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NUCLEAR POLICY
1 [du-list] Suing Bush and Blair - war crimes of WMD use
2 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Confirms Uranium-To-Gas Conversion
3 Hankyoreh: Not Much Time Left For North Korea
4 INSIDE JoongAng Daily: North seeks to verify U.S. views
5 ArmsControlWonk: North Korea Will Test Nuclear Weapon
6 AFP: Japan sees step forward as NKorea says not insisting on talks
7 Japan Times: Asia-Europe conference wraps up divided on North Korea,
8 Guardian Unlimited: IAEA: North Korea Can Make Atomic Arms
9 US: [WW4 Report] Bombs Away: Mayday Disarmament Call
10 IPS-English DISARMAMENT: Deadlocked Talks Resume with Nothing
11 [NukeNet] NPT's Article IV Must Be Abolished Because Of This,
12 UK The Times: Stuck helplessly at No10, Mr Blair has reshuffled hims
13 BBC: Two held in nuclear base
14 Asia Times: Uncorking the plutonium (energy) genie
15 US: Bangornews.com: Hydrogen energy touted at conference -
16 Guardian Unlimited: Court Debates Ruling in Wen Ho Lee Case
NUCLEAR REACTORS
17 NUKE POWER? No Thanks: Huge radioactive leak closes plant
18 NPT's Article IV Must Be Abolished Because Of This, Too.............
19 [du-list] Huge radioactive leak closes Thorp nuclear plant
20 SABCnews.com: Nuclear power will satisfy SA's energy needs: scientis
21 US: NRC: NRC to Discuss 2004 Performance Assessment for Braidwood Nu
22 Bellona: Ignalina NPP’s closure may be postponed
23 US: NRC: Sunshine Federal Register Notice
24 New Scientist: Nuclear plant closed after radioactive flood
25 Slovak Spectator: in SHORT Slovakia wants more plant closure money
26 PTI: India, Russia agree to expand nuclear energy cooperation
27 US: PRN: Nuclear Energy Industry Sustains Near-Record Levels of Safe
28 Independent: Blair demands nuclear power to protect high 'living sta
29 US: Boston.com Op-ed / Why nuclear power is not the answer
30 ITAR-TASS: Russia may build more n-power reactors in India
31 US: Brattleboro Reformer: Lawmakers focus on VY
NUCLEAR SECURITY
32 [du-list] Bush plans to sell Israel 100 'bunker buster' weapons
33 [du-list] Horror Of US Depleted Uranium In Iraq Threatens World
34 Korea Herald: IAEA: N. Korea has up to 6 nuclear bombs
35 INSIDE JoongAng Daily: Speculation rife on possibility of nuclear te
36 US: SHNS: 40 years later, a Cold War mission still haunts him
37 Japan Times: Outrageous U.S. military proposal
NUCLEAR SAFETY
38 [du-list] MDs Suggest Depleted Uranium Behind Increase in
39 [du-list] Antiwar activists say depleted uranium has led to
40 US: [du-list] Louisiana: Depleted-uranium test proposed
41 [du-list] Scotland: Salmond demands answers on depleted uranium
42 US: [DU-WATCH] radioactive dust concerns at Maine Yankee cleanup
43 US: [DU-WATCH] DU Testing Bill Rocks Through Louisiana House!
44 [DU-WATCH] US-UK-Italian Uranium Science Fraudulent: Patients
45 US: [du-list] Radioactive Uranium Nano-Particles Pinpointed As
46 US: Lone Star Iconoclast: What Is Depleted Uranium?
47 US: Lone Star Iconoclast: A Scientific Perspective An Interview With
48 US: Lone Star Iconoclast: A Military Perspective An Interview With M
49 US: Lone Star Iconoclast: A Survivor’s Perspective An Interview With
50 Louisiana Weekly: Toxic Tours of Duty? Historic legislation would
51 Japan Times: Nagasaki A-bomb survivors express anger at Bockscar exh
52 US: Japan Times: Government sponsors first A-bomb exhibit in U.S.
NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
53 [NYTr] Iran to resume uranium enrichment?
54 Guardian Unlimited: Comment | Leader: The nuclear option
55 ThisisLondon: Radioactive leak closes Sellafield
56 Bellona: Radioactive leak closes Thorp reprocessing plant at Sellafi
57 Bellona: Russian NPPs lacking room for spent nuclear fuel and radwas
58 Las Vegas SUN: Nuclear review board will reserve Yucca judgment
59 Inyo Register: Shoshone Nation aims to stop Yucca nuke dump
60 Aftenposten Norway: Sellafield leak rings alarms in Norway
61 Las Vegas SUN: Nevada resolution urges Washington to reject
62 US: PRN: Kazakhstan to be the World First Producer of Uranium by 201
63 KRNV: State lawmakers cut funding for Yucca Mountain fight
64 North-West Evening Mail: Nuke trains could turn folk off marina home
PEACE
US DEPT. OF ENERGY
65 New Standard: Nuke Facility Downwinders Take Energy Department to Co
66 Summit Daily News: 50 years of rocket building coming to close in Co
67 Daily Californian: DOE Refuses to Pay $14 Million Tied to Los Alamos
68 www.GovExec.com: Los Alamos director steps down
69 Daily Texan: Los Alamos head resigns after 2 years
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1 [du-list] Suing Bush and Blair - war crimes of WMD use
Date: Mon, 09 May 2005 15:47:31 -0700
http://www.gulf-news.com/Articles/OpinionNF.asp?ArticleID=164071
Includes...
Responsibility for war crimes falls not only on those who directly ordered
the commission of the crimes but also on their military and civilian
superiors for neglect in not preventing such crimes.
In January 2005, retired attorney Doug Wallace filed a class action lawsuit
in the US District Court in Reno, Nevada, against President Bush and
Vice-President Cheney.
The complaint alleges that both defendants have acted outside the scope of
their job description in waging war against Iraq.
The lawsuit alleges that both defendants and others working within the
White House and Defence Department have covertly implemented a white paper
called Rebuilding America's Defences prepared by the Project for the New
American Century (PNAC) in September 2000 and calling for the complete
domination of the globe and the outer space by the United States with wars
against Iraq, Syria and Iran.
The plaintiffs seek an "injunction against further implementation of the
PNAC plan without a 2/3 vote of the congress ..."
In March, a people's International Criminal Tribunal for Iraq, with
headquarters in Istanbul and branches around the world, tried in Japan and
sentenced US President George Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair to
life imprisonment.
Professor Koke Abe, professor of law at Kanagawa University in Japan, was
the chief justice of the tribunal, which also included three other judges,
one from Japan, one from Korea and one from Indonesia.
The tribunal held a series of hearings to consider the evidence and
rendered its judgment on March 5.
The tribunal found Bush guilty on 13 counts, including genocide for the use
of "devastating" economic sanctions, war crimes for attacks against
civilians and the use of indiscriminate weapons, such as cluster bombs and
depleted uranium weapons.
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2 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Confirms Uranium-To-Gas Conversion
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Monday May 9, 2005 11:46 PM
AP Photo RSGH115
By ALI AKBAR DAREINI
Associated Press Writer
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran confirmed on Monday that it converted
37 tons of raw uranium into gas, its first acknowledgment of
advances made in the production process for enriched uranium
before it formally suspended nuclear activity in November under
international pressure.
The announcement, which means Tehran is in a position to quickly
start enriching uranium if it lifts the suspension, comes as
European negotiators are trying to seal an agreement to ensure
that Iran's nuclear program does not produce weapons.
Enriched uranium is useful in the generation of electricity,
which is permitted under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty,
but it also can be turned into nuclear weapons. Iran insists its
program has only peaceful purposes, while the U.S. government
says Tehran wants to obtain atomic arms.
Iran processed the uranium ore concentrate into UF-4 gas before
halting enrichment-related activities, Mohammad Saeedi, deputy
head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, told The
Associated Press. If processed further into UF-6 gas, the
material could be fed into centrifuges and enriched.
``We converted all the 37 tons of uranium concentrate known as
yellowcake into UF-4 at the Isfahan Uranium Conversion Facility
before we suspended work there,'' Saeedi said.
France, Britain and Germany, which are negotiating on behalf of
the European Union, had agreed in talks ahead of the November
suspension that the Islamic Republic could finish processing the
37 tons of raw uranium into gas.
But Saeedi's comments were the first confirmation that the
project had been completed and came as talks with the Europeans
have deadlocked, with the EU powers pressing for a complete end
to Iran's enrichment program in return for economic incentives
Nuclear experts say that when fully processed, the 37 tons of
yellowcake could theoretically yield more than 200 pounds of
weapons-grade uranium, enough to make five crude nuclear
weapons.
To avoid referral to the U.N. Security Council for possible
sanctions, Iran agreed to suspend actual enrichment at its
Natanz uranium enrichment plant in 2003. It then suspended other
uranium enrichment-related activities - including the conversion
of yellowcake into gas and the building of centrifuges - in late
2004 to bolster international confidence.
To show its dissatisfaction with lack of progress in the talks
with Europe, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said
Sunday that Iran had decided to resume some uranium reprocessing
activities. Saeedi said that might happen in two or three days.
UF-6 gas can be enriched to a low level to produce fuel for
generating electricty. But the nuclear treaty bans Iran and
other member states except the five nuclear powers - the United
States, Russia, China, Britain and France - from enriching the
uranium further and making it suitable for producing a bomb.
The Natanz enrichment plant and a uranium conversion facility in
Isfahan house the heart of Iran's nuclear program. The Isfahan
conversion facility reprocesses uranium ore concentrate into
gas, which is taken to Natanz and fed into centrifuges for
enrichment.
Iran's top nuclear negotiator Hasan Rowhani said Iran already
has produced some UF-6 and completed work on its uranium
reprocessing program before the formal suspension in November.
``Last year, we could not produce UF-4 and UF-6. We didn't have
materials to inject into centrifuges to carry out enrichment,
meaning we didn't have UF-6,'' Rowhani said.
``But within the past year, we completed the Isfahan facility
and reached UF-4 and UF-6 stage. So, we made great progress,''
he said in comments reported in two Iranian magazines in March.
His office confirmed the comments to AP on Monday.
Iran also made progress in building centrifuges before the
suspension, Rowhani said.
``It's true that we are currently under suspension, but we
conducted a lot of activities in 2004. Today, if we want to
restart enrichment, we have sufficient centrifuges at least for
the early stages, while we didn't have such a capacity 15 months
ago,'' he said.
Rowhani was responding to criticism from Iranian hard-liners
that suspension of uranium enrichment-related activities had
harmed Iran's technological advancement. Iran's nuclear program
has turned into a matter of national pride for both reformers
and hard-liners.
Rowhani said Iran also has gone a long way in building a
40-megawatt heavy water nuclear reactor that will be capable of
producing plutonium in the central city of Arak, although it is
believed to be years from completion.
``In technical terms, we didn't have suspension in the Arak
heavy water plant even for one day,'' he said. ``That means
we've constantly made progress. It's possible that production of
heavy water will be completed in the upcoming months.''
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
3 Hankyoreh: Not Much Time Left For North Korea
Updated : May.10.2005 01:31 KST [ border=]
It seems like the discussion over restarting the six-party talks
on the North Korean nuclear issue is reaching its last possible
stage. President Roh Moo Hyun and Chinese president Hu Jintao
met in Moscow and expressed "deep concern over a situation that
continues to be unclear." When the leaders of the two countries
that are trying the hardest to get the talks going again have
"deep concern" that means the situation is serious. On Monday
Roh met with Russian president Vladimir Putin. On May 5 US
president George W. Bush and Hu met one on one, and next month
Roh will have separate meeting with Bush and later Japanese
prime minister Junichiro Koizumi. By all appearances the leaders
of all the nations on the Korean peninsula and surrounding areas
are planning their summit agendas based on the North Korean
nuclear issue.
It is also serious that there continues to be theories about
North Korea holding a nuclear test, originating with hard-liners
in the US and Japan. They say there is no precise intelligence,
but the situation is such that it would be hard to completely
deny the possibility. Now that the North had declared that it
has nuclear weapons, it is not entirely unlikely that it will
want to be recognized as such by demonstrating it with the clear
evidence that an experiment would be. That, however, would
strategically be a big mistake because all nations would
inevitably see it as a threat, and there is almost no
possibility that possessing nuclear arms will contribute to the
North's security or help alleviate its economic difficulties. At
the moment the theories about a test look very exaggerated. You
sense a motive in it on the part of hard-liners who seek to push
the situation in a way that pressures the North.
Much about the North's taking issue with the US's antagonist
policy and demand for the right mood and conditions for
participating in the six-party talks are understandable. There
does exist a need for the US to be more flexible and lessen the
North's concerns. Not that that makes a nuclear armed North
Korea acceptable. Worsening the things further would only make
it more difficult to resolve the situation. It has almost been a
year since the last round of six-party talks. We call on North
Korea to make the right decision before any more time goes by.
The Hankyoreh, 10 May 2005.
*****************************************************************
4 INSIDE JoongAng Daily: North seeks to verify U.S. views
May 10, 2005 KST 13:49 (GMT+9)
May 10, 2005 ¤Ń North Korea says it wants to hold bilateral
working-level talks with the United States in order to verify
reports that Washington will recognize North Korea as a
sovereign state and hold direct negotiations with Pyongyang's
representatives if the six-party nuclear disarmament talks
resume.
On Sunday, Pyongyang said it wanted to sit down with U.S.
officials to confirm Washington's positions.
"There were only press reports that the U.S. is ready to
recognize the DPRK as a sovereign state and hold bilateral talks
within the framework of the six-party talks," the North Korean
Foreign Ministry said through the state-run Korea Central News
Agency.
DPRK stands for North Korea's formal name, Democratic People's
Republic of Korea.
"If there is any request from our side, we only express our
intention to directly meet the U.S. side to confirm whether
those reports are true before making a final determination," the
ministry said. "This does not mean any intention to hold the
DPRK- U.S. talks for discussing the issues between them. What we
mean is a simple working procedure for confirming the U.S.
stance in the true sense of the word."
Chon Hyun-joon, a researcher with the Korea Institute for
National Unification, saw the stament as an effort to calm the
escalated tension on the peninsula. "Pyongyang does not want the
situation to end up in a catastrophe," Mr. Chon said yesterday.
"The statement appears positive."
by Ser Myo-ja myoja@joongang.co.kr>
Copyright by Joins.com, Inc. Terms of Use |
*****************************************************************
5 ArmsControlWonk: North Korea Will Test Nuclear Weapon
| an arms control weblog:
1992 www.nukephoto.com/Paul Shambroom]
A North Korean official told a delegation of Japanese academics
that North Korea will test a nuclear weapon. The Washington Post
:
Yasuhiko Yoshida, a former U.N. proliferation expert and North
Korea specialist at Osaka University of Economics and Law, said
in a telephone interview that he had held two discussions on May
3 with North Korean officials at the Institute for Disarmament
and Peace, a Pyongyang think tank linked to the North Korean
Foreign Ministry. Yoshida said the key comment came during the
second discussiona phone call from the institutes deputy
director, Pak Hyon Jae, who Yoshida said used studied language
and spoke through an interpreter. Pak, according to Yoshida,
said a North Korean nuclear test is indispensable, adding,
Youll find that out soon.
The Post added that word of the new North Korean threat came
even as the Pyongyang government appeared to hint & that it may
be willing to return, under certain conditions, to multilateral
talks aimed at its nuclear disarmament.
Threat?
The Oxford English Dictionary defines a threat as a
declaration of hostile determination or of loss, pain,
punishment, or damage to be inflicted in retribution for or
conditionally upon some course & The radical sense appears to be
pressure applied to the will by declaration of the harm that
will follow non-compliance. It is thus indirect compulsion.
I think this is a clear statement of an intent to test,
full-stop.
Reporters have dutifully demurred that this may be a bluff. I
dont buy it. My guess is that Pyongyang has set in motion a
process that will be very hard to turn back. I am not sure that
a competent and vigorous administration could get this horse
back in the barn (although it would be nice to have such an
Administration to give it the old college try).
The intelligence community, according to press reports, has been
accumulating evidence of North Koreas intent to test a nuclear
weapon. The New York Times recently :
White House and Pentagon officials are closely monitoring a
recent stream of satellite photographs of North Korea that
appear to show rapid, extensive preparations for a nuclear
weapons test, including the construction of a reviewing stand,
presumably for dignitaries, according to American and foreign
officials who have been briefed on the imagery. [Emphasis mine]
Wow, how bad do you have to screw up to be assigned to observe
the inaugural North Korean nuclear test? Maybe well know Kim is
bluffing by the invitations. How much prior notice does
etiquette demand for dignataries invited to an NPT-violating
nuclear test? Can we assume cheap cardstock indicates a bluff?
Why do you get Arms Control Wonk when you need Miss Manners?
The New York Times has a video of David Sanger talking more
specifically about the trench and viewing platform under
construction. Sanger implied the North Koreans have drilled
horizontal shaft into a mountain, while AP that a vertical
shaft. Neither was presumably optimizing for an audience that
knows the difference (and cares).
The Office of Technology Assessment the difference in terms of
the US program:
Presently, an average of more than 12 tests per year are
conducted at the Nevada Test Site. Each test is either at the
bottom of a vertical drill hole or at the end of a horizontal
tunnel. The vertical drill hole tests are the most common
(representing over 90% of all tests conducted) and occur either
on Yucca Flat or, if they are large-yield tests, on Pahute Mesa.
Most vertical drill hole tests are for the purpose of developing
new weapon systems. Horizontal tunnel tests are more costly and
time-consuming. They only occur once or twice a year and are
located in tunnels mined in the Rainier and Aqueduct Mesas.
Tunnel tests are generally for evaluating the effects
(radiation, ground shock, etc.) of various weapons on military
hardware and systems.
The North Koreans, of course, could use either for a simple
fission device or something small enough for a Taepo Dong 2. My
curiosity is just that: curiosity.
The Pakistanis apparently used both vertical and horizontal
shafts for tests. ISIS has pictures of the Pakistani site.
· Posted by Jeffrey Lewis · 9 May 05
Comment
1. I think this story has one big hole in it that, so far, I
havent seen anyone talking about.
The man who provided this information to press, Yashuko Yoshida,
got it from North Korean officials at the Institute for
Disarmament and Peace, a Pyongyang think tank LINKED to the
North Korean Foreign Ministry (Emphasis mine).
The nature of this link is never explained. Meanwhile, the story
is being reported as if the declaration of intent to test a
nuclear weapon had come from the North Korean government itself.
The United States government will often comission research from
think tanks. If the Heritage Foundation reported that the US
was, say, pulling out of Iraq, you could say that the
information came from a Washington D.C. think tank linked to
the United States Department of Defense.
Absent further information on the link between this think tank
and the North Korean Foreign Ministry, I think its wrong to
treat this declaration as if it came from someone in the North
Korean government.
Max Postman May 9, 7:24pm #
2. As we discuss the dry terms of arms control, it is easy to
forget that what we are really talking about is global war and
peace.
The North Korean test, which we hear will likely come within the
next few weeks, will open the political space (here) for an
Israeli/US attack on Iran, which is also reportedly being
prepared for the same time frame. Rademakers opening blast at
the NPT conference declared US rejection of the terms Iran has
offered the EU3; the issue would appear to be politically
deadlocked (and loaded).
Despite all indications that Iran would not have a bomb before
sometime in the next decade, a military counterproliferation
strike will have to be carried out (if at all) before Bushehr (a
purely civilian nuclear power plant which could nevertheless
provide a source of poor but weapons-usable plutonium) starts
up; preferably before fueling, and preferably before fuel
delivery, which we hear is scheduled for Fall.
The probable initial Israeli strike will likely trigger Iranian
retaliation, US follow-on strikes or even a limited-objectives
land invasion, a Shiite uprising in Iraq, and a wider Mideast
war.
It is looking like this may be a long (God help us), hot summer.
Mark Gubrud May 9, 8:10pm #
Title photograph of Peacekeeper (MX) missile W87/Mk-21 warheads
(Reentry Vehicles or RVs) in storage, F.E. Warren Air Force
Base, Cheyenne, Wyoming, is used with the generous permission of
photographer Paul Shambroom, .
*****************************************************************
6 AFP: Japan sees step forward as NKorea says not insisting on talks
just with US -
Monday May 9, 09:50 AM
TOKYO, (AFP) - Japan saw a rare sign of progress on North Korea
after Pyongyang said that six-nation talks on its nuclear
ambitions were separate from its confrontation with the United
States. North Korea on Sunday denied US "misinformation" that it
was insisting only on bilateral talks with Washington and said
its "will to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula and seek a
negotiated solution to it still remains unchanged."
"The response is a step forward," said Chief Cabinet Secretary
Hiroyuki Hosoda, the Japanese government spokesman.
"I believe the US will take this as a way to lead to the
resumption of talks," he said.
The North Korean remarks came after a series of defiant
statements from Pyongyang including a February claim to have a
nuclear deterrent to defend itself from Washington. "We have
never requested the DPRK (North Korea)-US talks independent of
the six-way talks," a North Korean foreign ministry spokesman
said as quoted by the official Korean Central News Agency.
"There were only press reports that the US is ready to recognize
the DPRK as a sovereign state and hold bilateral talks within the
framework of the six-party talks," the spokesman said.
"If there be any request from our side, we only expressed our
intention to directly meet the US side to confirm whether those
reports are true before making a final determination. This does
not mean any intention to hold the DPRK-US talks for discussing
the issues between them," he said.
But North Korea, which just 10 days ago said no resolution to the
nuclear crisis was possible with US President George W. Bush in
power, renewed its call for Washington to stop "insulting its
dialogue partner."
Six-party talks that involved Russia, South Korea, Japan, China,
and the United States as well as North Korea have been stalled
for almost a year, after the North cited "hostile" US policy. On
Sunday, International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed
ElBaradei estimated that North Korea could have up to six nuclear
weapons.
Copyright © 2005 AFP AFP. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
7 Japan Times: Asia-Europe conference wraps up divided on North Korea, Myanmar
Sunday, May 8, 2005
By ERIC JOHNSTON Staff writer
KYOTO -- A meeting of Asian and European foreign ministers
concluded Saturday with an agreement over the importance of U.N.
reform and the need to address sustainable development goals,
but with sharp differences over North Korea's nuclear program
and the political situation in Myanmar.
"The (Asia-Europe Meeting) confirmed its commitment to a
reformed United Nations playing a central role in addressing
global challenges and threats, and recognized the importance of
sustainable development in Asia," Foreign Minister Nobutaka
Machimura said.
Japan, along with Finland and Sweden, proposed that the ASEM
promote environmental cooperation at the local level,
particularly the "three Rs" -- reducing, recycling and reusing.
An inaugural workshop between ASEM members to discuss how to
implement such cooperation will take place in Tokyo later this
year, the Foreign Ministry said in an official statement.
Ecologically sustainable development for the Asian region was
one of the main issues addressed in Saturday's meetings.
There were calls from the European side to ensure that as local
communities in the Asian region develop, they do so in a way
that does as little damage to the environment as possible.
"Asia and Europe should strive for a joint vision of
sustainable development. Challenges resulting in fast growth in
Asia cannot be minimized, especially the impact on natural
resources and climate change," said Benita Ferrero-Waldner of
the European Commission.
Japan said it would undertake with Finland, which will host a
meeting of Asian and European leaders next year, a review of the
entire ASEM process.
In its proposal for future action, Japan suggested that ASEM
meetings be used to address not just regional but global
concerns.
The two-day affair in Kyoto was meant to strengthen long-term
cooperation between Asia and Europe. But discussions on broader
issues took a back seat to immediate Asian political concerns.
From disagreement between Japan and South Korea over whether to
deal with North Korea through other means, including through the
U.N. Security Council, to concerns over Myanmar's chairmanship
of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations next year, it was
political tension in the region, particularly East Asia, that
got the most attention.
Despite some pressure from the United States and Japan to take
the issue of North Korea's nuclear program to the U.N. Security
Council, South Korea opposed the move.
The ASEM ministers agreed that the six-party talks, which
involve North and South Korea, Japan, China, Russia and the
U.S., should be restarted without further delay.
Room for negotiation has "not yet been closed off. Many
ministers here at ASEM agreed that the six-party talks still
provide the best opportunity for a peaceful resolution," said
South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki Moon.
The sharpest differences between Asia and Europe were over
Myanmar, scheduled to become the ASEAN chair next year.
In the morning, about 60 supporters of Aung San Suu Kyi
protested in front of the Kyoto International Conference Hall,
where the ministers were meeting.
The Japan Times: May 8, 2005
(C) All rights reserved
*****************************************************************
8 Guardian Unlimited: IAEA: North Korea Can Make Atomic Arms
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Monday May 9, 2005 1:31 PM
AP Photo SEL801
By WILLIAM J. KOLE
Associated Press Writer
VIENNA, Austria (AP) - North Korea appeared to soften its
position on international demands that it return to nuclear
disarmament talks Monday as the United States urged Pyongyang
anew not to test any nuclear weapons it may have developed.
The reclusive communist regime may have enough weapons-grade
plutonium to make up to six nuclear bombs, the head of the U.N.
atomic watchdog agency said in another warning about the
country's secretive nuclear program.
International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei told
CNN on Sunday that Pyongyang has the nuclear infrastructure to
convert the material into atomic weapons.
``We knew they had the plutonium that could be converted into
five or six North Korea weapons,'' ElBaradei told CNN.
Recent satellite imagery suggests North Korea may be preparing
to test a weapon underground, and the IAEA has been urging the
international community to increase pressure on Pyongyang to
refrain from any such test.
IAEA inspectors were expelled from North Korea in 2002, and the
agency has stressed that there is no way to know for sure
whether the country is close to producing a nuclear weapon or is
getting ready to test one.
Agency spokesman Mark Gwozdecky said Monday that estimates of
the amount of nuclear material North Korea holds were based on
pre-expulsion inspections of the country's 5-megawatt reactor at
Yongbyon.
``When our inspectors were there, they were monitoring the
freeze at the Yongbyon facility and in particular the 8,000
spent fuel rods that were stored there,'' he said. ``We can
estimate the amount of plutonium they could contain.''
On Monday, South Korea said it was too early to explore
alternatives to diplomacy to solve the standoff. The North,
meanwhile, appeared to soften its position on returning to
disarmament talks, saying it wasn't demanding direct
negotiations with the United States.
``We have never requested the DPRK-U.S. talks independent of the
six-way talks,'' the official KCNA news agency quoted an
unidentified North Korean foreign ministry spokesman as saying.
DPRK stands for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the
North's official name.
ElBaradei described the latest developments as a ``cry for
help'' on Pyongyang's part.
``North Korea, I think, has been seeking a dialogue with the
United States, with the rest of the international community ...
through their usual policy of nuclear blackmail, nuclear
brinkmanship, to force the other parties to engage them,'' he
said.
``We know that they had the industrial infrastructure to
weaponize this plutonium. We have read also that they have the
delivery system,'' ElBaradei told CNN. ``I do hope that the
North Koreans would absolutely reconsider such a reckless,
reckless step.''
Last month, diplomats told The Associated Press that the United
States was warning its allies that North Korea may be ready to
carry out a nuclear test as early as June, basing the assessment
in part on satellite photographs that suggested it was digging
an underground test site.
``I hope that we can persuade them in some way not to go that
route, down that road,'' Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., told ABC.
The reported U.S. warnings reflected growing fears in Washington
that the North is going ahead with efforts to develop nuclear
weapons after South Korean officials said Pyongyang had recently
shut down a reactor, possibly to harvest plutonium that could be
used in an underground test.
The Yongbyon reactor generated spent fuel rods laced with
plutonium, but they must be removed and reprocessed to extract
the plutonium for use in an atomic weapon. They can be removed
only if the reactor has been shut down.
The U.S. intelligence community believes North Korea has one or
more nuclear weapons, and has untested two- and three-stage
missiles capable of reaching U.S. soil. But it has been unclear
whether Pyongyang has yet developed the technology to
miniaturize a nuclear weapon so it fits on a missile, and
provide it with the guidance systems so it can hit a target.
Six-nation talks aimed at getting Pyongyang to give up its
nuclear ambitions have been stalled for nearly a year. They
involve North and South Korea, the United States, China, Japan
and Russia.
North Korea has boycotted the talks since June, and on Friday it
reaffirmed it would stay away unless the United States dropped
what it called hostile policy toward the communist regime. On
Monday, The Washington Post reported that U.S. Assistant
Secretary of State Christopher Hill had asked China - the
North's main benefactor - to cut off oil supplies to Pyongyang
to pressure it to resume the talks.
South Korea's top official on dealing with the North called for
more active diplomacy on the issue. ``I think we are at a point
where we should still be working harder for a diplomatic
solution,'' Unification Minister Chung Dong-young said Monday.
Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said Sunday that
grave concerns over North Korea's nuclear program soared during
the first Clinton administration, when ``we were afraid that ...
North Korea was the most dangerous place in the world.''
---
On the Net:
IAEA, www.iaea.org
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
9 [WW4 Report] Bombs Away: Mayday Disarmament Call
Date: Mon, 9 May 2005 07:54:40 -0500 (CDT)
BOMBS AWAY
Global Activists Gather in New York to Revive Nuclear Disarmament Call
by Sarah Ferguson
Sometimes peace needs a good enemy.
It was President Reagan who really jump-started the nuclear freeze movement
in the early 1980s with his roughhouse talk about actually using nuclear
weapons against the Soviet Union. "We start bombing in five minutes," was
the Gipper's famous quip.
Now with the Bush administration threatening Iran and North Korea as it
schemes about funding a whole new generation of smaller, "more usable"
nukes, activists say the movement for a global moratorium on nuclear
weapons is ripe for a revival.
The May 1 march in New York City from the United Nations to Central Park
was a start. The protest was called by the anti-war group United for Peace
and Justice and the international anti-nuke coalition Abolition Now! to
highlight the Bush administration's hypocrisy on the eve of a month-long
conference at the UN to review the imperiled Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty (NPT), which began on May 2.
"One of the lies the Bush administration used to go to war was that Iraq
was seeking nuclear weapons," says UFPJ national coordinator Leslie Cagan.
"Now they're using the same rationale to go after Iran and North Korea, so
as a movement, we really need to take up this cause."
"We're saying that no nations should have nuclear weapons, including the
US, which continues to violate this treaty by pouring billions of dollars
into the arms race, at the same time that they threaten other nations for
not meeting their obligations."
First introduced in 1970, the NPT calls for the five major nuclear
powers--the US, Russia, China, France and Britain--to work toward
eliminating their nuclear weapons and other countries to pledge not to
obtain them. But since 9-11, the Bush administration has been openly
disdainful of the treaty, arguing that it is antiquated to deal with the
modern threat of terrorism, and that Iran and North Korea are exploiting
loopholes to obtain nuclear weapons anyway.
As if to underscore that point, on May 1 North Korea lobbed a short-range
missile into the Sea of Japan, and Pentagon officials now say satellite
images appear to show North Korea on the verge of conducting its first
nuclear weapons test. Meanwhile, Iran has openly threatened to end a
moratorium on the production of enriched uranium fuel (ostensibly for power
generation).
Yet as former military analyst Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon
Papers in 1971, noted backstage during the rally, Bush's "preemptive strike
doctrine" and his insistence on building tactical battlefield nukes are
actually pushing countries like Iran and North Korea to get nukes of their
own as a deterrent to US aggression.
"Bush's policies are certain to increase nuclear proliferation," says
Ellsberg. "We're promoting it. The idea that somebody like Iran doesn't
have a need for nuclear weapons at this point is ridiculous."
The president claims the US is reducing America's arsenal of more than
10,000 warheads. But at the same time, Ellsberg notes, the Pentagon is
actively seeking to build new ones and "modernize" the ones it's keeping.
Just last month, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld pressed Congress to fund
research into earth-penetrating "bunker busters." According to Physicians
for Social Responsibility, these "busters" would be 80 times more powerful
than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
"That's why we need a global moratorium on all these weapons," says
Ellsberg. "Not just Iran and North Korea, but the US and Israel and
everyone else, too."
Admittedly, calling for global disarmament these days sounds like
pie-in-the-sky idealism. But activists say their stance is actually quite
mainstream. A recent ABC news poll showed two thirds of Americans believe
no nations should have nukes, including the US, while 52 percent believe
that a nuclear attack by one country against another is likely by 2010. In
Europe and Asia, public support for disarmament is even greater.
Still, a movement has to be more than just a mechanism for marching. With
the Bush administration playing the terrorism and "Axis of Evil" cards to
justify its abuses of the NPT, activists will have to find new ways to
unravel the spiraling militarism that keeps generating more nukes as world
leaders give lip service to renouncing them.
For decades, anti-nukes has been a feel-good cause. But can activists find
a way to put some teeth in it?
Chris Connor of Abolition Now! concedes public apathy is a problem.
"Sometimes I think the only thing that will spark a renewed movement is if
some loose nuke goes off somewhere and makes people feel really threatened
by nuclear proliferation."
Indeed, as UFPJ was marching uptown in New York City on May 1, the more
hard-left Troops Out Now! coalition was rallying in Union Square to demand
more jobs and to bring the troops home from Iraq. Working-class soldiers
dying abroad for lack of opportunities at home, they argued, was a more
appropriate May Day cause than the stereotypically lily-white anti-nuke
movement. Some of the left argue it's hypocritical for American peaceniks
to call on countries like North Korea to disarm when the Bush
administration has such overwhelming power to invade them.
"Personally I think to talk about global disarmament misses the point of
who has weapons and who they are being used against," says Dustin Langley,
a spokesperson for Troops Out Now! and member of the International Action
Center, the anti-imperialist group founded by Ramsey Clark. (IAC helped
spawn the anti-war ANSWER coalition, from which they recently splintered,
and has long been sympathetic to North Korea's Kim Jong Il regime.) "We say
Iran and North Korea have a right to get any kind of weapon they need to
defend themselves against the largest military machine on the planet.
Considering that Bush has listed them as two potential targets, they have
as much right to nuclear weapons as any other country," Langley maintains.
Though the ongoing splits in the anti-war movement may have lessened the
turnout, the disarmament march was larger than many expected, especially
considering that it was not all that actively promoted in NYC (perhaps,
ironically, because this time the Parks Department did not contest the
permit for the rally site at Central Park's Heckscher Ballfields, which are
"under renovation" and hence less precious than the Great Lawn's grass).
Organizers claimed 40,000 people turned out, noting at one point the march
spanned 15 blocks. Unofficial police estimates put the crowd at 8,000 to
10,000.
Still, it was probably the largest anti-nuke demo in the U.S. since the
massive march to Central Park in 1982, which drew more than 1 million.
(Hundreds of thousands more marched in cities across Japan on May Day to
call for a nuclear moratorium and oppose revisions in the Japanese
constitution that would loosen the ban on the use of military force.)
What struck out most was how international the New York demonstration was.
In addition to more than 1,000 demonstrators from Japan, there was a
delegation of mayors from 35 countries and large contingents from France,
Germany and New Zealand. There were also Korean drummers clanging gongs,
Vietnam Vets sounding off anti-war calls, Portuguese and Finnish peaceniks,
and members of the International Peace Walk, led by Japanese monks, who
trekked all the way from Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Oak Ridge is home to the
Y-12 National Security Complex, which built some of the components of the
Hiroshima bomb and is now hard at work refurbishing existing nukes to
extend their shelf life.
"One of the reasons I'm marching is my father was an occupying soldier in
Nagasaki with the Australian forces there," said Bilbo Taylor, 36, of
Melbourne, who made the pilgrimage from Tennessee. "When he came back from
war, he got iller and iller and died when I was 15 years old. I spent the
first 12 years of my life in and out of hospitals dealing with that, and
now there are thousands of soldiers from this war in Iraq who will suffer
for a long time because of depleted uranium."
Photo exhibits set up in the rear of the rally showed gruesome pictures of
Iraqi women and children suffering from leukemia, believed to have been
caused by depleted uranium shells exploded during the 1991 Gulf War.
Others sought to bring the threat even closer to home. Longtime nuclear
opponent Dr. Helen Caldicott painted a vivid picture of what would happen
if one of the 40 nuclear bombs Russia still has trained on New York City
were to hit town. She described an 800-foot deep crater in the center of
Central Park and nuclear winds extending 20 miles out.
Luis Acosta, founder of El Puente community center in Williamsburg,
Brooklyn, urged the crowd to ban "New York's secret dirty bomb"--the Radiac
Research Corporation, which stores radioactive and hazardous waste in that
residential neighborhood, and which they fear is a sitting duck target for
a terrorist attack. "All it could take is one small spill and one spark,"
for a nuclear disaster in Williamsburg, he said.
But the most chilling testimony of the day came from survivors of the
Hiroshima and Nagasaki blasts, who came to offer a living record or the
horrors of nuclear war.
Keiko Inagaki was 14 years old when the US atomic bomb struck her hometown
of Nagasaki in 1945. "It was a hot wind, and a rainbow of different colors
flashed in the sky. I got blown away," said the 74-year-old, dressed in an
elegant flowered kimono and holding up one-end of a 20-foot anti-nuke
banner. When the bomb hit, she and her fellow classmates were working in a
munitions factory, having been requisitioned for Japan's war effort. "All
the windows blew out, and I was burned on my face, chest and arms," she
recalled, speaking through a translator. Still, Inagaki counts herself as
lucky. "There were two people outside the factory, and their whole skin
just immediately rotted off in seconds."
For many years, Inagaki hid the fact that she was a survivor--or
"hibakusha," as they are called in Japan--fearing that concerns about
radiation poisoning would hinder her chances of marrying or getting a job.
But 9-11, the US invasion of Iraq, and the growing threat of terrorism
worldwide convinced her to come forward to tell her harrowing story.
"I don't know when I'm going to die. It's time to speak out in order to
save the younger generation." she said.
RESOURCES:
Abolition Now!
http://www.abolitionnow.org/
United for Peace & Justice
http://www.unitedforpeace.org/
Troops Out Now!
http://www.troopsoutnow.org/
Federation of American Scientists page on the NPT
http://www.fas.org/nuke/control/npt/
RELATED STORIES:
"Two Years Later: NYC Anti-War Protests Smaller--and Tilting to the Hard
Left," by Sarah Ferguson, April 2005
http://www.ww4report.com/antiwartwoyearslaterhardleft
"Nuclear Agenda 2005," by Chesley Hicks, March 2005
http://www.ww4report.com/node/271
-------------------
Special to WORLD WAR 4 REPORT, May 10, 2005
Reprinting permissible with attribution
http://WW4Report.com
World War 4 Report: Deconstructing the War on Terrorism
http://www.ww4report.com
_______________________________________________
Ww3report mailing list
http://lists.interactivist.net/mailman/listinfo/ww3report
*****************************************************************
10 IPS-English DISARMAMENT: Deadlocked Talks Resume with Nothing
Date: Mon, 09 May 2005 15:46:04 -0700
ROMAIPS NA WD IP
DISARMAMENT: Deadlocked Talks Resume with Nothing Agreed
By Haider Rizvi
UNITED NATIONS, May 9 (IPS) - Diplomats charged with halting the spread of
nuclear weapons were to reopen negotiations here Tuesday after a three-day
break taken after a week of trying but ultimately failing to agree on an
agenda for their talks.
Delegates at the month-long Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review
Conference came close to adopting an agenda last Wednesday but fell out as
Western nations led by the United States and developing countries assembled
under the umbrella of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) found themselves
locked in arguments over language used in the draft agenda.
The problem came to a head last Friday when Egypt, traditionally a major
player at NPT meetings, rejected the draft agenda, saying the text allowed
certain nations to shrug off their responsibilities as signatories to the NPT.
Observers said Washington had sought endorsement for text that contained no
reference to commitments already agreed at the last NPT review conference
in 2000. The NAM vigorously opposed this.
''Many states are angry that U.S. power and intransigence have succeeded in
deleting mention of the 2000 agreements,'' said Rebecca Johnson, executive
director of the British-based Acronym Institute for Disarmament Diplomacy.
''They suspect that most, if not all, the other nuclear powers are happy
that this has occurred,'' she added.
During the course of last week's talks here, officials from the United
States and other nuclear powers reaffirmed their governments' commitment to
nuclear non-proliferation but offered no substantive details of plans to
disarm.
''The NPT is a critical tool in the global struggle against
proliferation,'' U.S. envoy Stephen Rademaker told delegates. ''We must
remain mindful that the treaty will not continue to advance our security in
the future if we do not successfully confront the current proliferation
challenges.''
Russia hailed the NPT as ''one of the most important pillars of
international security and stability,'' while China said the treaty was ''a
successful model in solving security concerns through multilateral
approaches.''
Britain and France, taking their lead from a European Union statement,
called the NPT ''an irreplaceably, legally binding instrument for
maintaining and reinforcing international peace, security and stability.''
In contrast to such statements, a vast majority of non-nuclear nations
voiced concern over what they saw as the nuclear nations' unwillingness to
take significant steps to dismantle their nuclear arsenals.
''The indefinite extension of the NPT does not imply the indefinite
possession by the nuclear weapons states of the nuclear weapons arsenals,''
the Malaysian government said in a statement on behalf of the 115-member NAM.
''If we want to curtail the proliferation of nuclear weapons, we must also
be prepared to accept that elimination of nuclear weapons is the only
absolute guarantee against the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons," it
added.
The statement resonated with outside nuclear experts.
''It was not simply about significant reduction of nuclear weapons,'' said
Jonathan Granoff of the U.S.-based Global Security Initiative. ''It relates
to disarmament by the nuclear weapons states.''
Although the Cold War ended in 1991, the United States and Russia continue
to possess thousands of nuclear weapons. Currently, the five declared
nuclear states keep more than 36,000 nuclear warheads, according to the
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), a Sweden-based
think tank.
In addition to the declared nuclear powers, India, Pakistan and Israel also
have stockpiled nuclear weapons and have refused to sign the NPT despite
international pressure.
While many Western nations, especially, the United States targeted Iran and
North Korea for their suspected aims to build nuclear weapons, the NAM
statement did not mention those nations by name and said it would be guided
by decisions taken at the 2000 NPT review conference.
One of the most significant agreements reached at the 2000 conference
called for the nuclear states to eliminate their nuclear arsenals. That
conference also adopted a set of 13 ''practical disarmament measures.''
Those steps include early entry into force of the Comprehensive Test Ban
Treaty (CTBT) and negotiations on an ''internationally and effectively
verifiable treaty banning the production of fissile material for nuclear
weapons.''
Despite taking a tough stance on nuclear non-proliferation, the United
States continues to remain non-committal on CTBT, even though Russia has
ratified it, as have Britain and France.
Washington continues to abide by its unilateral moratorium on testing
nuclear weapons but refuses to endorse calls to negotiate a verifiable
treaty on a fissile material cut off.
''The U.S. is blocking it,'' said John Burroughs, director of the New
York-based Lawyers' Committee on Nuclear Policy. ''The Bush administration
does not want inspection within the United States. But then how can it
expect progress in other parts of the world?''
Frustrated by the controversy generated by the text of the agenda, last
Friday conference president Sergio Duarte of Brazil said he regretted that
the delegates had failed to reach consensus.
''I appeal again to the spirit of understanding and compromise of all
delegations to understand that we have to start substantive work,'' he
said. ''Public opinion awaits us to start dealing with the substantive
question at hand.''
It remained to be seen whether delegates how delegates would respond as
they began their second week of talks Tuesday.
*****
+ Acronym Institute for Disarmament Diplomacy (www.acronym.org.uk/)
+ SIPRI, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
(http://www.sipri.org/)
(END/IPS/NA/WD/IP/AA/05)
= 05092247 ORP010
NNNN
*****************************************************************
11 [NukeNet] NPT's Article IV Must Be Abolished Because Of This,
Date: Mon, 09 May 2005 19:00:08 -0700
NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet@energyjustice.net)
NPT Treaty Including Article IV Which Allows
"Peaceful" Commercial Nuclear Reactors:
http://www.cornnet.nl/~akmalten/docs.html
Attack on nuclear plant 'could kill 3.5m'
By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor
16 February 2003
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/environment/story.jsp?story=378739
More than three and a half million people could be
killed by a terrorist attack on a British nuclear
plant, concludes a series of three reports so
alarming
that even Greenpeace - which commissioned them -
is
unwilling to publish them.
The reports - whose findings the Government has
also
sought to suppress - show that terrorists could
identify the most dangerous parts of the plants
from
publicly available information and crash aircraft
into
them, releasing vast amounts of radioactivity.
Now MPs and peers have launched an investigation
by
the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology
into the revelations as part of a formal inquiry
into
"the possible risks and consequences of a
terrorist
attack at a nuclear facility in the UK". They
decided
to set up the inquiry last month - at the urging
of
the House of Commons Defence Select Committee -
drawing on the reports and other material, even
though
ministers warned that much of the information they
needed was secret and would not be made available
to
them.
The reports show that Britain could face a far
greater
threat than the danger of ricin, constantly quoted
by
ministers, or the warnings of a rocket attack on
an
aircraft that led to last week's deployment of
tanks
at Heathrow. Yet one of their authors - John
Large, an
independent nuclear expert - says that the
Government
has reacted to it with "staggering indolence".
The three reports, commissioned by Greenpeace
after
the 11 September attacks, cover the vulnerability
of
Britain's nuclear installations, the possibility
of an
attack from the air and the consequences of the
resulting disaster. They were completed at the end
of
2001, but the pressure group has sat on them for
over
a year, unable to decide what to do with them.
They
are still being kept a closely guarded secret.
The first, by Dr Large, concludes that Britain's
nuclear plants are "almost totally ill-prepared"
for
an airborne terrorist attack. The second, by an
aviation expert, suggests that it would only take
four
minutes for an airliner to divert from its regular
flight path to attack the most dangerous target of
all, the Sellafield nuclear complex in Cumbria.
And
the third, by leading scientist Dr Frank Barnaby,
estimates that, at worst, 3.6 million people could
die
as a result.
Dr Large said last night that he had found it
"astonishingly easy" to get information on targets
at
Sellafield and other nuclear plants, and that he
had
been sent official reports identifying them
without
any attempt to check on his bona fides.
He said: "A terrorist cell charged with attacking
Sellafield could readily obtain sufficient
information
from publicly available documents to identify
highly
hazardous and vulnerable targets for which there
exists little defence in depth."
Dr Barnaby - a former Aldermaston scientist, who
was
for 10 years director of the Stockholm
International
Peace Research Institute - concludes that a jumbo
jet
crashing into Sellafield could cause a fireball
over a
mile high.
He says that 25 times as much radioactivity as was
emitted by the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 would be
likely to be released, eventually killing 1.1
million
people from cancer. In the worst case scenario,
the
number of deaths could reach 3.6 million.
Dr Large was so alarmed by his findings that he
asked
Greenpeace not to publish his report, and stamped
the
words "Not for Open Publication" on every page.
Greenpeace, for its part, has been paralysed by
indecision by the reports, unable to decide even
to
disclose their findings to ministers or officials
to
try to get them to act on the vulnerabilities they
identified.
The pressure group is highly sensitive about this,
and
has only now decided - after repeated questioning
by
The Independent on Sunday - "to seek to stimulate
this
debate within government over the next months".
Shaun Birnie, a nuclear campaigner for Greenpeace
International, said last week that there had been
"months of debate" inside the organisation about
what
to do with the reports, with some activists
fearing
that the Government might take action against it.
He admitted: "We never got round to agreeing how
to
use this report" but threatened that any
suggestion in
this article that Greenpeace had sat on the report
would damage relations with the IoS.
Challenged to explain the organisation's lack of
urgency at a time of an increasing terrorist
threat,
he said: "There is no reason to rush this. A year
is a
very, very short time in the half life of
plutonium."
16 February 2003 17:25
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/environment/story.jsp?story=378739
_______________________________________________________________________
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12 UK The Times: Stuck helplessly at No10, Mr Blair has reshuffled himself into irrelevance
May 10, 2005
Alice Miles
TALK ABOUT snatching defeat from the jaws of victory: Tony
Blair’s reshuffle was rubbish. Despite a third good election win,
the Prime Minister has ended up looking weak and indecisive. Last
week I was behind him, egging him on: Go, Blair, go! Today I
think, if this is all you can offer, just go.
Look at the most important areas of public sector reform:
transport, education, health and communities, which encompasses
antisocial behaviour and immigration. Transport is in the hands
of the same man, Alistair Darling, who appears to have achieved
nothing over the past three years in the job. In Health, Mr Blair
has appointed a Cabinet minister by default.
Patricia Hewitt, who has wanted the job for years, was sent
there after John Prescott blocked David Blunkett’s move to his
department to cover the “communities” agenda, meaning that Mr
Blunkett had to be sent to Work and Pensions, which forced a
move for Alan Johnson to the renamed DTI, which unseated Ms
Hewitt . . . got it? And David Miliband, who I am told was
earmarked for Health, had to move to Mr Prescott’s department in
place of Mr Blunkett, which left a vacancy at Health . . . which
was filled by Ms Hewitt, who is surely destined to turn into
Virginia Bottomley Mark 2 as Health Secretary. The patronising
and bossy Ms Hewitt could turn the triumph that should be
Labour’s story on health into farcical tragedy. It will be the
Titanic on trolley wheels.
And if you think that’s a mess, then look at what happened over
at Education. The Prime Minister had an Education Secretary,
Ruth Kelly, in post for only six months, whom he wasn’t entirely
sure about, and who rejected his choice as her No 2, at which
point he suggested she move back to the Treasury, where she used
to work, as the Chancellor’s No 2. Apparently encouraged by
Gordon Brown, Ms Kelly rejected this move, resulting in a
stalemate over the appointment of her No 2 at education, Andrew
Adonis, which was only resolved four days later when Mr Blair
agreed to move Mr Adonis to a lower rank.
It is important to be clear about whether Ms Kelly was rejecting
Mr Adonis’s policies, or Mr Adonis personally. Mr Adonis, hated
by old Labour as a former member of the SDP, has, as the Prime
Minister’s adviser on education, rubbed up successive education
ministers the wrong way and infuriated the Left by pushing
policies such as variable tuition fees.
That said, as Ms Kelly’s junior, within the department rather
than firing at it from the No 10 stronghold, it ought to be
possible to drown Mr Adonis in paperwork and fascinating visits
to distinguish the Icelandic primary school system from the
Nordic model. The more divisive possibility is that Ms Kelly
objected to Mr Adonis on ideological grounds; that his planned
reforms — for instance, empowering parents to demand the
creation of new state schools locally, even ones run by private
companies — is too radical for the Secretary of State. (Or at
least, too radical for a young Secretary of State who, no matter
what her private views, would like to have a future under a
Brown premiership.)
If this is the case, and Mr Blair still failed to move Ms Kelly,
then the game is up for his third term. It is bad enough to be
so impotent as to have to fight to appoint a junior minister who
is key to your plans for education reform. But if you have
already reappointed a secretary of state who will oppose those
plans, then you might as well pack your bags and go.
And as far as I can decipher, that is exactly what happened.
Those close to Ms Kelly protest that there are no plans to allow
parents to demand the closure of failing schools and their
replacement with schools set up by independent providers. Those
closer to Mr Blair say that that is precisely what is heralded
by the line in Labour’s manifesto: “Where new educational
providers can help boost standards and opportunities in a
locality we will welcome them into the state system, subject to
parental demand, fair funding and fair admissions.” It was
specifically worded with that in mind. Had Mr Blair’s majority
been bigger, the Prime Minister planned to legislate to set up
an agency to grant licences to new education providers, thereby
taking the decisions out of Whitehall and council control and
entrenching the changes in law so that Mr Brown could not easily
undo them at a later date.
But the game appears to be over before it began. Mr Blair failed
to get his reforming players into the right places across the
board. We can look forward to months and perhaps years of
obfuscation, overblown rhetoric and eventual compromise with Mr
Brown. Stalemate. Watching the reshuffle, even Mr Blair’s most
loyal allies were shrugging their shoulders: “He’s made his bed,
he’s going to have to lie in it.”
And lie in it for some time yet, because three factors conspire
against Mr Blair quitting No 10 any time soon. First, he doesn’t
want to. “Not in quitting mood”, as his friends put it. Second,
once MPs are back in Parliament this week, the rebellion against
Mr Blair will fade. A few noisy ex-ministers and grumpy lefties
are making all the running at the moment; the mutiny isn’t as
bad as it sounds. And third, Mr Brown does not want the
leadership yet. There are too many tricky issues — pensions,
council tax, nuclear power, and possibly a referendum on the
European constitution — to resolve in the next year or so. Nor
would the Chancellor want to win a divided and confused party,
in chaotic fashion, as the candidate of the sort of Labourites
who did everything in their power to prevent the creation of the
new Labour Party for which he and Mr Blair fought so hard
together for so long.
It is now clear that in many respects, and importantly in those
that matter most to Mr Blair, these two men were not fighting
for the same thing. Westminster is in turmoil. The Conservative
and Labour parties are to all intents and purposes between
leaders. Leadership candidates stalk the shadows. Stalking
horses stalk the airwaves. Labour and the Tories want a new
leader. Mr Blair needs a new party. The best solution is
obvious: Mr Blair should lead the Conservative Party. That would
give the country the choice it really wants, and allow Mr Brown
and Mr Blair to tear each other’s hearts out one last time. I
wonder who would win.
Copyright The Times - timesonline.co.uk
*****************************************************************
13 BBC: Two held in nuclear base
Last Updated: Monday, 9 May, 2005
[Aldermaston Atomic Weapons Establishment]
Two people were arrested during the protests at Aldermaston
Two protesters have been arrested after blocking an entrance to a
Ministry of Defence nuclear base.
About 30 members of the Stop The Builders group halted traffic at
the Aldermaston atomic facility, which is currently undergoing
modernisation.
The protesters claim equipment to build a new generation of
nuclear weapons is being installed at the Berkshire base.
An MoD spokesman said traffic had to use other entrances, adding:
"The modernisation is not exactly a secret."
One of the demonstrators, Sian Jones, said: "We want the
government to come clean, tell people what they are really
building at Aldermaston and live up to their obligations under
the non-proliferation treaty."
Sophie Bolt, vice chairman of the Campaign for Nuclear
Disarmament, said: "The government has signed up to get rid of
nuclear weapons and what is going on here at Aldermaston is the
total opposite of that.
"It is a Ł2.2bn development which we believe will simply replace
Trident."
*****************************************************************
14 Asia Times: Uncorking the plutonium (energy) genie
By Suvendrini Kakuchi
TOKYO - As Japan debates how to meet its gargantuan energy
needs in the 21st century - and whether nuclear power should be
in the energy mix - plans to revive the controversial plutonium
reprocessing plant at the remote village of Rokkasho-mura in
Japan's northern Aomori prefecture has alarmed the global
anti-nuclear movement.
At the sidelines of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)
review conference at the United Nations, a group of
international academics, former officials and scientists,
including four Nobel Prize physics laureates, issued a statement
calling on Japan to indefinitely postpone operating the plant.
The declaration last week warns that Japan's plan to separate
and stockpile up to eight tonnes of plutonium annually, enough
to make 1,000 nuclear bombs, calls into question Japan's
commitment to strengthening the NPT.
''At a time when the non-proliferation regime is facing its
greatest challenge, Japan should not proceed with its current
plans for the start-up of the Rokkasho reprocessing plant,'' the
statement said.
Initial tests at Rokkasho using irradiated nuclear fuel are
scheduled for December 2005, with full-scale operations slated
for 2007, the US-based Union of Concerned Scientists said in a
report published on its website.
''With Rokkasho operational, by 2020 Japan's domestic stock of
plutonium could equal the US stockpile of plutonium for
weapons,'' said Frank von Hippel, physicist and professor at the
Science and Global Security Program at Princeton University in
New Jersey, US.
Anti-nuclear lobbyists are worried that the safeguards at
Rokkasho would be inadequate to prevent the deliberate diversion
or theft of large quantities of plutonium.
''Separated plutonium poses a risk of theft, and such large
stocks would be destabilizing,'' Von Hippel said in the report.
There are valid concerns for such fears.
Such a facility will not be operating in a political vacuum, but
rather in one of the most unstable regions in the world,
Northeast Asia. All countries in the region - Japan, North and
South Korea, Taiwan and China, as well as Russia, and the US
military presence - make this a region of high tension.
''All of them have nuclear programs at various stages of
development from the on-going modernization of US and Chinese
nuclear weapons, to the opaque nuclear weapons program in North
Korea, as well as the continuing interest in acquiring plutonium
by the nuclear establishments in Taiwan and South Korea,'' said
the environmental group Greenpeace.
''However, Japan is alone in the region in moving ahead with the
stockpiling of large quantities of plutonium for which it has no
practical, peaceful use,'' it warned.
Nonetheless, at the heart of the matter is the continuing debate
over Japan's growing energy needs.
Proponents of nuclear power have always argued that Japan is a
resource-poor country and if it continues to rely on fossil-fuel
imports from the Middle East, it would mean attempting to secure
a finite resource from a politically unstable part of the world.
They emphasize that nuclear power offers Japan a cheap,
inexpensive and reliable energy source. Also since the Kyoto
Protocol was signed in 1997, the pronuclear lobby has also
rushed to add that nuclear power is needed by Japan to meet its
commitments to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
In 2004, Japan had 53 nuclear power reactors (52 were in
operation), making it third in terms of number of plants after
the United States (103) and France (57).
Over the past quarter century, as many other nations attempt to
find alternate energy sources, nuclear power has gone from 17%
of Japan's total electricity supply in 1990 to 34.6% of total
supply in 2004.
Five more nuclear power plants are being built, and there are
plans to increase the 34.6% figure to 40% by 2010.
''Following a series of harrowing accidents, nuclear power
development was in cold storage until recently. The changing
picture poses risks for both the environment and Japan's
pacifist leanings,'' said Yuko Fujita, a professor of
environmental science at Keio University.
Fujita told IPS nuclear power reactors that operate and produce
dangerous radioactive fuel pose a serious threat to the health
of workers and an accident can result in thousands of
fatalities.
''Apart from the risk of contamination to people and the
environment, high-level nuclear power development produces the
capabilities to produce nuclear weapons. The industry is
criminal offence,'' he argued.
Since 1999 a spate of accidents, scandals and cover-ups have
shaken public confidence. On September 30 that year, at
Tokaimura near Tokyo, two workers at a nuclear plant died when
they ignored safety procedures and dumped a large quantity of
uranium into a settling basin. The uranium reached critical
mass, causing an explosion. Tens of thousands of people in the
area were quarantined and checked for radiation.
Japan's worst nuclear accident occurred last August when five
workers were killed and six injured at the No 3 nuclear reactor
at Kansai Electric's Mihima Nuclear Power Station in Fukui
prefecture, central Japan, when hot steam leaked from a ruptured
secondary coolant water pipe.
After the nuclear plant accident, Kansai Electric said in
October it had found 14 additional cases of falsified inspection
records on its thermal power plants, after revealing in June 87
cases of data falsification.
Besides the Rokkasho reprocessing plant, of particular concern
also is Japan's determination to go ahead with a fast-breeder
reactor program (FBR).
''FBR program were in operation in both the US and Europe in the
1970s, at a time when many experts predicted the world's supply
of uranium would soon be depleted,'' said Eric Johnston, the
author of Japan's Nuclear Nightmare: Power to the People?
''But that proved not to be the case and this realization,
combined with public unease over handling the world's most
dangerous substance, led the US to abandon the FBR program by
the early 1980s. European countries began to follow shortly
afterwards,'' Johnston said.
But not Japan.
It is forging ahead with an experimental fast-breeder reactor
called Monju in Fukui prefecture, and there seems to be
mainstream support for the project. The Yomuiri Shimbun, in an
editorial in January, argued that Monju has been developed at
huge costs to the taxpayer, and so ''must be respected as the
next-generation reactor that produces more nuclear fuel than it
consumes''.
''It is a dream," the newspaper said, for Japan that lacks
fossil fuel and uranium resources.''
(Inter Press Service)
Hau Fook Mansion, No. 8 Hau Fook St., Kowloon, Hong
Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
*****************************************************************
15 Bangornews.com: Hydrogen energy touted at conference -
A model of the hydrogen fuel cell system being installed at
Chewonki Foundation headquarters in Wiscasset.C. MICHAEL LEWIS
ILLUSTRATION
Monday, May 09, 2005 - Bangor Daily News
WISCASSET - Just a few miles from the site of Maine's last foray
into alternative energy - the now defunct Maine Yankee nuclear
power plant - environmentalists spent Saturday debating cleaner,
safer energy options for the 21st century.
With mounting evidence for global climate change as a present
reality rather than a distant threat, reducing energy use and
finding substitutions for fossil fuels are among the best means
of protecting the planet from an unnatural climate shift,
speakers at the Chewonki Foundation's sustainable energy
conference said.
"Why play dice with the planet?" asked Robert Kates, a professor
emeritus at Brown University who has participated in state and
international efforts to quantify climate change since his
retirement to Trenton.
To that end, Chewonki is in the process of installing a
fuel-cell system that uses well water and solar power to create
hydrogen, which can fully power the environmental education
group's energy-efficient headquarters for four days.
Along with portable solar panels, turbines to harness the
currents of a tidal river and household-scale windmills,
hydrogen fuel cells were presented as technologies that likely
will become part of our lives over the next generation.
"Even though we have fossil fuels to keep us going for a long
time, we can choose a better way," said Rick Smith of the
Hydrogen Energy Center in Portland.
Since December 2002, America's trade deficit has doubled, with
nearly a third of that increase from importing fossil fuels.
Last year America spent $180.7 billion on crude oil - not
counting the defense spending required to keep sources secure,
said Smith and his colleague Paul Faulstich.
The Chewonki Foundation, working in partnership with the
Hydrogen Energy Center, has spent $140,000 in materials alone to
install a hydrogen fuel cell system, which is expected to go on
line this summer.
The system draws water from a well, then uses solar energy from
photovoltaic panels on the roof and some power purchased from
the electric grid (likely from a "green" power provider such as
Maine Interfaith Power and Light) to run an electrolyzer, a
machine that extracts hydrogen gas from the water.
The fuel cells used by Chewonki run the hydrogen through a
membrane that allows passage of protons but not electrons,
producing electricity and water. The three fuel cells, each
about the size and shape of a microwave oven, can produce 3
megawatt-hours of power.
"Think of hydrogen as like a battery," Faulstich said. "You use
energy to create that hydrogen, just like you need to use energy
to charge a battery."
Someday, homeowners could install similar systems, using the
hydrogen to fuel the family car, Smith said.
"Hydrogen will not take over our energy lives all at once," he
said, predicting that commercial vehicle fleets will make the
transition first, followed by homes, cars, submarines, airplanes
and, eventually, even the batteries in your cell phone or laptop.
"Bifuel" cars, offering drivers the opportunity to switch from
hydrogen to gasoline, vehicles equipped to run on natural
gas-hydrogen blend, and hydrogen-electric hybrids already are
being produced experimentally. It's just a matter of time before
fuel costs decrease enough to make the technology feasible,
Smith said.
Some scientists predict that hydrogen-powered vehicles will be
available by 2020, said Faulstich. But to be accepted as a safe
fuel, hydrogen has a reputation to overcome. Most people's minds
go directly to the doomed Hindenburg, a hydrogen-filled airship
that crashed in Lakehurst, N.J., in 1937. But despite the
800-foot-tall flames, a relatively small number of people died,
most as a result of leaping from the burning zeppelin, he said.
"Anything that can hold energy can release energy," Faulstich
said.
Working with Peter Arnold of Chewonki, he demonstrated
hydrogen's power by filling soap bubbles with hydrogen gas, then
touching a flame to a mass of bubbles cupped in Arnold's hands.
Instantly, the bubbles disappeared with a loud pop and a small
sphere of orange light, the heat and flame dissipating upward,
leaving Arnold unharmed.
Hydrogen's small, light atoms ensure that its flame will be tall
and narrow. Tests have shown that in some instances - such as an
auto accident - a tall, narrow flame is actually safer because
the fire is less likely to spread, according to Faulstich.
Iceland has announced plans to produce hydrogen using its
abundant geothermal resources and to become an energy exporter -
the "Kuwait of hydrogen," he said.
It's just matter of time before the technology becomes cheap
enough that the average American adopts Faulstich's view.
"I'd love to install one in my house right now," he said.
For more information, visit www.chewonkih2.org.
Bangornews.com Staff
feedback@bangordailynews.net
*****************************************************************
16 Guardian Unlimited: Court Debates Ruling in Wen Ho Lee Case
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Tuesday May 10, 2005 12:16 AM
By PETE YOST
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - A federal appeals court debated on Monday
whether to overturn a contempt ruling against five journalists
who have refused to identify their sources for stories on Wen Ho
Lee, the nuclear scientist whose career was cut short when his
name surfaced as an espionage suspect.
Lee is suing the government for leaking his name to the news
media during a political frenzy late in the Clinton
administration when Republicans accused the White House of
ignoring China's alleged theft of U.S. nuclear secrets.
Lawyers said that the journalists have a qualified First
Amendment privilege to protect the confidentiality of their
sources and that a lower court judge erred in finding the
reporters in contempt. A $500-per-day fine was suspended pending
appeals.
Lee Levine, representing Associated Press reporter H. Josef
Hebert and Los Angeles Times reporter Robert Drogin, said the
judge in the case ``simply bundled all the reporters together''
without drawing distinctions in the stories they wrote or
broadcast.
The other journalists found in contempt in the case are James
Risen and Jeff Gerth of The New York Times, and Pierre Thomas,
formerly of CNN and now of ABC.
Lee's lawyer framed the case in terms the judges readily
understood.
``There is, especially in this town, a culture of leaks,'' Brian
Sun said.
``This town?'' U.S. Court of Appeals Court Judge David Sentelle
asked in mock surprise, bringing laughter in the courtroom.
Sun said he unsuccessfully questioned 21 government witnesses
about the leaks before turning to the news media for answers.
``We were asking them questions every which way from Sunday to
find out who they were talking to,'' Sun said of interviews with
government witnesses.
Lee was fired from Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.
He said government officials leaked information about him to
reporters, violating the Privacy Act in pointing to him as a
suspect in the possible theft of nuclear secrets for China.
Indicted on 59 felony counts alleging he mishandled nuclear
weapons information, Lee pleaded guilty to a single charge after
spending nine months in solitary confinement.
His treatment drew an apology from a federal judge, who said the
case had embarrassed the nation and every citizen.
Appeals court judges A. Raymond Randolph and Sentelle reacted
skeptically to the news media's suggestion that Lee should have
done more interviews with government witnesses to find out the
sources of the leaks.
Randolph pointed to other cases in which far less questioning of
witnesses had been done before the plaintiffs targeted the news
media.
First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams, representing The New York
Times reporters, pointed to a case in which 60 witnesses had
been interviewed before turning to the press.
The number is irrelevant to the Lee case, Sentelle replied.
Sentelle is a Reagan-era appointee. Randolph is an appointee of
President Bush's father. The third member of the appeals panel,
Judith Rogers, is a Clinton appointee.
The Lee case is among several recent high-profile examples of
reporters facing punishment for refusing to reveal sources.
Last month a federal appeals court in Washington declined to
reconsider a three-judge panel's ruling that Matthew Cooper of
Time magazine and Judith Miller of The New York Times must
testify before a federal grand jury about their sources or go to
jail for up to 18 months.
The two reporters have been called to testify about the leak of
an undercover CIA officer's name. Both publications plan to take
their appeal to the Supreme Court.
Last year, Rhode Island TV reporter Jim Taricani was sentenced
to home confinement after he refused a court order to reveal the
confidential source of an undercover FBI videotape of an alleged
bribe. He served four months.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
17 NUKE POWER? No Thanks: Huge radioactive leak closes plant
Date: Mon, 9 May 2005 16:36:46 -0500 (CDT)
[Sellafield, UK:] HUGE RADIOACTIVE LEAK CLOSES PLANT
Hydrocarbon AlternativesGD writes: A leak of highly radioactive
nuclear fuel dissolved in concentrated nitric acid, enough to half
fill an Olympic-size swimming pool, has forced the closure of
Sellafield's Thorp reprocessing plant.
The highly dangerous mixture, containing about 20 tonnes of uranium
and plutonium fuel, has leaked through a fractured pipe into a huge
stainless steel chamber which is so radioactive that it is impossible
to enter.
Recovering the liquids and fixing the pipes will take months and may
require special robots to be built and sophisticated engineering
techniques devised to repair the #2.1bn plant.
..
http://peakoil.com/article4064.html
the leak "is likely to be a financial disaster for the taxpayer"
remember that when (in response to global warming or in
response to peak oil, see www.peakoilcom)
we are told by the Politicos that we should go to Nuke Power
as "The solution"
Or when they tell the public how "cost effective" nuke power is...
does "a financial disaster for the taxpayer" sound cost effective..?
=============
DON'T MOURN, ACT! WEBSITES FOR ACTION:
http://www.earthshare.org/get_involved/involved.html
http://www.gristmagazine.com/dogood/climate.asp (not working, 05 apr)
http://www.greenhousenet.org/
http://www.solarcatalyst.com/
http://www.campaignearth.org/buy_green_nativeenergy.asp
Overview and local actions you can take: http://www.PostCarbon.org
=============
= = = =
STILL FEELING LIKE THE MAINSTREAM U.S. CORPORATE MEDIA
IS GIVING A FULL HONEST PICTURE OF WHAT'S GOING ON?
= = = =
Daily online radio show, news reporting: www.DemocracyNow.org
More news: UseNet's misc.activism.progressive (moderated)
= = = =
Sorry, we cannot read/reply to most usenet posts but welcome email
For more information: http://EconomicDemocracy.org/wtc/ (peace)
And http://EconomicDemocracy.org/ (general)
** ANTI-SPAM EMAIL NOTE: For email "info" and "map" don't work. Email instead
** to m-a-i-l-m-a-i-l (without the dashes) at economicdemocracy.org
*****************************************************************
18 NPT's Article IV Must Be Abolished Because Of This, Too................
Date: Mon, 9 May 2005 21:44:57 -0400
NPT Treaty Including Article IV Which Allows
"Peaceful" Commercial Nuclear Reactors:
http://www.cornnet.nl/~akmalten/docs.html
Attack on nuclear plant 'could kill 3.5m'
By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor
16 February 2003
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/environment/story.jsp?story=378739
More than three and a half million people could be
killed by a terrorist attack on a British nuclear
plant, concludes a series of three reports so
alarming
that even Greenpeace - which commissioned them -
is
unwilling to publish them.
The reports - whose findings the Government has
also
sought to suppress - show that terrorists could
identify the most dangerous parts of the plants
from
publicly available information and crash aircraft
into
them, releasing vast amounts of radioactivity.
Now MPs and peers have launched an investigation
by
the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology
into the revelations as part of a formal inquiry
into
"the possible risks and consequences of a
terrorist
attack at a nuclear facility in the UK". They
decided
to set up the inquiry last month - at the urging
of
the House of Commons Defence Select Committee -
drawing on the reports and other material, even
though
ministers warned that much of the information they
needed was secret and would not be made available
to
them.
The reports show that Britain could face a far
greater
threat than the danger of ricin, constantly quoted
by
ministers, or the warnings of a rocket attack on
an
aircraft that led to last week's deployment of
tanks
at Heathrow. Yet one of their authors - John
Large, an
independent nuclear expert - says that the
Government
has reacted to it with "staggering indolence".
The three reports, commissioned by Greenpeace
after
the 11 September attacks, cover the vulnerability
of
Britain's nuclear installations, the possibility
of an
attack from the air and the consequences of the
resulting disaster. They were completed at the end
of
2001, but the pressure group has sat on them for
over
a year, unable to decide what to do with them.
They
are still being kept a closely guarded secret.
The first, by Dr Large, concludes that Britain's
nuclear plants are "almost totally ill-prepared"
for
an airborne terrorist attack. The second, by an
aviation expert, suggests that it would only take
four
minutes for an airliner to divert from its regular
flight path to attack the most dangerous target of
all, the Sellafield nuclear complex in Cumbria.
And
the third, by leading scientist Dr Frank Barnaby,
estimates that, at worst, 3.6 million people could
die
as a result.
Dr Large said last night that he had found it
"astonishingly easy" to get information on targets
at
Sellafield and other nuclear plants, and that he
had
been sent official reports identifying them
without
any attempt to check on his bona fides.
He said: "A terrorist cell charged with attacking
Sellafield could readily obtain sufficient
information
from publicly available documents to identify
highly
hazardous and vulnerable targets for which there
exists little defence in depth."
Dr Barnaby - a former Aldermaston scientist, who
was
for 10 years director of the Stockholm
International
Peace Research Institute - concludes that a jumbo
jet
crashing into Sellafield could cause a fireball
over a
mile high.
He says that 25 times as much radioactivity as was
emitted by the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 would be
likely to be released, eventually killing 1.1
million
people from cancer. In the worst case scenario,
the
number of deaths could reach 3.6 million.
Dr Large was so alarmed by his findings that he
asked
Greenpeace not to publish his report, and stamped
the
words "Not for Open Publication" on every page.
Greenpeace, for its part, has been paralysed by
indecision by the reports, unable to decide even
to
disclose their findings to ministers or officials
to
try to get them to act on the vulnerabilities they
identified.
The pressure group is highly sensitive about this,
and
has only now decided - after repeated questioning
by
The Independent on Sunday - "to seek to stimulate
this
debate within government over the next months".
Shaun Birnie, a nuclear campaigner for Greenpeace
International, said last week that there had been
"months of debate" inside the organisation about
what
to do with the reports, with some activists
fearing
that the Government might take action against it.
He admitted: "We never got round to agreeing how
to
use this report" but threatened that any
suggestion in
this article that Greenpeace had sat on the report
would damage relations with the IoS.
Challenged to explain the organisation's lack of
urgency at a time of an increasing terrorist
threat,
he said: "There is no reason to rush this. A year
is a
very, very short time in the half life of
plutonium."
16 February 2003 17:25
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/environment/story.jsp?story=378739
*****************************************************************
19 [du-list] Huge radioactive leak closes Thorp nuclear plant
Date: Mon, 09 May 2005 15:47:34 -0700
Huge radioactive leak closes Thorp nuclear plant
http://www.guardian.co.uk/nuclear/article/0,2763,1479527,00.html#article_continue
Paul Brown, environment correspondent
Monday May 9, 2005
The Guardian
A leak of highly radioactive nuclear fuel dissolved in concentrated nitric
acid, enough to half fill an Olympic-size swimming pool, has forced the
closure of Sellafield's Thorp reprocessing plant.
The highly dangerous mixture, containing about 20 tonnes of uranium and
plutonium fuel, has leaked through a fractured pipe into a huge stainless
steel chamber which is so radioactive that it is impossible to enter.
Recovering the liquids and fixing the pipes will take months and may
require special robots to be built and sophisticated engineering techniques
devised to repair the Ł2.1bn plant.
The leak is not a danger to the public (sic) but is likely to be a
financial disaster for the taxpayer since income from the Thorp plant,
calculated to be more than Ł1m a day, is supposed to pay for the cleanup of
redundant nuclear facilities.
The closure could hardly have come at a worse time for the nuclear
industry. Britain is struggling to meet its target of cutting greenhouse
gas emissions by 20% of 1990 levels by 2010, despite a substantial
programme of wind farm construction, while generating capacity will also be
hit by the rundown of some of Britain's coal-fired power stations.
The decision on whether to build a new generation of nuclear power stations
is among the most sensitive Tony Blair faces at the start of his third term.
A leak of a briefing paper to ministers on the nuclear option yesterday
revealed that the contribution new nuclear capacity could make to cutting
greenhouse gases had not yet been considered because of opposition from
Margaret Beckett, secretary of state for environment, food and rural affairs.
The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, a quango which took over ownership
of the plant from British Nuclear Fuels on April 1, has a Ł2.2bn cleanup
budget for this year, its first year of operation, of which Ł560m was to
come from the Thorp plant.
Richard Flynn, spokesman for the NDA, said: "If the income from the plant
is not forthcoming then obviously it will put back plans for cleaning up."
On Friday the British Nuclear Group, a management company formed to run the
Sellafield site on behalf of the NDA, held a meeting with the government
safety regulator, the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII), to discuss
how to mop up the leak and repair the pipe. The company has to get the
inspectors' approval before proceeding.
A problem at the plant was first noticed on April 19 when operators could
not account for all the spent fuel that had been dissolved in nitric acid.
It was supposed to be travelling through the plant to be measured and
separated into uranium, plutonium and waste products in a series of
centrifuges. Remote cameras scanning the interior of the plant found the leak.
Although most of the material is uranium, the fuel contains about 200kg
(440lb) of plutonium, enough to make 20 nuclear weapons, and must be
recovered and accounted for to conform to international safeguards aimed at
preventing nuclear materials falling into the wrong hands. The liquid will
have to be siphoned off and stored until the works can be repaired, but a
method of doing this has yet to be devised.
The company has set up a board of inquiry to find out how the leak
occurred. The NII will set up a separate investigation and has the power to
prosecute if correct procedures have not been followed.
The Thorp plant produces uranium and plutonium from spent fuel in such
large quantities that only a tiny proportion of it can ever be reused for
reactor fuel. Its critics also claim it is uneconomic because it has never
operated to design capacity since it opened 12 years ago, and is years
behind schedule in fulfilling orders.
This has angered some customers and the British Nuclear Group is embroiled
in a court case with one of its customers, the German owners of the
Brokdorf power station, which is withholding fees of Ł2,772 a day for
storage of spent fuel, claiming it should have been reprocessed years ago.
In 12 years Thorp has reprocessed 5,644 tonnes of fuel from its first
10-year target of 7,000 tonnes. Last year it failed to reach its target of
725 tonnes, achieving 590.
Martin Forwood, of Cumbrians Opposed to Radioactive Environment, said the
NDA had been "naive" in placing trust on income from Thorp, given its track
record. "Reprocessing is blatantly incompatible with the official cleanup
remit of the NDA, which will now find itself out of pocket as a result of
the latest Thorp accident. The new owners would do the taxpayer the
greatest service by putting Thorp out of its misery and closing it once and
for all."
The managing director of British Nuclear Group, Sellafield, Barry Snelson,
who ordered the plant to be closed down, said: "Let me reassure people that
the plant is in a safe and stable state."
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20 SABCnews.com: Nuclear power will satisfy SA's energy needs: scientist May
South African Broadcasting Corporation Copyright ©
09, 2005, 09:00
A nuclear scientist has defended government's decision to turn
to nuclear power as a means of satisfying South Africa's energy
needs. This comes amid a heated Earthlife Africa campaign
against the construction of more nuclear reactors in the
country.
Kelvin Kemm, a nuclear scientist who works at Pelindaba - the
site of one of the country's two reactors - says nuclear energy
remains a viable means of satisfying South Africa's energy
needs. There are concerns that South Africa will soon run out of
generating capacity based on coal burning generators. Kemm says
the environmental NGO's claims about dangerous radiation at the
Pelindaba site is unfounded.
"I have worked with the nuclear reactor at Pelindaba for
something like 30 years. I am the guy that stands on top of that
nuclear reactor. Believe me, when I am standing on top of that
thing, I want to be sure that nothing is leaking out, everything
is working perfectly and everything is spot on," Kemm says.
Kemm has dismissed concerns about the safety of nuclear power as
part of a mass campaign by anti-nuclear power groups to
discredit the nuclear power industry.
However, Dr David Fig, from Earthlife Africa says their concerns
are based on solid research. "I think that there are critics
against the industry. They do have a clear case against the
industry. We're not just worried about deaths. We're worried
about leukemia, cancer, genetic mutations. The numbers are huge
around areas like Chernobyl," Fig said.
[Kelvin Kemm, a nuclear scientist on Pelindaba nuclear site]
[Dr David Fig, of Earthlife Africa defends the NGO's concerns
about nuclear power]
*****************************************************************
21 NRC: NRC to Discuss 2004 Performance Assessment for Braidwood Nuclear Power Plant
News Release - Region III - 2005-02
U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Office of Public Affairs, Region III
No. III-05-023 May 9, 2005
CONTACT: Jan Strasma (630) 829-9663
Viktoria Mitlyng (630) 829-9662 E-mail: opa3@nrc.gov
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will meet with
representatives of Exelon Generation Company on Wednesday, May
11, to discuss the agencys assessment of safety performance for
last year at the Braidwood Nuclear Power Plant. The plant is
located near Braidwood, Ill.
The meeting, which will be open to the public for observation,
is scheduled to begin at 4:30 p.m. at Fossil Ridge Library, 386
Kennedy Road, Braidwood.
Before the meeting is adjourned, NRC staff will be available to
answer questions from the public on the safety performance of
the Braidwood plant, as well as the role of the NRC in ensuring
safe plant operation.
The NRC continually reviews the performance of the Braidwood
plant and the nations other commercial nuclear power facilities,
NRC Region III Administrator James Caldwell said. This meeting
will provide an opportunity for a discussion of our annual
assessment of safety performance with the company and with local
officials and residents who live near the plant. Our goal is to
explain the NRC oversight process and make as much information
as possible available to the public regarding our regulation of
these facilities.
A letter sent from the NRC Region III Office to plant officials
addresses the performance of the plant during the period and
will serve as the basis for the meeting discussion. It is
available on the NRC web site at
http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/LETTERS/brai_2004q4.pdf
[PDF Icon] .
The NRCs assessment concluded that the Braidwood plant operated
safely during the period. The NRC uses color-coded inspection
findings and performance indicators to assess nuclear plant
performance. The colors start with green and then increase to
white, yellow or red, commensurate with the safety significance
of the issues involved.
All of the NRC inspection findings for Braidwood during 2004
were determined to be green. One Unit 1 performance indicator
was white, indicating low to moderate safety significance,
during the first quarter of 2004. This white performance
indicator stemmed from two failures of a backup cooling system
pump to operate during testing in 2003. A followup inspection by
the NRC showed the the Braidwood staff had taken appropriate
corrective action, and the performance indicator was returned to
green for the remainder of the year.
As a result of this performance, the NRC will conduct the
normal, baseline level of inspections during the upcoming year.
Routine inspections are performed by two NRC Resident Inspectors
assigned to the plant and by inspection specialists from the
Region III Office in Lisle, Ill., and the agencys headquarters
in Rockville, Md. Among the areas of plant operations to be
inspected this year by NRC specialists are safety system design,
maintenance, emergency planning, problem identification and
resolution, and worker radiation protection.
Current performance information for Braidwood is available on
the NRCs web site at:
http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/BRAI1/brai1_chart.html
and
http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/BRAI2/brai2_chart.html.
Last revised Monday, May 09, 2005
*****************************************************************
22 Bellona: Ignalina NPP’s closure may be postponed
Lithuania could have continued operation of the Ignalina nuclear
power plant.
2005-05-09 18:10
The decision to close it has been taken under pressure from the
West, said former Russian Atomic Energy Minister Yevgeny Adamov,
who is in the Swiss prison now . He was addressing the sitting
of the Ignalina commission in the Lithuanian parliament (Seim)
on April 13, RIA-Novosti reported.
He said that both power units of the Ignalina plant are as safe
as similar reactors of the same age in the West Europe and are
designed for 45 years service life. The first unit of the
Ignalina nuclear power plant, started up in 1983, has lifetime
until 2029 and the second unit until 2031, Adamov said. He noted
that all the investigation and design data shows that no grounds
exist for closing the Ignalina facility and it is "a purely
political decision".
Lithuania shut down the first Ignalina reactor (“Chernobyl”
type) on December 31, 2004, and pledged to put the entire plant
out of service by December 31, 2009. This was one of the
principal conditions for Lithuania's entering the European Union
in May 2004. The government of Lithuania has estimated the
Ignalina closure at three billion euros (including expenses on
the social sector).
Last March Lithuanian Prime Minister Algirdas Brazauskas said
that, "closure of the second power unit of the Ignalina plant by
2010 would be possible only if Lithuania joins the West European
energy system".
Publisher: Bellona Foundation, President: Frederic Hauge
Information: info@bellona.no, Technical contact:
webmaster@bellona.no
Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00 Telefax: +47 22 38 38 62 * P.O.Box
2141 Grunerlokka, 0505 Oslo, Norway
*****************************************************************
23 NRC: Sunshine Federal Register Notice
FR Doc 05-9263
[Federal Register: May 9, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 88)] [Notices]
[Page 24457] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access
[wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr09my05-86]
DATE: Weeks of May 9, 16, 23, 30, June 6, 13, 2005.
PLACE: Commissioners' Conference Room, 11155 Rockville Pike,
Rockville, Maryland.
STATUS: Public and Closed.
MATTERS TO BE CONSIDERED: Week of May 9, 2005 Wednesday, May 11,
2005 10:30 a.m. All Employees Meeting (Public Meeting) 1:30 p.m.
All Employees Meeting (Public Meeting) Thursday, May 12, 2005
10:45 a.m. Affirmation Session (Public Meeting) a. Final Rule to
Amend 10 CFR Part 110, ``Export and Import of Nuclear Equipment
and Materials; Security Policies'' Week of May 16,
2005--Tentative There are no meetings scheduled for the Week of
May 16, 2005.
Week of May 23, 2005--Tentative Monday, May 23, 2005 10 a.m.
Discussion of Intergovernmental Issues (Closed--Ex. 9) 1:30 p.m.
Discussion of Security Issues (Closed--Ex. 1) Wednesday, May 25,
2005 9:30 a.m. Briefing on Results of the Agency Action Review
Meeting (Public Meeting) (Contact: Lois James, 301-415-1112) This
meeting will be Webcast live at the Web
address--http://www.nrc.gov .
1:30 p.m. Briefing on Threat Environment Assessment (Closed--Ex.
1) Week of May 30, 2005--Tentative Wednesday, June 1, 2005 9:30
a.m. Discussion of Security Issues (Closed--Ex. 1) Thursday, June
2, 2005 9:30 a.m. Briefing on Office of International Programs
(OIP) Programs, Performance, and Plans (Public Meeting) (Contact:
Margie Doane, 301-415-2344) This meeting will be Webcast live at
the Web address--http://www.nrc.gov .
2:30 p.m. Discussion of Management Issues (Closed--Ex. 2 & 9)
Note: new time, originally scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Week of June
6, 2005--Tentative There are no meetings scheduled for the Week
of June 6, 2005.
Week of June 3, 2005--Tentative There are no meetings scheduled
for the Week of June 13, 2005.
The schedule for Commission meetings is subject to change on
short notice. To verify the status of meetings call (recording)--
(301) 415-1292. Contact person for more information: Dave
Gamberoni, (301) 415-1651.
* * * * * The NRC Commission Meeting Schedule can be found on the
Internet at:
http://www.nrc.gov/what-we-do/policy-making/schedule.html. * * *
* * The NRC provides reasonable accommodation to individuals with
disabilities where appropriate. If you need a reasonable
accommodation to participate in these public meetings, or need
this meeting notice or the transcript or other information from
the public meetings in another format (e.g. braille, large
print), please notify the NRC's Disability Program Coordinator,
August Spector, at 301-415-7080, TDD: 301-415- 2100, or by e-mail
at aks@nrc.gov. Determinations on requests for reasonable
accommodation will be made on a case-by-case basis.
* * * * * This notice is distributed by mail to several hundred
subscribers; if you no longer wish to receive it, or would like
to be added to the distribution, please contact the Office of the
Secretary, Washington, DC 20555 (301-415-1969). In addition,
distribution of this meeting notice over the Internet system is
available. If you are interested in receiving this Commission
meeting schedule electronically, please send an electronic
message to dkw@nrc.gov. Dated: May 4, 2005.
Dave Gamberoni, Office of the Secretary.
[FR Doc. 05-9263 Filed 5-5-05; 9:15 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-M
*****************************************************************
24 New Scientist: Nuclear plant closed after radioactive flood
[NewScientist.com]
Nuclear fuel reprocessing at the UK's Thermal Oxide Reprocessing
Plant (THORP) at Sellafield in Cumbria has been halted
indefinitely after a critical failure in the plant's pipe work.
The leak led to 83 cubic metres of a highly radioactive liquor
flooding the floor of a vast - but permanently unmanned -
processing area.
THORP is designed to extract plutonium and uranium from spent
nuclear fuel from around the world so a proportion of it can be
reused in power stations. The leaked material comes from near
the "front end" of the plant's process and is very highly
radioactive. The leaked liquor contained 20 tonnes of plutonium
and uranium dissolved in nitric acid.
Nigel Monckton, a spokesman for the British Nuclear Group, which
runs Sellafield on behalf of the UK’s nascent Nuclear
Decommissioning Authority (NDA), says the leak was discovered
after a camera-based inspection. The processing area viewed,
called a clarification cell, revealed where missing liquor from
another part of the process was pooling.
The cell comprises a stainless steel-lined space 60 metres long,
20 metres wide and 20 metres high and its concrete walls are 2
to 3 metres thick to absorb radiation. Monckton says the cell
was designed to withstand the possibility of a leak and, because
stainless steel does not dissolve in nitric acid, the leak has
been contained.
"There has been no radiation dose to Sellafield workers as a
result of the leak and no release of radioactivity into the
atmosphere," confirms a spokesman for the safety regulator, the
Nuclear Installations Inspectorate. Centrifugal forces
THORP’s raw materials are the used fuel rods from power
stations. After receipt, they are stored for several months to
allow the radioactivity of short-lived fission products to decay
to safer levels. Then the 1-metre long, 1-centimetre diameter
tubular rods are cut up into small chunks and lowered in baskets
into strong nitric acid.
The uranium, plutonium and fission products dissolve and the
remnants of the steel rods are removed. But the liquor still
contains small shards of steel, or tailings, from burrs created
as the rod was chopped up. So the liquor must be centrifuged to
get rid of the steel contaminants. It is at this "clarification"
stage that the leak occurred.
However, the halting of work at THORP is a mixed blessing for
anti-nuclear campaigners because the revenue the plant generates
is crucial to the clean-up and decommissioning of the UK's old
nuclear power stations.
About 25% of the NDA's Ł2.2 billion clean up budget for 2005 to
2006 was to have come from THORP. But with the plant out of
action until a safe plan can be devised for repairing the broken
pipe work and recovering the spilled liquor, revival of that
revenue stream looks uncertain. “This year’s budget is likely to
take a hit but it is too early to be absolutely clear by how
much," says Sir Anthony Cleaver, NDA chairman.
THORP engineers are hopeful they can recover the leaked liquor
without having to design any elaborate robotic systems to do so.
"The clarification cell is not designed for man access but is a
closed environment designed for the recovery of liquor back into
tanks," says Monckton. He thinks liquor recovery, if not
pipeline repair, can be done via clever use of the cell's pumps.
"We do have extensive experience of conducting this sort of
work," he says.
+ About NewScientist.com
*****************************************************************
25 Slovak Spectator: in SHORT Slovakia wants more plant closure money
Volume 11, Number 18
Slovakia's English language newspaper May 9 - May 15, 2005
From press reports
SLOVAKIA will ask the European Commission for more money to
close the V1 nuclear power plant in Jaslovské Bohunice on time,
the Pravda daily wrote.
The EC's original proposal to contribute €237 million (Sk9.4
billion) to Slovakia in the 2007-2013 period for the closure and
decommissioning of V1 was based on wrong data, according to the
Slovaks.
The proposal was calculated on estimates that put the cost of
closure and decommissioning of the plant at approximately €750
million.
[5/9/2005]
Copyright © 1998-2003 The Rock spol. s r.o. All rights
*****************************************************************
26 PTI: India, Russia agree to expand nuclear energy cooperation
May 9, 2005 08:47:00 PM
From M Shakeel Ahmed
Moscow, May 9 (PTI) Cementing their strategic ties, Russia today
expressed its readiness to further expand cooperation with India
in civilian nuclear energy, defence and space as the two sides
decided to set up a study group to examine the feasibility of a
comprehensive economic cooperation agreement.
At a meeting lasting more than the scheduled 30 minutes with
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, President Vladimir Putin
expressed Moscow's willingness to look into issues of civilian
nuclear energy cooperation with India, including the supply of
nuclear fuel for Tarapore plant and new nuclear power reactors.
During the talks, held in a very warm and cordial atmosphere,
"Putin agreed to look into these issues after the festivities of
the 60th anniversary of Nazi defeat were over," National
Security Advisor M K Narayanan told reporters here after the
meeting.
Russia is helping India in the construction of Kudankulam
nuclear power plant in Tamil Nadu under a deal signed in 1985 by
then Prime minister Rajiv Gandhi and erstwhile Soviet President
Mikhail Gorbachev.
However, after the break up of the USSR, Russia joined the
Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) which bans it from selling
civilian nuclear technology to non-signatories of the NPT,
including India. PTI
© Copyright PTI 2003-2004
*****************************************************************
27 PRN: Nuclear Energy Industry Sustains Near-Record Levels of Safety,
Operating Performance
[PR_Newswire]
Source: Nuclear Energy Institute
Monday May 9, 2:23 pm ET
WASHINGTON, May 9 /PRNewswire/ -- America's nuclear power plants,
providing electricity to one of every five U.S. homes and
businesses, continued to operate at high levels of efficiency and
safety in 2004, according to plant performance indicators
compiled by the World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO).
The U.S. nuclear energy industry set record-high levels of
electricity production and efficiency, while also nearing record
performance in areas including safety system performance, worker
safety and programs to protect workers from radiation exposure.
These areas are among the performance indicators tracked by
London-based WANO. The milestones were achieved even as many
facilities conducted major equipment replacement projects that
position the power plants to better serve customers and sustain
excellence over the long term.
In 2004, 103 nuclear power plants located in 31 states generated
788.5 billion kilowatt-hours (kwh) of electricity, enough to
supply electricity for 60 million people. Electricity production
in 2004 was one percent higher than the record-high 780 billion
kwh of electricity generated in 2002.
WANO reported the U.S. industry's unit capability factor -- a
measure of efficiency -- at 91.2 percent, equaling the
record-high achieved in 2002 and exceeding the industry goal set
for 2005. This is the fourth time in the past five years that
the median capability factor has topped 90 percent.
"The 2004 performance indicators are testament to the
professionalism and dedication to safety and excellence that are
exhibited on a daily basis by the men and women who work at
nuclear power plants across the nation," said NEI President and
Chief Executive Officer Skip Bowman. "The operational and safety
excellence that is being achieved is part and parcel of the
reason that clean nuclear energy is positioned to enhance U.S.
energy diversity and energy security in the decades to come."
The performance data compiled by WANO is analyzed by the
Atlanta-based Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (INPO),
which promotes excellence in U.S. nuclear power plant safety and
operations. INPO uses the data to help set challenging
benchmarks of excellence against which safety and plant
operation can be measured. Other highlights of the nuclear
energy industry's performance in 2004 include:
Unplanned Automatic Reactor Shutdowns: More than one-half (61 of
103) of reactors experienced zero unplanned automatic reactor
shutdowns, with an overall median industry value of zero per
plant. This is the seventh time in the past eight years that the
median industry value has been zero. In 2003, the only year in
that span when the median industry value was not zero (0.8 per
plant), nine unplanned shutdowns occurred during the Aug. 14
blackout that affected much of the Midwest and East Coast.
In 2004, the total number of unplanned automatic shutdowns was
59.
Safety System Performance. For the 10th straight year, 94
percent or more of key safety systems met industry goals for
availability. The three key safety systems are two main cooling
systems and back-up power supplies used to respond to unusual
situations.
Last year, 97 percent of the key safety systems met their
availability goals. Nuclear power plants are built with
redundant safety systems and backup power supplies so these
systems are available, if needed, even when maintenance is being
performed on a similar system or component.
To view charts of the WANO performance indicators for U.S.
nuclear power plants, go to the Nuclear Data section of NEI's
web site at http://www.nei.org.
The Nuclear Energy Institute is the nuclear energy industry's
policy organization. This news release and additional
information about nuclear energy are available on NEI's Internet
site at http://www.nei.org.
The Institute of Nuclear Power Operations is based in Atlanta
and was established by the nuclear industry in 1979 to promote
the highest levels of safety and reliability-to promote
excellence-in commercial nuclear plant operations.
The World Association of Nuclear Operators was created in 1989
to consolidate the efforts of nuclear operators worldwide to
enhance the safety and reliability of operating nuclear power
plants.
Source: Nuclear Energy Institute
*****************************************************************
28 Independent: Blair demands nuclear power to protect high 'living standards'
www.independent.co.uk
By Marie Woolf, Chief Political Correspondent
09 May 2005
Tony Blair has ruled out making changes to "living standards" to
tackle global warming, and is drawing up plans to build a new
generation of nuclear power stations to reduce carbon dioxide
emissions instead.
The Prime Minister has personally endorsed "keeping the nuclear
option open" and is planning a government statement on a change
of policy before the summer, in the face of opposition from
cabinet ministers, including Margaret Beckett, the Secretary of
State for the Environment. Mr Blair's decision to revive the
nuclear agenda was revealed two weeks ago by The Independent
which reported that Mr Blair's own strategy unit was working on
it.
Yesterday, a leaked government briefing document disclosed that
the nuclear option would be looked at soon after Parliament
returns. A paper by departmental civil servants for Alan
Johnson, the new Secretary of State for Productivity Energy and
Industry, proposes that building more nuclear power plants or
extending the lives of present ones should be a top priority for
the first months of Labour's third term. It stresses the "need
to act soon" and says there is a "case for looking at the
nuclear question quickly".
The paper says: "This formula to 'keep the nuclear option open'
was a compromise endorsed by the PM, between ministers for and
against. The question is whether we need to decide now (bearing
in mind that it is generally easier to push ahead on
controversial issues early in a new Parliament).
It says nuclear should be looked at as an option for tackling
climate change and protecting the energy supply. But it adds:
"CO2 emissions have been rising in recent years. We look to be
falling well short of the goal to cut them by 20 per cent by
2010."
The revival of nuclear power is bolstered by the Prime
Minister's admission that he is opposed to asking people to make
changes to their lifestyle - such as buying energy-efficient
refrigerators or taking the Eurostar instead of flights to
Europe - to reduce global warming. Mr Blair has said publicly
there is no political will to force people to make lifestyle
changes to less fuel-hungry cars or energy-efficient lightbulbs.
His remarks infuriated the Green movement: Stephen Tindale,
director of Greenpeace, said: "He is implying that anyone who is
against nuclear is in favour of making people go back and live
in caves. It's absolutely ridiculous. He is saying he is not
asking anyone to make any choices to protect the living
standards of children in the future."
The move to build more nuclear power stations while discounting
lifestyle changes is also opposed by Labour MPs and Whitehall
officials. Civil servants say it could weaken the Government's
case against nuclear proliferation involving states such as Iran
and North Korea. They criticised Mr Blair for ruling out
"lifestyle changes".
One said: "Getting an energy-efficient fridge is not going to
change lifestyle. The push for nuclear is coming from the
nuclear companies and their fellow-travellers in Government.
There is no real urgency to take this particular decision,
especially if it spreads yet more confusion. It could destroy UK
credibility on climate change during the G8 and EU presidency."
©2005 Independent News &Media (UK) Ltd.
*****************************************************************
29 Boston.com Op-ed / Why nuclear power is not the answer
The Boston Globe
By Philip Warburg | May 9, 2005
PRESIDENT BUSH is once again playing word games that mask a
deeply flawed energy policy. The chief proponent of ''clear
skies," a legislative assault on essential pollution protections
in the Clean Air Act, is now advocating for ''safe, clean
nuclear power" as a way to curb our dependence on foreign oil.
Bush would have us believe that new nukes could be a panacea,
ending our dependence on foreign oil while preventing emissions
of perilous greenhouse gases whether or not the president admits
there is such a thing as ''global warming."
Few Americans would think to use the words ''safe" and ''clean"
to describe an industry whose high-level radioactive wastes sit
in temporary storage at dozens of operating and decommissioned
plants across the country, with experts still unable to agree
upon an adequate means of long-term disposal.
There are also economic reasons for looking skeptically at
nuclear power. Over the course of the last 50 years, billions of
taxpayer dollars have been showered upon the nuclear industry,
and it still remains only marginally profitable. The energy bill
that the president is now pushing would authorize major
expenditures on new reactor designs while providing free federal
insurance protection in the event of a power plant disaster. If
nuclear power is so safe and clean, why is this extraordinary
level of government buffering needed?
Assuming the president is serious about advancing a more
environmentally sound energy agenda, he will need to revisit his
opposition to known and practical ways of cleaning up our
nation's coal-fired power plants. Rather than looking enviously
toward France, with its 78 percent dependence on nuclear power,
he should take responsibility for our own power sector, which is
51 percent dependent on coal. That coal, if burned in
state-of-the-art facilities, can meet much of our electricity
needs for the coming generation at much lower environmental cost
than the antiquated behemoths that today are allowed to belch
out millions of tons of uncontrolled sulfur dioxide and nitrogen
oxides into the atmosphere.
Cleaning up coal-fired power plants also calls for creative
measures to reduce those plants' emissions of carbon dioxide,
the primary greenhouse gas targeted by the Kyoto Protocol. Faced
with the Bush administration's refusal to ratify the protocol,
the governors of 10 Northeast states have begun to advance their
own Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. This flexible
''cap-and-trade" program, if done right, will scale back carbon
dioxide emissions through a flexible diet that will include
retooling conventional power plants, investing in energy
efficiency, and tapping renewable energy like wind and solar.
To ease our transition from fossil fuels over the coming
decades, cleaner-burning natural gas is a vital resource.
Ensuring a safe and adequate supply of this fuel is no small
challenge, however. We need to advance a responsible process of
gauging the actual need for new gas supplies and evaluating
sites for import facilities. Offshore terminals as well as
remote onshore sites need to be rigorously examined.
Looking beyond fossil fuels, we need to provide real incentives
for renewable energy technology. If wind energy were a priority,
we would see industrial-scale facilities cutting into fossil
fuel-based power production throughout the nation. These and
other renewable resource-based facilities could achieve what has
already been attained in Denmark, where wind energy alone
provides close to 20 percent of the nation's electricity.
To be sure, renewable energy has its flaws. Solar can be costly;
wind can mar pristine landscapes and ocean horizons; and hydro
dams can disrupt fish habitats. But if sited carefully and
operated intelligently, each can contribute substantially.
A ''safe, clean" US energy policy will also require a major
investment in the right forms of transportation. Accessible and
affordable public transit is our best antidote to car-dependent
sprawl. Governor Mitt Romney should be held accountable for
longstanding, unfulfilled transit commitments made in connection
with the ''Big Dig" highway project.
More hopefully, several states in the Northeast including
Massachusetts are advancing ''clean car" regulations that echo
the tough emission standards pioneered by California's
Legislature.
A bright energy future that offers cleaner air and lower costs
to consumers while standing against the rising tide of global
warming is possible. But we must act now, pursuing multiple
avenues for innovation and investment rather than
single-technology panaceas.
Philip Warburg is president of the Conservation Law Foundation,
New England's oldest and largest environmental advocacy
organization.
*****************************************************************
30 ITAR-TASS: Russia may build more n-power reactors in India
09.05.2005, 17.24
MOSCOW, May 9 (Itar-Tass) -- Russia may build more nuclear power
rectors in India, Russian presidential aide Sergei Prikhodko has
told Tass after talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin
and Indian Prime-Minister Manmohan Singh.
Russia is currently building the Kudankulam nuclear power plant
in southern India.
“The Indian side is very much interested in Russia’s
participation in efforts to build up production capacities,”
Prikhodko said, adding that India’s demand for electricity was
growing.
Prikhodko said “there are certain issues involving Russia’s
commitments to the group of nuclear providers and the scale of
cooperation depends on that group.”
“There are opportunities for further progress, though,” he said.
Singh invited Putin to set up a separate Russian-Indian working
group that would focus on the intensification of trading and
economic ties and the drafting of a new agreement, Prikhodko
said.
“Russia is most of all worried by the lagging behind in the
trading and economic sphere from the level of the political
dialogue.
“Bilateral trade is a little over 3 billion dollars and its
structure cannot but satisfy us,” the presidential aide said.
Putin and Singh “discussed in detail military-technological
cooperation and wider cooperation in the nuclear power
industry.”
Prikhodko recalled that the Indian president was scheduled to
visit Moscow at the end of May. At the end of October-November
the Indian prime minister would visit Russia again.
“The dates of the visit will be agreed later,” Prikhodko said.
Putin and Singh were unanimous that India’s outstanding rupee
debt to Russia might be used in cooperation in the high
technology sphere.
“How the rupee debt may be used for high technology cooperation
is a separate theme,” Prikhodko said. “Earlier the debt was used
to import Indian goods. Now its uses may be spread to such
spheres as communications information technologies and space
research.”
© ITAR-TASS. All rights reserved. You undertake not to copy,
*****************************************************************
31 Brattleboro Reformer: Lawmakers focus on VY
May 09, 2005 Brattleboro, VT
By ROSS SNEYD
Associated Press
MONTPELIER -- A delicate series of talks about whether Vermont
Yankee will be able to store more high level nuclear waste on
plant grounds -- and whether its owner otherwise will close it
down -- are likely to wrap up this week, although their outcome
still is uncertain.
Members of the House Natural Resources Committee have been
trying for several weeks to frame a deal that would allow Yankee
to store its spent nuclear fuel in dry casks.
Publicly, those talks have reached a virtual impasse because
lawmakers insist that Yankee should have to pay for the
privilege of storing more waste at the site in Vernon and the
electric generator's owner, Entergy Nuclear, has said it's
unwilling and unable to make such a payment. Entergy has said if
a fee or a tax were imposed it would simply close the plant that
employs 600 people, supplies one-third of the state's power
needs, and sells it below the prevailing market price.
Privately, though, a potential solution has been found and all
of the parties have been quietly trying to work out a compromise
in the very public setting of the Statehouse. Several people
involved in the negotiations say they might be resolved this
week.
The solution that several people involved in the talks believe
will be reached would allow each side to claim some sort of
victory. The broad outlines call for Entergy to get legislative
permission for its dry cask storage without any tax or fee. The
specifics of what the dry cask storage site would look like and
how it would be designed to protect the environment would be
spelled out in a memorandum of understanding with the state
Public Service Department.
The Legislature's desire to get a payment from Entergy would
not be tied to dry cask storage but would come from the
company's pending request to boost the amount of power produced
at Yankee by 20 percent. The Douglas administration already has
negotiated that Entergy will pay the state $20 million for the
right to increase its power production. Since then, the market
price for electricity has shot up, making the 20 percent boost
much more lucrative.
So state officials have been told that Entergy would be willing
to consider raising the $20 million payment, although no one has
said by how much. The higher payment would be worked out in a
separate memorandum of understanding with the Douglas
administration and would not be directly tied to the dry cask
storage legislation.
House Speaker Gaye Symington said she was committed to
guaranteeing that the state won something for allowing the
high-level waste to remain in the state. "Chairman Dostis
doesn't have the votes for that to come out of committee without
revenues and restoring the balance to Vermonters if we're going
to be storing radioactive waste within our borders," she said.
She referred to House Natural Resources Committee Chairman
Robert Dostis, D-Waterbury, who has been leading the talks for
the Legislature.
Entergy officials have declined to discuss any deal that may be
worked out. "We have been talking with folks from the House
Natural Resources Committee and they are in the process of
putting together a proposal for what they'd like to see as part
of the dry storage approval process," said Brian Cosgrove, a
spokesman at the Vernon plant. "Our position has been and
continues to be that dry fuel storage is something that is
necessary for Entergy and for the consumers of the state of
Vermont. Dry fuel storage is mutually beneficial for everyone."
When Vermont Yankee began operating in 1972, its spent nuclear
fuel was supposed to be shipped at some point in the future to a
federal dump. That repository, now planned for Yucca Mountain in
Nevada, has never opened and there is no prospect for it in the
near future. So Yankee's fuel has been stored in a large pool of
water at the plant. But that pool is filling up and there will
be no more room by 2008. It will be full a year earlier if
Yankee wins federal permission to boost its power output.
Copyright © 2005 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This
*****************************************************************
32 [du-list] Bush plans to sell Israel 100 'bunker buster' weapons
Date: Mon, 09 May 2005 15:49:05 -0700
Bush plans to sell Israel 100 'bunker buster' weapons
Thur., Apr. 28, 2005 Pacifica
http://www.pacifica.org/programs/fsrn/fsrn_050428.html
The Bush administration is moving ahead with plans to sell
to the state of Israel 100 of the notorious "bunker buster"
weapons that use depleted uranium. Eun-young Chough reports
from D.C.
Italians are rejecting a US report that absolves the
soldiers who killed an Italian intelligence officer while he
was escorting a former hostage home. Diletta Varlesce has
more from Brescia.
Mexico's Attorney General is resigning after political
wrangling over whether he should pursue corruption charges
against the leading presidential candidate. Shannon Young
reports from Oaxaca.
Students around the nation are demanding that service
workers on their campuses receive living wages and better
working conditions. Selina Musuta reports on the most recent
struggle at Howard University.
Police in Port-au-Prince claim they fired upon a crowd of
protestors only after someone shot at them first. All
reports confirm that five protestors died, but there is no
corroborating evidence to support the police assertion.
Demonstrators were demanding the return of President Jean
Bertrand Aristide who was ousted in a US coup d'etat last
year under accusations of corruption. This month US
officials admitted to ignoring an embargo and providing
weapons to Haitian security forces. They justified the
action by saying police need to control violence with more
armaments. Presidential elections are scheduled take place
in November of this year.
--
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33 [du-list] Horror Of US Depleted Uranium In Iraq Threatens World
Date: Mon, 09 May 2005 15:48:52 -0700
1- Horror Of US Depleted Uranium In Iraq Threatens World
2- A deadly dusting
3- Australians Driven into the firing line
4- US: Radioactive War Crimes
--
Horror Of US Depleted Uranium In Iraq Threatens World
American Use Of DU is "A crime against humanity which may, in
the eyes of historians, rank with the worst atrocities of
all time."
US Iraq Military Vets "are on DU death row, waiting to die."
By James Denver
4-29-5 Rense.com
http://www.rense.com/general64/du.htm
http://www.vivelecanada.ca/article.php/20050429121615724
"I'm horrified. The people out there - the Iraqis, the media
and the troops - risk the most appalling ill health. And the
radiation from depleted uranium can travel literally
anywhere. It's going to destroy the lives of thousands of
children, all over the world. We all know how far radiation
can travel. Radiation from Chernobyl reached Wales and in
Britain you sometimes get red dust from the Sahara on your car."
The speaker is not some alarmist doom-sayer. He is Dr. Chris
Busby, the British radiation expert, Fellow of the
University of Liverpool in the Faculty of Medicine and UK
representative on the European Committee on Radiation Risk,
talking about the best-kept secret of this war: the fact
that, by illegally using hundreds of tons of depleted
uranium (DU) against Iraq, Britain and America have gravely
endangered not only the Iraqis but the whole world.
For these weapons have released deadly, carcinogenic and
mutagenic, radioactive particles in such abundance
that-whipped up by sandstorms and carried on trade winds -
there is no corner of the globe they cannot
penetrate-including Britain. For the wind has no boundaries
and time is on their side: the radioactivity persists for
over 4,500,000,000 years and can cause cancer, leukemia,
brain damage, kidney failure, and extreme birth defects -
killing millions of every age for centuries to come. A crime
against humanity which may, in the eyes of historians, rank
with the worst atrocities of all time.
These weapons have released deadly, carcinogenic and
mutagenic, radioactive particles in such abundance that
there is no corner of the globe they cannot penetrate -
including Britain. Yet, officially, no crime has been
committed. For this story is a dirty story in which the
facts have been concealed from those who needed them most.
It is also a story we need to know if the people of Iraq are
to get the medical care they desperately need, and if our
troops, returning from Iraq, are not to suffer as terribly
as the veterans of other conflicts in which depleted uranium
was used.
A Dirty Tyson
'Depleted' uranium is in many ways a misnomer. For
'depleted' sounds weak. The only weak thing about depleted
uranium is its price. It is dirt cheap, toxic, waste from
nuclear power plants and bomb production. However, uranium
is one of earth's heaviest elements and DU packs a Tyson's
punch, smashing through tanks, buildings and bunkers with
equal ease, spontaneously catching fire as it does so, and
burning people alive. 'Crispy critters' is what US
servicemen call those unfortunate enough to be close. And,
when John Pilger encountered children killed at a greater
distance he wrote: "The children's skin had folded back,
like parchment, revealing veins and burnt flesh that seeped
blood, while the eyes, intact, stared straight ahead. I
vomited." (Daily Mirror)
The millions of radioactive uranium oxide particles released
when it burns can kill just as surely, but far more
terribly. They can even be so tiny they pass through a gas
mask, making protection against them impossible. Yet, small
is not beautiful. For these invisible killers
indiscriminately attack men, women, children and even babies
in the womb-and do the gravest harm of all to children and
unborn babies.
A Terrible Legacy
Doctors in Iraq have estimated that birth defects have
increased by 2-6 times, and 3-12 times as many children have
developed cancer and leukaemia since 1991. Moreover, a
report published in The Lancet in 1998 said that as many as
500 children a day are dying from these sequels to war and
sanctions and that the death rate for Iraqi children under 5
years of age increased from 23 per 1000 in 1989 to 166 per
thousand in 1993. Overall, cases of lymphoblastic leukemia
more than quadrupled with other cancers also increasing 'at
an alarming rate'. In men, lung, bladder, bronchus, skin,
and stomach cancers showed the highest increase. In women,
the highest increases were in breast and bladder cancer, and
non-Hodgkin lymphoma.1
On hearing that DU had been used in the Gulf in 1991, the UK
Atomic Energy Authority sent the Ministry of Defense a
special report on the potential damage to health and the
environment. It said that it could cause half a million
additional cancer deaths in Iraq over 10 years. In that war
the authorities only admitted to using 320 tons of
DU-although the Dutch charity LAKA estimates the true figure
is closer to 800 tons. Many times that may have been spread
across Iraq by this year's war. The devastating damage all
this DU will do to the health and fertility of the people of
Iraq now, and for generations to come, is beyond imagining.
The radioactivity persists for over 4,500,000,000 years
killing millions of every age for centuries to come. This is
a crime against humanity which may rank with the worst
atrocities of all time.
We must also count the numberless thousands of miscarried
babies. Nobody knows how many Iraqis have died in the womb
since DU contaminated their world. But it is suggested that
troops who were only exposed to DU for the brief period of
the war were still excreting uranium in their semen 8 years
later and some had 100 times the so-called 'safe limit' of
uranium in their urine. The lack of government interest in
the plight of veterans of the 1991 war is reflected in a
lack of academic research on the impact of DU but informal
research has found a high incidence of birth defects in
their children and that the wives of men who served in Iraq
have three times more miscarriages than the wives of
servicemen who did not go there.
Since DU darkened the land Iraq has seen birth defects which
would break a heart of stone: babies with terribly
foreshortened limbs, with their intestines outside their
bodies, with huge bulging tumors where their eyes should be,
or with a single eye-like Cyclops, or without eyes, or
without limbs, and even without heads. Significantly, some
of the defects are almost unknown outside textbooks showing
the babies born near A-bomb test sites in the Pacific.
Doctors report that many women no longer say 'Is it a girl
or a boy?' but simply, 'Is it normal, doctor?' Moreover this
terrible legacy will not end. The genes of their parents may
have been damaged for ever, and the damaging DU dust is
ever-present.
Blue on Blue
What the governments of America and Britain have done to the
people of Iraq they have also done to their own soldiers, in
both wars. And they have done it knowingly. For the
battlefields have been thick with DU and soldiers have had
to enter areas heavily contaminated by bombing. Moreover,
their bodies have not only been assaulted by DU but also by
a vaccination regime which violated normal protocols,
experimental vaccines, nerve agent pills, and
organophosphate pesticides in their tents. Yet, though the
hazards of DU were known, British and American troops were
not warned of its dangers. Nor were they given thorough
medical checks on their return-even though identifying it
quickly might have made it possible to remove some of it
from their body. Then, when a growing number became
seriously ill, and should have been sent to top experts in
radiation damage and neurotoxins, many were sent to a
psychiatrist.
Over 200,000 US troops who returned from the 1991 war are
now invalided out with ailments officially attributed to
service in Iraq-that's 1 in 3. In contrast, the British
government's failure to fully assess the health of returning
troops, or to monitor their health, means no one even knows
how many have died or become gravely ill since their return.
However, Gulf veterans' associations say that, of 40,000 or
so fighting fit men and women who saw active service, at
least 572 have died prematurely since coming home and 5000
may be ill. An alarming number are thought to have taken
their own lives, unable to bear the torment of the
innumerable ailments which have combined to take away their
career, their sexuality, their ability to have normal
children, and even their ability to breathe or walk
normally. As one veteran puts it, they are 'on DU death row,
waiting to die'.
Whatever other factors there may be, some of their illnesses
are strikingly similar to those of Iraqis exposed to DU
dust. For example, soldiers have also fathered children
without eyes. And, in a group of eight servicemen whose
babies lack eyes seven are known to have been directly
exposed to DU dust.
They too have fathered children with stunted arms, and rare
abnormalities classically associated with radiation damage.
They too seem prone to cancer and leukemia. Tellingly, so
are EU soldiers who served as peacekeepers in the Balkans,
where DU was also used. Indeed their leukemia rate has been
so high that several EU governments have protested at the
use of DU.
The Vital Evidence
Despite all that evidence of the harm done by DU,
governments on both sides of the Atlantic have repeatedly
claimed that as it emits only 'low level' radiation DU is
harmless. Award-winning scientist, Dr. Rosalie Bertell who
has led UN medical commissions, has studied 'low-level'
radiation for 30 years. 2 She has found that uranium oxide
particles have more than enough power to harm cells, and
describes their pulses of radiation as hitting surrounding
cells 'like flashes of lightning' again and again in a
single second.2 Like many scientists worldwide who have
studied this type of radiation, she has found that such
'lightning strikes' can damage DNA and cause cell mutations
which lead to cancer.
Moreover, these particles can be taken up by body fluids and
travel through the body, damaging more than one organ. To
compound all that, Dr. Bertell has found that this
particular type of radiation can cause the body's
communication systems to break down, leading to malfunctions
in many vital organs of the body and to many medical
problems. A striking fact, since many veterans of the first
Gulf war suffer from innumerable, seemingly unrelated, ailments.
In addition, recent research by Eric Wright, Professor of
Experimental Haematology at Dundee University, and others,
have shown two ways in which such radiation can do far more
damage than has been thought. The first is that a cell which
seems unharmed by radiation can produce cells with diverse
mutations several cell generations later. (And mutations are
at the root of cancer and birth defects.) This
'radiation-induced genomic instability' is compounded by
'the bystander effect' by which cells mutate in unison with
others which have been damaged by radiation-rather as birds
swoop and turn in unison. Put together, these two mechanisms
can greatly increase the damage done by a single source of
radiation, such as a DU particle. Moreover, it is now clear
that there are marked genetic differences in the way
individuals respond to radiation-with some being far more
likely to develop cancer than others. So the fact that some
veterans of the first Gulf war seem relatively unharmed by
their exposure to DU in no way proves that DU did not damage
others.
The Price of Truth
That the evidence from Iraq and from our troops, and the
research findings of such experts, have been ignored may be
no accident. A US report, leaked in late 1995, allegedly
says, 'The potential for health effects from DU exposure is
real; however it must be viewed in perspective... the
financial implications of long-term disability payments and
healthcare costs would be excessive.'3
Clearly, with hundreds of thousands gravely ill in Iraq and
at least a quarter of a million UK and US troops seriously
ill, huge disability claims might be made not only against
the governments of Britain and America if the harm done by
DU were acknowledged. There might also be huge claims
against companies making DU weapons and some of their
directors are said to be extremely close to the White House.
How close they are to Downing Street is a matter for
speculation, but arms sales makes a considerable
contribution to British trade. So the massive whitewashing
of DU over the past 12 years, and the way that governments
have failed to test returning troops, seemed to disbelieve
them, and washed their hands of them, may be purely to save
money.
The possibility that financial considerations have led the
governments of Britain and America to cynically avoid taking
responsibility for the harm they have done not only to the
people of Iraq but to their own troops may seem outlandish.
Yet DU weapons weren't used by the other side and no other
explanation fits the evidence. For, in the days before
Britain and America first used DU in war its hazards were no
secret.4 One American study in 1990 said DU was 'linked to
cancer when exposures are internal, [and to] chemical
toxicity-causing kidney damage'. While another openly warned
that exposure to these particles under battlefield
conditions could lead to cancers of the lung and bone,
kidney damage, non-malignant lung disease, neuro-cognitive
disorders, chromosomal damage and birth defects.5
A Culture of Denial
In 1996 and 1997 UN Human Rights Tribunals condemned DU
weapons for illegally breaking the Geneva Convention and
classed them as 'weapons of mass destruction' 'incompatible
with international humanitarian and human rights law'. Since
then, following leukemia in European peacekeeping troops in
the Balkans and Afghanistan (where DU was also used), the EU
has twice called for DU weapons to be banned.
Yet, far from banning DU, America and Britain stepped up
their denials of the harm from this radioactive dust as more
and more troops from the first Gulf war and from action and
peacekeeping in the Balkans and Afghanistan have become
seriously ill. This is no coincidence. In 1997, while citing
experiments, by others, in which 84 percent of dogs exposed
to inhaled uranium died of cancer of the lungs, Dr. Asaf
Durakovic, then Professor of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine
at Georgetown University in Washington was quoted as saying,
'The [US government's] Veterans Administration asked me to
lie about the risks of incorporating depleted uranium in the
human body.' He concluded, 'uranium does cause cancer,
uranium does cause mutation, and uranium does kill. If we
continue with the irresponsible contamination of the
biosphere, and denial of the fact that human life is
endangered by the deadly isotope uranium, then we are doing
disservice to ourselves, disservice to the truth, disservice
to God and to all generations who follow.' Not what the
authorities wanted to hear and his research was suddenly
blocked.
During 12 years of ever-growing British whitewash the
authorities have abolished military hospitals, where there
could have been specialized research on the effects of DU
and where expertise in treating DU victims could have built
up. And, not content with the insult of suggesting the
gravely disabling symptoms of Gulf veterans are imaginary
they have refused full pensions to many. For, despite all
the evidence to the contrary, the current House of Commons
briefing paper on DU hazards says 'it is judged that any
radiation effects from possible exposures are extremely
unlikely to be a contributory factor to the illnesses
currently being experienced by some Gulf war veterans.' Note
how over a quarter of a million sick and dying US and UK
vets are called 'some'.
The Way Ahead
Britain and America not only used DU in this year's Iraq
war, they dramatically increased its use-from a minimum of
320 tons in the previous war to at minimum of 1500 tons in
this one. And this time the use of DU wasn't limited to
anti-tank weapons-as it had largely been in the previous
Gulf war-but was extended to the guided missiles, large
bunker busters and big 2000-pound bombs used in Iraq's
cities. This means that Iraq's cities have been blanketed in
lethal particles-any one of which can cause cancer or deform
a child. In addition, the use of DU in huge bombs which
throw the deadly particles higher and wider in huge plumes
of smoke means that billions of deadly particles have been
carried high into the air-again and again and again as the
bombs rained down-ready to be swept worldwide by the winds.
The Royal Society has suggested the solution is massive
decontamination in Iraq. That could only scratch the
surface. For decontamination is hugely expensive and, though
it may reduce the risks in some of the worst areas, it
cannot fully remove them. For DU is too widespread on land
and water. How do you clean up every nook and cranny of a
city the size of Baghdad? How can they decontaminate a whole
country in which microscopic particles, which cannot be
detected with a normal geiger counter, are spread from
border to border? And how can they clean up all the
countries downwind of Iraq-and, indeed, the world?
So there are only two things we can do to mitigate this
crime against humanity. The first is to provide the best
possible medical care for the people of Iraq, for our
returning troops and for those who served in the last Gulf
war and, through that, minimize their suffering. The second
is to relegate war, and the production and sale of weapons,
to the scrap heap of history-along with slavery and
genocide. Then, and only then, will this crime against
humanity be expunged, and the tragic deaths from this war
truly bring freedom to the people of Iraq, and of the world.
References
1. The Lancet volume 351, issue 9103, 28 February 1998.
2. Rosalie Bertell's book Planet Earth the Latest Weapon of
War was reviewed in Caduceus issue 51, page 28.
3. http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/du_ii/du_ii_tabl1
. htm#TAB L_Research Report Summaries
4. www.wagingpeace.org/articles/02.01/020117moret.htm
The secret official memorandum to Brigadier General
L.R.Groves from Drs Conant, Compton and Urey of War
Department Manhattan district dated October 1943 is
available at the website
www.mindfully.org/Nucs/2003/Leuren-Moret-Gen-Grove s21feb03.htm
5. http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/du_iitab11.
htm#tab L_research report summaries
Further information
The Low Level Radiation Campaign hopes to be able to arrange
a limited number of private urine tests for those returning
from the latest Gulf war. It can be contacted at: The Knoll,
Montpelier Park, Llandrindod Wells, LD1 5LW. 01597 824771.
Web: www.llrc.org
James Denver writes and broadcasts internationally on
science and technology.
----
A deadly dusting
April 29, 2005 Sydney Morning Herald
by Paul McGeough
http://www.smh.com.au/news/World/A-deadly-dusting/2005/04/28/1114635692382.html
WHAT IT IS
A dense, toxic and radioactive by-product of the manufacture
of nuclear weapons and reactor fuel. The US and Britain use
it in armour-piercing shells and bullets.
WHAT IT DOES
Its toxic ingredient is the U-238 isotope, which has a
half-life of about 4.5 billion years. As it gradually breaks
down, the isotope produces protactinium-234, the radiation
which can cause cancer and, possibly, birth defects.
HOW IT SPREADS
When a depleted-uranium round hammers into a target, up to
70 per cent of the projectile can burn on impact, creating
an explosion of particles. The residue is a fine dust of
insoluble uranium that may become part of the food chain as
it is carried on the wind, or absorbed into the human body,
or into plants and animals. Once in the soil it can increase
uranium levels in ground water by a factor of 100, the
United Nations Environmental Program says.
----
Australians Driven into the firing line
April 29, 2005 Sydney Morning Herald
http://www.smh.com.au/news/World/Driven-into-the-firing-line/2005/04/28/1114635692373.html?oneclick=true
Radiation levels and armoured vehicles are hot topics for
Australians, writes Paul McGeough.
Australian Colonel Andrew Nikolic ticks off the boxes with
the supreme confidence of a man who in time will be proved
right - or, as can often be the case in Iraq, not. Anxiety
among Australian soldiers serving in Iraq - and their
families back home - could be forgiven in the wake of the
continuing debate on depleted uranium.
Much of the scientific and medical case against depleted
uranium has been countered with stonewalling by military
authorities in the US and Britain - instead of reasoned or
detailed scientific research, if it exists.
The same goes for reports about the lack of armoured
protection for American soldiers in Humvees which are so
badly protected that the soldiers scavenge for scrap metal
to better shield themselves and their vehicles.
As Australian representative on the Al-Muthanna Task Group
in Iraq, Nikolic is stationed at the US-led coalition's
southern headquarters in Basra, from which it commands the
country's four southernmost provinces. Asked about
Australian Defence Force preparations to ensure peace of
mind for the 450 diggers now assembling at Camp Smitty, a
four-hour drive north-west of Basra, Nikolic said radiation
by depleted uranium contamination and the safety of the
ASLAV (Australian light armoured vehicle) troop carriers in
which they will go on patrol had been dealt with.
An Australian hazardous materials team had examined Camp
Smitty, just south of the town of Samawa, and given it a
clean bill of health, "except for the flies", he said.
The research team had access to reports on depleted uranium
testing in the area which had revealed nothing more than
"normal background" levels of radiation, Australian military
sources say.
Though there were reported depleted uranium strikes in
Al-Muthanna province during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the
military emphasises that the problematic areas were closer
to Basra.
Placing his confidence in Australian firepower, mobility and
the troop carriers' armour, Nikolic argued that all were
commensurate with the level of threat faced by the troops.
"I don't want to downplay the level of the threat, but in
terms of violence in Iraq, you need to note that only 2 per
cent of incidents have occurred in the southern four
provinces and most of those have been in the eastern areas;
we're in the west," he said.
"The ASLAV is different to the Humvee. Ours is a
six-wheeled, medium-recognisance vehicle with a high level
of force protection."
The Australians in Al-Muthanna have two key tasks: to
provide security for Japanese forces engaging in
reconstruction work and to train new Iraqi military units.
The Japanese are expected to continue to provide their own
"close-in" security and the Australian forces will be
expected to roam at greater distances in the sparsely
populated desert region, operating as a quick reaction force
to deal with - and hopefully prevent - insurgency strikes.
Two of the Dutch contingent from which the Australians are
taking over died in such attacks and a series of mortars
have been lobbed into the Japanese main compound.
If the insurgency gives greater attention to Al-Muthanna
than it has in the past, those long-range patrols could
expose the Australians to the roadside bombing and other
tactics which have been used incessantly against American
and Iraqi forces.
The positioning of Australian trainers in Iraqi military
training camps also is likely to expose them to greater
risks than the Dutch faced.
Working with the British, the Australians will be setting up
a regional training centre for the Iraqi military - again,
that is the sort of establishment that might prove
irresistible to the insurgents, especially if they were
squeezed out of their current areas of operation and forced
to find new turf.
But for now the Australian commander at Camp Smitty,
Lieutenant-Colonel Roger Noble, appears to be more concerned
about how local people, rather than insurgency raiding
parties, perceive the new troops in their midst.
Speaking to the Herald after Monday's Anzac Day dawn service
at the camp, he said he was considering removing a
heavy-steel protective shield added to the troop carriers
for the Iraq mission.
The grille-like frames are attached to all four sides of the
machines.
But while they might thwart projectiles thrown or fired at
them, they also send an implicit message of distrust to the
entire community that Noble said he wanted his men to
befriend in a "hearts and minds" campaign.
----
US: Radioactive War Crimes
by Stephanie Hiller
Friday, April 29, 2005 Navhind Times
http://www.navhindtimes.com/stories.php?part=news&Story_ID=04291
MOST of the world knows of the horrors of depleted uranium
(DU), especially the people of Bosnia, Serbia, Afghanistan
and Iraq, who have all experienced first hand the eerie
blaze, the charred remains of incinerated soldiers, the
cancers, the gruesome birth defects.Yet the Pentagon
continues to insist that DU is "only slightly radioactive",
the mainstream media has buried the story, and Americans
remain largely unaware of the pernicious damage of this
sophisticated weaponry.
Thousands of sick war veterans tell a different story.
Thanks to determined activists and alternative periodicals,
the truth is coming out, and peace organisations are
beginning to take a stand.
On February 11, 2005, Ms Melissa Sterry, a war veteran from
the second Gulf-War, testified at a hearing before
Connecticut legislators that her crippling symptoms are due
to radiation from depleted uranium weapons. Under
consideration is a bill that would require that Connecticut
National Guard troops now serving in Iraq and Afghanistan be
properly screened and treated for depleted uranium
contamination.
Like most war veterans suffering from the devastating
symptoms of so-called "Gulf War Syndrome," Ms Sterry stated
that she has received no help from the department of
veterans affairs, because the government insists that its
studies show depleted uranium "won't cause any long-term
health risks". More than half the veterans from the first
Gulf War are disabled; Ms Sterry testified that exposure
during the second war was even worse.
Depleted uranium or U-238 is a waste product from the
uranium enrichment process used to extract the tiny amount
of highly radioactive U-235 used in nuclear reactors from
natural uranium. U-238 is at least 60 per cent as
radioactive as the raw uranium.
But DU is pyroforic, which means it ignites spontaneously,
releasing a cloud of radioactive alpha particles in a
25-mile radius. The particles have a half-life of 4.5
billion years.
When a highly charged alpha particle enters the body through
inhalation or ingestion, it behaves like a tiny bomb lodged
in the tissues. DU is also chemically toxic, causing kidney
damage.
DU is used in shells, tanks, armor, and some warheads. Its
value to the Pentagon lies in its superior penetration
capability. According to unofficial estimates, between 1,000
and 4,000 tonne DU has been used since the first Gulf War.
--
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34 Korea Herald: IAEA: N. Korea has up to 6 nuclear bombs
(smjoo@heraldm.com) By Joo Sang-min and news reports
2005.05.10
As the United Nations nuclear watchdog estimated North Korea may
have up to six nuclear bombs, key questions being asked here are
whether the North plans an imminent test and will it be exploded
underground or launched atop a missile.
Analysts say that since Pyongyang announced Feb. 10 it has
nuclear weapons, the presumption is that its next step will be
to conduct a test, sooner or later.
But analysts are divided whether the reclusive state will carry
out a test, aware of risks this will entail - for example,
referral to the U.N. Security Council for sanctions or even a
pre-emptive U.S. strike on the North's nuclear facilities.
International Atomic Energy Agency director Mohamed ElBaradei
said Sunday North Korea has close to six nuclear weapons.
Asked by CNN if it was the IAEA's assessment the North Koreans
already have as many as six nuclear bombs, he said, "I think
that would be close to our estimation. We knew they had the
plutonium that could be converted into five or six North Korean
weapons.
"I'm not sure they will gain anything by testing, other than
provoking every member of the international community. A North
Korean test would cause a lot of insecurity fallout. The impact
on the whole East Asia and Japan, South Korea is tremendous."
Speculation about a test deepened when South Korea's Defense
Ministry reported last week Korean and U.S. intelligence have
been tracking North Korean construction of underground tunnels
in a northeastern region of Gilju County, though the ministry
could not verify the purpose of the tunnels.
The New York Times reported U.S. satellites detected
construction of some platforms and tunnels, signs North Korea
might be getting ready to conduct its first nuclear test nearby.
Some experts say the communist state will not conduct a test
since a threat to stage one is a key bargaining chip to raise
its stakes in stalled six-nation talks aimed at ending the
North's nuclear ambitions.
But other analysts say the North will be tempted to push ahead
as a test is one element of the North's ultimate goal to arm
itself with nuclear weapons to deter any hostile enemy action.
Professor Ryoo Kihl-jae, of the Graduate School of North Korean
Studies at Kyungnam University, said North Korea will not
conduct a test soon as it does not want to lose its best
bargaining chip.
"If I have to bet, I would bet the North not doing the test. At
present, it can raise its stakes with sporadic gestures, such as
digging tunnels, or laying down railroad. Then why would it lose
the key card now?" Ryoo said in a telephone interview.
Pyongyang will conduct a nuclear test since it wishes to be a
nuclear state, but it will do so when it has no options, he
added.
Baek Seung-joo, a North Korean expert at the Korea Institute
for Defense Analyses, said the North can raise its international
status as a nuclear state if it carries out a test, but he felt
it will not risk losing its major ally China and further
isolating itself.
The government in Seoul, which has been trying to persuade the
North not to worsen the situation, has apparently decided on a
prudent stance.
Unification Minister Chung Dong-young told reporters yesterday
it is necessary to search for facts in the various reports of an
imminent test.
A Defense Ministry official said on condition of anonymity that
it is too early to say based on the movement of trucks and
tunnel construction that the North is ready to conduct a test.
But Kim Tae-woo, a senior researcher at Korea Institute for
Defense Analyses, said North Korea has enough reason to conduct
a test.
From the moment it declared it has nuclear weapons, it was
warning the outside world not to touch the communist state, he
added.
*****************************************************************
35 INSIDE JoongAng Daily: Speculation rife on possibility of nuclear test
May 10, 2005 KST 13:49 (GMT+9)
May 10, 2005 ¤Ń With U.S. media reporting that North Korea may
be gearing up to test a nuclear bomb, and North Korean officials
hinting that Pyongyang could do so, speculation among experts is
rife as to when and where such an event might take place.
Some experts have said that Kilju, in the northeastern part of
North Korea, is a possible candidate, but the South Korean
Defense Ministry recently called that unlikely.
In recent days, overseas media have reported tunnel digging and
other unusual construction activity in Kilju, quoting U.S.
officials who said they were briefed about satellite photos.
The news reports linked the work to the possibility of a nuclear
test, but Seoul has been dismissing the connection.
According to experts contacted recently, to test a nuclear
explosive device of 10 to 20 kilotons ˇŞ the sort of nuclear
test that these experts say the North would most likely want to
conduct ˇŞ they would need to carve a vertical, underground
tunnel out of base rock that has a width of one to three meters
(3 to 9 feet) and is 300 meters deep.
The nuclear bomb would be detonated at the bottom of the tunnel.
The sinkhole following the explosion would probably be 200
meters in diameter and 30 meters deep. A sensor tower with
monitoring equipment would be erected at least 200 meters away
from the tunnel where the test is conducted.
North Korea would also need an X-ray device capable of recording
data from the nuclear test. That device is prohibited for export
by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
The data collected during a nuclear test is crucial for the
development of a nuclear weapon.
by Kim Min-seok africanu@joongang.co.kr>
Copyright by Joins.com, Inc. Terms of Use |
*****************************************************************
36 SHNS: 40 years later, a Cold War mission still haunts him
By AMIE PARNES
Scripps Howard News Service
May 09, 2005
- Sitting in his living room, surrounded by old military
photographs and biographies of generals, Almon Scott remembers
pacing the roof in the frigid cold, the wind whipping around at
40 below zero.
As a doe-eyed young Marine during the height of the Cold War,
he didn't know specifically what he was guarding.
But he knew it was important, and that was what mattered -
mattered enough to him that he spent more than 14 months on a
North Atlantic Navy base, looking for any sign of Soviets
through the thick of the exhausts, not knowing a thing about
what was happening in the facility beneath him, only assuming.
And when the lance corporal left the Argentia Naval Base in
Newfoundland, he was sworn to never say anything about what he
saw or didn't see.
Scott kept his word.
Forty years later, that secret, that very question - what
exactly he was guarding in the bitter cold of Newfoundland -
haunts him.
Scott, now a 64-year-old Stuart, Fla., resident, is crippled by
multiple myeloma, a cancer that spread through his blood and has
eaten away at his bones. It is a disease he believes he acquired
while guarding the top-secret nuclear-weapons facility on the
base.
Still, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs denies the
condition is connected to Scott's service.
He doesn't qualify for disability payments.
Hazardous duty
Scott claims that during his time at the Argentia base between
1963-1965, he and other Marines were tasked with protecting the
materials used by the U.S. Navy for highly classified research
and development work involving underwater weapons - some of them
nuclear - and systems that included elements of ionizing
radiation and toxic chemicals.
Time and again, Scott said, he acted as an armed escort as
planes carrying research and development materials arrived in
the dark of night on an isolated runway. Without protection, he
sometimes helped move the material onto the planes and even
assisted at crash sites that he believes exposed him to
radiation.
But the Navy, the Defense Department and the VA have repeatedly
denied Scott's claims. No one in the federal government will
reveal what he was guarding.
The battle escalated to another level more than two years ago
when Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., became involved.
Frustrated with the lack of response from government agencies,
Foley has asked the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs to
investigate the matter.
Foley said the Navy repeatedly asked the Canadian government
for nuclear rights at the Argentia base, but did not receive
approval until 1967, three years after Scott was discharged.
In a letter to the committee, Foley wrote that Scott was denied
VA benefits because "the U.S. was likely in violation of
international law and will not admit it stored hazardous
materials at the research lab at the Argentia base."
"To the best of my knowledge," Foley wrote to committee
Chairman Steve Buyer, R-Ind., "his service medical records have
never been produced, yet the VA determined his illness to be
unconnected to his service."
Foley said in an interview that there is "clear, compelling
evidence in the Scott case and everything seems to say he is in
the right.
"If he told me he was having hearing problems because he used
to fire off cannons, I would have a hard time believing it. A
lot of people have a hard time hearing and they've never been
near a gun," Foley said. "But this is different. He has a cancer
that is directly linked to radiation."
The agencies involved in the case are "hiding behind the veil
of secrecy," he said. "The answer lies in what he was guarding."
Claim juggling
When he tells the story of the day he joined the Marine Corps,
his eyes begin to water.
As a 17-year-old with little direction and guidance, Scott
walked into a Marine Corps office in Nyack, N.Y., and talked to
a recruiter about signing up. Just the Marine uniform was enough
of a selling point. "You walk in and talk to a guy dressed in
blue and you're done."
But mostly, Scott felt like he was a part of something
important. After training in South Carolina, he was shipped to
Vieques, Puerto Rico, then to the Argentia base in Newfoundland.
Several months after he got there, he was given top-secret
clearance and ordered by superiors "not to ever say a damn thing
about it."
"The fact of the matter is, I was there guarding some of the
most top-secret, hazardous material in a top-secret location
with the most protected movement of such material," Scott said,
sitting in a beige leather chair in his living room, where he
spends his days, unable to move very far.
"I don't wish to reveal anything or to know anything except
what is obvious to me."
Scott's story and his claim bounced from one agency to another.
In May 2003, the Naval Dosimetry Center, which analyses
exposure to radiation, responded to a VA request for
information, stating there weren't any records of occupational
exposure to ionizing radiation pertaining to Scott. The center
suggested that Scott's service medical records be examined.
But to date, no one has been able to locate the medical
records. Both the Naval Dosimetry Center and the VA say the
records are "unavailable."
Still, despite numerous appeals, the VA determined that his
illness is unrelated to his service. In a VA letter written to
Scott in June, the agency denied him benefits.
"Entitlement to service connection for multiple myeloma is
denied because this condition neither occurred in nor was caused
by service," the letter states. "Evidence of record does not
show that you were exposed to toxic material in service and
there is no evidence of exposure to ionizing radiation to invoke
the statutory provisions of presumption for the claimed
disability."
It was the latest disappointment for Scott in a four-year
battle to find the truth behind the walls of bureaucracy.
The illness started with a sharp pain in Scott's hip. First,
the doctors told him he had arthritis. They sent him home and
told him to take aspirin to take away the pain. But the pain
persisted and spread. Suddenly, he hurt all over - in his back,
his chest.
He went to another doctor at the VA hospital and this time the
doctor broke the news.
He had multiple myeloma: a rare bone cancer believed to be
associated with ionizing radiation and environmental exposure.
Scott searched his memory for a cause.
"How did this happen to me?" he thought. "And when?"
Almost instantly, he thought of Argentia.
Just a few months earlier, he remembered reading that thousands
of U.S. sailors were unknowingly exposed to potentially
dangerous biological agents as they were aboard the destroyer
Power in the port at Newfoundland. The test was conducted 22
days after Scott had been discharged from Argentia. Thirty years
later, the sailors received letters informing them about
possible exposure.
If the tests were being performed just after he left, he
thought, he had most likely helped to guard those biological
agents in the nuclear facility while he was there.
Just days after staring chemotherapy, he went searching for
answers.
VA: evidence lacking
Even though the United States will not admit to storing nuclear
weapons on the naval base, documents released by the Canadian
government indicate that such weapons were there. Several
reports also indicate that ships at the military base were
loaded with mustard gas and other toxic materials that were
later discarded off Canada's coast.
In a 2003 proceeding of Canada's Standing Senate Committee on
Fisheries and Oceans, consultants testified to members of the
Canadian Senate that the dumping of chemical munitions occurred
during the Cold War through the 1970s.
And when the U.S. government finally turned over the base in
1994, it left a huge cleanup effort that continues today.
Remediation officials said the cleanup effort included, among
other things, the treatment of a large volume of contaminated
soil and removal of hazardous materials, two potential causes of
the bone cancer.
Scott presented this as evidence along with letters from his VA
doctors and asked the agency to give him "the benefit of the
doubt," a code in their own guidelines that said "when there is
an approximate balance of positive and negative evidence
regarding any issue material to the determination of the matter,
the secretary shall give the benefit of the doubt to the
claimant."
But officials in the VA regional office in St. Petersburg,
Fla., say Scott has not proven enough and "has yet to rebut the
government's evidence."
One year to live
Already in the advanced stages of the cancer, with tumors the
size of baseballs, Scott said he initially filed his claim for
service-connected disability and pension in 2002 but never heard
back from his local VA office.
In the meantime, he was suffering. He was undergoing six
separate chemotherapy treatments, four of which took place five
days a week, 24 hours a day.
Scott has had more than 50 radiation treatments and a stem-cell
transplant.
He began to look less and less like himself. In two months he
lost more than 40 pounds. Once a hardy man with strong legs, he
was forced to rely on a walker and his 24-year-old son's arms
for mobility.
Simple things became difficult. He couldn't sleep. He couldn't
eat. He couldn't go to the bathroom.
Around that time in late 2002, the doctor told him that he had
a year to live. Meanwhile, the bills grew at home.
When he didn't get a response from the VA, he called Foley's
office and asked for help.
Dying claim
For Dianne Robbins, a congressional aide in Foley's office, it
all started with a note.
"I thought it was a simple matter," she said. "I'll make a call
to the Veterans Affairs office and it'll be done. I thought it
was routine casework."
The note slowly grew into a thick case file and a three-year
battle that bounced from one agency to another. The case moved
in "slow motion," Robbins said.
Upset by the lack of response, Foley's office sent letters to
the secretaries of defense, navy and veterans affairs asking for
an answer to the question that haunts Scott.
"For the past twenty months, Mr. Scott and I have been fighting
with the Department of Defense for the answer to one question:
What was Almon Scott guarding?" Foley wrote in a letter to the
VA regional office.
"The response has been deafening silence."
"Even my letters to the secretaries of Defense and the Navy
remain unanswered," he wrote. "I simply cannot comprehend nor
accept the fact that our country readily sends our men and women
into dangerous situations and then ignores their pleas for help
when that service results in a terminal illness."
To Robbins, who has worked on hundreds of veterans' cases in
Foley's office, the Scott case is the "most disturbing" she has
seen. Robbins, who married a naval aviator and had a brother who
served in the Air Force, has always believed her country would
take care of those who served to protect it.
She has her doubts now, she said.
"It's very troubling," she said. "They're just waiting for him
to die. And unfortunately, when he dies, his claim dies with
him."
(E-mail Amie Parnes at ParnesA(at)shns.com.)
*****************************************************************
37 Japan Times: Outrageous U.S. military proposal
Sunday, May 8, 2005
READERS IN COUNCIL
The May 2 front-page article "U.S. may allow nuke strikes over
WMD" was an ill omen for a Monday morning -- where I live,
anyway. I find it curious that I read about this in a Japanese
newspaper. America just doesn't get the news that matters
anymore. News media lead off with nonsense about a runaway
bride, Michael Jackson irrelevance and first lady Laura Bush's
playing buffoon for media concerns in Washington, D.C.
That the U.S. military would even consider using nuclear
weapons in any capacity only furthers the argument that the U.S.
government has spun far out of control. For the U.S. military to
seek the approval of nuclear use on whomever (in the name of
preemption) bodes ill for every man, woman and child on our
shared planet. This is insane, unwise and dangerous. Were the
United States to implement such an immoral policy, the U.S.
would usurp any and all other nations as the single most
dangerous and threatening government of state-sponsored
terrorism. Heaven help us all if such insanity comes to pass.
DON NASH
Murray, Utah
The Japan Times: May 8, 2005
*****************************************************************
38 [du-list] MDs Suggest Depleted Uranium Behind Increase in
Date: Mon, 09 May 2005 15:49:03 -0700
1- MDs Suggest Depleted Uranium Behind Increase in Iraqi
Deformities
2- Experimental Nukes In Iraq Sends Cancer Rates Soaring
--
MDs Suggest Depleted Uranium Behind Increase in Iraqi
Deformities
Chris Shumway
Apr 28, 2005 NewStandard
http://newstandardnews.net/content/?action=show_item&itemid=1755
Health officials in Iraq say the number of babies born with
deformities has increased 20 percent since 2003. Some
researchers suggest that polluted water containing
radiation, which was absorbed by mothers, may be the primary
cause.
Health officials say most cases are being reported in
southern Iraq, particularly the cities of Basra and Najaf.
The United States military used weapons that contained
depleted uranium (DU), a chemically toxic and radioactive
heavy metal, in Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War and again in
the 2003 invasion.
Dr. Ibraheem Al-Jabouri, a scientist at Baghdad University,
told the UN's IRIN news agency, "In my experiments we have
found some cases where the mother or father were suffering
from pollution from weapons used in the South and we believe
that it is affecting newborn babies in the country."
Dr. Nawar Ali, also a researcher at the University, said
that 650 babies have been born with deformities in
government hospitals since August 2003, an increase of 20
percent. He also cautioned that "private hospitals were not
included in the study, so the number could be higher."
Fadela Chaib, a spokesperson for the World Health
Organization, told IRIN, "I have heard about cancer caused
by pollution, but deformities in newborn babies is something
new." Iraqi and international physicians have long suspected
DU might be behind a similar spike in birth deformities that
followed the 1991 war.
----
Experimental Nukes In Iraq Sends Cancer Rates Soaring
Apr 28, 2005
By Muhammad Abu Nasr, Free Arab Voice and Omar Al-Faris, JUS
http://www.jihadunspun.com/intheatre_internal.php?article=102551&list=/home.php
While news report on America's use of banned weapons has
been criticized, it is not only JUS and uncensored press
that has issued these reports but also Human Rights Watch,
Red Crescent and many other humanitarian groups.
While Donald Rumsfeld himself has admitted that napalm is
still being used, it is just no longer called napalm, the
facts are that the US is using not only internationally
banned weapons including cluster bombs, depleted uranium and
chemical weapons including napalm, mustard gas amongst
others, America is also using Iraq as a testing ground for
"limited" nuclear weapons.
Now, a new report from an Iraqi oncologist blows the whistle
on this gig. In a press conference held in Baghdad where Dr.
Mahmud al-'Amiri, Director of Oncology in al-Yarmuk Hospital
in Baghdad, told the press on Wednesday that the current and
still on-going war in the country was creating deadly diseases.
In a Baghdad press conference attended by a correspondent
for Mafkarat al-Islam, Dr. al-'Amiri said "The United States
has been using in its current war in Iraq 61 untested
rockets, which it only tested in Iraq. The US used uranium
and limited nuclear weapons in very large amounts in
Fallujah, Ramadi, Samarra', Mosul, Tall 'Afar, and Ba'qubah,
and in Najaf with the Jaysh al-Mahdi, causing an increase in
cancer cases.
Dr. al-'Amiri drew on offical ministry statistics quoting a
rate of 40 cases of cancer every month afflicting Iraqis,
with 7,500 cases of skin cancer alone registered at the end
of last year.
Since the start of the US occupation and until today, the
Dr. al-'Amiri reported, there have been 140,000 cases of
cancer of the skin, a large percentage of those in children
between the ages of nine months and 10 years.
It appears that US forces are deliberately trying to conceal
the situation since its disclosure would constitute yet
another monumental scandal.
--
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39 [du-list] Antiwar activists say depleted uranium has led to
Date: Mon, 09 May 2005 15:48:23 -0700
Antiwar activists say depleted uranium has led to 11,000
American deaths
News Target Network Friday, May 06, 2005
http://www.newstarget.com/007172.html
Original news summary:
(http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/du_death_toll.html)
Arthur Bernklau, an advocate with the Veterans for
Constitutional Law, an antiwar group, says that depleted
uranium weapons used in the first Gulf War have caused the
deaths of 11,000 soldiers. Bernklau says that 584,000
soldiers served in Gulf War I and 11,000 of them are now
dead. 325,000 are on permanent medical disability.
Bernklau stated that the long-term effect of depleted
uranium weapons are a "virtual death sentence", and that the
departure of Anthony Principi as secretary of the Veterans
Affairs Department was triggered by the scandal of the
deaths. Bernklau says that over half of those who served in
Gulf War I have permanent medical problems.
The death toll from the highly toxic weapons component known
as depleted uranium (DU) has reached 11,000 soldiers and the
growing scandal may be the reason behind Anthony Principi's
departure as secretary of the Veterans Affairs Department.
This view was expressed by Arthur Bernklau, executive
director of Veterans for Constitutional Law in New York,
writing in Preventive Psychiatry E-Newsletter.
"The real reason for Mr. Principi's departure was really
never given," Bernklau said.
"However, a special report published by eminent scientist
Leuren Moret naming depleted uranium as the definitive cause
of 'Gulf War Syndrome' has fed a growing scandal about the
continued use of uranium munitions by the U.S. military."
Of the 580,400 soldiers who served in Gulf War I, 11,000 are
now dead, he said.
The disability rate for veterans of the world wars of the
last century was 5 percent, rising to 10 percent in Vietnam.
"He and the Bush administration have been hiding these
facts, but now, thanks to Moret's report, it is far too big
to hide or to cover up."
Terry Johnson, public affairs specialist at the VA, recently
reported that veterans of both Persian Gulf wars now on
disability total 518,739, Bernklau said.
"The long-term effect of DU is a virtual death sentence,"
Bernklau said.
"Marion Fulk, a nuclear chemist, who retired from the
Lawrence Livermore Nuclear Weapons Lab, and was also
involved in the Manhattan Project, interprets the new and
rapid malignancies in the soldiers [from the second war] as
'spectacular'---and a matter of concern.'
While this important story appeared in a Washington
newspaper and the wire services, it did not receive national
exposure---a compelling sign that the American public is
being kept in the dark about the terrible effects of this
toxic weapon.
--
Posted for educational and research purposes only,
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40 [du-list] Louisiana: Depleted-uranium test proposed
Date: Mon, 09 May 2005 15:48:35 -0700
1- Depleted-uranium test proposed
2- Notes and quotes from the Louisiana Legislature
--
Depleted-uranium test proposed
Louisiana Panel supports testing veterans
By MARK BALLARD
mballard@theadvocate.com
Capitol news bureau April 29, 2005
http://www.2theadvocate.com/stories/042905/pol_testing001.shtml
A House panel endorsed legislation Thursday that would
require Louisiana veterans returning from Iraq to be tested
for depleted uranium exposure, which some experts say they
think is a primary cause of Gulf War syndrome.
House Bill 570 would allow any Louisiana soldier who
believes he or she was exposed to depleted uranium in a
combat zone to get a more aggressive test than is offered by
the military, said Rep. Juan LaFonta, D-New Orleans, the
measure's sponsor.
The wording of the proposed law does not specifically spell
out who would give or pay for the test.
But LaFonta said the measure would give Louisiana soldiers
more leverage to demand the tests from the federal Veterans
Administration.
After the hearing before the House Judiciary Committee,
LaFonta acknowledged that a state law would have little
effect on the federal agency.
But the legislation's chief witness, Robert Smith of New
Orleans, said the legislation would allow Gov. Kathleen
Blanco to order the state's military department chief, Maj.
Gen. Bennett Landreneau, to include the more-expansive
testing as part of its annual funding request to the U.S.
Department of Defense.
Landreneau's press aides did not return three calls seeking
comment.
Depleted uranium is used nuclear power plant fuel. Because
the metal is very dense, the military uses it in bullets,
bombs and missiles to help penetrate armor protection.
It also is used as counter-weights in fighter jets and as
protective armor on Abrams tanks.
The United Nations World Health Organization found that very
low radiation can still harm people who inhale dust, drink
water or eat food that had been contaminated.
"It looks more and more like what's causing Gulf War
syndrome, primarily, is depleted uranium exposure," said
Smith, a retired Green Beret who has worked helping injured
veterans rejoin civilian society.
Gulf War syndrome is a constellation of symptoms, such as
weak joints, headaches, fatigue, shortness of breath,
nausea, dizziness, muscle pain, sleep disturbances and
unusually frequent urination.
"You don't get those symptoms in 20-year-olds," said Joyce
Riley of Versailles, Mo. The former Air Force captain is
spokeswoman for the American Gulf War Veterans Association.
"I'm getting calls all day long from parents who are asking
me, 'Why is my child sick?' " Riley said Wednesday.
"Depleted uranium is one of the reasons these troops are
coming home sick."
Riley said that, while the U.S. Department of Defense
screens for depleted uranium, it refuses to do adequate tests.
Telephone inquiries for comment to the Department of Defense
were not returned.
A spokesman with the Veterans Administration said the agency
does not comment on pending legislation.
Members of the Louisiana House Committee on Judiciary asked
few questions of Smith and LaFonta.
One member, Rep. Mike Powell, R-Shreveport, gave a short
speech commending veterans and asked for the privilege of
making the motion to refer the bill favorably.
But before that motion could be made, LaFonta was asked to
explain why the bill's financial note indicates that the
state would pay for those tests if the Veterans
Administration finds that a test is not warranted.
LaFonta said that was a mistake. The legislation would not
cost the state anything because the Veterans Administration
would handle the testing, he said. The state's Military
Department estimated the cost of the tests at $170 each.
LaFonta said at least four other states are considering
filing a similar bill. Legislative committees of the
Connecticut General Assembly approved similar legislation
earlier this month.
The Louisiana bill now goes to the full House for
consideration.
---
Notes and quotes from the Louisiana Legislature
4/28/2005, 3:59 p.m. CT
The Associated Press
http://www.nola.com/newsflash/louisiana/index.ssf?/base/news-15/111471712689320.xml&storylist=louisiana
Members of the military or veterans who believe they were at
risk for exposure to depleted uranium, a radioactive
material that is used in nuclear weapons, should be able to
get a free health screening test, a House committee decided
Thursday.
A bill (House Bill 570) by Rep. Juan LaFonta, D-New Orleans,
would establish the right to the screening test. The House
Judiciary Committee unanimously sent the measure to the full
House for debate. LaFonta was accompanied by two veterans
for the committee hearing.
"Everybody's there for the parade when veterans come home,"
but people need to pay attention to taking care of any
afflictions they may have from their service, said Rep. Mike
Powell, R-Shreveport.
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs would cover the $170
cost per test, according to LaFonta.
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41 [du-list] Scotland: Salmond demands answers on depleted uranium
Date: Mon, 09 May 2005 15:48:25 -0700
1- Salmond demands answers on depleted uranium
2- SNP leader raises alarm over depleted uranium
--
Salmond demands answers on depleted uranium
Wednesday, 27 Apr 2005 14:01 UK Politics
http://www.politics.co.uk/election-2005/salmond-demands-answers-on-depleted-uranium-$8371381.htm
SNP leader Alex Salmond has demanded a review of test firing
practises for depleted uranium shells after it was revealed
a local fisherman had discovered a partial shell in the
Solway Firth.
Speaking at a press conference in Dumfries, Mr Salmond
unveiled a letter from Armed Forces Minister Adam Ingram
supposedly admitting that four 'essentially complete'
depleted uranium shells had been found at Kirkcudbright
firing range.
Mr Salmond said a complete rethink on the procedures for
depleted uranium test firing were needed, saying it would be
a big issue in the SNP's campaign.
"Of course, essentially complete is a nice way of saying
incomplete, and that means fragments from these shells - and
the thousands of others fired into the sea - could remain in
local waters and in the local environment.
"I want to know what action the Ministry of Defence has
taken to trace particles and what action they plan to make
sure no more military uranium finds its way onto this
beautiful stretch of Scottish coast."
Pointing out there was international concern about the long
term affects of depleted uranium fragments in the food
chain, Mr Salmond said: "This raises huge questions for both
the Labour and Tory campaigns. It has been two years since
Peter Duncan has raised the issue of depleted uranium
testing at Dundrennan in the Commons - local voters would be
entitled to ask what on earth has he been doing over the
last two years?
"If this was happening in the Moray Firth in my area I'd
make sure it was national news until something was done
about it. If Douglas Henderson had been MP for this area
then it would have been the subject of special parliamentary
debates, indeed as it was when Alasdair Morgan was MP. In
contrast rip van Duncan has been asleep at his post."
The SNP is campaigning strongly against the basing of
nuclear missiles and power stations in Scotland.
Separately, the Scottish Greens called on the Government to
scrap all nuclear weapons in Scotland and use the money to
tackle poverty.
With a decision on the replacing Trident - which is based in
Scotland - expected next year, the Greens are campaigning
against any new system.
Green MSP Chris Balance, said: "Most people want to see
nuclear weapons removed from Scottish soil and the billions
saved spent on reducing poverty, investing in health and
education, and on overseas aid. The Iraq war is rightly an
issue in this election - but so should we be looking at the
future of WMD in Scotland. Peace is a key theme of the
Greens election. The message is simple - if you want to vote
for peace, vote Green."
----
SNP leader raises alarm over depleted uranium
JOHN INNES
Thu 28 Apr 2005 The Scotsman
http://news.scotsman.com/politics.cfm?id=452242005
ALEX Salmond attacked Labour and the Conservatives yesterday
over the firing of depleted uranium shells in south-west
Scotland.
The SNP leader claimed Labour had a "nuclear obsession" and
he accused Peter Duncan, the shadow Scottish secretary, of
being "asleep at his post" over concerns about the MoD's
Dundrennan firing range at Kirkcudbright.
Mr Salmond published a letter written to him by Adam Ingram,
the armed forces minister, admitting that a report into the
MoD "training area" at Kirkcudbright concluded that four
"essentially complete DU [depleted uranium] penetrators" had
been recovered there.
Mr Salmond said: "If you thought depleted uranium was only a
problem on the battlefields of Iraq, think again - depleted
uranium is an issue here in Scotland.
"I want to know what action the MoD has taken to trace
particles and what action they plan to make sure no more
military uranium finds its way on to this beautiful stretch
of Scottish coast."
SNP ON ATTACK
THE Nationalists accused Michael Howard of "abandoning" a
planned trip to Angus yesterday.
On his second visit to Scotland during the campaign, Mr
Howard held a morning press conference in Edinburgh then had
a meeting with Scots infantry veterans before returning south.
The SNP claimed he cut short his Scottish trip by abandoning
a visit to Angus where the Nationalists and the Tories are
battling it out for what is a marginal seat.
Mike Weir, the SNP campaign co-ordinator, said: "Michael
Howard doesn't want to be seen with failing Tory campaigns.
Even the Tory leader has given up on the Tories in Tayside.
His actions speak volumes."
The Tories denied that a trip to Angus had been cancelled,
merely insisting that Mr Howard had decided to stay in
Edinburgh to concentrate on meetings with Save the Scottish
Regiments campaigners.
A spokesman said: "This ridiculous outburst from the SNP
shows they are far more interested in Conservative travel
plans than saving Scotland's regiments."
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42 [DU-WATCH] radioactive dust concerns at Maine Yankee cleanup
Date: Mon, 9 May 2005 01:10:36 -0500 (CDT)
"Nuclear critic Ray Shadis said some underground "hot spots" are 50 to 100
times the level of naturally occurring radioactivity, yet the plan is for
the land to eventually be released without restrictions on its future use.
"If you have kids playing in the dirt in that intensely radioactive area,
and they can inhale it or eat it, I say that4s not good enough," he said."
--------------------
I ask - not good enough for Maine, but OK for Iraq?
---------------------
>From the AP WIRE Today's stories
Sunday, May 8, 2005 2:30 pm
Rain causes headaches for workers cleaning up Maine Yankee site
By DAVID SHARP
WISCASSET, Maine - Last month4s deluge of rain that soaked communities and
caused rivers to spill their banks transformed the former Maine Yankee
nuclear power plant site into a muddy mess, pushing back the decommissioning
timetable.
Physical work, already delayed, was supposed to be completed in April. Now
workers are looking to complete the task by late May or early June.
"It has been a real quagmire," said Eric Howes, Maine Yankee spokesman.
Every time it rained, water filled massive holes that once comprised the
foundation of the containment building and other structures.
The water had to be pumped out, and all of that moisture added to the
weight, and therefore the cost, of shipping contaminated soil to a low-level
radioactive waste repository in Utah. Progress on the final surveys for
radiation slowed, as well.
The rain cost the project $3 million to $4 million, said Bill Henries,
project manager. "We had so much blinking rain," he said. "It was amazing."
Across Maine, many communities recorded double the average rainfall last
month. Portland recorded 8.3 inches, the third wettest in 135 years, and
Bangor received 6.19 inches. Caribou set a record for the month with 6.9
inches.
All of that rain followed a winter in which more than 100 inches of snow
fell. The snow, bitter cold and wet spring all contributed to troubles for
workers in charge of removing contaminated rubble and cleaning up the
179-acre site of the pressurized reactor that went into operation in 1972.
Maine Yankee4s board voted to close the plant permanently in August 1997, 11
years before the expiration of its license.
All of that snow and rain created a mud season to remember. Workers have
trucked in tons of sand and dirt to make up for the contaminated soil that
was removed. Then came the rain that transformed holes where buildings once
stood into ponds.
Once, workers pumped 160,000 gallons of water in a 24-hour period, Henries
said. The water went into holding tanks for testing; it was dumped back into
the Sheepscot River once it was determined that it met federal regulations,
he said.
Because of the high moisture content, 48 rail cars containing soil had to be
returned to Wiscasset because Envirocare, the landfill operator in Clive,
Utah, voiced concerns about previous shipments that leaked water.
Overly saturated soil can leach low-level radioactive contamination into
groundwater, so workers in Wiscasset will make sure the soil from the rail
cars is dry before it4s repacked and reshipped to the landfill in Utah.
A tour of the Wiscasset site late last week gives an inkling of things to
come. A visitor can now walk across the land where once stood the 150-foot
containment dome, which was brought down by explosives last September.
Nine to 10 acres of land will be seeded next week, and the remaining 9 or 10
acres will be seeded around the end of May, Henries said.
All that remains are two power substations and a 60-foot transmission tower
left because it4s home to an osprey nest, as well as a security building and
a nine-acre storage facility for the highly radioactive spent fuel.
The spent fuel is stored in 60 large containers made of steel and concrete
that are protected by two fences topped with barbed wire, electronic
monitoring and an earthen berm, in addition to armed guards.
The cost of storing the fuel in Wiscasset indefinitely until the federal
government follows through with its promise to build a repository for the
highly radioactive waste is expected to be $7 million a year, Howes said.
Meanwhile, final site surveys to ensure compliance with radioactive waste
standards are nearly completed: only 2.5 acres remain.
Maine Yankee is being held to a higher standard for the cleanup than what4s
required by Nuclear Regulatory Commission standards.
But not everyone is satisfied.
Nuclear critic Ray Shadis said some underground "hot spots" are 50 to 100
times the level of naturally occurring radioactivity, yet the plan is for
the land to eventually be released without restrictions on its future use.
"If you have kids playing in the dirt in that intensely radioactive area,
and they can inhale it or eat it, I say that4s not good enough," he said.
)Copyright 2005 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not
be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. E-mail this story
___
On the Net:
Maine Yankee www.maineyankee.com
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43 [DU-WATCH] DU Testing Bill Rocks Through Louisiana House!
Date: Mon, 9 May 2005 00:30:07 -0500 (CDT)
All,
This info is rocketing through the States now! Now is probably the
time to call you legislator for a quiet meeting about DU.
Regards,
Bob
To: 911truthaction@yahoogroups.com;
Subject: [911TruthAction] DU Testing Bill Rocks Through Louisiana
House!
This is so freakin' AWESOME that it blows my mind. Spread the word
everyone!!! The word on DU is OUT (at least in Louisiana that is
- but heck that's a great start)!
Spell > wrote:
Today, the Louisiana House of Representatives passed the DU Bill
(HR 570) promoted by the Louisiana Activist Network:
Yea 101
Nay 0
Next it goes to the Senate and then on to the Governor for signing!
Start working those phones!
A job well done to Bob Smith, Ward Reilly, and the other Louisiana
patriots who struggled so very hard to get us to this point!
ONWARD!
Buddy Spell
Here's the link to the bill:
http://www.legis.state.la.us/billdata/byin...e=HB&billno=570
LOUISIANA ACTIVIST NETWORK
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44 [DU-WATCH] US-UK-Italian Uranium Science Fraudulent: Patients
Date: Mon, 9 May 2005 01:11:16 -0500 (CDT)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Bob Nichols
Project Censored Award Winner
bobnichols@cox.net
US-UK-Italian Uranium Science Fraudulent:
Patients Betrayed by Italian Scientist
By Bob Nichols
Project Censored Award Winner
May 8, 2005 (Oklahoma City) Nuclear Weapons Lab scientist Leuren Moret
today accused three Western governments of condoning and promoting science
fraud relating to Radiation Poisoning from the use of Uranium Weapons in
Iraq and Central Asia by Italian scientist Antonietta Morena Gatti.
Moret has spoken in forty-two countries and numerous international court
cases about the hazard uranium represents to the human race. Moret consulted
famed former Manhattan Project scientist and consultant to the Lawrence
Livermore Nuclear Weapons Lab, Marion Fulk, before making the announcement.
The Manhattan Project constructed the first atomic bombs used against humans
in war time in August 1945.
More ...
Or, copy this link to your Web Browser.
http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_17472.shtml
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45 [du-list] Radioactive Uranium Nano-Particles Pinpointed As
Date: Mon, 09 May 2005 15:48:19 -0700
Radioactive Uranium Nano-Particles Pinpointed As Major Issue
in Gulf War Syndrome
By Christopher Bollyn - American Free Press April 10, 2005
Coastal Post
http://www.coastalpost.com/05/04/10.htm
Depleted uranium weapons and the untold misery they wreak on
mankind are taboo subjects in the mainstream media. There
are indications, however, that the media embargo is about to
be breached.
Despite being a grossly under-reported subject in the
mainstream media, there is intense public interest in
depleted uranium (DU) and the damage it inflicts on
humankind and the environment.
While American Free Press is actively investigating DU
weapons and how they contribute to Gulf War Syndrome, the
corporate-controlled press virtually ignores the illegal use
of DU and its long-lasting effects on the health of veterans
and the public.
In August 2004 American Free Press published a
ground-breaking four-part series on DU weapons and the
long-term health risks they pose to soldiers and civilians
alike. Information provided to AFP by experts and
scientists, some of it published for the first time in this
paper, has increased public awareness of how exposure to
small particles of DU can severely affect human health.
Leuren Moret, a Berkeley-based geo-scientist with expertise
in atmospheric dust, corresponds with AFP on DU issues.
Recently Moret provided a copy of her correspondence to a
British radiation biologist, Dr. Chris Busby, about how
nanometer size particles of DU-less than one-tenth of a
micron and smaller-once inhaled or absorbed into the body,
can cause long-term damage to one's health.
Busby is one of the founders of Green Audit, a British
organization that monitors companies "whose activities might
threaten the environment and health of citizens."
Moret's letter was meant to assist Busby in a legal case
being heard in the High Court in London where a former
defense worker, Richard David, 49, is suing Normal Air
Garrett, Ltd., an aircraft parts company now owned by
Honeywell Aerospace, claiming exposure to depleted uranium
on the job has made his life a "living hell."
David worked as a component fitter on fighter planes and
bombers but had to quit due to health problems. He says he
developed a cough within weeks of starting work.
Today, David suffers from a variety of symptoms like those
known as Gulf War Syndrome, including respiratory and kidney
problems, bowel conditions and painful joints. Medical tests
reveal mutations to his DNA and damage to his chromosomes,
which, he says, could only have been caused by ionizing
radiation. He has also been diagnosed with a terminal lung
condition.
Honeywell denies depleted uranium was ever used at the plant
in Yeovil, Somerset, where David worked for 10 years until
1995. David claims that DU's existence at the plant was
denied because it is an official secret.
David has asked the High Court for more time to gather
evidence. The hearing is due to resume in April. "I don't
have any legal representation," David said, "so I am
representing myself. It is a real David versus Goliath case.
"I am confident I will win. I hope to set a precedent for
other cases of people who have suffered from the effects of
depleted uranium."
Moret's letter on the particle effect of DU is based on
research done by Marion Fulk, a nuclear physical chemist and
former scientist with the Manhattan Project and the National
Laboratory at Livermore, California. Fulk, who has developed
a "particle theory" about how DU nano-particles affect human
DNA, donates his time and expertise to help bring
information about DU to the public.
Asked about Fulk's particle theory, Busby said it is "quite
sound." "DU is much more dangerous than they say," Busby
added. "I've always said that it contributes significantly
to Gulf War Syndrome."
When Moret's correspondence to Dr. Busby was posted on the
Internet over the New Year's holiday under the title "How
Depleted Uranium Weapons Are Killing Our Troops," some 6,000
people read the letter in the first two days. The following
Monday, a producer from the BBC's Panorama program contacted
Moret to arrange an interview.
If the BBC follows up with an investigation on the health
effects of DU, it may be hard for the US media to remain
silent. More than 500,000 "Gulf War Era" vets currently
receive disability compensation, many of them for a variety
of symptoms generally referred to as Gulf War Syndrome.
Experts blame DU for many of these symptoms.
"The numbers are overwhelming, but the potential horrors
only get worse," Robert C. Koehler of the Chicago-based
Tribune Media Services wrote in an article about DU weapons
entitled "Silent Genocide."
"DU dust does more than wreak havoc on the immune systems of
those who breathe it or touch it; the substance also alters
one's genetic code," Koehler wrote. "The Pentagon's response
to such charges is denial, denial, denial. And the American
media is its moral co-conspirator."
The US government has known for at least twenty years that
DU weapons produce clouds of poison gas on impact. These
clouds of aerosolized DU are laden with billions of toxic
sub-micron sized particles. A 1984 Dept. of Energy
conference on Nuclear Airborne Waste reported that tests of
DU anti-tank missiles showed that at least 31 percent of the
mass of a DU penetrator is converted to nano-particles on
impact. In larger bombs the percentage of aerosolized DU
increases to nearly 100 percent, Fulk told AFP.
Depleted uranium is harmful in three ways, according to
Fulk: "Chemical toxicity, radiological toxicity, and
particle toxicity." Particles in the nano-meter (one
billionth of a meter) range are a "new breed of cat," Moret
wrote. Because the size of the nano-particles allows them to
pass freely throughout the organism and into the nucleus of
its cells, exposure to nano-particles causes different
symptoms than exposure to larger particles of the same
substance.
Internalized DU particles, Fulk said, act as "a non-specific
catalyst" in both "nuclear and non-nuclear" ways. This means
that the uranium particle can affect human DNA and RNA
because of both its chemical and radiological properties.
This is why internalized DU particles cause "many, many
diseases," Fulk said.
Asked if this is how DU causes severe birth defects, Fulk
said, "Yes."
The military is aware of DU's harmful effects on the human
genetic code. A 2001 study of DU's effect on DNA done by Dr.
Alexandra C. Miller for the Armed Forces Radiobiology
Research Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, indicates that
DU's chemical instability causes 1 million times more
genetic damage than would be expected from its radiation
effect alone, Moret wrote.
Dr. Miller requested that questions be sent in writing and
copied to a military spokesman, but did tell AFP that it
should be noted that her studies showing that DU is
"neoplastically transforming and genotoxic" are based on in
vitro cellular research.
Studies have shown that inhaled nano-particles are far more
toxic than micro-sized particles of the same basic chemical
composition. British toxicopathologist Vyvyan Howard has
reported that the increased toxicity of the nano-particle is
due to its size.
For example, when mice were exposed to virus-size particles
of Teflon (0.13 microns) in a Univ. of Rochester study,
there were no ill effects. But when mice were exposed to
nano-particles of Teflon for 15 minutes, nearly all the mice
died within 4 hours.
"Exposure pathways for depleted uranium can be through the
skin, by inhalation, and ingestion," Moret wrote.
"Nano-particles have high mobility and can easily enter the
body. Inhalation of nano-particles of depleted uranium is
the most hazardous exposure, because the particles pass
through the lung-blood barrier directly into the blood.
"When inhaled through the nose, nano-particles can cross the
olfactory bulb directly into the brain through the blood
brain barrier, where they migrate all through the brain,"
she wrote. "Many Gulf Era soldiers exposed to depleted
uranium have been diagnosed with brain tumors, brain damage,
and impaired thought processes. Uranium can interfere with
the mitochondria, which provide energy for the nerve
processes, and transmittal of the nerve signal across
synapses in the brain.
"Damage to the mitochondria, which provide all energy to the
cells and nerves, can cause chronic fatigue syndrome, Lou
Gehrig's disease, Parkinson's Disease, and Hodgkin's disease."
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46 Lone Star Iconoclast: What Is Depleted Uranium?
www.iconoclast-texas.com
CRAWFORD — The Lone Star Iconoclast last week conducted a test
by asking 20 Texans, representing all walks of life and from
different territories of the state, “What are your views on
depleted uranium?”
Nineteen had no clue what the interviewer was talking about.
One offered, “Isn’t that the stuff that’s hauled away from
nuclear power plants?”
None knew that depleted uranium (DU) is radioactive material
being used in military ammunition and none knew that the U.S.
military is utilizing weapons to launch these nuclear DU
projectiles in Iraq.
Likewise, not one of the queried Texans was aware that DU poses
significant health threats not only to Iraqis, but to Americans
as well, for the radioactivity spreads from continent to
continent through the atmosphere and is brought home through
soldiers to their families and associates.
Uranium is one of the heaviest elements found in nature and
increases in radioactivity as it decays. After enriched uranium
which is to be used for nuclear fuel is extracted from natural
uranium, the leftover nuclear waste, commonly known as depleted
uranium, is stored in steel cylinders for public protection.
Depleted uranium is heavy, cheap, abundant, and is provided
free of charge to arms manufacturers as a way of disposing of
the material.
DU rounds are used in a variety of high intensity weapons and
is used in a variety of forms. Since the projectiles are so
powerful, the DU gets hot and oxides into aerosol-like particles
that can be less than 10 microns or smaller than a white blood
cell and are, therefore, easily inhalable.
According to a study conducted by Iliya Pesic in a paper
entitled “Depleted Uranium — Ethics of the Silver Bullet”
, there are serious long-term effects of DU in Iraq.
“In regions heavily hit by DU, studies have shown that numerous
civilians have extensive problems with their immune systems,
malignant cancers (such as ludicrously high leukemia rates),
heart problems, and bizarre abnormal birth defects (such as
children born without eyes, ears, tongue, etc.). In some
regions, leukemia has become one of the main forms of
cancer-related death.”
Pesic continues, “Contaminated agriculture and water supplies
help spread the DU dust which continues to hurt people in
diferent regions where DU ammo was not used.”
Pesic notes that veterans and civilians exposed to DU have
experienced extensive irreversible damage to kidney and partial
kidney failure. “Cancers related to one’s blood, bone, and
immune system become common. There are also various other
biological effects claimed from DU, such as chronic fatigue,
respiratory problems, heart problems, digestive organ damage
(e.g. liver failure and severe rectal bleeding), etc.”
For this edition, The Iconoclast contacted some of the top
experts in the field of depleted uranium, who agreed to be
interviewed:
• Leuren Moret, a Berkeley-based geo-scientist with expertise
in atmospheric dust.
• Dr. Doug Rokke, Ph.D., Major (retired) United States Army
Reserve, former Director of the U.S. Army Depleted Uranium
Project.
• Melissa Sterry, a Gulf War veteran who is surviving the
effects of depleted uranium.
The interviews are presented in these formats: A Military
Perspective, A Scientific Perspective, and A Survivor’s
Perspective.
On the same subject, The Iconoclast is publishing an editorial
encouraging the Texas Legislature to provide DU testing for
soldiers who are returning from overseas, so that if problems
exist, they can be addressed.
A Scientific Perspective
Interview with Leuren Moret, Geo-Scientist
A Military Perspective
Interview with Dr. Doug Rokke, Ph.D, former Director of the
U.S. Army Depleted Uranium Project
A Survivor’s Perpsective
Interview with Melissa Sterry, Gulf War Veteran who is
surviving the effects of depleted uranium
Copyright ©2004 The Lone Star Iconoclast
*****************************************************************
47 Lone Star Iconoclast: A Scientific Perspective An Interview With LEUREN MORET, Geoscientist
Interview Conducted
By W. Leon Smith
and Nathan Diebenow
Leuren Moret is a geoscientist who works almost around the clock
educating citizens, the media, members of parliaments and
Congress and other officials on radiation issues. She became a
whistleblower in 1991 at the Livermore Nuclear Weapons Lab after
witnessing fraud on the Yucca Mountain Project. She is currently
working as an independent citizen scientist and radiation
specialist in communities around the world, and contributed to
the U.N. subcommission investigating depleted uranium. According
to Wikipedia online encyclopedia, Moret testified at the
International Criminal Tribunal for Afghanistan in Japan in 2003,
presented at the World Depleted Uranium Weapons Conference in
Hamburg, Germany, and spoke at the World Court of Women at the
World Social Forum in Bombay, India, in January 2004.
THE INTERVIEW
ICONOCLAST: What are the latest developments with reducing
depleted uranium exposures on U.S. troops?
MORET: A young veteran named Melissa Sterry of Connecticut has
introduced a bill into the Connecticut Legislature requiring
independent testing of returning Afghan and Gulf War veterans
going back to 2001. She said that she did it because she’s sick,
and her friends are dead, and that’s from serving in the 2003
conflict. I have been following the bill and talking to her.
Yesterday, she testified twice at the United Nations. I said,
“Why don’t we get this bill all over the U.S. in state
legislatures because it informs the public and get the local
media to cover it.”
The U.S. has blocked any accountability at international and
national levels. There’s a total cover-up just like with Agent
Orange, the atomic veterans, MKULTRA, the mind control
experiments the CIA did. This is more of the same, but the issue
is much, much worse because the genetic future of all those
contaminated is effected. Now vast regions around our world, as
well as our atmosphere, are contaminated with the depleted
uranium. They’ve used so much. It’s the equivalent number of
atoms, as the Japanese professor calculated it, to over 400,000
Nagasaki bombs that has been released into the atmosphere.
That’s really an underestimate.
I went to Louisiana in April. I was invited to speak at the
University of New Orleans for three days. One of the veterans
asked me to be in their April 19 protest and rally through the
City of New Orleans. He took the Connecticut bill straight to
the Legislature, and he got two legislators to sponsor it, and
he said, “Just whiteout the name ‘Connecticut’ and write in
‘Louisiana’ on the bill.” You’re not going to believe it. It
passed 101 to 0 yesterday in the Louisiana House.
I want you to write about it because we want it (the DU testing
bill) in Texas. Nevada is going to introduce it. Congressman Jim
McDermott is going to put it into the Washington legislature. We
want to get the governor of Montana to do it because he’s the
first governor to demand his National Guard be returned. I think
half of them are back. He said, “I need them in the state.”
The DU issue is just really, really, really, really so awful. I
don’t think there’s any greater tragedy in the history of the
world in what they’ve done.
ICONOCLAST: Is there a danger of depleted uranium, being used in
weaponry over there, spreading by air over here?
MORET: The atmosphere globally is contaminated with it. It’s
completely mixed in one year. I’m an expert on atmospheric dust.
I’m a geoscientist, a geologist, and that’s what I studied and
did my research on. It’s really a fascinating subject. We have
huge dust storms that are a million square miles and transport
millions of tons of dust and sand every year around the world.
The main centers of these dust storms are the Gobi Desert in
China, which is where the Chinese did atmospheric testing, so
that’s all contaminated with radiation, and it gets transported
right over Japan, and it comes straight across the Pacific and
dumps all its sand and dust on the U.S., North America. It’s
loaded with radioactive isotopes, soot, pesticides, chemicals,
pollution — everything is in it — fungi, bacteria, viruses.
The Sahara Desert is another huge dust center, and it goes up
all over Europe and straight across the Atlantic, to the
Caribbean, and up the East Coast. Of course, you get it in Texas
with those hurricanes. They all originate in the Sahara Desert.
The third region is the Western United States, which is where
the Nevada test site is located. We did 1,200 nuclear weapons
tests there, so all this radiation that is already there, which
is bad enough, has caused a global cancer epidemic since 1945.
All of that radiation was the equivalent of 40,000 Nagasaki
bombs. We’re talking about 10 times more.
In April of 2003, the World Health Organization said they expect
global cancer rates to increase 50 percent by the year 2020.
Infant mortality is going up again all over the world. This is
an indicator of the level of radioactive pollution.
When the U.S. and Russia signed the partial test ban treaty in
1963, the infant mortality rate started dropping again, which is
normal.
Now they are going up again. It’s the global pollution with this
radiation.
ICONOCLAST: I had one of our correspondents send me a series of
photographs of the Al-Asad dust storm in Iraq on April 28.
MORET: That dust is what I’m talking about.
ICONOCLAST: In the picture you can see a gigantic wall of sand.
MORET: I have 16 pictures of that storm. They’re posted with
photos from Iraqi doctors of the children of people with cancer
and leukemia. So what did you think of that dust storm?
ICONOCLAST: I thought it was really dramatic.
MORET: It remobilizes all the radiation, but those are the
larger chunks. The DU burns at such high temperatures. It’s a
pyroforic metal which means it burns. The bullets and big
caliber shells are actually on fire when they come out of the
gun barrel because they are ignited by the friction in the gun
barrel. Seventy percent of the DU metal becomes a metal vapor.
It’s actually a radioactive gas weapon and a terrain contaminant.
I’ll email you the URL of the 1943 memo to General Leslie Grove
under the Manhattan Project. It’s the blueprint for depleted
uranium. They dropped the atomic bombs, but they did not use the
DU weapons because they thought they were too horrific.
I’ve toured and gone all over Japan with a pediatrician in
Basra and an oncologist, a cancer specialist. These poor doctors
— their whole families are dying of cancer. He has 10 members of
his family with cancer now that he’s treating, and this is just
from Gulf War I. They’ve used much, much, much more in 2003. All
over the whole country.
ICONOCLAST: What can soldiers expect when they come home?
MORET: If they were in Bradley Fighting Vehicles, they’re coming
home with rectal cancer from sitting on ammunition boxes. The
young women are reporting terrible problems with endometriosis.
That’s the lining of the uterus malfunctioning, and they just
bleed and bleed and bleed. Some of them have uterine cancer — 18
and 19 and 20 year olds.
The Army will not even diagnose it. They send them back to the
battlefields. They won’t treat them or diagnose them. A group of
20 soldiers pushed from Kuwait to Baghdad in 2003 in all the
fighting. Eight of those 20 soldiers have malignancies.
ICONOCLAST: Does exposure to depleted uranium effect their
psychological background when they come home?
MORET: Depleted uranium are these particles that form at very
high temperatures. They are uranium oxides that are insoluble.
They are at least 100 times smaller than a white blood cell, so
when the soldiers breathe, they inhale them. The particles go
through the nose, go through the olfactory and into the brain,
and it messes up their cognitive abilities, thought processes.
It damages their mood-control mechanism in the brain. Four
soldiers at Fort Bragg came back from Afghanistan, and within
two months, those four had murdered their wives. This is part of
the damage to the brain from the radiation and the particles.
The soldiers from Gulf War I in a group of 67 soldiers who came
back, they had DU in their equipment, in their clothes, in their
bodies, in their semen, and they had normal babies before they
went over there to war. They came back, and the VA did a study.
Of 251 Gulf War I veterans in Mississippi, in 67 percent of
them, thier babies born after the war were deemed to have severe
birth defects. They had brains missing, arms and legs missing,
organs missing. They were born without eyes. They had horrible
blood diseases. It’s horrific.
If you want to look at something, Life magazine did a photo
essay which is still on the Internet. It’s called “The Tiny
Victims of Desert Storm.” You should look at that — oh, my God,
the post-Gulf War babies playing with their brothers and sisters
who are normal.
Basically, it’s like smoking crack, only you’re smoking
radioactive crack. It goes straight into the blood stream. It’s
carried all throughout the body into the bones, the bone marrow,
the brain. It goes into the fetus. It’s a systemic poison and a
radiological poison.
ICONOCLAST: What about the people in the United States that are
here? You say that DU is being mixed and spread globally?
MORET: Yes, it’s being mixed globally. We’re getting secondary
smoke. It’s the secondary smoke effect. You know the people who
inhabit a room with smokers? They are getting that secondary
smoke, and so are we.
ICONOCLAST: Is that secondary smoke getting thicker as we speak?
MORET: Yeah, the concentration of the depleted uranium particles
in the atmosphere all around the globe is increasing. There are
indications that the U.S. will go in June and bomb the heck out
of Iran. We’re monitoring the U.S. Army ammunition factories.
They have very large orders for those huge bunker buster bombs
that have 5,000 lbs. of DU in the warhead.
ICONOCLAST: So the prognosis for America isn’t really good?
MORET: No, it’s really bad.
ICONOCLAST: And if this continues then?
MORET: It’s going to kill off the world’s population. It already
is, and it doesn’t just effect people. It effects all living
systems. The plants, the animals, the bacteria. It effects
everything.
ICONOCLAST: So the things that we eat for instance, if they have
DU in them, then we’ll just get it in our systems, and so we’re
polluting the oceans, so that could effect all marine life?
MORET: Yes, it’s in the air, water, and soil. The half-life of
DU, Uranium 238, is 4.5 billion years the age of the Earth.
ICONOCLAST: With the damage that’s been done to this point, can
we turn back? We can’t clean it up?
MORET: There’s no way to clean it up. What happens is these tiny
particles float around the Earth. There are still plutonium and
uranium floating around the Earth from bomb testing. These
particles are so tiny that molecules bumping into them keep them
lofted in the air, and so the only way for them to get out of
the atmosphere is rain, snow, fog, pollution, which will clear
them out of the air and deposit them in the environment. What
happens is the surface of these particles gets wetted by the
moisture in the air. They come down and land on stuff and stick
to it like a glue. You can’t ever get the particles off whatever
they’re sticking to because have you ever put a drop of water on
a microscope slide and then put another one on top of it? Can
you pull those apart?
ICONOCLAST: No.
MORET: Okay, that’s the same effect that happens to radioactive
particles. Once they are removed from the atmosphere, they stick
to any surfaces they land on. In a way they are removed from
circulation from the atmosphere. You can’t wash them off. If it
keeps raining or they’re in a creek, you know, if they’re on
rocks or stones or something in a creek, they won’t even wash
off.
You didn’t know it was this bad, did you?
ICONOCLAST: No, I knew it was bad, but I thought it was fairly
isolated.
MORET: No. What is over there (in Iraq) is over here in about
four days. I don’t know if you followed Chernobyl. That big
bubble of radiation went around and around the world, but this
is dust. It becomes a part of atmospheric dust. Like the dust
storm you saw in that photo, it goes everywhere.
ICONOCLAST: Is it in the upper levels of the atmosphere or the
lower levels?
MORET: It’s in lower orbital space.
They brought the Mir spacecraft back down to Earth when they got
done using it, and there was something called a space midge
which covered the electronics on the outside of the spacecraft
and protected it from radiation that comes from the sun because
electronics are real vulnerable to radiation. They analyzed the
surface of that space net and found uranium and uranium decayed
products which they said came from atmospheric testing or burned
up spacecraft with nuclear materials or nuclear reactors on
board. Uranium can also come from supernovas, but they thought
that the most likely sources were atmospheric testing and the
nuclear materials we put in space.
ICONOCLAST: Essentially then, you’re saying that we’re
conducting a nuclear war.
MORET: Yes, and that’s exactly what it is. We’ve conducted four
nuclear wars since 1991. Yeah, these are nuclear wars. DU is a
nuclear weapon.
ICONOCLAST: From the point of view of a scientist, what needs to
happen to correct this?
MORET: Well, we need to stop the use of it. We’ve built an
international movement to stop the use, the manufacture, the
storage, the sales, and the deployment of depleted uranium
weapons.
ICONOCLAST: Are the munitions we sell to other countries
contained with depleted uranium?
MORET: We have. In 1968 the first depleted uranium weapons
systems that we found a patent for suddenly appeared in the U.S.
patent office. It was for the Navy. It was sort of a Gatling gun
style weapon system that you mounted on ships. It rapidly fires
like 2,500 bullets a minute. It’s over 3,000 now. They’ve
improved the design. Then in 1973, we gave depleted uranium
weapons systems to the Israelis and supervised their use. They
used them in the Arab-Israeli war and completely wiped out the
Arabs in five days. Then the show was on the road. That was the
first actual battlefield demonstration of this new weapon system.
Hughes Aircraft developed the full-length system which is for
the Navy. That’s the Gatling gun system. They still use it. That
was produced in 1974 and tested. Within six months the U.S.
government had sold the DU weapons system to 12 entities which
included many branches of the U.S. military and other counties.
We’ve sold DU weapons systems to about — we don’t know exactly
for sure — it’s been about 12 or 17 countries. The good news is
that normally such a weapons system that effective would have
been sold to 80, 100, or 120 countries by now. But because of
the radiological, biological, and environmental hazard,
countries were not only afraid to buy it, the ones who did buy
it are afraid to use it. The only countries we know that have
used DU are Britain, the U.S., and Israel.
The United Nations in 1996 passed a resolution that depleted
uranium weapons are weapons of mass destruction, and they are
illegal under all international laws and treaties.
In 2001, the European Parliament passed a resolution on DU. What
happened is that the NATO forces went into Yugoslavia in 1998
and ’99 and flew 39,000 bombing runs and completely bombed
Yugoslavia into radioactive rubble. Germany and the U.S. made
the most money on the destruction of Yugoslavia, and they made
sure that countries that didn’t know about the DU, that the
peacekeepers from those countries like from Italy and Portugal,
were sent to the most contaminated regions in Yugoslavia.
Germans and Americans didn’t send their own troops into those
areas. They were in the least contaminated areas. These poor
soldiers from other countries came back and died within weeks or
in a couple of days or months. The parents in Portugal and Italy
are furious and went to the Parliament and media, and there was
just a huge media storm of articles about DU.
The cat was out of the bag because of the 1998 NATO invasion of
Yugoslavia. The cat was out of the bag, but Japanese troops have
been sent into Somawa. They’re self-defense forces. It was the
most contaminated area where the heaviest fighting happened in
Iraq. We can expect those soldiers to be really, really sick.
ICONOCLAST: What about Iraq itself? What’s been done thus far?
MORET: It’s uninhabitable. The whole country. Yugoslavia, Iraq,
and Afghanistan are completely uninhabitable.
ICONOCLAST: But people live there, so they’re going to live
there suffering?
MORET: Well, you can see from the birth defects and the
illnesses that it is pretty severe. Each year the number of
birth defects and illnesses will rise because of the total
contamination levels in all living things will increase because
they are breathing that air and drinking water and eating the
food from contaminated soils. It’s just a slow death sentence.
The same with Yugoslavia and Afghanistan.
Depleted uranium is a very, very, very effective biological
weapon. This is the primary purpose for using it. Marion Falk (a
retired chemical physicist who built nuclear bombs for more than
20 years at Lawrence Livermore lab), who is the Manhattan
Project scientist I work with, taught me pretty much everything
about radiation and particles and DU. He said the purpose of
weapons used by the military is not only to injure and kill the
enemy soldiers, but the purpose is to kill, maim, and disease
the civilian population because it reduces the productivity of a
country and pretty soon a lot of their resources are going to be
used for taking care of sick people. They will have fewer and
fewer healthy workers.
Of course, once you cause mutation in the DNA, that damage is
passed on to future generations of that affected person or
animal or plant. DNA does not repair itself.
ICONOCLAST: So the mutations would be probably destructive
moreso than constructive.
MORET: Oh, the mutations are causing those birth defects.
ICONOCLAST: They’re not evolutionary diseases?
MORET: No, they are evolutionary. They are inherited by all
future generations and passed on. It’s like if you have red hair
and all of your future generations will have that gene.
ICONOCLAST: So if I had a precondition to heart disease because
of the radiation, then the generation that would come after me
would have the same problem?
MORET: Well, if you damage the cell or parts of the cell or
functioning of cells, that doesn’t necessarily damage the DNA.
There are two kinds of damage: one damages the cells of the
living organism, and that may not be passed on, but if you
damage the DNA in the egg or the sperm, that is passed on to all
future generations.
ICONOCLAST: So the guys coming back from the war, their sperm is
probably going to be —
MORET: Damaged. Yes. They also have depleted uranium in their
semen. When they’re intimate with their partners, they
internally contaminate them with depleted uranium. The women
become sick themselves. They have depleted uranium in their
bodies, and there is something called burning syndrome. Just
absolutely horrible. You can read about it in an article by
David Rose in the December Vanity Fair. It’s on the Internet.
A friend of mine is the widow of a Canadian Gulf War veteran.
David Rose interviewed her, and she griped about the burning
semen. She said, “I had 20 condoms full of frozen peas in my
freezer at all times, and after we were intimate, I would insert
one into my vagina, and that is the only way I could bear the
pain from the burning semen.” And it goes through condoms, too.
ICONOCLAST: Gosh, durn!
MORET: Yeah, you should see the high school classes when I talk
about the burning semen and the internal contamination. The
girls’ mouths go into little round Os, and the boys start
panicking because they’re like, “I’ll never get sick!” (laughs)
The name of this article is “Weapons of Self-Destruction.”
ICONOCLAST: How much DU will it take to kill off all known life
on this planet?
MORET: The amount of radiation released is certainly going to
have a very, very profound global impact, and we’re already
seeing infant mortality increasing globally. The fetus is the
most susceptible to radiation damage because all the cells are
rapidly dividing, the limbs and the bodies developing, so when
you start introducing toxic chemicals and radiation, it really
damages the natural process of fetal development.
The reason they were able to convince the Senate to sign the
partial test ban treaty in 1963 was because of the increase in
infant mortality. It had been dropping and declining two or
three percent for quite a long time each year because of better
prenatal care and educating mothers.
Infant mortality started going up after the bombs were dropped
on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, especially in the ‘50s when the big
bomb testing started.
By 1963, it was really obvious that the bomb testing globally
was having a real impact on the unborn. They signed the partial
test ban treaty. Russia and the U.S. stopped atmospheric
testing, and the infant mortality rate started going down right
away. They’re going up again now. This is global radioactive
pollution, and how long it would take to eliminate all life is
something nobody knows, but the depleted uranium is a very, very
effective biological weapon.
There are two purposes for the military use of weapons. One is
to destroy the enemy soldiers, and the other, which is just as
important, is to destroy the enemy civilian population. By
causing illnesses and disease, long lingering illnesses really
impact the productivity and the economy of a country. It was
Chernobyl and other nuclear disasters that actually destroyed
the Soviet Union because the former Soviet Union is very, very
sick from all the radiation that was released. They were much
more sloppier than we were.
I have a World Health Organization world health survey which
they published in the Journal of American Medical Association
last June. The impact of atmospheric testing is very, very
apparent by the percentage of population in each country they
investigated for some form of mental illness. For instance,
Japan is 8.8 percent. Nigeria is very low — 4.7 percent. They
have almost no radiation in Nigeria. In the Ukraine where they
had the Chernobyl accident, it is 20.4 percent. Spain is at 9.2
percent. Italy is 8.2 percent. It’s pretty low because they
don’t have nuke plants. France is 75 percent reliant on nuclear
power, so you have mental illness in 18.4 percent of the
population. Mexico is at 12.2 percent, and the United States is
at 26.3 percent — the highest rate of mental illness in the
world.
And George Bush and his siblings were all exposed in utero to
bomb testing fallout in the United States. He had a toddler
sister who died of leukemia when she was about three.
I worked with a group called the Radiation And Public Health
Project. Their website is . We are all
radiation specialists, well-known scientists, and independent
scientists. We’ve collected 6,000 baby teeth around nuclear
power plants and measured the radiation in them, and one of our
members is the neighbor of the women who worked with all of the
Bush children, including President Bush himself, because they
had severe learning disabilities.
ICONOCLAST: How do we know that the Bush children were exposed?
MORET: By the year of their birth. The year they were carried by
their mother. You have to look at how much bomb testing material
was released into the atmosphere, and there’s a direct
correlation to the decline in SAT scores for all teenagers in
the U.S. to the amount of radiation that was released into the
atmosphere the year their mother was carrying them. These are
delayed effects of radiation exposure in utero.
ICONOCLAST: So they were living in Connecticut, but they were
still feeling the effects of the radiation in Nevada?
MORET: Two years ago the U.S. government admitted that every
single person living in the United States between 1957 and 1963
was internally exposed to radiation. So for any pregnant woman
during those years, her fetus was exposed.
ICONOCLAST: What type of radiation levels are we talking about?
MORET: It’s low levels, and the main pathways are drinking water
and dairy products. It even killed the baby fish in the
Atlantic. Strontium-90 is a man-made isotope that comes out of
nuclear bombs and nuclear reactors. They measured the levels of
strontium-90 in milk in Norway from the 1950s up until the
1970s, and they measured the decline in the fishing catch in
that same period, and as the strontium-90 increased in the milk
in Norway, fishing catches declined.
By 1963, when the U.S. tested a nuclear bomb almost every day
(they did 250 tests in one year because the treaty was going to
be signed), the fishing catch declined by 50 percent. In the
Pacific, it declined 60 percent because there was Russian,
Chinese, French, and U.S. testing in the Pacific.
ICONOCLAST: So we’re still eating those contaminated fish today.
Has the genetic code been changed?
MORET: The oceans are getting whatever is getting rained down,
snowed down, or fogged down from the atmosphere. It’s getting
into the oceans. This big frog die-off, which is global, is
certainly related to the radiation in the rainwater. It’s a
global nuclear holocaust. It effects all living things. That’s
why they call it “omnicide,” which means it kills all living
things — the plants, the animals, the bacteria. Everything.
ICONOCLAST: You think we ought to have the Weather Channel
report on the current sand storm conditions in Iraq so we can
prepare four days in advance for the radiation?
MORET: I’ll tell you what I did when 9/11 happened.
I called all the doctors with Radiation And Public Health
Project, and I said, “Get out of town, and don’t come back until
it has rained three times.” One lived 12 miles downwind from the
Pentagon. She went out on her balcony with her geiger counter. I
said, “Get that geiger counter out of your purse.” We had just
done a press conference in San Francisco, and I knew she had it
in her purse. Well, the radiation levels were 8-10 times higher
than background.
We called the EPA, HAZMAT, FBI, and said, “Get all those
emergency response workers suited up. They need to be
protected.” Two days after 9/11, the EPA radiation expert for
that region called back and said, “Yup, the Pentagon crash
rubble was radioactive, and we believe it’s depleted uranium,
but we’re not worried about that. It’s only harmful if it’s
inhaled.”
He said, “We’re worried about the lead solder in the plane.”
Well, you know what’s in Tomahawk missiles? They have depleted
uranium warheads. The radioactive crash rubble contaminated with
DU is evidence of a DU warhead.
ICONOCLAST: I did not think about that, but going back to my
original question: Should the Weather Channel report for us on
the toxic dust storms in Iraq?
MORET: But how could people get away from them? These dust
storms are a million square miles. They’re huge, and they come
right across the Atlantic, the Caribbean, and Texas coast line,
and right up the East Coast. There are people who are going to
leave the state every time there’s a hurricane It’s in the food,
drinking water, dairy products, and then the problem with
Uranium 238, which is 99.39 percent DU, is that it decays in
over 20 steps into other radioactive isotopes.
That’s why I call it the “Trojan Horse.” It’s the weapon that
keeps giving. It keeps killing. This is like smoking radioactive
crack. It goes right in your nose. It crosses the olfactory bulb
into your brain. It’s a systemic poison. It goes everywhere.
These particles that form at very high temperatures —
5,000-10,000 degrees C — are nanoparticles. They are a 10th of a
micron or smaller. A 10th of a micron is 100 times smaller than
a white blood cell. They get picked up in the lipids and
probably the cholesterol and go right through the cell membranes
of the cell. They screw up the cell processes. They screw up the
signaling between the cells because the cells all talk to each
other and coordinate what they’re doing. It messes up brain
function.
ICONOCLAST: Do you know what Iraq was like before the first Gulf
War?
MORET: Iraq prior to the 1991 Gulf War was the most advanced in
the entire Middle East. They had scrupulous databases of the
health problems and disease rates, which is why the U.S. bombed
all of the offices in the Ministry of Health. We destroyed all
those records so that a pre-Gulf War health base could not be
established to show how much these diseases have increased. This
would concern the U.S. in terms of compensation for war crimes.
In these horrible U.N. sanctions, they (the Iraqis) could never
get all of the protocol medicine for the treatment of leukemia.
They (the U.N.) would say, “These steps of the leukemia
treatment were components in weapons, so you can’t have that.”
They never gave the people the full proper protocols in the
areas of treatment they needed to get rid of the leukemia. It
hid the effects of the depleted uranium because the children
were starving. They had malnutrition. They had the healthiest
population in the Middle East (prior to Gulf War I).
ICONOCLAST: Let’s talk about the children of Iraq.
MORET: After the Gulf War, they had maybe one baby a week born
with birth defects in the hospitals in Basra. Now they are
having 10-12 a day. The levels of uranium are increasing in the
population every year. Every day, people are eating and drinking
while the whole environment is contaminated. Just what you’d
expect. There are more babies born with birth defects, and the
birth defects are getting more and more severe.
An Iraqi doctor told me that babies are being born now that are
lumps of flesh. She said that they don’t have heads or legs or
arms. It’s just a lump of flesh. This also happened to
populations that were not removed from islands in the Pacific
when the bomb tests occurred. Basically, governments were using
them as guinea pigs.
ICONOCLAST: So all the countries that were equipped with nuclear
weapons are guilty of those atrocities.
MORET: They were all doing it. France, Russia. China, and the
U.S. And I’m not sure if Britain did bomb testing. They were
real low key about it.
ICONOCLAST: Where are the radiation hot spots in the United
States?
MORET: In the United States, it would be within a 100 miles of
nuclear power plants. We have 110 nuclear power plants in the
U.S. We have the most of any country in the world, but only a
103 are operating. Almost all of the entire East Coast.
What we did was we took government data from the Centers of
Disease Control on breast cancer deaths between 1985 and 1989.
Anywhere from within a 100 miles of a nuclear power plant is
where two-thirds of all breast cancer deaths occurred in the
U.S. between 1985 and 1989.
It’s also around the nuclear weapons laboratories. That would be
Los Alamos in New Mexico, the Idaho Nuclear Engineering Lab in
Idaho, and Hanford in Washington State, which is where they got
the plutonium for all the bombs. They contaminated the entire
Columbia River watershed and almost the whole state of
Washington.
It gets into the water and into the plants and into the
vegetation. If you eat clams or mussels or crabs or things like
that, even certain kinds of fish that eat off of the mud at the
bottom of the river, you have much higher levels of radiation in
your tissues. It depends on each person and on how healthy they
are, but this man from Washington State died suddenly. He was in
his late 40s. They did an autopsy, and he was full of
radioactive zinc. They went, “Where in the world did he get
this? It only comes from nuclear bombs and nuclear reactors.”
They studied his diet and discovered he loved to eat oysters.
They found out where he bought his oysters and found the oyster
beds. They were 200 miles off shore, from Washington State. The
radiation was being carried off out to sea from the coastline.
It was passing over this oyster bed. The oysters were just
gobbling them up.
ICONOCLAST: What are the symptoms of DU poisoning?
MORET: Soldiers on the battlefield have reported a metallic
taste in their mouth. That’s the actual taste of the uranium
metal. Then within 24-48 hours, soldiers on the battlefield have
reported that they felt sick. They start getting muscle aches,
and they lose energy. Some of them came back incontinent. In
other words, in adult diapers.
One woman reported that the first night home, she wanted to be
intimate with her husband, but she had absolutely no feeling.
She couldn’t feel anything from the waist down. This particulate
matter damages the neuromuscular system, the nerves; it just
goes everywhere. And there’s no treatment for it. These
particles are very, very insoluble, so they can’t even dissolve
in body fluids, so they can be excreted from the body. Then they
keep releasing. Even when uranium decays, it turns into another
radioactive isotope. So it’s a particle that just sits there
shooting bullets until you die.
Another problem is that soldiers have crumbling teeth. Teeth
just start falling apart. The uranium replaces calcium in the
calcium-phosphate structure of the teeth. Some have complained
about grand mal seizures, cerebral palsy. Some diseases reported
at very high rates in Air Force and Army soldiers are
Parkinson’s disease, Lou Gehrig’s disease, and Hodgkin’s
disease. This is damage to the mitochondria in the cells and the
nerves. The mitochondria make all the energy for the body, so
when you damage mitochondria, another symptom is chronic fatigue
syndrome. There’s just not enough energy produced by the body to
function normally.
I found a study in the SanDia Nuclear Weapons Laboratory
employee newsletter in September 2003. They are doing major
studies in mitochondrial disfunction related to Lou Gehrig’s,
Hodgkin’s, and Parkinson’s diseases for veterans. Since it’s at
a nuclear weapon’s lab, they are fully aware of the health
damage.
ICONOCLAST: Tell me about the tests that detect for DU in the
body.
MORET: The chromosome test in the best indicator. It’s $5,000.
The urine test is a $1,000. If you test positive with the urine
test, you know you’re contaminated. If you test negative, it
does not mean that you’re not contaminated. It just means that
you may or may not be contaminated but enough hasn’t dissolved
in your blood stream to go through your kidneys to be excreted
in your urine. Anyone who goes now cannot avoid being
contaminated. Anyone. Anyone. Anyone. Everyone who goes to the
Middle East and Afghanistan will be contaminated.
The DU issue affects every single living thing on this planet.
What else has that impact? They have altered the genome for the
entire planet forever with this DU. The Pentagon people say,
“You’re exaggerating or you use the uranium word to scare
people.” I don’t care if people believe me or not. All I can say
is that over time what I am saying will actually be an
underestimation of the long term effects.
What Is Depleted Uranium?
Copyright ©2004 The Lone Star Iconoclast
*****************************************************************
48 Lone Star Iconoclast: A Military Perspective An Interview With MAJOR DOUG ROKKE, Ph.D
Former Director of the U.S. Army Depleted Uranium Project
Interview
By W. Leon Smith
Major Doug Rokke, PhD, is a retired Army combat officer who
served as the director of the U.S. Army Depleted Uranium Project
at the start of Gulf War I. His job was to prepare soldiers for
nuclear, biological, and chemical warfare. He was in charge of
cleaning up American tanks hit by friendly-fired depleted
uranium (DU) munitions as well as helping casualties
contaminated with DU.
His own health has suffered from the effects of uranium
poisoning. Reports indicate that he has 5,000 times the
acceptable level of radiation in his body and that he suffers
from reactive airway disease from DU.
Prior to deployment to the Perisan Gulf, Dr. Rokke worked with
the University of Illinois Physics Department and served in
Vietnam. His PhD is in health physics. His original training was
in forensic science. Today, he travels the global informing
people and governments of the dangers of DU exposure.
THE INTERVIEW
ICONOCLAST: How do you view depleted uranium?
ROKKE: DU…interesting nightmare.
ICONOCLAST: Actually, it’s a lot more widespread and damaging
worldwide than I had realized before talking to Leuren Moret.
ROKKE: Absolutely. The United States gave it to Isreael. The
first time it was used that I can document, for which I have the
reports that I base my work on — it was 1973, during the
Arab-Israeli conflict, and U.S. Army guys actually went on-site.
We’ve got all the photographs, measurements. We’ve got trash
medically, and equipment was trashed, so we know that for a fact.
And then we used it extensively, probably close to 375 tons —
now this is solid uranium, not uranium plus explosives or
casings, but solid uranium, the amount of munitions in Gulf War
I. In ’94 and ’95 we used three tons in the Balkans, and I was
specifically asked to write the clean-up procedures and
emergency management procedures for that for the Army. I’ve
still got them. In December of ’95 and January of ’96, the U.S.
Marines shot the hell out of Okinawa, Torishima Island. We
didn’t tell the Japanese for a year.
And then we used it getting ready for the Balkans in ’99 down in
Puerto Rico. When I found out about that, I tried to activate
our Army emergency response team called Army Contaminated
Equipment Recovery team. That’s by the Army regulation 700-48
that I wrote that was adopted, accepted, and implemented.
The Army refused to do that. Then I tried to get medical care
for them down there, and they refused to do that.
Then, on April 16 of ’99, we got called up to the White House
to meet with what’s called Bill Clinton’s Presidential Oversight
Board and that was under Senator Warren Rudman and Navy Admiral
Elmo Zumwalt. Our team met with them and told them we’re going
to see all these health effects in the Balkans. We were still
trying to deal with health effects from Gulf War I. At that
time, I still got all the emails, copies of all the letters
sent.
They said we won’t use it (DU) in the Balkans, and lo and
behold, they were already using it. They used 30-40 tons in the
Balkans in ’99.
Since then, we’ve been shooting it up, as U.S Congressman James
McDermott from Seattle, Washington, has confirmed. The Coast
Guard’s been shooting it up in the Puget Sound, Chesapeake Bay,
off the coast of Texas, every place.
ICONOCLAST: Why have they been doing that?
ROKKE: They’re just crazy. They want to make sure their guns
work. Real simple. They’re crazy.
And, then, we came along with Gulf War II.
We started planning Gulf War II back in ’95. That had nothing to
do with 9/11 at all. Zero. Not a thing. What’s real interesting,
if you go to the actual 9-1-1 report, General Franks totally
acknowledges in the report in his testimony, that, yeah, they
took and dusted off the invasion plans for Iraq and implemented
it, which everybody knows because all that stuff was based on
lies. So, anyhow, we went into Afghanistan based on a Feb. 12,
1998, Congressional discussion to overthrow the Taliban because
it wouldn’t go along with the Unicol oil deal, so that’s why
that happened.
We probably dumped a thousand tons or more in Afghanistan, and
God knows how many, thousand, two-thousand tons in Iraq, and
we’re still using it as we speak.
ICONOCLAST: You have no idea how much exactly?
ROKKE: Not really. Nobody can get a solid estimate. We do know
from on-site measurements and videos and photographs, there’s
stuff laying all over the place.
We shot up water treatment facilities. I’ve got live video and
photographs. Apartment buildings, tanks, everything just left
there…kids climbing all over them.
Scott Peterson with the Christian Science Monitor reported it.
The Japanese reported it. Ted Wayman who works for Uranium
Medical Research Center went over there and measured it and
reported it, not just took somebody’s word for it, but went over
and did the stuff.
Medical reports coming out of Iraq on birth defects probably two
or three days ago are just catastrophic, much less what’s
happened to our own troops. It’s just incredible because the
U.S. Army had required since I issued the initial order back
after the ground war in 1991 that medical care in the form of
testing be provided to everybody that was exposed within 24-72
hours. Still not happening.
The government Department of Defense is trying to prevent
information from getting out. They’ll say thousands of people
have been tested since ’92. If you go to the local VA and pick
up a brand new issue of the Gulf War Review, Vol. 13, No. 1, or
you can get it online , go to page 12 of it. It
states since 1992 only 270 people have ever been tested.
(laughs). I can’t get my own staff tested yet, 14 years after
the fact.
ICONOCLAST: What do you know about the munitions?
ROKKE: There are two different types of DU rounds. We have the
kinetic energy penetrator, and that’s fired by an Abrams tank, a
Bradley Fighting Vehicle, and HN Warthog aircraft, the Navy
Phalanx, and then the machine gun. Those are all basically
gigantic darts of solid uranium, contaminated with all the other
junk from DOE’s facility down at Paducah, Oakridge, and
Portsmouth where they make the stuff.
The Abrams tank round is a solid rod of uranium about
three-quarters of an inch in diameter, 18 inches long. Each and
every rod is over 10 pounds of solid uranium. The A-10 fires one
that’s three-quarters of solid uranium at 4,000 rounds a minute.
The Bradley Fighting Vehicle, that’s a chain gun that’s pretty
fast, too, fires thousands of rounds. Each and every one of
those rounds is half a pound. Those are kinetic energy
penetrators. The machine gun is a giant bullet, too.
Then we have submunition landmines. These are cluster bombs.
The casing is uranium, DU, with high explosives inside. I mean
it’s the absolute perfect dirty bomb.
And then we have the bunker busters where you’ve got the
uranium casing from the McAlester army ammunition plant. The
guys got sick putting these things together just about six
months ago. I mean, real sick, and they had to shut the line
down.
ICONOCLAST: Where do they make these?
ROKKE: The DUs are made all over the place. I mean Aerojet … we
got health effects where they shut the whole thing down, up at
Albany, New York. That was National Lead. They’ve got horrible
effects all around Concord, Mass. where it’s manufactured. 60
Minutes did a story back in 1981 about all the adverse health
effects that were at the Aerojet facility in Tennessee. They
make it up in Minneapolis at Twin Cities. I mean, all over the
place. This stuff’s a nightmare.When you get to Oakridge and
Paducah and Portsmouth where they have this stuff, and the
health effects around there are just legendary, with all the
respiratories and the cancers and everything.
The best report that’s out is called Discounted Casualties. It
was written by a Japanese journalist who’s an expert on
Hiroshima, you know, the atomic bomb. Akira Tashiro was his
name. You could just go online, and type Discounted Casualties,
and pull the whole book up in English. Just read through it.
There are interviews. Leuren Moret did the forward on it, and I
talk about all my work as director of the DU Project when I was
health physicist with the assessment team after Gulf War I.
You won’t find hardly anything on the web. If you go to the
Department of Defense website, and you put in the “Depleted
Uranium Project” for which I was director, you won’t find any of
this stuff. You won’t find any report on the depleted uranium
assessment team from Gulf War I, and all the reports we did.
It’s just not there.
We had all these orders mandating medical care, going way back
to day one. I issued the initial one and have a whole shitpot of
medals. In ’91, the commanding general issued the order to
provide medical care for everybody, identifying those who needed
it. It never happened.
And then General Shinseki, who is retired as the head Army
general, issued the order himself Aug. 14, 1993, mandating
medical care, thorough environmental clean-up and remediation,
and education and training. As a consequence of that, as
director of the DU Project, we developed all the regulations,
environmental clean-up, all the training and education,
videotapes to support it, and in September of 2002 General
Shinseki signed Army regulation AR700-48 making it mandatory.
But they just ignore it.
And then General Peake on April of last year issued the same
order mandating medical care for everyone exposed. But they
ain’t doing it.
ICONOCLAST: Why won’t they do it, if they received an order from
the General?
ROKKE: They’re above the law. They’re just simply above the law.
ICONOCLAST: These guys issued the orders on behalf of the DOD,
right?
ROKKE: They are the commanding generals of the DOD.
ICONOCLAST: If they issued the order, who has the authority to
stop the orders?
ROKKE: Dickie Cheney. It stopped way up there because when you
go through this, and you find they aren’t complying with the
order, not giving the medical care, they haven’t told the truth,
then you have to figure it out.
You’ve got Deputy Secretary of Defense Bill Winkenwerder who’s
in charge of all medical. He issued an order himself in 2003 to
do it, but they don’t do it.
If you come down the medical line, you’ve got Georgie Bush,
Dickie Cheney, and then you come on down from that to Don
Rumsfeld. Then you’ve got Bill Winkenwerder, then you’ve got
Mike Kilpatrick, Department of Defense.
These guys are absolved from telling the truth or complying or
doing anything like this. And the only one that’s got the
authority and knowledge and who’s been there from day one who
can do that stuff is Dickie Cheney.
Rumsfeld’s new. Georgie Bush is new. He didn’t have any clue
what’s going on until after his 2000 election. He called me and
had me go up there and speak to the U.S. Senate on all this
stuff. Real interested to get ushered into the U.S. Senate as
keynote speaker for a Veterans Day breakfast. It’s a fascinating
experience. It’s pretty neat.
But you have all this stuff happening, so you figure, but we
continue to use it. It violates United Nations laws and
regulations. It doesn’t even pass common sense to take tons and
tons of solid radioactive material and throw it in someone
else’s back yard, refusing to give medical care although it’s
been ordered, refusing to clean up the environmental
contamination, although it’s required. And they keep getting
away with it.
When you look at the commanding generals who can do this shit,
although Shinseki signed off on the order, as the head of the
Army, and Kirpatrick and Winkenwerder can get away without doing
the medical care, who’s got the authority above them that can do
it? Well, Rumsfeld’s an idiot. He’s only been around a short
while, and George Bush didn’t know, so it points at Dickie
Cheney, because when you figure Dickie Cheney back in 92, we got
a directive sent down from a lady named Madeleine Albright,
secretary of state, down through General Paul Greenberg to the
U.S. Army corps research lab. We were ordered at that time to
write a no-bid contract for Halliburton.
ICONOCLAST: Really?
ROKKE: Uh-huh. We did. And we did it, and they got it. You know,
Brown and Root … Halliburton. So we hired them, and they went
over to Kuwait and pushed a whole bunch of junk into a big hole
at one of the camps and then walked away.
Now they’ve had all the no-bid contracts, as everybody’s heard
about. How much money’s been wasted and can’t be accounted for?
It’s real easy. When you trace the whole thing, who was involved
in the beginning to allow this stuff … it all points to Dickie
Cheney. I mean, just 100 percent. And then you still have all
the generals who knew what was going on, and they’ve never done
anything.
ICONOCLAST: Why would Dick Cheney want there to be —
ROKKE: Money. Money. Money. Money. Money.
ICONOCLAST: Is DU cheaper to produce or something?
ROKKE: Yeah. It’s free. You have to understand, this is an
incredible weapon. It kills and destroys everything. I mean,
it’s absolutely incredible. When I had to clean up the mess
following Gulf War I, I learned how good this stuff was. There’s
no two ways about it. It’s incredible. It’s the best we’ve got.
And then we did all the testing in ‘94 and ‘95, and we saw it
again. In ‘94 we did what was called a Bradley Fighting Vehicle
burn test. I loaded a Bradley Fighting Vehicle with munitions
and explosives, and I set it off. And I found that the
contamination was so extensive within 50 meters that you
absolutely had to wear full respiratory and skin protection.
Well, the Army adopted those recommendations I put in,
absolutely implemented them. They’re in place now. So with every
single incident where they use it you have to wear full
respiratory and skin protection within 50 meters by U.S. Army
specific guidance adopted by the Navy and everybody else.
When you get the stuff destroyed, it’s like a checkerboard.
It’s all over the place.
And we know also from our experience that all respiratory and
skin protection required within 50 meters’ radius, that’s about
160 feet, but the stuff goes out to about 400 meters. Now I did
not measure any farther than 400 meters, because I couldn’t out
of my pad called the Nevada test site area 25. God knows how
much farther it went. We know, absolutely totally confirm, no
question about it, that at the National Lead site where they
were manufacturing it in Albany, N.Y., it went 30 miles, in
sufficient quantities to cause health effects.
So, we put tons and tons and tons of solid radioactive
materials all over the place. This stuff, when it hits, it
breaks up, forms fine dust and oxides, and some of these dusts
are so small, they are smaller than the inner diameter of a red
blood cell. That’s always been known.
Marion Fulk knew that from day one when he did the work on the
Manhattan Project. Marion Fulk is one of the last living gods of
the Manhattan Project. He was the particle physicist who spread
of all of this stuff in the atmosphere. He’s the last living
god. Two or three of the last remaining ones have died during
the past few months.
ICONOCLAST: So, to recap?
ROKKE: What we have is deliberate use of solid radioactive
materials all over the place and the deliberate refusal to
provide the medical care that’s mandated by Army orders and
regulations, Department of Defense directives, and a simple
refusal to clean up all the environmental contamination that
must be done by the direct Army regulation. It’s that easy.
There’s no accountability.
Anybody that speaks up becomes persona non grata and the attacks
just come flying your way beyond comprehension.
ICONOCLAST: Is this a move toward population control or
something?
ROKKE: No. No. Just killing and destroying on the battlefield.
It’s real simple. You’ve got to remember the soldier and the
warrior. His job is to kill and destroy. And they don’t think
anything beyond that.
I’ve heard people say it’s about population control. No. It’s
about killing and destroying. How do you do it effectively?
That’s it.
I mean, when I was director of the DU Project, when I was still
in the good graces of the military and the secretary of the Army
and everybody, at that time they loved me. Then they had a real
problem. Anyhow, I went in with the intent to insure that if we
did use this in combat that we could clean it up and provide the
medical care and that everybody had the education: which is
knowledge, which is training, which is skills necessary to work
with it and respond and clean it up.
Well, what I found out real fast when I got in doing all this
work for 15 months was “God Almighty, you can’t clean it up. You
can’t provide medical care.”
We knew we had to put procedures in place to minimize the effect
as much as we could. That’s why I wrote the Army regulations and
put all the training programs together.
ICONOCLAST: Would you list yourself as a whistleblower?
ROKKER: Me? No. I’m an Army officer finishing my job.
I had a direct order to make sure the stuff is cleaned up.
Multiple direct orders. Some people might call it a
whistleblower because I got fed up with the fact they weren’t
complying in 1997 when the guys were sick and dying. I got fed
up with it, but no, I’m not a whistleblower. I’m just finishing
a job.
I got an order signed by Gen.Schwartzkopf’s chief of staff
assigning me to do this for the commander. Schwartzkopf got the
order on down from the Pentagon telling him to assign me to
clean up the mess. To this day, I have no idea why.
ICONOCLAST: I understand a law just passed in the Louisiana
House regarding testing for DU.
ROKKER: You betcha. 101 to nothing, mandating medical care. The
individual that was responsible for that is Command Sgt. Major
Bob Smith.
ICONOCLAST: What would it take to get Texas to pass something
like that, for the health of our soldiers coming home?
ROKKER: I don’t know. I’ve given talks at the University of
Texas Medical School in Houston. Done the same up in Dallas.
We’ve been right there in Crawford. All over the place.
One of the other doctors that works with us is Dr. Ruth McGill.
They tried to kill Ruth McGill and I down there on the south
side of Dallas a couple of years ago. They tried to run us off
the road on that big expressway. We had just finished a radio
and television interview, and we were on the way back, and they
came right at us. Man, if Dr. McGill hadn’t been a good driver
we would have been dead meat.
ICONOCLAST: Who did this?
ROKKER: DOD guys. I had my house broken into a gazillion times
when I was in Jacksonville, Alabama. Had windows shot out. I
have had direct threats from Army officers in uniform. They
bounced me out of the Army Reserve after I testified and forced
the Secretary of Defense in England to admit he lied to the
House of Lords. That was real interesting. Oh, they don’t like
any of us.
The simple thing is, you take tons and tons of solid radioactive
waste, and you spread it all over the world, both here in the
states and overseas, in combat situations and non-combat
situations, do it into the ocean, then refuse to clean it up and
provide the medical care. It’s that easy.
You guys are so close to one the largest Army bases in the
world that you could spit. I can bet you that if you go over
there, even though you had all the orders mandated, thorough
training on DU, and it’s in the common task training manual for
the Army, which means everybody in the Army must pass the DU
test that I wrote, knowing what it is and how to handle it, how
to respond — I betcha if you went over you wouldn’t find anyone
that knew or did it. And that’s scary as hell.
ICONOCLAST: So what needs to happen?
ROKKER: The President needs to issue an order — he and that
idiot over in England, his puppy dog …
ICONOCLAST: Blair?
ROKKER: Yeah, Tony Blair. Just say, “Guys, you are going to
comply with the orders that are issued.” When the commanding
generals and all the captains and colonels and everybody don’t
comply with an order and regulation, an order signed by the
Surgeon General of the U.S. Army, and they don’t comply with the
Army regulations signed by General Shinseki, they ought to court
martial their ass.
ICONOCLAST: But wouldn’t that be the President overriding the
Vice President?
ROKKER: No, the Vice President is just the head of the Senate.
Cheney runs the thing because George is an idiot.
ICONOCLAST: But you would tell him (Bush) to start running it
himself.
ROKKER: Yeah, he needs to run it himself. He’s the
Commander-in-Chief. He just needs to tell them to comply with
the orders and regulations that are issued. And tell them to
stop using DU because it doesn’t even pass the common sense
test. Who would want thousands and thousands of tons, who would
even want five pounds, of solid radioactive materials thrown in
your back yard? It doesn’t even pass the common sense test.
ICONOCLAST: You don’t think Bush is for DU?
ROKKER: Oh, yeah. They just go along with everything that’s
happening.
If you look at everything, it’s real interesting. We know the
Pentagon was never hit by an airliner, okay? Got hit by a cruise
missile. Everybody knows that shit. No evidence of wreckage. No
nothing. The hole was only 16 feet across. There’s no way an
airliner is going to disappear in a 16-foot hole. When the roof
fell down later on and they say in the 9-1-1 report, it was a
dive bomb, no trench, no nothing. Hello. You know? Isn’t it
astonishing? You go to the photograph of the 9-1-1 report on
page 312 and look at it. It’s a little hole, and nothing’s
burned and nothing’s along the sides of it. There’s no evidence
of an airplane. There’s no trench. There’s no nothing. And then
you kind of wonder how can they say that an airliner the size of
a 757 did it. Nothing fits.
But you know, it’s the same thing when you come on down. Bush
and all those guys, and Powell knew better, okay? They kept
saying, “The reason we’re going into Iraq and Gulf War II is
because they have WMDs, and they’re going to use them,” right?
Hell, Scott Ritter, Hans Blix, Richard Butler, all of us said we
didn’t do it because we blew’em up way back in 1990.
Schwartzkopf’s autobiography on page 390 of It Doesn’t Take A
Hero, specifically states that we made the decision.
This is a message from Schwartzkopf, between Powell,
Schwartzkopf, Chuck Horner, and Dickie Cheney that we decided to
blow up the stuff we gave Iraq in place so it wouldn’t be used
on us.
And when we made that decision, we said we’re all going to get
sick and guess what? You now have over 325,000 Gulf War I vets,
say from August 1990 up till Fall of last year, permanently
disabled. Hello? I mean, what more does it take? It’s
astonishing.
When you add this all up, it stinks. What I see I don’t like.
You have to understand, I’m a red, white, and blue Army officer
all the way. I joined the military in 1967, and I just retired.
So that’s how many years? Thirty-eight? You know, you’re
retired, but you’re still in. It’s a hell of a lot of years.
We got the orders to provide medical care for U.S. military,
okay? Well, you can’t under any common sense or international
law or Geneva Convention refuse to provide that medical care for
anybody else, especially non-combatants. But they do.
ICONOCLAST: It’s unbelievable that medical care is not provided.
ROKKE: That’s what I said when I kept getting these assignments
to do it, and every time I got things done, I hit a roadblock,
and then when I started yelling and screaming and trying to make
them comply, I became persona non grata so fast it would make
your head spin.
You know, sometimes, you just have to do what’s right. Boy, they
don’t like it. Hell, I’m just finishing a job. I got an order to
do it, and I’m an Army officer that does it. If somebody gets
wounded in combat, you give him the medical care. If the area
gets trashed in combat, you clean up the environment. Because
otherwise, it’s useless to go in there.
Everybody’s scared and been lied to so many times. Then all
this gets blown apart, like the fact that they’ve had to
acknowledge that there were no WMDs — everybody knew that. The
guys that said it knew that there weren’t any because they had
already made the decision to blow’em up. But you still have
people that believe these lies.
Copyright ©2004 The Lone Star Iconoclast
y
*****************************************************************
49 Lone Star Iconoclast: A Survivor’s Perspective An Interview With MELISSA STERRY
Gulf War Veteran who served in Kuwait
Interview By W. Leon Smith
Melissa Sterry is a 42-year-old Gulf War veteran who served for
six months at a supply base in Kuwait during the winter of
1991-92. Her job with the National Guard’s Combat Equipment
Company A was to clean out and prepare tanks and other armored
vehicles that had been used during the war for storage. She was
also ordered to help bury contaminated parts.
Sterry recently testified before state lawmakers in Connecticut
on the effects of depleted uranium in support of a bill,
introduced by State Rep. Patricia Dillon, that requires that
Connecticut National Guard troops now serving in Iraq and
Afghanistan be properly screened and treated for depleted
uranium contamination.
Sterry lives in New Haven, Connecticut.
THE INTERVIEW
ICONOCLAST: Tell me about what is going on in the Connecticut
Legislature regarding testing soldiers for depleted uranium.
STERRY: We have two different bills here in Connecticut were
working on. We have HB6008 that says soldiers returning have a
right for an independent test for depleted uranium. There is a
federal law that requires soldiers be tested for exposures to
depleted uranium. There are Army regulations requiring it. There
are Army publications and technical bulletins explaining how the
physicals need to be performed. It is not happening.
The state law is saying soldiers have the right to this test,
and that the federal government is not living up to its own
laws, so the state is going to take care of it.
ICONOCLAST: The state would conduct the tests?
STERRY: We would ensure that independent testing be done. At
this point, we’re not quite sure how the financing of that is
going to occur, whether or not the state would pay for it.
Whether or not the National Guard will pay for it. Whether or
not we would turn around and bill the federal government. The
financing of it is up in the air right now, but people are
pushing really hard to say it’s federal law. The feds are not
doing what they are supposed to be doing; therefore, we’re going
to bill them for doing their job.
ICONOCLAST: This passed in the legislature?
STERRY: No. It’s on the docket to be voted on.
ICONOCLAST: It’s already gone through a committee.
STERRY: It’s gone through two committees. It unanimously passed
the Veterans Affairs Committee. It unanimously passed the Public
Health Committee. The hold-up right now is determining the
fiscal note. We’re determining the cost and working it into the
budget because Connecticut has a fiscal cap. We have budget
issues that we’re working with.
ICONOCLAST: What about the Senate?
STERRY: We have an integrated system. The bill is going to be
voted on in both the House and the Senate. The committees are
joint committees, so by passing it out of the Veterans Committee
and out of the Public Health Commitee, it’s seen by both
Democrats and Republicans. It’s been seen by both senators and
representatives.
ICONOCLAST: Is there a date in which you expect to have a vote?
STERRY: Probably by the end of next week.
ICONOCLAST: Are the local papers covering that? Can I get online
and find a story about this?
STERRY: Sure. You need to reach out to the Hartford Courant and
talk to a reporter named Denny Williams.
ICONOCLAST: What’s your stake in this? Are you a victim?
STERRY: No, buddy, I’m a survivor. The only ones who are victims
when it comes to depleted uranium are children.
The second bill that is facing Connecticut is Bill 1245. It
calls for the formation of a task force, a health study, a
conference, and permenant health registry to track veterans
health. It recognizes that we need to test to determine the
health of veterans. But if we don’t have the additional support
structure — just because we know what the health of veterans is
doesn’t mean we’re going to be able to respond to it. The second
bill takes care of the other piece.
On the one hand, you have to test for things. On the other hand,
you have to track veterans’ testing.
You need to understand what is the best kind of test for
depleted uranium.
We are also trying to learn from Vietnam. Every war has a
signature illness. Every war has soldiers coming home with
visible injuries from bullets and bombs, but every war also has
soldiers coming home with illnesses that are unique to that war.
In World War I, it was mustard gas.
In World War II, it was extended stays in POW camps.
In Vietnam, it was Agent Orange and Agent Blue.
In Desert Storm and in these wars now, it’s depleted uranium.
That’s what 1245 does.
My interest is that I served in Desert Storm. I was exposed to
depleted uranium. At that time, we didn’t know about depleted
uranium. We didn’t know what it could do to the human body in
these extremely low levels of exposure. People didn’t understand
what was making us sick.
ICONOCLAST: You didn’t know when you were there that depleted
uranium was an ingredient.
STERRY: I had no idea. The depleted uranium issue started to
reveal itself in ‘96, ’97, ’98, and ’99. We knew Desert Storm
veterans were sick. We didn’t know what was making Desert Storm
veterans sick. Then when depleted uranium weapons were used
again in Bosnia and Kosovo, we began to understand the
connection. We now know what depleted uranium does.
ICONOCLAST: When you were there, you worked in the clean-up?
STERRY: I was involved with logistics. I worked in the
prepositioned stocks. These were the supplies that we left
behind for the next time we needed to fight. I was involved with
cleaning that equipment and putting it in storage.
ICONOCLAST: And it was after this that you realized you started
becoming ill?
STERRY: I was injured while I was in Kuwait, so through all of
1992, I was going through surgeries to have my leg rebuilt, and
I thought my health problems were related to my injuries. Then
by 1993, it was clear that something else was going on. In 1994
and by February 1995, it was clear I was sick, and it was not
from my injuries, and there was something wrong with me.
ICONOCLAST: And they determined it was depleted uranium?
STERRY: No. I have never been tested for depleted uranium. No
one has ever definitively diagnosed me as having been exposed to
depleted uranium. However, there is enough circumstantial
evidence in terms of having symptoms, and I have pictures of
where I was, what I worked with, and so it’s abundantly clear
that I was surrounded by equipment that had depleted uranium in
it, and that I was working with the clean-up process, so I was
exposed to what is called uranium oxide. Uranium oxide is a
byproduct of a DU weapon.
ICONOCLAST: So it’s very obvious to you then that DU is the
cause of the illness.
STERRY: No. I don’t think it’s the exclusive cause, but I think
it’s a contributing factor. Desert Storm veterans have a rather
broad collection of symptoms, some of which you see in veterans
of Bosnia and Kosovo, where DU weapons were also used, some of
which you see in veterans of the current conflict where depleted
uranium weapons were used. Some of our symptoms you don’t see in
these other groups, and I think those are things that were
brought about by other unique environmental factors.
There were a lot of experimental vaccines used on us. There are
also some profound questions about the destruction of the
various bio-chemical warfare stocks that Saddam Hussein had in
place at the time, whether or not we were accidentally exposed
from those materials when those stocks were destroyed.
So some of our symptoms meet the critiera of exposure at low
levels of sarin gas. Some of our symptoms meet the criteria for
reactions to mulitiple vaccines. I’m not saying that depleted
uranium is the only thing that made us sick, but clearly, it is
a contributing factor.
ICONOCLAST: What do you think needs to be done to correct the
problem of DU? Do we quit using it?
STERRY: There are several things we need to do. As a soldier,
this is one extrordinary, effective weapon. I dig this stuff.
But I think we need to view it the same way we viewed mustard
gas at the end of World War I, that the collateral damage that
DU provides outweighs the benefits of utilizing the weapon and
that we need to cease usage of this material.
The usage of this material is war on generations not yet born.
It wages war on children long after military conflict has ended.
It’s not just children of Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
It’s the children of American soldiers because we bring this
radioactive poisoning back to our families in our genetic
material. It’s inside our bodies. We have to stop using it.
I think the second thing we need to do is completely, fully,
accurately assess, measure, test, diagnose — pick an verb — our
soldiers’ health because doctors can’t heal us until they know
what the problem is.
And the third thing is we have to do everything we can to return
our National Guard, our Reservists. We have to do whatever we
can to bring back people’s health.
ICONOCLAST: I know here in Central Texas, there’s a move to save
the Waco Veterans Hospital from being closed..
STERRY: It’s hard to believe what’s happening there, that they
would even consider shutting it down. We’re going to need every
facility that’s available. It is our duty to care for our
veterans when they sacrificed everything in defense of the
nation.
ICONOCLAST: Are there tell-tale signs that a person has been
exposed to DU?
STERRY: It doesn’t burn your skin the way external exposure
does. It’s consuming your major organs on the inside.
ICONOCLAST: Like a microwave oven?
STERRY: Kind of. Depleted uranium gets funky.
A bulk of depleted uranium is insoluble. It’s organic in nature.
When it slips into that uranium oxide state it attaches itself
to other metals and materials that are inorganic. That makes it
insoluble. But there are still parts of depleted uranium that
are organic, that are soluble. So you can test for depleted
uranium with a urine test, but that only gets you the soluble
part of DU. A bulk of the DU is insoluble and attaches itself to
your bones and your major organs, so it doesn’t wash out with
your kidneys.
ICONOCLAST: You can’t test for that in any other way?
STERRY: Not yet. Those tests are being developed by people in
Britain and Europe and Japan. Right now, when the government
says, “Oh, we’re testing soldiers. We’re testing people. We’ve
got this urine test, and we’re not getting positive results, so
they weren’t ever exposed,” there’s a fault in that logic. They
are using as soluble test for an insoluble item.
ICONOCLAST: Do they have an idea when these other tests will be
available?
STERRY: As far as I know, other nations have it. I’m trying to
track it down. There are two nations left in the world that
utilize depleted uranium — the United States and Great Britain.
Everybody else not only doesn’t use the stuff, they’ve forbidden
the stuff. Last week, from what I understand, Belgium went so
far as to ban all of these materials from their country and are
in the process of telling the United States, “Get your garbage
out.”
You’ve got a sovereign nation saying, “Get your tanks out. Get
your armored personnel carriers out. Get your nuclear warheads
out. Get everything out of our country that contains this
material.”
There’s a real problem with being able to utilize communication
systems to try and find the appropriate test.
On Tuesday, I was at the U.N. for an all-day session of
conferences about depleted uranium, part of the nuclear
proliferation treaty situation. And, I spoke with a member of
the Scottish parliament about what they’re doing. I spoke with
Dr. Rosalie Bertell who’s doing a lot of the testing components
to try to find out what’s out there. And the Japanese are doing
a tremendous amount of this because they’ve had 60 years of
living with external radiation poisoning. I’ve been learning
about the health situation of hibakusha (radiation victims who
were terribly scarred and diseased sufferers of the first atomic
bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki),and they’re dealing with what
they call “radiation wars.”
People get really freaked out, and they get really scared, and
they go into major denial. Part of how we’ve been successful so
far (in educating the public) is to keep it real simple. Talk
about National Guard. Talk about local troops. Talk about how it
impacts people on the local level. Talk about your first
responders, your National Guard, or your emergency response
people.
Some of the great quotes to come out of people and the best
movements that we’ve had in New York State on the subject were
because the legislator turned around and asked the local
emergency response people for their plans to handle responses to
these situations, and their EMS people had no idea that these
materials were even being transported through their area.
And they immediately got on board and said, “Oooh, we can’t
play with this stuff. You’ve got to ban this. You’ve got to get
it out of here.”
ICONOCLAST: Maybe we need to talk to some local EMS personnel to
find out if they even know what depleted uranium is.
STERRY: Do they know what it is? Do they know if it is being
transported through their area? Do they have any kind of
response to it? If you have a 747 crashing in your back yard,
you’ve got exposure. It may be extraordinarily small, but you’ve
got an exposure. And we’re talking about materials that
fluctuate between the size of a tenth of a micron to ten
microns, and that’s all aerosol, and that’s all stuff that you
can inhale, and it’s stuff that can pass through the pores of
your skin.
Copyright ©2004 The Lone Star Iconoclast
*****************************************************************
50 Louisiana Weekly: Toxic Tours of Duty? Historic legislation would
ensure uranium testing for local soldiers - Jan Clifford
By Jan Clifford, Contributing Writer
May 9, 2005
According to some military and science experts, the U.S.
military has been using the equivalent of dirty bombs in the
1991 Persian Gulf War, Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation
Enduring Freedom; and the resulting contamination is
biogenetically affecting U.S. and Iraqi soldiers and civilians
and will continue to do so for generations to come.
The Louisiana House of Representatives became the first
legislative body in the nation to acknowledge the toxic effects
of depleted uranium (DU) when it passed a bill on Tuesday that
guarantees DU testing for war veterans as a medical benefit. The
bill passed by a vote of 101-0. No state expenses will be
incurred since the federal government subsidizes the $170 test.
The bill will become law if passed by the state Senate and
signed by Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco.
"The Army calls it the silver bullet. But the team that was
assigned to go in and clean up after the first Gulf War was one
hundred men," said Ret. Marine Corps Command Sgt. Maj. Bob
Smith, who served three tours of duty in the elite Green Berets
during the Vietnam War. "A third of them are already dead," he
said. Smith is responsible for bringing the issue to the
attention of House Rep. Jalila Jefferson. Jefferson enlisted
House Rep. Juan LaFonta, who agreed to sponsor the bill.
"Louisiana is very service friendly," LaFonta said. "We're
concerned about our troops."
During the Persian Gulf War in 1991, Army officials assembled a
team to clean up the DU contaminated tanks and Bradley fighting
vehicles. Most team members became sick within 48 hours, with
the first cancers developing within nine months and first deaths
from lung cancer within two years. Today, 14 years later, some
veterans are still attempting to obtain medical testing and
care, but say that military and Veterans Administration (VA)
officials simply refuse to provide mandated services.
Permanent contamination, impossible containment
Many U.S. weapons, such as missiles, bombs, bullets, and tank
shells contain DU, and act as "kinetic energy penetrators" that
ignite during flight, and break into burning fragments upon
impact. DU weapons are effective because they can penetrate and
destroy all targets, including boring through 20 feet of
super-reinforced concrete bunkers. DU is virtually cost-free,
since it is a by-product of nuclear weapons production. The U.S.
ADAM and PDM sub-munitions are called "the perfect dirty bombs"
as each has a uranium casing filled with high explosives.
But these weapons are the proverbial double-edged swords. On
detonation, uranium particles vaporize into a radioactive dust
(uranium oxide) that coats everything within proximity. The dust
can be swept high into the atmosphere, where upper level winds
redistribute toxins across national boundaries.
When inhaled, these nano-particles, 100 times smaller than a
cell, follow the respiratory system to attack the master code of
DNA, and disable the immune system. Uranium has a half-life of
4.5 billion years, so contamination is permanent, and
containment is impossible.
According to Leuren Moret, a geoscientist who has worked around
the world on radiation issues, depleted uranium is coming back
into the U.S. "in veterans' uniforms and trophies and bags."
It's also coming back in their bodies, transferred through
semen.
*****************************************************************
51 Japan Times: Nagasaki A-bomb survivors express anger at Bockscar exhibition
in U.S.
Saturday, May 7, 2005
DAYTON, Ohio (Kyodo) Atomic-bomb survivors from Nagasaki
expressed anger Thursday after viewing the Bockscar, the B-29
bomber that dropped the atomic bomb on them in August 1945, at
the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force here.
[News photo]
A survivor of the 1945 atomic bombing of Nagasaki points up at
the U.S. bomber Bockscar, which dropped the bomb on the city, at
the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force in Dayton, Ohio, on
Thursday.
"I quiver with anger thinking how many lives were lost," said
Mitsugi Moriguchi, 68, one of the 10 members of a Nagasaki-based
nongovernmental organization calling for the elimination of
nuclear weapons.
Moriguchi, who was 8 when the bomb was dropped and later lost
his sister to radiation disease, made the comments as he looked
up through the plane's open bomb bay doors.
The group is visiting the United States on the sidelines of a
review conference of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty that
opened Monday in New York.
Isao Yoshida, 64, who actually glimpsed the plane just before
it dropped "Fat Man," as the bomb was named, said, "That was the
first time I had seen the bomber in 60 years, and it was huge. I
have mixed emotions when thinking that this bomber dropped (the
atomic bomb)."
The members asked the museum's director, Charles Metcalf, to
display documents explaining how the atomic bomb damaged the
city and its people, because the photos are exhibited together
with the bomber without explaining about how many people died.
The director said that while he understood their feelings, there
is no doubt the bomber contributed to ending World War II and
saving several millions of lives, and that he could not grant
their request.
The atomic bombing of the city had killed an estimated 74,000
people and injured 75,000 more as of the end of 1945.
Bush visit sought WASHINGTON (Kyodo) Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi
Akiba visited the U.S. State Department on Thursday and
presented a letter requesting President George W. Bush visit his
city this year.
After handing over the letter during a meeting with David
Straub, director of the Japanese affairs office, Akiba told
reporters he called on the United States to make efforts to
eliminate nuclear weapons.
"Nuclear abolishment, which is the wish of Hiroshima, is also
(the wish) of the majority of voices in the world," Akiba said
in repeating what he told Straub. "The United States is the
champion of democracy so we hope that it would respect the
majority of voices and work toward nuclear abolishment."
Akiba said Straub promised to swiftly pass on his letter and
comments to the president in which he expressed his wish for
Bush to visit Hiroshima in this "significant" year, the 60th
anniversary of the end of World War II. The United States
dropped its first atomic bomb on Hiroshima just before the end
of the war.
The Japan Times: May 7, 2005
(C) All rights reserved
*****************************************************************
52 Japan Times: Government sponsors first A-bomb exhibit in U.S.
Sunday, May 8, 2005
CHICAGO (Kyodo) Japan on Friday opened its first
government-sponsored exhibition in the United States of
materials related to the 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki.
[News photo]
Nagasaki A-bomb survivor Katsuji Yoshida views photos Friday
at Chicago's Peace Museum showing him after the Aug. 9, 1945,
attack.
Organized by the Nagasaki National Peace Memorial Hall for the
Atomic Bomb Victims, the exhibition at the Peace Museum in
Chicago will run through Aug. 14 to coincide with the 60th
anniversary of the bombings.
The cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are supporting the
exhibition, which features 23 items including a melted crucifix
and a panel showing the charred body of a boy.
During the exhibition, Katsuji Yoshida, a 73-year-old survivor
of the Nagasaki attack, will talk about his experience. He was
on a street about 850 meters away from ground zero when the "Fat
Man" bomb was dropped on the city on Aug. 9, 1945.
The museum will also hold sessions to read survivors' poems and
testimonies translated into English.
Chicago is home to a University of Chicago laboratory known for
developing a reactor that played a key role in the development
of the first atomic bomb.
Melissa McGuire, director of the museum, said learning about
the horrors of nuclear weapons will help prevent a nuclear war
in the future.
Organizers in Nagasaki had planned to open the exhibition in
July but moved up the schedule at the request of the museum,
which wanted to encourage many people to see the exhibition.
The Hiroshima and Nagasaki city governments have held
exhibitions on the atomic bombings in 11 countries since 1996,
none of them sponsored by the national government.
The Japan Times: May 8, 2005
(C) All rights reserved
*****************************************************************
53 [NYTr] Iran to resume uranium enrichment?
Date: Mon, 9 May 2005 16:38:44 -0500 (CDT)
Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
Al Jazeera - May 9, 2005
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/F10C81BD-D204-44F7-95D5-BCB6E302BE9A.htm
Iran to resume uranium enrichment
Aljazeera reports quoting Iran that it will resume uranium
enrichment-related activities within days, a move that the US and EU have
warned will compel them to take Iran's case to the Security Council.
Agencies said Iran on Monday confirmed for the first time that it had
converted 37 tonnes of raw uranium into gas.
Tehran said it took the key step towards enrichment before it suspended all
such activities in November under international pressure.
"We converted all the 37 tonnes of uranium concentrate known as yellowcake
into UF-4 at the Isfahan Uranium Conversion Facility before we suspended
work there," Mohammad Saeedi, deputy head of the Atomic Energy Organisation
of Iran, said.
Nuclear experts say that when fully processed, the 37 tonnes of yellowcake
can theoretically yield more than 90.9kg of weapons-grade uranium, enough to
make five crude nuclear weapons.
The confirmation means Tehran is in a position to quickly start enriching
uranium, if it chose to end its suspension of enrichment-related activities.
It comes at a crucial time, with Europe trying in fragile negotiations to
seal an agreement to ensure that Iran's nuclear program does not produce
nuclear weapons.
To show its dissatisfaction with lack of progress in nuclear talks between
Iran and key European powers, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi
said on Sunday that Iran had decided to resume some uranium reprocessing
activities.
Saeedi said that might happen in the next two or three days.
Aljazeera + Agencies
*
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54 Guardian Unlimited: Comment | Leader: The nuclear option
Energy policy
Tuesday May 10, 2005
The Guardian
In case anyone was thinking that Britain's nuclear installations
were clean and green, there comes a chilling reminder that it
remains far from being either. A leak - a real leak, rather than
a piece of spin doctoring - of highly radioactive uranium and
plutonium forced the closure of the Thorp reprocessing plant at
Sellafield. It followed a leak of the news management variety,
suggesting that the newly created Department of Productivity,
Energy and Industry was likely to look more kindly on the rebirth
of Britain's nuclear power industry. And so an issue that was
punted into the long grass before the election begins to creep
out from the undergrowth.
There are three forces at work that make "the nuclear option"
look more attractive. One is that Britain's current suite of
nuclear power plants is ageing: all but one of them will be
decommissioned between now and 2023. A second is that the
economy's growth is likely to need secure energy sources, to
replace the last generation of generators (both coal and nuclear)
and anticipate the higher prices of fuel used to fire natural
gas-powered plants. Another is that Britain's record on tackling
climate change is looking tarnished - emissions are up 2.1% since
2002 - and nuclear energy, for all its problems, is at least
greenhouse gas free.
There lies the rub. If environmental lobbyists and the country's
most powerful politician agree that climate change is among the
country's most profound issues - as Gordon Brown declared in a
speech in March, "human-made climate change is the most
far-reaching" environmental challenge that we face - then it
must perforce have a higher priority than any of the issues
surrounding nuclear-generated power. If climate change push came
to nuclear shove, presumably the needs of the wider environment
would have to win out?
It is not as simple as that, of course, and only the most gung
ho would pretend otherwise. In fact, in an unusual reversal of
roles, it is the environmental lobby, such as Friends of the
Earth, that appears more pragmatic and nuanced on the subject
than some factions of the government at this point. It argues
that rather than investing in a string of new, hi-tech and
untested nuclear plants, there is a menu of options that should
be given priority.
First, the phasing out of Britain's dirty old coal-powered
generators would be the fastest practical way to reduce the UK's
carbon output. Second, serious sums - albeit a fraction of the
cost of building and decommissioning nuclear facilities - should
be directed towards increasing national energy efficiency.
Studies show that every pound invested in efficient energy use
yields several more in savings. Third, translating the full
carbon costs incurred during surface and air transport into
pounds and pence at the petrol pump or budget airline website
would be an important step in reducing demand for the activities
that cause more damage to the environment than electricity
generation, which emits just 30% of the UK's CO2.
Even after these steps, there are others that can come before
expanded nuclear power. The use of carbon sequestration -
capturing CO2 and storing it - is a short-term move backed by Mr
Brown that is worth debating. Using market-based mechanisms,
such as greater trading of carbon emissions and encouraging
power-generating companies to compete on efficiency rather than
price - is also more useful. After all this, it may be that
there is still a role for nuclear power. In that case, it will
be vital that a decision to restart the nuclear bandwagon should
be done in broad daylight. The public can be convinced of a good
case, and should be offered a choice between, say, nuclear power
or higher carbon taxes. But the process itself is vital: not
just power to the people, but how it is generated.
[UP]
Guardian Unlimited ż Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
55 ThisisLondon: Radioactive leak closes Sellafield
thisislondon.co.uk
By Paul Sims, Evening Standard
9 May 2005
A highly radioactive leak has forced the closure of Sellafield's
ÂŁ2.1 billion reprocessing plant.
The dangerous mixture, containing about 20 tonnes of uranium and
plutonium, leaked through a pipe into a huge stainless steel
chamber at the Thorp plant.
The leak - enough to half fill an Olympic-size swimming pool -
is so radioactive it is impossible to enter and will take
several months to mop up. Special robots may have to be built to
help out.
The alarm was raised on 19 April when operators could not
account for all the spent fuel that had been dissolved in nitric
acid. It was travelling through the plant to be separated into
uranium, plutonium and waste products. Most of the material is
uranium but the fuel contains 200kg of plutonium, enough to make
20 nuclear weapons.
The leak is not considered a danger to the public but the
taxpayer now faces the financial implications of the shutdown -
income from the Thorp plant pays for the clean-up of redundant
nuclear facilities. The Nuclear Decommissioning Authoritya
quango which took over ownership of the plant from British
Nuclear Fuels on 1 April, has a ÂŁ2.2billion clean-up budget
this year, of which ÂŁ560million was to come from the Thorp
operation.
Richard Flynn, NDA spokesman, said: "If the income from the
plant is not forthcoming then obviously it will put back plans
for cleaning up."
British Nuclear Group managing director, Barry Snelson, said:
"The plant is in a safe and stable state. Safety monitoring has
confirmed no abnormal activity in the air and there has been no
impact on the workforce or the environment."
*****************************************************************
56 Bellona: Radioactive leak closes Thorp reprocessing plant at Sellafield
A highly radioactive mixture of plutonium and uranium fuel that
was dissolved in concentrated nitric acid leaked through a
fractured pipe into an enormous steel chamber late last month,
forcing the closure of Sellafield’s Thorp reprocessing plant by
UK nuclear authorities, British nuclear officials confirmed
Monday.
Charles Digges, 2005-05-09 13:09
They were also quick to emphasise that the leak posed no danger
to the public or the workers of the plant and that no excess
radiation has been measured above the site.
The toxic leakage contains some 20 tonnes spent of uranium and
plutonium fuel, making the chamber so radioactive at the moment
that it is impossible to enter. The problem was discovered on
April 18 in the plant's Feed Clarification Cell, which holds
dissolver solution while tests are carried out. Authorites held
a local media briefing on the event on May 23, but it was driven
into the international limelight in the May 9 issue of the
London Guardian.
Bellona’s Nils Břhmer said: “This incident shows that the
Sellafield efforts need pressure from Norwegian officials so the
complex can be safely decommissioned..”
He added that “Bellona will continue to follow Sellafield and to
pressure British authorities and nuclear operators to ensure
that there are no future releases from the site.”
A UK nuclear official, who asked to remain anonymous, said it
had not been determined how long the pipe—which is part of a two
pipe system—had been leaking the some 83 cubic meters of fluid
onto the floor of the chamber.
The official said that the current assumed cause for the
incident, following an initial investigation, is that a
manufacturer’s welding error was responsible for the leakage,
but no final conclusions have been reached. Another scenario is
that the pipe itself contained a rupture. The source added that
the chamber holding the leakage is designed to hold hundreds
more square meters of leaked liquid safely.
He also said that an environmentally safe solution for removing
the fluid from the floor of the chamber would be arrived at
within the next two weeks and that Sellafield site managers are
working “in full co-operation with environmental and government
authorities” who he indicated are receiving daily updates on the
situation.
The Feed Clarification Cell
The Feed Clarification cell is a large cell of approximately
60 meters length by 20 meters in width by 20 meters in height,
and has a number of vessels with interconnecting pipe work. The
purpose of the cell is to receive radioactive fluids, known as
liquors, from the Thorp dissolvers, to centrifuge the liquors to
remove fine solids, and to direct those liquors to two
Accountancy tanks. Those Tanks are suspended on load cells that
allow weighing of the tank contents for Nuclear Materials
Accountancy purposes. The liquor is then passed to three buffer
storage tanks which provide buffer capacity before the next stage
of the chemical separation process. It is a pipe leading from one
of these Accountancy tanks that sprung the leak.
”The leakage was unanticipated, certainly, but it is minor in
terms of what the chamber can safely hold without endangering
workers or the public,” he said in a telephone interview.
Public and plant workers safe
The discovery of the leakage was made after an April 18 camera
inspection of the cell, which is a stainless steel and totally
secure environment, and designed to withstand such pipe
failures.
Officials have emphasised that the leak poses no threat to the
public or to the workforce of at Sellafield. Safety regulators
have been informed and investigations are underway to find out
what has happened and what needs to be done before operations
can resume at Thorp. Recovering the liquids and fixing the pipes
will likely take months and may require special robots to be
built and sophisticated engineering techniques devised to repair
the Ł2.1 billion Thorp plant.
Barry Snelson, managing director of British Nuclear Group,
Sellafield, the management company formed to run the Sellafield
site on behalf of the NDA, said in a statement that he had asked
for the front end of the plants reprocessing operations,
including shearing, to be closed down.
"Safety monitoring has confirmed no abnormal activity in the air
and there has been no impact on our workforce or the
environment,” he said. "Let me reassure people that plant is in
a safe and stable state."
Financial losses
Nonetheless, the incident is likely to be a financial blow for
both nuclear clean-up efforts and customer reprocessing
contracts from foreign customers, such as Germany, as the income
from the Thorp reprocessing facility is estimated by the
Guardian to be in excess of Ł1m a day, though British Nuclear
Group officials called this figure speculative. Thorp-generated
money was then to be diverted to the NDA’s UK-wide estimated
annual clean-up budget of Ł2 billion, Ł560m of which was
expected to come from the Thorp plant.
The loss of funding from the Thorp plant toward nuclear clean-up
efforts in the UK will fall on UK taxpayers.
There are as yet no calculations available as to how much this
will set back budgeted clean-up funding at Sellafield in
particular, said the UK nuclear official who wished to remain
unnamed. But dealing with the aftermath of the leak will add to
Sellafield's current decommissioning efforts.
The Thorp plant separates out uranium and plutonium from
spent fuel. Its critics also say it is uneconomical because it
has never operated to its design capacity since it opened in
1994, and is years behind schedule in fulfilling international
reprocessing orders.
This has made some customers bristle and the British Nuclear
Group is embroiled in a court case with one of its customers,
the German owners of the Brokdorf power station, which is
withholding fees of Ł2,772 a day for storage of spent fuel,
claiming it should have been reprocessed years ago.
In 12 years, Thorp has reprocessed 5,644 tonnes of fuel from its
first 10-year target of 7,000 tonnes. Last year it failed to
reach its target of 725 tonnes, achieving only 590.
UK nuclear decommissioning efforts now answerable to Nuclear
Decommissioning Authority
The British nuclear industry has just taken the first step to
undergo its biggest shift since its post war effort to develop
the atom bomb in the late 1940s. That effort involves, by and
large, the decommissioning of those facilities at sites that
were designed to manufacture Britains nuclear capability in the
first place.
Clean-up
The clean-up effort will spearheaded by the newly-formed
National Decommissioning Authority (NDA), which took over
ownership of UK’s main nuclear sites, including Sellafield and
Dounrey, from British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL). The NDA has budgeted
Ł2.2 billion for clean up this year. The lost revenue from the
Thorp Plant, NDA officials told Bellona Web on Monday, would
“obviously” set back clean-up plans.
On Friday the British Nuclear Group held a meeting with the
government safety regulator, the Nuclear Installations
Inspectorate (NII), to discuss how to recover the material and
repair the pipe, UK nuclear officials said. The company has to
get the inspectors' approval before proceeding.
The problem at the plant was first noticed on April 18 when
operators could not account for all the spent fuel that had been
dissolved in nitric acid. It was supposed to be travelling
through the plant to be measured and separated into uranium,
plutonium and waste products in a series of centrifuges. The
plant's remote cameras that scan its interior found the leak.
Although most of the material is uranium, the fuel contains
about 200 kilograms of plutonium, enough to make some 20 nuclear
weapons, and must be recovered and accounted for to conform to
international safeguards aimed at preventing nuclear materials
falling into the wrong hands. The liquid will have to be
siphoned off and stored until the plant can be repaired, said
the nuclear source who wished to remain anonymous.
The company has set up a board of inquiry to find out how the
leak occurred. The NII will set up a separate investigation and
has the power to prosecute if correct procedures have not been
followed.
Publisher: , President:
Information: , Technical contact:
Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00 Telefax: +47 22 38 38 62 * P.O.Box
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*****************************************************************
57 Bellona: Russian NPPs lacking room for spent nuclear fuel and radwaste
The acting chief of the Federal Service for Ecological,
Technological and Atomic Supervision Andrey Malyshev raised
concerns about this fact at a press conference in March.
2005-05-09 17:10
He said the safety of the Russian nuclear power plants is one of
the three best in the world and they operated in the proper way.
The only thing, which raises concerns, is the accumulation of
the spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste at some nuclear
power plants. This can lead to the situation when the reactor
storage pools are filled up and cannot accommodate all spent
nuclear fuel from the reactor during reloading. Zheleznogorsk
Chemical Combine received licence for the new dry storage
facility, but the construction works have not begun in full
scale. If such tempo is kept, some reactors can face serious
problems in 2007, Malyshev added.
Malyshev also mentioned about the increase of the technological
incidents in the operation of the research reactors (26 in 2003,
31 in 2004), marine reactors (21 in 2003, 26 in 2004), nuclear
sites (30 in 2003, 39 in 2004). The nuclear power plants,
however, experienced fewer incidents last year (51 in 2003, 46
in 2004), MK-Novosti reported.
Publisher: , President:
Information: , Technical contact:
Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00 Telefax: +47 22 38 38 62 * P.O.Box
2141 Grunerlokka, 0505 Oslo, Norway
*****************************************************************
58 Las Vegas SUN: Nuclear review board will reserve Yucca judgment
until investigation completed
By Suzanne Struglinski
SUN WASHINGTON BUREAU
WASHINGTON -- The Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board will
examine the outcome of investigations into scientific work on
the Yucca Mountain project once they are complete, Board
Chairman B. John Garrick told Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev.
Porter, chairman of the House Federal Workforce and Agency
Organization Subcommittee, held a hearing last month regarding
e-mails discovered by the Energy Department that suggest U.S.
Geological Survey Employees falsified scientific information on
the Yucca Mountain project.
The Energy Department aims to build the nation's high-level
nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las
Vegas.
In response to questions left unanswered at the hearing,
Garrick sent a letter to Porter April 29 outlining the board's
position.
Garrick said if the data or analyses were falsified, as
suggested by the e-mails, and if the data or analyses
significantly affected the proposed repository's performance
estimates, "the consequences could be serious."
But Garrick made clear that the board won't know the answers to
those questions until the investigations are completed.
"The Board has no evidence at this point to indicate that that
is the case," Garrick wrote. "It is not clear how a change in a
single parameter would affect the DOE's (Energy Department's)
estimates of repository performance, which are based on a range
of values."
Garrick also said problems with quality assurance, a program
designed to to assure the accuracy of Yucca research, "may or
may not significantly affect the DOE's technical and scientific
findings."
Congress created the board to perform technical oversight of
the Yucca Mountain project but it does not regulate it.
Investigations by the Interior and Energy department's
inspector generals' offices, along with the FBI and U.S.
attorney's office are still ongoing and may not be finished for
several months. Porter's subcommittee is also working on its own
investigation.
*****************************************************************
59 Inyo Register: Shoshone Nation aims to stop Yucca nuke dump
Monday, May 09, 2005
Lawyer for tribe argues that its sacred traditions and beliefs
being violated by Energy Department
By Ed Koch
Las Vegas Sun
LAS VEGAS - There is a centuries-old story of Snake Mountain
that is still taught to the children of the Western Shoshone
Nation.
"Someday when we wake that snake up … it will get mad and rip
open," Shoshone Spiritual Leader Corbin Harney wrote in his 1995
book "The Way it Is - One Water, One Air, One Mother Earth."
"With his tail, that snake will move the mountain, rip it open
and the poison will come out on the surface."
Today Snake Mountain is called Yucca Mountain, site of the
under-construction high-level nuclear waste repository, 90 miles
northwest of Las Vegas and about 15 miles east of Death Valley
in Inyo County.
Robert Hager, the lawyer for the Shoshone tribe, got the OK
Wednesday from U.S. District Judge Philip Pro to submit that
story as part of Harney's affidavit into the court record of a
lawsuit the tribe hopes will halt the nuclear waste dump.
Pro, following an hourlong hearing, took under advisement the
Western Shoshone Nation's request for an injunction to stop the
project.
Although Hager did not specifically make an argument to stop the
project on First Amendment grounds that the Shoshone people are
being denied the right of freedom of religion, he gave the
Energy Department, overseers of Yucca Mountain, a good
indication of where this case eventually may be headed.
Hager, supported by Harney's affidavit, argued that Yucca
Mountain is being "desecrated" by the project, that the Indians
are being denied access to the sacred rock prayer rings where
"the Great Spirit" sends them messages and that bodies of the
Indians' ancestors have been disrupted by tunneling.
"The rock rings at Yucca Mountain are very sacred places where
the Shoshone people prayed, and when our people pray at the rock
rings the message comes and goes through those rings," Harney
says in his affidavit.
"I am aware the bodies of some of our ancestors have been
removed from Yucca Mountain by government agents, which is a
violation of our sacred traditions and beliefs that the body of
a person who dies should be buried and should remain at the
place where that life ended."
Harney, who is now 85, was among two dozen members of the tribe
in Pro's courtroom Wednesday. He and other Shoshones said they
no longer have access to the rock ring area.
Hager also said Shoshones already are being poisoned by the
project and that as many as 2,500 of them are at risk of getting
silicosis - fibrosis of the lungs caused by long-term exposure
to silica dust - from the project.
The federal government countered that the Shoshones are barking
up the wrong tree by seeking injunctive relief in Las Vegas
federal district court, arguing that the Washington, D.C.,
Circuit Court or the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has
jurisdiction in this matter.
Justice Department Attorney Sara Culley said the Nuclear Waste
Policy Act, which places such matters before the court of
appeals, applies in this case. The Shoshones are asking for
their injunction by arguing that another statute, the Yucca
Mountain Development Act, is unconstitutional.
Pro said jurisdiction is a key question with which he must
wrestle.
"I have to stay focused on whether I have jurisdiction," Pro
told both sides.
Hager argued that not only does Pro have jurisdiction in this
case as set forth by the Ruby Valley Treaty of 1863, which
specifies uses for the tribe's nearly 60 million acres, Pro also
has the power to rule that the Yucca Mountain Development Act is
unconstitutional because it is "based on lies."
He was referring to the revelation in late March by Energy
Secretary Samuel Bodman that employees of the U.S. Geological
Survey had written e-mail messages indicating some scientific
work had been falsified.
Internal Energy Department e-mails written in preparation for
seeking a license to open the nuclear waste repository indicate
the alleged falsification focused on the speed at which water
flowed through the mountain, an issue that would have meant
disqualification of the Yucca site years ago, Hager told Pro.
Hager argued that the president and Congress relied on those
tainted reports as sound scientific evidence to pass and sign
into law the development act, and that such actions make the
statute unconstitutional.
Culley said to stop the project now will be detrimental to many
phases including environmental and scientific studies that
"Congress has determined is in the best interest of the public."
She said a ruling in favor of the Shoshones also would halt
long-term monitoring of the site and electrical maintenance, as
well as put 1,600 Energy Department employees out of work.
"The site will fall into disrepair," she said of a lengthy
stoppage.
As for removal of Indian bodies from Yucca, Culley said the
Shoshones have been invited to "walk through the site" to
observe future tunneling, which she said will not occur again
for four years. Drilling, however, is continuing, she said.
And Culley said the Indians are not in any immediate harm
because environmental protections are in place and that the long
process toward licensing involves public input, and that
includes the concerns of the Shoshones. She said the earliest
date for storing nuclear waste there is 2010.
Culley said the Shoshones will "not likely prevail on the
merits" in part because courts long ago determined the Indians
do not have title to the land.
Last year, President Bush signed a measure to distribute $145
million to approximately 10,000 Western Shoshone as compensation
for land that was taken from the tribe.
The tribe has refused to accept the money and in March filed its
lawsuit to stop the nuclear dump project.
Western Shoshone National Council Member John Wells said after
the hearing that the government's argument that the tribe no
longer owns title to the land should not apply in this case.
"The government should abide by the treaty," Wells said, noting
that when American Indians refer to land they are talking about
Mother Earth that everyone owns and shares, "not the
government's European concept of land ownership."
The treaty specifies the U.S. government can use the land for
settlements, mines, ranches and the construction of roads and
railroads. Wells said that had the government proposed storing
hazardous materials in Yucca Mountain at the time the treaty was
signed the Shoshones "definitely would have said no."
Western Shoshone Nation Chief Raymond Yowell said after the
hearing that some members of the tribe still call the site Snake
Mountain and that the story of it rising up and spewing poison
"was the vision of a holy man long before the White Man came.
"Of course, that holy man could not have known about the
circumstances now, but, in his vision, he foresaw that one day
energy could explode from the mountain. We want to stop that
from happening. Mother Earth is sacred to us."
(Distributed by Scripps-McClatchy Western Service)
©2005 The Inyo Register
*****************************************************************
60 Aftenposten Norway: Sellafield leak rings alarms in Norway
published: 09 May 2005, 11:29
Norwegian authorities and environmental activists reacted with
concern Monday to news of a leak at the Sellafield nuclear
reprocessing facility in England. The facility has long posed a
conflict between the two countries.
The Sellafield nuclear reprocessing facility has been
controversial for years.
PHOTO: SABINE VIELMO / AP
Norwegian officials have worried for years that emissions from
Sellafield are polluting local fishing grounds, with winds
sending radioactivity towards the country's west coast.
On Monday came news that 20 tons of highly radioactive fuel had
leaked into a tank at the site on the northwest coast of
England. The waste is said to contain both plutonium and uranium
mixed with saltpetre.
Norway's Minister for the Environment, Knut Arild Hareide, said
he immediately ordered a report from the Norwegian Radiation
Protection Authority (NRPA, Statens strĺlevernet) regarding the
leak.
He told news bureau NTB that contact had been established
between the radiation authority and its counterpart in the UK.
Hareide also said he would take up the matter with the British
environmental protection minister, Elliot Morley, to ensure that
it's followed up at a political level. "Such leaks reveal the
risk of nuclear power," Hareide said.
Per Strand of the NRPA said the leak at Sellafield appeared to
be a "local problem." Environmental activist Frederic Hauge of
the Norwegian group Bellona called it "a serious situation."
Hauge stressed that it was difficult, however, to determine just
how serious. "It all depends on how widespread the leak is, and
whether it's been captured by Sellafield's security systems," he
told Aftenposten's web site. "We don't have enough information
yet."
The bin where the leaked fuel was collected was said to be so
radioactive that no one could go near it. There were no
indications, however, that any of the radioactive material had
leaked into the ground.
Publisher: Aftenposten Multimedia A/S, Oslo, Norway.
Telephone: +47 - 22 86 30 00.
All rights, including copyright and database right, are owned by
*****************************************************************
61 Las Vegas SUN: Nevada resolution urges Washington to reject
nuclear waste plan
ASSOCIATED PRESS
CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) - A Nevada legislative panel voted Monday
to back a resolution that urges federal lawmakers to oppose
plans for storing nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, about 90
miles northwest of Las Vegas.
The vote by the Senate Natural Resources Committee sends AJR4 to
the Senate floor for a final legislative vote. The Assembly
approved the measure earlier.
There was no discussion among panel members, although at a
previous hearing the chairman, Sen. Dean Rhoads, R-Tuscarora,
said it's apparent that the high-level radioactive waste dump
planned by the federal Department of Energy could hurt tourism
in this tourism-dependent state.
The resolution, already approved by the state Assembly, asks
federal decision-makers to give up on Yucca Mountain because it
is "an ill-advised project based on bad science, bad law and bad
public policy, a choice that ignores better, less expensive and
safer alternatives, a choice which hinders, not helps, national
security."
Despite delays and spending cut, Energy Department officials
have said recently that the Yucca Mountain plan is alive and
well, and that support from the Bush administration remains
strong.
However, Bob Loux, head of the state Nuclear Projects Office
which opposes the dump, said the project "is failing rapidly."
Recent problems with the government's plans for the dump include
criminal investigations to determine whether workers on the
project falsified data.
Also, a court decision has forced a rewrite of radiation safety
standards for the site - and the DOE has scrapped a planned 2010
completion date without setting a new one.
--
*****************************************************************
62 PRN: Kazakhstan to be the World First Producer of Uranium by 2010
[PR Newswire - A United Business Media Company]
ASTANA, Kazakhstan, May 9 /PRNewswire/ -- According to respective
industry news source on the nuclear fuel cycle - UX Weekly (by
the UX Consulting Co, USA) - the Republic of Kazakhstan became
the third uranium producer in the World (9.4%) in 2004, following
Canada (29.2%) and Australia (22.6%). Kazakhstan has produced
3,719 metric tons of uranium last year including Kazatomprom
(3636mtu) own output and minor quantities of its joint ventures
and Stepnogorsk Mill. It's a 45% increase compared to 2003
production.
The National Company is planning to produce more than 4 thousand
tons of uranium in 2005 and to increase annual production up to
15 000 tons by 2010 - which will put Kazakhstan in first place
among uranium producers. The country reserves are said to be of
1.5 million tons, which means nearly 20% of the world's total
supply of uranium.
Kazakhstan plans to develop seven uranium mines by 2010. The
seven new sites should be developed on the fields of Budenovskoe
and Mynkuduk in southern Kazakhstan.
The company has assessed that the uranium mining project would
recover its expenses by 2013. By then, uranium profits would
reach $830 million.
The International Atomic Agency has forecast a shortage in the
uranium market by 2010. The IAEA said the market supply would
decrease and reach a deficit of 16 000 tons by 2015.
About Kazatomprom
In 1997, the Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan decided to
unite uranium and rare metal industries into one commercial
structure representing interests of Kazakhstan on the world
markets of nuclear fuel cycle and rare metals - a closed joint
stock company Kazatomprom - National export and import
organization for uranium and other materials of dual use.
Kazatomprom retains the exclusive rights to market Kazakh
uranium.
Kazatomprom produces natural uranium, nuclear fuel for power
stations, products and byproducts of beryllium, tantalum, niobium
and its alloys. Successful cooperation with defence-related
enterprises of the former Soviet Union and with the nuclear fuel
fabricators worldwide is the best proof of its high quality
production.
Kazatomprom is regulated in accordance with International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA) standards and is an active member of the
World Nuclear Association and the International Tantalum and
Niobium Study Center.
SOURCE Government of Kazakhstan
*****************************************************************
63 KRNV: State lawmakers cut funding for Yucca Mountain fight
May 10, 2005
CARSON CITY
Members of two legislative committees have agreed to cut in half
funding for the state's fight against Yucca Mountain, saying the
federal plan to bring a nuclear waste dump to Nevada appears on
the verge of collapse.
The head of the state agency directing the fight against Yucca
Mountain says the reduced funding will not harm their efforts.
The funds should be enough to help the state prepare a response
if the Energy Department moves forward with a license
application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission regarding Yucca
Mountain.
But that can't happen until the Environmental Protection Agency
establishes a new radiation standard for the site.
A federal court in July tossed out the previous standard.
Governor Kenny Guinn had recommended two million dollars for the
state's Yucca effort in his budget. But the Senate Finance
Committee voted to reduce that amount to one million.
In a meeting Friday to resolve budget differences, the Assembly
Ways and Means Committee agreed with the Senate panel to lower
the funding.
(Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
Copyright 2001 - 2005 WorldNow and KRNV. All Rights Reserved.
For more information on this site, please read our Privacy
*****************************************************************
64 North-West Evening Mail: Nuke trains could turn folk off marina homes
09/05/2005
A NUCLEAR ship terminal could put people off buying waterfront
homes in a planned dock development, it is feared.
BNFL and Network Rail are being asked if the railway, which
carries nuclear flasks between Barrow docks and Sellafield, can
be reduced to tramway status, with rails sunken into the road
like the promenade at Blackpool.
Developers think it could be rated as a tramway because of the
infrequency of use and very slow speed of trains.
At least Ł80m worth of developments are planned for Barrow docks
under the West Lakes Renaissance led regeneration masterplan.
The BNFL terminal is currently used to import used radioactive
fuel for reprocessing at Sellafield, and, in future, will be used
to export high-level waste and Mox fuel containing plutonium.
BNFL has contracts that will keep Barrow terminal in use until
2017.
*****************************************************************
65 New Standard: Nuke Facility Downwinders Take Energy Department to Court
Some people who grew up around a facility where nuclear weapons
were produced are certain that their current, severe health
problems are directly related – and they’re taking the feds
to court and demanding accountability.
May 9 -
Growing up in the shadow of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in
Richland, Washington, where plutonium was produced and used to
manufacture bombs, Trisha Pritikin, 54, never imagined that the
milk she drank or the air she breathed was poisonous.
Throughout the 1940s and ’50s, the United States government
intentionally released radioactive material, in particular,
iodine-131, into the environment. As this byproduct of nuclear
weapons production fell onto the surrounding grass, it was eaten
by cows, which then transferred the radiation to their milk,
which local children like Pritikin drank by the glass.
At the root of the trial is the simple but sordid fact that
the government and its contractors have a history of obscuring
the truth about the health impacts of nuclear activity.
While scientists have known for over 50 years that iodine-131
can collect in the thyroid gland and lead to cancer or other
diseases, neither the federal government nor the contractors who
ran the facility even alerted nearby residents of their
activity.
Although there was no history of thyroid illness in their
family, both Pritikin’s mother and father developed thyroid
disease and died of cancer. Trisha herself has extreme
hypothyroidism, a condition where the body lacks sufficient
thyroid hormones, resulting in slow metabolism, and a general
lack of energy.
"Had the [Department of Energy] let people know about the
radioactivity or attempted to protect us when we were kids,
I’m convinced my parents would still be alive," said Pritikin.
Now she and over 2,000 others who grew up downwind of the
reservation claim that iodine-131 emissions crippled their
health. On April 25, after fifteen years of legal wrangling, the
"downwinders" brought a case to federal court, suing General
Electric and DuPont, the contractors that ran the Hanford
Reservation for the federal government in the ’40s and ’50s.
"Right now people like me are very disheartened and
disillusioned by a government that told us everything was safe
at Hanford and then basically let us die," said Pritikin, who
lives in Berkeley, California but traveled to Spokane,
Washington to attend to the first week of the trial. "We
sacrificed our health for the cold war. It’s amazing that you
could do this to people and just not talk about it."
Expected to last four to five weeks, the trial will focus on six
"bellwether" plaintiffs; three with thyroid disease and three
with thyroid cancer. While the case is not filed as a class
action lawsuit, if the jury finds that there is adequate
scientific evidence to prove that the Hanford Reservation is
culpable in these incidences of thyroid illness, it would set
the stage for Pritikin and the other 2,200 downwinders to settle
for damages out of court. Under the 1957 Price-Anderson Act, the
government indemnified the contractors, so any claims – which
could amount to tens of millions of dollars – will be paid by
taxpayers.
Nuclear activists around the country are watching the trial to
see what sort of precedent could be set for an agency that has
long ducked responsibility for health and environmental
problems.
At the root of the trial is the simple but sordid fact that the
government and its contractors have a history of obscuring the
truth about the health impacts of nuclear activity. The public
was never told about the emissions or any related health hazards
until the late-1980s when activist groups and a local newspaper
filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act.
Despite widely accepted scientific research that links
radioactivity with cancer and other disease, the Energy
Department continues to stall on cleaning up the Hanford
Reservation – in late April, the Environmental Protection
Agency fined the DoE $75,000 for failure to meet a legal
deadline for moving radioactive sludge into underwater
containers.
Nuclear activists around the country are watching the trial to
see what sort of precedent could be set for an agency that has
long ducked responsibility for health and environmental
problems.
"In general, the DoE’s position has been that nuclear weapons
production is essentially as harmless as making widgets," said
Len Ackland, author of Making a Real Killing: Rocky Flats and
the Nuclear West, in an interview with The NewStandard. "The
Department of Energy, despite its name, is in charge of
producing nuclear weapons of mass destruction, and the DoE wants
to do whatever it can to make the public accept that nuclear
weapons are important for national security and that they are a
good idea. It’s in their interest to brush off any health
concerns and paint nuclear weapons with smiley faces."
In general, it is almost always challenging to prove whether
environmental contamination contributes to an individual’s
illness because so often the diseases associated with pollution
are common and can be caused by a variety of factors. With
radioactive emissions conducted over 50 years ago, there are
even more uncertainties.
"It’s difficult to pin down the relationship of a specific
person’s cancer to a specific environmental toxin; it’s not
like a germ in your body that you see," said Arjun Makhijani,
president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental
Research, who has a PhD in nuclear fusion from UC Berkeley.
"Because of the latency period the iodine is long since gone
[from the body]."
This inherent challenge is the crux – and the strength of the
defense team’s argument in the Hanford case. While the DoE,
DuPont and GE declined to comment for this story, on the
trial’s opening day, defense attorney Kevin Van Wart said that
over 23,000 people in the country have thyroid cancer and they
obviously don’t all live near Hanford. He added that there is
no way to prove that people who lived near Hanford had any
increased risk of the disease.
"Hanford is no atomic bomb," said Van Wart.
The Hanford Thyroid Disease Study (HTDS), a
congressionally-ordered $20 million project conducted by the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in conjunction with
the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, found no increased
risk for thyroid disease among those who were exposed to
Hanford’s releases of iodine-131. "If there is an increased
risk of thyroid disease, it is too small to observe," wrote the
scientists in the report.
"Those studies vindicate what the contractors believed; that the
plants did not pose a hazard," said Van Wart in his opening
statement.
Yet a 1999 review of the study’s draft report by the National
Academies of Sciences (NAS) drew substantial criticism. For 38
percent of the nearly 5,000 individuals interviewed for the
study, no parent or close relative was available to provide
information about childhood milk consumption. Without proper
information about participants, the study was flawed, found the
NAS report.
"The negative results the study obtained are less definitive
than the report and press releases stated," reads the NAS
review.
Furthermore, other scientists and activists are critical that
the HTDS did not compare those living near Hanford to a sample
population from the general public who would not have been
exposed to iodine-131 emissions. When the Northwest Radiation
Health Alliance, a group of scientists and doctors affiliated
with Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility, surveyed 800
downwinders and compared their health problems with those in the
canon of medical literature, they found that the downwinders had
a 300 percent higher rate of some types of thyroid disease.
The research, published last year in Society and Natural
Resources, found strong evidence of a link between Hanford’s
emissions and juvenile hypothyroidism, and hyperthyroidism, a
condition where the thyroid is overactive, leading often to
fatigue, weight loss and depression. They also found that
Hanford downwinders had high rates of cancers of the thyroid,
central nervous system and female reproductive organs.
"The Hanford Thyroid Disease Study is a worthless study," said
Rudi Nussbaum, a retired Portland State University professor of
physics and environmental studies and an author of the Society
and Natural Resources paper.
Regardless of the varying scientific data, activists say the
bottom line is that the government, in its rush to produce
nuclear weapons, failed to take human health concerns into
account. Susan Gordon, director of the Alliance for Nuclear
Accountability, a national coalition of 33 member organizations
said this lack of precaution explains why there was very limited
monitoring established at the time.
"People deserve to be compensated," said Gordon. "But the people
we work with are less interested in a monetary settlement than
wanting to know what happened to them and in getting help with
their health"
She added, "This trial could offer some hope to downwinders
harmed at other facilities throughout the country. Right now,
it’s very demoralizing."
© 2005 The NewStandard. See our .
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66 Summit Daily News: 50 years of rocket building coming to close in Colorado
for Breckenridge, Keystone, Copper and Frisco Colorado - News
By ROGER FILLION
Rocky Mountain News
May 9, 2005
DENVER — A half-century of rocket building appears to be coming
to an end in Colorado.
What began as the site of a top-secret rocket factory outside
Denver at the height of the Cold War is now a Lockheed Martin
plant slated to stop producing rockets some 50 years later.
Among other dignitaries, President Reagan visited the facilities
twice during his presidency. Britain’s Prince Andrew strolled
through the plant last October.
The rockets that have been built — nearly 600 to date — have
carried everything from nuclear warheads to astronauts like Neil
Armstrong and Frank Borman to top-secret spy satellites. During
this time, Colorado could claim bragging rights as the nation’s
biggest rocket maker.
“It’s been a great ride,” said James McAnally, once president of
Lockheed’s astronautics division, which oversaw the company’s
operations here. He’s worked at Waterton Canyon for 37 years.
“A lot of the people can be very, very proud of the job that
they’ve done.”
Lockheed Martin Corp.’s new joint venture with Boeing Co. calls
for Lockheed to shift its production of Atlas booster rockets to
Boeing facilities in Alabama. Lockheed’s Waterton Canyon
facilities will serve as the headquarters of the venture, United
Launch Alliance.
“It’s a profound change not to have Waterton Canyon the home of
launch vehicle production. The rockets have been manufactured in
Colorado for the last 50 years,” said Linda Strine, a former
Lockheed executive who now is CEO of Infinite Links, a Denver
firm that handles government and public relations.
Robert Scott, the outgoing CEO of the Greater Colorado Springs
Economic Development Corp., called it an unfortunate development.
“It’s not just about Lockheed. It’s about everyone that has fed
into that,” he added, referring to affected Lockheed workers and
suppliers.
Why is the plant getting shuttered? There aren’t enough launches
to divvy up between two aerospace giants that currently operate
separate rocket production facilities.
“This is clearly a situation where there’s a great deal more
capacity than demand,” said Jeff MacLauchlan, vice president of
financial strategies at Lockheed.
All of this comes amid a slump in the commercial launch
business. In particular, the Internet meltdown torpedoed
grandiose plans for large networks of satellites delivering
high-speed communications. At the same time, the business of
launching satellites into space for Uncle Sam has proved to be a
money-losing venture.
“It’s a tough market,” analyst John Pike, director of
GlobalSecurity.org, said of the rocket business.
As a result, Boeing and Lockheed — who’ve been bitter rivals —
unexpectedly opted to team up rather than continue to go it
alone. The companies say the move — which must pass antitrust
scrutiny — will save the government up to $150 million a year as
duplicate facilities and personnel are cut.
Ultimately, Lockheed’s Atlas V rocket and Boeing’s Delta II and
Delta IV boosters will roll off the line in Decatur, Ala.
“It makes sense to combine these and have them at a single
facility,” said Paul Nisbet, an aerospace analyst with JSA
Research in Newport, R.I.
Colorado will continue to play a large role in the rocket
business, given the plans for United Launch Alliance to set up
headquarters here.
Despite the loss of rocket manufacturing jobs, the headquarters
will gain administrative and engineering jobs from Boeing’s
Huntington Beach, Calif., facilities.
And Lockheed’s Waterton Canyon operation will continue to make
Earth-orbiting satellites and interplanetary spacecraft, such as
the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter that will be launched from
Florida’s Cape Canaveral in August.
Today, about 4,500 employees work at Waterton. About 900 are
involved in the Atlas rocket program, although Lockheed says
most don’t participate in actual production.
The Waterton Canyon rocket factory’s roots date to the mid-1950s.
In 1955, the Glenn L. Martin Co. of Baltimore proposed to the
U.S. Air Force building a factory southwest of Denver to
manufacture Titan I intercontinental ballistic missiles.
“At the time, most of the aerospace industry was on the coasts,”
said Lockheed spokesman Evan McCollum. “They wanted this very
important ICBM factory to be in a safer inland site.”
The Martin Co. later became Martin Marietta and now is Lockheed
Martin space systems. And the Titan I’s larger and more powerful
successor, Titan II, was selected by NASA for use in the Gemini
manned spaceflight program in the 1960s.
The Titan was used to launch 10 manned Gemini spacecraft,
carrying astronauts that included Gus Grissom, Michael Collins
and Buzz Aldrin — along with Neil Armstrong and others. Lockheed
has built 526 Titan rockets to date. Not all have flown.
Lockheed’s involvement in the Atlas program here dates to the
mid-1990s.
In 1994, Martin Marietta bought General Dynamics’ Atlas rocket
division and moved much of the assembly operations to Waterton
Canyon from San Diego.
The following year, Martin Marietta merged with Lockheed to form
Lockheed Martin, the world’s largest aerospace company.
Although the Atlas rocket dates to the 1950s, General Dynamics
first began marketing the Atlas family as a commercial launch
vehicle in 1987. The first commercial launch occurred July 25,
1990, when an Atlas roared into space carrying a NASA satellite.
To date, 57 Atlas rockets have been built in Waterton Canyon.
Lockheed isn’t the first to close its rocket-production
operations in Colorado.
In March 2003, Boeing announced it was closing its
rocket-assembly operation in Pueblo and moving the work to
Decatur.
The plant was opened in 1987 by McDonnell Douglas, which
originally developed the Delta rocket series. Boeing continued
to operate the facility when it acquired McDonnell Douglas.
For James McAnally, the former Lockheed president here, the news
of the Lockheed rocket plant’s closure is not easy to digest.
“It’s a tough pill to swallow,” he admitted. “There’s a lot of
pride in the product you put out.”
On the Net:
Lockheed Martin: http://www.lockheedmartin.com/
Boeing: http://www.boeing.com/
All contents © Copyright 2005 summitdaily.com
Summit Daily - 40 West Main Street - Frisco, CO 80443
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67 Daily Californian: DOE Refuses to Pay $14 Million Tied to Los Alamos Shutdown -
By TRACI KAWAGUCHI
Contributing Writer
Monday, May 9, 2005
UC may have hit another snag in its efforts to retain the
management of Los Alamos National Laboratory after the
Department of Energy announced that it will not pay $14 million
for costs related to the lab’s suspension in July.
National Nuclear Security Administration officials released a
statement Thursday claiming that UC cost estimates for the
shutdown were not clearly explained.
Nuclear administration officials are refusing to pay up $6.3
million for subcontractor claims and another $8 million for
salary fees that were delineated in UC’s cost estimates, said
the agency’s principal deputy administrator Jerry Paul in a
written statement Thursday to the House Energy and Commerce
Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.
UC officials have 60 days from when the notice was received to
contest the decision, but hope to reach a final decision by
mid-May.
UC spokesperson Chris Harrington said UC is currently
negotiating with government officials working to clear the
claims of what security administration officials called
unnecessary and unallowable costs.
If the fee refusal is finalized, the $14 million fee will be
pulled from the pool of funding set aside for lab management and
the contractor fee, Harrington said. Officials stressed that the
cut will not affect operations within the UC system.
“It’s important that these costs we use to run the labs do not
have to come from the UC operating budget,” Harrington said.
“We’ve been doing this for 60 years, so we do have to anticipate
other costs.”
Costs accrued from the seven-month shutdown have prompted the
DOE, which owns the lab, to question fee estimates made by UC.
Some preliminary cost estimates by UC and the nuclear
administration have ranged from $119 million to upward of $370
million.
The $14 million refusal comes on the heels of the DOE’s January
decision to cut nearly $6 million from the management payments
after a trail of accusations of security lapses under the lab’s
management.
UC management of the lab took a hit last summer when reports of
the disappearance of two classified security disks prompted
then-lab Director Pete Nanos to shut down lab operations in July
2004.
Subsequent investigations by the FBI and DOE concluded that the
disks never existed.
UC’s 60-year stewardship of the lab was threatened in May 2003,
after a string of mismanagement claims prompted department
officials to open the lab up for a nationwide bid. UC’s contract
with the department expires in September.
The UC Board of Regents is awaiting the final request for draft
guidelines from the DOE. UC is expected to make a formal offer
for the lab in the coming months.
Traci Kawaguchi is an assistant news editor. Contact her at
tkawaguchi@dailycal.org.
Berkeley, California
dailycal@dailycal.org
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68 www.GovExec.com: Los Alamos director steps down
(5/9/05)
Join Brian Friel from noon to 1 p.m. on Wed., May 11, when he
will take your questions about managing, managers and other
management matters. Read Friel's most recent "Management
Matters" column and submit your questions now or during the
discussion.
By David McGlinchey dmcglinchey@govexec.com
The director of Los Alamos National Laboratory announced last
week that he is stepping down after two years filled with
controversy and troubling news from one of the nation's leading
weapons research facilities.
Pete Nanos took the helm of Los Alamos in January 2003. Since
then the laboratory has suffered through security lapses and
revelations of procurement abuse by employees. In 2004, Nanos
shut down Los Alamos operations for months while officials
conducted a security review.
Late last year, the National Nuclear Security Administration
initiated an open competition for contractors interested in
operating the laboratory, ending a run of more than 60 years by
the University of California as the uncontested operator of the
elite facility.
Nanos is moving to a post with the Defense Threat Reduction
Agency.
He will be replaced by Robert Kuckuck, who has experience at the
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory - also run by the
University of California - and at the NNSA in Washington.
Kuckuck is scheduled to begin his work May 16 and serve as the
interim director at least until the current UC contract to run
the lab expires later this year.
"Dr. Pete Nanos has led Los Alamos National Lab during a
challenging time," said Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman. "He
instituted a number of sound business practices that have helped
Los Alamos remain one of the premier labs in the world ... I
wish him the best of luck in his new responsibilities at the
Defense Threat Reduction Agency."
Others, however, were critical of Nanos. A blog devoted to
leadership issues at the lab, "LANL: The Real Story," was filled
with comments cheering his departure.
On Sunday, the Albuquerque Journal North edition published an
editorial that said Nanos' departure is good for Los Alamos.
"Making everybody mad may be good journalism, but it isn't often
good management," the editorial said. "Nanos' departure ... may
augur well for the future of the lab."
There was also skepticism about Kuckuck. Pete Stockton, a Los
Alamos observer at the Project on Government Oversight, said
Kuckuck "is one of the good ol' boys."
"He comes from Lawrence Livermore ...they have insurmountable
security problems," Stockton said. "A breath of fresh air he is
not."
Several others, including the Albuquerque Journal, expressed
optimism that the new director could usher in an era of
cooperation between scientists and management. Bodman said
Kuckuck "brings an enormous wealth of experience to this task."
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69 Daily Texan: Los Alamos head resigns after 2 years
| 5/9/2005
Interim director will run lab until UC's contract expires
By Zachary Warmbrodt
Los Alamos National Laboratory Director Peter Nanos announced
his resignation Friday, ending a two-year tenure during which he
shut down the laboratory amidst security lapses and some say
created a wedge between lab management and scientists.
The University of California announced the appointment Friday of
interim director Robert W. Kuckuck. Kuckuck, who worked for 35
years at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, is expected to
serve as director until UC's current contract to manage Los
Alamos expires.
Nanos, a retired vice admiral of the Navy, will take a position
with the U.S. Department of Defense's Defense Threat Reduction
Agency.
UC has not made a decision regarding the future bidding of Los
Alamos but is preparing for competition, said UC spokesman Chris
Harrington.
Juan Sanchez, vice president for research and member of the UT
task force on Los Alamos, said the resignation has a negative
impact on UC's possible bid.
"It doesn't help to have a change in the director this close to
the recompetition," Sanchez said.
Roy Schwitters, chair of the UT physics department, said he
doubts the resignation will affect the competition of the lab,
which he said "has been through the ringer."
"I really think that the recompetition and the issues that are
swirling around this have their origins long before Pete Nanos
even came to the lab," Schwitters said. "They're a larger
national issue that is important, and I would describe it as a
general breakdown of trust between the technical community and
the government oversight and the Congress."
Some of the lab's scientists have been voicing their criticisms
of Nanos publicly in the last year. Nanos shut down most of the
laboratory last July after computer disks went missing and a
woman's eye was severely burned by a laser.
"We have all overcome a tremendous amount of adversity," Nanos
said in a written statement to Los Alamos employees. "Issues
with our business systems, security and safety forced all of us
to take an inward look at how we do our jobs."
Douglas Roberts, a Los Alamos computer scientist who grew up at
the lab and has worked there for more than two decades, has run
the "LANL: The Real Story" Web log since December 2004 and
estimates that 200-to-500 employees may post on the site, which
prides itself on its anonymity.
Roberts said he would characterize the response to Nanos'
resignation as falling into two categories: celebration and a
readiness to move forward.
Greg Mello, director of the Los Alamos Study Group, a private
group that studies nuclear proliferation, said Nanos angered
"prima donna" weapons designers by trying to address the "very
real" culture of corruption at Los Alamos.
"The University of Texas should be quite aware that this is not
a figment of Nanos' imagination," Mellow said. "This is real. He
was trying to address that the best he could ... He did that in
a Navy-like manner, but there was a lot of push-back from the
scientists who really don't want to give up their ideas about
themselves or their cherished freedoms."
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