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NUCLEAR POLICY
1 Mehr News: Third round of Iran-EU nuclear talks to begin in mid-Janu
2 Payvand: Schroeder confident over diplomatic solution to Iran nuclea
3 Korea Herald: If the intelligence doesn't fit, bend it
4 INSIDE JoongAng Daily: New Year's message from North: U.S. out
5 Korea Times: US Engagement With Two Koreas
6 Guardian Unlimited: North Korea Calls for D.C. Policy Changes
7 Mos News: Russian Court Extends Term of Custody for Suspected S Kore
8 Guardian Unlimited: Cautious Development Looms in North Korea
9 US: Cato: Miracles Are Unlikely in Bush's Middle East Gospel
10 US: Chicago Sun-Times: 'Axis of evil' tops on foreign policy to-do l
11 [NYTr] Al-Baradai Has No Competition for IAEA Job
12 The Hindu: India, Pak. exchange list of nuclear installations
13 UPI: Ex-Mossad chief warns of nuclear threat -
14 BBC: ElBaradei bids for new IAEA term
15 Xinhua: El Baradei only candidate for IAEA chief
16 AU ABC: El Baradei unopposed as nuclear watchdog.
17 Pakistan Times: Pakistan, India exchange list of nuclear facilities
NUCLEAR REACTORS
18 US: [NukeNet] First Chance To Affect Safety At Nuke Plants Across
19 US: [NukeNet] Attack On Nuke Plant Could Kill 3.6 Million, Even
20 Tsunamis & Nuclear Power Plants
21 Interfax: Shutdown procedure begins at Lithuanian nuclear plant
22 BBC: Lithuania shuts down atomic unit
23 US: toledoblade.com: Keep the atomic inspector
24 ITAR-TASS: Lithuania responds to EU demand, shuts down NPP unit
25 US: Infoshop News:- Nuclear Power and its Effects on Lake Ontario
26 US: Brattleboro Reformer: Board denies VY watchdog's request
27 US: Buffalo News: UB reactor fuel to be removed, shipped out
NUCLEAR SAFETY
28 [DU-WATCH] DEWS AND E BOMBS USED IN IRAQ? (they emit radiation)
29 Fw: DU, US troops, European parliament, genocide?
30 [du-list] Butchery by any other name
31 BBC: Nuclear subs planned for
32 US: The Ledger: Worker's Medical Claim Denied
33 US: Boston Globe: Opinion Bush failing at nuclear security
NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
34 Las Vegas SUN: Editorial: Keep fighting against Yucca
35 RGJ: Nevada is in no position to negotiate for ‘benefits’
36 US: Las Vegas SUN: 23,000 in Ark. Flee Hazardous-Waste Fire
37 US: HometownAnnapolis.com: Truck crash spills radioactive material o
38 US: Boston Globe: Perchlorate contamination
39 US: LA TIMES: Seeking the Smiling Face of Nevada's Nuclear Heyday
40 AU ABC: Uranium to be shipped to Darwin by rail
41 US: AU ABC: Safety regulator defends uranium transport trial »
42 US: AU ABC: Conservation group calls for uranium mine's closure.
43 US: AU ABC: WMC trial doubles uranium transport through SA »
44 US: AU ABC: WMC prepares for uranium rail transport trial »
45 Times &Star: CORE BLASTS NEW NUCLEAR WASTE POLICY
46 US: Bradenton Herald: Tallevast residents, others help spread the wo
NUCLEAR WEAPONS
US DEPT. OF ENERGY
47 Pocatello Idaho State Journal: Your Views: Plutonium production
OTHER NUCLEAR
48 Washington Times: Edward Teller
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FULL NEWS STORIES
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1 Mehr News: Third round of Iran-EU nuclear talks to begin in mid-January - Rowhani
MehrNews.com - Iran
Tehran: 20:36 ,
2005/01/01
TEHRAN, Jan. 1 (MNA) – Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National
Security Council Hassan Rowhani said here Saturday that the third
round of nuclear talks between Iran and the European Union will
start in mid-January.
During the talks, nuclear, economic, technological, political,
and security issues will be discussed, Rowhani told state
television.
Rowhani noted that Iran has gained membership in the Expert Group
on Multilateral Approaches to the Nuclear Fuel Cycle and will
take part in the group’s next meeting in January 10.
He also announced that a technical committee from Europe is due
to visit Iran over the next several days, adding the committee is
to hold talks on selling a research reactor to Iran.
Iran's top nuclear negotiator stressed that negotiations with the
Europeans aimed at easing international concerns over the Islamic
republic's nuclear program were on the right track, as quoted by
the AFP.
But Rowhani nevertheless said he was disappointed that one
promised incentive -- Iran's accession to the World Trade
Organization (WTO) -- had failed to materialize despite EU
support.
"As part of their commitments, the Europeans were supposed to
support Iran's membership of the WTO, which they did. But we feel
the Europeans did not support Iran enough. They have to get Iran
become a member," he said.
Under an agreement negotiated in Paris in November, Iran agreed
to voluntarily suspend all uranium enrichment activities in
return for trade, technology, nuclear and security incentives
from three principal EU powers, Britain, Germany and France.
"Although we are not totally pleased of the EU efforts,” he
mentioned “Since the Paris accord we can conclude the Europeans
have tried to meet their commitments."
Rowhani added that Europe has removed Iran’s nuclear dossier
from the agenda of the UN Security Council as well as helping
Iran join the IAEA’s nuclear fuel cycle group.
HL/MS End
MNA
© 2003 Mehr News Agency
*****************************************************************
2 Payvand: Schroeder confident over diplomatic solution to Iran nuclear case
www.payvand.com
Payvand's Iran News ...
12/31/04
Berlin, Dec 31, IRNA -- German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder
said on Friday he was confident that Iran's nuclear energy case
would be resolved through diplomatic ways.
"Germany has proved together with France and Great Britain that
such conflicts are diplomatically solvable," Schroeder said
Friday in an interview with the Hamburg-based Stern magazine.
The German leader also voiced confidence that the US was not
against Europe's diplomatic initiative toward Iran.
"I firmly assume that," added Schroeder.
Germany, France and Britain have been involved in sensitive talks
with Iran to finalize a long-term political, economic and
security agreement.
© Copyright 2004 NetNative
(All Rights Reserved)
*****************************************************************
3 Korea Herald: If the intelligence doesn't fit, bend it
By Wayne S. Smith The Baltimore Sun
2005.01.03
Editorial/Op-Ed
The function of intelligence should be to provide as accurate an
assessment as possible of a given situation to guide the
formulation of policy.
But the Bush administration doesn't see it that way; rather, it
sees intelligence as something it can cite to justify a policy or
an initiative it has already decided upon, as happened with Iraq.
And if the facts must be twisted, misstated or even invented to
justify that decision, fine. There is no commitment to truth.
Selig S. Harrison, chairman of the Task Force on U.S. Korea
Policy at the Center for Inter-national Policy, notes in the
forthcoming January edition of Foreign Affairs magazine that the
administration deliberately distorted its intelligence on North
Korea.
In October 2002, the administration suddenly accused Pyongyang of
secretly developing a program to enrich uranium to weapons grade
in violation of its 1994 agreement with Washington. It then
suspended the oil shipments the United States had been making to
North Korea under that accord. North Korea responded by expelling
international inspectors and resuming the processing of
plutonium, suspended under the 1994 agreement. We were back to a
crisis situation.
But, according to Harrison, a review of the available evidence
suggests that the Bush administration exaggerated the
intelligence and blurred the important distinction between
weapons-grade uranium enrichment and lower levels of enrichment.
The first would clearly have violated the 1994 agreement. The
second, while technically prohibited by the agreement, was
permitted under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and would
not have resulted in uranium suitable for nuclear weapons.
It was something the United States probably should have
questioned but not something over which we should have brought
U.S.-North Korean relations back to a crisis. But that is exactly
what the Bush administration did. The results could be dangerous.
It is as if the administration preferred a military confrontation
with North Korea to continued negotiations and inspections.
And, we see the same pattern with Cuba.
The administration charges that Cuba endorses terrorism as a
policy and represents a threat to U.S. security. But on the
contrary, Cuba has condemned terrorism in all its manifestations,
signed all 12 U.N. anti-terrorist resolutions and offered to sign
agreements with the United States to cooperate in combating
terrorism, an offer the administration ignores.
Nor is Cuba "harboring" Basque and Colombian terrorists, as the
administration alleges. Members of the Basque ETA and the
Colombian groups Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia and the
National Liberation Army are in Cuba, but with the full knowledge
of their governments. Both Spain and Colombia stress that they
have no evidence that Cuba is involved in terrorist activities
against them.
There are a number of American fugitives from justice in Cuba,
yes, but even under our own legislation that provides no grounds
for declaring Cuba a terrorist state; it certainly poses no
threat to the United States. Further, if Cuba does not regularly
extradite U.S. fugitives, the United States has not in more than
45 years extradited a single Cuban, including known terrorists
guilty of multiple murders.
But the most flagrant misrepresentations are those of
Unde-rsecretary of State John R. Bolton, who charges, most
recently on March 30, that Cuba "is known to be developing a
limited biological weapons effort" and "remains a terrorist and
BW threat to th
e U.S."
Bolton cannot produce evidence of that, of course. Various U.S.
delegations led by the Center for Defense Information have gone
to Cuba and seen no evidence to suggest that this is the case. As
retired Marine Gen. Charles Wilhelm put it after one visit,
"While Cuba certainly has the capability to develop and produce
chemical and biological weapons, nothing that we saw or heard led
us to the conclusion that they are proceeding on this path "
In short, the administration has not presented evidence that Cuba
supports terrorism or has mounted a BW weapons effort. It simply
alleges this to be true. But just as it did in Iraq, on the basis
of alleged evidence, it is moving toward confrontation with Cuba.
It has virtually cut off all dialogue, has drastically reduced
travel, tightened sanctions and called for the ouster of Fidel
Castro's government.
Under its policy of pre-emptive warfare, the Bush administration
reserves the right to take military action against any state
deemed to be a threat to the United States.
It has now said that Cuba poses such a threat. It probably has no
intention of taking military action against Cuba, not with troops
already in Iraq and Afghanistan. Still, Cuba should be prepared
for the worst.
Nor is this pattern of intelligence-tailoring likely to be
corrected by the intelligence-reform law. Not with President
Bush's newly appointed CIA director, J. Porter Goss, now cleaning
out those at the CIA who dared to voice opinions contrary to
those of the administration. Goss has insisted that all hands
must unwaveringly "support the administration and its policies."
Wayne S. Smith, a senior fellow at the Center for International
Policy, served with the State Department in Havana and Moscow. -
Ed.
*****************************************************************
4 INSIDE JoongAng Daily: New Year's message from North: U.S. out
January 3, 2005 KST 13:54 (GMT+9)
January 03, 2005 ¤Ń In a New Year's Day message to the North
Korean people, Pyeongyang demanded that the United States stop
its attempt to "militarily suffocate" North Korea and urged the
withdrawal of U.S. forces from the Korean Peninsula.
A joint commentary by three state-run newspapers Saturday said,
"All Koreans should work towards withdrawing all U.S. troops
from South Korea and rooting out the source of nuclear war."
Every year since 1995, the Workers' Party newspaper Rodong
Sinmun and newspapers published by the military and a national
youth organization have run a joint commentary on the first day
of the year. It is considered North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's
New Year's message.
The statement did not address inter-Korean talks or the nuclear
crisis, but urged a rise in agricultural production.
Copyright by Joins.com, Inc. Terms of Use |
*****************************************************************
5 Korea Times: US Engagement With Two Koreas
[New Year Special]
Hankooki.com > The Korea Times > Special
This is the second in a series of New YearˇŻs contributions by
noted Korean and foreign scholars concerning the prospects on
different issues, including inter-Korean relations, North
KoreaˇŻs nuclear programs, the situation on the Korean peninsula
and the South Korea-U.S. alliance. - ED.
By David I. Steinberg
A distinguished American commentator on Korean affairs recently
wrote that President George W. Bush was becoming increasingly
impatient with his critics, both American and Korean, of his
policies. As Bush starts his second and last term, he is faced
with an important dilemma on how to deal with North Korea and
its nuclear capacity and ensure that his legacy is not
tarnished, or not more tarnished if events in Iraq turn more
negative. The North Korean nuclear dilemma must be resolved in
some manner that gives the U.S. president, and the United States
as a whole, ``face.ˇ± Face, or if one prefers, ``respect,ˇ± is
not just an Asian concept; it is universal. Bush must also work
towards continuing an effective alliance with South Korea, for
its loss would be a stain on his administration.
Bush may be impatient with President Roh Moo-hyun and the South
Korean governmentˇŻs position on North Korea, which
significantly differs from his, but what this commentator
neglected to mention was that Roh is also impatient, and with
even more reason. He, too, needs face. The Korean president
serves only one term of five years, and Roh has only three years
left in office. So if Bush is considered a lame duck, then Roh
is even more of one. And Roh is certainly more exposed than
Bush. North Korea is obviously an important priority for the
Bush administration, but only one of a number of issues, and
should have been one earlier had the administration not been
preoccupied with Afghanistan, Iraq, and terrorism in general,
with the president asserting his moral position on the evilness
of the regime and its leader in the North. But where Korean
affairs are simply part of the U.S. global agenda, they quite
naturally preoccupy any South Korean president. The most
important element of policy in the South is how to deal with the
North, an importance that has not wavered (even if its content
may have shifted, as airlines remind us about baggage stowed
above) since independence in 1948.
Roh, in spite of a long history of statements questioning U.S.
policy and its effect on South Korea and the peninsula, has
moved toward the center since assuming office to reassure the
U.S. that the 51-year-old alliance was still important. To that
end, he has alienated some of his younger supporters. He has
also defied public opinion by sending the third-largest
contingent of combat troops to Iraq to support the coalition (a
contribution that Koreans noted was conspicuously absent in
BushˇŻs comments on the coalition). A series of internal policy
actions have alienated much of the political center and right.
These include an attempt to move the capital from Seoul, a
``truth commissionˇŻˇŻ for investigating those who collaborated
with Japan during the colonial period, the elimination of the
National Security Law, a plan to control the opposition press, a
continuation of the ``sunshine policyˇŻˇŻ of President Kim
Dae-jung, discussions concerning doing away with or moving Seoul
National University, and the exclusion of many of the older,
internationally oriented elite from significant posts. But by
sending troops, he has in part alienated the younger left _ his
core support group. It is no wonder that his popularity has
dropped.
The visit by Secretary of State Colin Powell to Korea in
November indicated that the policy gaps between Washington and
Seoul on relations with Pyongyang were still very wide. The trip
failed to resolve any of the problems between the two states on
how best to deal with the North. At the same time, each month
that passes gives the North the opportunity to strengthen its
nuclear abilities, whatever they may be and for whatever
purposes they may have been developed. Whether they are a
bargaining chip with the U.S. for recognition, aid and security
guarantees, or whether North Korea wants to be a nuclear power
is unclear. If there is any agreement in U.S. policy circles
across the political spectrum, it is that North Korea cannot be
trusted and that ironclad guarantees are necessary for any
agreement. The government and people of South Korea are more
sanguine about the North and its nuclear reality or potential,
some believing, in what must be a considerable leap of faith,
that North Korea would never use nuclear weapons against the
South. Roh has said that a nuclear-armed North Korea is not
acceptable, as the U.S. has also stipulated, but how to get from
here to there is the problem. And to get there while giving Kim
Jong-il face as well.
A high official in the first George W. Bush administration is
said to have privately remarked that U.S. policy on the Korean
peninsula is two-fold: maintaining the alliance with South Korea
and regime change in the North. This may be an oxymoron, as a
the political collapse of North Korea is counter to South Korean
policy. It would also seem to be counter to Chinese interests on
the peninsula.
Although many in U.S. policy circles worry about the Roh
administrationˇŻs North Korean policy, the U.S. must be
conscious of the salience of North Korean policy to the
political legitimacy of any present South Korean administration.
Posturing by the U.S. and the public use of pejorative
expressions are counter-productive and should be ended, and real
negotiations should take place with both the North and South. It
is important for the future stability of Northeast Asia that the
U.S. remains positively engaged with both states.
David I. Steinberg is distinguished professor and director of
Asian studies at the School of Foreign Service of Georgetown
University.
01-02-2005 21:46
*****************************************************************
6 Guardian Unlimited: North Korea Calls for D.C. Policy Changes
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Saturday January 1, 2005 3:31 AM
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North Korea issued a New Year's
message on Saturday telling its impoverished people that U.S.
actions on the Korea peninsula could lead to war.
A joint editorial carried by North Korea's Rodong Sinmun and two
other major state-run newspapers said that ``the U.S. moves
against the DPRK have become more pronounced and they are
increasing the danger of a war on the Korean Peninsula.''
North Korea traditionally marks New Year's Day with a joint
editorial by the country's three major newspapers representing
its communist party, military and youth militia force.
``The U.S. should give up its attempt to stifle the DPRK by
force of arms and make a switchover in its hostile policy toward
it,'' the editorial said, using the acronym for the communist
state's official name - Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
A ``switchover'' in U.S. policy is a key demand North Korea
wants fulfilled before rejoining six-nation talks aimed at
ending its nuclear weapons programs.
The United States, the two Koreas, China, Japan and Russia have
held three rounds of talks since last year to find a way of
ending North Korea's nuclear ambitions. But no breakthroughs
were reported. A fourth round scheduled for September never took
place because the North refused to attend, accusing Washington
of plotting to invade it.
Washington wants an immediate end to all the North's nuclear
activities. North Korea insists that it needed a nuclear
``deterrent'' to guard against U.S. invasion, and says it will
abandon it only if the United States provides economic
compensation and security guarantees.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
7 Mos News: Russian Court Extends Term of Custody for Suspected S Korean
Smuggler of Radioactive Materials
- NEWS - MOSNEWS.COM
[Russian police, photo from Gazeta.ru]
Created: 31.12.2004 12:57 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 12:58 MSK
MosNews
A court in Russia’s far-eastern region of Sakhalin has ruled to
keep a South Korean national in custody for two months on
suspicion of an attempt to import radioactive materials to
Russia, the Sakhalin Region transport prosecutor, Viktor Dedov,
told the RIA-Novosti news agency Friday.
The city court of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk upheld prosecutor’s request
to remand Kim Jong-Hyun, the president of All Nations Co., in
custody pending investigation. The court took the decision
because the foreign national does not have a permanent address in
Russia and may flee. The prosecutor’s office has 10 days to
officially charge the suspect.
The South Korean businessman was detained earlier this week for
illegally importing radioactive instruments. His company had
tried to smuggle in equipment that was so radioactive that it
could be fatal within a three-meter range.
Kim Jong-Hyun was detained after a foreign ship carrying 13
radioactive instruments that included non-enriched Uranium-238
arrived in the port of Korsakov, the Itar-Tass news agency
reported.
The equipment, which was giving off radiation that was measured
to be 200 times the normal amount and deadly within a three-meter
range, were intended for a foreign company that was building a
factory to liquefy natural gas.
The documents accompanying the radioactive equipment were all
forged.
Write us: info@mosnews.com
Copyright © 2004 MOSNEWS.COM
Designed by kB "Gazeta.Ru"
*****************************************************************
8 Guardian Unlimited: Cautious Development Looms in North Korea
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Sunday January 2, 2005 7:31 PM
By BURT HERMAN
Associated Press Writer
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - Streets in the North Korean capital
Pyongyang are lined with sidewalk stalls selling snacks and
beer, the restaurant scene is growing and semi-liberalized
markets are becoming centers of trade in imported food and
clothes.
This is the new face of North Korea, say recent visitors, and
the most visible result of changes to the communist state's
economy that are starting to bear fruit - and potentially dim
the prospects for an economic meltdown disrupting leader Kim
Jong Il's hold on power.
It's hardly an economic boom, especially compared with rival
South Korea, the world's 11th-largest economy. Still, times in
the North are not quite as tough as they once were for the
fortunate few able to afford it - amounting to a sea change in a
nation where all forms of capitalism previously were banned.
A stroll through Pyongyang provides proof of the positive
economic trend, visitors say.
North Koreans perch in ground-floor apartment windows selling
dumplings and cakes, smoked fish, beer and soft drinks, said
Leonid Petrov, a fellow at the Korea Foundation in Seoul who
visited Pyongyang in August. People sew or repair clothes from
small workshops. At night, vendors set up pojangmachas - small
tents selling street food that are a frequent sight in Seoul.
In markets, vendors hawk Chinese noodles and candy, clothes,
bags and boots, Petrov said. People also can buy secondhand
computers and are increasingly going online to chat on the
country's internal version of the Internet that is blocked off
from the outside world.
``Everything is on sale in North Korea,'' Petrov said.
New restaurants are springing up in Pyongyang, where
business-savvy owners offer dishes on the house and discounts
for return customers - part of a new sense of entrepreneurship
that has emerged in the past year, said Kathi Zellweger of the
Roman Catholic charity Caritas, who has visited North Korea 47
times - the last time in September.
``Before, people had no idea about costs or prices. Now, it's
dinner table conversation,'' she said.
A new report by the South's Unification Ministry says there are
350 restaurants and 150 bars operating in Pyongyang, with some
even selling hamburgers. There are also 24-hour stores and
computer cafes, and karaoke and pool halls stay open late, the
report said.
The opening of markets also has led to harder times for many,
however.
U.N. agencies say that rising prices and harvest shortfalls mean
food aid still will be required for more than 6 million North
Koreans this year. There are price caps at the new markets on
key items like rice and corn, but that has not stopped costs
from soaring out of reach of many North Koreans, with a whole
month's regular salary only enough to buy about 8.8 pounds of
rice.
The changes also have yet to make much of an impact outside the
capital, and government spending still is heavily focused on the
country's vast military.
Analysts differ on whether the opening of North Korea's economy
amounts to a real change in the isolated regime's thinking or is
just a reaction to people taking matters into their own hands to
survive.
The government is moving slowly to avoid any instability, and so
far the economic changes do not appear to have weakened the
regime, said Peter Beck, director of the North East Asia project
for the International Crisis Group think tank.
But a recent report from Japan's intelligence agency warned the
widening gap between rich and poor could lead to a shake-up,
saying increasing theft and robbery show the regime's tight grip
on the country is being pried open.
The cautious growth in North Korea's economy was fostered by
moves in July 2002 to scale back elements of the centrally
planned economy and allow prices to be set by the market. The
North also has been boosted by foreign aid that helped the
country cope with disastrous floods and poor harvests in the
1990s.
``We believe that the North Korean economy is not getting
worse,'' said Yang Jeong-hwa, a spokeswoman at South Korea's
Unification Ministry, in charge of handling policy with the
North.
The country's gross national income went from $15.7 billion in
2001 to $18.4 billion in 2003, Yang said, an increase of 17
percent.
``There is some achievement,'' she said.
Roger Barrett, managing director of Hong Kong-based Korea
Business Consultants that advises companies seeking to enter the
North Korean market, is bullish about opportunities there. His
firm has helped foreign companies doing everything from gold
mining to textiles to consumer goods work in the North.
``There is economic reform and there's been significant shifts
in thinking,'' Barrett said. ``Those who are employed in
companies to develop profitable business are thinking on exactly
the same lines as everybody doing business around the world.''
There are also risks to investing in a country where money
safeguards and the regime's stability are issues of concern,
along with the fact that, in the past, politics have always
trumped business.
Still, the lack of competition enables the few willing to work
there to negotiate favorable deals, Barrett said. ``Business is
not as difficult as you might think,'' he said.
Joint economic projects between the Koreas are also starting to
see results and provide a way for the North to circumvent its
pariah status.
In December, the first products - kitchen pots - were shipped
from a special economic zone in Kaesong, just inside the North's
border, and delivered to a Seoul department store where they
were snapped up by shoppers looking to own a piece of history.
Whatever the economic prospects, the continuing crisis over
North Korea's refusal to abandon its nuclear weapons programs
means the country remains off-limits to many and subject to
sanctions that ban it from receiving foreign loans.
``There are real changes going on, but unless North Korea is
given access to international assistance, they are not going to
succeed,'' Beck said.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
9 Cato: Miracles Are Unlikely in Bush's Middle East Gospel
[The Cato Institute]
January 1, 2005
by Charles V. Peńa
Charles V. Peńa is director of defense policy studies at the Cato
Institute.
A week after the U.S. presidential election, Secretary of State
Colin Powell - often considered the moderate and realist in the
Bush administration's first term - defended President George W.
Bush's foreign policy record and said he "is not going to ...
trim his sails or pull back. It's going to be a continuation of
his principles, his policies, his beliefs." At the beginning of
December, in Canada, Bush declared that the election was an
endorsement of his foreign policy, especially the doctrine of
preemption against gathering threats. He also reiterated his
vision of spreading democracy in the Middle East. So what should
we expect there during the next four years?
In Iraq, more than 18 months have passed since Bush declared
"mission accomplished," but the conflict is still unfinished
business. Re-taking Fallujah in November was more about real
estate than realizing military or political-strategic objectives.
Public enemy number one in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was not
captured or killed. And it would seem that the vast majority of
the 5,000-6,000 insurgents alleged to be in Fallujah simply ran
away to fight another day. Indeed, even as victory was being
declared, insurgents struck in Mosul and Samarra. More recently,
there were back-to-back suicide bombings inside Baghdad's Green
Zone.
Iraq has come to resemble the arcade game Whack-A-Mole, where
every time you hit a mole as it pops out of a hole another one
pops up out of a different hole.
Despite the inability of the American military to put down the
insurgency, the Iraqi elections in January are still likely to
take place. In fact, the U.S. has almost no choice but to hold
elections - even if many Sunnis boycott them and if some segments
of the population are unable to vote because of the violence. If
elections are not held as promised, the majority Shiites will
have every reason to more actively oppose the U.S. occupation and
the interim Iraqi government, this time also using violence. Of
course, elections are no guarantee of peace and stability either.
The outgoing CIA Baghdad station chief's assessment, as recently
reported in the media, was that the security situation in Iraq is
likely to deteriorate unless the new Iraqi government can assert
its authority. But if 150,000 well-trained American troops cannot
impose security and stability on Iraq, what are the realistic
prospects that half-trained heavily-infiltrated Iraqi security
forces can do a better job? The fact that the Iraqi National
Guard and police are regular targets of insurgent attacks, and
reports that half or more of Iraqi policemen don't show up for
duty aren't cause for optimism. So, then, the question becomes
whether the administration will increase U.S. forces in Iraq. But
that step runs the risk of increasing the already substantial
anti-American sentiment and expanding the insurgency.
Increasingly, Iraq looks like a no-win situation. Barring an
unforeseen miracle, the conflict there is an albatross that will
likely hang around the administration's neck for the next four
years.
In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Bush has said (with British
Prime Minister Tony Blair at his side) that he would work toward
"a just and peaceful resolution ... based on two democratic
states - Israel and Palestine - living side-by-side in peace and
security." But like every administration since Lyndon Johnson's,
the Bush administration is not likely to be successful. That's
not because of a lack of sincerity, a good plan, or hard effort,
but because a true and lasting peace between Israelis and
Palestinians cannot be imposed by an outside power - especially
one that most people in the Arab world do not see as an honest
broker. For an accord to be reached, both sides have to want
peace more than everyone else.
There is some glimmer of hope from the Palestinian side. Mahmoud
Abbas, the frontrunner to succeed Yasser Arafat, has called for
an end to the armed intifada. But this is not a popular view with
everybody and, so far, Abbas has not been able to rein in the
militants.
Even if Abbas is able to stop the violence, there remain the
issues of Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territories and the
right of return for Palestinian refugees displaced by the
creation of Israel. And if these difficult issues can be
resolved, there is still the question of Jerusalem, a city
considered holy to both Jews and Palestinians - with neither side
willing to concede control to the other.
So, as in the case of Iraq, it would seem that resolving the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict would also take a miracle.
In Iran, given that American troops are currently bogged down in
next-door Iraq, realism and prudence would dictate that military
action is unlikely. Indeed, according to British Foreign
Secretary Jack Straw, an American attack against Iran is
"inconceivable." But it would be a mistake to presume that a
military option is completely out of the question. Indeed, it may
be more likely than not.
Bush named Iran as part of his "axis of evil" and has used
rhetoric that is eerily similar to what he said about Iraq before
launching the war there. Even though the U.K., Germany and France
have reached an agreement with Iran to temporarily halt its
uranium enrichment activities, Bush has said, "the only good deal
is one that's verifiable." If one believes a Washington Post
report that the administration tapped International Atomic Energy
Agency director general Mohammed al-Baradei's phone, this
suggests the U.S. doesn't trust his institution's ability to
verify a nuclear deal. Further evidence of the administration's
lack of faith in any agreement with Iran was a Los Angeles Times
report that at a fall meeting with European allies to hammer out
an approach to Iran's nuclear ambitions, Undersecretary of State
John Bolton refused to back European negotiations with Iran and
insisted that Iran should be brought before the UN Security
Council to condemn its nuclear weapons program.
Finally, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith -
considered one of the architects of the administration's Iraq
policy - told The Jerusalem Post: "I don't think that anybody
should be ruling in or ruling out anything while we are
conducting diplomacy." All the writing on the wall doesn't mean
military action against Iran is certain, but it may take a
miracle to hold back the dogs of war.
In the gospel according to John, Jesus was able to perform three
miracles: giving a blind man sight, walking on water and raising
Lazarus from the dead. Anything resembling success in the Middle
East will also require three miracles, but don't expect any
during Bush's second mandate.
This article appeared in the Daily Star (Lebanon), December 28,
2004.
1000 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W. Washington D.C. 20001-5403 Phone
(202) 842-0200 Fax (202) 842-3490 All Rights Reserved © 2004 Cato
Institute
*****************************************************************
10 Chicago Sun-Times: 'Axis of evil' tops on foreign policy to-do list
[Chicago Sun-Times]
January 2, 2005
BY ANNE GEARAN
WASHINGTON -- The three countries President Bush called an
''axis of evil'' in his first term are at the top of his foreign
policy to-do list in the second, along with a revitalized
Mideast peace process and continued efforts to repair European
alliances frayed by the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
War and reconstruction in Iraq are likely to continue to
command more attention than any other international issues, at
least for the first couple of years of Bush's new term.
''The first priority has got to be getting Iraq right,'' said
Max Boot, a conservative expert at the Council on Foreign
Relations.
Iraq elections critical
On Iraq, the administration will get a real and perceived boost
in credibility if elections scheduled for Jan. 30 come off well,
Boot and others said. Another round of elections is planned for
later in 2005.
''The odds are in our favor, but defeat is not out of the
question,'' Boot said. ''I think it's 60-40 in our direction.''
Delaware Sen. Joe Biden, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee, said he found the security situation in
Iraq worse during a trip in December than on three previous
visits since the invasion. ''We basically have no trouble
achieving any military objective; we have considerable trouble
securing it,'' he said.
Diplomacy for Iran, N. Korea
Iran and North Korea, the other two countries in Bush's famous
axis, loom nearly as large as Iraq. The United States suspects
both countries are on their way to possessing nuclear weapons,
or already have them. Both have repressive governments that
could interfere with their neighbors or worse.
Bush must decide how much to push Iran and North Korea
diplomatically; how much to cooperate with European efforts to
contain the nuclear threats, and how much to listen to hawks in
his own government who may press for a limited air strike
against Iranian nuclear facilities.
AP
Copyright 2005, Digital Chicago Inc.
*****************************************************************
11 [NYTr] Al-Baradai Has No Competition for IAEA Job
Date: Sun, 2 Jan 2005 12:08:14 -0600 (CST)
Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
Al Jazeera - Jan 2, 2005
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/7C4CBE33-54B9-481A-8F07-9943A932CE95.htm
Al-Baradai sole player for IAEA job
Muhammad al-Baradai will run unchallenged for a third term as head of
the United Nation's nuclear watchdog despite Washington's campaign to
oust him.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Saturday said
al-Baradai was alone in the race for the organisation's top job as no
other candidates had come forward before the deadline for nominations
at the turn of the year.
"No new candidates were submitted for the position of director
general," IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said.
Al-Baradai, an Egyptian lawyer, has headed the IAEA since 1997.
US opposition
Some US and other countries' officials have privately complained that
he was soft on Iran and Iraq. They also accused him of withholding
information from the IAEA board of governors - information that could
have boosted the US campaign to refer Iran to the UN Security Council
for economic sanctions.
Al-Baradai says there is no clear proof that Washington is right about
Iran seeking the nuclear bomb. But he has repeatedly said the jury was
still out.
Countries on the IAEA's 35-nation board of governors will attempt to
reach a consensus before deciding whether to re-elect al-Baradai.
Diplomats say that could take several months given Washington's
opposition to him.
However, Washington's efforts to oust him were damaged last month by
allegations that the United States had access to wiretaps on
al-Baradai's telephone.
The administration of US President George Bush has a long history of
dissatisfaction with al-Baradai, which began with his refusal to back
US allegations that Saddam Hussein had revived his clandestine atom
bomb programme.
Agencies
*
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12 The Hindu: India, Pak. exchange list of nuclear installations
Saturday, January 1, 2005 : 1340 Hrs
New Delhi, Jan. 1. (PTI): For the 14th consecutive year, India
and Pakistan today exchanged lists of nuclear installations and
facilities under a 1991 agreement.
The lists, exchanged through diplomatic channels, are covered by
the Agreement on the Prohibition of attack against Nuclear
Installations and Facilities between the two countries signed on
December 31, 1988 and which came into force on January 27, 1991.
Under the agreement, the two countries are to inform each other
of the nuclear installations and facilities on January 1 of
every calendar year.
The first such exchange took place in 1992, the External Affairs
Ministry said here.
Copyright © 2004, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of
the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the
written consent of The Hindu
*****************************************************************
13 UPI: Ex-Mossad chief warns of nuclear threat -
(United Press International)
January 02, 2005
JERUSALEM, Israel, Jan. 2 (UPI) -- Israel's former Mossad chief
said Sunday that Israel should look beyond the nuclear threat of
Iran to Syria, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
Former Mossad head and and former national security adviser
Ephraim Halevy told the Jerusalem Post Pakistan's A.Q. Khan had
been "purveying his goods extensively in the Middle East."
"Maybe we should be looking beyond the lamppost. Maybe the
lamppost is Iran and we should be looking elsewhere," he said.
Halevy stressed that he had no firm information and he did not
have any recent access to classified information, but it "could
well be" that Syria, Saudi Arabia and Egypt might have a nuclear
capability Israel was not aware of.
"It's certainly something that should be looked at," he said.
The New York Times reported last week that while, U.S. President
George W. Bush has said the Khan network has been dismantled,
U.S. intelligence officials and the International Atomic Energy
Agency are still untangling information on Khan's travels to 18
countries in the years before his 2004 arrest.
[UPI Perspectives]
*****************************************************************
14 BBC: ElBaradei bids for new IAEA term
Last Updated: Saturday, 1 January, 2005
By Bethany Bell BBC News, Vienna
[Mohamed ElBaradei]
The Egyptian diplomat has frequently been in the spotlight
The head of the UN nuclear watchdog, Mohammed ElBaradei has
emerged as the only candidate for the post of the agency's next
director general.
Mr ElBaradei hopes to be re-elected for a third term, but the US
does not want his mandate to be renewed.
Privately, some US officials have complained that Mr ElBaradei -
who has held the post since 1997 - has been too soft on both Iran
and Iraq.
He has led the International Atomic Energy Agency through
turbulent times.
Tensions
The deadline for nominations for the post of director general has
passed, leaving the Egyptian diplomat as the only candidate.
Under his watch the agency has had to deal with several major
international crises, fielding the UN's nuclear inspectors in
Iraq during the run up to the war and coping with the rows over
controversial atomic activities in North Korea and Iran.
Mr ElBaradei's re-election by no means a fait accompli
Over the past year, Mr ElBaradei has also overseen the agency's
investigations into the nuclear black market that was led by a
Pakistani scientist.
But Mr ElBaradei's positions on Iraq and Iran have led to
tensions with the United States.
The Americans have made it clear they don't want him to stand for
a third term.
Now, although no other candidate has applied for the position, Mr
ElBaradei's re-election is by no means a fait accompli.
The matter now has to be considered by the IAEA's board of
governors who appoint a new head either by consensus or by a
two-thirds majority vote.
In light of the US position, consultations could take several
months.
*****************************************************************
15 Xinhua: El Baradei only candidate for IAEA chief
www.xinhuanet.com
www.chinaview.cn 2005-01-02 10:02:55
[Mohamed ElBaradei emerged as the only candidate for director
general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN
nuclear watchdog said Saturday. No new candidates were submitted
for the position of IAEA director general before the deadline
for nominations at the end of the year.]
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General
Mohammed ElBaradei seen in the file photo giving a speech at the
opening of the 47TH regular session of the General Conference of
the IAEA. (Reuters)
VIENNA, Jan. 1 (Xinhuanet) -- Mohamed El Baradei emerged as
the only candidate for director general of the International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN nuclear watchdog said
Saturday.
No new candidates were submitted for the position of IAEA
director general before the deadline for nominations at the end
of the year, said the IAEA.
ElBaradei, an Egyptian lawyer who has chaired the IAEA since
1997, recently announced his intention to seek a third term.
Washington is allegedly trying to oust ElBaradei for his
soft stance on Iraq and Iran.
Countries on the IAEA's 35-nation board of governors will
try to reach consensus before deciding whether to re-elect
ElBaradei. Enditem
Copyright ©2003 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
16 AU ABC: El Baradei unopposed as nuclear watchdog.
02/01/2005. ABC News
"Australian Broadcasting Corporation Online">
Mohamed El Baradei will run unchallenged for a third term as
head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog, the International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said on Saturday, despite
Washington's campaign to oust him.
Dr El Baradei, an Egyptian lawyer, recently announced he would
seek reelection as director general of the agency he has headed
since 1997.
No other candidates came forward before the deadline for
nominations at the turn of the year, the IAEA said.
"No new candidates were submitted for the position of director
general," IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said.
Australia's Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said he was not
interested in the job after reports that the United States had
suggested he should replace Dr El Baradei.
The US and other countries' officials have privately complained
that Dr El Baradei was not only soft on Iraq and Iran, but had
also withheld information from the IAEA board of governors that
could boost the US campaign to refer Iran to the UN Security
Council for economic sanctions.
Dr El Baradei says there is no clear proof that Washington is
right or that Iran is seeking the bomb, but he has repeatedly
said the jury was still out.
Countries on the IAEA's 35-nation board of governors will
attempt to reach a common position before deciding whether to
re-elect Dr El Baradei. Diplomats say that could take several
months given Washington's opposition.
Washington's efforts to oust him were damaged last month by
allegations that the United States had access to wiretaps on Dr
El Baradei's telephone.
The Washington Post reported in December that US officials had
been combing through intercepted phone conversations between Dr
El Baradei and Iranian officials for evidence of mistakes that
could be used to force his ouster.
US officials have said they can block Dr El Baradei's
re-election but diplomats have said it is unlikely Washington
could now muster the 12 votes on the 35-nation IAEA board needed.
-Reuters/ABC
© 2005 Australian Broadcasting Corporation
*****************************************************************
17 Pakistan Times: Pakistan, India exchange list of nuclear facilities
[Pakistan Times (PakistanTimes.net | DailyPakistanTimes.com)]
Pakistan Times Federal Bureau Report
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan and India Saturday exchanged information on
nuclear installations and facilities, through diplomatic
channels, Foreign Office Spokesman said.
"Both the countries exchange information on the first working day
every year, according to Article-II of Pakistan-India agreement
on Prohibition of Attacks against each other's nuclear
installations and facilities," Masood Khan said.
The exchange, which includes stating the exact location of each
others nuclear installations, took place "through diplomatic
channels" in Islamabad and New Delhi simultaneously.
Prohibition of Attacks
The agreement on the prohibition of attacks on each other's
nuclear sites was signed between the two nuclear rivals on
December-31, 1998, and came into force on January-27, 1991.
The first such exchange between the two countries was held on
January-1, 1992. Under the agreement both Pakistan and India are
to refrain from attacking each other's nuclear facilities in the
event of a war.
Pakistan and India have also been holding expert level
discussions on nuclear Confidence Building Measures and have
narrowed down differences on agreement on pre-notification of
flight testing of ballistic missiles.Ď [ ] [ ]
www.PakistanTimes.net | www.DailyPakistanTimes.com
Copyright © 2003-2004 TIMES Group of Publications All rights
*****************************************************************
18 [NukeNet] First Chance To Affect Safety At Nuke Plants Across
Date: Fri, 31 Dec 2004 14:21:37 -0800
NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet@energyjustice.net)
http://www.mothersalert.org/crac.html Nuke
Terror Site: http://www.tmia.com/sabter.html
NRC Admits To Congress A 45% Chance Of Meltdown
At A Nuke Plant:
http://www.mothersalert.org/probability.html
Osama Bin Laden stated that the initial terror
plan was to attack nuclear power plants [plural].
Joel Hirsh; Committee to Bridge the Gap:
==================================================
==
From: j.hirsch@att.net [ Of "Committee To Bridge
The Gap"]
To: rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com
Subject: San Onofre - Beamhenge - We Need Your
Help
Mr. Hoffman,
I understand that you have been active and
concerned about the safety of San Onofre in the
past (e.g. the articles you wrote). You and your
neighbors may not know it, but there is a window
of opportunity to, for the first time positively,
affect safety at San Onofre and the other 103 or
so other nuclear plants...
For the first time, the NRC HAS OPENED UP A
PETITION which proposes to increase various
security measures at nuclear facilities. One of
the proposals is the immediate deployment of
Beamhenge shields. Public comments will be closed
as of January 24, 2005.
All you have to do is go to www.nrc.gov. On the
right you will see blue bars for Rulemaking
Petitions. Click on the bar. Then on the right,
you will see at the bottom "Active"... click on
that. Then scroll down to Committee to Bridge the
Gap... and then click on submit a public comment.
You can see a summary of the full petition in the
Federal Register.
Anything you can do would be greatly
ppreciated. -- Joel Hirsch
SEE THIS:
Spent Fuel Pool Fire Could Contaminate 8 To 70
Times More Land Than Chernobyl
http://www.ens-news.com/
Spent Nuclear Fuel Pools Pose Serious Risks
PRINCETON, New Jersey, February 14, 2003 (ENS) - A
space saving method for
storing spent nuclear fuel has heightened the risk
of a catastrophic
radiation release in the event of a terrorist
attack, according to a study
initiated at Princeton University.
Terrorists targeting the high density storage
systems used at nuclear power
plants throughout the nation could cause
contamination problems
"significantly worse than those from Chernobyl,"
study found.
The study's authors, a multi-institutional team of
researchers led by Frank
von Hippel of Princeton, are calling on Congress
to mandate the
construction of new facilities to house spent fuel
in less risky
configurations, at an estimated total cost of $3.5
billion to $7 billion.
Their paper is scheduled to be published this
spring in the journal
"Science and Global Security."
Strapped for long term storage options, the
nation's 103 nuclear power
plants now pack four to five times the number of
spent fuel rods into water
cooled tanks than the tanks were designed to hold,
the authors reported.
This high density configuration is safe when
cooled by water, but would
likely cause a fire - with catastrophic results -
if the cooling water
leaked. The tanks could be ruptured by a hijacked
jet or sabotage, the
study contends.
Such a fire would release a radiation plume that
could contaminate eight to
70 times more land than the area affected by the
1986 accident in
Chernobyl. The cost of such a disaster would run
into the hundreds of
billions of dollars, the researchers reported.
The study builds on analyses completed by the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission
(NRC), pulling together a variety of sources and
adding new calculations to
put the issues in sharper focus, said von Hippel.
"The NRC has been chewing on this for 20 years,"
said von Hippel. "That's
one of the reasons why we did this paper - because
they never seem to do
anything about it."
At issue in the study is how nuclear power plant
operators deal with the
narrow, 12 foot long rods of uranium that, after
three or four years of
use, no longer contain enough chain reacting
material to sustain a nuclear
reaction. For the first few years after they are
taken from the reactor,
the fuel rods continue to generate a lot of heat
due to their intense
radioactivity.
Without cooling, the rods would burst and ignite
the zirconium alloy
sheaths in which they are encased.
The water filled cooling tanks were designed to
protect about 100 metric
tons of the hottest rods, while the cooler ones
would be moved to a nuclear
fuel recycling plant, which was never built. The
U.S. also has not yet
built a long term storage facility for nuclear
waste, so the pools have
been packed with 400 tons or more of spent fuel
rods.
In its low density configuration, a cooling tank
could be cooled by air in
the event of a loss of water, while the high
density system could not, the
study notes.
The authors recommended returning the water tanks
to their low density
configurations and building onsite storage
facilities, which would use air
cooling, for the older fuel. Some of the cost of
this work already is
budgeted as part of a plan to build a national
storage facility at Yucca
Mountain, Nevada, the authors noted.
That project, however, is not scheduled to be
built for another 10 years
and would then take another 20 or 30 years to take
enough waste to relieve
the water tank density.
The decision whether to reconfigure the spent fuel
storage systems comes
down to a cost benefit analysis, von Hippel said.
Even without the
possibility of terrorism, the opportunity to
reduce the risk of more
conventional mishaps would justify the expense
under most circumstances, he
said.
The chances of a successful terrorist attack are
hard to quantify, he
acknowledged, but if the odds were at least one
percent over 30 years, then
the expense would be justified.
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19 [NukeNet] Attack On Nuke Plant Could Kill 3.6 Million, Even
Date: Fri, 31 Dec 2004 14:21:40 -0800
NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet@energyjustice.net)
Dr Large said last night that he had found it
"astonishingly easy" to get information on targets
at
Sellafield and other nuclear plants, and that he
had
been sent official reports identifying them
without
any attempt to check on his bona fides.
He said: "A terrorist cell charged with attacking
Sellafield could readily obtain sufficient
information
from publicly available documents to identify
highly
hazardous and vulnerable targets for which there
exists little defence in depth."
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/environment/story.jsp?story=378739
Attack on nuclear plant 'could kill 3.5m'
By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor
16 February 2003
More than three and a half million people could be
killed by a terrorist attack on a British nuclear
plant, concludes a series of three reports so
alarming
that even Greenpeace - which commissioned them -
is
unwilling to publish them.
The reports - whose findings the Government has
also
sought to suppress - show that terrorists could
identify the most dangerous parts of the plants
from
publicly available information and crash aircraft
into
them, releasing vast amounts of radioactivity.
Now MPs and peers have launched an investigation
by
the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology
into the revelations as part of a formal inquiry
into
"the possible risks and consequences of a
terrorist
attack at a nuclear facility in the UK". They
decided
to set up the inquiry last month - at the urging
of
the House of Commons Defence Select Committee -
drawing on the reports and other material, even
though
ministers warned that much of the information they
needed was secret and would not be made available
to
them.
The reports show that Britain could face a far
greater
threat than the danger of ricin, constantly quoted
by
ministers, or the warnings of a rocket attack on
an
aircraft that led to last week's deployment of
tanks
at Heathrow. Yet one of their authors - John
Large, an
independent nuclear expert - says that the
Government
has reacted to it with "staggering indolence".
The three reports, commissioned by Greenpeace
after
the 11 September attacks, cover the vulnerability
of
Britain's nuclear installations, the possibility
of an
attack from the air and the consequences of the
resulting disaster. They were completed at the end
of
2001, but the pressure group has sat on them for
over
a year, unable to decide what to do with them.
They
are still being kept a closely guarded secret.
The first, by Dr Large, concludes that Britain's
nuclear plants are "almost totally ill-prepared"
for
an airborne terrorist attack. The second, by an
aviation expert, suggests that it would only take
four
minutes for an airliner to divert from its regular
flight path to attack the most dangerous target of
all, the Sellafield nuclear complex in Cumbria.
And
the third, by leading scientist Dr Frank Barnaby,
estimates that, at worst, 3.6 million people could
die
as a result.
Dr Large said last night that he had found it
"astonishingly easy" to get information on targets
at
Sellafield and other nuclear plants, and that he
had
been sent official reports identifying them
without
any attempt to check on his bona fides.
He said: "A terrorist cell charged with attacking
Sellafield could readily obtain sufficient
information
from publicly available documents to identify
highly
hazardous and vulnerable targets for which there
exists little defence in depth."
Dr Barnaby - a former Aldermaston scientist, who
was
for 10 years director of the Stockholm
International
Peace Research Institute - concludes that a jumbo
jet
crashing into Sellafield could cause a fireball
over a
mile high.
He says that 25 times as much radioactivity as was
emitted by the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 would be
likely to be released, eventually killing 1.1
million
people from cancer. In the worst case scenario,
the
number of deaths could reach 3.6 million.
Dr Large was so alarmed by his findings that he
asked
Greenpeace not to publish his report, and stamped
the
words "Not for Open Publication" on every page.
Greenpeace, for its part, has been paralysed by
indecision by the reports, unable to decide even
to
disclose their findings to ministers or officials
to
try to get them to act on the vulnerabilities they
identified.
The pressure group is highly sensitive about this,
and
has only now decided - after repeated questioning
by
The Independent on Sunday - "to seek to stimulate
this
debate within government over the next months".
Shaun Birnie, a nuclear campaigner for Greenpeace
International, said last week that there had been
"months of debate" inside the organisation about
what
to do with the reports, with some activists
fearing
that the Government might take action against it.
He admitted: "We never got round to agreeing how
to
use this report" but threatened that any
suggestion in
this article that Greenpeace had sat on the report
would damage relations with the IoS.
Challenged to explain the organisation's lack of
urgency at a time of an increasing terrorist
threat,
he said: "There is no reason to rush this. A year
is a
very, very short time in the half life of
plutonium."
16 February 2003 17:25
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/environment/story.jsp?story=378739
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20 Tsunamis & Nuclear Power Plants
Date: Fri, 31 Dec 2004 22:01:36 -0800 (PST)
From: "Russell D. Hoffman"
Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2004
Subject: Arthur C. Clark in Sri Lanka; Joel Hirch;
Oscar Shirani; Seabrook; The ABCs of XYZ+1; Humboldt
County; TRITIUM
December 30th, 2004
Dear Readers,
Questioning whether a nuclear power plant would
survive a tsunami or any large natural disaster is a
game of inches. A tornado touched down only about 50
miles from San Onofre Nuclear Waste Generating Station
yesterday. California isn't "tornado alley" but it
happened!
When they say, for example, that a nuclear power plant
can be protected from X height tsunami wave or Y
magnitude earthquake or Z size tornado, it only means
the facility CANNOT be protected from X, Y, or Z plus
one.
There is no reason to play this game. The plants are
vulnerable -- not to admit it denies the obvious. Not
to do anything about it is criminal negligence. It's
time to shut these nuclear waste-makers down. There
are safe energy solutions.
Below are some of the recent emails I have received
about nuclear issues. Our thanks to everyone who
wrote (and to Carol Rosin who forwarded the
correspondence with her long-time friend Dr. Clark
(who lives in Sri Lanka)). Also, thanks to Truthout
and Counterpunch who both published my statement on
tsunamis and nuclear power plants yesterday, to the NC
Times for publishing a letter and quoting me in their
page 1 article today, to Carolyn Crane, KVMR News
Reporter/Producer, who interviewed this author minutes
ago for a news report this evening, and to Mark Elsis,
for the invitation to appear on Earth News Hour III
with Meria Heller and Mark R. Elsis in January.
Sincerely,
Russell Hoffman
Concerned Citizen
Carlsbad, CA
-------------------------------------------------------
Included below:
1) Joel Hirsh; Committee to Bridge the Gap
2) Are evacuations occurring near the Kalpakkam
Nuclear Power Plant in India, and if so, why?
3) Tsunamis and nuclear aircraft carriers --request
for calculation
4) Are the Nukes in Japan Safe? (not a chance!)
5) Seabrook Nuclear Plant near possible Tsunami
deposits:
6) Letter from A. C. Clark in Sri Lanka to Carol
Rosin
7) Richter Scale equivalent magnitudes (from Mark
Elsis)
8) An answer to Richard Warnock, SONWGS employee
regarding the dangers of TRITIUM
9) Oscar Shirani on Dry Casks -- they only LOOK safe
(if that!)
10) The Humboldt nuclear plant was built on an active
fault line
11) How thick and tall is the sea wall at San Onofre?
12) Morally bankrupt logic by the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (by Arthur Doucette)
13) speaking of the devil...
14) Nuclear power -- request for calculation
15) Authorship notes for this newsletter
==================================
1) Joel Hirsh; Committee to Bridge the Gap:
==================================
From: j.hirsch@att.net
To: rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com
Subject: San Onofre - Beamhenge - We Need Your Help
Mr. Hoffman,
I understand that you have been active and concerned
about the safety of San Onofre in the past (e.g. the
articles you wrote). You and your neighbors may not
know it, but there is a window of opportunity to, for
the first time positively, affect safety at San Onofre
and the other 103 or so other nuclear plants...
For the first time, the NRC HAS OPENED UP A PETITION
which proposes to increase various security measures
at nuclear facilities. One of the proposals is the
immediate deployment of Beamhenge shields. Public
comments will be closed as of January 24, 2005.
All you have to do is go to www.nrc.gov
. On the right you will see blue
bars for Rulemaking Petitions. Click on the bar. Then
on the right, you will see at the bottom "Active"...
click on that. Then scroll down to Committee to
Bridge the Gap... and then click on submit a public
comment.
You can see a summary of the full petition in the
Federal Register.
Anything you can do would be greatly appreciated. --
Joel Hirsch
====================================================
2) Are evacuations occurring near the Kalpakkam
Nuclear Power Plant in India, and if so, why?
====================================================
From: bismillah irrahman irrahim
Subject: Re: Question from Phuket: Is the Kalpakkam
nuclear plant in India safe? (Please send info!)
To: "Russell D. Hoffman"
I noticed that India today declared a tsunami alert
and evacuated the region without any special
indications that another tsunami is coming. I'm
wondering if something is wrong at the nuke facility.
====================================================
3) Tsunamis and nuclear aircraft carriers --request
for calculation:
====================================================
Subject: Tsunamis and nuclear power
From: remfish@xs4all.nl
To: rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com
HI
i just read your article in counter punch and i
wonder if you have
considered the quantity of fissile material The US
government has sitting
in a volcano caldera a few hundred kilometers from
the centre of the asia
quake.
clearly the US naval base Diego Garcia survived,
because we are all still
alive too. However sitting in a volcano caldera,
close to a recent quake,
would give me the heebees, keeping a military
stockpile of fuel rods and
weapons in it would feel like asking for trouble.
on average there are two nuclear powered aircraft
carriers and a couple of
trident subs hanging about the base between patrols
and that particular
volcano has a habit of going in a one-er hence the
big deep lagoon.
could you estimate how far away a nuclear powered
aircraft carrier would
come down if its dock and all the water round it blew
a kilometer and a
half into the air?
luvs monkey
====================================================
4) Are the Nukes in Japan Safe? (not a chance!):
====================================================
From: "Robert McKinney"
Subject: chelsea@ttv.ne.jp
Dear [Russell], I live in Japan (twenty year
resident) and fear that the Japanese government has
taken the same approach to nuclear power plants that
California has. We had a very bad scare a few years
back when a major plant in Ibaraki prefecture, some 40
miles north of Tokyo) had a radiation spill caused by
some very inept behavior on the part of three foolish
technicians.
They actually caused the spill or radiation leak that
contaminated the entire region for a 6 mile radius.
Idiots. and the government officials didn't raise the
evacuation alarm for 24 hours while attempting to do
damage control, both nuclear and public relations. Per
capita Japan has the greatest number of nuclear power
plants in the world! And not a very good safety
record. In Kobe the 'earthquake proof' elevated
expressway collapsed in the wake of the l995 quake
that rocked that city. And recently the disaster that
Japan said would never happen, happened. A 'bullet
train' went off the tracks during a terrible typhoon
and earthquake. The stupid arrogance of engineers does
frighten me sometimes. They remind me of the fellow in
the l930's film 'King Kong' who assured his audience
that the great Ape was securely chained and could
never get free or cause any damage.
Everyone was perfectly safe. Ha, ha, ha. The clock is
ticking in Japan and sooner or later one of their
nuclear power plants could experience a Chernobyl type
melt down. Major Earthquake gonna hit Tokyo one of
these days. God forbid if there's a nuclear meltdown.
====================================================
5) Seabrook Nuclear Plant near possible Tsunami
deposits:
====================================================
From: "Peter Crowley"
To:
Subject: Seabrook Nuclear Plant near possible Tsunami
deposits
Date: Wed, 29 Dec 2004 21:07:38 -0500
Mr. Hoffman, I thought you might be interested in the
paper below, which discusses possible tsunami deposits
near the Seabrook plant.
Peter Crowley
http://erp-web.er.usgs.gov/reports/annsum/vol43/cu/G0163.htm
====================================================
6) Letter from A. C. Clark in Sri Lanka to Carol
Rosin:
====================================================
Hi Russell Thought you might be interested in this
note....hope all is well with you! Carol Dear Carol,
Thank you for your concern about my safety in the
wake of last Sunday?s devastating tidal wave.
I am enormously relieved that my family and household
have escaped the ravages of the sea that suddenly
invaded most parts of coastal Sri Lanka, leaving a
trail of destruction.
But many others were not so fortunate. For over two
million Sri Lankans and a large number of foreign
tourists holidaying here, the day after Christmas
turned out to be a living nightmare reminiscent of The
Day After Tomorrow. My heart-felt sympathy goes out to
all those who lost family members or friends.
Among those who directly experienced the waves were
my staff based at our diving station in Hikkaduwa, and
my holiday bungalows in Kahawa and Thiranagama – all
beachfront properties located in southern areas that
were badly hit. Our staff members are all safe, even
though some are badly shaken and relate harrowing
first hand accounts of what happened. Most of our
diving equipment and boats at Hikkaduwa were washed
away. We still don't know the full extent of damage --
it will take a while for us to take stock as accessing
these areas is still difficult.
This is indeed a disaster of unprecedented magnitude
for Sri Lanka, which lacks the resources and capacity
to cope with the aftermath. We are encouraging
concerned friends to contribute to the relief efforts
launched by various national and international
organisations. If you wish to join these efforts, I
can recommend two options.
- Contribute to a Sri Lanka disaster relief fund
launched by an internationally operating humanitarian
charity, such as Care or Oxfam.
- Alternatively, considering supporting Sarvodaya,
the largest development charity in Sri Lanka, which
has a 45-year track record in reaching out and helping
the poorest of the poor. Sarvodaya has mounted a well
organised, countrywide relief effort using their
countrywide network of offices and volunteers who work
in all parts of the country, well above ethnic and
other divisions. Their website, www.sarvodaya.lk
< http://www.sarvodaya.lk/
> , provides bank account details for financial
donations. They also welcome contributions in kind --
a list of urgently needed items is found at:
There is much to be done in both short and long terms
for Sri Lanka to raise its head from this blow from
the seas. Among other things, the country needs to
improve its technical and communications facilities so
that effective early warnings can help minimise losses
in future disasters.
Curiously enough, in my first book on Sri Lanka, I
had written about another tidal wave reaching the
Galle harbour (see Chapter 8 in The Reefs of
Taprobane, 1957). That happened in August 1883,
following the eruption of Krakatoa in roughly the same
part of the Indian Ocean.
Arthur Clarke
29 December 2004
Dr. Carol Rosin
President, Institute for Cooperation in Space
PO Box 288
Loja, Ecuador
rosin@west.net
www.peaceinspace.com
www.madretierra1.com
====================================
7) Richter Scale equivalent magnitudes (from Mark
Elsis):
====================================
From: "LOVEARTH NETWORK"
To: "Russell D. Hoffman"
Subject: Re: Statement by Russell Hoffman concerning
tsunamis and nuclear power plants
1000x smaller -- each 1.0 point you go up 32x more
energy is released.
Richter TNT for
Seismic Example
Magnitude Energy Yield
(approximate)
-1.5 6 ounces Breaking a rock on a
lab table
1.0 30 pounds Large Blast at a
Construction Site
1.5 320 pounds
2.0 1 ton Large Quarry or Mine
Blast
2.5 4.6 tons
3.0 29 tons
3.5 73 tons
4.0 1,000 tons Small Nuclear
Weapon
4.5 5,100 tons Average Tornado
(total energy)
5.0 32,000 tons
5.5 80,000 tons Little Skull Mtn.,
NV Quake, 1992
6.0 1 million tons Double Spring
Flat, NV Quake, 1994
6.5 5 million tons Northridge, CA
Quake, 1994
7.0 32 million tons Hyogo-Ken Nanbu,
Japan Quake, 1995; Largest Thermonuclear Weapon
7.5 160 million tons Landers, CA
Quake, 1992
8.0 1 billion tons San Francisco, CA
Quake, 1906
8.5 5 billion tons Anchorage, AK
Quake, 1964
9.0 32 billion tons Chilean Quake,
1960
10.0 1 trillion tons (San-Andreas type
fault circling Earth)
12.0 160 trillion tons (Fault Earth in
half through center, OR Earth's daily receipt of solar
energy)
http://www.seismo.unr.edu/ftp/pub/louie/class/100/magnitude.html
============================
8) An answer to Richard Warnock, SONWGS employee
regarding the dangers of TRITIUM:
============================
Earlier this month, The North County Times published
an unwarranted attack on this author's credibility.
They did not publish the follow-up, which is shown
below, and probably won't, since today (Dec. 30th,
2004) they published one of my later tsunami letters,
and quoted this writer in their front-page coverage of
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's assertions that
San Onofre would be safe from a tsunami. I've posted
Warnock's original "Community Forum" online here with
the reponse and various related online links:
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/environm/onofre/2004/TritiumComments%2020041223.htm
Grateful assistance was provided by Marion Fulk,
Sally Devline, and Leuren Moret (mistakes, however,
are my own).
-- rdh
------------------------------------------------
Note: In the letter below, a "^" (caret) means
"raised to the power of."
December 23rd, 2004
To The Editor:
Richard Warnock, an employee of San Onofre Nuclear
Generating Station, said in your paper's Community
Forum (December 20th, 2004, pg. A-8: "Nuclear
reactor's radiation is trivial") that radiation is "a
rather weak carcinogen when compared with smoking and
many chemicals." However, mere milligrams of
Plutonium 239, for example, will virtually guarantee
lung cancer. Radiation also multiplies the hazardous
effects of other chemicals.
Radiation causes cancer, neuromuscular disfunction,
leukemia, cataracts, genomic instability, bystander
effect (cell-to-cell damage), and scores of other
health problems. Cardiovascular problems are another
previously overlooked (by "mainstream scientists")
health effect of radiation. A study of 53,698
employees at 52 US nuclear power facilities from 1979
to 1997 indicated an unexpectedly-high 248 deaths from
heart disease (New Scientist, 18 December 2004, page
18: "Radiation is bad for your heart").
The main topic of Warnock's response to my original
North County Times Op-Ed recommending the plant be
shuttered (December 12th, 2004, page E-1) was tritium.
Discovered in the 1930s, tritium has an extremely low
natural occurrence. It became widely available in the
1950s as a byproduct of nuclear reactors. Tritium use
has been declining in biological and medical science
because safer-to-use florescent molecules and
antibodies are now available.
Even a few responsible members of the health physics
community have questioned tritium's use in exit signs,
and alternatives are being developed. On 9-11,
hundreds of tritium exit signs were pulverized when
the Twin Towers collapsed. The dust was also toxic
with asbestos and other pollutants, as well as
radioactive so-called "depleted" uranium (and more
tritium) from the airplanes. Thousands of 9-11
emergency workers now suffer from lung problems. A
14-year-old boy had a temper tantrum and smashed ONE
tritium-laced exit sign at a child care center. The
hazardous waste cleanup cost taxpayers a quarter of a
million dollars.
San Onofre has probably released 50,000 to 100,000
Curies of tritium into the surrounding environment.
That would be like smashing tens of thousands of exit
signs.
Warnock claims that San Onofre's radioactive releases
quickly become "unmeasurable." What he means is they
become indistinguishable because of the variations in
levels of similar pollutants that are already out
there.
There are about 1 * 10^4 Curies in a gram of tritium.
1 curie is 3.7 * 10^10 decays per second, so that's
3.7 * 10^14 dps per gram. There are about 3.7 * 10^11
stars in the Milky Way -- a thousand times LESS than
the number of decays per second emanating from a
single gram of San Onofre's so-called "safe" tritium.
And just how much damage can a single one of those
370 trillion (370,000,000,000,000) decays each second
do if it occurs inside our bodies? Dr. Marion Fulk, a
retired Manhattan Project scientist, refers to tritium
as "wicked" because of its deceptive "low power"
ionizing radiation. Usually the entire 6 kilovolts
(average; maximum is about 18 kilovolts) of decay
energy is dissipated within a single cell because the
"mean free path" is only about 1 micrometer. A single
tritium decay can damage thousands of ligand bonds.
Normally, such bonds are made and broken in complex
and highly controlled processes which make the body
the marvel that it is. Such bond making-and-breaking
makes it possible, for example, to transmit a pain
signal from the toe to the brain. It is not random.
Tritium causes (along with all the problems listed
above) "cell suicide" (apoptosis). While you have
about 5 * 10^13 cells in your body altogether, you
don't have vast numbers of every type of cell. Your
heart's electrical impulse transmission system, for
instance, cannot afford a lot of cell suicides,
because there just aren't that many of those cells to
begin with.
Furthermore, there was a time when you were just one
cell. A single tritium decay could have wiped you
out! Fetuses are much more susceptible to radiation
damage than adults -- probably at least 1 * 10^3 times
more so.
Recent research suggests that the Biological Quality
Factor for tritium should be more than doubled (a
higher rating is considered more damaging). Instead,
the nuclear industry keeps trying to get a relaxation
of the drinking water standard, from 20,000 picoCuries
(20 billionths of a Curie) per liter to 60,000 pCi/l.
When tritium is ingested, about 10% will stay in the
body longer than 10 days, and some will stay for
years. All 7 * 10^9 humans are exposed to galaxies of
tritium atoms daily because of previous nuclear
industry and weapons releases.
We CAN chose renewable power to solve our electrical
energy needs. Offshore wind farms, for instance, do
not use any land space, they do not kill birds, and
they do not even need to be close enough to shore to
be seen.
Russell Hoffman
Concerned Citizen
Carlsbad, CA
==================================================
9) Oscar Shirani on Dry Casks -- they only LOOK safe
(if that!):
==================================================
From: Oscar Shirani
Subject: Re: From RADBULL: 26 [du-list] Feds Won't
Test Nuclear Waste Casks
To: "Russell D. Hoffman"
Russell,
Please issue an article in all the newspapers that if
the casks were manufactured and built according to the
codes of federal regulations and other applicable
standards, then NRC could have an argument to prove
that their analytical solutions are acceptable and
ignore to test the casks, BUT in my 2000 audit of
Holtec and US Tool and Die repeatedly proved that
those casks were not built in accordance with the
applicable design codes and had the proofs in my audit
reports that there were flaws in design, flaws in
welding, flaws in material, uncontrolled weld filler
material, inadequate trained workers, multiple
bypassing of Quality Control holdpoints and witness
points, welding at risk, bypassing the design changes,
bypassing the weld coupons, bypassing the Post Weld
Heat Treatment, etc.
All the above violations of the ASME, ANSI, and the
NRC codes of federal regulations is the reflection of
100% certainty that the structural integrity is not
maintained and the final casks that are already loaded
are not supported by any design codes. I will
challenge NRC in front of the national TV and
congressional hearing. Why NRC does not want to face
me to discuss these issues openly? Because NRC knows
that I am correct and I have made this argument at
many universities and [in the presence] of many
mechanical engineers around the world in many of my
conferences.
This is why NRC could not obtain the signature of
their own technical staff, Dr. Landsman after two
years of phony investigation of my issues. Dr.
Landsman still refused to accept the NRC's closure of
my issues. Dr. Landsman knew that NRC just performed
paper audits and investigation of my issues and knew
that those issues were massaged and falsified by
Exelon and Holtec. Department of Energy (DOE) is
pushing the NRC to ignore the cask issues that I
raised as the lead auditor of NUPIC (all utilities),
because they (NRC and DOE) know that the pools don't
have any more spaces and the Yucca Mountain would not
be ready for many more years. Even when the Yucca
Mountain gets ready, I am willing to prove to all the
engineers and scientists and more importantly to the
general average Joe in America that those casks are
faulty and should be dismantled immediately and as the
NRC's Dr. Landsman told the WTTW Channel 11 Chicago
news that those dry casks should be stopped from
production. Dr. Landsman read my audit report and even
though the audit report[s] were massaged and
falsified, but [he] had still many alarming issues
about the welding flaws, etc..
-- Oscar Shirani
=====================================================
10) The Humboldt nuclear plant was built on an active
fault line:
=====================================================
Subject: Your Counterpunch article
From: Sara Reed
To:
Dear Mr. Hoffman: I read your Counterpunch article
with great interest.
You pose the question "Why?" as to the continued
existence of our nuclear
power plants. Like you, I can't think of a single
good reason -- but I can
think of some old, outmoded ones. I am sure you are
well aware of the 1950s
thinking that I will outline below.
To my way of thinking, the push for nuclear power
plants was a ham-fisted
attempt to provide a "peaceful" use for atomic power
in order to make the
age of the atomic bomb more palatable to the American
people. The Mr. Hyde
of the bomb was now an ugly fact of life so we looked
for a Dr. Jekyll face
to put on it. Also, the US government had decided
that the production of
uranium, although now a matter of national security,
was to remain private
-- yet protected. So, naturally, private industry
uses for the stuff, such
as power plants, were sought.
Then the bottom fell out of the yellowcake market --
when, about 1980? The
US government did not support the domestic producers
of uranium as they had.
We import yellowcake now. The initial basis for the
rationale -- i.e.
giving a "necessary" and protected private industry
something positive and
useful to do --sort of disappeared.
It is extremely unfortunate but sometimes a disaster
needs to occur before
obvious risks are effectively addressed with dug-in,
vested interests .. I
was in Humboldt County, CA in the late 1970s. The
Redwood Alliance was very
active. The University's geology department
continually warned PG&E that
the Humboldt nuclear plant was built on an active
fault line. The
discussion had devolved to a "Is so!" "Is not!" "Is
so!" level of
discourse --- when a 6.9 or 7.0 quake occurred -- the
night before the day
Reagan was elected President as I recall.
Fortunately, there was very
little damage from that quake. But the plant was
finally decommissioned as
a result.
I hope your writing about the Indian Ocean tsunami
vis a vis the remaining
California nuclear plants will provide the same
result that it took an
actual quake to cause in Humboldt County. People who
have seen the pictures
of the destruction met out by Mother Nature can
mentally make the
connection. There are unacceptable risks involved in
the nuclear plants
with no upside advantage. The "clean" energy
provided by the plants in
question does not bring us one whit closer to
independence from fossil fuels
for our electricity (surely our dependence on fossil
fuels is the source of
the worst security risks our county faces now). But
power generated from
wind and movement of water -- as you described in
your article -- does.
Perhaps enlistment of the insurance industry in this
argument might be of
help in making it effective. After all, there is a
great deal of money at
risk -- as well people's health and property.
Thank you for your very stimulating article.
Sara Reed
[[[ Unfortunately, the insurance companies have
simply but exclusions to nuclear power catastrophes in
all their contracts, so they don't much care,
financially, what happens. But we all have a moral
stake in this, as well. -- rdh ]]]
====================================================
11) How thick and tall is the sea wall at San Onofre?
====================================================
From: "Bill Smirnow"
To: "Russell D. Hoffman"
Subject: Re: Statement by Russell Hoffman concerning
tsunamis and nuclear power plants
Hi Russell,
Do you know how thick the wall is and
what it is made of? How long is it? If a tsunami were
to hit along a front of 625 miles of the coast or that
matter 1000 miles does that automatically mean there
would be a release[s] of radiation or is there a way
of scramming them safely for an extended period of
time?
Good work below. Have you considered calling people
like Matt Wald of the NY Times? William Broad of the
NYTimes [who's possibly more receptive]?
-Bill
--------------------------------------------
[[[ Lighthouses have been knocked over and swept away
by tsunamis, and yet these cluckers think they've got
a nuke plant that will survive simply ANYTHING! The
sea wall at San Onofre is probably not more than 4 or
5 feet thick, perhaps only three, it's straight, not
curved against the wave front like it should be, and I
read in the local paper today that it's 30 feet high,
not 35 feet high as I had stated in my previous
letter. That's an extra five foot wall of water
coming through!
A tsunami would not "automatically" mean a release of
radiation, but a large one that inundates the facility
would mean there would almost certainly if not
"automatically" be a massive release, from the spent
fuel pool with a train car sitting in it, from the dry
casks knocked over, about, and open, or from the
reactor itself melting down due to loss of (the)
control (room), loss of backup systems, loss of
everything external to the dome, and who knows, maybe
loss of the dome, too! Nothing's certain in this
world, but that would certainly NOT be GOOD!
Note: WB may have received the email. MW would not
have received it directly.
-- rdh ]]]
==========================================
12) Morally bankrupt logic by the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission:
==========================================
From: "Doucette, Arthur"
To: "'Russell D. Hoffman'"
Hi Russell,
I came across this recently,
http://www.nrc.gov/what-we-do/regulatory/rulemaking/risk-informed.html
"For assessing public safety and developing
regulations for nuclear reactors
and materials, the NRC traditionally used a
deterministic approach that
asked. "What can go wrong?" and "What are the
consequences?" Now, new
information for assessing risks also allows NRC to
ask "How likely is it
that something will go wrong?"
Seems to me much like how NASA rationalized Cassini.
Of course their whole rationalization was proven
false when they
miscalculated the weight of the Mars lander, their
very next orbital
maneuver after their Cassini fly by (Scare by?)
So now the NRC will use the fact that a catastrophic
failure is "not likely"
to occur to determine risk?
Probability analysis is great when playing the stock
market, planting crops
etc, but this is the same logic Ford used when
dealing with flaming Pintos.
They didn't recall them because the cost of the
recall was more then their
probability analysis showed they would pay out in
settlements to those who
got roasted.
This logic is just morally bankrupt.
Arthur
=====================
13) Speaking of the devil...
=====================
From: SUMMARIA@
Subject: speaking of the devil...
To: rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com
speaking of vulnerable nuclear plants, you may have
wished to mention (for readers unfamiliar with our
local geography) that PG&Gs Diablo plant is ALSO sited
right on the coast -- and atop an earthquake fault.
[ Note: The original version of the tsunami email
included a short RADBULL article about Kalpakkam. --
rdh ]
==================================
14) Nuclear power -- request for calculation:
==================================
At 08:10 PM 12/29/2004 -0600, "prcarlson"
wrote:
Dear [Russell],
Thanks for your article. I have an interesting
question for you. What is the comparative morbidity
and mortality and environmental impact of electric
generation technologies in the US over a long period
of time?? Include all aspects including manufacture,
installation, operation, maintenance, accidents,
decommissioning and the entire fuel cycle and
normalize it for an equivalent output of electricity
(i.e. what it would be if we were all renewable, all
coal, or all nuclear) over a 50 or 100 year period of
time. Thanks for your consideration.
Phil Carlson
Middleton, Wisconsin
To: "prcarlson"
Dear Mr. Carlson,
These sorts of calculations have been done over and
over by various scientists and other researchers over
the years. Nuclear always comes up short.
The excellent book Asleep at the Geiger Counter by
Sidney Goodman, P.E., M.S.M.E. (Copyright 2002, Blue
Dolphin Publishing, ISBN 1-57733-107-9) has a chapter
on the subject of comparative costs (chapter 10).
Also, in the 1970s, the late Buckminster Fuller wrote
a forward for a book which presented relevant
calculations. Fuller is considered responsible for
some of the first such detailed calculations ever done
globally on any subject (in the 1920s, on copper
reserves worldwide, for a mining corporation).
So, it's been done; you must have missed it (again
and again and again). The first question you need to
consider is that a meltdown which would kill hundreds
of thousands or even millions of people, and poison
everyone globally, would actually cost money. Or are
you insisting, even today, after 9-11, after
Davis-Besse, and after Sunday's tsunamis, that the
plants are invulnerable and meltdowns won't every
happen? You didn't mention this little bugaboo about
nukes in your letter. You mentioned "accidents" but
you seem to mean normal industrial accidents, from the
context. If your calculations ignore the costs of
meltdowns, your math will never be right, and when
included, they preclude any hope of a fair profit for
the nuke corporation.
Sincerely,
Russell Hoffman
Concerned Citizen
Carlsbad, CA
===============================
15) Authorship notes for this newsletter:
===============================
Russell Hoffman, a computer programmer, has written
extensively about nuclear power. His essays have been
translated into several different languages and
published in more than a dozen countries. Recently,
the 24 Dec. 2004 issue of Nuclear Monitor includes an
essay by Mr. Hoffman (each issue is published online
two months later):
http://www.nirs.org
Visit Hoffman's Shut San Onofre web site:
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/environm/onofre/index.htm
POIFU: ("Poison Fire USA") (Animated timeline of
atomic usage in the USA):
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/poifu/poifu.swf
Internet Glossary of Nuclear Terminology / "The Demon
Hot Atom":
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/hotwords/index.htm
List of every nuclear power plant in America, with
history, activist orgs, specs, etc.:
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/environm/no_nukes/nukelist.htm
List of ~350 books and videos about nuclear issues in
my collection (donations welcome!):
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/environm/no_nukes/mybooks.htm
Learn about The Effects of Nuclear War here:
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/environm/no_nukes/tenw/nuke_war.htm
Subscribe to Hoffman's nuke-related (usually)
newsletter by writing to him:
"Russell D. Hoffman"
*************************************************
** THE ANIMATED SOFTWARE COMPANY
** Russell D. Hoffman, Owner and Chief Programmer
** P.O. Box 1936, Carlsbad CA 92018-1936
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21 Interfax: Shutdown procedure begins at Lithuanian nuclear plant
Dec 31 2004 7:54PM
VILNIUS. Dec 31 (Interfax) - The shutdown procedure began at
power generating unit No. 1 of Lithuania's Ignalina nuclear
power plant on Friday.
"The load has been reduced from 1,100 megawatts as of Friday
morning, down to less than 1,000 megawatts," the plant's general
director Viktor Shevaldin told Interfax.
When the load falls below 250 megawatts, the operator on duty
will press the button initiating the shutdown signal.
The unit will be shut down at around 8:00 p.m. local time (9:00
p.m., Moscow time).
© 1991-2004 Interfax
All rights reserved
*****************************************************************
22 BBC: Lithuania shuts down atomic unit
Last Updated: Friday, 31 December, 2004
[Ignalina nuclear reactor]
Ignalina started generating power in 1983
Lithuania has started shutting down one of the reactors at its
only nuclear power station, in line with European Union entry
conditions.
Unit One at the Soviet-era Ignalina plant, north-east of Vilnius,
is to stop functioning before midnight.
It is similar to the Chernobyl reactor which blew up in 1986 in
Ukraine.
The Ignalina plant - supplying about 70% of the Baltic states'
energy - has two RBMK reactors, with a capacity of 1,300
megawatts each.
Lithuania, which joined the EU in May, pledged to close the
entire facility by the end of 2009.
The EU has been worried about safety at the plant, which lies
near the town of Visaginas. It has pledged almost two billion
euros (Ł1.3bn) to help Lithuania close the plant.
The plant's director, Viktoras Sevaldinas, said the Chernobyl
disaster had "cast a shadow over our plant, too".
"We knew the first unit would be closed long ago and we prepared
for it."
The Associated Press reports that both reactors at Ignalina
underwent safety upgrades after Lithuania regained its
independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
"Only after five years we will be able to remove nuclear fuel
containers from the first unit. Later we will start to dismantle
the reactor. The complete process could take as long as 30
years," Mr Sevaldinas said.
*****************************************************************
23 toledoblade.com: Keep the atomic inspector
Article published Sunday, January 2, 2005
The latest ill-conceived international crusade by Washington
neo-conservatives is to get rid of Mohamed ElBaradei, director
general of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Mr. ElBaradei became known to Americans during the run-up to the
Iraq war. He was generally seen as doing a good job through the
IAEA in trying to learn the full extent of weapons of mass
destruction held by Saddam Hussein’s government. There, of
course, were none, and with an effective IAEA on the job, war
with Iraq seemed unnecessary.
Those in the Bush Administration who wanted to invade the
country, however, saw the efforts of Mr. ElBaradei and the IAEA
as an obstruction to their case for war. With his term as
director general ending next year, some in Washington see this as
payback time and want to deny him a third term.
Their argument is ostensibly based on a position that heads of
international organizations should serve only two terms and then
retire.
With regard to Mr. ElBaradei, this is not the assessment of
anyone other than Bush Administration hardliners. The Egyptian
lawyer, 62, has served two four-year terms with distinction; he
is credible. He is also a Muslim and has 20 years of experience
with the IAEA. He is currently deeply involved in negotiations
with Iran on its nuclear program; his experience would be lost if
he were replaced now.
A side issue is that Mr. ElBaradei is opposed by John R. Bolton,
U.S. undersecretary of state for arms control and international
security and the hawks’ candidate to be named senior deputy to
secretary of state nominee Condoleezza Rice.
America doesn’t need to get even with Mohamed ElBaradei. In fact,
it needs him in place to help the world work through its nuclear
arms proliferation problems with countries like Iran and North
Korea. What the United States should do at this point is get out
of the way and allow a third term for him to be approved, with
its blessing.
© 2004 The Blade. The Toledo Blade Company, 541 N. Superior St.,
Toledo, OH 43660
*****************************************************************
24 ITAR-TASS: Lithuania responds to EU demand, shuts down NPP unit
31.12.2004, 03.39
VILNIUS, December 28 (Itar-Tass) - Lithuania will have closed
down the operation of its power-generating Unit One at the
Ignalina nuclear power plant (NPP) by midnight on Friday in
accordance with the EU demand reflected in the Agreement on
Lithuania’s accession to the European Union.
NPP Director-General Viktor Shevaldin told ITAR-TASS that work to
bring the unit operation to an end “will last throughout the day
and be completed literally within then very last hours before the
New Year begins.”
The capacity of the Ignalina nuclear power plant that was built
by the efforts of almost of all former Soviet republics at the
end of the 1980s was 2,760 megawatt. Its two RBMK-1500
power-generating units are analogous to those of the Chernobyl
nuclear power plant. They generated 80 percent of all the
electric power generated in Lithuania, which exported much of it
to Russia’s Kaliningrad region, Belarus, Poland and other Baltia
countries.
The European Union and Lithuania agreed that Unit One would be
shut down in 2004 and Brussels disbursed 210 million euros from
its funds for Lithuania to close down Unit One.
According to international experts, the cost of closing down and
dismantling the entire Ignalina is to reach about 2.5 billion US
dollars. More funds will be needed to carry out environmental
protection measures and place five thousand engineers and
technicians in new jobs.
Lithuanian specialists, with whom many foreign colleagues agree,
believe that after the reconstruction and modernization of the
NPP safety systems, the plant will be able to operate safely
without hitches for at least the next 15 to 20 years.
However, a political decision has been made and it can happen
that Lithuania will son turn from an exporter into an importer
of electrical power.
© ITAR-TASS. All rights reserved. You undertake not to copy,
*****************************************************************
25 Infoshop News:- Nuclear Power and its Effects on Lake Ontario
www.infoshop.org
Send cash, or a check made out to "Alternative Media Project" to:
Alternative Media Project
PO Box 7171
Shawnee Mission, KS 66207
posted by on Thursday December 30 2004 @ 03:13PM PST
On Lake Ontario there are currently sixteen nuclear power
plants. Of those sixteen, twelve of them are located on Canada’s
side of the border, leaving the remaining four on the United
State’s side. Lake Ontario is also home to an uranium refining
plant, two low level radioactive waste disposal sites located
along the shoreline, and it also sits down stream from the high
level rad waste site of West Valley located in Western NY (The
Great Atomic Lake, 2002). These nuclear plants and components
make Lake Ontario one of the largest nuclear zones in the in the
entire world.
Canada posses most of the nuclear facilities located on Lake
Ontario therefore any study of the effects of nuclear power on
the lake would be incomplete without looking at Canada’s
infrastructure. Port Hope, located almost due North of
Rochester, NY is home to the CAMECO uranium refinery. Port Hope
converts “yellow cake” into uranium dioxide and uranium
hexafluoride using a variety of industrial strength chemicals to
do so. Over the years large amounts of radioactive material have
managed to escape through the refinery in turn causing the
entire basin in Port Hope harbor to be declared a low level rad
waste site. The material at Port Hope that is stored there is
located along the shoreline of Lake Ontario (The Great Atomic
Lake, 2002).
Past Port Hope, lies Darlington, which is home to four
935-megawatt power reactors and a tritium recovery facility.
Close to Darlington sits the Pickering station along the east
side entrance to Frenchmen’s Bay, which possesses eight nuclear
reactors. All of the reactors located on the Canadian side are
CANDU’s, or heavy water reactors. The difference between
Canadian and American reactors is that the Canadian heavy water
reactors require less refined fuel, thus making them
theoretically less expensive to maintain.
One of the main effects on the environment that these heavy
water reactors accomplish is that they release vast amounts of
tritium (a radioactive isotope of hydrogen with a 12.3 year half
life). These Canadian reactors release far more tritium into the
environment than the US reactors. It is estimated that at the
Pickering Station about 32,000 curies of tritium can be released
into the air annually (The Great Atomic Lake, 2002). In 1992 at
Frenchmen’s Bay 80,000 curies of tritium flowed into Lake
Ontario after a massive spill there. Low doses of tritium have
caused sterility, microcephaly, stunting, reduced litter sizes,
and influenced early mammalian development in rats. Among the
known effects of tritium on biological life forms there also
remains many unknowns like if there is increased rates of cancer
and Down syndrome cases. It is difficult to analyze and prove
scientifically that the nuclear reactors on Lake Ontario have
any negative effects on the environment. This is due to the fact
that health studies don’t incorporate into their studies
specific enough data to pin point a possible linkage with the
patient’s environment. Canada currently allows 7,000 bequerels
per liter of water to be discharged into Lake Ontario, while
individuals and various groups like Durham Nuclear Awareness
have recommended that only 20 becquerels per liter of water be
released into the lake. 20 becquerels per liter level in
drinking water is around 10 times greater than the amount of
tritium found in rainwater collected surrounding the lake.
According to the Citizens Awareness Network nuclear reactors
frequently release radioactive waste into the environment in the
form of dust, mist, fumes, vapors/gases, and liquid waste
(water). Krypton-89 with a half-life of 3.2 minutes decays into
strontium-89, which has a 52-day half-life. Xenon-137, which has
a 3.9-minute half-life, decays into cesium-137, which has a
30-year half-life. Xenon-135, which has a half-life of 9.17
hours decays into cesium-135 with a half-life of 3 million
years. It is believed that these radioactive elements when
released into the environment cause drastic health problems due
to the radioactivity of them.
Another cause for concern regarding Canada’s reactors is that
the eight units at Pickering sit directly above a fault line
that runs underneath Lake Ontario. It has been estimated that a
quake of 7 on the Richter scale, which is more than possible in
that area, could cause ground sways more than the Darlington and
Pickering reactors were designed to withstand.
Traveling back to the US side, the four reactors are located in
Wayne and Oswego counties. The reactor in Wayne is called Ginna
and is a pressurized water reactor. One of the problems faced by
a pressurized water reactor is that since the metal undergoes
extreme amounts of pressure and for other reasons not fully
understood the metal pipes transporting the steam becomes very
brittle over time, in turn greatly weakening it. If these metal
pipes become weak enough and break then a serious problem could
arise.
The three reactors located in Oswego County are all boiling water
reactors (BWR’s) and it is believed that these reactors are the
cheapest to construct, yet also the dirtiest to maintain. The
BWR’s are simpler systems with fewer parts that might go wrong,
but this also means that if something does go wrong inside the
reactor there is one less physical barrier to the outside world.
The older BWR’s like Nile Mile One and Fitzpatrick also have the
problem of cracking core shrouds. The core shrouds are cylinders
of 1.5-inch thick stainless shell 17 feet high and 15 feet in
diameter (The Great Atomic Lake, 2002). The problem is that the
curved plates are welded together and over time cracks have
started to appear in the curved plates, with Nile Mile One having
one of the worst cases of cracking seen in America.
zz Nuclear plants also pose as huge targets to terrorism related
activities. One of the largest concerns is that of the spent fuel
rod storage pools. These pools are frequently located outside of
the main reactor core and thus have little structural protection.
These pools are the most venerable to terrorist attacks since
they pose the least amount of protection. If the pool was to
crack and the water drained these spent fuel rods could
potentially release more radiation into the environment than a
nuclear meltdown. After the spent fuel rods are removed from the
cooling pool they are stored in containers located in the ground
for the rest of time, or until they are moved to a central
storage area, like Yucca Mountain (SW USA).
z In all of this there is the public and its influence over the
future. However in the case of nuclear power the public’s
comments have taken little priority and instead the decisions
affecting the industry have been left up to those with the money
to privatize the reactors and the government. This is where there
is a drastic conflict of interest since both the government and
the private companies want to maintain ‘business as usual’ while
disregarding input from the public sector since in a capitalist
market environmental effects are frequently overlooked in desire
for greater profits.
*****************************************************************
26 Brattleboro Reformer: Board denies VY watchdog's request
January 02, 2005 Brattleboro, VT
Article Published: Saturday, January 01, 2005 -
By CAROLYN LORIé Reformer Staff
BRATTLEBORO -- The Atomic Safety and Licensing Board has rejected
the New England Coalition's request to stop the current Vermont
Yankee hearings and reopen the process only after the company has
completed the uprate application.
Officials at the nuclear power plant submitted an application to
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Sept. 10, 2003, to amend its
operating license, allowing the plant to produce 20 percent more
power. The application was initially deemed incomplete by the NRC
staff, which requested more information. In January 2004, the
application was completed and accepted by the federal regulator.
As required by law, the application was posted in the Federal
Register in July 2004. Parties wishing to challenge the
application had 60 days from that date to file a petition with
the NRC. The nuclear power watchdog the New England Coalition and
the Vermont Department of Public Service -- acting on behalf of
the state -- both filed petitions challenging the safety of the
uprate application.
As with all petitions to intervene, the matter was turned over
the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board. On Oct. 21 and 22, 2004,
the board held hearings to decide whether the petitions would be
accepted.
One day before the hearing was to begin, however, the coalition
filed a motion arguing that the process should be stopped and the
notice to intervene re-posted, as Vermont Yankee officials had
submitted numerous supplements to their application.
z The board chose to not stop the process at that point, so that
plant officials and NRC staff could respond to the motion. Both
did so in November 2004.
According to the coalition's motion, Vermont Yankee officials
have filed 20 supplements many after July 1. Most of the
supplements were submitted in response to questions posed by NRC
staff.
In the motion, the coalition argued that the submission of new
information constituted a "large transformation" of the
application.
Raymond Shadis, technical adviser to the coalition, said that
the numerous additions make it difficult for intervenors to
remain up to date on the information.
"[The process] becomes completely incoherent when you have to
run back and fourth between voluminous documents," said Shadis.
"It puts a terrific burden on any reviewer or anyone trying to
make sense of the totality of the process."
In their responses, staff from Vermont Yankee and the NRC
opposed the coalition's motions. Among other things, they claim
that NRC regulations allow intervenors to amend their petitions
if new information comes to light. They also stated that the
supplements do not change the scope of the application in any
substantive manner.
The board agreed with these claims.
"The board ruled as we expected and we saw no reason for delay,"
said Rob Williams, the Vermont Yankee spokesman. "We look forward
to the next phase in this proceeding."
In their order, issued on Dec. 27, 2004, the board said that the
coalition failed to point to any "change in the basic nature or
the scope of the proceeding that has occurred as a result of the
filing of supplemental information."
The board also rejected the coalition's charge that the
information filed after July 1 was out of the jurisdiction of the
board, stating that the board had authority over the entire
process.
In December, the board granted the state and the coalition what
is known as a "subpart L" hearing, which is done primarily
through the submission of documents. The hearing is already under
way, but it is unclear when the process will be completed.
Copyright ©1999-2004 New England Newspapers, Inc.,
*****************************************************************
27 Buffalo News: UB reactor fuel to be removed, shipped out
BUFFALO.COM
Sunday, January 2, 2005
By STEPHEN WATSON News Staff Reporter
1/1/2005
The radioactive fuel that once powered the University at
Buffalo's nuclear research reactor will be removed from the South
Campus facility sometime this year, according to UB officials.
The U.S. Department of Energy recently informed the school the
department will ship the spent reactor fuel to a storage facility
in Idaho this year, said Michael F. Dupre, UB's associate vice
president for facilities.
The university then will launch an extensive decontamination of
the reactor facility, a process that could take three years and
cost as much as $10 million.
"We're optimistic that it's going to be a more minimal cost,"
Dupre said. He added that part of the facility may be able to be
reused for other programs. Shipping the radioactive fuel and
removing any traces of radiation from the facility are the last
steps in a lengthy decommissioning process.
Word of the impending fuel removal comes 10 years after UB first
announced it was deactivating the reactor. School officials in
1994 cited the cost to operate the facility and its declining
value to researchers.
In recent years, Cornell University, Georgia Institute of
Technology and the University of Virginia also decommissioned
their research reactors.
"They are a vanishing breed," said David R. Vasbinder, director
of UB's nuclear research reactor for the last 11 years.
The UB move is shrouded in secrecy. University officials said
they are not allowed to disclose exactly when the fuel will be
shipped or the route the shipment will take.
After the 9/11 terror attacks, authorities feared that nuclear
reactors could be enticing targets for terrorists.
At the direction of federal officials, UB removed all campus
signs indicating the location of the reactor and took any
detailed references to it off the university's Web site.
"This is a post-9/11 world, and they're very careful about it,"
Vasbinder said.
The reactor is located in a nondescript white, circular building
off Winspear Avenue, not far from the old football field. The
containment facility is constructed of reinforced concrete 6 feet
thick.
The building, including office space, is 24,698 square feet, cost
$1.15 million to construct and opened in June 1960. The reactor
could generate 2 megawatts, or 2 million watts, of power and is
far smaller than commercial reactors.
The reactor had been used to produce short-lived radioisotopes
for medical research.
From 1984 to 1994, Buffalo Materials managed the reactor and used
it to conduct scientific tests on behalf of the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission.
UB's reactor generally operated without controversy, though the
1989 leak of 1,000 gallons of water from the reactor prompted
some calls to shut it down.
In 1994, when university officials began the decommissioning
process, UB's reactor was one of 50 at U.S. colleges.
During the past 10 years, UB has waited for the Department of
Energy to find a suitable location for the radioactive materials
housed in the reactor, Dupre said. "We've really been in a hold
pattern," he said.
UB has retained a consultant, MJW Corp., to help it prepare for
the fuel removal. The reactor fuel is radioactive but is not
weapons-grade.
The Energy Department initially had told UB removal of the fuel
would take place in fall 2004 and then early 2005, but now has
assured the school it will be mid-2005, Dupre said. The public
won't know the fuel is gone until after the fact, but the Energy
Department will notify the proper authorities at the time of the
shipment.
After the fuel is shipped out, UB will hire a company to lead the
decontamination of the containment facility and to make sure the
project meets strict federal guidelines.
Cleanup could take two or three years, Vasbinder said.
The Energy Department pays for the shipping, but UB is on the
hook for the cleanup tab, which could range from $5 million to
$10 million, depending on what needs to be done.
The university is looking for other sources for the money so the
full cost doesn't come out of the school's capital budget.
"No one wants to pay, but someone has to," Vasbinder said.
e-mail: swatson@buffnews.com
Copyright 1999 - 2005 - The Buffalo News
*****************************************************************
28 [DU-WATCH] DEWS AND E BOMBS USED IN IRAQ? (they emit radiation)
Date: Fri, 31 Dec 2004 01:05:24 -0600 (CST)
System-killing beams of energy DEW emerged into public view in
1983-84, when President Ronald Reagan hoped to make them the heart
of a leakproof missile defense system. As yet, they haven bt lived
up to that billing, but they may soon rival or replace conventional
explosive munitions, if their worth is proved in Iraq. They produce
beams of concentrated electromagnetic energy or atomic or subatomic
particles against enemy weapons and facilities, incapacitating radar
installations, command centers, and all communications and network
equipment.
DEWs based on microwaves can already be fielded for combat, but
versions based on laser or accelerator technology probably require
more technical breakthroughs to become useful. Eventually, successors
projecting laser or plasma beams will destroy tanks and missiles,
not unlike the "death ray" guns foreseen by science fiction writers
of yore.
The DEWs likely to see their initiation in Iraq are High-Power
Microwave (HPM) devices. A pulse of high-frequency electromagnetic
radiation from these weapons distorts, damages or destroys electronic
components, including circuitry in weapons, computers, communication
systems, and electrical networks. The high-power microwaves essentially
"fry" sensitive internal components and can travel along wire paths
or ventilation shafts to reach even shielded devices in deeply
buried underground bunkers. A curious mixture of old and new tech,
todayb s HPMs obtain their energy from a conventional explosion
whose kinetic energy is converted into a radio-frequency weapon.
Bomb-pumped energy beams HPM bombs, nicknamed e-bombs, rely on a
device called an explosive-pumped flux compressor. Flux compressors
take the explosive power of a conventional bomb to create a huge
pulse of radio waves and microwaves and channel it into a targeted
beam. The technology is astonishingly simple. Itbs basically a metal
cylinder filled with explosive material and located inside a coiled
cylinder of wire. An electric current generated by a bank of
capacitors flows through the wire, and a wire waveguide or "antenna"
at the end of the cylinder directs the energy outward.
The explosion inside the metal cylinder generates a magnetic field
that is squeezed by a moving short circuit caused by the metal tube
touching the coil.
The field is amplified as the blast travels along the cylinder, and
its tremendous electromagnetic energy flows into the antenna, where
it is emitted as a huge pulse, perhaps in the millions of watts and
amps range, just microseconds before the weapon itself is destroyed.
The likely delivery platform for this kind of HPW is a GPS-guided
smart bomb or a cruise missile. Its targets would be command centers,
radar installations, or underground bunkers, which the microwaves
would enter through ventilation shafts or conduits for power or
communication wiring. The e-bomb is a one-shot, single-use weapon.
The High-Energy Microwave Laboratory (Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M)
of the Air Force Research Laboratories (Wright-Patterson Air Force
Base, Ohio) hopes to develop a multiple-fire HPM weapon that could
be outfitted on combat aircraft or ships.
As with any new technology, there are uncertainties about HPWbs
battlefield performance and as its immediate impacts may not be
visible, there is doubt even about the possibility of adequately
evaluating its performance in combat.
Depending on range, shielding, target materials and other factors,
the e-bomb may utterly destroy or only merely stun electronic
circuitry.
HPM bombs have been heralded as nonlethal; the premise being that
equipment would be destroyed but lives would be spared. But human
exposure to such high degrees of radiation will surely be
hazardousbcertainly pacemakers will be affected. Additionally,
e-bombs could permanently destroy the civilian electrical and
communications infrastructure, complicating reconstruction efforts
after the war.
Mobile DEWs Another type of directed-energy weaponry might see its
debut in Iraq, assisting U.S. and British troops engaged in treacherous
urban warfare. Nonlethal weaponry has been in development for
decades, but research was accelerated after rioting civilians killed
and humiliated U.S. soldiers in Somalia in 1993.
The U.S. Marines have been testing an energy weapon dubbed nonlethal
because it inflicts intense but brief and non-damaging pain on its
targets. Mounted on a Humvee (slang for HMMWV, or High Mobility
Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle).
the Vehicle Mounted Active Denial System (V-MADS) produces 95-GHz
millimeter waves that penetrate 0.4 mm into the skin. In response,
the water molecules in the epidermis vibrate, boosting the skinbs
surface temperature to 54 B:C in less than 3 seconds.
The sensation is described as like "briefly touching a hot light
bulb." When the human target moves out of the beam the sensation
ceases as quickly as it appeared. Such a device would be used for
crowd control in an urban conflict or setting. The range of devices
being tested is about 750 meters.
U.S. Special Forces will also benefit from directed energy technology.
All of the Air Force Special Operations Commandbs ACb130 gunships
and MCb130 Combat Talon aircraft have been outfitted with laser-based,
anti-missile Directed Infrared Countermeasures, which detect
heat-seeking missiles and direct turreted laser beams to lead the
threats astray.
Downsized drones for ground support Those now-famous unmanned aerial
vehicles (UAVs), Predator and Global Hawk, will have some company
in the skies over Iraq. The junior UAVs are smaller and cheaper
than their multimillion-dollar predecessors, and so of greater use
to smaller troop units on the ground.
The Shadow 2000 RQ-7, with a wingspan of 3.75 meters and a
gasoline-powered rotary engine, flies at 3000 meters and can send
video surveillance images to ground stationsbsay, a battalion
contemplating a new field of actionb125 km away. Shadow is carried
on and launched from special Humvees, and has been tested with a
video surveillance capability that pinpoints the coordinates of a
targets by comparing image data with stored terrain information.
(The video system, relying on a process called geo-registration,
was developed with support from the U.S. Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency, or Darpa).
Dragon Eye is an even smaller drone, that could be deployed by a
single soldier. Powered by a lithium-ion battery and driven by a
propeller-driven motor, it is light and has a wingspan of just 18
cm. It can be assembled by two men in 10 minutes, and is launched
by a bungee-type slingshot.
Real-time video streams from Dragon Eye to a wearable ground station
providing enemy and terrain surveillance from 150 meters to 5
kilometers away.
Assisted by GPS internal navigation, Dragon Eyebs pre-programmed
flight can be altered in mid-flight by its operators. Its composite
body means durability and lower weight. Off-the-shelf components
offer easy replacement and lower costs. A major drawback to the
small size, though, is susceptibility to wind currents that render
surveillance videos jittery.
Biochemical bunker busters The U.S. military has developed several
weapons to destroy caches of chemical and biological warfare agents.
The kinetic, explosive charges might scatter toxic matter, causing
the very mass destruction that Saddam Hussein stands accused of
plotting. Instead of that, so-called Agent Defeat technology will
likely be deployed should stockpiles of suspect agents be identified.
For example, U.S. troops might utilize a technology developed by
the U.S.
Navy and the U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency (Fort Belvoir,
Va.) that uses a high-temperature incendiary "thermo-corrosive"
filling that destroys agents with a searing, low-pressure heat over
an extended period of time.
Additionally, this filling produces a chlorine gas after-product,
an extra measure of neutralization.
This technology is to be distinguished from thermobaric bombs,
designed to produce enormous pressure shock waves to kill the enemy
deep in tunnels, which were used in Afghanistan against cave-dwelling
Taliban military. Thermobarics may also be used in certain situations
in Iraq, if there are suitable targets well separated from civilian
populations. Ground-penetrating nuclear weapons, though actively
developed by the U.S. military and explicitly slated for possible
U.S. use in a controversial policy statement leaked early last year,
will not be used: besides outraging world opinion, they simply are
not needed.
Bio-chemical
Law Offices of Indira Rai-Choudhury, Esq.
1201 Cornwall Ave., Suite 108 Bellingham WA 98225 360-676-0200
This e-mail and any attachments are confidential and may be protected
by legal privilege. If you are not the intended recipient, be
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29 Fw: DU, US troops, European parliament, genocide?
Date: Sat, 01 Jan 2005 21:04:26 -0800
----- Original Message -----
From: Thinkcivic@aol.com
To: Thinkcivic@aol.com
Sent: Saturday, January 01, 2005 11:30 AM
Subject: DU, US troops, European parliament, genocide?
BG: No one wants to read about "DU", deadly uranium in US munitions. It's
too awful. But the longer our heads are in the sand, the more suffering
for Iraq and FOR OUR OWN TROOPS. So please pass this on!
There is a bill by Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash), the Depleted Uranium
Munitions Study Act, HR 1483, which the House Armed Services Committee has
thus far refused to hear. (McDermott traveled to Iraq and saw the human
results of DU contamination.)
THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT HAS CALLED FOR A MORATORIUM ON THE USE OF DU.
-------------------------
DU - The Stuff of Nightmares
JULIE FLINT / The Daily Star (Beirut) 14sep04
Two years before the invasion of Iraq, a report
[Radiological
toxicity of DU] commissioned by the World Health Organization warned that
the long-term health of Iraq's civilian population would be damaged by the
use of depleted uranium (DU) - radioactive waste from the nuclear industry
which is used to harden missiles, shells and bullets and which slices
through tank armor like a knife through butter. The WHO did not make the
report public. Odd, that.
Iraq is now playing host to some 350 tons of DU fired in 1991, but also to
more than 1,000 tons reportedly fired in 2003. The "reportedly" is needed
here because the armed forces are playing coy with figures. No wonder:
handlers of DU in the US and Britain are required to wear masks and
protective clothing. Imagine Iraqis having to dress like that for 4.5
billion years.The Hardest Hit:
Iraqi children *7ce03.jpg7cec9.jpg
DU has been called the
"Trojan
Horse" of the wars in Iraq - and Afghanistan and Kosovo and Bosnia - a
weapon that keeps on killing. On detonation, DU armaments release a spray
of radioactive dust that can be carried in the air over long distances and
which, when inhaled, goes into the body and stays there. The dust remains
radioactive for 4.5 billion years.The WHO report was written by three of
Europe's top radiation scientists, including Dr. Keith Baverstock, for more
than a decade the WHO's leading expert on radiation and health. After
retiring from the WHO, Baverstock leaked the report to the media earlier
this year. It concluded that microscopic particles of DU would be blown
around and inhaled by Iraqi civilians for years to come, and could trigger
the growth of malignant tumors.
Baverstock believes the WHO deliberately suppressed the report - probably
under pressure from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), a more
powerful UN body that promotes nuclear power. In response, WHO claims the
IAEA's role was "very minor" and says the report was not approved for
publication because "parts of it did not reflect accurately what a
WHO-convened group of international experts considered the best science in
the area of depleted uranium."In other words, its own chosen experts got it
wrong. Odd, again.
Had the study had been published in November 2001, Baverstock believes
there would have been more pressure on the Allies to limit their use of DU
during the invasion of Iraq - and to clean up afterward. But it wasn't
published. As a result, Iraq is now playing host to some 350 tons of DU
fired in 1991, but also to more than 1,000 tons reportedly fired in 2003.
[Mindfully.org note: the official figure is actually 2,200 tons! Knowing
how the military likes to minimize such news, the tonnage could be double
that. ] The "reportedly" is needed here because the armed forces are
playing coy with figures. No wonder: handlers of DU in the US and Britain
are required to wear masks and protective clothing. Imagine Iraqis having
to dress like that for 4.5 billion years.
Nuha al-Radi, the much-loved Iraqi artist and diarist who died in Beirut on
August 31, believed her leukemia could have been caused by DU. And if not
DU, then something else to which Iraqis were knowingly exposed in the wars
since Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. For DU is not the only concern in the
"toxic wasteland" that many scientists say Iraq has become. There are also
the chemical weapons the Baath regime used against its own people, and in
its war with Iran, and, most recently, the chemical and biological
materials released into the atmosphere by Allied bombing of Iraqi
stockpiles in the first Gulf war of 1991.
Nuha, who didn't believe the first war would take place, was devastated by
the second. "The carnage takes place in apocalyptic proportions," she wrote
at her lowest point. "Sometimes I want to cry, but I resist. I am totally
withered, and feel so useless." We talked of working together on a film
that would investigate the pollution of Iraq and its people.
Nuha was convinced that DU was entering the water table and flowing into
every corner of the country, poisoning everything. But she fell ill, and we
did nothing.Looking at the DU debate now, one thing is crystal-clear: there
are two very district bodies of opinion - and both claim to be informed.
The question is, by what?On one side, there are the governments that use DU
weapons, the IAEA, NATO and WHO, who maintain (publicly, at least) that DU
is not particularly dangerous and has no long-term effects.
On the other side, united by varying degrees of concern, are the European
Parliament, which has called for an immediate moratorium on the use of DU
weapons, Belgium, Portugal, France, Spain and Italy, who don't use them and
want an inquiry into them; the United Nations Environmental Program; and
many independent scientists, several of whom have first-hand experience of
the legacy of DU.
After the first Gulf war, Dr. Asaf Durakovic, a colonel in the US Army
Medical Corps, was put in charge of Nuclear Medicine Service at the
Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center. He discovered unusual
radiation levels in veterans and became convinced not only that DU was
killing them, but also that it was causing changes in the human gene pool
that would damage future generations. He found "considerable resistance"
from the government to his work on DU and was asked to stop. He refused.
Two months after writing to President Bill Clinton to request an inquiry
into DU contamination, he was fired - and went on to become Clinical
Professor of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine at Georgetown University in
Washington.A nutter? Hardly.
Yet Durakovic says soil samples from Iraq show radiation levels 17 times
higher than is acceptable - threatening, he says, environmental
"catastrophe." He believes that DU contamination from the 1991 war may have
exposed the entire Gulf population.
When the 1991 war started, Dr. Doug Rokke, a Vietnam veteran, forensic
scientist and retired army major, was recalled from academia and sent to
the Gulf as part of the army's Depleted Uranium Assessment team. "The US
Army made me their expert," he says. "I went into the project with the
total intent to ensure they could use uranium munitions in war, because I'm
a warrior. What I saw as director of the project led me to one conclusion:
uranium munitions must be banned from the planet, for eternity, and medical
care must be provided for everyone" - those on the firing end and those on
the receiving end.Many in Rokke's Gulf team are now dead. He himself
suffers from serious health problems including brain lesions and lung and
kidney damage. When government doctors finally agreed to test him in
November 1994, three-and-a-half years after he fell ill, while he was
director of the Pentagon's Depleted Uranium Project, he was found to have
5,000 times the permissible level of radiation in his body - enough to
light up a small village.DU, he says, is the stuff of nightmares.
Julie Flint is a veteran journalist based in Beirut and London. This is the
first of two articles on depleted uranium, which she wrote for THE DAILY
STARsource:
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=5&article_id=8333
13sep04* Photos added by Mindfully.org: the top photo is from
The Silent Genocide
from America, Mohammed Daud Miraki, MA, MA, PhD, Director Afghan DU &
Recovery Fund. The bottom photo is from Uranium Projectiles: Severely
Maimed Soldiers, Deformed Babies, Dying Children, Siegwart-Horst Günther.
AHRIMAN-Verlag GmbH Freiburg, Germany (2000)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
BG
thinkcivic@aol.com
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Attachment Converted: 7cec9.jpg: 00000001,347dff7f,00000000,00000000
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30 [du-list] Butchery by any other name
Date: Sat, 01 Jan 2005 21:03:52 -0800
Butchery by any other name
Sleek, hugely expensive and state of the art; they reek of
death all the same. Ahmed Abdel-Halim looks at WMBs, or
weapons of massive brutality
30 December 2004 - 5 January 2005
Al-Ahram Weekly, Issue No. 723
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2004/723/sc121.htm
The ultimate aim of armaments production is to achieve
overwhelming technological superiority. This means a
constant struggle to widen as far as possible the gap
between the producer nation's weapons systems and that of
its potential adversaries. In the case of the US, the focus
is currently on laser radars, high-precision long-range
communications equipment, satellites and space stations,
pilotless aircraft, smart bombs and precision guided
missiles, super-sensitive surveillance and detection
devices, and a new generation of super computers.
The new technology has changed the nature of modern warfare.
One of its major aims is to maximise long- distance strike
capacity, thereby minimising losses to one's own forces.
Towards this end, the US has raced to dominate outer space
and exploit the possibilities this offers for various
military uses. It is working to enhance its precision-strike
capacity using such "intelligent" weapons as the roaming
AGM-86 missiles that are fired from B-52 H bombers, and by
upgrading its intercontinental ballistic missiles. It has
developed a Satellites Geosynchronous System (SGS), a type
of Global Positioning System (GPS) which uses only three
satellites, to identify the location of enemy targets, as
well as a highly specialised Geographical Information System
(GIS) that gathers and assesses topographical information
and transforms this into clear and dynamic maps of potential
operation theatres. These two systems are now linked to one
another and the information they yield can be rapidly
delivered to combatant forces through encoded communications
channels.
In short, the US has put into place a comprehensive
integrated weapons system that had its first trial run in
the Gulf War to liberate Kuwait. It was later refined during
the operations in Bosnia and Kosovo, before being deployed
again in the wars against Afghanistan and Iraq. It was
primarily in the opening phases of the Iraq war that
US-British forces mobilised the latest developments in
"information warfare", during the so-called "decapitation"
operation.
Launched before ground forces were mobilised, the aim of
this operation was to paralyse the Iraqi command's control
over its armed forces and to prepare the ground for the
deployment of the rest of the coalition's high-tech arsenal.
In this it may have been successful. But viewed in a
longer-term perspective, US military and technological
superiority seems to have made them less fit, rather than
more, to win the battle for hearts and minds.
In advance of the war, US political and military leaders
boasted of the precision accuracy of their missiles and
guidance systems. Still, they admitted that there would be a
certain amount of what they euphemistically term "collateral
damage". In the actual heat of battle, however, things went
much further. What we have seen is not just the "inevitable"
destruction of civilian infrastructures and "some" civilian
casualties in the areas adjacent to military targets.
Rather, it is clear that US forces were not only lax, if not
deliberately negligent, in avoiding civilian targets, but
that they engaged in outright carpet bombing, wreaking an
enormous human and material toll. Nor have the US forces in
Iraq today altered their tactics.
As so often in the history of warfare, the powerful arsenal
illustrated here has caused much pain and death. However, it
has been of little use in accomplishing the coalition's
declared objective of building a "new Iraq" which can serve
as a model for other nations in the region.
Aircraft :
Keen to demonstrate their superior air power, coalition
forces displayed their full arsenal of aircraft during the
war on Iraq. Fighter planes, multi-task fighters and heavy
bombers included the F-14 Tomcat, the F-15 Eagle, the F-15
Strike Eagle, the F-16, the F-117 Night Hawk (or "Stealth"),
the A-10, the "Gag War" and the Tornado, the B and B-1
long-range bombers, the B-2 stealth bomber and the B-52.
Helicopters included the MH-53, AH-64 Apache and MH-53/M
"Black Hawk". A host of other aircraft were also used for
various purposes: transport (C-5, C-130, HC-130 and the C-17
Globemaster); reconnaissance and early warning (E-3 Sentry
Awac, E-d and E-2c Hawk Eye); reconnaissance and electronic
warfare (RC-135, MC-130, RC-135 VW and U-2); airborne
refuelling (the KC-130); ground surveillance (E-8c Joint
Stars); search and rescue operations (HC-130 and HC-130n);
and psychological intimidation (AC-130 and Spooky-II).
Cluster bombs:
Among the "irregular weapons" that were routinely deployed
in Iraq were "cluster bombs and munitions". The former are
fired from the air and the latter from the ground. Both are
designed to fragment into hundreds of "submunitions" or
"bomblets" that disperse over large stretches of territory.
Most of the bomblets explode when they hit the ground, but
anything between 5 and 30 per cent fail to detonate, and
remain live. Like landmines, these lethal weapons,
euphemistically referred to as "duds", continue to imperil
lives of inhabitants for years afterwards.
During the war to liberate Kuwait more than 50 million such
"bomblets" were released by cluster bombs and related
munitions. Even today an average of 200 undetonated "duds"
are discovered in Kuwait every month. In Afghanistan, the US
dropped 1,227 CBU-87 cluster bombs, each releasing 248,056
bomblets. If only seven per cent of these were "duds", that
would still leave a tremendous amount of live explosives
littered around the country today.
The population of Iraq now faces a similar danger, but of
even greater proportions. US and British forces released
massive quantities of BLU-97.A/B's, RBL-755s and CBU-105s
(fired by American B-52s at the Iraqi tanks defending
Baghdad), as well as the full gamut of cluster munitions
(such as the M864--M483A1 models). An unquantifiably large
number of bomblets from these weapons remain undetonated,
and clearing operations have barely begun due to the
security situation in the country.
Depleted uranium:
Depleted uranium (DU) was first used in anti-tank missiles
during the war to liberate Kuwait. More formally known as
uranium 238, DU is a residue from the enrichment of the
uranium 237 used in nuclear reactors. After missiles
containing DU detonate, around 70 per cent of the
radioactive substance is released into the air, where it is
spread by the wind over long distances, creating yet another
lasting peril to the health of human beings who come into
contact with it. DU was responsible for the so-called Gulf
War Syndrome that afflicted many American soldiers after
they returned home. Ways of preventing the syndrome have
since been developed, leaving the US free to deploy it even
more extensively in its war against Iraq.
DU is also suspected of being one of the components of
another "irregular weapon" deployed by US-British forces --
the bunker buster bomb. The 500-pound GBU-28, for example,
is designed to penetrate 6 metres of reinforced concrete or
30 metres of ground before exploding.
Napalm :
This weapon, which is made of a highly combustible chemical,
was first tested in WWII and later used extensively by the
US in Vietnam. Although internationally banned, the US and
British forces are known to have used napalm in Iraq,
wreaking heavy civilian casualties. Conventional heavy
weaponry:
Ground forces were equipped with M1-A1 tanks, Bradley
armoured combat vehicles, and field artillery of various
calibres.
Electronic weapons:
"Information warfare" has become a central component of
America's military strength over the past decades. By this
term, specialists refer to a wide range of techniques, from
those used to produce and sustain intelligence superiority
for strategy and operations, to methods of disabling enemy
intelligence systems, and technologies that can enhance the
effectiveness of their own weaponry. This approach is now
integral to the design of command and control networks,
strategic surveillance and warning systems, and targeting
and guidance systems. It is little wonder, then, that the US
should have tailored its current production of military
technology accordingly.
A whole range of "information" weapons were deployed in
Iraq. The most common were malignant computer programmes --
viruses, "logic bombs", and worms -- used to undermine and
destroy enemy information systems. A second type of
electronic weaponry comes in the form of micro-chips or
similar miniaturised circuitry. One such chip was designed
to self-destruct when it received a certain signal, and
numerous examples of these were discovered in Iraqi weapons
and guidance equipment that have made their way onto the
international arms market since the fall of Saddam's regime.
Another type of chip, known as the "back door", helps
decipher the encoded signals used to operate the equipment
in which it is implanted.
A third type of electronic weapon is the electromagnetic
pulse device, which emits powerful electromagnetic pulses
capable of destroying the electronic components used in
communications equipment and computers.
Bombs and missilesAmong the projectiles fired by the
coalition's artillery, tanks and aircraft, the following
deserve mention: the B61/11 tactical nuclear bomb (which was
on hand, but not in fact used); Volume Detonation Weapons
(VDW); the Tomahawk Cruise missile; the Patriot anti-missile
missile; the Brilliant anti-tank missile; assorted radar
guided missiles (the JDAM, JASSAM and CBU-96); and the
oxygen absorbing Blu-118B.
--
Posted for educational and research purposes only,
~ in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 ~
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31 BBC: Nuclear subs planned for
Last Updated: Saturday, 1 January, 2005
By Dominic Casciani BBC News at the National Archives
[A loyalist roadblock]
Loyalists set up roadblocks as part of the strike
Harold Wilson wanted nuclear submarines to power Belfast during
the 1974 Ulster Workers' Council strike.
Cabinet documents at the National Archives in Kew reveal the
prime minister suggested the plan as the strike took hold.
The strike, organised by a coalition of loyalist groups,
effectively rendered Northern Ireland ungovernable.
Officials scrapped the plan because submarines had neither the
energy nor the right cable to connect to Belfast.
The strike began on 15 May 1974 as loyalist groups, supported by
some unionist politicians, opposed their own community's
involvement in a power-sharing deal with nationalists.
Loyalist paramilitaries became involved and blockaded key
installations in the hope of bringing Northern Ireland to a
standstill.
Power dropped to a bare minimum, petrol stations ran out of fuel
and bakeries were blockaded.
Thousands more troops were sent into Northern Ireland to keep
supplies moving - but as fast as they opened one route, another
was closed.
State of emergency
Within four days the situation was so bad Northern Ireland
Secretary Merlyn Rees declared a state of emergency and some
areas saw panic buying.
It is clear t we are in the position of 'responsibility without
power'
Harold Wilson Strike dismissed as 'last fling' Ministers urged
IRA-UDA talks
Ulster Unionist leader Brian Faulkner, who supported the
power-sharing deal, told Harold Wilson the executive, which
included nationalist politicians, might not survive if he did not
act.
Chairing emergency Cabinet sessions in London, Harold Wilson
asked for radical solutions to break the blockades.
In one session, he asked the defence secretary to report on
whether they could use nuclear submarines to power Belfast.
The short answer was no.
Officials at the Ministry of Defence looked into the idea and
worked out they could have a large submarine, without its nuclear
missiles, ready to leave for Belfast within 48 hours.
Futile gesture
But calculations made by energy experts revealed it would be a
futile, if symbolic, gesture.
While a vessel with the capacity of a Type 82 destroyer such as
HMS Bristol could theoretically provide six megawatts of power,
it would leave the authorities needing to find a further 354
megawatts from elsewhere.
Nuclear submarines would prove doubly useless: nobody knew how to
plug them into the electricity supply in Northern Ireland: there
just was not a cable available which would do the job.
In theory they could be plugged into the National Grid at one of
the royal dockyards in England or Scotland - but that was of no
help to Northern Ireland.
The idea was shelved and the strike took its hold, leading to the
collapse of the Sunningdale Agreement.
*****************************************************************
32 The Ledger: Worker's Medical Claim Denied
Lakeland, Florida
Published Friday, December 31, 2004
By DEBI SPRINGER
New York Times Regional Newspapers
BRADENTON -- When Tim Brady opened the letter, he hoped it would
save his life. Instead, it may turn out to be a death sentence.
The 10-page letter Brady received Dec. 14 contained news that a
federal office in Jacksonville had denied his claim for medical
help to treat a lung illness that has left him disabled and
facing more than $60,000 in annual medical bills.
"I felt sick," said Brady's wife, Flor. There were tears, she
said, and a feeling of hopelessness. Tim Brady was so devastated
he went on a religious retreat in Tennessee to forget for a
while.
Brady has 60 days to appeal the denial to another Labor
Department office in Jacksonville.
But the ramifications of the letter go much farther than the
heartbreak in the Brady household.
News of his denial has reverberated among Tallevast residents and
former employees of American Beryllium Co., who are or fear they
may become sick from the contamination from the plant. Though
neighbors of the plant don't qualify for the specific kind of
help Brady sought, they are watching to see how former employees
are treated to gauge whether they are likely to get government
help.
Brady is known as perhaps the sickest of all those exposed to
beryllium dust.
The denial of his case, which has required numerous visits to
doctors, has disheartened many residents and workers.
Larry Paquin worked at American Beryllium for five years in the
1980s and knew about Tim Brady's illnesses.
"Brady has so many problems. Man, I tell you what, that's going
to set a precedent right there," Paquin said. "People are going
to see that, and that's going to turn everybody off from making a
claim."
Beryllium is a toxic, lightweight metal that workers at American
Beryllium cut to produce components for nuclear weapons for the
U.S. military. Workers breathed in the fine black beryllium dust,
which can cause an incurable fatal lung disease. The plant ran 24
hours a day from 1961 to 1996, employing about 200 people at any
one time.
Wanda Washington, vice president of FOCUS, a local community
action group, said legislation surrounding the Energy Employees
Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act needs improvement.
She said it should be easier for people to prove they were made
sick by the plant and its pollution.
"What do you need, a stick of beryllium inside your body that
says `ABC' on the side?" Washington asked.
The burden of proof should be on the government to prove
beryllium dust did not cause any illnesses, she said. Instead,
the workers and residents must prove -- through expensive testing
and extensive documentation -- that their health was affected.
Now, some people say they may not even undergo the testing,
though the federal government has provided $50,000, and Manatee
County has kicked in $60,000 to provide initial health screening
for beryllium disease.
Paquin, who lives in DeSoto County, said he has lost hope of
getting help. He hasn't had his beryllium sensitivity test done,
and after hearing about Brady's predicament, he doesn't think he
will.
"Why should I bother having a test? Look what they're doing to
Tim. You'd have to be dead almost," Paquin said.
Each time Brady sent in a round of medical records to
substantiate his claim, the Department of Labor wrote back
saying, "No medical evidence was received that could adequately
substantiate CBD as required under the EEOICPA." CBD is chronic
beryllium disease.
The program can provide a lump sum payment of as much as $150,000
and medical benefits to employees whose claims are accepted.
Current and former employees of contractors, subcontractors and
eligible survivors of former employees of American Beryllium Co.
can receive assistance filing claims under EEOICPA.
The Bradys intend to appeal the denial and have hired a lawyer.
Without government compensation, Brady fears his HMO eventually
might cease paying for the monthly hemoglobin infusions that
boost his immune system and keep him alive.
Flor Brady usually speaks softly -- almost on the verge of tears
-- when she discusses her husband and his health. But since
receiving the letter, she speaks angrily. She is fighting now to
keep her husband alive.
"What he has matches with the symptoms of chronic beryllium
disease," she said.
Dwight Nichols, 63, worked for American Beryllium for 23 years.
Nichols knew Brady and said he doesn't doubt that Brady's
illnesses are related to beryllium dust. But Nichols has lost
faith in the government.
"They're not going to give us anything," Nichols said.
Last modified: December 31. 2004 12:00AM Back to Top
Copyright 2004 The Ledger
*****************************************************************
33 Boston Globe: Opinion Bush failing at nuclear security
By Lawrence J. Korb | January 2, 2005
IN THE RECENT presidential campaign, President Bush and Senator
John Kerry disagreed on most foreign policy issues. However, both
agreed in their second debate that the single gravest national
security threat facing the United States is the prospect of a
weapon of mass destruction (particularly a nuclear weapon)
falling into the hands of a terrorist. As evidence of their
success, the Bush administration cites several achievements --
but each of these achievements are revealed to be marginal
victories at best when examined more carefully.
First, the administration applauds itself for negotiating the
Group of Eight Global Partnership against the spread of weapons
of mass destruction. Under this arrangement, the United States
has agreed to spend $10 billion over the next 10 years to
safeguard and dismantle weapons of mass destruction and related
materials in the former Soviet Union, while the other seven
members agreed to raise another $10 billion. However, what they
don't mention is that this agreement does not obligate the
United States to spend any funds beyond what it has already
spent annually since the end of the Cold War. Similarly, the
other G-7 nations are allowed to count the funds they had
previously allocated for clean-up in the former Soviet Union as
part of their $10 billion contribution. More important, most of
the pledged funds have not been allocated, and in any case are
woefully short of what is needed: Securing the nuclear materials
of Russia (not to mention the other states of the former Soviet
Union) will cost $30 billion.
The second accomplishment that the Bush administration touts is
its establishment of the Proliferation Security Initiative.
Under this program, more than 15 nations will work together to
board ships believed to be transporting weapons of mass
destruction.
Yet, the administration fails to note that it has undermined the
legitimacy of the Proliferation Security Initiative by refusing
to ratify the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
This treaty -- negotiated more than 20 years ago -- has been
ratified by 145 nations, including the other members of the
Proliferation Security Initiative (who insist that it provides
the only legitimate international framework for the initiative).
Even Republican Senator Richard Lugar -- chairman of the Armed
Services Committee and a Bush supporter -- has repeatedly
criticized the administration for failing to ratify the treaty.
Finally, the administration speaks frequently of its support for
the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, which
assists the states of the former Soviet Union in safeguarding
and dismantling their enormous stockpiles of weapons of mass
destruction, delivery systems, and related materials. However,
the Bush administration actually requested a decrease in funding
in fiscal 2005 for the three major threat reduction programs in
the State, Energy, and Defense budgets. If the Bush
administration receives the $919 million it has requested for
fiscal year 2005, this will be a decline from fiscal 2004 of $72
million, or more than 7 percent. By way of contrast, in fiscal
year 2005 the Bush administration will spend close to $100
billion on the war on Iraq, $500 billion on the Department of
Defense, and more than $10 billion on missile defense alone.
While the Bush administration overstates the case for its
positive contributions, it remains silent on those policies that
have actually undermined the ability of the international
community to stop the proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction. Since coming into office, the Bush administration
has rejected the Enforcement Protocol of the Biological Weapons
Convention (which would have established a formal regime to
ensure that nations were living up to their commitment to
destroy and not produce, stockpile, or transfer these weapons),
withdrawn from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, announced its
opposition to inspections and verification as part of the
Fissile Materials Cutoff Treaty, thus killing a decades-long
effort by the international community to ban the production of
enriched uranium and plutonium, and refused to submit the
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty to the Senate for ratification or
to commit itself categorically to halting all future tests.
The Bush administration's misguided policies on an array of
nuclear issues have further undermined the world's efforts to
halt proliferation. The administration has begun development of
two new nuclear weapons; adopted a strategy that authorizes the
use of nuclear weapons in a preemptive attack against nations
that are close to acquiring nuclear weapons; and increased
funding for conducting research and upgrading US nuclear
capabilities to $6.8 billion, twice the amount the US spent a
decade ago. Its message to the rest of the world in the area of
nuclear proliferation is "do as we say, not as we do."
If the president means what he said in the second debate about
the gravity of this threat, he must change his policies
immediately. If not, the consequences of an attack on the United
States or its interests by a group armed with a weapon of mass
destruction will be catastrophic.
Lawrence J. Korb, a senior fellow at the Center for American
Progress and a senior adviser to the Center for Defense
Information, served as assistant secretary of defense in the
Reagan administration. [ /] © Copyright 2005 Globe Newspaper
*****************************************************************
34 Las Vegas SUN: Editorial: Keep fighting against Yucca
January 01, 2005
We have supported the state of Nevada's fight against Yucca
Mountain for more than 20 years, as have the overwhelming
majority of the state's residents. During most of those years
the odds looked pretty grim on paper. The combined forces of the
federal government and the nuclear power industry were bearing
down on tiny Nevada. Yet our state stood its ground, holding off
those forces, never yielding despite the unrelenting pressure.
The payoff came in 2004 when the state scored major
administrative and legal victories in its battle to stop the
government's plan. Finally, the momentum that had been building
for so long to permanently bury high-level nuclear waste at
Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, was forced to a
halt. The Energy Department's plan to file an application by
December 2004 to open Yucca Mountain was put off indefinitely.
This alone was reason for all Nevadans to celebrate on New
Year's Eve.
But one group of Nevadans instead decided recently that this is
the time to capitulate, to sell out to the federal government
and throw away our hard-fought victories. Calling itself "For A
Better Nevada" -- a misnomer, if ever there was one -- the group
began advocating in late December that Nevada resign itself to
the inevitability of Yucca Mountain and begin pleading for
federal handouts in exchange for accepting the deadly waste.
Imagine a trainer throwing in the towel right after his boxer
had just decked his opponent. It would be the same thing.
Last year Nevada challenged the Energy Department's
certification that it had submitted all documents to the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission necessary for its license application. And
the state won, delaying the application for several months. And
in federal court, the state challenged the department's design
standard for protecting against the escape of radiation from the
mountain. In this case, Nevada won a huge victory. The
department had been designing Yucca to be radiation proof for
only 10,000 years, when its job from the start had been to make
the mountain safe for several hundred thousand years. If
President Bush stands by his promise to accept decisions by the
courts regarding Yucca Mountain, this could be the project's
death blow.
Nevada is fighting Yucca Mountain because it's an unsafe plan,
one that would jeopardize its citizens and millions of Americans
along the routes that would be used to bring the waste here.
Fortunately, in this state of historically strong opposition to
Yucca Mountain, For A Better Nevada's voice is as weak as its
reasoning.
*****************************************************************
35 RGJ: Nevada is in no position to negotiate for ‘benefits’
RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL
12/30/2004 10:00 pm
Editor for Dec. 29, 2004
For negotiations to be successful, each party to the transaction
must have something that the other wants.
That’s why negotiations between Nevada and the federal
government over the use of Yucca Mountain for nuclear-waste
storage are doomed to failure, and why the state should continue
to oppose the plan.
With Congress’ approval of the infamous “Screw Nevada” bill,
which designated a site for disposal of the waste from nuclear
power plants based on politics and not science, and with the
Bush administration’s ratification of the choice this year
despite continuing scientific concerns, the federal government
made it clear that it didn’t have to negotiate — that it would
take what it wanted, regardless of Nevada’s opposition or
evidence that the repository might not be as safe as promised.
That leaves the state with nothing to offer in return for the
economic benefits — jobs, tax breaks, research grants, highway
funding, and so on — that proponents of negotiating, including a
newly formed group called For A Better Nevada, claim are
available if we would just give up our opposition to the project.
The state and its congressional delegation must keep up the
fight, even if defeat appears inevitable. At the very least, the
fight will go a long way toward ensuring that the federal
government lives up to its obligation to meet the stringent
standards required for the repository and for the safe
transportation of nuclear waste around the country.
And, if the state is successful, that may well provide the feds
and the nuclear power industry with the incentives they seem to
need to look seriously for a better way of disposing of their
wastes (none of which is generated in Nevada).
This is not the time for the state to quit the battle.
© Copyright Reno Gazette-Journal, a Newspaper. Use of this
*****************************************************************
36 Las Vegas SUN: 23,000 in Ark. Flee Hazardous-Waste Fire
Today: January 02, 2005 at 20:13:08 PST
ASSOCIATED PRESS
EL DORADO, Ark. (AP) - A fire at a hazardous waste incineration
plant forced the evacuation of about a quarter of the city's
23,000 residents Sunday, officials said.
No injuries were reported and officials were monitoring air
quality as thick smoke rose from the Teris plant in southern
Arkansas, said Union County Sheriff Ken Jones.
Jones said the fire began Sunday morning at the plant east of El
Dorado, apparently at a warehouse that stores hazardous waste.
Residents reported hearing a series of explosions and one person
said it rattled the windows of his home.
Doug Riley, vice president of operations for El Dorado-based
Teris LLC, said firefighting efforts were continuing Sunday
afternoon. Thirty people were working at the plant when the fire
broke out.
Teris disposes of hazardous wastes from industries and
government operations around the country. The plant receives
spent solvents, waste oils, chlorinated hydrocarbons, herbicides
and insecticides, as well as dirt, residues and contaminated
water from cleanup activities from other sites.
Sunday church services were canceled, and authorities were
advising people not to use their air conditioners and to keep
their doors shut as a precaution.
Residents of two nursing homes were evacuated to churches.
Shelters were set up at other churches for people displaced from
their homes.
About 150 inmates from the county jail were evacuated to a
school gymnasium eight miles outside of town, Jones said. The
sheriff said the inmates would be moved to another jail if they
couldn't return Sunday night. Students will be returning from
the holiday break this week.
--
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37 HometownAnnapolis.com: Truck crash spills radioactive material onto Route 50
For the Record -
By JEFF HORSEMAN, Staff Writer
A pickup truck carrying low-level radioactive material crashed
into a guardrail on eastbound Route 50 yesterday morning,
causing its cargo to spill onto the roadway.
No one was reported injured in the accident, which happened
about 5:20 a.m. at Route 50 near Saint Margarets Road. The 2002
Ford F150's driver, Ebot J. Oben, told state police a white
pickup cut him off.
The 26-year-old Silver Spring man lost control and hit the
guardrail dividing the east and westbound lanes.
A container carrying a radioactive agent used to enhance
magnetic resonance imaging displays ruptured in the median
strip, said Lt. George Wiseman, a county Fire Department
spokesman.
The material spilled onto westbound lanes. County firefighters
including a hazardous-materials team were dispatched to contain
the spill, which Lt. Wiseman said was limited to a 20-foot area.
The Maryland Department of the Environment was also called in as
firefighters washed down the area. The material posed no direct
threat to the public, Lt. Wiseman said.
"Even if you were right next to it, you'd have to touch it" to
be harmed, he said, adding that the material is meant to be
injected into humans in small doses. The material was expected
to dissipate completely within 12 hours. Traffic was detoured
around the spill for about an hour.
Police said the truck belonged to Snyder Pharmaceutical of
Silver Spring. The cargo was bound for Kent General Hospital in
Dover, Del., Lt. Wiseman said.
While working the accident, an unoccupied county police car was
rear-ended by a 2001 Honda Civic driven by 26-year-old Jefferson
Readmond of Queenstown, county police said.
The police car sustained damage to its left rear bumper and was
driven away from the scene.
Mr. Readmond was not injured, and additional details were
unavailable.
---
jhorseman@capitalgazette.com
Published January 02, 2005, The Capital, Annapolis, Md.
Copyright © 2005 The Capital, Annapolis, Md.
*****************************************************************
38 Boston Globe: Perchlorate contamination
January 2, 2005
Perchlorate was an obscure chemical until last summer, when it
took center stage in two towns northwest of Boston.
The first hints of a problem appeared in July, when water from
Westford's Cote Well, one of nine aquifers supplying the town's
drinking water, registered slightly higher levels of the
contaminant than permitted by newly instituted state guidelines.
But, as nearby Tewksbury would soon discover, identifying the
source of the substance could be tricky. After months of testing
by state and local officials, no clear point of origination
surfaced in Westford, though the North Street industrial area,
where blasting has been ongoing for years, remains under
investigation.
Perchlorate became an issue after the state Department of
Environmental Protection issued guidelines last January and
required communities to test drinking water supplies every three
months and to report results when perchlorate concentrations
were higher than 1 part per billion. The first round of tests in
March raised no concerns, but the second round touched off
concern when Westford's and Tewksbury's water showed levels of
between 2 and 4 parts per billion.
Perchlorate is a salt derivative found in explosives, airbag
inflators, and some fertilizers, and is believed to dissolve
into ground water and flow to drinking supplies. The chemical
poses the most danger to nursing and expectant mothers, children
under 12, and people whose thyroids don't function properly.
As serious as Westford's situation appeared, it paled in
comparison to Tewksbury's problem. Tewksbury draws its drinking
water from the Merrimack River. While Westford's Cote Well could
be closed to stop the contaminant's flow into the town's
drinking-water system, shutting Tewksbury's Merrimack draw was
an all-or-nothing decision for Town Manager David Cressman.
Such an arrangement would have required the budget-busting
purchase of millions of gallons of water a day from neighboring
towns. He defied the state's recommendations and continued
drawing from the river, but supplied spring water to the public
schools.
Suspecting an industrial source was to blame, Cressman struggled
to convince Department of Environmental Protection officials
that the town's 1988 water-treatment facility had an adequate
filtering system. Months of testing by both the state and the
town, and behind-the-scenes sleuthing by a number of town
officials, eventually pinpointed the source as the Billerica
manufacturing plant owned by C.R. Bard Inc.
The company, which bleaches textiles used in implantable medical
devices, was unknowingly discharging a rinse containing
perchloric acid into Billerica's sewer system. When dissolved in
water, the acid broke down into perchlorate, and eventually
flowed from Billerica's waste-water treatment facility into the
Concord River. From there it flowed north to the confluence of
the Concord and Merrimack rivers in Lowell, eventually reaching
Tewksbury's drinking-water treatment facility.
On Nov. 20, Bard stopped discharging into Billerica's sewer
system, and Tewksbury's perchlorate levels dropped to acceptable
levels.
On Dec. 21, state officials lifted the health advisory and
declared the town's water supply was once again safe to drink.
Cressman left for a week's vacation two days later, breathing a
sigh of relief.
JOYCE PELLINO CRANE [ /] © Copyright 2005 Globe Newspaper
y
*****************************************************************
39 LA TIMES: Seeking the Smiling Face of Nevada's Nuclear Heyday
[Los Angeles Times - latimes.com]
January 2, 2005
By Susannah Rosenblatt, Times Staff Writer
LAS VEGAS Long before Britney Spears' wedding made headlines
here, another blond held Sin City in thrall.
The giddy bombshell was photographed in 1957, red-lipsticked
mouth in a gaping grin, arms aloft and wearing a makeshift
mushroom cloud bathing suit of fluffy cotton blobs. With a ribbon
of barren desert horizon stretching behind her lithesome,
high-heeled figure, Miss Atomic Bomb is emblematic of a bygone
American era, part of Las Vegas' flamboyant past.
And one man is out to find her.
She's "truly a piece of our popular culture," said Robert
Friedrichs, a physical scientist with the National Nuclear
Security Administration who has spent the last six months
sleuthing to uncover the identity of Miss Atomic Bomb.
During the 1950s heyday of nuclear testing, the Nevada Test
Site about 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas was a tourist
attraction.
"It was new, it was different, it was exciting," Friedrichs
said. People "wanted to see it and be a part of it." The atomic
craze spawned cocktails and happy hours scheduled around
watching the nuclear blasts poolside, and spurred families to
head up nearby Angel Peak to see the flashes.
Residents "also were caught up in the whole revelry of it," said
Bill Johnson, director of the Atomic Testing Museum, slated to
open in February.
"It was a symbol of American power and might," said Jon Hunner,
a history professor at New Mexico State University who
specializes in the atomic West.
With the Atomic Testing Museum a stone's throw from the Strip,
Friedrichs thought it was time to put a name with that former
showgirl's famous face, likely to appear in exhibits and on
merchandise.
He combed through news archives and university libraries in his
spare time, and with the help of a local newspaper article,
Friedrichs made contact with two former Copa Girls who worked
with Miss Atomic Bomb at the Sands Hotel. They knew her name
Lee Merlin but couldn't tell him much else.
She performed there from 1954 to 1957, but "was very bookish,"
said Carolyn MacMullen, 78, of Las Vegas, a retired Copa Girl
who danced alongside Merlin. "She had a little bit different
sense of humor … very dry."
Recalling glamorous days of parties with Red Skelton, gifts
from Marlene Dietrich and Sammy Davis Jr. and invitations to fly
from Howard Hughes, MacMullen described Merlin as "always part
of the group, but she was very quiet."
And Merlin apparently never mentioned a hometown or family that
might give clues to her current whereabouts.
"She dropped off the face of the Earth," Friedrichs said.
And Lee Merlin could have been a stage name.
That leaves the amateur historian with little besides a couple
of three-ring binders of photos and documents. If he finds her,
he'd love to show her how iconic her image has become and
invite her to speak at the museum.
Merlin's carefree visage endures as a nostalgic symbol of a
particular place and time in the American psyche, said Dina
Titus, political science professor at the University of Nevada,
Las Vegas, and the state Senate's minority leader. Titus is also
on the board of directors for the Nevada Test Site Historical
Foundation, which runs the museum.
"Everyone loves Miss Atomic Bomb," Titus said. "You take
something that was frightening [the bomb]; you make it more
mundane or comical you make it something you can deal with,"
she says of the photo.
Merlin's picture is one of hundreds of nuclear-themed shots that
Las Vegas produced in hopes of drawing visitors to what was then
an out-of-the-way spot. The mushroom cloud, which appeared
everywhere from the Clark County seal to a local high school's
yearbook cover, gave Las Vegas "legitimacy," said Titus, author
of "Bombs in the Backyard."
"We were doing our part to win the Cold War; we were more than
just gambling and prostitution," she said of Vegas, which then
had a handful of one- or two-story hotels and plenty of open
space.
But of all those snapshots, Miss Atomic Bomb remains the most
famous.
Retired Las Vegas photographer Don English photographed her and
dreamed up the mushroom cloud swimsuit.
"We were shooting so many atom bombs, we tried to do anything
that was a little bit different," said English.
One of English's shoots featured a chorus girl performing an
interpretive dance at Angel's Peak, a mountain lookout, against
the backdrop of a mushroom cloud.
Later people learned of the dangers of radioactive fallout,
which harmed those downwind in St. George, Utah, more than it
did Vegas residents.
"In the course of trying to win the Cold War, [the Atomic Energy
Commission] felt that concerns of danger from radioactive
fallout clouds was not as important as testing new and improved
nuclear weapons," Hunner said. The government "knew a whole lot
more than they let the public know about," Titus said. Nuclear
advocates contend such weapons were vital to ending World War II
and maintaining American security.
The new Atomic Testing Museum seeks to present these differing
perspectives in a multimedia exhibit on the UNLV campus. The
material takes visitors from the test site's establishment in
1950 to today's moratorium on nuclear testing, and includes
context of the weapons' effects on scientists, the local
environment and nearby Native American tribes. One exhibit has
objects that are slightly radioactive, and includes a Geiger
counter to test their radioactivity. An orange-red Fiestaware
plate discontinued in 1943 emits a small amount of radiation
from the uranium used in its glaze.
The Nevada Test Site, about the size of Rhode Island, remains in
a state of "official readiness," Johnson, the museum director,
said.
Johnson hopes the museum's estimated 100,000 annual visitors
will understand the historical circumstances that produced
nuclear testing.
And Friedrichs said he believed that an examination of our
nuclear past could shed light on "decisions today in how we deal
with the threats that exist." Meantime, his search for Merlin
continues. "This is one of these things I'll keep working at it
until I die," he said.
Copyright 2005 Los Angeles Times
*****************************************************************
40 AU ABC: Uranium to be shipped to Darwin by rail
"Australian Broadcasting Corporation Online">
Friday, 31 December 2004
WMC is to trial shipping uranium to Darwin by rail.ABC TV
WMC Resources has been given approval to send uranium oxide
concentrate from its Olympic Dam and Beverley Mines to Darwin by
rail.
A three-month trial will begin within the next month.
The uranium will be loaded at the Islington railyards on the
northern outskirts of Adelaide.
Spokesman for WMC Resources, Richard Yeeles, says he hopes the
trial will prove to be successful.
"We've been shipping out of the Port of Adelaide since
production began at Olympic Dam in 1988," he said.
"We've done that without any incident but now the Adelaide to
Darwin rail link's established Darwin gives us another option
and we'd like to look at that on a trial basis and see what
benefits that provides for us.
"We'll access it in conjunction with the South Australian,
Northern Territory governments and the Federal Government and
see if it works for us and see if the governments are happy with
it and if all of that falls together we'll continue with it."
*****************************************************************
41 AU ABC: Safety regulator defends uranium transport trial »
"Australian Broadcasting Corporation Online">
Friday, 31 December 2004
The Northern Territory's work safety regulator says plans to
transport yellowcake uranium on the Adelaide to Darwin Railway
could be safer than using the road.
Mining company WMC Resources has been granted approval for a
three-month rail trial transporting products from its Olympic
Dam and Beverley mines in South Australia to Darwin's East Arm
Port.
NT Worksafe's director Mark Crossin says WMC has met all
accident response and staff training requirements.
He says the benefits of rail are obvious.
"Less opportunity for stops and starts and capacity for
incidents to occur," he said.
"We deal with and transport dangerous goods in the Northern
Territory via rail rather than road."
Mr Crossin defended the timing of the announcement saying the
three month trial was only granted this week, and the first
shipment date will be made public.
"We've issued licences on the 23rd and the final sign-off has
only occurred within the last 48 hours and I understand Western
Mining made the announcement today," he said.
"You would have noted they've made the timing of that
announcement and we've responded, but we've completed those
processes just over a week ago and it's taken up until now to
conclude those processes."
Dave Sweeney from the Australian Conservation Foundation says
the movement of yellowcake uranium by rail is not appropriate
and he will be monitoring the trial closely.
"We think it's a very poor introduction to the New Year for the
Northern Territory," he said.
"This trial is an issue of real concern, we believe there are
real issues of safety and siting along the route and the consent
of traditional Aboriginal people for the use of this material to
be transported along this route.
"There are a lot of issues here that haven't been addressed, one
way is to say that they'll be addressed during the trial, we say
that that's the wrong way around.
"There should be real questions asked and they should be
answered before such activities commence.
"But given that this is happening, we will be keeping a close
eye on it and keeping as much of a track as possible."
Last Updated: 31/12/2004 20:41:00 (ACDT)
*****************************************************************
42 AU ABC: Conservation group calls for uranium mine's closure.
01/01/2005.
"Australian Broadcasting Corporation Online">
The Australian Conservation Foundation says it is time to wind
down operations at the Northern Territory's Ranger Uranium mine.
A third and final inspection began at the mine yesterday.
The three audits were ordered by the Federal Government after
an incident at the mine in March saw workers drink and bathe in
water contaminated with uranium.
Foundation spokesman Dave Sweeney says the site should be
rehabilitated.
"Ranger mine is leaking, it's spilling," he said.
"It's had an awful 2004 [and] there's no indication that the
practices, the infrastructure, the management, the training, the
resources have changed fundamentally in a way that gives
confidence there won't be further problems at this mine in 2005
and into the future."
The mine has passed two previous compliance audits.
© 2005 Australian Broadcasting Corporation
*****************************************************************
43 AU ABC: WMC trial doubles uranium transport through SA »
Sunday, 2 January 2005
A three-month trial of transporting WMC Resources' uranium to
Darwin by rail will see the material travel twice through South
Australia.
The South Australian Government last week announced support for
the rail plan and the trial will start this month.
Currently uranium is carried to Adelaide's port by truck.
The new arrangement will see uranium bound for Darwin travel to
Adelaide by truck before being loaded onto trains heading north.
WMC Resources' Richard Yeeles says this doubling back will
continue unless plans to connect the Olympic Dam mine to rail go
ahead.
"We're looking at the option of building a railway from Pimba to
Olympic Dam, a distance of about 80 kilometres, that would link
Olympic Dam directly to the national rail network," he said.
The rail plan is part of a feasibility study that is due to
finish in 2008.
Last Updated: 02/01/2005 14:05:00 (ACST)
*****************************************************************
44 AU ABC: WMC prepares for uranium rail transport trial »
ABC North and West SA » Local News
"Australian Broadcasting Corporation Online">
Monday, 3 January 2005
A three-month trial of transporting WMC Resources uranium by
rail to Darwin will see the material travel twice through South
Australia.
The South Australian Government last week announced support for
the rail plan, with trials set to begin this month.
Currently uranium is carried to Adelaide's port by truck.
The new arrangement will see the substance also carried by rail
to Darwin's port.
But the uranium bound for Darwin will still travel to Adelaide
by truck before being loaded onto trains heading north.
WMC Resources' Richard Yeeles says this doubling back will
continue unless plans to connect the Olympic Dam mine to rail go
ahead.
"We're looking at the option of building a railway from Pimba to
Olympic Dam, a distance of about 80 kilometres that would link
Olympic Dam directly to the national rail network," he said.
The rail plan is part of a feasibility study that is due to
finish in 2008.
Last Updated: 03/01/2005 09:06:00 (ACDT)
*****************************************************************
45 Times &Star: CORE BLASTS NEW NUCLEAR WASTE POLICY
Business Gazette © 2003
on Friday, December 31st 2004
CAMPAIGNERS from anti-nuclear group Cumbrians Opposed to a
Radioactive Environment have condemned the Governments decision
to allow a majority of overseas nuclear waste to be dumped
permanently in the UK under a new policy of waste substitution.
More than 10,000 metres of foreign low-level wastes are already
dumped at Drigg and the new ruling will see at least another
3,250 cubic metres of more radioactive foreign wastes dumped in
the UK.
Under waste substitution, the only foreign waste that will be
returned to overseas customers will be the high level waste,
which amount to just a few hundred cubic metres.
A Core spokesman said: This leaves us in a no-win situation. On
the one hand, this confirms West Cumbrias status as a fully
fledged international nuclear waste dumping ground and on the
other it commits us to years of highly controversial exports to
Europe and Japan.
*****************************************************************
46 Bradenton Herald: Tallevast residents, others help spread the word
| 01/01/2005 |
Health Matters
Out of adversity comes strength. I offer two examples - the
community of Tallevast and the growing network of employees of
former Loral American Beryllium Co. that sits in middle of this
historical village in southern Manatee County.
Workers and residents learned one year ago that past chemical
leaks from the plant had contaminated the soil and groundwater of
Tallevast.
Testing continues to determine the extent of the plume of
contamination.
Lockheed Martin Corp. - owners of the plant when the
contamination was discovered three years ago - have accepted
responsibility for cleaning up the mess.
But Tallevast residents and former workers are haunted with
worries about how the contaminants - primarily
tetrachloroethylene and its derivatives - have affected their
health.
Workers and residents worry, too, about what ill effects might
come from breathing beryllium dust over a four-decade period.
Beryllium is an exotic metal used in many aerospace projects.
American Beryllium workers over the past four decades milled and
machined beryllium to make parts for nuclear weapons and missile
guidance systems for the federal government.
Dust, workers and residents remember, was everywhere.
When one inhales beryllium dust the tiny, powdery specks can
become lodged in the lungs. Some people's immune systems perceive
those beryllium specks as invaders. White blood cells mount an
attack, surrounding the beryllium specks, creating scarring. In
some people, that scarring can lead to beryllium disease, a
serious and chronic respiratory condition that can be fatal if
not treated.
The catch is it can take up to 30 years for the symptoms to
develop.
Over the past year Tallevast has mounted a defense of its own,
coming together under the leadership of Laura Ward and Wanda
Washington, officers of FOCUS, which stands for Family Oriented
Community United and Strong.
FOCUS is seeking answers to residents' health and legal
questions.
Former American Beryllium workers are networking, too, to share
information about a federal claims program that offers medical
benefits and possible lump sum compensation for workers who have
an allergy or sensitivity to beryllium or beryllium disease.
Local, state and federal health officials have responded,
securing $110,000 to conduct beryllium sensitivity blood tests to
learn who might be ill from beryllium exposure.
Manatee County allocated $60,000 to test Manatee County residents
who are former workers, or family members of those workers who
test positive and residents of Tallevast who lived within a
quarter mile of the American Beryllium plant when it was in
operation.
Just this week, state health officials confirmed that $50,000 in
federal funds from the Agency of Toxic Substances and Disease
Registry has been earmarked for testing workers, family members
and former Tallevast residents regardless of where they live.
Terry Owen, Jim Huff and Ray Stephens, former union officers at
American Beryllium are trying to assemble a list of all employees
who worked at the Tallevast plant since the 1950s when it was
known as Visionering through 1996 when Loral American Beryllium
was sold to Lockheed.
Their list of names numbers nearly 1,500, but they have contact
information for less than half of those workers.
Owen has asked me to help spread the word about the list. She
would like to hear from anyone who has information about former
workers.
Owen wants to make sure workers know about the compensation
program and the free tests.
This isn't a union matter, she emphasized, it is a health issue
that affects everyone who worked at the Tallevast plant.
This is truly a story of people helping people, and as the
networking connections expand, the levels of networking expand,
too.
Word of mouth is working to make those connections. please box
BERYLLIUM WORKERS SOUGHT
Former union officials are seeking the names, current addresses
and phone numbers for all former Loral American Beryllium Co
workers. Contact Terry Owen at Terry's Touch, 371-5207, to leave
a call-back message.
Donna Wright, health and social services reporter, can be
reached at 745-7049 or at dwright@bradentonherald.com.
*****************************************************************
47 Pocatello Idaho State Journal: Your Views: Plutonium production
The DOE claims the waste from production of plutonium-238 at
INEEL would be reused, but I'm unsure what they're talking
about. If acids are used to strip the plutonium, the only usable
part I know of are the heavy particles that fall to the bottom
of the stripping container. The acids themselves have to be
neutralized so that they don't corrode the container. The usable
part is only about 1 percent of the container volume.
I believe I'd ask the DOE exactly what sort of waste they'll be
producing. If not, INEEL could end up with more acid waste than
it already has and can't get rid of.
Ron Bourgoin,
Edgecombe Community College
Rocky Mount, N.C.
I believe I'd ask the DOE exactly what sort of waste they'll be
producing. If not, INEEL could end up with more acid waste than
it already has and can't get rid of.">
January 01, 2005
Copyright © 2005 Pocatello Idaho State Journal
P O Box 431 Pocatello, ID 83204-0431
*****************************************************************
48 Washington Times: Edward Teller
January 02, 2005
Strangelove
By Peter Goodchild
Harvard University press, $29.95, 466 pages
Reveiwed by Jeffrey Marsh
Edward Teller (1908-2003) had one of the longest and most
noteworthy careers in the history of science.
He made important contributions to nuclear physics in the 1930s
and was a leading figure in the inception of the World War II
Manhattan Project.
He is most famous, though, as "the father of the hydrogen bomb,"
a title bestowed upon him in the 1950s which reflects both his
role in the technical breakthrough that made construction of the
H-bomb possible and the dogged political battle he waged against
the scientific establishment to continue research on the bomb.
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material is distributed without profit or payment to those who
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