***************************************************************** 03/28/05 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 13.70 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** Send News Stories to news@energy-net.org with title on subject line and first line of body NUCLEAR POLICY 1 Toronto Sun Columnist: Eric Margolis - Blair's lost political mojo NUCLEAR REACTORS 2 US: [NukeNet] Press Release: Consumer Groups Move to Intervene in 3 US: More On Nuke Power/Global Warming Fraud 4 US: READ:26th Annivsary Of 3 Mile Island Accident Onset 5 US: Merger protests 6 US: NAS, coalition v. NRC (Washingtom Post) 7 US: San Luis Obispo Tribune: Public to have say on Diablo plan 8 US: NRC: Agency Information Collection Activities: Proposed Collecti 9 Mos News: Earthquakes Threaten Russian Nuclear Power Plants — Minist 10 Scotsman.com Business: British Energy poised as government 11 US: WHO TV: Worker with false documents hired by nuclear plant 12 US: NRC: Live NRC Meeting Webcast 13 US: Penn State Live: Worth Reading: 'The Legacy of Three Mile Island NUCLEAR SECURITY 14 [sm] Iraq/UK: Illegality of war keeps gov't in hot water 15 Vanunu Given Early Trial Date 16 IPS-English POLITICS: U.S. Arms Industry Fishing in Troubled 17 BBC NEWS: Global nuclear policy irks India 18 INSIDE JoongAng Daily: [OUTLOOK] The nature of 21st century power 19 Daily Times: No rolling back N-programme - Kasuri 20 ITAR-TASS: First test launch of Bulava missile to be held late this 21 Netindia123.com: PAEC to upgrade Pakistan's nuke facilities 22 ABC News: Proposed uranium deal to China raises weapons concerns 23 US: Guardian Unlimited: Some Truckers to Undergo Background Checks NUCLEAR SAFETY 24 [du-list] troops face uranium danger 25 US: [toeslist] Lead Poisoning from Dust in the Air 26 US: Occupational Hazards: OSHA Beryllium Test Results Higher Than So 27 ninemsn: Troops could be at cancer risk in Iraq 28 US: EMS: Beryllium Effects On OSHA Inspectors Wider Than Feared; Blo 29 Courier-Mail: Secret cash for sick servicemen NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 30 Korea Herald: [EDITORIALS] Nuke dump site nearer? 31 Las Vegas SUN: Editorial: Overhaul is faltering 32 US: Las Vegas SUN: NRC says pool storage of nuke waste is safe 33 US: Guardian Unlimited: Nuke Plants Use Dry Casks for Spent Fuel 34 US: Whittier Daily News - Opinion: Clean up Moab uranium pile 35 Times Online: Clean-up time for the atomic industry - Analysis - PEACE 36 US: Analysts Assess Carter's Call to "Save Nonproliferation" 37 Guardian Unlimited India: World Failing on Nuke Proliferation US DEPT. OF ENERGY 38 DOE: Privacy Act of 1974; Notice of Amendment to an Existing System 39 Tri-City Herald: States announce more Hanford budget meetings ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 Toronto Sun Columnist: Eric Margolis - Blair's lost political mojo Sun, March 27, 2005 By -- Contributing Foreign Editor Prime Minister Tony Blair has been one of our era's most successful politicians, but as he seeks a third term, many Britons wonder if it's time to change occupants at 10 Downing Street. Blair will likely call an election in early May. British campaigns are mercifully short. By contrast, every four years, American voters suffer six to seven excruciating months of hypocrisy, mudslinging and windbaggery. Blair is amazingly eloquent, silky smooth, always on top of his material, oozing compassion and missionary zeal from every pore. He has the knack of always sounding and looking like he really believes what he is saying. Popularity has crashed But Blair's special magic, with its particular appeal to female voters, is no longer working. As East Africans would say, he has lost his ju-ju. Blair's once overwhelming popularity has crashed, and with it the fortunes of his Labour Party. For the first time in recent memory, Britain's politicians and voters are pondering life after Blair. Iraq is the principal cause of Blair's fall from grace. Blair's justifications for invading Iraq were exposed as a pack of barefaced lies. His ludicrous claim that Iraq could attack Britain within 45 minutes with weapons of mass destruction made Blair look either a fool, which he is not, or an arch-schemer in an aggressive war to grab oil. Interestingly, American voters proved far more forgiving than Britons of their government's lies and distortions. A majority of Americans didn't seem to care they were deceived into a war by a president who claimed Iraqi "drones of death" massed in the North Atlantic were about to spray germs across the sleeping United States. They just wanted revenge for the emasculating, humiliating 9/11 attacks. Iraq, however innocent, was a perfect whipping boy. Two years later, Britons remain disgusted by Blair's unctuous untruths. Unlike George W. Bush, Blair's reputation has been seriously damaged. He could still win re-election in May, but only because Britain's squabbling opposition Tories under Michael Howard have put on a pitifully inept performance that is almost as pathetic as their counterparts in Canada. Howard continues the post-Thatcher tradition of weak, stunted Tory leaders. Failed to capitalize Howard failed miserably to capitalize on Blair's rush to war, and failed to capture the spirit or votes of the 75% of Britons strongly opposed to the conflict. Instead, like John Kerry in the U.S., Howard jumped on the pro-war bandwagon. Now, however, the feckless Howard is beginning to contemplate what seemed impossible -- becoming prime minister. Opinion polls show only a two-point gap between the parties. Had the Tories a stronger leader, Blair would be out of a job. Britain badly needs new leadership. Its health system is rotten, trains constantly crash, large parts of the north are a dreary slum. Blair has been so busy playing George W. Bush's Jeeves that he has neglected Britain's crumbling infrastructure. His Labour party rival, Gordon Brown, is just waiting to backstab Blair. That Britain prospers, and its currency remains so strong, is due to Margaret Thatcher's reforms, not Blair's Labourites. Britain, in spite of outrageous prices, remains a haven in Europe of free enterprise and entrepreneurship. But May elections are playing second fiddle right now to the coming royal nuptials of Prince Charles and Camilla Bowles. Alas, the wedding will be haunted by the ghost of Princess Diana. Too many giddy British matrons remain infatuated by the media-hyped ghost of Lady Di. If ever there was a figure unworthy of being queen, it was she. Palace sources tell me she was a childish nitwit, bulimic, hysteric, obsessed by gothic romance, movie magazines, hairdressers and tawdry affairs with cads. Yet she has become, and remains, a semi-religious cult figure. I hope the shy, sometimes goofy, but well-meaning King Charles and Queen Camilla (or princess, as the couple insists she will be called) exact lusty revenge on all the simpering snobs who insulted and belittled them for years. Off with their heads! Eric can be reached by e-mail at: margolis@foreigncorrespondent.com Letters to the editor should be sent to: editor@tor.sunpub.com © 2005, .All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 2 [NukeNet] Press Release: Consumer Groups Move to Intervene in Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2005 15:38:22 -0800 NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet@energyjustice.net) FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT: MARCH 28, 2005 Suzanne Leta, NJPIRG 267/879.4289 Ev Liebman, NJ Citizen Action 609/234.2741 Tyson Slocum, Public Citizen 202/256.3152 Consumer Groups Move to Intervene in Exelon’s Proposed Buy-Out of PSEG Call on NJBPU and FERC to Decide in the Public Interest TRENTON, NJ –Today, NJPIRG, NJ Citizen Action and Public Citizen—a coalition of consumer advocacy organizations—announced their submission of intervention filings in Chicago-based Exelon’s proposed buyout of Newark-based Public Service and Gas (PSEG). After reviewing Exelon’s filing, the groups fear the buy-out will diminish energy competition further in the region and substantially limit state regulatory authority, leading to higher rates and worse reliability and safety. The consumer groups called on state regulators to commit to using a ‘positive benefit’ standard in making its decision on whether or not to approve the proposed acquisition. They also want a BPU commitment to holding public hearing statewide to allow ratepayers to voice their concerns. “New Jersey ratepayers should not be for sale to the highest bidder. We’re counting on the NJBPU to reject this buy-out request if no consumer benefits can be demonstrated,” said Suzanne Leta, NJPIRG Energy Associate. PSEG is New Jersey's last state-based energy company. The BPU has already allowed out-of-state energy companies--FirstEnergy, PEPCO and Consolidated Edison—to buy out the rest of the state’s energy market. The Exelon buy-out of PSEG is even riskier to ratepayers than in the past because it will create the largest, most powerful energy company in the nation. If the acquisition is approved, Exelon will own additional generating plants, primarily in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Exelon would also have the largest power marketing business in the United States. This concentration of generating assets and marketing power within the regional wholesale electricity market will lead to higher prices across the board for consumers. And, acquisition of PSEG by out-of-state holding company will severely limit the ability of New Jersey regulators to protect consumers. Ratepayers will also bear the costs associated with the proposed buy-out. According to PSEG’s most recent 10-K annual report filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), PSEG and Exelon expect to incur $70 million in transaction fees. In addition to these fees, the report estimates that integration costs are approximately $700 million over a period of four years, with approximately $400 million being incurred in the first year. “Exelon’s buy-out bid offers no evidence that this merger is in the public’s interest,” said Ev Liebman, NJCA Program Director. “Synergies for CEO’s do not translate into positive benefits for the millions of ratepayers who could end up footing the bill,” she added. The groups also noted that FERC may have violated federal open government laws when it held a series of private meetings with top Exelon and PSEG executives just prior to the companies’ filing for permission to merge. The groups ask that FERC commissioners and company executives provide sworn statements for the public record, detailing what was discussed during the secret meetings. “Consumer groups call on FERC to block the Exelon-PSEG merger because it will result in higher prices and poorer service,” said Tyson Slocum, research director of Public Citizen’s energy program. “Deregulated energy markets are already uncompetitive. This merger will make a bad situation even worse for consumers.” NJPIRG, Public Citizen, and NJ Citizen Action documented, among other things, that: * Exelon’s study of how the proposed buyout will effect competition is fatally flawed because it relies on an analyst hired by the company. This reliance on industry-supplied analysts stands in stark contrast to the independent investigations provided by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission. * The regional electricity grid is already uncompetitive, so the buyout is likely to result in increased market power, allowing the new company to price-gouge consumers. * Exelon’s mitigation plan is inadequate because it ignores their energy trading activities. As we have seen with recently released Enron tapes, companies can just as easily control power prices through energy trading than by actually owning power plants. * Exelon’s reliability record is poor compared to that of PSEG, and the track record of recent multi-state mergers shows that electric reliability suffers. * Ratepayers will bear the costs associated with the acquisition. There is no guarantee that any savings will go to ratepayers. No short-term fix, such as a rate freeze or rate credit will solve the long-term, systemic problems inherent in this buyout. * The BPU’s regulatory authority over PSEG would be effectively dismantled. PSEG, currently exempt from federal regulations because it is state-based, will instead be regulated by the federal Public Utility Holding Company Act (PUCHA). As a result, the NJBPU, a state agency most understanding of the needs of New Jersey residents, will loose its regulatory oversight of PSEG to a federal agency. * Exelon has consistently put profits before safety in their nuclear plant operations. If the buyout is approved, Exelon will have full ownership and control over additional plants in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, putting the safety and security of millions of nearby residents at risk. The BPU and FERC have regulatory jurisdiction to block the proposed buy-out on the grounds that it would be of no benefit to the public. Several states have rejected similar energy acquisition proposals; earlier this month, the Oregon Public Utility Commission unanimously denied an application by Texas Pacific Group to buy Portland General Electric and in December, the Arizona Corporation Commission rejected a proposed takeover of Tucson Electric by an out-of-state consortium. If either the BPU or FERC decides Exelon’s proposal is not in the public interest, the buyout will be effectively stonewalled. “While shareholders and corporate executives exercise stock options, it’s not clear that ratepayers will get anything out of this deal except vulnerability to higher electricity bills, decreased quality of service, and less protection from New Jersey regulators. When it comes to meeting the needs of New Jersey’s consumers, bigger has nothing to do with being better. BPU President Jeanne Fox and our federal officials should put the interests of New Jersey residents first when deciding whether or not to approve Exelon’s proposal,” concluded Leta. NJPIRG is a statewide, non-profit, non-partisan public interest advocacy organization with 25,000 citizen members. For the past thirty-three years, NJPIRG has advocated for clean, safe, reliable and affordable energy for New Jersey’s consumers. New Jersey Citizen Action is the state’s largest independent citizen watchdog coalition representing 60,000 family members and more than 100 affiliated labor, tenant, senior citizen, faith-based, environmental, and community organizations. Public Citizen is a nonprofit, nonpartisan consumer rights organization based in Washington, DC with 17,034 individual members in Illinois, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Public Citizen’s Energy Program does extensive work at the federal and state levels to promote energy policies that best protect consumers. ### This release and attached documents are available online at: http://njpirg.org/NJ.asp?id2=16549&id3=NJ& Suzanne Leta Energy Associate NJPIRG 11 N. Willow St Trenton, NJ 08608 609 394 8155 x310 sleta@njpirg.org ***************************************************************** 3 More On Nuke Power/Global Warming Fraud Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2005 21:57:51 -0500 Indeed, a nuclear power plant must operate for 18 years before producing one net calorie of energy. (During the 1970s the United States deployed seven 1,000-megawatt coal-fired plants to enrich its uranium, and it is still using coal to enrich much of the world's uranium.) So, to recoup the equivalent of the amount of fossil fuel used in preparation and construction before the first switch is thrown to initiate nuclear fission, the plant must operate for almost two decades. But that is not the end of fossil fuel use because disassembling nuclear plants at the end of their 30- to 40-year operating life will require yet more vast quantities of energy. http://www.mothersalert.org/caldicott.html Nuclear power isn't 'clean'; it's dangerous Posted 9/3/01 By Helen Caldicott, 9/3/2001 AMONG THE many departures from the truth by opponents of the Kyoto protocol, one of the most invidious is that nuclear power is ''clean'' and, therefore, the answer to global warming. We heard this during the last round of talks in Bonn, and we can expect to hear more of the same as we move closer to the next round of Kyoto talks that are coming up in Marrakesh in October and November. However, the cleanliness of nuclear power is nonsense. Not only does it contaminate the planet with long-lived radioactive waste, it significantly contributes to global warming. While it is claimed that there is little or no fossil fuel used in producing nuclear power, the reality is that enormous quantities of fossil fuel are used to mine, mill and enrich the uranium needed to fuel a nuclear power plant, as well as to construct the enormous concrete reactor itself. Indeed, a nuclear power plant must operate for 18 years before producing one net calorie of energy. (During the 1970s the United States deployed seven 1,000-megawatt coal-fired plants to enrich its uranium, and it is still using coal to enrich much of the world's uranium.) So, to recoup the equivalent of the amount of fossil fuel used in preparation and construction before the first switch is thrown to initiate nuclear fission, the plant must operate for almost two decades. But that is not the end of fossil fuel use because disassembling nuclear plants at the end of their 30- to 40-year operating life will require yet more vast quantities of energy. Taking apart, piece by radioactive piece, a nuclear reactor and its surrounding infrastructure is a massive operation: Imagine, for example, the amount of petrol, diesel, and electricity that would be used if the Sydney Opera House were to be dismantled. That's the scale we're talking about. And that is not the end of fossil use because much will also be required for the final transport and longterm storage of nuclear waste generated by every reactor. From a medical perspective, nuclear waste threatens global health. The toxicity of many elements in this radioactive mess is long-lived. Strontium 90, for example, is tasteless, odorless, and invisible and remains radioactive for 600 years. Concentrating in the food chain, it emulates the mineral calcium. Contaminated milk enters the body, where strontium 90 concentrates in bones and lactating breasts later to cause bone cancer, leukemia, and breast cancer. Babies and children are 10 to 20 times more susceptible to the carcinogenic effects of radiation than adults. Plutonium, the most significant element in nuclear waste, is so carcinogenic that hypothetically half a kilo evenly distributed could cause cancer in everyone on Earth. Lasting for half a million years, it enters the body through the lungs where it is known to cause cancer. It mimics iron in the body, migrating to bones, where it can induce bone cancer or leukemia, and to the liver, where it can cause primary liver cancer. It crosses the placenta into the embryo and, like the drug thalidomide, causes gross birth deformities. Finally, plutonium has a predilection for the testicles, where it induces genetic mutations in the sperm of humans and other animals that are passed on from generation to generation. Significantly, five kilos of plutonium is fuel for a nuclear weapon. Thus far, nuclear power has generated about 1,139 tons of plutonium. So, nuclear power adds to global warming, increases the burden of radioactive materials in the ecosphere and threatens to contribute to nuclear proliferation. No doubt the Australian government is keen to assist the uranium industry, but the immorality of its position is unforgivable. Dr. Helen Caldicottis founding president of Physicians for Social Responsibility. This column originally appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald. This story ran on page 13 of the Boston Globe on 9/3/2001. Mothers' Alert Home | More Information | Actions | News | Email | Search ***************************************************************** 4 READ:26th Annivsary Of 3 Mile Island Accident Onset Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2005 22:18:13 -0500 He [my father-in-law] said that the report, if published in its entirety, would have destroyed the civilian nuclear power industry because the accident at Three Mile Island was infinitely more dangerous than was ever made public. http://www.mothersalert.org/rickover.html Admiral Rickover's Statement The following statement was signed by Jane Rickover, daughter-in-law of Admiral Hyman Rickover, "father" of the nuclear navy. It was notorized by William Lamson July 18, 1986. Jane Rickover has verified the authenticity of the document and the events described in it. -------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ "In May, 1983, my father-in-law, Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, told me that at the time of the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor accident, a full report was commissioned by by President Jimmy Carter. He [my father-in-law] said that the report, if published in its entirety, would have destroyed the civilian nuclear power industry because the accident at Three Mile Island was infinitely more dangerous than was ever made public. he told me that he had used his enormous personal influence with President Carter to persuade him to publish the report only in a highly "diluted" form. The President himself had originally wished the full report to be made public. In November, 1985, my father-in-law told me that he had come to deeply regret his action in persuading President Carter to suppress the most alarming aspects of that report. [Signed] Jane Rickover Jane Rickover appeared before me and swore as to the truth of the above statement. Dated at Toronto this 18th day of July A.D. 1986 [Signed] William F. Lamson William F. Lamson Q.C. Notary Public for the Province of Ontario http://www.mothersalert.org/bertell.html 3 MILE ISLAND COVER-UP: DR. ROSALIE BERTELL'S SIGNED, NOTARIZED STATEMENT -------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Dr. Rosalie Bertell is the President of the International Institute of Concern for Public Health, and a renowned epidemiologist by profession. She is also an expert on the health effects of low level radiation. Dr. Bertell received the Right Livelihood Award (Alternative Nobel Peace Prize) in 1986. She can be reached at: drrbertell@home.com Phone: 416-260-0575 Below is Dr. Bertell's signed, notarized statement of July 10, 1998 concerning the ongoing cover-up of the Three Mile Island Accident. -------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ "I feel that former President Jimmy Carter should come forth with all of the facts surrounding the Three Mile Island Accident, especially those which involved the radiation release and the dose to the public. This disclosure should, moreover, be in language which can be easily and correctly understood by the public, and not massaged to hide the truth. After the accident, for example, I found that the dose officially assigned to the public, was called: "measured dose to the public from the accident" - where "measured" meant it only included the dose after the rate matres were in place the third day after the accident began; "accident" meant that the radiation dose received during the same time period in 1978 when the TMI reactors were all operating and there was Chinese nuclear test fallout, could be subtracted. President Carter was, and continues to be by his silence, complicit in keeping the true facts of the Three Mile Island Accident from the American and world public. While it may have been legally although not morally, permissible to withhold this information in 1979 under the guise of national security needs, now that the Cold War is over it is no longer credible that the US government protect the nuclear industry at the cost of the lives and health of its citizens. As I, Dr. Rosalie Bertell, President of the International Institute of Concern for Public Health, stated in my e-mail to President Carter of February 10,1998, President carter was and is involved in the cover up of the Three Mile island Accident, and in particular the serious health damage to the people who lived nearby. I was on the Citizen's Advisory Council to the Blue Ribbon Panel set up by President Carter to investigate the TMI accident. The members of this public panel did not have FBI clearance, with the possible exception of Dr. Kemmeny who had worked on the Manhattan Project. The staff, selected from those who worked for the NRC or DOE, did have such security clearance, and therefore they were able to withhold any information they or their superiors wanted to declare "classified:, from the Panel. The nuclear weapons program demanded that workers and the military personnel handle this radioactive material and the nuclear ordinance, therefore health effects of radiation could be classified for national security to prevent rebellion. At the first meeting of the Citizen's Advisory Council to the Kemmeny Commission, I brought up this potential problem and asked what provisions had been made for the Commission members to have security clearance so that they might have full access to the truth about the accident. Another Advisory Council Member asked who was in charge of reactor operations during the accident. These two questions were never answered, and they were enough to cause the dissolution of the entire advisory panel. In fact, Dr. Kemmeny even stated publicly to the press that we had never been invited to Washington [although the Commission paid our air fare and hotel bills]. The Industry Advisory Council to the Kemmeny Commission continued to function during the investigation. The nuclear industry has frustrated the litigation of all of the serious health claims of the TMI exposed people, in spite of the Supreme Court's ruling in 1997 that these claims must be heard. Lawyers for the nuclear industry are gloating that they are "invincible" before the Courts. Using dirty tactics, they have managed to eliminate all of the expert witnesses which the victims had engaged to bring their cause before the Court, subsequently causing the cases to be dismissed for lack of witnesses. There may be as many as 2,000 people who have not had their grievances heard by the courts. This dismissal, after the Supreme Court Ruling, as accomplished through a judge's ruling, not through the court hearing which the people had been promised. The people have still, almost 20 years after the accident, not had their day in court! It is my opinion that former President Carter should come forth and make the truth known so that the court cases for the victims can be reopened. I believe that it should also be made a court ruling that defendants, such as the nuclear industry, should not be allowed to declare their own witnesses the official spokespersons for a branch of knowledge, able to define for the court the methodologies which they accept and practice as the only legitimate ones! It was such a ploy that was used to dismiss the TMI plaintiff's witnesses. This is blatant violation of justice and of the human rights of the victims. It is especially abhorrent in the questions of health effects of radiation, a field of public health which was usurped by the nuclear physicists under the exigencies of potential nuclear war after World War II. Professional Health Physicists are not required to have any training in biology, public health or any medical discipline. Their methodologies are very limited and unacceptable to many professionals in the fields of epidemiology, occupational and public health. [Signed] Dr. Rosalie Bertell Notarized by Michele D. Guy, July 10, 1998 http://www.mothersalert.org/blanche.html More Revelations on TMI Below is a letter to Dr. Rosalie Bertell from Paul Blanche, a noble whistlebower who concurs with Dr. Bertell's summation of what really happend at Three Mile Island in 1979. -------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Dr. Bertell: You don't know me but may have read about me in the Time magazine cover story in February 1996 and also the front page of the Wall Street Journal in March 1998. I am a prominent whistleblower who uncovered major corruption within the NRC and my employer Northeast Utilities. As a result of events I uncovered at Millstone, Northeast Utilities was almost bankrupted, and the NRC extremely embarrassed. I was one of the expert witnesses at the TMI litigation and agree with you there was a major cover-up of vital information. The presidential commissions, the NRC and the DOE are all aware of this cover-up. As an expert witness, I had access to the all the original records. I have documented evidence, which I have given to the NRC, that the primary containment was breached shortly after the hydrogen explosion that occurred on March 30, 1979. This breach occurred at a time when the radioactivity in the containment was close to its peak. Preliminary estimates indicate that as many as 40 million curies may have been released during the following hours. The NRC and the licensee estimated the maximum of 10 million curies of releases. Not one of the studies ever even questioned the data that was readily available as it could have alarmed members of the general public. Contact me if you have any questions. Paul M. Blanch ***************************************************************** 5 Merger protests Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2005 15:38:29 -0800 PSEG Deal Would Be Bad for Consumers, Watchdog Groups Say Mar 27 - The Record; Bergen County, N.J. Exelon Corp.'s proposed $12.8 billion purchase of Public Service Enterprise Group Inc., owner of New Jersey's largest utility, would give the company too much control of the region's power market, consumer groups said. New Jersey Public Interest Research Group, New Jersey Citizen Action and Public Citizen plan filings with state and federal utility regulators on March 28 that oppose the combination. They contend that Chicago-based Exelon would own enough power plants to inhibit competition and drive up prices, NJPIRG spokeswoman Suzanne Leta said this week. Exelon, owner of Philadelphia's utility, has offered to sell coal- , gas- and oil-fired plants that can generate 2,900 megawatts of power and place 2,600 megawatts of nuclear generation under long- term contracts. The offer is meant to satisfy Federal Energy Regulatory Commission restrictions on how much generation a single company owns in one region. That's "wholly inadequate," Leta said. "The federal standards are not stringent enough, and they don't look at Exelon's power marketing business, which adds to their influence." Exelon needs FERC approval to complete the purchase. The New Jersey utilities and Exelon's Philadelphia unit are both in the eastern section of PJM Interconnection LLC. PJM as a whole stretches from Delaware to Chicago and is the country's biggest power market. The consumer groups plan to present their challenges to the acquisition on Monday at an 11 a.m. press conference in Trenton. Exelon rivals including FirstEnergy Corp., owner of New Jersey's No. 2 utility, Consolidated Edison Inc., owner of New York City's utility, and the power-marketing unit of Dynegy Inc. have also asked to intervene in the federal proceeding. None have yet raised objections. New Jersey's residential power costs are set in annual auctions in which suppliers bid to provide the electricity that utilities expect to need. Any increase in wholesale prices will trickle down to customers, Leta said. The consumer groups will petition the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities to reject the purchase on grounds that it will cost consumers money, she said. The combined company, to be called Exelon Electric & Gas Corp., would sell power to 7 million homes and businesses and natural gas to 2 million in New Jersey, Illinois, and Pennsylvania. Attachment Converted: "c:\program files\eudora\attach\Exelon-PSEG.pdf" ***************************************************************** 6 NAS, coalition v. NRC (Washingtom Post) Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2005 15:38:27 -0800 Washington Post, Front Page Headline Story Storage of Nuclear Spent Fuel Criticized By Shankar Vedantam The Washington Post Monday 28 March 2005 Science academy study points to risk of attack. A classified report by nuclear experts assembled by the National Academy of Sciences has challenged the decision by federal regulators to allow commercial nuclear facilities to store large quantities of radioactive spent fuel in pools of water. The report concluded that the government does not fully understand the risks that a terrorist attack could pose to the pools and ought to expedite the removal of the fuel to dry storage casks that are more resilient to attack. The Bush administration has long defended the safety of the pools, and the nuclear industry has warned that moving large amounts of fuel to dry storage would be unnecessary and very expensive. The report was requested by Congress following the terrorist attacks of Sept 11, 2001, as homeland security officials sought to understand the potential consequences of a 9/11 scale attack on a nuclear facility. Because it is classified, the contents of the report were not made public when it was delivered to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) last summer. Even a stripped-down, declassified version has remained under wraps since November because the commission says it contains sensitive information. However, the commission itself made excerpts of the report public when Chairman Nils Diaz sent a letter to Congress on March 14 rebutting some of the academy's concerns. His letter also suggested that the academy had largely backed the government's views about the safety of existing fuel storage systems. E. William Colglazier, executive officer for the academy, said the letter was misleading and warned that the public needs to learn about the report's findings. "There are substantive disagreements between our committee's views and the NRC," he said in an interview. "If someone only reads the NRC report, they would not get a full picture of what we had to say." Although the commission said it is keeping the report under wraps for security reasons, some officials who have seen the document suggest that the NRC is merely suppressing embarrassing criticism. "At the same time that the NRC is saying that the National Academy's study is classified and not releasable to the public, it has somehow managed to send a detailed rebuttal of the report's conclusions to Congress in unclassified form," said Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), who has seen the report. "I am concerned that the totality of the Commission's actions reflect a systemic effort to withhold important information from . . . the public, rather than a genuine effort to be protective of national security," said Markey in a March 21 letter to the Commission's inspector general. NRC spokesman Eliot Brenner countered that the commission is "a very open agency" and that regulators are working with the academy to make the report public. "Our core concern is making sure that information that could reasonably be expected to be available to a terrorist is not publicly available," he said. "We are continuing to work with them on finding the right balance." The report was solicited by Congress to study how best to store spent nuclear fuel - tons of rods containing radioactive byproducts of nuclear fission reactions are produced each year by the nation's 103 electricity-generating nuclear reactors. Spent fuel rods generate intense heat and dangerous long-term radiation that must be contained. Most of the spent rods are currently stored in large swimming pool-like structures called spent fuel pools, said David Lochbaum, a nuclear safety engineer at the science and advocacy group, Union of Concerned Scientists, who has worked at several plants. The pools are about 45 feet deep and 40 feet square and are filled with about 100,000 gallons of circulating water to remove heat and serve as a radiation shield, he said. After cooling for about five years, the rods can be moved to dry storage - heavy casks of lead and steel. But the casks are expensive, and commercial reactors have elected to leave the rods in the pools until the polls fill up. Lochbaum said some pools now hold 800-to-1,000 tons of rods. In the event of a terrorist strike, Lochbaum said, the dry casks would be much safer, because explosions could drain the pools and set off fire and radiation hazards. The nuclear industry wants the fuel moved to a storage site in Nevada, but that project has long been plagued by delays and opposition. Steven Kraft, director of waste management at the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry group, said studies had shown that the pools are as safe as the dry casks - the same position adopted by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Risk of Attacks Called Slight Kraft said the risk of catastrophic attacks is minuscule and modeling analyses have shown that even plane crashes are unlikely to affect the integrity of the pools. And even if they did cause damage, he added, there would not be catastrophic consequences because of safety systems already in place. "If the pool is safe and the casks are safe and they both meet the requirements, there is no justification for going through what is a huge amount of expense and worker exposure" to move the rods to dry storage, he said. In his letter to Congress, commission Chairman Diaz said the academy's recommendation to move fuel to dry storage was based on "scenarios that were unreasonable." But Arjun Makhijani, a nuclear engineer with the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, a nonprofit research and advocacy organization that supports underground dry storage of the rods, said the commission had been lax. "There is no question that any terrorist who wants to know about spent fuel has plenty of information already," he said of the withheld report. "Publication of a report on security will not help terrorists. The only thing it is hindering is discussion of public safety." Diaz's letter to Congress shows that the academy recommended that the government reevaluate "the vulnerabilities and consequences" to storage pools of "attacks using large aircraft or large explosives." The academy also called for a review and upgrade of security measures to prevent theft of spent fuel rods by insiders and an assessment of security by "an independent organization." The commission letter defended measures it has already put in place and said "the likelihood an adversary could steal spent fuel . . . is extremely low." The letter said the additional analyses demanded by the academy study was "more than is needed" and rejected the call for an independent security analysis, saying its own assessments were "sound and realistic." To keep the report secret, the federal agency used a classification called "Safeguards Information" that it applies to data that is unclassified but reveals sensitive details about nuclear facilities and security procedures. Brenner, the spokesman, emphasized that the academy's report and the commission's response had been seen by the Department of Homeland Security and members of Congress charged with oversight: "The full report is there with those with the appropriate clearances." The academy's Colglazier said the science organization had produced many classified reports but had never encountered such hurdles in creating a public version. "We don't want to provide information in our report that could be used by terrorists to exploit vulnerabilities," he said. "But we also want the public and decision makers to know what things need to be addressed." The scientist also rejected Brenner's reassurance that the classified report had been seen by relevant decision makers. Governors of states with nuclear plants need to see the report, he said, and the public had an important role as well. "The way our political system works, when politicians hear from their constituents, they are motivated to take action that they don't when the public is unaware," he said. ------- ***************************************************************** 7 San Luis Obispo Tribune: Public to have say on Diablo plan | 03/28/2005 | April workshops in San Luis Obispo to focus on plans to replace steam generators at the nuclear facility David Sneed The Tribune The public can learn about plans to replace steam generators at Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant at two workshops in San Luis Obispo in April. The state Public Utilities Commission has completed an environmental analysis of the project and is seeking feedback on the report. In February, the agency gave tentative approval for Pacific Gas and Electric Co. to move ahead with the replacements. The workshops are intended to give the public a chance to learn more about the project and comment on any environmental concerns, such as seismic issues and how the generators will be transported. The project will cost PG&E customers more than $700 million starting as early as 2009, though the manpower needed to complete the replacements will provide a temporary economic boost to the area. Replacing the eight deteriorating generators, which transfer heat from the nuclear reactors to the electrical generators, will allow the plant to continue operating through at least 2025. Otherwise, the plant would be forced to shut down as soon as 2013. The utility has two options for transporting the replacement generators, each of which is 68 feet long and weighs 360 tons. One is to barge the units to Port San Luis then deliver them to the plant via the 7-mile main access road. The other is to barge them to the plant's cooling water intake cove for unloading. The utilities commission report describes the intake cove option as the environmentally superior alternative, mostly because of its shorter ground transportation route. The report indicates that the Port San Luis unloading will be used; however, PG&E says it had not decided which route it will use. "Both are viable options," said Sharon Gavin, PG&E spokeswoman. The old generators, which are radioactive, will be housed in a reinforced concrete building next to the plant's main switchyard. The storage building will be constructed on ground that has already been disturbed, Gavin said. The Public Utilities Commission has already held hearings on the project in San Luis Obispo and San Francisco. About 130 people attended those meetings, with 54 commenting. The agency also received 67 written comments. Typical of any Diablo Canyon hearing, most of the comments oppose the project and nuclear power in general. They urge the commission to reject the project, thereby forcing the plant to shut down before its operating licenses expire in 2025. They also urge the commission to spend the $700 million on alternative power sources, preferably renewable ones. The commission, however, has determined it would cost an additional $333 million to replace the 2,200 megawatts of power produced by the plant with other sources. Diablo Canyon produces about 10 percent of California's electricity. ***************************************************************** 8 NRC: Agency Information Collection Activities: Proposed Collection; FR Doc E5-1344 [Federal Register: March 28, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 58)] [Notices] [Page 15667-15668] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr28mr05-88] Comment Request AGENCY: U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). ACTION: Notice of pending NRC action to submit an information collection request to OMB and solicitation of public comment. SUMMARY: The NRC is preparing a submittal to OMB for review of continued approval of information collections under the provisions of the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (44 U.S.C. Chapter 35). Information pertaining to the requirement to be submitted: 1. The title of the information collection: 10 CFR part 100, ``Reactor Site Criteria.'' 2. Current OMB approval number: 3150-0093. 3. How often the collection is required: As necessary in order for NRC to assess the adequacy of proposed seismic design bases and the design bases for other geological hazards for nuclear power and test reactors constructed and licensed in accordance with 10 CFR parts 50 and 52 and the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended. 4. Who is required or asked to report: Applicants and licensees for nuclear power and test reactors. 5. The number of annual respondents: .33 (1 respondent every 3 years). 6. The number of hours needed annually to complete the requirement or request: 8,711. 7. Abstract: 10 CFR part 100, ``Reactor Site Criteria,'' establishes approval requirements for proposed sites for the purpose of constructing and operating stationary power and testing reactors pursuant to the provisions of 10 CFR parts 50 or 52. These reactors are required to be sited, designed, constructed, and maintained to withstand geologic hazards, such as faulting, seismic hazards, and the maximum credible earthquake, to protect the health and safety of the public and the environment. Non-seismic siting criteria must also be evaluated. Non-seismic siting criteria include such factors as population density, the proximity of man-related hazards, and site atmospheric dispersion characteristics. NRC uses the information required by 10 CFR part 100 to evaluate whether natural phenomena and potential man-made hazards will be appropriately accounted for in the design of nuclear power and test reactors. Submit, by May 27, 2005, comments that address the following questions: 1. Is the proposed collection of information necessary for the NRC to properly perform its functions? Does the information have practical utility? 2. Is the burden estimate accurate? 3. Is there a way to enhance the quality, utility, and clarity of the information to be collected? 4. How can the burden of the information collection be minimized, including the use of automated collection techniques or other forms of information technology? A copy of the draft supporting statement may be viewed free of charge at the NRC Public Document Room, One White Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike, Room O-1 F21, Rockville, MD 20852. OMB clearance requests are available at the NRC worldwide Web site: http://www.nrc.gov/public-involve/doc-comment/omb/index.html. The document will be available on the NRC home page site for 60 days after the signature date of this notice. Comments and questions about the information collection requirements may be directed to the NRC Clearance Officer, Brenda Jo. Shelton (T-5 F53), U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, by telephone at 301-415-7233, or by Internet electronic mail to infocollects@nrc.gov. Dated in Rockville, Maryland, this 22nd day of March, 2005. [[Page 15668]] For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Brenda Jo. Shelton, NRC Clearance Officer, Office of Information Services. [FR Doc. E5-1344 Filed 3-25-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P ***************************************************************** 9 Mos News: Earthquakes Threaten Russian Nuclear Power Plants — Ministry - NEWS - MOSNEWS.COM Created: 28.03.2005 13:29 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 13:29 MSK MosNews Many of Russia’s nuclear, hydroelectric and thermal power plants are situated in earthquake-prone areas, the Interfax news agency reported on Sunday quoting experts from the Emergencies Ministry. “Approximately 40 percent of the country’s territory are earthquake-prone areas. They are high-risk zones for earthquakes measuring more than six points on the Richter scale,” experts from the ministry said in a recent book that addresses the danger of natural and industrial disasters and emergency situations in Russia. “In Russia, the seismic belt extends from the Caucasus to the Kamchatka Peninsula,” they said. The Chirkei, Miatlino and Chiryutsk hydroelectric power plants are located in areas where earthquakes measuring up to 10 on the Richter scale can occur, the scientists said. The Bilibino nuclear power plant, the Sayano-Shushensk, Belorechye, Irkutsk, Kolyma and Ust-Srednekan hydroelectric power plants are prone to earthquakes of up to nine on the Richter scale. Several other facilities are located in areas that could be hit by tremors measuring seven or above on the Richter scale, they said. Write us: info@mosnews.com Copyright © 2004 MOSNEWS.COM ***************************************************************** 10 Scotsman.com Business: British Energy poised as government prepares go-ahead on nuclear power Sun 27 Mar 2005 IAIN DEY AND TERRY MURDEN BRITISH Energy is in talks with City institutions to raise funds for a new generation of nuclear power stations in anticipation of ministers swinging their support behind a massive construction programme after the election. The Livingston-based group, which last week ousted its chief executive Mike Alexander, has been sounding out potential private sector financial partners. The discussions are supported by the Treasury, which is understood to be working on potential tax breaks for private companies willing to support the building of nuclear power plants. The latest development follows a report published last week by the House of Commons Scottish Affairs Committee, which suggested nuclear power may be the best way to solve the UK’s looming energy crisis. Following British Energy’s previous financial troubles, the government is said to be unwilling to use public money to finance new nuclear stations. But British Energy - the only firm likely to be tasked with running new nuclear power plants - would be unable to finance projects on its own. A restructuring of the wholesale power market may be necessary to give private backers the stability they need to invest in nuclear power. The CBI has also called on the government to embrace new technologies and face up to difficult decisions, such as the nuclear option, as it attempts to meet tough targets on cutting greenhouse gases. The employers’ group has offered its support to meeting the 2050 Kyoto target on reducing emissions, but wants individuals and other countries to match that commitment. Michael Roberts, the CBI’s director of business environment, said business was also looking for government to combine leadership on the issue with pragmatism. His comments coincide with the publication today of the Commons environmental audit committee report into the challenge of climate change. Roberts said: "We support the government’s goal for the world’s developed economies to cut greenhouse gases by 60% by 2050, and for the UK to commit to such a path. "But while there is action UK-based businesses can take now and in the future, we must combine leadership with pragmatism if we are to safeguard our competitiveness." The CBI claims that while business emissions fell by nearly 17% in the past 15 years and are set to fall further, household emissions fell by less than 4%. Roberts said: "Improved policies could help secure further gains in business energy efficiency, but the challenge of also cutting emissions from households and transport cannot be ducked. At best, action on all these fronts will probably only achieve half of what we need to by 2050. "So government must also show renewed enthusiasm for promoting new technologies and serious political will when it comes to addressing difficult questions like the future role for nuclear power." ***************************************************************** 11 WHO TV: Worker with false documents hired by nuclear plant Des Moines: March 29, 2005 CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa The U-S Attorney's office says a 31-year-old Mexican national with false documents was hired by the state's only nuclear power plant to perform pipe insulation work. Gerardo Estrada-Gallegos was arraigned today (Monday) on four counts of possessing false documents, two counts of using false documents to gain employment and one count of making false statements to a federal agency. Conviction on the first four charges carries a prison term of up to 10 years; the others carry a penalty of up to five years in prison. Estrada-Gallegos also could be fined up to 250-thousand dollars on each count. According to the statement, Estrada-Gallegos was hired by the Duane Arnold Energy Center to perform work in the plant. Discrepancies in the documents turned up during a security check. Trial is set for May 23rd. Copyright 2005 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This Copyright 2001 - 2005 WorldNow and WHO-TV, a division of NYT ***************************************************************** 12 NRC: Live NRC Meeting Webcast The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is currently broadcasting some Commission meetings over the Internet as a means of improving communications with the public. Upcoming webcasts are: Date Subject 3/29/05 Briefing on Status of Office of Nuclear Security and Incident Response (NSIR) Programs, Performance, and Plans 9:30 A.M. + Slides 4/5/05 Briefing on Office of Research (RES) Programs, Performance, and Plans 9:30 A.M. + Slides 4/6/05 Briefing on Status of New Site and Reactor Licensing 9:30 A.M. 4/7/05 Meeting with Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards (ACRS) 1:30 P.M. 4/20/05 Meeting with Advisory Committee on the Medical Uses of Isotopes (ACMUI) 9:30 A.M. 4/20/05 Briefing on Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation (NRR) Programs, Performance, and Plans 1:30 P.M. 4/26/05 Briefing on Grid Stability and Offsite Power Issues 9:30 A.M. The following resources will assist you in participating: + Public Meeting Schedule - provides a complete listing of agency meetings. Live meetings shown as [webcast] + Commission Meeting Schedule - lists all Commission meetings for a six week period. Live meetings shown as [webcast] + Slides - available in advance of the meeting + Transcripts - available within 48 hours of the conclusion of the live meeting + Meeting SRM - documentation of any Commission's decisions from the meeting To view a webcast you will need to download the RealOne plugin [RealNetworks Media Streaming Player icon] . You may also view previously held webcast meetings at our . Comments and Feedback To help us determine the value of continuing to provide this service, the NRC would appreciate your assistance by providing comments and feedback on the usefulness, performance, and frequency with which you might use this service or any other items related to this service. + Contact Us About Webcasts + Webcast Interest Survey Notes on Accessibility Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act requires equal access to the Federal government's electronic and information technology. In compliance with this Act, NRC is including text equivalents (captioning) as part of the video image being shown over the Internet during the Commission meeting. Although every effort is made to assure the accuracy and completeness of this text, users should be aware that errors may nonetheless occur. Expressions of opinion in this text do not necessarily reflect final determination or beliefs. No pleadings or other paper may be filed with the Commission in any proceeding as a result of any statement or argument contained in the text-equivalent (captioned) material. Last revised Monday, March 28, 2005 ***************************************************************** 13 Penn State Live: Worth Reading: 'The Legacy of Three Mile Island' Monday, March 28, 2005 By Melissa Beattie-Moss Research/Penn State In a memorable line of dialogue, an energy official tells the intrepid reporter played by Jane Fonda that an explosion at Ventana "could render an area the size of the state of Pennsylvania permanently uninhabitable." Twelve days later, the nation awoke to news that a nuclear accident had occurred at the Three Mile Island (TMI) power plant outside of Harrisburg. The plots of the film and the real-life incident were almost identical. In both, engineers misread water levels and presume the reactor core is being cooled properly, when in fact there is no water covering the core at all. How close did Three Mile Island actually come to a "China Syndrome" melt-down? "It is quite possible that in another 20 minutes or so, the lower portion of the reactor vessel would have melted, releasing hot molten fuel onto the floor of the containment building, posing an even greater, possibly uncontrollable release of radiation into the environment." This is the frank assessment of Bonnie A. Osif, Anthony J. Baratta and Thomas W. Conkling. Professor emeritus of nuclear engineering at Penn State, Barratta assisted with the decontamination and recovery project at TMI. Conkling and Osif are engineering librarians who maintain Penn State's extensive collection of TMI-related videotapes, photographs and reports. Together, they have co-authored TMI 25 Years Later: The Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant Accident and Its Impact, published by Penn State University Press. Their aim was to provide an objective assessment, to counterbalance the "confusing, contradictory or missing information" that has long-plagued public discussion of the accident. The book has a clear and linear organization, beginning with the basic principles of nuclear energy production, and proceeding to a detailed discussion of the accident's timeline, causes and a clean-up process that lasted a decade and cost $1 billion. Readers learn some lesser-known details about the defueling of the crippled Unit Two reactor, such as the discovery of microorganisms flourishing in the contaminated core water. This "unanticipated event" interrupted the clean-up schedule until a solution could be found. (Hydrogen peroxide, dubbed "bug kill," eventually was used to eliminate them.) The authors also discuss the psychological and physical effects of the accident on the local community. Some of the TMI studies have yielded inconclusive and perplexing results. For instance, a University of Pittsburgh study of data collected over 19 years on the "cause-specific mortality" of people living in the vicinity of TMI suggested that "increased background radiation" correlates to a somewhat higher risk for blood and lymph cancers, as well as breast cancer. However, "the researchers concluded that mortality statistics provided no consistent evidence that radioactivity released during the accident had a significant impact on the mortality of the people in the cohort." Surprisingly, the same study indicates that an elevated mortality rate in the TMI group was "principally due to heart disease, a disease not associated with radiation." Is there a connection between stress and heart disease in the case of TMI-area residents? Several studies of this population indicate a "slightly higher stress level that has remained elevated for years." These people viewed TMI as "not only an acute crisis ... but also as a long-term, chronic threat." Researchers concluded that "stress -- even minor levels of chronic stress--as found in TMI residents -- may have significant health effects over time." In one section of the book, the authors examine the impact of media coverage on public reactions to the accident. They write, "Looking back over 25 years, it is easy to forget that cable news networks did not exist ... Most people did not have computers, never mind Internet connections." The authors remind us that, in 1979, news "was provided by radio, the three network news programs ... and the newspapers. Reporting often was not live but filmed earlier for evening broadcast." Reporters also "lacked scientific and technical training" to accurately interpret and report on the accident as it unfolded. More than 25 years later, "an entire generation may know little about the nerve-wracking days following the accident or the years of the cleanup." Osif, Baratta and Conkling attribute this to the accident being "contained, controlled and cleaned up with so little long-term effect." Yet, for these authors, the passing of time doesn't diminish the "far-reaching legacy" of Three Mile Island in a wide range of areas -- "scientific, technical, philosophical, economic, political and personal." "The lessons learned," they write, "have helped shape our world." *** Bonnie A. Osif, engineering reference and instruction librarian in the engineering library at Penn State University Park, can be reached at (814) 865-3697 and bao@psulias.psu.edu. Anthony J. Baratta, professor emeritus of nuclear engineering, can be reached at (814) 865-0038 and ab2@psu.edu. Thomas W. Conkling, head of the engineering library at Penn State University Park, can be reached at (814) 865-3698 and twc1@psu.edu. Contact Emily Rowlands ejr159@psu.edu http://www.rps.psu.edu 814-865-3477 Contact Melissa Beattie-Moss mzb123@psu.edu http://www.rps.psu.edu 814-865-3477 ***************************************************************** 14 [sm] Iraq/UK: Illegality of war keeps gov't in hot water Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2005 02:35:47 -0600 (CST) From [2]: According to senior defence sources, Admiral Boyce had the backing of all three service chiefs in demanding explicit legal assurance before sanctioning the plans for war. That these disputes are appearing in the normal propaganda mills bespeaks a major fight in the establishment over who to blame for the Iraq invasion. Had the US and UK stolen the oil cleanly, nobody (important) would rehearse these points. Alas, through incompetence, arrogance, and mostly greed, Rumsfeld, Cheney, and friends, in charge of the planet's most powerful military ever, mangled an invasion of a broken-down third-world country. In Britain the establishment is intelligent enough to discuss its own mistakes how to rule the empire, and these articles are froth bubbling out of those discussions. Even so, how enjoyable it is to see Blair squirm a bit. Just as it must have been to see Nixon squirm under Watergate, even as one knew he was being shafted by still more ruthless, cold-blooded bastards. 1. 11 days that led Britain to war Independent (London), 27 March 2005 2. The legality of war: Blair faces backbench backlash as pressure mounts to publish war advice By Colin Brown and Kim Sengupta Independent (London), 25 March 2005 3. The crucial questions about the war's legality By Philippe Sands Independent (London), 25 March 2005; COMMENT 4. Goldsmith 'failed duty to MPs' by withholding advice on war Independent (London), 26 March 2005 -Sanjoy `A society of sheep must in time beget a government of wolves.' - Bertrand de Jouvenal ============================== Article no. 1 ============================== http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=624053 11 days that led Britain to war Each drip of information about the legal advice behind the Government's decision to commit Britain to the invasion of Iraq has only fuelled suspicions about the road to war, say Raymond Whitaker and James Hanning. But each attempt by Downing Street to block the release of any documents moves the focus from the Attorney General and back to the doors of No 10, where the fateful decisions were taken Independent (London) 27 March 2005 Jack Straw has emerged remarkably unscathed from all the inquests into the Iraq war, despite having served as a senior Labour cabinet minister since 1997. He was not called to give evidence to the Hutton inquiry into the death of David Kelly and, although he did appear before the Butler inquiry into intelligence failures before the war, that was behind closed doors. So the Foreign Secretary must have been rather bemused to find himself at the dispatch box in the House of Commons on Thursday, more than two years after the start of hostilities in Iraq, still trying to damp down the fires of speculation over how we were led into war. Not only has the Government failed to dispel suspicions that it misused intelligence about Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction to make the case for attacking Iraq, but a new conflagration has sprung up over the legality of the war. The more information that emerges about both issues, the clearer it becomes that they are intertwined. Earlier this month a book by Philippe Sands QC, an international lawyer in Cherie Booth's Matrix chambers, charged that the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, changed his legal advice on the eve of war. Last week's disclosure of the resignation letter of Elizabeth Wilmshurst, who quit as deputy legal adviser to the Foreign Office the day before the conflict began, forced Mr Straw to admit that Professor Sands was right. The resulting controversy has focused attention on an 11-day period in March 2003, when Lord Goldsmith twice put his legal advice in writing. The first document, dated 7 March and seen by only a handful of ministers and officials, was 13 pages long. It is reported to have argued that the case for war might not stand up in court. The second, circulated to the Cabinet on 17 March and published as a parliamentary answer the same day, consisted of only 337 words in nine paragraphs. It declared unequivocally that the war was legal. What happened in that period to bring about such a transformation? The search for the answer has led to persistent demands that the first document should be made public: resisting those pressures was what brought Mr Straw to the Commons on Maundy Thursday. Since her resignation Ms Wilmshurst has kept her counsel, apart from a statement making it clear that she considered the war illegal. The parts of her letter released under the Freedom of Information Act put it more strongly - she called the war a "crime of aggression" - but the most crucial paragraph was blacked out. Not for long: within hours Channel 4 News revealed that it said Lord Goldsmith "gave us [the Foreign Office legal team] to understand" that he agreed war would be illegal without a new resolution by the UN Security Council. In fact the Attorney General had already told Downing Street advisers on 28 February 2003 that his views were shifting, and he was asked to put them in writing, which he did on 7 March. That was when Ms Wilmshurst and her colleagues found out about the change. But the most devastating sentence of her letter - clearly the reason the Government wanted to censor it - was the final portion of the blacked-out paragraph, which said that since 7 March the legal view of the Attorney General "has of course changed again into what is now the official line". Ms Wilmshurst was one of the few people to have seen both of Lord Goldsmith's pronouncements: this confirmed widely held suspicions that at the moment it became clear the Security Council would not endorse war, he altered his long-held views to declare that no such endorsement was necessary. In parliamentary terms Mr Straw made a masterly job of defending this muddle, accusing his opponents of creating a smokescreen while deploying one of his own. Lord Goldsmith had changed his advice because the facts had changed, he argued, relying on the hotly disputed claim that France had threatened to veto any new UN resolution. Mr Straw's main line of defence was the principle that legal advice to the Government is never disclosed, although there are one or two precedents for doing so. But his stance was weakened by the redaction in Ms Wilmshurst's resignation letter: once the contents of the blacked-out paragraph became known, few would accept that it had been deleted for anything but political reasons. As for wider issues, "if anyone had concerns about the legal basis for the war, Mr Straw did not answer them," said Sir Stephen Wall, who until last year was Tony Blair's European affairs adviser. Sir Stephen is among those who believe that Lord Goldsmith can only dispel the suspicion that he changed his advice to suit the politics by publishing his advice. "Given the doubts, the Attorney General is the only person who can answer them," he said. The more we learn about events between 7 March and 17 March 2003, the more doubts there are. It is clear that as war approached and efforts to get a second resolution through the Security Council became ever more frantic, there were repeated consultations between Lord Goldsmith and No 10. Most attention has focused on a meeting he had there with Lord Falconer and Baroness Morgan on 13 March, the day after Admiral Sir Michael Boyce, the chief of the defence staff, had demanded a clear answer on whether the war would be legal. The Attorney General told the Prime Minister's two advisers that he had come to the "clear view" that war would be legal under UN resolution 1441, passed the previous November, and other resolutions dating back to the first Gulf war. The timing appeared all too convenient - but Lord Goldsmith was also at Downing Street two days earlier, on 11 March. What was he doing there, and who was he seeing? At that afternoon's press briefing, the Prime Minister's spokesman refused to say. On 14 March there was another indication that Lord Goldsmith was working to a political timetable rather than a legal one: his new "clear view" that the war was legal was conveyed to the Ministry of Defence, apparently in response to the concerns expressed by Sir Michael. But the Attorney General made it clear that his view would only be valid if Iraq was in continuing "material breach" of UN resolutions - ie, was hiding WMD - and on the same day he sought confirmation from No 10 that this was so. The Prime Minister's private secretary wrote back on 15 March to supply the required confirmation - based, we now know, on faulty intelligence. Lord Goldsmith's officers passed this on to the MoD. Why the Attorney General did not wait until he was sure of his ground before giving military chiefs the answer they were seeking is another mystery in the affair. Last week a parliamentary answer also produced the information that on 13 March, Christopher Greenwood QC was retained to advise the Attorney General on legal issues connected to the war. Professor Greenwood was almost the only leading international lawyer who believed that even Resolution 1441 was not needed to justify a war, views he explained to the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee the previous October, before it was passed. The final document Lord Goldsmith produced on 17 March was more or less a summary of the memorandum presented to the FAC. But even an authority as hawkish as this academic insisted that all peaceful means had to be exhausted before war was justified as a last resort, the Liberal Democrats have pointed out. "This flies in the face of the British Government's decision to take military action when there was still mileage in the UN inspection process under Dr Hans Blix," said the party's foreign affairs spokesman, Sir Menzies Campbell. No such qualifications were welcome in the days leading up to the war, however. Lord Goldsmith's defenders insist that he is being blamed for the failings of others. "Like everyone else, I assume that he gave Blair the advice he needed," said a former Foreign Office minister. "The reality was that Blair had already decided on war. If Goldsmith had not conformed, he would have been sacked and a new Attorney General appointed." A well-placed authority sympathetic to Lord Goldsmith agreed, saying: "You have to remember that the Prime Minister sees all the intelligence, everything, and he was the one who reassured Peter that Saddam was guilty of repeated breaches." Almost unnoticed in last week's turmoil was the Government's response to last year's Butler report. In what Downing Street probably hoped would be the last words it would ever have to utter on the subject, it promised that it would handle intelligence more carefully in the future, and would change Mr Blair's style of "sofa government" to ensure that future meetings were minuted and civil servants kept in the loop. But a former head of the Joint Intelligence Committee dismissed the changes, saying: "Any government that wants to manipulate the intelligence as shamelessly as this one did will find a way to bypass procedures. What went wrong was not an aberration of the system - the problem is Blair." ============================== Article no. 2 ============================== The legality of war: Blair faces backbench backlash as pressure mounts to publish war advice By Colin Brown and Kim Sengupta Independent (London) 25 March 2005 HIGHLIGHT: How the The Independent' kept up the pressure as each revelation unfolded: front-page reports from 9 March, 11 March and yesterday; Lord Goldsmith was among the last to leave No 10 Downing Street after yesterday's cabinet meeting PA TONY BLAIR is under mounting pressure to publish the Attorney General's advice on the legality of the Iraq war after the revelation that Lord Goldsmith changed his mind to back the invasion shortly before it began. Mr Blair faced an angry backlash at Westminster as Labour MPs warned the Prime Minister his leadership was now threatening to damage the party's vote in the forthcoming general election. One Labour MP said some middle-class voters would not vote Labour again until Mr Blair stood down, because of anger over Iraq. The row over the Attorney General's advice now threatens to overshadow the election campaign. The Independent has also learned that the fresh revelations about the Attorney General's doubts over the legality of the Iraq war are being viewed with concern and consternation by senior figures within the British military. The controversy has been re-ignited after it was revealed the Government blanked out a damning paragraph from a resignation letter by Elizabeth Wilmshurst, who resigned in protest at the war from her post as the deputy legal adviser at Foreign Office. The redacted two sentences, first revealed by Channel 4, said Lord Goldsmith had supported the view of her legal team that the war would be illegal without a second UN resolution, but changed his opinion 13 days before the attack. Robin Cook, the former cabinet minister, yesterday led demands in the Commons for the "entire paper trail" of the Attorney General's advice to be published. Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, rejected the calls, saying publishing such advice would have "very grave" implications for good government. The Prime Minister was accused of running away from direct questioning by leaving the Foreign Secretary to answer an emergency question in the Commons. There were shouts of "where's Blair?" when Mr Straw began an emergency statement to MPs. Mr Blair arrived grinning in the chamber for a statement on the EU summit, as the Foreign Secretary faced hostile questions by MPs, including Mr Cook and Clare Short who both resigned from the Cabinet over Mr Blair's handling of the war. Ms Short was clearly enraged at Mr Straw when he told MPs the Cabinet had the chance to question the Attorney General on his advice that the war was legal before she decided to vote in favour of the war. With Mr Blair sitting by Mr Straw, she shouted at him: "He did not take questions. That is not true." The fresh controversy is also causing growing concern within the British military. The Independent has learnt that the then Chief of the Defence Staff, Sir Michael Boyce, was unhappy with the equivocal nature of the legal advice he received from Lord Goldsmith in the run-up to the conflict. Senior officers said they had sought and been given what purported to be clear and unequivocal assurance by the Government that the war would not be illegal under international law. Sir Michael, now Admiral the Lord Boyce, is said by colleagues to have expressed "disquiet" about what is now emerging and the possibility that what was said at the time did not reflect Lord Goldsmith's true views. If the war was illegal, not only would British troops be potentially liable to face prosecution under an international war crimes tribunal but legal action could be taken against the Ministry of Defence by injured soldiers or relatives of troops killed in action. According to senior defence sources, Admiral Boyce had the backing of all three service chiefs in demanding explicit legal assurance before sanctioning the plans for war. The initial legal advice the military was given - standard before commencement of military action involving British forces - was, according to senior officers, thought to be "equivocal ... needing further clarification". Admiral Boyce is said to have told both the Prime Minister and Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon, forcefully, that further clarification was needed on whether war was justified without a second United Nations resolution, and he also made sure that this was transmitted to Lord Goldsmith. Admiral Boyce got his assurance on 15 March 2003, a days before the war began. "There has been talk that it was one line and one paragraph", said a source close to Admiral Boyce before he left for a trip abroad. "In fact it was three lines. Obviously something so short could hardly have rehearsed the legal arguments. But it gave what was needed - that the proposed action was legal under law, both domestic and international." "It is not for the military to go into how that legal decision was made. But obviously there will be concern if it emerges that it was not the genuine view of the Attorney General. But, of course, this has not been proved so far." Dominic Grieve, the Shadow Solicitor General, told MPs: "It would be far better if the entire paper trail were to be published to reassure the public the Attorney General was neither leaned on to change his views for party political reasons, nor deceived by the Prime Minister on the facts on which war might be justified." Mr Straw said Lord Butler's inquiry into the use of intelligence in the run-up to war had seen Lord Goldsmith's advice: "Lord Butler came to his conclusion that the Attorney General had given clear and categorical advice to the Cabinet that in his judgment it was lawful under (UN) resolution 1441 to use force without a further UN security council resolution." Mr Straw said it was "entirely proper" to black out parts of Ms Wilmshurst's letter because "their content concerned the provision of legal advice in relation to the use of force against Iraq". Successive administrations refused to publish legal advice they received. "The implications of publishing legal advice for good government are very grave indeed". Michael Ancram, the Shadow Foreign Secretary, said: "The Government scored an enormous own goal by failing under the Freedom of Information Act to release the whole of Miss Wilmshurst's letter. When it first transpired that an extract had been held back for reasons of public interest, I think it was a fair presumption that it was because of national security." Copyright 2005 Newspaper Publishing PLC ============================== Article no. 3 ============================== The crucial questions about the war's legality By Philippe Sands The Independent (London) 25 March 2005; COMMENT Yesterday in the Commons, the Foreign Secretary mounted a spirited defence of the Government's position on the Attorney General's advice on the legality of the war in Iraq. The performance reminded me of the similarly robust defence he adopted in March 2000 (as Home Secretary), when he decided to allow Senator Pinochet to avoid extradition to Spain on the grounds that his failing health would not permit him to stand trial. Five years on, the Senator appears to be in rude health. And the Chilean courts, having stripped him of immunity, consider him fit enough to stand trial. Evidently the Foreign Secretary chose his words with great care. Most striking was what he did not say. Despite having every opportunity to do so, I did not hear him deny that there was a substantive change between the content of the Attorney General's final written legal advice (on 7 March 2003) and the content of the Attorney's final view (as set out in an answer to the Parliamentary Question on 17 March 2003). To the contrary, Mr Straw seemed to go out of his way to address one of the many questions that is now being asked: what happened in the 10 days between the written advice and the answer to the Parliamentary Question to allow a change? In answering that question, Mr Straw implicitly accepted that there had been a change. There is nothing wrong with that. Like any lawyer advising on any matter, the Attorney General was entitled to reach a "clearer" view. The difficulty is the justification which now seems to have been put forward for the change: Mr Straw seemed to say that the new development (between 7 and 17 March) was the failure to achieve a consensus within the Security Council, with the result that the desired second resolution could not be adopted. The claim is hardly persuasive. Even before the ink was dry on Security Council resolution 1441 - adopted in November 2002 giving Iraq one final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations under earlier resolutions - lawyers were turning their attention to the key question: who decides whether Iraq is in material breach of Security Council resolutions so as to justify the use of force; the Security Council or the Prime Minister? The Ministerial Code of Conduct requires the Attorney General to be consulted "in good time before the Government is committed to critical decisions involving legal considerations". The Attorney General had four months to advise on whether a second Security Council was required to justify the use of force against Iraq. I have always thought the question was reasonably straightforward and would not require a great deal of agonising. Evidently the Foreign Office legal advisers felt the same way, as Elizabeth Wilmshurst's resignation letter makes clear. The new "fact" identified yesterday by the Foreign Secretary is totally irrelevant. It seems not to have caused the Foreign Office legal advisers or many other observers to change their minds. Of course the possibility cannot be excluded that new facts could have emerged in the period between 7 and 17 March to indicate conclusively that Saddam Hussein was in material breach of resolution 1441. If anything, the contrary was true: on 7 March Hans Blix had given his third presentation to the Security Council, concluding that although Iraqi co-operation was not complete it was accelerating. And the Government's own Joint Intelligence Committee had not come up with anything after late December 2002 to indicate material new facts to justify the use of force. The truth is that all the material facts and legal considerations were known on 7 March 2003 and did not change after that. The collapse of negotiations for a second Security Council resolution is not relevant to the legal issues on which the Attorney General had to advise. The Foreign Secretary has adopted a first-class "bootstraps" argument of impressive circularity: he claimed, in effect, that the Security Council's failure to agree on the terms of a second resolution could itself justify a "clearer" legal view that no second resolution was required. That such a claim can be made indicates the paucity of options available to the Government. Tony Blair's present difficulties are entirely of his own making. He left it far too late to get written legal advice from his Attorney General. His style of government allowed the Attorney General to give an answer to a Parliamentary Question which was not backed up by complete and consistent written legal advice, leading to the suggestion from Clare Short and others that Cabinet and Parliament may have been misled. All of this undermines trust in government. The unanswered questions which remain in relation to the legal advice on the road to war need to be brought to an end. The only way that can be done is for the advice to be published. That should be done now, so that the Government can move on in its quest to restore confidence. Philippe Sands QC is Professor of Law at University College, London, and the author of Lawless World' (Allen Lane) Copyright 2005 Newspaper Publishing PLC ============================== Article no. 4 ============================== http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=623798 Goldsmith 'failed duty to MPs' by withholding advice on war By Marie Woolf, Chief Political Correspondent Independent (London) 26 March 2005 The Attorney General faced accusations of failing in his "constitutional duty" to advise Parliament as MPs called him to account over his legal advice on the war on Iraq. Lord Goldsmith was warned yesterday that he could face an inquiry by Parliament's watchdog if he ignores MPs' demands to publish the background to his advice that war would be legal. MPs have dredged up precedents which show the Attorney General must advise Parliament on legal matters - a duty which previous prime ministers have ruled is as important as advising government. The Attorney General now faces calls to attend the Commons to explain the advice he gave and release the factual papers behind his legal view. MPs accused the Prime Minister of deliberately eroding Lord Goldsmith's duty to Parliament and using him like a personal barrister. Sir Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat deputy leader and a senior barrister, said: "It is accepted that the Attorney General has dual responsibilities to the Government as its principal legal adviser and to Parliament as a guardian of the public interest. Under this government it appears that the second of these has been eroded." Alan Beith, the chairman of the Constitutional Affairs Committee, said: "I see no reason [why] Parliament shouldn't ask for the same advice [Lord Goldsmith] provided for the Government on the legality of war." Adam Price, the Plaid Cymru MP, plans to refer Lord Goldsmith to the parliamentary ombudsman if he fails to answer written questions tabled in the Commons about the legality of war. "The Attorney General has a constitutional role as a legal adviser to Parliament. He will now have to answer these questions which the House authorities have already accepted as valid," he said. The Government has repeatedly refused calls from MPs from all parties for the release of the legal advice on the war. They now plan to turn their fire on Lord Goldsmith, citing his historic duty to provide legal advice to the Commons. In 1963, Sir Harold Wilson stated: "It is [the attorney general's] duty to advise the House on legal matters - a duty going beyond his responsibility to this government and the Crown." In 1946, Clement Atlee said "parliamentary duties should be the law officers' priority". Lord Goldsmith accepted his duty to Parliament on 10 March 2003, only days before he expressed his "clear view" that war would be lawful under United Nations resolution 1441. He made a definitive statement that war would be legal in a parliamentary answer published on 17 March. But he has avoided calls to publish the full legal advice - including the paper he prepared for Tony Blair on 7 March in which he is understood to have stopped short of saying war would be legal. MPs believe they have the right to see papers relating to his change of heart. After a ruling by the parliamentary ombudsman, MPs can demand the factual background papers relating to parliamentary questions. Lord Goldsmith will now face calls to release the papers behind the parliamentary answer of 17 March on the legality of war. ***************************************************************** 15 Vanunu Given Early Trial Date Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2005 15:38:24 -0800 Free Mordechai Vanunu - Info & Action Alert #53 - March 28, 2005 VANUNU GIVEN EARLY TRIAL DATE From the U.S. Campaign to Free Mordechai Vanunu http://www.vanunu.com and http://www.nonviolence.org/vanunu/ ** PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY TO SYMPATHETIC LISTS ** 1) WHISTLEBLOWER GIVEN EARLY TRIAL DATE : "Prosecution Overeager to Silence Vanunu" (Press release from International Campaigns) 2) Daniel Ellsberg statement on Vanunu's new charges 3) Horev's obsession with Vanunu, by Yossi Melman - in Haaretz 4) Reactor workers cannot blame cancer on radiation, by Yuval Yoaz - in Haaretz =-=-=-=-=-=-= 1) WHISTLEBLOWER GIVEN EARLY TRIAL DATE International Campaign to Free Mordechai Vanunu Press Release, March 28, 2005 WHISTLEBLOWER GIVEN EARLY TRIAL DATE "Prosecution Overeager to Silence Vanunu" With highly unusual haste, Mordechai Vanunu was given official notice on March 28, that the first court date on charges of violating the restrictions that were imposed on him last year, will begin on April 6. Vanunu was informed of the inditctment less than two weeks earlier, on March 17. Vanunu is charged with violating the restrictions by granting interviews to foreign media and "attempting to leave the country" (for his bid to attend Christmas Eve Mass in Bethlehem last December). Mordechai Vanunu, who in 1986 blew the whistle on Israel's secret nuclear program, was released from prison in April 2004, after serving his full sentence of 18 years imprisonment. Immediately upon his release, Vanunu was placed under a series of restrictions, based on the British Mandate State of Emergency Regulations of 1945. Denounced by major human rights organizations including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, the restrictions prohibit Vanunu from making any contact with foreign nationals, speaking to the media, leaving Israel, coming within 300 meters of a foreign embassy or international borders and even changing his place of residence without approval from Israeli security agencies. Speed is not the only irregularity in the prosecution of Mordechai Vanunu. The State has included civil rights attorney Oded Feller, of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, in the list of witnesses for the prosecution. Feller was one of the ACRI lawyers who represented Vanunu in his 2004 appeal against the restrictions, which was ultimately turned down by the Supreme Court. ACRI protested the inclusion of Feller in the list of witnesses in a letter to State Attorney Eran Shendar. The prosecution of Mordechai Vanunu for violating the restrictions has been condemned by organizations and prominent figures around the globe. Veteran Israeli security commentator Yossi Melman wrote in Ha'aretz newspaper: "Yehiel Horev did it again. The man in charge of field security for the defense establishment proved once again that his impulses overcome all logic." (March 23) The International Federation of Journalists, representing more than 500,000 journalists in 110 countries, issued a special statement on March 18, in which the organization accused Israel of "bullying and intimidation in its continuing campaign against Mordechai Vanunu". "Israel is creating a new crime - of talking to journalists," said Aidan White, IFJ General Secretary. "It is a shocking betrayal of democratic principles in what is a vindictive campaign of bullying and intimidation against a man who has served his time." On March 25, Colin Fox, leader of the Scottish Socialist party, asked First Minister Jack McConnell, to act for enabling Vanunu to visit Scotland and take up his role as rector of Glasgow University. Vanunu was elected as rector by the students of Glasgow University in December 2004. Mary and Nick Eoloff, Vanunu's American adoptive parents, stated: "We are aghast at the appalling accusations made against Mordechai. There are no crimes to be tried. Mordechai continues to act as a human person with all of the rights due the dignity of being a person. How shocking that Israel continues to call itself a democracy. Shame on Israel." Rayna Moss, an Israeli with the International Campaign to Free Mordechai Vanunu, today expressed concern about the haste in which the Israeli prosecution is acting against the whistleblower. "In a country in which people often wait for many months for their day in court, the prosecution is being exceptionally quick in its campaign to silence Mordechai Vanunu. The overeagerness of the prosecution in this case indicates, that the judicial system is being prodded into action by a vindictive security establishment. This is a blatant attempt to avoid any public discussion of the use of the 1945 Emergency Regulations against Israeli citizens. Israel's attempt to criminalize Vanunu for speaking to the world media cannot conceal the real crime in this case: a rogue country that maintains a secret nuclear program hidden from its citizens and from the world. Prosecuting and persecuting Vanunu will not make Israel's WMDs disappear from the sight of the international community." For further information: In Israel: Rayna Moss: Tel. +972-50-7368236, email: legalese@netvision.net.il In the USA: Felice Cohen-Joppa, Tel/Fax +520-323-8697, email: freevanunu@mindspring.com In Britain: Ernest Rodker, Tel. +44-20-8672-9698, e-mail: campaign@vanunu.freeserve.co.uk In Norway: Fredrik Heffermehl, Tel. +47-2244 8003 Fax: +47-2244 7616 email: fredpax@online.no www.vanunu.com www.vanunu.co.uk www.vanunu.org =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= 2) Statement from Daniel Ellsberg on Mordechai Vanunu's new charges Daniel Ellsberg, activist and author of the recent book "Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers," recently returned from meeting Mordechai Vanunu in Jerusalem. Ellsberg was to have testified to a Knesset Committee against the restrictions placed on Vanunu, but the Committee hearing was cancelled. On March 17, the day after the Committee had been scheduled to convene, Israeli police delivered an indictment to Mordechai Vanunu listing 22 new charges against him, most of which are based on interviews with foreign media. Ellsberg wrote the following response to these new charges. The fact that Israel has a large and growing nuclear arsenal - larger than Britain's - has been recognized by the rest of the world ever since Mordechai Vanunu revealed it conclusively nineteen years ago. For demolishing his country's policy of concealment, denial and "ambiguity" of its status as a nuclear weapons state, Vanunu served eighteen years in prison, including an unprecedented period of eleven and a half years of solitary confinement in a six-by-nine foot cell. Meanwhile, not one of the harms that some feared might result from his revelations has materialized in the slightest degree. The notion that any further details he could disclose, nineteen years later, could harm Israel's national security is absurd. Why then, after he has served his full sentence, is the State of Israel invoking British Mandate Emergency Regulations of 1945, pre-dating its own independence, to threaten him with prison for exercising his fundamental human rights to speak to foreigners and foreign journalists? Why do its leaders still insist on suppressing any open discussion in Israel itself of its real military posture and its implications for their security? Here's one possible answer. This very month both Israel and the US are making open threats of armed attacks as early as this summer on Iran's nuclear weapons potential. For Israel to confirm openly Vanunu's revelations at this particular time - dramatically abandoning forty years of obfuscation - would attract unfavorable attention to the fact that such threats or attacks against Iran are aimed not at achieving a nuclear-weapons-free zone in the Middle East but at prolonging, indefinitely, Israel's monopoly of nuclear weapons in the region. That is an unstated aim for both the US and Israel, but a less than compelling justification for war. This may be a reason - but not a legitimate one - for returning Mordechai Vanunu to silence in solitary. What the world needs of this prophet of the nuclear era is not his silence but his freedom to speak and travel, to inspire others to follow his example of truth-telling in their own countries, above all here in the United States. xxx http://www.haaretz.co m/hasen/spages/555573.html w w w . h a a r e t z . c o m =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= 3) Horev's obsession with Vanunu, by Yossi Melman - in Haaretz Horev's obsession with Vanunu By Yossi Melman 23/03/2005 Yehiel Horev did it again. The man in charge of field security for the defense establishment proved once again that his impulses overcome all logic. Horev is the official responsible - more than anyone else - for the decision to charge Mordechai Vanunu with violating the constraints applied to him on his release from prison. Vanunu did indeed violate some of the limits. He spoke with foreigners - giving interviews dozens of times to foreign media - without getting Horev's permission. And he is charged with an attempt to leave Israel's borders, because he tried to attend a Christmas mass in Bethlehem. The maximum punishment for all these violations is another three years. If a court convicts him and imposes a sentence, he will go back to where he spent 18 years of his life, after he was convicted of espionage and treason for giving the Sunday Times information about what he says he knew about nuclear weapons production at Dimona. Horev is a phenomenon of nature in the Israeli government. For more than 20 years he has been the supreme authority regarding security for the defense establishment. It is one of the most sensitive positions in the state, and for not very clear reasons he has enjoyed the support of all the defense ministers of the past 20 years. A few years ago he was given a promotion to the level of deputy director general of the Defense Ministry. Apparently he has no plans for retirement even though it is time for him to do so - and not only because it is inappropriate in any government for a very powerful and influential official to serve in the same position for such a long time, but also because of his strict, uncompromising and vengeful worldview. His attitude toward Vanunu is not surprising. He did everything he could to prevent any early release for the convicted spy Marcus Klingberg, and when he was released, Horev imposed strict conditions on his freedom, including forcing Klingberg to pay for guards the state insisted accompany him everywhere. The campaign Horev conducted against Brig. Gen. Yitzhak "Yatza" Yaacov for trying to write a book were typical of Horev. All three men worked in secret installations: Vanunu in the Dimona reactor, Klingberg at the Biological Institute in Nes Tziona, and Yaacov for the IDF and the Defense Ministry's scientific administration. All three were exposed by virtue of their jobs to the most sensitive security information and knew secrets about Israel's most sensitive initiatives. According to foreign reports, the three installations are where Israel develops its weapons of mass destruction - nuclear, chemical and biological. It is surprising that this time the law enforcement authorities did not try to dissuade Horev from his crusade against Vanunu. The person who should have done so is Shai Nitzan, the deputy state prosecutor responsible for security offenses. A year ago senior prosecution staffers, including Nitzan, managed to moderate some of Horev's demands that Vanunu be placed in administrative detention when he is released from prison. Horev's demand was meant to prevent Vanunu's release from prison and reimprison him for crimes he had already committed and for which he had served a prison term. At the recommendation of the prosecution and with the backing of then-justice minister Yosef Lapid, a ministerial committee comprised of the prime minister, defense minister and justice minister decided to impose "only" some limits on Vanunu. He was forbidden from talking about his former place of employment at the reactor. His freedom of movement was limited, reduced to the East Jerusalem church where he lives. He was prohibited from talking with foreigners without permission. True, he has violated some of those prohibitions, but he has strictly adhered to the one limitation that should be the top priority for Horev: He does not speak about his work at the reactor. But Horev believes that Vanunu has a mine of information and therefore poses a grave security risk. Nitzan accepts that argument. Then-interior minister Avraham Poraz agreed with it, and therefore signed the order preventing Vanunu from receiving a passport with which he could leave Israel. Horev, by the way, raised the same concern about a mine of information in Klingberg's head. The Supreme Court was persuaded of that but later agreed to free Klingberg. And in Vanunu's case, the court accepted that argument. If Horev and Nitzan are right, than Vanunu should never be allowed to go free, and would certainly have to remain in Israel forever, a "prisoner of Zion." However, many think that Vanunu has no more secrets and that he has told all that he knows from the time when he worked at the reactor nearly 20 years ago. In another month the interior minister is supposed to decide whether to renew the ban on Vanunu getting a passport. It will be an opportunity for the new minister, Ophir Pines-Paz, to cast doubt on Horev and Nitzan's judgment, and to show that he is not a rubber stamp for every whim of the defense establishment and the prosecution. He certainly is not obliged to extend the limitations for another year. An attempt should be made to reach an understanding with Vanunu. If he does not violate for a specified amount of time the limitations placed on him, he can be allowed to leave Israel and start a new life. It is true Vanunu is not an easy client. He is provocative, stubborn and opinionated. Even his two brothers, Meir and Asher, the only members of his family who cared for him the entire period of his imprisonment, have given up and cut off contact with him. Nonetheless, the defense and legal establishment should ignore his provocations and show that even if the law is on their side, it must not only be just, but wise. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= 4) Reactor workers cannot blame cancer on radiation, by Yuval Yoaz - in Haaretz Arbitrator: Reactor workers cannot blame cancer on radiation By Yuval Yoaz, Haaretz Correspondent http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/556161.html 24/03/2005 There is no causal connection between the cancer contracted by 31 nuclear reactor workers and the level of their exposure to radioactive substances, ruled judge (ret.) Vardi Zeiler this week. The workers are therefore not eligible for compensation from the state, which they are suing, said Zeiler, the arbitrator between the workers and the state. However, Zeiler also could not rule out a causal connection between the workers' disease and their exposure to chemicals and dangerous, cancer-causing substances during their work in the reactor. Zeiler's ruling about the radioactive radiation was in keeping with the conclusion of a court-appointed panel of medical experts, which concluded that in the case of 31 out of 37 plaintiffs, no causal connection was found between the workers' disease and their job. Zeiler said he did not have sufficient data to rule out the connection between the workers' morbidity and their exposure to dangerous substances. He blasted the nuclear reactor's management for failing to put together the relevant data and said the data and evidence provided by the management was "flimsy, incomplete and inaccurate." Zeiler asked for information about all the substances that the workers were exposed to during the years they worked at the nuclear reactor, so that he could make a decision. The six plaintiffs in whose case the medical experts did not rule out the causal relation between the disease and their work can take their suit to the next stage - proving the state's guilt. The suits for damages filed by nuclear reactor workers who developed cancer and of the families of those who had died of cancer are being heard in the Jerusalem and Tel Aviv District Courts. The plaintiffs, who filed suits at different times in Jerusalem, claim that the diseases they contracted were caused by their exposure to dangerous substances or to radioactivity. They say the state is responsible as its negligence led to their exposure to the substances and radiation. At a certain stage the suits were merged into one and four years ago Zeiler, who was the judge dealing with the case, decided to set up a medical experts committee headed by Professor Eran Dolev. The committee would serve as an "expert witness" about the causal relation between working in the reactor and illness. The committee members were given free access to hear and receive all the information the plaintiffs wanted them to have with no restriction. They learned how the workers used to monitor their exposure to radiation. The committee's conclusion, ruling out any causal relation in 31 of 37 cases, was presented in November 2003. According to the regulations in force, the total radiation a worker could be exposed to was 5 RAMs a year. Zeiler says the nuclear reactor workers were exposed to much lower levels of radiation than those permitted - - about 10 RAMs over a period of decades. This level of radiation is equal in fact, to less than that of two CT treatments. The state's representatives, attorneys Michal Brandenstein and Moshe Tadmor-Bernstein, showed the arbitrator epidemiology surveys conducted among the workers, showing that the morbidity rate of fatal diseases among the workers is no higher than those among the general population. Zeiler ruled that these statistical studies have considerable weight as evidence. He also rejected the plaintiffs' demand to shift the "burden of proof" onto the state and said that since all the required material for the legal proceedings was at their disposal, they do not suffer from "lack of evidence." The plaintiffs' lawyer, Reuven Lester, says "the arbitrator's decision about the dangerous substances confirms what we claimed all along - that in the absence of data, it is hard for the committee to deny the causal connection. If you work in a place that has cancerous materials and nobody records, documents or measures them, it is unacceptable to come to court afterward and say there is no data. The nuclear reactor management already told the court that it failed to document or record the dangerous materials, so what do they expect of the workers?" Lester said the arbitrator's ruling to continue the arbitration about the exposure to cancerous substances opens the way to shift the burden of proof onto the state. - END - Felice Cohen-Joppa Coordinator U.S. Campaign to Free Mordechai Vanunu POB 43384 Tucson, AZ 85733 Phone/Fax 520-323-8697 freevanunu@mindspring.com www.nonviolence.org/vanunu ***************************************************************** 16 IPS-English POLITICS: U.S. Arms Industry Fishing in Troubled Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2005 14:43:52 -0800 ROMAIPS AP WD IP POLITICS: U.S. Arms Industry Fishing in Troubled South Asian Waters By Ranjit Devraj NEW DELHI, Mar 28 (IPS) - By offering nuclear-capable F-16 'Falcon' fighters to Pakistan and the even more advanced F-18 'Hornets' to India, Washington has shown a cynical readiness to profit from the long-standing rivalry between the nuclear-armed South Asian neighbours, say analysts. ''This is a bit like the Aesop's fable in which two cats fighting over a loaf take their dispute to a monkey for settlement,'' said P.R. Chari, research professor at the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, a prestigious think tank devoted to security in South Asia. In an interview with IPS, Chari said what was happening was all too obvious. ''The (North) Americans must be laughing all the way to the bank.'' Chari pointed to reports in the 'Washington Post' on Mar. 16 that said the sale of F-16s to Pakistan may have saved 5,000 jobs in U.S. President George W. Bush's home state of Texas where the plane's builder Lockheed Martin Corporation was located. According to the 'Post', Lockheed and other global defence manufacturers depend on sales of sophisticated military hardware to boost their profits. The F-16 deal was ''likely to be as warmly greeted in Fort Worth as it is in Karachi,'' the paper said. According to Chari there was little doubt that U.S arms contractors were now eyeing India's much larger market that has been closed to them since 1974 when India first exploded a nuclear device. Washington at the time reacted by imposing an arms and dual-use technology embargo on this country. India, which signed a military pact with the former Soviet Union in 1971, has traditionally sourced its defence needs from Moscow although it also maintains squadrons of French Mirage fighters as well as British Jaguars. But rapidly expanding ties in recent years between India and the U.S., the world's two largest democracies have seen a progressive lifting of sanctions and moves towards defence cooperation. A visit to New Delhi on Mar 15-16 by U.S Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice produced a welter of new concessions covering not only the sale of F-16 and F-18 combat aircraft but also possibilities for co-production. Lockheed has so far sold F-16s, currently costing 25 million U.S. dollars a piece to 24 countries and the aviation giant also makes the deadly fighters in Europe, South Korea and Turkey. As far as Pakistan is concerned Washington would actually be resuming deliveries of F-16s halted in 1990 after a U.S. law barred military exports to Islamabad on suspicions that it was clandestinely developing nuclear weapons. For India the real icing on the cake was an offer by Rice of cooperation in India's civilian nuclear energy programme, which has since 1974 cut its own path with support from Russia and France as result of U.S.-led embargos. As for the fighter deal, analysts like Chari saw little use for either India or Pakistan to be buying expensive nuclear-capable aircraft when they were not likely to be put to actual use. Chari said neither country needed aircraft to deliver nuclear bombs against each other since both possessed missiles with more than adequate range. ''After 1994 when both countries declared themselves as nuclear powers they came close to an all-out war twice - during the 1999 Kargil war and the 2002 border standoff - but on both occasions they desisted from resorting to the nuclear option,'' he said. India and Pakistan have been at pains to improve relations, soured by a long-standing dispute over the territory of Kashmir, and are currently engaged in 'cricket diplomacy' with a Pakistani team currently touring India as part of a series of confidence building measures. Rice had words of praise for this peace initiative, but ironically her actions were matched with the U.S. decision to sell neighbours with a history of more than half-a-century of hostilities sophisticated military hardware. ''The logic of escalating military preparations contrasts with the logic of dialogue and reconciliation,'' said Prof. Achin Vanaik, a well-known anti-nuclear activist who teaches in Delhi University. What was interesting to note, Chari said, was that from a position of imposing sanctions against both India and Pakistan for carrying out the 1998 tests, Washington has come round to supplying both countries with platforms capable of delivering nuclear bombs. ''It just shows that Washington has a flexible enough foreign policy to accommodate what it judges to be in its own best interest and this includes such issues as nuclear proliferation,'' Chari said. That 'claws in claws out' approach has seen Washington first offering F-16s to Pakistan during the war to rid Afghanistan of its Soviet occupiers in the 1980s and then reneging on it on the grounds that Islamabad was pursuing a clandestine nuclear programme. Towards the end of the Clinton administration, Washington tilted heavily towards India attracted by its large, rapidly opening market and Pakistan hovered on the brink of being declared a failed state. Post 9/11, the boot was again on the other foot and Pakistan found itself designated a major non-NATO ally for its role in Washington's 'war against terror' in Afghanistan and deemed fit once again to receive F-16 fighters. Indeed, said Chari, many of the so-called concessions made towards South Asia by Rice were best seen in the context of the upcoming review of the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty and Washington's eagerness to deflect criticism from its own failings in South Asia. Indian analysts have been critical of Washington's failure to prevent the alleged supply of nuclear weapons know-how and parts from Abdul Qadeer Khan, the 'father of Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme' to Iran, North Korea and Libya. On Monday India's External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh said it was time that the world took a close hard look at clandestine proliferation. He declared that for its own part, India was ready to sign a global treaty on no-first-use of nuclear weapons. Singh said as things stood, the security environment in South Asia was seriously undermined by nuclear weapons technology and parts flowing into and out of the neighbourhood. (END/IPS/ AP/WD/IP/RDR/SI/05) = 03281456 ORP006 NNNN ***************************************************************** 17 BBC NEWS: Global nuclear policy irks India Last Updated: Monday, 28 March, 2005, 13:50 GMT 14:50 UK [ [Natwar Singh] Singh was speaking ahead of a nuclear proliferation conference India has criticised the international community for failing to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. Foreign Minister Natwar Singh said much of the proliferation tended to emanate from its South Asian neighbourhood. India has long criticised the United States for overlooking Pakistan's alleged involvement in spreading nuclear technology. Mr Singh's comments came three days after the US said it would sell F-16 jets to India's nuclear rival Pakistan. Washington has also offered India combat planes, an offer Delhi said it would consider. Disgraced scientist But ahead of an international conference on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Mr Singh said the world's leading nuclear powers had not been serious in its efforts. "Unfortunately, even today, we see the same inconsistencies in approach with selective focus on the recipients of such clandestine proliferation but not enough attention on the sources of supply," Mr Singh said. Pakistan's disgraced nuclear scientist, AQ Khan, is believed to have supplied nuclear technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea. Last week Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said Islamabad was considering sending nuclear parts to a UN watchdog to help it investigate whether Iran was developing atomic weapons. The US on Friday said it was offering combat planes to both India and Pakistan. The two rivals, who went nuclear in 1998, have fought three wars since independence in 1947. India warned that the decision to sell F-16s to Pakistan risked creating an arms race. But on Monday, President Musharraf applauded the US decision: "This will make a strategic difference. This will tremendously increase our defence capability and the strategy of defensive deterrence." Policy change The US said it was also allowing US defence companies to bid for a large Indian order for combat aircraft and said it was also considering offering India technology for civilian nuclear energy. "This is the first time we have received an offer from USA," Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee said. "Naturally, when the offer is there, it will have to be actively considered by the government of India keeping in view the requirements of our armed forces." Media reports said both the F-16 and the multi-role F-18 combat aircraft were on offer. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said America was looking to "solidify and extend relations" with both India and Pakistan at a time when Washington enjoyed good relations with both countries. The decision to sell warplanes to Pakistan also marks a change in US policy, which blocked the sale of F-16s in 1990 over Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme. The revived sale will form part of a five-year, $3bn assistance programme. ***************************************************************** 18 INSIDE JoongAng Daily: [OUTLOOK] The nature of 21st century power March 29, 2005 KST 16:09 (GMT+9) The existing order of international relations is being shaken to an extraordinary degree. The shock waves of an earthquake are coming our way, but we are not even sensing them. We are unable to grasp the character of the 21st-century earthquake because we are still trying to measure it through an old-fashioned 19th-century barometer of imperialism or colonialism, or a 20th-century barometer of Cold War or post-Cold War. And we are still continuing to try to resolve the problems of Korea-U.S. relations, Korea-Japan relations and the North Korean nuclear problem with our obsolete way of thinking. It is said that President Roh Moo-hyun lectured on pending issues between Korea and Japan to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice when the latter paid a courtesy call on the president on March 20. I wonder what Ms. Rice, a former international relations professor, was thinking as she heard the lecture? Ms. Rice has continuously stressed since her appointment that she will be the "Acheson of the 21st century." Dean Acheson was the U.S. secretary of state who drew the line of U.S. defense, later known as the Acheson line, on a map of the Far East that excluded South Korea, in the process of reorganizing the world order after World War II. Ms. Rice has announced a 21st century Acheson line ˇŞ the Rice circle ˇŞ for the establishment of a new world order after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks, and has started to put the circle into effect. She is stressing that the diplomatic efforts to reorganize the world into three concentric circles of an alliance of free democracies, countries in the process of becoming free democracies and outposts of tyranny, is a historical effort of the 21st century. The waves originating from the concentric circle of a free democracy alliance are already spreading to Northeast Asia. Japan, which is feeling threatened by the sudden rise of China, has made the strategic choice of quickly becoming a member of the core circle of the free democracy alliance. China is avoiding any conflicts with the United States, and stresses peace and harmony to pursue a balanced economic development. At the moment, North Korea is classified as a country on the periphery of the concentric circles. At the recent graduation ceremony of the Korea Military Academy, President Roh said that Korea will play the role of a balancer in Northeast Asia, and that the balance of power of the region will change according to the strategic choice Korea will make in the future. This is the result of a misunderstanding of the changing situation in Northeast Asia. There is no longer Cold War era confrontation between a southern triangle and a northern triangle, nor is there yet a structure of confrontation between China and the United States. Let's compare the gross domestic product (GDP) and military expenditures of the regional powers to read the power structure of Northeast Asia. The GDP of the United States is $11 trillion and military spending is $450 billion; Japan's GDP is $4.3 trillion and military spending is $43 billion; China's GDP is $1.4 trillion and military spending is $30 billion (unofficially $60 billion); Russia's GDP is $400 billion and military spending is $17 billion; North Korea's GDP is $20 billion and military spending is $1.8 billion (unofficially $5 billion); and South Korea's GDP is $600 billion and military budget is $17 billion. Anyone who can do elementary school level math can see that at the moment, Korea is not in a position to be the balancer of Northeast Asia or change the structure of the balance of power. What we should do first is to become a spider of Northeast Asia and bind the core and the mid-level member countries of the concentric circle together tightly in a spider's web. While a new concentric circle of freedom is being drawn around Northeast Asia, Korea and Japan are deeply engaged in a war over history, including the issues of the Dokdo islands and history textbooks. President Roh has proclaimed a firm determination to lead the history war to victory by responding to the Japanese action resolutely, and by winning the support of international opinion and persuading the Japanese people. But it is a big mistake to think that we will be able to change the thoughts and actions of the Japanese people with a weak strategy of gaining the support of domestic and international public opinion. We must have a better understanding of the nature of 21st century power, and learn how to use modern and post-modern power in a refined and efficient way. In order to mobilize modern power, it is essential that we utilize the power of the United States, which is in the same circle as Japan. The most important thing in mobilizing post-modern power is that a world-class long-term investment in research should take precedence if we are to win the war of knowledge over the modern history of Korea and Japan. The earthquake originating from the freedom concentric circle will hit the North Korean nuclear problem last. Even if we manage with great difficulty to resume the six-party talks, it will not be possible to produce a basic agreement in Beijing under present circumstances. In the end, the North Korean nuclear problem will, against our will, find a clue to solution somewhere in the structure of confrontation between the nuclear threat of North Korea and the effort to spread freedom by the United States. One important factor in this process is China. Therefore, we have to think seriously about what Korea's role will be if the North Korean nuclear problem is solved through the freedom concentric circle method. If we continue to respond to Korea-U.S. relations, Korea-Japan relations and the North Korean nuclear problem in an anachronistic way, there is a danger Korea will be downgraded to an outsider, far from being the balancer of Northeast Asia. * The writer is a professor of international relations at Seoul National University. Translation by the JoongAng Daily staff. by Ha Young-sun 2005.03.28 Copyright by Joins.com, Inc. Terms of Use | ***************************************************************** 19 Daily Times: No rolling back N-programme - Kasuri Tuesday, March 29, 2005 * ‘No one can guarantee US will not backtrack from its promises’ KARACHI: Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri reiterated Pakistan’s stand on Monday that it would not rollback its nuclear programme claiming that the country’s nuclear assets were fully protected under a “perfect” and “multi-layered” control system. Kasuri said the Indian government had endangered the peace talks between the two countries by constructing the Baglihar dam in violation of the Indus Water Treaty. He also said that Pakistan was supporting US policies in Iraq and Afghanistan “for the betterment of national interests.” Kasuri was delivering a lecture on “Pakistan’s foreign policy -strategies for a new world” at the Institute of Business Administration (IBA). IBA Director Prof Danishmand, Dr Talat Wizarat, the Karachi University’s International Relations Department chairperson, and the department’s former chairperson Dr Khalida Ghous also spoke on the occasion. Justifying action against Dr AQ Khan, Kasuri said it was taken to show the world that Pakistan was a responsible state and could protect its nuclear assets. About the Pakistan-India peace process, he said that both countries’ people were happy with the confidence building measures (CBMs) taken by the two sides, however the CBMs would not yield desired results unless the Kashmir issue was resolved. The foreign minister said the Muzaffarabad-Srinagar bus service had long been demanded by the Kashmiri people, but was not a substitute for the right of self-determination. To a question that Pakistan had earlier maintained that unless the Kashmir issue was resolved no other business would be considered, but now Pakistan was taking CBMs, Kasuri said “We were following this policy for the past 56 years, now we have changed it but we have not compromised on the Kashmir issue. Similarly, we do not recognise the LoC as a permanent border.” He said that Pakistan favoured inducting Kashmiri leaders in the peace process and they would be inducted in the final stage of the settlement of the dispute. “Kashmiris have suffered a lot and there must be an end to their miseries,” he added. About Pak-US relations, Kasuri said the US had assured the government that its relations with Pakistan went beyond Iraq, Afghanistan and the war on terror, “These are not my words but the words of US Secretary of State Condalezzaa Rice.” Replying to a query that Pakistan was supporting US extremism in Iraq and Afghanistan, the foreign minister claimed that Pakistan had never blindly supported the US. He said Pakistan had opposed the US invasion of Iraq and still was not supporting US policies in Afghanistan and Iraq. He said that Pakistan had not agreed to hard-line Taliban policies of Taliban, but because of geographical constraints and relations with India, the government had no option but to bear with the Taliban. Terming the US Congress approval of F-16s sale to Pakistan a success of the country’s foreign policy, Kasuri said that both countries were working to deepen their cordial relations. When asked what guarantee Pakistan had that US would not backtrack from its promises, Kasuri said, “No one can guarantee that, America is not a bank and cannot be asked for a guarantee. It has its own interest and if they do not coincide with another country’s interests, no one can compel it. Similarly, if our interests do not match with US interests, we will refuse to support them.” Talking about the President Pervez Musharraf’s slogan of “enlightened moderation”, Kasuri said that Pakistan would send artists abroad to highlight the country’s “soft” image. online Daily Times - All Rights Reserved ***************************************************************** 20 ITAR-TASS: First test launch of Bulava missile to be held late this year. 28.03.2005, 16.38 MOSCOW, March 28 (Itar-Tass) - The first test launching of the new Russian intercontinental submarine-based ballistic missile Bulava is to be held in the third quarter of 2005, Director and Constructor-General of the Moscow Combustion Engineering Institute Yuri Solomonov told Itar-Tass. “Work on the Bulava missile is being done in keeping with the plans that were agreed with the Defence Ministry. In spite of the rather serious difficulties, caused by financing delays, we shall do our best to carry out the first launching in the third quarter of this year,” the director noted. His institute had earlier designed, in particular, many solid fuel intercontinental ballistic missiles of the Topol and Topol-M types. Commenting at the request of Itar-Tass on the readiness of the nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine “Dmitri Donskoi” to launch the first Bulava, Solomonov stated: “The submarine will also be ready to carry out the first launch. This is my personal opinion, of course, but it is based on my knowledge of the actual state of affairs and on the information obtained from the constructor of the strategic ocean-going missile submarine”. The “Dmitri Donskoi” and “Yuri Dolgoruki” type submarines are to be armed with Bulava missile systems. The “Dmitri Donskoi” will shortly join the navy again after some modernisation. This heavy nuclear-powered missile cruiser of the project 941 “Akula” type was built at the Sevmash Yards in 1982 and numbered as submarine 711. It was modernised into a submarine of the latest fourth generation. Renovation of the submarine, the head vessel of the series of Russia’s largest submarines, lasted for ten years. It came off the slips at the end of 2002. The “Yuri Dolgoruki” is the first submarine of the new generation (Burei project 955). Its keel was laid in 1996. Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Navy Admiral Vladimir Kuroyedov said the Burei-type submarines would have “substantially better hydrodynamic characteristics and acoustic parameters” than the submarines of the second and third generations. The Bulava missile complex was designed at the Moscow Combustion Engineering Institute. According to unclassified information, this solid fuel missile is capable of carrying up to ten individually guided nuclear warheads. The Bulava’s range is not less than eight thousand kilometres. A successful so-called “jump” launch of the Bulava missile was made from the “Dmitri Donskoi” board on September 23, 2004. Only the automatic devices of the submarine are used during a missile’s “jump” launch. A mock missile is shot by means of a special pressure accumulator from the silo through the water to an altitude of 30-40 metres, i.e. to the height where the missile’s propulsion engine goes into action during a normal launch. © ITAR-TASS. All rights reserved. You undertake not to copy, ***************************************************************** 21 Netindia123.com: PAEC to upgrade Pakistan's nuke facilities Tuesday, March 29, 2005 12:44:09 PM Edition : Islamabad | March 28, 2005 5:46:30 PM IST Pakistani officials have said that the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) will set up new laboratories and facilities to meet Pakistan's requirements of sustainability and self-reliance. The Dawn quoted sources as saying that PAEC has sought the government's permission to upgrade and expand the Pakistan Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology (Pinstech) at a cost of 2.5 billion rupees in this regard. Officials said that post WTC and the nuclear tests carried out by Pakistan on May 28, 1998, Pinstech has been facing "very serious threats/problems of embargo by foreign companies towards the supply of high-precision scientific and technical equipment and material". "This situation calls for the need to take an urgent step forward for the extension of Pinstech laboratories, Phase-II, so that state-of-the-art scientific and technical facilities can be established at the developed site without any delay to face the challenges of the WTO, and to keep pace with the regional nuclear powers and other established nuclear capable states of Europe and North America," the paper quoted PAEC officials as saying. Officials further said that the construction of high-tech laboratories was necessary to enhance capacity for research and development in the field of nuclear fuel cycle, vital for the survival of Pakistan's nuclear and defence programmes in view of trade sanctions and embargo imposed by the developed countries. (ANI) ©2002 - 2003 Netindia123.com. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 22 ABC News: Proposed uranium deal to China raises weapons concerns March 29, 2005 | Get Your Local News and Australia is negotiating to supply fuel for 40 to 50 new nuclear power plants in China. By Janaki Kremmer SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA The Howard government has begun negotiations with Chinese officials to sell uranium to the energy-hungry Asian giant in a deal that is expected to be signed within 12 months. Judging by the standards of supply and demand, the deal makes complete sense. China is expected to build 40 to 50 nuclear power plants over the next two decades and needs uranium to fuel them. Australia has it. China's Pacific neighbor is sitting on 41 percent of the world's easily extractable uranium. The sale would be so good for Australia's coffers that the opposition has decided to back it. But the talks come amid close international attention to nuclear proliferation, as well as US concerns about arms sales to China. The uranium deal, critics say, raises uncomfortable questions about whether the uranium could be diverted to further China's nuclear weapons arsenal. "It is setting a dangerous precedent of selling to a new country which is not an open society," says David Noonan, campaign officer on nuclear issues at the Australian Conservation Foundation. "We have concerns also about where this nuclear waste is going to be dumped and whether there will be enough checks in place to see that low-enriched uranium used for fuel is not then going to be reprocessed to produce plutonium - which is of course used to make bombs." In recent years, Chinese officials have globetrotted from Russia to Latin America to Canada in an effort to ink new energy supply deals. China's booming manufacturing economy requires enormous amounts of energy to keep its factories running. Australia is already a crucial energy supplier for China. Last year Canberra signed a $19 billion deal to supply China with liquefied natural gas and the two countries are expected to begin free trade talks when Prime Minister John Howard visits Beijing this month. To help meet its energy demands, China has indicated that it is going to expand its nuclear-power capacity beyond its current nine nuclear plants. In discussing the proposed export of uranium to China, Australia's Foreign Minister Alexander Downer told Parliament last month that the deal would only go through if China agreed to safeguards to ensure that the uranium would not be used to build nuclear weapons, would not be given to other countries, and would be safely handled. But critics say that past international efforts at safeguards have not stopped some nations from using uranium for nuclear weapons programs. "Australia pins all its hopes on the nuclear nonproliferation treaty which both [China and Australia] are signatory to," says James Courtney, a nuclear campaigner for Greenpeace. But "if things turn ugly over Taiwan, China could well decide to pull out of the NPT, and other than declaring war on China there is no way that you could get that uranium out." Mr. Noonan cautions that there is no way of identifying "my uranium" from "your uranium" once it has left these shores. "Once the Australian yellowcake mixes with Chinese uranium, we won't be able to keep tabs on what is ours and what is not. In any case once China gets our uranium it could easily free up its own stockpiles for military use, and then Australia would be seen as being complicit in its military program," he says. However, China already has a significant stockpile of nuclear materials to draw upon if it wanted to build more weapons. A 1999 report by the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control cites estimates of up to 4 tons of plutonium and 23 tons of highly enriched uranium - enough material for more than 2,000 nuclear weapons. The department of foreign affairs and trade in Canberra says that, so far, the US has not commented on the possible uranium deal. "Frankly, there is no bilateral safeguards agreement yet that anyone can take a look at to comment at this time," says an agency spokesman. But Noonan says there is another reason for the silence. "The main reason [why the US is not going to comment] is that Westinghouse is trying to sell four nuclear reactors to China, with an encouraging loan of 40 percent, in order to keep the nuclear industry in the US functioning as the US is not building any more reactors in its own country," he says. The British-owned Pittsburgh-based company is believed to be bidding for the sale, along with the French firm Areva and its joint-venture partner Siemens. Russian and Canadian companies have also expressed interest in this project. Former president Bill Clinton cleared the way for US reactor sales to China in 1998, under a bilateral cooperation agreement after Beijing promised not to sell nuclear technology to Iran. Despite proliferation concerns, the uranium deal will probably go through, says Alan Dupont, strategic analyst at the Lowy Institute in Sydney. "The anti-uranium lobby's principal argument has been undercut as there is a recognition that nuclear power is useful in order to reduce global warming," he says. www.csmonitor.com | Copyright © 2005 The Christian Science Monitor. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 23 Guardian Unlimited: Some Truckers to Undergo Background Checks From the Associated Press [UP] Monday March 28, 2005 10:31 AM AP Photo NY112 By ROSA CIRIANNI Associated Press Writer CRANBURY, N.J. (AP) - The truck drivers who haul cargo labeled as flammable, combustible, radioactive or poisonous are now going to be scrutinized as closely as the hazardous materials that fill their tankers and trailers. In the coming months, roughly 3 million drivers across the nation will begin to be fingerprinted and put through FBI criminal background checks. Their names also are cross-referenced with federal databases related to terrorist activity, a practice the U.S. Transportation Security Administration began last year. ``Some of us are against it and some of us are for it because of safety since 9/11,'' said Michael Johnson, a trucker from Mauldin, S.C., during a recent break at the Molly Pitcher Rest Stop in Middlesex County on the New Jersey Turnpike. ``The drivers that drive, they want to be safe,'' he said. ``Some of them are against it because they say it's impeding their privacy.'' The federal Transportation Security Administration and the FBI will conduct the ``security threat assessments'' as drivers renew their credentials allowing them to haul hazardous materials. Drivers who haul hazardous materials must attach a placard to the back of their tankers or trucks. After a criminal record search, the TSA could either give drivers a green light to be recertified, or classify them as threats and prevent them from transporting hazardous materials. The TSA will notify the state where a driver is licensed of its findings. Drivers could appeal the decisions. The truckers - authorized to carry materials such as gasoline, propane, chlorine and dynamite - will have to pay $94 for the fingerprinting. Some of their companies will pick up the tab. ``This is the consequence of 9/11,'' said Bill MacLeod, spokesman for the federal Motor Carrier Administration. ``The reasoning had to do with the mitigation of threats against people and property that may come from hazardous material loads, whether they be hijacked and used for purposes that could create harm to again, people and properties.'' Until now, drivers' background checks were left for trucking companies to perform, which most of the bigger ones did, said Gail Toth, executive director of the New Jersey Motor Truck Association in East Brunswick. But the searches typically would not be as extensive as the FBI's, or cover criminal records in other states, mostly because of the expense. Toth, who noted that teachers and other professionals undergo similar scrutiny, said some truckers are upset by the new requirements. ``The biggest thing that's unfortunate is that they feel singled out. It's a very justifiable feeling,'' said Toth, whose nonprofit trade association represents more than 1,000 truckers. The program is part of the USA Patriot Act, which Congress adopted in October 2001 to expand the government's surveillance powers after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Dennis O'Leary, a manager for Lorco Petroleum Services in Elizabeth, N.J., said his company did not perform criminal background checks before the new regulations. He said he supports the program. ``If there's a truck coming through my hometown where my kids are, I feel more secure if I know who is transporting has been checked out,'' he said. O'Leary said he would feel better if the government expanded the checks to cover all drivers, particularly those who may be in the country illegally. ``I'd feel better if everyone was checked out,'' he said. As of Jan. 31, drivers who want to get a first-time hazardous material certification on their commercial driver's licenses have to be fingerprinted and take the usual computer-based test. Those up for renewal after May 31 will have to do the same. ``We'll be able to know not only who is driving and transporting hazardous materials, but we'll be able to restrict people who have certain kinds of convictions,'' said Sharon Harrington, chief administrator for the state Motor Vehicle Commission. Temporary disqualifying offenses could include people convicted of some felonies or who have been found not guilty by reason of insanity in the past seven years. People released from prison in the last five years for sexual assault with intent to murder, kidnapping or hostage taking, and those with immigration violations also would be disqualified. Treason, espionage and murder convictions are among the crimes that would permanently disqualify drivers from getting or keeping their hazardous material endorsements. ``It's just the way, unfortunately, our world has changed so much,'' said Toth. ``Could you imagine if you're the trucking company and you didn't have this ability and had a person employed, and had no idea that they're the next terrorist?'' --- On the Net: Transportation Security Administration: http://www.tsa.gov Homeland Security Department: http://www.dhs.gov Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005 ***************************************************************** 24 [du-list] troops face uranium danger Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2005 15:38:18 -0800 Troops 'face uranium danger' http://theaustralian.com.au 28 March 2005 AUSTRALIAN troops being sent to Iraq in May could be at risk of contracting cancer or conceiving deformed children, doctors said today. The Medical Association for Prevention of War (MAPW) has written to Defence Minister Robert Hill advising him against deploying troops to the Al Muthanna province in southern Iraq. Association vice president Dr Gillian Deakin said research teams had found depleted uranium wherever the US attacked Iraqi tanks using weapons tipped with the toxic nuclear waste. "United Nations statistics for southern Iraq where depleted uranium was used heavily in 1991 reveal a seven-fold increase in cancer rates between 1989 and 1994," he said. "Congenital deformities of types virtually never seen in other circumstances are occurring in newborns in Iraq in areas where depleted uranium is present." There is no proof that depleted uranium - nuclear waste recycled to make new bombs - causes the cancers and deformities. However, MAPW said alarm was growing among the international medical community over its possible effects on human health. "The South Australians sensibly refused to have it stored in concrete in remote parts of their state, yet our government is willing to risk exposing our troops to it," Dr Deakin said. "MAPW calls on the Government to refuse the participation of Australian troops in any military activity where depleted uranium might be used or in any location where depleted uranium has been used in the past." Four hundred and fifty Australian soldiers will leave Australia in stages by sea and air for southern Iraq between mid-April and mid-May. Comment was being sought from Senator Hill and the Australian Defence Force today. Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> What would our lives be like without music, dance, and theater? Donate or volunteer in the arts today at Network for Good! http://us.click.yahoo.com/TzSHvD/SOnJAA/79vVAA/FGYolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> To unsubscribe from this groups send a message to du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com. In the body of the message type unsubscribe and send. Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/du-list/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ***************************************************************** 25 [toeslist] Lead Poisoning from Dust in the Air Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2005 10:06:48 -0600 (CST) These new research findings are probably also immediately generalizable to Depleted Uranium as well. This form of uranium, generated from the explosion and aerosolization of US munitions, is similar enough in properties to lead that when it exists as a dust in the environment, it too will probably be stirred up and taken into the human body in much the same manner, but with results even more devastating, because it is radioactive. A summary of the study mentioned in the articles is here: http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/docs/2005/7759/abstract.html -- John Wilmerding http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/journalgazette/news/11238149.htm Inner-City Lead Poisoning Blamed on Airborne Dust Scientists Develop Formula to Predict Spikes in Numbers of Cases by Rick Callahan Indianapolis, Indiana -- Saturday, March 26, 2005 -- Public health officials have made dramatic strides in the past quarter-century reducing childhood lead-poisoning cases, but thousands of inner-city children are still exposed each year to the brain-damaging metal. The reason, according to a new study, may be in the air. Scientists have found evidence that lead-tainted urban soils kicked up by summer winds fuel seasonal spikes in lead poisoning cases by filling homes and playgrounds with airborne dust. Health experts said the findings -- that inner-city kids are exposed to windblown lead during their most active months of outdoor play -- could help them find new ways to reduce lead poisoning, which can cause brain damage, behavioral problems, slowed growth and hearing loss. This is an eye-opening paper, said Jonathan E. Ericson, a professor of environmental health at the University of California, Irvine, who was not involved with the research. Scientists at three universities reviewed meteorological records, lead soil concentrations and epidemiological results for about 32,000 children in Indianapolis, New Orleans and Syracuse, New York, between 1994 and 2003. Using a computer model, they found they could predict with high accuracy the average monthly blood-lead levels among urban children in the three cities, based on local weather conditions and soil moisture and lead levels. The culprit appeared to be dry, windy summer weather that picked up lead dust in the top few inches of urban soil, said Gabriel Filippelli, a professor of geology at Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis who co-authored the study. The model was 98 percent accurate in predicting blood-lead levels among children in Indianapolis, where those levels spiked from June to September, Filippelli said. When we found this in Indianapolis, we thought No, this can't be right.' So we applied this same model to these other cities, and it matched the blood lead data for them as well, he said. For Syracuse and New Orleans, the model was 61 percent and 59 percent accurate in predicting blood-lead levels, respectively. Though the results were less accurate than in Indianapolis, the researchers said the findings in all three cities were statistically significant. Scientists at Xavier University and State University of New York in Syracuse also participated in the study, which will be published in the June issue of the journal Environmental Health Perspectives. About 434,000 American children ages 1 to 5 have dangerously high levels of lead in their blood, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Dr. Mary Jean Brown, chief of the CDC's Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program, said lead-based paint residue in and around older homes is still regarded as the primary cause of childhood lead poisoning. But she said the study is compelling and adds to the potential lead sources public health officials need to consider. The fact is, lead is everywhere, Brown said, noting that decades of auto emissions from now-banned leaded gasoline and industry have spread lead dust to remote corners of the globe. Theres a fine mantle of lead dust that covers just about every surface. She said the study shows the need to plant grass or place mulch on bare soil in urban areas to prevent children from ingesting lead when soil dries out. Ericson, of the University of California, Irvine, said more research was needed over larger geographic areas to rule out other variables that could explain the studys findings. But he said the findings appear to explain why high lead levels have been found in children who live in urban neighborhoods with unpainted brick houses and no obvious source of lead-based paint. That could be useful for Western cities such as Los Angeles with dry, naturally dusty climates, he said. Tom Neltner, executive director of the Indianapolis-based advocacy group Improving Kids Environment, said the findings suggest that lead dust adds to the accumulation of the heavy metal in children who also ingest paint residue. The fact that it gives all of us a little extra lead in our blood when theres no safe level is a real concern, he said. http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2005/03/04/52152.htm Researchers Find Dust to be Primary Lead Poisoning Source; Develop New Tests for Children Monday, March 4, 2005 -- Wind blown lead-enriched dust appears to be the primary cause of lead poisoning in children living in cities, according to a new study conducted by researchers at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, Xavier University of Louisiana and SUNY ESF (Environmental Science and Forestry). Until now, lead poisoning in children was believed to be caused primarily by what are called point sources, such as lead-based paint in homes. Further, the researchers say they have developed a new method for predicting whether blood lead test results for a child taken on any date shows whether the child is at risk on an annual basis for exceeding safe blood lead concentrations established by the Environmental Protection Agency. The researchers' findings are in a paper published (available online) in Environmental Health Perspectives, a monthly journal of peer-reviewed research and news on the impact of the environment on human health: http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/docs/2005/7759/abstract.html Lead poisoning is a hidden threat to many children living in urban environments, according to health experts. A neurotoxin, lead in the blood causes a variety of permanent health effects in children, including lowered IQ, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and behavioral problems. Environmental laws have significantly reduced new sources of lead to the environment, resulting in a significant decrease in lead poisoning of children in the U.S. as a whole. In cities, however, the percentages of children who are still lead poisoned sometimes exceed 20 percent, and are typically higher in lower income and minority populations, the researchers note. According to the researchers, the top few inches of urban soil contains a potentially large reservoir of accumulated lead, the legacy of 100 years of lead use in cities. Recent studies indicate that this lead-enriched soil can be redistributed in dry and windy conditions, causing increased exposure to children living in areas where surface soils has high lead values, like transportation and population centers. While some continued lead poisoning is due to point sources such as paint dust from poorly maintained homes, the researchers concluded that it appears that a significant additional source of lead contamination is from the soil. "Because resuspension of lead from contaminated soil appears to be driving seasonal child blood lead fluctuations, concomitantly, it is suggested that lead-contaminated soil in and of itself may be the primary driving mechanism of child blood lead poisoning in the urban environment," the researchers state in the paper. The fact that blood lead levels in children generally vary during the year, with higher levels in summer months and lower levels during the winter, had posed problems for health professionals who diagnose and treat lead poisoning in clinical situations. Using health and environmental databases from three U.S. cities (Indianapolis, New Orleans and Syracuse), the research team, led by Mark Laidlaw in the Department of Geology at IUPUI, statistically examined monthly variations in children's blood lead levels in comparison to climatic factors such as precipitation and soil moisture and air quality factors such as fine particulates in the air. These data were used to develop a predictive model for blood lead levels in these cities ... a model that is extremely accurate. In Indianapolis, for example, the climatic and air quality factors were able to predict 98 percent of the variation in monthly blood lead levels. This result indicates the power of this technique for placing blood lead test results in context -- for example, a result below the action threshold set by the EPA determined in the winter might exceed, in a predictable way, the safe level if that test had been administered in the summer. These results also speak to the mechanism of the seasonal variations, which had puzzled researchers -- since much of the seasonal variation in blood lead results can be predicted by geological and meteorological factors. A theory that outdoor play during the summer caused elevated blood lead levels is only part of a more complex story, according to the researchers. In detail, the Environmental Health Perspectives study finds that seasonal trends in children's blood lead levels seems to be controlled by exposure to lead-enriched dust originating from contaminated soils and suspended in the air when several weather related environmental conditions are present: temperature is high, soil moisture is low, and fine particulate is elevated. Under these combined weather conditions, lead-enriched dust disperses in the urban environment, and manifests itself in elevated lead dust loading. In this case, exposure is via increased dust loads in homes and on contact surfaces, with ingestion being the uptake mechanism. Although further work using detailed tracking of lead, possibly involving lead isotopic studies, may help to elucidate the connection between seasonality and blood lead values, these results indicate that the ability of geochemical and meteorological factors to predict blood lead supports the supposition that external loading and ex! posure drives much of the blood lead concentrations. ========================================= COLLEGIUM IUSTITIF FQUITATEM RESTITUENTI +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ John Woolman College of Equity-Restorative Justice Peacemaking and Conflict Transformation c/o John Wilmerding 217 High Street, Brattleboro, VT, USA 05301 Phone: (01)-802-254-2826 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ "There is no time left except to make peace work a part of our every waking activity." -- Elise Boulding, Quaker Scholar & Peace Activist +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ To join (or leave) the College's email list, send an email message to wilmerding@earthlink.net or to cerj@igc.org, including your first & last name, your email address, and your state, province or country of residence. A partial CERJ list archive is at this site: http://lists.topica.com/lists/CERJ/read ========================================= ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Has someone you know been affected by illness or disease? Network for Good is THE place to support health awareness efforts! http://us.click.yahoo.com/RzSHvD/UOnJAA/79vVAA/NJYolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/toeslist/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: toeslist-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ***************************************************************** 26 Occupational Hazards: OSHA Beryllium Test Results Higher Than Some Anticipated THE AUTHORITY ON OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY, HEALTH AND LOSS PREVENTION 03/28/2005 Ten current OSHA inspectors -- 3.7 percent of those tested so far -- have developed a sensitization to beryllium, a widely used, toxic metal that can cause lung and skin disease. OSHA, which began offering voluntary beryllium testing for its workers in 2004, says that 271 inspectors had been tested as of March 15. According to the agency, 31 employees who initially expressed interest in being tested for beryllium sensitization had yet to scheduled appointments as of that date. For those inspectors who tested positive, OSHA's Office of Occupational Medicine provided them with "in-depth counseling" on further medical evaluation and other issues such as workers' compensation rights and procedures, according to the agency. The agency says those who were tested were informed of their individual results as soon as they were received. While OSHA cautions that a positive test does not imply that one has or will develop chronic beryllium disease -- a progressive, potentially fatal lung disease -- Acting Assistant Secretary of Labor Jonathan Snare explained to agency employees in a memo that the agency's exposure levels fall within the same range of workers involved in the production of nuclear weapons and beryllium-containing ceramics and alloys. That concerns observers such as Jeff Ruch, executive director of the Washington-based Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), who bemoans that OSHA "keeps assuring us they have the situation under control." The similarity of inspectors' results to exposure rates in beryllium-laden work environments -- despite the fact that OSHA inspectors likely were exposed to beryllium for only a few hours -- suggests that OSHA inspectors may have been subjected to extremely high beryllium exposures, according to PEER. "For [OSHA inspectors] to have the same exposure levels for people who used to work in nuclear weapons plants is significant," Ruch said. Since 1984, OSHA has conducted approximately 4,000 inspections in which sampling for beryllium was conducted, according to the agency. Of 13,407 air samples taken in those inspections, 147, or 1.1 percent, exceeded OSHA's current permissible exposure limit of not more than 2 micrograms per cubic meter of air for an 8-hour time-weighted average or not more than 5 micrograms per cubic meter of air for more than 30 minutes. Latest Results Higher Than Predicted by Finkel This has become a potentially thorny issue for OSHA. Former OSHA regional administrator Adam Finkel slapped the agency with a whistleblower complaint in 2003, alleging that he was removed from his position after protesting former OSHA chief John Henshaw's decision to not offer beryllium screening tests to employees. OSHA denied the retaliation claim. OSHA, in its March 24 press release, tried to emphasize its proactive stance toward the issue. The agency said it began investigating the need to test its inspectors for beryllium exposure in 2000 and subsequently began work on a "pilot beryllium medical monitoring program." PEER's Ruch says that's "flat-out dishonest." "The decision was made to not do anything," Ruch said. "… For them to say they were working on this all the time -- they were working on this in ways that are imperceptible." OSHA in August 2004 began offering voluntary testing to inspectors who may have been exposed to beryllium. The agency says it did not establish a minimum exposure level for inspectors to qualify for testing, and Snare said the testing program still is available to any workers who want to be tested. "We will continue our longstanding policy to protect and monitor the health of our compliance staff," Snare said. One of PEER's many beefs with the agency's approach to handling this issue is that OSHA has not extended the offer to former inspectors. Finkel, when employed by OSHA, claimed that several thousand current and former inspectors had been exposed unknowingly to beryllium at concentrations up to several hundred times higher than permissible levels. He estimated that 1.5 percent of current or former inspectors may already be sensitized to beryllium, a prediction that seemed prescient after a January Chicago Tribune revealed that at least three OSHA employees -- 1.5 percent of 200 -- had tested positive for beryllium sensitization. Finkel's reaction to the latest test results -- which he says indicate a more pervasive problem them he first estimated -- was, "It looks like OSHA is sleeping through yet another wake-up call." PEER Questions Timing of Announcement After the Chicago Tribune article in January, PEER fired off a letter to Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao asking the agency to take more aggressive steps to improve its beryllium testing program. Among its recommendations, PEER urged OSHA to disclose the location of facilities visited by inspectors who became sensitized, so that state and EPA inspectors and workers at those facilities could seek medical testing. OSHA responded to PEER with a letter from Snare detailing its beryllium medical testing program and assuring that "OSHA is concerned about the health of all American workers, including our own safety and health professionals." The letter was faxed to PEER on March 24, Ruch says, the same day the agency issued a press release with the latest beryllium testing results. Ruch calls the timing -- the day before Good Friday -- a deliberate attempt by the agency to "mask bad news." "Putting [the press release] out so close to Good Friday is a way for them to say they're forthcoming but in the least possible forthcoming way," Ruch said. - Josh Cable Quick Links Occupational Hazards | © 2004 ***************************************************************** 27 ninemsn: Troops could be at cancer risk in Iraq 13:53 AEDT Mon Mar 28 2005 Australian troops being sent to Iraq in May could be at risk of contracting cancer or conceiving deformed children, doctors warned. The Medical Association for Prevention of War (MAPW) has written to Defence Minister Robert Hill advising him against deploying troops to the Al Muthanna province in southern Iraq. Research teams have found depleted uranium wherever the US attacked Iraqi tanks using weapons tipped with the toxic nuclear waste, Association vice president Dr Gillian Deakin said. "United Nations statistics for southern Iraq where depleted uranium was used heavily in 1991 reveal a seven-fold increase in cancer rates between 1989 and 1994," Dr Deakin said. "Congenital deformities of types virtually never seen in other circumstances are occurring in newborns in Iraq in areas where depleted uranium is present." There is no proof that depleted uranium - nuclear waste recycled to make new bombs - causes the cancers and deformities. However, MAPW said alarm was growing among the international medical community over its possible effects on human health. "The South Australians sensibly refused to have it stored in concrete in remote parts of their state, yet our government is willing to risk exposing our troops to it," Dr Deakin said. "MAPW calls on the government to refuse the participation of Australian troops in any military activity where depleted uranium might be used or in any location where depleted uranium has been used in the past." Four hundred and fifty Australian soldiers will leave Australia in stages by sea and air for southern Iraq between mid-April and mid-May. Comment was being sought from Senator Hill and the Australian Defence Force. ©AAP 2005 © 1997- 2005 ninemsn Pty Ltd - All rights reserved ***************************************************************** 28 EMS: Beryllium Effects On OSHA Inspectors Wider Than Feared; Blood Abnormality Numbers More Than Triple and May Go Much Higher http://www.ems.org [Environmental Media Services] Source: Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) Posted on: Mar 28, 2005 @ 10:15 am Press Release Contact: Chas Offutt (202) 265-7337 Washington, DC — A significant and growing number of inspectors for the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration have developed blood abnormalities caused by exposure to deadly beryllium while on the job, according to an internal OSHA email released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). As only a fraction of the exposed inspectors has been tested, final numbers may be higher. According to an internal email sent to OSHA staff on March 24, 2005 by Acting Assistant Secretary of Labor for OSHA Jonathan Snare, ten OSHA employees out of 271 have tested positive for beryllium sensitization. Earlier results reported in January found only three positives. Beryllium is an extremely toxic metal. Sensitization to beryllium is the precursor for chronic beryllium disease (CBD), a progressive, potentially fatal lung disease. The testing was prompted by the public protests of a former top OSHA official who was then transferred. Dr. Adam Finkel, the former OSHA Administrator for the six-state Rocky Mountain Region, revealed that several thousand current and former inspectors were unknowingly exposed to beryllium at concentrations up to several hundred times higher than permissible levels. Over Dr. Finkel’s objections, Assistant Labor Secretary John Henshaw decided to deny recommended blood screenings for employees and to not inform individuals of their exposures. More than 18 months after Dr. Finkel blew the whistle, OSHA finally began a medical monitoring program in April 2004 but only for a portion of exposed compliance officers. "It looks like OSHA is sleeping through yet another wake-up call,” stated Dr. Finkel, speaking for himself from his new office at Princeton University. “When I protested the decision not to test or inform our employees, I was concerned that one or two percent of them might be sensitized – but now OSHA admits that nearly four percent are.” The latest test results may understate the extent of the problem because— · Inspectors were not informed of their specific exposure levels. Thus, the most seriously exposed may remain to be tested; · OSHA has repeatedly ignored the hundreds of former inspectors and state inspectors who may have been similarly exposed; and · The preliminary sensitization rate for OSHA inspectors (3.7%) is, according to the Snare email, within the range of beryllium sensitization “of workers in jobs such as nuclear weapons production, machinists and production of beryllium-containing ceramics and alloys.” In other words, OSHA inspectors exposed for only a few hours have sensitization rates equal or greater than those of workers who have spent years in beryllium-laden environments, suggesting that OSHA inspectors may have been subjected to extremely high exposures. Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao did not respond to a January letter by PEER urging six steps to improve the beryllium testing program, including that OSHA disclose the location of facilities visited by inspectors who became sensitized so that state inspectors, EPA inspectors and the workers inside those facilities could make informed decisions about whether to seek medical testing. Instead, Jonathan Snare sent PEER a letter dated March 24th that avoided any of the suggestions but assured that “We value the health of all OSHA employees.” The next day, Good Friday, OSHA posted a similar statement by Snare. “OSHA’s actions in this matter belie its stated concern for the health of its own workers,” stated PEER Executive Jeff Ruch. “OSHA has taken only small, grudging steps that completely ignore the health risks to its retirees, its state partners and other workers.” ### Environmental Media Services 1320 18th Street NW 5th Floor Washington, DC 20036 (202) 463-6670 Website comments: Copyright © 2003 Environmental Media Services ***************************************************************** 29 Courier-Mail: Secret cash for sick servicemen 29 March 2005 This story is from our news.com.au network Source: The Daily Telegraph THE Australian Defence Force has secretly compensated five former servicemen it poisoned with toxic beryllium despite publicly claiming it knew nothing about the dangers. Records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act reveal the payments were made over the past 12 years - and that two of the men compensated have since died. It is an embarrassing admission for the ADF, which claimed in January "the navy is currently unaware of any proven cases of occupationally caused beryllium disease". Since The Daily Telegraph revealed three months ago that 3000 sailors, soldiers, airmen and cadets were poisoned by the metal, the ADF has consistently denied it was aware of the hazards. Now it has emerged that five years ago it paid compensation to the family of a servicemen who died after being exposed to the heavy metal. In dust form, beryllium causes chronic lung complaints and cancer in 15 per cent of cases. It is fatal in up to 6 per cent of cases. The ADF secretly accepted it was to blame for five cases of beryllium exposure and chronic beryllium disease between 1992 and 2003. Among those they paid compensation to are the family of an RAAF mechanic who died from leukaemia as a result of "machining toxic and radioactive materials such as beryllium copper from aircraft". Veteran Affairs Minister De-Anne Kelly told Parliament last month those who were exposed were not warned because "to needlessly cause anxiety to large groups of people by advising them of exposure when the likelihood of any illness is rare would simply be unreasonable". But men like Tim White, 41, from Glenwood, who served on HMAS Supply and has non-Hodgkins lymphoma, disagree. He blames exposure to beryllium while working with paint-stripping jason pistols on HMAS Supply for his condition. His wife Mandy said: "Does my husband have to die before the ADF recognises and takes responsibility? "They hope you'll die or go away before they admit it." The ADF last night refused to go into the specific details of its payouts. But while it admitted making a payment to the family of the airman, it did not believe his fatal leukaemia was related to his beryllium exposure. terms © Queensland Newspapers ***************************************************************** 30 Korea Herald: [EDITORIALS] Nuke dump site nearer? The Nation's No.1 English Newspaper After the bitter experiences in Buan last year, the government seems to be buoyed by the prospect of finally resolving the problem of finding a site for the nation's first nuclear waste storage facility. Five cities and counties have expressed intent to offer a site with the consent of residents. Gyeongju and Uljin, which already have nuclear power plants operating four and six reactors, respectively, are in the forefront of the bidding. Two other locations on the southeastern coast, Pohang and Yeongdeok, are also vying for the project which community leaders believe is a good opportunity to vastly improve the local economy. Gunsan port on the west coast has designated an offshore island for waste storage. It is natural that administration officials and many residents in these places are attracted by the government offer of huge subsidies, amounting to 300 billion won, in addition to an annual income of 5 to 10 billion won in "storage fees." And there also is the assurance of construction of an ultra-modern scientific facility known as a proton linear accelerator center, as well as the head office of state-run Korea Hydro &Nuclear Power Co., the operator of nuclear power plants, in the chosen location When the mayor of Buan, North Jeolla Province, made the bid to bring the storage facility to Wi-do island early last year, he believed most of the residents would welcome the project, counting on direct benefits to them. He had the open support of a community development committee. But things turned out unexpectedly, with the intervention of environmental activists and poor handling of public opinion by local and central government authorities. After months of violent demonstrations, the Wi-do plan was scrapped. To pick a location, winning the consent of residents is as important as geological surveys. Not a simple majority but absolute majority support is needed for such a decision and any remaining objectors should be persuaded to concede in the interest of the community. And, the authorities should be aware that people's sentiments change abruptly when not all expectations are met. In this free country, local or international environmental and anti-nuclear groups cannot be barred from engaging in their opposition campaigns in any selected location. But administration authorities should take meticulous public relations efforts to counter the activists' logic. All facts about nuclear hazards and safety measures should be provided to residents so they can make a decision with full knowledge. One thing which must be made clear is that the storage facility is for low-degree nuclear waste only, and not for the spent fuel from nuclear power plants. The authorities should reveal plans for high-degree waste storage so residents of candidate locations would not have any unnecessary apprehension about the project they are to accept. 2005.03.29 ***************************************************************** 31 Las Vegas SUN: Editorial: Overhaul is faltering Today: March 28, 2005 at 9:10:13 PST LAS VEGAS SUN President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and top Cabinet officials have been crisscrossing the nation in recent weeks to pitch what they say are the benefits of the president's plans to partially privatize Social Security. Typically, when the president visits a city to tout privatization, he holds what looks like town hall meetings with local residents. But these question-and-answer sessions are nothing more than cheerleading events. They are carefully choreographed, allowing only those who agree with the president's vision for Social Security to ask him questions. Such stage-managed events, in which there is nary a dissenting word and almost universal praise for privatization, are intended to give the illusion that the public supports the president's plan. Interestingly enough, however, this attempt at manipulating news coverage has fallen flat, as polls show that the more people hear about the president's plan, the less they like it. A USA Today/CNN/Gallup Poll last week found that 6 out of 10 American workers believe it is a "bad idea" for the government to allow workers to invest some of their Social Security taxes in the market. Meanwhile, the vice president was in Reno last week as part of the White House's traveling road show, and he seemed at a loss as to why the nation's most influential organization for older Americans, AARP, would oppose the partial privatization of Social Security. The president, after all, excluded older Americans from participation in his proposal. "You've got to be 50 years old to be a member of AARP. And for most members of AARP, this isn't going to have any impact on them whatsoever," Cheney said. The vice president's remarks, unintentionally, are revealing of the political cynicism that pervades the president's plan -- and why so many distrust the proposal. The president assumed that if he excluded older Americans from his plan, then selfishness would set in and they would not voice opposition. But guess what? Polling still shows them strongly opposed to privatization. They're thinking of what's best for all Americans -- which happens in many cases to include their sons, daughters and grandchildren. Taking such a huge, unwarranted risk with the nation's retirement safety net is unacceptable to them. Additionally, it was amusing to read about the stony reception that Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., received last week when he talked about Social Security during a speech to the Nevada Legislature. Not a single legislator applauded when Ensign spoke favorabl y about the president's privatization plans. It's become increasingly clear that the public doesn't have any appetite for Bush's radical approach to Social Security. The sooner the White House acknowledges this, and drops privatization as an option, the more likely Congress can responsibly deal with ensuring Social Security's future. ***************************************************************** 32 Las Vegas SUN: NRC says pool storage of nuke waste is safe Today: March 28, 2005 at 11:21:14 PST By Suzanne Struglinski SUN WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON -- Despite recent findings by the National Academy of Sciences, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is maintaining that keeping used nuclear fuel in storage pools is safe. An academy report sent to Congress and the commission last year said the commission might want to move used nuclear fuel from pool to dry storage earlier than anticipated to reduce consequences in the event of a terrorist attack on a pool. But in a letter sent to Congress on March 14, NRC Chairman Nils Diaz wrote that the latest security assessments of pool and dry storage shows pool storage "provides reasonable assurance that public health and safety, the environment and the common defense and security will be adequately protected." "The NRC will continue to evaluate the results of the ongoing plant-specific assessments and, based upon new information, would evaluate whether any change to its spent fuel storage policy is warranted," Diaz wrote to Sen. Pete Domenici, the Republican chairman of the Senate Appropriations Energy and Water Development Subcommittee, Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., the subcommittee's top Democrat and six other lawmakers in the House and Senate. Congress asked the academy to study spent fuel storage after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The academy sent the classified report to Congress and the commission last year, but a public version has not been released yet. Academy spokesman Bill Kearney said the academy sent a possible public version to the commission earlier this year, but the commission deemed its contents to be sensitive and safeguarded information. "We are still working toward releasing an appropriate and substantive unclassified public version of the report," Kearney said. Diaz's letter contains the commission's responses to specific findings and recommendations made by the academy in its report, but not the report in its entirety. Diaz makes clear in the letter's second paragraph that the commission disagreed with the findings in several areas and felt "they lacked a sound technical basis." The academy recommended the commission should review and upgrade security requirements for protecting fuel assemblies from "theft from knowledgeable insiders." Diaz said security measures in place as well as the "intense, physically disabling, radiation taken from spent fuel" make the likelihood of someone stealing fuel assemblies "extremely low.' "The NRC does not consider the threat of a knowledgeable, active insider stealing a spent fuel rod, or portion thereof, to be credible," Diaz wrote. Nuclear utilities store spent fuel in water pools and in dry containers on their properties as they wait for the radioactive materials to be moved to a central federal storage site. The government plans to move the waste to Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, but the Energy Department's project faces another round of delays. Security concerns have been brought up by those for and against the Yucca Mountain nuclear dump. The government and the nuclear industry say storing the waste on-site at the nuclear reactors is safe, but only as a short-term solution. On-site storage is only designed to be a temporary fix and leaving waste in 103 different sites around the country is not good for future security. Moving it all to one place is the answer, Yucca supporters say. Meanwhile, Nevada's congressional delegation and other critics argue that shipping the waste from dozens of sites around the country to Nevada will create potential moving terrorist targets. They also insist that as long as nuclear power use continues, it will generate waste on-site, forcing Yucca to be just one more storage site, not an all-encompassing site. Under law, Yucca can only store 77,000 tons of waste, although there is room inside for more. If the site opens in 2012 or 2015 as now estimated, that current legal limit would nearly be reached. Waste would still have to be stored at reactor plants while it waited in line to be moved to Yucca or another federal storage site. ***************************************************************** 33 Guardian Unlimited: Nuke Plants Use Dry Casks for Spent Fuel From the Associated Press [UP] Tuesday March 29, 2005 1:01 AM By ERICA WERNER Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - About 40 percent of the nation's nuclear power plants have begun moving spent fuel out of cooling pools and into massive dry casks, embracing a storage approach that a National Academy of Sciences panel said offers safety advantages. The nation's 64 active nuclear power plants, which together house 103 reactors, all now store nuclear waste in pools of water after it is removed from reactors. Eventually, the spent fuel is supposed to be shipped to a national nuclear waste dump planned for Yucca Mountain in Nevada. As Yucca Mountain has been delayed, utilities are increasingly moving some of the waste from pools to huge metal or metal-and-concrete casks. That method is now employed at about 25 active U.S. nuclear power plants, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry trade group. NEI spokesman Steve Kerekes said Monday that both storage methods are safe - contrary to the findings of the National Academy of Sciences panel, which told the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that the vulnerability of spent nuclear fuel pools to terrorist attacks needs urgent new study. The Academy panel also said that in some cases, the NRC might find it prudent to move spent fuel from cooling pools to dry cask storage more quickly. Agreeing with industry, the NRC said either form of storage ``provides reasonable assurance that public health and safety, the environment and the common defense and security will be adequately protected.'' The NRC also said the additional analyses recommended by the Academy panel, including studies of possible attacks by large aircraft or explosives, were ``more than is needed.'' Watchdog groups contend the casks are safer than the pools, especially when the pools reach capacity. But the dry casks are more expensive - a cost that would be born by the power plant owners and the government, which is being sued by utilities for failing to make good on a promise to accept their nuclear waste starting in 1998. The report by a 13-member National Academy panel of nuclear scientists and power plant experts was delivered to the NRC last summer. It remains classified but portions were released to lawmakers this month as part of a report Congress requested from the NRC. The Academy's executive officer, E. William Colglazier, criticized the NRC report and an accompanying letter by commission Chairman Nils Diaz as misleading and incomplete. Colglazier also said the NRC was delaying attempts by the Academy to release a declassified, public version of the panel's study as required by law. ``In our feeling it all could have been avoided if the Nuclear Regulatory Commission had approved a release of a public version of our report in a more timely manner,'' Colglazier said Monday. NRC spokeswoman Sue Gagner said the agency was working with the Academy on releasing a public report that doesn't contain information of use to terrorists. She wouldn't comment on Colglazier's criticism of the NRC letter and report beyond saying, ``Our letter made the points as we see them.'' Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., accused the NRC of trying to withhold information from the public by failing to approve a declassified report, and asked the agency's inspector general to investigate the issue. ^-- On the Net: National Academy of Sciences: http://www4.nationalacademies.org/nas/nashome.nsf Nuclear Regulatory Commission: http://www.nrc.gov/ Nuclear Energy Institute: http://www.nei.org/ Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005 ***************************************************************** 34 Whittier Daily News - Opinion: Clean up Moab uranium pile Article Published: Sunday, March 27, 2005 - 9:30:49 HERE'S a comforting thought: A pile of radioactive waste the size of a sports stadium is sitting on the banks of the river that provides a major part of Southern California's water supply. Here's another: The Department of Energy may renege on a promise to transport the waste to a less volatile site. The department is considering capping the waste pile and leaving it where it is, just a few hundred feet away from the Colorado River near Moab, Utah. All sarcasm aside, moving a pile of radioactive waste away from a major water source ought to be one of the easiest decision the federal government ever had to make. The waste must be moved. Yet the DOE may choose the cheapest option instead of the best available one. The 12-million-ton, 130-acre and 9-story-deep waste pile is made up of uranium tailings from an abandoned mine near Moab that harvested yellowcake uranium from 1956 to 1984. In addition to uranium, a known carcinogen, the waste also contains radium, ammonia, arsenic, mercury and other hazardous substances. Every day the pile leaches about 15,000 gallons of toxic waste into the Colorado river (though officials say that amount is safely diluted below dangerous levels). And what about during a flood? A study commissioned by the state of Utah showed that a major, catastrophic flood could push the entire waste pile into the river, contaminating two major lakes (Powell and Mead) and polluting the drinking supplies of millions and millions of people in four western states. Terrorists couldn't plot a more effective public-health disaster. From Moab, the Colorado River flows through Utah, Nevada, Arizona and California and provides drinking water for millions of people -- more than 25 million in Southern California alone. Some Nevada and Arizona cities rely on the Colorado for their entire drinking-water supply. Many local cities without access to natural wells must buy water from the Colorado River for drinking supplies. Leaving the radioactive pile in place is both foolish and entirely unacceptable. The DOE agreed five years ago to transport the pile to a disposal site, but is now backtracking on that pledge. The department has released four proposals now under consideration, including the plan to cap the waste and leave in place. Capping the pile would cost $166 million, while moving it would cost about $400 million. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency last week called the capping plan "environmentally unsatisfactory" because it could result in the continued release of toxins into the river and groundwater. A coalition of western governors, including Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, dozens of water agencies, and several members of Congress, including Rep. Grace Napolitano, D-Norwalk, from both political parties have publicly opposed the proposal. Now that the deadline has passed for public comments, the DOE officials will choose from one of the four proposals. There's no hard decision to be made here. The Moab uranium pile is the largest remaining toxic waste site by the edge of a major river in all of the United States. It must be removed. Copyright © 2005 Los Angeles Newspaper Group ***************************************************************** 35 Times Online: Clean-up time for the atomic industry - Analysis - thetimes.co.uk The Government’s solution to the problem has been to create the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), which is to come into existence on April 1. Ownership of the UK’s main nuclear sites, including Sellafield and Dounreay, will pass to the new organisation. It will be the NDA’s job to hand out contracts to clean up those sites, at the best possible price to the taxpayer. One of the companies that will be bidding for those contracts is British Nuclear Group, a newly formed subsidiary of British Nuclear Fuels. “We are ready,” says Lawrie Haynes, chief executive of British Nuclear Group, as he runs through a checklist of all the work that BNG has had to do. Work plans for every nuclear site were delivered to the NDA on time on March 15. New procedures have been put in place, and new recruits hired from the oil, gas and construction industries. New financial control systems and a new IT system have all been completed and now finally signed off by the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate, the industry’s chief safety watchdog. The idea is that the by introducing competition for the clean-up contracts, the work will be done more quickly and cost less in the end to the taxpayer. So why does British Nuclear Fuels need to change? Haynes says that forming a new subsidiary was necessary to create a clear focus for the group. “We have to show that we can turn ourselves around from being an owner of the assets, to being a contractor with a customer to serve,” says Haynes, whose familiarity with private-sector dynamics has been proven over many years in the telecommunications business, with Orange and with Lattice. “The whole point was to get away from the idea that we are the owner and we will do it at our pace. The NDA requires a fundamental change in the attitudes of the business.” By 2008, half of Britain’s nuclear sites will be put out to competition. However, it will be at least four more years before Haynes’s BNG will have to compete with rivals for the job of cleaning up Sellafield. But is it worth all the expense and upheaval? “I have absolutely no doubt,” Haynes says. “Just the threat of the NDA arriving brought about a huge change. The onset of competition has focused a lot of people on delivery. Our innovation units are a direct response.” Cleaning up the nuclear industry’s many sites will cost about Ł50 billion. If that programme, which at current work rates would take about 100 years, can be reduced even by 10 per cent, the bill would fall by Ł5 billion. Or that at least is the theory. "We are identifying savings of potentially billions," Haynes says, refusing to disclose details because they still have to be agreed with the NDA and the regulator. "I call it Big Value," he says. The savings start small, but add up over the years. Haynes has set his team clear targets and he expects some of them to come to fruition immediately. For example, BNG - which sub-contracts to many companies including Fluor, Jacobs and Amec - wants to reduce supply-chain costs by about 30 per cent. That will result in a saving of ś45 million this year and ś75 million next year. Haynes says: "I'm trying to get this ethos into the organisation that it is their money. You can say it's only ś1 million or ś2 million here or there; well bloody hell, I wouldn't mind ś1 million or ś2 million." BNG's new website describes the group as "aggressive, safe and profitable". Haynes looks rueful. It was a choice of words that the new chief executive has had to defend vigorously. "That word `aggressive' has sparked a great deal of debate within the company," he says. "I had a long conversation with the nuclear inspectorate about it. They just wanted assurance that we're not going to be unsafe. "It's certainly not that. Safety is the biggest issue to me." Haynes concedes, though, that he did want the company description to "kind of shake people away from the old ways". One big change looming for BNG is that in future it will work with some big private-sector names as partners, rather than as suppliers. There are good reasons for this. For instance, BNG wants to tap into the experience in the US, where decommissioning has been under way for about 15 years. The US spent $150 billion (ś80 billion) on its clean-up and Haynes says that it is debatable whether or not good value was obtained from it. "There are real opportunities for our guys to think about where they got it wrong," he says. "It's clear to me that it would be corporate arrogance if BNG thought that it had all the skills to go into this new marketplace on its own." BNG has assessed its own skills and looked at those of its suppliers, which on Friday will become both rivals and potential partners. BNG is holding conversations with the likes of Serco, Lockheed, Bechtel, WGI, Fluor, Jacobs and Amec about becoming partners at the so-called tier 2 level. In months to come it will have discussions about partnerships at the tier 1 level. Those partnerships are likely to be revenue-sharing joint ventures. Down the line, special-purpose vehicles may be set up to win contracts for specific sites, such as Dounreay. Some people might say that involving the private sector in this way is privatisation of the nuclear industry by the back- door. Haynes denies that, saying that it is straightforward commercial strategy. There has also been some alarm that BNG may choose to tie up with an overseas, probably American, contractor. However, Haynes says that he thinks that British engineers and project managers are "bloody great". Whatever alliance is chosen, Haynes says, it will not be down to gaps in British expertise. "What we [BNG] do have is a massive amount of knowledge, experience and expertise," he says. "Now we have to ramp that up to become more efficient." Times Online, The Times and The Sunday Times. Copyright 2005 Times Newspapers Ltd. ***************************************************************** 36 Analysts Assess Carter's Call to "Save Nonproliferation" Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2005 13:00:23 -0600 (CST) Institute for Public Accuracy 915 National Press Building, Washington, D.C. 20045 (202) 347-0020 * http://www.accuracy.org * ipa@accuracy.org ___________________________________________________ 2 p.m. ET -- Monday, March 28, 2005 Analysts Assess Carter's Call to "Save Nonproliferation" Today's Washington Post features a piece by Jimmy Carter entitled "Saving Nonproliferation" about the Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference beginning in early May at the United Nations. In the piece, the former president writes: "So far the preparatory committee for the forthcoming NPT talks has failed even to achieve an agenda because of the deep divisions between nuclear powers that refuse to meet their own disarmament commitments and the nonnuclear movement, whose demands include honoring these pledges and considering the Israeli arsenal. "Until recently all American presidents since Dwight Eisenhower had striven to restrict and reduce nuclear arsenals -- some more than others. So far as I know, there are no present efforts by any of the nuclear powers to accomplish these crucial goals. "The United States is the major culprit in this erosion of the NPT...." The full Post piece is available at: . JONATHAN GRANOFF, Amb. THOMAS GRAHAM, Jr., Amb. ROBERT GREY, Jr., jgg786@aol.com, http://www.gsinstitute.org Granoff is president of the Global Security Institute, which worked with the Carter Center in convening a consultation on the future of the NPT with top diplomats from around the world in January; see the above web page for a copy of the report resulting from the conference. Grey and Graham are on the Institute's Bipartisan Security Group. Grey is former U.S. Representative to the Conference on Disarmament and was also head of the State Department UN Reform Team. Graham was involved in the negotiation of every major international arms control and nonproliferation agreement of the past 30 years. JOHN BURROUGHS, johnburroughs@lcnp.org, http://www.lcnp.org Executive director of the New York-based Lawyers' Committee on Nuclear Policy, Burroughs presented the paper "Building a Nuclear Weapons-Free Future" at the January meeting on the NPT at the Carter Center. ALICE SLATER, aslater@gracelinks.org, http://www.AbolitionNow.org Co-founder of Abolition 2000, and a coordinator of its AbolitionNow! campaign to begin negotiations this year for a treaty to eliminate nuclear weapons, Slater said today: "While Carter's remarks are welcome, the NPT Treaty does not simply call for the U.S. to 'restrict and reduce' its nuclear stockpiles, but to eliminate them. The treaty states: 'Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a Treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.'" Slater is president of the Global Resource Action Center for the Environment. For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy: Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167 _________________________________________________________________ You received this message as a subscriber on the list: public@lists.accuracy.org To be removed from the list, send any message to: public-unsubscribe@lists.accuracy.org For all list information and functions, including changing your subscription mode and options, visit the Web page: http://lists.accuracy.org/lists/info/public ***************************************************************** 37 Guardian Unlimited India: World Failing on Nuke Proliferation From the Associated Press [UP] Monday March 28, 2005 11:46 AM By RAJESH MAHAPATRA Associated Press Writer NEW DELHI (AP) - India on Monday accused the world's leading nuclear powers of failing to prevent the spread of atomic weapons and demanded they tighten global nonproliferation rules. External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh said the leading powers must also agree to ``irreversible and verifiable cuts in their nuclear arsenal'' if they want to be serious about nonproliferation. Singh's comments came ahead of an international conference on the 1968 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, scheduled to be held in New York in May. India, which became a nuclear power in 1998, has not signed the treaty because it says the pact seeks to restrict nuclear weapons to a few countries rather than eliminate them completely. Still, Singh said, India's conduct has always been consistent with the key provisions. Singh also said some of the nuclear weapon states ``have been active collaborators in, or silent spectators to, continuing clandestine and illegal proliferation, including export, of nuclear weapon components and technologies.'' He didn't name the countries, but New Delhi has long accused the United States of overlooking Indian archrival Pakistan's involvement in the nuclear programs of countries like Iran and North Korea. Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear program, is being investigated for allegedly exporting nuclear technology. Pakistan, which became a nuclear power the same year as India, denies it had any knowledge of Khan's actions, and remains a key ally of the United States in its fight against terrorism. Singh accused nuclear weapon states of a discriminatory approach to enforcing the treaty. ``Even today we see the same inconsistencies, with selective focus on the recipients of such clandestine proliferation but not enough attention on the sources of supply,'' he said. He criticized the United States and Russia for refusing to cut their nuclear stockpiles even after the end of the Cold War. ``Such an attitude feeds and strengthens the belief that nuclear weapons are a currency of power,'' he said. Singh said New Delhi would be willing to join global nonproliferation efforts if all nuclear weapon states cut their arsenals, lower the alert status of their strategic weapons, and boost cooperation in nuclear technologies for economic development, especially in the energy sector. The treaty recognizes only five nuclear weapon states - the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China. The treaty, which has been signed by 185 countries, doesn't recognize India, Pakistan, Israel or North Korea as nuclear weapon states. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005 ***************************************************************** 38 DOE: Privacy Act of 1974; Notice of Amendment to an Existing System of Records AGENCY: Department of Energy. FR Doc 05-6036 [Federal Register: March 28, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 58)] [Notices] [Page 15618-15621] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr28mr05-35] ACTION: Notice. SUMMARY: As required by the Privacy Act of 1974, 5 U.S.C. 552a, and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Circular A-130, the Department of Energy (DOE) is publishing a notice of a proposed amendment to an existing system of records and the deletion of a system that will no longer be maintained. DOE has acquired a new financial system that requires new hardware and software. This notice proposes to combine DOE-18 ``Accounts Payable Financial System'' and DOE-19 ``Accounts Receivable Financial System'' into a single system of records, eliminate DOE-19 ``Accounts Receivable Financial System'' from the Department's inventory of systems of records, rename DOE-18 to ``Financial Accounting System,'' expand the categories of records maintained in the system, and establish a new routine use provision for DOE-18. DATES: The proposed amendment to an existing system of records will become effective without further notice, on May 12, 2005, unless in advance of that date, DOE receives adverse comments and determines that this amendment should not become effective on that date. ADDRESSES: Written comments should be directed to the following address: U.S. Department of Energy, Abel Lopez, Director, Freedom of Information Act and Privacy Act Group, ME-74, 1000 Independence Avenue, SW., Washington, DC 20585. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Abel Lopez, Director, Freedom of Information Act and Privacy Act Group, ME-74, U.S. Department of Energy, 1000 Independence Avenue, SW., [[Page 15619]] Washington, DC 20585, 202-586-5955; Wendy L. Miller, Director, Capital Accounting Operations Division, Office of Financial Management, ME- 14.2, U.S. Department of Energy, 1000 Independence Avenue, SW., Washington, DC 20585-1290, (301) 903-5858; and Isiah Smith, Deputy Assistant General Counsel for Administrative Litigation and Information Law, GC-77, U.S. Department of Energy, 1000 Independence Avenue, SW., Washington, DC 20585, (202) 586-8618. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: DOE has acquired a new financial system, Integrated Management Navigation System (I-MANAGE) Standard Accounting and Reporting System (STARS), that requires new hardware and software. I-MANAGE STARS will provide DOE with a modern, comprehensive and responsive financial management system that will electronically integrate financial accounting, financial reporting, cost accounting, and performance measurement. I-MANAGE STARS will provide critical strategic support for the DOE mission as the solution for financial, operational, and reporting requirements to enhance accountability and improve decision-making. The system will maintain the financial information that is currently collected and maintained in two DOE systems of records, DOE-18 ``Accounts Payable Financial System'' and DOE-19 ``Accounts Receivable Financial System.'' This notice proposes to amend DOE-18 ``Accounts Payable Financial System'' by expanding the categories of records maintained in the system and consolidating the information maintained in DOE-19 ``Accounts Receivable Financial System'' into the amended DOE-18. This notice also proposes to change the name of DOE-18 ``Accounts Payable Financial System'' to DOE-18 ``Financial Accounting System,'' and establish a new routine use provision. Since the records maintained in DOE-19 will be incorporated into the amended DOE-18, DOE will delete DOE-19 ``Accounts Receivable Financial System'' from its inventory of systems of records. The categories of records section is being amended to include employment information and date of birth and gender of the employee, contractor, and vendor. In addition, this notice also proposes to add a new routine use to allow disclosure of information maintained in the system of records to the Department of the Treasury. These amendments are necessary to provide procedures for paying creditors who provide products and services to DOE. DOE is submitting the report required by OMB Circular A-130 concurrently with the publication of this notice. The text of this notice contains the information required by the Privacy Act, 5 U.S.C. 552a(e)(4). Issued in Washington, DC on March 22, 2005. James T. Campbell, Deputy Director, Office of Management, Budget and Evaluation/Deputy Chief Financial Officer. DOE-18 SYSTEM NAME: Financial Accounting System. SECURITY CLASSIFICATION: Unclassified. SYSTEM LOCATION(S): U.S. Department of Energy, Headquarters, 19901 Germantown Rd., Germantown, MD, 20874 U.S. Department of Energy, Headquarters, 1000 Independence Avenue, SW., Washington, DC 20585 U.S. Department of Energy, National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Service Center Albuquerque, P.O. Box 5400, Albuquerque, NM 87185-5400 U.S. Department of Energy, Atlanta Regional Support Office, 730 Peachtree, NE, Suite 876, Atlanta, GA 30308 U.S. Department of Energy, Bonneville Power Administration, P.O. Box 3621, Portland, OR 97208 U.S. Department of Energy, Boston Regional Support Office, One Congress Street, Room 1101, Boston, MA 021144-2021 U.S. Department of Energy, Carlsbad Field Office, P.O. Box 3090, Carlsbad, NM 88221 U.S. Department of Energy, Chicago Operations Office, 9800 South Cass Avenue, Argonne, IL 60439 U.S. Department of Energy, Golden Field Office, 1617 Cole Boulevard, Golden, CO 80401 U.S. Department of Energy, Idaho Operations Office, 850 Energy Drive, Idaho Falls, ID 83401 U.S. Department of Energy, National Energy Technology Laboratory (Morgantown), P.O. Box 880, Morgantown, WV 26507-0880 U.S. Department of Energy, National Energy Technology Laboratory (Pittsburgh), 626 Cochrans Mill Road, Pittsburgh, PA 15236-0940 U.S. Department of Energy, National Petroleum Technology Office, William Center Tower One, 1 West Third Street, Suite 1400, Tulsa, OK 74103 U.S. Department of Energy, Naval Petroleum and Oil Shale Reserves, 907 N. Poplar, Suite 150, Casper, WY 82601 U.S. Department of Energy, Naval Petroleum Reserves in California, 1601 New Stine Road, Suite 240, Bakersfield, CA 93309 U.S. Department of Energy, NNSA Service Center Nevada, P.O. Box 98518, Las Vegas, NV 89193-8518 U.S. Department of Energy, Oak Ridge Operations Office, P.O. Box 2001, Oak Ridge, TN 37831 U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Scientific & Technical Information, P.O. Box 62, Oak Ridge, TN 37831 U.S. Department of Energy, Ohio Field Office, P.O. Box 3020, Miamisburg, OH 45343 U.S. Department of Energy, Philadelphia Regional Support Office, 1880 John F. Kennedy Boulevard, Suite 501, Philadelphia, PA 19103-7483 U.S. Department of Energy, Pittsburgh Naval Reactors Office, P.O. Box 109, West Mifflin, PA 15122-0109 U.S. Department of Energy, Richland Operations Office, P.O. Box 550, Richland, WA 99352 U.S. Department of Energy, Rocky Flats Field Office, 10808 Highway 93, Unit A, Golden, CO 80403-8200 U.S. Department of Energy, Savannah River Operations Office, P.O. Aiken, SC 29801 U.S. Department of Energy, Seattle Regional Support Office, 800 Fifth Avenue, Suite 3950, Seattle, WA 98104 U.S. Department of Energy, Schenectady Naval Reactors Office, P.O. Box 1069, Schenectady, NY 12301 U.S. Department of Energy, Southeastern Power Administration, 1166 Athens Tech Road, Elberton, GA 30635-4578 U.S. Department of Energy, Southwestern Power Administration, Williams Tower One, One West Third Street, Tulsa, OK 74103U.S. Department of Energy, Strategic Petroleum Reserve Project Office, 900 Commerce Road East, New Orleans, LA 70123 U.S. Department of Energy, Western Area Power Administration, P.O. Box 3402, Golden, CO 80401 U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Repository Development, P.O. Box 364629, North Las Vegas, NV 89036-8629 CATEGORIES OF INDIVIDUALS COVERED BY THE SYSTEM: Employees, former employees, current and former contractor employees, vendors, and others who are either due money from or owe money to the Department of Energy (DOE). [[Page 15620]] CATEGORIES OF RECORDS IN THE SYSTEM: Name, address, telephone number, date of birth, employment date, gender, tax payer identification number; amount owed and services or goods received; amounts due; underpayments, overpayments, and/or other accounting information; invoice number; servicing bank name and address; account number; amount and status of claim; and history of claim, including collection actions taken. AUTHORITY FOR MAINTENANCE OF THE SYSTEM: 42 U.S.C. 7101 et seq.; 50 U.S.C. 2401 et seq.; the GAO Policy and Procedures Manual; Statement of Federal Financial Accounting Standards published by the Government Accountability Office and the Office of Management and Budget; Debt Collection Improvement Act of 1996, 31 U.S.C. 3512; 5 U.S.C. 5701-09; Federal Property Management Regulations 101-107; Treasury Financial Manual; Executive Order 12009; and Executive Order 9397. PURPOSE(S): The records are maintained and used by the DOE to substantiate obligations and payments to individuals for goods and services received by the agency and to record and manage the Department's accounts payable and receivable. ROUTINE USES OF RECORDS MAINTAINED IN THE SYSTEM, INCLUDING CATEGORIES OF USERS AND THE PURPOSES OF SUCH USES: 1. A record from this system may be disclosed as a routine use to the appropriate local, State or Federal agency when that record alone or in conjunction with other information, indicates a violation or potential violation of law, whether civil, criminal, or regulatory in nature, and whether arising by general statute or particular program thereto. 2. A record from this system may be disclosed as a routine use to a Federal agency to facilitate the requesting agency's decision concerning the hiring or retention of an employee, the issuance of a security clearance, the reporting of an investigation of an employee, the letting of a contract, or the issuance of a license, grant, or other benefit, to the extent that the information is relevant and necessary to the requesting agency's decision on the matter. The Department must deem such disclosure to be compatible with the purpose for which the Department collected the information. 3. A record from this system may be disclosed as a routine use for the purpose of an investigation, settlement of claims, or the preparation and conduct of litigation to a (1) person representing the Department in the investigation, settlement or litigation, and to individuals assisting in such representation; (2) others involved in the investigation, settlement, and litigation, and their representatives and individuals assisting those representatives; and (3) witness, potential witness, or their representatives and assistants, and any other person who possesses information pertaining to the matter, when it is necessary to obtain information or testimony relevant to the matter. 4. A record from this system may be disclosed as a routine use to other Federal agencies, consumer reporting agencies for acquiring credit information, and collection agencies to aid in the collection of outstanding debts owed to the Federal Government. 5. A record from this system may be disclosed as a routine use to Defense Manpower Data Center, Department of Defense, the United States Postal Service, and other Federal, State, or local agencies to identify and locate, through computer matching, individuals indebted to DOE who are receiving Federal salaries or benefit payments. Information from the match will be used to collect the debts by voluntary repayment, by administrative offset, or by salary offset procedures. 6. A record from this system may be disclosed as a routine use to the Internal Revenue Service (1) to collect the debt by offset against the debtor's tax refunds under the Federal Tax Refund Offset Program, and (2) to obtain the mailing address of a taxpayer to collect a debt owed to the DOE. Subsequent disclosure by DOE to a consumer reporting agency is limited to the purpose of obtaining a commercial credit report on the particular taxpayer. The mailing address information will not be used for any other DOE purpose or disclosed by DOE to another Federal, State, or local agency that seeks to locate the same individual for its own debt collection purpose. 7. A record from this system may be disclosed as a routine use to the Department of the Treasury for the purpose of administrative offset and debt recovery under section 31001 (m)(1) of the Debt Collection Improvement Act of 1996 (Pub. L. 104-134). 8. A record from this system may be disclosed as a routine use to the Department of the Treasury for the purpose of paying creditors for services or goods provided to the Department. 9. A record from this system may be disclosed as a routine use to a ``consumer reporting agency'' as defined by the Fair Credit Reporting Act, 15 U.S.C. 1681a(f), or the Federal Claims Collections Act of 1966, 31 U.S.C. 3701(a)(3), in accordance with 31 U.S.C. 3711(f). 10. A record from this system may be disclosed as a routine use to DOE contractors in performance of their contracts and their officers and employees who have a need for the record in the performance of their duties. Those individuals provided information under this routine use are subject to the same limitations applicable to DOE officers and employees under the Privacy Act. 11. A record from this system of records may be disclosed as a routine use to a Member of Congress submitting a request involving the constituent when the constituent has requested assistance from the member concerning the subject matter of the record. The member of Congress must provide a copy of the constituent's request for assistance. POLICIES AND PRACTICES FOR STORING, RETRIEVING, ACCESSING, RETAINING, AND DISPOSING OF RECORDS IN THE SYSTEM: STORAGE: Records may be stored as paper records, electronic media, and magnetic tapes. RETRIEVABILITY: Records may be retrieved by name, taxpayer identification number, voucher, invoice, or payment reports. SAFEGUARDS: Paper records are maintained in locked cabinets and desks. Electronic records are controlled through established DOE computer center procedures (personnel screening and physical security), and they are password protected. Access is limited to those whose official duties require access to the records. RETENTION AND DISPOSAL: Records retention and disposal authorities are contained in the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) General Records Schedule and DOE record schedules that have been approved by NARA. SYSTEM MANAGER(S) AND ADDRESS: Headquarters: Director, Office of Management, Budget and Evaluation/Chief Financial Officer, U.S. Department of Energy, 1000 Independence Avenue, SW., Washington, DC 20585. NOTIFICATION PROCEDURES: In accordance with the DOE regulation implementing the Privacy Act, at Title 10, Code of Federal Regulations, Part 1008, a request by an individual to determine if a system of [[Page 15621]] records contains information about him/her should be directed to the Director, Headquarters Freedom of Information Act and Privacy Act Group, U.S. Department of Energy. The request should include the requester's complete name, time period for which records are sought, and the office location(s) where the requester believes the records are located. RECORDS ACCESS PROCEDURES: Same as Notification Procedures above. Records are generally kept at locations where the work is performed. In accordance with the DOE Privacy Act regulation, proper identification is required before a request is processed. CONTESTING RECORD PROCEDURES: Same as Notification Procedures above. RECORD SOURCE CATEGORIES: Subject individual, contracting officer, and accounting records. SYSTEM EXEMPT FROM CERTAIN PROVISIONS OF THE ACT: None. [FR Doc. 05-6036 Filed 3-28-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 6450-01-P ***************************************************************** 39 Tri-City Herald: States announce more Hanford budget meetings This story was published Monday, March 28th, 2005 By Annette Cary, Herald staff writer The one Hanford budget meeting to be held by the Tri-Party Agreement agencies is planned for Wednesday in Richland. But after hearing complaints that other residents of the Northwest need information and a chance to comment, Washington and Oregon state officials have announced their own Hanford budget meetings. "The public should have an opportunity to offer its two cents on what cleanup work gets performed under a reduced budget," said Todd Martin, chairman of the Hanford Advisory Board, in a prepared statement. "One meeting isn't sufficient to collect such input from the citizens of the Northwest." The three Tri-Party agencies agreed this spring to hold only one meeting to discuss the budget and then hold general public meetings on Hanford later in the year, possibly in conjunction with Hanford Advisory Board meetings in Richland, Seattle and Portland. The agencies include the Washington State Department of Ecology, the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy. In recent years, much of the public comment at Hanford's spring public hearing in the Tri-Cities has not addressed budget issues, DOE has pointed out. Last year, many Hanford workers attended to discuss safety concerns at the nuclear reservation. The Bush administration was proposing a peak budget for Hanford in fiscal year 2005 that would provide nearly $2.1 billion for cleanup of contamination left from the past production of plutonium for the nation's nuclear weapons program. But the proposed budget for Hanford this year is a little more than $1.8 billion, and interest in discussing the budget is expected to be greater. The meeting Wednesday will be the first look at the proposed fiscal year 2007 budget. A workshop is planned from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. to cover Hanford's cleanup goals, challenges in the coming year and budget priorities. An evening public meeting will be at 6:30 p.m. Both are at the Red Lion Hanford House, 802 George Washington Way. State-sponsored meetings will be held in April or May in Portland, Seattle, Spokane and Hood River, Ore. They include: -- Portland -- 7 p.m. April 6, Oregon State Office Building, Room 121, 800 NE Oregon St. -- Hood River -- 7 p.m. April 7, Hood River Valley Adult Center, 2010 Sterling Place. -- Seattle -- 6:30 p.m. April 25, The Mountaineers Building, 200 Third Ave. West. -- Spokane -- 6:30 p.m. May 4, REI, 1125 N. Monroe St. © 2005 Tri-City Herald, Associated Press &Other Wire Services ***************************************************************** NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: *****************************************************************