***************************************************************** 10/15/04 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 12.247 ***************************************************************** 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 Seattle Times: Officials dispute nuclear-related thefts in Iraq 2 AFP: Russia calls for return of weapons inspectors to Iraq 3 BBC: Trio 'to offer Iran nuclear deal' 4 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: North Korea Calls IAEA Chief 'Irresponsib 5 Las Vegas SUN: Editorial: Yet more deceptions from Bush 6 [NYTr] Mordechai Vanunu Asks for an Irish Welcome 7 Mos News: Russian Nuclear Watchdog Confirms Gazprom Deal With Atomst 8 Straits Times: Site of China's first nuke blast sits empty - 9 Asia Times: India and Pakistan in nuclear dead heat 10 AFP: Forty years after China's first nuclear blast, sheep graze at NUCLEAR REACTORS 11 US: [NukeNet] operator caught napping at Pilgrim 12 US: Brattleboro Reformer: Disaster review meeting planned 13 Korea Herald: KEPCO to build China power plants 14 Xinhuanet: S. Korea¡¯s KEPCO enters China 15 Korea Times: KEDO to Be Kept Afloat for One More Year 16 US: Newsday.com: A nuclear plant problem raises interest, but not am 17 MENAFN: Dewa rules out the use of N-energy 18 World Today: Taiwan's nuclear capacity causes concern 19 CBC - New Brunswick: Nuclear shutdown cost $10 million 20 News & Star: Nuclear power is only way forward 21 US: NRC: NRC Extends Review Schedule for Vermont Yankee Nuclear Powe 22 US: NRC: Notice of Intent To Prepare an Environmental Impact Stateme NUCLEAR SAFETY 23 [du-list] Iraq Solidarity Campaign - Supporting the people of 24 PRAVDA.Ru: Pentagon uses depleted uranium shells in its raid against 25 Interfax: Ladoga radioactive pollution feared 26 US: Pahrump Valley Times: Court throws out radiation standards 27 US: WIVB: First Look at Declassified Documents 28 US: TownOnline.com: Still whistling: A whistleblower's battles conti 29 AFP: US admits its borders are not 'dirty bomb' proof NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 30 US: Arizona Republic: Defense firm agrees to clean up its site 31 US: North Adams Transcript: Perchlorate shows up in wells at Sweetwo 32 US: Tri-City Herald: First review of tank waste released 33 US: Salt Lake Tribune: Goshutes' waste plan hits a snag 34 Pahrump Valley Times: Nuclear Projects awarded $1.1 million 35 US: Las Vegas SUN: Auditors Can't Account for Iraq Spent Funds NUCLEAR WEAPONS US DEPT. OF ENERGY 36 Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Hanford chemical tests show possible thr 37 ABQjournal: Energy Chief Says LANL's on Track 38 lamonitor.com: Defense, homeland security bills OK'd 39 San Francisco Bay View: UC Regents lose control of nuclear weapons p OTHER NUCLEAR 40 [du-list] DU in the News - 14th Oct 04 41 [du-list] DU in the news - 16th Oct 04 ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 Seattle Times: Officials dispute nuclear-related thefts in Iraq Friday, October 15, 2004 - Page updated at 12:00 A.M. By George Jahn The Associated Press VIENNA, Austria — Missing nuclear-related equipment in Iraq was removed by experts working systematically over an extended period, diplomats said yesterday, contradicting Iraqi officials who suggested that little was taken and only randomly by looters. Their comments were in response to assertions from Baghdad that high-precision equipment removed from Iraq's nuclear facilities was stolen haphazardly and immediately after last year's U.S. invasion. The diplomats, who are familiar with the work of the International Atomic Energy Agency, suggested the IAEA remained concerned that because of the planning and operational skills of those involved, the equipment could be sold to rogue governments or terrorist groups interested in making nuclear weapons. 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. On Tuesday, Iraq's interim science and technology minister, Rashad Omar, said all sites under the interim government's control have been secured. The minister said the missing equipment — which the IAEA says includes milling machines and electron-beam welders — was taken in the looting spree that followed last year's invasion, which the United States said was 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. "Not even a single screw is being taken away without my knowledge." One of the diplomats, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said satellite imagery available to the agency showed that random looters could not have been involved because of the complicated planning and scale of the operations. "Our assumption is that this had to have been an organized effort by professionals who had to have had heavy lifting equipment and big trucks," said the diplomat, adding that the operation to take the equipment and materials likely began after May 2003 — after the end of the U.S. invasion — and ended sometime this year. While some industrial material that Iraq sent overseas has been located in other countries, ElBaradei said in his letter that no high-precision items, which can be used both commercially and in nuclear-weapons production, have been found. The disappearances could be "of proliferation significance," he said. IAEA inspectors left Iraq just before the war began in March 2003. The Bush administration then barred U.N. weapons inspectors from returning, deploying U.S. teams in an unsuccessful search for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company ***************************************************************** 2 AFP: Russia calls for return of weapons inspectors to Iraq [http://www.spacewar.com/]  WAR.WIRE
MOSCOW (AFP) Oct 15, 2004 Russia late Thursday called on the United States and the Iraqi transitional government to allow international weapons inspectors to return to Iraq, following reports of the disappearance of high-tech equipment that could be used to make nuclear weapons. Inspectors from the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) must be allowed to go back to Iraq, the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement. "We believe that these organizations, which possess all the necessary expertise to that end, must as soon as possible receive unlimited access to Iraq's nuclear sites to resume their interrupted task," foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko said in the statement. "It is essential that Iraq's transitional government and the United States adopt urgent measures to establish control over sensitive material and equipment, and allow international organizations specially authorized to do that to accomplish their task without any obstacles," Yakovenko added. IAEA director general Mohamed ElBaradei earlier this month told the United Nations that equipment and materials that could be used to make nuclear weapons, in some cases entire buildings housing sophisticated technology, were disappearing from Iraq. In a letter to the Security Council, ElBaradei said he was concerned about the "widespread and apparently systematic dismantlement that has taken place at sites previously relevant to Iraq's nuclear program" under ousted dictator Saddam Hussein. So-called dual-use equipment -- which has peaceful as well as weapons-making applications -- is disappearing, ElBaradei said. IAEA inspectors have made two brief trips since the US-led war on Iraq war ended in April 2003 to check inventories at the Tuwaitha nuclear complex south of Baghdad but these were in response to looting and not part of weapons inspections under the agency's UN mandate. The IAEA is ready to send inspectors back to Iraq, a spokesman said Wednesday. All rights reserved. © 2004 Agence France-Presse [http://www.afp.com/] . Sections of the information displayed on ***************************************************************** 3 BBC: Trio 'to offer Iran nuclear deal' Last Updated: Friday, 15 October, 2004 [Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Hassan Rohani ] Iran says no international body can force it to end enrichment Britain, France and Germany will give to Iran next week an incentives package aimed at convincing Tehran to give up nuclear ambitions, US officials said. "The EU Three have indicated they will be presenting their ideas to Iran next week," State Department spokesman Tom Casey told Reuters. The offer includes a commitment to resume stalled talks on an EU-Iran trade agreement, diplomats said. Iran says its nuclear programs are peaceful and only to generate power. The talks between the US and the EU trio come amid a mood of some desperation among Western policy makers over Iran's nuclear programme, says BBC News Online's Paul Reynolds. Efforts to get Iran to abandon its enrichment activities have been a failure so far, yet prospects of imposing effective sanctions on Iran through the UN Security Council are uncertain to say the least. There is no great optimism that an offer to Iran would work given Iran's insistence that it will develop an enrichment capability, which it says will be used only for nuclear fuel, not for nuclear weapons, our correspondent adds. The latest incentives are also thought to include guarantees that Iran will have access to nuclear fuel from Russia. Iran restated its intentions again this week. Its Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi said: "The time has come for Europe to take a step forward and suggest that our legitimate right for complete use of nuclear energy is recognised (in exchange for) assurances that our programme will not be diverted toward weapons." Our correspondent says Britain, France and Germany feel there is a window of opportunity ahead of a meeting of the UN nuclear agency, the International Atomic Energy Agency, on 25 November. ***************************************************************** 4 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: North Korea Calls IAEA Chief 'Irresponsible' Updated Oct.15,2004 23:15 KST North Korea has accused the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency of taking sides in discussing nuclear activities on the Korea peninsula. A North Korea foreign ministry spokesman told Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency that IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei employed a double standard last week when he called North Korea's nuclear development far more serious than revelations South Korean scientists had conducted secret nuclear experiments. The unnamed spokesman said North Korea cannot overlook what he called the 'irresponsible attitude' of Mr. ElBaradei, who he said was ignoring reality and forgetful of his duty. South Korea recently admitted its scientists had conducted a plutonium-based nuclear experiment in 1982 and a uranium enrichment experiment in 2000. VOA News ***************************************************************** 5 Las Vegas SUN: Editorial: Yet more deceptions from Bush LAS VEGAS SUN President Bush has been experiencing a credibility gap for his refusal to acknowledge the worsening conditions in Iraq and his unwillingness to concede that he failed to provide enough troops to secure the peace in that country. During Wednesday's debate with John Kerry, Bush once again demonstrated that he won't level with the American people. A telling example of this continued deception was an exchange during the debate between Bush and Kerry about Osama bin Laden. Kerry mentioned that six months after Bush had said bin Laden must be caught dead or alive, Bush was asked where the terrorist leader was. Bush, Kerry noted, told reporters that he didn't know where bin Laden was hiding, that he really didn't think about him very much, and that he wasn't concerned. But Bush claimed Wednesday that he never said this about bin Laden, that it was yet another campaign exaggeration by Kerry. But the fact is that in March 2002, Bush said the following about bin Laden: "I truly am not that concerned about him. I know he is on the run." He then went on to add, "I just don't spend that much time on him." It's this kind of deception, coupled with a refusal to acknowledge reality in a number of areas -- whether it's a health care system that is broken or a war in Iraq that is a quagmire -- that has become a trademark of the Bush Whit e House. The president also has resorted to name-calling, saying during the debate that Kerry wasn't in the "mainstream" of American politics. It's an attempt to cloud Bush's own sorry record. At a campaign stop in Las Vegas on Thursday, he followed up by calling Kerry a "liberal." Well, if Kerry is a liberal we'd hate to think what that would make Bush. Bush inherited a federal surplus that was projected to be $4.6 trillion over the next 10 years, but now we're going in the other direction: Over the next 10 years it's estimated that there will be a deficit of $2.3 trillion. And while Bush has tried to portray Kerry as a big spender, saying that the Democrat has promised $2 trillion of new government spending if he's elected, the president's own agenda laid out at the Republican National Convention carries a $3 trillion price tag over the next decade. Kerry, who vi sited Las Vegas himself on Thursday, has noted before that he would return our federal government to a pay-as-you-go system! , which would protect future generations from bearing the burden of paying off these debts. The three presidential debates weren't kind to Bush. They exposed just how shallow his grasp is of the issues and just how far he is willing to go to deceive the American people to try to secure his re-election. Fortunately, not only has Kerry been up to the task in peeling back the covering hiding these falsehoods, but he has also laid out a vision and policies that are sensible and acknowledge the real world that we live in. ***************************************************************** 6 [NYTr] Mordechai Vanunu Asks for an Irish Welcome Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2004 06:33:41 -0500 (CDT) Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit sent by Simon McGuinness (cubanews) - Oct 14, 2004 Mordechai Vanunu Asks for an Irish Welcome Indymedia.ie Interviews Mordechai Vanunu In 1986 Mordechai Vanunu offered information about Israel's secret Dimona nuclear 'research center' programme to The Sunday Times, later that year he was drugged and kidnapped in Italy by Israeli agents, was tried and convicted in Israel for treason and spent eighteen years in Ashkelon prison, twelve of which were in solitary confinement in a two-by-three metre cell. Today, having completed his sentence, Vanunu is free from prison but not Free to leave Israel - he is under constant monitoring by the Israeli Authorities and faces threats to his life while living in Israel. His restrictions include not speaking to international journalists. Mordechai Vanunu has violated court orders by speaking to Indymedia.ie... "I would like to get out of Israel and start a new life. I hope the Irish government will help me to receive asylum and much more importantly to act, as a government, [to convince the Israelis] to let me go. That is what I need now. We need someone to ask the Israeli government to let me go. If I were to come to Ireland, I would like to write my book. I have an obligation to write my book for people who want to know my story. I would like to speak to people about anti-nuclear weapons, to speak about peace, and, if I can, to enter university to learn and teach." Full story: http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=66917 The Irish Asylum for Vanunu Project Website is at http://www.freewebs.com/vanunu2ireland/ * Search the NYTr Archives at: http://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/ To subscribe or unsubscribe or change your settings via the web, visit: http://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= ***************************************************************** 7 Mos News: Russian Nuclear Watchdog Confirms Gazprom Deal With Atomstroiexport - MOSNEWS.COM Created: 15.10.2004 16:14 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 17:33 MSK MosNews The head of Russia’s Federal Nuclear Supervision Service said on Friday that Gazprombank, a unit of Gazprom, the state-controlled gas company, has bought a controlling stake in Russia’s exporter of nuclear technology, Atomstroiexport, Reuters reported. Andrei Malyshev quoted by the agency said the total stake acquired was more than 50 percent. It was reported earlier that Gazprom wished to extend its reach into atomic power by taking over the country’s sole exporter of nuclear technology. Atomstroieksport, with an order book of $3 billion, is one of the pillars of Russia’s nuclear industry. It is the successor of a nuclear export company set up in Soviet times to assist Moscow’s allies in building nuclear reactors. Apart from Iran, it is also building two nuclear reactors in China and one in India. One of its projects, a nuclear reactor in Iran, is a major irritant in Moscow’s relations with Washington, which says Tehran can use it to acquire atomic arms. The shares reportedly bought by Gazprombank were linked to Russian machinery maker OMZ. Gazprom is due to take over state oil firm Rosneft soon in a stock-funded deal, which will enable the state to regain control over the gas company lost in the 1990s. Write us: info@mosnews.com [info@mosnews.com] Copyright © 2004 MOSNEWS.COM ***************************************************************** 8 Straits Times: Site of China's first nuke blast sits empty - OCT 16, 2004 After developing the atomic and hydrogen bombs, research centre fell prey to Cultural Revolution HAIBEI (China) - Tibetan horsemen drive their sheep among rusting rail lines and overgrown bunkers in this arid part of China where scientists developed Asia's first nuclear bomb during the Cold War. Now abandoned: This railway was built in the area used to develop China's first nuclear bomb. -- AFP When China shocked the world with the appearance of a mushroom cloud over the Lop Nur salt lake on Oct 16, 1964 - 40 years ago today - it was the fruit of arduous work at 'Nuclear City' in north-western Qinghai province. 'No ordinary people were allowed anywhere near this place,' said Ms Zhou Hongying, who settled down among the empty laboratories and dormitories in Haibei after the researchers left a decade ago. Once a bustling community of 30,000 scientists, soldiers and, initially, Soviet advisers, all that is now left of State Plant No. 221 are empty factory buildings and decrepit apartment blocks. But four decades ago its capacity for arming China with weapons of mass destruction was considered such a threat that successive United States administrations contemplated targeting it in pre-emptive strikes even if it meant starting World War III. Communist strongman Mao Zedong decided in the late 1950s that China, too, must have the bomb, giving the green light for one of the massive super-human projects that were defining features of his reign. Today, a memorial in Haibei commemorates the country's first nuclear blast 40 years ago. -- AFP Three thousand shepherds were driven from their ancestral homes to make room for what was destined to become China's foremost centre for nuclear weapons development and production. Disastrously, the beginning of activity coincided with a mass famine in the years from 1958 to 1960, when failed agricultural policies claimed the lives of an estimated 30 million nationwide. State Plant No. 221 marked triumph after triumph in the mid-1960s. Just 33 months after the atomic blast, efforts at the plant led to the explosion of China's first hydrogen bomb, giving it the nickname 'The Two-Bomb Base'. The victory was all the sweeter because the Soviet Union had abruptly withdrawn its aid to China's nuclear programme as tensions between Beijing and Moscow snapped around 1960. But State Plant No. 221 became a scene of human depravity when the Cultural Revolution hit it like a whirlwind from 1966. Radical political fervour descended on the scientific community, explaining why China's nuclear programme suddenly slowed down after the successful test of the hydrogen bomb. 'We won't make any progress unless we kill someone' was the slogan adopted by radicals. According to one account, 59 people at the plant were beaten to death or were forced to commit suicide after being stamped as 'counter-revolutionaries'. The Nuclear City with its hardships and tragedies is long gone, but rights groups claim the atomic research that went on here for decades had severe consequences for the environment. Locals who have no choice but to live amid the relics of China's first experiments with nuclear technology prefer to shrug off the concerns. 'Scientific teams arrive here from Beijing every year to measure radiation,' said Mr Liu Youli, employed to renovate a section of the old site. He said: 'There's no danger. Otherwise, why would the local government set up its office just down the street.' -- AFP The Straits Times ***************************************************************** 9 Asia Times: India and Pakistan in nuclear dead heat [http://www.atimes.com/ Oct 16, 2004 By Sultan Shahin NEW DELHI - A new assessment by a Washington think-tank released on Monday claiming that Pakistan's nuclear-weapons arsenal "now appears large enough to rival that of India" has revived the controversies and debates surrounding India's nuclear policy and its objectives. In a paper on the world's fissile-material stocks, David Albright and Kimberly Kramer of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) estimate that Pakistan now has between 55 and 90 nuclear weapons compared with 55 and 110 in India. Israel and North Korea, listed among other current de facto weapons states, have between 110 and 190 weapons and between two and nine weapons respectively. ISIS's estimates, published in the latest issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, are based on the production of fissile material in "nuclear" countries. India, whose nuclear-weapons program is mostly plutonium-based, is estimated to have between 300 and 470 kilograms of plutonium stocks. Having clearly ramped up its plutonium production, Pakistan is believed to have been producing more plutonium per year than India for several years, and now has between 20kg and 60kg of plutonium. But Pakistan, whose weapons program is mostly uranium-based, has between 1,200kg and 1,250kg of highly enriched uranium. Though a smaller arsenal does not matter much in the case of nuclear deterrence, Pakistan, being in possession of more atomic bombs, will make it that much more difficult for India to negotiate a fissile-materials cutoff treaty. To add to India's dismay, Pakistan test-fired an intermediate-range, nuclear-capable ballistic missile on Tuesday as part of its efforts to boost defenses against India, in spite of recent peace talks. The test came just ahead of two days of talks between Pakistani and Indian border officials in the Indian city of Chandigarh, their second meeting this year since regular contacts were revived to discuss frontier issues. The Pakistani military said Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz witnessed the test of the surface-to-surface Hatf V, a type of Ghauri missile with a range of 1,500 kilometers - capable of hitting most Indian cities and carrying a nuclear payload of 900kg. It said the test had been successful. Nuclear-armed Pakistan conducts regular missile tests. The last time it test-fired a similar missile was on June 4. India did not immediately comment on the firing of the Pakistani missile this week, but both countries follow a policy of informing each other in advance of such tests. The ISIS assessment seems to confirm a similar presentation made recently in Washington by well-known Pakistani physicist and anti-nuclear peace activist Pervez Hoodbhoy. He claimed that Pakistan is producing and stocking up weapons-grade nuclear material "as fast as the centrifuges would operate". India, too, is producing bombs as fast as it was humanly possible, he said. Albright and Kramer have also concluded that "nuclear military stocks in India, Pakistan and Israel are continuing to grow". Pakistan was already known to have been moving fervently to outmatch India's nuclear weapons and missile capacity. Today it has five functional ballistic missiles, while India has a single Prithvi battlefield ballistic missile. Pakistan also has a defined nuclear command authority, while India is still groping to define its slogan of "minimum nuclear deterrence". The question India must now answer is whether it should be satisfied with its conventional military superiority and allow Pakistan to maintain the parity it has achieved in the nuclear field or instead raise its nuclear and missile capacity citing a threat from China as the major justification. (India had claimed it was trying to counter the Chinese threat when it tested its weapons in May 1998.) But several strategic analysts, particularly those with a military background, dispute the ISIS assessment and say that India has not been building bombs since the 1998 tests and has been practicing a moratorium not only on testing weapons, but also on building them, though they are not happy with the situation. Indeed, in their view, New Delhi allowed itself to be persuaded by the US to practice "strategic restraint", though under another name, "defense posture". These analysts go to the extent of saying that under the previous administration of former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, India mortgaged its national security interests vis-a-vis China to the US in return for empty promises of the transfer of sensitive dual-use technology. They think that the idea of developing a "strategic partnership" between two "natural allies" by virtue of both being democracies is just a delusion. India needs to be far stronger militarily and economically for it to start dreaming of becoming a "strategic partner" of the US. These US promises, they say, simply cannot be realized. Under the present circumstances, the United States cannot allow the balance of power in South Asia to be disturbed. The US cannot transfer to India any weapons technology that it is not giving simultaneously to Pakistan, which was recently granted major non-North Atlantic Treaty Organization ally status and remains a front-line state in Washington's "war on terror". To buttress their point, analysts cite a strong demand for "an intense engagement of Pakistan" made in the bipartisan, consensual and hence authoritative report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks on the US, commonly known as the 9-11 Report. It was compiled by five senior congressional members from the Republican and Democratic parties. The report has found that there is a constant refrain among Pakistanis that the "United States long treated them as allies of convenience". Thus these senators strongly recommend that "as the United States makes fresh commitments now, it should make promises it is prepared to keep, for years to come". Analysts cite another reason for their pessimism: the presence of restrictive US laws. Certain US laws would block any significant transfer of technology, even if a future US administration were well disposed toward India and wanted to change the present equation under a set of different circumstances. These restrictive laws can be changed, but for that to happen the situation would have to be vastly different. A major country with a billion-plus population, and a confirmed democracy at that, India does not have the flexibility either to obey or defy the US diktat in the way that, say, a small and vulnerable country such as Pakistan under a military dictatorship can. One can cite in this context a report making waves in strategic circles in New Delhi in which Timesofindia.com claims to be in possession of documents "detailing the unshakable grip of a million American tentacles that have an all pervading grip on Pakistan's present and future". According to the newspaper, these documents reveal how the US has mapped Pakistan's year-wise targets and details of various schemes that would give the global superpower an unhindered influence over Pakistan. "Put together, they read like the British crown's annual plans for one of its colonies from a bygone era," Timesofindia.com comments. The website claims that its investigations reveal that the US has free run over almost every aspect of Pakistan's national life, including sensitive national records and data.The US is said to have Pakistan wired up in a highly sophisticated network of software systems, with direct access to information, including that of everyone entering or leaving Pakistan. The Personal Identification Secure Comparison Evaluation System (PISCES), an automated border control system, is being implemented in 20 ports of immigration in Pakistan. According to the latest information, all points of entry and exit in Pakistan would have a PISCES system installed by December 31. Believed to have been developed by Virginia-based consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton for the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) before September 11, 2001, PISCES uses biometric details to match facial images, fingerprints and biographical descriptions with the CIA's data bank in the United States. PISCES at Pakistani ports is believed to be linked to a central server in the US through a high-speed network where US officials monitor and analyze details of passengers, comparing them with suspects' data. Timesofindia.com claims to be in possession of detailed US plans showing that PISCES is being linked up to Pakistan's internal national information, making the situation much more complex. According to the mission performance plan set by the US Embassy in Islamabad, the United States is currently involved deeply in prodding and forcing Pakistani authorities to develop national intelligence and criminal databases that did not exist until 2001. Surprisingly, this database is linked to the PISCES border-control system, which is in the hands of US officials. Among the mission document targets is an aim that by 2004 end the PISCES system would be "fully operational and integrated with National Crisis Management Cell's intelligence and investigative database". Only in 2005 will Pakistan assume "responsibility for continued operation of PISCES system". Until then, the US counter-terrorism officials will have control over the sophisticated system that not only records details of every person leaving or entering Pakistan, but will also transmit these details to the central servers of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the CIA back in the US. Timesofindia.com also claims to have the mission-performance plan for 2004, prepared about a year after September 11, 2001, that contains details of the PISCES installation. While Pakistan can on the one hand be servile enough, if the price is right, to hand over the running of its border security to a superpower, it can also defy the same power's threats and ignore its blandishments and go ahead with testing nuclear weapons under watchful US satellites, and indeed sell nuclear technology to enemies of the same superpower. Former Pakistani army chief General Jahangir Karamat told his then US interlocutor, an astonished deputy secretary of state Strobe Talbott, in 1998: "Pakistan would look out for its own defense." He had been apparently asked to do something that would in his view compromise his country's national interest without bringing in sufficient dividends for the Pakistani security forces. India cannot afford either to defy or kowtow to the US in the manner that Pakistan has. It can also not be a full partner until it is strong enough to command US respect. If it decides to let go of its US-dictated "strategic restraint", if indeed it was practicing it in the first place, it will have to cite a reason for that. Now, officially, India has stopped citing China as a nuclear threat, even though it feels that Beijing is doing everything in its power to keep India boxed in as a mere South Asian power at par with Pakistan. Even the US, which was at one time thought to want to use India as a counterpoint to China, has also started playing the same game. The hyphenation is back, if indeed it had ever gone away. India is impatient to break out of this paradigm. The relatively new Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government is being advised by strategic analysts not to compromise India's national security in the same manner the previous government had and balance its relations with the US, the implication being that it should revive its nuclear program and develop minimum deterrence vis-a-vis China rather than merely competing with Pakistan. But New Delhi would also not like to jeopardize the ongoing peace talks, including negotiations for resolving territorial and other disputes with both China and Pakistan. Not everyone in the government, in any case, equates national security with more nuclear bombs and missiles - or for that matter conventional military hardware, though that is the dominant trend. It will be interesting to watch how New Delhi reacts and which way it turns. But the indications available from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's formulations in the past four months of his governance suggest that India will, at least for the moment, focus on setting its own house in order while normalizing relations and developing better trade ties with its neighbors. Sultan Shahin is a New Delhi-based writer. (Copyright 2004 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for information on our sales and syndication policies.) ***************************************************************** 10 AFP: Forty years after China's first nuclear blast, sheep graze at research base [http://www.spacewar.com/] HAIBEI, China (AFP) Oct 15, 2004 Tibetan horsemen drive their sheep among rusting rail lines and overgrown bunkers in this arid part of China where during the Cold War determined scientists developed Asia's first nuclear bomb. When China shocked the world with the appearance of a mushroom cloud over the Lop Nur salt lake on October 16, 1964 -- 40 years ago on Saturday -- it was the fruit of arduous work at "Nuclear City" in northwestern Qinghai province. "No ordinary people were allowed anywhere near this place," said Zhou Hongying, a woman who settled down among the vacated laboratories and dormitory buildings in Haibei prefecture after the researchers left a decade ago. "It was a restricted zone where only people with military authorization had access," she said. Once a bustling community of 30,000 scientists, soldiers and, initially, Soviet advisers, all that is now left of State Plant No. 221 -- the facility's official name -- is empty factory buildings and decrepit apartment blocks. But four decades ago its capacity for arming China with weapons of mass destruction was considered such a threat that successive US administrations contemplated targeting it in pre-emptive strikes even if it meant starting World War III. It was Communist strongman Mao Zedong who decided in the late 1950s that China, too, must have the bomb, giving the green light for one of the massive super-human projects that were defining features of his reign. Three thousand shepherds were driven from their ancestral homes in the Haibei region to make room for what was destined to become China's foremost center for nuclear weapons development and production. Grainy black-and-white photographs at an exhibition hall in Xihai, the capital of Haibei prefecture, show the urban, professorial types who moved here to help China's nuclear dream come true. They were young men with horn-rimmed glasses and bow ties and even younger women with long braids, some serious and others smiling, but all appearing woefully unprepared for life on China's harsh northwestern frontier. "They came from the big cities, Beijing and Shanghai, to settle down here in the middle of nowhere," said Geng Shengcun, a local driver. "They suffered a lot." Disastrously, the beginning of activity at State Plant No. 221 coincided with a mass famine hitting China in the years from 1958 to 1960, when failed agricultural policies claimed the lives of an estimated 30 million nationwide. "The three years of natural calamities brought great trouble for the research base," a caption at the photo exhibit explains, skirting the fact that the misery was largely man-made. "The whole nation brought assistance in the form of millions of kilograms of soybean and 40,000 head of cattle and sheep, helping the research base get through this difficult period." Despite the researchers' severe problems with adjusting to the new environment, State Plant No. 221 marked triumph after triumph in the mid-1960s. Just 33 months after the atomic blast, efforts at the plant led to the explosion of China's first hydrogen bomb, giving it the nickname "The Two-Bomb Base". The victory was all the sweeter because the Soviet Union had abruptly withdrawn its assistance to China's nuclear program as tensions between Beijing and Moscow snapped around 1960. "Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev had said China could not develop a nuclear bomb in 20 years' time," a caption at the photo exhibition says mockingly. The exhibit and a nearby memorial are unapologetic in their praise of China's nuclear program, with images of mushroom clouds symbolizing scientific progress, rather than Armageddon. Playing a minor role in the official history are the wives and children of the plant's staff, who made this place their home for generations. But personal recollections are now surfacing in private conversations and on the Internet. A woman surnamed Wang who was born in the "Nuclear City" in the 1970s described on a weblog how she had preserved "countless fond memories" from a childhood in the northwestern grasslands. "Even though the buildings are in ruins, and the reservoir where we used to stroll has dried out, the steppe is still there," she said. "It opens its bosom wide to a weary traveler returning home." But amid the rough natural beauty, State Plant No. 221 became a scene of human depravity when the Cultural Revolution hit it like a whirlwind in the decade beginning in 1966. Radical political fervor descended on the scientific community, possibly explaining why China's nuclear program suddenly slowed down after the successful test of the hydrogen bomb. "We won't make any progress unless we kill someone," was the slogan adopted by radicals at the research center, and the campaign to liquidate closet capitalists proceeded accordingly. According to one historical account, 59 people at the plant were beaten to death or were forced to commit suicide after being stamped as "counter-revolutionaries". The "Nuclear City" with its hardships and tragedies is a world long gone, but rights groups have claimed the atomic research that went on here for decades had severe consequences for the environment. Locals who have no choice but to live amid the relics of China's first experiments with nuclear technology prefer to shrug off the concerns as groundless. "Scientific teams arrive here from Beijing every year to measure radiation," said Liu Youli, a construction worker employed to renovate a section of the old research site while officials consider new uses. "There's no danger here. Otherwise, why would the local government set up its office just down the street from here?" All rights reserved. © 2004 Agence France-Presse [http://www.afp.com/] . Sections of the information displayed on ***************************************************************** 11 [NukeNet] operator caught napping at Pilgrim Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2004 15:08:05 -0700 http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2004/10/14/nrc_looking_into_a_nap_at_pilgrim/ NRC looking into a nap at Pilgrim Case spurs review at nuclear plant By Carolyn Y. Johnson, Globe Correspondent | October 14, 2004 Catching the boss dozing on the job might be fodder for comedy, except when the office is the control room of a nuclear reactor. Around 4 a.m. on June 29, a senior reactor operator fell asleep in the control room at Pilgrim Nuclear Station in Plymouth, and another employee caught him in the act. Instead of reporting the nap, however, the employee snapped a picture with a cellphone camera and kept quiet. Now the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission is investigating the incident, after a third person brought it to the agency's attention in late August. ''This is the kind of thing that can't be tolerated," said David Tarantino, a spokesman for the Pilgrim Nuclear Station, a 670-megawatt power plant owned by the conglomerate Entergy. The NRC notified plant officials about the incident on Aug. 26, and they promptly suspended the entire crew that worked the shift that night. The napping operator and the co-worker who took his picture have been let go. ''The inattentiveness can't be tolerated, but, secondly, the employee that filmed the senior reactor operator did not immediately report the potential safety condition," Tarantino said. The operator's nap was brief and never posed a threat to the public, according to the NRC. The agency requires that several people staff the control room on each shift. On the June 29 shift, Tarantino said, the plant met that requirement: The senior reactor operator and two subordinates were present. The NRC is looking into whether the problem was prevalent among other employees and is reviewing the company's own investigation to ensure it was thorough. NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said that the operator's nap appears to have been an isolated event. Nonetheless, it is cause for concern. ''The top-headline nuclear events generally occurred in the wee hours of the morning," said David Lochbaum, nuclear safety engineer at the Union of Concerned Scientists. ''Chernobyl happened about 1:30. Three Mile Island happened about 4 a.m." The NRC is developing rules that would limit the number of hours plant operators can work. Currently there are only guidelines, published in 1982 after the Three Mile Island disaster, recommending a 40-hour week and shifts no longer than 16 hours. Mary Lampert, director of the antinuclear group Pilgrim Watch, said the case was ''something that you'd see in the Simpsons," she said. ''And you'd laugh. But you don't laugh when you recognize the consequences of a disaster at a nuclear power plant." Carolyn Johnson can be reached at cjohnson@globe.com _______________________________________________________________________ Subscribe/Unsubscribe Here: http://www.energyjustice.net/nukenet/ Change your settings at: http://energyjustice.net/mailman/listinfo/nukenet_energyjustice.net ***************************************************************** 12 Brattleboro Reformer: Disaster review meeting planned [http://www.reformer.com/] October 15, 2004 Brattleboro, VT By CAROLYN LORIÉ Reformer Staff BRATTLEBORO -- Following months of silence, a dozen parents who sent a letter to Ron Stahley, superintendent of the Windham Southeast Supervisory Union, will get what they asked for: a meeting on the schools' evacuation plan. Scheduled for Nov. 4, the meeting will begin at 6:30 p.m. at the Academy School on Western Avenue and will be open to the public. While the letter was written on June 3, it was not responded to until earlier this month. Dianne Clouet, who authored the letter, said that follow-up phone calls to the superintendent were also not returned. According to Stahley, efforts to bring all the correct personnel together for the meeting took time, resulting in the long delay. In addition to Stahley, Brattleboro Fire Chief David Emery, Town Manager Jerry Remillard and Steve Goldsmith of Vermont Emergency Management will be on hand to provide information and answer questions. The 12 parents wrote that they were primarily interested in the evacuation plan in the event of an emergency at Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee. "The whole concern for parents is: what is the plan?" said Linda Bailey, whose name appears on the letter. Bailey said she was concerned about traffic jams and the ability of the buses carrying the schoolchildren to leave the area quickly. She also questioned whether there are enough buses available to deliver all the students to the Bellows Falls evacuation site. Other parents echoed similar sentiments. James and Georgette Beighle, who have a daughter in kindergarten and one in fourth grade, also voiced skepticism about bus drivers actually showing up to do the job in the event of a serious nuclear accident. Why wouldn't they tend to their own families or leave the area, as would be the instinct of most people, asked Georgette Beighle. Her husband said that his own response would be to go directly to the school to try to find his children. "If that siren went off right now, I'm headed to the school," said James Beighle. According to Ed Anthes of Nuclear-Free Vermont, however, the current plan calls for children to be evacuated prior to the public-at-large being notified about the nuclear accident. That's an unlikely event, he said, considering the number of students carrying cell phones who would most likely contact their parents once the evacuation started. Add to that the difficulty of sneaking 60 buses out of town, said Anthes, and the plan begins to look unrealistic. Nuclear-Free Vermont has called on towns in the emergency planning zone to hold a mock drill in which all the buses needed to transport students, as well as hospital and nursing home residents to the evacuation site conduct a dry run. Such a drill has never been done. Though the letter sent to Stahley specifically mentioned concerns about the evacuation plan in the event of a Vermont Yankee accident, Stahley said that the meeting will be about the plan in general and not specific to a nuclear accident scenario. "The way I feel about it, we have to prepare for any emergency," he said. Stahley added that he wanted to be cautious about "rating" the Vermont Yankee plan and that a serious nuclear accident might be outside of the realm of what a plan could realistically address. "I don't know if any plan is going to be useful," he said. Copyright ©1999-2004 New England Newspapers, Inc., a ***************************************************************** 13 Korea Herald: KEPCO to build China power plants 2004.10.15 [http://www.voiceware.co.kr] Korea Electric Power Corp. agreed to build two more coal-fired power plants in China, a year after its first agreement to add generating capacity in the neighboring country, which faces sporadic blackouts in most provinces because consumption is outpacing supply. Korea¡¯s dominant power producer said it signed an initial agreement Wednesday with the Henan provincial government to build two 600 megawatt plants south of the capital, Beijing. In July last year, Korea Electric won a contract to build a $71 million, 100 megawatt thermal power plant in the province. State-run Korea Electric is developing overseas projects to increase revenue as competition increases for a bigger slice of the power market, the world¡¯s fastest-growing major economy. China¡¯s electricity consumption grew 15 percent in 2003, almost twice the rate of generation capacity, causing blackouts in the country with a population of 1.3 billion. ¡°KEPCO is dong the right thing  China is the place to be and the company knows it,¡± said Chung Soon-ho, an analyst at Samsung Securities Co. in Seoul. ¡°Some people say China¡¯s power demand growth may slow, but the country is suffering from dire power shortages. It also has to stage the 2008 summer Olympic games. I don¡¯t think China¡¯s energy demand will cool soon.¡± China, the world¡¯s secondlargest energy consumer after the U.S., aims to more than double total power generation capacity to about 900,000 megawatts by 2020 from the current 400,000 to alleviate shortages caused by the country¡¯s economic growth. Power shortages caused blackouts in cities including Shanghai and Beijing this year and 24 of the nation¡¯s 27 provinces. Nuclear Plants Korea Electric¡¯s Chief Executive Han Joon-ho said in July the company plans to bid with foreign partners for an $8 billion order to build four nuclear reactors in China. A single foreign bidder may be chosen to build the four reactors, with work starting by 2007, Yu Jianfeng, a director at China National Nuclear Corp., said in an interview last month. ¡°Our China projects, including a plan to build nuclear power plants, will gain momentum with this agreement,¡± the company said in a statement yesterday. In June, the Korean utility agreed to jointly build non-nuclear power plants with China Datang Corp. to tap rising demand for electricity in China. Korea Electric said it expects to complete the 100 megawatt plant in July 2006. The Korean company, which has the right to run the plant for 23 years, will make an initial investment of $18.25 million for the construction of the plant. A joint venture with Henan province will provide the remaining finance through loans from the Agricultural Bank of China, Korea Electric said. Shares of Korea Electric fell 150 won, or 0.7 percent, to 21,600 won at 1:25 a.m. in Seoul, as the benchmark Kospi index shed 1.1 percent. (Bloomberg) 2004.10.15 ***************************************************************** 14 Xinhuanet: S. Korea¡¯s KEPCO enters China www.xinhuanet.com www.chinaview.cn 2004-10-15 11:00:05 BEIJING, Oct. 15 (Xinhuanet) -- KOREA Electric Power Corp. (KEPCO) had started to build two power plants in China and clinched a memorandum of understanding on another two, the company announced Thursday. This marked KEPCO¡¯s formal entry into China¡¯s fast-growing power generation industry, the company said. The two coal-fired power plants, located in Central China¡¯s Henan Province, were each designed to have an installed capacity of 50 megawatts (MWs) and will cost a total investment of US$71 million. The plants were expected to start operating by July 2006 and KEPCO would remain as the biggest shareholder for the following 23 years, the company said. It also signed a preliminary deal with Chinese partners to construct two more coal-fired power plants in the province, each with a designed installed capacity of 600 MWs. KEPCO is South Korea¡¯s dominant power producer, supplying more than 95 percent of the country¡¯s electricity. It has been striving to expand overseas markets to secure fresh sources of revenue. In July, KEPCO said it was planning for the construction of four nuclear power plants in China. Enditem (Shenzhen Daily/Agencies) Copyright ©2003 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 15 Korea Times: KEDO to Be Kept Afloat for One More Year rjs@koreatimes.co.kr 10-15-2004 17:04 Hankooki.com > The Korea Times > Nation By Reuben Staines Staff Reporter An international consortium overseeing the construction of two light-water nuclear reactors in North Korea has tentatively decided to extend the suspension of the project but will delay announcing the additional freeze until November due to the uncertain future of negotiations on Pyongyang¡¯s nuclear weapons programs, diplomatic sources said Friday. The executive board of the Korea Energy Development Organization (KEDO), established about 10 years ago to build the reactors as part of a deal to convince the North to give up its nuclear ambitions, reached the decision at an unofficial meeting in New York on Thursday. A source close to the negotiations said board members from South Korea, the United States, Japan and the European Union concurred on the need to keep the project alive for another year given the money already invested. They agreed to meet again before the existing one-year freeze expires at the end of November and will make an official announcement on a further suspension then, he said on condition of anonymity. ``The executive board was in agreement that it is not desirable to completely scrap the KEDO project as it is not yet clear that diplomatic efforts to resolve the North Korean nuclear issue are over,¡¯¡¯ the source said. Delegates at the meeting included Joseph DeTrani, U.S. special envoy for negotiations with North Korea, Chan Sun-sup, South Korea¡¯s ambassador to KEDO, and Katsunari Suzuki, Japan¡¯s representative to KEDO. The U.S. has been pushing to terminate construction of the reactors, arguing that North Korea has failed to live up to its side of the 1994 deal by resuming its nuclear development. But South Korea and Japan, which have footed most of the bill for the $4.6 billion project, want the construction kept on ice in case a new dismantlement accord can be reached with Pyongyang. So far, Seoul has poured around $1.23 billion into the project, followed by Japan with $446 million and the U.S. with $406 million. With North Korea determined to delay further negotiations until after the U.S. presidential election on Nov. 2, the next month will be crucial in determining whether the reactor project can be revived. Six-party talks on the nuclear crisis were scheduled to be held in Beijing before the end of September, but Pyongyang refused to attend, saying Washington¡¯s ``hostile policy¡¯¡¯ had destroyed the basis for further discussions. Work on the two 1,000-megawatt light-water reactors, which is roughly one-third complete, was initially suspended in November last year, about a year after North Korea ejected international nuclear inspectors and claimed it was resuming nuclear development. ***************************************************************** 16 Newsday.com: A nuclear plant problem raises interest, but not among neighbors [http://www.newsday.com] [October 15, 2004] By GEOFF MULVIHILL Associated Press Writer SALEM, N.J. -- Federal regulators and the out-of-town activists who monitor the activity of the three nuclear power plants a few miles from here reacted swiftly this week when one of the plants had to be shut down because of a small leak of radioactive steam. But in the towns nearby, where being the neighbor of a nuclear plant has been part of life for more than a quarter century, Sunday's mishap isn't exactly the talk of the town. Ronald Coleman, 51, a Salem resident who works at the local hospital, said he's concerned about what's happening at the plants owned by Public Service Energy Group. But it's not something that his neighbors ever discuss, he said _ even this week, when the mishap was front-page news in the local newspaper. On the street and in shops in downtown Salem, about eight miles from the Salem I, Salem II and Hope Creek plants that make up one of the nation's largest nuclear generating stations, several people said they weren't aware of any recent problems there. Rich Gatanis, a township committeeman in nearby Carneys Point and owner of South Jersey Sporting Goods in Salem, said he has paid attention to the plant _ and that he has faith in the behemoth employer that runs it in this sparsely populated southwest corner of New Jersey. "When they do find a safety problem," he said, "they don't deny it." But to the activists who follow the plants, the company doesn't communicate or address safety problems as well as it should. "What we can tell from the outside, this is one more example of the safety culture at PSEG," said Norm Cohen, a Linwood resident and the director of Unplug Salem, which advocates shutting down the plants. Cohen said he sees a troubling trend of relatively small problems that he links to improper maintenance at the plants. "You can't say that one of them is going to melt the plant down," Cohen said. "It's the mind-set that the plant is slowly deteriorating." Both a company spokesman and officials at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said that until the cause of the leak is determined, they won't comment about its cause. On Sunday, a steam pipe, 8 inches in diameter, in the Hope Creek turbine building ruptured shortly after 5:30 p.m. There were no workers nearby and officials said while radiation levels rose, they stayed well below allowable limits. "At no point was nuclear safety compromised," said Skip Sindoni, a spokesman for the power company. When the rupture was discovered, company officials decided immediately to manually shut down the plant. In doing so, they struggled to find the right level of water that covers the radioactive fuel and prevents it from overheating. Diane Screnci, an NRC spokeswoman, said the water level was never less than 10 feet above the fuel. PSEG reported the incident immediately to the NRC, which announced on Thursday that it had sent a special team of investigators to determine the cause of the mishap. Screnci said the agency conducts such investigations a few dozen times a year at nuclear power plants across the nation and that they normally take about a week. Besides telling the nuclear regulators about the mishap, PSEG did not release any statements to the media or tell people who live near the plant about what had happened. "They don't tell us much," said Coleman, the hospital worker. But Sindoni said the company did respond to questions received from people who learned about the incident through the NRC Web site. He said while problems that spur special NRC investigations are relatively rare, it is not unusual for one of the Salem plants to be shut down at times other than their regular stoppages every 18 months. PSEG said Hope Creek will remain closed pending the company's own investigation of the steam leak. Copyright © 2004, The Associated Press ***************************************************************** 17 MENAFN: Dewa rules out the use of N-energy Middle East North Africa . Financial Network DUBAI — The Dubai Electricity and Water Authority's (Dewa) future development plans were highlighted by Saeed Al Tayer, Managing Director and CEO of Dewa ,at the Mashreq Forum luncheon held at the Dusit Dubai Hotel. Al Tayer gave a presentation on the development activities of the authority and offered statistics on the rate of increase of consumption of water and electricity in Dubai as a growing city. "The statistics show that the high consumption of water and electricity is due to the volume of activity, the large projects, and the vision of Dubai government," explained Al Tayer. Answering a question on the use of nuclear energy for generating electricity, he said: "Dewa is not thinking of using nuclear energy. Natural gas is available and we prefer to use it for safety reasons. It is more efficient and affordable than nuclear energy." Statistics show that the average daily use of domestic water is around 500 litres per capita per day. Dubai is considered the second largest electricity consumer per capita after Norway. [http://www.menafn.com] All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 18 World Today: Taiwan's nuclear capacity causes concern "Australian Broadcasting Corporation Online"> [http://www.abc.net.au/] Friday, 15 October , 2004 12:22:00 Reporter: Michael Vincent ELEANOR HALL: There are warnings today that Taiwan has the technology to produce nuclear weapons and would do so if threatened with invasion my mainland China. Taiwan officially stopped its nuclear weapons program under pressure from the United States more than a decade ago, and the Taiwanese government is emphatically rejecting claims it succeeded in separating plutonium, a key ingredient in nuclear weapons. But as Michael Vincent reports, Taiwanese defence analysts say the country would have no problem building nuclear weapons if the government deemed it necessary. MICHAEL VINCENT: The Taiwan Straits are one of the world's potential flashpoints. Beijing has threatened pre-emptive strikes if Taiwan makes any new attempt to develop nuclear weapons. Taiwan tried in the 1980s, but stopped under US pressure. Now however, claims about Taiwan's real nuclear capabilities have been raised in Europe in the home of the international nuclear weapons watchdog. Unnamed diplomats linked to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna have been quoted overnight as saying the agency has evidence Taiwan did experiment with separating plutonium in the 1980s – that, in essence, Taiwan's weapons program is more advanced than previously revealed. Taiwan has been quick to deny the embarrassing report. Deputy Minister of Atomic Energy Yang Chao-yie. YANG CHAO-YIE (translated): We did not conduct any plutonium experiments around 1980, but before that we did have some plutonium research. MICHAEL VINCENT: What that research was he would not say. Across the straits, the Foreign Ministry Beijing said it was investigating the reports, but couldn't comment until more is known. But Taiwan says it fully cooperates with IAEA and allows its inspectors to go wherever they want, whenever they want. And the Chairman of Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council, Joseph Wu, has been quick to stress his government's position on nuclear weapons. JOSEPH WU: Let me make it very, very clear at this point that we do not have that option and we don't want to develop that option. The nuclear option has not been on the government agenda. MICHAEL VINCENT: Despite those denials, some analysts believe Taiwan could quickly develop nuclear weapons if it was threatened. Andrew Yang is a defence analyst at the Chinese Council of Advanced Policy Studies in Taipei. ANDREW YANG: In terms of the technological know how, it is no problem for Taiwan. But actually conducting or activating this program would raise a lot of concerns in the international community. Beijing has already indicated if Taiwan reactivated its own nuclear weapon program that would be conducive to pre-emptive strikes if necessary. MICHAEL VINCENT: Even with Beijing threatening pre-emptive strikes in the event Taiwan did develop nuclear weapons, China-specialist at Griffith University, Colin Mackerras, believes Taiwan will keep the option open. COLIN MACKERRAS: Various regimes there have said that they would want to defend themselves at all costs. They think that the Americans are going to help defend them and signs are – at least they were until very recently – that that is the case and so I think that it's an option they would not want to rule out. I mean, they may do so publicly, but privately I think they will not rule that option out. MICHAEL VINCENT: So why is it, do you believe, that Taiwan is keeping this possibility of having nuclear weapons in their back pocket, if it would only use them in last circumstances, under a Chinese invasion? COLIN MACKERRAS: Well, for that very reason. They think that they are under threat, they think that there's a possibility of the mainland attacking them and trying to take them back as part of China and they want to have a means of defending themselves. They think that's the only possible means of defending themselves in the last resort because they can't depend on the United States. I mean, they think that the United States would help them, but they don't think… there are some people that don't think they can't actually depend on them. I mean I don't know whether this report is absolutely true or not, but I think that's the kind of logic that would drive some people towards developing the nuclear option. MICHAEL VINCENT: How disturbing or damaging is it to Taiwan to even be discussing the possibility that they could go nuclear in the public realm? COLIN MACKERRAS: I think all that can do is to make Taiwan less influential internationally, because the international community is not going to like that at all. ELEANOR HALL: Griffith University China specialist Colin Mackerras, ending that report from Michael Vincent. [ border=] [http://www.abc.net.au/privacy.htm] ***************************************************************** 19 CBC - New Brunswick: Nuclear shutdown cost $10 million www.cbc.ca/ WebPosted Oct 15 2004 05:38 PM ADT SAINT JOHN — NB Power hopes to have the Point Lepreau nuclear plant up and running within days following the most expensive unplanned shutdown in three years. A series of problems caused the plant to shut down unexpectedly nearly two weeks ago, costing NB Power more than $10 million. Rod White + LINK: NB Power corporate website [http://www.nbpower.com/en/default.aspx] The shutdown raises questions about nuclear power's reliability just weeks before New Brunswick must decide whether to proceed with a billion-dollar plant renovation. The plant has produced no power since Oct. 2, and other power plants across the province have been called on to pick up the slack. Even the Mactaquac Dam's head-pond has been drained to fill the gap. It's an expensive failure at a critical time, as the province decides within the month whether to take another big gamble on nuclear power. Point Lepreau has had its share of problems, but had been operating remarkably well during the last two years. The latest shutdown has lasted much longer than NB Power had hoped or predicted, and once again raises old questions about nuclear power's reliability. The latest problem began when an electronic failure caused a shutdown system to partially start itself. NB Power immediately issued a press release predicting a two-day stoppage. But then, a steam leak was discovered in a pipe during start-up. Then cracks were found in four other steam pipes, dragging the shutdown into one week and then two. Rod White is vice-president of nuclear for NB Power and says Lepreau's record is good, even with the shutdown. "You recognize that you've got a plant that can perform very well but it is a complicated plant and some things may not go the way you like. Like this inspection found these things. So we'll fix it, but generally over the last three years we've had a good average," he says. The current shutdown is unsettling because the big issue with Lepreau is whether to begin shutting it down completely, or spend a billion dollars to refurbish it for another 25 years of operation. Two years ago the Public Utilities Board decided the Lepreau refurbishment plan was too risky, precisely because of unforeseen events that could shut the plant down. + From April 16, 2004: NB Power needs to do more homework: expert [http://nb.cbc.ca/regional/servlet/View?filename=nb_lepreaureport 200040416] But last June, Premier Bernard Lord was still endorsing the idea as a possibility. "I think the odds are that Lepreau will go ahead, but there are still some evaluations that have to take place." To work financially, the renovation plan requires Lepreau to operate at an average of 85 per cent capacity for 25 years. The problem is, Lepreau has a dismal record of meeting even yearly targets. White says this shutdown means Lepreau will reach only 78 per cent of its generation capacity for this year – and that's if it operates flawlessly for the next five months. This is the fifth time in six years that Lepreau has failed to meet its yearly output goal, raising questions about the accuracy of NB Power's 25-year forecast for the nuclear power plant, when its yearly estimates are so often wrong. NB Power says it understands the nuclear issue better than it used to, and a refurbished Lepreau can operate much better than the original. Despite that confidence, the current shutdown at Lepreau is a stark reminder of how unplanned nuclear events can still surprise the experts. Copyright © CBC 2004 ***************************************************************** 20 News & Star: Nuclear power is only way forward Published on 15/10/2004 [' Entente cordiale: France sells nuclear power to us says Mr Dickinson (AP Photo /Rolland Quadrin' width=] Entente cordiale: France sells nuclear power to us says Mr Dickinson (AP Photo /Rolland Quadrin BY DESIGN wind turbines have to rotate at a reasonable speed to produce any useable electrical energy. So, if we depended on wind power, all those who live in the widely over estimated number of houses to which they can provide light, could get some power sometimes but also on other occasions be in darkness. Have you noticed how those monsters near J37 on the M6 motorway are not rotating or not going fast enough? Any power that they actually put into the grid can therefore be unreliable and only represents a minuscule part of the total requirement. I believe the only really renewable source is using the tides since this happens at least twice every 24 hours but still needs much development work and may not be generally possible. Remember, too, that Calder Hall was the world’s first successful nuclear power station and its sister station at Chapel Cross had a design life of only 15 years, but they had completed 47 to 48 years when they were closed down. This was achieved with no major operating problems. BNFL has recently confirmed that the waste produced is only a small fraction of that originally experienced and is no longer a problem. France now produces nearly 80 per cent of its total from nuclear stations despite the great hydro potential in the Alps and Pyrenees. We actually buy this nuclear-generated power from France . So let us all say “no†to any more of these noisy, useless monsters cluttering our beautiful countryside and in other areas in the country but noticeably not near to London and the South East. We should make the Government spend our money on nuclear power stations. These are a reliable and clean source of power with no emissions of harmful gases and exhausts. They are the only known source that can cover our needs now and even more certainly in the future. ALLAN W DICKINSON Etterby ScaurCarlisle n While we agree entirely that technological advances in renewable energy are essential to safeguard the future of our planet, it is misguided to believe that, in practice, on-shore wind farms can do anything to reduce the now dangerous levels of carbon dioxide emissions. By its very nature, wind is unreliable and difficult to forecast accurately. Because of this, wind turbines will frequently be turned off: wind strengths of above 50mph expose turbines to risk of damage and at wind speeds of below 30mph the power output is considerably reduced. The principle of on-shore wind technology as an answer to global warming is, therefore, a flawed one. Electricity consumption in the UK is steadily rising at the rate of 1.5 per cent per annum. As long as consumption rises so will emissions, and wind turbines will not offer an alternative power source that will reduce emissions. Apart from producing more power, energy conservation should also be addressed. There is very little education on energy saving measures such as the use of low energy light bulbs, insulation, solar panels etc, all of which would result in a reduction of a huge amount of energy. We are all concerned about the potential damage to our planet caused by harmful emissions. CAROLYN BYLES Silloth On Solway Action Committee nw evening mail [http://www.nwemail.co.uk/] | ***************************************************************** 21 NRC: NRC Extends Review Schedule for Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant Uprate Request News Release - 2004-13 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC 20555-0001 E-mail: opa@nrc.gov No. 04-133 October 15, 2004 The Nuclear Regulatory Commissions review of Entergy Nuclears application for a 20 percent power increase, or uprate, at Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station (VYNPS) will take longer than its original Jan. 31, 2005, completion date. The NRC, with its commitment to public health and safety, will not allow an increase in Vermont Yankee's operating power level unless we are certain the change could be done safely, said Jim Dyer, Director of the agencys Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation (NRR). The NRC will ask Entergy for more information until were satisfied we have what we need to properly review the application. Early on in the review process, NRC staff made it clear that operating experience from other plants, which had performed uprates similar to what Vermont Yankee proposes, raised an important generic issue for the review concerning the potential for steam dryer failures following implementation of a power uprate. In a letter to Entergy, Ledyard Marsh, Director of NRRs Division of Licensing Project Management, said: During the review, in an attempt to resolve our steam dryer concerns, the NRC staff has requested additional information, held three public meetings with Entergy, and performed an audit of the steam dryer analysis at the General Electric office in San Jose, California. Based on review of the information provided in the application, the supplements received through October 7, 2004, and the results of the audit, the NRC staff has determined that the information submitted by the licensee to date does not yet provide sufficient assurance that the VYNPS steam dryer will remain capable of maintaining its structural integrity under [uprate] conditions. During the audit and the most recent public meeting, Entergy staff indicated that further information will be submitted to address the NRC staff concerns related to steam dryer integrity. The additional information is needed before NRC staff can complete a draft safety evaluation on the proposed uprate, and will therefore delay review by the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards, an independent group of nuclear experts. Once Entergy provides the information and NRC staff carefully reviews it, a more definitive schedule for completing the uprate review will be available. Last revised Friday, October 15, 2004 ***************************************************************** 22 NRC: Notice of Intent To Prepare an Environmental Impact Statement FR Doc 04-23134 [Federal Register: October 15, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 199)] [Notices] [Page 61268-61270] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr15oc04-120] for the Proposed USEC American Centrifuge Plant AGENCY: United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). ACTION: Notice of Intent (NOI). SUMMARY: USEC Inc., (USEC) submitted a license application to the NRC on August 23, 2004, proposing the construction, operation and future decommissioning of the American Centrifuge Plant (ACP) gas centrifuge uranium enrichment facility in Piketon, OH. The NRC announces its intent to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) in accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and NRC NEPA implementing regulations contained in 10 CFR part 51. The EIS will examine the potential environmental impacts of the proposed USEC ACP. DATES: The public scoping process required by NEPA begins with publication of this NOI and continues until December 6, 2004. Written comments submitted by mail should be postmarked by that date to ensure consideration. Comments mailed after that date will be considered to the extent possible. NRC will conduct a public scoping meeting to assist in defining the appropriate scope of the EIS, including the significant environmental issues to be addressed. The meeting date, times and location are listed below: Meeting Date: November 15, 2004. Meeting Location: Vern Riffe Career Technology Center, 175 Beaver Creek Road, Piketon, Ohio 45661. Scoping Meeting: 7 p.m. to 9:45 p.m. Members of the NRC staff will be available for informal discussions with members of the public from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. The formal meeting and associated NRC presentation begins at 7 p.m. For planning purposes, those who wish to present oral comments at the meeting are encouraged to pre-register by contacting Matthew Blevins of the NRC by telephone at 1-800-368-5642, Extension 7684, or by e-mail at mxb6@nrc.gov [mxb6@nrc.gov] no later than November 9, 2004. Interested persons may also register to speak at the meeting. ADDRESSES: Members of the public and interested parties are invited and encouraged to submit comments to the Chief, Rules Review and Directives Branch, Mail Stop T-6D59, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001. Due to the current mail situation in the Washington, DC area, the NRC encourages comments to be submitted electronically to nrcrep@nrc.gov [nrcrep@nrc.gov] . Please refer to Docket No. 70-7004 when submitting comments. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For general or technical information associated with the license review of the USEC application, please contact: Yawar Faraz at (301) 415-8113. For [[Page 61269]] general information on the NRC NEPA process, or the environmental review process related to the USEC application, please contact: Matthew Blevins at (301) 415-7684. Information and documents associated with the USEC project, including the USEC license application (submitted on August 23, 2004), are available for public review through the NRC Electronic Reading Room: http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html [http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html] , using accession number ML042800551. Documents may also be obtained from the NRC Public Document Room at U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Headquarters, 11555 Rockville Pike (first floor), Rockville, Maryland, 20852-2738. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 1.0 Background USEC submitted a license application which included an Environmental Report for a gas centrifuge uranium enrichment facility, known as the ACP, to the NRC on August 23, 2004. The NRC environmental review will evaluate the potential environmental impacts associated with the proposed ACP in parallel with the NRC safety and security reviews of the license application. The environmental review will be documented in draft and final Environmental Impact Statements in accordance with NEPA and NRC NEPA implementing regulations contained in 10 CFR part 51. 2.0 USEC Enrichment Facility If licensed, the proposed ACP would enrich uranium for use in manufacturing commercial nuclear fuel for use in power reactors. Feed and product material would be in the form of uranium hexafluoride (UF6). USEC seeks approval from the NRC to enrich uranium in the uranium-235 isotope up to 10 percent. The enriched UF6 would be transported to a fuel fabrication facility. The depleted UF6 would be stored on site until a disposition strategy (either re-use or disposal) is carried out. Initially, the licensed capacity of the plant would be up to 3.5 million separative work units (SWU) per year [SWU relates to a measure of the work used to enrich uranium]. USEC has requested that the NRC environmental review examine the impacts of an enrichment plant with a 7 million SWU per year capacity to bound potential future expansions. The safety and security reviews of any future expansion beyond 3.5 million SWU per year would still have to be conducted by the NRC under a separate license amendment request from USEC. 3.0 Alternatives To Be Evaluated No action--The no-action alternative would be to not build the proposed ACP. Under this alternative the NRC would not approve the license application. This alternative serves as a baseline for comparison. Proposed action--The proposed action is the construction and operation of a gas centrifuge uranium enrichment facility located in Piketon, OH. Implementation of the proposed action would require the issuance of an NRC license under the provisions of 10 CFR parts 30, 40 and 70. Other alternatives not listed here may be identified through the scoping process. 4.0 Environmental Impact Areas To Be Analyzed The following resource areas have been tentatively identified for analysis in the EIS: --Public and Occupational Health: Potential public and occupational consequences from construction, routine operation, transportation, and credible accident scenarios (including natural events); --Waste Management: Types of wastes expected to be generated, handled, stored and subject to re-use or disposal; --Land Use: Plans, policies and controls; --Transportation: Transportation modes, routes, quantities, and risk estimates; --Geology and Soils: Physical geography, topography, geology and soil characteristics; --Water Resources: Surface and groundwater hydrology, water use and quality, and the potential for degradation; --Ecology: Wetlands, aquatic, terrestrial, economically and recreationally important species, and threatened and endangered species; --Air Quality: Meteorological conditions, ambient background, pollutant sources, and the potential for degradation; --Noise: Ambient, sources, and sensitive receptors; --Historical and Cultural Resources: Historical, archaeological, and traditional cultural resources; --Visual and Scenic Resources: Landscape characteristics, manmade features and viewshed; --Socioeconomics: Demography, economic base, labor pool, housing, transportation, utilities, public services/facilities, education, recreation, and cultural resources; --Environmental Justice: Potential disproportionately high and adverse impacts to minority and low-income populations; and --Cumulative Effects: Impacts from past, present and reasonably foreseeable actions at and near the site. The examples under each resource area are not intended to be all inclusive, nor is this list an indication that environmental impacts will occur. The list is presented to facilitate comments on the scope of the EIS. Additions to, or deletions from, this list may occur as a result of the public scoping process. 5.0 Scoping Meetings This NOI is to encourage public involvement in the EIS process and to solicit public comments on the proposed scope and content of the EIS. NRC will hold a public scoping meeting in Piketon, OH on November 15, 2004 to solicit both oral and written comments from interested parties. Scoping is an early and open process designed to determine the range of actions, alternatives, and potential impacts to be considered in the EIS, and to identify the significant issues related to the proposed action. Scoping is intended to solicit input from the public and other agencies so that the analysis can be more clearly focused on issues of genuine concern. The principal goals of the scoping process are to: --Identify public concerns; --Ensure that concerns are identified early and are properly studied; --Identify alternatives that will be examined; --Identify significant issues that need to be analyzed; and --Eliminate unimportant issues. The scoping meetings will begin with NRC staff providing a description of NRC's role and mission followed by a brief overview of NRC's environmental review process and goals of the scoping meeting. The bulk of the meeting will be allotted for attendees to make oral comments. 6.0 Scoping Comments Written comments should be mailed to the address listed above in the ADDRESSES section. The NRC staff will prepare a scoping summary report in which it will summarize public comments. The NRC will make the scoping summary report and project-related materials available for public review through its Electronic Reading Room: http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html [http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html] . The scoping meeting summary and project-related materials will also be available on the NRC's USEC Web page: http://www.nrc.gov/materials/fuel-cycle-fac/usecfacility.html [http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.nrc.gov/materials/fuel-cycle-fa c/usecfacility.html] (case sensitive). [[Page 61270]] 7.0 The NEPA Process The EIS for the proposed ACP will be prepared according to NEPA and NRC NEPA implementing regulations contained in 10 CFR part 51. After the scoping process is complete, the NRC will prepare a draft EIS. The draft EIS is scheduled to be published by July 2005. A 45-day comment period on the draft EIS is planned, and a public meeting to receive comments will be held approximately three weeks after publication of the draft EIS. Availability of the draft EIS, the dates of the public comment period, and information about the public meeting will be announced in the Federal Register, on NRC's USEC Web page, and in the local news media. The final EIS is expected to be published in March 2006 and will incorporate, as appropriate, public comments received on the draft EIS. Signed in Rockville, MD, this 7th day of October 2004. For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. B. Jennifer Davis, Chief, Environmental and Performance Assessment Directorate, Division of Waste Management and Environmental Protection, Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards. [FR Doc. 04-23134 Filed 10-14-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P ***************************************************************** 23 [du-list] Iraq Solidarity Campaign - Supporting the people of Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2004 15:08:16 -0700 Founded in 1997 as the Coalition Against Sanctions and War on Iraq and transformed in 2003 into the Iraq Solidarity Campaign (UK), for the past seven years we have worked tirelessly to assist the Iraqi people in their struggle for self-determination. First established to oppose the United Nations imposed sanctions, which killed an estimated 1.5 million Iraqi children under the age of five, our organisation has been at the centre of organising many protests, sanction-busting activities, conferences and meetings to highlight the plight of the Iraqi people. During the 2003 war and invasion of Iraq, our members actively took part in all the demonstrations across the United Kingdom, to oppose the actions of the Blair led Labour Government. We worked with various media agencies to respond to the allegations made by the British Prime Minister, we also publicised the financial cost of the war to the British people and also informed the general public of the situation that the people in Iraq faced, whilst being under siege. Throughout this period, we also worked closely with our members and supporters in the Iraqi community: who informed us of the situations that their friends and families faced back home. We also kept in regular contact with our supporters inside of Baghdad. At the end of the war and the beginning of the occupation, with sanctions having come to an end, the members of the Coalition Against Sanctions and War on Iraq agreed, that whilst Iraq was under occupation and human rights continue to be violated, the solidarity of the British people is needed more than ever! Today, the Iraq Solidarity Campaign (UK), is continuing it's long tradition of building practical support with the people of Iraq, by calling on the people of Britain to support the following demands: 1) A full withdrawal of British Troops from Iraq! 2) The support and strengthening of democratic bodies - that seek to build a future, that is all-inclusive and representative of the aspirations of the people in Iraq! 3) The Right for the Iraqi people to determine their own economic and political future! 4) The right for ethnic and religious minorities to live free from persecution and interference! As an organisation, we believe that only the people of Iraq can shape their own futures but they also need our assistance to make their dreams of stability and peace, into a living reality. Mr. Hussein Al-alak. Chair, The Iraq Solidarity Campaign (UK). --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Get Involved! Stay Informed! Branch Meetings! The Iraq Solidarity Campaign meets on the: 3rd Wednesday of every month, Venue: the Friends Meeting House, Mount Street, Manchester City Centre (behind the main Central Reference Library). Time: 7-30pm. ALL WELCOME! Solidarity Online! You can also check out the Iraq Solidarity Campaign (UK) on the web: www.iraqsolidaritycampaign.blogspot.com Subscribe to our e-list: iraqisolidarity-subscribe@yahoogroups.com Contact the Campaign directly: MCR_Coalition@yahoo.co.uk or contact us at the below address/telephone number's: Iraq Solidarity Campaign (UK) c/o Bridge 5 Mill, 22a Beswick Street, Ancoats, Manchester, M4 7HR, The UK. for more information please call: 0161 882 0188 / 07946 783 801 **DONATE** Like all campaign groups, the ISC is a not-for profit organisation that rely's upon your donations. If you wish to support our work and feel that you don't have the time to be an active member, then please send a donation - EVERY PENNY COUNTS! Cheques/Postal Orders payable to "GMCAWSI" and send to the above address. --------------------------------- How much mail storage do you get for free? Yahoo! Mail gives you 100MB! Get Yahoo! Mail [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/ ***************************************************************** 24 PRAVDA.Ru: Pentagon uses depleted uranium shells in its raid against Iraq - 10/15/2004 15:02 Contamination caused with depleted uranium will last for 4.5 billion years Increased radioactivity was found in destroyed and abandoned Iraqi tanks. The radiation level may testify to the fact that the US army used uranium-cored projectiles in the raids. Japan's Kyodo News agency reported from Baghdad, a group of specialists had found several radioactive tanks in the area of the Iraqi town of Samawa, where the Japanese contingent was stationed. [ The abandoned military hardware is dangerous to people's health, the news agency said. International coalition troops will destroy the tanks for safety reasons. The group of specialists included experts from a Japanese non-governmental organization. The experts said that the radiation level that they had registered near the tanks exceeded the norm 300 times. Medical examinations of the US military men, who returned home from Iraq, also showed that the Pentagon used depleted uranium armor-piercing shells. American newspaper wrote before that displays of radioactive contamination were registered with the US soldiers, who had been deployed in the area of the Samawa (fierce battles took place in the town during the first two weeks of the US and British incursion in Iraq). Depleted uranium, also known as uranium-238, is the by-product received from processing fuel for nuclear reactors. The element is 1.7 times heavier than lead. Depleted uranium is used for making projectile cores and special bombs to pierce tank armors and bunkers' concrete ceilings. Spokespeople for the Pentagon said that uranium-238 possessed short-term harmful impact, which allowed to categorize it as the "chemical contamination" rather than radioactivity. The substance becomes environmentally harmless in seven years after it has been used, experts of the US military department insist. The Pentagon's independent colleagues are being more precise in their judgments, though. High temperatures destroy the uranium tip of a shell, when it slams into the armored surface. Fine dust is produced as a result of the impact. The dust penetrates into blood via the respiratory system, which results in lung cancer and renal insufficiency. Moreover, regulations prohibit US military men to approach the military hardware, which has been destroyed with uranium shells. It is allowed to do it in case of emergent necessity. American physicist Doug Rokke, who served in Iraq in 1991 cleaning the country of depleted uranium, said: "For each and every vehicle that is struck by a single uranium munition you have to take that entire vehicle, and physically remove it. Then you have to clean up all the uranium penetration that is left around that vehicle. Then you have to take a bulldozer, and go out to at least 100 metres (yards) and scrape down at least 10 centimetres (four inches) and remove all of that dirt in order to make that area safe again. If that is not done, he said, the contamination will last 4.5 billion years." Based on the materials of Russia and foreign media outlets Read the original in Russian: http://news.pravda.ru/abroad/2004/10/15/68302.html (Translated by: Dmitry Sudakov) Pravda.Ru L1999-2002 "PRAVDA.Ru". When reproducing our materials in ***************************************************************** 25 Interfax: Ladoga radioactive pollution feared [http://www.interfax.com] Oct 15 2004 1:24PM PETROZAVODSK. Oct 15 (Interfax-Northwest) - Activists of Karelia's association of environmentalists have expressed concern that an ongoing exploration project at an uranium deposit outside the village of Karkhu may cause radioactive pollution in Lake Ladoga. "Our information suggests that exploration efforts are in their final sages at an uranium deposit near the village of Karkhu in Karelia's Piktyarantsk district," association coordinator Dmitry Rybakov told Interfax. The average depth of the uranium deposit there is 150-300 meters, the association said. © 1991-2004 Interfax All rights reserved News and other data on this web site are provided for information purposes only, and are not intended for republication or redistribution. Republication or redistribution ***************************************************************** 26 Pahrump Valley Times: Court throws out radiation standards - Nye County's Largest Newspaper Circulation October 15, 2004 By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS LAS VEGAS - A federal appeals court has denied a request to keep the Yucca Mountain radiation standards in place until the Supreme Court decides whether to hear the case. With just under three months to go before the Energy Department plans to submit a license application for the planned nuclear waste dump, the court's original decision to throw out the radiation standard will take effect in a week or less. In a one-page order issued Oct. 8, the court denied the request by the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's lobbying arm, but gave no explanation of its decision. The department has insisted it would meet its self-imposed deadline of Dec. 30 to file the license application, but Deputy Secretary of Energy Kyle McSlarrow said last month that goal might not be met. Nevada officials say that without a radiation standard any application the department would submit this year would be worthless because all the science and data in it would be based on a protection standard that no longer exists. "It's a free country and you can mail packages to whomever you want but that doesn't mean it has any effect in the real world," said Joe Egan, an attorney hired by the state to handle Yucca issues. In July, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia threw out the 10,000 year radiation compliance period for the proposed nuclear waste storage project at Yucca, in Nye County roughly 50 miles northwest of Pahrump, and 20 miles east and west of Beatty and Amargosa Valley, respectively. The court found the Environmental Protection Agency did not follow recommendations of the National Academy of Sciences, as outlined in a federal energy law. The academy saw no reason to use a 10,000-year standard but wanted the site to be able to hold radiation in through the peak dose period, which would come several hundred thousand years into the future. The court also threw out the NRC's licensing rule using the radiation standard until Congress changed the law requiring the EPA to follow the academy's recommendation, or the EPA came up with a new standard. This means the commission could not evaluate that portion of the license until a new compliance standard was in place. The radiation standard stayed in place for several months because the Nuclear Energy Institute asked the court to rehear the case, which was denied, and then asked the court to keep the standard in place until the Supreme Court could decide to take up the case. The Department of Justice's Office of Solicitor General has said the federal government will not take the case to the Supreme Court. Egan said the state also would not pursue the matter in the Supreme Court. He said by taking out the radiation standard, the state has removed the "constitutional defect" it argued wrongfully singled out the state. The court ruling did not outright stop the project, but could delay it because a new standard could take at least two years to complete, especially if the academy is asked to provide comment on it, Egan said. The department aims to open the repository by 2010. NEI spokesman Steve Kerekes said the group's senior staff is evaluating what this decision means and what its next steps will be. NRC spokesman David McIntyre said if and when the commission receives a license application, it will review it for technical information to see it if can be accepted and the court's decision will be weighed at that time. "The 10,000 year question will be part of that review," McIntyre said. Calls to the Environmental Protection Agency were not returned. For comment or questions, please e-mail [webmaster@pahrumpvalleytimes.com] Copyright © Pahrump Valley Times, 1997 - 2004 ***************************************************************** 27 WIVB: First Look at Declassified Documents TV4 Buffalo, NY - (October 15, 2004) - - Former Bethlehem Steel workers are getting their first look at some newly declassified documents. Members of the Bethlehem Steel Action Group updated retired workers Thursday night. They say the new information shows they were exposed to raw uranium without their knowledge in the late forties and early fifties. So far only lung cancer victims are receiving compensation. Ed Walker of the Bethlehem Steel Action Group said, "Their theory is that it goes into the lungs first and never reaches other areas. But they're using faulty data, we feel. And they never investigated Bethlehem Steel and they admit that." The former steelworkers want to be compensated like energy department workers who worked on the Manhattan Project. [http://www.worldnow.com] All content © Copyright 2000 - 2004 WorldNow and WIVB. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 28 TownOnline.com: Still whistling: A whistleblower's battles continue - North Shore Sunday - Local News Rowley farmer and longtime political agitator Steve Comley isn't afraid to stand up to the government, a habit that hasn't exactly endeared him to those in authority. (Staff Photo By John Harvey) By Frank Carini Friday, October 15, 2004Facing a six-figure fine from the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, North Shore resident Steve Comley decided to have a parade. Motivated by what he considers to be the state's unfair enforcement of the Wetlands Protection Act, the longtime Rowley farmer will protest the DEP's ruling next week in Boston. Thursday's "peaceful" demonstration will be highlighted by a parade, which will circle the Boston Common beginning around 12:30 p.m., and will feature a caravan of tractors, hay wagons, eight floats and 20 cows. Yes, cows. And a few will even be penned on the common (see adjacent story). The demonstration will end with a press conference on the State House steps and a walk to Gov. Mitt Romney's office, where Comley and his fellow protesters - about 30 to 40 farmers from across the state - will hand-deliver a petition. "People in authority bully people," says Comley. "I don't like bullies." It's safe to describe that particular comment as an understatement. In fact, the DEP is far from the first government agency Comley has picked a fight with. That battle began nearly two decades ago, with a bout against the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). He's been battling the government since, and he sees no end in sight. "Complacency is killing this country," Comley says. "Democracy has been stagnant for a while. The forefathers died for our freedoms and we take them for granted. If you don't exercise those freedoms, you're going to lose 'em." The now 60-year-old rabble-rouser, however, didn't always feel that way. Before his run-in with the NRC, Comley says he was shy. That shyness has since given way to passion - a passion some may interpret as fanatical. Detractors call him crazy, a flake or a radical. Supporters use words like dedicated and determined. "I've changed," admits Comley. "I'm privileged and honored to be doing what I'm doing." And what he's doing - what he has been doing for two decades - is hounding the government. At every level. Ready to rumble Comley runs We The People Inc., a government watchdog group he founded in 1987 that is a clearinghouse for whistleblower complaints. He has cultivated a long list of informants, and he isn't afraid to use the nonprofit organization to take on all kinds of alleged government injustices. His relentless battle with the NRC, and the government in general, began in 1986. Comley, whose family owns the Sea View Retreat nursing home in Rowley, discovered that Seabrook Station, a nuclear power plant 12 miles away in New Hampshire, and other such facilities across the country didn't have a reasonable plan in place for those too old or too frail to be evacuated in case of a radioactive accident. His concerns, he says, fell on deaf ears, and he didn't like at least one answer he received from an NRC official: "For the few individuals that cannot be moved in the event of a nuclear disaster, we recommend you leave them behind and administer potassium iodine to drink." That insensitive response infuriated Comley, but he stockpiled the drug in his nursing home anyway. He also changed his game plan. Instead of demanding that these plants be shut down, he began insisting they be run safely. He's been battling the NRC since. "The more I dug, the more alarmed I got," Comley said during a series aired on CNN in the early 1990s about alleged attempts by the NRC to silence nuclear-safety whistleblowers. He's also been interviewed by Time magazine and by myriad other publications in connection with nuclear-industry concerns, and his name was dropped by several presidential candidates in the late '80s and early '90s, including Bill Clinton. Armed with information from his network of informants, We The People claimed 72 of the country's 110 operating nuclear power plants featured counterfeit substandard parts, such as pipe, pipe flanges, valves and nuts and bolts, that Comley says were labeled as tested but never were and stamped as built in the United States but were not. He says he personally handed this information to President Reagan in the late 1980s - a claim Reagan denied. (A photo of Comley handing an envelope to Reagan at a press conference is featured prominently on his group's Web site.) When We The People began making these safety allegations public in the late the 1980s - in 1988, Comley mailed a four-page letter to every senator, representative and governor in the United States - the NRC demanded in federal court to know the source of the allegations. Comley refused to reveal his informants and was found in contempt of court, resulting in a $115,000 fine. He narrowly missed going to jail. Angered with the way he was treated by the NRC - the agency barred him from its public meetings until a judge ordered the ban lifted and assigned security guards to monitor him at meetings - Comley sued on the grounds that his rights were violated. A federal judge agreed. The commission "prevented Comley from engaging in protected speech because they did not like his message," Judge John H. Pratt of the US District Court for the District of Columbia wrote in his Sept. 19, 1990 decision. Despite some victories against the NRC in the last 18 years - a congressional report in late 1990 confirmed that nearly two-thirds of the nuclear power plants in this country were operating with or received parts not meeting federal safety standards - Comley's battle with the nuclear industry rages on. He claims the government has no solution for nuclear waste, scoffing at the suggestion of the Yucca Mountain Project in Nevada; is worried about plans the Bush administration has for building 50 more nuclear power plants; and believes the NRC has failed to adequately investigate charges that many of the country's 107 existing power plants are still operating with substandard parts. "I have a responsibility to the American people to make sure the people are represented and not just the special interests of the nuclear industry," Comley says. "We can't turn our backs on corruption." His battle with the NRC has cost him $500,000, he says - although oddly, given his well-documented efforts, a longtime official in the commission's public affairs office, Sue Gagner, says she doesn't remember him. That's definitely not true for those on Comley's side of the watchdog fence. "He is dedicated to public service," says Paul Gunter, director of the Reactor Watchdog Project for the Nuclear Information and Resource Service in Washington, D.C, who has known Comley for nearly 20 years. "The interest of the people is what he cares about. One would hope we carried that type of responsibility." Unfortunately, says Gunter, Comley's determination has "put him in the crosshairs of the government." Keep the faith Comley's commitment to his causes also has rubbed some individuals the wrong way. The registered Independent says he's received four death threats, and his son's car was torched in front of the family's home in the late 1980s. He believes the Secret Service keeps a close eye on him. His offices have been vandalized, and his hotel room in Washington, D.C., was once broken into. Comley, however, has remained undaunted. He says he gets his strength from his wife, Judy, and their two sons, Nate and Steve II. He keeps it by reading and quoting the Bible. The Atlantic Union College graduate is known for his imaginative publicity stunts, such as hiring planes to trail banners, with various political messages, above the U.S. Capitol, the White House, the State House and other venues across the country. In all, he has paid for 60 such flights. He also purposely wedged a pickup truck towing a sign "Stop Chernobyl Here" into the entrance of a parking garage near the White House during We The People's heated battle with the NRC in the late '80s. He's known for his emotional outbursts at the press conferences of politicians. In 1996, Comley helped Frye Islanders in Maine secede from the town of Standish. As part of their efforts, residents of Frye Island - Comley is one during most of the summer - dressed as American Indians and reenacted the Boston Tea Party on the Sebago Lake island. It was part of the island's residents' protest of "taxation without representation." Now, Comley's ire is directed a little farther south. As a resident of Tallahassee, Fla., for much of the winter, Comley is unhappy with his condominium association's change to its short-term rent rule. For the past four years, he has waged a one-man campaign to persuade the Florida Legislature to intervene. Along the way, he has become, at least according to one Florida newspaper, one of the most recognizable citizen activists in Tallahassee. He's also found an ally in Senate President Jim King, who described Comley, in one newspaper report, as "persistent, dogmatic, unrelenting." Based out of his office on Main Street in Rowley, Comley directs We The People's fight against the government's perceived wrongdoings. The organization's main office was once based in the National Press Building in Washington, D.C., but "nobody listened," says Comley. He moved the main office to his hometown, and the organization now has satellite offices in Maine, Tennessee and Florida. In his Rowley office, hundreds of three-ringed binders and filing slots contain thousands upon thousands of correspondences, memos, newspaper clippings and government reports. Reams of information cover two desks, a long table and most of the floor. On the walls of this cluttered space hang photos of presidents Reagan, including one with the 40th president holding a We The People banner, Bush and Clinton, in among the framed commendations. But as disorganized as his office may seem, Comley's focus remains clear. "The government won't make changes until people outside the Beltway rise up and make their voice heard," says Comley. "I'm sick and tired of special interests. It's a joke." For more information on We The People, visit the organization's Web site at www.wethepeopleincoftheus.com, or call 978-948-7959. E-mail reporter Frank Carini at fcarini@cnc.com. Holy cow! Drive along any road in Rowley, especially Main Street, and there's a good chance you'll see a sign asking you to help save some cows. Those cows belong to Steve Comley, and the longtime Rowley resident says he'll be forced to sell his 20 cows, and bulls, to market and sell the 14.5-acre parcel in question if the state does not drop its case against him. The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection fined Rowley $164,750 in June, claiming the North Shore farmer inappropriately altered wetlands on his property. Comley says he and his two sons, Nate and Steve II, refurbished the hayfield on Cross Street four years ago because the brook that runs through their land was constantly flooding the property after heavy rains. "The brook isn't maintained," says the well-known political agitator - who believes his 18 years of whistleblowing, primarily against the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, are the reason he is being singled out in this matter. "The town doesn't have the money to dredge it." Rowley's 160-acre farm has been in operation since 1907, and Comley says the property's ordinary maintenance for agricultural use is exempt from the Wetlands Protection Act, under which the DEP levied the fine. The DEP, however, maintains that Comley illegally filled a wetland area. Agency spokesman Ed Coletta says Comley did not have a farm conservation plan on file with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Comley is fighting the charge - he's stunned, however, by the problems the matter has caused, saying "It's just a hayfield in Rowley" - and has turned to the Rowley Board of Selectmen and residents for support. In fact, the four-member Board of Selectmen has asked the DEP to back off and let the town handle the situation. And many residents have placed the signs of support, the ones that feature talking cows, on their property. The U.S. Department of Agricultural also is investigating the matter. "Personally, I can't conceive how they (the DEP) can justify that fine. They overstepped their authority," says Rowley town moderator Warren Appell, adding that the Board of Selectmen and Conservation Commission are trying to handle the matter. "Steve is a good neighbor and a good individual for the town." Comley has filed an appeal; there have been a few mediation sessions but no resolution. And he says he has no intention of paying "even a penny toward the fine," and wants nothing less than an apology and his expenses covered (about $30,000). "(The DEP) has dragged my family's name through the mud. We need the DEP but we need it to act responsibly," Comley says. "They insinuate we don't care about the environment but we've proved we do." - Frank Carini © Copyright of CNC and Herald Interactive Advertising Systems, Inc. ***************************************************************** 29 AFP: US admits its borders are not 'dirty bomb' proof [http://www.spacewar.com/] WASHINGTON (AFP) Oct 15, 2004 The US government has admitted its network of border radiation detectors designed to prevent the smuggling of a "dirty bomb" could be fooled, in a conclusion that lends credence to charges voiced by Democrat John Kerry during the presidential campaign. The Department of Homeland Security said, in a report by its inspector general, that the performance of its detection equipment installed at ports and border crossings "is reduced by certain factors." "The analysis described the distances beyond which the detection equipment would no longer detect the radiation source," Inspector General Clark Kent Ervin said in a thoroughly sanitized report, an unclassified version of which was released Thursday. Specific findings about the system's flaws will remain secret to avoid tipping off potential terrorists, officials said. The investigation was launched at the request of two high-level congressional Democrats, John Dingell of Michigan and Jim Turner of Texas, alarmed by recent media reports indicating that despite all efforts by the administration of President George W. Bush to shore up border security, the nation's borders remain porous -- even to smuggled nuclear devices. The outcry first erupted two years ago, when ABC News managed to successfully bring into the country nearly seven kilograms (15 pounds) of depleted uranium in a suitcase. The uranium, purchased in the former Soviet Union and stashed in a cylinder shielded with lead, was first brought by train to Austria, then shipped to Istanbul, Turkey, where it was loaded onto a US-bound cargo ship and successfully made it to its destination. According to the report, the US Customs Service failed to detect the radioactive material despite the fact that the crate, in which it was traveling, was classified as a "high-risk" shipment. The department did not explain the reasons for the failure, but pointed out that the uranium was placed in the middle of a large container filled with huge vases and Turkish horse carts. The sting operation was repeated in August 2003, when ABC News placed a similar uranium-filled cylinder into a teak trunk and sent it to the United States from Jakarta, Indonesia, in a container full of furniture. As it the first case, the uranium arrived undetected. In a subdued tone, the report accepted the department's responsibility, saying "the protocols and procedures that ... officials followed, at the time of the two smuggling incidents, were not adequate to detect the depleted uranium." The inspector general assured that technological and procedural improvements have since been made. But Congressman Turner, the ranking member of the House homeland security committee, remained skeptical. "It is hard to see how the government can reassure anyone based on the inspector general's report," he told the television network. "The sad state of affairs is that three years after 9/11 it still seems possible to get nuclear material into this country." With homeland security topping this year's election agenda, Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee, has repeatedly complained that nearly seven million cargo containers arrive in US ports each year, but only five percent of them are physically inspected. "We will reduce the spread of nuclear and biological and chemical weapons and better guard our ports," the Massachusetts senator said in one of his stump speeches. All rights reserved. © 2004 Agence France-Presse [http://www.afp.com/] . Sections of the information displayed on ***************************************************************** 30 Arizona Republic: Defense firm agrees to clean up its site [Arizona Republic Online Print Edition] October 15, 2004 Mary Jo Pitzl The Arizona Republic Oct. 15, 2004 12:00 AM A Phoenix defense manufacturer has agreed to clean up contaminated soil and groundwater found at its plant in north Phoenix last year. But even as the agreement with state environmental authorities was announced this week, other problems were surfacing. A state investigation is under way at the Goodrich/UPCO facility into whether plant officials improperly burned chemical-laden materials outdoors for the past six months. In addition, the company could face fines up to $30,000 for burning waste materials without a proper permit. The developments come as the company, which manufactures ejector seats for military aircraft, seeks to expand its operations at Central Avenue and Happy Valley Road. The Phoenix City Council is scheduled to consider the firm's rezoning request on Dec. 15. Neighbors who live north of the plant said the agreement to clean up the contamination strengthens their argument that expansion is a bad idea, or at the very least, rushed. "I think all those things need to be done before the site is rezoned," said Jenny Boles, president of the Happy Valley Neighborhood Alliance. Goodrich officials, in a news release, called the agreement good for all involved and said it should help their efforts to remain in Phoenix. "Our mission is to continue to operate a safe and successful business and continue to be a good, responsible corporate citizen," the release stated. It could take months for the company to determine the extent of contamination and create plans to eliminate it. Boles and many of her neighbors have mounted a spirited campaign to rebuff the firm's expansion plans, citing concerns that range from fire danger to water contamination. They are fighting the company's request for an "explosives waiver" from the city's zoning code and are opposing renewal of Goodrich's lease on state trust land. Arizona Department of Environmental Quality Director Steve Owens noted that it was residents who notified his agency of open burns at the plant, leading to the investigation into whether the company was burning "dangerous materials" in open air. In September, Goodrich/UPCO staffers told air-quality officials that the firm's enclosed burn unit had been broken since April. That has led to speculation that the company disposed of its waste materials in open burns, releasing potentially toxic chemicals in the air over the north Phoenix desert. The company's waste includes items such as waste propellant from used motors, old motor parts and used rags, Owens said. Company officials say they will no longer conduct burns at the plant, whether indoors or outdoors. Instead, they will seek other ways to dispose of waste products. "That would be a variety of things, like shipping it off-site," Goodrich spokeswoman Gail Warner said. Boles welcomed the announcement. "Oooh! That came right out of what we said," she said, adding that neighbors had suggested that Goodrich pack its volatile waste products in a type of "jelly" to stabilize them and then ship them off-site for disposal. The agreement signed this week concerns soil and groundwater contamination at the north-Phoenix site. Well-water tests have found varying levels of perchlorates, common ingredients in making explosives. Excessive perchlorate levels can inhibit the thyroid gland's ability to take up iodide, resulting in possible metabolism disruptions in adults and development problems in children. ADEQ is requiring Goodrich/UPCO to monitor not only for perchlorates, but also for volatile organic chemicals, nitrates and metals in area groundwater. In addition, the company must write to all the residents along Yearling Road, just north of the plant, between Central and Seventh Street, and offer to test their private water wells four times over the next two years for perchlorates. Owens said that he expects the company to have its plans in place by spring, and cleanup work to start next summer, even though the agreement gives Goodrich/UPCO more time. Copyright © 2004, azcentral.com. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 31 North Adams Transcript: Perchlorate shows up in wells at Sweetwood October 15, 2004 North Adams, MA By Karen Gardner North Adams Transcript WILLIAMSTOWN -- For the first time, routine quarterly testing has revealed the presence of perchlorate in wells at Sweet Brook Transitional Care and Living Centers and Sweetwood Continuing Care Retirement, Northern Berkshire Health Systems officials announced Thursday. The test results, received by the health system on Wednesday from Berkshire Enviro-Labs, showed low levels of perchlorate contamination in the wells with a level of 0.49 parts per billion. All previous quarterly tests of the wells showed no presence of perchlorate. In May, perchlorate levels in well water at Mount Greylock Regional High School were found to exceed one part per billion, with 5.23 and 5.05 parts per billion of the chemical in the south well, near the cafeteria, and 1.14 and 1.03 parts per billion in the north well. The state Department of Environmental Protection uses a 1.0 parts per billion level as its basis for the need to notify the public. "It's a level that doesn't require any action on our part, but we are choosing to do several things," said Paul Hopkins, spokesman for the health system. The water will be tested again to confirm the result, and the people who live and work at Sweet Brook and Sweetwood have been notified of the result, he said. Hopkins said the discovery of perchlorate in Sweet Brook and Sweetwood's wells reinforces the need for the health system to work collaboratively with Mount Greylock Regional, the town of Williamstown and the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute "to move quickly toward a public water supply solution." In a prepared statement, Northern Berkshire Health Systems' CEO John C. J. Cronin said that according to federal and state standards, the water is safe to drink. Perchlorate is both a naturally occurring and man-made chemical. Exposure to perchlorate has been found to be a possible cause of thyroid disease, and is commonly used in fireworks, munitions and rocket fuel. Levels over one part per billion can be harmful to "sensitive populations," such as pregnant women, children and people who have health problems or compromised thyroid conditions, while levels of 18 parts per million are considered a health risk for the general population. According to the DEP Web site, www.mass.gov/dep/brp/dws/percinfo.htm, the health effects associated with perchlorate exposure can be similar to those caused by iodine deficiency in humans. Copyright ©1999-2004 New England Newspapers, Inc., ***************************************************************** 32 Tri-City Herald: First review of tank waste released This story was published Friday, October 15th, 2004 By Annette Cary Herald staff writer An eight-month effort to compile all data on vapors from Hanford's underground tanks of radioactive and chemical waste has identified 52 chemicals of potential concern for risk to workers. Safety measures being used now near the tanks, including requiring supplied air respirators, are adequate to protect workers, wrote Dale Allen, executive vice president of CH2M Hill Hanford Group, in a memo to employees at the project's completion. The project was reviewed by an independent panel of nationally recognized toxicology and industrial hygiene experts. They agreed the methodology used was appropriate and that requirements for personal protection for workers were conservative. In fact, CH2M Hill used a more protective standard to identify the chemicals of concern than recommended by the panel. The 52 chemicals are among more than 1,800 that either have been detected in vapors from the tanks or are suspected of being generated by the waste. The resulting document "is a good foundation for the future," said Bob Popielarczyk, vice president of engineering for CH2M Hill. The Industrial Hygiene Chemical Vapor Technical Basis will be used to determine how best to protect workers at the tank farms. That could include some increased air monitoring. Tank vapors became an issue last year after the number of workers reporting smelling vapors increased and some workers complained of symptoms such as dizziness and shortness of breath. Separate investigations by the state of Washington, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health and the Department of Energy's Office of Independent Oversight and Assessment questioned whether enough was known about the vapors to know whether workers had been exposed to unsafe levels of harmful chemicals. The tank farms -- fields of huge underground tanks -- hold 53 million gallons of radioactive and chemical waste from the past production of plutonium at Hanford for the nation's nuclear weapons program. The mix of waste varies from tank to tank, but generates ammonia and various volatile organic compounds that vent through filters into the air above the tanks. To prepare the technical basis document, CH2M Hill gathered information ranging from studies of vapor samples to historical documents about what waste was put in tanks. "It really is the first of its kind across the DOE complex that compiles all knowledge we have on tank vapors," Popielarczyk said. The 52 chemicals of most concern include those that have been detected in the headspace inside the tanks at concentrations of at least 10 percent of the most conservative industrial hygiene limits available. The vapors would be further diluted when vented from the tanks. The list also includes chemicals that could potentially cause cancer if they are suspected of being in the tanks, even if they have not been detected. Because many of the chemicals in the tanks do not have established occupational exposure levels, risk analysis techniques should be used to determine what danger they pose, according to the expert panel. Although CH2M Hill will focus on 52 chemicals as the primary hazards to be routinely monitored and analyzed further, "we are not ignoring the rest," Popielarczyk said. The panel recommended that only chemicals found or suspected in at least 10 percent of tanks be included on the priority list, but CH2M Hill decided to include them if they were known in only one tank. "We were looking at worker protection," Popielarczyk said. CH2M Hill anticipates updates to the document as more information becomes available, including data on chemicals for which industrial exposure standards are being established. The panel included Ken Still, senior toxicologist for the Navy; Robert Snyder of Rutgers University; Don Gardner, editor of Inhalation Toxicology; and Jorge Olguin, retired from DuPont Chemical Co. They have served on numerous National Academy of Sciences toxicology panels. © 2004 Tri-City Herald, Associated Press &Other Wire Services ***************************************************************** 33 Salt Lake Tribune: Goshutes' waste plan hits a snag [http://www.sltrib.com] Article Last Updated: 10/15/2004 01:52:47 AM Yucca Mountain may reject spent nuclear fuel from proposed Skull Valley site By Patty Henetz The Salt Lake Tribune A utility consortium planning a temporary high-level nuclear waste storage facility on the Goshute reservation in Utah's west desert is developing intricate plans for getting the waste from nuclear power facilities to the site. But a federal Department of Energy official says a planned permanent repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev., could not accept the deadly waste, meaning that Private Fuel Storage may not be able to keep its promise that the waste would be in Utah for only a few decades. For all the effort to relocate the nuclear waste to the Skull Valley reservation, there may not be an exit strategy. During interviews Wednesday and Thursday, Gary Lanthrum, director of the DOE's transportation program, told The Salt Lake Tribune that federal Nuclear Regulatory Agency (NRC) rules say any radioactive waste headed for Yucca Mountain must be freshly packed by nuclear power plants before the DOE takes ownership of it. PFS, however, plans to receive waste in welded casks because that is the way the plants store it on site, Lanthrum said. For that reason, ''the current contracts for how we receive fuel makes their plan unacceptable,'' he said. The revelation startled Utah officials, including Gov. Olene Walker, and led to questions Thursday about bad communication between the DOE and the NRC, which are responsible for approving both the Yucca and PFS plans while ensuring public safety. ''It would be ludicrous to make shipment to a temporary facility and then not be able to transport it again,'' Dianne Nielsen, executive director of Utah's Department of Environmental Quality, said in an interview. ''To find there isn't even agreement between NRC and DOE is disturbing. [The casks] shouldn't move until they have the answer.'' Walker, speaking Thursday to members of the federal Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board who met for two days in Salt Lake City, said the state doesn't want any nuclear waste passing through - or staying in - Utah. ''Once again, the citizens in Utah . . . will be asked to trust the federal government, at the same time the government is testing the reliability of that commitment,'' she said. John Parkyn, PFS chairman and CEO, told the board the radioactive waste should be handled just once at the reactor site, then shipped to the Skull Valley Goshute Reservation facility. Because rehandling the waste poses unacceptable risk, that won't happen at the PFS site. The utilities that generated the waste would continue to own the material until the DOE takes title to it, ''whenever that might be,'' Parkyn told the board, an advisory body Congress established to oversee Yucca Mountain planning. The board has no jurisdiction over the PFS proposal. After his presentation, Parkyn said that the DOE ''has an open invitation to join us'' at the nuclear power sites when the waste is packaged in the storage casks. ''Hopefully DOE will try to meet our standards,'' he said, adding Lanthrum's notion that Yucca wouldn't take welded casks from PFS ''is not an accurate interpretation,'' and that the DOE has no regulatory authority over PFS waste. But according to Lanthrum, who testified on the DOE's nuclear waste transportation plans at the hearings, that department has no obligation to take waste from PFS, a private company. Under federal law, the DOE is required to take waste from utilities for permanent storage at a federal repository. It will do so by delivering approved storage casks to the nuclear power plant, where utility personnel load the casks according to NRC rules. Then, the DOE will arrive with either a rail ca ''DOE owns [the waste] from that point on,'' Lanthrum said. The law had required the DOE to open Yucca Mountain, located about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, by 1998. A series of lawsuits and technical troubles stalled the project, which Nevada is vehemently opposing. Congress now is refusing to fund Yucca in its omnibus spending bill, leaving all planning in limbo and probably pushing its opening date beyond the new deadline of 2010. Meanwhile, PFS plans to ship waste on its own to Skull Valley for open-air storage before going to a permanent repository. Skull Valley Band of Goshutes Chairman Leon Bear in 1997 signed a lease with PFS to allow the company to store up to 44,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel on Goshute land 45 miles west of Salt Lake City. The containers would sit on concrete pads spread across 100 acres while waiting for transport. Connie Nakahara, special assistant state attorney general working on the PFS issue, said she wasn't sure how the state could respond to Lanthrum's assertions. ''We've always been concerned with PFS's lack of ability to repack fuel in case of an emergency,'' she said. Nuclear regulatory officials also have rebuffed state questions about the waste packing procedure at the nuclear facilities. ''Basically, NRC has said DOE will be there to pick it up,'' Nakahara said. Not according to Lanthrum, who said that because the waste will be shipped and accepted at PFS in welded casks, the DOE won't take it at Yucca Mountain. And the DOE is not willing to renegotiate its rules on this single issue, he said. Unless some other agency changes the rules, that means the material would either have to be repacked at PFS or be sent back to the nuclear plant from which it came. Technical Review Board members asked Parkyn how closely PFS was working with the Yucca planners. Parkyn replied that PFS has "tried" to provide Yucca officials with documentation. ''I would say there is dialogue,'' he said. ''We're not in competition with them.'' In his presentation, Parkyn said PFS would ship waste only by rail, in custom-built cars, and would build a rail line on the Goshute reservation. ''Putting a rail line in costs more than shipping by truck,'' he said. ''We are not going the cheapest way.'' The presentation on PFS safety and transportation plans left Nielsen fuming. ''John Parkyn put up a wonderful list of things it's going to do,'' she said. ''But PFS has not committed to any of those as license conditions. Every time we have asked them to, they have refused.'' The NRC held hearings from Aug. 9 to mid-September on the PFS license, in particular on whether to reconsider a finding that the potential of an F-16 fighter jet crash into the casks poses an unacceptable risk. Parkyn said he expected a decision on the renewable 20-year license by January and predicted PFS would begin to receive shipments in 2007. Utah's state and federal leaders oppose the Skull Valley proposal, but have no oversight because the Goshutes are a sovereign tribe. © Copyright 2004, The Salt Lake Tribune. ***************************************************************** 34 Pahrump Valley Times: Nuclear Projects awarded $1.1 million October 15, 2004 By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS CARSON CITY - A state panel voted Tuesday to give a $1.1 million emergency appropriation to the Nevada Nuclear Projects Office to continue its fight against the high-level nuclear waste dump that the federal government wants to open at Yucca Mountain in Nye County. 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, who heads the Nuclear Projects Office, said his budget is "tapped out" and the federal Department of Energy intends to apply in December for a building permit. The filing goes to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The state was getting $2.5 million a year from the federal government to help in the battle against Yucca Mountain, but that amount was slashed to $1 million. If the federal government submits its application in December, Loux said his office will have 90 days to review whether it is complete and the $1.1 million will carry his office through the end of February. With the approval by the Board of Examiners, chaired by Gov. Kenny Guinn, the request goes to the Legislative Interim Finance Committee for final action. That panel meets Nov. 17. Sandoval wants the $650,000 to cover outstanding and expected litigation expenditures through February next year. Sandoval said the $650,000 is needed because the state has sued in the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., contending the federal government improperly withheld funds from the state for the nuclear budget. Arguments are set for Jan. 12. Also, he said the Nuclear Energy Institute plans to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court a ruling that gave the state a partial victory in the waste dump fight. For comment or questions, please e-mail [webmaster@pahrumpvalleytimes.com] Copyright © Pahrump Valley Times, 1997 - 2004 ***************************************************************** 35 Las Vegas SUN: Auditors Can't Account for Iraq Spent Funds By LARRY MARGASAK ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. and Iraqi officials doled out hundreds of millions of dollars in oil proceeds and other moneys for Iraqi projects earlier this year, but there was little effort to monitor or justify the expenditures, according to an audit released Thursday. Files that could explain many of the payments are missing or nonexistent, and contracting rules were ignored, according to auditors working for an agency created by the United Nations. "We found one case where a payment ($2.6 million) was authorized by the CPA (Coalition Provisional Authority) senior adviser to the Ministry of Oil," the report said. "We were unable to obtain an underlying contract" or even "evidence of services being rendered." In a program to allow U.S. military commanders to pay for small reconstruction projects, auditors questioned 128 projects totaling $31.6 million. They could find no evidence of bidding for the projects or, alternatively, explanations of why they were awarded without competition. The report was released by Rep. Henry Waxman of California, ranking Democrat on the House Government Reform Committee and a leading critic of reconstruction spending to rebuild Iraq. "The Bush Administration cannot account for how billions of dollars of Iraqi oil proceeds were spent," Waxman said. "The mismanagement, lack of transparency, and potential corruption will seriously undermine our efforts in Iraq. A thorough congressional investigation is urgently needed." The audit was performed by the accounting firm KMPG for the International Advisory and Monitoring Board, created by the United Nations to monitor the stewardship of Iraqi funds. The report monitored spending by the Coalition Provisional Authority, the U.S.-run governing agency which went out of existence in June; Iraqi ministries; the Kurdish Regional Government and Iraqi provisional governments. It covered the period from January to June this year. In the CPA programs, "We found 37 cases where contracting files could not be located," the auditors said. The cost of the contracts: $185 million. In another 52 cases, there was no record of the goods received for $87.9 million in expenditures. In a military commanders' program to buy back weapons, $1.4 million was spent from a fund that specifically prohibited such expenditures, auditors said. Iraq's Ministry of Finance maintained two sets of accounting records, one manual and one computerized. "A reconciliation between these two sets of accounting records was not prepared and the difference was significant," the report said. Auditors questioned why checks were made payable to a U.S. official - a senior adviser to the Iraqi ministry of health - rather than to suppliers. Other questions were raised about funds provided by the U.S.-run governing authority to Kurdish officials in northern Iraq. In one instance, auditors were given a deposit slip that showed the transfer of $1.4 billion to a Kurdish bank. Auditors said they were denied access to accounting records and were unable to verify how - or if - the money was spent. ---- On the net: Report is on the House Government Reform Committee Democratic site: [http://www.democrats.reform.house.gov/] -- ***************************************************************** 36 Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Hanford chemical tests show possible threat [seattlepi.com] Friday, October 15, 2004 Contractor finds 52 'chemicals of potential concern' in tanks By SHANNON DININNY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS YAKIMA -- The contractor hired to clean up radioactive and chemical waste in underground tanks at south-central Washington's Hanford nuclear site has identified 52 "chemicals of potential concern" that could pose a threat to workers at the site. The review was just the first phase of an ongoing investigation into the contents of the 177 tanks, which hold about 53 million gallons of radioactive and toxic waste from decades of plutonium production for the nation's nuclear weapons arsenal. The review also follows months of allegations that workers were being endangered by tank vapors. Gases from the waste build up inside the tanks and are automatically expelled through vents. Analyzing and understanding the hazards will better enable workers to be kept safe, said Erik Olds, spokesman for the U.S. Energy Department's Office of River Protection, which manages tank waste cleanup. "This is perhaps the most important step in creating a safer work environment for tank farm employees," Olds said yesterday. Earlier this year, a federal investigation concluded that workers' health had been at risk from the vapors. Separate investigations ruled that there was not enough known about the contents of the tanks, resulting in the current review of the wastes. The "conservative" watch list of 52 chemicals includes known and probable carcinogens, such as benzene, and chemicals that could exceed occupational exposure limits in the air cavity of the tanks, said Bob Popielarczyk, vice president of engineering for CH2M Hill Hanford Group. CH2M Hill has been handling tank waste cleanup since 1999. Those levels generally are diluted outside the tanks, where employees work. Most of the chemicals on the list were flagged if they were at levels 10 percent or greater than the lowest-possible occupational exposure level, he said. More than 1,800 chemicals either were identified as present or capable of having formed in the air cavity of the tanks. However, little or no information about potential danger is available for about 1,400 of those chemicals. [Seattle Post-Intelligencer] 101 Elliott Ave. W. Seattle, WA 98119 (206) 448-8000 Send comments to [newmedia@seattlepi.com] ©1996-2004 Seattle Post-Intelligencer Terms of Service/Privacy Policy ***************************************************************** 37 ABQjournal: Energy Chief Says LANL's on Track Friday, October 15, 2004 Albuquerque Journal--> By Adam Rankin Journal Staff Writer Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, whose duties include oversight of Los Alamos National Laboratory, spoke to lab employees Thursday to let them know he thinks they and lab director Pete Nanos are on their way to regaining the nation's trust after nearly two years of management mishaps. "I firmly believe we have turned the corner," he said, according to a statement provided by a DOE spokeswoman. "One reason I came here today is because I thought it important to tell you that personally." Abraham, who detoured through Los Alamos to talk with employees there, was in Santa Fe to announce a $19.7 million DOE research and development grant for a clean-coal technology. He told employees that he fully supports Nanos' decision to suspend work and take strong disciplinary actions against "those few who thought they didn't need to follow the rules" for safety and security. Nanos made tough decisions, he said, "but they were the right ones, if we are to get our problems worked out and restore confidence in our operations here." He said the reviews and fixes at LANL "will result in department-wide improvements, because many of the problems you have identified are ones confronted by nearly every other facility in the complex and at headquarters." Abraham said lawmakers in Washington have "very different ideas" for Los Alamos. "The most benign suggestions involve curtailing work here; others are more draconian," he said. In late 2002, LANL managers came under fire for disclosures that laboratory business management systems were lax and prone to fraud and waste. Then-director John Browne resigned within months and more than a dozen senior managers were fired, forced to resign, or demoted in the fallout. Then this summer Nanos announced two classified Zip disks couldn't be located. He shut down all classified work at the laboratory in July, then within a day shut down normal operations entirely, after learning about a laser accident that seriously injured a student intern's eye. Nanos fired four employees and disciplined eight others, including forcing one senior manager to retire in lieu of termination, over the accident and missing disks. An FBI investigation into the missing disks is still ongoing. The revelation of the two missing Zip disks came on the heels of several separate disclosures that clerical errors made it appear that more than a dozen other disks were missing, though LANL officials believe they had been destroyed as part of an effort to reduce the number of classified materials. "Ladies and gentlemen, I recognize that the past few months have not been easy for any of us," Abraham told employees. "It is not the sort of thing any of us would want to go through again." He told the employees that "we are in this boat together," that lab critics are wrong and that he is convinced "the glory days of this facility lie ahead." Copyright Albuquerque Journal ***************************************************************** 38 lamonitor.com: Defense, homeland security bills OK'd The Online News Source for Los Alamos [http://www.lac-nm.us] MONITOR STAFF REPORT In the presidential debate last Wednesday, both major candidates for president agreed that non-proliferation was the top priority for heading off future international violence. On Saturday, lawmakers approved and sent to the president a defense policy bill that calls for an expansion and acceleration of the national nonproliferation effort, according to an announcement from the office of Sen. Pete Domenici, R-NM. The announcement called attention to two provisions authored by Domenici, one intended to speed the removal or safeguard fissile materials, radiological materials and equipment. The other enables the U.S. government to accept international payments toward closing out Russia's last two plutonium-producing reactors in Seversk and Zheloznogorsk. "The threat of nuclear materials spreading around the world makes this a global problem, and responsible governments around the world recognize this," Domenici said in the prepared statement. The work acceleration provision was co-sponsored by Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M. "We cannot be successful in our efforts to defeat global terrorism if we don't have a comprehensive plan in place to prevent nuclear materials from ending up in the wrong hands. This amendment makes securing and safely storing these materials a national priority," he said. The 2005 Defense Authorization bill was one of several approved by Congress on the eve of the election recess. Also included in the bill now awaiting the president's signature, were the following provisions. + Hispanic Homesteaders: A Domenici-Bingaman amendment authorized a $10 million Pajarito Plateau Homesteaders Compensation Fund to settle outstanding claims by Hispanic homesteaders in the Los Alamos areas whose lands were acquired during World War II for the Manhattan Project. + Los Alamos Schools: Domenici-authored language, cosponsored by Bingaman, directed the Secretary of Energy to modify the management and operating contract for Los Alamos National Laboratory to provide $8.0 million annually to the Los Alamos Public School District. The language is intended to ensure continued federal funding to support public education associated with LANL. + Los Alamos Land Transfer: DOE will be allowed to transfer two parcels to the Los Alamos schools for development. The amendment would give the Los Alamos schools parcel A-8 (25 acres) and A-15-1 (7.5 acres) within TA-21. + Los Alamos National Laboratory: The bill authorizes $30 million requested by President Bush for "new plant projects" for LANL. These include $20 million for security perimeter improvements and $10 million for power grid infrastructure upgrades. + Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act (EEOICPA): Senators Bunning, Bingaman, Domenici and others sponsored a bipartisan amendment to shift processing of EEOICPA compensation claims from DOE to the Department of Labor. In addition to authorizing lump-sum payments to eligible workers, the amendment also authorizes the government to begin compensating workers exposed to toxic substances beyond beryllium disease and radiation-induced cancers. + Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA): Aspects of the RECA program has been moved under the umbrella of EEOICPA, which guarantees it will automatically have enough funding to cover all compensation checks for millers, miners and transporters, in cases where there is no other payer. In other action Monday, the Senate gave final congressional endorsement to the homeland security bill, clearing the $33.1 billion measure for Bush's signature. The measure included $20 million for the National Infrastructure Simulation and Analysis Center (NISAC) at Kirtland Air Force Base. NISAC is a joint collaboration between Sandia and Los Alamos national laboratories to utilize their computational expertise to find better ways to protect inter-dependent critical infrastructures in the United States, such as electrical grid, telecommunications, energy and transportation networks. A provision in the homeland security bill requested a report on the Cerro Grande fire claims process within 60 days of enactment of the bill. Domenici's office said no new funding is needed for Cerro Grande fire claims since available funding is expected to satisfy remaining claims. © 2003 Los Alamos Monitor All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 39 San Francisco Bay View: UC Regents lose control of nuclear weapons program National Black Newspaper of the Year 10/13/04 Home [http://www.sfbayview.com] Five admirals, Carlyle Group and Rand take over Part 5 by Leuren Moret Our children: uranium meat How was the truth about depleted uranium covered up and hidden from the American people? The same way Agent Orange was hidden for decades from Vietnam veterans and the public. As Henry Kissinger said, “Military men are just dumb stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy.” The health impact of exposure to depleted uranium, known as Gulf War Syndrome, has been covered up under three presidents beginning in 1991, with former President George Bush. Establishment doctors and scientists helped with the cover-up. Dr. Joyce Lashof, appointed by President Clinton as chair of the Presidential Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses (1995-1997), is a medical doctor and former dean of the School of Public Health at UC Berkeley. As a member of the faculty at the university that has managed the nuclear weapons labs for 61 years for the U.S. goverment, she had access to the best information on the health effects of depleted uranium. After all, the nuclear weapons labs are mandated to spend 5 percent of their budgets on research concerning the biological effects of radiation. Annual lab budgets at each facility are over $1 billion. Sandia Labs, now owned by Lockheed, of which 70 percent is owned by Carlyle, has been studying mitochondrial damage from DU exposure in Gulf War vets. Higher rates of mitochondrial related diseases – Parkinson’s, Lou Gehrig’s (ALS) and Hodgkin’s disease – have been reported in Air Force and Army Gulf-era veterans. Despite the fact that a nuclear weapons lab found a link between DU exposure in Gulf War veterans and these diseases, Lashof categorically stated that “everyone” gets Lou Gehrig’s disease: “We heard veterans describe their diagnosis that we know happened to the general population. I mean, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a disease that happens to people … Lou Gehrig's disease. And there is a veteran who has that. He feels it's due to his service in the Gulf. We don't know the cause of Lou Gehrig's disease, but we know it happens to lots of people who didn't go to the Gulf” (from “Update: Gulf War Syndrome,” interview with Greg Krause, ONLINE NewsHour, Jan. 7, 1997, http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/military/gulf_1-7.html). When asked during an interview on PBS what her findings were, after complaints from veterans resulted in her appointment by presidential order as chair of the investigative committee, Dr. Lashof stated in 1997: “Well, we were critical of the Pentagon in one area and one area only. And I think it’s important to emphasize that the government has done a very good job of setting up physical examinations, of treating veterans as they come in, of launching a whole series of studies that should give us the kinds of answers we’re looking for. But the one area that we did fault them in was that they did not take very seriously the need to determine whether or not there were releases of chemical agents during - not only during the war but rather after the war as well and, indeed, whether people were exposed to these agents” (same source). Terry Jemison of the Department of Veterans Affairs reported the astounding news to the American Free Press that as of August 2004, “Gulf-era veterans” now on medical disability number 518,739, with only 7,035 reported wounded in Iraq in that same 14-year period. A Gulf War I medical doctor reported that in a unit of 20 soldiers who served in Iraq in 2003, eight have malignancies just 16 months later. These 2003 soldiers were not exposed to chemicals or bioagents, but they were exposed to DU at levels many times more than in Gulf War I. And the Gulf-era veterans have been treated just as Vietnam veterans were – they’ve been ignored. Almost none have been able to get medical care. Dr. Joyce Lashof also downplayed birth defects in post-Gulf war babies reported in Gulf-era veterans. She said: “It was heart-rending to sit and listen to the woman with a child with a congenital defect. She feels it's due to service in the Gulf. I think it's completely understandable, but it's just not valid. Birth defects are very common. About 3 percent of births have some type of congenital defect. The initial studies we have show no greater frequency of birth defects among those children born to veterans who were in the Gulf, either women veterans or men” (same source). A 1995 Life photo-essay, “The Tiny Victims of Desert Storm” (see below), focused on the numerous cases of severe birth defects that had occurred in families of veterans from that war. It reported, “Of the 400 sick vets who had already answered (Don Riegle’s Senate Banking) Committee inquiries, a startling 65 percent reported birth defects or immune-system problems in children conceived after the war.” Post-war babies in that 65 percent have been born with severe births defects - some with missing brains, no eyes, missing organs or fingers, and blood diseases. "The legacy of the Gulf War should be a recognition by all Americans that the government acknowledges and honors its obligation to care for Gulf War Veterans, not the perception the government cannot be trusted to candidly address their health concerns" (from “Clinton announces new money for Gulf War Syndrome Research,” CNN, Nov. 19, 1997, http://www.cnn.com/US/9711/08/gulf.war.illness/). The report produced by the presidential committee chaired by Dr. Joyce Lashof was another government whitewash by all too willing scientific and medical prostitutes. And Clinton’s administration was the second presidential cover-up of depleted uranium, which was used in Yugoslavia in 1995 and 1999 under President Clinton’s orders. References Henry Kissinger, quoted in “Kiss the Boys Goodbye: How the United States Betrayed Its Own POW’s in Vietnam” (1990) p. 97, citing “The Final Days” by Woodward and Bernstein (Simon and Schuster 1976). “Update: Gulf War Syndrome,” interview with Greg Krause, ONLINE NewsHour, Jan. 7, 1997, http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/military/gulf_1-7.html. “Clinton announces new money for Gulf War Syndrome Research,” CNN, Nov. 19, 1997, http://www.cnn.com/US/9711/08/gulf.war.illness/. Birth defects: “The Tiny Victims of Desert Storm,” Life photo-essay (1995), http://www.life.com/Life/essay/gulfwar/gulf08.html. sfbayview.com Search WWW San Francisco Bay View National Black Newspaper 4917 Third Street San Francisco California 94124 Phone: (415) 671-0789 Fax: (415) 671-0316 Email: editor@sfbayview.com [editor@sfbayview.com] ***************************************************************** 40 [du-list] DU in the News - 14th Oct 04 Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2004 15:07:54 -0700 These must be live !! Thursday, October 14, 2004 10:45 PM PDT Changes Needed in U.S. Cargo Inspection-Audit Reuters via Yahoo! News Thu, 14 Oct 2004 10:49 AM PDT U.S. customs officials did not have proper technology to detect depleted uranium shipped into the country in 2002 and 2003, an internal audit showed on Thursday as it urged changes in the inspection process. Five admirals, Carlyle Group and Rand take over San Francisco Bay View Thu, 14 Oct 2004 7:12 PM PDT How was the truth about depleted uranium covered up and hidden from the American people? The same way Agent Orange was hidden for decades from Vietnam veterans and the public. US borders not 'dirty bomb' proof NEWS.com.au Thu, 14 Oct 2004 10:40 PM PDT THE US Government has admitted its network of border radiation detectors designed to prevent the smuggling of a "dirty bomb" could be fooled, in a conclusion that lends credence to charges voiced by Democrat John Kerry during the presidential campaign. Cargo plane with seven crew crashes near Halifax amid huge fireball Canadian Press via Yahoo! News Thu, 14 Oct 2004 11:31 AM PDT HALIFAX (CP) - The tail section of a Boeing 747 snapped off seconds before the loaded cargo jet crashed into woods at the end of a runway at Halifax International Airport early Thursday, killing all seven crew members. Investigators search for data recorders amid wreckage Canada.com Thu, 14 Oct 2004 2:44 PM PDT Investigators have yet to find the data recorders for a plane that crashed at Halifax airport, killing all seven people on board. Bill Fowler from the Transportation Safety Board says the matter is still a potential criminal investigation until it's clear that the crash is related to safety issues. Feds Say Port Security Must Get Better KTVU Thu, 14 Oct 2004 12:34 PM PDT WASHINGTON -- The Homeland Security Department's independent investigator has concluded that federal inspectors of oceangoing shipping containers still need to improve their detection equipment and search procedures to prevent terrorists from sneaking weapons of mass destruction into U.S. ports. 747 cargo plane crashes at Halifax Airport The Chronicle Herald Thu, 14 Oct 2004 10:12 AM PDT HALIFAX (CP) - A loaded cargo jet bound for Spain crashed into woods at the end of a runway at Halifax International Airport early Thursday, killing all seven crew members on board. Report: Cargo Nuke Inspections Flawed WPMI 15 Thu, 14 Oct 2004 6:35 AM PDT There are grave flaws with the process used to screen cargo entering the United States for nuclear material, a report said Thursday. Dar Al Hayat Dar al hayat Thu, 14 Oct 2004 7:18 AM PDT Internal Report Takes Aim at Port Security Efforts in the U.S. David and Goliath (by Yamin Zakaria) - Media Monitors Network (MMN) Media Monitors Network Thu, 14 Oct 2004 3:56 AM PDT ¨ Join the struggle to keep Media Monitors Network (MMN) on the web! ¨ Make a commitment to subscribe, donate and/or place all of your book and other product orders from Amazon.com and others through MMN Shopping web-site by clicking here. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- See more news stories that match my keyword [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/ ***************************************************************** 41 [du-list] DU in the news - 16th Oct 04 Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2004 15:08:42 -0700 Friday, October 15, 2004 12:07 PM PDT Your Keyword News Alert for [depleted uranium] matched the following stories: Pravda, Fri, 15 Oct 2004 5:31 AM PDT Contamination caused with depleted uranium will last for 4.5 billion years http://english.pravda.ru/world/20/91/368/14451_uranium.html Increased radioactivity was found in destroyed and abandoned Iraqi tanks. The radiation level may testify to the fact that the US army used uranium-cored projectiles in the raids. San Francisco Bay View, Thu, 14 Oct 2004 7:12 PM PDT Five admirals, Carlyle Group and Rand take over http://www.sfbayview.com/101304/nuclearweapons101304.shtml How was the truth about depleted uranium covered up and hidden from the American people? The same way Agent Orange was hidden for decades from Vietnam veterans and the public. Primezone via Yahoo! UK & Ireland Finance, Fri, 15 Oct 2004 8:51 AM PDT Nuclear Solutions Files Patent for New Technology to Detect Shielded Nuclear Bomb Materials http://uk.biz.yahoo.com/041015/290/f4nnv.html WASHINGTON, Oct. 15, 2004 (PRIMEZONE) -- Nuclear Solutions, Inc. (OTCBB:NSOL) filed a patent application this week for a new nuclear material detection technology intended to screen cargo for shielded nuclear weapons. AFP via Yahoo! UK & Ireland News, Fri, 15 Oct 2004 0:59 AM PDT US admits its borders are not 'dirty bomb' proof http://uk.news.yahoo.com/041015/323/f4ml9.html The US government has admitted its network of border radiation detectors designed to prevent the smuggling of a "dirty bomb" could be fooled, in a conclusion that lends credence to charges voiced by Democrat John Kerry during the presidential campaign. The Halifax Daily News, Fri, 15 Oct 2004 3:53 AM PDT Friday, October 15, 2004 http://www.hfxnews.com/news.aspx?storyID=22945 A firefighter emerged from the thin pall of black smoke, the acrid smell of jet fuel hanging in the air. ââ,¬Å"It was like Danteââ,¬â"¢s Inferno,ââ,¬ said the Halifax regional fireman, as he emerged from a gravel pit that became the final resting place of a doomed cargo jet. Hunstville Item, Thu, 14 Oct 2004 10:53 PM PDT Brady, Wright trade punches in District 8 debate http://www.itemonline.com/articles/2004/10/15/news/local/news9.txt THE WOODLANDS - In a debate that was at times fiery, other times friendly, U.S. Rep. Kevin Brady (R-The Woodlands) and Democrat James Wright squared off Tuesday night in front of a moderate-sized crowd at Montgomery College. Canada.com, Thu, 14 Oct 2004 2:44 PM PDT Investigators search for data recorders amid wreckage http://www.canada.com/maritimes/story.html?id=3e52ac43-93e3-41c3-bb86-eb172a603cf5 Investigators have yet to find the data recorders for a plane that crashed at Halifax airport, killing all seven people on board. Bill Fowler from the Transportation Safety Board says the matter is still a potential criminal investigation until it's clear that the crash is related to safety issues. KTVU, Thu, 14 Oct 2004 12:34 PM PDT Feds Say Port Security Must Get Better http://www.ktvu.com/news/3821243/detail.html WASHINGTON -- The Homeland Security Department's independent investigator has concluded that federal inspectors of oceangoing shipping containers still need to improve their detection equipment and search procedures to prevent terrorists from sneaking weapons of mass destruction into U.S. ports. See more news stories that match your keyword at: http://search.news.yahoo.com/search/news/?c=&p=depleted+uranium [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/ ***************************************************************** 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: *****************************************************************