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                         NUCLEAR POLICY
 
1 [NYTr] Iran to US: Want Another Blunder? Bring It On.
2 BBC: US 'committed to Iran diplomacy'
3 BBC: Mossad warning over nuclear Iran
4 Xinhua: Iran rules out talks with US   
5 Guardian Unlimited: Straw flies to US for talks on Iran
6 Bush sparred with Canadians on missile defence in tense meeting
7 UN Watchdog Agency Uses Nuclear Technology To Help Mexico City Breat
8 [NukeNet] Re: Intl Alert 1--sign-on to stop Japan deregulation
9 Middle East: Our relations with the IAEA are good - Abu Gheit
10 BNN: Israel says Egypt, Syria, Saudia Arabia have nuclear programs
 
                         NUCLEAR REACTORS
 
11 US: [NukeNet] Editorial on Oyster Creek Security--Asbury Park Press
12 US: Feds order Peach Bottom, TMI & Brunner to stop killing fish
13 US: NRC: Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards; Meeting Notice
14 St. Petersburg Times: Chernobyl Hunger Strike in 3rd Week - 
15 US: Guardian Unlimited: Reactor in Southeast Michigan Shut Down
16 Guardian Unlimited: Paris and Berlin succumb to sell-off fever
17 US: OMB Watch: NRC Censors Environmental Impact Statement
18 Slovensko.com: Nuclear power station being assesed - 
 
                          NUCLEAR SAFETY
 
19 US: [RADFOOD] Radioactivity in food?!- Action Alert
20 US: [PUBCIT_PRESS] Bextra, Celebrex, food irradiation
21 [DU-WATCH] Freedom toward negligence
22 US: [EMMAS] The Cork is Off the Bottle - Nuclear  Incident in
23 [southnews] The horror of DU not limited to Iraq
24 [du-list] The horror of Depleted Uranium is n ot limited to Iraq
25 Bellona: Japan to finance scrapping of five Russian nuclear subs in 
26 US: DOE SICK WORKER: DOE Sick Worker Homepage
 
                         NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
 
27 US: [shundahaialerts] News Update from Utah
28 US: [du-list] NRC: Eunice, NM, depleted uranium plant waste 'low
29 Las Vegas SUN: Editorial: Yucca word games
30 US: The Advocate: East Coast nuclear company petitions to send waste
31 Kenya: Standard: State will probe alleged dumping of nuclear waste
32 Guardian Unlimited: Iran to Inaugurate Uranium Ore Plant
 
                         NUCLEAR WEAPONS
 
 
                        US DEPT. OF ENERGY
 
33 lamonitor.com: Domenici addresses lab's RFP concerns 
34 lamonitor.com: Emergency preparedness, education discussed 
35 lamonitor.com: Public sizes up lab's impact statement 
36 PRN; Fermi 2 Plant Shut Down 
37 DOE: Environmental Management Site-Specific Advisory Board, Rocky 
 
                          OTHER NUCLEAR
 
38 [du-list] DU in the news - 25th Jan 05
39 Deseret news: U. set to commemorate Einstein's 'miracle year'
*****************************************************************
*****************************************************************
                         FULL NEWS STORIES
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 1 [NYTr] Iran to US: Want Another Blunder? Bring It On.
 
Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2005 15:06:05 -0600 (CST)

 
Via NY Transfer News Collective  *  All the News that Doesn't Fit
 
AFP via Yahoo - Jan 24, 2005
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1503&ncid=1503&e=22&u=/afp/20050124/ts_afp/iranus_050124061213

Iran warns US against making 'strategic blunder'

TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran said it was not taking talk of a US attack seriously,
but nevertheless cautioned Washington that military action against the
Islamic republic would be a "major strategic blunder."

"It's nothing new. Once in a while America starts a psychological war,"
spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters in response to a hardening of the
tone by US officials against Iran.

"The Islamic republic is strong enough and has the capability to defend
itself, so we feel no danger or threat. We do not see it (a US attack) as
likely, unless someone wants to make a major strategic blunder," he said.

In separate comments carried by the state news agency IRNA, Intelligence
Minister Ali Yunessi simply said any US attack would be "stupid" and
"America's biggest error". He also vowed to "neutralise any plot", saying
security preparation had been underway for three years.

The perception that the United States is embarking on a course of
confrontation with Iran has mounted in recent days -- with analysts debating
what military options the US has.

The New Yorker magazine reported that US commandos have been operating
inside Iran since mid-2004, secretly scouting targets for possible air
strikes targetting what the US says is a covert weapons programme.

The Pentagon attacked the story as "riddled with errors of fundamental fact"
but did not expressly deny conducting covert reconnaissance missions.

Last Monday, US President George W. Bush said he could not rule out using
force if Tehran failed to rein in its nuclear plans, and then US Vice
President Dick Cheney said Iran was "right at the top of the list" of global
trouble spots.

Cheney also warned that Israel might launch a pre-emptive strike on its own
to shut down Iran's nuclear programme.

Asefi said the Bush administration, which has already lumped Iran into an
"axis of evil", has embarked on a policy of "force and bullying" and was
waging a "cultural and religious war."

As for Cheney's warning of a possible Israeli attack, Asefi said this only
served to prove that "the Zionist lobby is strong in the United States".

"This will isolate the US more than before," Asefi told reporters, adding
that it was now the task of "international bodies" to keep the US
administration in check.

"International bodies have been formed to stop such policies and to bring
such countries into compliance with international standards, so we expect
that they will pay more attention to this in the second term of the Bush
administration," he said.

While Iran insists its nuclear activities are strictly for peaceful
purposes, the European Union's "big three" -- Britain, France and Germany --
are engaged in a diplomatic effort aimed at securing long-term guarantees
the clerical regime will not seek the bomb.

The United States has so far refused to join the EU effort, having had no
diplomatic ties with Iran since shortly after the 1979 Islamic revolution,
and US officials are sceptical of the EU's chances of success.

But Asefi said the talks with the EU were "moving forward in a positive way
and as long that continues and that there is no time wasting, they should
continue."

Concern over US intentions also appears to be building within the EU.

According to Britain's Sunday Times newspaper, British Foreign Secretary
Jack Straw has drawn up a case against a military strike on Iran in a
200-page dossier that makes the case for a "negotiated solution" to thwart
Iran's nuclear ambitions.

The paper said the message that the British government wants no part in
another war in the Middle East will be reinforced by Prime Minister Tony
Blair when he meets Bush in Brussels next month and at an Anglo-American
summit in Washington after the British general election, expected in May.

It said Straw will also make the case when he meets US secretary of state
nominee Condoleezza Rice, a Bush confidante, in London next month.

EU external relations commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner also told the
German Bild am Sonntag newspaper that "no one could underestimate the
consequences of a military strike -- not only on the region but also on
relations between the Islamic world and the West."
       
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 2 BBC: US 'committed to Iran diplomacy'
 
  Last Updated: Monday, 24 January, 2005
 
[Jack Straw]                            
Jack Straw says the 'military option' in Iran was not discussed                                                               

President George W Bush is committed to a diplomatic approach to 
Iran, UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has said after talks in the 
US. 

Speculation the US is planning to attack Iran has grown amid 
concerns the Iranians are building nuclear weapons. 

But speaking after talks with Condoleeza Rice - Mr Bush's nominee 
as new US secretary of state - Mr Straw sought to allay fears of 
an attack. 

He said the issue of the "military option" in Iran had not been 
raised. 

'Diplomacy' 

Vice President Dick Cheney has said Iran tops the US list of 
"trouble spots". 

But at Monday's talks, he backed the diplomatic approach to Iran, 
Mr Straw said. 

He added: "It is a difficult issue for everybody because you have 
a country there in which there has been an unquestioned breach of 
its international obligations under the non-proliferation 
treaty." 

Iran's leaders have said they will defend themselves but they did 
not expect an attack on their country. 

Mr Straw has already said Britain would not participate in any 
such attack. 

Downing Street said the government's position was to work with 
other European countries to persuade Iran not to develop nuclear 
weapons. 

Mr Straw and Ms Rice were understood to have discussed the 
looming prospect of the European Union ending its embargo on 
selling arms to China, which Britain accepts but the US strongly 
opposes. 

*****************************************************************
 3 BBC: Mossad warning over nuclear Iran
 
  Last Updated: Monday, 24 January, 2005
 
[Israel Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres] 
Deputy PM Shimon Peres echoed Mr Dagan's concerns over Iran
			 			   		
Iran could build a nuclear bomb in less than three years, the 
head of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency has warned. 

Speaking to MPs in Israel's parliament, the Knesset, Meir Dagan 
said Iran's nuclear programme was nearing the "point of no 
return". 

If Iran successfully enriched uranium in 2005 it could have a 
nuclear weapon two years later, Mr Dagan said. 

Iran says that it is developing a civilian nuclear energy 
programme, but the US and Israel reject this. 

They maintain the Islamic state is using the energy programme as 
a front for a covert weapons programme. 

Last week US Vice-President Dick Cheney said Iran's nuclear 
programme put it "top of the list" of global issues. 'Home free' 

Mr Dagan told the Knesset foreign affairs and defence committee 
that Iran is negotiating with European mediators to be allowed to 
continue developing uranium enrichment capability. 

It is up to the internation community to increase its efforts to 
prevent the arming of Tehran Meir Dagan Mossad chief    

Iran agreed in November to halt uranium enrichment under pressure 
from the US, Europe and the International Atomic Energy Agency. 

If it resumes enrichment and succeeds before the end of 2005, Mr 
Dagan said, "the route to building a bomb is a short one". 

"The moment you have the technology for enrichment, you are home 
free," he said. 

Mr Dagan said it could take Iran just two more years to develop a 
bomb once they had completed enrichment. 

"It is up to the international community to increase its efforts 
to prevent the arming of Tehran." 

Iran gave no immediate reaction to Mr Dagan's claims. 

Peres cautious 

The Mossad chief's concerns were echoed by Israeli Deputy Prime 
Minister Shimon Peres. 

"Iran has become the focal point of all the dangers of the Middle 
East," Mr Peres told Israel's Army Radio. 

"This problem should be of concern to the whole world and not 
just Israel." 

Mr Peres, widely regarded as the father of Israel's secretive 
nuclear deterrent, dampened suggestions that Israel was planning 
pre-emptive strikes against Iran, as hinted by Mr Cheney. 

"The party that will decide is the United States," Mr Peres said. 

"If we go it alone, we will remain alone. Everyone knows our 
potential but we also have to know our limits. 

"As long as there is a possibility that the world will organise 
to fight against Iran's nuclear option, let the world organise." 

*****************************************************************
 4 Xinhua: Iran rules out talks with US   

  www.xinhuanet.com

  www.chinaview.cn 2005-01-25 02:59:07   

    TEHRAN, Jan. 24 (Xinhuanet) -- Iran said on Monday that it
saw no possibility of opening talks with Washington during US
President George W. Bush's second term as there would be no
major change in US policy toward Tehran, the official IRNA news
agency reported. 

   "Given that the US government has started its new term with
threats, it is clear that no major change has occurred in the
Americans' policy," government spokesman Abdollah Ramezanzadeh
was quoted as saying. 

    Ramezanzadeh rejected senior US officials' recent remarks
against Iran, which had aroused wide suspicion that Washington
would launch military attacks on the Islamic Republic. 

    "We will use the same language if anyone chooses to use a
language of force and threats against us. But if they opt to
engagein dialogue without any precondition on an equal footing,
we will consider that," Ramezanzadeh said. 

    Bush said on Jan. 17 that he would not rule out military
actions against Iran. Secretary of State-designate Condoleezza
Rice, oneday later, urged the world to prevent Iran from
developing nuclear weapons and threatened to refer Tehran's
nuclear case to the UN Security Council. 

    At the inauguration ceremony of Bush's second term on
Thursday,Vice President Dick Cheney ranked Iran at top of a list
of global trouble spots. 

    Ramezanzadeh played down the comments, saying "it is now 26
years that we have got used to the US threats." 

    "Neither is the US in a position to have the capacity to
attackus, nor are we in a position in which anyone would dare to
attack us," he added. 

    The United States, which has severed diplomatic relations
with Tehran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, has been accusing
Iran of secretly developing nuclear weapons and has threatened
to launch preemptive attacks on Iran's nuclear facilities. 

    Iran rejects the charge and threat, saying its nuclear
researchis fully peaceful and boasting an effective deterrent
power to confront its enemies in the region. Enditem
   
  Copyright Š2003 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 5 Guardian Unlimited: Straw flies to US for talks on Iran
 
Ewen MacAskill, diplomatic editor
Monday January 24, 2005
The Guardian 		
 		
The foreign secretary, Jack Straw, was due to fly to Washington 
last night for talks with Condoleezza Rice, who is due to be 
confirmed this week as secretary of state, on tackling Iran's 
alleged covert nuclear weapons programme. 

Ms Rice has indicated that she intends to take a much tougher 
line towards Iran than that pursued by Mr Straw and the rest of 
the EU. 

Britain, France and Germany are in negotiations with Iran aimed 
at securing its agreement not to pursue a uranium enrichment 
programme which would enable it to make a nuclear bomb. 

Iran consistently denies that it wants a bomb, but the US is 
sceptical about Iran's claims and the EU's diplomatic efforts. 

It would like to see Iran referred as quickly as possible to the 
UN security council with a view to imposing economic sanctions. 
Israel has raised the possibility of bombing Iran's nuclear 
plants. 

A Foreign Office source travelling with Mr Straw denied that the 
US privately supported the EU talks as a means of adding pressure 
on Tehran. 

Mr Straw's list of topics for discussion with Ms Rice is topped 
by developments in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the FO says. 
He also wants to discuss the Iraq elections and the EU plan to 
lift its arms embargo on China, which the US opposes. 
	
   Useful links  

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office
The Department for International Development

politics.editor@guardianunlimited.co.uk

[UP] 

Guardian Unlimited Š Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
 6 Bush sparred with Canadians on missile defence in tense meeting
 
Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2005 18:37:22 -0600 (CST)

 
Bush sparred with Canadians on missile defence in tense meeting, says report

Sun Jan 23, 4:46 PM ET
WASHINGTON (CP) - President George W. Bush (news - web sites) tried to bully 
Canadian officials on missile defence during his visit last month by linking 
Canada's participation to future protection from the U.S., the Washington 
Post reported Sunday.

The newspaper quoted an unidentified Canadian official who was in the room 
as saying Bush waved off their attempts to explain how contentious the issue 
is for Prime Minister Paul Martin's minority government.

"(Bush) leaned across the table and said: 'I'm not taking this position, but 
some future president is going to say, Why are we paying to defend Canada?' 
" the official was quoted as saying.

"Most of our side was trying to explain the politics, how it was difficult 
to do," he said.

But Bush "waved his hands and remarked: 'I don't understand this. Are you 
saying that if you got up and said this is necessary for the defence of 
Canada, it wouldn't be accepted?' "

The White House refused comment on the surprisingly pointed remarks.

"I'm not going to comment on an unnamed source in a newspaper," spokesman 
Ken Lisaius said Sunday. "The president has been quite clear about the 
strong relationship with Canada."

Amy Butcher, a spokeswoman for the Prime Minister's Office, said she 
couldn't talk about the particulars of the missile defence discussion.

"Our position is clear. We'll make a decision based on Canadian interests," 
said Butcher, adding that the House of Commons will participate in the 
debate.

Martin has told reporters that Bush's position at the meeting was one of 
incredulity that anyone would oppose the system, aimed at knocking out 
supersonic missiles launched by terrorists or rogue states.

But the Post report suggests the meeting was far more tense than that.

U.S. diplomats had assured their Canadian counterparts that the prickly 
issue wouldn't be raised during Bush's visit.

But it came up at the private meeting with Martin and the president 
unexpectedly raised it during a major foreign policy speech in Halifax the 
next day.

Paul Cellucci, America's ambassador to Canada, said earlier this month that 
the U.S. is optimistic Canada will sign on to the missile defence plan 
before the end of March.

The system will rely on interceptors based in underground silos at Fort 
Greely, Alaska, and Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

Pentagon (news - web sites) officials blamed an unsuccessful test launch 
last month on a "minor glitch" in computer software. They say they may never 
publicly declare when the shield is fully ready.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=cpress/us_cda_missile_defence 
*****************************************************************
 7 UN Watchdog Agency Uses Nuclear Technology To Help Mexico City Breathe Easier
 
Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2005 10:00:21 -0500

 
X-Spamprobe: ham-extreme	*       	0.0000139
 
X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.2 (2004-11-16) on darwin.ctyme.com
X-Spam-Level: 
X-Spam-Status: No, score=-16.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,FROM_ORG,
	SPF_HELO_PASS,SP_HAM_EXTREME,SUBJ_ALL_CAPS,WHITE_PHRASE autolearn=ham 

	version=3.0.2

UN WATCHDOG AGENCY USES NUCLEAR TECHNOLOGY TO HELP MEXICO CITY BREATHE 
EASIER
New York, Jan 24 2005 10:00AM
With air pollution contributing to some 12,000 deaths each year in 
Mexico City, the United Nations atomic watchdog agency, better 
known for its efforts to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons, 
is using nuclear technology to help the citizens of the Mexican 

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has teamed up with 
local scientists and regulatory authorities on a project aimed at 
making the air safer by using nuclear know-how to analyze air 

Unlike traditional methods for analyzing air samples, nuclear tools 
are sensitive enough to extract key information about contaminants 
in small, fine particles. The smaller a toxic particle the more 
damaging to human health, because it can penetrate deeply into 

It is hoped that better information about release rates of elements 
like sulphur, nickel, copper and zinc in fine particles will help 
authorities improve health care and preventative strategies. 

Regular air samples taken throughout Mexico City are analyzed using 
a technique known as PIXE (proton induce x-ray emission). The 
IAEA is providing around $300,000 in equipment and training to scientists 
at the National Nuclear Research Institute of Mexico (ININ) 
who conduct the analysis. The scientists use an accelerator to 
shoot a beam of protons at a dust sample collected from the air. 

The results of the reaction reveal a wealth of information which 
helps scientists to pinpoint the exact source of toxic emissions, 
valuable information in a city where industry and the citys 20 
million inhabitants often live side by side. Importantly, it gives 
decision makers and regulators better information on which to act 
 2005-01-24 00:00:00.000 

________________

For more details go to UN News Centre at http://www.un.org/news

To change your profile or unsubscribe go to:
http://www.un.org/news/dh/latest/subscribe.shtml
*****************************************************************
 8 [NukeNet] Re: Intl Alert 1--sign-on to stop Japan deregulation
 
Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2005 17:39:00 -0800

 
<x-flowed>
NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet@energyjustice.net)

Thank you to NIRS for circulating this letter of support for our conference 
(6 February 2005 in Tokyo).

People who wish to find out more about the 2 bills to be introduced to the 
Japanese Diet should check the following link:

http://cnic.jp/english/news/newsflash/clearance21Dec04.html

Philip White
International Liaison Officer
CNIC

Sign to Help Japan Stop Nuclear Waste Deregulation-"Recycling" into 
Household Items and more



SIGN ON by THURS 12 NOON Washington DC time to this letter of support for 
Japanese Organizers of Conference to Stop Nuclear Deregulation in Japan.



Sign on with dianed@nirs.org or D. D'Arrigo at (US)+202 328-0002; 202 462 
2183 fax

Provide your NAME, ORGANIZATION (if you represent one), CITY, STATE, 
COUNTRY, EMAIL address.





INTERNATIONAL SUPPORT for Conference to Stop Two Nuclear Bills in Japanese 
Legislature



Dear Kazuhide Sueda (Kansai Nuclear Waste Campaign), Baku Nishio (CNIC) and 
others organizing the Conference to Stop Two Nuclear Bills in the Japanese 
Legislature:



Your work to prevent deregulating nuclear waste is absolutely essential to 
the worldwide efforts! Thank you for taking on the challenge! We wish you 
success and offer our help.



If countries around the world allow nuclear waste to be "let go" as if not 
radioactive, radioactive contamination will spread internationally. All 
living things, including humans- children, the elderly and those with 
reduced immunity- will be exposed to unverifiable, increased levels of 
radioactive contamination without their consent or notification. This is 
unethical. We are working hard in our countries to stop this insidious and 
completely unnecessary health and economic threat.



This battle is especially important because the contamination can be 
long-lasting and irreversible. It will not be practical to recapture 
released radioactive wastes but we CAN prevent the releases in the first 
place by stopping laws and regulations that allow waste that is now 
regulated from being "let go," "cleared,"  "exempted," "excluded," or 
otherwise treated as not radioactive.



We fully support your efforts to prevent your government from passing laws 
that subsidize the nuclear power industry and threaten your health and 
economics as well as that of the rest of the world. Your work to stop 
nuclear waste deregulation in Japan is extremely important in the world 
battle against radiation contamination and nuclear power which generates 
more waste to be deregulated.



It is important to realize too that many who have no opinion on nuclear 
power or are pro-nuclear are against the deregulating of nuclear waste. For 
the sake of the nuclear power industry, metal including steel and specialty 
metals, asphalt, concrete, plastics, soil, wood, paper and any other 
recycling industries are threatened with both physical contamination and 
with lack of consumer confidence.



If policies allowing nuclear power wastes to be "released," "cleared," 
"exempted" or "excluded" from regulatory control are adopted, everything 
from baby toys to zippers, frying pans, kids dental braces, buildings, 
cars, furniture, drink cans, belt buckles, play grounds, roads could end up 
radioactively contaminated from nuclear fuel chain wastes.



There is simply no justification for governments to allow known carcinogens 
at any level into the flow of daily commerce (or unregulated waste sites) 
resulting in routine, multiple exposures that increase risks of cancer, 
reduced immunity, genetic damage, birth defects for generations to come and 
possibly even ischemic heart disease.



We are working to prevent the deregulation and dispersal of radioactive 
waste from the nuclear power and weapons industries into daily commerce and 
we stand with you to stop it in Japan.

  SINCERELY,




Citizens' Nuclear Information Center
3F Kotobuki Bdg, 1-58-15, Higashi-Nakano, Nakano-ku, Tokyo 164-0003
Phone: 81-3-5330-9520
Fax: 81-3-5330-9530
http://cnic.jp/english/
cnic@nifty.com


_______________________________________________________________________
Subscribe/Unsubscribe Here: http://www.energyjustice.net/nukenet/
Change your settings or access the archives at:
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</x-flowed>
*****************************************************************
 9 Middle East: Our relations with the IAEA are good - Abu Gheit
 
  First Published 2005-01-24, Last Updated 2005-01-24 14:51:33
 
 Egypt insists 100% in line with nuclear rules

 Egyptian FM dismisses concerns about his countrys intentions
of atomic programme.

 
 CAIRO - Egypt is "100 percent" in line with its commitments to
the UN nuclear watchdog, the foreign minister said Monday,
dismissing concerns about the intentions of Cairo's atomic
programme.

 "I think that very soon the IAEA (International Atomic Energy
Agency) is going to come to the point when it will give Egypt a
100 percent clean bill of health, as we are 100 percent in line
with the rules," said Ahmed Abu Gheit.

 His comments came after it emerged that UN inspectors
investigating undeclared nuclear activity in Egypt, which could
be related to atomic weapons development, were looking at a
reprocessing lab for making plutonium.

 The lab, apparently put together in the 1980s but never used,
has raised concerns that Egypt's civilian nuclear programme
could move towards weapons development if Cairo decided to take
this step, diplomats have said.

 "Egypt has a cooperation with the IAEA, it is asking questions
and we are giving the answers. This is how the relationship with
this body works as set out in the non-proliferation accords,"
Gheit added.

 "Our relations with the IAEA are good. There are testaments to
this from the agency itself," he said.

 The experiments the IAEA is looking into involve making uranium
metal, which could be used to make weapons-grade plutonium, and
carrying out the first steps of uranium enrichment by making
uranium tetrafluoride (UF4).

 Egypt in 1981 ratified the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
NPT states are required to disclose all their
nuclear-material-related activities to the IAEA. 


*****************************************************************
 10 BNN: Israel says Egypt, Syria, Saudia Arabia have nuclear programs
 		 		 		
Big News Network.com     Monday 24th January, 2005    

  Israel claimed Monday that in addition to Iran, Egypt, Syria,
and Saudia Arabia are developing nuclear programs.
 
Meir Dagan, chief of The Mossad, Israel's intelligence agency,
made the claim as he delivered a review on the security of
Israel to the country's Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense
Committee.
 
Israel has made even more pointed charges against Iran, which it
claims is deceiving the IAEA, and is building a nuclear reactor
in Bushehr. Degan said Iran was receiving assistance from Russia.
 
Israel has recently stepped up calls for the international
community to intervene in Iran, despite agreements reached
between the EU and Iran which purportedly paved the way for Iran
to stall any progress on its plans. Last week U.S. Vice
President Dick Cheney said it was possible Israel could attack
Iran. Former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu played down the
claim but pointedly did not rule out military action by the
Jewish state. Vice Premier Shimon Peres said Monday, 'It (Iran)
is the center of terrorism in the Middle East. It is trying to
create a nuclear option.'
 
International experts believe Israel itself is a world nuclear
power but the nation with a population of 6.2 million refuses to
discuss publicly its programs. Israel is not a signatory to the
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and, as such, is not subject to
inspections. 

In China surely there are hundreds of thousands who have held a
private moment of silence for the man who took the brunt of
official anger at the outpouring of democratic hope and ambition
that uplifted them, briefly, so many years ago. Yet a week after
his death the government is just as concerned as to how Zhao
Ziyang will be buried, as to how he will be remembered. 


[About Big News Network.com]
*****************************************************************
 11 [NukeNet] Editorial on Oyster Creek Security--Asbury Park Press
 
Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2005 16:12:12 -0800

 
<x-flowed>
NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet@energyjustice.net)



Bolster plant's air defenses


Published in the Asbury Park Press 1/24/05
An Asbury Park Press editorial

Officials at the Oyster Creek nuclear generating plant in Lacey put on a 
dog-and-pony show for the media recently, showing off the facility's new 
$20 million security upgrade. The purpose, of course, was to demonstrate to 
the 3.5 million people living within a 50-mile radius of the plant how well 
fortified it is against terrorist attacks.
What it demonstrated was that Oyster Creek is better equipped to cope with 
a limited ground assault than it was prior to the upgrade. Given the 
plant's track record, that isn't saying much. But even the $20 million 
spent on bolstering security -- a cost that will be passed on to consumers, 
of course -- isn't enough to make the plant safe.

Oyster Creek upgraded its facilities because the Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission ordered security improvements at each of the nation's 100-odd 
nuclear plants in the wake of 9/11. The costs of making the plants safe -- 
from terrorists, from catastrophic accidental releases of radiation and 
from radioactive waste stored on-site -- belie claims by the industry that 
nuclear power is far cheaper to generate than other forms of energy. Taking 
into account the huge capital costs of building and maintaining plants, 
operating them safely and securing them against terrorist attacks, other 
forms of energy, studies have shown, are actually cheaper. Not to mention 
safer.
What the tour failed to show was how the upgrades, which included eight 
bullet-resistant guard towers, razor-wire fences and newly fortified 
security gates, would prevent a terrorist assault from the sky. Fact is, 
they won't.

Despite assurances by plant manager Bud Swenson that the plant is "robust" 
-- the nuclear industry's favorite cliche when the issue of security from 
the sky is raised -- it is anything but. The plant's spent fuel pool, 
highly vulnerable in plants of Oyster Creek's dated design, would provide a 
ripe target should a terrorist succeed in hijacking a 400-ton 747 with a 
full tank of gas.

Ways of securing plants against airborne assaults exist. But neither the 
industry nor its government partner -- the NRC -- is willing to bear the 
expense of providing that extra margin of safety. And the government is 
unwilling to create no-fly zones over Oyster Creek or any other nuclear 
plant, even though they have imposed them over nuclear submarine bases, 
over military facilities housing stockpiles of chemical and biological 
weapons in at least six states, and over Disney World and Disneyland.

Should people living in the shadow of the plant be able to sleep more 
easily now that security there has been improved? Maybe. We just hope the 
guards there -- who have a history of napping on the job -- aren't among them.

Suzanne Leta
Energy Associate
NJPIRG
11 N. Willow St
Trenton, NJ 08608
609 394 8155 x310
<mailto:sleta@njpirg.org>sleta@njpirg.org
_______________________________________________________________________
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</x-flowed>
*****************************************************************
 12 Feds order Peach Bottom, TMI & Brunner to stop killing fish
 
Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2005 15:22:42 -0800

 
<x-flowed>
Lancaster (Pa.) Intelligencer Journal, Jan. 15, 2005

NEW STEPS TO SAVE RIVER CREATURES

Feds order Susquehanna power plants and others to stop killing off
fish--or replace them.

By Ad Crable

LANCASTER COUNTY, PA -- Each year, millions of game fish, fish eggs,
crayfish and other organisms are sucked out of the Lower Susquehanna
River and killed by power plants.Now, after a decade of debate and
lawsuits, new federal regulations will -- for the first time -- force
utilities and other large water users along the nation's rivers,
streams and reservoirs to reduce the mortality significantly or
replace what is lost.

The water users first have to document the extent of the damage
they're causing.

Then they must choose among a variety of modern techniques designed to
protect a significant percentage of the fish and other aquatic
creatures.

Locally, the owner of the Peach Bottom nuclear plant is scrambling to
comply, as well as PPL's Brunner Island coal-burning power plant,
across from Bainbridge.

The owners of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant hope they may escape
the safer water-intake measures because of the lower amount of water
they withdraw, but no determination has been made.

"It's been a concern for years," says Leroy Young, chief of aquatic
resources for the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission.

"The numbers are significant. There are thousands of larger fish
(killed) per facility per year. Entrainment rates (referring to
organisms sucked into pipes and killed) can be 10 million or more --
mostly floating eggs and larval fish.

"Whether it's having a population level effect, I don't think anyone's
measured that yet," Young says.

Utilities say it's not. They say fish populations in rivers such as
the Susquehanna are robust and that the loss of millions of fish eggs
and much lesser amounts of adult fish doesn't harm the resource.

They also note that the mortality of young fish is incredibly high
  from other natural sources.

"From our observations, we do not feel it is a large problem at
Brunner Island," says Constance Walker, a PPL spokeswoman.

Brunner Island withdraws about 744 million gallons of water a day.

"The plant is not located in a sensitive area for aquatic organisms.
It's not in a spawning area or unique habitat. However, up until now,
no plant has had to collect any data on this," Walker says.

But environmental groups, which refer to power plants as "aquatic
slaughterhouses," maintain that power plants cause widespread
ecological damage. They have successfully sued the federal
Environmental Protection Agency under the Clean Water Act and forced
the agency to draw up regulations to stem the loss.

"Using antiquated technology, power plants often suck up the entire
fresh water volume of large rivers, killing obscene numbers of fish,"
says Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who sued EPA in 1993 on behalf of the
Riverkeeper and Waterkeeper Alliance.

"These fish kills are illegal," Kennedy continues on an Internet site.
"Just one facility, the Salem nuclear plant in New Jersey, kills more
than 3 billion Delaware River fish each year, according to the plant's
own consultant."

Whether the kills are legal or not, a former southern Lancaster County
worker at the Peach Bottom nuclear plant said he was "sickened" by the
large numbers of sport fish he saw sucked out of the Susquehanna.

"When the water comes in, fish would swim in through tunnels and swim
into wire baskets," said the man who lives in southern Lancaster
County and asked that his name not be used.

"There were hundreds and hundreds of fish killed each day. Stripers
and bass and walleye and gizzard shad and all kinds of fish. It took a
forklift to carry them out.

"Every species in the river comes in there when they turn those big
intakes on."

TMI has a similar system for disposing of the fish and other organisms
that make it through the intake maze.

"If they get that far, they're not going back," said Pete Ressler, a
spokesman for TMI owner Exelon Nuclear. "They are dumped into a
container and disposed of."

* * *

Power plants and large industrial plants need large amounts of water
to produce power and cool machinery. They withdraw water through huge
pipes and tunnels and often return it in heated form.

The first hurdle for fish and eggs sucked into the intakes comes as
they are pinned against screens designed to keep debris from entering
the plant. If they make it through the screens, the organisms are
likely killed by heat or chemicals, or removed from the water and
discarded.

In 2001, a federal judge ordered the EPA to issue regulations
restricting power-plant fish kills under the Clean Water Act.

In issuing those regulations in three phases, EPA estimated that more
than 200 million aquatic organisms will be protected annually from
death or injury nationwide.

The reduced mortality will be worth $73 million to $83 million per
year, "primarily from improvements to commercial and recreational
fishing," according to an EPA fact sheet.

EPA estimates that 550 facilities will be affected across the country
and that safer intakes will cost about $400 million per year to
implement and maintain.

The regulations primarily affect future or existing facilities that
withdraw at least 50 million gallons of water per day.

Thus, local water users such as Armstrong World Industries' Marietta
plant, Lancaster City's drinking-water intakes in the Susquehanna and
Conestoga, the county incinerator and the proposed ethanol plant in
Conoy Township are exempt from the new regulations.

But 89 facilities along waterways in Pennsylvania will have to take
action.

The first order of business for large water users: documenting the
quantity and species of aquatic life affected by water intakes.

Then, plant owners have several choices. They can put in place fish-
protection measures such as screens with fish return systems and
traveling screens with backwash devices.

They also can employ a closed-cycle cooling system, which recycles
intake water, reducing the volume of water taken into the plant.

Depending on which type of body of water they are on, plants have to
reduce the amount of aquatic life being sucked in by 60 to 90 percent
and must cut the number of organisms squashed against screens by 80 to
90 percent.

However, plant owners can avoid the expense of best available
technology by augmenting lesser mitigation measures with fish stocking
or wetlands construction.

That has the coalition of environmental groups that led the charge for
water-intake changes hopping mad.

They have again sued EPA, this time joined by six states: New Jersey,
New York, Delaware, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

The attorneys general of the states are arguing for more stringent
measures.

Copyright 2005 Lancaster Newspapers

PO Box 1328, Lancaster PA 17608, (717) 291-8811

</x-flowed>
*****************************************************************
 13 NRC: Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards; Meeting Notice
 
                         FR Doc 05-1197 

[Federal Register: January 24, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 14)] 
[Notices] [Page 3399-3400] From the Federal Register Online via 
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr24ja05-83]                         
 
In accordance with the purposes of Sections 29 and 182b. of the 
Atomic Energy Act (42 U.S.C. 2039, 2232b), the Advisory Committee 
on Reactor Safeguards (ACRS) will hold a meeting on February 
10-12, 2005, 11545 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland. The date 
of this meeting was previously published in the Federal Register 
on Wednesday, November 24, 2004 (69 FR 68412).
 
Thursday, February 10, 2005, Conference Room T-2B3, Two White 
Flint North, Rockville, Maryland 8:30 a.m.-8:35 a.m.: Opening 
Remarks by the ACRS Chairman (Open)-- The ACRS Chairman will make 
opening remarks regarding the conduct of the meeting.
 
8:35 a.m.-10:30 a.m.: Power Uprate for Waterford Nuclear Plant 
(Open)--The Committee will hear presentations by and hold 
discussions with representatives of the NRC staff and Entergy 
Operations, Inc. regarding the Entergy's license amendment 
request for an 8% increase in thermal power for the Waterford 
Nuclear Plant and the related NRC staff's Safety Evaluation 
Report.
 
10:45 a.m.-12:30 p.m.: Technical Basis for Potential Revision of 
the Pressurized Thermal Shock (PTS) Screening Criteria in the PTS 
Rule (Open)--The Committee will hear presentations by and hold 
discussions with representatives of the NRC staff regarding the 
technical basis for potential revision of the PTS screening 
criteria in the PTS rule 1:30 p.m.-4:30 p.m.: Mixed Oxide (MOX) 
Fuel Fabrication Facility (Open)-The Committee will hear 
presentations by and hold discussions with representatives of the 
NRC staff regarding the draft Safety Evaluation Report related to 
the construction authorization request to construct a MOX Fuel 
Fabrication Facility at the Department of Energy's Savannah River 
site.
 
4:30 p.m.-6:30 p.m.: Preparation of ACRS Reports (Open)--The 
Committee will discuss proposed ACRS reports on matters 
considered during this meeting.
 
Friday, February 11, 2005, Conference Room T-2B3, Two White Flint 
North, Rockville, Maryland 8:30 a.m.-8:35 a.m.: Opening Remarks 
by the ACRS Chairman (Open)-- The ACRS Chairman will make opening 
remarks regarding the conduct of the meeting.
 
8:35 a.m.-8:50 a.m.: Subcommittee Report (Open)--The Committee 
will hear a report by the Chairman of the ACRS Subcommittee on 
Plant License Renewal regarding interim review of the license 
renewal application for the D.C. Cook Nuclear Plant. 8:50 a.m.-10 
a.m.: Future ACRS Activities/Report of the Planning and 
Procedures Subcommittee (Open)--The Committee will discuss the 
recommendations of the Planning and Procedures Subcommittee 
regarding items proposed for consideration by the full Committee 
during future meetings. Also, it will hear a report of the 
Planning and Procedures Subcommittee on matters related to the 
conduct of ACRS business, including anticipated workload and 
member assignments.
 
10:15 a.m.-11:15 a.m.: Assessment of the Quality of the Selected 
NRC Research Projects (Open)--The Committee will hear a report by 
the Chairman of the Safety Research Program Subcommittee 
regarding the plan, schedule, and assignments for assessing the 
quality of selected NRC research projects.
 
11:15 a.m.-11:30 a.m.: Reconciliation of ACRS Comments and 
Recommendations (Open)--The Committee will discuss the responses 
from the NRC Executive Director for Operations (EDO) to comments 
and recommendations included in recent ACRS reports and letters. 
The EDO responses are expected to be made available to the 
Committee prior to the meeting.
 
12:30 p.m.-6:30 p.m.: Preparation of ACRS Reports (Open)--The 
Committee will discuss proposed ACRS reports.
 
Saturday, February 12, 2005, Conference Room T-2B3, Two White 
Flint North, Rockville, Maryland 8:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.: 
Preparation of ACRS Reports (Open)--The Committee will continue 
its discussion of proposed ACRS reports.
 
12:30 p.m.-1 p.m.: Miscellaneous (Open)--The Committee will 
discuss matters related to the conduct of Committee activities 
and matters and specific issues that were not completed during 
previous meetings, as time and availability of information 
permit.
 
Procedures for the conduct of and participation in ACRS meetings 
were published in the Federal Register on October 5, 2004 (69 FR 
59620). In accordance with those procedures, oral or written 
views may be presented by members of the public, including 
representatives of the nuclear industry. Electronic recordings 
will be permitted only during the open portions of the meeting. 
Persons desiring to make oral
 
[[Page 3400]] statements should notify the Cognizant ACRS staff 
named below five days before the meeting, if possible, so that 
appropriate arrangements can be made to allow necessary time 
during the meeting for such statements. Use of still, motion 
picture, and television cameras during the meeting may be limited 
to selected portions of the meeting as determined by the 
Chairman. Information regarding the time to be set aside for this 
purpose may be obtained by contacting the Cognizant ACRS staff 
prior to the meeting. In view of the possibility that the 
schedule for ACRS meetings may be adjusted by the Chairman as 
necessary to facilitate the conduct of the meeting, persons 
planning to attend should check with the Cognizant ACRS staff if 
such rescheduling would result in major inconvenience.
 
Further information regarding topics to be discussed, whether the 
meeting has been canceled or rescheduled, as well as the 
Chairman's ruling on requests for the opportunity to present oral 
statements and the time allotted therefor can be obtained by 
contacting Mr. Sam Duraiswamy, Cognizant ACRS staff 
(301-415-7364), between 7:30 a.m. and 4:15 p.m., e.t. ACRS 
meeting agenda, meeting transcripts, and letter reports are 
available through the NRC Public Document Room at pdr@nrc.gov, or 
by calling the PDR at 1-800-397-4209, or from the Publicly 
Available Records System (PARS) component of NRC's document 
system (ADAMS) which is accessible from the NRC Web site at 
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html or 
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/ (ACRS & ACNW Mtg 
schedules/agendas).
 
Videoteleconferencing service is available for observing open 
sessions of ACRS meetings. Those wishing to use this service for 
observing ACRS meetings should contact Mr. Theron Brown, ACRS 
Audio Visual Technician (301-415-8066), between 7:30 a.m. and 
3:45 p.m., e.t., at least 10 days before the meeting to ensure 
the availability of this service. Individuals or organizations 
requesting this service will be responsible for telephone line 
charges and for providing the equipment and facilities that they 
use to establish the videoteleconferencing link. The availability 
of videoteleconferencing services is not guaranteed.
 
Dated: January 14, 2005.
 
Annette Vietti-Cook, Secretary of the Commission.
 
[FR Doc. 05-1197 Filed 1-21-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P

 
*****************************************************************
 14 St. Petersburg Times: Chernobyl Hunger Strike in 3rd Week - 

#1038, Tuesday, January 25, 2005   

By Vladimir Kovalev 

STAFF WRITER A group of 10 men who took part in the clean up of
the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident and who have been on hunger
strike in Sestroretsk for the last 13 days were joined by a
fellow "liquidator" from Saratov on Sunday.

The group are demanding higher compensation for the damage they
suffered to their health from the radiation.

 Shavkat Nazarov, who came from a remote village of Saratov
region said he heard about the hunger strike by chance from his
friends who were watching television late at night.

 "In our region this is not like it is here," Nazarov said
Monday in a telephone interview Monday. "[All opposition] is
completely pressed to the ground."

 "Not a single word was said about this hunger strike on
state-controlled channels Pervy Kanal and Rossia," he added.
"It's was only because my friends were watching the program
Postskriptum on a Moscow city channel after midnight that they
heard about it and told me." 

Nazarov decided to go to St. Petersburg.

 "I completely support the demands," Nazarov said. "Why does
President Vladimir Putin, who we voted for, deprive us of our
money? If he hasn't got not enough money to pay to the Paris
Club [of debtors], I can give him 100 rubles a month to do that.
I don't know how many years I have left to live, but I would
like to look Putin right in the eye and ask him what has he
done."

 Sergei Kulish, the head of the group, said the health of the
strikers is constantly worsening. An ambulance was called again
on Monday.

 "The strikers have heart and stomach problems, but we won't
stop the hunger strike," he said Monday in a telephone
interview. "We don't believe officials any more."

 At the weekend, City Hall officials visited the strikers and
made more unconvincing promises, Kulish said. 

[Copyright] copyright The St. Petersburg Times 1993-2004        
    
*****************************************************************
 15 Guardian Unlimited: Reactor in Southeast Michigan Shut Down
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

Tuesday January 25, 2005 1:46 AM

FRENCHTOWN TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) - The reactor at a nuclear power
plant in Michigan was shut down Monday after a coolant leak was
detected, officials said. 

Officials with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and DTE Energy,
which operates the plant, said the leak at the plant in
Frenchtown Township, about 30 miles south of Detroit, posed no
danger to plant workers or the public. 

Plant officials were trying to determine what caused the leak,
and it was not known when operations would resume, Mitlyng said.
	 
  



      Guardian Unlimited Š Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
 16 Guardian Unlimited: Paris and Berlin succumb to sell-off fever
 
Europe's top economies battle to cut their deficits            
 		
David Gow in Brussels
Monday January 24, 2005
The Guardian 		
 		
The French and German governments will this week kickstart a 
spate of privatisations of state-owned companies worth more than 
30bn in further efforts to cut their budget deficits below the 
prescribed 3% ceiling and cut debt. 

On Wednesday the management board of Gaz de France (GDF), the 
state-owned gas group, is due to set in train plans to sell off 
some 30% of its equity in a placement, likely in May, that could 
net between 5bn and 6bn for Jacques Chirac's government. 

Areva, the French nuclear plant builder, which is being touted 
for an eventual merger with a sister division at Alstom, the 
engineering group rescued by the government last year, and which 
is valued at 11.5bn, is also expected to place a third of its 
capital in May. 

According to French press reports, the government could raise up 
to 10bn in total this year, including a further sell-off of 
France Telecom and the jewel in the crown of the energy sector, 
the electricity group EDF. The state raised 8.8bn last year, 
2.5bn in 2003 and 6.1bn in 2002. 

Hervé Gaymard, the successor to Nicholas Sarkozy as finance 
minister has yet to give the green light for the EDF transaction 
as the group, which has profitably bought up large swaths of the 
British energy sector, has complex problems associated with its 
nuclear liabilities, pension deficit and a stake in Italian 
counterpart Edison. 

But, with a 30% stake likely to be sold off during a planned 
capital-raising exercise later this year to buttress its European 
expansion, EDF could fetch as much as 20bn gross for a government 
that has promised the EU it will cut its deficit to 3% this year 
from around 3.5% in 2004. 

The French placements alone promise to be huge money earners for 
investment banks such as Merrill Lynch and Lazard which are 
acting as advisers to GDF and Areva but are running into stiff 
resistance from unions led by the communist CGT, which has called 
for a merger of EDF and GDF instead. 

The banks are also preparing a key role in sell-offs planned for 
this year by Hans Eichel, the embattled German finance minister, 
who has pledged to bring his country's budget deficit to 2.9% 
after it reached 3.7% in 2004 - the third year in a row it broke 
the EU stability and growth pact's mandatory limit. 

Mr Eichel, who is holding talks with Mr Gaymard in Berlin today, 
could raise between 19bn and 24bn, or more than the proposed 
budget deficit, by selling off more stakes in Deutsche Post, 
Deutsche Telekom and other assets via transfers to the 
state-owned Credit Agency for Reconstruction (KfW). 

By the end of this month the government will have sold off 92% of 
the postal business, netting 8bn in the past four years, 
including 1.7bn this month, and wants to reduce its majority 
stake in Telekom -though the latter's share price has been 
languishing at around 20 after reaching a peak of more than 100. 
	
[UP] 

      Guardian Unlimited Š Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
 17 OMB Watch: NRC Censors Environmental Impact Statement
           
Democracies die behind closed doors   

Published: 01/24/2005 

The public will not have access to health and safety data about a 
proposed uranium enrichment plant in New Mexico, despite a legal 
requirement that the public have ample access to such 
information. 

Louisiana Energy Services plans to build a facility in Eunice,
NM, which is located in the southeast part of the state. The
Nuclear Regulatory Commission oversees such facilities, and the
National Environmental Policy Act requires government agencies,
including NRC, to prepare publicly available Environmental
Impact Statements (EIS) for projects that could damage the
environment, and acknowledge and respond to public comments. 

The process of informing the local community and allowing it to
participate in the decision of locating such plants is
important. In the past, when uranium enrichment plants have been
proposed in communities such as Homer, LA, and Hartsville, TN,
residents concerns about health risks motivated them to
strongly oppose the plants. 

However during the process in the Eunice case, the NRC only
briefly supplied the EIS for the proposed plant but in October
2004, NRC took down its entire website in response to concerns
about access to sensitive information. As a result, the Eunice
EIS was no longer publicly available. 

Then just two weeks prior to the end of the comment period, NRC
posted a significantly redacted version of the EIS, removing
basic health and safety information, including occupational,
transportation and worst-case accident scenarios. This is the
information that the public needs the most in order to comment
on the placement of such a facility in their community. 

The agencys actions blatantly violate public disclosure laws
that have been in place for over 30 years. NRC has intentionally
hampered the publics ability to learn about and provide input
on a project that could greatly impact public heath and safety. 

These concerns are especially important in the case of Louisiana
Energy Services. The companys existing uranium enrichment
facilities at Piketon, OH, and Paducah, KY, reportedly make
plant workers sick and contaminate the areas soil and water
with radioactive uranium. 

Please send NRC Chairman Nils Diaz a letter through our action
alert system condemning NRCs process of railroading the
location of this facility without properly notifying the public
of the associated health risks. 

Š 2005 OMB Watch 1742 Connecticut Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 
20009 202-234-8494 (phone) 202-234-8584 (fax)
*****************************************************************
 18 Slovensko.com: Nuclear power station being assesed - 
 
  [Slovakia]     Tuesday, 25 January 2005 07:30 in Bratislava   

  Mon 24 Jan 05, 18:23    

International Atomic Energy Agency representatives have begun a
two-week conference at Slovakias Nuclear Regulatory Authority
headquarters on Monday in order to analyse risks inherent in
Jaslovske Bohunice's nuclear power station blocks. 

The current plan is to shut down the first block by 2006 and the 
second by 2008. Critics of the plan say that a 2008 deadline for 
both blocks would be safer. 

The International Agencys main goal will be to assess the survey 
of the plant. Six experts from Bulgaria, Russia, Spain, the 
United Kingdom and Switzerland will take part in the missions 
negotiation.           

[[Slovensko.com - Your


  Copyright Š 1998-2004 Slovensko.com  
*****************************************************************
 19 [RADFOOD] Radioactivity in food?!- Action Alert
 
Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2005 00:39:02 -0600 (CST)

 
A few days before Christmas, the Food and Drug Administration quietly
announced that they were granting an industry petition to increase the
permitted energy level of X-rays used to irradiate food.  At this higher
energy level, it is possible for the components of the food to become
"activated" (become radioactive).  The industry claims that any
radioactivity will be short-lived.  But we think it is unacceptable that
consumers should be asked to accept any technology that creates
radioactivity, no matter what the level.  Additionally, the FDA has not
required adequate studies of the changes, chemical or otherwise, that
this increased dose could cause in food.

The higher doses will allow large portions of food to be irradiated in
one blast - such as shipping containers from overseas. This could
increase the already enormous amount of imported meat and produce that
floods U.S. markets, a growing trend that has forced tens of thousands
of American farmers and ranchers out of business.

The FDA has a long history of ignoring the well-documented health
problems associated with irradiated foods, which can be exposed to the
equivalent of up to 1 billion chest X-rays. Numerous health problems
have been observed in lab animals fed irradiated foods, including
premature death, stillbirths, mutations, tumors, organ damage and
stunted growth. And, chemicals formed in irradiated foods called 2-ACBs
have been linked to colon cancer promotion in rats and genetic damage in
human cells.

Send FDA an email to object to their decision to increase the dose of
X-rays used to irradiate food! The email should be sent to
fdadockets@oc.fda.gov, and the subject line MUST be Docket No.
1993F-0357.

-------
Sample letter (also attached to this email in Microsoft Word format)

Re:  Docket No. 2003F-0088 - "Irradiation in the Production,
Processing, and Handling of Food"
To Whom It May Concern:

I am writing to object to your decision to amend the food additive
regulations to establish a new maximum permitted energy level for x-rays
used to irradiate food.  Specifically, I urge the FDA to conduct the
necessary studies to determine what chemical, physical, and other
changes such a change in energy level will cause in food.

I also object to the agency's decision to allow this change knowing
that some amount of radioactivity could be created in food treated with
7.5 MeV.  It is unacceptable for consumers to be asked to tolerate any
amount of radioactivity caused by a food treatment such as irradiation.

A public hearing should be conducted on this matter, so that the public
can raise concerns about this change with the agency.

Sincerely,

***
Audrey Hill
Organizer
Public Citizen
215 Pennsylvania Avenue, SE
Washington, DC 20003
(202) 454-5185

********************
If you would like to be removed from the radfood list, send an email to listserv@listserver.citizen.org with the words "unsubscribe radfood" in the message.

If you would like to be added to the radfood list, send an email to listserv@listserver.citizen.org with the words "subscribe radfood" in the message.

To learn more about food irradiation, visit our website at http://www.citizen.org/cmep/

Questions about the radfood list can be directed to RADFOOD-request@LISTSERVER.CITIZEN.ORG
-Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program

[demime 0.98e removed an attachment of type application/msword which had a name of Docket No. 2003F0088 (Letter).doc]
*****************************************************************
 20 [PUBCIT_PRESS] Bextra, Celebrex, food irradiation
 
Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2005 17:38:04 -0600 (CST)

 
Public Citizen Press Releases
Providing the latest information about Public Citizen activities
-------------------------------------------

Public Citizen released the following Jan. 24, 2005:

Public Citizen Petitions FDA to Take Celebrex and Bextra Off the
Market

COX-2 Inhibitors Pose Heart Risks; Petition Filed Today with FDA

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Public Citizen today petitioned the U.S. Food and
Drug Administration (FDA) to immediately remove two widely prescribed
pain relievers, Celebrex and Bextra, from the market because they
increase the risk of heart attacks in patients. The group also urged the
FDA to cancel plans to approve two other drugs in the same class.

Celebrex (known generically as celecoxib) and Bextra (valdecoxib) are
among the vaunted class of drugs called COX-2 inhibitors, which are
touted as anti-inflammatory agents that cause less gastrointestinal
damage than older, standby pain relievers like aspirin or ibuprofen.
However, not only are their gastrointestinal benefits insignificant,
they elevate the risk of heart attack, Public Citizen's petition says.
In 2004, more than 23.9 million prescriptions were filled in the United
States for Celebrex; 12.9 million for Bextra.

"If a drug offers no unique benefit compared to other drugs for
treating the same problem (in this case arthritis and pain) but subjects
patients to a unique risk, it must be removed from the market," says the
12-page petition. The petition can be viewed at www.worstpills.org.

Vioxx, also a COX-2 inhibitor, was pulled from the market by Merck last
September after a clinical study showed that it increased the risk of
heart attacks.

Public Citizen's petition on Celebrex and Bextra examines the results
of 14 randomized control trials involving the five COX-2 inhibitors, as
well as other published and unpublished scientific information. The
other two COX-2 inhibitors are Prexige (lumiracoxib) and Arcoxia
(etoricoxib), neither of which has been approved for sale by the FDA.
The petition says that clinical studies suggest these drugs exhibit the
same cardiovascular toxicity as Vioxx, Celebrex and Bextra, and should
not be approved.

"The Food and Drug Administration should immediately ban the sale of
Celebrex and Bextra, which put millions of people, many of them elderly,
at risk of heart attack," said Dr. Sidney Wolfe, director of Public
Citizen's Health Research Group. "These drugs are not only more
expensive and more dangerous than older, safer pain relievers, they are
no better at protecting the gastrointestinal tract."

Public Citizen has a long history of identifying unsafe or ineffective
drugs. Vioxx, for example, was the ninth prescription drug to be taken
off the market in the past seven years that Public Citizen had
previously warned consumers not to use. For four of the drugs - Vioxx,
Baycol, Rezulin and Serzone - Public Citizen issued warnings more than
two years before their removal from the market. Public Citizen warned
patients not to use Celebrex three and half years before the government
announced that a study showed increased heart risks.

Public Citizen's Health Research Group recently launched a new Web
site, www.worstpills.org, that provides consumers with comprehensive
information about 538 drugs and warns them of 181 medications that
should not be used because they are either unsafe or ineffective.

###

Rule to Permit Higher Doses of Food Irradiation Is Flawed, Public
Citizen Says

FDA Failed to Consider Long-Term Health Effects of Increased Radiation
Doses

WASHINGTON, D.C. - A recent U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
decision to increase by 50 percent the maximum radiation dose that can
be used to irradiate food raises questions about the health effects of
consuming such food and should be reconsidered, Public Citizen told the
agency today in a letter. Public Citizen believes the rule should be
revoked and is requesting a public hearing.

The rule, on which final comments are due today, would significantly
boost the dose of X-rays that could be used to irradiate fruit,
vegetables, beef, poultry, pork, eggs and spices from 5 million electron
volts to 7.5 million electron volts. The higher doses will allow large
portions of food - such as shipping containers from overseas - to be
irradiated in one blast.

The rule may result in some radioactivity in food depending on the
energy applied, the type of food and how soon it is eaten after it is
irradiated. While the radioactivity is likely to be temporary, questions
about its effect on food and consumers remain. The FDA was reckless to
not assess cancer risks associated with the new rule, the letter said.

The FDA has a long history of ignoring questions about the long-term
effects of eating irradiated food. Numerous health problems have been
observed in lab animals fed irradiated foods, including premature death,
stillbirths, mutations, tumors, organ damage and stunted growth.
Chemicals formed in irradiated foods called 2-alkylcyclobutanones have
been linked to colon cancer in rats and genetic damage in human cells.

"This is a risky call considering there is evidence to suggest that
irradiation's byproducts may be dangerous for our health," said Wenonah
Hauter, director of Public Citizen's food program. "The government's
first priority should be the health and safety of American consumers,
but this ruling is designed to benefit industry. Before issuing a rule
of this magnitude, the FDA should conduct safety studies on how this
increased dosage will affect consumers. Otherwise, we all become guinea
pigs."

To read Public Citizen's letter, go to
http://www.citizen.org/documents/IrradiationCom1-24-05.pdf.

###

Public Citizen is a national, nonprofit consumer advocacy organization
based in Washington, D.C. For more information, please visit
www.citizen.org.

-------------------------------------------
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 21 [DU-WATCH] Freedom toward negligence
 
Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2005 00:43:17 -0600 (CST)

 
"But most ordinary Americans view freedom  ...  [as]  largely a
personal matter having to do with relations with others and success
in the world."

This is the view of freedom which puts about half an aisle of
"different" Coca Cola products in the supermarket, and between 20
and 200 tons of DU oxides in our air and soil.

Notice how I say "our".  Our supermarket shelves in Tasmania are
real estate reflecting commercial ecologies.  Their layout and
"zonation" are likely as predictable in pattern as are the seashores,
given the tides, currents and substrates.  You would fill your
trolley easily enough here, though the brand names would be different
- just like you would recognise a starfish on any seashore.

Distribution patterns of DU, and the consequences of un-necessary
ingestion, appear not to be so intensively studied or comprehensively
understood.  I guess there's no profit to be made by highly
individualised consumption of DU, so it bears little scrutiny in
terms of individual preferences and consequences, or for that matter,
population health. Not a subject of scientific market research.

Notice how I say "Between 20 and 200."  Arguments about the exact
quantity of DU oxides are spurious and distracting .  No-one doubts
there is more than enough to cause fuss, furore and intensive cleanup
efforts in the US (a bit like spilt Coke in the supermarket).  But
not overseas or downwind.

Which motivated me to put the op-ed from NYT below.  I assume that
most readers of these lists are more likely to share the 19th C
liberal conception of freedom than the literal-minded me-first
version.

As opposed to the self-serving idea of "I can do what I want", which
is license and not freedom, and which describes the behaviour of
Bush and his administration, and makes a most unflattering comparison
to spoilt children in the supermarket.

================================= OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR The Speech
Misheard Round the World By ORLANDO PATTERSON

Published: January 22, 2005

Cambridge, Mass. - SINCE 9/11, President Bush and his advisers have
engaged in a series of arguments concerning the relation between
freedom, tyranny and terrorism. The president's inaugural paean to
freedom was the culmination of these arguments.

The stratagem began immediately after 9/11 with the president's
claims that the terrorist attacks were a deliberate assault on
America's freedom. The next stage of the argument came after no
weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq, thus eliminating
the reason for the war, and it took the form of a bogus syllogism:
all terrorists are tyrants who hate freedom. Saddam Hussein is a
tyrant who hates freedom. Therefore Saddam Hussein is a terrorist
whose downfall was a victory in the war against terrorism.

When this bogus syllogism began to lose public appeal, it was shored
up with another flawed argument that was repeated during the campaign:
tyranny breeds terrorism. Freedom is opposed to tyranny. Therefore
the promotion of freedom is the best means of fighting terrorism.

Promoting freedom, of course, is a noble and highly desirable
pursuit. If America were to make the global diffusion of freedom a
central pillar of its foreign policy, it would be cause for joy.
The way the present administration has gone about this task, however,
is likely to have the opposite effect. Moreover, what the president
means by freedom may get lost in translation to the rest of the
world.

The administration's notion of freedom has been especially convenient,
and its promotion of it especially cynical. In the first place,
there is no evidence to support, and no good reason to believe,
that Al Qaeda's attack on America was primarily motivated by a
hatred of freedom. Osama bin Laden is clearly no lover of freedom,
but this is an irrelevance. The attack on America was motivated by
religious and cultural fanaticism.

Second, while it may be implicitly true that all terrorists are
tyrants, it does not follow that all tyrants are terrorists. The
United States, of all nations, should know this. Over the past
century it has supported a succession of tyrannical states with
murderous records of oppression against their own people, none of
which were terrorist states - Argentina and Brazil under military
rule, Augusto Pinochet's Chile, South Africa under apartheid, to
list but a few. Today, one of America's closest allies in the fight
against tyranny is tyrannical Pakistan, and one of its biggest
trading partners is the authoritarian Communist regime of China.

Third, while the goal of promoting democracy is laudable, there is
no evidence that free states are less likely to breed terrorists.
Sadly, the very freedoms guaranteed under the rule of law are likely
to shelter terrorists, especially within states making the transition
from authoritarian to democratic rule. Transitional democratic
states, like Russia today, are more violent than the authoritarian
ones they replaced.

And even advanced democratic regimes have been known to breed
terrorists, the best example being the United States itself. For
more than half a century a terrorist organization, the Ku Klux Klan,
flourished in this country. According to the F.B.I., three of every
four terrorist acts in the United States from 1980 to 2000 were
committed by Americans.

The president speaks eloquently and no doubt sincerely of freedom
both abroad and at home. But it is plain for the world to see that
there is a discrepancy between his words and his actions.

He claims that freedom must be chosen and defended by citizens, yet
his administration is in the process of imposing democracy at the
point of a gun in Iraq. At home, he seeks to "make our society more
prosperous and just and equal," yet during his first term there has
been a great redistribution of income from working people to the
wealthy as well as declining real income and job security for many
Americans. Furthermore, he has presided over the erosion of civil
liberties stemming from the Patriot Act.

Is this pure hypocrisy - or is there another explanation for the
discrepancy, and for Mr. Bush's perplexing sincerity? There is no
gainsaying an element of hypocrisy here. But it is perhaps no greater
than usual in speeches of this nature. The problem is that what the
president means by freedom, and what the world hears when he says
it, are not the same.

In the 20th century two versions of freedom emerged in America. The
modern liberal version emphasizes civil liberties, political
participation and social justice. It is the version formally extolled
by the federal government, debated by philosophers and taught in
schools; it still informs the American judicial system. And it is
the version most treasured by foreigners who struggle for freedom
in their own countries.

But most ordinary Americans view freedom in quite different terms.
In their minds, freedom has been radically privatized. Its most
striking feature is what is left out: politics, civic participation
and the celebration of traditional rights, for instance. Freedom
is largely a personal matter having to do with relations with others
and success in the world.

Freedom, in this conception, means doing what one wants and getting
one's way. It is measured in terms of one's independence and autonomy,
on the one hand, and one's influence and power, on the other. It
is experienced most powerfully in mobility - both socioeconomic and
geographic.

In many ways this is the triumph of the classic 19th-century version
of freedom, the version that philosophers and historians preached
but society never quite achieved. This 19th-century freedom must
now coexist with the more modern version of freedom. It does so by
acknowledging the latter but not necessarily including it.

It is not that Americans have rejected the formal model of freedom
- ask any American if he believes in democracy and a free press and
he will genuinely endorse both. Rather it is that such abstract
notions of freedom are far removed from their notion of what freedom
means and how it is experienced.

The genius of President Bush is that he has acquired an exquisite
grasp of this development in American political culture, and he can
play both versions of freedom to his advantage. Because he so easily
empathizes with the ordinary American's privatized view of freedom,
the president was relatively immune from criticism that he disregarded
more traditional measures of freedom like civil liberties. In the
privatized conception of freedom that he and his followers share,
the abuses of the Patriot Act play little or no part. (There are
times, of course, when the president must voice support for the
modern liberal version of freedom. The inaugural is such a day,
"prescribed by law and marked by ceremony," as he ruefully noted.)

Yet while these inconsistencies may not bother the president's
followers or harm his standing in America, they matter to the rest
of the world. Few foreigners are even aware of America's hybrid
conception of freedom, much less accepting of it. In most of the
rest of the world, the president's inaugural address was heard
merely as hypocrisy.

Orlando Patterson, a professor of sociology at Harvard, is the
author of "Freedom in the Making of Western Culture" and a forthcoming
book on the meaning of freedom in the United States.

----------

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 22 [EMMAS] The Cork is Off the Bottle - Nuclear  Incident in
 
Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2005 22:58:24 -0600 (CST)

 
  January 22 / 24, 2005
A CounterPunch  Exclusive
The Cork is Off the Bottle
Nuclear  Incident in Montana
By  JENNIFER VAN BERGEN
  and RAYMOND DEL PAPA

A retired high-level government source  was called yesterday to respond
to a nuclear incident in Montana.  Apparently the silo doors of
numerous ICBM missiles were opened.

Two such incidents during the  Cold War era nearly started World War
III. When silo doors open,  it indicates the intention to launch
missiles against another  nation.

According to an essay published  by the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation
(NAPF), an organization dedicated  to abolition of nuclear weapons:
"The US experienced several  near-accidents at its Cheyenne Mountain
early warning station  in the late 1970s. Twice, the equipment at the
base generated  false indications of a nuclear missile strike from
Russia and  nearly prompted US retaliation on both occasions."

According to Phil Patton, author  of "Dreamland: A Cultural History of
Area 51," an incident  also occurred in 1980 in which "a multiplexer
chip failed  in a Nova 840 computer and sent a false missile warning to
the  national command center." Pattons says that it was the second
such incident in less than a year. "In the first one, fake  data from a
war-sim was mistaken for the real thing, and the Pentagon was notified
that a  Soviet missile strike was under way. It took about eight
minutes  to determine that the end of the world was not, in fact, at
hand."

Today, there are 200 Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles at Malmstrom
Air Force Base at five missile  alert facilities in Montana, with four
operational missile squadrons  assigned as combat-ready forces to
continuously operate, maintain,  and secure "strategic nuclear
deterrence."

One of these squadrons declares  on its web page that its squadron
works "every day of the  year, 24 hours per day" to "keep America free
by operating  and safeguarding her most destructive power."

According to the NAPF essayist,  Justin Murray, "Despite the end of the
Cold War, the United  States and Russia once again find themselves on
the brink of  a nuclear Armageddon," but the threat "does not stem
from hostilities or a premeditated, intentional strike but from
miscalculation and computer errors." Murray states that  both the U.S.
and Russia maintain thousands of nuclear weapons  in launch warning
mode. While launch procedures in the U.S. demand  almost instantaneous
decision-making by the President, the situation  in Russia is even more
hazardous, where decay of early warning  systems elevate the
possibility of false alarms.

Of course, the unasked and  unanswered question here is: what about
terrorists?

There seems to be no indication  that the incident in Montana is a
terrorist-related one. However,  the incident begs two crucial
questions: first, are our systems  inadequately protected?, and second,
does the increase in development  of more nuclear weapons under
President Bush create greater dangers?  (We already have approximately
9600 warheads and are talking about developing a new line of small
nuclear weapons called "bunker busters.")

The answers are no and no.

First, the systems are inadequately  protected because whenever you
have a very sophisticated electronic  system (and, in this case,
systems), there is the potential for  an accident - and already there
have been enough incidents to warrant shutting these dangerous systems
down.

Second, there is no such thing  as adequate control of nuclear weapons.
Their management and  control simply cannot be guaranteed. The return
to proliferation  of nuclear weapons is risking an End Game - THE End
Game. Although we might labor under the false belief that the Nuclear
Genie is back in the bottle, even if she is, the cork is definitely
not on.

The incident in Montana, which  may never make it into the mainstream
press, proves this.
----------
Jennifer Van Bergen, J.D., is the author of The  Twilight of Democracy:
The Bush Plan for America (Common  Courage Press, 2004). She has
written and spoken extensively  on civil liberties, human rights, and
international law. She  and Raymond Del Papa are currently organizing a
major  Forum on Dissent Since 9/11 in Miami from March 11-13. See
www.partnersinprotest.org.  She may be contacted at
jvbxyz@earthlink.net
==============
***NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this
material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a
prior interest in receiving the included information for research and
educational purposes.***

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zeal, courage, the non-compromising determination of intelligent
minorities, and not through the mass."  Emma Goldman

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 23 [southnews] The horror of DU not limited to Iraq
 
Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2005 23:53:29 -0600 (CST)

 
'Im horrified. The people out there  the Iraqis, the media and the
troops  risk the most appalling ill health. And the radiation from
depleted uranium can travel literally anywhere. Its going to destroy
the lives of thousands of children, all over the world. We all know
how far radiation can travel

The horror of Depleted Uranium is not limited to Iraq  it may well
be at our doorsteps

James Denver

The information which some governments are concealing is presented
here.

January 22, 2005

'Im horrified. The people out there  the Iraqis, the media and the
troops  risk the most appalling ill health. And the radiation from
depleted uranium can travel literally anywhere. Its going to destroy
the lives of thousands of children, all over the world. We all know
how far radiation can travel. Radiation from Chernobyl reached Wales
and in Britain you sometimes get red dust from the Sahara on your
car.

The speaker is not some alarmist doom-sayer. He is Dr Chris Busby,
the British radiation expert, Fellow of the University of Liverpool
in the Faculty of Medicine and UK representative on the European
Committee on Radiation Risk, talking about the best kept secret of
this war: the fact that, by illegally using hundreds of tons of
depleted uranium (DU) against Iraq, Britain and America have gravely
endangered not only the Iraqis but the whole world. For these weapons
have released deadly, carcinogenic and mutagenic, radioactive
particles in such abundance that whipped up by sandstorms and carried
on trade winds  there is no corner of the globe they cannot penetrate
including Britain. For the wind has no boundaries and time is on
their side: the radioactivity persists for over 4,500,000,000 years
and can cause cancer, leukaemia, brain damage, kidney failure, and
extreme birth defects  killing millions of every age for centuries
to come. A crime against humanity which may, in the eyes of historians,
rank with the worst atrocities of all time.

These weapons have released deadly, carcinogenic and mutagenic,
radioactive particles in such abundance that there is no corner of
the globe they cannot penetrate  including Britain.

Yet, officially, no crime has been committed. For this story is a
dirty story in which the facts have been concealed from those who
needed them most. It is also a story we need to know if the people
of Iraq are to get the medical care they desperately need, and if
our troops, returning from Iraq, are not to suffer as terribly as
the veterans of other conflicts in which depleted uranium was used.

A dirty Tyson

Depleted uranium is in many ways a misnomer. For depleted sounds
weak. The only weak thing about depleted uranium is its price. It
is dirt cheap, toxic, waste from nuclear power plants and bomb
production.

However, uranium is one of earths heaviest elements and DU packs a
Tysons punch, smashing through tanks, buildings and bunkers with
equal ease, spontaneously catching fire as it does so, and burning
people alive. Crispy critters is what US servicemen call those
unfortunate enough to be close. And, when John Pilger encountered
children killed at a greater distance he wrote: The childrens skin
had folded back, like parchment, revealing veins and burnt flesh
that seeped blood, while the eyes, intact, stared straight ahead.
I vomited. (Daily Mirror)

The millions of radioactive uranium oxide particles released when
it burns can kill just as surely, but far more terribly. They can
even be so tiny they pass through a gas mask, making protection
against them impossible. Yet, small is not beautiful. For these
invisible killers indiscriminately attack men, women, children and
even babies in the womb and do the gravest harm of all to children
and unborn babies.

A terrible legacy

Doctors in Iraq have estimated that birth defects have increased
by 2-6 times, and 3-12 times as many children have developed cancer
and leukaemia since 1991. Moreover, a report published in The Lancet
in 1998 said that as many as 500 children a day are dying from these
sequels to war and sanctions and that the death rate for Iraqi
children under 5 years of age increased from 23 per 1000 in 1989
to 166 per thousand in 1993. Overall, cases of lymphoblastic leukemia
more than quadrupled with other cancers also increasing at an
alarming rate. In men, lung, bladder, bronchus, skin, and stomach
cancers showed the highest increase. In women, the highest increases
were in breast and bladder cancer, and non-Hodgkin lymphoma (.1)

On hearing that DU had been used in the Gulf in 1991, the UK Atomic
Energy Authority sent the Ministry of Defence a special report on
the potential damage to health and the environment. It said that
it could cause half a million additional cancer deaths in Iraq over
10 years. In that war the authorities only admitted to using 320
tons of DU although the Dutch charity LAKA estimates the true figure
is closer to 800 tons. Many times that may have been spread across
Iraq by this years war. The devastating damage all this DU will do
to the health and fertility of the people of Iraq now, and for
generations to come, is beyond imagining.

The radioactivity persists for over 4,500,000,000 years killing
millions of every age for centuries to come. This is a crime against
humanity which may rank with the worst atrocities of all time.

We must also count the numberless thousands of miscarried babies.
Nobody knows how many Iraqis have died in the womb since DU
contaminated their world. But it is suggested that troops who were
only exposed to DU for the brief period of the war were still
excreting uranium in their semen 8 years later and some had 100
times the so called safe limit of uranium in their urine. The lack
of government interest in the plight of veterans of the 1991 war
is reflected in a lack of academic research on the impact of DU but
informal research has found a high incidence of birth defects in
their children and that the wives of men who served in Iraq have
three times more miscarriages than the wives of servicemen who did
not go there.

Since DU darkened the land Iraq has seen birth defects which would
break a heart of stone: babies with terribly foreshortened limbs,
with their intestines outside their bodies, with huge bulging tumours
where their eyes should be, or with a single eye  like Cyclops, or
without eyes, or without limbs, and even without heads. Significantly,
some of the defects are almost unknown outside textbooks showing
the babies born near A-bomb test sites in the Pacific. Doctors
report that many women no longer say Is it a girl or a boy? but
simply, Is it normal, doctor?

Moreover this terrible legacy will not end. The genes of their
parents may have been damaged for ever, and the damaging DU dust
is ever-present.

Blue on blue

What the governments of America and Britain have done to the people
of Iraq they have also done to their own soldiers, in both wars.
And they have done it knowingly. For the battlefields have been
thick with DU and soldiers have had to enter areas heavily contaminated
by bombing.

Moreover, their bodies have not only been assaulted by DU but also
by a vaccination regime which violated normal protocols, experimental
vaccines, nerve agent pills, and organophosphate pesticides in their
tents. Yet, though the hazards of DU were known, British and American
troops were not warned of its dangers. Nor were they given thorough
medical checks on their return  even though identifying it quickly
might have made it possible to remove some of it from their body.
Then, when a growing number became seriously ill, and should have
been sent to top experts in radiation damage and neurotoxins, many
were sent to a psychiatrist.

Over 200,000 US troops who returned from the 1991 war are now
invalided out with ailments officially attributed to service in
Iraq  thats 1 in 3. In contrast, the British governments failure
to fully assess the health of returning troops, or to monitor their
health, means no one even knows how many have died or become gravely
ill since their return.

However, Gulf veterans associations say that, of 40,000 or so
fighting fit men and women who saw active service, at least 572
have died prematurely since coming home and 5000 may be ill. An
alarming number are thought to have taken their own lives, unable
to bear the torment of the innumerable ailments which have combined
to take away their career, their sexuality, their ability to have
normal children, and even their ability to breathe or walk normally.
As one veteran puts it, they are on DU death row, waiting to die.

Whatever other factors there may be, some of their illnesses are
strikingly similar to those of Iraqis exposed to DU dust. For
example, soldiers have also fathered children without eyes. And,
in a group of eight servicemen whose babies lack eyes seven are
known to have been directly exposed to DU dust. They too have
fathered children with stunted arms, and rare abnormalities classically
associated with radiation damage. They too seem prone to cancer and
leukaemia.

Tellingly, so are EU soldiers who served as peacekeepers in the
Balkans, where DU was also used. Indeed their leukaemia rate has
been so high that several EU governments have protested at the use
of DU.

The vital evidence

Despite all that evidence of the harm done by DU, governments on
both sides of the Atlantic have repeatedly claimed that as it emits
only low level radiation DU is harmless. Award winning scientist,
Dr Rosalie Bertell who has led UN medical commissions, has studied
low level radiation for 30 years.(2 )She has found that uranium
oxide particles have more than enough power to harm cells, and
describes their pulses of radiation as hitting surrounding cells
like flashes of lightning again and again in a single second.(2)
Like many scientists worldwide who have studied this type of
radiation, she has found that such lightning strikes can damage DNA
and cause cell mutations which lead to cancer.

Moreover, these particles can be taken up by body fluids and travel
through the body, damaging more than one organ. To compound all
that Dr Bertell has found that this particular type of radiation
can cause the bodys communication systems to break down, leading
to malfunctions in many vital organs of the body and to many medical
problems. A striking fact, since many veterans of the first Gulf
war suffer from innumerable, seemingly unrelated, ailments.

In addition, recent research by Eric Wright, Professor of Experimental
Haematology at Dundee University, and others, have shown two ways
in which such radiation can do far more damage than has been thought.
The first is that a cell which seems unharmed by radiation can
produce cells with diverse mutations several cell generations later.
(And mutations are at the root of cancer and birth defects.) This
radiation induced genomic instability is compounded by the bystander
effect by which cells mutate in unison with others which have been
damaged by radiation rather as birds swoop and turn in unison. Put
together, these two mechanisms can greatly increase the damage done
by a single source of radiation, such as a DU particle. Moreover,
it is now clear that there are marked genetic differences in the
way individuals respond to radiation  with some being far more
likely to develop cancer than others. So the fact that some veterans
of the first Gulf war seem relatively unharmed by their exposure
to DU in no way proves that DU did not damage others.

The price of truth

That the evidence from Iraq and from our troops, and the research
findings of such experts, have been ignored may be no accident. A
US report, leaked in late 1995, allegedly says, The potential for
health effects from DU exposure is real; however it must be viewed
in perspective... the financial implications of long-term disability
payments and healthcare costs would be excessive.(3)

Clearly, with hundreds of thousands gravely ill in Iraq and at least
a quarter of a million UK and US troops seriously ill, huge disability
claims might be made not only against the governments of Britain
and America if the harm done by DU were acknowledged. There might
also be huge claims against companies making DU weapons and some
of their directors are said to be extremely close to the White
House. How close they are to Downing Street is a matter for
speculation, but arms sales makes a considerable contribution to
British trade. So the massive whitewashing of DU over the past 12
years, and the way that governments have failed to test returning
troops, seemed to disbelieve them, and washed their hands of them,
may be purely to save money.

The possibility that financial considerations have led the governments
of Britain and America to cynically avoid taking responsibility for
the harm they have done not only to the people of Iraq but to their
own troops may seem outlandish. Yet DU weapons werent used by the
other side and no other explanation fits the evidence. For, in the
days before Britain and America first used DU in war its hazards
were no secret.(4) One American study in 1990 said DU was linked
to cancer when exposures are internal, [and to] chemical toxicity
causing kidney damage. While another openly warned that exposure
to these particles under battlefield conditions could lead to cancers
of the lung and bone, kidney damage, non-malignant lung disease,
neuro-cognitive disorders, chromosomal damage and birth defects.(5)

A culture of denial

In 1996 and 1997 UN Human Rights Tribunals condemned DU weapons for
illegally breaking the Geneva Convention and classed them as weapons
of mass destruction incompatible with international humanitarian
and human rights law. Since then, following leukaemia in European
peacekeeping troops in the Balkans and Afghanistan (where DU was
also used), the EU has twice called for DU weapons to be banned.

Yet, far from banning DU, America and Britain stepped up their
denials of the harm from this radioactive dust as more and more
troops from the first Gulf war and from action and peacekeeping in
the Balkan and Afghanistan have become seriously ill. This is no
coincidence. In 1997, while citing experiments, by others, in which
84 percent of dogs exposed to inhaled uranium died of cancer of the
lungs, Dr Asaf Durakovic, then Professor of Radiology and Nuclear
Medicine at Georgetown University in Washington was quoted as saying,
The [US governments] Veteran Administration asked me to lie about
the risks of incorporating depleted uranium in the human body. He
concluded, uranium does cause cancer, uranium does cause mutation,
and uranium does kill. If we continue with the irresponsible
contamination of the biosphere, and denial of the fact that human
life is endangered by the deadly isotope uranium, then we are doing
disservice to ourselves, disservice to the truth, disservice to God
and to all generations who follow. Not what the authorities wanted
to hear and his research was suddenly blocked.

During 12 years of ever-growing British whitewash the authorities
have abolished military hospitals, where there could have been
specialized research on the effects of DU and where expertise in
treating DU victims could have built up. And, not content with the
insult of suggesting the gravely disabling symptoms of Gulf veterans
are imaginary they have refused full pensions to many. For, despite
all the evidence to the contrary, the current House of Commons
briefing paper on DU hazards says it is judged that any radiation
effects frompossible exposures are extremely unlikely to be a
contributory factor to the illnesses currently being experienced
by some Gulf war veterans. Note how over a quarter of a million
sick and dying US and UK vets are called some.

The way ahead

Britain and America not only used DU in this years Iraq war, they
dramatically increased its use  from a minimum of 320 tons in the
previous war to at minimum of 1500 tons in this one. And this time
the use of DU wasnt limited to anti-tank weapons  as it had largely
been in the previous Gulf war  but was extended to the guided
missiles, large bunker busters and big 2000 pound bombs used in
Iraqs cities.

This means that Iraqs cities have been blanketed in lethal particles
any one of which can cause cancer or deform a child. In addition,
the use of DU in huge bombs which throw the deadly particles higher
and wider in huge plumes of smoke means that billions of deadly
particles have been carried high into the air  again and again and
again as the bombs rained down  ready to be swept worldwide by the
winds.

The Royal Society has suggested the solution is massive decontamination
in Iraq. That could only scratch the surface. For decontamination
is hugely expensive and, though it may reduce the risks in some of
the worst areas, it cannot fully remove them. For DU is too widespread
on land and water. How do you clean up every nook and cranny of a
city the size of Baghdad? How can they decontaminate a whole country
in which microscopic particles, which cannot be detected with a
normal geiger counter, are spread from border to border? And how
can they clean up all the countries downwind of Iraq  and, indeed,
the world?

So there are only two things we can do to mitigate this crime against
humanity. The first is to provide the best possible medical care
for the people of Iraq, for our returning troops and for those who
served in the last Gulf war and, through that, minimize their
suffering. The second is to relegate war, and the production and
sale of weapons, to the scrap heap of history  along with slavery
and genocide. Then, and only then, will this crime against humanity
be expunged, and the tragic deaths from this war truly bring freedom
to the people of Iraq, and of the world.

Read the full article in issue 60 of Caduceus... :

http://www.caduceus.info/backissues.htm

References

1. The Lancet volume 351, issue 9103, 28 February 1998.

2. Rosalie Bertells book Planet Earth the Latest Weapon of War was
reviewed in Caduceus issue 51, page 28.

3.www.gulflink.osd.mil/du_ii/du_ii_tabl1.htm#TABL_ResearchRepo
rtSummaries

4.www.wagingpeace.org/articles/02.01/020117moret.htm The secret
official memorandum to Brigadier General L.R.Groves from Drs Conant,
Compton and Urey of War Department Manhattan district dated October
1943 is available at the website
www.mindfully.org/Nucs/2003/Leuren-MoretGenGroves21feb03.htm

5.www.gulflink.osd.mil/du_iitab11.htm#tabL_researchreportsumma ries

:: The original address of this article is :

www.caduceus.info/articles/denver.htm

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 24 [du-list] The horror of Depleted Uranium is n ot limited to Iraq
 
Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2005 15:22:48 -0800

 
<x-flowed>

The horror of Depleted Uranium is not limited to Iraq ­ it
may well be at our doorsteps

The information which some governments are concealing is
presented here.

James Denver
January 22, 2005

http://www.uruknet.info?p=9084

:: The original address of this article is :
http://www.caduceus.info/articles/denver.htm

'Im horrified. The people out there ­ the Iraqis, the media
and the troops ­ risk the most appalling ill health. And the
radiation from depleted uranium can travel literally
anywhere. Its going to destroy the lives of thousands of
children, all over the world. We all know how far radiation
can travel. Radiation from Chernobyl reached Wales and in
Britain you sometimes get red dust from the Sahara on your car.

The speaker is not some alarmist doom-sayer. He is Dr Chris
Busby, the British radiation expert, Fellow of the
University of Liverpool in the Faculty of Medicine and UK
representative on the European Committee on Radiation Risk,
talking about the best kept secret of this war: the fact
that, by illegally using hundreds of tons of depleted
uranium (DU) against Iraq, Britain and America have gravely
endangered not only the Iraqis but the whole world. For
these weapons have released deadly, carcinogenic and
mutagenic, radioactive particles in such abundance that ­
whipped up by sandstorms and carried on trade winds ­ there
is no corner of the globe they cannot penetrate ­ including
Britain. For the wind has no boundaries and time is on their
side: the radioactivity persists for over 4,500,000,000
years and can cause cancer, leukaemia, brain damage, kidney
failure, and extreme birth defects ­ killing millions of
every age for centuries to come. A crime against humanity
which may, in the eyes of historians, rank with the worst
atrocities of all time.

These weapons have released deadly, carcinogenic and
mutagenic, radioactive particles in such abundance that
there is no corner of the globe they cannot penetrate ­
including Britain.

Yet, officially, no crime has been committed. For this story
is a dirty story in which the facts have been concealed from
those who needed them most. It is also a story we need to
know if the people of Iraq are to get the medical care they
desperately need, and if our troops, returning from Iraq,
are not to suffer as terribly as the veterans of other
conflicts in which depleted uranium was used.

A dirty Tyson

Depleted uranium is in many ways a misnomer. For
depleted sounds weak. The only weak thing about depleted
uranium is its price. It is dirt cheap, toxic, waste from
nuclear power plants and bomb production. However, uranium
is one of earths heaviest elements and DU packs a Tysons
punch, smashing through tanks, buildings and bunkers with
equal ease, spontaneously catching fire as it does so, and
burning people alive. Crispy critters is what US
servicemen call those unfortunate enough to be close. And,
when John Pilger encountered children killed at a greater
distance he wrote: The childrens skin had folded back,
like parchment, revealing veins and burnt flesh that seeped
blood, while the eyes, intact, stared straight ahead. I
vomited. (Daily Mirror)

The millions of radioactive uranium oxide particles released
when it burns can kill just as surely, but far more
terribly. They can even be so tiny they pass through a gas
mask, making protection against them impossible. Yet, small
is not beautiful. For these invisible killers
indiscriminately attack men, women, children and even babies
in the womb ­ and do the gravest harm of all to children and
unborn babies.

A terrible legacy

Doctors in Iraq have estimated that birth defects have
increased by 2-6 times, and 3-12 times as many children have
developed cancer and leukaemia since 1991. Moreover, a
report published in The Lancet in 1998 said that as many as
500 children a day are dying from these sequels to war and
sanctions and that the death rate for Iraqi children under 5
years of age increased from 23 per 1000 in 1989 to 166 per
thousand in 1993. Overall, cases of lymphoblastic leukemia
more than quadrupled with other cancers also increasing at
an alarming rate. In men, lung, bladder, bronchus, skin,
and stomach cancers showed the highest increase. In women,
the highest increases were in breast and bladder cancer, and
non-Hodgkin lymphoma (.1)

On hearing that DU had been used in the Gulf in 1991, the UK
Atomic Energy Authority sent the Ministry of Defence a
special report on the potential damage to health and the
environment. It said that it could cause half a million
additional cancer deaths in Iraq over 10 years. In that war
the authorities only admitted to using 320 tons of DU ­
although the Dutch charity LAKA estimates the true figure is
closer to 800 tons. Many times that may have been spread
across Iraq by this years war. The devastating damage all
this DU will do to the health and fertility of the people of
Iraq now, and for generations to come, is beyond imagining.

The radioactivity persists for over 4,500,000,000 years
killing millions of every age for centuries to come. This is
a crime against humanity which may rank with the worst
atrocities of all time.

We must also count the numberless thousands of miscarried
babies. Nobody knows how many Iraqis have died in the womb
since DU contaminated their world. But it is suggested that
troops who were only exposed to DU for the brief period of
the war were still excreting uranium in their semen 8 years
later and some had 100 times the so called safe limit of
uranium in their urine. The lack of government interest in
the plight of veterans of the 1991 war is reflected in a
lack of academic research on the impact of DU but informal
research has found a high incidence of birth defects in
their children and that the wives of men who served in Iraq
have three times more miscarriages than the wives of
servicemen who did not go there.

Since DU darkened the land Iraq has seen birth defects which
would break a heart of stone: babies with terribly
foreshortened limbs, with their intestines outside their
bodies, with huge bulging tumours where their eyes should
be, or with a single eye ­ like Cyclops, or without eyes, or
without limbs, and even without heads. Significantly, some
of the defects are almost unknown outside textbooks showing
the babies born near A-bomb test sites in the Pacific.
Doctors report that many women no longer say Is it a girl
or a boy? but simply, Is it normal, doctor? Moreover this
terrible legacy will not end. The genes of their parents may
have been damaged for ever, and the damaging DU dust is
ever-present.

Blue on blue

What the governments of America and Britain have done to the
people of Iraq they have also done to their own soldiers, in
both wars. And they have done it knowingly. For the
battlefields have been thick with DU and soldiers have had
to enter areas heavily contaminated by bombing. Moreover,
their bodies have not only been assaulted by DU but also by
a vaccination regime which violated normal protocols,
experimental vaccines, nerve agent pills, and
organophosphate pesticides in their tents. Yet, though the
hazards of DU were known, British and American troops were
not warned of its dangers. Nor were they given thorough
medical checks on their return ­ even though identifying it
quickly might have made it possible to remove some of it
from their body. Then, when a growing number became
seriously ill, and should have been sent to top experts in
radiation damage and neurotoxins, many were sent to a
psychiatrist.

Over 200,000 US troops who returned from the 1991 war are
now invalided out with ailments officially attributed to
service in Iraq ­ thats 1 in 3. In contrast, the British
governments failure to fully assess the health of returning
troops, or to monitor their health, means no one even knows
how many have died or become gravely ill since their return.
However, Gulf veterans associations say that, of 40,000 or
so fighting fit men and women who saw active service, at
least 572 have died prematurely since coming home and 5000
may be ill. An alarming number are thought to have taken
their own lives, unable to bear the torment of the
innumerable ailments which have combined to take away their
career, their sexuality, their ability to have normal
children, and even their ability to breathe or walk
normally. As one veteran puts it, they are on DU death row,
waiting to die.

Whatever other factors there may be, some of their illnesses
are strikingly similar to those of Iraqis exposed to DU
dust. For example, soldiers have also fathered children
without eyes. And, in a group of eight servicemen whose
babies lack eyes seven are known to have been directly
exposed to DU dust. They too have fathered children with
stunted arms, and rare abnormalities classically associated
with radiation damage. They too seem prone to cancer and
leukaemia. Tellingly, so are EU soldiers who served as
peacekeepers in the Balkans, where DU was also used. Indeed
their leukaemia rate has been so high that several EU
governments have protested at the use of DU.

The vital evidence

Despite all that evidence of the harm done by DU,
governments on both sides of the Atlantic have repeatedly
claimed that as it emits only low level radiation DU is
harmless. Award winning scientist, Dr Rosalie Bertell who
has led UN medical commissions, has studied low level
radiation for 30 years.(2 )She has found that uranium oxide
particles have more than enough power to harm cells, and
describes their pulses of radiation as hitting surrounding
cells like flashes of lightning again and again in a
single second.(2) Like many scientists worldwide who have
studied this type of radiation, she has found that such
lightning strikes can damage DNA and cause cell mutations
which lead to cancer. Moreover, these particles can be taken
up by body fluids and travel through the body, damaging more
than one organ. To compound all that Dr Bertell has found
that this particular type of radiation can cause the bodys
communication systems to break down, leading to malfunctions
in many vital organs of the body and to many medical
problems. A striking fact, since many veterans of the first
Gulf war suffer from innumerable, seemingly unrelated, ailments.

In addition, recent research by Eric Wright, Professor of
Experimental Haematology at Dundee University, and others,
have shown two ways in which such radiation can do far more
damage than has been thought. The first is that a cell which
seems unharmed by radiation can produce cells with diverse
mutations several cell generations later. (And mutations are
at the root of cancer and birth defects.) This radiation
induced genomic instability is compounded by the bystander
effect by which cells mutate in unison with others which
have been damaged by radiation ­ rather as birds swoop and
turn in unison. Put together, these two mechanisms can
greatly increase the damage done by a single source of
radiation, such as a DU particle. Moreover, it is now clear
that there are marked genetic differences in the way
individuals respond to radiation ­ with some being far more
likely to develop cancer than others. So the fact that some
veterans of the first Gulf war seem relatively unharmed by
their exposure to DU in no way proves that DU did not damage
others.

The price of truth

That the evidence from Iraq and from our troops, and the
research findings of such experts, have been ignored may be
no accident. A US report, leaked in late 1995, allegedly
says, The potential for health effects from DU exposure is
real; however it must be viewed in perspective... the
financial implications of long-term disability payments and
healthcare costs would be excessive.(3)

Clearly, with hundreds of thousands gravely ill in Iraq and
at least a quarter of a million UK and US troops seriously
ill, huge disability claims might be made not only against
the governments of Britain and America if the harm done by
DU were acknowledged. There might also be huge claims
against companies making DU weapons and some of their
directors are said to be extremely close to the White House.
How close they are to Downing Street is a matter for
speculation, but arms sales makes a considerable
contribution to British trade. So the massive whitewashing
of DU over
the past 12 years, and the way that governments have failed
to test returning troops, seemed to disbelieve them, and
washed their hands of them, may be purely to save money.

The possibility that financial considerations have led the
governments of Britain and America to cynically avoid taking
responsibility for the harm they have done not only to the
people of Iraq but to their own troops may seem outlandish.
Yet DU weapons werent used by the other side and no other
explanation fits the evidence. For, in the days before
Britain and America first used DU in war its hazards were no
secret.(4 O)ne American study in 1990 said DU was linked to
cancer when exposures are internal, [and to] chemical
toxicity ­ causing kidney damage. While another openly
warned that exposure to these particles under battlefield
conditions could lead to cancers of the lung and bone,
kidney damage, non-malignant lung disease, neuro-cognitive
disorders, chromosomal damage and birth defects(.5)

A culture of denial

In 1996 and 1997 UN Human Rights Tribunals condemned DU
weapons for illegally breaking the Geneva Convention and
classed them as weapons of mass destruction incompatible
with international humanitarian and human rights law. Since
then, following leukaemia in European peacekeeping troops in
the Balkans and Afghanistan (where DU was also used), the EU
has twice called for DU weapons to be banned.

Yet, far from banning DU, America and Britain stepped up
their denials of the harm from this radioactive dust as more
and more troops from the first Gulf war and from action and
peacekeeping in the Balkan and Afghanistan have become
seriously ill. This is no coincidence. In 1997, while citing
experiments, by others, in which 84 percent of dogs exposed
to inhaled uranium died of cancer of the lungs, Dr Asaf
Durakovic, then Professor of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine
at Georgetown University in Washington was quoted as saying,
The [US governments] Veteran Administration asked me to
lie about the risks of incorporating depleted uranium in the
human body. He concluded, uranium does cause cancer,
uranium does cause mutation, and uranium does kill. If we
continue with the irresponsible contamination of the
biosphere, and denial of the fact that human life is
endangered by the deadly isotope uranium, then we are doing
disservice to ourselves, disservice to the truth, disservice
to God and to all generations who follow. Not what the
authorities wanted to hear and his research was suddenly
blocked.

During 12 years of ever-growing British whitewash the
authorities have abolished military hospitals, where there
could have been specialized research on the effects of DU
and where expertise in treating DU victims could have built
up. And, not content with the insult of suggesting the
gravely disabling symptoms of Gulf veterans are imaginary
they have refused full pensions to many. For, despite all
the evidence to the contrary, the current House of Commons
briefing paper on DU hazards says it is judged that any
radiation effects frompossible exposures are extremely
unlikely to be a contributory factor to the illnesses
currently being experienced by some Gulf war veterans. Note
how over a quarter of a million sick and dying US and UK
vets are called some.

The way ahead

Britain and America not only used DU in this years Iraq
war, they dramatically increased its use ­ from a minimum of
320 tons in the previous war to at minimum of 1500 tons in
this one. And this time the use of DU wasnt limited to
anti-tank weapons ­ as it had largely been in the previous
Gulf war ­ but was extended to the guided missiles, large
bunker busters and big 2000 pound bombs used in Iraqs
cities. This means that Iraqs cities have been blanketed in
lethal particles ­ any one of which can cause cancer or
deform a child. In addition, the use of DU in huge bombs
which throw the deadly particles higher and wider in huge
plumes of smoke means that billions of deadly particles have
been carried high into the air ­ again and again and again
as the bombs rained down ­ ready to be swept worldwide by
the winds.

The Royal Society has suggested the solution is massive
decontamination in Iraq. That could only scratch the
surface. For decontamination is hugely expensive and, though
it may reduce the risks in some of the worst areas, it
cannot fully remove them. For DU is too widespread on land
and water. How do you clean up every nook and cranny of a
city the size of Baghdad? How can they decontaminate a whole
country in which microscopic particles, which cannot be
detected with a normal geiger counter, are spread from
border to border? And how can they clean up all the
countries downwind of Iraq ­ and, indeed, the world?

So there are only two things we can do to mitigate this
crime against humanity. The first is to provide the best
possible medical care for the people of Iraq, for our
returning troops and for those who served in the last Gulf
war and, through that, minimize their suffering. The second
is to relegate war, and the production and sale of weapons,
to the scrap heap of history ­ along with slavery and
genocide. Then, and only then, will this crime against
humanity be expunged, and the tragic deaths from this war
truly bring freedom to the people of Iraq, and of the world.

Read the full article in issue 60 of Caduceus... :
http://www.caduceus.info/backissues.htm

References

1. The Lancet volume 351, issue 9103, 28 February 1998.

2. Rosalie Bertells book Planet Earth the Latest Weapon of
War was reviewed in Caduceus issue 51, page 28.

3.
http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/du_ii/du_ii_tabl1.htm#TABL_ResearchRepo
rtSummaries

4. http://www.wagingpeace.org/articles/02.01/020117moret.htm
The secret official memorandum to Brigadier General
L.R.Groves from Drs Conant, Compton and Urey of War
Department Manhattan district dated October 1943 is
available at the website
www.mindfully.org/Nucs/2003/Leuren-Moret-GenGroves21feb03.ht
m

5.
http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/du_iitab11.htm#tabL_researchreportsumma
ries


-- 

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</x-flowed>
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 25 Bellona: Japan to finance scrapping of five Russian nuclear subs in 2005 

Russia and Japan intend to jointly begin operations to scrap
five Russian nuclear submarines in 2005. 

2005-01-24 18:07

Sergei Antipov, deputy head of the Federal Agency for Nuclear
Energy (Rosatom), stated this on January 13. The decision was
made at the 24th meeting of the board of the Russian-Japanese
committee on co-operation in disposing of Russian nuclear
weapons that are subject to arms reduction, national news
reports said citing Antipovs speech at a briefing in Moscow on
January 13. "Russia has the technological potential at its
plants for scrapping nine nuclear submarines a year.

Regrettably, it has no funds. For the time being, we are
planning to gradually dismantle five nuclear submarines, one by
one, so as to cultivate an atmosphere of co-operation with the
Japanese side," Antipov noted. According to preliminary
information, Japan's financial participation is estimated at
about $40 million. 

Russia and Japan agreed to cooperate in the dismantling of three
Victor-III-class nuclear submarines phased out of the Russian
Navy in the Far East, one Victor-I-class submarine and one
Charlie-class submarine. At present, four Victor-class
submarines are based near Vladivostok and the Charlie-class
submarine in Kamchatka. 

According to Antipov, in the course of 2005, the
Russian-Japanese committee is planning to sign an executive
agreement with Rosatom to provide for the disposal of nuclear
submarines, to study related technological and financial issues
 as well as security aspects  and proceed from the results of
this work to sign a financial contract with the bodies
recommended by Rosatom. In Antipov's words, foreign specialists
will not directly participate in the scrapping effort and will
be limited to environmental monitoring. 

The dismantling of the phased-out nuclear submarines is a
stipulation of the Russian-Japanese plan of action signed during
the visit of Japanese Premier Junichiro Koizumi to Russia in
January 2003. The first project implemented by the
Russian-Japanese committee was the dismantling of a
Victor-III-class nuclear submarine in December 2004. The
scrapping of Russian nuclear submarines is one of the areas of
global partnership of the G8 countries in the non-proliferation
of WMD and the materials used to create them. The agreement for
this was reached by the G8 at the summit in Kananaskis, Canada,
in 2002. 
  
  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 DOE SICK WORKER: DOE Sick Worker Homepage
 
Welcome to DOESickWorker.org 
      
 Learn about us.     For Cancer Claims - Take Action Now! This
is the only way anything will happen!

 Find your Senator at:


http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.
cfm

Find your Representative at:
 
http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW.shtml

If you worked at a Department of Energy site and are waiting for
a cancer claim through the Department of Labor, call your
Senators and Representative NOW! Tell them you have waited long
enough. Urge Congress to ask the National Institute of
Occupational Safety and Health, which is tasked with radiation
dose reconstructions, whether 5 years is reasonable to wait for
a decision on a claim. 

Widows, the sick and dying have received letters of denial,
appealed, and still haven't heard anything. Many are being
denied without a clear explanation of why their doses were below
the threshold for compensation. Many do not appeal because the
claim denial is unintelligible.

 Oak Ridge Associated Universities, contracted by NIOSH, to
reconstruct radiation doses, has spent over $70 million in the
past two years on 6,000 cases. According to DOL, only $141
million has been paid in benefits.

 At an Oak Ridge, Tennessee 1998 public meeting, a DOE-HQ
representative stated the workers' radiation exposure records
were "flawed and inadequate." At a March 2000 Senate Committee
hearing, a Portsmouth Plant worker produced records, showing his
exposures records "zeroed out" after an accident, apparently due
to management concerns about workers compensation claims.

 Claims must be re-examined. DOE workers, who contracted
radiogenic cancers, should be given the benefit of the doubt
whether their cancers was caused by their workplace. Exposure
records were poorly kept and often not at all.

 Our government acted quickly, paying an average of $1.8 million
to the September 11,2001 families. Are their lives worth more
than the workers who gave their lives for our country's defense?
These workers will only get $150,000 (or, in a very few cases,
$250,000) and payment of some medical benefits. What do you
think?   

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Links to medical information   
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Links to worker compensation information   
  Legislation 
Links to read the EEOICPA 
and pending legislation   
      
*****************************************************************
 27 [shundahaialerts] News Update from Utah
 
Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2005 15:30:06 -0800

 
<x-flowed>
Hello friends,

Here is the latest news about the issues we are facing daily:
-----------
Decision on Goshute waste plan is likely in February
A few weeks late: The safety board is expected to finish work within 60 days

http://www.shundahai.org/skull_123004.htm

------------

Indigenous tribes gather to discuss crucial issues

http://www.shundahai.org/EJN_news_011405.htm

-----------

Flood prompts N-waste alert
Panel weighs scenarios if river swells near tailings

http://www.shundahai.org/index.html

--------
Thank you for your support and concern with what we are working on here at 
Shundahai Network.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
SHUNDAHAI NETWORK--Dedicated to Breaking the Nuclear Chain

Shundahai is a Newe (Western Shoshone) word meaning  "Peace and Harmony 
with all Creation"

Shundahai Network
PO Box 1115
Salt Lake City, UT 84110
Office: 801.533.0128
Fax: 801.533.0129


mailto:Shundahai@shundahai.org
http://www.Shundahai.org

========================================================
It's in our back yard... it's in our front yard. This nuclear contamination 
is shortening all life. We are going to have to unite as a people and say 
no more! We, the people, are going to have to put our thoughts together to 
save our planet here. We only have One Water...One Air...One Mother Earth."

Corbin Harney -Newe (Western Shoshone) Spiritual leader, Founder & Chairman 
of the Board of The Shundahai Network

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If you would like to be removed from this list, please send an e-mail to 
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*****************************************************************
 28 [du-list] NRC: Eunice, NM, depleted uranium plant waste 'low
 
Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2005 15:22:50 -0800

 
<x-flowed>

1- NRC: Eunice, NM, depleted uranium plant waste 'low level'
2- Eunice NM Uranium Plant Takes Another Step Forward
--

NRC: Eunice, NM, depleted uranium plant waste 'low level'

Source: AP
Posted: 1/18/2005

http://www.krqe.com/environment/expanded.asp?RECORD_KEY%5BEnvironment%5D=ID&ID%5BEnvironment%5D=8253

ALBUQUERQUE -- The Nuclear Regulatory Commission concludes
that depleted uranium from a proposed uranium factory near
Eunice is low-level radioactive waste.

Louisiana Energy Services wants to build a $1.2 billion
facility to refine uranium for nuclear reactors.

Two conservation groups which have intervened to protest the
proposed plant.

They challenged the company's strategy for disposing of
waste from the enrichment process.

State officials and others have raised concerns because the
uranium enrichment process produces a type of waste that
cannot be disposed of anywhere in the United States.

One option would be for LES to turn it over to the US
Department of Energy.

The NRC says that's legal because the waste is low level.


----

Eunice NM Uranium Plant Takes Another Step Forward

January 19, 2005 Associated Press

http://www.thenewmexicochannel.com/news/4106844/detail.html

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- The Nuclear Regulatory Commission
concluded Tuesday that depleted uranium from a proposed
uranium factory near Eunice is low-level radioactive waste.

The decision is important for Louisiana Energy Services,
which wants to build a $1.2 billion facility in Eunice to
refine uranium for nuclear reactors.

Two conservation groups have intervened to protest the
proposed plant, challenging the company's strategy for
disposing of waste from the enrichment process.

State officials and others have also raised concerns because
the uranium enrichment process produces a type of waste that
cannot be disposed of anywhere in the United States.

With the low-level waste designation, the way is now clear
for LES to turn over the waste to the U.S. Department of Energy.

-- 

Posted for educational and research purposes only,
~ in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 ~

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 29 Las Vegas SUN: Editorial: Yucca word games

Today: January 24, 2005 at 8:59:12 PST 

 LAS VEGAS SUN

 Deputy Treasury Secretary Samuel Bodman is President Bush's
choice to replace Spencer Abraham as secretary of the Energy
Department. During a confirmation hearing last week, Bodman said
he would "see to it that we follow through on Yucca Mountain."

 Previously, Bodman was deputy commerce secretary and before
that he served in executive positions in private corporations.
He hasn't had any experience dealing with Yucca Mountain, 90
miles northwest of Las Vegas, where the federal government wants
to bury the deadly waste from nuclear power plants.

 Bodman should understand that President Bush has promised that
"sound science" and the courts will determine whether Yucca
Mountain ultimately opens. There are numerous scientific
questions that have not been answered about the mountain's
suitability, and a federal court has ruled that the Energy
Department has not met a key safety standard in designing the
burial vaults.

 A proper "follow through" would mean undertaking thorough,
peer-reviewed scientific analyses and a total redesign. We hope
that's what Bodman meant, and that he's not intending simply
more administrative and political maneuvering by the Energy
Department. Time will tell. 
 
*****************************************************************
 30 The Advocate: East Coast nuclear company petitions to send waste to Idaho
 	 	 	
Associated Press
 	 	
January 24, 2005

GRAND VIEW, Idaho --            

An East Coast nuclear facility wants the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission to allow it to ship low-level radioactive material to 
a facility about 23 miles southwest of Mountain Home.

 The Connecticut Yankee Atomic Power Co., which shut down in 
1996, asked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to review its 
request to transfer 40,000 cubic feet of low-level radioactive 
materials to the US Ecology site in Grand View. The waste 
includes containment walls, spent fuel pool walls and floors, 
soil and asphalt.

 US Ecology CEO Steve Romano said much of the material is below 
lab detection levels. He said the Grand View site will be a safe 
depository for the material.

 Opponents, however, say safety is not the only thing to keep in 
mind.

 Jeremy Maxand, executive director for Boise-based Snake River 
Alliance, said the request raises concerns about funding and 
management, as well as public involvement.

 "This process is proceeding out of the public view," he said.

 Before US Ecology accepts material, the nuclear commission would 
need to deregulate the waste, Romano said. But, deregulation is 
not a golden ticket for the waste to be shipped here, he said.

 After reviewing Connecticut Yankee's inventory of waste proposed 
for transfer, US Ecology must then petition the Idaho Department 
of Environmental Quality, which has not happened, according to 
department spokesman Brian Monson.

 DEQ must determine that the waste falls within parameters of US 
Ecology's state permit, Monson said, or its permit must be 
modified. If the permit requires a change, the DEQ director would 
determine whether the action warranted a public comment period, 
he said.

 Maxand said changing US Ecology's waste permit may not be in the 
best interests of the state.

 "Do we want to have a radioactive waste facility?" Maxand said. 
"Do we want to be a dumping ground for the nation's nuclear 
waste?"

 Managing a waste facility like that at Grand View could take 
money and time away from clean-up efforts at the Idaho Nuclear 
Engineering and Environmental Laboratory, he said. INEEL houses 
286,000 cubic meters of low-level waste.

 Maxand said he worried Idahoans would have little security if US 
Ecology could no longer manage the site.

 Monson said if US Ecology became bankrupt, the state would take 
over clean up and management of the site. The company has to 
offer enough financial assurance to cover those costs, he said.

 The Grand View site took in unregulated waste in 1999 that came 
from cleanup of old Manhattan project sites where the United 
States developed the atom bomb during World War II. The NRC does 
not regulate waste from this "Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial 
Action Program." So as low-level unregulated waste, it was 
allowed into storage at Grand View.

 "Our permit has been modified in order to allow the NRC's 
exempted material," Romano said.

 US Ecology could receive the waste by June, Romano said. 
Currently, Connecticut Yankee is disposing of similar material at 
a landfill on the East Coast, he said. The landfill may still be 
in contention for this low-level waste.

Copyright Š 2005, The Associated Press [Careerbuilder] 
Š 2005, Southern Connecticut Newspapers, Inc. All rights 
*****************************************************************
 31 Kenya: Standard: State will probe alleged dumping of nuclear waste
 
Tuesday January 25, 2005                                     
  
By Standard Team 

The Government yesterday moved to ascertain whether an American
company dumped nuclear waste in North Eastern Province under the
guise of exploring for oil. 

Environment minister Kalonzo Musyoka directed the National
Environmental Management Authority (Nema) to analyse soil
samples from the exploration sites, and vowed to sue the company
if traces of nuclear waste were found in them. 

"This is a serious and delicate matter and I have directed Nema
to look into it," he said. 

There are widespread fears in Garissa, Wajir and Mandera
districts that an American company, that arrived in the country
to prospect for oil in the 80s, dumped nuclear waste in the
remote region. 

According to the residents, the company excavated deep trenches,
which they later covered with concrete slabs. The company
officials also allegedly off-loaded huge consignments of
mysterious goods at the sites whose contents they did not want
the locals to see. 

The residents in the affected areas have been complaining of
strange and incurable diseases, which they claim are caused by
the alleged presence of radioactive material. 

"If results of the samples indicate the presence of radioactive
material, we shall unearth the rest of the substances buried at
the sites. It is very serious and I thank the writers for
exposing the scam," said Kalonzo. 

The story was published exclusively in The Standard on Saturday. 

More reaction on the alleged dumping came from Kabete MP Paul
Muite, who challenged the Government to come clean on the issue. 

Muite said the alleged culprits should be named and shame and
criminal proceedings instituted against them. Muite lauded The
Standard for exposing the saga, saying the matter had been one
of the most "well-kept secrets" in the country. 

He said there was need to establish the truth as a matter of
national concern. 

The MP also asked Nobel laureate, Prof Wangari Maathai, to
tackle the issue as a matter of priority. 

He termed the alleged dumping of nuclear waste as the "worst
form of international corruption." 

"We need to be told who was paid what by which company," he
said. 

He said if indeed there was toxic waste at the sites, it had
exposed the lives of Kenyans, livestock and the environment to
grave danger. 

An anti-drugs lobby in Mombasa added its voice to the saga, and
urged the Government to establish what was actually dumped at
the sites. 

Officials of the lobby further claimed that a former powerful
Cabinet minister in the Kanu regime acquired the sites and
allowed the American firm to dump the suspected nuclear waste. 

Mr Mohamed Ali Sheikh, of the Youth Against Child and Drug Abuse
(Yacada), and Narc activist and businessman Aden Barre Dualle
said there was urgent need to probe the allegations. 

The sites in question are Modica, Shanta Abak and Amuma in
Garissa District, Gal, Adow and Arbajahan in Wajir and Elwak in
Mandera District. 

"The people of North Eastern Province are greatly concerned
about the suspected toxins," said Duelle, who hails from
Garissa. 

Sheikh appealed to scholars from the region who have carried
research on the waste to make their report public and forward
recommendations to the Government. 

He said the Ministry of Health, Kenya Radioactive Association
and National Environment Nema should establish the extent of
danger the waste posed to the residents and their livestock. 

"We demand action against the American company and politician
who is alleged to have acquired the land used for dumping
harmful waste," he said. 

He claimed that the former Cabinet hailed from Rift Valley
Province and acquired the land in North Eastern to provide
dumping services to American firms. 

Sheikh said the former Kanu administration must be held
responsible for endangering lives of the area residents. 

Copyright Š MMIV . The Standard Group   

  I & M Building, Kenyatta Avenue, 
P.O Box 30080, 00100 GPO, Nairobi-Kenya. 
Tel: +254 20 3222111, Fax: +254 20 214467. News room Fax: +254
20 3222111,. 
Email: editorial@eastandard.net, online@eastandard.net
*****************************************************************
 32 Guardian Unlimited: Iran to Inaugurate Uranium Ore Plant
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

Monday January 24, 2005 10:01 AM

By ALI AKBAR DAREINI 

Associated Press Writer 

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran will inaugurate a uranium ore
concentrate production plant near the southern port city of
Bandar Abbas within a year, Iran's nuclear chief said. 

Gholamreza Aghazadeh was quoted by state-run radio on Sunday as
saying the Bandar Abbas Yellowcake Production Plant would open
during the next Iranian calendar year, which begins March 21. 

The nuclear facility will process ore extracted from uranium
mine into uranium ore concentrate, known as yellowcake. The
processing is part of the early stages before actual enrichment
of uranium. 

The uranium ore concentrate can then be processed into uranium
hexaflouride, which later can be turned into a gas used as
feedstock for enriching uranium. 

Uranium enriched to low grades is used for fuel in nuclear
reactors, but further enrichment makes it suitable for atomic
bombs. 

The United States accuses Iran of seeking nuclear weapons but
Tehran has denied the accusation saying its nuclear program was
geared solely toward making generating electricity, not making
bomb. 

While not prohibited from enrichment under the Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty, Iran suspended uranium enrichment and
all related activities in November to build trust and reduce
international suspicions. The International Atomic Energy Agency
agreed to police the suspension of Iran's nuclear activities. 

Under an agreement reached with France, Germany and Britain,
which negotiated on behalf of the European Union, Iran will
continue suspension of its enrichment activities during
negotiations with the Europeans about EU economic, political and
technological aid. Iran has said it will decide within three
months whether to continue suspension. 

It was not clear if ongoing work in Bandar Abbas constituted a
breach of Iran's commitments. 

Last October, the National Council of Resistance of Iran claimed
to have uncovered more evidence that Iran's nuclear activities
are broader than it has publicly admitted, saying Iran has a
hidden uranium processing plant near Bandar Abbas. 

But Ali Akbar Salehi, Iran's former envoy to the Vienna-based
IAEA, said Iran had informed the agency in 2003 about the Bandar
Abbas facility. 

``The Bandar Abbas facility is nothing new that Iranian
opponents claim they disclosed. We informed the IAEA about two
years ago about the plant,'' said Salehi, now a nuclear adviser
to Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi. 

In its report to the Board of Governors in Nov. 2004, the IAEA
head Mohamed ElBaradei talked about the facility. 

``In the south of Iran, near Bandar Abbas, Iran has constructed
the Gehine uranium mine and its co-located mill. The low but
variable grade uranium ore found in near-surface deposits will
be open-pit mined and processed at the associated mill,''
ElBaradei said in the report.	 
  
      Guardian Unlimited Š Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
 33 lamonitor.com: Domenici addresses lab's RFP concerns 

The Online News Source for Los Alamos
 
CAROL A. CLARK, lanews@lamonitor.com, Monitor Staff Writer

In a Friday letter to Ambassador Linton Brooks, administrator of
the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Sen. Pete
Domenici expressed concerns with the plan under which a new
management contract will be issued for Los Alamos National
Laboratory. 
Domenici, chair of the senate appropriations subcommittee that
funds DOE's national laboratories stressed in his letter that
the contract must more specifically protect and outline benefits
for LANL workers and retirees.

Domenici issued his letter as part of the public comment period
on the NNSA draft Request for Proposal (RFP) for the new
management and operating contract for LANL. 

"It is critical that the new contract very clearly outline the
benefits due to current, future and past lab employees. The
draft RFP is insufficient in that area and must be rewritten. I
am very concerned that not doing so could have negative
ramifications on the lab, its missions, its employees and the
overall region," Domenici said in a news release Friday.

Domenici indicated in his letter to Brooks that his concerns are
based on his own review of the RFP as well as concerns aired by
his constituents. 
He encouraged the NNSA to move quickly to amend the RFP . The
existing contract expires Sept. 30.

"This process has already created an enormous distraction for
lab employees and they must get on with the work of national
defense, combating nuclear proliferation and other scientific
research," Domenici wrote. 
Domenici's comments focus on shortcomings in the RFP related to
retirement, health and other benefits, as well as the need for
specific commitments in a new contract to community and regional
support required for economic development and public education.

"NNSA must ensure that the final RFP and the selected
contracting entity provide equal benefits for retirement for
existing employees and retirees," he wrote. "Specifically, I
believe the requirement to limit LANL retirement (and health
benefits) to 105 percent of the complex average is unacceptable
and inconsistent with Secretary Spencer Abraham's announcement
to protect employee benefits. Unless the existing benefits are
preserved, the NNSA will have difficulty retaining experienced
scientists and lab employees. As I believe you would agree, the
last thing we would want is an exodus by long-time LANL
employees intent on protecting their hard earned retirement
benefits before the end of the existing contract."

The following are highlights of Domenici's letter and the
concerns he said he believes must be changed before a final RFP
is released:


+  Retirement Benefits- The Department must provide flexibility
to allow employees to shift their benefits to a new contractor
or be provided a grace period following the award of the
contract to retire from the University of California systems
with the guarantee of being rehired by the new contractor. In
addition, the Department should consider other options such as
providing additional years of service to those employees close
to retirement in exchange for continued service.


+  Health Benefits-The final RFP must specify and clearly
outline the Department's expectations and existing obligations
for current employee and retiree medical benefits.


+  Community Support- The future contract must build on the
existing initiatives already underway including the work with
the LANL Foundation, the Regional Development Corporation and
the Los Alamos Research Park. Support for the RDC and the LANL
Foundation should continue at no less than current levels.


+  Specific approaches to enhance regional small business
contracting should be encouraged in the new contract.


+  Evaluation Criteria-Not enough emphasis has been placed on
employee retention. The final RFP for the Lawrence Berkeley
National Laboratory contract provides a higher scoring criterion
for retention of key personnel.

LANL is a major research institution with extraordinary research
competencies and the future lab contractor must be encouraged to
develop the scientific capability, just as it is rewarded for
managing the operations on a daily basis.


+  Other Benefits-Under the current contract, children of LANL
employees attend UC schools at in-state tuition rates. Bids
should discuss either how this benefit will be continued or how
an alternative and comparable approach to such educational
benefits may be provided.

On Wednesday, Domenici gained a commitment from Samuel W.
Bodman, President Bush's nominee for Secretary of Energy to
maintain and enhance the scientific capabilities of LANL, and to
protect existing pension or health benefit levels for LANL
workers and retirees.

LANL Director Pete Nanos told employees Wednesday that the lab
should "look like a normal day" by Jan. 31, with "productive
work proceeding without impediment. I'm not going to give up the
progress we made," he said. "It's been a long six months and
we've all paid the price in one way or another."

Nearly all of the lab's projects have since restarted, but some
high-risk operations - mostly involving weapons-related work -
have had to wait until now.

During the shutdown, the lab found about 3,000 issues that
needed fixing, said lab spokesperson Kevin Roark.

New procedures developed during the six months must now become
part of the structure of the lab, Nanos told the employees.

Training from top to bottom is part of the plan.

The lab also has a new way to store and track computer disks
containing top-secret information in centralized libraries. And
it's starting a safety program under which individuals take
responsibility for their actions.

"This will be a tough year, but I feel that fundamentally we are
moving in the right direction and laying the groundwork to
ensure this institution's future and your future," Nanos told
the employees.

Editor's Note: The Associated Press contributed to this story.   

  Š 2003 Los Alamos Monitor All Rights Reserved.   
*****************************************************************
 34 lamonitor.com: Emergency preparedness, education discussed 

The Online News Source for Los Alamos
 
CAROL A. CLARK, lanews@lamonitor.com, Monitor Staff Writer

As a result of a no-notice drill at the Los Alamos National
Laboratory in December, LANL management recognized the need for
increased communication to LANL staff concerning emergency
preparedness and response beyond their Emergency Management and
Response's role. 

During this month's Local Emergency Planning Committee (LEPC)
meeting at Mesa Library, Deputy Public Affairs Director Linn
Tytler said she has been assigned to assist with this effort.

Tytler is in the process of taking FEMA courses to learn
principles of emergency preparedness as well as the basics of
NIMS (National Incident Management System) and NRP (National
Response Plan).

Tytler said she is getting NIMS and NRP compliant and that
others at the lab are also making this effort. 

LEPC Chair Philmont Taylor added that staff has met with Tytler
and other LANL public affairs staff to discuss joint efforts.

The group spent much time discussing the need for public
education and information about emergency preparedness. 
County Public Information Officer Julie Habiger and County
Emergency Management Aide Dharmatma Khalsa presented ideas to
the group on educating the community about emergency
preparedness issues.

They discussed a plan for placing public safety announcements in
the Monitor by different agency sponsors each month. 
"The more we can generate public awareness, the more it will
grow and be supported," Habiger said. "What could start as
monthly PSA's could develop into calendar stickers or children's
coloring books reflecting emergency preparedness themes."

Numerous agencies are represented on the LEPC board and each
strives to provide individual input to emergency preparedness
issues under discussion.

"We also have to consider the commuter and transient population
of the county," Taylor said.

Tytler said that ultimately the surrounding Pueblo and County
jurisdictions would be invited to participate in efforts that
are still in the initial idea stages.

Ron Dolin from LANL's homeland security office suggested holding
a community safety day that would be different from past county
efforts. He suggested that high school students hear
presentations from lab staff on disaster, emergency
preparedness, terrorism, etc.

"LANL and Sandia are planning such an event to be hosted by
Mayor Chavez in Albuquerque in October," Dolin said. "A similar
effort could be duplicated around the state."

Taylor agreed and asked Dolin to keep the committee apprised.

Dolin added that the Governor's Office of Homeland Security
holds monthly New Mexico Surety Task Force meetings.

"They are currently working to identify critical infrastructure
throughout the state, beginning with state-owned assets and then
proceeding to privately owned assets," he said.

Several other LEPC board members presented information an
updates during the committee's round table discussion segment.

Member Tom Littleton said the Los Alamos public Schools are
tightening up their emergency preparedness plan and that for
each school facility, identification of key utility shut-off
valves as well as ventilation system controls are being included.

Member Pete Padilla said that the security plan for the county
water production and distribution system is approved and in
place. Messages for various kinds of emergencies are being
developed and readied for use as needed.

Chuck Berger said the American Red Cross (ARC) nationally is
still dealing with post-hurricane recovery efforts in Florida,
and internationally is very involved in tsunami relief. Padilla
told the group that a merger of the Santa Fe ARC chapter into
the Albuquerque Mid-Rio Grande chapter is proceeding. He added
that in 2004, the Santa Fe chapter responded to 47 house fires
and helped 314 people.

Habiger announced that she has a new part-time public
information assistant who will also serve as her emergency PIO
backup.

Member Doug Tucker said that the Wildfire 2005 event will be
held on April 27 at Fuller Lodge from 6:30-8:30 p.m.

"LANL, the Park and Forest services and Los Alamos Fire
Department staff will all participate," Tucker said. "Mitigation
will be the primary focus, and the event will tie into
Defensible Space Day."

Tucker also mentioned that air quality laws are bumping up
against the need to do winter slash-pile burning in the area.
The County has 30 acres of slash piles in Pueblo Canyon below
Rim Road.

"If the ventilation index allows, both agencies hope to proceed
with pile burns in the next couple of months," Tucker said.

Member Bill Boedeker said an amateur radio system has been
installed at the Los Alamos Medical Center for use in
emergencies.

Member Brian Dominy told the group that a public meeting for the
environmental assessment of the Cerro Grande unit of Bandelier
will be held from 4-7 p.m. Tuesday at Fuller Lodge.

The Los Alamos County Office of Emergency Management has move
into the trailer behind the Los Alamos Police Department that
formerly housed the police chief and captain while a vicious
mold infestation was mitigated inside their offices.

LEPC will hold its next meeting at 1:30 p.m. on Feb 10 at the
Mesa Public Library. The public is invited to attend.   

  Š 2003 Los Alamos Monitor All Rights Reserved.   
*****************************************************************
 35 lamonitor.com: Public sizes up lab's impact statement 

The Online News Source for Los Alamos
 
ROGER SNODGRASS, roger@lamonitor.com, Monitor Assistant Editor

POJOAQUE - A framework for a lengthy environmental review of Los
Alamos National Laboratory was introduced to the public in a
formal scoping meeting at the Dennis Roybal Elementary School
Wednesday night. 

Elizabeth Withers, environmental policy compliance officer with
the National Nuclear Security Administration's Los Alamos Site
Office presented an overview of the process the agency intends
to follow and a sampling of likely projects.

Withers said she expects the most difficult part of the
assessment will be trying to figure out, in the next few months,
what projects are contemplated for the time frame of the next
five years. 

She called it "a snapshot in time," and compared it to trying to
photograph runners in a race. Some figures may be a little
blurred, she said, and the description of the task was not
intended to be all-inclusive at this point.

Among the projects termed "wildcards" were initiatives in
various stages of prospective development that might or might
not be covered by the new review. 

Such projects included a possible new radiological facility at
Technical Area 55, a replacement for the Liquid Waste Treatment
Facility, a new solid waste transfer station, and the still
uncertain schedule of remediation projects covered under an
agreement with the New Mexico Environment Department.

Two new projects might involve building on previous "greenfield"
locations, natural areas that have not been previously developed
- an office and light laboratory complex and a consolidated
warehouse and truck inspection station. 

"These are like tiny, teeny green tomatoes," Withers told the
audience. "Fertility has taken place, but the fruit is not
really developed."

Asked which of the projects was most likely to drop off, she
said, "The new solid waste station might fall off."

Other environmental impacts under review were more definite,
Withers said, including those associated with the Cerro Grande
Fire, drought and die-off of natural vegetation, along with the
changing boundaries of the laboratory due to land transfer
activities from DOE to Los Alamos County and cumulative impacts
that arise from multiple sources.

Several major transformations will also be reviewed, such as the
relocation of high-level nuclear materials and criticality
experiments from Technical Area 18 to Nevada, additional storage
of low-level waste at the Non-proliferation and International
Security Center, and a projected doubling of computer capability
with relative increases in power and water for the Metropolis
Center.

Several people in the audience expressed disappointment at the
end of Withers' overview to find their remarks restricted to
clarifying questions on the process rather than comments on
environmental concerns at the laboratory.

A court reporter, comment forms and flip charts at subject
tables around the room were provided for individuals to comment
at the meeting.

Barbara Gonzales of San Ildefonso Pueblo, a member of the
Northern New Mexico Citizen's Advisory Board, said after the
meeting, "Part of the educational experience is being able to
hear what other people have to say."

She thought it was important to have questions answered
directly, rather than have to dig through a lot of paper.

"Some people learn by reading; some by listening," she said. "I
believe in quick learning."

Although not required to conduct a public scoping meeting for
supplemental impact statements, Withers said she had chosen a
round-table format because she thought it would best serve the
purpose.

After the meeting she said she had gotten the message, and would
take that into account the next time.

Despite the limitations, public comment went on for an
unscheduled extra half-hour.

Peggy Prince of Peace Action New Mexico said she was surprised
to be unable to raise relevant issues to the public.

She said she had brought 8,500 signatures calling for a full
environmental impact statement for the Biosafety Level 3
laboratory project.

Concerns about the laboratory's stalled BSL-3 facility were
evident in statements by several people in the audience, despite
the fact that it was not currently under review in the
Supplemental Site-Wide Environmental Impact Statement (SWEIS).

Withers explained that the BSL-3 is the subject of a separate
environmental assessment, newly started again after DOE withdrew
its previous determination.

The new assessment is supposed to be finished in time to be
rolled into the S-SWEIS if a more comprehensive evaluation is
called for after the more specific review of the BSL-3.

Joni Arends, executive director of Concerned Citizens for
Nuclear Safety, pointed out that the lack of a full
environmental impact statement for the BSL-3 had led to the
current situation of having to repeat an analysis later found to
be inadequate.

Arends said DOE's decision not to conduct a full Site-Wide
Environmental Impact Statement, as is now going on at Lawrence
Livermore, could not be justified at Los Alamos in light of the
numerous significant changes that have occurred, from the
previously unanticipated total discontinuation of TA-18, to the
abandonment of county water wells due to tritium contamination,
as well as the six-month stand-down of high-risk activities that
has not yet ended.

She believes that the possible threat to Santa Fe drinking water
from the Buckman Well Fields, which have been found to be
recharged by water from the Los Alamos side of the Rio Grande,
also qualifies as a significant new factor that was not
previously evaluated.

Withers' overview included an explanation of the Department of
Energy's decision to prepare a S-SWEIS rather than starting over
with a new document to replace the environmental impact
statement that was approved in 1999.

The proposed actions that could have substantial environmental
consequences call for a supplemental study to be done, but since
they are consistent with the previous document, a new, full,
site-wide study was not considered necessary, she said.

Arends said after the meeting that CCNS intended to file a
Freedom of Information Act request for information related to
that decision.

Through Feb. 27, comments regarding the scope of the S-SWEIS may
be addressed to Elizabeth Withers, whose e-mail is
lanl_sweis@doeal.gov; address, 528 35th St., Los Alamos, NM
87544; toll free telephone, 1-877-491-4957; and fax,
505-667-9998.

A draft S-SWEIS is anticipated in the fall. Copies of written
comments and transcripts of oral comments provided to NNSA
during the scoping period will be available at Los Alamos
Outreach Center, 1350 Central Ave., Suite 101, in Los Alamos and
the Zimmerman Library, University of New Mexico, in Albuquerque.
  
  Š 2003 Los Alamos Monitor All Rights Reserved.   
*****************************************************************
 36 PRN; Fermi 2 Plant Shut Down 

PR Newswire - A United Business Media Company

http://www.dteenergy.com

    NEWPORT, Mich., Jan. 24 /PRNewswire/ -- Detroit Edison plant 
operators shut down the Fermi 2 reactor about 4:20 p.m. today 
after discovering that cooling water was leaking into the 
containment structure, a steel and concrete structure that 
surrounds the steel reactor vessel.  Plant operators have 
preliminarily determined the leakage to be from non-radioactive 
cooling water.

    There is no indication of a radioactive release. Reactor 
coolant water is being maintained at normal levels and plant 
safety systems are functioning normally.  The leak rate is 
approximately 50 gallons per minute.

    Plant personnel are managing plant systems and plant status. 
It is expected that workers will be able to enter the area of the 
plant to locate the source of the leak early Tuesday.  Once the 
source is identified, repair plans will be developed.

    The Fermi 2 Nuclear Power Plant is a 1,140-megawatt boiling 
water reactor owned and operated by Detroit Edison, an electric 
utility serving more than 2.1 million customers in Southeastern 
Michigan.

    Fermi 2 began commercial operation in 1988.  Since that time, 
the plant has produced more than 100 billion kilowatt hours of 
electricity for Detroit Edison customers.  The plant employs 
about 900 workers and produces about 15 percent of the power 
generated by Detroit Edison power plants.

    Detroit Edison is an investor-owned electric utility serving 
2.1 million customers in Southeastern Michigan and a subsidiary 
of DTE Energy (NYSE: DTE), a Detroit-based diversified energy 
company involved in the development and management of 
energy-related businesses and services nationwide. Information 
about DTE Energy is available at http://www.dteenergy.com.

 SOURCE Detroit Edison Web Site: http://www.dteenergy.com

*****************************************************************
 37 DOE: Environmental Management Site-Specific Advisory Board, Rocky 
 
                         FR Doc 05-1204 
[Federal Register: January 24, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 14)] 
[Notices] [Page 3366] From the Federal Register Online via GPO 
Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr24ja05-30]                         
 
Flats AGENCY: Department of Energy.
 
ACTION: Notice of open meeting.
 
SUMMARY: This notice announces a meeting of the Environmental 
Management Site-Specific Advisory Board (EMSSAB), Rocky Flats.
 
The Federal Advisory Committee Act (Pub. L. 92-463, 86 Stat. 770) 
requires that public notice of this meeting be announced in the 
Federal Register.
 
 
DATES: Thursday, February 3, 2005, 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.
 
ADDRESSES: College Hill Library, Room L-211, Front Range 
Community College, 3705 West 112th Avenue, Westminister, 
Colorado.
 
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Ken Korkia, Board/Staff 
Coordinator, Rocky Flats Citizens Advisory Board, 10808 Highway 
93, Unit B, Building 60, Room 107B, Golden, CO, 80403; telephone 
(303) 966-7855; fax (303) 966-7856.
 
 
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Purpose of the Board: The purpose of 
the Board is to make recommendations to DOE in the areas of 
environmental restoration, waste management, and related 
activities.
 
Tentative Agenda 1. Discussion and Approval of Recommendation on 
the Ground Water Interim Measure/Interim Remedial Action 
Document.
 
2. Presentation and Discussion on the Draft Rocky Flats Site-Wide 
Integrated Public Involvement Plan.
 
3. Open Community Discussion on Membership on the Future Local 
Stakeholder Organization.
 
4. Other Board business may be conducted as necessary. Public 
Participation: The meeting is open to the public.
 
Written statements may be filed with the Board either before or 
after the meeting. Individuals who wish to make oral statements 
pertaining to agenda items should contact Ken Korkia at the 
address or telephone number listed above. Requests must be 
received at least five days prior to the meeting and reasonable 
provisions will be made to include the presentation in the 
agenda. The Deputy Designated Federal Officer is empowered to 
conduct the meeting in a fashion that will facilitate the orderly 
conduct of business. Individuals wishing to make public comment 
will be provided a maximum of five minutes to present their 
comments.
 
Minutes: The minutes of this meeting will be available for public 
review and copying at the office of the Rocky Flats Citizens 
Advisory Board, 10808 Highway 93, Unit B, Building 60, Room 107B, 
Golden, CO 80403; telephone (303) 966-7855. Hours of operations 
are 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Friday. Minutes will also 
be made available by writing or calling Ken Korkia at the address 
or telephone number listed above. Board meeting minutes are 
posted on RFCAB's Web site within one month following each 
meeting at: http://www.rfcab.org/Minutes.HTML. Issued at 
Washington, DC, on January 14, 2005.
 
Rachel M. Samuel, Deputy Advisory Committee Management Officer.
 
[FR Doc. 05-1204 Filed 1-21-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 6450-01-P

 
*****************************************************************
 38 [du-list] DU in the news - 25th Jan 05
 
Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2005 15:22:54 -0800

 
<x-flowed>
The New Zealand Herald, Mon, 24 Jan 2005 5:04 AM PST
Buried Treasures: Vets hurt by 'Clayton's apology' 
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?mode=headlines&c_id=1&ObjectID=10007801
Last month's Government apology to Vietnam veterans - which came as 
Parliament was about to go into urgency in the last sitting week of the 
year - was a simple two-page statement from Veterans Affairs Minister 
George Hawkins.

Venezuela Electronic News, Sun, 23 Jan 2005 2:24 PM PST
VHeadline.com - Franz J. T. Lee: Global Relevance of the social philosophy 
of Mahatma K. Gandhi http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=24487
Profesor de la Universidad de Los Andes (ULA) Franz J. T. Lee : The 
historic life and heroic struggle of Mahatma K. Gandhi against British 
colonial injustice, human degradation, economic exploitation and social 
discrimination are well known, here we will just spotlight certain selected 
aspects of his social philosophy, its moral principles and its contemporary 
relevance for global revolutionary


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 39 Deseret news: U. set to commemorate Einstein's 'miracle year'
 
Monday, January 24, 2005
 	   	 
Public invited to exhibits, discussions about physics and
Einstein's life
 	
By Joe Bauman Deseret Morning News

On this date in 1905, scientists understood the basic laws of 
nature pretty much as they had since the discoveries of Sir Isaac 
Newton in the 17th century. But by the end of the year, a young 
patent expert had revolutionized physics.

The 26-year-old technical expert working in the Bern,
Switzerland, patent office was Albert Einstein. The three
scientific papers he submitted in 1905 laid the foundation for
modern physics and much of today's technology.

       For that reason, 1905 is known among scientists as
Einstein's "miracle year." To mark its centennial, the
University of Utah is celebrating the "World Year of Physics"
with lectures, movies, star parties and exhibits.

       In April, the celebration comes to a head, so to speak,
with an Einstein look-alike contest.

       Of the three papers, the most famous is Einstein's work
on the theory of relativity. It defined our modern understanding
of the workings of the universe and contains the "E equals MC
squared" equation, the basis for nuclear power and atomic bombs.

       "What's not so widely appreciated is that the very same
year he wrote the paper on relativity, he published two other
papers," said Pierre Sokolsky, professor and chairman of physics
at the U..

       The papers can be thought of as the foundations of much
of today's important technology, he said.

       Einstein's paper on photoelectric effect launched our
modern understanding of light. That understanding "leads to
things like light-emitting diodes, lasers, even the stop lights
we see that are really bright," Sokolsky said.

       The other paper concerned Brownian motion, the motion of
minute particles. It was one of the first studies to demonstrate
certain properties of the atomic world and it led to better
understanding of chemistry. This is vital to calculating the
proper doses of medicine, the physics of solid matter and such
exotic topics as the nature of the interior of neutron stars.

      Together, the three papers are so important that science
is "celebrating the centennial of that particular year,"
Sokolsky said, even though this is not the centennial of
Einstein's birth.

       "So much of modern physics . . . was contained in those
three papers," said Craig Taylor, distinguished professor of
physics at the U. Taylor has been organizing the celebration of
2005 as the World Year of Physics.

       So what is the state of physics in America today?

       "I would have to say we're barely holding our own and we
really are in danger of slipping behind Europe and Japan and
even China," Taylor said.

       What can be done about this?

       "It all comes down to dollars, really," he said. "It
comes down to the commitment of the American public to
supporting science."

E-mail: bau@desnews.com      
	 
 Š 2005 Deseret News Publishing Company 
    
*****************************************************************

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> 
    
*****************************************************************