*****************************************************************
01/05/05 ****     RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL)       **** VOL 13.3
*****************************************************************
   RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE
*****************************************************************
Send News Stories to news@energy-net.org with title on subject
line and first line of body

                         NUCLEAR POLICY
 
1 BBC: Iran to allow military site probe
2 IPS-English NORTH KOREA: Delegation of U.S. lawmakers to visit
3 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: North Korean War Plan May Be Propaganda
4 INSIDE JoongAng Daily: Paper publishes alleged war plan from the Nor
5 INSIDE JoongAng Daily: Lawmakers from U.S. to visit North
6 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: South Korea's nuclear surprise 
7 US: Seattle Post-Intelligencer: New Congress gets serious in a hurry
8 US: Las Vegas RJ: Reid sworn in as minority leader 
9 YWS: U.S. Sets Deadline for Resumption of Six-Party Talks - Report
10 US: Las Vegas SUN: Nevada delegates return to Capitol Hill
11 US: Las Vegas SUN: Nuke industry lobby donates $100,000 for inaugura
12 US: Las Vegas SUN: Reid donates $500,000 to party committee
13 US: Las Vegas SUN: Reid adviser again tabbed for NRC post
14 [NukeNet] IAEA Finds Egypt Secret Nuclear Program
15 NEWS.com.au: Warning against nuclear fuel 
16 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: Blind in Baghdad | thebulletin.or
17 Pakistan News: US brushes asides reports of Egypt acquiring nuclear 
18 Prados: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
 
                         NUCLEAR REACTORS
 
19 [NukeNet] Korea Times: World Rushing Toward Nuclear Energy
20 IPS-English ENERGY: French Plan Contradicts Europe's
21 AZ Republic: Wind power set to soar
22 US: York Dispatch: Nuclear survey redone
23 US: NRC: Notice of Issuance of Renewed Materials License SNM-2500,
24 US: Las Vegas RJ: Bush retaps Reid science aide for NRC 
25 Bellona: Lituania𠏋 Ignalina NPP begins the road to shut down
26 BBC: 'Loose nukes' fear spurs US-Russia action
27 US: NRC: Notice of Issuance of Amendment to Materials License SNM-25
28 US: Platts: White House nominates two individuals for NRC commission
29 US: NRC: Notice of Availability of Environmental Assessment and Find
 
                          NUCLEAR SAFETY
 
 
                         NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
 
30 US: [NukeNet] NRC Licensing Board ruling on Private Fuel Storage
31 Las Vegas SUN: U.S. Chamber maintains support for nuclear dump
32 US: Tri-City Herald: DOE gets waste separation proposal 
33 Nuclear Waste: Can You Handle It At Birmingham's Thinktank? -
34 US: Second Alarm in a week: vehicle transportation accidents with n-
 
                         NUCLEAR WEAPONS
 
35 [du-list] GREEN MEP RENEWS CALL FOR NUCLEAR ARMS BAN
 
                        US DEPT. OF ENERGY
 
36 [DU-WATCH] Fw: Rocky Flats warning proposed
37 DenverPost.com: Bill would warn Rocky Flats visitors of dangers
38 UPI: FBI agent: Rocky Flats still dangerous - 
39 DOE: Notice of Intent to Prepare a Supplemental Environmental Impact
 
                          OTHER NUCLEAR
 
40 Radio Coverage of Depleted Uranium
41 BBC: Three-minute silence for victims
*****************************************************************
*****************************************************************
                         FULL NEWS STORIES
*****************************************************************
*****************************************************************
 1 BBC: Iran to allow military site probe
 
  Last Updated: Wednesday, 5 January, 2005
 
		   		 		 		 
[Detail of Parchin complex 

(photo: DigitalGlobe/Isis)]                             

The US says Parchin is suspicious (photo: DigitalGlobe/Isis)                                                              

Iran is to allow the UN nuclear watchdog to carry out inspections 
at one of its most secret military sites. 

Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) are 
on standby to visit the plant, at Parchin. 

US officials have accused Iran of using a civilian nuclear 
programme as front to develop atomic weapons. 

Iran has consistently denied the claim, but an IAEA report 
published last October expressed concern over possible "dual-use" 
of nuclear technology. 

The head of the IAEA, Mohammed ElBaradei, said the organisation 
will send inspectors to Parchin "within days or weeks". 

US officials have alleged that a secret annex at the Parchin 
plant, 30 km (20 miles) south-west of Tehran, could be used for 
research into high explosives. 

The IAEA is co-ordinating details of the visit with the Iranian 
authorities, Mr ElBaradei said. 

Sensitive evidence 

Iran has been under investigation for allegedly pursuing a 
programme of "weaponisation" while publicly claiming to pursue a 
civilian nuclear programme. 

In November the US failed in a bid to have the IAEA refer Iran to 
the UN Security Council over alleged breaches of IAEA resolutions 
on weapons development. 

Instead Iran offered to halt the development of centrifuges 
designed to enrich uranium - a key stage in "weaponisation". 

European nations, led by Britain, France and Germany, have used 
diplomacy to convince Iran to co-operate with the international 
community. 

The US maintains that Iran is developing weapons, but says that 
evidence it holds is sensitive and hard to verify.                                               



*****************************************************************
 2 IPS-English NORTH KOREA: Delegation of U.S. lawmakers to visit
 
Date: Wed, 05 Jan 2005 15:11:11 -0800

 
<x-flowed>
  AP WD TS IP HD PR
NORTH KOREA: Delegation of U.S. lawmakers to visit Pyongyang next week
Att.Editors: The following item is from the Emirates News Agency (WAM)

SEOUL, Jan. 5 (WAM) - A group of six U.S. representatives will visit
Pyongyang next week as part of an Asian trip aimed at the resumption of
stalled negotiations over North Korea's nuclear weapons programs, South
Korea's Yonhap News Agency reported Wednesday in its Washington datelined
story.

    Yonhap quoted Republican Rep. Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania as saying that
he and five other members of the U.S. House of Representatives will embark
on a five-nation trip starting Sunday that will take them to Russia, North
Korea, South Korea, Japan and China, in that order.

    The countries have been part of six-way talks that also involve the
United States.

    The trip to North Korea, following a similar one organized by Weldon in
May 2003, will be intended to show Pyongyang officials "the real face of
America", Weldon, who is a senior member of the House Armed Services
Committee, was quoted as saying.

    The delegation will include three other members of the House Armed
Services Committee -- Roscoe Bartlett (R, Maryland), Solomon Ortiz (D,
Texas) and Silvestre Reyes (D, Texas) -- and Representatives Fred Upton (R,
Michigan) and Eliot Engel (D, New York), who are members of the House
Committee on Energy and Commerce.

    The visit to North Korea is expected to help iron out some of the
differences between Washington and Pyongyang. The two countries and the
other participants in the six-party talks have been unable to resume the
multilateral negotiating process since the third round in June, as Pyongyang
has been refusing to participate, citing Washington's "hostile" policies
toward it.

    Weldon said the U.S. lawmakers will not be going as "diplomats," but said
they will try to visit high-ranking government officials in Pyongyang.

    A U.S. State Department official also said the delegation will only be
"traveling in the capacity of members of the Congress, not as
representatives of the (U.S.) administration." The U.S. department has,
however, decided to provide a military aircraft for the planned trip, the
official, who asked anonymity, told Yonhap News Agency.

    Weldon said the U.S. delegation also plans to suggest to North Korea a
six-way meeting of legislators from the six countries involved in the
multinational dialogue over the North's nuclear standoff at the North's
mountain resort of Geumgang sometime in February or March.

    The U.S. lawmakers will be in Pyongyang for four days from next Tuesday,
following a two-day trip to Russia. The delegation will then fly to Seoul on
Jan. 14 for a two-day visit before traveling to Japan and China. (WAM)




  

</x-flowed>
*****************************************************************
 3 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: North Korean War Plan May Be Propaganda
 
  Home> National/Politics    Updated Jan.5,2005 18:57 KST   
 
  North Korean bylaws written on April 7, 2003, signed by
Central Military Committee Chairman of the Workers＊ Party Kim
Jong-il. The bylaws were written in preparation for a possible
war.   

North Korea strengthened its war plans on April 7, 2004, when it 
published an updated set of bylaws outlining how a potential war 
would be conducted, it was learned Wednesday. 

The original bylaws have been in the public domain for some time, 
but South Korean intelligence authorities were able to obtain and 
analyze the supplemented version in April marked "Top Secret." 

The document is entitled, "Central Military Committee of the 
Workers' Party Order 002." As for who issued the directive, the 
document clearly states that it was North Korean leader Kim 
Jong-il, who publicly officiates as the Central Military 
Committee Chairman of the Workers＊ Party. This at least confirms 
that Kim Jong-il officially succeeded to the top post of the 
Central Military Committee after his father Kim Il-sung died in 
1994. 

The document calls for the party, military and citizens to fully 
mobilize for war within 24 hours after the start of hostilities, 
and for military mobilization headquarters to be established at 
provincial, city and county levels in order to secure troop 
strength. 

Moreover, in order to supplement wartime manpower, besides 
calling up reserve forces, the directive also calls for the 
recruitment of South Koreans recommended by local "revolutionary 
organizations" (meaning resident spies and North Korean 
sympathizers) in the South should the southern half of the 
peninsula be "liberated." 

It also demands the recruitment of fully recovered patients upon 
their release from medical facilities. 

Some intelligence officials, however, are raising suspicions 
about the content of the document. One official said the bylaws 
only contained information that had been collected through 
various sources at a previous time. He explained that in a 
document such as this, the means by which the intelligence was 
collected and the process of adopting the document were usually 
included, but in this case, they were absent. He said it was 
possible that information concerning resident spies and 
intelligence gathering activities conducted within South Korea 
had been omitted. 

Another intelligence official said that from North Korea's 
position, it was suspicious that the bylaws focused on defensive 
concepts and double-checking contingency plans premised on coming 
under attack from biological weapons. He said if this were a war 
contingency plan, North Korea would have also considered 
pre-emptive strikes, which it is capable of carrying out, but no 
such plans appeared in the document. 

Choi Ju-hwal, a North Korean colonel who defected to the South in 
1995, said that since the Korean War, North Korea has outlined 
bylaws that are primarily defensive in the case of civilians, but 
offensive regarding the Northern forces dotted along the 
demilitarized zone (DMZ), which are given invasion objectives 
south of the border. 

He said that given the consideration that such content may have 
been intentionally omitted, the document may have been 
manufactured for propaganda purposes to demonstrate that 
Pyongyang could withstand U.S.-applied pressure. 

(Kwon Kyeong-bok, kkb@chosun.com ) 

  
*****************************************************************
 4 INSIDE JoongAng Daily: Paper publishes alleged war plan from the North

January 6, 2005 KST 14:14 (GMT+9)

  January 06, 2005 天 Documents purporting to be North Korean
war contingency plans were published in a Seoul newspaper
yesterday. The report outlined how North Korea would mobilize
its military, shelter large numbers of citizens 〞 and save
statues of North Korean leaders. 

The National Intelligence Service said it believes the documents
are authentic, adding they were from the central military
committee of North Korea's Workers' Party. The documents, dated
April 7, 2004, said the upgraded contingencies were ordered by
North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.

 If genuine, the documents would be the first North Korean war
plan revealed in the South. The Kyung Hyang Sinmun published
reports on the documents, classified as top secret, yesterday
morning. An official at the National Intelligence Service said
it had obtained them in September last year. The official, who
requested anonymity, said the fall of Saddam Hussein had likely
triggered the North Korean leadership to update its war plans.

 According to the documents, Mr. Kim ordered the mobilization of
all civilians, party and military officials within 24 hours of
the outbreak of hostilities. The documents said reserve troops
in the North should be mobilized and South Korean "revolutionary
organizations" would recommend volunteers. 

The intelligence service said it is paying attention to the
North's belief that it can recruit in the South in time of war.

 The documents also said military and all government facilities
should be equipped with underground facilities. 

The plans also said unmanned surveillance planes and satellites
should be used to gather information, indicating that the North
Korean military is equipped with such capabilities, though such
a claim is suspect. 

The documents also said missile units should take offensive
action in case of war, but ordered biochemical warfare units to
remain on the defensive. The war plans also detailed the actions
that would be taken by the North Korean military to
decontaminate areas hit by nuclear and biochemical attacks. The
plans stressed that the United States was planning a pre-emptive
strike. 

The contingency guide directs civilians to protect portraits and
statues of North Korean leaders 〞 Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong-il
〞 by moving them to underground shelters. 

The Unification Ministry noted that the documents showed that
North Korean leader Kim Jong-il had succeeded in taking full
control of the governing Workers' Party. 

"When South Korea's contingency plans were made public during
National Assembly hearings in October, the North criticized us
for taking initiatives to undermine Pyeongyang," a Unification
Ministry official said. "We will see how the North reacts to the
leak of their war plans."
 

by Lee Young-jong myoja@joongang.co.kr>   

Copyright by Joins.com, Inc. Terms of Use |
*****************************************************************
 5 INSIDE JoongAng Daily: Lawmakers from U.S. to visit North
 
January 6, 2005 KST 14:14 (GMT+9)
       
   
January 06, 2005 天 A trip to North Korea by a U.S.
congressional delegation, which the Bush administration had
opposed last year, is scheduled to go ahead next week with the
apparent approval of the White House.

 The six-member bipartisan group of lawmakers, led by Curt
Weldon, Republican of Pennsylvania, will visit Pyeongyang from
Tuesday to Friday, the group announced. 

The rest of the delegation includes Republicans Roscoe Bartlett
of Maryland and Fred Upton of Michigan and Democrats Solomon
Ortiz of Texas, Silvestre Reyes of Texas and Eliot Engel of New
York. 

"The delegation is part of an ongoing effort that has supported
the administration's approach," Mr. Weldon was quoted in a
report by the Agence France-Presse news agency. "We are not
going over to negotiate anything. The real purpose of our trip
is to show the face of America."

 North Korea has consistently sought bilateral discussions with
U.S. officials.

 Since Pyeongyang's clandestine nuclear arms programs were made
public in October 2002, the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russian
and the United States have met in three separate sets of
negotiations to resolve the nuclear crisis, but little progress
has been made. 

The talks have been suspended, with North Korea refusing to
attend since the fourth round was scheduled to be held last
September. 

Announcing the visit, the U.S. congressmen expressed their hope
to revive U.S. diplomatic efforts in North Korea. 

The visit is the second of its kind. The first took place in the
spring of 2003. The lawmakers had planned to visit the North in
October that year, but the White House intervened and halted the
trip.
 

by Ser Myo-ja myoja@joongang.co.kr>   

Copyright by Joins.com, Inc. Terms of Use |
*****************************************************************
 6 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: South Korea's nuclear surprise 

| thebulletin.org
 
[The magazine of global security news and analysis]       
               
As more and more countries adopt the IAEA's Additional Protocol,
all kinds of nuclear secrets will come spilling out. Currently
under the microscope: South Korea. 

  

By  Jungmin Kang, Peter Hayes, Li Bin, Tatsujiro Suzuki and
Richard Tanter
 January/February 2005  pp. 40-49 (vol. 61, no. 01) � 2005
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 

[L] ast fall, under pressure from the International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA), South Korea publicly disclosed its past
secret nuclear research activities, revealing that it had
conducted chemical uranium enrichment from 1979 to 1981,
separated small quantities of plutonium in 1982, experimented
with uranium enrichment in 2000, and manufactured depleted
uranium munitions from 1983 to 1987. The South Korean government
had violated its international agreements by not declaring any
of these activities to the IAEA in Vienna. 

South Korea's surprise reappearance on the list of
proliferation-problem states provides important lessons for the
future of the global nonproliferation regime. 

First, the revelations confirm the potency of the IAEA's new
environmental monitoring system called for in the agency's
Additional Protocol, which forced these stories to surface years
after they had been suppressed by South Korea's secretive
nuclear establishment. 

Second, the news revealed yet again how politicized the IAEA's
monitoring and evaluation process is, with leadership politics
in Vienna reportedly playing a role in the timing and manner in
which the stories came to light. 

Third, it showed that states will eventually pay a price if they
allow nuclear research establishments to conduct activities
without stringent inculcation of nonproliferation norms and a
deep appreciation of the legal and political obligations of
parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)-IAEA
safeguards system. South Korea's secret and undeclared
activities put at risk not only South Korea's security; they
also threatened the security of its neighbors and all states
with a stake in the global nonproliferation regime. 

If North Korea was aware of the South's uranium enrichment
research activities in the 1990s (and its intelligence
capacities in the South should not be underestimated) then the
South's activities may have helped motivate the North to acquire
enrichment capacities of its own; in 2002, the United States
alleged that the North began an enrichment effort in about 1998. 

Fourth, South Korea's hidden actions exemplify the impulse
toward proliferation that arises in response to the
discriminatory treatment the United States shows to different
states, permitting, for example, Japan to have tons of plutonium
while South Korea may have none, and Japan to explore mixed
oxide fuels for reactors while South Korea may not. The
disparity in the application of ostensibly universal
nonproliferation norms is felt keenly by Koreans who remain
resentful of Japan's big-power status and its colonial
aggression in Korea. 

So far, South Korea has been lucky. The spillover effect into
the North-South Korean relationship appears to be minimal, and
the impact on the six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear
program has been contained. This apparently minimal impact on
nonproliferation diplomacy across the always-volatile
Demilitarized Zone is largely due to the North's foot-dragging
in the six-party negotiations in the run-up to the U.S.
election. 

Finally, the revelations about South Korea's nuclear activities
remind everyone of the high stakes in Korea. Getting
nonproliferation wrong could lead to a proliferation chain
reaction involving Japan, Taiwan, and others. 

  
The second time around
 

The news that South Korea admitted in August 2004 that it had
enriched uranium and not declared it was trumped in September by
the revelation that it had also extracted plutonium in 1982, and
had declared neither activity to the IAEA. This retrospective
transparency forces a major reevaluation of what governments and
analysts around the world thought they knew about South Korea's
nuclear history. It not only underscores the well-known fact
that South Korea has previously attempted to acquire the means
to make nuclear weapons, but also confirms that attempts to
develop weapons-related capacities--whatever Seoul's
intentions--continued in the nuclear research and development
establishment long after they were thought to have ended in
response to U.S. pressure. 

It was commonly known that from 1968 to 1975 South Korea
attempted to obtain both a plant to reprocess plutonium from
spent fuel and intermediate-range missile delivery systems. [1] 
After 1971, an organized South Korean effort to develop a bomb
was orchestrated by the Weapons Exploitation Committee with
presidential-level backing. This early effort to become a
nuclear-armed state was partly motivated by President Richard
Nixon's unilateral withdrawal of one of the two American
infantry divisions then based in South Korea. It took the direct
intervention of then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and the
threat to rupture the U.S.-South Korean alliance to terminate
South Korea's nuclear weapons program in 1975. This
confrontation also resulted in South Korea's accession to the
NPT in April 1975 and its signing of a full-scope safeguards
agreement in November 1975. 

Soon after, President Jimmy Carter's ill-fated attempt to
withdraw the remaining infantry division and its nuclear weapons
stimulated South Korea's military to engage in a flurry of
barely disguised threats of proliferation. However, the reversal
of Carter's policy in 1978 ended the threats. 

But South Korean scientists did not in fact abandon their
interest in nuclear weapons-related experimentation. Once
gained, it is hard to lose technical capacity or the taste for
acquiring scientific knowledge, and technologies with weapons
applications were now part of the institutional memory of the
South Korean nuclear establishment. Moreover, South Korea was
rapidly building one of the world's largest nuclear power
programs, primarily based on U.S.-licensed light-water reactors
but also utilizing Canadian heavy-water reactor technology. 

Today, the South has 19 power reactors generating 16.7 gigawatts
of electricity--one of the biggest nuclear programs in the
world. This power program has led the South to develop a
substantial and highly competent scientific and technical
infrastructure to support many aspects of the nuclear fuel
cycle. It also enables the South to keep the door to the
proliferation path slightly ajar. 

Most observers assumed that South Korea's massive investment in
nuclear power and its membership in the first tier of
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development states,
combined with the continued extension of U.S. nuclear
deterrence, had ended any residual South Korean interest in
obtaining nuclear weapons. In fact, South Korean nuclear
researchers, especially those affiliated with the Korean Atomic
Energy Research Institute (KAERI), like their colleagues in
Japan, were eager to reprocess plutonium from spent fuel to
"close the fuel cycle" on "energy security" grounds, to reduce
South Korea's high dependence on imported fossil fuels, and,
increasingly, on uranium fuel. [2]  

As early as 1983-1984, specialists (including one of the
authors) were aware that KAERI was conducting chemical
experiments related to the handling of spent fuel that crossed
the reprocessing boundary. At the time, the United States
insisted that the South not reprocess plutonium in any manner in
return for U.S. reactor technology and financing for South
Korea's nuclear power program. Another indicator of continuing
South Korean interest in technology with immediate application
to a weapons program surfaced in 1984 when the United States
halted a Canadian transfer of mixed oxide fuel-related
reprocessing technology to South Korea. And from the mid-1980s
on some maverick intellectuals associated with the security (but
not the nuclear) establishment in the South argued openly that
it should obtain its own nuclear weapons, especially after the
South Korean military dictatorship was overthrown in 1987. One
even stood for parliament on a "nuclear nationalist" platform. 

In spite of these contrary indicators, most nonproliferation
analysts held that South Korea's gains from being an
internationally certified, squeaky-clean nuclear-powered state
meant that the South would adhere stringently to all its nuclear
safeguards obligations. And it followed that the government
would rein in the ambitions of scientists at KAERI and would
forgo all nuclear weapons-related research and technological
capacity. The nuclear standoff with North Korea beginning in
1991 only reinforced the international perception that the South
would play strictly by the rules set by the NPT-IAEA safeguards
system. 

The NPT and the IAEA regimes were also enshrined in both the
1992 inter-Korean "Denuclearization Declaration," in which both
Koreas pledged not to acquire plutonium or enrichment
facilities, and in various bilateral agreements signed earlier
between South Korea and supplier countries, including a 1974
agreement with the United States and a 1979 agreement with
Australia for the supply of uranium for reactor fuel. 

To find that all of these assumptions and expectations were
wrong is deeply disturbing; it is important to know what the
South Koreans did and when. 

  
The uranium enrichment experiments
 

South Korea has now admitted it conducted two enrichment
activities separated by about 20 years. On October 21, 2004,
South Korea told the IAEA that it had conducted a chemical
enrichment experiment in 1979-1981 that it had not previously
declared as required under its safeguards agreement. 

The experiment aimed to assess whether chemical exchange could
be used to produce low-enriched uranium (3 percent uranium 235)
for pressurized-water reactor fuel. Using an ion exchange
column, scientists enriched 700 grams of natural uranium powder
to 0.72 percent uranium 235. 

South Korean officials say this activity ceased in 1981 and that
related equipment was dismantled in 1982. KAERI researchers made
no attempt to conceal the activity; they even published a report
in 1981 that reviewed the technology and their own experimental
results. [3]  Yet South Korea did not report the activity to the
IAEA. 

A decade later, South Korea began to apply laser separation
technology to uranium. This activity built on elementary laser
research undertaken in the 1960s and molecular laser isotope
separation technology development in the 1970s and 1980s,
obtained with Russian and American technical assistance. In
1990, South Korea began to develop atomic vapor laser isotope
separation (AVLIS) technology involving small, solid-state,
high-power lasers that could enrich uranium. KAERI researchers
first applied AVLIS to non-fissile materials and later to
uranium. [4] 

In 1990, researchers also began spectroscopic work with uranium.
From 1993 to 2000 at least 10 AVLIS-related experiments
involving depleted uranium or undeclared natural uranium were
conducted. In 1993-1994, KAERI conducted a uranium evaporation
test involving imported depleted uranium. This was followed in
1994-1996 by spectroscopic experiments with depleted and natural
uranium metal. 

Finally, in January, February, and May 2000, KAERI conducted
AVLIS experiments using domestically produced undeclared uranium
metal. The scientists separated one-fifth of a gram of uranium
enriched to an average of 10.2 percent uranium 235. 

The equipment used in these experiments was dismantled and
stored at KAERI for future disposal, ostensibly because it was
"contaminated"--a rationale we view with skepticism. Some of
this dismantled equipment is now used for non-nuclear, stable
isotope separation research. 

The ostensible purpose of the AVLIS activity was to separate
gadolinium 157 from other gadolinium isotopes. AVLIS has a
variety of industrial and medical applications, but laser
separation of isotopes such as gadolinium is not likely ever to
be economically justified. Nonetheless, KAERI staff state
privately that they believe that the isotopic separation
technology might eventually have industrial or commercial
applications. 

The uranium used in these experiments came from a 3.5-kilogram
sample of a 154-kilogram stock of uranium metal that KAERI
produced in 1982 at its Taejon facility. This stock seems to
have come from two separate sources. The first was uranium metal
extracted from phosphate fertilizer (about 2.5 metric tons of
ammonium uranyl tricarbonate) rather than from refined uranium
ore. The Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) announced on
September 14, 2004 that a private company, Yong-Nam Chemicals,
imported the uranium-bearing phosphate fertilizer and declared
to the IAEA that about 100 kilograms of uranium oxide was
recovered and that this was the sole source of the uranium used
in the AVLIS experiments. South Korea also declared that it
obtained another 25 kilograms from uranium ore from a coal mine
in Goesan. 

But 125 kilograms would have been insufficient to produce 150
kilograms of uranium metal. Moreover, the IAEA has found that
samples of uranium said to be from the Goesan mine are depleted
relative to the amount of uranium 235 expected in natural
uranium--yet another anomaly for South Korea to explain. The
depleted uranium could only have come from imported uranium from
which the uranium 235 had been removed. Reconciling these
disparities will be complicated further because two laboratories
(and a third that produced depleted uranium) were dismantled in
1994. 

We believe that KAERI bought about 900 kilograms of natural
uranium from Yong-Nam Chemicals; 700 kilograms were fabricated
into fresh fuel for the Wolsung 1 CANDU natural uranium reactor,
and two KAERI laboratories fabricated 154 kilograms of natural
uranium metal from which the 3.5 kilograms were taken. Some 50
kilograms appear to have been lost. 

KAERI retains 133 kilograms of the natural uranium metal. If 3.5
kilograms were consumed in making the enriched uranium sample, a
discrepancy of about 14 kilograms remains. KAERI claims that it
was mixed into the depleted uranium metal that was produced at
KAERI in the mid-1980s. No doubt the IAEA will investigate this
discrepancy. 

According to Nucleonics Week, in 2002 a U.S. expert proposed to
KAERI that it conduct a molecular laser isotope separation
(MLIS) experiment for zinc, but the proposal was rejected by
Energy on nonproliferation grounds. If accurate, this report
means that KAERI scientists remained interested in laser
enrichment technologies until recently. [5] 

KAERI did not report the enrichment experiments to MOST until
late June 2004. It seems that KAERI officials thought they could
conceal the experiments because the amount of enriched uranium
was so small. Responding to our inquiries, KAERI officials and
the hands-on researchers admit that they knew they were required
to report their activities to MOST--and that MOST would then be
required to report them to the IAEA--but they went ahead anyway. 

MOST, therefore, unknowingly breached South Korea's obligations
by not reporting the enrichment experiments to the IAEA within
30 days--yet MOST and KAERI still have not admitted violating
the safeguards agreement. However, that agreement clearly
required such a report. [6]  The issue of violation will be
determined by the IAEA when it considers the South Korean
report. 

  
Why disclosure now? 


South Korea signed the Additional Protocol on June 21, 1999, and
it entered into force on February 19, 2004. Until then, South
Korea's nuclear activities were regulated under the provisions
of the NPT and the standard IAEA safeguards arrangements, as
well as by bilateral agreements with suppliers. After the
Persian Gulf War in 1991, the IAEA and most states belonging to
the NPT agreed that the standard agreements were too weak and
that the IAEA needed more intrusive and uninhibited inspection
rights, especially the right to collect environmental samples
that would enable forensic radiochemistry to be used to
determine what radiochemical activities had been conducted and
when. A new approach was enshrined in the IAEA's model
Additional Protocol, which the agency adopted in 1999. 

Once South Korea ratified the Additional Protocol, MOST had 180
days to submit a detailed report to the IAEA with additional
information about South Korean nuclear fuel activities and
sites. The Additional Protocol enables the IAEA to conduct
environmental sampling and to demand access to undeclared
locations. It also obligates states to facilitate access to
locations other than those they have identified, if the agency
has specific information or needs to implement specific
technical measures such as environmental monitoring. [7] 

It appears that KAERI officials had been concerned for years
that it would be difficult to keep the uranium and earlier
plutonium-related experiments secret once the Additional
Protocol came into force. Sampling would inevitably yield traces
of undeclared activities, just as occurred at Yongbyon in North
Korea more than a decade ago. 

In November 1997, the IAEA detected two particles of slightly
irradiated depleted uranium with plutonium in samples taken from
hot cells associated with the TRIGA III research reactor in
Seoul. In December 1999, the IAEA asked South Korea about this
indicator of undeclared plutonium separation activity, but South
Korea did not acknowledge that separation had taken place. On
December 10, 2002, the IAEA requested permission to visit
KAERI's Laser Technology Center in Taejon, a request repeated on
April 1, 2003. Finally, a year later, South Korea told the IAEA
that plutonium separation had in fact occurred at the TRIGA III
hot cell. 

Faced with a rising tide of inquiry and evidence, KAERI finally
confessed its uranium experiments to MOST in late June 2004.
MOST officials reported these (and the earlier depleted uranium
and plutonium) activities to the IAEA on August 17, 2004. This
was followed by a series of counterproductive South Korean
diplomatic efforts to limit the damage to the country's
reputation that would follow from the public release of what
they hoped would be a confidential disclosure to the IAEA. 

Reportedly, South Korea first sought to have the United States
ensure that agency officials did not report the matter to the
IAEA Board of Governors. When this strategy failed, the South
Koreans pressured agency officials to the same end in late
August and even reportedly threatened to block the reappointment
of IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei. [8]  An IAEA leak
about the report of past enrichment activities in response to
this campaign forced South Korea to announce its disclosures to
the IAEA to an astonished world on September 2, 2004. The IAEA
inspection team visited the KAERI site of the uranium activities
from August 30 to September 4, 2004, and submitted its report to
the IAEA's Board of Governors on November 11. [9] 

  
The depleted uranium 


Some of the natural uranium metal produced in 1982 was used
eventually for the enrichment experiments, but it appears that
some was used also in research activities related to producing
depleted uranium metal from 1983 to 1987--another activity that
should have been disclosed to the IAEA. Today, KAERI excuses the
nondisclosure by arguing that the natural uranium metal was for
radiation shielding, and that the original purpose in producing
uranium metal was only to acquire fundamental technical and
manufacturing competence. [10]  There are no legal grounds for
not disclosing the activity, however. 

In reality, KAERI produced several hundred kilograms of depleted
uranium metal, using imported depleted uranium from the United
States and possibly from domestically supplied uranium. However,
the depleted uranium munitions KAERI produced were never
deployed by South Korean conventional forces, according to KAERI
staff. [11]  In 1987, KAERI dismantled all the depleted uranium
munitions and related facilities and only then reported this
activity to the IAEA. KAERI has not produced uranium metal since
1987. 

According to our sources, the United States intervened in 1987
to induce KAERI to terminate this activity. On October 21, 2004,
MOST stated that before 1987 the activity had been conducted
with the concurrence of the U.S. government. 

It is true that KAERI's secret production of significant amounts
of depleted uranium metal had no direct relevance to nuclear
weapons capacity and that by definition the depleted uranium
munitions could not have been used as nuclear weapons.
Nonetheless, the activity was not reported to the IAEA in a
timely manner. 

  
Plutonium separation
 

In 1997, and again in October 2003, the IAEA took environmental
samples at a former KAERI site in Seoul and found physical
evidence of separated plutonium--evidence that could only have
resulted from undeclared activities. KAERI permitted the
sampling at the site, even though KAERI was not obliged to allow
it under the safeguards agreement operative at the time. As a
result, the plutonium separation experiment was discussed in a
safeguards meeting between the IAEA and MOST on December 9,
2003. It appears that at least the section of the IAEA
responsible for these inspections was not aware of South Korea's
decades-earlier plutonium research. But based on their sampling,
they suspected some past hanky-panky by KAERI. 

On September 9, 2004, a week after the shock of the enrichment
story, an Associated Press story forced the South Korean
government to publicly confirm that KAERI had conducted
plutonium separation experiments. [12]  

On July 20, 1981, KAERI transferred a five-pin miniature fuel
assembly made at Taejon to the TRIGA III reactor in Seoul,
informing the IAEA of the move on July 31, 1981. The assembly,
containing 2.5 kilograms of depleted uranium, was then
irradiated for 82 days in the reactor core. The mini-assembly
was then dismantled and dissolved in a hot cell at the reactor
site. In April and May 1982, a small group of KAERI researchers
separated tiny amounts (said to be 40 milligrams or less) of
plutonium from the solution of plutonium and uranium fission
products. 

On May 31, 1982, South Korea filed a "Physical Inventory Report"
with the IAEA that stated incorrectly that the mini-assembly was
still in the TRIGA III reactor core. It did not report that the
assembly had in fact been used for a plutonium separation
experiment. On September 30, 1982, South Korea reported to the
IAEA that this irradiated and now dissolved mini-assembly was a
measured discard of an unirradiated fuel assembly. In short,
South Korea not only failed (and continues to fail) to declare
these activities and the design information of the equipment and
related facilities involved in the plutonium separation, but it
also misled the IAEA. South Korea still must disclose the use to
which it put the research results, as required by its safeguards
agreement. 

The United States was tracking these activities closely. Because
the chemistry of the destructive spent-fuel processing
undertaken by the KAERI group was basically reprocessing, the
United States found it contrary to U.S. policy and intervened to
bring it to a halt to avoid a violation of the 1978 U.S. Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Act, which forbade U.S. support for
reprocessing by non-nuclear weapon states. There is speculation
that the IAEA was aware of the activity at about the same time
but either chose to ignore it or compartmentalized the
information in its own bureaucracy and did not alert the Board
of Governors. 

There was, however, no legal reason under the NPT for South
Korea not to pursue the activity provided it was reported to the
IAEA. Unfortunately MOST did not report the plutonium separation
to the IAEA until August 2004. As to why the United States did
not report the activity to the IAEA, it appears that in the
1980s U.S. national intelligence on these matters was shared
with the IAEA only on a case-by-case basis, to use the agency to
selectively apply pressure on some, but not all, proliferating
states. 

Although KAERI did not report the plutonium separation activity
to MOST in 1982, it seems likely that MOST knew about it all
along, not least because the separation activity had been
well-known in American intelligence circles and to nuclear
specialists since the early 1980s. Presumably, a South Korean
investigation will cast further light on how the higher levels
of government remained ignorant of an activity that was widely
known at the time among specialists, both inside and outside
intelligence and nuclear circles. 

  
Impacts and outcomes
 

KAERI's uranium enrichment experiment should not be interpreted
as a desire by the South Korean government to obtain nuclear
weapons material. The experiment was not conducted with specific
political or military oversight or direction, nor was it
supported by the South Korean government or high-level policy
makers. South Korea has complied closely with IAEA safeguards,
often in exemplary fashion, with respect to its power reactors
and related facility monitoring. North Korea, in contrast,
responded to IAEA evidence of undeclared activity by expelling
IAEA inspectors in 1994 and eventually withdrawing altogether
from the NPT in 2003. 

The same conclusion can be drawn from the plutonium research of
the early 1980s. Many of the KAERI researchers were zealously
opposed to nuclear weapons even as they pursued the chimera of a
plutonium economy. 

Nor did South Korea obtain significant quantities of fissile
material for a weapons program from either its plutonium
separation or uranium enrichment research. However, achieving a
10 percent uranium 235 enrichment level involves 90 percent of
the separative work effort needed to reach the 90 percent
enrichment level that is highly suitable for nuclear weapons.
Indeed, much lower levels of enrichment render uranium
bomb-usable, although bombs using lower-enriched material
require more uranium and neutron reflectors. [13] 

Conversely, production of sufficient highly enriched uranium for
weapons purposes--tens of kilograms, not fractions of a
gram--would have required much more powerful lasers than those
at KAERI. No nuclear weapon state has used a laser-based program
to support weapons-related enrichment activities on the scale
required to make nuclear weapons. Centrifuges are the technology
of choice for weapons-related enrichment. 

Nonetheless, that South Korean scientists not only enriched
uranium but kept it secret from their superiors, and engaged in
plutonium research earlier, has troubling implications for the
future of nonproliferation in the region. 

Perhaps the most obvious conclusion is that the South Korean
nuclear establishment is poorly regulated. Japan faced similar
quality control problems in 2003 when the Japan Nuclear Cycle
Development Institute revealed a 206-kilogram discrepancy
between plutonium received and plutonium shipped. Unlike South
Korean authorities, Japanese officials promptly reported the
discrepancy to the IAEA. [14] 

Given the mobile nature of nuclear-capable scientists and
technicians, tightening up sloppy bureaucratic procedures and
loose controls over nuclear researchers, fissile materials, and
dual technology trade is likely needed also in China, Russia,
and everywhere that nuclear power or weapons establishments have
taken root--especially in an era of possible non-state nuclear
terrorism. 

The fact that South Korea's secrecy was sustained even as it was
engaged in an attempt to end the North Korean nuclear program,
and specifically, the North's alleged uranium enrichment
program, leaves the South and its allies, especially the United
States, open to accusations of hypocrisy and double standards.
It is therefore imperative that Seoul clean out its nuclear
house and expose any other secret activities. 

Finally, the fact that South Korea has not kept to the spirit
and letter of the NPT-IAEA safeguards system stirs already
troubled waters in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan about the future of
their nuclear status. Japan's security culture is already
shifting away from its historical commitment to sole reliance on
U.S. nuclear deterrence. [15]  The notion of a Korean bomb,
whether of North or South origin, is one more factor suggesting
that the nonproliferation regime is in trouble in East Asia. The
proliferation eddies in East Asia involving Taiwan and North
Korea already have affected China's vital security interests.
China will have all the more reason to work actively with other
regional players to reverse these proliferation dynamics. It
will take strong and constructive Chinese leadership, preferably
in close concert with Japan and Russia, to reverse the trend. 

South Korea's now-revealed past violations of the IAEA
safeguards agreement may result in the agency imposing some form
of additional reporting requirements. Yet if all these past
activities are fully documented by the IAEA, and if no further
transgressions come to light, then South Korea's latest nuclear
misadventure could have several positive outcomes. 

First, this episode should end any notion that South Korea
should "close its nuclear fuel cycle" by reprocessing spent
fuel, or by gaining an enrichment capacity in a
counterproductive quest for energy security. On September 18,
2004, as part of damage control, the South Korean government
issued a four-point statement that it had no intention of
developing or possessing nuclear weapons, and that it would
enhance transparency and continue to expand the use of nuclear
energy for peaceful purposes. Unfortunately, this language
suggests that the Blue House and MOST have not fully
internalized the significance of the South's nuclear
revelations. In Seoul, "expanding the use of nuclear energy for
peaceful purposes" without specifically abandoning closure of
the fuel cycle is code for reasserting South Korea's right to
pursue plutonium recycling. The tension between Japan and other
states having access to plutonium and enrichment technology
while Koreans remain second-class citizens in the nuclear
hierarchy might be unsustainable in the long run. 

Second, the sequence of events suggests that the Additional
Protocol's new inspection provisions work. The effectiveness of
environmental sampling and forensic radiochemistry forced the
enrichment activities of the South Korean scientists to the
surface after three long years, in spite of apparent attempts to
destroy or hide physical evidence. 

Governments are still reluctant to fully implement the
Additional Protocol, due to its intrusiveness. Indeed, South
Korea at first refused to allow visits by the IAEA to KAERI's
Laser Technology Center in Taejon as requested in 2002 and 2003.
Even after South Korea's Additional Protocol entered into force
and the IAEA visited these sites in March 2004, the South Korean
government did not allow it to collect environmental samples on
the grounds that it had not yet submitted to Article 2a of the
protocol. (Reportedly, the IAEA has been allowed to collect
uranium samples on subsequent inspection visits.) 

This experience certainly raises the prospect that others'
covert activities might come to light if the Additional Protocol
survives opposition by other states. Indeed, only a month after
the South Korean activities became public, reports of similar
plutonium activities in past decades surfaced in Taiwan, this
time in relation to mixed-oxide fuel experiments in
plutonium-handling hot cells that apparently still exist but
only now will be destroyed. [16]  All of these East Asian
episodes also reinforce the need for universal commitment by
nuclear scientists to abstain from these activities as called
for, for example, in the Atomic Energy Society of Japan's code
of ethics. [17] 

Third, South Korea's declaration might offer the North a
face-saving way to explain its own enrichment activities as a
similarly misguided and mistaken effort by scientists overeager
to obtain new technology. This is not to suggest that the South
and North Korean activities are symmetrical or equivalent. It is
rather to suggest that the situation in the North might be
resolved in a similar manner. Arguably, South Korea's
declaration is more applicable to the North Korean situation
than is the Libyan model of complete nuclear capitulation. 

Fourth, this episode offers South Korea an opportunity to
reassert its non-nuclear commitments in ways that are
stabilizing to the region, and which dampen subterranean
aspirations in some parts of Japan's leadership for a Japanese
nuclear capacity. Japan's media, for example, reported on news
of South Korean enrichment and much older plutonium reprocessing
with great concern and skepticism. 

Fifth, if handled correctly, the events may accelerate rather
than delay progress at the six-party talks in Beijing over North
Korea's nuclear activities and related issues. The fact that
North Korea has enough plutonium for a small arsenal of nuclear
devices that is no longer safeguarded and might have been
weaponized remains the most urgent nuclear proliferation issue
in the region. South Korea's surprise detour from the straight
and narrow non-nuclear path should not divert attention from
this critical issue. 

  

1. Young-Sun Ha, Nuclear Proliferation, World Order and Korea
(Seoul: Seoul National University Press, 1983); Peter Hayes,
Pacific Powderkeg, American Nuclear Dilemmas in Korea (Lanham,
Md.: Lexington Books, 1991), pp. 199-208. 

2. Jungmin Kang and Harold Feiveson, "South Korea's Shifting and
Controversial Interest in Spent Fuel Reprocessing," The
Nonproliferation Review, Spring 2001, pp. 70-78. 

3. One Kaeri report states: "Based on these preliminary
experimental results, we plan to develop more effective anion
exchange resins and to define the optimum conditions for maximum
enrichment effect of U235." KAERI, Development of Ion Exchange
Resins for Uranium Isotope Enrichment. KAERI/RR-353/81 (February
1982)(in Korean). Japan and France tried to develop this route
to chemical enrichment, but it was abandoned as inefficient
relative to cascades by the end of the 1980s. It cannot produce
highly enriched uranium. 

4. Mark Gorwitz, The South Korean Laser Isotope Separation
Experience, NAPSNet Special Report from the Institute for
Science and International Security, October 18, 2004. 

5. Mark Hibbs, "KAERI Quantum Optics Lab Used Dye Lasers to
Separate U-235," Nucleonics Week, September 9, 2004. 

6. The International Atomic Energy Agency's INFCIRC/153
(corrected) states at 63: "The Agreement should stipulate that
for each material balance area the State shall provide the
Agency with the following accounting reports: a. inventory
change reports showing changes in the inventory of nuclear
material. The reports shall be dispatched as soon as possible
and in any event within 30 days after the end of the month in
which the inventory changes occurred or were established; and b.
material balance reports showing the material balance based on a
physical inventory of nuclear material actually present in the
material balance area. The reports shall be dispatched as soon
as possible and in any event within 30 days after the physical
inventory has been taken. The reports shall be based on data
available as of the date of reporting and may be corrected at a
later date as required." 

7. As described by Mohamed ElBaradei, then head of IAEA External
Relations, "Statement to Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace, Washington, D.C., January 30-31, 1995." 

8. Mark Hibbs, "ROK Claimed IAEA Knew of U Work, Pressed for No
IAEA Board Report," Nucleonics Week, September 23, 2004, pp. 1,
15-16; Hibbs, "'We Played This Badly,' Koreans Say About IAEA
Report Response," Nucleonics Week, September 30, 2004, pp. 7-8. 

9. Agence France Presse, "IAEA Cites South Korea for Hidden
Nuclear Activities: Report," November 11, 2004. 

10. KAERI, Metal Uranium Production and Its Related Processes,
KAERI/354/AR-110/80, January 1980 (Korean). 

11. Jack Kim, "S. Korean Munitions Violated Nuclear
Accord--Group," Reuters, October 21, 2004. 

12. Sang-Hun Choe, "South Korea Extracted Plutonium in 1982,"
Associated Press, September 9, 2004. 

13. See Alexander Glaser, "The Conversion of Research Reactors
to Low-Enriched Fuel and the Case of the FRM-II," Science and
Global Security, vol. 9, pp. 61-79 (2002). 

14. Bayan Rahman, "Japan 'Loses' 206 kg of Plutonium," Financial
Times, January 29, 2003. 

15. Richard Tanter, "With Eyes Wide Shut: Japan, Heisei
Militarization and the Bush Doctrine," in Peter Van Ness and
Melvin Gurtov, eds., Confronting the Bush Doctrine: Critical
Views from the Asia-Pacific (New York: Routledge, 2004). 

16. Chia Yu-Tzu, "Nuke Reports are Mistaken: Officials," Taipei
Times, October 15, 2004, p. 1. 

17. The Atomic Energy Society of Japan's "Code of Ethics" reads:
"Members of AESJ shall not be engaged in any activities
associated with research, development, manufacturing,
acquisition, and usage of nuclear weapons"; Tatsujiro Suzuki,
"Peace Pledge Movement for Scientists in Japan," Pugwash
Workshop on Science and Ethics, Paris, September 2003. 

  
Back to top ^ 



  

Jungmin Kang is an independent nuclear policy analyst in Seoul
and an associate of the Nautilus Institute. Peter Hayes is the
director of the Nautilus Institute in San Francisco. Li Bin is a
professor at the Institute of International Studies, Tsinghua
University, Beijing. Tatsujiro Suzuki is a visiting professor at
the University of Tokyo. Richard Tanter is an associate of the
Nautilus Institute in Melbourne. Assistance and information was
also provided by Frank von Hippel, David von Hippel, George
Bunn, Matthew Bunn, and Scott Bruce. 

January/February 2005 pp. 40-49 (vol. 61, no. 01) � 2005
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 

  
Back to top ^ 



  
Sidebar: South Korea's nuclear nondisclosures
 

AVLIS enrichment (1991-2000) 
  + Did not declare use of indigenously produced natural uranium
metal for evaporative, spectroscopic, and enrichment experiments 
  + Did not declare facilities where experiments conducted 
  + Did not declare facilities and equipment design information 

Uranium conversion (1982-1994) 
  + Did not declare uranium extraction from imported fertilizer
and indigenous uranium ore 
  + Did not account for material losses and wastes from uranium
processing 
  + Did not declare depleted uranium activities using imported
depleted uranium 
  + Did not declare design information for natural uranium
processing facilities and depleted uranium metal production 

Plutonium separation (1981-1982) 
  + Did not declare irradiation of miniature fuel assembly 
  + Did declare a false report as to location of miniature fuel
assembly and timing of its irradiation 
  + Did not declare hot cell where plutonium was separated, nor
design or fate of separation equipment 
  + Did not declare plutonium separation, transfer, and
disposition of waste, nor use of results of experiment 

Chemical enrichment (1979-1981) 
  + Did not disclose chemical uranium enrichment experiment
although the natural uranium involved was under International
Atomic Energy Agency safeguards 

*****************************************************************
 7 Seattle Post-Intelligencer: New Congress gets serious in a hurry
                            
Wednesday, January 5, 2005 

 Smiles turn to spat over ethics; rugged battles lie ahead 

By CHARLES POPE

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT

WASHINGTON -- Congress opened a new session yesterday with big 
smiles that quickly gave way to a spat over ethics standards and 
realizations that lawmakers face rugged battles over the budget, 
taxes and reforming Social Security in chambers dominated by 
Republicans. 

Yesterday was devoted largely to housekeeping, swearing in 
members of Congress, re-electing Rep. Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., to 
be speaker and adopting the rules by which the House will operate 
for the two-year session. 

Those tasks did little to divert attention from the heavy and 
controversial workload ahead, much of it driven by President 
Bush. Congress will soon consider ways to restructure Social 
Security by allowing people to invest some of their payroll taxes 
in private accounts. Lawmakers will move to simplify the tax code 
and open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil 
drilling. 

There will be legislation to cap jury awards in medical 
malpractice suits and a renewed effort to confirm Bush's judicial 
nominees who had been rejected in the previous Congress. 

"We have big challenges that face this country, and we need big 
ideas to meet those challenges," Hastert said. "Today, we must 
seize the initiative. Today, we must start anew the process of 
reforming the government. Security and prosperity only come with 
hard work and responsible government. Today, let us get to that 
hard work." 

Whether much, if any, of the work gets done in a cooperative way 
remains an open question. 

"It's up to them," Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., said, referring to 
Republicans. "If they want to reach out they can. If they want to 
go it alone they can." 

On the local level, Washington state lawmakers said they would 
introduce legislation to create the 106,000-acre Wild Sky 
Wilderness Area in Snohomish County and ensure that enough money 
is available to continue cleaning the Hanford Nuclear 
Reservation, among other initiatives. They will also seek money 
to ease chronic transportation problems and provide better armor 
for the military. 

"The new Congress has lots of challenges and a very tight 
budget," said Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash. "It's going to be 
difficult." 



    
    

All of it will be shaped and influenced by politics and in many 
cases by money. Budgets are expected to be the tightest in years 
to allow Bush to make good on a campaign promise to begin cutting 
the deficit. Spending on domestic programs, including salmon 
protection, is vulnerable to cuts, congressional budget analysts 
said. 

Republicans wasted little time exerting their increased 
dominance, passing new ethics standards opposed by House 
Democrats and threatening to change Senate rules if necessary to 
confirm Bush's court appointees. 

The new ethics policy requires a majority vote of the Ethics 
Committee to pursue a complaint. The committee, which is the only 
panel with an equal number of Republicans and Democrats, formerly 
allowed complaints to move forward after a tie vote. With 
partisanship rampant, the new approach will severely limit the 
number of corruption and ethics cases the committee can consider. 

Ironically, one of the first beneficiaries of the new rule will 
be a Democrat intensely disliked by Republicans -- Jim McDermott 
of Washington. Republicans said last week they intend to 
investigate McDermott to determine whether he violated standards 
of conduct when an illegally recorded telephone conversation was 
leaked to reporters during a committee investigation. 

While the posturing on those issues began, the day was largely 
devoted to ceremony -- swearing in newly elected members, 
bringing children and family to House and Senate floors and 
introducing freshmen to their new colleagues. 

Washington's newest members of Congress, Reps. Dave Reichert and 
Cathy McMorris, both Republicans, were caught up in the moment. 

"The enormity of the job, the history of the place and the 
footsteps we follow, it really touches your heart," Reichert said 
moments after being sworn in. He won the seat formerly held by 
the retired Jennifer Dunn. "I had a swelling of pride and at the 
same time, kind of a humble feeling." 

McMorris was affected as well. She and Reichert were among 40 new 
House members and one new delegate taking the oath of office. 

"There was a tear coming out of my eye when we were taking the 
oath," said McMorris, who won the seat formerly held by George 
Nethercutt. "It's just been incredible. The delegation has been 
very good about reaching out to me as a freshman. I want to work 
with them very, very much. We have a strong delegation, I'm sure 
of that." 

Across the Capitol, Vice President Dick Cheney, fulfilling his 
constitutional role as presiding officer of the Senate, swore in 
the 34 senators elected Nov. 2. Among them were seven Republican 
freshmen who helped strengthen GOP ranks from 51 to 55 and leave 
Democrats with their smallest representation in seven decades. 

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., was sworn in as well, the reward for 
winning a third term in November. 

"I am honored and humbled to continue my service to Washington 
state in the U.S. Senate," Murray said. 

"I look forward to working with my Senate colleagues and 
Washington state communities to improve the economy, security, 
education and health care." P-I Washington correspondent Charles 
Pope can be reached at 202-263-6461 or charliepope@seattlepi.com
                
  [Seattle Post-Intelligencer] 101 Elliott Ave. W. Seattle, WA 
98119 (206) 448-8000
 
Home Delivery: (206) 464-2121 or (800) 542-0820

 Send comments to newmedia@seattlepi.com �1996-2005 Seattle 
Post-Intelligencer Terms of Service/Privacy Policy 
*****************************************************************
 8 Las Vegas RJ: Reid sworn in as minority leader 
 
Wednesday, January 05, 2005
 
By STEVE TETREAULT STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU
 
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., poses Tuesday with his 
wife, Landra, and Vice President Dick Cheney at the Capitol. 
Photo by THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
 
WASHINGTON -- Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., took office on Tuesday as
the Senate's top Democrat, proposing to work with President Bush
and Republicans "to make this country a better place," but
readying to fight on matters where the offer may fall flat.
 
 "There are bipartisan opportunities for us," Reid said in his
maiden speech as Senate minority leader. "I speak on behalf of
45 Democrats. We are here with our arms open to work with the
administration, the (House) speaker and the (Senate) Republican
leader to accomplish things for this country." 
Reid said he and Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., were
working to identify issues on which the parties might cooperate,
such as renewal of highway legislation that would distribute
billions of dollars to the states.
 
 But, Reid said, "I also understand there will be times when we
will not agree, and each of us will have to stand up for what we
believe." Democrats and Republicans were scheduled to convene
separate conferences today to strategize on divisive issues such
as Social Security overhaul and confirmations for some of the
president's more conservative judicial nominees.
 
 As Congress convened for a new two-year session, Reid, 65,
renewed his oath of office for a fourth six-year term, with 33
other senators who were elected in November. Escorted by Sen.
John Ensign, R-Nev., in a Senate ceremony, Reid was sworn in by
Vice President Dick Cheney.
 
 Nevada's three U.S. House members, Republicans Jim Gibbons and
Jon Porter and Democrat Shelley Berkley, also were installed for
new office terms during a separate House ceremony.
 
 In his speech afterwards, Reid said, "Americans are counting on
us to make the right decisions" on health care, Social Security,
education and the environment.
 
 Although offering a hand to Republicans, aides said Reid was
lacing up the other one in anticipation they will not respond to
his overtures.
 
 A communications center Reid has described as a Democratic "war
room" began operations Tuesday, staffed by a half-dozen aides
who will promote the party's activities while critiquing
Republicans to national and regional media, Internet news
bloggers and Hispanic press.
 
 The initial "message of the day," according to a sheet
distributed to reporters, is that although Democrats are
committed to solving problems, "early signs indicate that
Republicans are sticking with the partisan approach they've used
in the past." 
In an interview on Monday, Reid said he believes Frist wants a
cooperative relationship, but other Republicans are more
combative.
 
 "I hope he can work that out with his members," he said.
 
 Reid said he has spoken with Bush several times, "but not a
lot. I hope a lot of talk we hear from the White House is just
posturing."
 
 Reid communications director Jim Manley said Bush has not sent
a response to the Nevadan's request last month that Democrats be
consulted on possible candidates for the Supreme Court, "and we
don't expect one either."
 
 Senate Democrats today will gather at the John F. Kennedy
Center for the Performing Arts for a closed-door meeting.
Republicans were to meet at the Library of Congress. Such
meetings are customarily held at the beginning of each session.
 
 Manley described the Kennedy Center meeting as "a little bit of
an educational session on issues and also strategy on different
issues facing the Democrats for the next Congress." 
He said Social Security and judicial nominations are likely to
be discussed. Democrats and Republicans appear headed for
difficulties on both subjects.
 
 Before the holidays, Bush said he would renominate federal
appeals court candidates that Democrats had blocked last year on
grounds they were too ideological and conservative. The
president's move threatened new confrontations in the Senate.
 
 On Social Security, the president is preparing to propose
changing benefit formulas and allowing a portion of taxpayer
contributions to be invested in the stock market, after
describing the system as verging on crisis. Reid and other
Democrats have disputed the characterization, saying Social
Security will be in good shape for decades and does not need to
be overhauled.
 
 Manley said it is unlikely that Democrats today will form
specific plans to work with Bush on certain issues and oppose
him on others. "No decisions will be made, this is just a
general discussion on a policy agenda," Manley said. 
Reid is expected to explain to senators what initiatives he is
taking to promote Democratic interests while pledging to work
closely with them on issues within their committees and with
groups that support the party's agenda, Manley said.
 
 New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a former federal lawmaker and
Cabinet official under President Clinton, will speak on "the
future of the Democratic Party," according to a meeting planner.
 
 
Copyright Las Vegas Review-Journal
*****************************************************************
 9 YWS: U.S. Sets Deadline for Resumption of Six-Party Talks - Report

YONHAPNEWS WORLD SERVICE::ENGLISH NEWS
 
Thursday, January 06, 2005        Ⅱ .. Ⅱ ..   
  2005/01/06 09:53 KST   

 TOKYO, Jan. 6 (Yonhap) -- Washington has set next month as the 
deadline for North Korea to return to the six-party talks over 
its nuclear weapons program, a Japanese newspaper reported 
Thursday.

 The Sankei Shimbun said, quoting unidentified sources, that the 
United States has decided to refer the North Korean nuclear case 
to the U.N. Security Council if the North fails to make a 
positive response before President George W. Bush's State of the 
Union address, slated for Feb. 2.

 





*****************************************************************
 10 Las Vegas SUN: Nevada delegates return to Capitol Hill

January 04, 2005 
Nevada delegates return to Capitol Hill
 

By Suzanne Struglinski 
<suzanne@lasvegassun.com>
 SUN WASHINGTON BUREAU

 WASHINGTON -- Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., plans to re-introduce a
bill today to create accounts that unemployed people could tap
into to help pay for costs associated with finding a new job.

 Meanwhile, Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., plans to reintroduce a
bill this week that would phase in a new retirement age for
pilots.

 Both lawmakers have pushed these ideas before, but like other
bills left incomplete at the end of last year, it must start
over as a new session of Congress begins.

 Porter is "not wasting any time," his spokesman, Adam Mayberry,
said.

 Gibbons' spokeswoman Amy Spanbauer, likewise, said Gibbons
wants to get his bill back in play as quickly as possible.

 Nevada's congressional delegation is back in the nation's
capital this week to start the 109th session of Congress facing
a slate of familiar issues as well as some new ones. The session
officially opens today.

 The House passed Porter's "re-employment accounts" last year
but the Senate never took up the bill. Porter is hoping it will
go through this Congress, Mayberry said.

 Porter will also work to get background checks required for
teachers and create an education savings account similar to a
401k, in which a portion of a paycheck can be withheld to put
away money for college, among other items.

 Gibbons aims to build on the success of the Lincoln County
Lands bill, passed last year, and the Southern Nevada Public
Land Management Act approved in 1998. Spanbauer said Gibbons is
looking at proposing another lands bill, but does not have a
specific area identified yet. Gibbons also stands by his
commitment to earmark more money from public lands sales in
Clark County for the states education fund. Gibbons brought up
the idea last year to raise the education percentage from 5
percent from 35 percent, but he did not introduce a bill on it.
"We never want to introduce a bill just to introduce a bill,"
Spanbauer said. The idea is still being vetted by local
officials and those that would be affected by the change, but it
could come up this year, she said.

 Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said she will work on tax
incentives for small businesses that use renewable energy
resources as well as use water more efficiently.

 Nevada lawmakers said a top priority this year will be pressing
the Veterans Affairs Department to keep plans for a new medical
complex in North Las Vegas on track. Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev.,
today planned to meet with six Cabinet nominees, including VA
Secretary nominee Jim Nicholson. "We're going to stay all over
that to make sure it stays on schedule," Ensign said.

 Also on the delegation's to-do list this year: a proposal to
transfer federal land to Clark County for a tourism heliport.
Nevada lawmakers have made several attempts to pass legislation
that would establish a new heliport to replace the one at
McCarran International Airport used by Grand Canyon tour
operators because residents near the airport have complained
about daily helicopter noise.

 The House approved a proposal that would have conveyed 229
acres of Bureau of Land Management land south of Sloan to the
county. A 45-acre site off Interstate 15 at Sloan had been
identified by the Clark County Aviation Department as a good
option, but residents of Henderson's Anthem community complained
about potential noise so the bill would allow the federal land
to be considered as another option.

 Environmental groups objected, saying the heliport would ruin
the Sloan Canyon National Conservation Area and BLM did not want
to give away millions of dollars worth of public land for free
to helicopter business.

 Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., proposed an alternative site near the
Sunrise landfill on the eastern edge of the Las Vegas Valley,
but the bill was not completed by the end of the session.
Spanbauer said Gibbons wants to make sure the community still
want the bill to proceed. The bill is already drafted, but it
needs to be re-examined.

 Reid and Ensign also introduced a bill just as the last session
ended to transfer 547 acres of federal land south of the
Henderson Executive Airport to Henderson for business
development. The senators knew the bill did not have enough time
to pass but wanted colleagues to get a look at the legislation
before introducing it again this year.

 The bill would give the land to Henderson, which would in turn
divide it and sell it at market value to commercial developers.
A number of details in the bill need to be ironed out before it
can successfully make its way through Congress this year, Reid
and Ensign said.

 In addition to their own bills, lawmakers will also be working
on and closely watching larger pieces of legislation and
nominations that will work their way through the chambers.

 Reid and Ensign will watch Samuel Bodman, President Bush's pick
to replace Spencer Abraham as Energy secretary. His confirmation
is schedule before the Energy and Natural Resources Committee on
Jan. 19. If confirmed by the Senate, Bodman will inherit the
plans for storing nuclear waste inside Yucca Mountain, 90 miles
northwest of Las Vegas and a slew of obstacles standing in its
way.

 Ensign today met with Bodman and Ensign stressed to him is
opposition to Yucca Mountain. Ensign said Bodman seemed to have
an open mind about the project and Ensign said he did not have
any reason to oppose Bodman's nomination. Cabinet secretary
nominees must be approved by the Senate.

 The usual budget battles on the Yucca project will most likely
emerge, especially if the administration requests a $1 billion
budget for repository and wants to change budgeting rules again.

 The delegation will also be closely watching whether any Yucca
supporters will try to get Congress to approve the 10,000-year
radiation standard for the project that a federal appeals court
threw out last year. The court said the Environmental Protection
Agency would need to create a new standard, or Congress could
pass a bill that would allow the 10,000-year standard to stay in
place.

 Jurisdiction battles in the Senate between two committees that
control portions of the project may create even more
controversy. 


 
*****************************************************************
 11 Las Vegas SUN: Nuke industry lobby donates $100,000 for inauguration
 
Nuke industry lobby donates $100,000 for inauguration

By Benjamin Grove 
<grove@lasvegassun.com>
 SUN WASHINGTON BUREAU

 WASHINGTON -- The nuclear energy industry and Las Vegas casino
mogul Sheldon Adelson are among the donors to President Bush's
inauguration festivities.

 The nuclear industry's top lobby group, the Nuclear Energy
Institute, gave $100,000 to the 55th Presidential Inaugural
Committee, which is organizing this year's extravaganza in
Washington.

 Bush will be sworn in Jan. 20. Events that week include a
special prayer service, three candlelight dinners, a youth
concert organized by Bush's daughter Barbara, nine balls and the
traditional parade along Pennsylvania Avenue.

 Most of the events are covered by private donations capped at
$250,000 per donor, most of which are corporations.

 NEI is an aggressive lobbyist in Washington for the proposed
Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository. The industry has long
prodded the federal government to make good on its legal
responsibility to construct a permanent repository for the
nation's high-level radioactive waste, which for years has been
piling up at nuclear power plants.

 The inauguration committee has collected more than $13 million
for the events, with a goal of as much as $40 million, roughly
what the inauguration cost four years ago. The theme of this
year's inauguration is "Celebrating Freedom, Honoring Service."

 Among the top individual donors for this year's events are
Adelson, chairman of the board and principal owner of Las Vegas
Sands, Inc., and his wife, Miriam Adelson, a physician. Each
gave $250,000.

 Other donors include Southern Company, a nuclear power utility,
which gave $250,000. Stephens Group, Inc., the firm that owns
the Stephens Media Group, which publishes the Las Vegas
Review-Journal, also gave $250,000.

 At least 100 Nevadans are planning to make the trip, said
Earlene Forsythe, Nevada Republican Party chairwoman. Gov. Kenny
Guinn and First Lady Dema Guinn will lead a group of elected
officials.

 Also among the Nevadans will be Community College of Southern
Nevada political science teacher Mark Peplowski and some of his
students, who aim to eyewitness the politics in action by
volunteering at a few inauguration events. Peplowski brought his
students to the inauguration four years ago and they volunteered
ushering media around a ball and greeting guests as they stepped
from limousines.

 Among the balls, the "Constitution Ball" on Jan. 20 at the
Washington Hilton is the designated ball for Nevadans. They will
join gala revelers from 14 states and American Samoa, Puerto
Rico, and the Virgin Islands.

 Congressional lawmakers were allotted tickets to the
swearing-in ceremony, traditionally held on the Capitol steps
and viewed by thousands on the National Mall. House members got
roughly 200 tickets; Senate members about 400.

 Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., had about 365 tickets and has
distributed most of them, spokesman Jack Finn said. Sen. Harry
Reid, D-Nev., has some tickets left. Reid wants to distribute
them to Nevadans, spokeswoman Tessa Hafen said.

 Staffers for Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., have been compiling a
list since September of people who wanted to travel to
Washington for the inauguration, spokeswoman Amy Spanbauer said.
Nevadans have been given first dibs on tickets, she said.

 Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., has given away about 120 tickets and
ticket requests are being taken by Porter on a first come, first
serve basis, Porter spokesman Adam Mayberry said. Rep. Shelley
Berkley, D-Nev., also compiled a list and gave tickets away to
Nevadans first. On Tuesday, she had about 40 tickets left from
her 160-ticket allotment. She gave 25 to Ensign.

 Nevada will be represented in the inaugural parade by the
McQueen High School marching band from Reno. Band students had
feared they wouldn't get an invitation because the Washoe County
superintendent of schools had refused to let the band play for
President Bush at a campaign rally this year because it was a
political event. Then the band got the invitation -- and
students feared they wouldn't be able to raise enough money to
go. But a few generous corporate donations at the last minute
saved the trip, director Rick Moffit said.

 "The kids are ecstatic," Moffit said. "It's been an emotional
roller-coaster for them."

 Nevada's Republican lawmakers plan to celebrate at inauguration
events during the week, their aides said.

 Reid, the new Senate Democratic leader, has not decided his
plans, Hafen said. Berkley will skip inauguration events. Her
birthday is Jan. 20, the day Bush takes the oath of office, and
she plans to spend most of that week in Nevada. 
 
*****************************************************************
 12 Las Vegas SUN: Reid donates $500,000 to party committee

Today: January 05, 2005 at 9:48:22 PST 
Reid donates $500,000 to party committee

SUN WASHINGTON BUREAU

 WASHINGTON -- Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., gave the Democratic
Senatorial Campaign Committee $500,000 to help pull it out of
debt following the 2004 election.

 Reid made the donation Monday from his Friends of Harry Reid
political campaign fund.

 The DSCC is responsible for raising money and aiding Senate
Democrats to win back a Senate majority. Instead, it watched on
Nov. 2 as Republicans picked up four seats.

 The committee has debts of about $5 million, according to the
Federal Election Commission.

 Reid wanted a fresh start for the committee in the new year,
spokeswoman Tessa Hafen said.

 Reid has given generously before -- he donated $1 million in
September, in part to help ally Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., who
eventually lost his race to former Rep. John Thune, R-S.D..

 
 
*****************************************************************
 13 Las Vegas SUN: Reid adviser again tabbed for NRC post

Today: January 05, 2005 at 9:48:22 PST 

SUN CAPITAL BUREAU

 WASHINGTON -- President Bush on Tuesday renominated Sen. Harry
Reid's top Yucca Mountain adviser to serve on the five-member
Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The agency ultimately would
license and regulate the planned high-level nuclear waste
repository.

 Reid, who has long fought to kill Yucca Mountain, last year put
a hold on a number of Bush nominees to other federal posts in
protest to pro-Yucca senators led by Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M.,
who would not act on the nomination of Reid's science adviser,
Gregory Jaczko, 34, a physicist. Those senators were concerned
that Jaczko would use his influence at the NRC to work to halt
Yucca.

 In a compromise worked out between the White House and Reid,
Jaczko will be appointed for two years instead of the usual
five, and he will recuse himself from official NRC action on
Yucca issues for one year.

 Bush's nomination of Jaczko died when the congressional session
ended last year.

 Bush on Tuesday also nominated Albert Konetzni, a Republican
and a retired U.S. Navy vice admiral and nuclear submarine
commander, to fill another vacancy on the commission.

 
 
*****************************************************************
 14 [NukeNet] IAEA Finds Egypt Secret Nuclear Program
 
Date: Wed, 05 Jan 2005 15:20:22 -0800

 
<x-flowed>
NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet@energyjustice.net)

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Nuclear-Agency-Egypt.html?oref=login

IAEA Finds Egypt Secret Nuclear Program
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: January 4, 2005


Filed at 6:57 p.m. ET

VIENNA, Austria (AP) -- The U.N. atomic watchdog
agency has found evidence of secret nuclear
experiments in Egypt that could be used in weapons
programs, diplomats said Tuesday.

The diplomats told The Associated Press that most
of the work was carried out in the 1980s and 1990s
but said the International Atomic Energy Agency
also was looking at evidence suggesting some work
was performed as recently as a year ago.

      Advertisement


Egypt's government rejected claims it is or has
been pursuing a weapons program, saying its
nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.

``A few months ago we denied these kinds of claims
and we do so again,'' Egyptian government
spokesman Magdy Rady said. ``Nothing about our
nuclear program is secret and there is nothing
that is not known to the IAEA.''

But one of the diplomats said the Egyptians
``tried to produce various components of uranium''
without declaring it to the IAEA, as they were
bound to under the Nuclear Nonproliferation
Treaty. The products included several pounds of
uranium metal and uranium tetrafluoride -- a
precursor to uranium hexafluoride gas, the
diplomat said on condition of anonymity.

Uranium metal can be processed into plutonium,
while uranium hexafluoride can be enriched into
weapons-grade uranium -- both for use in the core
of nuclear warheads.

The diplomat said the Vienna-based IAEA had not
yet drawn a conclusion about the scope and purpose
of the experiments. But the work appeared to have
been sporadic, involved small amounts of material
and lacked a particular focus, the diplomat said.

That, he said, indicated that the work was not
directly geared toward creating a full-scale
program to make nuclear weapons.

The diplomat said that Egypt's program was not
``cohesive.''

``It's not like Iran, where there was a clear plan
to produce'' uranium hexafluoride, the gas that
turns into enriched uranium when spun in
centrifuges, he said.

He also warned against comparisons to South Korea,
which conducted larger-scale plutonium and uranium
experiments in 1982 and 2000 without reporting
them to the agency.

Iran, which the United States accuses of having
nuclear weapons ambitions, developed a
full-fledged uranium enrichment program over
nearly two decades of clandestine activity
revealed only in mid 2002. Iran says it plans to
enrich only to levels used to generate nuclear
fuel and not to weapons-grade uranium.

In Vienna, IAEA spokesman Mark Gwozdecky said the
agency would not comment on the revelations about
Egypt.

Cairo has denied in the past it is trying to
develop a nuclear weapons program.

The country appeared to turn away from the pursuit
of such a program decades ago. The Soviet Union
and China reportedly rebuffed its requests for
nuclear arms in the 1960s, and by the 1970s, Egypt
gave up the idea of building a plutonium
production reactor and reprocessing plant.

``We've seen the reports and I don't think we have
anything to offer at this point except what we've
said all along, which is, we expect all nations to
cooperate with the International Atomic Energy
Agency,'' White House spokesman Scott McClellan
said. ``We're sure they will look into this matter
and I would just point out that Egypt is a
signatory to the nonproliferation treaty.''

Egypt runs small-scale nuclear programs for
medical and research purposes, and Rady said the
IAEA is monitoring that program.

``Nothing about our nuclear program is secret and
there is nothing that is not known to the IAEA,''
he said. ``We don't have a secret program for
energy. All our program is known.''

Plans were floated as recently as 2002 to build
the country's first nuclear power reactor. But no
construction date has been announced, and the
pro-government Al-Ahram Weekly reported late last
year that the plant site near the coastal town of
Al-Dabaa might be sold to make way for tourism
development.

Although Egypt signed the nonproliferation treaty,
it has become in recent years one of its most
vocal critics, mainly because of concerns about
Israel's undeclared nuclear arsenal and more
recent fears about Iran's nuclear agenda.

Tuesday's revelations come two months after
diplomats told the AP that the IAEA had discovered
plutonium particles near an Egyptian nuclear
facility.

Back then, Egypt's foreign and energy ministers
rejected the reports -- but the diplomat again
verified them Tuesday, adding that agency has not
been able to determine if those traces were
evidence of a secret weapons program or simply the
byproduct of peaceful research.

The revelations reflect more efficient IAEA
policing of countries' nuclear program for
evidence of clandestine, weapons-linked
activities, including environmental sampling and
other high-tech methods.

Diplomats told the AP in October that Taiwan was
among countries snared by such technology, with
the agency suspecting it of conducting experiments
with plutonium up to the mid-1980s -- something
Taiwan denied.

------

On the Net:

International Atomic Energy Agency:
http://www.iaea.org






_______________________________________________________________________
Subscribe/Unsubscribe Here: http://www.energyjustice.net/nukenet/
Change your settings or access the archives at:
http://energyjustice.net/mailman/listinfo/nukenet_energyjustice.net

</x-flowed>
*****************************************************************
 15 NEWS.com.au: Warning against nuclear fuel 

(January 6, 2005)
 	 
Staff writers with wires
 				 				
THE world cannot continue allowing countries to develop the 
ability to make nuclear fuel that could be used to make atomic 
bombs, UN nuclear watchdog chief Mohamed ElBaradei told AFP 
overnight.

"We just cannot continue business as usual that every country can 
build its own factories for separating plutonium or enriching 
uranium.

 "Then we are really talking about 30, 40 countries sitting on 
the fence with a nuclear weapons capability that could be 
converted into a nuclear weapon in a matter of months," ElBaradei 
said.

 The warning comes amidst a global takeover battle for WMC 
Resources, one of the world's largest proucers of uranium.

 Australia, via WMC, has the world's largest underdeveloped 
uranium resource -- about one-third of global reserves. 

ElBaradei said the international regime mandated by the 1970
nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) is facing a "major
challenge" as countries like Iran acquire nuclear fuel cycle
capabilities in what are ostensibly peaceful, power-generating
programs.

 The same technology used to make fuel for nuclear reactors can
also be used to manufacture the explosive material for atomic
bombs.

 ElBaradei said that "nuclear weapons are still looked at as a
weapon of choice" which countries want to obtain in order to
have international clout and to protect themselves in their
regions.

 ElBaradei said "we just need to take the bull by the horns and
address these issues," noting that he would bring this up at an
NPT review conference to be held in New York in May.

 "We need to make sure that we create a global security system
that does not depend on nuclear weapons. We need to make sure
that the technology is contained, controlled much better than we
have it now."

 The IAEA's mandate is to make sure that nuclear materials are
not being diverted to make weapons.

 He said he was building on lessons learned in verifying nuclear
programs in Iraq, North Korea, Iran and Libya.

 "In addition to fixing loopholes in the non-proliferation
system, you need to address the security concerns (of countries)
which continue to be the driver behind the effort to develop
nuclear weapons," ElBaradei said.

 He said he would propose a moratorium on countries developing
the nuclear fuel cycle in return for their getting guarantees of
delivery of nuclear fuel for peaceful production of electricity.

 This moratorium would be for "five years until we develop a
better system," ElBaradei said.

 In about 10 years, the largest uranium consumer will be the US,
which will take about 34 per cent of global production.

 Then will follow France with 15 per cent, Japan 13 per cent and
fast-growing China with around 6 per cent.

Agence France-Presse
 				 							 				 				
Copyright 2004 News Limited. All times AEDT (GMT+11).                            
*****************************************************************
 16 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: Blind in Baghdad | thebulletin.org
 
By John Prados
 January/February 2005  pp. 18-20 (vol. 61, no. 01) � 2005
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 

[L] ast November the United States began its pre-Iraqi election
offensive with a full-scale assault on Falluja, then said to be
the center of the resistance to the coalition occupation and the
Iraqi interim government. With newly trained Iraqi government
troops showcased in the attack, U.S. commanders intended to
break the back of the resistance. Instead, Falluja furnished
additional evidence that the United States still does not
comprehend the nature of its adversaries. 

The attack on Falluja made rapid progress, with the weeklong
battle ending in mopping up efforts. But the insurgents had
disappeared, not fought, except for those left to keep the
Americans occupied. Other insurgent groups simultaneously made
numerous attacks of their own in Baghdad, Mosul, and elsewhere,
including the car-bombing of a heavily protected convoy bearing
Amb. Charles A. Duelfer, director of a principal U.S.
intelligence unit, the Iraq Survey Group. With total numbers of
American casualties (killed and wounded) having passed 10,000,
and more than a thousand deaths in Iraq since July 2003--when an
overconfident President George W. Bush exclaimed "Bring "em
on!"--how is it possible that Americans have yet to understand
the enemy? 

The failure to appreciate the Iraqi resistance--due to a
combination of wishful thinking and limitations in the field--is
both a policy and an intelligence problem. The Bush
administration was so wedded to its initial view that all Iraqis
would welcome a U.S. invasion to overthrow Saddam Hussein that
for months--well into 2004--it was an article of faith that the
enemy must consist solely of Saddam regime remnants and foreign
terrorists, with unspecified "criminals" thrown into the brew. 

But the killing of Saddam's sons in the summer of 2003 and the
capture of Saddam himself that December would have demoralized
the resistance had it been as U.S. authorities described it.
Even the rise of Shiite resistance in the form of Moqtada Al
Sadr's militia, which fought pitched battles against U.S. forces
in Najaf, Baghdad, and other Iraqi towns, did not induce the
American authorities to alter their description of the
adversary. 

For more than a year U.S. spokespersons, from Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld to John Abizaid, the commanding general, to CIA
officials, estimated the enemy's number at 3,000-5,000. During
the same period, coalition forces conducted hundreds of
operations, fighting an earlier battle at Falluja as well as
major engagements at Najaf, Tikrit, Baquba, Baghdad, and
elsewhere, frequently claiming to have killed hundreds of enemy
fighters. The number of Iraqis killed is estimated in the range
of 10,000 to 20,000, with one scientific study suggesting as
many as 100,000. In the wake of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal it
emerged that coalition forces had arrested some 44,000 Iraqis.
Coalition forces have thus neutralized many times the number of
assessed adversaries without appreciably affecting the level of
resistance. How can that be? 

Actually the number of insurgents in Falluja before the U.S.
attack in November was put at 3,000-5,000 by American military
officers, the same as earlier estimates of the size of the
resistance as a whole, and the estimate of the percentage of
Iraqi government security forces who are resistance infiltrators
(5 percent of a total of 100,000, by the Bush administration's
own claims) adds up to another equal number of enemies. 

Excluding the invasion itself and the high point of fighting
during Ramadan in 2003, 2004's numbers of American soldiers
killed have exceeded 2003's peak levels every month except
February. And all this after the capture of Saddam. 

� 

There is a fatal flaw in the Bush administration's
characterization of its enemy. Consider developments last
summer, when the insurgents adopted the tactic of going after
civilian employees of contractors working in the country,
frequently taking hostages, for which Iraqi resistance groups
then claimed responsibility. Early last year the administration
began describing the perpetrators as outside agitators, that is,
foreign terrorists epitomized by the Jordanian Abu Musab Al
Zarqawi. 

Indeed, Zarqawi took credit for beheading one American hostage
and taking others. But many more groups than Zarqawi's stepped
forward, and others have become widely known. There is the Iraqi
National Islamic Resistance (a.k.a. the "1920 Revolution
Brigades"), the National Front for the Liberation of Iraq (an
alliance of almost a dozen smaller groups), the Iraqi Resistance
National Front (also a union of subgroups), the Hamzah Faction,
the Iraqi Liberation Army, the "Awakening and Holy War," the
White Banners, and the Al Haqq Army. All of this is before you
get to the remnants of Saddam's regime or Sadr's militia, the Al
Mahdi Army. And there are Shiite factions other than Sadr's,
such as the Imam Ali Bin-Talib Jihadi Brigades. 

Groups revealing themselves through hostage-takings include the
Assadullah Brigades, the Islamic Retaliation Movement, the
Islamic Anger Brigades, the Khalid Bin Al Walid Brigades, the
Black Banners group, the Islamic Army in Iraq, the Ansar Al
Sunna Movement, and the Al Tawhid wa Al Jihad. Some of these
groups undoubtedly consist of just one or a few persons, while
others may be front groups for the same organizations. A few
have an affinity for the Al Qaeda view of jihad, but the point
is that the opposition in Iraq is something new in the annals of
guerrilla warfare: a decentralized constellation of resistance
units with different but complementary goals. It is significant
that the U.S. Army issued a fresh version of its standard field
manual for counterinsurgency operations last October--the first
since the Vietnam War. 

Meanwhile the Pentagon's highest estimates of foreign fighters
remain in the hundreds. In short, Zarqawi cannot be the leader,
nor can his group be the core, of the Iraqi resistance. It has
been important to the Bush administration to identify foreign
terrorists as the core of the resistance, because this argument
links the Iraq War to the war on terrorism and Al Qaeda, but the
very act of advancing it has helped blind the Bush people to the
realities of Iraq. 

� 

There are plenty of practical, structural reasons for
intelligence failure as well. Relations are strained between
U.S. military intelligence and the CIA in Iraq, especially after
the prisoner abuse scandals that began at Abu Ghraib. There is a
sense among the uniformed services that the CIA got off
scot-free for its high-handed treatment of Iraqi prisoners,
spiriting some out of the country, maltreating others, and
steadfastly refusing to cooperate with investigations that
seriously threatened military intelligence and special
operations personnel. For their part, CIA people resent the
surging military operations that have forced the diversion of
their own linguists and experts from the Iraq Survey Group and
other agency activities. The current chief of military
intelligence in Iraq, Brig. Gen. John Defreitas, would probably
dispute charges that there is any lack of cooperation, but in
fact there is little evidence to indicate a positive
relationship. 

The Abu Ghraib affair carries meaning on a number of levels. For
one, all those revelations about the laxity of the military
intelligence chain of command constitute evidence that U.S.
intelligence officers in Iraq have been focused overwhelmingly
on current operations--not surprising given the seriousness of
the situation. At the same time, the pressures put on the
interrogators to obtain information from prisoners indicates the
desperation of U.S. intelligence officers to get anything useful
about the resistance. The stories of the "ghost prisoners," kept
off the books by the CIA, and the others the U.S. military quite
obviously manipulated, have also sent a clear message to Iraqis
of all political persuasions--be leery of the Americans. Thus
the human intelligence that might open a window to the inner
workings of the resistance is closed off to coalition
intelligence units. Moreover, if the Iraqi provisional
government security forces are as heavily penetrated as
suggested by both U.S. and Iraqi interim government
spokespersons, the resistance has much better intelligence than
U.S. coalition authorities. 

� 

The CIA has problems of its own. Most especially, the paucity of
capable linguists and case officers who can work in Arabic. In
addition, in the wake of the Cold War in the early 1990s, the
agency adopted a policy of deliberate short-sheeting: Under a
tiered system, intelligence subjects would be rated for urgency,
and operational or analytical resources would be shifted to
handle the top tiers as necessary. Apart from other consequences
(encouraging generalists rather than retaining area experts) the
policy involved a personnel practice of sequential
temporary-duty assignments. With the competing--and obviously
top-tier--intelligence requirements of both Iraq and the war
against terrorism, the CIA now has intractable demands for its
already limited resources. Sixty to 90-day tours of duty are
common both at CIA's Baghdad Station and within its
Counterterrorism Center. 

In the fall of 2003, an agency station chief was pulled after
sending home a pessimistic evaluation of prospects in Iraq--that
the country was on a "glide path to civil war." The agency's
explanation that the officer's reassignment had not been a
disciplinary measure was technically accurate--having taken over
that summer, he had completed his tour. Needless to say, it is
extremely difficult for CIA officers to immerse themselves
sufficiently in the Iraqi environment in just 60 or 90 days to
make positive contributions. During the Vietnam War the agency
found it hard to get results from officers on two-year tours,
and Iraq is more difficult. 

With U.S. authorities, including the CIA station, largely
confined to a few bases and the notorious Green Zone in Baghdad,
their movements outside these places are highly observable and
easy to obstruct, and running agents among the resistance is
nearly impossible. That was another reason why prisoner
interrogation became so central to the U.S. intelligence effort.
The favored CIA information-collection tool is the unmanned
aerial vehicle, the Predator drone, same as the military,
closely followed by other sources of technical intelligence.
These means have their uses but are strictly limited against an
adversary consisting of a decentralized constellation of
resistance groups without a central command, a defined
communications network, or a set organization that can be
exploited for information breakthroughs. Conversely, the
coalition forces offer well-defined targets susceptible to
infiltration by resistance agents among the many Iraqis who are
employed by the Americans to do everything including laundry and
cleaning. In short, there is little reason to expect U.S. or
coalition forces to achieve a correct intelligence picture of
the resistance. 

There are political reasons why the Bush administration resists
refocusing its picture of the enemy, as well as technical
obstacles to intelligence presenting an accurate picture. In
guerrilla wars the insurgent generally has the initiative unless
countered by a well-informed counterinsurgent force. The Iraq
War can be expected to continue, as similar wars have, with the
enemy escaping from search-and-destroy missions like that in
Falluja. 

The highest-level analysts of U.S. intelligence, the National
Intelligence Council (NIC), compiled a report in summer 2004
that projected several possible scenarios, of which the most
optimistic was a continuation of the present situation. Iraq's
descent into civil war remains a distinct possibility. At the
time, amid the fierce 2004 presidential election campaign, the
leak of these intelligence conclusions--which Bush acknowledged
as real--was dismissed as an effort to influence American
politics. But in truth the NIC report is telling the Bush
administration that it cannot foresee the outcome in Iraq. In
other words, the intelligence is not there to draw conclusions.
America remains in Baghdad, as blind as before, but even more
deeply involved and at a mounting cost in blood and treasure. 

  
Back to top ^ 



  
John Prados, a senior analyst with the National Security Archive
in Washington, D.C., is the author of Hoodwinked: The Documents
That Reveal How Bush Sold Us a War (2004). 

January/February 2005 pp. 18-20 (vol. 61, no. 01) � 2005
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 

Copyright 2005 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists               
*****************************************************************
 17 Pakistan News: US brushes asides reports of Egypt acquiring nuclear technology
from A.Q. Khan

PakTribune.Com
 
Ziqad 24, 1425 Hijri January 06, 2005	         

Wednesday January 05, 2005 (1541 PST)
 		 		 		
State Department spokesperson Adam Ereli in his daily press 
briefing.  


WASHINGTON, January 06 (Online): The United States has brush 
aside press reports that Egypt has a secret uranium research 
programme and that detained Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul 
Qadeer Khan might have supplied nuclear technology to three Arab 
states - Syria, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. 

"We've seen the press reports. We don't have anything definitive 
or authoritative from the IAEA. I expect we'll be discussing 
these press reports with them," State Department deputy spokesman 
Adam Ereli told a press briefing in Washington. "We certainly 
believe it is imperative that member states comply with their 
nuclear safeguards obligations," he said. "We support the IAEA in 
its efforts to investigate and document compliance by member 
states with their nuclear non-proliferation treaty obligations 
and safeguards agreement." Egypt is a member of the nuclear 
non-proliferation treaty and has an active safeguard agreement 
with the IAEA, the Vienna-based UN monitoring agency. According 
to US media reports, the IAEA has found evidence of secret 
nuclear experiments in Egypt that could be used in weapons 
programmes and most of the work was carried out in the 1980s and 
1990s, but the IAEA was also looking at evidence suggesting some 
work was performed as recently as a year ago. Quoting Israeli 
intelligence sources, Jerusalem Post said, "One of those three 
Arab states (Syria, Egypt and Saudi Arabia) now has the potential 
to achieve a significant nuclear leap." The report did not name 
the country. The report said Israel was aware of Khan's contacts 
with all three countries and knew that he had provided to one of 
them expertise and material to manufacture nuclear bombs. End. �   
     
  

*****************************************************************
 18 Prados: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
 
[ height=]     [Bulletin Spotlight]     [ height=]   
  
By John Prados | January/February 2005 

The war in Iraq is a disaster. Unfortunately, as John Prados 
writes in the Bulletin's Opinions section, the Bush 
administration went into the war wearing blinders. "There is a 
fatal flaw in the Bush administration's characterization of its 
enemy," Prados writes. "It has been important to the Bush 
administration to identify foreign terrorists as the core of the 
resistance, because this argument links the Iraq War to the war 
on terrorism and Al Qaeda, but the very act of advancing it has 
helped blind the Bush people to the realities of Iraq." Read more 
about how the administration went     

As more and more countries adopt the International Atomic Energy
Agency𠏋 Additional Protocol, all kinds of nuclear secrets are
going to come spilling out. Currently under the microscope:
South Korea, which recently admitted to having conducted
undeclared uranium enrichment and plutonium experiments. 	


 Loose nukes, nanobots, smallpox, oh my! So many doomsday
scenarios have been paraded on TV, in the newspapers, and in the
course of political campaigns, that it𠏋 hard not to ask: How
many possible terrorist attacks with how many possible weapons
can there be? In this age of endless imagining, and some very
real risks, which threats should be taken most seriously? 

What's up with Iran?
 Is the Bush administration right when it claims that Iran's
recently discovered nuclear activities are a prelude to an
Iranian nuclear bomb? The answer is maybe. Iran's centrifuge
capacities could be used to produce fuel for its new nuclear
power plant, or to enrich uranium for a bomb--or maybe both. Get
all the details on Iran's nuclear capabilities from the
Bulletin's latest reports: 

    November 2004 
    May 2004 
    March 2004 
    September 2003 
    May 2003 

In case you missed it
 Psy-ops, the military's psychological operations, include
planting fake stories in the media to trick foes𡐤ike the bogus
one the Defense Department handed CNN on October 14 about the
start of an offensive in Falluja. Lying to the public as part of
military strategy is nothing new, but there were supposed to be
rules. Have the rules gone by the boards? In Jeffrey Richelson
examined the Defense Department's troubling practice of
"perception management." 

More Than Minutes Contest 

Don't just sit there! Enter the More Than Minutes art contest and 
have your handiwork permanently displayed in a virtual museum. 
Oh, and we're giving out more than $5,000 in prizes. Sitting 
there? Cash prizes? Hmmmm. Learn more about the .   

Plutonium parks and piles of Pu

 In 2002 the Bulletin brought you the Plutonium Memorial Design
Contest and offered the world some new (and wacky) ideas on the
still-unresolved issue of plutonium disposal. View an online
gallery of the contest's innovative winners and quirky
favorites. Or, find out more about the contest. 

From the Archive: Holiday edition

 X-mas in Nukeland 

Celebrate Christmas the U.S. military way: "On a Trident
submarine, which carries 24 multiple-warhead nuclear missiles,
crew members call the part of the sub where the missiles are
lined up in their silos ready for launching 'the Christmas tree
farm,'" Carol Cohn reported in her June 1987 Bulletin article
"Slick𨬓ms, Glick'ems, Christmas Trees, and Cookie Cutters:
Nuclear Language and How We Learned to Pat the Bomb" (PDF). Cohn
found that warm, and sometimes overtly sexual, metaphors,
euphemisms, and acronyms soft-pedal nuclear destruction and make
nuclear war planners more comfortable with their task. (Bonus
holiday question: What's the other nuclear Christmas tree?
Answer: The rack that holds targets to be irradiated in a
nuclear reactor is frequently referred to as the "Christmas
tree." ) 

From the Archive
 Nearly Baked Alaska

 In 1958, Edward Teller and his gung-ho nuclear colleagues at
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory wanted to carve out a
harbor in the remote Alaskan coastline--using nuclear
detonations. "If your mountain is not in the right place, just
drop us a card," Teller said. As Dan O'Neill reported in
December 1989 in "Project Chariot: How Alaska Escaped Nuclear
Excavation" (PDF), Eskimos and scientists defeated Teller's plan
in what became the first successful anti-nuclear protest--and
sparked the environmental movement along the way. 

*****************************************************************
 19 [NukeNet] Korea Times: World Rushing Toward Nuclear Energy
 
Date: Wed, 05 Jan 2005 15:20:54 -0800

 
<x-flowed>
NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet@energyjustice.net)


  Mothersalert: http://www.mothersalert.org  Videos
[Including "3 Mile Island Revisited":
http://www.envirovideo.com


   Korea Times: World Rushing Toward Nuclear Energy

http://www.Hankooki.com  > The Korea Times >
Technology

By Kim Tae-gyu Staff Reporter

Sky-high crude oil prices prod many governments
from across the
world to seek alternative energy sources other
than petroleum,
particularly in nuclear power.

The Kori nuclear power station in Pusan, left,
began operations
in 1978. The right photo shows a team of
investigators checking
for radiation during a recent emergency training
at the plant.

This marks a major turnaround from the hitherto
widespread
anti-nuclear policies, which have been generally
adopted after a
series of disasters of the 1979 Three Mile Island
accident and
the 1986 Chernobyl catastrophe.

The United States now looks to license novel
nuclear plants,
putting an end to the nation＊s quarter-century
moratorium on
new nuclear facilities after the 1979 Three Mile
Island debacle.

Other countries like France, Finland and China
also follow the
suit of the U.S. and in related measures, some
nations,
including the Netherlands and Switzerland, watered
down their
original plans of scrapping nuclear power plants.

The Netherlands reversed its plan of closing down
Borssele
reactors and Switzerland voted down the draft of
expelling
nuclear plants on a phased basis.

In comparison, Korea is now suffering headwinds in
expanding its
dependence on nuclear power as amply demonstrated
by its failure
both in forging ahead with new reactors and
finding a nuclear
waste dump site.

Still the pros and cons continue to confront on
nuclear power,
which is efficient but has a potential detriment,
with both
sides not likely to find the same page any time
soon.

Proponents point out the nuclear power technology
emits
virtually no airborne pollutants and overall far
less waste
material than fossil fuel-based power plants.

They also claim the controversial source of energy
is much more
cost-effective than other electricity-generating
methods.

By contrast, opponents take issue with the
radioactive products
released by reactors into the environment and the
irritatingly
long period needed to decomposing the nuclear
waste.

Experts point out the spent nuclear fuel needs to
be decayed for
10,000 years for it not pose a threat to health
and safety.
Nobody can ensure that the material can be
safeguarded over such
a long period of time.

All in all, anti-nuclear campaigners assert that
both immediate
and long-term safety concerns regarding the
disposal of the
nuclear wastes overwhelm any cost-related
benefits.

Nuclear Power and Accidents

The world＊s first nuclear reactors were used to
generate
plutonium for weapons and the Soviet Union and
western countries
started to expand their nuclear research to
non-military uses of
atom from the mid-1950s.

In late 1951, electric power from a
nuclear-powered generator
was produced for the first time in the U.S., but
the Soviet
Union churned out nuclear power for commercial use
first in
1954.

Other countries followed the Soviet Union and the
U.S. as
relating technologies were further developed and
the two-rounds
of energy crises in the 1970s spurred a nuclear
building boom
across the world.

But On March 28, 1979 an accident took place,
which moved the
pendulum in disfavor of the nuclear power, at an
American island
called Three Mile Island (TMI) in Pennsylvania.

The TMI nuclear reactor suffered a partial core
meltdown in
early morning of the day and some scientists
believe the
radiation vented during the event.

Although no identifiable injuries due to radiation
occurred
(there is some opposition regarding the issue), it
was a serious
economic and public relations disaster and
furthered a steep
decline in popularity of nuclear power.

Approximately 70 percent of the U.S. general
approved of nuclear
power before the accident, but the TMI mishap
caused the support
to plunge to below 50 percent.

In answer to the public backlash on nuclear safety
lapse, the
U.S. established more stringent federal
requirements and
actually put an embargo on new nuclear facilities.

More concretely, no U.S. nuclear power plant has
been authorized
to begin construction since 1979 and just 53 of
129 plants
approved at the time of TMI were ever completed.

Russia＊s Chernobyl explosion in 1986, which
evacuated more
than 100,000 people due to radioactive particles,
dealt the
second blow to nuclear power protagonists and
resulted in more
strengthened regulations worldwide.

By far more rigid regulations hiked the costs of
operating a
reactor, discouraging constructors from building
new nuclear
plants together with strident opposition from a
crop of
anti-nuclear campaigners.

Mushrooming Nuclear Power Plants

However, things started to change in favor of the
nuclear power
as the crude oil prices sky rocket and the global
regulations on
green house gas emission become strict.

Oil prices have surged of late, threatening the
energy security
by cranking up the economic vulnerability to an
oil price shock
to many oil-importing countries like Korea.

Dubai oil sold $28 per barrel into 2004 but the
price soared
over $41 in August and stabilized in the
neighborhood of $34
during the late last year.

According to the state-funded Korea National Oil
Corp., Dubai
oil prices are forecast to remain above the
$30-per-barrel mark
for this year, possibly fluctuating between $33
and $35.

The private Korea Petroleum Association also
presented similar
prediction but it said Dubai oil prices will
likely jump to an
average $45 a barrel if demand explodes as in 2004
and massive
terrorism result in production cuts or
distribution bottleneck.

Dubai oil prices have the foremost repercussions
on the Korean
economy as roughly 80 percent of the nation＊s
oil, amounting to
about 750 million barrels per annum, comes from
the Middle East.

The emission problems of fossil fuels are another
stumbling
block in sticking to the hitherto mainstream
electricity source
of the steam power generation.

Under the Kyoto Protocol agreed in 1997,
industrialized
countries will have to reduce their collective
emissions of
greenhouse gases, which are suspected of causing
global warming,
by 5.2 percent in 2010 compared to the year 1990.

This legally binding agreement raises concerns for
many
countries, which have hinged on fossil fuels for
their energy
sources because they are one of main culprits of
the greenhouse
gases.

Haunted by a scenario of extreme crude oil price
volatility and
the restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions in
the power
sector, the world started to tilt toward nuclear
power again.

The U.S. Department of Energy disclosed last
November a pair of
nuclear reactors would be established at North
Anna, Virginia
and also the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
recommended a month
later that the permit should be issued.

It represents a major turnaround of the U.S.＊
decades-long
policy principle that the nation doesn＊t approve
new nuclear
construction outright after the 1979 TMI accident.

France where the nuclear energy source supplies up
to 80 percent
of the country＊s electricity recently said its
state-owned
utility would build a prototype next-generation
nuclear plants.

France opted to pour three billion euros for the
project, which
will go ahead with the European Pressurized Water
Reactor for
1,600-megawatt model by 2010.

Electricite de France, the state-owned French
electricity
group, said the envisioned nuclear plants will be
safer, cheaper
and more environmentally friendly that those in
use.

The decision triggers Britain to rethink its
nuclear option in
the face of soaring oil prices, dwindling North
Sea oil and gas
reserves as well as setbacks in developing
renewables.

The third nuclear plant is now under construction
in the
Olikiluoto region of Finland and China also plans
to establish
more than 20 nuclear reactors by 2020.

The Netherlands shelved its original plan of
closing down
Borssele plant and Switzerland reversed the draft
of winding
down nuclear power stations on a phased basis.

In a nutshell, economic benefits start to outweigh
safety
concerns of nuclear power plants in the
above-mentioned
situation change and the ripple effect is now
being felt.

As of the end of 2003, the latest statistics
available, the
world had 523 nuclear reactors and the energy
accounted for
about 12 percent of the global power demands,
according to the
Korea Hydro &Nuclear Power (KHNP).

``Combined with more stringent restrictions on
greenhouse gases
and swelling crude oil prices, the energy security
woes increase
the attractiveness of the nuclear generation,＊＊
KHNP official
Shin Bo-gyoun said.

Renewable Energies

In response to the emerging global trend of
building up nuclear
power stations, environmentalists continue to urge
a paradigm
shift to renewable energy.

Renewable energy refers to energy from a source
which can be
managed so that it is not subject to depletion at
least in a
human time scale.

It includes the sun＊s ray, wind, waves, rivers,
tides, biomass
and geothermal while excluding sources which are
dependent upon
limited resources such as fossil fuels and nuclear
fission power.

The top advantage of aforementioned renewable
energy sources is
their dearth of greenhouse gases and other
emission in
comparison with fossil fuel combustion.

Environmental activists and civic groups have
stressed wider
adoption of new energy sources as articulated by
Gerd Leipold,
executive director of Greenpeace International at
the
International Solar Cities Conference held in
Taegu last
November.

``A massive and urgent expansion in the use of
renewable energy
sources is the only answer to the twin threats of
climate change
and nuclear proliferation,＊＊ Leipold said.

Ironically enough, however, the environmentally
friendly power
sources sometimes hurt the nature. For instance,
wind turbines
make intolerable noises to nearby residents and
can be hazardous
to flying birds while hydroelectric dams can
create barriers for
migrating fish.

And renewables have a visual disadvantage as shown
by the large
solar-electric installations outside of cities

More fundamentally inherent barrier is the fact
that the
renewable power sources are typically providing
low-intensity
energy when compared to legacy mainstream ways.

As a result, the costs of electricity production
from the
renewable sources are pretty high that they are
not the serious
competitors yet to base-load power supply except
in very limited
situation.

``Few, if any, environmentalists pay their
attention to a grim
reality that the costs of electricity from the
current renewable
energies are up to 18 times higher than those of
electricity
made from nuclear or coals,＊＊ said Yoo Yun-baek,
an official
of the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy
(MOCIE).

As of the end of 2003, Yoo said nuclear stations
cost Korea
slightly over 40 won to make a 1kilowatt
electricity while the
expense stood at about 700 won for solar energy.

Some analysts point out the conservationists
should also take
into account the world＊s poor, numbering 2
billion people or a
third of the total population, who have no access
to commercial
energy at all and needs cheap electricity.

Korean Option

In the wake of the energy crises in the 1970s,
Korea has
desperately sought energy security policy to
reduce its lopsided
dependence on oils.

As the sixth-biggest nuclear power producing
country in the
planet, Korea today operates a total of 19 nuclear
reactors,
which combine to provide 40 percent of the
nation＊s total
electricity requirement.

According to the MOCIE, the country plans to
install nine more
reactors by 2015 with the aim of increasing the
role of nuclear
fission.

``In deciding the proportion of respective power
sources in our
energy mix, we have three criteria of
environmental
friendliness, economical efficiency and
supply-demand stability.
Based on the three benchmarks, we think we need to
increase the
number of nuclear reactors,＊＊ said Yoo of the
MOCIE.

Unlike the government scheme, however, Korea＊s
new reactor in
Wolsong, North Kyongsang Province, is suffering a
delay of
longer than one and a half years than its initial
schedule and
more serious distress lies in finding sites for
nuclear refuse.

After setting up a policy for building a nuclear
wastes storage
site 18 years ago, the nation has yet to complete
possibly the
longest-pending state project.

As the most recent setback in last November, no
region applied
to accommodate a low-and intermediate-level
radioactive waste
dump, which the government pushed to build by
2008.

A permanent storage site would be available no
earlier than
2010 even if the construction starts today while
the interim
storage facilities of nuclear plants will run out
of space from
2008.

To site the right place, the Korean government
vowed to provide
subsidies to townships which host nuclear waste
dumps in an
effort to improve their local attractiveness to no
avail.

In fact, fixing the waste site has become
extremely difficult in
many nations as potential neighbors to nuclear
facilities have
increasingly protested against them on the grounds
of
environmental dangers.

In this climate, costs of decommissioning the
retired nuclear
power reduce its commercial viability and some
even go so far as
to say the nation should jettison nuclear fission
as an energy
source.

  From the perspective of both the energy security
and economy,
in response, Yoo pointed out such assertion
doesn＊t make any
sense that the country producing not a drop of
petroleum should
scrap the energy source, which supplies about 40
percent of its
total energy demands.

One conservative estimate puts the additional
annual energy cost
at up to $6.5 billion in replacing Korea＊s
nuclear power with
thermal power.

Experts point out the answer would stand somewhere
between the
two extremes of hard-core nuclear proponents and
aggressive
anti-nuclear activists.

``The bottom line is that we have to find a
balance between
safety and cost. Nuclear power retains the
potential to be a
sustainable energy source and we should keep a tab
on its
detrimental facet at the same time,＊＊ Kyung Hee
University
professor Hwang Joo-ho said.

Hwang said Korea＊s dependency on nuclear energy
should reach at
least 50 percent for several considerations like
national energy
security although social consensus should come
first before such
measures.

voc200@koreatimes.co.kr 01-04-2005 19:28




_______________________________________________________________________
Subscribe/Unsubscribe Here: http://www.energyjustice.net/nukenet/
Change your settings or access the archives at:
http://energyjustice.net/mailman/listinfo/nukenet_energyjustice.net

</x-flowed>
*****************************************************************
 20 IPS-English ENERGY: French Plan Contradicts Europe's
 
Date: Wed, 05 Jan 2005 15:11:11 -0800

 
<x-flowed>
ROMAIPS EU EN IP SC
ENERGY: French Plan Contradicts Europe's Anti-Nuclear Trend
By Julio Godoy* - Tierram廨ica

PARIS, Jan 5 (IPS) - The French government plans to earmark 150 billion
dollars over the next 30 years for nuclear power plants, including the
International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), despite experts'
warnings on technological and environmental problems.

ITER was conceived in the 1980s as a cooperation project for civilian use of
nuclear energy, with the participation of the European Union, China, Japan,
South Korea, the former Soviet Union and the United States.

Later, France told the EU it would double its contribution to the reactor --
whose costs over the next 10 years reaches 12 billion dollars -- in exchange
for building it in Cadarache, in the southern part of the country.

Over the past 18 months, China, Russia and the EU agreed to that proposal,
and Paris convinced the European bloc to launch the project even without the
participation of the United States or Japan, the latter of which also
offered to build the reactor in its territory.

In the context of France's opposition to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, the
location of ITER turned into a political matter.

In late November, the European Commission (the executive arm of the EU)
announced that it was willing to finance ITER alone and to build it in
Cadarache. The Commission gave the non-European participants until the end
of 2004 to decide whether they would remain as partners in the project.

ITER seeks to emulate nuclear fusion of two hydrogen isotopes (deuterium and
tritium) that occurs in stars, and produce helium with massive generation of
electricity.

French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Rafarin said in November 2003 that the
project would provide ''the energy of the future, an inexhaustible source
and with no significant problems, thanks to the abundance of hydrogen
contained in water.''

Scientific data, however, contradict the prime minister's statements.

Deuterium indeed is abundant in nature, but tritium, which is radioactive,
is very scarce and unstable.

The French nuclear physicists Sebastien Balibar, Yves Pomeau and Jacques
Treiner wrote in the Oct. 25, 2004 edition of Le Monde newspaper that a
thermonuclear reactor poses three technical problems of first magnitude: the
production of the elements to undergo fusion, their resistance to fusion,
and control of this reaction.

However, they say, the ITER project is only interested in the last, ''and
ignores the other two, the solution of which, nevertheless, is essential.''

To generate a gigawatt of electricity, a nuclear fusion reactor would have
to burn 56 kg of tritium, but ITER does not see a problem in producing that
isotope, nor in handling the nuclear waste generated, said the scientists.

Similar doubts are caused by another major French nuclear project: updating
the country's 57 nuclear plants, replacing them with pressurised water
reactors, or EPR (European Pressurised Reactors).

In late October, Electricit� de France (EdF), the state electricity
monopoly, announced that it would begin construction in 2007 of the first
EPR in Flamanville, on the country's northwest Atlantic coast, and that it
is expected to be operational by 2012, at a cost of four to five billion
dollars.

France's current nuclear power facilities will be largely obsolete in 2020,
and replacing half of them with EPR before then would cost some 150 billion
dollars.

France produces 80 percent of its energy in nuclear power plants, and is
second in the world in terms of dependence on atomic energy, after Ukraine.

Currently, the only European countries with plans to build new nuclear
plants are France, Finland and some of the former socialist bloc nations.

Belgium, Germany and Sweden are among the European countries, in contrast,
that have begun the gradual dismantling of their nuclear reactors. France is
one of the few absent from the campaign to achieve 21 percent renewable
energy in each EU country by 2010.

The proportion of renewable energy in France today is less than 15 percent
and the country ''should already be producing 7,000 megawatts from wind
energy, but barely produces 300,'' H幨鋝e Gassin, of Greenpeace-France, told
Tierram廨ica.

Construction of the first EPR ''will contribute to the energy independence
of France, and will serve as a window for exporting this (French and German)
technology,'' says EdF president Pierre Gadonneix.

But the director of the anti-nuclear association Sortir du Nucl嶧ire,
Stephane Lhomme, said in a Tierram廨ica interview that ''there is
practically no EPR operating in the world, and there are only three being
built,'' meaning there are no ''objective guarantees of the efficiency of
that technology.''

Furthermore, the nuclear plants with EPR would have to operate 60 years
without interruption in order to ensure profits, and the authorities have
admitted that these facilities were not designed to withstand terrorist
attacks or earthquakes, Lhomme said.

(* Julio Godoy is an IPS correspondent. Originally published Jan. 1 by Latin
American newspapers that are part of the Tierram廨ica network. Tierram廨ica
is a specialised news service produced by IPS with the backing of the United
Nations Development Programme and the United Nations Environment Programme.)

*****

+Tierram廨ica (http://www.tierramerica.net/english)

(END/IPS/EU/EN-IP-SC/TRASP-LD/JG/MP/05)


= 01051457 ORP007
NNNN

</x-flowed>
*****************************************************************
 21 AZ Republic: Wind power set to soar
 
[azcentral.com]     

Wind power set to soar '05 tax credits to propel windmill use
						 
Doug Abrahms Gannett News Service Jan. 5, 2005 12:00 AM                                            

WASHINGTON -- Thousands of giant wind turbines will spring up 
around the country this year to generate more eco-friendly power.

 Nearly 30 energy companies are rushing to take advantage of a 
2005 tax break and plan to install thousands of windmills in at 
least 21 states, according to the American Wind Energy 
Association.

 Wind power produces less than 1 percent of America's electricity 
today, according to the Energy Information Administration, 
compared with nearly 22 percent provided by nuclear generators 
and 55 percent by coal plants. But proponents of this renewable 
source of power hope the 35-story turbines can produce 6 percent 
of the nation's electricity by 2020. 

"Because we only have a year, we're working double time and 
triple time to get these projects done," said Donna Lotz, project 
marketing coordinator at enXco Inc., a Palm Springs, Calif., 
company that builds and operates wind farms.

 EnXco flipped the switch last week on a wind farm in Tehachapi,
Calif., that will produce 60 megawatts of electricity - enough
to light up nearly 20,000 homes.

 Among the developments propelling the new wind power projects
are:

�The federal government is offering wind producers a
1.8-cents-per-kilowatt-hour tax credit. 


�States are requiring utilities to produce some of their
electricity from green power, such as solar, wind or geothermal
sources.

 
�Technology is increasing energy efficiency. 

But problems have cropped up as energy companies rush to build
wind farms. 

Just because wind power doesn't pollute the air doesn't mean it
has no environmental impact. Also, not everyone wants a windmill
within eyesight.

 Alameda County, Calif., placed a moratorium on new wind farms
because turbines had killed hundreds of hawks, eagles and other
birds of prey. Hundreds of bats were killed at a wind farm in
Tucker County, W.Va.

 Some Massachusetts residents oppose building a big wind farm
off Cape Cod, partly because it would spoil their view.

 New Jersey Gov. Richard Codey announced a state moratorium on
offshore wind farms in December. The decision was applauded by a
number of state surfing, fishing and environmental groups
worried about the effects of large wind turbines.

 The wind farms could affect fish populations, migratory birds
and possibly other marine life, said Tim Dillingham, who heads
the American Littoral Society, a Sandy Hook, N.J., conservation
group.

 Despite opposition from some homeowners, the Dodge County,
Wis., Farm Bureau supports developing wind farms because it
provides new revenues to both landowners and county governments,
said Jim Schoenike, the group's president.

 Clear Lake, Iowa, farmer Delbert Watson has nothing but good
things to say about the five 120-foot towers on his land. He can
plant corn or soybeans within 20 feet of the turbines and hasn't
seen any bird deaths even though his land sits close to a
wildlife refuge.

 Watson has had wind towers on his land since 1999 and receives
about $2,000 annually in rent for each turbine. 

Western Wind Energy Corp. proposes to have a wind farm operating
near Kingman by the end of 2005. 

The project, the first in Arizona, would generate 15 megawatts
of electricity, or enough to power about 3,000 average homes.
Arizona Public Service Co. has agreed to purchased the
facility's output to help the company meet an Arizona
Corporation Commission requirement that 1.1 percent of its power
be generated from renewable resources by 2007. 

Western, a Vancouver, British Columbia, company, initially
proposed to build the project near St. Johns, but later found
the wind near Kingman to be more conducive to power generation. 

Mike Boyd, head of Western Wind's Arizona operations, said the
company plans to develop the St. Johns site eventually. 

Boyd said the project had stalled when government subsidies for
wind developments expired at the end of 2003. When the
1.8-cent-per-kilowatt subsidy was reinstated in September, the
project came back to life. 

- Max Jarman

Copyright � 2005, azcentral.com. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 22 York Dispatch: Nuclear survey redone

January 05, 2005                                                                               
 			 								 					
Exelon wants a better response
By CHRISTINA KAUFFMAN � The York Dispatch
 
A questionnaire intended to find out what services people would
need in case of a nuclear accident or other disaster may change
formats this year.

 Exelon Generation, which operates Peach Bottom Atomic Power
Station in Peach Bottom Township, plans to meet with county
emergency officials later this month to propose the change.

 The questionnaires, printed on cards and mailed to residents in
a 10-mile radius of the plant, were often mistaken for junk mail
by residents who should have filled them out, said Pete Resler,
the company's communications manager.

 "People are throwing the cards away without looking at them,"
he said, although he had no statistics on how many were actually
returned.

 "The new pamphlet is a larger, nicer-looking piece that we
believe they will recognize as containing important information
and they'll hang on to it." 

The questionnaires are designed to inform emergency personnel
about any special needs residents would have in the event of an
emergency, 
such as transportation by an ambulance for bedridden residents.

 If a person is hearing-impaired and unable to hear a warning
siren system that alerts residents to tune into television or
radio for information, he or she may not be able to evacuate or
respond to an emergency, he said.

 The new pamphlet will contain information about evacuation and
the emergency alert system.

 "That information is also in the phone books," said Mike
Fetrow, deputy director for the county's emergency management
office. "But it doesn't hurt to take the time to review it. It
never hurts to do an overkill on some of this stuff."

 Confidential info: The questionnaires are kept confidential,
but local fire departments and emergency workers review them so
they can plan how many people they will have to provide services
for in case of an emergency, Fetrow said.

 Exelon pays to send print and mail the questionnaires, which
will be returned to the county's emergency personnel and passed
on to the municipalities where the people live.

 Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station, on the
Susquehanna River near Goldsboro, uses a slightly different
questionnaire and will not be affected by the proposed change,
Resler said.

 -- Reach Christina Kauffman 505-5434 or .

�2004 by The York Dispatch Publishing Co., LLC
*****************************************************************
 23 NRC: Notice of Issuance of Renewed Materials License SNM-2500,
 
                         FR Doc 05-149 
[Federal Register: January 5, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 3)] 
[Notices] [Page 924-925] From the Federal Register Online via GPO 
Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr05ja05-111]                         
 
General Electric Company, Morris Operation, Independent Spent 
Fuel Storage Installation AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
 
ACTION: Notice of issuance of license renewal.
 
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Christopher M. Regan, Senior 
Project Manager, Spent Fuel Project Office, Office of Nuclear 
Material Safety and Safeguards, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission, Washington, DC 20555. Telephone: (301) 415-1179; fax 
number: (301) 415-8555; e-mail: cmr1@nrc.gov.
 
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: I. Introduction The U.S. Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission (NRC or the Commission) has issued renewed 
Materials License No. SNM-2500 held by the General Electric 
Company (GE) for the possession, storage, and transfer of spent 
fuel at the Morris Operation Independent Spent Fuel Storage 
Installation (ISFSI), located in Grundy County, Illinois. The 
renewed license authorizes operation of the Morris Operation 
ISFSI in accordance with the provisions of the renewed license 
and its Technical Specifications.
 
II. Background By application dated May 22, 2000, as supplemented 
August 13, 2001, August 6, 2003, and August 9, 2004, GE requested 
to renew the operating license for the Morris Operation ISFSI. 
The renewed operating license would permit operation for an 
additional 20 years beyond the initial licensed period.
 
III. Finding The application for the renewed license complies 
with the standards and requirements of the Atomic Energy Act of 
1954 (the Act), as amended, and the Commission's rules and 
regulations. The Commission has made appropriate findings as 
required by the Act and the Commission's rules and regulations in 
10 CFR Chapter 1, which are set forth in the license. Public 
notice of the proposed action and opportunity for a hearing 
regarding the proposed issuance of the renewed license was 
published in the Federal Register on October 19, 2000 (65 FR 
62766).
 
Further Information: As of October 25, 2004, the NRC initiated an 
additional
 
[[Page 925]] security review of publicly available documents to 
ensure that potentially sensitive information is removed from the 
Agencywide Documents and Management System (ADAMS) database 
accessible through the NRC's Web site. Interested members of the 
public should check the NRC's Web pages for updates on the 
availability of documents through the ADAMS system. Copies of the 
referenced documents are available for review and/or copying at 
the NRC Public Document Room after resumption of public access to 
ADAMS. The NRC Public Document Room (PDR) Reference staff can be 
contacted at 1-800-397-4209, 301-415-4737 or by e-mail to 
pdr@nrc.gov. Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 21st day of 
December, 2004.
 
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
 
Christopher M. Regan, Senior Project Manager, Licensing Section, 
Spent Fuel Project Office, Office of Nuclear Material Safety and 
Safeguards.
 
[FR Doc. 05-149 Filed 1-4-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P

 
*****************************************************************
 24 Las Vegas RJ: Bush retaps Reid science aide for NRC 
 
Wednesday, January 05, 2005
 

By STEVE TETREAULT
STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU
 

WASHINGTON -- President Bush on Tuesday renominated an aide to
Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., to become a leader at the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission, a step toward fulfilling a deal reached
last fall.
 
 Gregory B. Jaczko's name was submitted to the Senate to fill a
vacancy on the five-member federal board that regulates the
nuclear power industry and the handling of nuclear materials and
waste.
 
 Jaczko, 34, is Reid's science aide and his principal adviser on
the Yucca Mountain Project, which the Nevada senator has tried
to kill using his Senate influence.
 
 A physicist, Jaczko was to join the NRC board last year, but
his confirmation was blocked by Republicans following strong
objections from the nuclear power industry.
 
 Industry officials contend Jaczko will be biased against the
proposed Nevada nuclear waste repository while he is at the
agency. Reid said Jaczko is qualified and would be fair. 
Responding to Republican opposition to Jaczko last year, Reid
blocked dozens of Bush nominees for federal posts, an impasse
that persisted until the final night of the session.
 
 Then, the White House and Reid reached a deal where Bush would
use his executive powers to appoint Jaczko to a two-year NRC
term if Reid allowed the other nominees to pass the Senate.
 
 A Senate lawyer who works for Reid said the renomination was
part of a formal procedure that would allow Bush to place Jaczko
at the NRC as a "recess appointment" when the Senate is out of
session.
 
 Also Tuesday, Albert Henry Konetzni of New York was nominated
to fill a second vacancy at the NRC. The White House agreement
with Reid was that Konetzni, a Republican, and Jaczko would be
appointed simultaneously.
 
 
Copyright Las Vegas Review-Journal
*****************************************************************
 25 Bellona: Lituania𠏋 Ignalina NPP begins the road to shut down

As part of its obligations of becoming a member of the European 
Union (EU) last May, the former Soviet Republic of Lithuania𤤖ne 
of Europe𠏋 most nuclear energy dependent states𤪳egan the long 
process of its Chernobyl-style Ignalina nuclear power plant last 
week. 


  Lituania's Soviet-built Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant.   
  Archive   

Charles Digges, 2005-01-05 14:15

The full closure of the plant, whose two RBMK-1000 graphite
moderated reactors are the same fatally-flawed design of those
at Chernobyl, the site in1986 of the world𠏋 worst nuclear power
accident, is scheduled to last until 2009, plant officials said.
The process started with the shutdown of reactor number one on
Friday. 

"This stoppage is no different from previous ones when the plant
was closed for maintenance, the only difference is that we won't
be restarting it," said spokeswoman Rasa Sevaldina, according to
Reuters. 

Plant technicians began to slowly reduce the plant𠏋 output at
9:00 a.m. Lithuanian time on Friday, with major reductions
staring at 4:00 p.m. The operation was brought to a halt at 9:00
p.m.


  EU enlargement revives long-standing nuclear battle   

  On the first of May the European Union took 10 new member
states on board, five of which are still operating nuclear power
plants with so-called high-risk reactors. Four of the new Member
States run Soviet design reactors鍟he VVER-440-230 and the
fatally flawed, Chernobyl style RBMK series㻡ll in need of
maintenance or, better, complete shut-down.
&nbsp;Read on &raquo;   

Economic troubles lay ahead 

As a condition for its entrances into the EU, Brussels demanded
that Lithuania shut down the Ignalina plant because of long-held
fears over the plants safety and potential for catastrophic
disasters, EU officials have said. But the decision was a tough
one for Vilnius to make as Ignalina supplies 80 percent of the
country𠏋 electricity. 

More immediately, the closure of the first reactor will slash
another source of revenue for Lithuania in the form of energy
exports to the nearby countries of Estonia, Latvia, Belarus, and
Russia𠏋 Kaliningrad enclave, which remain linked by a
Soviet-era grid. 

The shut down will also bring with it a rise in unemployment in
the nearby town of Visaginas, an oasis in of mainly Russian
plant workers, worsening an already spiraling crisis of
unemployment in eastern Lithuania. Of the reactor𠏋 3,500
workers, 200 will be laid off by the end of the year. 

The EU has made funds available to attract investment to the
area and try to make use of the highly-skilled workers. 

Newer reactors? 

Lithuania𠏋 President, Valdas Adamkus, said recently that the
country would build a modern nuclear power plant that would come
on-line before the closure of Ignalina𠏋 second unit, but
experts have said such a timeline for building a new reactor is
not realistic. 

Ignalina's two reactors started operating ass a Soviet nuclear
power plant in the mid-1980s after a decade of construction. The
building of a third unit at the plant was stopped after the
Chernobyl disaster. 

Thirteen of the EU's 25 member states operate nuclear power
plants. Among those, Germany and Sweden have decided to
gradually phase out atomic energy while Finland has opted to
build up more nuclear power capacity.   

  Publisher: Bellona Foundation, President: Frederic Hauge
Information: info@bellona.no, Technical contact:
webmaster@bellona.no
Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00 Telefax: +47 22 38 38 62  * P.O.Box
2141 Grunerlokka, 0505 Oslo, Norway
*****************************************************************
 26 BBC: 'Loose nukes' fear spurs US-Russia action
 
  Last Updated: Wednesday, 5 January, 2005
 
				 			 		   		 		 		 
By Gordon Corera
        
BBC security correspondent   

Just days before Christmas, a secret flight took off from the 
Czech Republic heading for Russia. 


[George W Bush and Vladimir Putin]                              

The US is anxious to help Russia in its efforts to recover the 
material

Until it touched down amid tight security, the details of the 
flight were kept highly classified for fear of terrorists 
intercepting the cargo - four specialised transport canisters 
containing 6kg of highly enriched uranium which could be used for 
nuclear weapons. 

The flight marked a further step in an increasingly aggressive 
programme to secure nuclear material by Russia and the US amid 
continuing fears that gaining nuclear material is a priority for 
al-Qaeda. 

If terrorists managed to g hold of fissile material the 
consequences would be devastating
		
Russian atomic agency chief 
Aleksandr Rumyantsev   	

Meeting in London on 4 January were the two top officials 
involved in the US-Russian efforts - US Secretary of Energy 
Spencer Abraham and Director of the Russian Federal Atomy Energy 
Agency Aleksandr Rumyantsev. 

They told the BBC news website that they were accelerating their 
protection programme and expanding the scope of co-operation 
between their two countries to try to ensure that no nuclear 
material could fall into the wrong hands. 

"If terrorists somehow managed to get hold of fissile material 
then the consequences would be devastating," Mr Rumyantsev said. 

And he warned that even if the number of casualties was low, the 
psychological impact of something like a dirty bomb would compare 
with the impact Chernobyl had on the Russian psyche. 

Long-standing target 

After the end of the Cold War, the biggest concern was so-called 
"loose nukes" in the former Soviet Union where there were more 
than 27,000 nuclear weapons. 

The fear was that poorly secured nuclear weapons could be stolen 
by criminals or terrorists. 

	 		

			
                                                        [US 
Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham]                                
Spencer Abraham was in London to meet Russian officials                                                                 

		 	 	 	 

Since then major efforts have been undertaken jointly by the US 
and Russia to try to prevent this by destroying weapons and 
improving security at sites. 

But while securing such weapons remains a priority, there is now 
increased concern that nuclear materials rather than a fully 
developed weapon might become the target for terrorists. 

Al-Qaeda's desire to get hold of nuclear material is longstanding 
and was recognised by British intelligence at least as early as 
1998, although some of Osama Bin Laden's early attempts to secure 
such material proved amateurish and unsuccessful. 

However, recent reports suggest Osama Bin Laden's desire to get 
hold of some kind of nuclear material is undimmed, and concern 
will only have been heightened by news that in 2003, he sought 
and received approval from a Saudi cleric for the use of a 
nuclear weapon against the US. 

	

	
                                                                As 
well as the Czech fligh there have also been deals with Serbia, 
Bulgaria, Romania, Libya and Uzbekistan to return materials from 
reactors                
	   	

	 	 

However, most experts believe that a dirty bomb - involving the 
dispersal of radiological material by an explosion - is a far 
more plausible threat than the detonation of a nuclear warhead. 

The former requires far less technical know-how, merely the 
combination of a traditional bomb with whatever material 
terrorists can lay their hands on. 



To counter this, the US and Russia are placing a growing emphasis 
on a "global clearout" that reaches beyond the two nations and 
beyond just nuclear weapons by covering things like nuclear fuel 
held at research reactors in third countries. 

So far, as well as the 22 December Czech flight, there have also 
been deals with Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Libya and Uzbekistan 
to return materials from reactors back to either the US or Russia 
where the technology was developed. 

"The significance of this can't be overestimated," Spencer 
Abraham told the BBC news website. 

Changing threat 

The task, though, is huge - more than 100 research reactors 
around the world run on weapons grade highly enriched uranium and 
the hope is to convert many of them to use lower enriched uranium 
fuel which is less dangerous. 

America's Global Threat Reduction Initiative aims to remove or 
secure all high risk nuclear and radiological materials around 
the world but one of the biggest tasks is simply trying to make 
an inventory of what materials are out there. 

The close co-operation between the US and Russia and between Mr 
Abraham and Mr Rumyantsev has achieved much, but for those 
worried about nuclear proliferation and terrorism, the biggest 
challenge may come not from Russia, but from states which have 
more recently sought or achieved nuclear capability. 

These would include Pakistan, where some scientists are thought 
to have been in contact with al-Qaeda, and also North Korea, 
where there are long-standing concerns about the passing on of 
technology. 

As more states try to acquire nuclear weapons, the challenge to 
stop nuclear materials falling into the wrong hands is likely to 
grow more and more demanding.                                            



*****************************************************************
 27 NRC: Notice of Issuance of Amendment to Materials License SNM-2500, 
 
                         FR Doc 05-150 

[Federal Register: January 5, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 3)] 
[Notices] [Page 925] From the Federal Register Online via GPO 
Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr05ja05-112]                         
 
General Electric Morris Operation Docket No. 72-1 AGENCY: Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission.
 
ACTION: Notice of issuance of license amendment.
 
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Christopher M. Regan, Senior 
Project Manager, Spent Fuel Project Office, Office of Nuclear 
Material Safety and Safeguards, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission, Washington, DC 20555. Telephone: (301) 415-1179; fax 
number: (301) 415-8555; e-mail: cmr1@nrc.gov.
 
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: I. Introduction The U.S. Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission (NRC or the Commission) has issued 
Amendment 12 to Special Nuclear Materials License No.
 
SNM-2500 held by the General Electric Company (GE) for the 
possession, storage, and transfer of spent fuel at the Morris 
Operation Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation (ISFSI), 
located in Grundy County, Illinois. The amendment is effective as 
of the date of issuance.
 
II. Background By application dated July 30, 2004, as 
supplemented August 9, 2004, GE requested an amendment to revise 
the license (SNM-2500) and the Technical Specifications (TS) of 
SNM-2500 for the Morris Operation ISFSI. The changes would be 
made to reflect the current condition of the fuel stored and only 
that equipment necessary for its safe storage. The major changes 
include revisions to information regarding the spent fuel 
inventory, deletion of the requirement for ventilation exhaust 
vacuum, deletion of the requirement to have certain 
instrumentation operative for equipment that is no longer in 
service, a change in the methods to verify pool water quality, 
revision to the description of the company organization, and 
removal of ``receipt'' from the license which effectively will 
not permit the Morris Operation ISFSI to accept shipment of any 
additional spent fuel.
 
III. Finding This amendment complies with the standards and 
requirements of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended (the 
Act), and the Commission's rules and regulations. The Commission 
has made appropriate findings as required by the Act and the 
Commission's rules and regulations in 10 CFR Chapter I, which are 
set forth in the license amendment.
 
This amendment satisfied the criteria specified in 10 CFR 
51.22(c)(11) for a categorical exclusion from the requirements to 
perform an environmental assessment or to prepare an 
environmental impact statement.
 
IV. Hearing In accordance with 10 CFR 72.46(b)(2), a 
determination has been made that the amendment does not present a 
genuine issue as to whether public health and safety will be 
significantly affected.
 
Therefore, the publication of a notice of proposed action and an 
opportunity for hearing or a notice of hearing is not warranted. 
Notice is hereby given of the right of interested persons to 
request a hearing on whether the action should be rescinded or 
modified.
 
Further Information: As of October 25, 2004, the NRC initiated an 
additional security review of publicly available documents to 
ensure that potentially sensitive information is removed from the 
Agencywide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS) 
database accessible through the NRC's Web site. Interested 
members of the public should check the NRC's Web pages for 
updates on the availability of documents through the ADAMS 
system. Copies of the referenced documents are available for 
review and/or copying at the NRC Public Document Room after 
resumption of public access to ADAMS. The NRC Public Document 
Room (PDR) Reference staff can be contacted at 1-800-397-4209, 
301-415- 4737 or by e-mail to pdr@nrc.gov. Dated at Rockville, 
Maryland, this 21st day of December 2004.
 
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
 
Christopher M. Regan, Senior Project Manager, Licensing Section, 
Spent Fuel Project Office, Office of Nuclear Material Safety and 
Safeguards.
 
[FR Doc. 05-150 Filed 1-4-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P

 
*****************************************************************
 28 Platts: White House nominates two individuals for NRC commission
 
  [The McGraw-Hill Companies]   
 
+ The White House nominated Gregory Jaczko and Albert Konetzni
Jr. to the NRC today. Both names were sent to the Senate for
confirmation but under a deal struck in November between the
administration and Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), now the Democratic
leader, the two are expected to take their seats on the
commission through recess appointments. The Senate recesses Jan.
7, 

so the appointments are expected to occur sometime between
then and Jan. 19. Jaczko, as Reid's science policy adviser, has
spoken against the planned high-level waste repository at Yucca
Mountain, Nev., prompting the industry's objection to his
nomination. Konetzni was the deputy and chief of staff for the
U.S. Atlantic Fleet in the Navy when he retired last July. 

Washington (Platts)--4Jan2005
 
Copyright � 2005 - Platts, All Rights Reserved
 [The McGraw-Hill Companies]       
*****************************************************************
 29 NRC: Notice of Availability of Environmental Assessment and Finding
 
                         FR Doc 05-151 
[Federal Register: January 5, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 3)] 
[Notices] [Page 925-928] From the Federal Register Online via GPO 
Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr05ja05-113]                         
 
of No Significant Impact for the Kiski Valley Water Pollution 
Control Authority (KVWPCA) Site in Leechburg, PA AGENCY: U.S. 
Nuclear Regulatory Commission. ACTION: Environmental assessment 
and finding of no significant impact.
 
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Kenneth Kalman, Project Manager, 
Decommissioning Directorate, Division of Waste Management and 
Environmental Protection, Office of Nuclear Material Safety and 
Safeguards, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 11555 Rockville 
Pike, Rockville, MD 20852. Telephone: (301) 415-6664; fax number: 
(301) 415- 5397; e-mail: .
 
 
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: I. Introduction The U.S. Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission (NRC) has decided to take no further action 
on the Kiski Valley Water Pollution Control Authority (KVWPCA) 
site in Leechburg, Pennsylvania. In accordance with the 
requirements of Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations (10 
CFR) part 51, the NRC published a Draft Environmental Assessment 
(EA) in support of this action in the Federal Register (69 FR 
56102) requesting comments on the proposed action and Draft EA. 
The NRC did not receive any comments. Based on the EA, the NRC 
has concluded that a Finding of No Significant Impact is 
appropriate.
 
II. Environmental Assessment In 1994, KVWPCA made plans to remove 
the ash from the lagoon at the
 
[[Page 926]] KVWPCA site. Over the course of site closure, the 
Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Resources notified NRC 
that elevated uranium concentrations had been found in an ash 
sample from the KVWPCA site. Subsequent analyses revealed that 
subsurface uranium contamination was present at concentrations of 
up to 34 becquerels per gram (Bq/g) [923 picocuries per 
gram(pCi/g)] total uranium, and that the material was enriched to 
approximately 4% uranium-235.
 
Further characterization revealed that the volume of the 
contaminated ash is approximately 9,000 cubic meters (320,000 
cubic feet) and that the total uranium inventory is approximately 
32-41 gigabecquerels (0.85-1.1 Ci), resulting in an average total 
uranium concentration of approximately 3.0 Bq/g (80 pCi/g). The 
contaminated ash is highly heterogeneous and the highest levels 
of contamination are found over a relatively small area, at a 
depth of 2 to 3 meters (m) [7 to 10 feet (ft)]. Radionuclides 
other than uranium are also present, but at much lower 
concentrations.
 
The contamination is believed to have resulted from the 
reconcentration of uranium-contaminated effluents released from 
the sanitary sewers and laundry drains of the Babcock & Wilcox 
(B) Apollo facility. During its operation, the B Apollo facility 
conducted fuel manufacturing and fabrication. Upon successful 
completion of its decommissioning activities, the NRC terminated 
the B Apollo site's license on April 14, 1997. There is no 
evidence suggesting that the discharges from the B Apollo 
facility exceeded permissible levels in effect during operation.
 
Since 1994, NRC, KVWPCA, and the Pennsylvania Department of 
Environmental Protection (PADEP) have engaged in numerous 
interactions on the decommissioning of the KVWPCA site. By letter 
dated November 7, 2003, NRC staff informed KVWPCA that it would 
conduct a dose assessment to determine what actions should be 
taken at the KVWPCA site.
 
The NRC letter dated November 7, 2003, also noted that PADEP has 
taken the position that under Pennsylvania's Solid Waste 
Management Act, the ash in the lagoon should be removed and 
properly disposed of per the Commonwealth's jurisdiction over the 
material as solid waste. Therefore, the NRC staff's dose 
assessment included scenarios for leaving the ash on site as well 
as scenarios for removing the ash.
 
NRC staff conducted dose assessments for a range of potential 
scenarios. These scenarios include a removal scenario, in which 
the contaminated ash is excavated and removed to an offsite 
disposal facility, and an onsite no-action scenario, in which the 
lagoon is abandoned in place with no remedial actions performed. 
The onsite scenarios included a reasonably foreseeable future 
land use case and a pair of less likely cases used as assessment 
tools to bound the uncertainty associated with future land use. 
In all of the scenarios, doses from the groundwater pathway are 
expected to be significantly limited by the relatively 
non-leachable form of uranium in the ash as determined by 
leaching tests.
 
It is likely that the contaminated ash will be removed from the 
lagoon, and that the site will continue to be used as a waste 
water treatment plant. Thus, the critical group in the removal 
scenario is the workers who excavate the contaminated ash and are 
exposed through inhalation of resuspended fine contaminated ash 
particles and direct irradiation. In addition, to address the 
possibility that the ash may be removed to a RCRA-permitted 
landfill, potential impacts of more aggressive leachate chemistry 
(low or high pH conditions) on uranium mobility were considered 
and the range of doses to a hypothetical individual residing near 
the landfill was qualitatively evaluated.
 
The dose to workers who excavate and remove the ash is expected 
to be approximately 0.15 mSv (15 mrem). As any removal operation 
would take considerably less than one year, this constitutes the 
total annual dose in the year of removal. Doses to ash removal 
workers are dominated by the inhalation of uranium-234 and 
uranium-238 along with a small additional dose from external 
exposure. Doses to the ash removal workers are limited by the 
relatively low average concentration of these isotopes, the 
limited exposure time during excavation of the ash, and the 
limited respirability of the ash particles.
 
Three cases of the onsite no-action scenario, in which the ash is 
assumed to be left in place without any remedial action, were 
also evaluated. These include a recreational use case, in which 
the property is converted into a riverside park; an agricultural 
use case; and an intrusion case, in which it is assumed that a 
volume of ash is excavated for the construction of a basement and 
the excavated ash is spread on the land surface. These cases, 
while less likely, were evaluated because they are useful 
assessment tools. As they comprise a range of future land use and 
include all exposure pathways, they can be used to bound other 
scenarios and, therefore, provide an evaluation of the 
uncertainty associated with future land use.
 
In the event that the contaminated ash remains onsite with no 
remedial action taken, the assumption of a recreational exposure 
case results in a annual dose of approximately 0.01 mSv (1 mrem) 
over the next few centuries, eventually rising to approximately 
0.02 mSv (2 mrem) at 1000 years. This result is approximately an 
order of magnitude lower than either the agricultural case or the 
intrusion case because no crop intake is assumed in the 
recreational case.
 
The results of analysis of the agricultural case indicate that 
the peak annual dose within the 1000-year compliance period is 
predicted to be less than 0.2 mSv (20 mrem) and to occur at 1000 
years after the present time. Results of the analysis of the 
intrusion case indicate that the peak mean annual dose within the 
1000-year compliance period is also expected to be less than 0.2 
mSv (20 mrem) and to occur at 1000 years after the present time.
 
In the agricultural and intrusion cases, it was assumed that a 
person would install a well or cultivated field at a random 
location within the 4000 m2 (1 acre) site. In the unrealistic 
case that a farmer were to occupy the site and place a home in 
the most contaminated 200 m2 (0.05 acre) area on the site, the 
peak annual dose would be expected to be well below the public 
dose limit and thus this scenario is not given further 
consideration in the staff's evaluation.
 
Regardless of whether the ash is left in place or excavated and 
removed pursuant to Pennsylvania State law, the NRC staff 
concludes that the doses for all scenarios meet the NRC's 
criteria for unrestricted use. Therefore, no further remedial 
action under NRC authority is required. The staff's dose 
assessment is presented in greater detail in SECY-04-0102, ``The 
Results of the Staff's Evaluation of Potential Doses to the 
Public from Materials at the KVWPCA site in Leechburg, 
Pennsylvania''.
 
Proposed Action NRC proposes to take no further regulatory action 
regarding the KVWPCA site.
 
Purpose and Need for the Proposed Action The purpose of the 
proposed action is to allow the KVWPCA site in Leechburg, 
Pennsylvania, to be made available for unrestricted use. This can 
be justified by demonstrating that the site meets the NRC 
criteria for unrestricted use. Should the proposed action be 
approved, under Pennsylvania's Solid
 
[[Page 927]] Waste Management Act, PADEP could require that the 
ash in the lagoon be removed and disposed of as solid waste.
 
Alternative to the Proposed Action Based on its dose assessment, 
the NRC staff found the KVWPCA site to be acceptable for release 
for unrestricted use. The only alternative to the proposed action 
would be to make no determination regarding the need for NRC 
action at the site. This would leave the KVWPCA site subject to 
potential unnecessary regulation by NRC. NRC has determined that 
the site meets the NRC's criteria for unrestricted use and that 
no further action by NRC is necessary. The no action alternative 
is not acceptable because KVWPCA does not plan to conduct any 
activities that would require NRC oversight.
 
The Affected Environment and Environmental Impacts The site is 
located in the central portion of the Appalachian Plateau 
physiographic province. The Allegheny River and its tributaries 
such as the Kiskimenetas River drain the majority of the region.
 
The KVWPCA site drains into the Kiskimenetas River.
 
The ash lagoon occupies approximately one acre of the 36-acre 
KVWPCA site. The bottom of the lagoon basin was excavated into 
the native silty clay of the bench terrace of the Kiskimenetas 
River. The lagoon is 2 to 3 meters deep. Land use within the 
vicinity of the site consists of medium-sized rural residences, 
small farms, and light industrial areas.
 
The NRC staff has reviewed the Closure Plan for the KVWPCA site 
and as discussed earlier, the NRC staff has conducted a dose 
assessment using site-specific data. Based on its review and 
analyses, the staff has determined that the affected environment 
and environmental impacts associated with the release for 
unrestricted use of the KVWPCA site are bounded by the impacts 
evaluated by the ``Generic Environmental Impact Statement in 
Support of Rulemaking on Radiological Criteria for License 
Termination of NRC-Licensed Nuclear Facilities'' (NUREG-1496).
 
The staff also finds that the proposed release for unrestricted 
use of the KVWPCA site is in compliance with 10 CFR 20.1402, 
``Radiological Criteria for Unrestricted Use.'' The proposed 
action will result in no physical change to the site. Therefore, 
NRC expects no significant impact of a non-radiological nature. 
However, by NRC taking no action, PADEP will have the ability to 
exercise its authority to require the material to be removed from 
the site, which will result in physical change to the site. The 
NRC staff has found no other activities in the area that could 
result in cumulative impacts.
 
Agencies and Persons Consulted This EA was prepared by the NRC 
staff. The State Office of Historical Preservation, the State 
Fish and Wildlife Service, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 
were not contacted because release of the KVWPCA site for 
unrestricted use would not affect historical or cultural 
resources, nor would it affect threatened or endangered species. 
The NRC staff consulted with PADEP on an ongoing basis. No other 
sources were used beyond those referenced in this EA.
 
Conclusions The NRC staff concludes that the proposed action 
meets the NRC's criteria for unrestricted use under the License 
Termination Rule, 10 CFR part 20, subpart E. NRC has prepared 
this EA in support of the proposal to take no further action in 
regard to the KVWPCA site.
 
On the basis of the EA, NRC has concluded that the environmental 
impacts from the proposed action are expected to be insignificant 
and has determined that an environmental impact statement for the 
proposed action is not necessary.
 
List of Preparers Kenneth Kalman, Project Manager, Division of 
Waste Management and Environmental Protection.
 
List of References 1. November 7, 2003 Letter from Kenneth Kalman 
to Robert Kossack, ``Nuclear Regulatory Commission Staff Intent 
to Conduct Dose Assessment of the Kiski Valley Water Pollution 
Control Authority Site.
 
(ADAMS ML032880386).
 
2. Kenneth Kalman (2004) The Results of the Staff's Evaluation of 
Potential Doses to the Public from Materials at the Kiski Valley 
Water Pollution Control Authority site in Leechburg, 
Pennsylvania.
 
(SECY-04- 0102). U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Office of 
Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards, June 22, 2004. (ADAMS 
ML041110312). 3. Chester Environmental (1994). Closure Plan for 
Incinerator Ash Lagoon, Kiski Valley Water Pollution Control 
Authority, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania. Chester 
Environmental. Pittsburgh, PA, July 1994. (ADAMS ML003693188).
 
4. Chester Engineers (1997) Ash Lagoon Closure: Kiski Valley 
Water Pollution Control Authority. Chester Engineers, Pittsburgh, 
PA. February 1998. (ADAMS ML003683061). 5. Generic Environmental 
Impact Statement in Support of Rulemaking on Radiological 
Criteria for License Termination of NRC-Licensed Nuclear 
Facilities (NUREG-1496). Volumes 1-3 U.S. Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission, Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research, July 1997.
 
(ADAMS ML042310492, ML042320379, and ML042330385).
 
III. Finding of No Significant Impact The staff has prepared an 
EA in support of the proposed license amendment to terminate the 
license and release the site for unrestricted use. The staff has 
found that the radiological environmental impacts from the 
proposed amendment are bounded by the impacts evaluated by NUREG 
1496, Volumes 1-3, ``Generic Environmental Impact Statement in 
Support of Rulemaking on Radiological Criteria for License 
termination of NRC-Licensed Facilities'' (ML042310492, 
ML042320379, and ML042330385). The staff has also found that the 
non- radiological impacts are not significant. On the basis of 
the EA, NRC has concluded that there are no significant 
environmental impacts from the proposed amendment and has 
determined not to prepare an environmental impact statement.
 
IV. Further Information Documents related to this action, are 
available electronically at the NRC's Electronic Reading Room at 
.
 
From this site, you can access the NRC's Agencywide Documents 
Access and Management System (ADAMS), which provides text and 
image files of NRC's public documents. The ADAMS accession 
numbers for the documents related to this notice are cited in the 
list of references, under EA Summary. If you do not have access 
to ADAMS or if there are problems in accessing the documents 
located in ADAMS, contact the NRC Public Document Room (PDR) 
Reference staff at 1-800-397-4209, 301-415-4737, or by e-mail to 
.
 
These documents may also be viewed electronically on the public 
computers located at the NRC's PDR, O-1-F21, One White Flint 
North, 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, MD 20852. The PDR 
reproduction contractor will copy documents for a fee.
 
Please note that on October 25, 2004, the NRC suspended public 
access to ADAMS, and initiated an additional security review of 
publicly available documents to ensure that potentially sensitive 
information is removed from the ADAMS database accessible through
 
[[Page 928]] the NRC's Web site. Interested members of the public 
may obtain copies of the referenced documents for review and/or 
copying by contacting the Public Document Room pending resumption 
of public access to ADAMS.
 
Dated in Rockville, Maryland this 29th day of December, 2004. For 
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
 
Daniel Gillen, Deputy Director, Decommissioning Directorate 
Division of Waste Management and Environmental Protection, Office 
of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards.
 
[FR Doc. 05-151 Filed 1-4-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P

 
*****************************************************************
 30 [NukeNet] NRC Licensing Board ruling on Private Fuel Storage
 
Date: Wed, 05 Jan 2005 19:37:01 -0800

 
<x-flowed>
NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet@energyjustice.net)

Content-Type: multipart/related; type="multipart/alternative";
         boundary="----_=_NextPart_001_01C4F385.5162C466"
Content-class: urn:content-classes:message

It is likely that whichever side loses the licensing decision whether the 
State of Utah or PFS would appeal to the NRC Commissioners. The article 
says the three commissioners would decide the issue, but I imagine the two 
empty slots at the NRC commission will be filled by then, so its actually 
five commissioners that would decide the issue.



Kevin Kamps, NIRS, 202.328.0002 ext. 14



NRC: Ruling On Utah Nuclear Waste Site Likely In Feb



image0019.gif


Tuesday January 4, 4:44 PM EST

CHICAGO (Dow Jones)--A key U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission decision on 
the safety of a planned privately funded nuclear waste storage facility in 
Utah will likely come in mid-February, slightly behind an expected 
schedule, an NRC spokeswoman said Tuesday.

Private Fuel Storage LLC, a consortium of eight companies proposing the 
huge and controversial temporary storage site, was expecting a decision 
from the NRC's Atomic Safety and Licensing Board in mid-January. But a 
recent filing questioning the project's life span from Utah state 
officials, who have strongly opposed a waste dump, bumps back the schedule, 
NRC spokeswoman Sue Gagner said.

The NRC board received the information in mid-December. It has 60 days from 
the case's most recent filing to make a decision.

"That takes us to mid-February," Gagner said.

The NRC board is now considering whether the Utah site, planned southwest 
of Salt Lake City, could adequately withstand an F-16 fighter jet crash or 
an ordinance hit from a nearby testing range. If the board approves the 
project, the NRC's three commissioners must then decide whether to 
officially issue a license for the site.

Private Fuel Storage envisions a 40-year life span for the project, which 
the group hopes will cover a gap between now and whenever the U.S. 
Department of Energy meets its obligation to take waste from utilities. 
Critics in Utah, though, have argued the facility could become a 
quasi-permanent storage site.

In the December NRC filing, Utah officials claimed a DOE official recently 
said at a meeting that the agency couldn't accept waste sealed in the kind 
of containers planned by Private Fuel Storage, said Connie Nakahara, 
attorney for the Utah Department of Environmental Quality. Those comments 
furthered concerns that Utah, which doesn't have any nuclear plants of its 
own, will be stuck with the waste indefinitely, Nakahara said.

A DOE spokesman wasn't able to comment on the matter Tuesday. According to 
Sue Martin, spokeswoman for Private Fuel Storage, there is no doubt the 
agency would accept waste from the site's so-called "dry cask" storage 
containers.

"We produced documents that clearly state that the Department of Energy 
will take fuel that has been put into dry cask storage," she said. "The 
kinds of casks we use are not unique in the industry by any means."

She noted that the Utah site is only seen as a stopgap for utilities that 
are running short on spent fuel storage space at nuclear plants themselves. 
The DOE was supposed to start taking waste in 1998, but the most optimistic 
estimates put its planned permanent waste dump in Yucca Mountain, Nev., at 
least 12 years behind schedule.

"If DOE had been on time, or even a few years late, our facility wouldn't 
even be necessary," Martin said.

The Private Fuel Storage site would store up to 40,000 metric tons of 
nuclear waste in 4,000, 180-ton concrete and steel storage casks on an 
aboveground concrete pad. If the project is approved early this year, it 
could open in 2007, Martin said.

The project is seen costing about $3 billion through its lifetime.

Private Fuel Storage backers include Entergy Corp. 
(<http://money.iwon.com/jsp/qt/full.jsp?time=0&symbol_search_text=ETR>ETR), 
FirstEnergy Corp. ( FE), Southern Co. 
(<http://money.iwon.com/jsp/qt/full.jsp?time=0&symbol_search_text=SO>SO), 
Xcel Energy Inc. 
(<http://money.iwon.com/jsp/qt/full.jsp?time=0&symbol_search_text=XEL>XEL), 
American Electric Power Co. ( AEP) and units of FPL Group Inc. 
(<http://money.iwon.com/jsp/qt/full.jsp?time=0&symbol_search_text=FPL>FPL), 
Edison International 
(<http://money.iwon.com/jsp/qt/full.jsp?time=0&symbol_search_text=EIX>EIX) 
and Dairyland Power Cooperative.

-By Jon Kamp; Dow Jones Newswires; 312-750-4129; jon.kamp@dowjones.com



   Dow Jones Newswires

   01-04-05 1644ET







_______________________________________________________________________
Subscribe/Unsubscribe Here: http://www.energyjustice.net/nukenet/
Change your settings or access the archives at:
http://energyjustice.net/mailman/listinfo/nukenet_energyjustice.net

</x-flowed>


Attachment Converted: image0019.gif: 00000001,0e4c7251,00000000,00000000
*****************************************************************
 31 Las Vegas SUN: U.S. Chamber maintains support for nuclear dump

Today: January 05, 2005 at 10:51:25 PST 
 

By Suzanne Struglinski 
<suzanne@lasvegassun.com>
 SUN WASHINGTON BUREAU

 WASHINGTON -- Getting full funding for the planned nuclear
waste repository at Yucca Mountain is on the U.S Chamber of
Commerce's list of priorities for the new session of Congress.

 The organization, which represents businesses and corporations,
has advocated for the repository to open in the past and is not
backing away from that position.

 Thomas Donohue, the chamber's chief executive, said the country
needs a repository and the plans to build one at Yucca, 90 miles
northwest of Las Vegas need to continue.

 "If we ever put a map on the wall of everywhere nuclear waste
is stored, there would be a sense of panic," Donohue said.

 Donohue said his group would be "fully engaged" in budget
debates on the project.

 Nevada's congressional delegation strongly opposes the Energy
Department's plan to store waste at Yucca and works to cut the
budget every year. The administration asked for $880 million for
2005 but eventually received only $577 million. The request for
fiscal year 2006 will come out sometime in February.

 Bruce Josten, the chamber's executive vice president for
government affairs, said the important thing to remember is that
government money does not pay for the bulk of the program; a fee
collected by the nuclear industry covers most of the cost.

 Yucca Mountain "is the place to store this," Josten said. "You
cannot store nuclear waste above ground all across the country."

 Josten said the chamber is not likely to get involved with any
debate on whether the 10,000-year radiation standard should be
changed or whether the project needs a new standard as directed
by a federal appeals court last year

 He said there was a "certain silliness" in debating 10,000
years versus 100,000 years as the compliance standard. He said
the appropriate debates took place when the Environmental
Protection Agency created the standard. 


 
*****************************************************************
 32 Tri-City Herald: DOE gets waste separation proposal 

This story was published Wednesday, January 5th, 2005 

By Annette Cary Herald staff writer 

Archimedes Technology Group has submitted an unsolicited proposal 
to the Department of Energy to develop a plan for a new waste 
separations technology to dramatically reduce the volume of 
high-level radioactive waste needing treatment at Hanford. 

Archimedes, of San Diego, was founded six years ago to develop a 
better way to separate high-level radioactive waste from mixtures 
of waste left from the production of plutonium for the nation's 
nuclear weapons program. 

For its unsolicited proposal, Archimedes has teamed with two 
companies with experience deploying or operating technologies on 
DOE projects. Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. would design the 
facility to filter waste, and BWXT Services Inc., a subsidiary of 
McDermott International Inc., would operate it. 

The proposal calls for DOE and the Archimedes team to share the 
cost over 15 months of tailoring the technology to Hanford waste 
and doing additional concept design work, said John Wagoner, 
Archimedes vice president for nuclear programs. Wagoner is a 
former Hanford manager for DOE. 

The results should give DOE more information to consider whether 
the technology is workable and practical. Archimedes believes a 
plant based on the new waste separations technology could be 
built at Hanford and commissioned by 2008. 

DOE already has begun construction on a $5.7 billion 
vitrification plant it expects to begin turning waste from 
Hanford's underground tanks into a stable glass form in 2011. The 
tanks hold 53 million gallons of radioactive and chemical waste 
left from separating plutonium from fuel irradiated in Hanford 
reactors. 

DOE plans to separate high-level waste from the rest of the 
mixture and turn it into glass logs for permanent burial at Yucca 
Mountain, Nev. The remaining low-activity waste would be treated 
and buried at Hanford at far less cost. 

Archimedes' goal is to significantly reduce the volume of 
high-level radioactive waste by doing a more thorough job of 
removing extraneous materials from waste. 

Rather than a chemical separation process, it would manipulate 
waste with electrical and magnetic currents to separate the waste 
based on atomic weight. 

Because most of the radioactive elements in the tank waste are 
heavy, separating Hanford high-level radioactive sludge by atomic 
mass would isolate 99.9 percent of the radioactivity in 25 
percent of the sludge, according to Archimedes. That could save 
$8 billion to $25 billion over the life of the vitrification 
plant, according to a study it commissioned from Pacific 
Northwest National Laboratory. 

But Archimedes must convince DOE that what's now a promising 
technology would transfer to an operating and efficient 
industrial plant in time for DOE to meet regulatory deadlines to 
start turning high-level radioactive waste into glass. 

Jacobs and BWXT Services have experience designing and operating 
complex and first-of-a-kind chemical process plants involving 
nuclear materials, according to a statement from the team of 
companies. 

"The development of our teaming agreement with BWXS and Jacobs is 
an important milestone in Archimedes' development as we 
transition to commercial deployment of our technology," said John 
Gilleland, chief executive of Archimedes, in a prepared 
statement. 

BWXT Services of Lynchburg, Va., also called BWXS, has more than 
11,000 employees and manages nuclear and national security 
production facilities. 

Jacobs Engineering Group, based in California, has more than 
35,000 employees and is one of the largest professional services 
firms in the United States. 

Archimedes says it has the largest private technology development 
program in the history of DOE's environmental management program 
with an investment of more than $100 million. It has a filter in 
California to demonstrate the commercial viability of its 
technology on the industrial scale. 

Archimedes also has submitted a proposal for a DOE solicitation 
issued in July for new technologies to enhance tank waste 
processing. DOE has $1.5 million set aside for one or more 
awards. 

Wagoner declined to release the cost of the 15 months of work 
proposed in its unsolicited proposal to DOE. 


� 2005 Tri-City Herald, Associated Press &Other Wire Services
 
Contact Us | Advertising Info | User Agreement | Copyright Notice
*****************************************************************
 33 Nuclear Waste: Can You Handle It At Birmingham's Thinktank? -
    
January 6 2005   

  By Simon Williams     04/01/2005   

  [shows a photograph of an installation piece]     
Burning issues? Find out more about nuclear waste from the
official point of view at Thinktank. � Science Museum, London.   

Waste, terrorism, risks and our future; these are the key themes
explored in the latest exhibition at Birmingham𠏋 Thinktank
until February 27. 

If you are concerned or even unaware of how the UK deals with
nuclear waste then this exhibition from the nuclear industry
will enlighten you.   

Located in the atrium of the museum at Millennium Point, the
exhibition is a quick and easy guide through the issues
surrounding nuclear waste via a series of touch screens. 

The onscreen presentations offer a chance to get better
acquainted with the issues of where nuclear waste comes from,
what is being done with it and what will happen to it � from a
safe distance.   

As fossil fuel availability appears to dwindle, the nuclear
option may become more popular - but whose economic figures
should we believe? � Science Museum, London.     [shows a
photograph of a museum installation with the words 'nuclear
waste' written across it.]   

In the modern world, one of our biggest concerns is the threat
of terrorism, but are you aware there is more risk in importing
other nations� nuclear waste in order to reprocess it? 

The display shows how we have the capability to reprocess waste
with less risks; such as at the Sellafield plant where used
nuclear fuel is reprocessed to take out the plutonium and
uranium to make new fuel. 

The interactive aspect of the exhibition also offers a feedback
mechanism allowing visitors to air their own views and thoughts
about nuclear power. 

With the potential effect the legacy of nuclear waste will have
on all our futures, this seems a key feature.   

Thinktank explores the science of yesterday, today and tomorrow.

The exhibition was developed by the Science Museum in London and
funded by Sellafield with the aim of making people more aware of
potential risks about what is being done and what can be done in
the future. 

A spokesperson for Thinktank explained "science has an impact on
our lives". This exhibition will enable you to find out how and
why, as well as allowing you to have your own say.   

  Thinktank: Birmingham Museum of Science &Technology  

Millennium Point, Curzon Street, Birmingham, B4 7XG, West
Midlands, England
 T: 0121 202 2222
 Open: Thinktank is open seven days a week from 10am to 5pm with
last admissions at 4pm. 
Closed: Thinktank is closed Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and
Boxing Day.
   
*****************************************************************
 34 Second Alarm in a week: vehicle transportation accidents with n-waste

Salt Lake Tribune: Van carrying radioactive material in wreck 

Article Last Updated: 01/05/2005 01:42:13 AM                              
                   
  The northbound lanes of Interstate 15 in Roy were closed for
about an hour Tuesday afternoon when a sport utility vehicle 
collided with a van carrying equipment that contained a small 
amount of radioactive   material. A hazardous materials crew was 
called to the scene as a precaution, said Wade Breur of the Utah 
Highway Patrol. The equipment, which was not damaged, is used to 
test soil density, Breur   said. Two people had minor injuries.
        











� Copyright 2005, The Salt Lake Tribune. 
*****************************************************************
 35 [du-list] GREEN MEP RENEWS CALL FOR NUCLEAR ARMS BAN
 
Date: Wed, 05 Jan 2005 19:36:43 -0800

 
<x-flowed>


NEWS RELEASE

 >From the office of the South-East England's Green MEP Caroline Lucas


January 5th, 2004


GREEN MEP RENEWS CALL FOR NUCLEAR ARMS BAN

GREEN Euro-MP Caroline Lucas has renewed her commitment to a complete ban on
all nuclear weapons ahead of a UN-sponsored nuclear disarmament conference
taking place in New York later this year.

Dr Lucas, a member of  the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) National
Council as well as Green Party MEP for South-East England, has signed the
'Declaration for a Nuclear Weapon Free World' which hopes to attract
millions of signatures before May's seventh Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
(NPT) review conference.

She said: "The 'official' nuclear states - the UK, France, the US, Russia
and China - have all made legal commitments to dismantle their nuclear
arsenals, but none have done so.

"The reality is, in fact, just the opposite: both the US and UK are
developing a new range of weapons using nuclear technology, in complete
defiance of their obligations under the NPT, and in the run-up to the Iraq
war Defence secretary Geoff Hoon pointedly refused to rule out a pre-emptive
nuclear attack on Saddam."

She added: "I have signed this declaration as, in this 60th anniversary year
of the devastating nuclear strikes on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, we have an
opportunity to use the five-yearly NPT Review conference as a catalyst for
real progress on nuclear disarmament.

"The challenge we all face is to harness the outpouring of public and
private grief and sympathy over the Boxing Day tsunamis to rid the earth of
potential causes of the next disaster once and for all."

All five official nuclear states are among the 188 to have committed
themselves to disarmament since the NPT was opened for signature in 1968. In
1996 the International Court of Justice in The Hague ruled that this
commitment was a legal obligation, and in 2000 all five pledged, again, to
eliminate their nuclear arsenals.

The New York conference is the seventh five-yearly review of the states
parties progress towards meeting their commitments to non-proliferation and
disarmament under the NPT.

The European Parliament - the EU's only directly-elected institution - voted
last year to call on all EU member states to make a positive contribution to
the New York conference - and its nuclear states, France and the UK, to
begin the process of nuclear disarmament.

Dr Lucas, a veteran peace campaigner who addressed the million-plus crowd at
the anti-Iraq war demonstration on London in 2003 and was arrested for
obstruction during a peaceful blockade of the Faslane Trident nuclear
submarine base in 2001, said:

"A majority of MEPs from all parties and EU member countries adopted Green
Party calls to fully implement the NPT and restated their expectation that
France and the UK would 'engage actively with the issue to make further
progress towards reducing and eliminating nuclear weapons'.

"The Declaration for a Nuclear-Free World is an opportunity for voters and
citizens around the world to add their voices to the growing calls for the
complete abolition of nuclear weapons and I urge everyone concerned about
the threat posed nuclear weapons to sign it at www.abolition2000europe.org
."

ENDS







  For more information please contact Ben on 01273 671946, 07973 823358 or
ben@greenmeps.org.uk

www.carolinelucasmep.org.uk



Ben Duncan
Media Officer to Caroline Lucas MEP
benduncan@greenmeps.org.uk
01273 671946 (office)
07973 823358 (mobile)


_______________________________________________
GreenMail mailing list
subscribe: greenmail-subscribe@lists.greenparty.org.uk
https://lists.greenparty.org.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/greenmail



   ----------

No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.6.8 - Release Date: 1/3/05


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]



------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~-->
What would our lives be like without music, dance, and theater?
Donate or volunteer in the arts today at Network for Good!
http://us.click.yahoo.com/TzSHvD/SOnJAA/79vVAA/FGYolB/TM
--------------------------------------------------------------------~->

To unsubscribe from this groups send a message to 
du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com.  In the body of the message type 
unsubscribe and send.
Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
     http://groups.yahoo.com/group/du-list/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
     du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
     http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
  

</x-flowed>
*****************************************************************
 36 [DU-WATCH] Fw: Rocky Flats warning proposed
 
Date: Wed, 5 Jan 2005 22:36:31 -0600 (CST)

 
"[McKinley] said the federal government has lied about the extent of 
contamination at the site and that schoolchildren especially should not 
visit the facility."

http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36%7E61%7E2636327,00.html

Bill would warn Rocky Flats visitors of dangers
Steven K. Paulson
The Associated Press
Wednesday, January 05, 2005 -

A newly elected Colorado state legislator who led a grand jury investigation 
of the former Rocky Flats nuclear weapons factory said today he will 
introduce a bill requiring managers of the site to warn visitors of 
potential dangers once it is converted to a wildlife refuge.

Rep. Wes McKinley, D-Walsh, was the foreman of a federal grand jury that 
tried to indict private and federal officials over contamination at the site 
in 1992, but prosecutors settled the case with plea bargains.
"People do have a right to make a choice. There are a lot of dangerous 
activities like horseback riding and rafting and people do it, but they know 
it's dangerous before they do it. I don't think anyone should go out there," 
McKinley said.

McKinley, who was elected in November, said his bill would require visitors 
to the wildlife refuge to sign a statement acknowledging they had been 
warned about the potential dangers.

He said the federal government has lied about the extent of contamination at 
the site and that schoolchildren especially should not visit the facility.

Spokesmen for Kaiser-Hill Corp., which is handling the cleanup, and the 
Department of Energy, which oversees the site, did not immediately return 
phone calls.

Federal officials have proposed allowing hiking, cycling, horseback riding 
and other activities on 16 miles of trails at Rocky Flats once it is 
converted to a refuge by 2008.

A $7 billion cleanup of the 6,420-acre site west of Denver is scheduled to 
be complete in 2006. Rocky Flats made plutonium triggers for nuclear 
warheads until 1992, when it was shut down because of safety concerns and 
because of the end of the Cold War.

===============

I wish Rep. McKinley  well.
Maybe if he manages a win on signage for Rocky Flats,
he could then work on warning signs for DU combat sites in Iraq.
There would be at least 6,420 acres of contaminated land,
I'd bet.

Robert 

-- 
No outgoing virus discovered by AVG.
Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.6.8 - Release Date: 3/01/2005

------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> 
Help save the life of a child.  Support St. Jude Children's Research Hospital's
'Thanks & Giving.'
http://us.click.yahoo.com/0iazvD/5WnJAA/xGEGAA/Sj.0lB/TM
--------------------------------------------------------------------~-> 

[Brought to you by HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK] 
Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/du-watch/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
    du-watch-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
    http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
*****************************************************************
 37 DenverPost.com: Bill would warn Rocky Flats visitors of dangers
 
Article Published: Wednesday, January 05, 2005                  
		   	 	
By Steven K. Paulson The Associated Press
 			
  Post file / Brian Brainerd   

  Mule deer graze in the fields near the Rocky Flats plant site 
in this 2001 photo. (The water tank tower at upper right was 
later torn down.)   

 A newly elected Colorado state legislator who led a grand jury
investigation of the former Rocky Flats nuclear weapons factory
said today he will introduce a bill requiring managers of the
site to warn visitors of potential dangers once it is converted
to a wildlife refuge. 

Rep. Wes McKinley, D-Walsh, was the foreman of a federal grand
jury that tried to indict private and federal officials over
contamination at the site in 1992, but prosecutors settled the
case with plea bargains. 

"People do have a right to make a choice. There are a lot of
dangerous activities like horseback riding and rafting and
people do it, but they know it's dangerous before they do it. I
don't think anyone should go out there," McKinley said. 

McKinley, who was elected in November, said his bill would
require visitors to the wildlife refuge to sign a statement
acknowledging they had been warned about the potential dangers. 

He said the federal government has lied about the extent of
contamination at the site and that schoolchildren especially
should not visit the facility. 

Spokesmen for Kaiser-Hill Corp., which is handling the cleanup,
and the Department of Energy, which oversees the site, did not
immediately return phone calls. 

Federal officials have proposed allowing hiking, cycling,
horseback riding and other activities on 16 miles of trails at
Rocky Flats once it is converted to a refuge by 2008. 

A $7 billion cleanup of the 6,420-acre site west of Denver is
scheduled to be complete in 2006. Rocky Flats made plutonium
triggers for nuclear warheads until 1992, when it was shut down
because of safety concerns and because of the end of the Cold
War. 		   	 	
 		   			 		   	 	
 All contents Copyright 2005 The Denver Post or other copyright
*****************************************************************
 38 UPI: FBI agent: Rocky Flats still dangerous - 

(United Press International)
 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 
  January 05, 2005 			   

Rocky Flats, CO, Jan. 5 (UPI) -- The FBI agent who led the 1989 
raid on Colorado's Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant accused the 
government of criminal acts in obstructing an investigation. 

The Justice and Energy departments' deception "should result in 
extreme skepticism about current government assurances that the 
cleanup of dangerous contamination at Rocky Flats is protective 
of the public health," Jon Lipsky, who retired from the FBI 
Friday, wrote in an Internet memo, the Rocky Mountain News 
reported.

 The government raid was the result of the weapons lab's flouting 
of pollution regulations in the name of national security.

 The government has said that the $7 billion spent on cleaning up 
the facility was adequate in securing the safety and health of 
the public.                                                                          

[UPI Perspectives]                                                                    
*****************************************************************
 39 DOE: Notice of Intent to Prepare a Supplemental Environmental Impact 
 
                         FR Doc 05-210 
[Federal Register: January 5, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 3)]
[Notices]               
[Page 807-809]
From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access
[wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:fr05ja05-77]                         
 
Statement to the Final Site-Wide Environmental Impact Statement
for 
Continued Operation of the Los Alamos National Laboratory
AGENCY: U.S. Department of Energy, National Nuclear Security 
Administration.
 
ACTION: Notice of Intent.
 
-----------------------------------------------------------------
------
 
SUMMARY: Pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act
(NEPA) of 
1969, as amended (42 U.S.C. 4321 et seq.), the Council on
Environmental 
Quality's (CEQ) and the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE)
regulations 
implementing NEPA (40 CFR parts 1500-1508 and 10 CFR part 1021, 
respectively), the National Nuclear Security Administration
(NNSA), an 
agency within the DOE, announces its intent to prepare a
supplemental 
site-wide environmental statement (S-SWEIS) to update the
analyses 
presented in the Final Site-Wide Environmental Impact Statement
for 
Continued Operation of the Los Alamos National Laboratory
(SWEIS) (DOE/
EIS-0238; January 1999). The purpose of this notice is to invite 
individuals, organizations, and government agencies and entities
to 
participate in developing the scope of the S-SWEIS.
 
In its September 1999 Record of Decision (ROD) based on the
SWEIS, 
DOE announced its decision to implement the Expanded Operations 
Alternative analyzed in the SWEIS, with modifications to weapons 
related production work (the Preferred Alternative), at Los
Alamos 
National Laboratory (LANL). That decision is being implemented
at LANL. 
Pursuant to 40 CFR 1502.20, the S-SWEIS will rely on and expand
on the 
analysis in the original SWEIS. The No Action Alternative for
the S-
SWEIS is the continued implementation of the SWEIS ROD, together
with 
other actions described and analyzed in subsequent NEPA reviews.
 
The 
Proposed Action in the S-SWEIS will include changes since the
SWEIS 
1999 ROD.
 
 
DATES: NNSA invites comments on the scope of this S-SWEIS
through 
February 27, 2005. NNSA will hold a public scoping meeting in
Pojoaque, 
New Mexico, at the Pablo Roybal Elementary School on January 19,
2005, 
from 6 to 8 pm. Scoping comments received after February 27,
2005, will 
be considered to the extent practicable.
 
 
ADDRESSES: To submit comments on the scope of the S-SWEIS,
questions 
about the document or scoping meeting, or requests to be placed
on the 
document distribution list, please write or call: Ms. Elizabeth
Withers 
(e-mail address: lanl_sweis@doeal.gov; mailing address: NNSA Los 
Alamos Site Office, NEPA Compliance Officer, 528 35th Street,
Los 
Alamos, New Mexico, 87544; (toll free) telephone 1-877-491-4957;
or 
Facsimile 505-667-9998).
 
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For general information about
the DOE 
NEPA process, please contact: Ms. Carol Borgstrom, Director,
Office of 
NEPA Policy and Compliance (EH-42), U.S. Department of Energy,
1000 
Independence Avenue, SW, Washington, DC 20585, 202-586-4600, or
leave a 
message at 1-800-472-2756.
 
 
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: LANL is located in north-central New
Mexico, 
60 miles north-northeast of Albuquerque, 25 miles northwest of
Santa 
Fe, and 20 miles southwest of Espa[ntilde]ola in Los Alamos and
Santa 
Fe Counties. It is located between the Jemez Mountains to the
west and 
the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and Rio Grande to the east. LANL 
occupies about 40 square miles (104 square kilometers) and is
operated 
for NNSA under contract, by the University of California. (The
contract 
for LANL's management and operation is undergoing a competitive
bid 
process; however, the selection of the LANL management and
operations 
contractor in the future will not affect the nature of the NNSA
and DOE 
work performed at LANL.)
LANL is a multidisciplinary, multipurpose institution
primarily 
engaged in theoretical and experimental research and
development. LANL 
has been assigned science, research and development, and
production 
mission support activities that are critical to the
accomplishment of 
the national security objectives (as reflected in the ROD for
the 
September 1996 Final Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement
for 
Stockpile Stewardship and Management (DOE/EIS-0236)). Specific
LANL 
assignments will continue for the foreseeable future include
production 
of War-Reserve products, assessment and certification of the
stockpile, 
surveillance of the War-Reserve components and weapon systems,
ensuring 
safe and secure storage of strategic materials, and management
of 
excess plutonium inventories. LANL's main role in the
fulfillment of 
DOE mission objectives includes a wide range of scientific and 
technological capabilities that support nuclear materials
handling, 
processing and fabrication; stockpile management; materials and 
manufacturing technologies; nonproliferation programs; and waste 
management activities.
 
The Final LANL SWEIS, issued in January 1999, considered the 
operation of LANL at various levels for about a 10-year period
of time. 
Alternatives considered in that document were: No Action
Alternative, 
the Expanded Operations Alternative, the Reduced Operations 
Alternative, and the Greener Alternative. In addition to
providing an 
overview of the LANL site and its activities and operations, the
SWEIS 
identified 15 LANL ``Key Facilities'' for the purposes of NEPA 
analysis. ``Key
 
[[Page 808]]
Facilities'' are those facilities that house operations with the 
potential to cause significant environmental impacts; are of
most 
interest or concern to the public based on scoping comments; or
are 
facilities that would be the most subject to change due to
potential 
programmatic decisions. The operations of these ``Key
Facilities'' were 
described in the SWEIS and, together with other non-key facility 
functions, formed the basis of the description of LANL
facilities and 
operations analyzed for their potential impacts. The Preferred 
Alternative was the Expanded Operations Alternative with certain 
reductions in weapons-related manufacturing capabilities. This 
alternative was chosen for implementation in the ROD issued in 
September 1999.
 
In mid-2004, NNSA undertook the preparation of a Supplement 
Analysis for the SWEIS pursuant to DOE's regulatory requirement
to 
evaluate site-wide NEPA documents at least every 5 years (10 CFR 
1021.330) and determine whether the existing EIS remains
adequate, to 
prepare a new site-wide EIS, or prepare a supplement to the
existing 
EIS. During the development of this Supplement Analysis, NNSA
decided 
to proceed immediately with a supplement to the existing SWIES
in order 
to expedite the NEPA process and to save time and money. DOE
NEPA 
regulations (10 CFR 1021.314) require the preparation of a
Supplemental 
EIS if there are substantial changes to a proposal or
significant new 
circumstances or information relevant to environmental concerns. 
Substantial changes to the level of LANL operations may result
from 
proposed, modified or enhanced activities and operations within
LANL 
facilities (discussed later in subsequent paragraphs of this
Notice), 
and new circumstances and information with regard to effects
from the 
Cerro Grande Fire (which burned a part of LANL), a reduction in
the 
size of the LANL reservation due to recent land conveyance and 
transfers, and contaminant migration have come to light over the
past 
five years that could be deemed significant under 10 CFR
1021.314.
Since the issuance of the Final SWEIS in 1999, DOE and NNSA
have 
finalized several environmental impact statements, environmental 
assessments (EA), and a special environmental analysis dealing
with 
LANL operations and actions taken immediately after the 2000
Cerro 
Grande Fire. The activities analyzed in these NEPA documents and 
developing changes to the LANL environmental setting led NNSA to 
conclude it would be prudent and efficient to begin updating the
SWEIS 
now by preparing a supplemental SWEIS. NNSA will use the S-SWEIS
to 
consider the potential impacts of proposed modifications to LANL 
activities, as well as the cumulative impacts associated with
on-going 
activities at LANL, on the changed LANL environment.
 
The S-SWEIS will provide a review of the impacts resulting
from 
implementing the SWEIS ROD over the past 5 years at LANL and
compare 
these impacts to the impacts projected in the SWEIS analyses for
that 
alternative to provide an understanding of the SWEIS's ability
to 
identify potential impacts. The S-SWEIS analyses will focus
primarily 
on aspects of the existing environment that could be impacted by
newly 
proposed changes to LANL operations at certain facilities and by 
environmental cleanup actions that could occur over the next 5
to 6 
years in response to a consent order from the State of New
Mexico. The 
S-SWEIS Proposed Action will analyze projected impacts
anticipated from 
operating LANL at the 1999 ROD level for at least the next 5
years, 
with some modified work now being proposed at certain
facilities. NNSA 
is considering proposed operational changes within at least two
new 
``Key Facilities'' at LANL:
The Nicholas C. Metropolis Center for Modeling and 
Simulation (formerly called the Strategic Computing Complex), and
The Nonproliferation and International Security Center 
(NISC).
 
The construction and operation of the Nicholas C. Metropolis
Center 
for Modeling and Simulation were analyzed in a December 1998 EA
and a 
finding of no significant impact (FONSI) for that proposed
action was 
issued based on the impact analyses for operating the
computational 
facility up to a 50-TeraOp platform (a TeraOp is a trillion
floating 
point operations per second). The Center has been constructed
and is 
currently operating below the operations level analyzed in the
1998 EA; 
however, NNSA proposes to increase the facility's operational
capacity 
up to 100 TeraOps before 2009 with corresponding increases to
the 
facility's consumption of water and electrical power resources.
 
This 
proposed increase in the operating platform from 50 TeraOps up
to 100 
TeraOps will be analyzed in the S-SWEIS.
 
The NISC's construction and operation were analyzed in a
July 1999 
EA and a FONSI was issued for that proposed action based on the
impact 
analyses for consolidating activities and operating the facility
as it 
was envisioned at that time. The facility is currently operating
as 
evaluated in the 1999 EA; however, NNSA is now proposing to move 
certain operations from the Technical Area 18 (TA-18) Pajarito
Site 
(another of LANL's ``Key Facilities,'' which is also discussed
in the 
following paragraph) into the NISC. This would change the amount
of 
nuclear material stored in the facility, with corresponding
potential 
increases to worker exposures in the case of a site accident.
 
The 
proposed changes to operations and material stored in NISC will
be 
analyzed in the S-SWEIS.
 
NNSA will also eliminate one former LANL ``Key Facility'' 
identified in the 1999 SWEIS--the TA-18 Pajarito Site. In its
2002 EIS 
(the TA-18 Relocation Final EIS (DOE/EIS-319)) and ROD, the NNSA 
decided to relocate TA-18 security category I and II operations
and 
associated nuclear material to the Nevada Test Site.
 
Implementation of 
the relocation decision began in 2004 and will continue over the
next 5 
years. After relocation of operations and materials, this
facility will 
no longer be a LANL ``Key Facility'' within the meaning of the
SWEIS, 
and therefore will not be listed as such a facility. There are
certain 
proposals related to the relocation of the TA-18 security
category III 
and IV operations and the disposition of the TA-18 facilities
that were 
not analyzed in the 2002 EIS; these proposed actions and their 
projected impacts will be evaluated in the S-SWEIS impact
analyses.
 
Certain aspects of operational changes, construction and
activities 
that have occurred or are being proposed for LANL over the next
5 years 
that were not analyzed in the 1999 SWEIS will also be considered
and 
analyzed in the S-SWEIS. Changes that have been made to existing
LANL 
operations that will also be considered further in the S-SWEIS
include 
some permanent modifications to on-going operations that have
recently 
been made as a result of decreases in specific work and projects 
performed at some LANL facilities, and changes to the locations
of 
various types of materials at risk (MAR) at LANL facilities or
off-site 
locations. Examples of newly proposed actions at LANL include
the 
remediation of 10 major material disposal areas (MDAs) at LANL;
the 
operation of a Biosafety Level-3 (BSL-3) Facility (this facility
will 
become part of an existing ``Key Facility'' at LANL, the former
Health 
Research Laboratory (HRL) now known as the Bioscience
Facilities); the 
construction and operation of a new solid waste transfer
station, an 
office and light laboratory complex, a consolidated warehouse
and truck 
inspection station, and a new
 
[[Page 809]]
radiography facility; and recently proposed increases in the
types and 
quantities of sealed sources accepted for waste management at
LANL. 
Some of these newly proposed actions may be analyzed explicitly
in the 
S-SWEIS in project specific analyses, while others may be
analyzed in 
separate EAs to be prepared over the next several months, such
as the 
new BSL-3 Facility EA. The potential impacts of the BSL-3
Facility will 
be included in the S-SWEIS evaluation of cumulative impacts, as
will 
the impacts of all of the newly proposed actions. A comparison
of the 
newly projected operational impacts will also be made to the
projected 
impacts identified in the SWEIS.
 
The NEPA compliance process for the BSL-3 Facility at LANL
has 
spanned several years. In early 2002, the NNSA issued an EA and
FONSI 
for the construction and operation of the facility at LANL. Due
to the 
need to consider new circumstances and information relevant to
the 
actual construction of the BSL-3 Facility and its future
operation, the 
NNSA withdrew the 2002 FONSI for operating this facility and
determined 
that a new EA should be prepared that re-evaluates the proposed 
operations of the facility as it has been constructed. The new
EA is 
currently being prepared and a draft EA will be issued for
public 
review and comment in early 2005. The EA will be used by NNSA in
making 
a decision about whether to issue a FONSI for operation of the
BSL-3 
Facility. If a FONSI cannot be issued, the analyses for the
operation 
of the BSL-3 Facility will be included in the S-SWEIS Proposed
Action.
 
In accordance with applicable DOE and CEQ NEPA regulations,
the No 
Action Alternative will also be analyzed in the S-SWEIS. In this
case, 
the No Action Alternative will be the continued implementation
of the 
1999 ROD at LANL over the next 5 years as this alternative was 
originally analyzed in the SWEIS, and will also include the 
implementation of other actions selected in DOE and NNSA RODs
supported 
by separate NEPA reviews (specifically, actions analyzed since
the 
issuance of the final SWEIS in the Final Environmental Impact
Statement 
for the Conveyance and Transfer of Certain Land Tracts
Administered by 
the U.S. Department of Energy and Located at Los Alamos National 
Laboratory, Los Alamos and Santa Fe Counties, New Mexico
(DOE/EIS-293), 
the Final Environmental Impact Statement for the Proposed
Relocation of 
Technical Area 18 Capabilities and Materials at Los Alamos
National 
Laboratory (DOE/EIS-319), the Final Environmental Impact
Statement for 
the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Building Replacement
Project at 
Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico
(DOE/EIS-0350), 
and in about 20 various EAs and their associated FONSIs, as well
as 
actions categorically excluded from the need for preparation of
either 
an EA or an EIS). The Los Alamos Site Office has posted a list
of EAs 
and their associated FONSIs that pertain to LANL operations
dating from 
the completion of the 1999 SWEIS on their Web site at:
http://www.doeal.gov/LASO/nepa.
The full text of most of these EAs is also 
available through links provided at that Web site; copies of all
of the 
documents may be obtained by contacting Ms. Withers at any of
the 
addresses provided previously in this Notice.
 
Changes or new information have also surfaced regarding the 
environmental setting at LANL over the past 5 years that may
affect 
future LANL operations, such as changes to LANL watersheds as
the 
result of the Cerro Grande Fire, new information and changes
resulting 
from thinning the forests around LANL, and the long-term effects
from 
the regional drought. Additionally, there have been changes to
both the 
number of LANL workers and to the surrounding population that
have 
occurred or are being projected that are different from those on
which 
the SWEIS socioeconomic and other impact analyses were based. To
the 
extent that changes to or new information about the existing
LANL 
environment may significantly affect natural and cultural
resource 
areas originally considered in the 1999 SWEIS, projected impacts 
associated with implementing the Proposed Action over the next 5
years 
at LANL will be analyzed in the S-SWEIS.
 
Direct, indirect, and unavoidable impacts to the various
natural 
and cultural resources present at LANL, together with
irreversible and 
irretrievable commitments and mitigations, will also be analyzed
in the 
S-SWEIS. Further, operational and site differences require a re-
evaluation of LANL operational accident analyses and a new
assessment 
and understanding of cumulative impacts of LANL operations will
also be 
addressed.
 
Public Scoping Process: The scoping process is an
opportunity for 
the public to assist the NNSA in determining the issues for
impact 
analysis, and at least one public scoping meeting is held. The
purpose 
of the scoping meeting is to provide attendees an opportunity to 
present oral and written comments, ask questions, and discuss
concerns 
regarding the S-SWEIS with NNSA officials. Comments and
recommendations 
can also be mailed to Elizabeth Withers at any of the identified 
addresses noted in the previous paragraphs of this Notice. The
S-SWEIS 
meeting will use a format to facilitate dialogue between NNSA
and the 
public and will be an opportunity for individuals to provide
written or 
oral statements. NNSA welcomes specific comments or suggestions
on the 
content of the document that could be considered. The potential
scope 
of the S-SWEIS discussed in the previous portions of this Notice
is 
tentative and is intended to facilitate public comment on the
scope of 
this S-SWEIS. It is not intended to be all-inclusive, nor does
it imply 
any predetermination of potential impacts. The S-SWEIS will
describe 
the potential environmental impacts of the alternatives by using 
available data where possible and obtaining additional data
where 
necessary. Copies of written comments and transcripts of oral
comments 
provided to NNSA during the scoping period will be available at
the 
following locations: Los Alamos Outreach Center, 1350 Central
Avenue, 
Suite 101, Los Alamos, New Mexico, 87544; and the Zimmerman
Library, 
University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87131.
 
S-SWEIS Preparation Process: The S-SWEIS preparation process
begins 
with the publication of this Notice of Intent in the Federal
Register. 
After the close of the public scoping period, NNSA will begin 
developing the draft S-SWEIS. NNSA expects to issue the Draft
S-SWEIS 
for public review in the fall of 2005. Public comments on the
Draft S-
SWEIS will be received during a comment period of at least 45
days 
following publication of the Notice of Availability. The Notice
of 
Availability, also published in the Federal Register, along with 
notices placed in local newspapers, will provide dates and
locations 
for public hearings on the Draft S-SWEIS and the deadline for
comments 
on the draft document. Issuance of the Final S-SWEIS is
scheduled for 
early 2006.
 
Issued in Washington, DC, this 29th day of December, 2004.
 
Everet H. Beckner,
Deputy Administrator for Defense Programs, National Nuclear
Security 
Administration.
 
[FR Doc. 05-210 Filed 1-4-05; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6450-01-P

 
*****************************************************************
 40 Radio Coverage of Depleted Uranium
 
Date: Wed, 5 Jan 2005 21:56:36 -0600 (CST)

 
Forwarded with Compliments of Government of the USA in Exile (GUSAE): 
Free Americans Proclaiming Total Emancipation and Working Towards 
Democracy.

From: "Judith" <dahlia@ix.netcom.com>
Date: January 6, 2005 8:19:45 AM GMT+07:00
Subject: Thank WAMC for Airing Program on Depleted Uranium

 From Judith Karpova
Iraq Humanitarian Travelers Alliance

Dear friends,

While I was in Iraq before the war I saw many children in the
hospitals with leukemia, which has risen 700% since the first Gulf
War.  Also many photographs, kept as memorials in the hospitals, of
children with birth defects, so severely malformed that they died soon
after birth.  These photos were all that was left of them.  The rate
of such birth defects has risen 1000% since the first Gulf War.

These  afflictions among Iraqi children are attributable according to
many studies to the use of depleted uranium-jacketed weaponry.  It
aerosolizes on impact, turning into a fine dust.  When inhaled by
pregnant women, their children are born catastrophically malformed or
manifest leukemia at an early age.

Depleted uranium, a by-product of nuclear power plants, has a
half-life of 4.5 billion years.  It is almost twice as dense as lead,
into which it eventually decays.  It is a toxic heavy metal, producing
gene mutations, damaging the lungs, kidneys, liver and bones.  Many US
soldiers who have served in Iraq have "Gulf War Syndrome," showing
symptoms of heavy metal and radiological poisoning; moreover, some of
them have children with birth defects, consistent with chromosomal
damage from d.u. exposure.  The US military has steadfastly refused to
recognize this substance as unsafe, to the point of refusing treatment
to US veterans.

WAMC is having a round-table on this issue at 10 am tomorrow
(Thursday); I and other activists working on the depleted uranium
issue urge everyone to call in on WAMC's toll-free comment line (800
323-9262) and thank them for their service to the public.  Those in
the 518 area code, call 518 465-5233.

WAMC radio's Round Table show will be on DU from around 10-10:25
a.m., at  90.3 FM.  Featured speakers include David Rose (author of a
Vanity Fair article on DU), also SUNY Professor John Arnason, who has
studied DU, and  a GI exposed to DU.

Also:  Fri., 2/18 evening forum on DU -  Featured speakers include
Gulf War I vet Dennis Kyne (www.denniskyne.com for Dennis's info on
himself and on DU).   The time and place will be worked out in
partnership with several local groups. If your group would like to
co-sponsor, contact (sheree@nycap.rr.com).

While contacting legislators is a good idea, so is helping create a
global groundswell that this, and all such poisons, must be abolished.
You may wish to join the nysnet_du list at www.yahoogroups.com, which
has the potential for keeping the Hudson Mohawk Region (and Syracuse,
Rochester &, NYC as well)  informed on local matters on DU.

This 12/11/04 from US Rep. Jim McDermott: "Hammer on the DU
issue...This issue has very strong moral and scientific fundamentals,
and it is indefensible to continue using DU.  If the administration
does not stop, it will reach the point that political heads will roll.
Dr. McDermott displayed a large stack of materials/reports. Do not
accept endless "studies" from the military or political
establishment.The science is conclusive.  Go for broke, on DU.

===============================================================================
*****************************************************************
 41 BBC: Three-minute silence for victims
 
  Last Updated: Wednesday, 5 January, 2005
 
[People in London remembering the tsunami victims] 
Londoners were among millions in the EU who paid their respects                                                                

Millions of people across the UK and Europe have observed a 
three-minute silence on Wednesday to remember the 150,000 killed 
by the Asian tsunami. 

The silence started in Britain at 1200 GMT, but was held across 
Europe one hour earlier. 

Tony Blair has predicted the British Government will eventually 
give "hundreds of millions" of pounds in aid to countries hit by 
the tsunami. 

It was his first public comment since returning from his holiday 
in Egypt. 

Mr Blair told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that he had been 
"intimately involved" in "all decisions at all times" despite 
being abroad. 

Across Europe, people paid their respects by observing the 
silence at 1100 GMT. 

The German stock exchange, in Frankfurt, stopped trading, while 
cars remained motionless in the streets of Stockholm, Sweden, and 
mourners stood shoulder to shoulder in Paris. 

Mr Blair observed the silence in private at Downing Street. 

Chancellor Gordon Brown joined Welsh First Minister Rhodri Morgan 
to mark the remembrance in Cardiff. 

	

	
                                                                 The 
government hop employers will do all they can to ensure employees 
are able to observe the silence and pay their respects at that 
time                 [ src=] Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell Blair 
pledges more relief aid                                   
Regeneration process begins          

	 	 

In the UK, flags flew at half mast on government buildings and at 
Buckingham Palace. 

The royal household also observed the silence, a Palace 
spokeswoman confirmed. 

Britons paid their respects after pledging �76m to the Disasters 
Emergency Committee (DEC) to assist victims of the tsunami. 

The DEC, an umbrella group of 12 British charities, said public 
contributions to its appeal would eventually top �100m, not 
including direct donations to individual organisations. 

The Charity Commission, which regulates charities in England and 
Wales, publishes guidelines on Wednesday aimed at ensuring as 
much money as possible reaches the victims in Asia. 

The guidelines include advice to people running collections about 
avoiding duplication and bureaucracy and on allowing charities to 
make the most of all tax breaks available. 

	

	
DONATION GUIDELINES                     Be aware of available ta 
breaks  Don't duplicate what other groups are doing     Bank all 
cash as soon as possible        Report back to those who have 
donated so they know the money is helping The Charity Commission 
Appeal 'will top �100m'                 

                 The government has so far allocated �50m in aid 
to the affected countries, but has promised to match the amount 
raised by the public. 

It also announced it has offered to send 120 Gurkha troops to 
Indonesia to help in the relief effort, although this offer was 
later politely refused. 

Discussions have begun with Indonesia on the exact timing and 
location of the deployment. 

However International Development Minister Gareth Thomas said the 
offer was aimed primarily at Aceh province, the area closest to 
the epicentre of the earthquake that triggered the devastating 
tsunami. 

	 		

			
                                                        [Mourner 
respects the three-minute silence in Paris, France]                                 
Mourners in Paris respected the three-minute silence at 1100 GMT                                                             

                                         The three-minute silence 
was suggested by the Luxembourg EU presidency last week. 

UK Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell said: "This is to commemorate 
the victims of the catastrophe in south east Asia and is in 
solidarity with the people of the affected countries. 

"The government hopes employers will do all they can to ensure 
employees are able to observe the silence and pay their respects 
at that time." 

Television services on BBC One, Two and News 24 observed the 
silence together with the corporation's main national radio 
stations. 

REMEMBRANCE SILENCE                     
The London Stock Exchang observed the silence    Birmingham New 
Street station marked the event   Bristol's Cribbs Causeway 
shopping centre fell silent Worshippers congregated at Oldham's 
Buddhist temple Met team head to Thailand               

Also on Wednesday, prayers will be said at churches, cathedrals 
and other places of worship throughout the UK. 

A spokesman for the Church of England said the silence would give 
people of all religions the opportunity to grieve for both the 
victims of the earthquake and those left homeless. 

The tradition of collective silences had begun with Armistice 
Day, a year after the end of World War I, he said. 

He added that the public's response to a silence after the 11 
September 2001 disaster showed they remain relevant and effective 
in the modern era. 
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Jeremy Bowen presents The Killer Waves - A Real Story Special - 
on BBC One at 2100 GMT on Thursday 6 January.                                            



    
*****************************************************************

NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 this 
material is distributed without profit or payment to those who 
have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for 
non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more 
information go to: 
<http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml> 
    
*****************************************************************