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NUCLEAR POLICY
1 US: Public Citizen: Energy Corporations With Record of Cheating
NUCLEAR REACTORS
2 ArabicNews.com: Iran hopes to build more nuclear power plants; US hi
3 Daily Yomiuri: KEPCO resignations too little, too late to restore pu
4 US: BBC ON THIS DAY | 28 | 1979: Nuclear leak causes alarm in Americ
5 US: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Nuclear agency rejects license extensio
6 Sunday Herald: Lights out for a new nuclear age in Scotland -
7 US: Guardian Unlimited: U. of Fla. to Replace Uranium in Reactor
8 CBC News: Alberta town uncertain about Chernobyl exchange
9 US: Cincinnati Enquirer: 2 Fernald silos to be razed
10 Japan Times: Kepco chief to exit over steam deaths
11 Sunday Times: Ministers signal U-turn on Scottish nuclear plants -
12 Independent: Secret DTI team gives green light for 10 new nuclear pl
NUCLEAR SECURITY
13 Guardian Unlimited North Korea: Drills Delay Nuclear Talks
14 PTI: 'Iran N-Programme was recommended by former US President'
15 US: heraldtribune.com: Florida will replace weapons-grade uranium fr
16 SANA: US allows Pak to go nuclear: report
17 SANA: Illegal Nuclear Deals Alleged
18 Xinhua: Iran warns against WMD proliferation
19 Xinhua: Iran refutes US official's allegation on NPT
20 CBS News: Loose Ends In Iraq Weapons Hunt
21 The Times of India: Pakistan gets IAEA request for N-parts-
22 US: AP Wire: Fuel from nuclear warheads causes concern over transpor
NUCLEAR SAFETY
23 US: [DU-WATCH] Fayetteville diary - a veteran confronts charges
24 US: [DU-WATCH] Fw: Details on Depleted Uranium
25 US: BBC: 'Nuclear particle' find on beach
26 Al Jazeera: Workers at the Dimona reactor suffering from cancer -
27 US: Paducah Sun: Cancer victim finally nears settlement in plant exp
28 US: New River Valley Current: Rats get uranium in study of veterans'
29 US: Documentary POISON DUST: A new look at U.S. radioactive weapons
30 US: Lexington Herald-Leader: Worker's radiation case finally nears s
NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
31 Sunday Herald: Dounreay waste spreads further afield -
32 US: Rocky Mountain News: Interest revives in Colorado uranium
33 US: Salt Lake Tribune: Establish priorities
34 Salt Lake Tribune: Requiem for Yucca Mountain
35 US: Bradenton Herald: Tallevast cleanup ideas sought
36 US: Craig Daily Press: Opposition group softens stance
PEACE
US DEPT. OF ENERGY
37 Tri-City Herald: High-powered collection
38 SF Chronicle: UC Berkeley joins with New Mexico schools on lab bid
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1 Public Citizen: Energy Corporations With Record of Cheating
Consumers Form New Lobbying Group to Influence Energy Policy
March 25, 2005
Four of the Six Corporations Have Paid Nearly $1 Billion to
Settle Allegations of Market Manipulation
WASHINGTON, D.C. A lobbying group formed by six energy
companies is lobbying the federal government in an effort to
convince lawmakers and regulators that deregulation is good for
consumers, despite the fact that these companies have paid
nearly $1 billion over the past three years to settle
allegations of Enron-style market manipulation for acts they
were able to more easily commit because of deregulation. One
company is under criminal indictment for its role in
intentionally shutting down power plants in California also an
act it was able to commit more easily because of deregulation.
With the energy bill due to be introduced in the U.S. House of
Representatives on April 5, this group is likely working behind
the scenes to convince Congress that electricity deregulation is
a benefit for the public. Instead, recent history proves just
the opposite: Deregulation has led to price-gouging of consumers
and Californias brush with bankruptcy, while the energy
marketers have been raking in higher profits.
It is disingenuous for this lobby group to push deregulation
policies that they claim are good for consumers when history
shows that their own companies used these very policies to
profit from the biggest consumer rip-off in history, said Joan
Claybrook, president of Public Citizen. The last people
Congress should listen to for advice on energy policy are the
companies that have succeeded in gouging ratepayers in some of
the biggest corporate scandals weve seen in the past century.
Among other provisions in the energy bill that the group is
likely targeting is the repeal of the Public Utility Holding
Company Act (PUHCA), a consumer protection law that limits the
investment of utility profits in unrelated business ventures and
prohibits expansion-minded corporations from siphoning off
profits for risky investment schemes that do nothing to improve
service reliability or keep electricity rates low. PUHCA is the
key reason America has such stable and reliable utility
companies.
Corporate opponents of PUHCA claim it stands in the way of a
deregulated electricity market, but deregulation has been a
demonstrated failure, with prices for this essential commodity
rising faster in the 15 deregulated states than in the 35 states
that remain regulated. Thats because companies in deregulated
markets can and do charge much higher prices than companies
in regulated states. While proponents of deregulation were once
common, they now are largely limited to those corporations
profiting from underregulated energy markets and the
politicians receiving generous financial support from these
companies. Consumer groups such as Public Citizen have long said
that the economic characteristics unique to electricity such
as inelastic supply and demand preclude effective competition
from occurring, making it easy for a handful of unregulated
energy companies to control the market and gouge consumers.
The companiesCalpine, Constellation Energy, Exelon, Mirant,
PSEG and Reliant Energyhave hired a bi-partisan group of six
lobbyists that includes recently retired powerful government
officials who will do the bulk of the organizing for the new
coalition:
+ William Massey, Democrat, commissioner for the Federal
Energy Regulatory Commission from 1993-2004 and now a lobbyist
with Covington & Burling.
+ Don Nickles, a former GOP senator from Oklahoma and Senate
majority whip, now the founding partner of the lobbying firm the
Nickles Group.
+ Robert S. Walker, former Pennsylvania GOP representative
from 1976 to 1996 and a founder of the lobbying firm Wexler &
Walker.
+ Jack Howard, former deputy assistant for legislative affairs
to President George W. Bush and a former senior aide to House
Speakers Dennis Hastert, Newt Gingrich and former Senate
Majority Leader Trent Lott. Howard now is president of the
Wexler & Walker lobbying firm.
+ Hazen Marshall, former top aide to Don Nickles, now a
lobbyist with the Nickles Group.
+ Joel Malina, Democrat, a lobbyist with Wexler & Walker.
This is a classic revolving door scenario in Washington, D.C.,
said Tyson Slocum, research director of Public Citizens energy
program. These lobbyists are exploiting the government
connections theyve earned while on the public payroll. They
are also helped by the nearly $4.6 million in contributions they
and their companies political action committees have given to
federal political candidates over the years.
As veterans of past deregulation fiascos, these companies
already have paid nearly $1 billion to settle allegations of
market manipulation. Houston-based Reliant Energy has paid
nearly $125 million to federal and state governments for its
role in intentionally shutting down power plants in California
to drive up prices, which gave them bigger profits. The company
also has been criminally indicted by the Bush administration for
its price-gouging. Atlanta-based Mirant has agreed to pay $780
million to settle allegations of market manipulation.
California-based Calpine also agreed to pay $7.5 million to
settle allegations that it manipulated natural gas and power
markets. And Baltimore-based Constellation Energy paid the
California Attorney Generals office $2.5 million to settle
allegations that it manipulated that states electricity market.
All of the actions that led to the payments were committed in
deregulated markets.
Public Citizen urges Congress to see through this lobbying
groups thinly veiled disguise, said Slocum. These companies
have promised consumers lower prices and better service before
but then participated in the largest consumer fraud in
history. Congress should realize that their claims to represent
consumers best interests are a sham.
To view a chart detailing the companies campaign contributions
to federal candidates since 2001, click here.
###
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2 ArabicNews.com: Iran hopes to build more nuclear power plants; US hints Iran is
now contained
Iran-Russia, Politics, 3/26/2005
Iran hopes to build more nuclear power plants for electricity
needs said Iran's Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi on Friday, IRNA
reported.
Kharrazi urged the European parties in the ongoing negotiations
"to prove their seriousness in the talks so as to reach concrete
results for extension of the objective guarantees," IRNA said.
IRNA added "Appreciating Iranian and non-Iranian technicians as
well as the management of the project for Bushehr nuclear power
plant, Kharrazi said that would be the first step to use nuclear
energy for meeting domestic electricity shortage... the power
plant would raise the Islamic Republic's technical and
technological potential to benefit from the nuclear energy for
peaceful purposes."
Kharrazi expressed hope that the Russian side would commission
and deliver the plant based on the schedule to which it is
committed, and that "could pave the way for further expansion of
mutual cooperation in construction of more powerplants," IRNA
reported.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during a March 24
interview with the Los Angeles Times was asked:
Question: Madame Secretary, on Iran, the Europeans are arguing
essentially that time is now on our side, that with the
agreement for a freeze and with the IAEA monitoring the freeze,
it's the Iranians who are in a hurry to get a deal and that they
are effectively contained.Ê Do you accept that, and does that
mean that we do have time to negotiate onward?
Rice:Ê "Well, it's always better to resolve these things as soon
as you can, not later, because Iran is a very closed society, at
least from the perspective -- this perspective, that it's not
Iraq.Ê It has people going back and forth.Ê It was a dissident
group that exposed Natanz and so you have some sources of
information but they are by no means perfect and so you want as
soon as possible to get a handle on the Iranian program.
"I do think that we made a lot of progress over the last several
weeks in that we found that when I was in Europe the first time
and the President was in Europe that somehow the conversation
had shifted to what the United States was going to do rather
than to what the Iranians were going to do, and this is now
clearly back on the ground that the Iranians have certain
obligations to meet, that there is a unified view of what those
obligations are, that there is a unified approach to those, to
getting the Iranians to live up to those obligations. And so
we're certainly in better shape than we were several weeks ago,
but I would hope that the Iranians would want to demonstrate
sooner rather than later that they really do now intend to live
up to those obligations because a lot is riding on it."
Question:Ê To go back to Sonni's question though, are you
comfortable that the current freeze amounts to containment of
the Iranian program?
Rice:Ê"I do not think you can ever be certain of any such
thing.Ê It is better than nothing to have a freeze, obviously.Ê
But the real goal here has to be that the Iranians make a choice
that they are going to engage -- that they are not going to
engage in activities that heighten suspicion that they're trying
to get a nuclear weapon under cover of civilian nuclear
program.Ê And there are some very clear steps they could take to
do that and they have to be steps that are not easily
reversible. And so this is where we are and, as I said, it's a
better place than we were a little while ago.Ê But that's
because the world is unified.Ê I even thought that -- and we
said this -- that the Russian agreement with the Iranians, while
we don't understand why the Iranians would want civilian nuclear
power at all given their tremendous energy reserves, but at
least the Russian agreement also speaks to the question of
proliferation risk in terms of fuel take-backs and provision of
fuel rather than allowing the Iranians to reprocess."
Today IRNA reported that President Mohammad Khatami today "
urged all governments and nations to oppose production and
proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Addressing
the first International Congress on Bioethics, he stressed that
opposing proliferation of weapons of mass destruction by those
who produce such kinds of armaments, covertly or overtly, has no
ethical value."
Copyright © 1995-2003 Arabic News.com, All Rights Reserved.
*****************************************************************
3 Daily Yomiuri: KEPCO resignations too little, too late to restore public trust
The Yomiuri Shimbun
Strong public criticism of Kansai Electric Power Co. apparently
lies behind the resignations of two senior executives Friday to
take responsibility for a fatal steam blowout last summer at a
nuclear power plant that killed 4 people and injured 7.
But the long delay in offering a sop to public opinion indicates
the company still has a long way to go to fully regain public
trust.
The resignations of President Yosaku Fuji and Chairman Yoshihisa
Akiyama came more than seven months after the incident at the
No. 3 reactor of Mihama Nuclear Power Plant in Mihamacho, Fukui
Prefecture.
The fatal steam blowout occurred as a result of the wall of a
steam pipe becoming eroded to below government standards.
An Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry investigation team said
KEPCO's corporate morals were underdeveloped in recognizing the
importance of maintaining safety standards.
The reason KEPCO took so long to offer up two executives to
placate public wrath was that the firm's management insisted on
viewing the fatal incident as an unavoidable labor accident. And
as such, there was no need for the company's top brass to resign
to accept responsibility--even though they were ultimately
responsible for the incident, a KEPCO board member said.
The METI investigation team, from the Nuclear and Industrial
Safety Agency, succeeded in shedding some light on the
shortfalls in KEPCO's management system this month.
The investigation revealed that the company had failed to
inspect parts of the plant at Mihama Nuclear Power Plant other
than the damaged section of the No. 3 reactor, even though it
knew the wall of at least one pipe had been eroded to below
government safety standards.
The slow reaction by KEPCO management in demonstrating its
commitment to prevent similar incidents, prompted the
investigation team to release a final report which in which it
attacked KEPCO's mind-set of placing emphasis on efficiency
rather than safety.
Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Shoichi Nakagawa has
repeatedly condemned KEPCO saying the incident was a result of
human error.
Minshuto (Democratic Party of Japan) is gearing up to mount yet
another attack on KEPCO and the responsibility it bears at the
House of Representatives' Trade and Industry Committee.
"Given the bitter public sentiment, they (KEPCO executives)
finally found it impossible to evade responsibility," an
official in the power industry said.
METI, which administers the nuclear power industry, welcomed
Fuji's decision to resign to accept responsibility for the
fatality.
"They presented a good example to other companies, which should
raise awareness of compliance (with safety standards) and having
a sense of mission in the industry," a senior official of the
Natural Resources and Energy Agency said.
But it remains unclear how far the resignations have gone in
restoring public faith in nuclear power.
The government and utility companies have long said that high
safety standards and the understanding of local residents were
essential in promoting nuclear energy.
However, Tokyo Electric Power Co. was found to have fabricated
inspection records at one of its nuclear power plants in August
2002.
Public distrust of the government's nuclear power policy reached
a peak after the accident at the Mihama Nuclear Power Plant.
Fuji's decision to step down shows that nuclear safety is not
simply a slogan, but an issue that could change corporate
management.
But some METI officials are not quite convinced given that
Akiyama, who is in charge of personnel management at KEPCO, is
to remain in his post for another year.
Copyright 2005 The Yomiuri Shimbun
*****************************************************************
4 BBC ON THIS DAY | 28 | 1979: Nuclear leak causes alarm in America
1979: Nuclear leak causes alarm in America
Radioactive steam has leaked into the atmosphere in Pennsylvania,
USA.
The accident happened when a water pump broke down at the Three
Mile Island nuclear plant, 10 miles (16km) south-east of the
state capital Harrisburg.
There are fears some of the plant's 500 workers have been
contaminated.
The authorities have declared a "general emergency" but did not
inform the public until five hours after the gas escaped at 0400
local time.
There's a hell of a lot of radiation
Joe Fouchard, USNRC spokesman
Director of the County Civil Defence Organisation (CCDO) Les
Jackson said they had drawn up an evacuation plan, but nearby
residents have not been moved yet.
He described the scene at the large power station in the
Susquehanna River as "a madhouse".
Spokesman for the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission
(USNRC) Joe Fouchard said: "There's a hell of a lot of radiation
in the reactor building."
A spokesman for Metropolitan Edison - one of the companies that
runs Three Mile Island - said the nuclear reactor automatically
shut down after the malfunction, but not before the leak.
According to a US Government report radiation has been detected a
mile away, but the calm weather has helped contain the spread of
the noxious fumes.
One of the nuclear engineer at the Pennsylvania Department of
Environmental Protection, William Dornsife, said: "There was very
little wind this morning, so the radioactivity shouldn't have
gone very far."
"What small release there was will be confined to the local
vicinity," he continued.
The emergency status will remain until there has been a thorough
investigation by teams in anti-radiation suits.
The nuclear industry has been under increasing scrutiny in the US
recently.
Five plants were closed down there just two weeks ago over fears
of the effects of earthquakes on cooling towers.
Watch/Listen [Photo of Three Mile Island nuclear plant]
Radioactive gas escaped despite the automatic shut down of the
reactor
Martin Bell: "In Congress and out of it the nuclear debate is no
new phenomenon"
In Context
Concern mounted in the days following the accident as
investigations showed serious damage to the nuclear fuel rods,
which threatened melt-down of the plant.
The authorities recommended pregnant women and children under
school age living within five miles of the site should be
evacuated.
And Pennsylvania Governor Dick Thornburgh gave a warning that
the four counties surrounding Three-Mile Island might have to be
cleared of people too.
The accident was caused by a combination of human error and
equipment failure and the plant was partially shut down.
Three Mile Island remains the largest nuclear incident in US
history.
It has attracted enormous public attention, although nobody died
as a direct result of the accident and subsequent radioactive
fall-out.
Research released in 2002 showed incidences of cancer in the
area were not significantly higher than elsewhere.
*****************************************************************
5 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Nuclear agency rejects license extension
FirstEnergy plans 'minor revisions' to its application
Saturday, March 26, 2005 By Jim McKay,
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has returned as incomplete and
unacceptable FirstEnergy Corp.'s 1,500-page application to
extend by 20 years the operating licenses of its twin-unit
Beaver Valley Nuclear Power Station in Shippingport.
M. Scott Shields, a spokesman for FirstEnergy, yesterday said
the Akron, Ohio-based company would make "minor revisions" to
the application once it finds a new vendor to do the work and
will resubmit it to the NRC in the summer.
Shields said the situation is not urgent since the current
license for Beaver Valley Unit 1, granted in 1976, does not
expire until 2016. The license for Unit 2, first granted in
1987, does not expire until 2027.
The license application to extend the plant's operating life by
two decades until 2036 and 2047 was submitted in February. It
took FirstEnergy more than three years to prepare and includes
engineering reviews of plant equipment, components, structures
and programs.
But the NRC said the application did not meet its "very high
quality standards" and that it needed more accurate and
up-to-date information on the plant if it is to ensure the
public's health and safety. A decision from the NRC is expected
in 2007.
"Given the gaps in the current application, we simply could not
properly review FirstEnergy's request," said David Matthews,
director of the Division of Regulatory Improvement Programs in
the NRC's Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation.
The NRC also is evaluating whether to grant FirstEnergy
permission to increase the generating capacity of the two units
by approximately 8 percent, raising the output by about 140
megawatts. One megawatt can provide power for about 500
residential customers.
The NRC staff is scheduled to meet with representatives of
FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company on Wednesday to discuss
the agency's annual assessment of the plant's safety performance.
The review will look at the plant's performance from Jan. 1 to
Dec. 31, 2004. Overall, the agency said in a notice that the
plant operated safely last year.
The meeting, which will be open to the public, is scheduled to
begin at 1 p.m. in Room 103 of the plant's Training Building,
located on Shippingport Road.
The NRC said its staff would be available to answer questions
from the public before the session ends.
The facility employs about 1,100, Shields said.
(Jim McKay can be reached at or 412-263-1322.)
Copyright ©1997-2005 PG Publishing Co., Inc. All Rights
*****************************************************************
6 Sunday Herald: Lights out for a new nuclear age in Scotland -
By Iain Macwhirter, Holyrood Commentary
New nuclear power plant needed to keep lights on, say MPs so
read one of many headlines last week reporting the Scottish
Affairs Select Committee report on power generation.
Only the report didnt actually say that. Its recommendations
specifically avoided proposing any new nuclear plants to replace
Torness and Hunterston B, due to close in the next decade or so.
In fact, it said any new plant would be rejected by the Scottish
Executive.
You had to look pretty hard to find any references to nuclear
power at all in this report. But the hidden hand of industry
lobbying managed to make this rather confused and anodyne
publication sound like a dire warning that renewable energy
wind and wave power, etc is for the birds. That if we want to
save the planet, we need to return to atomic power quick. It
was duly reported by the media that nuclear was back on the
agenda.
There is a fast-breeder quality to pro-nuclear propaganda. It
seems to be generated spontaneously, as if from nowhere, based
on no new material. The only change in the debate about nuclear
energy is that there is no change.
The economics of nuclear power still dont stack up. There is
still nowhere to put the waste; the existing plants continue to
contaminate the environment; there are major unresolved safety
problems; and the nuclear industry represents a major security
threat in the age of international terrorism. Oh, and the
Scottish parliament will still reject any application for a new
power plant on planning grounds.
However, there is a widely held perception indeed, a certainty
among many Labour politicians that nuclear is inevitable. After
the general election, were told, a new generation of nuclear
power stations will happen. The unions want it, the party wants
it and the environment demands it. With the reality of global
warming now beyond reasonable doubt, were told, nuclear is the
only way to avert climatic catastrophe. The environmentalists
are just going to have to lump it.
Well, maybe. It would be irrational to reject nuclear power
generation out of hand as a replacement for burning fossil
fuels. However, there are cheaper alternatives, including
insulation and renewable energy, like wind and wave power, which
should surely be examined first in any audit of energy supply
as indeed the select committee says.
Scotland has 25% of Europes renewable energy. There may be
doubts about whether this can generate 40% of our supply by
2020. But that is only if you accept that demand continues to
increase without limit. Insulation programmes could reduce
massively the amount of energy we consume.
Anyway, when it comes to expense, nuclear power is way off the
scale. The new nuclear decommissioning agency, which is being
set up this week to clear up the mess left by the last
generation of nuclear power stations, is going to have to find
some £50 billion to do the job. That is a lot of money, and it
wont be the energy companies that pay.
The truth is that nuclear power is a ruinously expensive way of
generating energy. Left to the market, there would never again
be another nuclear power station, because no private operator
could cope with the cost of decommissioning. The civil nuclear
generation industry would never have been developed in the first
place had it not been for massive state subsidies during the
cold war largely because the military needed plutonium for
nuclear weapons.
Plutonium is the most toxic material known a quantity the size
of a grapefruit would be enough to kill every man, woman and
child on Earth. Plutonium doesnt exist in the natural world and
is created only through nuclear fission. And everyone wants some
of it the Israelis already have it, as do the North Koreans.
This is why we are currently trying to stop Iran developing its
civil nuclear power programme because the mad mullahs might use
some of the fissile material for bombs.
It is morally inconsistent for countries like Britain to be
ordering countries in the Middle East to close down their
reactors when we are planning to open up more of them. But thats
only part of the problem.
In an age of international terrorism, rogue states and Islamic
jihad, nuclear power is a liability. Torness nuclear power
station, sitting on the coast at East Lothian, is a prime target
for an al-Qaeda plane bomb. It could irradiate much of the
central belt of Scotland. Alarmist? Of course. But when were
told that there are literally hundreds of terrorists in Britain
already plotting an atrocity, you have to ask where they are
likely to get the biggest bang for their terrorist buck.
Its not just the power plants that are vulnerable. The big
problem with nuclear power is the lack of any deep storage
solution. The stuff has to be stored in tanks on the ground or
moved around the country by train to plants like Drigg in
Cumberland. More targets. More contamination.
And, of course, the one certainty of nuclear power is that
contamination will happen. It will get out. It always does.
We were told by the men in white coats that nuclear power was
fail-safe. But the history of the Dounreay plant has been one
long broken promise. There have been explosions, leaks,
accidents, mislaid isotopes you name it over the past 40
years. Countless radioactive particles have been spread around
the beaches and rocks of Caithness, rendering some of the most
beautiful stretches of coastline uninhabitable for anyone
without a protective suit.
It is the same at Sellafield and round all nuclear stations. You
dont need a Three Mile Island or a Chernobyl disaster it is
happening insidiously all the time.
So couldnt we just dump the stuff in space? Well, in theory yes
but you would have to make awfully sure that it didnt fall back
to Earth. There is enough of it loose already.
Committees have been looking at underground storage for 30
years, but nobody has found anywhere geologically stable enough.
The truth is that the only safe place to store nuclear waste
would be under the houses of parliament, because only then could
you be absolutely sure that it would be looked after properly.
But people in supposedly remote areas like Scotland arent going
to be fooled again, which is one reason that the next generation
of nuclear power stations is unlikely to be built here.
The political opposition would be considerable. Yes, there are
those, like Lord Sewel (of the motions) who argue that since
nuclear power is a Westminster responsibility, the Scottish
parliament would just have to thole it. But the key is not the
plant, but the waste. Waste is a planning issue, and given the
lack of any secure means of storage, planning consent will
assuredly be refused.
So, forecasts of a new nuclear future for Scotland are
premature. But that wont prevent wishful thinking on the part of
MPs with nuclear constituencies. Nor will it prevent the nuclear
lobby a group with considerable influence in Number 10 from
pressing its case. If Tony Blair is back after the election with
a three-figure majority, and he decides Britain needs new
nuclear power stations as a mark of national virility, that
would be a different matter. Forget the economics; forget the
science. What Tony wants, Tony tends to get.
27 March 2005
© newsquest (sunday herald) limited. all rights reserved
*****************************************************************
7 Guardian Unlimited: U. of Fla. to Replace Uranium in Reactor
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Sunday March 27, 2005 5:31 AM
GAINESVILLE, Fla. (AP) - Weapons-grade uranium used as fuel in a
research reactor at the University of Florida will be replaced
with a safer alternative, officials said.
The switch will reduce the likelihood that the fuel could be
used to make weapons, said Bill Vernetson, the school's director
of nuclear facilities.
Under a federally funded conversion program, the U.S. Department
of Energy will replace the highly enriched uranium in the
university's training reactor with a low enriched fuel.
The process is expected to take 15 to 18 months, university
officials said.
The Nuclear Sciences Center reactor, built in 1959, contains
less than 11 pounds of uranium. It is used to train students in
a variety of fields, from geology to medicine.
Uranium that has been highly enriched with a fissionable isotope
is a key component of nuclear weapons. Energy experts say as
little as 25 kilograms, or about 55 pounds, can produce a bomb.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
8 CBC News: Alberta town uncertain about Chernobyl exchange
Last Updated Sun, 27 Mar 2005 23:46:34 EST CBC News
HINTON, ALTA. - People in the town of Hinton will play host
again this year to children living with the aftermath of the
Chernobyl disaster. But organizers of the program are concerned
about how much longer it can carry on.
The president of Belarus has recently said he is not in favour
of these kinds of programs because children are exposed to
western ideals and consumerism.
There are concerns he may decide to prevent children from
leaving the country in the future.
Large areas of Belarus, Ukraine, Russia and beyond were
contaminated in varying degrees when the nuclear reactor in
Chernobyl, Ukraine exploded in 1986. The disaster spewed tonnes
of radioactive material into the air.
Every summer when the radiation level is highest, 3,000 children
in the affected areas travel abroad to 22 countries. Many are
from Belarus, which had a rain of radioactive waste pour down on
two million people, a quarter of them children.
The nuclear complex was only 20 kilometres south of Ukraine's
border with Belarus.
Living among the waste leads to many health problems. The
children have a much higher risk of thyroid cancer, leukemia and
immune system problems.
Barbara Madsen, who has hosted children from the Chernobyl area
almost every summer in Hinton for the past 10 years, says she
hopes the program can continue.
"The main idea behind our program is to give the children a
respite from their radioactive environment," she says.
She says 13 children and one interpreter will be coming to the
Alberta town from the Gomel region of Belarus for an eight-week
visit, starting in July.
Copyright © CBC 2005
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9 Cincinnati Enquirer: 2 Fernald silos to be razed
Sunday, March 27, 2005
Waste in holding tanks, but destination unclear
By Dan Klepal Enquirer staff writer
The earthen berm, which shored up the Fernald silo walls, has
been removed as cleanup continues.
The Enquirer/Michael E. Keating
CROSBY TWP. - Two of the most visible symbols of the
environmental and human health threats posed by the Cold War-era
Fernald uranium plant will soon be reduced to rubble.
But that doesn't mean the threat is gone.
The government contractors in charge of the $4.4 billion
environmental cleanup at the 1,000-acre site have emptied two
concrete silos that have held the most dangerous nuclear waste
at the plant since the early 1950s. They've moved that waste - a
sandy, radioactive byproduct left behind after raw ore was
stripped of most of its uranium in a variety of acid baths -
into four metal holding tanks so crews can begin digging out the
silos and cutting them down with shears in the next few weeks.
Already most of the dirt that enveloped the sides of the silos,
protecting against tornados since the mid-1960s, has been carved
away. Those two silos should be razed in about five weeks. A
third silo, which holds a less-radioactive powdery material,
won't be torn down until the fall.
Even though the sandy waste is still at Fernald, citizens say
razing the silos is a huge step - both in terms of physically
being one step closer to finishing the cleanup, and
psychologically making the community feel safer.
"The tearing down of the silos is monumental," said Jim Bierer,
chairman of the Fernald Citizen's Advisory Committee.
The committee has monitored the cleanup from the beginning. "It
proves to the community that the Department of Energy is
cleaning up the site, and that there's a clear path ahead.
"We're feeling so much more comfortable about the whole thing,
the technology has been working, the material is out of silos,
and the silos are now being torn down. It just takes a weight
off your shoulders."
That weight won't be completely lifted, however, until the
Department of Energy finds a final resting place for the
material, now held in four 750,000-gallon temporary holding
tanks. The tanks are housed in a reinforced concrete building
near the silos.
DOE officials are negotiating with a company in Andrews, Texas,
to store the waste there for about two years while it seeks a
permit to permanently bury the material there.
That company, Waste Control Specialists, predicts the Texas
Board of Health will decide by October on permanently storing
the waste.
Dennis Carr, project manager for the silos, said despite harsh
criticism over safety procedures at the silos - from the Nuclear
Defense Facilities Safety Board and local citizens - there have
been no accidents, no exposures to radiation and no injuries on
the $400 million project.
Carr also said many of the people working on the silos project
have worked at Fernald since the 1980s, when the plant was still
producing uranium.
"We've been on this site an average of more than 20 years," he
said. "To all of us, this is the representation that the project
is near over. There's a real sense of accomplishment because we
knew this would be the hardest job since Day 1."
There's still a lot of work to do.
The waste still has to be mixed with cement and fly ash, placed
in huge concrete shipping crates and trucked away. That last
part is most important to Lisa Crawford, a member of the
citizens' committee and a long-time observer and critic of the
cleanup.
"The bottom line is once it leaves here it can't come back"
under rules that govern the cleanup, Crawford said. "It's good
that the silos are coming down and the waste is out of (two) of
them, because their integrity has been questioned for years. But
my fear is that this stuff is now going to stay in the temporary
tanks for 50 years, like they stayed in the silos for 50 years."
If officials in Texas reject the waste, it will leave the
federal government with only one option - the Nevada Test Site
near Las Vegas. That option is less than appealing because state
officials there have threatened a lawsuit to stop the shipments
and keep the Fernald waste out of the desert.
While Department of Justice lawyers say disposal of the material
in Nevada is legal, a battle over the issue would make it
impossible for the contractor to finish its work by the June
2006 deadline.
Citizens and crews working on the silos have become accustomed
to setbacks.
Two previous attempts to clean up the silos were abandoned -
after spending more than $69 million in taxpayer money - because
they were deemed not technically feasible or because the
contractor gave up before finishing the work. Those failures led
to the current plan of encasing the waste in concrete.
A previous plan envisioned turning the waste into glass.
"The community has always seen the silos waste as the worst
thing on the site," Crawford said. "This stuff has to go."
E-mail dklepal@enquirer.com
Copyright1995-2005. The Cincinnati Enquirer, a Gannett Co.
*****************************************************************
10 Japan Times: Kepco chief to exit over steam deaths
Saturday, March 26, 2005
OSAKA (Kyodo) Yosaku Fuji, president of Kansai Electric Power
Co., said Friday he will step down in June to take
responsibility for last year's fatal steam accident at one of
its nuclear power plants.
Fuji, 67, will also step down as chairman of the Federation of
Electric Power Companies of Japan by June but will stay on the
board of Kepco.
Vice President Shosuke Mori, 64, will succeed Fuji as president
of Japan's second-largest electric utility. He joined the
company in 1963 and has held his current post since June 2001.
The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry's investigative
commission is looking into the Aug. 9, 2004, rupture of a
reactor-cooling system pipe at Kepco's Mihama nuclear power
plant in Fukui Prefecture. In the accident, high temperature
steam erupted from the pipe, killing five inspection workers and
injuring six others.
The ministry commission is expected to say in its final report
due out at the end of the month that Kepco should be held
accountable for the incident at the plant.
Fuji has decided to step down just as Kepco has mapped out, at
his initiative, a package of measures aimed at preventing
similar accidents.
The pipe that burst had not been inspected since the reactor
started operations in the mid-1970s.
The Japan Times: March 26, 2005
(C) All rights reserved
*****************************************************************
11 Sunday Times: Ministers signal U-turn on Scottish nuclear plants -
thetimes.co.uk
The Sunday Times - Scotland
March 27, 2005
Jason Allardyce
MINISTERS are preparing to abandon their opposition to new
nuclear power stations in Scotland and allow the construction of
the country’s first plant in nearly 20 years.
There is strong support within Jack McConnell’s administration
for a new generation of atomic facilities, despite resistance
from their Liberal Democrat coalition partners.
Senior Labour sources have signalled a U-turn after a warning
from the Commons Scottish affairs committee that a new nuclear
plant may be needed in Scotland to “stop the lights going out”.
Despite the threat of huge public opposition, the committee
urged the UK government not to rule out nuclear power in its
assessment of Scotland’s future energy needs.
It said that the nuclear industry has “a proven track record,
and a new power station could take less than five years to
complete”. The committee added that it would be unwise to depend
on renewable energy sources such as wind and wave power.
While the UK government is responsible for nuclear policy and is
expected to raise the prospect of new reactors in a white paper
shortly after the expected general election, the Scottish
executive has the power to veto planning applications.
The partnership agreement struck in 2003 by the first minister
and Jim Wallace, leader of the Scottish Lib Dems, rules out any
new nuclear plants until the issue of disposal of radioactive
waste is resolved.
However, the agreement will expire in two years’ time and
pro-nuclear Labour ministers expect the other hurdle to be
cleared next year when an independent expert group will report
to the UK government on disposal options.
Several ministers, including Andy Kerr, McConnell’s closest
political ally, and Allan Wilson, the deputy enterprise
minister, are said to support the case for a new generation of
nuclear power plants in Scotland. There is also strong backing
among Labour policy advisers responsible for drawing up the
party’s next Scottish parliament manifesto.
A source close to McConnell confirmed that, unlike the Lib Dems,
he does not oppose new nuclear power stations in principle.
“It’s not something that’s ruled out for ever, otherwise that is
what we would have said in the partnership agreement,” he said.
Scotland’s nuclear plants currently generate up to 50% of the
country’s energy needs but are nearing the end of their lives.
, The Times and The Sunday Times.
*****************************************************************
12 Independent: Secret DTI team gives green light for 10 new nuclear plants
www.independent.co.uk
By Clayton Hirst 27 March 2005
A secret team within the Department of Trade and Industry is
preparing the case for a programme to build nuclear power
stations after the general election.
The small group of senior officials, known as Future for
Nuclear, has for the past few months examined whether it is
economically viable to build new nuclear reactors. A senior
Whitehall source with connections to the group said that it had
now, in effect, made that case for up to 10 new reactors.
The DTI has maintained that it has no plans to allow the
construction of new nuclear power stations because it wants to
give renewable forms of energy a head start.
The pressure for a nuclear building programme is not coming from
the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, Patricia Hewitt,
who remains sceptical about nuclear power. Instead, the drive is
from the Prime Minister, who is worried that without new nuclear
plants, Britain will miss its target of a 20 per cent cut in
carbon emissions by 2010.
Within government, Geoffrey Norris, Tony Blair's special adviser
on industry and business, is pressing the nuclear case. It is
understood that he was instrumental in the creation of the DTI's
Future for Nuclear team.
"Norris has fought hard to keep nuclear on the agenda," said the
Whitehall source.
Sir David King, the Government's chief scientific adviser, is
also said to be lobbying for new nuclear build.
Mr Norris did not return calls and Sir David was unavailable for
comment.
A DTI spokesman said: "Although nuclear power produces no carbon
dioxide, its current economics make nuclear build an
unattractive option and there are important issues of nuclear
waste to be resolved."
However, in a sign that the Government is planning a debate on
nuclear power, he said: "Any decision to build new nuclear power
stations would need to be the subject of public consultation and
[the] publication of a White Paper on those specific proposals."
It is expected that a government U-turn on nuclear power would
require a major ministerial reshuffle. Along with Ms Hewitt,
Margaret Beckett, the Secretary of State for the Environment, is
also uneasy about nuclear power. Mr Blair may also want a
pro-nuclear Energy minister to replace Mike O'Brien, who has
remained neutral on the issue.
Martin O'Neill, the Labour chairman of the Commons Trade and
Industry Select Committee, said: "Nuclear's time is about to
come. By this time next year, I expect there to be a nuclear
White Paper laying out all the various goods on the stall. My
feeling is that the political mood is changing towards nuclear.
There are a lot of people who, six to nine months ago, were
anti-nuclear who are now changing their positions."
A "process of elimination" would lead the Government to turn to
nuclear, as other "green" forms of electricity generation all
have their flaws, he said.
Already, some of the world's leading nuclear companies are
lining up consortia to bid for the expected nuclear building
programme, which could be worth £8bn. The companies set to bid
include the French nuclear giant Areva, UK construction company
Amec and Westinghouse, the US arm of the state-owned BNFL.
©2005 Independent News &Media (UK) Ltd.
*****************************************************************
13 Guardian Unlimited North Korea: Drills Delay Nuclear Talks
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Saturday March 26, 2005 5:46 PM
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North Korea blamed joint military
drills conducted by the United States and South Korea for a
delay in the resumption of nuclear disarmament talks, the
North's Communist Party newspaper reported Saturday.
The weeklong military exercises, which ended Friday, were
``derailing the resumption of six-way talks,'' the newspaper
Rodong Sinmun said in a commentary also carried by North Korea's
official news agency, KCNA.
``The U.S. does not want either improvement of the relations
with (North Korea) and a solution to the nuclear issue ... but
intends only to invade by force of arms.''
North Korea has repeatedly denounced the annual exercises as
preparations for a pre-emptive attack against its hardline
regime and said it would build a nuclear arsenal to deter such
an attack.
Washington says it has no intention of invading and has urged
the North to return to the multilateral nuclear disarmament
talks.
Last month, the North's government claimed it had nuclear
weapons. International experts believe the North does have
enough radioactive material to make about a half-dozen nuclear
bombs but has not performed any known nuclear tests that would
confirm the claim.
The talks - involving the two Koreas, United States, China,
Japan and Russia - have been stalled since June after three
unsuccessful rounds in Beijing. A planned fourth round in
September never took place because of the North's refusal to
attend, citing what it calls a hostile U.S. policy.
Also Saturday, the North accused Washington of dividing the two
Koreas and called for a withdrawal of all U.S. troops from the
South.
``The U.S. should withdraw from South Korea its forces that have
imposed the tragedy of division upon the Korean nation and
wantonly abused human rights of South Koreans for more than half
a century,'' KCNA said.
It said the North Korean Human Rights Act enacted in October in
the United States is an ``evil law'' which creates more
separated families and should be scrapped.
The United States has about 33,000 troops in South Korea as a
legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War, which ended in a cease-fire,
not a peace treaty, leaving the two Koreas technically still at
war.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
14 PTI: 'Iran N-Programme was recommended by former US President'
Mar 27, 2005 06:31:00 PM
WASHINGT FES71
Washington, Mar 27 (PTI) The Iranian uranium enrichment
programme, the shut-down of which the US now demands, was
recommended by former President Gerald Ford's top officials,
including his Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, current Vice
President Richard Cheney and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld,
according to declassified US documents.
The Ford Administration of the 1970s even recommended to Iran
at one point to make the nuclear project a joint one with
Pakistan, the newly declassified documents reveal.
The Ford Administration "at one point suggested joint
Pakistani-Iranian reprocessing as a way of promoting
'nonproliferation in the region ' because it would cut down on
the need for additional reprocessing facilities,'" the
Washington Post said in a report, after reviewing the documents.
Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz do not want to talk about it now
but Kissinger told the Post when asked why he joined in making
these recommendations, "They (Iranians) were then an allied
country (under the Shah) and this was a commercial transaction.
We did not address the question of them one day moving toward
nucler weapons."
Joseph Cirincione, a nonproliferation expert at the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace, told the Post: "Do the
Iranians remember that they (the then Ford Administration
leaders) said this? Yes, the Iranians sure remember that they
said it."
Cirincione described as "the worst idea imaginable" the Ford
Administration's suggestion for a joint Pakistani-Iranian
reprocessing plant. PTI
© Copyright PTI 2003-2004
*****************************************************************
15 heraldtribune.com: Florida will replace weapons-grade uranium from research reactor
Southwest Florida's Information Leader
Letter to editor
The Associated Press
GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- Weapons-grade uranium from the University
of Florida research reactor will be replaced with a safer
alternative, officials said.
The switch will make it "less likely that some organizations
could collect fuel and set up some sort of clandestine operation
to make weapons," said Bill Vernetson, the school's director of
nuclear facilities.
Under a federally funded conversion program, the U.S. Department
of Energy will replace the highly enriched uranium in the
university's training reactor with a low enriched fuel.
The process is expected to take 15 to 18 months, university
officials said.
Highly enriched uranium is a key component in the construction
of nuclear weapons; energy experts say as little as 25 kilograms
can produce a bomb.
Florida's reactor is powered with less than 5 kilograms. The
Nuclear Sciences Center reactor, built in 1959, is used to train
students in a variety of fields, from geology to medicine.
Vernetson said the security move will not affect Florida's
nuclear-related research.
Energy department officials with the agency's conversion program
were not available for comment Friday.
Information from: The Gainesville Sun,
Last modified: March 26. 2005 4:10AM
Serving the Herald-Tribune newspaper and SNN Channel 6 ©
Sarasota Herald-Tribune. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
16 SANA: US allows Pak to go nuclear: report
WASHINGTON, March 26 (SANA): The United States and other Western
powers allowed Pakistan to develop nuclear weapons because they
needed Islamabad's support to fight Soviet forces in
Afghanistan, says a think-tank report distributed in Washington.
The USA and the erstwhile West Germany had prior knowledge of
Pakistan's clandestine efforts to buy nuclear material, but
decided to ignore them, says the Observer Research Foundation,
which is affiliated with the Washington's Brookings Institution.
The report claims that even the present US Vice-President Dick
Cheney, who was Secretary of Defence during the Afghan war, had
blocked an in-house report on Pakistan's proliferation
activities to help sale of F-16 aircraft to Islamabad.
"Washington's priorities changed dramatically following the
occupation of Afghanistan by Soviet forces in 1979," says the
report, adding, "The Americans were far too obsessed with
driving out the Soviets to waste time worrying about stopping
Pakistan from going nuclear."
In the case of Iran, the report says, the USA seems to have
taken a diametrically opposite stand. While Iran insists it
intends to use enriched uranium only in power stations,
Washington argues that Iran is making fuel for atomic warheads.
Britain, France and Germany are also putting diplomatic efforts
to persuade Iran to scrap uranium enrichment.
Pakistan's nuclear programme, which began after India's first
nuclear test in 1974, also had the tacit support of China, the
report claims. The genesis of Pakistan's programme, the report
says, goes back to former Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto,
who way back in 1965 said, "If India builds the bomb, we will
eat grass or leave, even go hungry, but we will get one of our
own. We have no alternative."
The report claims, "Pakistan relied heavily on clandestine deals
with nations like Germany, the USA, China and North Korea to
buy, sell and barter nuclear know-how and materials."
Pakistan had maintained such extreme security to its nuclear
programme that its army, which guarded the installations, did
not even allow the then Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto to visit
Kahuta, where a uranium enrichment centrifuge facility was
established, the report says. Centrifuges are used to purify
uranium for use as fuel for nuclear power plants or weapons.
*****************************************************************
17 SANA: Illegal Nuclear Deals Alleged
WASHINGTON, March 26 (SANA): A federal criminal investigation has
uncovered evidence that the government of Pakistan made
clandestine purchases of U.S. high-technology components for use
in its nuclear weapons program in defiance of American law.
Federal authorities also say the highly specialized equipment at
one point passed through the hands of “Humayun Khan”, an
Islamabad businessman who they say has ties to Islamic
militants.
Even though President Bush has been pushing for an international
crackdown on such trafficking, efforts by two U.S. agencies to
send investigators to Pakistan to gather more evidence have hit
a bottleneck in Washington, said officials knowledgeable about
the case.
The impasse is part of a larger tug-of-war between federal
agencies that enforce U.S. nonproliferation laws and
policymakers who consider Pakistan too important to embarrass.
The transactions under review began in early 2003, well after
President Pervez Musharraf threw his support to the Bush
administration's war on terrorism and the invasion of
neighboring Afghanistan to oust Pakistan's former Taliban
allies.
"This is the age-old problem with Pakistan and the U.S. Other
priorities always trump the United States from coming down hard
on Pakistan's nuclear proliferation. And it goes back 15 to 20
years," said David Albright, director of the Washington-based
Institute for Science and International Security. Albright, a
former United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq, favors getting
tougher with Pakistan.
U.S. and European officials involved in nonproliferation issues
say they recently discovered evidence that Pakistan has begun a
new push to acquire advanced nuclear components on the black
market as it tries to upgrade its decades-old weapons program.
Current and former intelligence officials said the same elements
of the Pakistani military that they suspected of orchestrating
efforts to buy American-made products may also have worked with
Abdul Qadeer Khan, father of the Pakistani nuclear program who
allegedly supplied weapons know-how and parts to Iran, North
Korea and Libya. Abdul Qadeer Khan and Humayun Khan are not
related.
The scheme U.S. investigators are trying to unravel involves
Humayun Khan and Asher Karni, a South African electronics
salesman and former Israeli army major.
Aided by Karni, who pleaded guilty to violating export control
laws and began cooperating with U.S. authorities shortly after
his arrest 15 months ago, investigators have traced at least one
shipment of oscilloscopes from Oregon to South Africa and on to
Humayun Khan.
The trail did not end there, however. According to recently
unsealed Commerce Department documents, agents followed the
shipment to the Al Technique Corp. of Pakistan, which had not
been listed on any of the shipping or purchasing documents.
Al Technique describes itself as a manufacturer of precision
lasers and other military-related products. But for federal
investigators, "it was a big red flag," one U.S. official said.
"It's definitely a front for nuclear weapons, for their WMD
project," the official said. The company is on a U.S. list of
firms banned from buying equipment such as the special
oscilloscopes that can be used to test and manufacture nuclear
weapons.
Like others interviewed for this report, the American official
spoke on condition of anonymity, citing the political
sensitivity of the case, the records of which have been sealed
by a federal judge.
The judge also has imposed a gag order on all participants. U.S.
officials suspect that the Pakistani government was the customer
behind another purchase they say Humayun Khan made from Karni:
200 U.S.-made precision electronic switches that can be used in
detonating nuclear weapons.
U.S. law prohibits the sale of equipment that can be used in
nuclear weapons programs to Pakistan and some other countries as
part of the effort to curb nuclear proliferation.
Officials accuse Humayun Khan and Karni of conspiring to break
those laws by concealing the nature of the transactions. Humayun
Khan has not been charged with any crime, but the Commerce
Department on Jan. 31 banned him from doing business in the U.S.
for 180 days.
Halting illegal transfers of nuclear weapons components is a
cornerstone of the administration's Proliferation Security
Initiative, and the departments of Commerce and Homeland
Security moved quickly to pursue leads after Karni's arrest.
His cooperation has allowed U.S. officials to significantly
expand their investigation. As many as several dozen suspects are
under scrutiny in Pakistan, India, South Africa, the United Arab
Emirates and elsewhere, officials say. Humayun Khan's involvement
in the deal aroused concern because he has been linked to several
militant groups, including the All Jammu and Kashmir Muslim
Conference, a Pakistani party that allegedly supports fighters in
the disputed territory of Kashmir.
Last year, federal prosecutors used Karni's ties to Humayun Khan
to argue successfully against the South African being released on
bail while awaiting trial. "This case represents one of the most
serious types of export violations imaginable," one prosecutor
argued in a court filing. U.S. agents began gearing up for an
investigative trip to Pakistan in early 2004.
They had recently completed a mission to South Africa that
produced a wealth of evidence. They hoped to question Humayun
Khan and others, locate missing components and pursue further
leads. But when the Commerce and Homeland Security departments
asked the State Department to clear the investigators' trip, they
did not get permission. Law enforcement officials complain that
the delay has allowed the trail to grow cold.
Several senior officials said that the United States had made
high-level requests to Islamabad for cooperation in the case, but
that none was made forcefully or publicly.
Two State Department officials dealing with nonproliferation said
the Bush administration voiced concerns about Pakistan's ties to
the nuclear black market, most recently during private meetings
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had with Musharraf and other
Pakistani leaders last week. Pakistan has refused to allow access
to Abdul Qadeer Khan.
Gary Milhollin, a nuclear nonproliferation expert, said the Bush
administration could apply enough pressure on Pakistan to gain
access for the investigators reviewing Humayun Khan's activities,
tying cooperation to the $3-billion U.S. aid package, for
example, and to the sale of F-16 fighter jets that the White
House announced Friday.
"But it seems bizarre that we are letting the Pakistanis get away
with nuclear smuggling because we think they'll help fight
terrorism," said Milhollin, who heads the Washington-based
Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control.
Humayun Khan, in a telephone interview from Islamabad, denied any
involvement with the recent shipments, saying that "someone else"
ordered the oscilloscopes and the switches, had them shipped to
his office, then snatched them somewhere along the way. "It's
very tragic," Humayun Khan said.
"You don't know where these things are landing. They come through
and they vanish." He said Washington has allowed dozens of black
market companies to flourish in Pakistan and elsewhere by
selectively enforcing its nonproliferation laws.
"It's all about politics," Humayun Khan said.
"If they don't want us to develop these things, they would do
everything they can to stop it…. You [the American government]
close one eye and open the other at particular times to these
things that have been going on." He said dozens of front
companies throughout South Asia and the Middle East were
procuring such components from U.S. firms for questionable
purposes.
Humayun Khan said he had e-mailed detailed information to U.S.
investigators about at least 10 Pakistani companies that he
claimed routinely engaged in illicit schemes to buy goods from
U.S. suppliers, including Tektronix Inc., the Oregon firm that
allegedly sold him the oscilloscopes.
U.S. officials will say only that Humayun Khan has provided
evasive and contradictory answers about the case. Although they
have talked to him by telephone, they say it is crucial to
confront him in Pakistan, where they can do follow-up
investigations.
Humayun Khan said he assumed that, because U.S. investigators
never showed up, they must have dropped him as a suspect.
Pakistani authorities haven't questioned him, he said, because he
and his father have done business with Islamabad's Defense
Ministry for 40 years and would not do anything the government
didn't approve of.
"Nobody came to me. Why? They didn't bother," Humayun Khan said.
"They know us like we were relatives." Alisha Goff, a spokeswoman
for Tektronix said that the company was aware of the
investigation, including the purchase of its oscilloscopes, but
that it had not been implicated in any wrongdoing. She said the
company had stopped all shipments to Humayun Khan, pending the
outcome of the investigation.
"Tektronix is cooperating fully with the government, and as such
cannot provide any additional information on this matter," Goff
said.
U.S. investigators say they have become increasingly frustrated
by the lack of support from the State Department because they see
rising indications of Pakistani involvement in the nuclear black
market. They cite evidence suggesting that Pakistan has increased
its already extensive network of agents operating in the global
market for nuclear and missile components.
Foreign officials with the International Atomic Energy Agency say
they believe Pakistan has set aside a huge budget for new black
market components to upgrade its entire nuclear weapons program.
Some of the equipment is part of a large program to expand
Pakistan's nuclear arsenal with plutonium-based weapons, which
are smaller and far more destructive than weapons using uranium,
diplomats and investigators say.
"Pakistan does need nuclear technology," said one European
diplomat with ties to the South Asian country, noting that
Islamabad's agents have been caught trying to make illicit
purchases of specialized steel and aluminum, as well as nuclear
triggers called krytrons.
"We have the names of the companies and we have been talking to
them," another diplomat said. Pakistani officials have repeatedly
declined to discuss Karni's case and the investigation, and Al
Technique did not return calls seeking comment.
One senior Pakistani official said that his country did not
intentionally violate U.S. nonproliferation laws, but it would
continue to support and improve its nuclear weapons program as a
deterrent to India, which he said also used the black market.
The departments of Commerce, Homeland Security and Justice would
not permit its officials to discuss the criminal case on the
record, and the White House and State Department also had no
formal comment.
However, State Department officials, who spoke on condition of
anonymity, said the administration believed it had few options
for pressuring Musharraf when his cooperation was crucial on
several other fronts.
"It's one thing for them to cooperate with us in efforts to stop
[nuclear components] from going elsewhere, such as Iran," one
said. "But they will never cooperate with us on efforts to stop
things that they are trying to get. They've got their own
program, which they're trying to keep."
www.pakranks.com
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18 Xinhua: Iran warns against WMD proliferation
www.xinhuanet.com
www.chinaview.cn 2005-03-26 22:42:57
TEHRAN, March 26 (Xinhuanet) -- Iranian President Mohammad
Khatami warned on Saturday against the production and
proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), the official
IRNA news agency reported.
"Today, the world is seriously threatened by the production,
proliferation and stockpiling of weapons of mass destruction,"
Khatami was quoted as saying in a keynote speech delivered to
the first international conference on bioethics, which opened
here Saturday.
Some 600 professors, researchers and scientists from 18
countries are attending the three-day conference.
The United States accused Iran of developing nuclear
weapons, a charge rejected by Tehran, who claims its nuclear
program is for generation of electricity. Enditem
Copyright ©2003 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
19 Xinhua: Iran refutes US official's allegation on NPT
www.xinhuanet.com
www.chinaview.cn 2005-03-28 03:54:01
TEHRAN, March 27 (Xinhuanet) -- Iran on Sunday refuted a
recent allegation by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on
the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), reported the
official IRNA news agency.
"The US should stop fanning distrust, spreading suspicion
and continuing to raise excuses against peaceful use of nuclear
energy," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid- Reza Asefi was quoted
as saying.
Rice said Friday in an interview with Los Angeles Times that
the NPT's legitimation of uranium enrichment had lead to a
proliferation risk and called on the international community to
"close the loophole."
Categorically rejecting Rice's statements, Asefi said the US
had no right and could not condition other countries' economic
progress and development on its discriminatory stances and
interpretations.
"The claims show clearly that the US administration has
founded its policy on institutionalization of discrimination and
double-standards worldwide and is arrogantly and unilaterally
trying to undermine international institutions and conventions,"
Asefi said.
The spokesman reiterated Iran's right of using nuclear
energy for peaceful purposes, which he said was "undisputed and
based on clear legal foundations."
According to the NPT, all of its signatories enjoy the right
to get access to peaceful nuclear technology including uranium
enrichment.
The United States has accused Iran of developing nuclear
weapons secretly and urged the international community to press
Tehran to halt all of its sensitive nuclear activities.
Iran has suspended uranium enrichment but insisted that it
isonly a "temporary" measure to build confidence, citing the NPT
to support its claims. Enditem
Copyright ©2003 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
20 CBS News: Loose Ends In Iraq Weapons Hunt
March 26, 2005
Casualties In Iraq Shift
(Photo: CBS/AP)
"From bits in these original vials, you can create a hundred
others, and we just want to know, has all this been traced?"
Chief U.N. arms inspector Demetrius Perricos
(AP) Dozens of ballistic missiles are missing in Iraq. Vials of
dangerous microbes are unaccounted for. Sensitive sites, once
under U.N. seal, stand gutted today, their arms-making gear
hauled off by looters, or by arms-makers.
All the world now knows that Iraq had no threatening "WMD"
programs. But two years after U.S. teams began their futile hunt
for weapons of mass destruction, Iraq has something else: a
landscape of ruined military plants and of unanswered questions
and loose ends, some potentially lethal, an Associated Press
review of official reporting shows.
The chief U.N. arms inspector told AP that outsiders are seeing
only a "sliver" of the mess inside Iraq. Demetrius Perricos
reports that satellite images indicate at least 90 sites in the
old Iraqi military-industrial complex have been pillaged.
The U.S. teams paint a similar picture. "There is nothing but a
concrete slab at locations where once stood plants or
laboratories," the Iraq Survey Group said in its final report.
But that report from inside Iraq, though 986 pages thick, is at
times thin on relevant hard information and silent in critically
important areas.
Just days after the report was issued last fall, for example,
news leaked that tons of high-grade explosives had been looted a
year earlier from the Iraqi complex at Qaqaa. It was a potential
boon to Iraq's car bombers, but the U.S. document did not report
this dangerous loss.
Similarly, the main body of the U.S. report discusses Iraq's
Samoud 2s, but doesn't note that many of these ballistic
missiles haven't been found. Only via an annex table does the
report disclose that as many as 36 Samouds may be unaccounted
for in the aftermath of the U.S.-led invasion.
Seventy-five of the 26-foot-long, liquid-fueled missiles were
destroyed under U.N. oversight before the war, because they too
often exceeded the 93-mile range allowed for Iraqi missiles
under the 12-year-old U.N. inspection regime. After the U.N.
inspectors were evacuated on the eve of the U.S. invasion, they
lost track of the remaining missiles.
The Iraq Survey Group, which ended its arms hunt in December,
says a complete accounting of the Samouds "may not be possible
due to various factors."
Besides the Samouds, up to 34 Fatah missiles — a similar but
solid-fueled weapon — are also unaccounted for. And more than
600 missile engines may be missing; the U.S. document simply
doesn't report their status.
Perricos, in the AP interview at his New York headquarters,
expressed concern about the missiles. "If they have been
destroyed, somebody should know they've been destroyed or not.
Have they gone somewhere?" he asked.
The worry is not that Iraqi insurgents might field the missiles,
he said, but that advanced Samoud or Fatah parts might secretly
boost missile-building programs elsewhere in the region or
beyond. "The engines can easily be sold for a lot of money for
the insurgency," he said.
Asked about gaps in Iraq Survey Group reporting — specifically
the silence on the Qaqaa explosives — a CIA official replied,
"Our focus and goal was to find WMD, not conventional
explosives." The official spoke on condition of anonymity.
Led by CIA special adviser Charles A. Duelfer, the Iraq Survey
Group discredited Bush administration claims of an Iraqi WMD
threat by determining that Baghdad's programs to build nuclear,
chemical and biological weapons were shut down in 1991 under
U.N. inspection.
But paperwork discrepancies and stray pieces from past programs
-- from artillery shells to test tubes — have left a "residue of
uncertainty," as the latest U.N. inspectors' report put it. On
top of that, the disorder following the U.S.-led invasion
exposed dangerous material and equipment, previously under U.N.
seal, to theft.
Samouds and Fatahs are only the biggest items on the
"unaccounted-for" list. The smallest are bits of bacterial
growth for biological weapons.
The Iraqis said this bioweapons material was destroyed years
ago, but not all is documented. Inspectors simply don't know
whether vials of seed stock — including deadly anthrax and
botulinum A bacteria — may have been used to nurture more
batches that are unaccounted for.
"From bits in these original vials, you can create a hundred
others, and we just want to know, has all this been traced?"
Perricos asked. The Iraq Survey Group lists the fate of
bioweapons seed stocks under "Unresolved Issues."
The U.S. arms hunters' findings further cloud the picture on
another item, 155mm mustard-gas shells with a dead-end paperwork
trail.
At least 13,000 shells filled with mustard were destroyed under
U.N. supervision in the 1990s, but 550 were never found. Iraqis
told U.N. inspectors they were destroyed in a fire. Now the U.S.
teams say an imprisoned Iraqi official told them a Special
Republican Guard unit retained the chemical rounds, and Iraq was
about to declare them to U.N. inspectors when the Americans
invaded.
His account, otherwise unconfirmed, raises the prospect of the
mustard, an incapacitating blistering agent, falling into the
hands of the anti-U.S. insurgency in Iraq. Although some
chemical weapons lose potency quickly, mustard remains viable
for years.
Perricos said stray chemical ordnance may have lain unnoticed in
Iraqi ammunition dumps when the invasion began.
"We don't know if they have cleaned up, if they have visited,
for example, the munitions depots," he said of the Iraq Survey
Group.
The group's final report acknowledges, in fact, that "only a
fraction of Iraq's total munitions inventory was identified and
exploited for CW rounds" — that is, checked for chemical
weapons. In part, at least, this was because depots were
stripped by looters after the Iraqi government was brought down
in April 2003.
More than a year later, in the Netherlands and Jordan, U.N.
inspectors found the first evidence of what had happened: More
than 40 missile engines somehow had made their way out of Iraq
and into foreign scrap yards, along with four specialized
vessels from Iraq's Fallujah chemical plant, which made
ingredients for poison gases.
But "we have just seen a very thin sliver" of the Iraqi materiel
being bought and sold in the Middle East, Perricos said of those
finds.
In U.N. Security Council discussions, Perricos has suggested his
agency return to Iraq to help with arms verification, but the
United States hasn't responded. Iraqi representatives say the
inspection agency should be shut down.
Other unknowns in today's Iraq involve some of the most
sensitive among the 90 or so ransacked sites:
MUTHANNA
Iraq's chemical-weapons center of the 1980s, a desert complex in
the embattled Sunni Triangle, it was overrun by looters who
apparently broke into a U.N.-sealed bunker holding old chemical
weapons, sarin-filled artillery rockets, the Iraq Survey Group
reported. It isn't known whether usable warheads remained in the
bunker and what may have been taken.
QAQAA
Besides the 377 tons of high-grade explosives, whose
disappearance went unreported by the U.S. teams, this huge site
south of Baghdad held thousands of pieces of equipment for
making explosives, missile propellant and other military
products. The U.N. inspectors worry that 800 pieces of
specialized chemical equipment, long under U.N. monitoring, have
been taken.
TUWAITHA
Satellite images show that many buildings at Iraq's premier
nuclear site, south of Baghdad, were systematically dismantled.
High-precision equipment long under U.N. monitoring was presumed
stolen, including flow-forming machines and electron-beam
welders, key to building centrifuges to produce nuclear-bomb
fuel.
The cost of the fruitless U.S. weapons hunt was both financial
and human.
The Iraq Survey Group's budget is classified, U.S. officials
have said. But Duelfer's predecessor, David Kay, told the AP
that a report that $600 million was appropriated for 2004 was
correct. That doesn't include a reported $300 million spent on
the weapons hunt before the 2004 fiscal year, and additional
spending in late 2004.
Searching in the midst of war, for evidence that wasn't there,
took four lives among the searchers, the CIA reports. Two Iraq
Survey Group members died and five were wounded when a building
exploded while they searched it, and two more died and one was
wounded in an attack on a Duelfer convoy. He escaped injury.
By CHARLES J. HANLEY
©MMV, The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material
may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
*****************************************************************
21 The Times of India: Pakistan gets IAEA request for N-parts-
FRIDAY, MARCH 25, 2005
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has received a formal request from the
International Atomic Energy Agency to send some components of a
"discarded" centrifuge for analysis, a day after President
Pervez Musharraf said it considered sending nuclear centrifuges
to the agency for investigation relating to Iran's nuclear
programme.
"The President's statement is in the context of a request
received from the IAEA that some components of a discarded old
centrifuge may be sent to the agency in Vienna for analysis in
connection with the agency's investigation into the
contamination issue with regard to Iran,"Pakistan foreign office
spokesman Jalil Abbas Jilani was quoted as saying in the Dawn
daily on Friday.
Jilani,who had earlier this week said Pakistan has not received
any request from IAEA nor would it send any centrifuges,
confirmed that the request had been made.
The spokesman, however, remained evasive on when the request was
received from the IAEA but the daily claimed it had come "some
time back." Musharraf had said in a television interview on
Thursday that Pakistan was considering dispatching parts of
centrifuges to Vienna for examination.
Copyright © 2005 Times Internet Limited. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
22 AP Wire: Fuel from nuclear warheads causes concern over transport safety
| 03/26/2005 |
Associated Press
CHARLESTON, S.C. - An experimental load of nuclear fuel will be
arriving in South Carolina in a few weeks, stirring debate over
whether the substance is a target for terrorism or a safe source
of energy.
A shipment of MOX, a nuclear fuel made from weapons-grade
plutonium, is expected to arrive at the Charleston Naval Weapons
Station in two to three weeks and then will be transported by
truck to the Catawba Nuclear Station in York County.
Scientists and environmentalists disagree on the health and
safety risks of radioactive plutonium and plutonium-based fuel.
Still, the federal government is moving ahead with plans to turn
plutonium from nuclear warheads into a product that could run
power plants.
The South Carolina plant will be the first American nuclear
reactor to use MOX. The product already is used in reactors in
Europe and Japan, and has been tested in laboratories abroad.
Its use in the United States is part of the federal government's
pact with Russia to find safe ways to dispose of both countries'
plutonium supplies.
But activists say there are too many dangers with the fuel.
"The risk of bringing nuclear fuel through the area, through the
waterway we rely on for our economy, and driving it on the same
streets with our children is too great," said Merrill Chapman of
the Charleston-based group Citizens Against Plutonium.
In September, Chapman and her group protested a 275-pound
shipment of weapons-grade plutonium moving through Charleston on
its way to France. There, the plutonium was processed into the
four MOX "fuel assemblies" that are now on their way back to
South Carolina. Its arrival will mark the first shipment of MOX
into the country.
Chapman and her group are working now to set up protests in
Charleston while the MOX is en route.
The federal Department of Energy has said that the
transportation of MOX is safe.
If the fuel works successfully at the Catawba Nuclear Station,
the federal government plans to build the first U.S. MOX factory
near Aiken to transform the rest of the country's leftover
military plutonium into fuel.
Whether future shipments of MOX are necessary will depend on the
success of the work at Catawba.
The ships carrying the fuel to Charleston are specially
outfitted to hold nuclear material. A team of armed officers
will accompany the ships and an armed convoy will move the load
by land to York.
*****************************************************************
23 [DU-WATCH] Fayetteville diary - a veteran confronts charges
Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 23:51:16 -0600 (CST)
Fayetteville Diary
A veteran confronts charges Fort Bragg was the wrong place to protest
By Dennis Kyne
www.gnn.tv
A veteran confronts charges Fort Bragg was the wrong place to protest
From a distance I heard Drew Plummer say, Hey, Dennis! He was standing in
the Porta Potty crowd, in the middle of a line that was on the end of ten
lines that were already twenty people deep. It was eleven in the morning and
it was packed; the rally in Fayetteville, North Carolina hadnt even
started. In the distance, musician Ralph Baldwin, a Vietnam veteran, kicked
off the rally with a haunting song from his album, Hold Onto The Dream. I
knew right then, and I get goose bumps as I write this, that I was in the
right place, and this was definitely the right time. The South Carolina Stop
the War coalition marched in unannounced as the rally began. Buses from New
York City, Washington D.C., Atlanta and all points west arrived
continuously, unloading people who walked onto the rally area and created a
mass that organizers put at nearly 5,000 far larger than the small
gathering reported by some media outlets the following day. Organizer Lou
Plummer said this was the biggest protest ever in Fayetteville.
The hot topic of the day was the simmering controversy over recent
statements by Paul Rieckhoff, founder of the Manhattan-based soldier
advocacy group Operation Truth. Rieckhoff, an Iraq war veteran and a
favorite of media outlets from CNN to The New York Times, stated that
protesting in Fayetteville represented, the height of insensitivity by the
anti-war organizations due to its proximity to Fort Bragg, home to the 82nd
Airborne. On Air America last week, he repeated the charge, getting into a
heated argument with Unfiltered host Rachel Maddow. Aside from the
insinuation that troops are trained with sensitivity, it is an incredible
assumption to think that all troops on active duty are so dense they dont
know we are there in their interests. One could very easily infer from
Rieckhoffs rhetoric that we were there to spit and curse at the troops. But
there were no cries of babykillers coming from this crowd. In fact, there
was nothing but love for the sons and daughters sent to fight a war sold to
the public on a lie. Riechkhoff seems to forget that the organizations
hosting this event were all family members of service members who have died
in action or are currently serving. In addition, the organizations were made
up of many veterans, people who have served in both peace and wartime.
Rieckhoff, who is not an active duty soldier, is currently a 1st Lieutenant
in the New York State National Guard. Having spent fifteen years in the Army
myself, from 1987 until 2003, including service as a medic on the frontlines
of Operation Desert Storm, I can tell you, the only person insulting anyone
is Rieckhoff.
Drew Plummer had just returned from the Navy the day before, having battled
the machine long enough to know what it is doing to young women and men.
Drew enlisted during his last year in high school, just three months before
9/11. He was released from his military obligations last week after a
prolonged legal battle resulting from his exercise of the freedoms he
supposedly was fighting to protect. Home on leave, he had joined his father,
Lou, at an anti-war vigil. When an Associated Press reporter asked his
opinion on the war, Drew replied, I just dont agree with what were doing
right now. I dont think our guys should be dying in Iraq. But Im not a
pacifist. Ill do my part.
He paid the price. The Navy charged Drew with making disloyal statements,
under Article 134 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. At his hearing,
he was asked if he sympathizes with the enemy or was considering acts of
sabotage against the U.S. military. He replied, no, and was convicted and
demoted.
Drew told me he had recognized early on that the war was waged under false
pretenses. He said, One of the ways to end war is resistance from the
inside. We are making them aware with protests. Troops realize war is wrong
sooner or later, and they start the moves to get out. This is what Drew
did, and he received more than fifty letters from around the country in
support. Hell always be a hero to me.
So will Jose Couso, the slain journalist from Spain. Jose was hit by a U.S.
tank shell while inside the Palestine Hotel during the fall of Baghdad in
April 2003. Everyone in the world knew the hotel was where the worlds media
was operating out of. His brother, David, traveled from Madrid to
Fayetteville in his honor. With the aid of an interpreter, David told me,
It is the right thing to do, when it comes to struggle you have to go to
them and invite them because it is open to everyone. This is not an issue of
confrontation, this in issue of invitation, we invite everyone to come.
The majority of the people who arrived were from places other than
Fayetteville. That is not to say Fayetteville wasnt alive, and Fort Bragg
soldiers and their family members werent speaking out just as hard, if not
harder, than the out-of-towners.
On the condition of anonymity, of course, having been told by commanders on
Fort Bragg not to get anywhere near the protest or else risk being punished,
there were members of the 82nd Airborne, both current and former present at
the protests. The 82nd Airborne is on a steady rotation to combat zones, and
Ann Roesler, who was staying in her son Michaels apartment while he was off
fighting, had something to say about Rieckhoffs statement as well. Michael
is on his second rotation to Iraq with the 82nd. It is a crock of s*** what
Rieckhoff says. Many of the troops I have spoken with dont believe in this
war. What Rieckhoffs doing is creating a hornets nest, making things
worse.
I concur, so does Ward Reilly, of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, who
traveled from Baton Rouge, Louisiana for the event. Ward, a major organizer
of the Jazz Funeral For Democracy held in New Orleans earlier this year,
said, One thing that separates us from them is credibility. They [Operation
Truth] have no credibility, what Rieckhoff is doing is straight Nixonian.
Talk about telling the truth, the Winter Soldiers testimony in 1971 was
telling the truth, which led to the pulling of money for the war. What
Rieckhoff is doing is participating in the division, knowing most likely
that power divides each to conquer both.
Many simply asked, What the hell is Rieckhoff doing? Responses from
Military Families Speak Out, the Gold Star mothers and veterans of this
current war and many wars past said that Rieckhoff, a young man who is more
than likely loaded with good intentions, doesnt have any idea what he is
doing. Rieckhoff wants to blame the White House and everyone else, when the
fact is everyone is accountable to the truth. What truth is his operation
telling? That the White House lied? Most people in Fayetteville knew that
before Rieckhoff ever deployed to Iraq.
Kevin and Joyce Lucey were telling the truth as they spoke to the thousands
of anti-war protesters. Kevin Lucey told of finding his son, Jeffrey, in the
basement of their home strangled with a garden hose. Jeffrey, who was only
23, had left dog tags of two Iraqi soldiers he said he was forced to shoot
unarmed on his bed. After hearing these remarkable parents, I was in tears
so were many others.
Jeffreys fate is similiar to many of the 11,000 Desert Storm veterans I
served with who are now dead. As I climbed the stage, held the microphone,
and told the crowd I wanted to have a cry, I had to remind myself and the
thousands of listeners, everyone in Fayetteville knows soldiers dont cry.
I spoke about depleted uranium and the fact that 18,500 Desert Storm
Veterans are incarcerated for rape or violent crimes in our federal and
state prisons. I mentioned these troops currently are coming home with
something deeper than PTSD, it is Soldiers Heart (WWI), Shell Shock (WWII),
the 1,000 yard stare (Vietnam)? I asked, What will they call it this war?
As the crowd applauded and I left the stage, I was reminded that I was in
the right place and it was the right time. It was the right thing, and no
1st Lieutenant in the United States military, still collecting money in a
time of war, is going to pass himself off as truth-teller to me, or any of
the thousands of anti-war protesters I shared the day with in Fayetteville
on the second anniversary of an illegal invasion. While Rieckhoff, and
others, believe Fayetteville was the wrong place to protest; Drew Plummer,
the Luceys and thousands of others were down south saying, Bring Them Home
Now, we dont support an illegal war. For most troops and their families,
that is the only operational truth worth telling.
Read Paul Rieckhoffs response to Kynes diary here.
Dennis Kyne is a military veteran who served for fifteen years in the U.S.
Army, and was a battlefield medic on the frontlines of Operation Desert
Storm, where he saw first-hand the effects of Depleted Uranium weapons and
PB Tablets. He is the author of the self-published memoir, Support the
Truth, and a musician. For more info, see www.denniskyne.com.
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24 [DU-WATCH] Fw: Details on Depleted Uranium
Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 23:50:30 -0600 (CST)
----- Original Message -----
From: Karim A G
To: Karim A G
Sent: Sunday, March 20, 2005 3:20 PM
Subject: Details on Depleted Uranium
http://shininglight.us/mt/archives/2005/03/details_on_depl.html#more
Details on Depleted Uranium
The details about Depleted Uranium are emerging from the deep hole the US
Department of Defense has put them. Rumor has it that the BBC will break the
story over the next few days. If that happens, US mainstream media will
likely pick up the story.
What I want to know is why its taken so long. Who put the blackout on US
Media? I've found internet links to documents produced by the government as
early as 1990 on DU and its potential consequences. There are extensive
resources on-line on DU. There are also government commissioned studies that
minimize it's risks. The Federation of American Scientists has a good set of
links.
Remember all the discussion about Anthrax powder? The CDC describes how
small particles of Anthrax the size of 5-10 micrometers can easily become
airborne again when disturbed:
Although resuspension of certain settled particles requires substantial
amounts of energy, lower energy activities (e.g., paper handling, foot
traffic, mail handling, and patting of chairs) can reaerosolize settled B.
anthracis spores (9,10). The clinical and epidemiologic presentations of
anthrax after an intentional release vary by the population targeted, the
characteristics of the spores, the mode and source of exposure, and other
characteristics.
The size of the particles of DU are nanometers and therefore even easier to
disturb and stay airborne for longer periods. The problem with even Rands
conclusions are based on the assumption of episodic exposures where the body
can purge itself of the particles as it do with natural occuring uranium. I
can imagine battlefields that are occupied indefinitely producing continuous
exposure that builds up in the body. I recall discussions of dust always in
the air in Iraq. I can imagine a gradually increasing continuous exposure to
DU in certain locations. With troops rotating in and out of hot areas, they
receive continuous exposure while there. The numbers exposed would be very
high.
DU along with the exposure of many troops to the traces of chemical weapons
in southern Iraq early in the invasion when a munitions dump was burned
probably accounts for much of the 56% disability rate in Gulf War II
Veterans.
Explaining How
"The numbers are overwhelming, but the potential horrors only get worse,"
Robert C. Koehler of the Chicago-based Tribune Media Services wrote in an
article about DU weapons entitled "Silent Genocide."
"DU dust does more than wreak havoc on the immune systems of those who
breathe it or touch it; the substance also alters one's genetic code,"
Koehler wrote. "The Pentagon's response to such charges is denial, denial,
denial. And the American media is its moral co-conspirator."
The U.S. government has known for at least 20 years that DU weapons produce
clouds of poison gas on impact. These clouds of aerosolized DU are laden
with billions of toxic sub-micron sized particles. A 1984 Department of
Energy conference on nuclear airborne waste reported that tests of DU
anti-tank missiles showed that at least 31 percent of the mass of a DU
penetrator is converted to nano-particles on impact. In larger bombs the
percentage of aerosolized DU increases to nearly 100 percent, Fulk told AFP.
DU is harmful in three ways, according to Fulk: "Chemical toxicity,
radiological toxicity and particle toxicity."
[...]
"Exposure pathways for depleted uranium can be through the skin, by
inhalation, and ingestion," Moret wrote. "Nano-particles have high mobility
and can easily enter the body. Inhalation of nano-particles of depleted
uranium is the most hazardous exposure, because the particles pass through
the lung-blood barrier directly into the blood.
"When inhaled through the nose, nano-particles can cross the olfactory bulb
directly into the brain through the blood brain barrier, where they migrate
all through the brain," she wrote. "Many Gulf era soldiers exposed to
depleted uranium have been diagnosed with brain tumors, brain damage and
impaired thought processes. Uranium can interfere with the mitochondria,
which provide energy for the nerve processes, and transmittal of the nerve
signal across synapses in the brain.
"Damage to the mitochondria, which provide all energy to the cells and
nerves, can cause chronic fatigue syndrome, Lou Gehrig's disease, Parkinson's
disease and Hodgkin's disease."
Complete Article
Radioactive Uranium Nano-Particles Pinpointed as Major Issue
in Gulf War Syndrome
Christopher Bollyn - American Free Press January 7, 2005
Depleted uranium weapons and the untold misery they wreak on mankind are
taboo subjects in the mainstream media. There are indications, however, that
the media embargo is about to be breached.
Despite being a grossly under-reported subject in the mainstream media,
there is intense public interest in depleted uranium (DU) and the damage it
inflicts on humankind and the environment.
While American Free Press is actively investigating DU weapons and how they
contribute to Gulf War Syndrome, the corporate-controlled press virtually
ignores the illegal use of DU and its long-lasting effects on the health of
veterans and the public.
In August 2004 American Free Press published a ground-breaking four-part
series on DU weapons and the long-term health risks they pose to soldiers
and civilians alike. Information provided to AFP by experts and scientists,
some of it published for the first time in this paper, has increased public
awareness of how exposure to small particles of DU can severely affect human
health.
Leuren Moret, a Berkeley-based geo-scientist with expertise in atmospheric
dust, corresponds with AFP on DU issues. Recently Moret provided a copy of
her correspondence to a British radiation biologist, Dr. Chris Busby, about
how nanometer size particles of DU - less than one-tenth of a micron and
smaller - once inhaled or absorbed into the body, can cause long-term damage
to one's health.
Busby is one of the founders of Green Audit, a British organization that
monitors companies "whose activities might threaten the environment and
health of citizens."
Moret's letter was meant to assist Busby in a legal case being heard in the
High Court in London where a former defense worker, Richard David, 49, is
suing Normal Air Garrett, Ltd., an aircraft parts company now owned by
Honeywell Aerospace, claiming exposure to depleted uranium on the job has
made his life a "living hell."
David worked as a component fitter on fighter planes and bombers but had to
quit due to health problems. He says he developed a cough within weeks of
starting work.
Today, David suffers from a variety of symptoms like those known as Gulf War
Syndrome, including respiratory and kidney problems, bowel conditions and
painful joints. Medical tests reveal mutations to his DNA and damage to his
chromosomes, which, he says, could only have been caused by ionizing
radiation. He has also been diagnosed with a terminal lung condition.
Honeywell denies depleted uranium was ever used at the plant in Yeovil,
Somerset, where David worked for 10 years until 1995. David claims that DU's
existence at the plant was denied because it is an official secret.
David has asked the High Court for more time to gather evidence. The hearing
is due to resume in April. "I don't have any legal representation," David
said, "so I am representing myself. It is a real David versus Goliath case.
"I am confident I will win. I hope to set a precedent for other cases of
people who have suffered from the effects of depleted uranium."
Moret's letter on the particle effect of DU is based on research done by
Marion Fulk, a nuclear physical chemist and former scientist with the
Manhattan Project and the National Laboratory at Livermore, California.
Fulk, who has developed a "particle theory" about how DU nano-particles
affect human DNA, donates his time and expertise to help bring information
about DU to the public.
Asked about Fulk's particle theory, Busby said it is "quite sound." "DU is
much more dangerous than they say," Busby added. "I've always said that it
contributes significantly to Gulf War Syndrome."
When Moret's correspondence to Dr. Busby was posted on the Internet over the
New Year's holiday under the title "How Depleted Uranium Weapons Are Killing
Our Troops," some 6,000 people read the letter in the first two days. The
following Monday, a producer from the BBC's Panorama program contacted Moret
to arrange an interview.
If the BBC follows up with an investigation on the health effects of DU, it
may be hard for the U.S. media to remain silent. More than 500,000 "Gulf War
Era" vets currently receive disability compensation, many of them for a
variety of symptoms generally referred to as Gulf War Syndrome. Experts
blame DU for many of these symptoms.
"The numbers are overwhelming, but the potential horrors only get worse,"
Robert C. Koehler of the Chicago-based Tribune Media Services wrote in an
article about DU weapons entitled "Silent Genocide."
"DU dust does more than wreak havoc on the immune systems of those who
breathe it or touch it; the substance also alters one's genetic code,"
Koehler wrote. "The Pentagon's response to such charges is denial, denial,
denial. And the American media is its moral co-conspirator."
The U.S. government has known for at least twenty years that DU weapons
produce clouds of poison gas on impact. These clouds of aerosolized DU are
laden with billions of toxic sub-micron sized particles. A 1984 Dept. of
Energy conference on Nuclear Airborne Waste reported that tests of DU
anti-tank missiles showed that at least 31 percent of the mass of a DU
penetrator is converted to nano-particles on impact. In larger bombs the
percentage of aerosolized DU increases to nearly 100 percent, Fulk told AFP.
Depleted uranium is harmful in three ways, according to Fulk: "Chemical
toxicity, radiological toxicity, and particle toxicity." Particles in the
nano-meter (one billionth of a meter) range are a "new breed of cat," Moret
wrote. Because the size of the nano-particles allows them to pass freely
throughout the organism and into the nucleus of its cells, exposure to
nano-particles causes different symptoms than exposure to larger particles
of the same substance.
Internalized DU particles, Fulk said, act as "a non-specific catalyst" in
both "nuclear and non-nuclear" ways. This means that the uranium particle
can affect human DNA and RNA because of both its chemical and radiological
properties. This is why internalized DU particles cause "many, many
diseases," Fulk said.
Asked if this is how DU causes severe birth defects, Fulk said, "Yes."
The military is aware of DU's harmful effects on the human genetic code. A
2001 study of DU's effect on DNA done by Dr. Alexandra C. Miller for the
Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute in Bethesda, Maryland,
indicates that DU's chemical instability causes 1 million times more genetic
damage than would be expected from its radiation effect alone, Moret wrote.
Dr. Miller requested that questions be sent in writing and copied to a
military spokesman, but did tell AFP that it should be noted that her
studies showing that DU is "neoplastically transforming and genotoxic" are
based on in vitro cellular research.
Studies have shown that inhaled nano-particles are far more toxic than
micro-sized particles of the same basic chemical composition. British
toxicopathologist Vyvyan Howard has reported that the increased toxicity of
the nano-particle is due to its size.
For example, when mice were exposed to virus-size particles of Teflon (0.13
microns) in a Univ. of Rochester study, there were no ill effects. But when
mice were exposed to nano-particles of Teflon for 15 minutes, nearly all the
mice died within 4 hours.
"Exposure pathways for depleted uranium can be through the skin, by
inhalation, and ingestion," Moret wrote. "Nano-particles have high mobility
and can easily enter the body. Inhalation of nano-particles of depleted
uranium is the most hazardous exposure, because the particles pass through
the lung-blood barrier directly into the blood.
"When inhaled through the nose, nano-particles can cross the olfactory bulb
directly into the brain through the blood brain barrier, where they migrate
all through the brain," she wrote. "Many Gulf Era soldiers exposed to
depleted uranium have been diagnosed with brain tumors, brain damage, and
impaired thought processes. Uranium can interfere with the mitochondria,
which provide energy for the nerve processes, and transmittal of the nerve
signal across synapses in the brain.
"Damage to the mitochondria, which provide all energy to the cells and
nerves, can cause chronic fatigue syndrome, Lou Gehrig's disease, Parkinson's
Disease, and Hodgkin's disease."
www.americanfreepress.net/html/explaining_how.html
March 14, 2005 06:38 PM :: TrackBack
href=3D"http://www.iacenter.org/depleted/dugov.htm">
href=3D"http://www.miltoxproj.org/depleted_uranium.htm">extensive resources
on-line on DU. There are also government commissioned studies
that
minimize it's risks. The Federation of
American
Scientists has a good set of links.
href=3D"http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/rr53e430-2a1.htm">CDC
describes how small particles of Anthrax the size of 5-10 micrometers can
easily
become airborne again when disturbed:
href=3D"http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/explaining_how.html">Explaining
How
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25 BBC: 'Nuclear particle' find on beach
Last Updated: Saturday, 26 March, 2005
[Dounreay Nuclear Power Plant]
The Dounreay nuclear plant is being decommissioned
A suspected radioactive particle, found on a beach near Dounreay
nuclear power station, has been taken for analysis.
The particle was detected on Dunnet Beach, about 14 miles east of
the Caithness plant, by workers carrying out monitoring of the
area.
It is the second radioactive item found on the beach in less than
a month.
More than 50 pieces of reprocessed reactor fuel have been found
on the public beach at Sandside to the west of the site over the
past two decades.
The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) first
indications show that the particle on Dunnet beach is a fragment
of reactor fuel.
The particle appears to have broken up on collection.
The activity of the find appears to be comparable to that of some
of the lower level finds at Sandside Bay, however further
analysis is being undertaken.
To date we have found o particle, today, and a stone with
contamination on 2 March [ src=] Colin Punler
Dounreay spokesman
Dounreay spokesman Colin Punler said all precautions to protect
the public will be taken.
"We started monitoring there at the end of January and
periodically during February," he said.
"We have now monitored about one fifth of the surface area of the
beach.
"To date we have found one particle, today, and a stone with
contamination on 2 March."
Mr Punler said that previous particles found at Sandside beach
had contained a "low-level" of radioactivity.
He said that public health authorities had come to the conclusion
that there was no justification for the closure of the beach.
Detection systems
The particles are specks of irradiated fuel which are similar in
size to a grain of sand.
They are the result of former operations at the nuclear plant,
which is being decommissioned, during the 1960s and 1970s.
Sandside Beach is normally monitored on about 12 days each month
using a combination of vehicle-mounted and hand-held detection
systems.
The UK Atomic Energy Authority is required under authorisation
from Sepa to routinely monitor Sandside Bay, the Dounreay
Foreshore, Crosskirk, Brims Ness, Scrabster and Thurso Beaches.
A study into the health effects of contamination from particles
has been commissioned by Sepa. This report will be published
later this year.
*****************************************************************
26 Al Jazeera: Workers at the Dimona reactor suffering from cancer -
Aljazeera.com
3/27/2005 1:15:00 PM GMT
The Dimona nuclear reactor at the Negev desert.
Some 31 Israelis working for the nuclear Dimona reactor located
in the Negev desert have been reported to be suffering from
cancerous tumours due to the leaking of serious radiations into
their bodies during their work at the nuclear plant, the Hebrew
daily "Ha'aretz" disclosed.
The paper states that the 31 workers along with 45 others, who
are also suffering from cancer, have filed lawsuits against the
Israeli authorities seeking compensation for damages sustained
during their service.
However, an Israeli court is arguing that the workers don't
deserve any compensation are their current ailment has nothing
to do with their work at the facility.
Personnel quoted by Israeli media are charging that the
reactor's authority were lax and negligent about health and
safety issues. They further confirmed that a special committee
was tasked with checking whether those employed at the nuclear
reactor station did have cancerous tumours like they say they
do.
In one report by the Israeli Channel 2 television station it was
revealed that a large number of the personnel who worked at the
Dimona reactor had died from cancer and that the Israeli
authorities denied their death was caused by the radiations
leaked from the plant.
High poverty rate
In an article published in the Hebrew daily "Yediot Ahronot", an
Israeli economic expert affirmed that the increasing levels of
poverty mushrooming in the Israeli society would force the
migration of large numbers of Israelis.
The expert quoted a recent Israeli report which revealed that
one out of four Israelis is living under the poverty line.
He further pointed out that the Jewish state ranked first among
"developed" countries in which the poverty rate was on the rise.
He highlighted that some 40% of the Israeli companies and
workshops in the Negev desert officially announced their
bankruptcy in the current year compared to 21% last year.
*****************************************************************
27 Paducah Sun: Cancer victim finally nears settlement in plant exposure -
By Joe Walker jwalker@paducahsun.com 270.575.8656
Saturday, March 26, 2005
Robert Pierce has always believed that exposure to deadly
substances while working at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant
robbed him of his health and livelihood. Now the government
confirms it.
After nearly four years of claims wrangling, Pierce received a
letter Tuesday saying he faces at least a 50-50 chance that his
larynx cancer was caused by radiation exposure. He said local
U.S. Department of Labor officials told him he is virtually
assured of getting a lump-sum payment of $150,000 plus free
medical care for the rest of his life.
"It's been a long time coming," said Pierce, 50, of Paducah. "I
think it might give some other people some hope."
Filed in July 2001, his claim had been one of about 3,000
backlogged for current and former Paducah plant workers whose
illnesses did not readily qualify for compensation under federal
law. Because his cancer was not one of the 22 listed as
radiation-related, he had to wait nearly four years for
scientists to determine if his work probably made him sick.
"They said that between 1975 and 1981, I had several acute
uptakes of radiation according to my urinalyses," Pierce said
Friday. "It's bittersweet. It's good that I'm going to get
compensated, but on the other hand, you wonder what's down the
road."
There is no sign that his cancer is back, but he worries about a
recurrence.
In 1998, prolonged hoarseness prompted him to see a doctor.
Bouts with chemotherapy and radiation killed the malignant
cells, but they came back in 2001, forcing surgeons to remove
part of his voice box. He now takes in deep breaths to speak in
a whisper and regularly undergoes surgery to clear his breathing
passages.
Disabled and unable to work, Pierce has repeatedly spoken out
for sick nuclear workers at public meetings and in rallies. He
plans to attend a town hall gathering at 6 p.m. Tuesday at the
Robert Cherry Civic Center in which Labor Department officials
will talk about a new program to compensate nuclear workers for
diseases related to toxic exposure. Similar meetings are set for
2 and 6 p.m. Wednesday.
The new program is designed to streamline the
toxic-exposure-claims process. Most of the qualifying claims are
expected to be paid after the Labor Department finalizes
regulations in May.
The radiation-exposure program, which the Labor Department has
run since 2001, has paid more than $175 million to Paducah
workers, and about 1,000 more cases have been referred to the
National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) to
determine if there was a link between exposure and disease.
The expanded law provides for up to $250,000 for each worker
exposed to various toxins. Some of the sickest could get as much
as $400,000 under both programs.
Pierce said he qualified a year ago for toxic-exposure
compensation. Several months later, Congress passed legislation
moving the program from the Department of Energy, under which
claims backlogged, to the Labor Department. He is now waiting
for word on the extent of his disability, which will dictate his
level of compensation.
Pierce, who doggedly called and wrote government officials about
his case, thanked the local Labor Department claims staffers for
their help. His letter came from Larry Elliott, director of
NIOSH´s Office of Compensation Analysis and Support in
Cincinnati, who had pledged that added staff would work through
a backlog of exposure reconstructions such as Pierce's.
"I just want to tell other workers not to give up," Pierce said.
"Keep calling. Keep writing. Keep asking questions."
Claims may be filed at the Paducah Energy Employees Compensation
Resource Center, 125 Memorial Drive, next to Milner & Orr
Funeral Home off Blandville Road. Phone: 534-0599 or toll-free
866-534-0599.
*****************************************************************
28 New River Valley Current: Rats get uranium in study of veterans' health
roanoke.com -
Saturday, March 26, 2005
Some health advocates claim that exposure to depleted uranium
could be causing Gulf War Syndrome.
By Kevin Miller
BLACKSBURG - The U.S. Army recently awarded Virginia Tech
researchers additional money to study whether a combination of
stress and exposure to uranium from military ammunition could
cause some of the myriad health problems affecting veterans of
the first war in Iraq.
The U.S. military as well as some NATO forces frequently use
depleted uranium in armor-piercing ammunition because of its
density. Although far less radioactive than natural uranium,
which is used for nuclear weapons and fuel for nuclear power
plants, depleted uranium can still pose a health risk to those
who come into direct contact with it. Environmental groups and
some health advocates claim that exposure to depleted uranium -
whether in the form of radioactive dust ingested after
detonation, in the form of shrapnel in the body or through
contact with spent munitions and their targets - could be causing
Gulf War Syndrome, the name given to the assorted health problems
suffered by veterans of the first Gulf War.
Others have said depleted uranium ammunition caused a rise in
cancer rates and birth defects among Iraqi citizens. Medical
studies have offered conflicting results on the potential
dangers of depleted uranium, but research into the subject is
intensifying.
Researchers at the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of
Veterinary Medicine in Blacksburg have been testing depleted
uranium's effects of laboratory rats for the past several years.
The Tech team is paying particular attention to the toxicity of
the uranium and whether stress - often in the form of forced
swimming - affects the rats' reaction to heavy metal.
Bernie Jortner, a professor in the vet school's Department of
Biomedical Science and an expert in neurotoxicity, said rats in
one study who received an injection of a soluble uranium and
were stressed once showed reduced motor activity skills for
several days.
They also exhibited kidney damage and changes in levels of
dopamine, a neurotransmitter essential to healthyfunction of the
central nervous system.
But the rats' motor functions returned after the kidneys
repaired themselves a week later, making it difficult for the
researchers to determine whether it was the uranium directly or
the kidney damage that affected the rats.
Jortner said the meaning of the dopamine changes is as yet
unclear - pointing out, however, that reduced dopamine levels
are associated with Parkinson's disease.
The Army recently extended a second study by Jortner and his two
principal colleagues, Tech's Marion Ehrich and the University of
Florida's David Barber, in which uranium pellets are implanted
in rats to simulate shrapnel. These rats are kept longer and
stressed more often.
Jortner said the second study is much more complex and
comprehensive. "We'll have much more data ... and be much closer
to the situation" faced by soldiers wounded by depleted uranium
ammunition, Jortner said.
To date, the Army has invested in excess of $1 million in the
research programs.
*****************************************************************
29 Documentary POISON DUST: A new look at U.S. radioactive weapons
Please join us for the Queens Screening of the New, Full-length
Documentary POISON DUST: A new look at U.S. radioactive weapons
In this new Iraq War, ITS WORSE THAN BEFORE
(The film will be projected onto a large screen)
Tuesday · April 19, 2005· 7pm
All Saints Church - 43-12 46th Street (at 43rd Ave.)
Sunnyside, NY · Donations accepted.
(7 train to 46th Street stop; walk one block)
Discussion to follow with:
Sue Harris, Peoples Video Network
Editor of POISON DUST
Ray Ramos, a Queens Iraq War Veteran
Exposed to Depleted Uranium (DU) and featured in the film
Queens Anti-War and Community Activists
On how you can get involved
During the current Iraq War, the U.S. use of radioactive
Depleted Uranium (DU) weapons increased from 375 tons used in
1991 to 2,200 tons. Geiger counter readings at sites in downtown
Baghdad record radiation levels 1,000 to 2,000 times higher than
background radiation. The Pentagon has bombed, occupied,
tortured and contaminated Iraq. Millions of Iraqis are affected.
Over 1 million U.S. soldiers including many from communities
all over Queens have rotated into Iraq. We dont know how many
have been exposed to DU.
Half of the 697,000 U.S. Gulf War troops from the 1991 war have
reported serious medical problems and a significant increase in
birth defects among their newborn children. The effects on the
Iraqi population are even greater. Many other countries and U.S.
communities near DU weapons plants, testing facilities, bases
and arsenals have also been exposed to this radioactive material
with a half-life of 4.4 billion years.
Get educated! Get Involved!
Lets work to educate ourselves and mobilize people to
understand what the Pentagon has unleashed on the world. Get
involved with Queens anti-war and community groups to demand
full testing, full healthcare, decontamination, thorough cleanup
and reparations. We need money for jobs, education, healthcare,
housing and human needs right here in Queens not for war.
Sponsored by:
Sunnyside Woodside Peace - www.sunnysidewoodsidepeace.org
Depleted Uranium Education Project of the International Action
Center - www.iacenter.org
West Queens Greens - www.nygreens.org/west-queens/
Million Worker March - mwmeast@yahoo.com
List in formation
For more information call: (718) 512-5442
Download pdf Flyer for distribution
International Action Center
39 West 14th Street, Room 206
New York, NY 10011
email: iacenter@action-mail.org
En Espanol: iac-cai@action-mail.org
web: http://www.iacenter.org
CHECK OUT SITE http://www.mumia2000.org
phone: 212 633-6646
fax: 212 633-2889
To make a tax-deductible donation,
go to http://www.peoplesrightsfund.org
*****************************************************************
30 Lexington Herald-Leader: Worker's radiation case finally nears settlement
| 03/27/2005 |
MAN'S CANCER MIGHT BE LINKED TO GAS PLANT
ASSOCIATED PRESS
PADUCAH - A former uranium worker suffering from larynx cancer
is moving closer to getting a lump-sum government payment for
radiation-related illnesses.
Robert Pierce said he has always thought he had been exposed to
deadly substances while working at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion
Plant. His claim, filed four years ago, had been on hold.
On Tuesday, Pierce received a letter saying there is at least a
50-50 chance that his cancer was caused by radiation exposure.
He said U.S. Department of Labor officials have assured him that
he would get a payment of $150,000 plus free medical care for
the rest of his life.
"It's been a long time coming," said Pierce, 50, of Paducah. "I
think it might give some other people some hope."
Because his cancer was not one of the 22 listed as
radiation-related, he had to wait nearly four years for
scientists to determine whether his work probably made him sick.
His claim was backlogged with 3,000 others.
"They said that between 1975 and 1981, I had several acute
uptakes of radiation according to my urinalyses," Pierce said
Friday. "It's bittersweet. It's good that I'm going to get
compensated, but on the other hand, you wonder what's down the
road."
Pierce has become an advocate for sick nuclear workers at public
meetings and in rallies.
He plans to attend a town hall gathering Tuesday at the Robert
Cherry Civic Center, where Labor Department officials will talk
about a new program to compensate nuclear workers for illnesses
related to toxic exposure. Similar meetings will be held
Wednesday.
The new program is set up to streamline the toxic-exposure
claims process. The separate radiation-exposure program, which
the Labor Department has run since 2001, has paid more than $175
million to Paducah workers.
The expanded law provides for as much as $250,000 for each
worker exposed to various toxins. Some of the sickest could get
as much as $400,000 under both programs.
"I just want to tell other workers not to give up," Pierce said.
"Keep calling. Keep writing. Keep asking questions."
*****************************************************************
31 Sunday Herald: Dounreay waste spreads further afield -
By Rob Edwards, Environment Editor
Radioactive contamination from Dounreay has spread more than
twice as far as previously thought, to a popular beach on the
north coast.
Scientists from the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) found a
fragment of irradiated reactor fuel on Dunnet beach, near
Thurso, at around 9am yesterday. The beach is more than 12 miles
east of Dounreay, much further than any other known site of
contamination. The particle is only the second from Dounreay
found on a public beach.
According to the UKAEA, hundreds of thousands of nuclear fuel
fragments could have leaked into the sea from Dounreay in the
past. Only around a thousand have so far been recovered.
The discovery at Dunnet has sparked fears that contamination
could have been swept by sea currents to Orkney and down the
east coast. Everywhere they have looked, they have found these
particles, said Lorraine Mann of Scotland Against Nuclear
Dumping.
They are really dangerous, she said. Some of them are
radioactive enough to kill outright. The reason why particles
have not so far been discovered on other beaches is that no-one
has yet looked for them, she claimed.
The UKAEA started monitoring Dunnet beach at the end of
January, this year in response to a request from the government
watchdog the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa). On
March 2 a stone contaminated with radioactive caesium was found.
The source of this contamination is still unknown. Tests have,
however, ruled out the possibility that it came from the
Chernobyl nuclear accident in Ukraine in 1986.
Nevertheless, the find prompted the UKAEA to step up its
monitoring of Dunnet beach. That is why scientists were combing
the sand on Saturday and will be out again today.
UKAEA spokesman Colin Punler said yesterday's particle was
characteristic of the fuel fragments that had been discovered at
Sandside and around Dounreay. So far only a fifth of Dunnet
beach had been monitored, he said, so more radioactive particles
may be unearthed there.
A Sepa spokeswoman confirmed last night that it had been
informed of the find.
27 March 2005
© newsquest (sunday herald) limited. all rights reserved
*****************************************************************
32 Rocky Mountain News: Interest revives in Colorado uranium
Casper, Wyoming - Sunday, March 27, 2005
By GARGI CHAKRABARTY
DENVER -- The rough and rocky terrain of southwest Colorado is
once again luring miners with its promise of yellow wealth --
not gold but uranium.
Three uranium mines, shuttered in the mid-1980s, were reopened
in the past two years. The revival of another two is on the
anvil this year. And many prospectors are scoping out the
Colorado Plateau in hopes of striking rich ore deposits.
This resurgence in uranium mining is being triggered by
skyrocketing prices brought on by soaring global demand for the
radioactive mineral.
From trading at about $9 per pound in 2001, the price of raw
uranium has nearly tripled and currently trades at about $25 a
pound. Industry experts predict prices will climb to between $30
and $35 a pound during the next few years.
The raw material is called yellowcake, a coarse reddish-yellow
powder made up of oxidized uranium that is milled from mined
ore. It contains scant radioactive elements and is put through
various milling processes and eventually turned into fuel rods,
which are used in nuclear power plants.
The price spike in the mined uranium is attributable to a
shrinking supply of yellowcake as European and Asian countries
switch to nuclear reactors for power generation in the face of
rising oil prices and global warming.
In the United States, 103 nuclear reactors in 31 states provide
electricity to one of every five homes and businesses.
World demand for uranium will be 185 million pounds in 2013,
estimates the Nuclear Energy Institute in Washington. But supply
likely will be significantly lower, at about 130 million pounds,
said Clifton Farrell, NEI's senior project manager.
"With this impending shortage, the outlook for the uranium
market is very positive," Farrell said. "I think we are going to
see reactivation of mines in the U.S. in the next few years."
The uranium ore grade mined in Colorado is much lower than the
ore grades mined in Australia or Canada, Farrell said, which is
partly why production stopped following the 1980s. Given the
prices, it makes more sense to open previously shuttered mines
in Montrose County along the Western Slope.
The Cotter Corp., which owns Colorado's four operating uranium
mines in Montrose County -- near the town of Naturita -- is set
to produce 525 tons of ore per day. That would be nearly five
times the 110 tons a day it produced in 2004.
Another company, Little Maverick Mining Co., recently submitted
a plan to mine 500 tons of uranium per month from a site near
Gateway. The Bureau of Land Management is reviewing its
application.
Based in Lakewood, Cotter is a subsidiary of San Diego-based
General Atomics. It employs 126, 37 of whom work at the mines.
The majority work at Cotter's mill in Canon City, and the
remaining people are employed at its corporate office.
The mined ore, covered in canvas and marked, is trucked by
highway to the mill, where it is processed to separate the
uranium and the vanadium from other minerals. Vanadium, which is
used to harden steel, is shipped for further processing and
distribution.
The ore is put into 55-gallon drums and trucked to ConverDyne, a
uranium enrichment company in Metropolis, Ill. In Illinois, it
is converted into uranium hexafluoride, a form that makes it
easier to further enrich the uranium for nuclear reactors at
power plants.
The Bush administration's push to include nuclear power in the
debate on the looming energy crisis also is helping give the
uranium mining industry a second lease on life.
"As our energy needs increase, we need to diversify our fuel mix
and maximize the use of uranium for nuclear energy, along with
the use of coal, natural gas and other energy fuels," said
Stuart Sanderson of the Colorado Mining Association. "That only
makes sense."
Preliminary data show the nation's nuclear power plants produced
a record 786.5 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity in 2004,
surpassing the previous high of 780 billion kwh in 2002.
And nuclear plants are extending their lives.
Thirty reactors received 20-year license extensions, 18 reactors
have filed for licence renewals and another 22 are likely to
seek renewal in the next six years, the NEI reports.
Three industry consortia have applied to the Energy Department
to design and test new nuclear power plants, although they have
not committed to build one.
Globally, India has 14 reactors and is planning to add 24 more.
South Korea has 19 and has plans for another eight, while China
-- which has nine reactors -- is proposing to build 18 more.
Mexico is seeking to reactivate its nuclear energy program.
Copyright © 2005 by the Casper Star-Tribune published by Lee
Publications, Inc., a subsidiary of Lee Enterprises,
*****************************************************************
33 Salt Lake Tribune: Establish priorities
Opinion
Article Last Updated: 03/25/2005 11:04:21 PM
In October's gubernatorial campaign debates, Jon Huntsman
Jr.'s main thrust was to make Utah attractive to business, thus
creating jobs and generally benefiting our citizens. The wise
man carefully chooses his battles but, unfortunately, Gov.
Huntsman has now thrown in with the nuclear storage fearmongers.
Realizing the suffering of the downwinders of the '50s, has the
human race been too stupid to learn anything about handling
nuclear materials in the past half-century? Let's establish
priorities.
Gov. Huntsman and our legislators are ignoring the real,
present danger already killing citizens of Utah on a weekly
basis. Drug overdose deaths on the Wasatch Front are giving
Utah a well-deserved reputation as a major center for
methamphetamine abuse. Is that attractive to new businesses? Who
wants to face daily problems with employee drug abuse? Who wants
to raise their children in such an environment? Who wants homes
in their neighborhood made uninhabitable by toxic residue from
drug manufacture?
On St. Patrick's Day, Iowa's governor signed legislation
mandating that over-the-counter cold remedies containing
pseudoephedrine, an essential ingredient in the manufacture of
methamphetamines, be removed from the shelves and sold by
pharmacists. No prescription is necessary, but the drugs must
be signed for and any large purchase would invite a visit by law
enforcement officials.
Jim Gallagher
Holladay
© Copyright 2005, The Salt Lake Tribune.
*****************************************************************
34 Salt Lake Tribune: Requiem for Yucca Mountain
Opinion
Article Last Updated: 03/26/2005 02:44:11 PM
Bob Loux
Without a miracle of some sort, it is all over. Yucca Mountain,
the federal government's choice for storing nuclear waste from
Cold War-bomb production and power plants, will never open.
The project that began with a congressional mandate 22 years
ago seems perennially stalled, even though $8 billion has
already been spent on everything from scientific studies and
modeling to the building of a railroad deep within Yucca
Mountain.
Back in the early 1980s, when Congress selected Nevada as
the final resting place for high-level radioactive debris, most
Nevadans vehemently opposed the plan. Our resistance, summed up
in the frequently seen bumper sticker: "Nevada is not a
wasteland," seemed futile to some people. Not any more.
What's changed is, first of all, the science. What began two
decades ago as a trickle of evidence suggesting that Yucca
Mountain was incapable of isolating deadly radioactive waste has
become a deluge.
But instead of acknowledging what its own scientists and
research were showing - that the geology of Yucca Mountain was
so seriously flawed that the site should be disqualified - the
Department of Energy turned the concept of geologic isolation on
its head. The agency set about changing rules, regulations and
guidelines so as to cover up site deficiencies and permit the
program to go forward in spite of overwhelming evidence to the
contrary.
That was borne out last July, when the U.S. Court of Appeals
for the District of Columbia upheld the state of Nevada's legal
challenge to the radiation health-protection standards for the
Yucca site. The ruling meant that guaranteeing public safety for
10,000 years wasn't enough; instead, radiation coming from the
dump must be safe for as long as 1 million years, the expected
lifetime of the dump. This will be a difficult feat for both the
Environmental Protection Agency and Energy Department, and a
license to open Yucca Mountain depends on it.
But there have been other signs that Yucca Mountain may be
one of the nation's costliest boondoggles:
The Energy Department has pushed back Yucca Mountain's
opening from 2010 to 2012 to 2015 to 2017, all within a few
months.
The Bush administration cut Yucca Mountain's 2006 budget in
half, to $651 million. Ted Garrish, Yucca Mountain's acting
director, has said that the program will need more than $1.5
billion a year for the next decade in order to open.
The National Association of Regulatory Utility commissioners
recently resurrected a proposal to take the nuclear-waste
management program away from the Energy Department and turn it
over to a quasi-governmental corporat- ion.
Some industry representatives now delink the repository at
Yucca Mountain from the notion that new power plants can't go
forward unless Yucca Mountain goes forward. Previously, the
industry insisted that getting Yucca Mountain open was essential
for building new reactors.
And, a report by the National Commission on Energy Policy
calls for interim, aboveground spent-fuel storage as a backup to
Yucca Mountain.
This is a startling turn of events. As the Los Angeles Times
put it recently in a news story: "The state has stunned federal
officials with its tenacity, legal skill and evolving political
acumen, scoring key victories in federal court and in Congress
that have repeatedly stalled the project."
The U.S. Congress probably chose Yucca Mountain, 90 miles
northwest of Las Vegas, as the nation's nuclear dumping ground
because it thought Nevada had neither the will nor the clout to
fight back. These days we are surprising everyone - and maybe
even ourselves.
From Democratic Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, Gov. Kenny
Guinn, Attorney General Brian Sandoval and Las Vegas Mayor Oscar
Goodman, who even promised to lay his body down in front of any
truck carrying nuclear waste headed for Yucca Mountain, we've
shown our smarts and our power.
Now, it is no longer a question of whether Yucca Mountain
will crumble, but when. The project is on track to meet the same
fate as other major Energy Department projects of the last few
decades, such as the super-colliding superconductor and the
Clinch River breeder reactor.
Despite billions invested, those projects became so
weighted down with mismanagement, cost overruns and political
opposition that they simply became impossible. So it is with
Yucca Mountain.
---
Bob Loux is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a service
of High Country News (http://hcn.org). He is the executive
director of Nevada's Office for Nuclear Projects, based in
Carson City.
© Copyright 2005, The Salt Lake Tribune.
*****************************************************************
35 Bradenton Herald: Tallevast cleanup ideas sought
| 03/26/2005 |
SCOTT RADWAY
Herald Staff Writer
TALLEVAST - Lockheed Martin is seeking proposals on how best to
clean up at least 50 acres of industrial groundwater
contamination that spread from the old American Beryllium Co.
plant into this small, residential community.
The news comes as Lockheed, company officials said, has
completed nearly all of its planned drilling and water sampling
this month. The only area remaining marked for drilling is the
fringe of the Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport, which
requires site access permission from the Federal Aviation
Administration.
Meredith Rouse Davis, spokeswoman for Lockheed, said it is
unclear what action the FAA will take or when. But the company
is confident with the information already gathered, cleanup
options can begin to be formulated.
The contamination is believed to be caused by industrial
solvents, some of which are potentially cancerous and were found
in several residential drinking wells. Lockheed has been
investigating the contamination since 2000, but has
underestimated the size of the plume several times.
One of the biggest questions in Tallevast is just how far has
the contamination spread. Residents still fear it is bigger than
Lockheed is reporting.
Lockheed had proposed a meeting on March 29 with Tallevast
residents to talk about the water testing, the findings of its
mapping efforts, and cleanup options, but community leaders
postponed the meeting until after April 15.
Laura Ward, president of the Tallevast community group FOCUS,
said residents want to wait until Lockheed test results from
this month's drilling are submitted.
Lockheed reported to the state that it would submit those
results April 15.
"We expect to schedule a meeting shortly thereafter," Ward said.
Ward said FOCUS is hiring an independent hyrdologist to test
residents' wells and local natural water bodies. Those results
could also be ready by April 15 and all the new information
could be discussed, she said.
After a request to seal off resident wells, FOCUS requested that
the wells be tested one more time for contamination. FOCUS has
voiced concerns about differences in contamination levels
between recent groundwater testing done near the wells and the
well testing done last year.
Lockheed has already agreed to pay for the independent testing.
Ward said FOCUS has identified a hydrologist, and talked about
the wells and additional natural water bodies the group wants
tested in Tallevast. FOCUS expects a proposal early next week
and the testing could be completed shortly thereafter, Ward
said.
The Florida Department of Environmental Protection has not
issued its report on Lockheed's assessment of the contamination.
The bulk of the assessment was submitted Feb. 1 to the state,
with an additional report filed this month. The last piece is
expected April 15 and DEP should issue the report then, DEP
officials said.
The expectation is the April meeting will be a milestone in the
plight of this 85-home community.
Lockheed should report just how bad the contamination is,
residents will have private well information to compare with
past testing and the state should rule on whether it believes
Lockheed effectively mapped the contamination.
Rouse Davis said because the March 29 meeting was postponed,
Lockheed also expects to be able to report to residents the
proposals for cleaning up the contamination area. The March
meeting would have talked about the general range of methods.
"We expect the April meeting to be comprehensive," Rouse Davis
said.
Scott Radway, environmental reporter, can be reached at 708-7919
or at .
HeraldToday.com
Read the history of the Tallevast site and contamination online.
*****************************************************************
36 Craig Daily Press: Opposition group softens stance
Group willing to support uranium pit if owner cleans up
radioactive dirt
By Christina M. Currie, Daily Press Writer
Saturday, March 26, 2005
Jim Ross hoped people would learn a lesson, but he brought a
rope just in case there was a lynching.
The Craig Realtor made an unexpected appearance Friday at a
meeting of a group whose goal was to stand in his way.
Now, it looks as if the two could form a partnership.
Ross owns property near Maybell, where uranium was mined in the
1950s. What's left is a pit about 20 acres across and 200 feet
deep and millions of tons of "overburden" that was piled to the
sides of the pit when uranium was mined. That overburden is
somewhat radioactive and already leeching into the rivers and
floating through the air, Ross said.
He wants to clean it up. His plans are to get a permit to use
the existing pit to collect that overburden, which would be
contained by up to 25 feet of concrete.
It's an expensive plan -- one that's only possible, Ross said,
if treated as a business.
Accepting the same level of tailings from other sites -- shipped
via rail and in sealed containers -- would fund the cleanup of
Ross' and other sites.
"My interest is not just in cleaning up my place, but the entire
region," Ross told the group.
The group, Northwest Colorado Cares, was formed to mount a
protest against Ross' plan to bring in even low-level
radioactive waste from other areas, but on Friday, members
decided to start working to see whether the state or federal
government would pay to clean up Ross's property or if other
items -- such as tires -- could be used to fill the pit.
"If you want to clean up tailings on your site, we'd be happy to
help, but if you're bringing in ‘low-level' waste from Rocky
Flats, that's not acceptable," said Terrie Barrie, the group's
organizer. "Why don't we help you with your site and let
everyone else in the country worry about their stuff?"
Ross said he planned to be totally "transparent" and share all
of his research and findings with the group and give tours of
his property in the spring.
"I'm determined to do this, and I'm not going to back off of
creating a new business out there," he said. "There's already
low-level waste scattered all over out there."
The bottom line, said Bernie Rose, is that there's no way to
remediate the area without it being a business.
*****************************************************************
37 Tri-City Herald: High-powered collection
This story was published Sunday, March 27th, 2005
By Annette Cary, Herald staff writer
As a Los Angeles high school student, Ron Kathren would get up
at 4 or 5 a.m. and go outside to see the flash in the eastern
sky from nuclear weapons tests in Nevada.
It was perhaps a sign that Kathren's career would be devoted to
the art and science of radiation protection. And his hobby would
be collecting the books and equipment that trace the history of
the new science of radiology, starting in the days when
radiation seemed magical.
Go to the Smithsonian's Museum of American History and you'll
see five items loaned by Kathren on display, including a
radiation sign from the Hanford nuclear reservation and a
dosimeter from the 1940s.
Now he's in the process of breaking up the rest of his
collection, donating books valued at $250,000 to Washington
State University and other items to a nuclear-themed museum in
Nevada and a nonprofit organization in Tennessee.
The collection, which ranges from early X-ray equipment to
patent medicines laced with radium, reflects an era when the
world was in love with the possibilities of radiation.
Before the collection is dispersed, some of the items are on
display in the glass cases along the main hallway of the
Consolidated Information Center at Washington State University
Tri-Cities in Richland.
They range from a Revigator, a radium-lined jug good for making
a radioactive tonic, to the self-published laboratory notes of
the Boston dentist whose experiments on guinea pigs were the
first to show that X-rays could kill animals in 1902.
"People like that did extraordinary things, and very quietly,
that really intrigued me," Kathren said.
Kathren, who started working at Hanford in 1967 managing the
external dose evaluation program, is now a professor emeritus at
the College of Pharmacy at WSU Tri-Cities.
His career is marked by firsts. He's the first, and only, health
physicist to receive all three major awards from the Health
Physics Society. He's also the first professor emeritus for WSU
Tri-Cities.
In 1959, only a few years before he started his radiological
history collecting, he helped draft Los Angeles' first
regulations for X-rays.
X-rays, an unknown form of radiation, were discovered in 1895
and almost immediately captured the public's fancy.
Within a year of the discovery of X-rays, five books had been
published on the subject in English, all of which are in
Kathren's collection. It wasn't just doctors and scientists who
were interested in the subject -- members of the general public
bought copies of Something About X-Rays for Everybody.
It seemed magical to see inside the body, and people believed if
you couldn't see, taste or smell it, it obviously must not be
harmful, Kathren said. X-ray baths were advocated as a cure for
criminal tendencies, among other benefits.
At one time, the New Jersey Legislature came within one vote of
banning X-rays from opera glasses, Kathren said.
But after Marie Curie separated enough radium to verify it as a
new element, public interest shifted to radium.
"It was a panacea," Kathren said. Radium just sat there and gave
off energy, so surely it would be energizing for health.
It was used to treat more than 100 conditions, including
baldness.
People could get their dose of radium, advertised as "water's
lost element," from letting water stand overnight in their
Revigator, or by buying a cone laced with yellow uranium ore to
treat their water.
In the 1920s and '30s, radium was included in the patent
medicine Radithor, which killed a wealthy Pittsburgh
industrialist who took several bottles a day. More people might
have been harmed, but few could afford it.
"Radiation was a very expensive commodity in the early days,"
Kathren said.
Working for the Los Angeles City Health Department early in his
career, Kathren came upon a drug store that still had a few
dozen bottles of Radithor. He still regrets not confiscating the
bottles for the collection he would build. Instead, he told the
pharmacist to dump them down the drain, an accepted disposal
method at the time.
Radium's glow when mixed with a phosphorescent also made it
popular. Kathren's collection includes buttons for women's
blouses and light pulls that were easy to find in the dark.
As a boy of about 6, Kathren was fascinated with clocks and
watches painted with radium. He'd take them into a walk-in
closet and conduct experiments, observing how the light output
would diminish.
It was the fate of the young women, many recent immigrants, who
painted those clock and watch dials that began to change public
opinion about the safety of radiation.
Kathren has photos from the 1920s showing women sitting in rows
of school desks in unventilated classrooms, painting
radiological material onto the faces of clocks and watches.
They would twirl the tips of their paint brushes in their mouths
to get a fine point for the delicate work. Some would spread the
radium on their skin and hair to sparkle when they went out at
night.
About 30 percent developed bone cancer.
As a health physicist, Kathren was fascinated by the fact that
no women who received less than a certain dose developed bone
cancer. That shows there is a threshold for the amount that
causes harm, he said.
Why only some of the women who received a high dose developed
cancer remained a mystery for much of Kathren's career. Now
scientists know that people have to be genetically programmed to
be harmed, he said.
Kathren is donating some of his collection to the new Atomic
Testing Museum in Las Vegas.
Many of his X-ray items, including early X-ray tubes and devices
for measuring radiation treatment doses, will become part of the
collection at the nonprofit Oak Ridge Associated Universities in
Tennessee. Some of the items already donated can be seen at
www.orau.org/ptp/museumdirectory.htm.
His 3,400 books are going to WSU. His interest and donations
were instrumental in starting the university's Special Library
Collection Development Project with the Herbert M. Parker
Foundation. And his generosity is leading to more donations
throughout the university system, said LoAnn Ayers of the WSU
Tri-Cities.
Kathren's collection is so large that the university is
accepting books in batches as it has time to catalog them. The
collection covers radiation protection and biology and the
development of the atomic bomb.
Rare or fragile books, such as first editions by Curie, will be
housed in a climate-controlled archival wing in Pullman, but
much of the collection is available already for public use at
WSU Tri-Cities.
It was a sacrifice to donate his book collection on radiological
science and the development of the atomic bomb. Kathren remains
active in retirement, including serving on a National Academies
Committee on the health effects of depleted uranium.
"I still come over to use these books," he said. While he may
not have read them all, "I've leafed through every one," he
said.
He's hoping his donation to the WSU library will inspire others
to donate books and other historical information. For more
information on the Special Library Collection Development
Project, call Joseph Judy at 372-7000.
n Reporter Annette Cary can be reached at 582-1533 or via e-mail
at acary@tri-cityherald.com.
© 2005 Tri-City Herald, Associated Press &Other Wire Services
*****************************************************************
38 SF Chronicle: UC Berkeley joins with New Mexico schools on lab bid
Charles Burress, Chronicle Staff Writer
Saturday, March 26, 2005
The University of California has teamed up with three New Mexico
universities to bolster its chances for keeping a contract to
manage the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
UC and its New Mexico partners announced plans Thursday for a
new Institute for Advanced Studies to conduct cooperative
research with the Los Alamos facility, located in New Mexico.
The Los Alamos lab, birthplace of the atomic bomb, has become a
leading center for nuclear weapons design and research in many
other scientific fields.
The institute would be formed only if UC regents proceed with a
bid to manage the lab and if the bid is accepted, according to
UC and the New Mexico consortium led by the University of New
Mexico. The other partners are New Mexico State University and
the New Mexico Institute for Mining and Technology.
Details have yet to be worked out, UC spokesman Chris Harrington
said Friday. "This is a partnership we felt would enhance a
possible bid should the board of regents decide to do so," he
said.
The new institute would likely have its own staff as well as
provide collaborative opportunities for scientists from the lab
and partner universities, said Terry Yates, vice president of
research and economic development at the University of New
Mexico.
It would be housed at the Los Alamos lab, although it could also
have "virtual" locations at the various campuses, Yates said.
UC Vice President S. Robert Foley told UC regents earlier this
month that the U.S. Department of Energy may open the bidding
for the lab early next month, followed by a 90-day submission
period.
The current contract expires Sept. 30, but Foley said it may be
extended to allow for processing the bids and making the
transition to the new contract, which might require UC to find a
corporate partner.
UC has managed the lab since it began in World War II, but
recent security and management lapses prompted the Department of
Energy to open the contract to outside bidding.
E-mail Charles Burress at cburress@sfchronicle.com.
Page B - 7
San Francisco Chronicle]
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