

Carpenter is Star op-ed columnist. Contact him at (317) 444-6172
or via e-mail at .  
 
2004 IndyStar.com. All rights reserved                                
*****************************************************************
 10 Newsday.com: Erasing The RULES
 
[October 13, 2004] 
	       
October 13, 2004 	 	
 
BY KNUT ROYCE WASHINGTON BUREAU

October 13, 2004

 Fourth of a series

With the final presidential debate tonight turning to domestic 
issues, Newsday has been running a five-part series detailing how 
President George W. Bush has given many top administration posts 
to executives and industry advocates as part of an effort to 
curtail regulations and loosen the reins on federal contracts for 
the private sector. Tomorrow the series looks at how Democratic 
presidential nominee John Kerry stands on some of the same issues 
and who might benefit from a Kerry administration.

 A giant program to modernize the Army with futuristic weapons - 
one of the costliest programs in the history of the U.S. military 
- is being managed by a private contractor.

 The responsibility to ensure that the project to equip the next 
decade's Army with a new fleet of satellite-linked manned and 
unmanned ground and air vehicles moves from the drawing board to 
the assembly line has been contracted out to Chicago-based Boeing 
Co.

 The results, so far, have not been promising. Until a recent 
restructuring that gives Boeing an even larger role in managing 
the program, called the Future Combat System, the Army itself 
gave it only a 28 percent chance of success. It now says there is 
a 70 percent chance the program, estimated to eventually cost 
upward of $100 billion, will succeed.

 But Congress' auditing arm, the General Accounting Office, warns 
that the program is so complex and depends so much on immature 
technology that it "is at significant risk for not delivering 
required capability within budgeted resources."

 Critics claim that the Army is biting off far more than it can 
chew - or understand. "More and more of the project is being 
handed over to Boeing," said Victor O'Reilly, a defense 
consultant close to the Army brass. "You might well argue that it 
is out of control, because nobody understands this. Nobody in the 
Army really understands what's going to come out at the other 
end."

 Close ties between the Pentagon and defense contractors have 
existed in many previous administrations, Republican and 
Democrat.

 But under the Bush administration contractors themselves 
increasingly are administering defense programs, including 
selecting subcontractors, and are venturing into areas that 
traditionally have been military functions - from guarding 
military bases to interrogating war prisoners to analyzing 
battlefield intelligence.

 Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute, a conservative 
national security think tank, said the Pentagon trend of 
outsourcing traditional management functions "is mainly a product 
of Republican political philosophy,"though it started modestly 
under President Bill Clinton.

 Yet putting private contractors in charge of Pentagon 
management, critics say, has the potential of creating conflicts 
of interest and limiting competition, damaging to both the 
taxpayers and to the men in uniform.

 Air Force Secretary James Roche last year criticized the growing 
dependence on defense contractors when he warned, "What you have 
to resist is the temptation, which will be very strong, 
especially over time, for government officials to rely too 
heavily on the judgment of the [contractor-manager]." His 
concern, reflected in several speeches, is that putting industry 
in charge of contract management can drive up costs by dampening 
competition and further eroding the defense industrial base.

 

Farming out contracts

 Outsourcing management got its start in the late 1990s under the 
Clinton administration with a contract to Boeing to manage the 
National Ballistic Missile Defense program. But it came into full 
flower during the current administration, with management 
contracts being awarded for modest research programs, such as a 
$20-million contract to Battelle for defenses against chemical 
and biological attacks, as well as for more basic contracts, such 
as a current request to supply 300 million rounds of small 
caliber ammunition a year.

 Some Army officials involved with the future combat system are 
clearly nervous about turning over so much of the program to 
Boeing, especially in the wake of several recent scandals 
involving the company.

 "We're all over Boeing and we need to be," said an officer 
involved with the program since its inception but asked to not be 
identified. "On the other hand, we're not on them enough, in my 
opinion. We know what corporate America is and what motivates 
them. The bottom line ... We continue to make sure we're checking 
ourselves so that we're not in bed with these guys, because it's 
dangerous. And I tell you, it's dangerous every minute of every 
day. Look at the Air Force fiasco. The same thing could happen 
with FCS."

 The Air Force "fiasco" he was referring to involves the 
controversial plan to lease to the Air Force a fleet of Boeing 
refueling tankers for $23.5 billion even though key federal 
officials say they're not needed, and the ongoing federal 
investigation into Boeing's hiring of a top Air Force official in 
exchange for favorable contract terms.

 In a prepared statement in response to Newsday questions, the 
Army said it had decided to use a private company to manage the 
program for two reasons: providing the new weapons to troops will 
be quicker under a private manager than through the Army's 
traditional acquisition bureaucracy, and it doesn't have the 
in-house expertise for such a complex program.

 "Many of the systems that we were fielding (under the Army's 
acquisition branch) were already obsolete by the time they got to 
our soldiers," the statement said. "Additionally, the complexity 
of the systems engineering and integration that is required on a 
program like FCS was simply not resident in the Army."

 The Army said that Boeing's role as manager will be similar to 
that of a general contractor in charge of building a house, 
"seeking out the best experts in each area to accomplish specific 
requirements for the overall project." Boeing, it said, "also is 
responsible to make sure all the sub-parts work together as 
required by ... the Army. However, just as the owner of the house 
would, the Army retains oversight and final decision authority 
over all programmatic decisions."

 

A sensible contract

 Boeing official Jack Paul says contracting the management of the 
project to the company and its junior partner, Science 
Applications International Corp., makes sense because the Army 
does not have the expertise to develop such a complex program.

 "It's a very large, complicated, challenging program, and when 
you start to go into integration, the Army has not traditionally 
been organized to do that," said Paul. The shift of 
responsibility from the military to the private sector is taking 
place under a Pentagon leadership dominated by former executives 
of large companies. According to a Newsday analysis, nearly half, 
or 44 percent of Bush's Pentagon appointees requiring Senate 
confirmation were company executives, business consultants or 
lobbyists, compared with 23 percent in the Clinton 
administration.

 For his first service secretaries Clinton chose a defense 
industry executive, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology 
professor and an investment banker. Bush, selected executives 
from defense giants Northrup Grumman and General Dynamics and 
from the scandal-plagued energy company, Enron.

 Last month Bush named Francis J. Harvey, vice chairman of 
federal contractor Duratek Inc., to be his new Army secretary. 
Harvey has spent his entire business career as an executive of 
three major federal contractors and has served on the boards of 
three companies controlled by the Carlyle Group, a private 
investment firm with large defense industry holdings and close 
ties to the Bush family.

 

Improving Army mobility

 The driving force behind the Future Combat System was Gen. Eric 
Shinseki, the former Army chief of staff who is best known for 
having warned Congress that a far greater force was needed to be 
successful in Iraq.

 Shinseki wanted to change the Army from a service whose full 
military might take months to position on the front lines to a 
fighting force that could field a well-armed brigade anywhere in 
the world in 96 hours.

 A key problem has been size and weight. The 70-ton Abrams tank, 
for instance, can only be delivered in sufficient numbers by sea. 
It would take at least two to four weeks to move an armored 
brigade to the Middle East by ship, according to retired Army Lt. 
Gen. John Riggs. The FCS promises to replace the Abrams and the 
Bradley fighting vehicle with new ground systems that weigh under 
20 tons and can be airlifted in the belly of a large fleet of 
C-130 transports.

 To modernize as a rapidly deployable force, the Army has a Star 
Wars-like vision of eight new manned vehicles, each with 
revolutionary new technology and armor still undesigned; three 
unmanned ground vehicles, including a "robotic vehicle" that 
would sneak up on the enemy and collect targeting data; and four 
unmanned air vehicles to help with targeting.

 The 18 new ground and air vehicles, sensors and munitions are to 
be linked by a computer system that also does not yet exist but 
that would give U.S. troops the ability to destroy the enemy from 
a distance or without being observed. Only this total battlefield 
awareness, combined with yet-to-be-developed active and passive 
armor, would make the lighter vehicles survivable, according to 
the GAO.

 To run these systems an estimated 34 million lines of computer 
code will be needed, five times as many as are required for the 
Pentagon's current software champion, the multi-service Joint 
Strike Fighter, which also is under development.

 The new tank, called "Mounted Combat System," will be engineered 
from scratch, requiring an entirely new lightweight gun; a hybrid 
electric drive system and high-density engine and advanced armor 
with an active protective system.

 Any of the eight manned vehicles would be considered a major 
acquisition program. The Army is doing them all at once.

 Some three quarters of the technology for this new system did 
not exist when Boeing started overseeing its development in 2002. 
Altogether, 53 critical new technologies are involved and 157 
complimentary systems.

 Skeptics not convinced

 There are skeptics, including the GAO, which urged the Army in a 
report this year to slow down its procurement timetable or carve 
the program into smaller, more manageable components.

 Last year, in a letter to the House Armed Services land forces 
subcommittee, the GAO's lead auditor for the program, Paul 
Francis, said that the Army was trying to develop the vast 
program "in less time than the [Defense Department] typically 
needs to develop a single advanced system."

 In an interview, Francis elaborated: "Any single system, like a 
tank or howitzer, is a major undertaking by the Army and has been 
technologically difficult for the Army to acquire. And this 
program has multiples of those inside it ... The complexity 
factor is unprecedented."

 Asked if Boeing can pull it off, Paul was less than assertive in 
his reply. "Sure," he said. "Maybe not. We do believe we can ... 
we think ... we can get there."

 

An out-of-date system

 Critics claim that a major weakness in the program is that it 
was hatched before the current Iraq war and that the new 
generation of tanks and personnel carriers will have to sacrifice 
troop-protecting armoring to be sufficiently light and mobile.

 "There were certain assumptions made that we would have superior 
intelligence of where the bad guys are and this would protect our 
soldiers, who could fight standoff [at a safe distance]," said 
the former Army officer who is intimately familiar with the 
program. "And, of course, they're wrong. Several people [in the 
Pentagon] tried to tell them [the Army]. But they weren't 
listening ... And now they've discovered, hey, we can't even 
defeat an RPG [rocket propelled grenade, an Iraqi resistance 
staple], which is a World War II weapon."

 RPGs and improvised explosive devices have been responsible for 
a large number of U.S. casualties in Iraq. But Boeing's Paul said 
that new sensors, better battlefield intelligence and lighter 
composite materials will protect the troops as well if not better 
than now. The only vehicles that pose a technological challenge 
for "armor type survivability," he said, are the new tank and a 
new artillery vehicle called the non-line-of-sight cannon.

 An industry source close to General Dynamics Land Systems, which 
is helping develop the new armor, said that the Army and Boeing 
have not even decided on size and weight requirements for the 
various vehicles, making any planning "notional." He said, 
however, that he foresees a mix of steel, kevlar and ceramics 
armoring, much of it added on near the battle zones to save on 
in-flight weight and size.

 "We have at least six years to look at the technology before we 
start building," he said.

 A defense source who has tracked Boeing's performance said that 
the company had been unable to meet some of the research 
milestones but that the Army effectively waived the milestone 
requirements last year by giving the company the contract to go 
ahead and start building. The Army acknowledged to the GAO that 
the program "was not really ready" for the acquisition phase but 
told the auditors that "it was necessary to create irreversible 
momentum'" to assure funding for the FCS.

 

Absence of oversight

 Riggs, who was put in charge of the program by Shinseki and 
brought in Boeing to run it, admitted that he, too, is 
apprehensive. "I think that if it's too much Boeing and not 
enough government oversight you probably are negating the logic 
behind why you formed the [management contract] in the first 
place," he said in an interview.

 The Lexington Institute's Thompson said there are two problems 
with assigning the management to a private contractor.

 First, he said, "The customer, in this instance the Army, 
eventually doesn't understand what's going on in the program 
because they've outsourced that competence."

 Second, he says, there is danger of a conflict of interest.

 Boeing also is a large manufacturing company and is allowed to 
bid on subcontracts. It and the Army have created a "firewall" to 
prevent conflicts by requiring that the Army, not Boeing, decide 
on the winning bid if Boeing submits a bid. Boeing has bid on 
five contracts so far, winning one, for $90 million, according to 
a company spokesman.

 There nonetheless are risks for conflicts, Thompson said. He 
said that Boeing also manufactures the C-17 transport plane, a 
wide body jet that can carry larger and heavier goods than 
Lockheed Martin's C-130, which the Army says will be the sole 
carrier for the FCS ground and air vehicles, limiting their 
weight to less than 20 tons. "How much incentive does Boeing have 
to crack the whip and make this requirement [of under 20 tons] 
stick?"

 Also controversial is the means by which Boeing was awarded the 
FCS research contract in 2002 and the acquisition contract last 
year, which to date has been budgeted for $21.2 billion. The 
contracts were awarded under an authority that eliminates 
traditional contracting laws and regulations, and reduces 
government oversight.

 Congress created the contracting mechanism, called an "other 
transaction authority," in 1989 to make it easier for small 
high-tech companies that otherwise would not bid on government 
work to share their knowledge with the Pentagon's research 
agency. In 1996, Congress authorized the three services to use 
this contracting authority for research and prototype projects. 
Critics say that the contracting vehicle, intended to attract 
companies that are not part of the military-industrial complex, 
is now a virtual monopoly of the giant defense contractors.

 The Pentagon's inspector general found that from 1994 to 2001 
defense contractors like Boeing received more than 94 percent of 
the $5.7 billion spent under the new procedure.

 The Army's Riggs said he decided on that approach "because 
legally it could be done and it allowed for the selection process 
to be facilitated more rapidly."

 "Quite candidly," he said, "our bureaucracy in our acquisition 
community is such that it takes forever to get something 
developed and fielded. We have a system that's been preparing for 
50 years for war but we don't have a system to accommodate a 
nation that is at war."

 The contract may make life easier for the Army and Boeing but, 
according to a source who has reviewed the document, it will 
result in added costs to the Army and the taxpayer.

 "There is very loose language in the contract that wasn't 
necessarily to the benefit of the Army," this source said. 
"Boeing gets paid for process ... It makes money by throwing 
bodies at the process."

 A traditional cost-plus contract ensures that "at least 
something has to be delivered," the source, said, but the Boeing 
contract is so loosely written that the company gets paid even if 
it can't deliver on the technology.

 Eric Miller, senior defense investigator for the Project on 
Governmental Oversight, a respected private watchdog, says that 
the FCS contract has let the genie out of the bottle. "A new 
precedent has been set," he says. "No longer will the idea of 
eliminating taxpayer protection and transparency requirements . . 
. be limited to million-dollar contracts with small, 
nontraditional contractors. The practice could be routinely 
utilized for billion-dollar contracts with large, traditional 
contractors."

 TOMORROW: Examining John Kerry's record

 Futurisic military

In an effort to become a more efficient fighting force in the 
21st century, the U.S. Army is moving from bigger and stronger 
weapons systems to sleeker and more agile ones. The futuristic 
project, examples of which are shown below, is being contracted 
out to Chicago-based Boeing Co.

 1: ARMED ROBOTIC VEHICLE (ARV)

A 15-foot long, 6-foot wide vehicle that will be capable of 
carrying a payload of up to 2,000 pounds of weapons, supplies or 
personnel.

2: COMMAND AND CONTROL VEHICLE

A four-soldier workstation that also will include room for a 
driver and commander. Will include a selfprotection weapon 
capable of neutralizing incoming enemy fire.

3: MULTIFUNCTION UTILITY/LOGISTICS

EQUIPMENT VEHICLE (MULE)

One-ton unmanned platform that will provide equipment and/or 
supply support in dismounted military operations.

4: NON-LINE OF SIGHT COMBAT VEHICLE

Will feature 120 to 155 mm cannon. System will be capable of 
delivering precision-guided, extended-range projectiles of three 
payloads.

5: NON-LINE OF SIGHT MORTAR VEHICLE

Vehicle will be equipped with a 120 mm mortar gun. Will also 
include a selfprotection weapon capable of neutralizing incoming 
enemy Fire.

SOURCES: U.S. ARMY.WWW.GLOBALSECURITY.ORG

The business of defense

In staffing the Pentagon, the Bush administration has drawn more 
heavily from the business sector than the Clinton administration, 
which preferred government experience.

BUSH ADMINISTRATION 

Total appointees.

49

Business 30.6%

Government 26.5

Lawyers, lobbyists, consultants 22.4

Academics 12.2

Nonprofit 8.2

CLINTON ADMINISTRATION

Total appointees

61

 Business 18.0%

Government 41.0

Lawyers, lobbyists, consultants 21.3

Academics 6.6

Nonprofit 13.1

NOTE: Figures reflect the previous jobs of those appointed to 
defense olicy-making posts that require Senate confirmation 
during first three years of both administrations                

 	Copyright © 2004, 	   

*****************************************************************
 11 Reuters: Gazprom Power Grab Sets Off Alarm Bells
 
Thursday, October 14, 2004. Page 6. 

Gazprom Power Grab Sets Off Alarm Bells 

By Elif Kaban           

Itar-Tass Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller                  

As its tentacles spread across the energy and power sector, gas
monopoly Gazprom is roiling markets, worrying feeble regulators
and setting the cat among the pigeons of Russian energy
business. 

Energy-sector consolidation has catapulted Gazprom, already the
world's largest natural gas producer and exporter, to center
stage as it prepares to become Russia's main energy champion in
a planned merger with state oil firm Rosneft. 

Analysts predict it will get a controlling stake in oil major
Yukos' main production unit Yuganskneftegaz, which the
government has put up for sale at a discounted $10.4 billion,
even though Gazprom has ruled itself out of the race. 

"The end is nigh. We're at the point where we'll see a lot more
activity at Gazprom," said Alfa Bank analyst Chris Weafer. 

"Ultimately, Gazprom will end up as the government's main energy
holding company, combining nuclear energy, electricity, gas and
a big chunk of the upstream oil business via Rosneft and also
through a strong role in the acquisition of Yukos assets. 

"Gazprom will become Russia's version of Saudi [Arabia's]
Aramco." 

Back in July, Stanislav Belkovsky, president of the Russian
think tank National Strategy Institute, published an article
reporting that President Vladimir Putin's adviser Igor Sechin
would head a new holding company based on Gazprom and Rosneft. 

The article detailed how the new company would acquire half of
Yukos' assets and buy out foreign minority shareholders. 

Three weeks later, Sechin, seen as Putin's right-hand man and a
member of the so-called siloviki clan of officials with secret
security backgrounds, became Rosneft chairman. 

Nearly three months later, in September, Putin announced plans
to merge Gazprom with Rosneft and end the two-tier trading in
Gazprom shares, a move that will make the company's shares a top
emerging-market play for portfolio investors. 

Gazprom in recent months has been busily expanding Russia's role
on the world's energy stage with strategic links with
E.On-Ruhrgas, Gasunie, ExxonMobil and ChevronTexaco. 

But at home, many analysts who had considered the breakup of the
gas monopoly as a precondition for Russia's transition to a
fully free-market economy now say that plan is shelved. 

"Clearly Gazprom is not going to be reformed in a way people
were envisaging it 18 months ago, by making the market
competitive," said UBS Brunswick economist Al Breach. 

Key now is what happens at electricity monopoly Unified Energy
Systems, where much-delayed restructuring was seen as a
benchmark for a shake-up at Gazprom. 

Gazprom chief executive Alexei Miller recently announced his
company had bought 10 percent of UES and a significant stake in
UES-controlled Mosenergo, Russia's largest utility firm. 

Gazprom's interest in Mosenergo, which analysts put at 30
percent, has stirred the market, with the stock price surging by
two-thirds one week and losing lost half its value the next. 

Portfolio investors are up in arms, saying Gazprom's board of
directors were not consulted on Mosenergo purchases. 

"Gazprom has spent an enormous amount of money on assets in
which they didn't have board approval. There were crazy price
movements in Mosenergo, which suggests the whole thing was done
in a very sloppy manner," said William Browder, chief executive
officer of Hermitage Capital, a hedge fund running $1.5 billion. 

In an editorial this week, business daily Vedomosti likened
Gazprom's growing influence to the Kremlin's increasing control
over Russian politics with the headline "Vertical Energy" -- a
reference to "Vertical Power," Putin's idea of top-down control. 

Russian media have reported that Gazprom is also expanding into
atomic power by taking a controlling stake in the country's sole
exporter of nuclear technology, Atomstroieksport. 

Stock analysts say extending Gazprom's remit is good for its
business. But reformers in the government worry that an
ever-expanding monolith means further backpedaling in reforms. 

Liberal Economy Minister German Gref went public with his
criticism of Gazprom's expansion last week, telling reporters:

"Without competition you won't get low prices and quality." 
Igor Artemyev, head of the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service, was
also critical, saying: "If we are talking about turning the oil
sector into a state-owned sector and liquidating competition, we
will not be able to agree with it." 

Weafer said the story of Gazprom was the story of just how
politicized Russia's energy sector has become. 

"If you're a business group in Russia nowadays you'd better
check first to see what the Kremlin wants you to do. That means
you'd better start looking at Kremlinology again," he said. 

"Unfortunately the KGB guidebooks had more about control and
nothing on shareholder value." 

Copyright © 2004 The Moscow Times. All rights reserved.   

*****************************************************************
 12 Las Vegas SUN: Taiwan Conducted Plutonium Experiments

Today: October 13, 2004 at 8:53:31 PDT 

 By GEORGE JAHN ASSOCIATED PRESS 

VIENNA, Austria (AP) - 

The U.N. nuclear watchdog agency has found that Taiwan's
experiments with plutonium extended up to the mid-1980s,
diplomats said Wednesday, uncovering a key detail about the
country's now-abandoned nuclear weapons program. 

It had been known that Taiwan briefly revived its nuclear
weapons research program in the 1980s, and the revelations
confirm suspicions that plutonium separation experiments were
carried out at that time. 

Taiwan first launched its nuclear weapons program in the 1960s,
but suspended in the following decade under pressure from the
United States, which apparently feared the response from
Taiwan's rival China. 

Taiwan's governent has never acknowledged having a secret
weapons program, according to analysts. 

The experiments were uncovered in inspections and testing
conducted by the International Atomic Energy Agency after the
Taiwanese government agreed to voluntary extra controls on the
country's peaceful nuclear program, the diplomats said. 

The diplomats told The Associated Press that their information
was based on preliminary samples taken in Taiwan by IAEA
inspectors indicating that plutonium separation experiments
probably continued until about 20 years ago. 

The diplomats, who are familiar with the IAEA, spoke on
condition of anonymity. Officials at the Vienna-based IAEA said
they would not comment. 

One of the diplomats cautioned against drawing parallels between
Taiwan and South Korea, whose government recently acknowledged
that its scientists once dabbled in extracting plutonium and
enriching uranium - both of which can be used to make nuclear
arms. 

While the South Korean revelations reflected continued secret
weapons-related research, it was common knowledge that Taiwan
had engaged in nuclear weapons research after China exploded its
first bomb in the 1960s, the diplomat said. 

What the agency now was trying to do was to flesh out details of
the Taiwanese program, with environmental sampling and other
methods, he said. 

The agency was not expecting to find new experiments with
possible weapons applications beyond the mid-1980s, said the
diplomat. "But there will be new things they did not discover in
the past" about the previously known program because of the
extra access Taiwan was now granting agency inspectors, he said. 

In Taipei, Taiwan, Foreign Ministry spokesman Michel Lu said
that ministry was not aware of the reports and would not
immediately comment on them. Officials at Taiwan's Atomic Energy
Council were not available after business hours Wednesday. 

Andrew Yang, a defense analyst at the Chinese Council of
Advanced Policy Studies, a Taipei think tank, said that it has
long been common knowledge in Taiwan that the island's nuclear
scientists were working on a bomb in the 1970s and 1980s. 

Yang said the work was done at the Chung Shan Institute, the
military's biggest research center. He said the government has
yet to publicly confirm the project existed. 

"I don't think they got anywhere close to building a nuclear
device," Yang said. "But they did have the technology and the
know-how." 

The program was shut down and U.S. officials sealed off the
laboratories and test sites in 1988 shortly after a military
officer involved in the project, Chang Hsien-yi, defected to the
United States with computer information about the program. 

Taiwan's nuclear weapons program has been the subject of
numerous media reports and books. 

Jay Taylor, a former Asia specialist in the U.S. Foreign
Service, wrote in his biography of the late Taiwanese President
Chiang Ching-kuo, who took overall responsibility for the secret
nuclear project, that the CIA recruited Chang to gather
information about the program. 

The project was approved by the late President Chiang Kai-shek,
Ching-kuo's father. The elder Chiang in 1965 ordered that the
nuclear bomb study move from research to development, the book
said. 

The CIA estimated in 1974 that Taiwan would be ready to build a
nuclear weapon in "five years or so," according to Taylor's
book, "The Generalissimo's Son," published in 2000. 

In 1976, IAEA inspectors found that 10 barrels of used fuel
containing about 1 pound of plutonium were missing. 

The Washington Post cited official U.S. sources in an Aug. 29,
1976, report that said Taiwan had been secretly reprocessing for
some time and had been producing plutonium for a nuclear weapon.
The same article said that Washington demanded Chiang Ching-kuo
dismantle the reprocessing facility and ship back related
equipment to the United States. 

Chiang accepted the U.S. demands and asserted that Taiwan had no
intention to develop nuclear weapons. He issued a statement on
Jan. 23, 1977, supporting President Jimmy Carter's call for a
total ban on nuclear testing. 

Taylor writes that "privately, Ching-kuo ordered the
reprocessing program put on hold for the time being but for
research work to continue." 

--- 

Associated Press Reporter Bill Foreman in Taipei contributed to
this story. 

--- 

On the Net: www.iaea.org 

-- 


 
*****************************************************************
 13 NRC: Sunshine Act Meeting
 
                        FR Doc 04-23003 
[Federal Register: October 13, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 197)] 
[Notices] [Page 60911] From the Federal Register Online via GPO 
Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr13oc04-90]                         
 
DATE: Weeks of October 11, 18, 25, November 1, 8, 15, 2004 PLACE: 
Commissioners' Conference Room, 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, 
Maryland STATUS: Public and Closed MATTERS TO BE CONSIDERED: Week 
of October 11, 2004 9:30 a.m. Briefing on Decommissioning 
Activities and Status (Public Meeting) (Contact: Claudia Craig, 
30-415-7276) This meeting will be webcast live at the Web address 
http://www.nrc.gov. 1:30 p.m. Discussion of Intragovernmental 
Issues (Closed--Ex. 1 & 9) Week of October 18, 2004-Tentative 
There are no meetings scheduled for the Week of October 18, 2004 
Week of October 25, 2004--Tentative There are no meeting 
scheduled for the Week of October 25, 2004 Week of November 1, 
2004--Tentative There are no meetings scheduled for the Week of 
November 1, 2004 Week of November 8, 2004--Tentative Monday, 
November 8, 2004 2 p.m. Briefing on Plant Aging and Material 
Degradation Issues (Public Meeting) (Contact: Steve Koenick, 
301-415-1239) This meeting will be webcast live at the Web 
address http://www.nrc.gov. Tuesday, November 9, 2004 9:30 a.m. 
Briefing on Reactor Safety and Licensing Activities (Public 
Meeting) (Contact: Steve Koenick, 301-415-1239) This meeting will 
be webcast live at the Web address http://www.nrc.gov. Week of 
November 15, 2004--Tentative Tuesday, November 16, 2004 9:30 a.m. 
Briefing on Threat Environment Assessment (Closed--Ex. 1) 
Wednesday, November 17, 2004 9:30 a.m. Discussion of Security 
Issues (Closed--Ex. 1) * The schedule for Commission meetings is 
subject to change on short notice. To verify the status of 
meetings call (recording)-- (301) 415-1292. Contact person for 
more information: Dave Gamberoni, (301) 415-1651.
 
* * * * * The NRC Commission Meeting Schedule can be found on the 
Internet at: 
http://www.nrc.gov/what-we-do/policy-making/schedule.html. * * * 
* * The NRC provides reasonable accommodation to individuals with 
disabilities where appropriate. If you need a reasonable 
accommodation to participate in these public meetings, or need 
this meeting notice or the transcript or other information from 
the public meetings in another format (e.g. braille, large 
print), please notify the NRC's Disability Program Coordinator, 
August Spector, at 301-415-7080, TDD: 301-4152100, or by e-mail 
at aks@nrc.gov. Determinations on requests for reasonable 
accommodation will be made on a cast-by-case basis.
 
This notice is distributed by mail to several hundred 
subscribers; if you no longer wish to receive it, or would like 
to be added to the distribution, please contact the Office of the 
Secretary, Washington, DC 20555 (301-415-1969). In addition, 
distribution of this meeting notice over the Internet system is 
available. If you are interested in receiving this Commission 
meeting schedule electronically, please send an electronic 
message to dkw@nrc.gov. October 7, 2004.
 
Dave Gamberoni, Office of the Secretary.
 
[FR Doc. 04-23003 Filed 10-8-04; 9:50 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-M

 
*****************************************************************
 14 Boston.com: Nuclear plans stir concern in Vermont
 
Boston Globe 

By Beth Daley, Globe Staff  |  October 12, 2004 

VERNON, Vt. -- Amid the protests that have erupted over nuclear 
power plants in New England, the Vermont Yankee plant here has 
long operated as an oasis of calm. Perched on the Connecticut 
River about 10 miles from the Massachusetts border, the 
32-year-old reactor provides a third of Vermont's electricity. 

But that calm is ending. The plant's owner, Louisiana-based , 
asked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission last year for permission 
to boost the plant's output by 20 percent, and both nuclear 
safety advocates and the state of Vermont itself have risen to 
oppose the request. 

"We are just not satisfied this is safe," said David O'Brien, 
commissioner of the Vermont Department of Public Service, which 
has asked the regulatory commission for a legal hearing to 
explain why the power boost would not compromise safety at the 
plant. A NRC panel will decide as early as this month whether to 
grant a hearing. 

The Vermont dispute is being closely watched outside New England. 
It marks the first formal challenge to a quiet nationwide push by 
the energy industry to wring more power out of the nation's aging 
nuclear plants. No new US plants have been ordered since before 
Three Mile Island's reactor accident in 1979, and the last 
reactor was completed in 1996. But by applying for NRC permission 
for existing plants to work harder, longer, and more efficiently, 
owners have been able to increase the output of the nation's 103 
reactors by the equivalent of 24 new plants over the last quarter 
century. Now, an increasing number of plants, including Vermont 
Yankee, are asking the NRC for more power. 

The requests are part of a broad rebirth of nuclear power, which 
energy companies are embracing again as gas and oil prices soar. 
The nuclear industry has mounted a lobbying effort to be seen as 
"green," saying that reactors do not produce global warming gases 
and other pollutants emitted by fossil fuel plants. The Bush 
administration has streamlined the permitting process and created 
financial incentives for companies exploring whether to build 
nuclear plants, and the sites of old plants in Mississippi, 
Illinois and Virginia are being looked at for new reactors. 

Yet even in the best-case scenario, it would take more than five 
years to construct plants, so in the meantime the industry has 
focused on getting more power from existing facilities, along 
with increasing their lifespan with license extensions. Before 
1998, requests for power boosts were relatively small, increasing 
power usually by less than 6 or 7 percent. Since then, however, 
the NRC has approved 12 boosts above that level, and it is 
expected to rule on 15 more requests in the next four years. 

Among New England's five operating reactors, the Pilgrim plant in 
Plymouth received a 1.5 percent uprate approval last year and is 
eyeing, but has not applied for, an additional boost of 12 or 13 
percent. The plant in Seabrook, N.H., has a request pending for a 
5 percent boost. The other two plants, in Connecticut, are not 
facing requests for power boosts, called uprates. All New England 
plants are expected to ask for license extensions in coming 
years; the operators of two reactors in Connecticut have already 
applied for their extensions.   

Power boosts have been handled with virtually no controversy. But 
as the size of the power-boost requests have increased, they have 
drawn the attention of safety advocates who are concerned about 
the risks of accidents that might cause radiation to be released 
if aging plants are pushed to work harder.

The Quad Cities plant in Illinois has had several shutdowns 
related to a 17.8 percent power uprate approved in 2001, 
according to the NRC.

"These plants were designed for 40 years, and we've seen 
indications the older they get, the more problems they have," 
said Paul Blanch, a nuclear engineer and whistleblower who 
revealed major safety lapses at Connecticut's Millstone plant in 
the late 1980s and early 1990s. Blanch considers himself a 
supporter of nuclear power, but is serving as a technical 
consultant to the New England Coalition, a Brattleboro-based 
antinuclear group, because he believes Vermont Yankee to be 
unsafe and wants it to undergo a detailed safety review.

In Vermont, the state's objection is largely focused on a safety 
credit the NRC must grant to Vermont Yankee if it is to receive 
permission for the power boost, allowing it to count pressure 
that builds during an emergency in the containment structure 
around the reactor as part of its safety mechanism. An NRC 
guideline states that no credit should be given for the extra 
containment pressure. Despite that, the NRC has granted 26 of 
these credits over the years.

Vermont's nuclear engineer came across the discrepancy between 
the NRC's guideline and practice last year and asked why the 
agency had ignored its longstanding guideline. O'Brien says it 
took the NRC eight months to respond, and when it came, the 
answers were lacking in detail. If the NRC can answer his 
agency's questions, he said, the state would drop its protest.

NRC officials acknowledge there has been confusion about the 
issue. They have been developing a new policy on safety credits 
as they have gained more experience overseeing nuclear plants 
through the years, but have never formally withdrawn the 
no-credit guideline. They say they are reviewing Vermont Yankee's 
request and will deny it if it is in any way unsafe.

"If you look at the amount of work the NRC is going to invest in 
reviewing this application . . . it's on the order of 4,000 
hours," said Neil Sheehan, a NRC spokesman. Beyond that, he said 
an engineering review is also looking at key safety systems that 
would be affected by the power upgrade at the plant.

Rob Williams, a spokesman for Entergy, which bought Vermont 
Yankee in 2002, said engineers conducted a 10-month engineering 
analysis before determining it was safe to generate more power.

"Our view . . . is that the safety margin is consistent with NRC 
[guidelines]," said Williams.

Meanwhile, critics' concerns have been amplified by a series of 
recent episodes at the plant, which has had a good safety record. 
In April, a crack in a vital instrument called a steam dryer had 
to be repaired and some parts replaced. Later that month, Entergy 
reported it could not find two radioactive pieces of spent fuel 
rods. The pieces were located in July. A month earlier, a 
transformer fire briefly shut the plant.

Williams said paperwork that showed the rods "lost" occurred 
decades ago when the plant had different owners. The steam dryer, 
meanwhile, is repaired, he said, and the transformer fire never 
affected the plant's safety.

In nearby Brattleboro, the plant's recent woes and uprate request 
have reenergized a weakened antinuclear movement that spent much 
of the last generation fighting the Seabrook plant in New 
Hampshire. Hundreds attended a raucous NRC meeting in March about 
Vermont Yankee's uprate; protesters held placards denouncing the 
proposal.

"We don't want the power plant at all," said Peter Alexander, 
executive director of the New England Coalition. He said a 
combination of energy efficiency and state-owned hydroelectric 
plants can provide the power Vermont Yankee does.

But as the US consumption of energy grows an estimated 1.8 
percent per year through 2025, some analysts believe nuclear 
power has to be part of the equation. A plant like Vermont Yankee 
can generate 540 megawatts for less money than all but the most 
efficient natural gas and hydroelectric plants.

Some nuclear safety advocates agree, saying they only want to be 
assured all-possible measures are being taken to avoid an 
accident.

"It's important to understand these safety margins," said David 
Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer with the Union of Concerned 
Scientists. He wants to see new nuclear plants because they will 
be built with the most modern safety measures. While he is not 
against power boosts or license extensions, he wants to make sure 
they are in plants that have been well-maintained. "We just want 
it to be safe," he said.

Beth Daley can be reached at bdaley@globe.com. c Copyright 2004 
Globe Newspaper Company.
*****************************************************************
 15 APP.COM Independent: GOP should oppose nuclear plant license renewal 
		 	 	 	 	
  ASBURY PARK PRESS

Published in the Asbury Park Press 10/13/04

By NICHOLAS CLUNN MANAHAWKIN BUREAU

 LACEY -- Republican lawmakers critical of a plan that would 
renew the operating license of the Oyster Creek nuclear power 
plant could persuade two Republicans running for Township 
Committee to join their cause, said Tony Mandra, an independent 
candidate for committee.

 Both Rep. H. James Saxton, R-N.J., and Sen. Robert W. Singer, 
R-Ocean, have called for a thorough assessment of the reactor, 
beyond what's already prescribed, before they would consider 
supporting a 20-year extension, Mandra pointed out during an 
interview this week.

 "The point is that the biggest Republicans we have around here 
would sway Parker," said Mandra, referring to Mayor John C. 
Parker, a GOP candidate for committee who helped bring Oyster 
Creek here 35 years ago.

 Mandra's comments were made in response to a statement by 
incumbent GOP candidate Brian A. Reid, who suggested last week 
that out-of-town Democrats who have called for the reactor to 
close when its license expires in five years could persuade two 
Democrats running for Township Committee to side with them.

 Reid yesterday said that neither he nor Parker plan to change 
their minds about Oyster Creek if GOP lawmakers critical of 
license renewal attempt to persuade them to reverse course. So 
far, Reid said, no one has tried to influence them.

 Reid and Parker believe the license renewal process is adequate 
and that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is capable of 
safeguarding the country's 103 reactors without help from state 
government, he said.

 "Nobody else has the right to review anything in those plants," 
said Reid. "Why would they put us in jeopardy?"

 Saxton has introduced legislation that would allow an 
independent review of the plant's safety by the National Academy 
of Sciences and expand the criteria used by the Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission in the relicensing process.

 Singer, meanwhile, has called for an unbiased examination and 
assessment to determine potential dangers and vulnerabilities at 
the plant.

 Oyster Creek operator AmerGen intends to submit its renewal 
application to the NRC by mid-2005. An approved application would 
allow the plant to operate for an additional 20 years beyond its 
current 40-year operating license, which expires in April 2009. 

Nicholas Clunn: (609) 978-4597 or Go Back |                
*****************************************************************
 16 BostonHerald.com: Rep scorns mock nuke plant raids
 
By Jay Fitzgerald

Wednesday, October 13, 2004 

Simulated ``force-on-force'' terrorist attacks against Pilgrim, 
Seabrook and other nuclear plants across the country will start 
next month in an effort to grade security at sites.

     But U.S. Rep. Ed Markey [related, bio] (D-Malden) was 
already giving the federal program a failing grade yesterday for 
what he called a corporate conflict of interest by the security 
firm hired to conduct the make-believe raids.

     Wackenhut Corp., of Florida, will assemble the mock 
``adversary forces'' that will try to penetrate security at 
nuclear sites, even though it provides security for nearly half 
of the nation's 103 nuclear reactors, Markey said. 

     Plymouth's Pilgrim station and New Hampshire's Seabrook 
nuclear facility employ Wackenhut to provide security at their 
plants.

     ``Wackenhut employees are going to be grading Wackenhut 
employees,'' said Markey, who fired off a letter to the Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission to complain about the arrangement. ``Every 
facility is going to get an A grade.''

     Federal and industry officials angrily denied the Wackenhut 
tests will be duds.

     Wackenhut, which was hired by an industry group with federal 
approval to conduct the mandatory post-Sept. 11, 2001, exercises, 
will establish a strictly independent group to conduct the 
simulated attacks, officials said.

     The firm's simulated drills will be closely monitored by NRC 
officials, a spokeswoman said.

     ``Either Congressman Markey doesn't understand how the 
program functions or doesn't want to understand,'' said Steve 
Kerekes, spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry 
group.
    
© Copyright by the Boston Herald and Herald Interactive
 No portion of BostonHerald.com or its content may be reproduced
*****************************************************************
 17 UK The Times: British Energy £5bn plan is on target
 
October 13, 2004                       
 
By Peter Klinger
		   		 		
BRITISH ENERGY remains on track to complete its £5 billion 
restructuring by the end of the year, it said yesterday. 

But the embattled nuclear group gave no update on the progress of 
talks with its creditors, which include the Government and 
bondholders, over an extension to the creditor restructuring 
agreement. 

The agreement is not due to expire until January 31 but rebel 
shareholders, who have requisitioned a meeting for October 22, 
want the agreement struck out. 

British Energy is trying to conclude negotiations with its 
creditors over an extension to the agreement before the October 
22 shareholder meeting. 

One of the main rebel shareholders, Polygon Investment Partners, 
a London-based hedge fund holding 5.6 per cent of British 
Energy’s shares, has already backed down from its threat to 
derail the restructuring and will instead vote against the 
October 22 meeting’s resolutions. 

British Energy said yesterday that it continued to work towards 
holding a shareholder meeting before the end of the year, at 
which the final restructuring would be put to a vote. 

If shareholders agree to the plan, they will be left with 2.5 per 
cent of the equity in British Energy, with warrants for a further 
5 per cent. 

However, should the proposals be defeated, creditors are likely 
to force through a restructuring under which shareholders will 
lose their entire equity stake. 

British Energy almost collapsed in 2002 after the wholesale 
electricity market slumped. It was forced to go to the Government 
for an emergency handout and the company drew up a restructuring 
deal with creditors and the Government that is set to favour 
bondholders, leaving shareholders with little.                        

							   	 	
Copyright The Times - timesonline.co.uk
*****************************************************************
 18 New Radioactivity Limit Could Sink Shellfish 
 
Date: Wed, 13 Oct 2004 14:38:29 -0700

 
<x-flowed>
If there is such concern about radioactivity in the North Sea, what about 
contamination of the food chain in Iraq with radioactive particles from the 
use of depleted uranium weaponry?  Perhaps the UN will address the DU 
catastrophe one of these days.    Peace,  Carol Wolman, MD

Click the title of the article to go to Schwartzreport.net.
<http://www.schwartzreport.net>New Radioactivity Limit Could Sink Shellfish

By ROB EDWARDS
New Scientist


Thousands of tonnes of British shellfish currently eaten in Europe could be 
banned under new international safety limits for radioactivity in food, the 
UK Food Standards Agency (FSA) has warned.

Lobsters, cockles and scallops from the north west of England and the south 
west of Scotland are so contaminated with plutonium from the Sellafield 
nuclear complex in Cumbria that they will breach limits due to be 
introduced by the United Nations in 2005.

Although the new limits are welcomed by radiation experts, they are 
regarded as "not proportionate to the actual risk" by the FSA. And they 
have angered the multi-million pound shellfishing industry.

Douglas Macleod, chairman of the Association of Scottish Shellfish Growers, 
said that limits should only be set on the basis of robust science backed 
by credible risk assessments. "Why should the industry be unnecessarily 
crucified if there is no real risk?" he asked.

Cancer risk

The UN's Codex Alimentarius Commission - which brings together the World 
Health Organization and the Food and Agriculture Organisation - is 
proposing a safety limit for plutonium in food of one becquerel per 
kilogram. The aim is to reduce the long-term risk of getting cancer from 
eating these foods to below one in a million.

The proposal takes into account emerging scientific uncertainties about the 
health risks of small amounts of plutonium inside the body and is in line 
with radiation safety limits recommended by other regulatory authorities 
internationally, in the US and in the UK.

The proposed limit seems "reasonable" to Ian Jackson, a radiation 
consultant from Cheshire, England. He pointed out that the nuclear 
reprocessing plant at Sellafield had discharged more plutonium into the sea 
than those in France and Japan.

Winkles picked

Concentrations of plutonium and related isotopes in all the shellfish 
sampled by the FSA between the Ribble estuary at Preston and Kirkcudbright 
on the North Solway coast in 2002 exceeded 1Bq/kg. Winkles from St Bees, 
next to Sellafield, contained 66 Bq/kg.

The area includes one of Europe's biggest cockle fisheries - Morecambe Bay 
which is expected to produce up to 10,000 tonnes in 2004. Most of the 
shellfish harvested from the region are exported to Spain, France and the 
Netherlands.

The new safety limits would have a major economic impact, according to Jim 
Andrew, from the north west England Sea Fisheries Committee, a regulatory 
authority. "But if there is a risk to public health, that has got to come 
first," he said.
posted at 1:34 AM <http://www.schwartzreport.net>0 comments

</x-flowed>
*****************************************************************
 19 [du-list] UNEP request $2.5 to look for DU in Iraq
 
Date: Wed, 13 Oct 2004 14:38:35 -0700

 
<x-flowed>



http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle.jhtml?type=scienceNews&storyID=6229067&section=news

In a separate plan, UNEP has requested $2.5 million from donors to assess 
sites that scientists suspect are polluted by depleted uranium, which is so 
dense it can pierce tank armor.



-- i wonder if they are going to request help from any of the major anti-DU 
groups? does anyone know more about this plan?






		
---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
vote.yahoo.com - Register online to vote today!

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]






------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~-->
Make a clean sweep of pop-up ads. Yahoo! Companion Toolbar.
Now with Pop-Up Blocker. Get it for free!
http://us.click.yahoo.com/L5YrjA/eSIIAA/yQLSAA/FGYolB/TM
--------------------------------------------------------------------~->

To unsubscribe from this groups send a message to 
du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com.  In the body of the message type 
unsubscribe and send.
Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
     http://groups.yahoo.com/group/du-list/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
     du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
     http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
  

</x-flowed>
*****************************************************************
 20 [du-list] Scrap of Mass Destruction
 
Date: Wed, 13 Oct 2004 14:38:54 -0700

 
<x-flowed>

Scrap of Mass Destruction

According to CPA spokesman Sam whitfield1, over 3,000 tanks and armoured 
vehicles littered iraq following the march 2003 invasion. Some of these 
remained from the 1991 Gulf war, including many along the "highway of 
death" the road from Kuwait to Basra where US forces massacred the 
retreating Iraqi Army.

This and other sources of war scrap have since been exported from Iraq in 
large quantities, an estimated 130,0002 tonnes of scrap metal went to 
Jordan, only a "small part"3 of the total exported to Iraqs other 
nieghbours, Iran, Turkey, Syria, and Suadi Arabia.

As many as a hundred trucks a day have been reported at scrapyards in the 
north of Amman, in Jordan.

Some shipments of this scrap have been turned back at the border after 
registering high levels of radiation, but the majority of trucks are never 
properly examined, as recent events in India have revealed4, when a live 
missile in a cargo of Iraqi scrap exploded and killed 10 workers. 
Subsequent investigation by the Indian authorities revelaed more live 
shells and other UXO (Unexploded Ordinance), and exposed the 
inneffectiveness of existing checks on this trade.5

The high value of scrap metal in the world market has driven this huge 
export of war debris, and created a thriving smuggling industry. As prices 
over the last few years have double then tripled, and further rises are 
expected, there is a lot of money to be made from this legacy of war.

But when scrap metal workers in Jordan reported symptoms of radiation 
poisoning6, a committee of 10 government ministries recommended banning the 
import of this scrap. They are not alone in their concerns. Peoples 
Deputies in the Egyptian parliament have called for a similar ban7, also 
citing concerns about radioactive contamination. The United Arab Emirates 
have already put a ban in place, and are spending millions upgrading their 
radiation detection facilities at major ports and scrapyards.

In the wake of the missile explosion and UXO discoveries in India, that 
country looks set to ban the import of certain types of scrap, and to 
tighten its safety checks, a move that is predicted to add another $50 per 
ton to the price of scrap metal.8

The reason behind this growing sense of fear, is that the armoured military 
vehicles from Iraqs battlefields are often radioactive. The Americans used 
"depleted" Uranium-tipped weapons in the two wars against Iraq, firing an 
estimated 350 tons in 1991 and another 2000 tons in the 2003 war.

This "depleted" Uranium, nuclear waste in laymans terms, is estimated to be 
about 70% as radioactive as normal Uranium, though some of it is 
contaminated with post-reactor waste, and consequently much more 
radioactive due to the exotic Isotopes it contains.

The Americans used it for its hard dense and pyrophoric qualities, which 
make it ideal as an armour-penentrating weapon. They claim its 
radioactivity is so weak as to be harmless, and its chemical toxicity, 
which is worse than lead, to be similarly harmless.

Upon impact with tanks, it burns and creates a cloud of radioactive dust, 
most of which disperses into the air and ground contaminating the 
environment of Iraq forever. Some remains inside the tank, either as a 
layer of fine black dust, or as splinters and fragments of the metal itself.

Gieger counter readings9 taken from burnt-out tanks in Iraq revealed high 
levels of radioactivity.

The radioactive and toxic dust and debris from 2000 tons of nuclear waste 
is dispersed over Iraq, but it is spreading fast.Huge sandstorms during the 
hieght of the Invasion will have dispersed some of this radioactive fallout 
throughout the middle-east. Like the fallout from atmospheric testing, it 
is thought this will slowly spread across the planet, causing cancers 
worldwide.

Many Iraqi doctors have reported a huge increase in birth deformities, 
cancers in children, and symptoms of radiation poisoning.10 Some estimates 
claim as many as 44% of Iraqis will now get cancer.

If you find it hard to accept that we could possibly have committed a war 
crime on this scale, then please, research the subject yourself. Now that 
you know this, please consider joining the campaign to ban the use of these 
radioactive weapons, and in the short-term, to ban the export of scrap 
metal from Iraq. Please contact your local media, your local government 
representative, and tell all your friends and family. If Bush and Blair are 
re-elected, further wars using radioactive weapons are highly likely.










1http://www.occupationwatch.org/article.php?id=5045

In the Scrapyards of Jordan, Signs of a looted Iraq


2http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/09/08/iraq.scrap.ap/

Iraqi missile parts trade exposed


3http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2004_10/Iraq_WMD.asp

More US claims on Iraq WMD rebutted


4http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/879401.cms

Scrap bomb trail leads to Iraq


5http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/876069.cms

Intelligence Bureau calls for scanners at ports


6http://www.islam-online.net/English/News/2004-06/16/article06.shtml

Jordan considers ban on Iraqi scrap imports


7http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2004/10/c2967a97-8fb8-4334-9bdb-3978d435375e.html

IAEA concerned over dismantaling of Iraqi Nuclear sites


8http://news.newkerala.com/india-news/?action=fullnews&id=36180

Scrap import restrictions will push up steel prices


9http://www.tacomapjh.org/ondepleteduranium.ht

On Depleted Uranium


10http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,411366,00.html

Letter from Iraq: The Childrens ward


__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]






------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~-->
$9.95 domain names from Yahoo!. Register anything.
http://us.click.yahoo.com/J8kdrA/y20IAA/yQLSAA/FGYolB/TM
--------------------------------------------------------------------~->

To unsubscribe from this groups send a message to 
du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com.  In the body of the message type 
unsubscribe and send.
Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
     http://groups.yahoo.com/group/du-list/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
     du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
     http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
  

</x-flowed>
*****************************************************************
 21 [NukeNet] Artic Threatened By Russian Nuclear Sources As Rad
 
Date: Wed, 13 Oct 2004 14:37:59 -0700

 
<x-flowed>
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/science/AP-Norway-Arctic-Radiation.html

Study: Atomic Radiation Down in Arctic
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: October 12, 2004

Filed at 8:58 p.m. ET

OSLO, Norway (AP) -- Atomic radiation levels are
beginning to decline in the Arctic, years after
Soviet nuclear weapons tests and the Chernobyl
nuclear accident spewed their fallout over the
region, according to a study released Tuesday.

But the far north, with its fragile ecosystems,
remains at risk from vast depots of aging
post-Soviet nuclear weapons, submarines, power
plants and waste in northwest Russia, experts say.

``The Arctic is the most sensitive region for
nuclear fallout, yet parts of the Arctic have the
world's greatest concentration of nuclear
materials,'' Per Strand, of the Norwegian Nuclear
Protection Authority, told The Associated Press.

Since 1991, scientists from the international
Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program have been
keeping track of pollutants that reach the remote
Arctic.

In its 1991-2002 study, released Tuesday, the
group said radiation levels had begun to decline
on Arctic land masses.

``The levels are going down in the Arctic, which
is a good thing. But it has taken much longer than
in the rest of the world,'' said Strand, whose
agency led the study in cooperation with the
Russian environment and meteorology agency
Roshydromet.

He said it has taken longer because tundra
vegetation, including mosses, mushrooms and
grasses, absorbs more radiation than most plants.

That radiation is then passed on to animals, such
as reindeer, and in turn to the people who eat
them, including the Arctic's indigenous Sami
herders.

Because the region is so vast and the types of
radiation are so varied, Strand could give no
overall estimate of the decline.

The 1986 Soviet nuclear power plant accident at
Chernobyl, in Ukraine, killed more than 4,000
people and spread its fallout to the far north.
Its impact can still be measured in the Arctic.

The study also examined other sources of
radiation, including a nuclear armed U.S. B-52
bomber that crashed and burned in Greenland in
1968. It carried four nuclear weapons.

Strand said the greatest threat comes from the
Kola Peninsula in northwest Russia, which has the
world's greatest concentration of nuclear
materials.

The Arctic peninsula, bordering Norway and
Finland, is home to Russia's North Fleet, which
includes 52 decommissioned and rundown nuclear
submarines, many with nuclear fuel still aboard.
At least two Russian nuclear submarines have sunk
while on patrol in the Arctic in the past 15
years.

The peninsula is also home to depots of nuclear
weapons and an old nuclear power plant. The
Norwegian environmental group Bellona also says
about 21,000 spent nuclear fuel assemblies are
stored there and many of the containers are
leaking.

Strand said it will take billions of dollars to
clean up.

The Arctic monitoring program was set up to advise
the Arctic Council, made up of the governments of
eight Arctic nations: Canada, Denmark (with
Greenland), Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia,
Sweden and the United States.

------

On the Net:

The Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program:
www.amap.no








_______________________________________________________________________
Subscribe/Unsubscribe Here: http://www.energyjustice.net/nukenet/
Change your settings at:
http://energyjustice.net/mailman/listinfo/nukenet_energyjustice.net

</x-flowed>
*****************************************************************
 22 The Hindu: Radioactivity workshop 

Thursday, Oct 14, 2004 

INDIAN ASSOCIATION of Nuclear Chemists and Allied Scientists 
(IANCAS), a professional body of leading scientists and engineers 
engaged in research activities in frontier areas of science and 
technology proposes to organize one-day work-shops on 
"Radioactivity" for the benefit of higher secondary level 
students &teachers (english and Tamil medium), and also the PG 
science students and faculty of colleges and universities. 
Principles of nuclear chemistry, radioactivity and its 
measurement and applications will be covered in the forenoon 
theory session. 

It will be followed by thought-provoking demonstration experiment 
on half-life determination and radiation attenuation in the 
afternoon. Students themselves shall be computing the half-life 
values. 

Schools/colleges interested in organising such workshops can 
contact Mr. J. Daniel Chellappa, Senior Scientific Officer, 
IGCAR, Shastri Bhavan, Chennai, phone 044-28253993 or Mobile 
98407- 77546. 

Comments to : thehindu@vsnl.com  Copyright © 2004, The Hindu 
*****************************************************************
 23 BJP: UPCO to clean up contaminants at Phoenix site - 

2004-10-13 - The Business Journal of Phoenix
 
The Arizona Department of Environmental Quality Wednesday 
announced that it had entered into an agreement with Universal 
Propulsion Co., also known as Goodrich, requiring the company to 
clean up contaminated soil and groundwater at its north Phoenix 
facility and cease open burning of hazardous materials at the 
facility. 

"This consent order will ensure that UPCO cleans up the 
contamination at this facility and complies with the requirements 
of Arizona's environmental laws," said ADEQ Director Steve Owens. 
"We are committed to ensuring that UPCO's operations do not pose 
a risk to residents in the area." 

Earlier this year, tests revealed that groundwater at the 
facility at 25401 N. Central Ave. was contaminated with 
perchlorate. 

Since that time, UPCO has installed groundwater monitoring wells, 
conducted additional testing and sampled the drinking water wells 
of nearby residents. 

The consent order also requires UPCO to submit monitoring and 
remediation plans to ADEQ and provides that ADEQ will determine 
the clean-up method to be used at the site after reviewing the 
plans. 

The consent order also prohibits UPCO from conducting open burns 
at the facility until ADEQ has acted on the company's application 
for a new open-burn permit. 

"This agreement is good for Goodrich and our employees, our 
neighbors, the city of Phoenix and the state of Arizona," the 
company announced in a written statement. The statement went on 
to read, "It gives assurances about remediation efforts and 
outlines how we will conduct business in the future. Our mission 
is to continue to operate a safe and successful business and 
continue to be a good, responsible corporate citizen." 

ADEQ issued a notice of violation to UPCO Sept. 22 for conducting 
several open burns after its previous permit had expired. 

Owens said ADEQ will take enforcement action against UPCO for the 
violations. 

For more: . 

© 2004 American City Business Journals Inc.
*****************************************************************
 24 Hawk Eye: Claims bill reaches Bush's desk 

Wednesday, October 13, 2004, Site updated daily at 11 a.m. CST   
      
Effort to shift weapons worker payments to Labor Dept. close to 
fruition. 

By MATTHEW LeBLANC

An overhauled federal workers' compensation program for ailing 
former nuclear weapons workers should provide long–anticipated 
payments for thousands who contracted illnesses while working at 
bomb–making factories, supporters say. 

A panel of House and Senate leaders agreed Friday to revamp the 
4–year–old Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation 
Program. Congress approved changes Saturday that include moving 
claims filed under the program to the Department of Labor. 
President Bush is expected to sign the bill later this month. 

The move caps a months–long effort to introduce changes in the 
law, which has paid few of more than 23,000 former workers who 
have filed claims. Labor officials, who congressional 
investigators say are better suited to run the program, are 
expected to begin running the program by next year. 

The Department of Energy, which previously ran the program, was 
the subject of separate investigations by the Senate Finance 
Committee and the Government Accounting Office in the past year. 
Three Senate Energy Committee hearings also were scheduled to 
discuss the program's shortcomings. Officials there will no 
longer play a role in evaluating claims and securing payments. 

"This thing's a winner," said Richard Miller, who has been an 
advocate for change in EEOICP. Government Accountability Project, 
a Washington, D.C.–based watchdog group where Miller is senior 
policy analyst, issued a press release praising the legislation 
last week. 

"Since the law was enacted in October 2000," the release said, 
"DOE has expended $95 million on administrative costs, but has 
rendered determinations by physicians' panels on fewer than 8 
percent of its claims by October 2004 and has only secured 
payments for a mere 31 workers as of August 2004." 

A retooled EEOICP includes provisions on the amount of 
compensation for which each worker is entitled. It also includes 
a government–appointed ombudsman charged with providing 
information about the program to claimants. 

That's good news for former Iowa Army Ammunition Plant employees, 
who have complained that the claims process is long and 
confusing. 

Most notable among the changes is the way in which determinations 
are made on claims. Labor officials — not Energy personnel — will 
now oversee and make decisions on claims filed under EEOICP. 
Also, the federal government will dole out compensation payments. 
Previously, claimants were forced to file state workers' 
compensation claims in their home state. 

"The former workers at the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant have 
suffered long enough," said Sen. Charles Grassley, who helped 
push for the changes with Kentucky Sen. Jim Bunning. 

The new $1.16 billion program — which includes another government 
compensation program — will favor claimants under Labor, which 
has experience running workers' compensation programs, Miller 
said. Under the previous program, money had to be allocated to 
Congress to dole out the payments. Under the new program, the 
money for payments is guaranteed. 

"It's actually better because it's easier to implement," Miller 
said. "I think, overall, people will fare better." 

IAAP workers in Middletown built, test–fired and disassembled 
components of nuclear weapons during the Cold War, and the new 
program will affect them and workers in Colorado, Idaho, 
Kentucky, New Mexico, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee and 
Washington. 

Terrie Barrie, a workers' advocate in Colorado, sent an e–mail to 
news media outlets that said, simply, "WE DID IT!!!" 

The changes will not be immediate, however. Bush is expected to 
sign the bill, despite his administration's stated opposition. 
After that, thousands of files must be moved from Energy offices 
to Labor officials. Included in the bill is a clause that gives 
Energy 210 days to make the transition. 

A Labor Department spokeswoman said Tuesday she would examine 
plans for her agency to take over the compensation program. 
Workers who have already filed claims under the program are not 
expected to be affected by the changes and will be considered for 
compensation under Labor guidelines. 

The new program also determines the amount of compensation based 
on the extent of the injury and other factors, according to a 
complicated formula devised by lawmakers. The most any worker can 
receive is $250,000. 

Survivors of dead former workers are still eligible for payments, 
also. That amount is capped at $175,000. 

About $850 million has been set aside for compensation payments. 

In a statement Friday, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham praised 
his agency's efforts under EEOICP, but does not specifically 
address the revamped program. 

"From day one, the Bush administration has been committed to 
taking care of former Department of Energy contract workers who 
have become ill from their dedicated service to our national 
defense complex," Abraham said. "We have worked diligently to 
meet the criteria Congress set to address workers' applications 
for compensation and now, together, the departments of Energy and 
Labor remain committed to meeting that important goal."   
  
The Hawk Eye 800 S. Main St., Burlington, Iowa 52601 319-754-8461 
· 1-800-397-1708 · FAX 319-754-6824 · 
*****************************************************************
 25 AGI: SARDINIA: HEALTH COMMISSION, YES TO URANIUM INVESTIGATION 
        
Agenzia Giornalistica Italia - News In English
 
Thursday October 14, 2004     h.05.36     
      
- Cagliari - The health commission of the Sardinian Regional 
Council has unanimously approved the resolution that gives the 
go-ahead to the investigation into the effects of depleted 
uranium on the island. 

From next week the hearings will begin with representative 
associations and citizens committees, unions of towns 
substantially involved in military operations and those 
responsible for military health. 

The commissioners have been given a fat dossier that, besides 
press articles, contains the results of investigations in 
Sardinia near firing ranges and those coming from the Mandelli 
parliamentary commission. 

The aim of the investigation, which will be undertaken by the 
commission for a number of months, is to check if there is an 
objective responsibility for the higher levels of deaths and 
suspect cases in the zones close to military firing ranges and if 
the Sardinia region has not been informed of certain particulars 
concerning the military presence on their island. (AGI) 
Cli/Rob/Cog 131959 OTT 04 


  COPYRIGHTS 2002-2003 AGI S.p.A.     [Invia questo articolo]
Invia questo articolo   

  
*****************************************************************
 26 AU ABC: Marshalls nuclear compensation fund nears empty 

The Marshall Islands Nuclear Claims Tribunal says its 
compensation fund is nearly exhausted. 

The more than 1,700 Marshall Islanders with radiation-related 
health illnesses will begin receiving partial payments on 21st 
October.

The Tribunal says it regrets it can't pay off these awards in 
full due to the inadequate amount of money left in the Nuclear 
Claims Fund.

It says about 15 million US dollars is owed on personal injury 
awards, but the balance in the fund is only about five-million 
dollars.

The fund was established by the American government in 1986 and 
it provided 150 million dollars as full and final compensation 
for the 67 nuclear weapons tests it conducted in the area.

A Marshall's petition for additional compensation has been with 
the US Congress for more than four years. 


14/10/2004 05:12:05 | ABC Radio Australia News 

src="http://www.abc.net.au/
*****************************************************************
 27 Las Vegas SUN: Exhibit Pays Tribute to Atom Bomb Workers

Today: October 13, 2004 at 1:38:31 PDT 

 By CHERYL WITTENAUER ASSOCIATED PRESS 

WELDON SPRING, Mo. (AP) - For more than a year, Denise Brock has
been trying to win government compensation for workers who were
exposed to high levels of radiation while helping to create the
atom bomb and Cold War-era weapons. 

Now Brock has her eye on another kind of recognition for their
toil. 

Brock is working with the Department of Energy to build an
exhibit that will tell the story of more than 3,500 Missourians
who worked on the U.S. atom bomb program and at Cold War-era
nuclear sites in St. Louis, Weldon Spring and Hematite, Mo. 

"It's bittersweet," said Brock, whose father died of cancer in
the 1960s after working at the old Mallinckrodt Chemical Co.
plant in St. Louis, which produced uranium dioxide for the atom
bomb. 

The tribute should be completed by year's end and will become a
permanent display at the Weldon Spring Interpretive Center. 

The display will include a timeline of the nuclear age,
photographs, a book of workers' names, and a glass case of old
badges and other plant artifacts. A replica of the St. Louis
Gateway Arch will emphasize the St. Louis connection, Brock
said. 

The exhibit also will recognize workers at a Hematite, Mo.,
plant that turned uranium into fuel rods under a string of
owners from Mallinckrodt in 1956 to Westinghouse Electric in
2001. 

The DOE's Pam Thompson said recognizing the workers' efforts
during World War II and the Cold War is just as important as the
government offering them compensation and decontaminating the
site where they worked. 

"It's important to tell the story that we closed the circle for
them," Thompson said. 

A four-year-old federal law requires the government to
compensate workers in the nuclear weapons industry, or their
survivors, for job-related cancer or other diseases. Workers
from about 350 sites nationwide, including 10 in Missouri, may
qualify. 

But critics call the system burdensome and time-consuming.
Claimants must show proof of employment as well as exposure to
radiation, even though records often are missing or were never
kept. 

Tony Windisch, who suffers from cancer, said he couldn't serve
in World War II, so instead he worked on the Manhattan Project
in St. Louis, helping to create the atomic bomb that annihilated
Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 

Now, as he sees his co-workers dying from multiple cancers, and
their survivors struggling to get compensation, he feels
betrayed by a government that he says didn't adequately protect
them from radiation exposure. 

"To find out at this late date, not only did they destroy
(workplace) documents, but treated us as guinea pigs, that's
what really angers me," said Windisch, 78. 

-- 


 
*****************************************************************
 28 NRC: NRC Approves Third License Amendment for Nuclear Fuel Services' Blended Low-Enriched
Uranium Project

News Release - 2004-13 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office 
of Public Affairs     Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC 
20555-0001     E-mail: No. 04-130     October 12, 2004   
  

amendment to authorize Nuclear Fuel Services, Inc., to possess 
and use Special Nuclear Material at two facilities on its Erwin, 
Tennessee, complex. The amendment is the final of three 
associated with the Blended Low-Enriched Uranium (BLEU) project. 

        This license amendment allows NFS to begin using the 
oxide conversion building and effluent processing building for 
the BLEU project. 

        Special Nuclear Material refers to plutonium, 
uranium-233, or uranium enriched in the isotopes uranium-233 or 
uranium-235. 

        The NRC approved the first amendment, for a uranyl 
nitrite building, in July 2003. A second amendment, for the 
blended, low-enriched uranium preparation facility, was approved 
in January. 

        NFS also submitted changes to its security plan to 
address physical protection of the new buildings, as well as 
changes to its nuclear materials control plan to support the 
amendment request. These changes were approved in the NRCs 
safety evaluation report for the license amendment. 

        Notice of the approved license amendment was published 
today in the Federal Register. Non-proprietary portions of the 
safety evaluation report are available on the NRCs ADAMS 
document system, at 
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams/web-based.html, using 
accession number ML042660436. Help in using ADAMS is available by 
contacting the NRC Public Document Room staff at 301-415-4737 or 
1-800-397-4209, or by e-mail at . The documents are also 
available for inspection at the NRCs Public Document Room at 
11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Md.   



  


 	Last revised Wednesday, October 13, 2004 	   
*****************************************************************
 29 Nevada Appeal: Yucca Mountain project may be on last legs
 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 
October 13, 2004     				 				
               
 Nevada's nuclear-waste expert said Tuesday he believes the Yucca 
Mountain project is on its last legs.

"I do believe we're very very close to putting this thing away," 
Nuclear Projects Manager Bob Loux told the Board of Examiners.

Loux said, however, the Department of Energy has sharply cut back 
Nevada's appropriation for the year and, without an infusion of 
$1.1 million in state cash, he won't have the money to prepare 
arguments that could finally block the application to license 
Yucca Mountain as the nation's nuclear garbage dump.

The Energy Department suffered major damage to the project this 
year - most significantly in July when a federal appeals court 
ruling threw out the radiation emission standards DOE wanted to 
use. 

The court ruled those standards can't be rewritten and lowered, 
that the DOE and the Environmental Protection Agency must use 
safety standards set by the National Academy of Science requiring 
the environment and people be protected for upwards of 400,000 
years, not just 10,000 years.

In addition, he said the agency's rules for the project have been 
rejected.

"They have no emission standards. They have no rules," he said.

Loux said the DOE and the nuclear power industry are "trying some 
type of Machiavellian plot" allowing them to start the licensing 
process anyway. He said his agency and the Attorney General's 
Office are prepared to ask any application they file be tossed 
out.

"We think legally they can't proceed," he said. "There's so much 
uncertainty now, we don't know how things can proceed."

The biggest roadblock, he said, is a general consensus that Yucca 
Mountain will be unable to meet requirements it contain radiation 
to safe levels for more than 100,000 years.

"There's no appetite in Congress to step in and change the 
standards," he said

He told the board the state money is needed to keep his attorneys 
and expert scientists on staff into next year to prepare for and 
fend off any new attempts by the DOE to push the project forward 
since the federal money Nevada is supposed to get has been 
withheld.

Loux said another key sign the project is on its last legs is 
that the Yucca Mountain project's $800 million budget request has 
been tentatively reduced to just $131 million.

"That's devastating to their program," he said. "I think it's 
about done. They just have to realize it."

Contact reporter Geoff Dornan at nevadaappeal@sbcglobal.netor 
687-8750.

All contents © Copyright 2004 nevadaappeal.com
Nevada Appeal - 580 Mallory Way - Carson City, NV 89701                         
*****************************************************************
 30 Las Vegas RJ: Court refuses to delay radiation ruling 
 
Wednesday, October 13, 2004
 
Nuclear industry seeking court review By STEVE TETREAULT
STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU
 

WASHINGTON -- A federal court has denied a nuclear industry
appeal to keep a damaging Yucca Mountain ruling on hold until
the Supreme Court decides whether to intervene.
 
 The decision means a July court ruling throwing out a
10,000-year radiation protection measure for the proposed Nevada
nuclear waste repository could become final within a week.
 
 The legal setback could further complicate the Energy
Department's repository program, which is facing other financial
and technical problems.
 
 Energy Department and the Environmental Protection Agency
officials had said they accepted the July ruling and planned to
develop new radiation standards to replace the ones invalidated
by the court.
 
 But the Nuclear Energy Institute indicated it wanted to ask the
Supreme Court to review the issue. Industry attorneys asked a
three-judge panel at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District
of Columbia to delay formalizing the July decision until the
higher court could rule.
 
 The appeals court denied the NEI appeal in a one-sentence order
Friday that became available on Tuesday. 
NEI officials "are assessing what our options are and we don't
have a firm hand on it yet," spokesman Steve Kerekes said.
 
 Asked if NEI might abandon its bid to take the Yucca Mountain
case to the Supreme Court, Kerekes said, "That's a possibility,
but I don't know. Everything is up in the air right now."
 
 The deadline for filing a Supreme Court appeal is Nov. 30.
 
 NEI in court papers said the Yucca case raises questions about
EPA powers to form regulations. Legal experts considered it a
longshot that Supreme Court justices would take an interest. 
The industry's effort to attract the justices' attention
probably would be hurt further because the government was not
planning to join the appeal, the experts said.
 
 The July ruling has complicated the Energy Department's plans
to move the repository project forward. 
DOE officials have said they want to complete a repository
license application by the end of the year, but it has been
unclear whether the Nuclear Regulatory Commission could review
an application that lacks radiation protection standards.
 
 DOE deputy secretary Kyle McSlarrow said last month the
project's time lines were being reassessed in light of mounting
problems.
 
 
Copyright Las Vegas Review-Journal
*****************************************************************
 31 Las Vegas RJ: Group admits violating state open-meeting law 
 
Wednesday, October 13, 2004

By KEITH ROGERS REVIEW-JOURNAL

Elected officials from rural Nevada who met behind closed doors
to discuss a rail corridor to the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste
site violated the state open-meeting law, the state attorney
general's office says.
 
 The group, known as the Central Nevada Community Protection
Working Group, was found to be a public body and admitted to
violating the open-meeting law, according to a settlement
agreement signed by Deputy Attorney General Neil Rombardo.
 
 To avoid a criminal investigation, the group agreed "to hold as
many public meetings as necessary to cure its failure to comply"
with the open-meeting law, the agreement stated.
 
 "At these meetings (the group) shall reconsider all past items
and not consider any new items until all past items have been
considered in public," said the agreement with officials from
Lincoln, Esmeralda and Nye counties and the city of Caliente. 
The group was formed last year at the suggestion of the
Department of Energy. It includes Nye County commissioners Henry
Neth and Candice Trummell; Esmeralda County Commissioner Ben
Viljoen; Lincoln County commissioners Spencer Hafen and Tommy
Rowe; Caliente Mayor Kevin Phillips and City Councilman Ashley
Moore.
 
 Phillips had said the open-meeting law didn't apply because
they were "a very informal working group ... less than a quorum
of folks talking about issues relate."
 
 Instead, Rombardo found that the group, because of its members
and function, meets the definition of a public body.
 
 
Copyright Las Vegas Review-Journal
*****************************************************************
 32 Las Vegas RJ: YUCCA MOUNTAIN PROJECT: Money request approved 
 
Wednesday, October 13, 2004
 

$1.75 million sought to fight repository By SEAN WHALEY
REVIEW-JOURNAL CAPITAL BUREAU
 

CARSON CITY -- A panel that includes Gov. Kenny Guinn approved a
request Tuesday for $1.75 million in additional funding for the
state's ongoing efforts to fight construction of a nuclear waste
repository at Yucca Mountain.
 
 The request for $1.1 million for the Agency for Nuclear
Projects and $650,000 for the attorney general's office for
outside legal assistance was approved by the Board of Examiners
and will go to the Legislature's Interim Finance Committee on
Nov. 17.
 
 Bob Loux, executive director of the Agency for Nuclear
Projects, said the additional funding he requested from the
Legislature's contingency fund is needed for several reasons.
 
 The U.S. Department of Energy has indicated it plans to file a
licensing application for Yucca Mountain with the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission in December, and the state has to be ready
with its experts and legal advisers, he said. But funding to the
state from Congress for its Yucca Mountain efforts is in limbo,
because a new federal budget has not been passed for this fiscal
year, which began Oct. 1, he said.
 
 If the federal budget is approved later this year and Nevada
gets its funding, the extra state funding may not be required,
Loux said.
 
 Though it is unlikely the DOE will be able to file its
licensing application because of Nevada's legal victory in the
District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals in July, the state
has to be ready, he told the board. 
That court decision voided a 10,000-year radiation standard the
Environmental Protection Agency had written for the nuclear
waste repository, suggesting the period should be longer,
perhaps hundreds of thousands of years.
 
 "We think the program is in big trouble," Loux told the board.
 
 The board made up of Guinn, Attorney General Brian Sandoval and
Secretary of State Dean Heller, approved the request for funding.
 
 Guinn said the money should last through at least March, when
the Legislature can debate the funding issues for the agency.
 
 The 2003 Legislature put in just under $1 million a year in
general fund revenue to support the state agency in its fight in
the current two-year budget.
 
 Another $2 million was allocated to the attorney general's
office for legal expenses related to Yucca Mountain in the
current two-year budget, but due to a misunderstanding, about
$1.1 million reverted to the state general fund at the end of
the 2003-04 fiscal year on June 30. The $650,000 request by
Sandoval would be covered by the reverted funds. 
The Nuclear Projects Agency has relied on federal support for
its fight, but Congress allocated only $1 million for fiscal
2004, far less than the $2.5 million anticipated. And with the
current budget stalemate, no funding is yet available this year.
 
 Sandoval has sued the Energy Department for more government
funding.
 
 Guinn and most Nevada political leaders oppose plans by the DOE
to bury 77,000 tons of highly radioactive waste at the site, 100
miles northwest of Las Vegas.
 
 
Copyright Las Vegas Review-Journal
*****************************************************************
 33 Beaufort Gazette: Citizens board requests one more nuclear waste 
shipping container 

beaufortgazette.com as we intended. 

Published Wed, Oct 13, 2004 

BY MICHAEL R. SHEA

Gazette staff writer The Savannah River Site Citizens Advisory 
Board is asking that the Department of Energy provide at least 
one more $1 million nuclear waste shipping container to transport 
low-level waste to its final resting place in New Mexico.

 The 25-member board, which met Tuesday in Beaufort, advises the 
U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. Environmental Protection 
Agency, and the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental 
Control on nuclear waste management issues.

 Nuclear waste sites across the country are shipping their waste 
to treatment plants such as New Mexico's waste isolation pilot 
plant. Despite the demand for the million-dollar shipping 
containers, the Department of Energy hasn't built any more. 

"As more sites are shipping their waste, the demand for the 
containers is high," said Jean Sulc, chairwoman of the Citizens 
Review Board. 

The Savannah River Site receives three empty, reusable containers 
a week to package and ship radioactive material to the New Mexico 
treatment site. Officials say they need 20 a month to maintain 
their closure schedule, which would be complete in 2025.

 Since the end of the Cold War arms race, the Aiken site, north 
of Jasper County on the Savannah River, has been under a closure 
project. The National Nuclear Security Administration oversees 
the site and the environmental management concerns and closure 
are handled by the Department of Energy, the state and the review 
board.

 Built in the 1950s, some of the holding tanks, designed to store 
the waste materials from Eisenhower-era bomb-building days, are 
still used.

 "They're already past their life expectancy, that's the issue." 
Sulc said. 

SRS has 49 tanks on site, each holding approximately 1 million 
gallons of waste. 

Jack DeVine, the chief closure officer in charge of shutting down 
the Westinghouse Savannah River Company, which handles the waste 
management at SRS, presented a progress report on dismantling the 
site and containing the nuclear waste.

 DeVine said the site is a sign of hope because all the nuclear 
material that was used for "weapons applications are now used for 
peaceful purposes" such as fuel for satellites.

 Despite a full-time tank inspection team, regular integrity 
tests and a yearly report to the state Department of Health and 
Environmental Control, SRS has seen and repaired several cracks. 

"We're very well aware the life cycle of these tanks, and they 
have reached the end of their useful life, but so far they 
critically failed," Sulc said. "The concern is to move them as 
soon as possible."

 The worst-case scenario is a leak into the local environment, 
the Savannah River. 

"We don't want a leak and we know we have some problems," said 
Charlie Hansen, assistant manager of waste disposal for 
Westinghouse Savannah River Co. Contact Michael R. Shea at 
986-5529 or . 

Copyright © 2004 The Beaufort Gazette • Use of this
*****************************************************************
 34 Las Vegas SUN: Examiners OK added funds to fight Yucca

Today: October 13, 2004 at 9:22:43 PDT 

By Cy Ryan 
 SUN CAPITAL BUREAU

 CARSON CITY -- The Yucca Mountain nuclear dump is "more than
likely dead" because of problems at the Department of Energy,
but more money is needed to try to drive a stake through the
project's heart, a state official said Tuesday.

 Bob Loux, executive director of the Agency for Nuclear
Projects, told the state Board of Examiners that the federal
budget for the high-level nuclear dump is "in great jeopardy."
And he believes it's unlikely that the energy department will
file its application for Yucca Mountain by December, its
intended target.

 But just in case, the board fulfilled Loux's request and
recommended an additional $1.1 million for his agency to
continue to retain attorneys and scientists to fight the
potential application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

 The board also approved a request for $650,000 to pay attorneys
to continue the legal battles against Yucca Mountain.

 Those recommendations now go to the Legislative Interim Finance
Committee that meets Nov. 17 for final approval.

 Gov. Kenny Guinn, chairman of the examiners board, suggested
the state file a lawsuit to stop the Energy Department from
processing its application before the regulatory commission.

 The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., ruled on July 9
that the Environmental Protection Agency did not follow the law
when it established a 10,000-year standard for protection of the
public from radiation at the site.

 The EPA adopted a rule that people would not be exposed to more
than 15 millirems of radiation for 10,000 years after the
nuclear dump opened at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las
Vegas. The court said the law required the EPA to follow the
suggestion of the National Academy of Sciences, which proposed
300,000 years.

 Guinn said that should disqualify the Energy Department from
applying or using the old standard.

 Loux said there was "no appetite" in Congress to change the
standard, as such a change could take years to adopt. Guinn said
the state should sue if the Energy Department submits an
application based on the standard that has been struck down by
the appeals court.

 The governor suggested the state seek a temporary restraining
order against the Energy Department if it files the application
without a new standard.

 Loux suggested the federal agency might try a "Machiavellian"
maneuver in submitting the application to get the hearings
started while waiting for the new standard to be adopted.

 But, he said, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has a four-year
deadline to consider an application.

 In the past, Loux said, it has taken eight years to develop a
radiation standard.

 Loux said the Energy Department in the past has been getting
$500 million to $600 million a year to finance the study and
preparation of Yucca Mountain. But he said the department may
receive only $131 million this year. If that happens, there will
be "massive layoffs," he said.

 The department, in its budget submission, failed to follow the
guidelines in asking for money for Yucca Mountain, hence the
qualification for only $131 million this next fiscal year.

 While the Energy Department is having troubles, Loux said there
are "so many uncertainties that it would be imprudent for us not
to be prepared" if the hearings before the regulatory commission
start.

 Loux said the extra $1.1 million would last the agency until
March. Guinn said the Legislature would be in session then and
the agency could ask it for more money.

 If the Department of Energy files its application in December,
it must electronically submit its entire record of documents.
And the state must provide an electronic submission of documents
90 days before any hearing begins, said Loux. Some of the
requested $1.1 million would be spent on that work.

 In the past, the state has received $2.5 million a year from
the federal government to prepare its case. But the state got
only $1 million last year. The state appealed both to the Energy
Department and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to recover the
$1.5 million, but those requests were denied.

 If the state does somehow wind up getting the $2.5 million from
the federal government, the $1.1 million from the state's
emergency fund would be returned, Loux said.

 Attorney General Brian Sandoval said the $650,000 is to
continue to pay private lawyers for their handling of several
Yucca-related lawsuits for the state. The state has filed suit
in the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., contending the
federal government improperly withheld about $4 million from the
state for the nuclear budget. The court arguments in that case
are set for Jan. 12.

 In addition, the Nuclear Energy Institute, a private group, has
indicated it will appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court the radiation
standards ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington,
D.C., Loux said.

 Also, Sandoval said, the state is waging a third lawsuit to
prevent nuclear waste from being shipped to Nevada from another
state.

 
 
*****************************************************************
 35 Las Vegas SUN: Columnist Jeff German: GOP lacks courage to fight Yucca 
 
Columnist Jeff German: GOP lacks courage to fight Yucca 
Jeff German's column appears Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and
Sundays in the Sun. Reach him at or (702) 259-4067.
 
•••

 Have they no shame? No fortitude to stand up to the president
of the United States?

 For weeks now, with Nevada considered a battleground state in
the race for president, top Republican leaders here, from the
governor on down, have had a rare opportunity to put political
pressure on President Bush to halt the Yucca Mountain Project.

 Polls show the race is a dead heat.

 And Bush, in all likelihood, needs Nevada's five electoral
votes if he wants to defeat Democratic challenger John Kerry,
who has promised to kill the nuclear waste dump.

 If Nevada Republicans had any political courage, they would do
what they should have done weeks ago -- tell the president they
won't support his re-election unless he does something about
Yucca Mountain.

 Courage, however, isn't part of the state GOP creed. Elected
Republicans here have chosen to be good party soldiers and back
Bush's re-election unconditionally. They have chosen to put the
president's future over our own.

 And they don't even care that they're letting us down -- or
worse, our children.

 On Thursday, the same day Kerry will be in Las Vegas,
Republicans are holding a campaign rally for Bush at the Thomas
&Mack Center. The man who wants to send the nation's deadliest
nuclear waste our way will be on hand to pat his party loyalists
on the back and tell them how rosy things are here. And nobody
will come close to pressing the president on Yucca Mountain.

 Even as the spin pours out of the president's mouth, his Energy
Department in Washington will be moving forward with its license
application for the multibillion-dollar project, making those
loyalists look like fools -- again.

 "This is the guy who stabbed Nevada in the back," says former
Democratic Sen. Richard Bryan, a member of the state's Nuclear
Waste Projects Commission. "He made commitments to us on Yucca
Mountain and no sooner does he get elected than he turns on us."

 If anyone is going to have leverage with Bush at this critical
stage in the election, it's going to be the Republicans, the
members of his own party, Bryan says.

 The leverage, however, in true Yucca Mountain tradition, is
being wasted.

 "The Bush administration," Bryan says, "could be doing so much
more for us, but it really has done everything it possibly can
to accelerate the placement of high-level waste in Nevada."

 This is why it's so troubling watching the Republicans
demonstrate their blind allegiance to the president.

 At a time when the fight against Yucca Mountain is starting to
go our way in the courts, we continue to send mixed signals
about our desire to stop the waste from coming here.

 Republicans are putting on a public lovefest for a president
who doesn't care about the well-being of this state.

 You can almost see Karl Rove and company laughing back at
Bush/Cheney headquarters.

 They sure are spineless in Nevada, the president's handlers
must be saying.

 
 
*****************************************************************
 36 CANOE.CA: Saskatchewn uranium discovery announced
 
CP

VANCOUVER -- Shares in UEX Corp. closed down more than eight per 
cent yesterday after the exploration company announced it has 
discovered uranium at its joint venture in Saskatchewan and that 
it was issuing new shares. UEX (TSX:UEX) stock closed down 20 
cents, or 8.5 per cent, at $2.14 yesterday afternoon on the 
Toronto stock market. Earlier in the day it traded as high as 
$2.55, jumping almost five per cent when the discovery was first 
announced. 

"This discovery validates UEX's commitment to its exploration 
efforts in the northern rim of the Athabasca Basin," CEO Stephen 
Sorensen said. 

"The Black Lake discovery opens up the potential of a large, 
underexplored area of the Athabasca Basin." 

The discovery comes at a time when spot uranium prices are 
soaring near $20 US per pound on worldwide demand for nuclear 
energy. 

The Black Lake joint venture is operated by UEX. It is 70 per 
cent owned by UEX and 30 per cent owned by Cogema, a subsidiary 
of French energy company Areva. 

"We believe this is something peripheral to the main area of 
mineralization, so we're planning to go back in the winter and 
put many holes there," UEX spokesman Warren Stanyer said. 

Copyright© 2004, CANOE, a division of Netgraphe Inc. All
*****************************************************************
 37 The Ledger: Duke Power has no plans to dismantle controversial MOX program

  Lakeland, Florida | October 13, 2004     
  
By PAUL NOWELL AP Business Writer YORK, S.C. The concrete moat 
under construction at Duke Power's Catawba Nuclear Power Station 
south of Charlotte has little to do with the utility's plans to 
start burning mixed-oxide fuel containing small amounts of 
weapons-grade plutonium next spring.

Designed to prevent everything from passenger cars to military 
tanks from getting too close to the reactor, the moat is part of 
a post-Sept 11, 2001, security upgrade under way at the plant.

Still, company officials surely wouldn't mind if the barricade 
also kept away angry environmental groups who claim that 
mixed-oxide fuel, or MOX, is potentially dangerous and could make 
the nuclear plant a target for terrorists.

"They are still as adamant as ever," Steven Nesbit, Duke's MOX 
fuel project manager, said Monday when he was asked if critics 
have eased their condemnation of the MOX program in recent 
months. "If they've eased up, I haven't heard about it."

Reached Tuesday at her office, Blue Ridge Environmental Defense 
League executive director Janet Zeller said her group remains 
staunchly opposed to the MOX tests.

"Our organization is dedicated to stopping Duke from endangering 
the people around Charlotte," she said. "Even the amount that 
will be shipped there for the testing is enough plutonium to make 
several nuclear bombs."

Zeller can't believe there isn't more of a public outcry about 
Duke's plans.

"They are saying, 'Trust us,' and I don't think we should," she 
said. "They have given no reasons to trust them and they have 
made the Charlotte area a greater terrorist target."

Duke plans to start testing the fuel in early 2005 at the Catawba 
Nuclear Power Station near York - about 30 miles south of 
Charlotte - and the McGuire Nuclear Power Station, 20 miles north 
of Charlotte near Huntersville, N.C.

The Duke plants would be the first in the United States to burn 
MOX, which contains a small percentage of weapons-grade 
plutonium. MOX made from plutonium is now used in more than 30 
European reactors.

The company says using MOX to generate electricity is a practical 
way to consume surplus plutonium from nuclear weapons and reduce 
the risk of terrorist groups or rogue nations obtaining the 
material.

Built in 1974 at a cost of $3.6 billion, Catawba produces 2,258 
megawatts of electricity by burning uranium dioxide. It - along 
with McGuire and a third plant in Seneca, S.C. - is one of three 
nuclear stations owned by Duke Power.

In August, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued a preliminary 
finding allowing Duke Power to test MOX fuel at Catawba. The 
commission found that testing would not increase the likelihood 
of an accident at the plant or worsen the results in the event of 
an accident.

Zeller's group, based in Glendale Springs, N.C., has been one of 
the most vocal opponents of the MOX program but has not yet 
decided on a response to the NRC's decision, said Diane Curran, a 
Washington attorney representing the group.

Duke said the MOX fuel would be introduced in small quantities at 
the plants. The company plans to use four MOX fuel assemblies out 
of 193 total fuel assemblies beginning in 2005, Nesbit said.

If testing goes as planned, Duke would be able to seek regulatory 
approval for expanded use of the fuel beginning around 2010, 
Nesbit said Monday as he and other Duke officials led a group of 
reporters and photographers on a behind-the-scenes tour of the 
nuclear plant, including a rare peek at the spent-fuel pool where 
900 fuel assemblies are currently stored under water.

The tour highlighted security measures put in place since Sept. 
11, including bulletproof doors and the moat that will encircle 
the plant's two nuclear reactors.

Security at the plant will not change once the MOX program 
begins, except during the short period between when the fuel 
arrives at the plant and when it is placed in storage for later 
use, Nesbit said.

MOX opponents have raised concerns about security, and the NRC 
plans to conduct hearings on the matter, Nesbit said.

In August, a small flotilla of boats took to the waters of 
Charleston Harbor to draw attention to the shipping of 
weapons-grade plutonium, which demonstrators say is dangerous.

More boats from along the East Coast are expected later this 
year, when a shipment of plutonium arrives in Charleston and is 
loaded on a ship for France.

A local environmental group, Citizens Against Plutonium, and 
Greenpeace want a full environmental impact statement on the 
Department of Energy's plans to ship 330 pounds of weapons-grade 
plutonium overseas for processing.

The plutonium powder, which critics say could make 50 dirty 
bombs, will be sent to France for processing and returned for use 
in a commercial reactor test run next year.

Nesbit says using MOX could provide McGuire and Catawba with a 
long-term, economical supply of nuclear fuel.

Each of the two reactors at Catawba produces enough electricity 
to supply the needs of a city the size of Charlotte. About 1,100 
people work at the facility.

  Last modified: October 13. 2004 6:28AM Back to Top

Copyright 2004 The Ledger
*****************************************************************
 38 Scotsman.com: EU Threatens Legal Action over Radioactive Waste
 
Wed 13 Oct 2004   			 			

By Geoff Meade, Europe Editor, PA News, Brussels 

The Government was threatened with European legal action today 
â€“ accused of breaching EU laws over the disposal of radioactive 
waste from the Atomic Weapons Establishments (AWE) in Aldermaston 
and Burghfield.
 
The European Commission says it will go to court unless it 
receives a satisfactory reply from London about why Brussels was 
not notified on waste removal plans, as required under the 
Euratom Treaty.
 
A Commission statement said the Government authorised radioactive 
waste disposal from AWE in 2000, arising from â€œvarious nuclear 
activitiesâ€ â€“ but without complying with a Treaty requirement 
that any new radioactive waste disposal plan must be assessed by 
the Commission before implementation.
 
â€œIn fact no data was submitted to the Commission. It was 
through a complaint in September 2003 that the Commission was 
informed that the UK Environment Agency had granted this 
authorisation as a renewal of previously-existing 
authorisations.â€
 
The Commissionâ€™s job is to assess, with scientific experts from 
all EU member states, the cross-border effects of any EU 
governmentâ€™s radioactive waste disposal plans.
 
A Commission spokesman said todayâ€™s warning was â€œthe last 
step before a formal complaint to the European Court of 
Justiceâ€.
 
Only last month the Commission launched similar legal action over 
â€œunacceptableâ€ failings in the handling of nuclear waste at 
Sellafield.
 
In that case, Government plans submitted to Brussels in June to 
improve waste monitoring were rejected as an inadequate response 
to long-standing Commission complaints about breaches of EU 
nuclear safety rules.


*****************************************************************
 39 AU ABC: Conservation group welcomes NT nuclear dump ban 

» ABC Darwin »

"Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Thursday, 14 October 2004 

The Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) has welcomed 
legislation passed by the Northern Territory Parliament banning a 
national nuclear waste dump in the Territory. 

The legislation prohibits the storage and transport of 
Commonwealth radioactive waste through the Territory. 

Foundation spokesman Dave Sweeney says it strengthens the 
Territory Government's stance against the dumping of nuclear 
waste in its jurisdiction. 

"If the Howard Government doesn't listen to this clear message 
from the Northern Territory and does decide to override onto a 
Territory island or indeed back to an earlier plan to the 
Territory mainland, then I think it's in for a fight," he said. [ 
more news ] Last Updated: 6:42:00 AM (ACST)                  

*****************************************************************
 40 FOX5: Emergency Funds OK'd For Nevada's Fight Against Yucca

  KVVU FOX5 -

  October 12, 2004

CARSON CITY (AP) -- A state panel has voted to give a 
one-point-one million-dollar emergency appropriation to the 
Nevada Nuclear Projects Office to continue its fight against the 
high-level nuclear waste dump that the Bush administration wants 
to open at Yucca Mountain. 

The state Board of Examiners also endorsed a $650,000 emergency 
allocation to Attorney General Brian Sandoval's office for its 
legal battle against the dump. 

Bob Loux heads the Nuclear Projects Office. He says his budget is 
"tapped out" and needs the funding to ensure a proper review of 
the building permit application expected from the federal 
Department of Energy in December. 

With the approval by the Board of Examiners, the request goes to 
the Legislative Interim Finance Committee for final action. That 
panel meets November 17th. 

(Copyright 2004 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)   
*****************************************************************
 41 TownOnline.com: Perchlorate testing continues

Tewksbury Advocate - Local News
 
By Bethan L. Jones/ Staff Writer

Wednesday, October 13, 2004

Efforts to further understand the source of the perchlorate 
affecting Tewksbury's water system continued this week, with the 
town receiving results of their 24-hour monitoring done at the 
end of August. The town testing, conducted by the federal 
Environmental Protection Agency, showed the level of perchlorate 
fluctuating in the town's raw water, varying from .88 parts per 
billion, below the hazard level for sensitive population groups, 
to 1.45 ppb, well above the 1 ppb marker.

     The water was drawn by the Tewksbury water treatment plant 
every two hours, beginning at 6 p.m. on Aug. 30 and ending as 
2:30 p.m. on Aug. 31. The change in perchlorate level, in the 
brief analysis provided with a graph of the water testing, 
indicated engineers at the water treatment plant attributed the 
fluctuations to three factors: the variance in discharge from the 
Lowell and Billerica waste water treatment plants, the incomplete 
mixing of the Concord and Merrimack rivers, and the changing 
ratios of the mixing between the two rivers. During the 24 hour 
period, a general increase in perchlorate was noted with the last 
test coming in a 1.45 ppb. Overall, it was indicated more testing 
and analysis is needed to better understand the dynamics of the 
rivers and the perchlorate they are carrying.

     Town manager David Cressman said the results, while not 
providing a complete hydrology of the rivers, validates the 
concern over the waste water treatment plants.

     "Our major focus should be the waste water treatment plants 
in Billerica and Lowell," he said, adding the perchlorate is 
coming from the Merrimack River. The bleach used at both waste 
water plants and the sewer systems are under suspicion as the 
source of the perchlorate, a chemical used in the making of 
explosives, air bags, tanning, and certain fertilizers. 
Communities with drinking water with a perchlorate level of 1 ppb 
or above are required by the state Department of Environmental 
Protection to issue a voluntary water ban for those under the age 
of 12, pregnant or nursing mothers, and those with 
hypothyroidism. Normal population groups are allowed to consume 
up to 18 ppb.

     Tewksbury is in discussion with both Billerica and Lowell 
about their waste water treatment plants, but testing there must 
be carried out by state DEP, who have included further tests of 
both waste water plants and Lowell's sewer overflow in their 
phase four testing which was conducted last week. Results are 
expected late this week. Phase four testing was postponed to last 
week after DEP became concerned the heavy rains two weeks ago 
would have diluted the results.

     The state DEP had urged Tewksbury, as a temporary solution, 
to consider mixing Tewksbury water with that of Lowell and 
Andover to bring down the perchlorate concentration. The decision 
angered Tewksbury selectmen who felt the state DEP were not 
looking into the source of the problem. Cressman said no further 
work has been done in the area of mixing.

     The town also received the results from the Sept. 29 testing 
of Tewksbury water, showing 1.133 ppb, a drop from the Sept. 21 
results at 1.215 ppb. The Sept. 29 results are the lowest level 
of perchlorate tested since early August when the perchlorate was 
discovered.
                                
*****************************************************************
 42 lamonitor.com: Laboratory restructures operations 

The Online News Source for Los Alamos
 
ROGER SNODGRASS, roger@lamonitor.com, Monitor Assistant Editor

Los Alamos National Laboratory named Don Cobb as acting deputy
laboratory director, number two in the lab's management
hierarchy. 

The appointment and a division of responsibilities for the former 
Operations Directorate, grows out of a period of reassessment 
during a lengthy suspension of operation. It is intended to apply 
the best skills and talents where they are most needed, according 
to laboratory officials.

"Don shares my vision for the laboratory's future, and his 
leadership ability and commitment to the success of the 
laboratory will play a vital role in the months ahead," said 
Director G. Peter Nanos in a prepared announcement. 

The structural changes taking effect today affect the Operations 
Directorate, which will now be split into two separate 
organizations, Technical Services (TS) and Security and 
Facilities Operations (SFO)

Carolyn Mangeng, current acting deputy laboratory director will
head the Technical Services directorate, as acting associate
director. 

TS will manage environmental protection and compliance issues, as 
in the Price Anderson Enforcement Program by which DOE sanctions 
contractors who violate safety requirements at nuclear 
facilities. Other areas assigned to TS include project 
management, performance surety; facility engineering and 
standards; health, safety and radiation protection; resumption 
and operational efficiency; and counterintelligence and internal 
security.

"Carolyn brings exceptional skill, insight and experience to the 
position," Nanos said in making the announcement. "Carolyn's 
significant experience and involvement in areas specific to the 
directorate make her an excellent match for this position." Scott 
Gibbs, currently acting associate director for the operations 
directorate, will lead the Security and Facility Operation, as 
acting associate director.

SFO will be in charge of operations sometimes referred to as 
"roads and commodes, cops and shops." This includes more 
traditional operational functions such as nuclear and waste 
operations, security, emergency operations, space management and 
site planning, and facility operations supports.

Replacing Cobb as acting associate director for threat reduction 
is Joseph "Cliff" Giles, currently principal associate director 
for the group.

"I am convinced that the reorganization of Operations will result 
in improved operational efficiency and better alignment of 
professional services," Nanos said.

"As we continue to define our future, this is absolutely the 
right thing to do at the right time."   

  © 2003 Los Alamos Monitor All Rights Reserved.   
*****************************************************************
 43 [du-list] DU in the news 13th Oct 04 - live links
 
Date: Wed, 13 Oct 2004 20:21:24 -0700

 
<x-flowed>

Ithaca Times - Ithaca,NY,USA
... Center studied Afghan civilians a few months after US attacks and found 
that of the samples taken, every single one had levels of non-depleted 
uranium, 4 to 20 ...

SARDINIA: HEALTH COMMISSION, YES TO URANIUM INVESTIGATION
Agenzia Giornalistica Italia - Italy
... the Sardinian Regional Council has unanimously approved the resolution 
that gives the go-ahead to the investigation into the effects of depleted 
uranium on the ...


Is it the end of the road for Arafat?
Guardian - UK
... in South African politics and the South African president, Thabo Mbeki, 
had asked for his help; the Israelis had been firing depleted uranium 
shells at the ...


Terror beyond terrorism
Indianapolis Star - Indianapolis,IN,USA
... Caldicott, who knows more about nuclear warfare than any president, 
maintains that it is going on in Iraq now -- tons of depleted uranium left 
by coalition ...


An Importunate Open Letter to the Inept Bush Administration from a ...
Pressbox.co.uk (press release) - London,UK
... and foreign troops. The types of WMD the administration used were bombs 
with 300 tons of depleted uranium. According to Allen, uranium ...


Media Scared of Bush
ProgressiveTrail.org - McMinnville,OR,USA
... it's about fomenting chaos, about bombing Arabs and Muslims, about 
"reshaping" the Middle East with bunker-busters and depleted uranium so 
Israel will be ...









[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]



------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~-->
Make a clean sweep of pop-up ads. Yahoo! Companion Toolbar.
Now with Pop-Up Blocker. Get it for free!
http://us.click.yahoo.com/L5YrjA/eSIIAA/yQLSAA/FGYolB/TM
--------------------------------------------------------------------~->

To unsubscribe from this groups send a message to 
du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com.  In the body of the message type 
unsubscribe and send.
Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
     http://groups.yahoo.com/group/du-list/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
     du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
     http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
  

</x-flowed>
    
*****************************************************************

NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 this 
material is distributed without profit or payment to those who 
have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for 
non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more 
information go to: 
<http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml> 
    
*****************************************************************