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NUCLEAR POLICY
1 [NYTr] Bush Gave Terrorists More Weapons than Saddam Ever Would
2 IAEA: News Center : In Focus : IAEA and Iraq
3 INSIDE JoongAng Daily: Under the cover of Iraq, the North moved
4 [NYTr] Iran, the EU and Nuclear Deterrence: Editorial
5 BBC: Iranian MPs approve uranium bill
6 Xinhuanet: IAEA offers to guarantee Iran's nuclear fuel supply
7 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: IAEA to Send Third Inspection Team to S.
8 US: [NukeNet] BUSH AND KERRY ON NUCLEAR ISSUES
9 US: deseret news: Bush, Kerry still deadlocked
10 US: New York Times: An Evolving Identity Helps to Leave Five States
11 US: New York Times: 'The Bomb in My Garden': Science Fiction
12 US: The Mercury: Plant security a campaign issue
13 US: New York Times: Explosives: Facts and Questions About Lost Munit
14 [DU-WATCH] Fw: Nuclear Power and Children's Health Wrap-Up
15 New York Times: Nuclear Secrets: If Brazil Wants to Scare the World,
16 New York Times: Opinion: Civilian Deaths and Lost Weapons
17 ZNet:India | Rocket Launchers and Shells in My Backyard
NUCLEAR REACTORS
18 [DU-WATCH] Chernobyl Heart: winning doc on Chernobyl
19 US: [NukeNet] 3 articles - PSEG reports "progress"
20 Bellona: Leningrad NPP’s reactor no.1 running at full capacity, reac
21 US: Brattleboro Reformer: No early release of VY report
22 Xinhuanet: Nigeria's first nuclear reactor inaugurated
23 US: PTI: Reliance Energy looking at options of setting up N-power st
NUCLEAR SAFETY
24 BBC: Plant contamination 'substantial'
25 Sunday Herald: Exposed: scandal of nuclear leaks at Scots plant -
NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
26 Las Vegas SUN: Columnist Jeff German: A vote for Kerry can stop Yucc
27 Las Vegas SUN: Where I Stand -- Brian Greenspun: Yucca lives or dies
28 RGJ: Clinton stresses Yucca issue
29 Boston.com: Anger over nuclear-waste site might sway votes in Nevada
30 US: Salt Lake Tribune: Utah appeals N-waste ruling
31 Las Vegas SUN: Key to Nevada's electoral votes may lie with Yucca Mo
32 US: Boston.com: State looks for cause of polluted well water
33 UK Independent: Sellafield's clean-up costs to reach £1bn next year
34 Las Vegas RJ: Clinton attacks Bush on Yucca
NUCLEAR WEAPONS
US DEPT. OF ENERGY
35 amarillo.com: Pantex gets new safety liaison
36 Newsday.com: Work to begin on cleanup of Knolls Atomic Power Laborat
37 Charleston.Net: SRS must compete for project
OTHER NUCLEAR
38 [NukeNet] Fw: Elite v Non-Elite Law Schools
39 [du-list] Book order: Depleted Uranium
40 The Columbus Dispatch: Battelle at 75 A history of accomplishment |
41 PRN: Lockheed Martin Statement Regarding Court's Ruling on Pit 9 Con
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1 [NYTr] Bush Gave Terrorists More Weapons than Saddam Ever Would
Date: Sat, 30 Oct 2004 12:04:53 -0500 (CDT)
Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
OfficialWire.com - Oct 30, 2004
http://www.baou.com/newswire/main.php?action=recent&rid=1842
Bush Gave Terrorists More Weapons than Saddam Ever Would Have
IAEA says it warned U.S. about explosives
by OfficialWire NewsDesk
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- (OfficialWire) -- 10/30/04 -- New evidence emerged
in the United States on Friday that appears to contradict claims by
George W. Bush and his administration that some 360 tons of explosives
previously located in Iraq were looted before U.S. troops occupied the
country. Nine days after the fall of Baghdad, on April 18, 2003, a news
crew from Minneapolis-St Paul station KSTP-TV, embedded with U.S. troops
from the 101st Airborne Division, entered bunkers at the facility, south
of Baghdad.
At one of the bunkers, troops broke what appears to be an International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) seal to get inside and found barrels filled
with powdered explosives, said Dean Staley, then a reporter at the
Minnesota station.
The film seems to suggest that explosives were present after U.S. troops
had seized control of the cityexplosives that are now missing.
Earlier on Thursday, Melissa Fleming, a spokeswoman for the IAEA, said
that U.S. officials were cautioned directly about what was stored at
Al-Qaqaa, the main high explosives facility in Iraq.
Whether the explosives were moved from the facility by the Iraqi regime
before the war began, or looted after the facility came under U.S.
control, has become a major issue in the presidential campaign.
IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei told the UN Security Council in
his report in February last year that he was concerned about the
explosives, which Iraq's Science and Technology Ministry reported as
missing on October 10, 2004.
The explosives, which were sealed by IAEA inspectors two months before
the war in Iraq, could be used to demolish buildings, make missile
warheads and detonate nuclear weapons.
U.S. military commanders estimated last year that Iraqi military sites
contained anywhere between 650,000 tons and one million tons of
explosives, artillery shells, aviation bombs and other ammunition. The
Bush administration cited these official figures this week confirming
that about 400,000 tons had destroyed or were in the process of being
eliminated. That leaves the whereabouts of more than 250,000 tons unknown.
"We didn't find the stockpiles we thought would be therethat we
all thought would be there. But Saddam Hussein had the capability of
making weapons, and he could have passed that capability on to the
enemy. And that is a risk we could not afford to take after September
11, 2001. Knowing what I know today, I would have made the same
decision," Bush said at a recent campaign rally in Washington.
The problem with that rationale, if one can use that terminology when
referring to the utterances of the current U.S. president, is that with
more than 250,000 tons of weapons of all descriptions missing
(whereabouts unknown) it would appear that invading Iraq has actually
had the net effect of putting the weapons into the hands of terrorists
more effectively than Saddam Hussein would or could ever have dreamed
of... Nice one Mr. President!
*
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2 IAEA: News Center : In Focus : IAEA and Iraq
+ [IAEA.ORG :: Atoms for Peace]
Latest Briefings/Timeline
October 2004
27, Wednesday: IAEA Reports to Security Council on Lost Material
in Iraq. The IAEA and UN have circulated the text of a letter
dated 25 October from IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei to
the President of the UN Security Council on Iraq´s reported loss
of high explosives subject to the IAEA´s monitoring. The
communication includes the letter the IAEA received from Iraq 10
October.
+ Letter [pdf]
+ Timeline archive
+ Briefing Room archive »
IAEA in the Press
+ Nuclear Proliferation &Terrorism,
Congressional Quarterly, USA, April 2004 [pdf]
+ IAEA Director General &Hans Blix Interview,
CNN Late Edition (CNN), 21 March 2004
+ Iraq and Weapons of Mass Destruction, Remarks by George
Tenet, Director, US Central Intelligence Agency, 5 February 2004
+ WMD in Iraq: Evidence & Implications, CEIP, January 2004
+ Iraq's Aluminum Tubes: Separating Fact from Fiction, by
David Albright, ISIS, December 2003
+ The Stovepipe - Article on Iraq weapons hunt, by Seymour
Hirsch, New Yorker, 20 October 2003
+ IAEA Director General Calls for Return of Agency Inspectors
to Iraq, 16 October 2003
+ Security Council Adopts Iraq Resolution,15 October 2003
+ Combating the Spread of Weapons of Mass Destruction: Some
Reflections, Le Monde - French Translation, 5 May 2003
+ IAEA Director General Addresses Iraq, North Korea
Inspections, CNN Interview, 27 April 2003
+ Last of UN Nuclear Inspectors Return to Vienna Headquarters
After Evacuating Iraq, AP World, 18 March 2003
+ U.S. Advises Weapons Inspectors to Leave Iraq, AP World, 17
March 2003
+ Mission Possible: Nuclear Weapons Inspections in Iraq, Wall
Street Journal, 7 March 2003
+ Crisis Manager, Newsweek Interview with Mohamed ElBaradei,
27 February 2003
+ IAEA Director General Interview, Der Spiegel (German) -
English Translation [pdf], 24 February 2003
+ Baghdad Press Briefing, UN Transcript [pdf], 9 February 2003
+ IAEA Director General "Cautiously Optimistic", CNN
Interview, 9 February 2003
+ Director General on CNN: More Needed from Iraq, 28 January
2003
+ Press Briefing, Head of Iraq National Monitoring
Directorate, CNN, 23 January 2003
+ Director General "Guardedly Optimistic" on Iraq,
ABC News, 20 January 2003
+ ElBaradei, Blix Ready for Iraq Talks, CNN, 18 January 2003
+ Q&A with IAEA Director General, Time Magazine, 12
January 2003
+ IAEA Chief at US Congress, CNN, 10 January 2003
+ IAEA Director General, US Secretary of State Powell, CNN, 10
January 2003
+ Press Briefing by Dr. ElBaradei and Dr. Blix at UN Security
Council, 9 January 2003
+ IAEA Chief CNN Interview, 7 January 2003
+ Director General on the "Nuclear Challenge", PBS
in USA, 6 January 2003
+ IAEA: Bigger Profile, Bigger Demands, New York Times, 6
January 2003
+ IAEA Moving into 'Investigative" Phase, 24 December 2002
+ Profile of IAEA Director General,BBC, 21 December 2002
+ Iraq Declaration: IAEA, UN Chiefs Brief Press, 19 December
2002
+ Iraq, North Korea, Iran: IAEA Director General on CNN, 13
December 2002
+ Inspecting Iraq: IAEA Director General on PBS, 22 November
2002
+ Cyprus Briefing: IAEA Director General & UNMOVIC Chief
Hans Blix, 17 November 2002
+ Tough Mission: Interview with IAEA Chief Inspector, Jacques
Baute, 12 November 2002
+ Iraq Weapons Inspectors the Key: IAEA Director General on
BBC, 22 October 2002
+ Inspections the Key, Director General Essay in Washington
Post, 21 October 2002
Press archive »
Copyright 2003, International Atomic Energy Agency, P.O. Box
100, Wagramer Strasse 5, A-1400 Vienna, Austria
Telephone (+431) 2600-0; Facsimile (+431) 2600-7; E-mail:
Official.Mail@iaea.org
Disclaimer
*****************************************************************
3 INSIDE JoongAng Daily: Under the cover of Iraq, the North moved
November 1, 2004 KST 17:14 (GMT+9)
Fifth in a series
November 01, 2004 ¤Ñ On the second anniversary of the latest
nuclear crisis on the peninsula, the JoongAng Ilbo reconstructs
the events of the time. -Ed.
South Korea, the United States, Japan and the European Union
reached an important decision in New York on Nov. 15, 2002, that
determined the future course of the nuclear crisis on the Korean
Peninsula. At the board meeting of the Korean Peninsula Energy
Development Organization, the members decided to halt the supply
of fuel oil to North Korea starting in December. It was the
first action taken against the North's development of a highly
enriched uranium program.
The action triggered an angry countermeasure by North Korea. In
1994, the North and the United States had agreed under the
Geneva accord that the international consortium would build two
nuclear power reactors in the North and provide 500,000 tons of
fuel oil annually in return for Pyeongyang's freeze of its
nuclear activities. Seoul and Tokyo were covering the cost of
the light water reactor construction while Washington paid most
of the cost of the fuel oil.
"The United States argued that the oil shipments must be stopped
starting in November," a senior Seoul official who attended the
KEDO meeting said. "But we disagreed because it would be a
provocation to the North.
"At the time, a ship loaded with 42,500 tons of fuel oil, the
shipment for November, was waiting in international waters near
North Korea. The ship departed from Singapore on Nov. 6 and was
awaiting KEDO's decision. Eventually, Seoul's argument
prevailed, and the November shipment of the oil was delivered to
the North. But Pyeongyang became aware of the seriousness of the
situation. The U.S. oil supply composed 10 percent of the
North's total fuel used for power generation."
The U.S. decision to halt the fuel oil shipment showed that the
Geneva agreement was dead. Six days later came Pyeongyang's
official reaction. "Now that the United States has unilaterally
given up its last commitment under the framework, the DPRK
acknowledges that it is high time to decide who is to blame for
the collapse of the framework," a North Korean spokesman said.
"The U.S. assertion that the DPRK violated the framework is
superpower chauvinism that a big country may threaten a small
country as it wishes, but a small country should not try to cope
with such a threat."
In December, the United States pressured the North one more
time. A North Korean cargo boat, loaded with 15 Scud missiles,
was nabbed on its way to Yemen. The ship was stopped by the
Spanish Navy on Dec. 9 after a U.S. request. The United States
searched the ship. After Yemen claimed the missiles, the United
States released the ship on Dec. 11. At the time, Richard
Armitage, the U.S. deputy secretary of state, was in Beijing. He
said the incident sent a clear message to Pyeongyang that the
North could not hide from U.S. monitoring of its activities.
A former Seoul official said Mr. Armitage had visited South
Korea before his trip to China and quoted him as saying that the
United States had planned the capture of the North Korean boat.
The next day, North Korea issued a critical statement. The
North said it had decided to resume operation and construction
of nuclear facilities necessary for power generation in response
to Washington's suspension of the fuel oil shipments. Although
the North said it was resuming nuclear power generation
activities only, that was a threat that it would resume a
plutonium-based nuclear weapons program. The Geneva agreement
was on the verge of death.
In South Korea, the presidential election was to take place in a
week. Candlelight vigils to remember two schoolgirls killed by a
U.S. military armored vehicle were also at their peak at the
time.
Two days after Roh Moo-hyun's victory in the presidential
election, North Korea began to take action. On Dec. 21, the
North stopped the operations of monitoring cameras at its
5-megawatt reactor and removed the seals on critical equipment.
The action ended the nuclear monitoring activities of the
International Atomic Energy Agency. Until the end of the year,
the North took other steps. It removed the monitoring cameras
installed at the nuclear fuel plants and reprocessing facilities
and then expelled the IAEA inspectors there.
North Korea officially walked away from the nuclear
nonproliferation treaty on Jan. 10, 2003, the second time it had
abandoned the treaty. International attention shifted from Iraq
to North Korea.
"At the time, North Korea moved within the scope of Seoul's
expectations, but we did not know that it would move that fast,"
another government official said. "The North appeared to have a
timetable as it observed the U.S. preparations for Iraq. The
North certainly was taking a gamble."
The Kim Dae-jung administration played its own card by sending a
special envoy to the North at about that time. Another senior
Seoul official said Mr. Kim had believed in resolving the
nuclear issue before it grew any worse. "As a part of Mr. Kim's
such plan, Lim Dong-won, the Blue House special advisor on
security, visited the North. Seoul told Washington and Tokyo of
its plan between Jan. 7 and 11, and the two countries sent
messages to Seoul. Visits to the two allies were made by the
chief presidential secretary for foreign affairs," the official
said.
According to the source, the two Koreas opened a secret channel
to discuss the South Korean envoy's visit. North Korea, at the
ninth round of inter-Korean minister-level talks in Seoul, said
it would accept Seoul's envoy. The talks took place from Jan. 21
to 24.
On Jan. 24, the two Koreas announced simultaneously that Mr.
Lim would visit on Jan. 27as a South Korean presidential envoy
to the North. The eight-member delegation included Lee
Jong-seok, the current deputy head of the National Security
Council. At the time, Mr. Lee was on President-elect Roh's
transition team.
The senior official said Mr. Kim wanted to send a delegate from
the new administration to establish a communications channel
between the two Koreas. The Kim Blue House recommended that Mr.
Lee be included in the group because he had also been a member
of the delegation for the 2000 summit.
On Jan. 27, Mr. Lim met with Kim Yong-sun, the North Korean
Workers' Party's secretary, and delivered the letter from
President Kim Dae-jung, explaining the Kim administration's
positions on the nuclear issues, inter-Korean relations and the
new Roh administration's relations with the North.
A senior official familiar with the special envoy's visit said
Seoul made clear three points on nuclear issues. "Seoul said
Pyeongyang should scrap and verify the dismantlement of the
highly enriched uranium program if the North had one. If the
North did not have one, it should also agree to inspections to
verify the fact," the official said. "Seoul also told Pyeongyang
that it must not miss the opportunity because South Korea was
delaying the UN Security Council's move to debate the issue.
Seoul also said the North's demand for a nonaggression treaty
with the United States is nearly impossible even if the Bush
administration wanted to negotiate one, because it would have to
be ratified by the U.S. Congress, dominated by the Republicans.
Seoul said a written nonaggression promise backed by a
multilateral guarantee would be appropriate." The South Korean
envoy, however, was refused a meeting with the North Korean
leader, Kim Jong-il.
"We suspect that Mr. Kim did not meet with Mr. Lim because the
North Korean Foreign Ministry and the National defense
commission stopped the meeting," a former Seoul official said.
"The North probably feared that Mr. Lim would actually succeed
in persuading Mr. Kim. In April, when Mr. Lim visited the North
to break the logjam in stalled inter-Korean relations, Mr. Kim
openly accepted South Korea's requests," the official remembered.
While Kim Dae-jung administration officials were unable to
accomplish their missions, Mr. Lee, representing the Roh
administration, met with Kim Yong-sun separately and explained
the new Blue House's North Korea policy. The North reportedly
was satisfied with Mr. Lee's visit, but he returned empty-handed
and the issue was handed to the Roh administration. And the Bush
administration began its own actions.
by Oh Young-hwan, Jeong Yong-su myoja@joongang.co.kr>
Copyright by Joins.com, Inc. Terms of Use |
*****************************************************************
4 [NYTr] Iran, the EU and Nuclear Deterrence: Editorial
Date: Sun, 31 Oct 2004 09:55:52 -0600 (CST)
Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
sent by John Clancy
Guardian Weekly - Oct 29, 2004
Editorial
Iran: Nuclear deterrence
No one knows exactly how Iran will react to the latest European
proposals for reining in its nuclear ambitions and no one should
underestimate the importance of its response. Britain, France and
Germany ? the EU3 ? did the sensible thing last week when they set
out their stall in Vienna. Their tempting idea is that the Islamic
republic will be helped to generate nuclear power if it agrees to
stop enriching uranium, which can be used to make nuclear weapons.
The United States is unhappy with this strategy of inducements. But
with the US presidential election imminent and the Europeans
desperately conscious of the shadow cast by Iraq, it is right to
explore every diplomatic avenue. If there is no progress, the
International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN's nuclear watchdog, will
pass the dossier to the security council next month to consider
"further steps", including the possible imposition of economic
sanctions. It is hard to imagine that there will be a united
international response at that point.
Iran maintains that its nuclear programme, a symbol of modernity and
national pride, is for power generation and not for military
purposes. It insists too that it is open to talks, but will never
give up uranium enrichment ? a process that can be used to produce
fuel for nuclear reactors or material for atomic bombs. The
studiously neutral IAEA has uncovered previously hidden activities
that could well be related to a clandestine Iranian weapons
programme. Crucially, though, it has found no "smoking gun".
Looking back a year or so ago, Iran looked like the case that could
prove that European policies of engagement and persuasion would
succeed where American sabre-rattling failed. The EU's strategic
doctrine placed heavy emphasis on "effective multilateralism". The
mission was important enough to unite London, Paris and Berlin,
divided over Iraq, to try their luck with Iran. But barring some
last-minute surprise from Tehran, they seem to have failed. The
nuclear non-proliferation treaty has already been rocked by India
and Pakistan acquiring nuclear weapons. Another breach could kill it
off. That means that keeping the Iranian genie inside its bottle is
a matter of global importance.
The Guardian Weekly 2004-10-29, page 13
*
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5 BBC: Iranian MPs approve uranium bill
Last Updated: Sunday, 31 October, 2004
[Iran's nuclear reactor at Bushehr]
Iran denies claims it wants to build nuclear weapons
The Iranian parliament has passed the first stage of a bill which
would force the government to resume its uranium enrichment
programme.
It received the endorsement of all 247 MPs present, the speaker
said.
The international community has asked Iran to suspend all uranium
enrichment, or face referral the United Nations Security Council.
Iran agreed in October last year to suspend the programme, but
has since resumed the manufacture of centrifuges.
Centrifuges refine uranium, which can then be used in nuclear
weapons.
Iran insists the uranium would be used only for generation of
electricity.
Earlier, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said the government would
be obliged to abide by whatever legislation Parliament endorsed.
Negotiations
Speaking after the vote, the Speaker, Gholam Ali Haddad Adel,
said the message to the outside world was that Iran would not
give in to international pressure.
"The message of the absolute vote for the Iranian nation is that
the parliament supports national interests," he said, the
Associated Press news agency reported.
During the three-hour debate, some parliamentarians argued
against the bill, saying it was not necessary to have new
legislation because Iran's rights were already guaranteed in the
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Others said a new law would strengthen the hands of Iran's
negotiators.
Iranian officials are due to meet their European counterparts on
Friday in Paris for a third round of talks on a package of
proposals to allay international concerns about Iran's nuclear
programme.
The EU nations are offering Iran civil nuclear technology if it
agrees to abandon uranium enrichment.
Western diplomats say there needs to be a clear response to the
proposals by mid-November, or Europe will back US efforts to
refer Iran to the UN Security Council.
*****************************************************************
6 Xinhuanet: IAEA offers to guarantee Iran's nuclear fuel supply
www.xinhuanet.com
www.chinaview.cn 2004-10-30 11:39:11
VIENNA, Oct. 29 (Xinhuanet) -- In a move set to boost
Europe's talks with Iran, the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA) has promised to guarantee the supply of nuclear fuel for
Iran, diplomats said Friday.
The IAEA, the UN's nuclear watchdog, will also give
assurances of a European offer to help Iran build a light-water
reactor in exchange for Iran's suspension of its uranium
enrichment program.
Uranium enrichment produces nuclear fuel both for civilian
and military purposes.
The IAEA offer quells fears that without its own enrichment
program, Iran's nuclear fuel supply might be subjected to
externalrestrictions like policies of exporting countries or
pressure fromthe United States.
However, Tehran's attitude toward the IAEA offer remains
unclear.
The three biggest countries of the European Union (EU) --
France, Germany and Britain -- are currently in talks with Iran
for a deal under which Iran would suspend its uranium enrichment
in exchange for EU technology. The first two rounds in Vienna
failed to reach agreement, but the two sides had agreed to resume
talks in Paris next Friday.
The IAEA threatened in September to bring the issue to the UN
Security Council unless Iran agrees to the suspension by Nov. 25.
Iran will have to agree to the suspension by mid-November to
allowtime for IAEA verification. Enditem
Copyright ©2003 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
7 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: IAEA to Send Third Inspection Team to S. Korea
Updated Oct.31,2004 16:14 KST
A third round of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
investigations into South Korea¡¯s past experiments with nuclear
materials with be conducted from Tuesday to Sunday.
The Ministry of Science and Technology said Sunday a five-man
IAEA inspection team would conduct investigations from Tuesday of
past experiments with nuclear material conducted at the Korea
Atomic Energy Research Institute in Daejeon and the old
research-use Triga Mark III reactor in Seoul.
Cho Chung-won, director-general of the Nuclear Bureau at the
Science and Technology Ministry, said, ¡°We were informed of this
by the IAEA on Saturday... This inspection team will come to
conduct final consultations with Korea concerning the rough draft
of the report the IAEA will submit to the IAEA Board of Governors
on Nov. 25.¡±
The IAEA Board of Governors will consider the inspection report
into plutonium and uranium enrichment experiments conducted in
1982 and 2000, and decided whether or not to submit the matter to
the United National Security Council.
The IAEA had conducted two previous rounds of inspections between
Aug. 31 and Sept. 4 and between Sept. 19 and Sept. 26. Inspection
teams interviewed scientists who participated in the nuclear
material experiments at issue and took samples of some of the
plutonium and uranium.
(Lee Yeong-wan, ywlee@chosun.com )
*****************************************************************
8 [NukeNet] BUSH AND KERRY ON NUCLEAR ISSUES
Date: Sun, 31 Oct 2004 17:11:18 -0800
BUSH AND KERRY:
WHERE THEY STAND ON NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION, NUCLEAR WEAPONS, MISSILE
DEFENSE, RADIOACTIVE WASTE AND THE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY NUCLEAR WEAPONS
LABS
Below are excerpts, compiled by Tri-Valley CAREs' staff attorney Loulena
Miles, from Physics Today's October issue (Vol-57 - by Jim Dawson). The
Physics Today article utilized published statements by presidential
candidates John Kerry and George W. Bush on issues of Science and Nuclear
Proliferation.
Please visit www.physicstoday.org for the entire article.
Nuclear Weapons - Do we need a new class of nuclear weapons?:
Bush: The Nuclear Posture Review noted that the nation's nuclear
infrastructure had atrophied since the end of the cold war and that an
evolving security environment requires a flexible and responsive weapons
complex infrastructure. We have not identified any need for developing new
nuclear weapons.
Kerry: A Kerry-Edwards administration will stop this administration's
program to develop a new class of nuclear weapons. This is a weapon we
don't need, and it undermines our ability to persuade other nations to
forego developments of these weapons.
Radioactive Waste - what do we do with it?
Bush: My administration has made a strong commitment to resolving the
nuclear waste challenge and making the construction of a long-term geologic
repository at Yucca Mountain achievable. We are moving ahead with the
submission of a license application to the Nuclear Regulator commission at
the end of this year.
Kerry: We oppose George Bush's plans to open Yucca Mountain over the
objections of independent scientists. We do not support Yucca Mountain as
a nuclear waste disposal site and will insist that nuclear waste disposal
and transportation proceed only the basis of rigorous peer-reviewed science
and analysis that leads to public understanding and confidence.
Nuclear Proliferation: What should the U.S. do to secure nuclear stockpiles
and fissile materials in the US and elsewhere?
Bush: No administration has done more to secure and control nuclear weapons
and fissile materials than mine. U.S. weapons and fissile materials are
exceptionally secure and both the DOE and DOD are working to make them even
more so. We are working with Russia to secure weapons and materials and to
end the production of plutonium in Russia. My administration established
the Global Threat Reduction Initiative to eliminate or secure fissile and
radiological materials worldwide. We led the international community in a
global effort to account for, secure, and dispose of excess radiological
sources that could be used in [dirty bombs].
Kerry: Our nation's highest priority must be preventing terrorists from
gaining access to nuclear weapons and the material to make themŠ I have
proposed a strategy to Šend production of new fissile material for nuclear
weapons by negotiating a global ban on production of new material [and]
reduce existing stocks of nuclear weapons and materials by ending
development of the new generation of nuclear weapons, accelerating
reductions in US and Russian nuclear arsenals, and reducing stocks of
dangerous highly enriched uranium in Russia.
Missile Defense - Should we have it?:
Bush: Our policy is to develop and deploy, at the earliest possible date, a
weapons system that would defend the United States homeland against nuclear
attack, including ballistic missile defenses, drawing upon the best
technologies available.
Kerry: Missile defense that works is a wise investment, but one that pours
money into defenses at the expenses of other national security needs is
not. Edwards and I are committed to developing a missile defense systemŠbut
missile defense should be one element of a comprehensive national security
strategy.
National Labs: How do we remedy security lapses, misappropriations and low
morale?:
Bush: We spent $6.5 billion on weapons research and production in FY2004 ..
[w]e must keep morale and security high. My administration has made every
effort to improve the way the labs do business, and one of those efforts is
allowing competitive bids like those that exist in all areas of government.
Kerry: The labs have a proud history of advancing our nation's security,
but this record has been blemished recently by poor management and sloppy
security practicesŠ we are committed to strengthening lab management and
oversight and restoring the morale at these critical national assets.
###
Marylia Kelley
Executive Director
Tri-Valley CAREs
(Communities Against a Radioactive Environment)
2582 Old First Street
Livermore, CA USA 94551
- is our web site address. Please visit us
there!
(925) 443-7148 - is our phone
(925) 443-0177 - is our fax
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9 deseret news: Bush, Kerry still deadlocked
[deseretnews.com]
Sunday, October 31, 2004
By David S. Broder, Dan Balz and Charles Babington
WASHINGTON — President Bush and his Democratic
challenger, Sen. John F. Kerry, go into the final 48 hours of
the 2004 presidential campaign within easy reach of an electoral
majority, but neither has a clear advantage in the remaining
handful of tossup states.
This year's election is a virtual rerun of the 2000 race,
with many of the same states in the too-close-to-call category.
But four years ago, Bush's route to an electoral majority was
clearer than Al Gore's, while this year his path appears no
easier than Kerry's, given the states still in play.
Bush has solid leads in 23 states with 197 electoral
votes and is favored in four more, which could bring him to 227.
Kerry is equally solid in 13 states with 178 electoral votes and
is favored in five states, which would bring him to 232. It
takes 270 electoral votes to win.
Six states — Florida, Ohio, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa
and New Mexico — with 79 electoral votes could determine the
winner. All are regarded as tossups by neutral observers and the
two campaigns.
Democratic hopes of overturning the Republicans' shaky
51-vote majority in the Senate are unlikely to be realized.
Democratic candidates would have to win all four tossup races
and defeat one favored Republican to emerge with 50 seats and a
tie that John Edwards could break if he and Kerry win. Senate
Minority Leader Thomas Daschle, D-S.D., is fighting for his
political life in South Dakota against former GOP Rep. John
Thune, a race both sides expect to be won or lost by fewer than
2,000 votes.
In the House, few analysts see Republicans losing more
than three seats net from their 24-seat majority or adding more
than that number. But two prominent Republicans — Christopher
Shays of Connecticut, co-sponsor of campaign finance
legislation, and Phil Crane of Illinois, a 35-year veteran, are
in jeopardy.
The state-by-state analysis is based on reporting by
Washington Post staff members traveling with the four
presidential and vice presidential candidates and on assignment
in nine states, along with private assessments from top Kerry
and Bush strategists and interviews with dozens of other
political players in Washington and around the country.
What makes this presidential election so difficult to
call is the intensity of voter interest, reflected in swollen
registration totals and long lines for early voting, combined
with the most aggressive voter mobilization efforts either party
and its allies have ever mounted. Democrats in particular
believe their ground game may be decisive in the closest
remaining states.
The other unknown is the potential impact of Osama bin
Laden's Friday videotape message, which abruptly shifted
headlines away from Iraq to terrorism and echoes of Sept. 11,
2001. Bush's highest ratings come for his leadership against the
terrorists, but there was no discernible shift to the president
in polls taken during the first hours after the video aired.
Some Democrats fear Bush may benefit from bin Laden's
intervention, but until the tape appeared, Republicans
complained that Bush was fighting against a tide of negative
news developments: brutal killings in Iraq, shortages of flu
vaccine, investigations of Vice President Cheney's former
employer, Halliburton, an impasse in Congress over reform of
intelligence agencies and, for most of the past week, headlines
suggesting the administration had been negligent in allowing
tons of Saddam Hussein's lethal weapons to fall into dangerous
hands.
A deadlock
The Washington Post's latest tracking poll shows a
deadlocked electorate, with Bush at 49 percent, Kerry at 48
percent and independent Ralph Nader at 1 percent, among likely
voters. Most other polls show the race equally close, although a
Newsweek poll put Bush up 50-44 percent among likely voters. A
general movement toward one or the other candidate in the final
hours could significantly alter the electoral map balance.
The candidates tried to tune their speeches to the
shifting headlines as they campaigned in what they know to be
the battleground states. From last winter on, both Bush and
Kerry have targeted Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania, believing
that whoever wins two of them would likely be elected.
Despite more than 40 Bush visits, Pennsylvania has now
tilted toward Kerry, and Republicans are fighting desperately to
pump the vote in their central and southwestern areas of
strength enough to make up for the Democratic margins in
Philadelphia and its suburbs. Some public polls show the race
tied, but insiders are skeptical Bush can prevail.
Other states that have moved from the pre-convention
tossup category toward Kerry are Washington, Oregon, Maine and
Michigan. Hawaii, once considered a Democratic certainty, has
become a battleground in which Kerry is narrowly favored.
Meantime, Bush has gained the advantage in Colorado,
Missouri, Nevada and West Virginia, all considered battlegrounds
at one time.
Florida and Ohio
But Florida and Ohio remain tossups. Four years ago, Bush
did not have to worry about Ohio. Gore had folded his campaign
in the state to concentrate on Florida, and it was something of
a shock when Bush carried Ohio by only 3 points.
Still, with severe losses of industrial jobs the past
four years, Republicans knew early it wouldn't be easy this
time. Although Ohio has one of the nation's weakest Democratic
parties, independent pro-Kerry groups such as Americans Coming
Together have moved in massive numbers of organizers.
Republicans have ramped up a party that controls all major
offices to meet the challenge. Kerry needs a sizable margin out
of the Cleveland-Akron-Youngstown area to offset Bush's support
in the southern parts of the state bordering the Ohio River,
where his social issue stands are much more popular.
In Florida, preparations for this election — and tensions
over its outcome — have been building ever since the disputed
537-vote Bush margin gave him the presidency. Republicans retain
control of the election machinery, run by an appointee of Gov.
Jeb Bush, the president's brother. But Democrats have amassed an
army of lawyers to challenge any irregularities. Both sides have
prodded supporters to take advantage of the state's new
early-voting law, and more than 1.5 million Floridians have
turned in their ballots already. Republicans say they have
growing confidence that Bush will carry the state Tuesday, but
Democrats have taken heart from early vote patterns in some
counties and are far from conceding.
Bush's most direct path to re-election is simply to
capture those two big states he won last time. That could bring
his total to 274 electoral votes. If Kerry wins them both, he
will be at 279.
Another option for Bush would be to steal Michigan from
Kerry. The state's economic problems, second only to Ohio's,
gave Kerry the early advantage. His managers assumed the state
was secure and devoted little time and money to it, an omission
the Bush side moved quickly to exploit. With a revived party
organization and hundreds of local "Victory headquarters," they
have forced Kerry to increase his investment in the last 10
days. Kerry plans a stop on Monday hoping that a big Detroit
vote will give Democrats the edge.
But if Michigan stays Democratic and Bush and Kerry split
Florida and Ohio, then the other tossup states become decisive,
particularly three in the upper Midwest: Minnesota, Wisconsin
and Iowa. The winner of two of those three likely will win the
White House.
All three went for Gore, but the Massachusetts senator
has struggled to make a personal connection with midwestern
voters, typified by his reference to "Lambert" rather than
Lambeau Field, home to the Green Bay Packers. All three states
are now open to Bush.
The easiest for Kerry to win may be Minnesota, a state
with a proud Democratic tradition but that has been trending
Republican. Bush came close in Minnesota four years ago and may
once again fall just short.
Wisconsin has seesawed between the two candidates
throughout the fall, with Democrats worried about black turnout
in Milwaukee and Bush trying to push up his numbers in the Fox
River Valley south of Green Bay. Like Minnesota, Wisconsin
allows voters to register on Election Day, adding an
unpredictable element.
Bush's best bet to pick off a Democratic state may be in
Iowa, even though it is the state that launched Kerry toward the
nomination last winter. But Iowa remains too close to call this
weekend. Democrats won the state four years ago on Election Day
with their voter turnout operation and say they may have to do
so again this year.
There is only one competitive state in New England: New
Hampshire. Four years ago, after Republicans captured the
attention of Granite State independent voters with their
presidential primary between Bush and Arizona Sen. John McCain,
Bush managed to eke out a 7,000 vote victory in the general
election. This time Democrats won the headlines with their
primary contest, and Kerry is favored to win back the state on
Tuesday.
There is one asterisk in New England, in Maine. Kerry
should win the statewide vote easily, but Maine divides its
electoral votes in part by congressional district and Bush is
fighting to win one vote from the northern, mostly rural 2nd
District.
At one point in the campaign, four Rocky Mountain states
were on the target list of the two campaigns, but in the closing
weeks, only two — New Mexico and Nevada — see real competition.
Nevada leans to Bush, despite his support for making Yucca
Mountain the nation's nuclear waste repository. New Mexico,
which went for Gore with one of the smallest margins in the
country, remains a tossup, with the closing trend toward Bush.
If New Mexico turns into another dead heat, Tuesday could
turn into another long night of counting, but that could be
eclipsed if Hawaii remains as competitive as it has appeared in
the last week. Newspaper polls in the once-staunchly Democratic
state showed Bush running even with Kerry, prompting both
campaigns to buy advertising and late visits by Cheney and Gore.
In the Senate, Daschle versus Thune remains the premier
contest, but two other incumbents, both Republicans, are in
trouble: Jim Bunning of Kentucky and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.
The parties expect to trade open seats in Illinois and Georgia.
Republicans have Democrats on the defensive in open seat races
in Florida, Louisiana, North Carolina and South Carolina.
Democrats have the GOP fighting to hold open seats in Colorado
and Oklahoma.
With so few House races truly competitive, Democrats'
hopes of regaining the majority they lost a decade ago seem
virtually nil. The key to Republicans' likelihood of maintaining
and possibly expanding their majority lies in Texas. Thanks to
aggressive redistricting by the state's GOP-controlled
legislature, five House Democrats are imperiled, with only one
given a 50-50 chance of survival. Republicans say Texas is their
firewall to protect the party from possible losses in
Connecticut and a handful of other states.
Republicans control 229 of the House's 435 seats
(counting vacancies in two GOP-leaning districts). Democrats
have 205 seats and there's one liberal independent. With
Republicans poised to gain four seats in Texas, a nationwide net
pickup of three seats is quite plausible. Under a best-case
Republican scenario the party could gain about six seats. Under
a worst-case result, Democrats would pick up perhaps four seats
net, still leaving them well short of a majority. The House
assessments are based in part on independent assessments of the
Cook Political Report and The Rothenberg Political Report.
Only 11 states are electing governors this year. In
Indiana, former Office of Management and Budget Director
Mitchell Daniels is threatening to end 16 years of Democratic
domination in a race against Gov. Joe Kernan. Republicans are
favored to hold on in North Dakota and Vermont and are
threatening in Delaware and Missouri. Democrats are confident
about West Virginia and North Carolina, hopeful about keeping
Washington in their column and believe they have a shot to take
over in New Hampshire, Montana and Utah.
© 2004 Deseret News Publishing Company
*****************************************************************
10 New York Times: An Evolving Identity Helps to Leave Five States
in Search of a President
By TIMOTHY EGAN
Published: October 30, 2004
[A] COMA, N.M., Oct. 29 - As the sun sets over the land on
Election Day, the American West could become the landscape of
victory for the man who will be president in the next four years.
For all the attention that the parties are paying to Sioux City,
Iowa, or Dayton, Ohio, the election may well be decided in places
like Lake Havasu City, Ariz., where the London Bridge was
transplanted to the sands of the Mojave Desert, or here at Acoma,
an Indian pueblo that claims to be the oldest continuously
inhabited city in the nation.
Heavily urban despite its open spaces, and soon to be more
Hispanic, the West is also an unpredictable region in search of a
new political identity. The war, terror, climbing health
insurance premiums all matter here as elsewhere, but people are
more likely to be independents.
As the electoral map dried up in the South for Democrats, they
turned to the long-forgotten interior West. But both campaigns
have discovered that political brand loyalty is a hard thing to
find here.
"I'm a Democrat who voted for George Bushlast time, and I'm
voting John Kerrythis time just because things don't feel right
and maybe change is the only way out," said Amanda Mordem, a
nurse's assistant in Bullhead City, Ariz., a sprawling town at
the edge of a county that takes in part of the Grand Canyon and
Indian reservations.
Five states - Oregon, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico,
with a total of 36 electoral votes - are still within reach of
either candidate, according to most recent polls.
A tour through these five states this week, when millions of
people were well into the thick of early voting, found a big land
pulsing with the harsh intimacy of battle in the campaign's
closing days.
"You can't keep it down this year - people are just off the
charts for this election," said Elizabeth Boyd, who works at the
Face to Face Spa in Bend, Ore., where politics has elbowed aside
talk of wonder exfoliants and earth-friendly facials.
Former President Bill Clinton plans to be in New Mexico Saturday
and Sunday, pitching for its five electoral votes as President
Bush's father did on Thursday.
"I've never seen the kind of churning we're seeing right now in
the West," said Ron Judd, the Western region director for the
A.F.L.-C.I.O. "There is this undercurrent like we had in 1994
when the Congress changed hands, like we're on the verge of
something big."
Oregon's Culture Clash
In Oregon, a state where doctors can prescribe drugs for the
terminally ill to kill themselves but drivers cannot pump their
own gas, people have been voting for more than a week in the
all-mail-in ballot.
Oregon looked like a tossup for much of this year, with an island
of Democrats in the Portland metropolitan area surrounded by
Republican counties. Some Oregonians believe the state is
trending more like Colorado did in the 1990's, full of Republican
California exiles. But Democrats are still optimistic. Al Gore
eked out a 7,000-vote victory in 2000, but he was hurt by Ralph
Nader, who drew 5 percent of the vote. This year Mr. Nader is not
on the ballot.
The red and the blue clash in Deschutes County, on the other side
of the mountains from Portland. It grew by 54 percent in the
1990's, drawing people who live for cutthroat trout that rise in
streams that dance through the high desert.
Clay and Julia Johnston, a pilot and his wife, formerly of
Portland, were sipping coffee while filling out their mail-in
ballot on a chilly morning. They predicted a victory for
President Bush - at least in this county where the two political
cultures of the state collide.
"Wherever there is money, there are Republicans," said Mr.
Johnston. "And there is a lot of money here."
Nevada's Wild Cards
South, in Nevada, money was on the air nonstop, and on the
ground, as the campaigns bused people to mobile voting centers.
"Who wants to vote - this way to the bus," said a Bush campaign
operative on Tuesday outside the giant Victory Christian Center
in a strip mall in Henderson, for much of the last decade the
nation's fastest-growing city.
Nevada has only five electoral votes, but they have been fought
over as if they were the last undeveloped real estate on the Las
Vegas Strip.
A few blocks away, union supporters were getting their talking
points and neighborhood maps for a day of ground-pounding. They
were told to remind stay-at-home moms of the nuclear waste site
planned at Yucca Mountain - an issue Senator Kerry has been
raising.
Paul Sanchez, one of many out-of-state union leaders doing
political work in the desert, had a telephone number scrawled on
the back of his hand. "I go into the poor neighborhoods, knock on
doors and just tell people to call this number - someone will
come get them and take them to the polls," said Mr. Sanchez.
Though Republicans are thought to have a slight edge in Nevada,
the wild cards are state ballot measures, in particular a popular
one that would raise the minimum wage.
Pocketbook issues are the big concern for Debra Pinkerton, an
undecided voter who lives in Searchlight, a wind-raked town at
the southern tip of Clark County.
"One of my children works in Vegas, and he makes $11 an hour but
has to pay $70 a week for health insurance, which he needs
because he and his wife just had a baby," said Ms. Pinkerton, who
qualifies as pioneer stock in Nevada, with grandparents who moved
to the state in the 1930's, when Nevada had barely 90,000 people.
With a booming economy, jobs are not an issue in Nevada. The bare
bones of new homes stretch to the desert's edge.
Democrats are counting on a live-and-let-live cultural attitude
to counter Republicans like Mary Bolinger, who has already voted,
and was walking around Henderson with a button that read: "I'm a
Republican and a Christian. You got a problem with that?"
The problem for Republicans may be that Nevada, like Oregon, is
near the bottom in the ranking of states by percentage of
churchgoers.
Colorado's Democratic Fling
By contrast, in Colorado the big churches may give Republicans
enough of an edge to hold the state after a surprising fling with
indecision. The center for Christian conservatives is Colorado
Springs, a metropolitan area of nearly a half-million people that
exudes a youthful, prosperous, Rocky Mountain optimism. The New
Life Church, whose impressive glass-and-concrete compound can be
seen for miles, rises at the edge of town.
The electoral math, for Republicans, comes from the big new homes
along the Front Range.
"We call them the California middle class," said Rob Brendle,
associate pastor at New Life, pointing to an expanse of
McMansions. "These neighborhoods are full of evangelicals who
came here for a new life."
Inside the New Life compound, workers were finishing a new church
that will seat 7,500 people and people wore buttons that said, "I
voted." The headquarters office features pictures of the head
pastor, Ted Haggard, with President Bush and Mel Gibson.
Mr. Haggard - or Pastor Ted, as everyone in the church calls him
- is president of the National Association of Evangelicals, which
says it represents 30 million people. He has been to the Oval
Office twice since Mr. Bush has been president.
"We've been in regular contact with Karl Rove," said Mr. Brendle,
referring to the president's chief political adviser. Though the
church is officially nonpartisan, opposition to gay marriage and
abortion have put it strongly in the Republican camp. To win this
election, Mr. Rove has said, Republicans will need to turn out
roughly four million evangelicals who did not vote in 2000. Mr.
Brendle predicted an enormous Christian right turnout - at least
75 percent among the 11,000 members of the New Life Church.
"Our people don't need to be bused to the polls and given a
sandwich," he said.
Democrats say Colorado is changing as the number of
Republican-leaning California exiles levels off and Hispanics,
who make up 17 percent of the population, gain ground. Also, the
older suburbs around Denver have been promising new ground for
Democrats.
The burgeoning Hispanic population may be why Mr. Kerry chose
Pueblo, in a county in southern Colorado that is nearly 40
percent Hispanic, as the site of his last visit a few days ago.
He appeared with the state's Hispanic superstar, Attorney General
Ken Salazar, who is in a close race with the Republican
candidate, Pete Coors, for the open Senate seat.
Arizona's Hispanic Force
Hispanics could also hold the key to what happens in Arizona,
another formerly safe Republican state, which was rated close
enough to be competitive in a recent poll by The Arizona
Republic; other surveys give Mr. Bush a slight edge. The state is
25 percent Hispanic and has gained 470,000 new registered voters
- and two electoral votes - since the 2000 campaign.
Though Republicans have a margin of about 100,000 votes in party
registration, more than one in five voters in Arizona are
independent, a political position where many in the New West park
themselves.
The Latino vote is complicated: more conservative on social
issues, not prone to high turnout. But no one denies its growing
influence. There are 3.6 million Hispanics, or nearly one in four
residents, in Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Nevada.
Advertisement
The other big vote in Arizona is the elderly, and they are more
reliable voters than any other group. In Bullhead City, a
fast-growing retirement and recreation community in the middle of
the Mojave Desert on the banks of the Colorado River, older
people were angry this week over the lack of sufficient flu
shots. But they were not holding Mr. Bush responsible.
"I wasn't able to get my flu shot, and I really need it because
I've got the emphysema," said Barbara Martinez, a retiree in
Bullhead City, eating lunch in a medical facility cafeteria. "But
I don't see how you can blame President Bush for that."
New Mexico's Indian Issues
New Mexico, where Spanish-surnamed families trace their roots
back centuries and Indians in Acoma have a direct link to the
ancient Anasazi, may be the hardest state for the campaigns to
figure out.
Hispanics make up 42 percent of the population - the highest of
any state in the 2000 census - while non-Hispanic whites are 48
percent. Compared with the national average, New Mexico is poor,
and young, and it is growing - by 20 percent in the last census.
American Indians, who make up 9 percent of the population, are
only now being courted. Over the last week, John Kerry's sister
was here at Acoma, as was Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton.
Atop the Sky City of Acoma, where people live without electricity
on a stone summit nearly 7,000 feet above sea level, some natives
said they would not vote, that it meant nothing to them who ran
the government in Washington.
But tribal leaders said they wished the campaigns would pay as
much attention to their issues as they do to interest groups like
dairy farmers in Wisconsin. Marva Toya said she was worried about
the possible closing of an Indian hospital an hour away, in
Albuquerque.
Darrell Felipe, the Acoma tribal operations manager, said: "If
one candidate would just bring up a single Native American issue,
they could get the native vote. But they don't talk about us."
This year, in the closing hours of the race, the people who live
in a town that most historians agree is twice as old as Boston
may actually get their wish.
Free Trial of The New York Times Electronic Edition.
*****************************************************************
11 New York Times: 'The Bomb in My Garden': Science Fiction
The Secrets of Saddam's Nuclear Mastermind.
By Mahdi Obeidi and Kurt Pitzer. 242 pp. John Wiley &Sons.
$24.95.
First Chapter: 'The Bomb in My Garden' (October 31,
2004)
By JACOB HEILBRUNN
[M] AHDI OBEIDI is an unusual penitent. A gifted Iraqi
scientist, he led the effort to provide Saddam Hussein with a
nuclear bomb. Now, in ''The Bomb in My Garden,'' written with
Kurt Pitzer, an experienced journalist, Obeidi explains why he
failed. His memoir is not an instructive guide to Iraq's quest
for the bomb. It is an indispensable one. Expertly organized and
packed with telling vignettes, it is never less than riveting.
Not a member of Hussein's camarilla but in close contact with
it, Obeidi draws on his experiences to depict a regime that
became the premier consumer of its own propaganda. For from the
beginning, it was clear that Iraq's bomb program was unlikely to
succeed.
Obeidi, born in 1944, received much of his early scientific
training in the United States. A talented mathematics student, he
landed a five-year scholarship from the Ministry of Education for
study at the Colorado School of Mines when he was 18. After
earning a master's degree in petroleum-refining engineering, he
returned to Iraq and joined the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission
when it was set up. By 1976, he was in charge of materials
research and, on a grant partly paid for by the United Nations,
spent four months apprenticing in the Italian nuclear program.
''The Italians were very kind and allowed me almost unrestricted
access to their facilities and reactor designs,'' he writes. He
would discover similar kindness from scientists from a host of
countries in coming years.
When Hussein seized power in 1979, Iraq pushed ahead even more
aggressively with its nuclear program. Construction on a
40-megawatt French reactor at Tuwaitha was almost complete, but
as the final components arrived, Obeidi noticed that the aluminum
piping leading to the reactor was pitted. His warnings were
ignored, the project went ahead and Saddam presented 20
automobiles to his top scientists. Obeidi didn't get one. He
learned an ''enduring lesson that day,'' he says. ''It was taboo
for a scientist to raise issues that were inconvenient to
Saddam's government.'' Fortunately, in a daring raid on June 7,
1981, eight Israeli F-16 fighter jets bombed and destroyed the
reactor.
The bombing prompted Hussein to embark on a more covert program.
After Obeidi redeemed himself with a successful scientific
experiment, Hussein's son-in-law, Hussein Kamel, tapped him to
head a program that relied on using a gas centrifuge to enrich
uranium. No expense was spared: when the scientists complained
about the poor quality of their meals, a courier arrived hours
later with a sack of cash to hire a private caterer. But the
regime's draconian demands for overnight results were
counterproductive. After an oil centrifuge rotor the scientists
were experimenting on cracked under extreme pressure because they
hadn't carried out sufficient research, Obeidi profusely
apologized to Kamel, who, he writes, ''only stared at me with a
look of such menace that I instinctively took a step backward.''
Obeidi regrouped and focused on building a state-of-the-art
magnetic centrifuge. The Reagan administration, then cozying up
to Hussein as he battled Iran, turned a blind, or at least a
sleepy, eye toward his nuclear ambitions. Obeidi went on a
shopping spree, using a mixture of front companies, bribes and
sheer charm, to procure the necessary parts, information and,
above all, technical support. Within 18 months, Obeidi had
created what he calls ''very likely the most efficient covert
enrichment program in history.'' But nothing could propitiate his
masters: during his sole meeting with Hussein, who, after
silently staring at him in the eyes for two minutes, a juvenile
trick he used to unnerve his interlocutors, inquired about actual
results, Kamel interjected, ''Dr. Mahdi is a very humble man who
hates to boast. He believes that results will be shown within the
next few months.'' Outside, one of Hussein's advisers screamed at
Obeidi: ''Why didn't you tell the president what he wanted to
hear? . . . You should be more afraid to disappoint him now than
to disappoint him later!''
Hussein's invasion of Kuwait finished off his nuclear program. As
Iraq was relentlessly bombed, Obeidi, intent on saving the
remnants of his work, was reduced to burying a copy of centrifuge
designs and four components in his backyard near his favorite
lotus tree.
It was an abrupt end to a program supposed to help restore Iraq
to its past greatness. As United Nations inspectors swarmed
across the country, Hussein went to great lengths to destroy his
stocks of illegal weaponry and hide his projects. Once the United
Nations established the oil-for-food program, Hussein was
reluctant to jeopardize his black- market contracts by reviving
his weapons programs and instead lived in a complete fantasy
world about his military capabilities: even as war loomed, Obeidi
says, ''the sense of denial was so great that as late as
December, I was overseeing a 10-year development plan.''
Though Obeidi vividly portrays this phantasmagoric world, it's
unclear how much credence we should place in his assertions that
he proceeded only in the spirit of scientific inquiry and out of
fear for his family's safety. Like almost everyone in Iraq, he
presents himself as a victim of the regime, and his reflections
about his complicity with it are at best perfunctory. Still, it
would be a mistake to inquire too closely into his motives.
Hussein's threats were hardly idle, and after the second gulf
war, Obeidi voluntarily handed over the documents and parts he
had secreted in his backyard to United States intelligence.
His small hoard revealed how little importance Hussein had come
to attach to a program he once saw as the key to greatness. Had
Hussein been less reckless, Obeidi might well have ended up as
Iraq's version of Pakistan's A. Q. Khan, celebrated as a national
hero for fashioning a nuclear bomb. Instead, Obeidi lives with
his family in an undisclosed location in the United States and
denounces the inexorable spread of the technology that he once
tried to harness.
Jacob Heilbrunn writes editorials for The Los Angeles Times.
*****************************************************************
12 The Mercury: Plant security a campaign issue
Monday 1 November, 2004
Evan Brandt, ebrandt@pottsmerc.com 10/31/2004
While the topic of safety at nuclear and chemical plants has long
been a subject of debate, in recent months it has become a
subject of debate in the presidential campaign.
In the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks and the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan, the issue of homeland security has been front and
center in the white-hot race between incumbent Republican George
W. Bush and Democratic challenger John F. Kerry.
And two arenas in which this debate is being waged -- the
security of chemical plants and nuclear power plants -- are of
obvious local interest.
Occidental Chemical Corp. operates a plant on Armand Hammer
Boulevard in Lower Pottsgrove that produces polyvinyl chloride
resin and is among the nation’s largest emitters of vinyl
chloride, a recognized carcinogen.
And Exelon Nuclear’s Limerick Genera-tion Station is perhaps the
dominant feature of the region’s landscape.
Kerry has taken the position that Bush has done too little to
secure chemical plants from a terrorist attack, a charge the Bush
campaign refutes. And a report released by a consumer group on
Oct. 18 makes similar charges about security at nuclear plants,
which the Bush campaign also refutes.
The operators of the two local plants touched by this debate
insist their plants are safer now than they ever were.
Chemical Plants
Kerry has singled out chemical plants in particular saying
security "is not adequate" to protect them from terrorist attack,
making the communities that surround them vulnerable to harm.
Bush counters that the Department of Homeland Security "has
already identified the nation’s highest-risk chemical sites and
is partnering with industry to enhance protections at those
sites, improving safety for over 13 million Americans."
There is evidence to support both positions.
Gaps found
Kerry’s Web site cites a number of studies including a U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency assessment that there are about
123 chemical facilities in the United States "where a terrorist
attack could endanger more than 1 million people. In the
Philadelphia area, there are seven such plants, the highest
concentration of these facilities on the east coast," Kerry’s
site notes.
Unwilling to provide easy information to terrorists, neither
Kerry, nor any of the other security evaluations on this issue
have identified specific plants as being particularly vulnerable.
But in general, it makes reference to numerous studies supporting
the call for increased security at chemical plants. His site
refers to a 2003 Washington Post story quoting a former
Georgia-Pacific security chief who told the Post "security at a
7-Eleven after midnight is better than that at a plant with a
90-ton vessel of chlorine."
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reporter Carl Prine made headlines,
along with a "60-Minutes" film crew, when both demonstrated the
ease with which they could enter unsecured sites in western
Pennsylvania, Houston, Baltimore and Chicago.
Kate McGloon, a spokeswoman for the American Chemistry Council,
said member plants where problems were found by those reporters
generally reacted to the revelations by working to improve
security at their plants.
Recent reports
More recently, two reports have taken a look at potential
problems.
Wednesday, a federally funded report by the Paper-Allied
Industrial Chemical and Energy Workers, better known as PACE,
found that while security improvements have been made at many
plants after the 9/11 attacks, plants "have not done an adequate
job of preventing and preparing for such an event," said Dave
Ortleib, the union’s director of health and safety programs.
The study, funding by the National Institutes of Health, found
while many have added fences and guards, what is "greatly
lacking" at the plants is "meaningful worker involvement and
participation" in developing ways to prevent an attack, Ortleib
said.
"Our members are on the front lines, and we feel there needs to
be a greater emphasis on prevention," he said.
A more scathing report was released Oct. 18 by Public Citizen, a
non-profit consumer advocacy group in Washington, D.C., in which
the contributions Bush has received from the chemical industry
are highlighted as a possible reason for what they say is a
reluctance by the administration to take proper steps to protect
chemical plants.
"Bush has abdicated his responsibility to protect America from
the risk of terrorist attacks because he is fundamentally hostile
to regulation of private industry and is loath to cross his big
money campaign contributors," Public Citizen President Joan
Claybrook said when the report was issued.
Claybrook said her group accepts no money from corporations, is
not affiliated with any political party and does not endorse
candidates.
Rather than an attempt to influence the outcome of the election,
Claybrook said it was all the talk about homeland security during
the summer campaign, which she felt was ignoring this problem,
that motivated the compilation and release of the report.
McGloon scoffed at the suggestion that the report had no
political motivations. "It’s unfortunate that campaign
contributions are being used to avoid talking about the real
progress being made on chemical plant security," she said.
Political or not, its doubtful Public Citizens report was welcome
news at Bush campaign headquarters. A call to the Bush campaign’s
Pennsylvania communications director was not immediately returned
Friday or Saturday.
Changes at OxyChem
Among the biggest contributors highlighted in the report, who
gave to either Bush, his inaugural fund or the Republican
National Committee was J. Roger Hirl, President and CEO of
Occidental Chemical Co., who collected $100,000 for Bush in 2000.
OxyChem’s parent company, Occidental Petroleum and its employees,
together donated $434,000 over the last three years, according to
the Public Citizen report.
Sam Morris, the plant manager at the OxyChem plant in Lower
Pottsgrove, declined to comment on that aspect of his company’s
relevance to this issue.
However he was willing to talk, in general terms, about security
at the 267-acre site, once a Firestone Tire and Rubber plant.
"We have implemented additional security measures since 9/11 and
we have tightened up procedures," Morris said. "We have further
restricted access to the facility, put up additional vehicle
barricades and enhanced monitoring," he said.
He said the plant has also conducted a voluntary security
assessment of the plant, made changes after vulnerabilities were
identified, "and had those verified by an independent third
party," that Morris would identify only as "officials."
Further, the changes and security measures are shared with a
community advisory panel as well as the local emergency response
team, he said.
Those are the kind of measures recommended by Isadore "Irv"
Rosenthal, a research fellow with the University of
Pennsylvania’s Wharton Risk Management and Decision Processes
Center and a 40-year veteran of Rohn and Haas who was appointed
to the U.S. Chemical Safety Board by President Clinton.
"There’s no question plants have beefed up security, the question
is whether it has been done broadly enough," Rosenthal said.
"There are a significant number who have not even met the minimum
standard and I understand why they might not be able to. But when
you rely on purely voluntary measures, there are always a number
who don’t volunteer."
He added "I imagine Occidental as a company has behaved
responsibly overall."
Worst case scenario
According to documents filed with the government and made
available by OMB Watch’s Right to Know Network, the worst-case
scenario involving OxyChem is not a vinyl chloride incident, but
one involving anhydrous ammonia.
Should that storage tank rupture and its contents vaporize in 10
minutes, it could injure the 13,600 people who live within 1.7
mile radius of the plant, a radius that includes several schools
and Pottstown Memorial Medical Center.
The document also makes clear that officials at OxyChem consider
this scenario to be highly unlikely and would only occur if a
variety of fail-safes and back-up systems all failed.
The battle in Congress
Another front in the political war is how security at these
plants can be regulated.
Congress has taken two basic approaches, both of which have not
made it to the floor for a vote.
One, initiated in the Senate shortly after the 9/11 attacks by
New Jersey Democrat Jon Corzine, would require plants to reduce
storage of dangerous chemicals and change processes, where
possible, to use less dangerous chemicals.
While this general approach is supported by PACE, Ortleib said
his union would prefer to see the spefici language before making
any kind of endorsement.
McGloon said while the members of the Chemistry Council are
strongly in favor of legislation to improve security at the 2,040
chemical facilities owned by its 140 members, they do not look
favorably on "the federal government telling us how to run our
businesses."
Instead, they support a competing Senate proposal by Oklahoma
Republican James Inhofe, that requires better security plans,
puts the authority in the hands of the Homeland Security
Department, but does not limit the use or storage of dangerous
chemicals.
Claybrook derided this approach as "typical bureaucratic shifting
to a department that has no power and no authority over these
plants. The government regulates safety in food, in cars, why not
in chemicals?" she asked.
Nuclear politics
Nuclear power plants, on the other hand, are highly regulated and
security at them was stiffened immediately after the 9/11
attacks.
Locally, National Guard units swarmed to the Limerick facility
and stood guard for several months in the aftermath of the
attacks.
As such, the debate on security at these plants at the
presidential level has been less intense.
It is largely Public Citizen that has made the accusations here,
which charges similar to those made about chemical plants, its
report calls nuclear plant security "grossly inadequate."
This situation is allowed because Bush "has a fierce ideological
aversion to regulation" and "the administration is heavily
indebted to the nuclear industry and electric utilities for
generous campaign contributions," Public Citizen wrote.
According to the Public Citizen report, Exelon has donated
$434,161 to Bush and the RNC between 2000 until this year.
While Kerry campaigns on preventing nuclear proliferation and the
Yucca Mountain nuclear waste site in Nevada, he makes no mention
of security problems at nuclear plans in any of his campaign
materials.
Bush’s campaign makes note of requirements he supported to
improve security and training at nuclear power plans and quotes
John Hamre, president and CEO of the Center for Strategic
International Studies, who said "there is more security around
nuclear power plants than anything else we’ve got."
Lisa Washak, spokeswoman for the Limerick facility, confirmed
that the plant recently installed additional fencing, guard
towers and has increased the "stand-off" distance, which refers
to how close people are allowed to get to the plant without being
cleared by security.
"This has always been a highly secure and well-protected
facility," she said, pointing to Nuclear Energy Institute
material that says since 9/11, the industry has spent an $370
million on additional security.
©The Mercury 2004
*****************************************************************
13 New York Times: Explosives: Facts and Questions About Lost Munitions
By WILLIAM J. BROAD and DAVID E. SANGER
Published: October 30, 2004
[T] he report that hundreds of tons of high explosives are
missing from the Qaqaa munitions facility in Iraq has loomed over
the last week of the presidential campaign, and led to a blur of
charges and countercharges about what actually happened, and why
the news came out so close to Election Day.
Facts and Questions About Lost Munitions
has seized on the news, first reported by The New York Times and
CBS' "60 Minutes," to reinforce his argument that the Bush
administration bungled the postwar occupation of Iraq.
has rejected Mr. Kerry's statements as "wild charges," and the
White House has argued that the explosives may have been removed
by Saddam Hussein's forces before the war or that some may have
been blown up shortly after the end of the war by an ordnance
unit.
What follows are some questions and answers about the explosives,
what is known and unknown about their whereabouts, and how the
story came to light.
The Pentagon says it has destroyed or secured 400,000 tons of the
estimated 650,000 tons of munitions in Iraq. Even if 350 metric
tons (385 American tons) are missing, does it make much
difference?
By this estimate, the whereabouts of at least 250,000 tons of
munitions remains unknown. What made the 385 tons different was
its type and its location. More than half of it was HMX, a high
explosive that - unlike artillery shells or other weapons - can
be easily moved around, dropped and jostled without fear of
explosion until it is fabricated into a weapon. That makes it
well suited for small, powerful bombs; less than a pound of a
similar type of high-grade explosives brought down Pan Am Flight
103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988. HMX is also used as the
detonator in nuclear weapons, though there is no evidence it has
fallen into the hands of anyone with nuclear capability.
Because of its potential nuclear use, and because it was stored
at Al Qaqaa, where Saddam Hussein tried many years ago to
fabricate the triggering devices for nuclear weapons, the
International Atomic Energy Agency put it under special seal. So
among the many explosives dumps in Iraq, the location, size and
contents of this one were well known to the nuclear agency - and
to the United States.
If the whole country was an ammunitions dump, how could anyone
expect to secure it all?
In Iraq, commanders say it would be an impossible job. The number
of troops is finite, so there is a constant calculus under way
about whether to assign forces to guard depots or whether to use
them to patrol the cities and hunt down insurgents.
The officers also note that weapons were not just in depots. Much
was dispersed by Mr. Hussein before the war, or in its early
days. Much has been looted since. And the arms still in the
depots might not alter battle on the ground, since the insurgents
already are well armed.
Moreover, the HMX and RDX at Al Qaqaa may be available elsewhere
in the country. "There's probably a lot of stuff that is
chemically identical to this all around Iraq, but it wasn't under
seal because it wasn't located at a place previously associated
with nuclear work," said one senior administration official.
Why didn't the international energy agency blow this material up
in the 1990's?
At the White House and even inside the agency, which is based in
Vienna, many people think this was a huge mistake. But the agency
decided to allow Mr. Hussein to keep it because he argued he
would use it in civilian construction projects.
Who saw it last?
When inspectors returned to Iraq in late 2002, they visited the
site, which is dozens of square miles, examined the material and
resealed it in January 2003. They visited again just before
leaving the country in mid-March, and the seals were intact. Late
Wednesday, the Pentagon released a photograph of trucks belonging
to Mr. Hussein's forces at the site right after the inspectors
left the country, suggesting that Mr. Hussein's forces could have
moved the material. But the photograph showed no evidence that
anything was being loaded or unloaded, and the trucks do not
appear to be near the bunkers that held the HMX.
On Friday, the Pentagon said that on April 13, a special ordnance
unit went to Al Qaqaa and destroyed 250 tons of explosives. But
the Pentagon did not assert it was the same explosives that the
atomic energy agency had under seal. On April 18, videotape taken
by a Minneapolis television station shows American troops
breaking what appears to be an energy agency seal and entering a
bunker that contained what former inspectors say is clearly HMX.
That unit, according to the station's cameraman, left the bunker
unlocked, and soon left the area. It is unclear whether units
that returned to Al Qaqaa in May searching for weapons of mass
destruction saw the HMX or exactly when it disappeared.
Does the satellite photo that the Pentagon released show Iraqi
trucks removing high-grade explosives from Al Qaqaa before the
American invasion?
Weapons experts say the trucks are parked in front of a different
bunker than the ones that contained the sealed HMX. At Al Qaqaa,
only 9 of 56 bunkers contained HMX, according to the energy
agency, and its maps show that the bunker near the trucks, No.
45, held none of the high-grade explosive. "It's not an HMX
bunker," said a weapon expert familiar with the work of the
international inspectors in Iraq.
Pentagon officials say the satellite photo is intended only to
show that the area was not secure. "All we are trying to
demonstrate is that after the I.A.E.A. left, and the place was
under Saddam's control, there was activity," said Lawrence
DiRita, the Pentagon spokesman.
Is there any reason that the coalition troops should have known
to look for the explosives?
The atomic energy agency thinks so. Its director, Mohamed
ElBaradei, warned about the HMX when briefing the United Nations
Security Council in January 2003. The C.I.A. had the site listed
as a "medium" priority on its own list of places the United
States would have to search or secure after an invasion. Because
Al Qaqaa was where Mr. Hussein once made conventional warheads
and some chemical weapons, it was well known to American
intelligence officials. But more importantly, because the HMX
would have been needed in any nuclear weapons project - a program
the Bush administration had alleged Mr. Hussein was seeking to
revive - it would have been a natural place to look immediately
for evidence of efforts to assemble weapons of mass destruction.
But some of the first troops to arrive there on the drive to
Baghdad apparently did not know any of that. Col. Joseph
Anderson, of the Second Brigade of the Army's 101st Airborne
Division, said his troops got to the site on April 10 and camped
there overnight, but until this week he did not know it was
considered important. "We happened to stumble on it," Colonel
Anderson said. "I didn't know what the place was supposed to be.
We did not get involved in any of the bunkers. It was not our
mission. It was not our focus."
The agency said it sent another specific warning to the Bush
administration, through the American representative to the
agency, in May 2003, after reports of widespread looting in Iraq.
Agency officials say they never heard a response. Mr. DiRita, the
Pentagon spokesman, said the teams that searched Iraq in the days
after Mr. Hussein's fall were looking chiefly for weapons of mass
destruction - and the high explosives did not qualify. Scott
McClellan, the White House spokesman, said this week that there
were "a number of priorities," from securing oil fields to
getting reconstruction going.
Is anyone looking for the explosives now?
It is unclear. Many explosives are being rounded up. But
identifying HMX takes experience, and in granular form it can be
easily divided up and hidden.
Isn't there a huge discrepancy between the nearly 350 metric tons
of high explosives that the energy agency claimed were at Al
Qaqaa and what was actually there, especially for the explosive
known as RDX?
No, weapons experts say. A Iraqi government letter of Oct. 10
identified the lost stockpile as containing 194.7 metric tons of
HMX, 141.2 metric tons of RDX, and 5.8 metric tons of PETN.
On Wednesday, ABC News reported that it had obtained a
confidential document from the energy agency showing that its
inspectors in January 2003, had reported the existence of a
little more than three tons of RDX explosives at Al Qaqaa - not
the 141.2 metric tons in the Iraqi letter.
Melissa Fleming, an agency spokeswoman, said Friday that the
confusion about the quantities arose because Al Qaqaa had more
than one site for RDX storage. Three tons were kept at Al Qaqaa,
she said, while 125 tons under Al Qaqaa administrative control
were kept at Muaskar al Mahawil, about 30 miles away. So the
total recent RDX inventory was 128 tons - 13 tons less than the
Iraqi ministry wrote in their letter this month.
While Mr. Hussein was still in power, Ms. Fleming said, Iraq told
agency inspectors before the war that it had used 10 tons of the
RDX between late 1998 and late 2002, when the United Nations did
not monitor Al Qaqaa. So the discrepancy, she said, boiled down
to three tons.
"We were in the process of verifying and reconciling the three
missing tons when the war erupted," she said.
Why is this coming out in the week before the election?
The answer depends on whom you ask. The memorandum from the Iraqi
interim government to the energy agency was dated Oct. 10. It was
sent in response to a request from the agency for an accounting
of missing materials. The Bush administration says it smells a
political motive: the head of the agency, Mr. ElBaradei, was told
a few months ago that the United States would not support him for
another term. They suspect an effort at retribution.
Mr. Bush's political strategist, Karl Rove, said this week that
he believed The Times deliberately published the story the week
before the election in an effort to harm Mr. Bush's candidacy.
Bill Keller, executive editor of The Times, said that the paper
first obtained a copy of the Iraqi letter early in the week of
Oct. 18, and that its reporters and CBS began asking questions
about the explosives in Baghdad, Vienna and Washington during
that week. The article was published on Oct. 25. The White House
said President Bush was told of the Iraqi warning to the energy
agency around Oct. 16.
Free Trial of The New York Times Electronic Edition.
*****************************************************************
14 [DU-WATCH] Fw: Nuclear Power and Children's Health Wrap-Up
Date: Sat, 30 Oct 2004 11:59:50 -0500 (CDT)
Dear Friends of NPRI
----- Original Message -----
To: rrands@
Sent: Saturday, October 30, 2004 5:13 AM
Subject: Nuclear Power and Children's Health Wrap-Up
October 29, 2004
Dear Friends of NPRI,
The Nuclear Power and Children's Health Symposium held on October 15th and
16th in Chicago was a great success. More than 250 people participated in
all or part of the conference-more than we had expected!
Both days were packed with exciting and compelling speakers including Dan
Hirsch, Paul Gunter, David Lochbaum, Wenonah Hauter, Oscar Shirani, and our
own Helen Caldicott. Everyone presented compelling and up-to-date
information about nuclear power and its negative effects on children. The
program book from the conference is available now on our website and can be
accessed here.
There are two reports that will come out from the conference: one,
commissioned by NPRI from the Institute for Energy and Environmental
Research (IEER) on uranium enrichment worldwide and the other commissioned
by PSR-Chicago on the effects of a nuclear power plant meltdown on the
Chicago-area. I will share those reports with you when they are available.
We ended both days talking about positive alternatives. On Friday afternoon,
Steven Strong gave an incredible address about the uses of solar power as a
viable and important alternative to nuclear power, and on Saturday
afternoon, Harvey Wasserman discussed wind power. Even though it had been a
long two days, people gathered at the stage beyond our ending time to listen
to Harvey explain more of the details of wind power.
Evenings were filled with activities as well. On Friday night, we had a
fundraising dinner blessed with the music of Amanda McBroom and the Indigo
Girls, and on Saturday night, we had a community dinner with music from a
local folksinger. As a result of these evening activities, the Nuclear Power
and Children's Health Conference fed not only our minds, but our souls as
well.
There will be many outcomes from this conference. First, we plan to make
available DVDs of all of the panels, but we also plan to create a thirty to
forty minute video of highlights of the conference that can be shared
widely. Second, we will be publishing summary proceedings from the
conference in a simple and accessible booklet that can also be shared to
extend the impact of the conference beyond the attendees.
We built valuable organizational relationships with our conference partners,
NIRS, PSR-Chicago, NEIS, and NSPI. The planning and execution of this
conference was a model for future organizational collaboration, which I
believe is critical to achieving our goal of ending the nuclear age.
The Chicago Tribune ran an editorial on Sunday, October 10th, the weekend
before the symposium, in support of the nuclear power industry. Click here
to read the full editorial.
In sum, the Chicago Tribune urged for the support of nuclear power as the
solution to growing energy demand. To respond, Helen urged conference
attendees to draft a response to the Editor. I have included Helen's letter
to the editor at the end of this e-mail.
Thank you for all of your support of the Nuclear Policy Research Institute.
As always, I appreciate the feedback from constituents like you on our work
and enjoy the e-mails and thoughts that many of you have shared with me.
It's the commitment of people like you to end the nuclear age and your
support of NPRI that has brought us to this point, and I thank you. There
remains much work to be done, but both Helen and I feel that this conference
was an important step in the path toward a nuclear free future.
My best,
Julie
Letter to the Editor
Dear Bruce Dold,
The editorial "A New Generation of Nuclear Power" that the Chicago Tribune
ran on Sunday, 10 October 2004 was off the mark and could have been written
by the nuclear industry.
Chicago is surrounded by 14 aging reactors which collectively vent millions
of curies of radiation a year into the air and water. Children are many
times more susceptible to radiation induced cancer than adults. Almost
certainly the incidence of childhood cancer is affected by this unregulated
release of radiation.
Each reactor contains 1000 times the long-lived radiation released by one
Hiroshima bomb and the cooling pool of irradiated fuel beside the reactor
contains up to 30 times that amount.
These reactors are obvious targets for terrorists even if they are shut
down, because the fuel remains intensely hot for decades and if the cooling
water is disrupted in either the reactor and/or cooling pool the fuel will
melt and burn releasing massive quantities of radiation into the atmosphere.
A simple accident induced by human or mechanical error as occurred at Three
Mile Island or Chernobyl could also induce a meltdown, signaling Chicago's
9/11. If the wind blew towards the city hundreds of thousands would develop
a range of illnesses including acute radiation sickness, sterility,
hypothyroidism, retarded infants, spontaneous abortions, cancers, leukemia,
and congenital abnormalities.
It is indeed strange that this editorial appeared only days before a major
symposium took place in Chicago called NUCLEAR POWER AND CHILDREN'S HEALTH.
It is imperative that newspapers maintain a fair and balanced approach to
journalism just as physicians practice the ethics of medicine treating all
patients alike with respect and integrity.
Why then did the Chicago Tribune not cover this conference which was
addressed by leading scientists, biologists, physicians and epidemiologists
from around the world?
Helen Caldicott, M.D.
Pediatrician
President, Nuclear Policy Research Institute
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15 New York Times: Nuclear Secrets: If Brazil Wants to Scare the World,
It's Succeeding
By LARRY ROHTER
Published: October 31, 2004
[R] IO de JANEIRO — Throughout the world, Brazil has long had an
image as a land of soccer and samba, inhabited by a friendly,
easy-going people. So why is it locked in a dispute with the
International Atomic Energy Agency, accused by American and other
nuclear experts of being a nuclear scofflaw whose actions aid
rogue states like North Korea and Iran?
Ever since it began observing the Nuclear Nonproliferation
Treaty in 1997, Brazil has resisted allowing international
inspectors full access to a secretive uranium enrichment plant
100 miles from here. This month, Science magazine sharpened the
controversy with an article saying the installation will give
Brazil the "breakout capability" to produce enough fissionable
material for six nuclear warheads a year, a claim Brazil's
government dismissed as fantasy.
Though the military dictatorship that ruled until 1985 had a
clandestine nuclear arms program, no one is saying Brazil is
trying to build an atomic bomb now. Rather, the concern is that
it could export uranium enriched here, or technology, and that
such exports could end up in the hands of rogue states or
terrorists. International experts worry about Brazil's export
controls, and its history. In the 1980's, it secretly sent Iraq
uranium and technical assistance.
To outsiders, Brazil's resistance to inspections doesn't make
sense. The world is awash in processed uranium, the nuclear
program here has consumed more than $1 billion that could have
cut widespread poverty, and Brazil's secrecy has only raised
suspicions about its trustworthiness and ultimate intentions, the
argument goes.
"I don't see how this should be one of their major
preoccupations," said James Goodby, who was the Clinton
administration's chief negotiator on nuclear proliferation
issues. "Don't they at least worry what the rest of Latin
America, especially the Argentines, think of this?"
Among Brazilians, however, the government's assertiveness, like
the nuclear program itself, has proved quite popular. Though an
American ambassador here once described Brazil as "a country that
punches under its weight," the nuclearissue seems to have
awakened latent pugnacity, and insecurities.
Writing in the 1950's, the playwright Nelson Rodrigues saw his
countrymen as afflicted with a sense of inferiority, and he
coined a phrase that Brazilians now use to describe it: "the
mongrel complex." Brazil has always aspired to be taken seriously
as a world power by the heavyweights, and so it pains Brazilians
that world leaders could confuse their country with Bolivia, as
Ronald Reagan once did, or dismiss a nation so large - it has 180
million people - as "not a serious country," as Charles de Gaulle
did.
Whether coincidence or not, the government of Luiz Inácio Lula
da Silva has launched an advertising campaign to build national
self-esteem even as it stands tough on the nuclear issue. He has
also stepped up Brazil's campaign for a permanent seat on the
United Nations Security Council, leading the daily O Estado de
São Paulo to report that Brazil wants to use its nuclear prowess
to raise its profile in world affairs.
"What we're seeing are the same ideas of exaggerated nationalism
that we have been through so many times before here, the belief
that we are going to be a great power and all of that," said José
Goldemberg, a physicist who as minister of science and technology
in the early 1990's forced an end to the Brazilian military's
secret nuclear weapons program. That deep-seated conviction, he
added, "leads to a disproportionate response" and what he called
"the chauvinist attitude that nobody can come in here."
Resistance to inspections may also be linked to a widespread
belief here that an international conspiracy to keep Brazil from
becoming a great power is the only thing holding the country
back. A whole literature on that subject has led some Brazilians
to argue that the International Atomic Energy Agency, despite its
record of impartiality elsewhere, is intent on robbing Brazil of
a valuable technological secret.
"Why are the Brazilians hiding both the casing and the rotors of
their centrifuges?" wonders Henry D. Sokolski, a former Defense
Department official who is now executive director of the
Washington-based Nonproliferation Policy Education Center. "Their
stated reason, the idea that the I.A.E.A. can't be trusted, is
incredibly insulting and downright loopy."
For all of Brazil's concerns about being considered a
lightweight, it has recorded some notable technological and
scientific achievements. Embraer is the world's third largest
aircraft manufacturer, a university consortium in Sao Paulo has
become one of the world's leading centers of genome research, and
agricultural researchers have developed significant new crop
varieties.
But in a land so hungry for respect, that is not enough. The
uranium enrichment plant in Resende has been sold to the public
as a triumph of "technology that is 100 percent Brazilian," in
the words of the minister of science and technology, Eduardo
Campos.
Foreign experts say that claim is not true. In the past, Brazil
made similar statements about its space program, trying to hide
the role of French and Russian technology obtained through
exchange programs or on the international black market.
"There is foreign assistance, and they carefully mislead people
or spin it in such a way that it fits their definition of what
indigenous means," said David Albright, a physicist and former
nuclear inspector who is president of the Institute for Science
and International Security. "We know the Germans helped them make
an earlier model of centrifuge, and we think the Germans provided
them the technology on how to work with carbon fiber
centrifuges."
Doubts have also been raised about just how innovative Brazil's
centrifuge process is. They focus on a type of magnetic coil that
supposedly makes Brazilian centrifuges more efficient and durable
than other nations'. The government has insisted on blocking
these from inspectors' view.
But "these claims of a need to protect industrial secrets are
exaggerated, since this technology is used routinely in other
applications in other parts of the world," Dr. Goldemberg said.
"National pride is involved here, but I don't know if that is
worth arousing the suspicion of the rest of the world."
The situation has been complicated by Brazil's apparent desire to
deal with the outside world under principles that routinely
govern relationships here. In the simplest terms, Brazil is
arguing that it deserves a wink-and-a-nod exemption from full
inspection because Brazilians are nice people, unlike those nasty
North Koreans or Iranians.
Brazilian society functions on the basis of what is known as
"jeitinho," a notion that all formal laws and rules can be
maneuvered around if one is clever or charming enough. Of course,
the more powerful you are, the better your chances of getting
around cumbersome procedures by "driblando," the verb Brazilians
use to describe a soccer player's adroitness with the ball.
After inspectors were finally granted partial access to the
Resende plant this month, there were predictions that the
standoff would soon be overcome by some jeitinho. Most likely it
will. But even so, foreign experts expect another confrontation
over inspections in the coming years, this one involving the
navy's decades-old campaign to build a nuclear-powered submarine.
"Submarines are not subject to the safeguards regimen, that's my
view of things," said Roberto Abdenur, who became Brazil's
ambassador to the United States early this year after being his
country's representative at the International Atomic Energy
Agency. "Brazil will always respect its obligations, but, like
any other member state, we also insist on our right to protect
our technological secrets."
*****************************************************************
16 New York Times: Opinion: Civilian Deaths and Lost Weapons
(4 Letters)
Published: October 30, 2004
To the Editor:
Re "Study Puts Iraqi Deaths of Civilians at 100,000" (news
article, Oct. 29):
If the war casualty figures published in the highly respected
medical journal The Lancet are even close to correct, we must
begin our midcourse correction today.
Given the relative size of the two countries, the estimated
number of civilian deaths after the United States invasion would
be the equivalent of roughly 1.2 million American deaths. A
policy so costly can be neither moral nor prudent.
Gen. Tommy R. Franks has said, "You know, we don't do body
counts." Others do.
John Sitter South Bend, Ind., Oct. 29, 2004•
To the Editor:
Re "Video Shows G.I.'s at Weapon Cache" (front page, Oct. 29):
The primary stated reason for the invasion was to remove Saddam
Hussein's weapons of mass destruction for the safety of the
United States and the world. Al Qaqaa was a known W.M.D.-related
site. Among the hundreds of tons of explosives - as the video
shows - were some bearing the International Atomic Energy Agency
seal, indicating nuclear weapons-related materials.
I'm just a citizen and not a military strategist, but I simply
don't understand. How could our war plan not include a list of
such sites, as well as clear orders and procedures for troops to
identify and secure them? Wasn't that what the whole war was
about?
How could we have had a war plan in which that was not Job No. 1?
What was our plan then? I am utterly baffled.
William F. Bennett Somerville, Mass., Oct. 29, 2004•
To the Editor:
In "Video Shows G.I.'s at Weapons Cache," you say the timing of
the disappearance of the weapons is crucial. But whether the
explosives were removed before or after American troops arrived
is not relevant. By launching a pre-emptive war, President Bush
may have allowed a huge amount of high-grade explosives, once
under United Nations oversight, to fall into the hands of
terrorists.
Whatever the timing of their removal, the disappearance of these
explosives is just one of many proofs that this war has been a
disaster and has increased the threat of terrorism.
Robert Watson Kew Gardens, Queens, Oct. 29, 2004•
To the Editor:
In "A Hole in the Heart" (column, Oct. 28), Thomas L. Friedman
lists one of his prescriptions for healing the situation in Iraq
as "a decent Iraqi election."
When this election is held, in January or later, one of the
choices that must be given the Iraqi people is whether American
forces should remain an occupying power. Adding this referendum
to the ballot would do immense good for the Iraqi nation, by
motivating people to support the election and to vote; for our
forces, by giving an exit strategy or a mandate to stay; and for
the world, by providing an unambiguous example of the power of
democracy.
I believe that arranging for the Iraqi people to decide their own
fate democratically is one fairly simple way to help all our
hearts begin healing.
Greg Shenaut Davis, Calif., Oct. 28, 2004
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company | Home|
*****************************************************************
17 ZNet:India | Rocket Launchers and Shells in My Backyard
by Sharbani Banerji October 30, 2004
The events of the past few weeks have unearthed some frightening
facts. "India is being unwittingly turned into a dumping ground
for scrap containing explosives from war-ravaged countries" (
"Scrap ammo: The big dump", Hindustan Times (HT), 9th Oct 2004).
What no one has pointed out till now is that these are in all
probability, depleted uranium munitions, and pose far greater
danger than 'explosives' pose. In Iraq, US has even dropped Mark
77 firebombs, which are similar to napalm bombs used in Vietnam.
We don't know what their (inactive) shells would look like. Have
they crept into the scrap? Everybody talks about "Nuclear
Proliferation". What about this "Proliferation of Explosive and
Radioactive Scraps" ? What are we going to do to stop it?
On Sept 30th, while a truck carrying scrap iron, which had sailed
from Iran, was unloading the cargo in the compounds of a steel
factory in Ghaziabad, a portable rocket launcher hidden inside
the scrap exploded, thereby killing eight people on the spot, and
also injuring eight others. Two more people died in the city
hospital later. The unsuspecting workers had used a gas burner to
cut the scrap, resulting in a huge explosion. This factory,
Bhushan Steel and Strips Ltd., is located in Shahibabad, in
District Ghaziabad, in Uttar Pradesh, India. It imports huge
quantities of scrap iron from abroad, which are then melted and
recast into iron rods. These rods, the most essential component
in all kinds of buildings, bridges etc., are then sold in the
market.
The rocket launcher wasn't the only ammunition hidden inside the
scrap. As the police sprang into action, thereby arresting the GM
and the additional GM of Bhushal Steels for causing death due to
negligence, and the army and the National Security Guard (NSG)
personnel took over, it was discovered that there were about 15
more 81mm mortars embedded in the heap of scrap metal. NSG
diffused two of the shells inside the factory premises itself.
Realizing that it was too risky, they took the rest to the Hindon
river bed, where three more were diffused. They didn't realize
that even this was too risky, especialy if these muntions contain
depleted uranium, which in all probability they do, as we shall
argue. This incident was only the tip of the iceberg.
The "killer truck" (as HT likes to call it), wasn't the only
truck carrying cargo for Bhushan Steels. As more and more trucks
started to arrive carrying scrap, the army isolated them and
moved them to Kanha Upavan area, for further checking. From the
11 trucks which had been brought to Kanha Upavan, a protected
forest area near the factory, 56 more rocket shells were found,
some of which were live. And, without thinking twice, the NSG
started to diffuse the bombs inside this ecological park !
The scrap consignment was exported by a company named 'Lucky
Metals SZE' of Dubai. The company is owned by a Pakistani Dilwar
Hussain. There are credible reports that the munitions embedded
in the scrap actually originated in Iraq. The $25000 consignment
had sailed from the Bandar Abbas Port in Iran, and and reached
the Indian port Mundra, in Gujrat. From, there, it landed at the
Inland Container Depot (ICD) at Tughlaqabad, New Delhi, for
clearance. From Tughlaqabad, seven trucks carried the cargo to
Bhushan Steels at Shahibabad. The seventh truck was the 'killer
truck'. The consignment had been cleared at every single stage of
it's journey. Lucky Metals of UAE, the company shipping it
declared that there were no 'bombs, shells, ammunition' in it. So
did the authorities at Mundra port, and even those at ICD
Tughlaqabad in New Delhi. That is, at none of the check points,
be they be in India, or in Dubai or in Iran, a full-fledged
physical verification was carried out, of the consignment. From
one post to the other, the officials rubber-stamped the papers
and cleared it. It's easy. Given the state of affairs, it appears
that it is almost impossible to check everything physically.
Thanks to the media, which was quick to highlight the incident,
this time, the police did spring into action immediately. The
state government ordered an enquiry into the incident. The
district was on high alert and so was Delhi police. A country
wide inspection of iron and steel units were ordered.
As we said, it was only the tip of the iceberg. Since that
incident in the premises of Bhushan Steels, rockets, and shells,
a great many of them live, have been found all over the country,
from the strangest places, like road sides, fields, ponds,
bushes, etc., and they continue to be found everyday.
In Ghaziabad alone, 42 more rockets have been found from
different places. Eg., 10 rockets were recovered from behind
Delhi Public school on Meerut Road Industrial area, 15 in a bush
in a park in Bulandshahar Industrial area, 11 from Kavinagar
industrial area, 6 from near Postal Staff College in Rajnagar.
They have also been found in Delhi. Atleast 31 empty shells were
found in Mayapuri area. 219 shells were found at Dhicchuan
Nilwala Road in Najafgarh, out of which, 6 were suspected to be
live. 18 'junk rockets' were found by a farmer in a field in
Aligarh district, in Harduarganj. 12 Shells were found abandoned
at Khurja-Aligarh Road in Bulandshahar.In Meerut four gunny bags
containing spent rockets, used machine gun cartridges and other
fire arms were found by the road side in Mawikalan village on
Delhi-Baghpat road. 120 shells were recovered from Gujrat out of
which 50 were found near Shinai village on Mundra road, 5 of them
live; 36 were found in Mitiyana village, and 23 at Anjar.
In Siliguri in Darjeeling district, 6 rocket propelled granade
shells were found from a riverbed. 72 rockets were recovered from
Raipur. In Chattisgarh, about 62 shells have been found in a
pond, amongst which about 46 were live. And it continues. Even
yesterday, on Oct 26th, hundreds of shells of rocket-launchers,
mortars and hand grenades were dug out from a site near Vehlena
bypass on Muzaffarnagar-Meerut highway. A godown owner had bought
some scrap from a Meerut resident. The consignment contained
ammunition shells. Fearing police action, he buried them at that
site. It appears that, that is what has happened in all the other
cases too. The authorities suspect that the factories dealing in
scraps are trying to dispose off the shells, in the wake of
stepped up security. That explains why they have been detected in
such weird locations. That also rules out a 'terror angle', which
the media focussed on, initially. But what comes out is even more
dangerous. The incident at Bhushan Steels was just one of the
'explosive situations' which actually exploded. Ammunition-filled
scrap has been coming all along, atleast recently for sure. Many
more such ammunition-filled consignments had reached the country
before 30th Sept, and may be even after 30th Sept, easily dodging
detection. They must have slipped from other ports too, as their
geographical distribution indicates.
The mess does not end once the killer-shells have been detected.
Only NSG has the expertise and infrastructure for disposal of
these shells and rockets. But they too seem to be unprepared to
deal with such a situation. The ammunitions have not been checked
for radioactivity. If they contain depleted uranium, must they be
diffused, which essentially means 'exploded'? Initially many
shells were thus diffused in the Kanha-Upavan area, thereby
causing immense harm to the environment, and may be also to the
people who had been exposed to the dust, until protests from the
residents of Karhera and nearby villages, from the environment
group 'Paryavaran Sachetak Dal', from the officials of Pollution
Control Board, from Shri Krishan Gaushala and others, forced them
to change plans. Besides, the area is surrounded by the Gas
Authority of India Pipe lines and is close to Hindon airbase. The
bomb disposal squad then shifted the site for defusal of bombs
and rockets from Kanha Upavan to Loni. They buried 94 explosives
in that area. On 18th, one of these buried rockets found it's way
to a site near a brick kiln under Sihani Gate police station area
in the city . Meanwhile, residents of more than eight villages in
the Loni area too, launched a campaign against the detonation and
piling up of explosives in their area.
We don't know yet, what the authorities plan to do with all the
shells that have been found so far, and are continuing to be
detected. Nobody seems to have enough expertise on the subject.
It has been pointed out that it is not the first time that live
shells have been found in scrap consignments. The incidents were
mostly overlooked. They were first detected in 1991 at ICD,
Pragati Maidan, New Delhi. That particular consignment had
originated from Iraq. It was during the first gulf war. In 1993
five people died at ICD Tughlaqbad as the live shells hidden
inside a consignment exploded. In 1996 again, explosives were
found in a consignment of metallic waste. In April 2004, ICD
Ludhiana reported live shells and explosives in a scrap
consignment. Three months later, 11,000 live cartridges were
found inside an empty container by the Container Corporation of
India (CONCOR). In August, ICD Tughlaqabad again detected live
shells. In all these cases, though the matter was reported to
police, no action was taken. On Oct 9th, at ICD Tughlaqabad, 68
shells found, out of which 47 were live.This consignment
originated in Somalia, and was imported by an Indian firm called
Norma. Customs officers detected the shells on Aug 7th, but
neither CBEC nor police took any notice of Customs report to
them. It was only after the incident in Bhushan Steel factory
that CBEC and police decided to act. Last month, in Uttaranchal,
rocket shells were found in Pauri district.
Given this record, it is obvious that the munitions are sneeking
into India, through iron scraps because the ports and ICDs are
not equipped enough to check them. Also, they sneek-in whenever
US rages a war on Iraq, as it happened during the first gulf war
too. And, when business gets high priority, safety and survival
takes a back seat.
There are no electronic scanners and sensors at the ICDs or even
at the ports. They don't have adequate staff to do physical
verification of each and every consignment. Only in suspicious
cases consignments are examined thoroughly, that is, manually.
But that is time consuming, and business houses donot like that.
A proposal has been made that X-ray machines be installed at
ports to scan all consignments, and that all scrap containers be
subject to 100% examination, before clearance. It has also been
suggested that import of loose scrap should be replaced by import
of shreddded scrap, as is the norm in most countries. Import of
loose scrap if allowed, should be through designated ports only.
The suggestions have been acepted by the Director General of
Foreign Trade, and notification has been issued. Restrictions on
import of scrap from war ravaged countries have also been
tightened. Dubai has tightened its rules too. Yes, the
authorities have woken up, and directives issued. The
administration needs to be tightened at every check point, for
banned items can be cleared even by X-ray machines if the
officials manning them are not vigilant enough or are corrupt. It
happened at Indira Gandhi International Airport on 22/10. The
CISF personnel manning X-ray machine failed to detect false
revolvers, a banned item, in hand baggage of two passengers,
about to board a PIA flight to Karachi. They were caught by PIA
sky marshals when they were about to board the aircraft.
The prices of steel are likely to rise as a result of new
restrictions. Shredded scrap will eliminate the possibility of
shells slipping in, but is costlier. And as is expected, huge
volumes of scrap are piling up at ICD as well as at ports like
Mundra, Kandla, Mumbai, Kolkata-awaiting clearance. Yes, all this
is good and necessary, and we shouldnot complain.
Then, what are we complaining about? Let us come to the bottom of
the iceberg, which unfortunately is the most explosive part of
the whole story. Metal scrap in India is mainly coming from the
Gulf, African and South American countries, as they are cheap. A
lot of it is coming from Iraq, via Iran. The port of origin, as
declared before the customs is often different from the actual
place of origin of the scraps-which would in all probability be a
war ravaged country like Iraq. Somalia a war ravaged country is a
big scrap collecting port. The rockets, shells and other
explosives are passed on by these countries, to the exporting
port. Even if India takes up the matter with the exporting ports,
we are not sure that they would be able to actually implement
full-fledged checking of the consignments, just as in India it
has not been possible all these years.
Our contention is that, all the reports revealed so far point to
the conclusion that the ammunitions imported with scrap metals
are in effect Depleted Uranium (DU) Munitions, hundreds of tonnes
of which have been used by US and UK in Iraq. US had used it as a
standard weapon in the first gulf war too, and had continued to
use it in Balkans and Afghanistan. We can conclude that the same
would have happened in Somalia-rather wherever US has intervened
so far.
Why do we suspect that the lose rockets and shells imported in
India are actually DU munitions? First, consider the properties
of DU. DU is a residue left after uranium is enriched for use in
nuclear reactors and is also recovered after reprocessing spent
nuclear fuel. Thus, it is effectively free. Since it is 20%
heavier than steel, it can penetrate steel and concrete much more
easily than other weapons. It burns at 10,000C. It is radioactive
and has toxic effects. Upto 2000 tonnes of DU has been used in
Iraq. DU is an effective tank destroyer and bunker buster. DU
shells are lethal. When the DU rod inside a shell disintegrates,
it disperses over a wide area, spreading radioactive and toxic
dust..
Now see what has been said about the lethal shells and rockets
found at Bhushan Steels and other places. (1) Eye witnesses said
the explosion at Bhushan Steels was so strong that it could be
heard a kilometer away from the accident site. (2) The bombs were
so powerful that even their splinters left huge craters while
being defused. Had the rocket launcher hit the live bombs, the
whole factory would have been gutted. Or if the rockets and
missiles had been thrown into the boiler, the explosion could
have destroyed atleast a 4 km radius area.(3) Officials said that
the rockets and missiles recovered at Bhushan Steels were
powerful enough to hit targets in Delhi.(4) And most important,
they have come from 'war-ravaged countries'. Now what do we mean
by 'war-ravaged' countries? Obviously from countries where US has
raged a war --the most war-mongering nation in the world. And DU
munitions are standard weapons used by US wherever it has raged a
war. (5) No check is carried out when scrap is either picked up
from or dumped in the yards in the exporting country. In most
cases, bulldozers tear down remnants of buildings and bridges
that have been bombed. The scrap is then sold off. It is possible
that live shells and partially exploded shells are embedded
inside the scrap (HT reported).
 Since there has been no 'official-check' or declaration, we can
only conjecture with near certainty that the munitions exploded
and found so far, active or inactive, are DU munitions, which US
is proliferating all over the world.
Now, why should we fear DU munitions even when they are inactive
or unexploded? We should, more than we fear a nuclear bomb,
because they are radioactive, toxic, and cause slow and untold
damage to health, ---- and are 'proliferating'. Yes, nuclear
bombs proliferate too, but certainly not as much as DU already
has, and is threatening to, in all parts of the world, in an
invisible way, even into my backyard.
Though opinions vary, there is a general agreement that DU
munitions cause health-hazards of extremely serious nature. The
Royal Society in Britain set up an independent expert working
group to investigate the health hazards of DU munitions. It's two
part report has studied the increased risks of radiation-induced
cancer from exposures to DU on the battlefield and the risks from
the chemical toxicity of Uranium, non-malignant radiation effects
from DU intakes, the long term environmental consequences of the
deployment of DU munitions etc. Scientists fear that the effects
of DU munitions in Iraq would have a fall out for many
generations to come. Scientists have urged shell clear-up in Iraq
to protect civilians The Royal Society has recommended that
fragments of DU penetrators be removed, and areas of
contaminations should be identified, and where necessary, made
safe. Pentagon however doesnot consider that necessary. Most
scientists believe that DU causes cancer and other severe
illnesses. According to the Royal Society, both soldiers and
civilians in Iraq were in short and long term danger. Children
playing at contaminates sites were particularly at risk. The soil
around the impact sites of depleted uranium penetrators may be
heavily contaminated, and could be harmful if swallowed by
children. For example. If it leaks into water supplies, it would
pose a long time threat to health. The UN environment program has
been tracking the use of DU in Balkans and found it leaking into
the water table. Seven years after the conflict it has
recommended decontamination of buildings where DU dust is present
to protect the civilian population against cancer. DU
contaminates the land, air and water, and ultimately destroying
the lives of people exposed to it. DU corrodes the soil and exist
for a long time in the dust. Evidence is building that DU causes
more genetic damage than scientists suspected, even at levels
deemed as low as to be non-toxic. A US soldier Keny Duncan was
with the Royal Corps of Transport helping to shift Iraqi tanks
destroyed by DU shells in 1991 gulf war. He was exposed to DU.
All his three children are born with some kind of deformity.
 Given this scenario, what is India supposed to do? It is
obvious that the actions taken so far, the directives issued by
various offices and agencies have failed to take into account the
possibility ( rather a near certainty) that the rockets and
shells are part of depleted uranium munitions used by US and UK
in whichever country they have landed illegally. It should be the
responsibility of US and UK, to clear up the shells not only in
Iraq, Afghanistan, Balkans, Somalia and so on, but also in India,
where they have proliferated due to their irresponsible and
monstrous actions. If they have proliferated to India, it is a
near certainty that they would proliferate to many other
developing and less developed countries, and ultimately back into
the developed countries, including even US and UK. In all
probability these munitions are being sold by the hard pressed
people of war ravaged countries only for money, and not for
terrorism. Also, this is one way to get their own country rid of
these lethal weapons. One shouldnot underestimate the knowledge
and intelligence of poor and illiterate villagers. They may not
know the technicalities, but they sure know that these weapons if
lie in their neighbourhood would cause extreme damage to their
health and also to flora and fauna. For example, in Ghaziabad, it
was the villagers of Kanha Upavan and Loni area who were the
first ones to protest against the stockpiling and diffusal of
explosives in their area.
Recently, a lot of studies have been done on the hazards of DU,
but no new regulations have come into effect. We need new
International laws and treaties to deal with this menace, which
is sure to take a serious turn in the near future, considering
the quagmire the US has put itself into, in Iraq. India should
speak out, and raise the issue in the UN. Who should be signing
the "Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty" (NPT) now?
Meanwhile, at the domestic level, the ammunitions found so far
should be given as much weightage as the nuclear bomb was given
during Pokhran Test. They should be carried to a desert-may be to
Pokhran for disposal, and not to residential localities, or
forests, or river beds. There have been suggestions that loose
scrap should be banned, and only shredded scrap should be
allowed.Yes, shredded scrap would ensure that there are no
untoward explosions, but that would still not ensure that shreds
of DU ammunitions are not included in that, especially, if
imports are being carried out from war-ravaged countries. Thus,
imports from war ravaged countries have to be stopped completely.
And stringent checks should be carried out at every check-post,
even if that means delays and increase in price of steel. Get the
priorities right, Mr. Businessman!
In the words of Noam Chomsky (Hegemony or Survival : America's
quest for global domiance, Metropolitan books, 2003):
"One can discern two trajectories in current history: one aiming
toward hegemony, acting rationally within a lunatic doctrinal
framework as it threatens survival; the other dedicated to the
belief that "another world is possible", in the words that
animate the World Social Forum, challenging the reigning
ideological system and seeking to create constructive
alternatives of thought, action and institutions."
Keeping this in mind, India should take up the issue with the
World bodies.
 Notes: "When the dust settles : Depleted uranium may be far
more dangerous than previously thought - and we could be dealing
with the fallout for many generations to come " The Guardian,
April 17, 2003
"Scientists urge shell clear-up to protect civilians: Royal
Society spells out dangers of depleted uranium" The Guardian,
April 17, 2003.
"The health hazards of depleted uranium munitions: Part 1", Royal
Society, May 2001 ISBN: 0854033540
"The health hazards of depleted uranium munitions: Part 2", Royal
Society March 2002 ISBN: 0854035745
*****************************************************************
18 [DU-WATCH] Chernobyl Heart: winning doc on Chernobyl
Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 00:38:31 -0600 (CST)
Chernobyl Oscar Film Opens Festival Irish Independent, October 11,
2004 By Louise Geaney
The Oscar-winning film documenting the work of an Irish charity in
Chernobyl opened the 49th Cork Film Festival yesterday.
The 2004 festival opened yesterday morning with the screening of
the documentary 'Chernobyl Heart'. Present at the Kino Cinema were
film director Maryann De Leo and founder of the Chernobyl Children's
Project, Adi Roche.
The 39-minute film, which was shot over a two-year period in Belarus,
won an Academy Award last March for the American filmmaker under
the category of Best Short Documentary.
The short film documents the effects of radiation and the high
levels of cancer, birth defects and heart conditions experienced
by children living in Belarus, the country most affected by the
Chernobyl disaster in 1986. It followed the work of the charity,
the Chernobyl Children's Project, which was founded by Ms Roche.
This year's festival programme boasts an eclectic mix of big budget
pictures, innovative independent films, documentaries and short
films from all over the globe.
Opening night also saw the gala screening of acclaimed Irish director
Damien O'Donnell's film 'Inside I'm Dancing'.
Other highlights of the seven-day festival include the Woody Allen
film 'Melinda and Melinda' and 'Look at Me', which won Best Screenplay
at the Cannes Film Festival.
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19 [NukeNet] 3 articles - PSEG reports "progress"
Date: Sun, 31 Oct 2004 17:11:20 -0800
(thanks to Jim Hoernor for sending these to me; I had neglected to check
the media
today)
For me, the key statement in these three articles is this:
". this improvement effort is not a quick fix," Bakken said Friday. "It
will take 18 to 24 months for us to complete our improvements in order to
ensure the long-term benefits of our Salem and Hope Creek units," Bakken
said.
I appreciate Bakken's honesty in not sugarcoating the problems. But with
Bakken admitting to 2 years to fix the plants, the reality is probably a
much longer time frame, because as fast as PSEG fixes one problem, new
problems will
continue to arise. We continue to suggest that each plant be shut down for
an extneded period of time so that each plant can be fixed without ongoing
distractions.
norm
http://www.delawareonline.com/newsjournal/local/2004/10/30nuclearcompanyr.html
Nuclear company reports progress
Del. lawmakers remain wary of PSEG plants
By JEFF MONTGOMERY / The News Journal
10/30/2004
PSEG Nuclear reported Friday that it has made "real progress" in federally
supervised efforts to improve maintenance and safety at the troubled
Salem/Hope Creek nuclear generating station along the Delaware River,
opposite Augustine Beach.
"We know we have more work to do," company chief nuclear officer A.
Christopher Bakken III said during PSEG's first quarterly report on a
detailed improvement plan submitted to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
in June.
The submission followed months of criticism about work backlogs,
maintenance problems and conditions regulators said could discourage
employee reporting of safety problems at the nuclear operations.
On Oct. 10, PSEG abruptly shut down the 1,100-megawatt Hope Creek reactor
after a steam pipe break that was later traced to a missing or unconnected
support bracket. Managers later opted to keep Hope Creek idled for an
ahead-of-schedule refueling, a move Bakken said will assist in maintenance
and repair catch-up work.
Late Friday, Delaware's congressional delegation said it was too early to
say if PSEG's approach was effective. Democratic Sens. Joe Biden and Tom
Carper and Republican Rep. Mike Castle recently called on the NRC and the
company to explain the Hope Creek accident and subsequent actions by
regulators and the utility.
"Some progress appears under way, but several serious deficiencies
remain," the three said in a joint statement. "Both PSEG and the NRC must
continue efforts to improve conditions at the station and until all
deficiencies are corrected and PSEG can demonstrate that the facility can
be operated safely, we will remain vigilant in our scrutiny."
Some community groups and nuclear power critics have urged PSEG and the
NRC to shut down all three reactors for a maintenance overhaul and
management reforms.
Bakken said the company has made gains in reducing maintenance backlogs
and putting management safeguards in place to ensure workers' concerns are
addressed without fear of reprisal from supervisors.
"I do believe that we are achieving the expected results," Bakken said.
"I've tried to indicate that we don't see this as a quick fix."
Contact Jeff Montgomery at 678-4277 or jmontgomery@delawareonline.com.
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October 30, 2004
Salem Nuclear operators say they’re improving communication with employees
By JEROME MONTES Staff Writer, (856) 794-5115
Investigators have cited employee reluctance to report problems as a major
safety issue The embattled operators of the Salem nuclear facility say it
is improving despite recent operational setbacks.
Public Service Enterprise Group's nuclear division has drawn heavy
criticism from independent consultants, federal officials and nuclear
watchdog groups on numerous safety issues at the facility. Most of the
problems cited were traced to the plant's system of detecting, reporting
and repairing maintenance problems.
Consultants and federal officials say workers were not comfortable
reporting safety and maintenance problems to their superiors.
Nuclear watchdog groups and former employees say PSEG went as far as
retaliating against workers who did raise concerns, firing at least one.
But PSEG's Chief Nuclear Officer A. Christopher Bakken III said Friday
that communication between workers and management is steadily improving,
thanks to administrative changes instituted earlier this year.
Bakken said an executive review board now acts as a final check on any
proposed personnel actions to ensure they aren't retaliatory.
He added that workers have more lines of communication to report
maintenance problems.
"We're improving communication with our workers," Bakken said. "The safe
operation of the plant has always been our primary concern."
The nation's second-largest nuclear facility has suffered a number of
operational problems in the past few weeks.
A steam leak at the facility's Hope Creek reactor on Oct. 10 caused that
plant to shut down and prompted a federal investigation.
And a Freon leak at Hope Creek on Thursday temporarily restricted access
to the building's second floor.
Officials at the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission refuse to comment
on whether PSEG is under investigation for terminating employees who
raised safety concerns.
Former PSEG manager Kymn Harvin says she was fired for approaching
superiors about plant safety problems. She contends that current workers
still have to approach lawmakers, the media and federal regulators to
ensure the facility is operating safely.
Harvin says PSEG's recent decision not to immediately restart the Hope
Creek reactor was brought about by outside pressure.
"Employees at a nuclear plant should never have to resort to the media or
congressional pressure to ensure nuclear safety," Harvin said.
"Unfortunately, that was the case just two weeks ago at Hope Creek when
the plant was scheduled to restart, and employees thought it was not safe
to operate."
Approximately 1,800 employees work at the facility's 292-acre site. The
facility's three reactors provide electricity for about 60 percent of
PSEG's 2 million customers.
To e-mail Jerome Montes at The Press:
JMontes@pressofac.com
PSEG Nuclear: Progress seen, but still 'more work to do'
Saturday, October 30, 2004
By BILL GALLO JR.
Staff Writer
LOWER ALLOWAYS CREEK TWP. -- Although substantial improvements have been
seen, equipment issues remain one of the key areas that PSEG Nuclear must
continue to concentrate on at the Artificial Island nuclear generating
complex here, officials said Friday.
"Overall we are demonstrating progress, but we know we have much more work
to do," said Chris Bakken, president and chief nuclear officer of the
utility company which operates the three reactors -- Salem 1, Salem 2 and
Hope Creek --at the complex.
On Friday, Bakken reviewed the company's first quarterly report card on
progress the utility is making in creating a more safety conscious work
environment at the Island.
The report, stems from PSEG's commitment to make changes urged by the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The federal agency which oversees the
nation's nuclear power plants in January told the utility it should take
proactive steps to improve the work environment at the Island before
serious problems might arise.
Diane Screnci, a spokeswoman for the NRC's Region I office in King of
Prussia, Pa., said the NRC had just received the report Friday and would
review it.
NRC and PSEG Nuclear officials will meet in December to discuss the
utility company's progress in creating a more safety conscious work
environment, Screnci said.
Bakken emphasized again Friday, as NRC officials have said in the past,
the problems cited at the Island are not of the magnitude that the units
can not operate safely.
Bakken said the utility's approach in its corrective action plan has been
to concentrate on three broad areas -- people, processes and the physical
plant. All three are intertwined, he said.
"We have taken steps to foster a more fair, consistent and open workplace
where people feel free to raise concerns and have the confidence they will
be heard," Bakken said.
One of the key points raised by the NRC had been that some employees
reportedly were afraid to speak up about concerns because of fear of
retaliation or had spoken up but felt frustrated because they believed
their concerns were ignored by top plant leaders.
Island management has undergone training and an Executive Review Board has
been created to review make sure recommended personnel actions -- because
of the circumstances -- are not erroneously perceived to be retaliatory,
according to Bakken.
Also, an Employee Concerns Program has been created to handle Island
workers' concerns about the workplace. In 2003, out of 33 concerns
registered, 16 were raised either confidentially or anonymously. To date,
in 2004 out of 27 concerns raised, only 3 percent requested
confidentiality or anonymity, Bakken said, an indication employees are
more comfortable speaking up.
While management hopes workers are more at ease airing concerns and are
comfortable with the overall work environment, Bakken said with 1,800
workers on the site, there remains a mix of "skeptics, cynics and
supporters."
Bakken also said Friday positive progress had been made in the utility's
corrective action plan -- identifying work needed in the plant, planning
the work, scheduling it, completing it and verifying it has been done
correctly.
But the physical plant remains the largest hurdle. Bakken, who took over
as Island chief this past summer, said be believes the utility's response
to recent events at the Salem and Hope Creek stations have demonstrated
the utility's commitment toward fostering a safety conscious work
environment.
Refueling outages at the three plants will be extended and more
maintenance work completed while the units are off line.
Hope Creek earlier this month was taken off line after a steam pipe
ruptured and control room operators encountered what the NRC called
"complications" shutting down the reactor. Now in an extended outage, the
pipe and reactor issues will be addressed along with regular maintenance
associated with a refueling outage.
Also, earlier this year, PSEG Nuclear officials committed to spending $800
million over the next five years for equipment upgrades at the site.
Bakken said he is confident progress is being seen, but more is needed.
" ... this improvement effort is not a quick fix," Bakken said Friday. "It
will take 18 to 24 months for us to complete our improvements in order to
ensure the long-term benefits of our Salem and Hope Creek units," Bakken
said.
Copyright 2004 NJ.com. All Rights Reserved.
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20 Bellona: Leningrad NPP’s reactor no.1 running at full capacity, reactor
no.4 shutdown for repairs
The oldest Russian ”Chernobyl” type reactor reached full capacity
1,000 MW yesterday.
2004-10-29 17:38
Russia’s oldest reactor — at the Leningrad Power Plant near the
border with Finland — was shut down last year. But officials
re-launched it this month for at least another five years pending
modernization. On October 10, the reactor no.1 was shut down when
its emergency security system suddenly signaled an alarm. Oleg
Bodrov, head of Green World, said the reasons of sudden shut down
of the reactor had to do with many infringements of procedures
when the start up of the reactor began.
The Leningrad Nuclear Power Station, or LAES, is causing serious
ecological danger to the Baltic Sea and surroundings, say
environmentalists of Green World, an ecological organization
based in Sosnovy Bor. Ecologists say tests of pine trees that
grow Sosnovy Bor, a town located five kilometers from LAES,
showed that "those pine trees had three times as many changes to
cell development as similar trees growing 30 kilometers away from
the station.This way a pine tree signals to us the unfavorable
state of the environment," Vladimir Zimin, a Green World expert,
said, St Petersburg Times reported.
Earlier this month, the Interfax news agency cited a source in
the Interior Ministry’s Main Directorate for St. Petersburg City
as saying that the valves from the Leningrad NPP were stolen. The
price of the stolen devices was reported at 700,000 rubles (about
$24,000). The Leningrad power plant is not only a top security
site, but it is also located in the area close to the Finnish
border where the security regime is even stricter.
At the moment three units of Leningrad NPP are running at full
capacity, 3,000 MW total. Reactor no.4 was shutdown today for
15-day maintenance.
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21 Brattleboro Reformer: No early release of VY report
Brattleboro, VT
Article Published: Saturday, October 30, 2004 - 2:15:51 AM EST
By CAROLYN LORIé Reformer Staff
BRATTLEBORO -- The Nuclear Regulatory Commission decided to stick
to its standard procedure when it comes to sharing information
with the public about the Vermont Yankee engineering inspection.
There will be a public exit meeting on Nov. 9 and the release of
the full report will follow within 45 days. The meeting will be
held at the Vernon Elementary School from 6 to 10 p.m.
After NRC officials meet with Entergy personnel, the public will
have the opportunity to make comments and ask questions.
Earlier this week, NRC staff discussed the possibility of
releasing the report early and holding an additional public
meeting, but those plans have been abandoned.
According to Neil Sheehan, NRC spokesman, the preliminary
findings from the inspection will be available prior to Nov. 9 on
the agency's Web site. It will also be available in hard copy the
night of the meeting.
Last week, Vermont's congressional delegation wrote a letter to
NRC chairman Nils Diaz requesting that the agency "expedite" the
release of the report.
Rep. Bernard Sanders, I-Vt., and Sens. James Jeffords, I-Vt.,
and Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., also reminded Diaz that the agency had
given assurance that parties interested in intervening in the
uprate case could amend their petitions based on the results of
the inspection.
"We believe that the independent engineering assessment may
contain new information of interest to the requesters and they
should have adequate time to review the results," read the
letter.
The Vermont Department of Public Service and the nuclear power
watchdog group, the New England Coalition, both petitioned to
intervene. Their petitions are being considered by the Atomic
Safety and Licensing Board Panel.
Prior to the Aug. 30 deadline for filing a petition, the state
requested a deadline extension. The NRC turned down the request,
stating that the petition could be amended after it was filed.
David O'Brien, commissioner of the Department of Public Service,
has said that he was not concerned with the release date of the
report and believed that the opportunity to amend the petition
would not change.
Members of the New England Coalition, however, disagree with
that assessment and have been critical of the NRC for not
releasing the report.
"This is unacceptable," said Raymond Shadis, technical advisor
to the coalition.
According to Shadis, the longer the parties take to amend their
petitions, the less likely it is that they will be accepted.
He was also concerned that holding a meeting prior to releasing
the report will curtail the public's ability to take part in the
meeting.
"How can people ask informed questions when they don't have the
information. It's really a huge insult to the people of Vermont,"
said Shadis.
Sheehan, however, said that enough information will be released
for members of the public to have a good grasp of the inspection
results.
Since the NRC will not hold an additional meeting, the coalition
plans to hold its own.
As soon as the report is released, the group plans to distribute
copies of the report, convene a panel of experts, hold a public
meeting and then publish the comments from it.
"I suppose we have to show the NRC how to do it," said Shadis.
In addition to the meeting about the engineering inspection, the
NRC will also hold a meeting on Nov. 9 about its special
inspection of the fuel reported missing from the plant in April.
Beginning at 3 p.m., the meeting will be held at the Governor
Hunt House on the plant grounds.
It will be open to the public, with time for comment and
questions once the meeting between NRC officials and Entergy
personnel is completed.
Carolyn Lorié can be reached at
Copyright ©1999-2004 New England Newspapers, Inc.,
*****************************************************************
22 Xinhuanet: Nigeria's first nuclear reactor inaugurated
www.xinhuanet.com
www.chinaview.cn 2004-10-30 00:42:59
LAGOS, Oct. 30 (Xinhuanet) -- The first nuclear research
reactor has been inaugurated at the Ahmadu Bello University
(ABU), Zaria in Nigeria's northern state of Kaduna, the News
Agency of Nigeria reported Saturday.
Minister of Science and Technology Turner Isoun inaugurated
the reactor at the ABU's Center for Energy Research and Training
at the weekend.
Speaking at the inauguration ceremony, Isoun said Nigerian
scientists no longer had a place to hide now that the country
could boast of a satellite in space and a nuclear research
reactor on ground.
He, however, said that a much bigger capacity reactor would
be required to fully grasp the fundamentals of the technology
needed to run a nuclear power plant in the country.
Earlier, Vice Chancellor of ABU Prof. Shehu Abdullahi said
the center was now better positioned to render analytical
services to various sectors of the Nigerian economy.
He said the university had the highest number of nuclear
scientists in the country and appealed to the government to
introduce better welfare package for the staff "in view of the
high risk involved in nuclear research."
Prof. Shamsudeen Elegba, director-general of the Nigerian
Nuclear Regulating Authority, traced the history of the center to
the promulgation of the Nigerian Atomic Energy Commission decree
No. 46 of 1976.
Elegba, who was the first director of the center, told
reporters that the project took off in the university in 1977.
Enditem
Copyright ©2003 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
23 PTI: Reliance Energy looking at options of setting up N-power stn
Oct 31, 2004 05:50:00 PM
Mumbai, Oct 31 (PTI) To fulfil the baseload requirements of the
country, Reliance Energy is looking at possibilities to set up
Nuclear Power stations.
"However, this requires a lot of support from the government",
Dr V K Chaturvedi, the newly appointed director of New Power
Initiative of Reliance Energy told PTI here, adding that perhaps
for the first time in the country any private company would be
entering the nuclear power market.
Chaturvedi, who was the former CMD of Nuclear Power Corporation
of India Ltd (NPCIL), said, "it will be necessary to have
technical support from the Department of Atomic Energy and
NPCIL".
As soon as the amended Atomic Energy Act gets clearance from the
Parliament on private participation in the nuclear energy
production in the country, Reliance Energy would be the first
company to come forward to set up nuclear power plants,
Chaturvedi claimed.
The idea is to meet the high energy demand of the country in
view of depletion of fossil fuel in the coming years, the
Director said.
For the country's expected demand of 600 to 700 Gigawatts of
electricity by 2050, "the new resources should be looked into
without any delay," he said on the sidelines of the Founder's
Day Celebration at BARC during the week-end.
Other renewable sources that Reliance Energy is working on are
wind and solar energy, mainly to cater the requirements of
isolated places where there is no connection from the main grid.
PTI
© Copyright PTI 2003-2004
*****************************************************************
24 BBC: Plant contamination 'substantial'
Last Updated: Sunday, 31 October, 2004
[Hunterston]
BNFL has reassured those living near the plant
Campaigners have called for checks on land around all nuclear
power stations after the full extent of contamination at an
Ayrshire site came to light.
An estimated 81,000 cubic metres of soil at Hunterston A are
affected.
The site's owner said the radiation dated back to the 1970s and
that levels were well within safety limits.
Friends of the Earth said people needed to be reassured - but
former energy minister Brian Wilson dismissed the fears as "scare
stories".
The Labour MP for Cunninghame North said that those who had
voiced concerns were the "usual bunch of anti-nuclear activists
who rely on scare stories to prop up their cause".
Long period
And he said: "This is a very familiar story to anyone who knows
the history of the Hunterston A site.
"Decontamination of the site is an integral part of the
decommissioning process and will continue to be so over a very
long period."
But Scottish Green MSP Shiona Baird, the party's co-convener,
said: "What scares me most is Brian Wilson's dismissal of it as a
scare story. That to me is really frightening."
British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) owns the site, which ceased
operating in 1990.
We do not yet know in deta the depth to which this contamination
has penetrated Jim Craik Site manager
It said that the contamination dated back to the 1970s.
Radioactive material leaked from cracked effluent pipes and from
open-air cooling ponds, which were covered over when the problem
came to light.
The company added that the levels of caesium-137 which had been
found were 100 times below the accepted limits.
Work is being carried out to come up with a preferred strategy
for disposing of the radioactive material.
Site manager Jim Craik offered reassurance to those living near
the plant.
"We have an area of contaminated land which is quite substantial
- much more substantial than we would like," he told BBC
Scotland's Politics Show.
[Duncan McLaren]
Duncan McLaren said nuclear power was unsafe
But this land was contaminated in the 1970s, it is not something
new.
"During the 1970s when it was identified, it was brought to the
attention of the regulators and they were satisfied that the
actions we were taking were appropriate."
He said BNFL was trying to manage the land to ensure that the
material did not spread outside the site boundaries.
And he added: "We don't know how much land is affected.
"We have done a survey of the surface of the ground which tells
us the area that is affected, but we do not yet know in detail
the depth to which this contamination has penetrated."
Power plants
However, Ms Baird said: "We do not know what is a safe level of
radiation.
"We don't know how much we are being influenced by radiation from
other sources that have not been declared and I think it is this
that we really need to concentrate on," she said.
Friends of the Earth said contamination checks should be carried
out on land around all nuclear power stations.
Chief executive Duncan McLaren said people living and working in
and around nuclear facilities had to be reassured.
"Despite decades of support and billions of pounds in public
subsidy, nuclear power remains an uneconomic, unsafe and unwanted
energy technology," he said.
"Those who think new nuclear power plants should be built should
think again."
*****************************************************************
25 Sunday Herald: Exposed: scandal of nuclear leaks at Scots plant -
Massive area contaminated at Hunterston
By Rob Edwards, Environment Editor
A huge area of land has been contaminated from leaks at
Hunterston nuclear power station in North Ayrshire . The
contamination is much worse than previously suspected, and far
more than has been admitted at other nuclear sites in Scotland.
Some 81,000 cubic metres of soil enough to fill 900
double-decker buses are laced with radioactivity which for years
has been spilling from pipelines and blowing off open-air ponds
of nuclear waste.
Although the state-owned company that runs the plant insists that
the contamination is very low-level, it poses huge clean-up
problems. The government regulator, the Nuclear Installations
Inspectorate, says the soil will have to be treated and disposed
of as radioactive waste.
The contamination has been found at Hunterston A nuclear power
station, which is now being decommissioned. The official
published inventory of Britains nuclear waste estimates the total
amount of unpackaged low-level radioactive waste at Hunterston A
at no more than 28,860 cubic metres.
But almost three times that amount were found by the Nuclear
Decommissioning Authority (NDA), the government body set up to
oversee the clean-up of Britains nuclear plants. It said the
contamination was as a result of historic leaks.
Pete Roche, a consultant to Greenpeace, pointed out that
Hunterston As 81,000 cubic metres is a huge amount of waste. He
said: It dwarfs the amount of waste that we know about at most
other nuclear facilities . It will be decades, at least, before
the nuclear waste legacy problem is solved.
The Hunterston A site is run by the British Nuclear Group (BNG) .
It claimed that it has known about the contamination for some
time and that it had been mainly caused when the reactors were
operating.
Some of the contamination came from the on-site open-air cooling
ponds through some wind-blown contamination within the site, said
a BNG spokesman. Some would also have been caused by spills from
effluent lines within the site.
Extensive investigations are planned over the next few years to
assess the exact volume and level of contamination, he added. In
the meantime, the contamination will be managed and monitored to
ensure safety of the public, the workforce and the environment.
But experts said that cleaning up and disposing of such a large
amount of contaminated soil will not be easy. The only site
available for disposing of low-level radioactive waste Drigg,
near the Sellafield nuclear plant in Cumbria is nearly full.
Chris Ballance, the Green MSP for the south of Scotland, said the
discovery of so much contamination was a complete scandal. He was
present at the NDA stakeholder meeting in Ayrshire where the
information was disclosed.
Is the Ayrshire coast always going to be radioactive around
Hunterston? Is the site always going to have to be protected
against people with malicious intent? he asked.
The Hunterston revelations are going to be raised at Westminster
by the Welsh anti-nuclear Labour MP, Llew Smith. He has put down
a parliamentary question demanding details of the contamination
and what is being done to remove it.
The Nuclear Installations Inspectorate wasnt able to comment in
detail on the situation at Hunterston A, but a spokesman did say
that its policy was that contaminated soil should be treated as
radioactive waste and disposed of accordingly.
The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) was aware of
the contamination. Our understanding is that the main incident
leading to the contamination arose in the 1970s, said a
spokeswoman.
If contamination is found outside the site boundaries, then Sepa
would consider what action should be taken. If there were any
recent breaches of authorisation or ongoing releases, then Sepa
would use its legislative powers appropriately.
The south of Scotland is also facing another risk from the de
commissioning of the four reactors at Chapelcross, near Annan in
Dumfries and Galloway. BNG has confirmed that 40,000 nuclear fuel
rods are due to be shipped south from the site between 2005 and
2007. 31 October 2004
© newsquest (sunday herald) limited. all rights reserved
*****************************************************************
26 Las Vegas SUN: Columnist Jeff German: A vote for Kerry can stop Yucca dump
Jeff German's column appears Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and
Sundays in the Sun. Reach him at german@lasvegassun.comor (702)
259-4067.
•••
WEEKEND EDITION
October 30 - 31, 2004
We have the power Tuesday to stop the high-level nuclear waste
project at Yucca Mountain.
All we have to do is vote for John Kerry for president.
Kerry is promising to kill the dump, while President Bush is
pushing to send 77,000 tons of deadly waste our way.
It is true that we have heard promises like Kerry's before from
presidential candidates.
To win our electoral votes in 2000, Bush told us he would
recommend Yucca Mountain to Congress only if the science was
sound. But when he got to the White House, he broke that
promise. He recommended the multibillion-dollar project, even
though the science had not proven it safe.
We were betrayed by a man who put the interests of the powerful
nuclear industry over our well-being.
Today the best Bush can do is promise that he will abide by any
court decisions challenging the project. As weak as that is,
it's another promise that can't be believed, as we watch the
president's Energy Department working feverishly on its Yucca
Mountain license application.
For Kerry supporters like Democratic Sen. Harry Reid, Yucca
Mountain has become an issue of character in the presidential
race.
"Bush lied to us, and the people know he lied to us," Reid
says. "That's probably the reason why he has been through two
elections in Nevada and has never responded to a member of the
Nevada press."
Kerry, on the other hand, has been to the state seven times
during this year's campaign and talked to the media every time.
In August I was among a handful of local journalists who had a
chance to sit down with the Massachusets senator and press him
on several issues. I didn't see a candidate who was making empty
promises about Yucca Mountain, like George Bush did in 2000. I
came away impressed with the depth of Kerry's opposition. He
clearly had taken the time to educate himself and form an
intelligent opinion.
Kerry told us why he's uncomfortable with the concept of a
centralized repository for nuclear waste and what he would do as
president to stop the dump, starting with holding up the
licensing process.
But what impressed me the most was that Kerry said he was ready
to stand up to the political pressure he surely would face from
the nuclear power industry and its lackeys in the
Republican-controlled Congress.
And so for the first time in this 22-year battle with
Washington, we have a clear shot at winning.
"It's very simple," says former Gov. Bob Miller, who led the
fight against Yucca for 10 of those years. "If you don't want
Yucca Mountain, vote for Kerry and it's over. If the president
of the United States can't do it, we're in real trouble."
What has been the biggest disappointment in this year's
campaign is the lack of backbone displayed by our elected
Republican leaders. We finally have the pro-Yucca Mountain
forces on the ropes, and the Republicans have been afraid to
deliver the knockout punch.
No one knows the dangers of Yucca Mountain better than Gov.
Kenny Guinn and Attorney General Brian Sandoval. Yet, with the
state's five electoral votes up for grabs, they have refused to
withhold their support of the president until he commits to
halting Yucca Mountain. Instead, Guinn and Sandoval have
co-chaired Bush's Nevada campaign.
Sen. John Ensign and Reps. Jon Porter and Jim Gibbons also call
themselves Yucca Mountain opponents. But, like the governor and
attorney general, they have been unwilling to go to the mat for
the cause. Instead, they have advanced the party's disingenuous
argument that Kerry can't be trusted, when they know in their
hearts that the only one who can't be trusted is Bush.
They all have let us down.
In the final analysis, the facts can't be disputed. With John
Kerry, we have hope for a safer future. With George Bush, we can
look forward to being dumped on -- again.
Our destiny is in our own hands on Tuesday. All we have to do
is cast the right vote.
*****************************************************************
27 Las Vegas SUN: Where I Stand -- Brian Greenspun: Yucca lives or dies on Tuesday
Brian Greenspun is editor of the Las Vegas Sun.
WEEKEND EDITION
October 30 - 31, 2004
Does Nevada deserve the nuclear waste dump?
I have heard many reasons that try to justify the government's
effort to bury 77,000 tons of radioactive waste just a few miles
from Las Vegas, and each one of them has been, in the language
of our youth, bogus.
That's because there is no reason on Earth why thousands of
trucks and trains full of high-level death need to travel
through most major cities in this country on their way to Las
Vegas and, ultimately, Yucca Mountain. Unless you believe that
adding to the profits of the nation's power companies is a good
reason or stuffing the already full coffers of President George
W. Bush's campaign is sufficient enough reason to jeopardize
every man, woman and child in this state for the next few
hundred thousand years!
And I don't know anybody in this state who would trade the
health, safety and security of his family or his neighbors just
so President Bush and his friends can make more money. Actually,
I do know a few of those people and I am not talking much to
them anymore.
Until now, until this coming Tuesday when Nevada voters go to
the polls to help choose the next President of the United
States, we have always been victims of the nuclear power
industry, the Department of Energy and Bush White House.
When Congress first decided to explore possible sites around
this country over 20 years ago, Yucca Mountain was one of many
potential places that was chosen to be studied for possible
inclusion on a short list of burial candidates. Since Congress
had chosen so many to investigate, alarms did not sound to the
extent necessary to alert us that we were behind the eight ball.
We were victims of neglect.
In 1987 the Screw Nevada Bill quickly made its way to President
Ronald Reagan's desk. That legislation short-circuited the
scientific pretense of the first law and singled out Nevada as
the only site in the entire country to be considered. It called
for years of scientific study followed by a decision in 2002 by
the then current president. He was to decide, based on all the
scientific evidence and the guarantee of a safe geologic site
for thousands of years, whether Yucca Mountain was going to be
the place for all eternity in which the deadliest radioactive
substances on Earth would rest.
That legislative sleight of hand was orchestrated mainly by two
senators, one from Louisiana and one from Texas. Both of them
were very powerful people and decided, since their two states
looked like sure winners for the dubious honor of being chosen
the place where all the nation's problems would be buried, that
just could not happen!
Nevada was a state with very few people, lots of federal land
and virtually no electoral votes. To make matters worse, for
some inexplicable reason, Nevada's senior senator, who was a
close friend of President Reagan, did nothing to intercede on
our behalf. And our junior senator was quick to follow his
senior mentor's lead. He did nothing either.
That was a case in which Nevadans were victimized by more
powerful, more able and more determined senators from others
states, a small population for which nobody cared, two senators
who made those who did nothing look busy, and a president who
did what he was told, probably not having a clue what he was
creating.
In the 1990s the Republican-controlled Congress tried in vain
to send the radioactive waste our way years before the law
allowed. They did it by trying to change the law. We were to be
victims again, but that time we had people with guts, brains and
considerable political brawn. Sens. Harry Reid and Richard Bryan
joined our representatives, Shelley Berkeley and Jim Gibbons, to
outfox the power industry pawns in the GOP. And then they
brought out the big guns of President William Jefferson Clinton
who threatened vetoes twice before he finally had to exercise
that presidential prerogative.
Then came the presidential election of 2000. Believing
candidate Bush's promise to accept only sound science in making
his decision about sending that deadly garbage to our state,
Nevadans chose Bush and, by doing so, provided the margin of
victory for his march to the White House.
In a very short time, President Bush reneged on his commitment
and selected Nevada, over the objections of every reasonable
scientific study. The Senate overwhelmingly caved in to the
White House's pressure and the age-old "not in my backyard"
syndrome.
Despite science, all rational thought and a complete disregard
for the brand new threat of terrorism in our homeland -- and the
unthinkable thought of thousands of "dirty" nuclear bombs just
waiting to be unleashed on our highways and byways -- the
president did what he always intended. He, like the Congress
before him, screwed Nevada.
Once again we were victims. This time, the victims of President
George W. Bush. That brings us to Election Day 2004. And, for
the first time since this nightmare started three decades ago,
Nevada has the chance to no longer be the victim. We have a
chance to finally help ourselves. The choice between the two
candidates is absolutely clear. On the one hand we have a
president who has proved his unreliability by promising to
follow sound science and, when the first opportunity presented
itself, ignored that science and stuck that dump up our Yucca
Mountain. And he continues to do all that he can to make sure
those trucks and trains are rolling our way as soon as possible.
On the other hand is Sen. John Kerry, who has promised that if
he is elected president Yucca Mountain will never open. Instead,
he will challenge science to find a 21st century solution to the
problem of nuclear waste. Backing him up is Sen. Harry Reid, who
not only has confirmed that a President Kerry can stop the dump
but that he, Harry Reid, will make sure his friend will do just
that.
So there you have it. We can continue to be victims or we can
determine our own destiny. We can continue to be the
Entertainment Capital of the World or we can re-elect President
Bush and risk turning this city into a ghost town.
In 2000, Nevada gave its electoral votes to Bush and made him
president. This time we can give them to Sen. John Kerry and,
most likely, make him president.
If we do that we will finally stop being victims. If we don't,
we deserve the dump!
*****************************************************************
28 RGJ: Clinton stresses Yucca issue
Anjeanette Damon
RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL
10/30/2004 10:35 pm
In this year’s presidential election, Nevada voters finally have
a referendum on whether the state should host the nation’s most
radioactive nuclear waste, former President Bill Clinton told a
small crowd of supporters in Henderson on Saturday.
“If the president carries Nevada, the inescapable conclusion will
mean the majority of the people of Nevada have voted to put that
here,” Clinton said of the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste
Repository. “There is no other conceivable explanation.
“This is the very first time you have ever had a clear,
unambiguous, undebatable referendum on Yucca Mountain. This is
it. If Kerry wins, they’ll say you voted against it. If Bush
wins, they’ll say you voted for it. You can’t get out of it. You
need to tell everybody you can find between now and Tuesday.”
In an address that was supposed to focus on health care and
Social Security, Clinton spoke to a mostly senior citizen crowd
of 300 people at the Desert Willow Community Center.
After spending about 10 minutes on U.S. Sen. John Kerry’s health
care proposals, Clinton launched into a lengthy discussion of
Yucca Mountain – the issue that has been at the heart of Kerry’s
campaign in Nevada.
Kerry has promised repeatedly to stop the project if he is
elected.
Shortly after President Bush was elected, he approved Yucca
Mountain as the storage site for 77,000 tons of nuclear waste.
Democrats contend he broke his 2000 campaign promise to base that
decision on science.
In deciding a lawsuit brought by Nevada, a federal court earlier
this year found that the project does not meet safety standards
set by the scientific community.
“The scientific questions were not answered — not close – and
they approved it anyway,” Clinton said.
As president, Clinton vetoed a plan for the interim storage of
nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain. But he did not stop the progress
of the project.
Republicans say Bush kept his word and based his decision on the
scientific evidence gathered during the Clinton administration.
They also point to a series of Senate votes Kerry made in the
1990s to help move the project along, saying the candidate can’t
be trusted to keep his campaign promise.
Bush-Cheney spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt, said the presidential
race in Nevada is about more than Yucca Mountain.
“We believe this election to be about leadership and
credibility,” she said. “John Kerry is someone who has offered no
leadership and has zero credibility on Yucca Mountain. From the
beginning of this campaign, he has attempted to mislead the
voters about his record.”
Kerry said his Senate votes in the 1990s supported studying Yucca
Mountain. But he began voting against the project after 2001,
saying the studies have convinced him the project is not safe.
Peggy Rosch, a 62-year-old Las Vegas retiree who has lived in
Nevada for 45 years, said she trusts Kerry to stop the project.
“Anyone who lives in Nevada and does not vote for Kerry to stop
the nuclear waste dump, there is something wrong with them,” she
said.
Clinton’s speech, his second in Clark County this week, comes as
both campaigns focus their last efforts to get voters to the
polls on Tuesday.
Ed Gillespie, chairman of the Republican National Committee,
attended a rally of campaign volunteers Saturday in Las Vegas.
The cadre of volunteers will spend the weekend calling and also
knocking on voters’ doors throughout the state.
“Turnout, turnout, turnout,” Gillespie said of the Bush-Cheney
campaign’s final push in Nevada. “The most dangerous place to be
on Tuesday will be between a Bush voter and the polling place.”
Gillespie said the Kerry campaign has “been reduced to” spreading
fear, as public polls indicate Bush has a slim lead in Nevada.
He said Democrats are trying to scare seniors by saying Bush will
bankrupt Social Security, scare young people by talking about
reinstating the draft, scare workers by saying Bush will
eliminate overtime and scare African-Americans by saying the GOP
will interfere with them at the polls.
Copyright Reno Gazette-Journal, a Gannett Co. Inc.Newspaper. Use
*****************************************************************
29 Boston.com: Anger over nuclear-waste site might sway votes in Nevada
Boston Globe LAS VEGAS
By Susan Milligan, Globe Staff | October 30, 2004
LAS VEGAS -- In a state populated by people as different as
showgirls, Mormons, cowboys, and retirees, one issue unites
virtually all Nevadans: Yucca Mountain.
Nobody wants it to be a storage facility for radioactive waste.
"Would you want it in your backyard?" asked Maxine Ernst, 79, as
she waited to cast an early vote at a local mall. "I don't want a
toxic dump," added Louise Boyd, 56, a hotel inspector.
The question of where to put the nation's nuclear waste doesn't
come up outside the Silver State, which got saddled with the task
after a selection process spanning more than 20 years ended in
2002. But John F. Kerry's campaign hopes the highly emotional
local issue could swing critical votes their way. Bush won Nevada
in 2000 by 22,000 votes but signed a resolution two years later
to put the nuclear waste at Yucca, a site about 100 miles from
Las Vegas.
Yucca is one of several local issues in battleground states that
could prove decisive. In Florida, for example, a small number of
Cuban-Americans are upset about the administration's new,
tightened restrictions on family travel to Cuba, and polls show
Bush has lost some support among the Cuban-American community.
In Wisconsin, dairy issues may move some farmers. Democrats are
escorting Mary the Marathon Cow, a 30-foot inflatable bovine, to
taunt Bush on his campaign swings there. The Kerry campaign in
the Badger State charges that Bush failed to fight for the
extension of the Milk Income Loss Contract program, which
provides support to dairy farms.
Bush's campaign, driven more by broader themes, such as terrorism
and conservative cultural matters, may weather the localized
attacks. The president, for example, still enjoys overwhelming
support among Cuban-Americans, who tend to vote Republican, and
his antitax message is popular in Nevada. In a year when a small
number of votes could swing a state, the Kerry campaign and its
sympathizers are hitting the local issues hard.
"Yucca is part of a whole number of ways George Bush has not been
good to the State of Nevada," said Anne Sheridan, the Kerry
campaign's Nevada director. Kerry, on visits here this month and
in August, called the Bush administration's position on nuclear
waste "a symbol of the recklessness and arrogance with which they
are willing to proceed with respect to the safety issues and
concerns of the American people." Kerry has not proposed an
alternate site, saying he would have a blue-ribbon panel study
the matter.
Republicans counter that Kerry's record is inconsistent about
Yucca and say that Nevada, a state with solid economic growth and
a strong tradition of voting for Republican presidential
candidates, is Bush country. Still, the scheduled appearance here
Monday of Vice President Dick Cheney in Reno indicates the GOP
campaign is not secure about its chances here.
"We feel good about where we are in the race right now," but
"We're not taking anything for granted," said Tracey Schmitt,
spokeswoman for the Bush-Cheney campaign in Nevada.
Former President Bill Clinton, the only Democrat in the last 40
years to take Nevada in the presidential campaign, also rallied
voters in Las Vegas yesterday, a sign that Democrats believe they
can win an upset here. Recent polls indicate Bush in the lead,
but most of the poll results have been within the statistical
margin or error.
The poll numbers represent an ironic turnabout in political power
for the state. Nevada ended up receiving the Yucca dump in part
because it was a state with a small congressional delegation,
fighting such other dump candidates as Washington, Texas, New
Hampshire, Louisiana, and North Carolina. New Hampshire used its
power as the first primary state to be spared from the task.
Other states benefited from having congressmen as leaders of the
House or of key committees.
Now, Nevada finds itself wooed ardently for its five electoral
votes. Kerry has visited the state 11 times; Bush four times.
Monday will be Cheney's sixth visit here. Jon Ralston, a
political analyst who hosts a television show called "Face to
Face," said he has been stunned this year to score on-air
interviews with Bush-Cheney campaign manager Ken Mehlman and
Madeleine Albright, former secretary of state under Clinton.
"That would not happen unless they cared," he said.
Democrats and Bush critics are seizing on comments Bush made in a
2000 letter to Governor Kenny Guinn that he would "veto
legislation that would provide for the temporary storage of
nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain," a statement some took to mean
Bush would spare the state from being the nation's central
nuclear dump.
A Moveon.org ad in August accused Bush of breaking his promise on
Yucca, a sentiment echoed by some voters here, though Bush did
not explicitly pledge he would stop Yucca if "best science"
supported it. A Bush television ad on Yucca says Kerry voted
seven times for measures supporting the transport of nuclear
waste to Nevada. Kerry voted to stop Yucca in key votes in 1987
and 2002.
As he waited in line to vote, Earl Scott, 31, was critical of
Bush, saying, "The last thing we need is toxic waste in our
community." But he wondered if Kerry would be better. "He said
this and that" against Yucca, "but he also has a history of
saying the opposite." [ /]
[ /] © Copyright2004 The New York Times Company [ /]
*****************************************************************
30 Salt Lake Tribune: Utah appeals N-waste ruling
Article Last Updated: 10/30/2004 02:30:29 AM
U.S. Supreme Court is asked to review lower court's decision
By Patty Henetz The Salt Lake Tribune
The federal government has no business overruling state laws
blocking the transportation of spent nuclear fuel into Utah, the
governor and attorney general said Friday, especially when the
laws haven't even had a chance to be applied.
For that reason and others, the state is asking the U.S.
Supreme Court to review a lower court's decision on the proposal
to bring spent nuclear fuel to the Goshute reservation, Gov.
Olene Walker and Attorney General Mark Shurtleff announced in a
joint appearance at the Capitol.
Stopping a nuclear waste storage facility on the Skull Valley
reservation 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City is a states'
rights issue, Walker said.
"My first priority is the safety of Utahns. I oppose
high-level nuclear waste storage in Utah and hope the waste
never comes here," she said. "But history has taught us that a
strong framework of federal and state law is needed."
The state is petitioning the high court to review a 10th U.S.
Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in August that said the state
was wrong to pass laws in 1998 and 2001 intended to block the
project because Congress already had decided it was the federal
government, not the states, that is the authority on spent
nuclear fuel.
The ruling upheld an earlier decision from U.S. District
Judge Tena Campbell, and was considered a major setback in the
fight to stop a plan by a consortium of eight electric
utilities, known as Private Fuel Storage, to ship their deadly
nuclear power plant waste to Utah for open-air storage until it
could be taken to a permanent repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev.
The petition to the Supreme Court questions whether it was
proper for the 10th Circuit to issue what Utah Assistant
Attorney General Denise Chancellor called "an advisory
position." Chancellor, the attorney who would present the case
if the high court accepts it, said Utah also questions 10th
Circuit intervention into a "totally local" issue of road
transfers necessary to complete the PFS project.
The petition also asks for review of the project's
potential unfunded liability and the nature of PFS's limited
liability business structure.
Further, the appellate court "swept aside the Utah laws even
though the laws have not yet been applied, may never be applied
because the project still lacks the needed federal approvals"
and could be applied without usurping federal laws, the petition
claims.
PFS spokeswoman Sue Martin said she hadn't seen the state's
petition but that the consortium's lawyers were reviewing it.
"We understand it is certainly the state's right to appeal the
decision of the appeals court," she said.
The proposed license for the facility at the Skull Valley
reservation is now before the Atomic Safety Licensing Board,
which in mid-September completed three weeks of closed-door
hearings on the correctness of an earlier determination that the
possibility of a fighter jet crashing on the canistered waste
posed an unacceptable risk.
PFS wants to store as much as 44,000 tons of radioactive
waste from the nation's 103 commercial reactors, nearly all such
waste turned to nuclear power for cheap electricity.
The 4,000 steel-and-concrete casks would hold the waste on
100 acres of the reservation for up to 40 years. The
transportation plan would require shipping by rail, truck and
barge and the construction of a rail spur to the reservation.
The group has presented the project as a temporary solution
to the problem of the waste, which by federal law was supposed
to have been shipped to a permanent federal repository that was
to open in 1998. Utah has no nuclear power plants.
Multiple problems with the Yucca Mountain project, including
lawsuits, intractable opposition from the state of Nevada and a
lack of funding has made the new 2010 opening deadline unlikely.
Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry has vowed to kill
the Yucca Mountain project if he is elected.
A more fundamental problem with the PFS proposal recently
came to light: The contracts under which the Department of
Energy will accept the nuclear waste don't allow for PFS to
send the fuel to Yucca Mountain in sealed canisters. The PFS
proposal doesn't include a facility in Skull Valley that would
allow the private business to package the spent fuel to DOE
specifications.
Additionally complicating the PFS agreement with the Goshutes
are two federal indictments pending against tribal chairman Leon
Bear for embezzlement and tax fraud. Bear has been embroiled in
a leadership battle with the 121-member tribe since he signed
the contract with PFS on behalf of the tribe in 1997.
Utah officials fear that if PFS receives its 20-year
renewable license - and that could happen as early as January -
and the facility is built, what gets shipped here will never
leave.
Walker this week posted on her Web site a missive declaring,
"If it comes here, it will not leave," and concluding the only
way to manage PFS was to block it.
"Moving this stuff is a huge enterprise," said Assistant
Attorney General Jim Soper. "The attitude of the [nuclear]
industry is, 'If we can send it to Utah it will be there for
40 years.' I think once it gets here, it won't leave."
Soper said the state on Thursday sent a 200-plus page
response to the Atomic Safety Licensing Board's deliberations.
The state expected to receive a copy of PFS' response Friday.
Both sides then have three weeks to rebut each others' positions.
Candidates for governor, Republican Jon Huntsman Jr. and
Democrat Scott Matheson Jr., oppose the facility, as does all of
Utah's congressional delegation.
© Copyright 2004, The Salt Lake Tribune.
*****************************************************************
31 Las Vegas SUN: Key to Nevada's electoral votes may lie with Yucca Mountain
By CHRISTINA ALMEIDA ASSOCIATED PRESS
LAS VEGAS (AP) - The key to winning Nevada's five electoral
votes might lie with a ridge of volcanic rock some 90 miles
northwest of Las Vegas.
Yucca Mountain rises 4,950 feet over the Nevada desert on
federal land where no one lives. Yet a Bush-approved plan to
bury high-level nuclear waste there divides voters statewide and
threatens President Bush's ability to win the state again.
"This is the issue that will defeat Bush in Nevada," said Sen.
Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat polls show coasting to his fourth
term. Bush won here in 2000 by 3.5 percentage points, but polls
indicate the race with Sen. John Kerry is extremely close.
Nevada Attorney General Brian Sandoval, a Republican leading the
state's legal challenge to the plan, said he doesn't think it's
fair to blame the president for approving the project.
"He made a decision based on the information that was provided
to him," Sandoval said.
Yucca Mountain is in line to begin receiving 77,000 tons of the
nation's most radioactive waste by 2010. Nevada has battled the
plan for decades, but in 2002 Congress and Bush authorized the
site.
Kerry has vowed to kill the project if elected, saying he
prefers to keep the waste at nuclear power plants across the
country.
"It will take a Democratic president to stop this," said Rep.
Shelley Berkley, D-Nev.
During his only visit to Nevada in 2000, Bush said any decision
on Yucca Mountain would be based on "sound science." Democrats
believe the statement was enough to swing voters his way and now
contend the president didn't keep his promise.
Sen. John Edwards, a North Carolina Democrat, voted in favor of
the repository in 2002. Shortly before he joined the Democratic
ticket as Kerry's running mate, Edwards promised to oppose it if
he were vice president.
Kerry has opposed the project multiple times, including the
crucial 2002 vote that solidified Yucca Mountain's future.
"When it's counted, I've voted no to waste at Yucca Mountain,"
Kerry said during an August visit to Las Vegas.
However, Republicans point out that Kerry voted in favor of an
appropriations bill in 1987 that included a proposal to narrow
the number of potential repository sites from three to one -
Yucca Mountain.
Bush has accused his opponent of using the issue as "a political
poker chip" now and questioned what Kerry might do later. "My
point to you is that if they're going to change, one day they
may change again," he said.
"John Kerry is trying to take the moral high ground and he
cannot ... because of his record," said Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev.
"If Yucca Mountain was not an issue, George Bush would win
Nevada by 10 points."
---
On the Net:
Nevada Democratic Party: http://www.nvdems.com
Nevada Republican Party: http://www.nevadagop.org
--
*****************************************************************
32 Boston.com: State looks for cause of polluted well water
State looks for cause of polluted well water Boston Globe
Westford officials are choosing their words carefully as they
await a decision by state environmental officials on who is
responsible for the high levels of perchlorate discovered this
summer in the Cote Well. Joyce Pellino Crane October 31, 2004
--> WESTFORD
Officials, firms await decision on cause of well-water pollution
By Joyce Pellino Crane, Globe Correspondent | October 31, 2004
Westford officials are choosing their words carefully as they
await a decision by state environmental officials on who is
responsible for the high levels of perchlorate discovered this
summer in the Cote Well.
But they're not alone in their watchful reticence. A blasting
company and a quarry business are also taking note, because they
could wind up sharing responsibility.
The decision will have a significant impact on the town's
finances. The town has so far committed to spend $86,000 in
response to discoveries of perchlorate, and cleaning up the well
could cost as much as $1 million, according to a consultant.
"The more potentially responsible parties they can find . . . ,
the better off they are," said Zygmunt Plater, a Boston College
professor of environmental law.
But Plater said that determining the source of the contamination
can be tricky. "Ground water doesn't move in circles. It moves in
hydrological currents. It can go under mountains, under cities,
under rivers," he said. "It's very prosaic how often a local
government, seeing a problem of localized contamination, just
looks within its own political boundaries and the surface line
may have zero congruence with the path of ground-water flow."
Perchlorate has been a source of consternation for town officials
since July, when a sample from one of the town's nine
drinking-water wells registered levels higher than state
guidelines say is safe. The water-soluble chemical is used in
such things as explosives, airbag inflators, and some
fertilizers. At high levels, perchlorate can cause thyroid and
growth problems for certain people.
Since July, town officials have been awaiting the state's notice
of responsibility, which will tell them who is financially
responsible for the contamination. Town Manager Steven Ledoux,
who in the past six weeks has required all questions regarding
perchlorate to be funneled through his office, was brief in a
phone interview Tuesday.
"It's the [Department of Environmental Protection] who's going to
have to determine who is the responsible party," he said.
The Cote Well is located off Route 40, near the Stony Brook
School. When a perchlorate level of 3.3 parts per billion was
found there, state environmental officials immediately began
searching for a source, speculating that runoff had carried the
contaminant there. State guidelines call for concentrations no
higher than 1 part per billion.
The spotlight quickly fell on an elevated area at nearby North
Street when a stagnant pool of water at an abandoned industrial
site was found to have 819 parts per billion of perchlorate.
Along North Street is the site of the town's new Highway
Department garage, which is under construction, as well as a
quarry business called Tresca Brothers. Blasting has taken place
at both locations, and were conducted by Maine Drilling &
Blasting Co. of Gardiner, Maine. At the quarry site, the granite
beneath the surface was blasted to create gravel for roadwork. At
the highway garage site, the granite ledge was blasted to lay a
foundation.
No perchlorate was used at the Tresca site, said Maine Drilling
president Bill Purington. But he said the chemical was in
explosives used at the town's garage site, because the blasting
agent and the fuse mechanism are manufactured that way. Purington
expressed skepticism that perchlorate could penetrate the
environment after detonation because the chemical is destroyed
with the explosion.
"The industry has conducted testing and has generated scientific
data that represents the fact that the perchlorate is consumed in
the detonation process," he said.
Plater concurred, adding that "if it goes over 2,800 degrees
Fahrenheit, the physics of it is it cannot survive." But he
cautioned, "If there's incomplete combustion, the perchlorate can
precipitate."
The discovery of perchlorate is taking town officials into
unknown territory. So far, the town has borne the brunt of the
costs. At Town Meeting this month, voters approved a $55,000
appropriation from the capital budget to study a response to the
percholorate problem.
Another $31,000 was approved to run pipes from the town's water
distribution system to an Emily Way home where the property's
private well was found to be highly contaminated. The private
well is about a half mile from the Cote Well.
Robert Jefferies, chairman of the Board of Selectmen, said the
town is not taking responsibility for the private well, and
"we're reserving our rights to seek reimbursement" for the pipes.
Officials also have not determined how to remedy the
contamination of the Cote Well. Jefferies said an environmental
consultant made a recent presentation to selectmen, estimating
that the well's cleanup would cost as much as $1 million.
"We only authorized the first phase of the study," Jefferies
said, referring to the $55,000. He added that any further
requests for funding could be brought before the spring Town
Meeting.
Before spring, Department of Environmental Protection officials
are likely to issue the much anticipated notice of responsibility
to one or more parties, requiring some remedial action.
Preliminary test results early last week of pooled water at the
Tresca property registered less than 1 part per billion. That
test was sponsored by Tresca, and department spokesman Edmund
Coletta said the state environmental agency was awaiting its own
test results.
"We're going to await our test results and then start discussions
as to what the next step is," he said. "I really can't speculate
where we go from there."
Purington, while asserting his company intends to cooperate with
Massachusetts environmental officials and the town, expressed
concern.
"Some people need to place blame, and they're looking for a
political scapegoat," said Purington, who declined to elaborate.
Joyce Pellino Crane can be reached at crane@globe.com. [ /]
[ /] © 2004 The New York Times Company [ /]
*****************************************************************
33 UK Independent: Sellafield's clean-up costs to reach £1bn next year
By Clayton Hirst
31 October 2004
The new Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) is to spend £1bn
next year cleaning up and operating BNFL's controversial
Sellafield facility.
The revelation highlights the extent of the liabilities at the
Cumbrian plant, which was once to be the centrepiece of the
Government's privatisation plans for BNFL before they were
abandoned.
In its first year the NDA is proposing to spend £2.2bn sorting
out Britain's nuclear legacy, when it begins life in April.
According to its new draft plan, it needs to spend £534.3m on
decommissioning and cleaning up Sellafield, while £483.6m will
be needed to just keep the plant ticking over.
The plan also reveals that the NDA is relying on Sellafield to
balance its budgets. It estimates that the facility will
generate £860m income over the year, which will be ploughed back
into the NDA. According to its plan, some £275.7m of this will
come from electricity generation and, controversially, from the
sale of Mox fuel, made from spent nuclear fuel.
But the inclusion of Mox has led some to call the NDA's budgets
into question. The company has spent £473m on its Mox plant, but
technical problems have prevented the company from selling any
of the fuel. There are doubts whether it will ever make money
from Mox.
John Gummer, the former Conservative environment secretary, who
has called for a parliamentary inquiry into the Mox plant, is
one of the sceptics. He said: "I am very surprised that the NDA
has included Mox in its budget as there is no evidence that
[BNFL] has ever sold any of this fuel. The nuclear industry has
never got its figures right. It sounds to me that they have got
their numbers wrong again."
Mr Gummer said that he had received evidence that the design of
BNFL's Mox plant was flawed, as performing even simple
maintenance was logistically very difficult.
A spokeswoman for BNFL insisted that the design was "sound". She
added: "The first [Mox fuel] assembly is expected to be
completed in early 2005. The first Mox fuel order is for the
Swiss utility NOK."
UK Independent Ltd.
*****************************************************************
34 Las Vegas RJ: Clinton attacks Bush on Yucca
Sunday, October 31, 2004
Stumping for Kerry in Henderson, ex-president says election a
referendum on repository plan By CHRISTINA ALMEIDA
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
President Clinton speaks Saturday during a campaign appearance
on behalf of John Kerry at the Desert Willow Community Center in
Henderson.
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
A vote for President Bush is a vote for the controversial Yucca
Mountain nuclear waste dump, President Clinton said in a speech
Saturday in Henderson.
Using some of the starkest language yet in the campaign for
Nevada's five electoral votes, Clinton called Tuesday's vote a
referendum on the Yucca repository, an unpopular plan being
fought by both Democrats and Republicans in this battleground
state.
"If the president carries Nevada, the inescapable conclusion
will be the majority of the people of Nevada have voted to put
(nuclear waste) here," Clinton told a crowd of about 250 John
Kerry supporters at a senior center. "There is no other
conceivable explanation."
The issue of burying 77,000 tons of the nation's most
radioactive waste in the Southern Nevada desert has been at the
forefront of the presidential campaign in the state.
Democrats have attacked Bush's approval of the plan in 2002 and
promoted Kerry's vow to stop the project if elected.
"When John Kerry tells you he's not going to do it because the
science is not right, you know that," Clinton said. "And you
know what the president is going to do, because he's already
done it."
Nevada Democrats have accused Bush of breaking his 2000
campaign promise to base a decision on Yucca Mountain on "sound
science." They point to a federal appeals court ruling in July
that tossed out the project's radiation standard as inadequate
as proof Bush reneged on his promise.
State Republicans, however, claim the president relied on bad
science and say they have "agreed to disagree" on the issue.
Bush has accused Kerry of pandering to voters on the matter.
"If Kerry wins, they'll say you voted against it," Clinton
said. "If Bush wins, they'll say you voted for it. You can't get
out of it."
Bush campaign spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt dismissed Clinton's
comments as "last-minute campaigning by desperate Democrats."
"President Bush has been clear and consistent and forthright
with the citizens of Nevada," Schmitt said. "If you look at the
polls, Nevadans understand and appreciate that President Bush
based his decision on sound science rather than on a calculated
campaign strategy."
During Saturday's speech, Clinton also talked about Kerry's
plans for homeland security and health care. The former
president said the Bush administration believes health insurance
and drug companies should be making decisions for the American
people.
"If you want a high-cost, low-coverage plan, you should vote
for the president," Clinton said. "If you want a lower-cost,
higher-coverage plan, you should vote for Kerry."
Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie, who was in
Las Vegas to attend a rally with hundreds of volunteers, said
Clinton's visit will not have much impact on the presidential
race in Nevada.
"It does reflect the fact that Senator Kerry is experiencing
some lack of enthusiasm among some core Democrats, and I think
he hopes that President Clinton will correct that for him,"
Gillespie said. "But I don't believe that kind of charisma is
transferable. People are going to base their vote on John Kerry
and George W. Bush."
Also on Saturday, Wesley Clark praised Kerry at town hall
meetings in Reno and Elko.
The retired Army general criticized Bush's handling of the war
in Iraq, saying his "wrong choices" there have made America less
safe.
Clark was the latest in a string of Kerry surrogates who have
visited the state in recent days, including former Secretary of
State Madeleine Albright, actor Ed Norton and Kerry's sister,
Peggy Kerry.
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani campaigned on behalf of
Bush in Las Vegas on Tuesday, just hours before Kerry attended a
rally at a park across town.
Former Texas Gov. Ann Richards planned to campaign for Kerry in
Reno today, a day before Vice President Dick Cheney and his
wife, Lynne, are set to appear at rallies in Henderson and
Sparks.
Copyright Las Vegas Review-Journal
*****************************************************************
35 amarillo.com: Pantex gets new safety liaison
10/30/04
[Amarillo Globe News]
Nuclear Facilities Safety Board has appointed a new site
representative to oversee nuclear safety at the Pantex Plant.-->
Web-posted Saturday, October 30, 2004
Amarillo Globe-News
[Forums]
"Noticed in the Globe-News that the city voted for a fare
increase for Amarillo taxi service. Just wondering if there is
any standards for the cars the companies use- have you seen some
of the old beat up cars that are used as taxis here?" - From
q-tip [Join this discussion]
The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board has appointed a new
site representative to oversee nuclear safety at the Pantex
Plant.
David N. Kupferer, a member of the board's technical staff, will
report for duty Nov. 8 and will join Timothy Hunt, the board's
other site representative for Pantex.
Kupferer will advise the board on overall safety and health
conditions at Pantex, and will participate in board reviews and
evaluations related to the design, construction, operations and
weapons activities at the plant. He also will act as the board's
liaison with Pantex management and will represent the board
before state and local agencies, the public and industry
officials, according to information from the board.
Kupferer joined the board in August 2000. His previous board
assignments included staff activities linked to nuclear material
storage, radiological waste stabilization and processing, nuclear
facility design, and weapons assembly and disassembly.
He earned a master of engineering degree in materials science
and engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
He also graduated summa cum laude from the University of Michigan
with a bachelor's degree in science in mechanical engineering.
He and his wife, Shannon, plan to reside in Amarillo.
*****************************************************************
36 Newsday.com: Work to begin on cleanup of Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory
October 31, 2004, 10:14 AM EST
NISKAYUNA, N.Y. (AP) _ Contractors will soon begin dismantling
one of the buildings at Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory as an
early stage in the cleanup of low-level nuclear contamination
here.
The U.S. Department of Energy is expected to spend $200 million
to $240 million on the entire cleanup project, which should be
completed by 2014, according to Steven Feinberg, who is
overseeing the project for the federal agency.
The part of the facility being dismantled, the Separations
Process Research Unit, researched ways of recovering uranium and
plutonium from spent nuclear fuel. Those operations ended in 1953
and accumulated radioactive waste was shipped to other storage
facilities.
The Department of Energy now has responsibility for the lab
cleanup.
Knolls later shifted its research to nuclear naval propulsion,
which it continues today for the Energy Department as part of
Lockheed Martin. The lab employs more than 2,600.
The cleanup of the Separations Process Research Unit is part of a
federal initiative to deal with the environmental problems
associated with the nuclear arms buildup during the Cold War.
State and federal officials have said the contaminated areas pose
no imminent danger to human health or the environment.
Still, soil contaminated Radioactive contamination has been found
near some of the SPRU facilities, but in amounts and
concentrations deemed too low to pose a threat to people or the
environment, according to a government fact sheet.
There are also areas of high radioactivity inside the SPRU
complex, but officials say those areas have remained safely
isolated from people and the environment for the past 50 years.
Soil and water testing designed to pinpoint the contamination is
now slated to be completed next year.
Information from: The Daily Gazette, http://www.dailygazette.com/
Copyright © 2004, The Associated Press
*****************************************************************
37 Charleston.Net: SRS must compete for project
10/30/04
Modern Pit Facility site hasn't been set, congressman says
Associated Press
NEW ELLENTON--The Savannah River Site should have to compete in a
businesslike fashion for big federal Energy Department projects,
a key U.S. House budget writer said while touring the sprawling
facility.
Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio, on Thursday chilled some of the hope
people have for quick funding for future jobs that would come
with building a nuclear weapons trigger factory and a national
hydrogen fuel cell research center.
Some hoped that SRS would become the site of a $4 billion,
2,500-job Modern Pit Facility to build triggers for nuclear
weapons.
Hobson, chairman of the energy and water resources subcommittee
of the House Appropriations Committee, says a pit facility will
be much smaller than what the Energy Department envisions and
that more research is needed on the aging of plutonium used in
existing triggers.
"We don't have the science to build the Modern Pit Facility. We
don't know the size. We don't know where to site it yet," he
said.
While Hobson emphasized the need for research into other energy
sources, he said SRS and its research arm, the Savannah River
National Laboratory, would have to compete with other national
labs and university research centers for federal funding.
"I'm interested in keeping the science and finding the best way
of fitting this into the needs of the next century," he said.
The budget bill Hobson's subcommittee approved and that cleared
the House in July had no money for the trigger factory nor
expanding the role for Savannah River National Laboratory.
The measure cut funding for President Bush's hydrogen fuel
initiative as well as a program aimed at converting weapons-grade
plutonium into fuel for commercial nuclear reactors.
The visit came at the invitation of Rep. Gresham Barrett, R-S.C.
"The bottom line is, he said we needed a Modern Pit Facility,
but DOE needs to do more homework. We've got some homework to do,
and he's right," Barrett said.
Copyright © 2004, The Post and Courier, All Rights Reserved.
webmaster@postandcourier.com
*****************************************************************
38 [NukeNet] Fw: Elite v Non-Elite Law Schools
Date: Sun, 31 Oct 2004 17:11:15 -0800
Francis A. Boyle
Law Building
504 E. Pennsylvania Ave.
Champaign, Ill. 61820 USA
217-333-7954 (voice)
217-244-1478 (fax)
(personal comments only)
----- Original Message -----
From: Francis Boyle
To: 'AALS Section on Minority Grps. mailing
list'
Sent: Sunday, October 31, 2004 7:29 AM
Subject: Elite v Non-Elite Law Schools
Dear Colleagues:
The Faculties at such "elite" law schools like Harvard, Yale, Chicago
and Berkeley have made it perfectly clear to the legal community that they
are fully prepared to hire war criminals, warmongers and torturers to their
Faculties, and that they will then train their students to become war
criminals, warmongers, and torturers.. This is an appalling situation.
These so-called elite Law School Faculties are not fit to educate students.
These so-called elite Law School Faculties believe that they are above the
Law. The sheer arrogance of these so-called elite Law School Faculties
knows no bounds.
We should all recall how Muhamed Ali and other Black leaders educated
us all to understand the racist nature of the Vietnam War. Well Whitey is
at it again. This time Whitey is exterminating Brown people in Iraq in
order to steal their oil. The Lancet study just estimated that Whitey has
exterminated over 100,000 Brown People since the start of this racist and
genocidal war in 2003. If you have a look at my book Destroying World Order
(Clarity Press: 2004), you can see that the figures for Whitey
exterminating Brown people for oil in Iraq since the Bush Sr. War against
Iraq in 1991 is approaching about 2 million Iraqis.
Speaking of Vietnam, in December of 1964, Johnson had 140,000 troops
in that country, which is about what we have in Iraq right now. No matter
who wins on Nov. 2, Whitey's racist and genocidal war for oil in Iraq and
elsewhere will go on for a long time. If Bush Jr wins, it is going to get a
lot worse. We are in for a long struggle. Like Vietnam, this war will
divert time, energy and resources from the domestic agendas that we all
share in common to make America a much better place for Peoples of all
Colors and Classes. The war will make that impossible. Indeed, one of the
primary objectives of this war is to make that goal impossible.
For that reason, we non-elite Law School Faculties have to make it
very clear to the legal community that for the duration of this war, we are
not going to hire or train war criminals, warmongers and torturers. This is
not some academic game where "collegiality" counts. In addition to the dead
Iraqis, now over 1100 U.S. soldiers have been needlessly and senselessly
killed. And racist, warmongering, war criminal law professors at Harvard,
Yale, Chicago, Berkeley, Fletcher, Woodrow Wilson and Nitze/Sais , inter
alia, are personally responsible for their deaths. These 1100 dead U.S.
soldiers were our sons and our daughters, our brothers and our sisters, our
mothers and our fathers. At least we owe it to them to affirmatively reject
hiring racist war criminals, warmongers and torturers to our Faculties.
And we also need to make it clear to prospective law students that we are
not going to train them to become racist war criminals, warmongers and
torturers--in contrast to the elite schools such Harvard, Yale, Chicago,
Berkeley, Fletcher, Woodrow Wilson, Nitze/Sais where they will be trained
to become racist war criminals, warmongers and torturers. The Nazis had
their law professors too.
Francis
Francis A. Boyle
Law Building
504 E. Pennsylvania Ave.
Champaign, Ill. 61820 USA
217-333-7954 (voice)
217-244-1478 (fax)
(personal comments only)
_______________________________________________________________________
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39 [du-list] Book order: Depleted Uranium
Date: Sun, 31 Oct 2004 17:11:13 -0800
Dear Tara,
Would you please send to us 5 more copies of Depleted Uranium if they're
still available? Is the price the same? We'll need them in 2 weeks, Sat.
Nov.13, for the annual meeting of the Northeast Organic Farming Assoc.
(NOFA) where we'll be having our next literature table.
Our last copy went at a film showing of Highjacking Catastrophe (about the
Bush regime's taking advantage of 9-11 - very enlightening, though limited
in my opinion. It neglected to address the disastrous environmental costs
of our military adventures, and didn't address the unanswered questions
around 9-11 itself. Still it was long enough, and during the question and
answer period I raised the health and environmental damage and their cost.
Returning to our literature table, the last Depleted Uranium went as well
as several other books on nuclear weapons and power including Sara
Shannon's Diet for the Atomic Age, Rosalie Bertell's Planet Earth; the
Latest Weapon of War, and Janette Sherman's Life's Delicate Balance. We
had already distributed all of Chris Busby's wonderful Wings of Death;
Nuclear Pollution and Human Health and we've ordered more. We distribute
them at cost - no profit!
Are there others you can recommend? Cheers, Mitzi
Don't Waste Connecticut
97 Longhill Terrace
New Haven, CT 06515
(203)389-2067
upthesun@cshore.com
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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40 The Columbus Dispatch: Battelle at 75 A history of accomplishment |
+ Eye on the Experts
A future of promise Sunday, October 31, 2004 By Mike Pramik THE
COLUMBUS DISPATCH
Battelle began operations in October 1929 in Columbus as
Gordon Battelle’s tribute to his family.
The sandwich coin
The technology behind photocopying was developed. The Xerox
machine hit the marketplace in 1959.
Armor plating for U.S. Army tanks was developed by Battelle
and put into use during WWII.
Battelle fabricated uranium for the Manhattan Project, which
developed the atomic bomb.
Fuel was developed for the Nautilus submarine.
A cut-resistant golf ball
A strand of optical fiber can handle millions of phone
conversations at the same time.
Battelle studied the nutritional needs of humans in space for
NASA.
Battelle’s list of contributions to everyday life includes
compact-disc technology.
Compact discs and universal product codes. Nuclear submarines
and no-melt chocolate.
And, of course, the first Xerox machine.
In its first 75 years, Battelle has invented or helped evolve
many well-known 20 th century products and processes.
They’ve spanned the noted and the notorious.
Battelle fabricated uranium in the 1940s for the Manhattan
Project, which resulted in the first atomic bomb. High-level
radioactive waste is still being carried out of its plant in
West Jefferson.
The research institute established after the death of industrial
researcher Gordon Battelle has taken far-reaching steps from the
1920s, when its main function was recovering zinc from mines.
Battelle was solely a materials researcher in the organization’s
early days but later hit its stride, conducting contract
research and expanding into chemistry, physics and engineering.
These days, Battelle operates in more than 30 countries and has
9,278 employees, 2,602 of them in central Ohio. It’s wellknown
as a co-manager of several national laboratories, pushing
managed employment to 16,000.
Battelle President and Chief Executive Carl F. Kohrt said it
hopes to hear within a week whether Battelle and two partners
have won a bid to manage its fifth lab, the Idaho National
Laboratory, which he said would make Battelle "the largest
energy research-and-development organization in the world."
So what’s next?
Ask Steve Millett. Battelle’s socalled "thought leader" (it says
so on his business card) said he thinks there’s another Xerox in
Battelle’s future. Or, at least, an invention that will rival
the ubiquity and "wow" factor of the electronic copier.
It might not be a machine, though. It could be a fuel cell, a
cure for disease or a complex material.
"The next Xerox may be the next nylon," Millett said.
He recently surveyed active and retired senior leaders at
Battelle about what they think are the hot points in the
institution’s future.
Here’s what Millett came up with:
Advanced health care
Although its history began in metallurgy, much of Battelle’s
future will be tied to health care.
"The big picture is that health is going to be an enormous
issue," Millett said.
An example is work on the Mystic inhalation system produced by
Ventaira (formerly BattellePharma), a Battelle spinoff. The
product produces a fine mist that can help people with asthma.
At the Battelle-managed Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton,
N.Y., researcher Joanna Fowler is using brain imaging to help
fight nicotine addiction.
Other work is being done on vaccines against bioterrorism agents
and medical diagnostic equipment.
Renewable energy
Battelle is working on two types of fuel cells that have
potential applications in passenger vehicles and utilities. It’s
also conducting research in the use of solar power and
genetically engineered biofuels.
"We must find solutions to our carbon-energy issues," Kohrt
said. "There will be a lot of things in the next 20 years that
will be dramatically different. Energy will be at the focus."
Innovative materials
Battelle is researching a variety of materials, including the
use of nanofibers, advanced polymers and biomass products, which
are made of things such as soybeans, corn and food-processing
residue. Battelle has developed commercial applications for
soybeans, including industrialstrength hand soap and toner for
copiers and printers.
Other materials applications include use in medical equipment
and body armor for the military.
Megadata analysis
"Are we smarter? Or just being overwhelmed by a sea of bits and
bytes?" Millett asks.
Battelle is working on high-level advancements in data mining to
avoid the latter part of that question. They involve
manipulating extremely large amounts of data.
For instance, data mining now can be done in three dimensions to
solve problems involving items such as weather forecasting,
financial analysis and voice recognition.
Water purification
The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, which Battelle
manages, is conducting research on water purification and the
protection of rivers and streams.
Lab employees have developed a ceramic material to remove
contaminants from liquids faster and cheaper than other
processes. One challenge for the future is to develop an
affordable, whole-house water-purification system.
Millett predicts a worldwide water shortage is ahead.
"Some people think we’re going to see water wars in the future
with many of the same tensions of oil," Millett said.
Scientific education
Battelle has strived to become more than a building full of
workers in white coats. Revenue streams have come from training
and education, in addition to research and equipment
development, Millett said, especially for national-security and
defense customers.
That figures to continue considering Battelle’s growing role in
homeland security.
Revitalized nuclear power
Battelle has been on the forefront of nuclear power: It
fabricated uranium for the first atomic bomb, developed
prototypes of fuel elements for the first nuclear submarine and
helped develop the first largescale nuclear reactor at Oak Ridge
National Laboratory.
Nuclear power might have fallen out of favor, but Millett said
he thinks recent technological developments will make it more
acceptable in the future.
"If all of a sudden the price of coal becomes awful because of
environmental impacts, then nuclear electricity looks
attractive," Millett said.
Global climate change
The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory actively conducts
climate modeling and simulation, making Battelle a leader in the
area of global climate change.
Three years ago the lab joined with the University of Maryland
to create the Joint Global Change Research Institute to address
the subject. Battelle also contracts with the Department of
Energy in a Midwestern carbon-management program in
collaboration with business and academic partners.
Charitable donations
Battelle says it has contributed $165 million to charitable
causes, including $5.9 million in the most recent fiscal year.
Millett looks for that philanthropy to continue.
New welding technology
Research in the mid-’90s in Columbus on computational and
computer-based welding has Battelle primed to increase focus on
the discipline in the future.
Millett says Battelle is "on the cusp of commercializing these
breakthroughs" for industrial and government clients, which
could improve production of items such as automobiles and
military vehicles.
"No one has been able to optimize welding," Millett said. "We’re
coming very close to knowing exactly what welding needs to be to
withstand stresses."
mpramik@dispatch.com
©2004, The Columbus Dispatch
*****************************************************************
41 PRN: Lockheed Martin Statement Regarding Court's Ruling on Pit 9 Contract Dispute
PR Newswire - A United Business Media Company"
TITLE="http://www.lockheedmartin.com">
BETHESDA, Md., Oct. 30 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Lockheed
Martin Corporation (NYSE: LMT) learned late yesterday of the U.S.
District Court of Idaho's ruling in the Pit 9 case. We are
extremely disappointed with the court's decision, which we are
currently reviewing.
Because of the importance of the Pit 9 project to the U.S.
Department of Energy and the State of Idaho, we offered a plan
that would have led to the successful completion of the project
with a portion of the cost being recognized as a legitimate
claim.
The 1994 contract undertaken by the former Lockheed Company
(prior to the 1995 merger with Martin Marietta) was to clean up a
waste storage area where materials from nuclear weapons
production were buried.
Headquartered in Bethesda, Md., Lockheed Martin employs about
130,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the
research, design, development, manufacture and integration of
advanced technology systems, products and services. The
corporation reported 2003 sales of $31.8 billion.
For additional information, visit our web site:
http://www.lockheedmartin.com.
SOURCE Lockheed Martin Corporation Web Site:
http://www.lockheedmartin.com
*****************************************************************
NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 this
material is distributed without profit or payment to those who
have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for
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information go to:
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