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                         NUCLEAR POLICY
 
1 Las Vegas SUN: Editorial: Iraq: Shades of Vietnam
2 Las Vegas SUN: Memos Show British Fretting Over Iraq War
3 Pakistan News: Spain and Portugal pull out their troops from Iraq
4 Guardian Unlimited: Excerpts From the Downing Street Memos
5 Guardian Unlimited: Memos Show British Concern Over Iraq Plans
6 Daily Times REGION: EU underlines Iran N-freeze must continue 
7 Hankyoreh: [Editorial] Six-Party Talks Depend on United States 
8 Korea Herald: Korea, U.S. to discuss nuclear safety   
9 Korea Herald: [EDITORIAL] Acting on Kim's promise   
10 Korea Herald: Korea, U.S. to discuss nuclear safety   
11 Korea Herald: Flurry of inter-Korean activities ahead of July   
12 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: 'No Date Until We Have a Date', U.S. Tell
13 Las Vegas SUN: After 6 Decades, Report on A-Bomb Found
14 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: Seoul Hopeful of 'Momentum' From Pyongyan
15 INSIDE JoongAng Daily: [EDITORIALS] A coolheaded response
16 Xinhua: DPRK willing to rejoin six-party talks in July   
17 INSIDE JoongAng Daily: South seeks to avoid riling North
18 Korea Times: Most South Koreans Think Highly of Kim Jong-ils Remarks
19 US: Deseret News: Senate committee funds bunker-buster study 
20 US: Spectrum: Senate panel OKs nuke bomb study
21 US: Salt Lake Tribune: Utah group opposes study of bunker buster bom
22 US: TomPaine.com - The Folly Of Space Weapons
23 Kargil 1999: N-Missiles Had Been Readied For Launch
24 Daily Yomiuri: U.S. made Japan drop Lucky Dragon probe 
25 BBC: Scrap UK nuclear arms - Portillo
 
                         NUCLEAR REACTORS
 
26 The Australian: Nuclear option 'not very realistic' for Australia 
27 US: Marshfield News Herald: Electric bills rise during nuclear plant
28 US: THE JOURNAL NEWS: NRC finds problem at Indian Point 2
29 Indian Express: Nuclear power is not cheap
30 US: York Daily Record: No new nukes - 
31 US: LA Times: Nuclear Energy: Risks and Rewards 
32 deccan herald: Canada seeks India's help for revival of nuclear plan
33 Sofia Morning News: Czech, Russian Bids for Belene Nuke Construction
34 US: Rocky Mountain News: Uranium outlook gaining energy
 
                          NUCLEAR SECURITY
 
35 US: ajc.com: Nuclear bomb to stay in Savannah waters 
36 US: WorldNetDaily: 'Fixing' intelligence
37 Daily Times: UN accepts US plan to boost nuclear security 
 
                          NUCLEAR SAFETY
 
38 US: [DU List] Collateral risk: DU research gap could impact
39 US: [du-list] US Censored stories from  Nagasaki bombing published
40 Pasadena Star-News: A-bomb survivors still getting help
41 London Times: Government told to forget nuclear pills - 
42 KRT Wire: U.S. asked Japan to end health studies after bomb test, le
43 US: DesMoinesRegister.com: An eight-year battle for compensation in 
44 US: RedNova News: Study Shows Importance of Exposure Age for Hanford
45 US: Deseret News: Questions haunt many Downwinders 
 
                         NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
 
46 US: The Courier-Mail: Doubt on NT uranium mining 
47 US: AU ABC: Labor uranium promise 'hypocritical'
48 US: Daily Sentinel: Crowd at GJ uranium expo talks of boom
49 US: Cincinnati Enquirer: Nuclear 'waste' is valuable resource
50 US: DenverPost.com: Uranium boom fuels upbeat industry meet
51 Epping Forest Guardian: Nuclear Secret In Waltham Abbey 
52 US: Boston Globe: Army handed revised bill - 
53 US: NEWS.com.au: Doubt on NT uranium mining 
54 US: WGRZ: West Valley waste ruling
55 Pantagraph.com: Opinion - Illinoisans have lot at stake in Yucca Mou
56 US: deseret news: Goshute nuclear plan flayed 
57 US: AU ABC: Greenies won't let Martin's uranium promise go. 
58 Independent: BNFL told to combat threat of nuclear contamination on 
 
                           PEACE
 
59 MDN: A Nagasaki Report
60 Daily Times: Musharraf offers N-disarmament 
 
                        US DEPT. OF ENERGY
 
61 DenverPost.com - OPINION: tribes recapturing control                
62 lamonitor.com: LANL projects restored 
63 lamonitor.com: Dirty container detection capabilities presented at L
64 Newsday.com: Senate panel OKs BNL funding
65 ABQjournal: 2 LANL Staffers Accused of Fraud 
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 1 Las Vegas SUN: Editorial: Iraq: Shades of Vietnam

June 17, 2005 
 
WEEKEND EDITION

 June 18-19, 2005

 Before dawn Friday in western Iraq, in the Anbar province
bordering Syria, a force of 1,000 U.S. Marines and Iraqi
soldiers began an offensive against enemy strongholds. The
enemies included insurgent Iraqis along with foreign fighters
who have been swarming over the border. The news should have
brought satisfaction, as taking the fight to our enemies, and
destroying them, is how wars are won.

 Unfortunately, however, such offensives in Iraq are providing
mostly illusionary victories. Reporting last week about a
similar offensive in Tal Afar, in northwestern Iraq and also
along the Syrian border, The New York Times interviewed the
executive officer of the U.S. Army's 3rd Armored Cavalry
Regiment. That offensive, which took place in September, cleared
the area of insurgents. But the Army had to come back last month
and wage the fight all over again. That's because there were not
enough troops to secure the area after the September battle.

 "We have a finite number of troops," Maj. Chris Kennedy told
the Times. "If you pull out of an area and don't leave security
forces in it, all you're going to do is leave the door open for
them (enemy forces) to come back. This is what our lack of
combat power has done to us throughout the country. ... We
haven't been able to leave sufficient forces in towns where
we've cleared the insurgents out."

 As the result of insufficient troops to secure the area, Tal
Afar, despite the Army's immediate victory, returned to being a
"way station for the trafficking of arms and insurgent fighters
from Syria, and a ghost town of terrorized residents afraid to
open their stores, walk the streets or send their children to
school," the newspaper reported.

 What happened in Tal Afar demonstrates the critical need for
more U.S. troops in Iraq -- tens of thousands of them. Without a
massive troop buildup to provide security and wage offensives
that bring lasting victories, Iraq will continue as a pendulum
-- troops moving back and forth, back and forth, with only the
minutes and hours going forward, bringing days and weeks and
years of more bloodshed.

 Frighteningly, however, this military reality is canceled out
by the political reality. Public support for the war in Iraq is
dropping precipitously, recent polling shows. And members of
Congress are no longer standing together on the steps of the
Capitol singing "God Bless America."

 An "Out of Iraq" caucus was formed Thursday by 41 House
Democrats. Also on Thursday, two Republican congressmen and two
Democratic congressmen sponsored a resolution calling upon
President Bush to begin pulling troops out of Iraq by Oct. 1,
2006. Additionally, more than 100 members of Congress have
signed a letter demanding that Bush fully respond to the Downing
Street Memo. This document -- a July 23, 2002, briefing paper
prepared for British Prime Minister Tony Blair's top ministers
-- was disclosed in May by the Sunday Times newspaper in London.

 It reveals that Bush and Blair met in April 2002 -- a year
before the invasion and months before Bush has acknowledged
making his decision to go to war -- to discuss Britain's role in
the war and ways of justifying to the world a regime change.
Excerpts from the memo include: "Bush wanted to remove Saddam,
through military action, justified by the conjunction of
terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being
fixed around the policy. ... There was little discussion in
Washington of the aftermath after military action. ... It seemed
clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action ...
but the case was thin ..."

 The war in Iraq is beginning to mimic the Vietnam War, which
attracted public support in its early years but was the cause of
widespread and violent protests in its later years. The protest
movement grew as casualties mounted, as disclosures cast doubt
on our reasons for being in Vietnam and as it became clear the
government had little knowledge of how to fight a guerilla war
or how to end it. This tragic chapter in our history seems to be
repeating itself in Iraq.

 More than 1,700 U.S. troops have been killed there, including
three from the Las Vegas Valley in just the past two weeks.
President Bush can't withdraw troops from Iraq because of the
caldron he's created, and he won't bring them up to strength for
political reasons, yet he assures America he knows what he is
doing. In our view, the White House had better put forth a plan
to succeed in Iraq before the country once again enters into a
long and bitter period of protest. 
 
*****************************************************************
 2 Las Vegas SUN: Memos Show British Fretting Over Iraq War

Today: June 19, 2005 at 6:43:34 PDT 

 By THOMAS WAGNER ASSOCIATED PRESS 

LONDON (AP) - 

When Prime Minister Tony Blair's chief foreign policy adviser
dined with Condoleezza Rice six months after Sept. 11, the
then-U.S. national security adviser didn't want to discuss Osama
bin Laden or al-Qaida. She wanted to talk about "regime change"
in Iraq, setting the stage for the U.S.-led invasion more than a
year later. 

President Bush wanted Blair's support, but British officials
worried the White House was rushing to war, according to a
series of leaked secret Downing Street memos that have renewed
questions and debate about Washington's motives for ousting
Saddam Hussein. 

In one of the memos, British Foreign Office political director
Peter Ricketts openly asks whether the Bush administration had a
clear and compelling military reason for war. 

"U.S. scrambling to establish a link between Iraq and al-Qaida
is so far frankly unconvincing," Ricketts says in the memo. "For
Iraq, `regime change' does not stack up. It sounds like a grudge
between Bush and Saddam." 

The documents confirm Blair was genuinely concerned about
Saddam's alleged weapons of mass destruction, but also indicate
he was determined to go to war as America's top ally, even
though his government thought a pre-emptive attack may be
illegal under international law. 

"The truth is that what has changed is not the pace of Saddam
Hussein's WMD programs, but our tolerance of them post-11
September," said a typed copy of a March 22, 2002 memo obtained
Thursday by The Associated Press and written to Foreign
Secretary Jack Straw. 

"But even the best survey of Iraq's WMD programs will not show
much advance in recent years on the nuclear, missile or CW/BW
(chemical or biological weapons) fronts: the programs are
extremely worrying but have not, as far as we know, been stepped
up." 

Details from Rice's dinner conversation also are included in one
of the secret memos from 2002, which reveal British concerns
about both the invasion and poor postwar planning by the Bush
administration, which critics say has allowed the Iraqi
insurgency to rage. 

The eight memos - all labeled "secret" or "confidential" - were
first obtained by British reporter Michael Smith, who has
written about them in The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Times. 

Smith told AP he protected the identity of the source he had
obtained the documents from by typing copies of them on plain
paper and destroying the originals. 

The AP obtained copies of six of the memos (the other two have
circulated widely). A senior British official who reviewed the
copies said their content appeared authentic. He spoke on
condition of anonymity because of the secret nature of the
material. 

The Sunday Times this week reported that lawyers told the
British government that U.S. and British bombing of Iraq in the
months before the war was illegal under international law. That
report, also by Smith, noted that almost a year before the war
started, they began to strike more frequently. 

The newspaper quoted Lord Goodhart, vice president of the
International Commission of Jurists, as backing the Foreign
Office lawyers' view that aircraft could only patrol the no-fly
zones to deter attacks by Saddam's forces. 

Goodhart said that if "the purpose was to soften up Iraq for a
future invasion or even to intimidate Iraq, the coalition forces
were acting without lawful authority," the Sunday Times
reported. 

The eight documents reported earlier total 36 pages and range
from 10-page and eight-page studies on military and legal
options in Iraq, to brief memorandums from British officials and
the minutes of a private meeting held by Blair and his top
advisers. 

Toby Dodge, an Iraq expert who teaches at Queen Mary College,
University of London, said the documents confirmed what
post-invasion investigations have found. 

"The documents show what official inquiries in Britain already
have, that the case of weapons of mass destruction was based on
thin intelligence and was used to inflate the evidence to the
level of mendacity," Dodge said. "In going to war with Bush,
Blair defended the special relationship between the two
countries, like other British leaders have. But he knew he was
taking a huge political risk at home. He knew the war's legality
was questionable and its unpopularity was never in doubt." 

Dodge said the memos also show Blair was aware of the postwar
instability that was likely among Iraq's complex mix of Sunnis,
Shiites and Kurds once Saddam was defeated. 

The British documents confirm, as well, that "soon after 9/11
happened, the starting gun was fired for the invasion of Iraq,"
Dodge said. 

Speculation about if and when that would happen ran throughout
2002. 

On Jan. 29, Bush called Iraq, Iran and North Korea "an axis of
evil." U.S. newspapers began reporting soon afterward that a
U.S.-led war with Iraq was possible. 

On Oct. 16, the U.S. Congress voted to authorize Bush to go to
war against Iraq. On Feb. 5, 2003, then-Secretary of State Colin
L. Powell presented the Bush administration's case about Iraq's
weapons to the U.N. Security Council. On March 19-20, the
U.S.-led invasion began. 

Bush and Blair both have been criticized at home since their WMD
claims about Iraq proved false. But both have been re-elected,
defending the conflict for removing a brutal dictator and
promoting democracy in Iraq. Both administrations have dismissed
the memos as old news. 

Details of the memos appeared in papers early last month but the
news in Britain quickly turned to the election that returned
Blair to power. In the United States, however, details of the
memos' contents reignited a firestorm, especially among
Democratic critics of Bush. 

It was in a March 14, 2002, memo that Blair's chief foreign
policy adviser, David Manning, told the prime minister about the
dinner he had just had with Rice in Washington. 

"We spent a long time at dinner on Iraq," wrote Manning, who's
now British ambassador to the United States. Rice is now Bush's
secretary of state. 

"It is clear that Bush is grateful for your (Blair's) support
and has registered that you are getting flak. I said that you
would not budge in your support for regime change but you had to
manage a press, a Parliament and a public opinion that was very
different than anything in the States. And you would not budge
either in your insistence that, if we pursued regime change, it
must be very carefully done and produce the right result.
Failure was not an option." 

Manning said, "Condi's enthusiasm for regime change is
undimmed." But he also said there were signs of greater
awareness of the practical difficulties and political risks. 

Blair was to meet with Bush at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, on
April 8, and Manning told his boss: "No doubt we need to keep a
sense of perspective. But my talks with Condi convinced me that
Bush wants to hear your views on Iraq before taking decisions.
He also wants your support. He is still smarting from the
comments by other European leaders on his Iraq policy." 

A July 21 briefing paper given to officials preparing for a July
23 meeting with Blair says officials must "ensure that the
benefits of action outweigh the risks." 

"In particular we need to be sure that the outcome of the
military action would match our objective... A postwar
occupation of Iraq could lead to a protracted and costly
nation-building exercise. As already made clear, the U.S.
military plans are virtually silent on this point." 

The British worried that, "Washington could look to us to share
a disproportionate share of the burden. Further work is required
to define more precisely the means by which the desired end
state would be created, in particular what form of government
might replace Saddam Hussein's regime and the time scale within
which it would be possible to identify a successor." 

In the March 22 memo from Foreign Office political director
Ricketts to Foreign Secretary Straw, Ricketts outlined how to
win public and parliamentary support for a war in Britain: "We
have to be convincing that: the threat is so serious/imminent
that it is worth sending our troops to die for; it is
qualitatively different from the threat posed by other
proliferators who are closer to achieving nuclear capability
(including Iran)." 

Blair's government has been criticized for releasing an
intelligence dossier on Iraq before the war that warned Saddam
could launch chemical or biological weapons on 45 minutes'
notice. 

On March 25 Straw wrote a memo to Blair, saying he would have a
tough time convincing the governing Labour Party that a
pre-emptive strike against Iraq was legal under international
law. 

"If 11 September had not happened, it is doubtful that the U.S.
would now be considering military action against Iraq," Straw
wrote. "In addition, there has been no credible evidence to link
Iraq with OBL (Osama bin Laden) and al-Qaida." 

He also questioned stability in a post-Saddam Iraq: "We have
also to answer the big question - what will this action achieve?
There seems to be a larger hole in this than on anything." 

--- 

On the Net: 

http://hosted.ap.org/specials/dowdoc/fcolegal020308.pdf

http://hosted.ap.org/specials/dowdoc/manning020314.pdf

http://hosted.ap.org/specials/dowdoc/meyer020318.pdf

http://hosted.ap.org/specials/dowdoc/ods020308.pdf

http://hosted.ap.org/specials/dowdoc/ricketts020322.pdf

http://hosted.ap.org/specials/dowdoc/straw020325.pdf

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-1648758,00.html 

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1593607,00.html 

-- 


 
*****************************************************************
 3 Pakistan News: Spain and Portugal pull out their troops from Iraq
: Report  

PakTribune.Com
 
Jumaada al-awal 11, 1426 Hijri June 20, 2005	         

Pakistan News Wire [ src=]     my Paktribune   

								 
Dr A Q Khan was condoned for security he provided to country:
Musharraf
   		
Saturday June 18, 2005 (1438 PST)
 		 		 		
AUCKLAND, June 19 (Online): President General Pervez Musharraf
has said that Dr. A Q Khan was condoned due to security he had
extended at a time when Pakistan was facing extinction. 

"Dr. A Q Khan gave us security when we were threatened with
extinction," The New Zealand Herald quoted him saying on
Saturday. 
Musharraf asked a questioner: "If New Zealand was threatened
with nuclear extinction you would do anything to save yourself.
So Pakistan will do anything to save itself. That was what was
happening." 
The President said it was partially true that before September
11 he was seen as an international pariah. The President said
that 9/11 incident came to his rescue. 
"I wanted to prevent any harm to Pakistan and ensure advantages
to Pakistan," the president said. 
"I did not want to see the Talebanisation of Pakistan as their
view of Islam was backward," he said adding despite the US-led
effort, Osama bin Laden, who allegedly masterminded the attacks
on the World Trade Centre is "probably still hiding out" in the
mountainous border region. 
Musharraf maintained it could take 10 years before Al Qaeda is
run out of Afghanistan. "It is very inhospitable country. The
population is very sparse. 
"Troop movements are visible and Pakistani soldiers are
concentrated in just one area. You would require hundreds of
thousands of troops to be able to operate in the whole
countryside. 
So intelligence is what we need to develop, he said such as
human intelligence, technical intelligence and aerial
surveillance, which we are doing." 
Musharraf bristled at speculation that is in Pakistan's
interests to string out the hunt for Al Qaeda so that it can
retain its grip on the United States' purse. 
Geopolitical factors mean that even if Osama is caught in the
near future, the US is unlikely to cut off aid. 
He informed, "Pakistan is an important Islamic country and we
have a very important role to play in the Islamic world." 
He pointed to Pakistan's location at the hub of borders shared
with India, Afghanistan and China, an area which has the
potential to be a nuclear flashpoint. "We have our great
importance. We are a nuclear state of 150 million people. How
can we be ignored, he questioned." 
The IAEA has failed in its quest to bust a nuclear black-market
run by the "father" of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal, Dr Abdul
Qadeer Khan. 
"On one side we have proliferated - yes, I know that but on the
other side Khan is a hero to the man in the street. The world
recognizes it, the United States recognizes it, Musharraf was
quoted as saying. 
To charges that his government refused to make Khan available
for interrogation by US investigators, Musharraf countered, "No
US official has ever asked me more than we have done." 
The President claimed he had brought stability to Pakistan since
orchestrating the 1999 coup. Before then, democracy in Pakistan
was "very dysfunctional it has never functioned. 
The New Zealand Herald quoted Musharraf as saying that his focus
had been on four elements including Pakistan's economic
viability, instituting governance structures, plans to eradicate
poverty, and political restructuring. 
"There is now democracy at "grassroots level" and constitutional
checks to ensure the Prime Minister does not "malfunction," or
that the President "misfunctions" and dismisses the National
Assembly, and that he has instituted further checks on the Army
chief "not to take over". 
"I am only overseeing that the nation's goals are sustained."
Paradoxically, he admits it was "maybe it was because of the
concentration of power in me" that he was able to effect change
in the first place. 
End.  
  �   
     
  

 					 
						   				 	 
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 4 Guardian Unlimited: Excerpts From the Downing Street Memos
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

Saturday June 18, 2005 6:46 PM

Excerpts from material in secret Downing Street memos written in
2002. The information, authenticated by a senior British
government official, was transcribed from the original
documents. 

In a memo dated March 14, 2002, Tony Blair's chief foreign
policy adviser, David Manning, tells the prime minister about a
dinner he had with then-U.S. National Security Adviser
Condoleezza Rice, who's now secretary of state. Manning is now
the British ambassador to the United States. 

``We spent a long time at dinner on Iraq. It is clear that Bush
is grateful for your (Blair) support and has registered that you
are getting flak. I said that you would not budge in your
support for regime change but you had to manage a press, a
Parliament and a public opinion that was very different than
anything in the States. And you would not budge either in your
insistence that, if we pursued regime change, it must be very
carefully done and produce the right result. Failure was not an
option.'' 

---- 

``Condi's enthusiasm for regime change is undimmed. But there
were some signs, since we last spoke, of greater awareness of
the practical difficulties and political risks. ... From what
she said, Bush has yet to find the answers to the big questions:
How to persuade international opinion that military action
against Iraq is necessary and justified; What value to put on
the exiled Iraqi opposition; How to coordinate a U.S./allied
military campaign with internal opposition; (assuming there is
any); What happens on the morning after?'' 

---- 

``No doubt we need to keep a sense of perspective. But my talks
with Condi convinced me that Bush wants to hear your views on
Iraq before taking decisions. He also wants your support. He is
still smarting from the comments by other European leaders on
his Iraq policy.'' 

---- 

From a memo dated March 22, 2002 from Peter Ricketts, British
foreign office political director, to Jack Straw, Britain's
Foreign Secretary, on advice given on Iraq to Blair. 

``The truth is that what has changed is not the pace of Saddam
Hussein's WMD programmes, but our tolerance of them post-11
September. This is not something we need to be defensive about,
but attempts to claim otherwise publicly will increase
scepticism about our case. I am relieved that you decided to
postpone publication of the unclassified document. My meeting
yesterday showed that there is more work to do to ensure that
the figures are accurate and consistent with those of the US.
But even the best survey of Iraq's WMD programmes will not show
much advance in recent years on the nuclear, missile or CW/BW
(chemical or biological weapon) fronts: the programmes are
extremely worrying but have not, as far as we know, been stepped
up.'' 

---- 

``US scrambling to establish a link between Iraq and Al Qaida is
so far frankly unconvincing. To get public and Parliamentary
support for military operations, we have to be convincing that
the threat is so serious/imminent that it is worth sending out
troops to die for; it is qualitatively different from the threat
posed by other proliferators who are closer to achieving nuclear
capability (including Iran).'' 

---- 

``We can make the case on qualitative difference (only Iraq has
attacked a neighbour, used CW and fired missiles against
Israel). The overall strategy needs to include re-doubled effort
to tackle other proliferators, including Iran, in other ways
(the UK/French ideas on greater IAEA activity are helpful here).
But we are still left with a problem of bringing public opinion
to accept the imminence of a threat from Iraq. This is something
the Prime Minister and President need to have a frank discussion
about.'' 

---- 

``The second problem is the END STATE. Military operations need
clear and compelling military objectives. For Kosovo, it was:
Serbs out, Kosovars back, peace-keepers in. For Afghanistan,
destroying the Taleban and Al Qaida military capability. For
Iraq, ``regime change'' does not stack up. It sounds like a
grudge between Bush and Saddam.'' 

---- 

From a document dated March 8, 2002, on Iraq from the Overseas
and Defense Secretariat to Cabinet Office: 

``Since 1991, our objective has been to re-integrate a
law-abiding Iraq which does not possess WMD or threaten its
neighbours, into the international community. Implicitly, this
cannot occur with Saddam Hussein in power.'' 

---- 

``Despite sanctions, Iraq continues to develop WMD, although our
intelligence is poor. Saddam has used WMD in the past and could
do so again if his regime were threatened, though there is no
greater threat now than in recent years that Saddam will use
WMD.'' 

---- 

``The US administration has lost faith in containment and is now
considering regime change.'' 

``A legal justification for invasion would be needed. Subject to
Law Officers advice, none currently exists. This makes moving
quickly to invade legally very difficult.'' 

``Saddam is only likely to permit the return of inspectors if he
believes the threat of large scale US military action is
imminent and that such concessions would prevent the US from
acting decisively. Playing for time, he would then embark on a
renewed policy of noncooperation.'' 

``The US has lost confidence in containment. Some in government
want Saddam removed. ... The US may be willing to work with a
much smaller coalition than we think desirable.'' 

``We have looked at three options for achieving regime change
(we dismissed assassination of Saddam Hussein as an option
because it would be illegal).'' 

``Of course, REGIME CHANGE has no basis in international law.'' 

--- 

From a memo dated March 25, 2002, from Foreign Secretary Jack
Straw to Blair: 

``If 11 September had not happened, it is doubtful that the US
would now be considering military action against Iraq. In
addition, there has been no credible evidence to link Iraq with
UBL (Osama bin Laden) and Al Qaida. Objectively, the threat from
Iraq has not worsened as a result of 11 September. What has
however changed is the tolerance of the international community
(especially that of the US), the world having witnesses sic on
September 11 just what determined evil people can these days
perpetuate.'' 

Speaking about the difference between Iraq, Iran and North
Korea, he said: ``By linking these countries together in the
``axis of evil'' speech, President Bush implied an identity
betwen sic them not only in terms of their threat, but also in
terms of the action necessary to be done to delink the three,
and to show why military action against Iraq is so much more
justified than against Iran and North Korea. The heart of this
case - that Iraq poses a unique and present danger - rests on
the facts.'' 

``A legal justification is a necessary but far from sufficient
precondition for military action. We also have to answer the big
question - what will this action achieve? There seems to be a
larger hole in this than on anything. Most of the assessments
from the US have assumed regime change as a means of eliminating
Iraq's WMD threat. But none has satisfactorily answered how that
regime change is to be secured, and how there can be any
certainty that the replacement regime will be better.'' 

``Iraq has had NO history of democracy, so no one has this habit
or experience.'' 

---- 

From a briefing paper dated July 21, 2002, given to Blair and
government officials before meeting on July 23, 2002, about
Iraq: 

``Even with a legal base and viable military plan, we would
still need to ensure that the benefits of action outweigh the
risks. In particular we need to be sure that the outcome of the
military action would match our objective. ... A post-war
occupation of Iraq could lead to a protracted and costly
nation-building exercise. As already made clear, the US military
plans are virtually silent on this point. Washington could look
to us to share a disproportionate share of the burden. Futher
work is required to define more precisely the means by which the
desired end state would be created, in particular what form of
government might replace Saddam Hussein's regime's and the
timescale within which it would be possible to identify a
successor.'' 

---- 

From minutes of a July 23, 2002, meeting between Blair and top
government officials. ``C'' refers to Sir Richard Dearlove, then
chief of Britain's intelligence service. 

``C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a
perceptible shift in attitude (about Iraq). Military action was
now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through
military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and
WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the
policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no
enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record.
There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after
military action.'' 

---- 

``The Defence Secretary said that the US had already begun
`spikes of activity' to put pressure on the regime.'' 

---- 

``It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take
military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the
case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbors, and his
WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or
Iran.'' 
		 	 	   

Guardian Unlimited � Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
 5 Guardian Unlimited: Memos Show British Concern Over Iraq Plans
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

Saturday June 18, 2005 5:16 PM

AP Photo BRU161 

By THOMAS WAGNER 

Associated Press Writer 

LONDON (AP) - When Prime Minister Tony Blair's chief foreign
policy adviser dined with Condoleezza Rice six months after
Sept. 11, the then-U.S. national security adviser didn't want to
discuss Osama bin Laden or al-Qaida. She wanted to talk about
``regime change'' in Iraq, setting the stage for the U.S.-led
invasion more than a year later. 

President Bush wanted Blair's support, but British officials
worried the White House was rushing to war, according to a
series of leaked secret Downing Street memos that have renewed
questions and debate about Washington's motives for ousting
Saddam Hussein. 

In one of the memos, British Foreign Office political director
Peter Ricketts openly asks whether the Bush administration had a
clear and compelling military reason for war. 

``U.S. scrambling to establish a link between Iraq and al-Qaida
is so far frankly unconvincing,'' Ricketts says in the memo.
``For Iraq, `regime change' does not stack up. It sounds like a
grudge between Bush and Saddam.'' 

The documents confirm Blair was genuinely concerned about
Saddam's alleged weapons of mass destruction, but also indicate
he was determined to go to war as America's top ally, even
though his government thought a pre-emptive attack may be
illegal under international law. 

``The truth is that what has changed is not the pace of Saddam
Hussein's WMD programs, but our tolerance of them post-11
September,'' said a typed copy of a March 22, 2002 memo obtained
Thursday by The Associated Press and written to Foreign
Secretary Jack Straw. 

``But even the best survey of Iraq's WMD programs will not show
much advance in recent years on the nuclear, missile or CW/BW
(chemical or biological weapons) fronts: the programs are
extremely worrying but have not, as far as we know, been stepped
up.'' 

Details from Rice's dinner conversation also are included in one
of the secret memos from 2002, which reveal British concerns
about both the invasion and poor postwar planning by the Bush
administration, which critics say has allowed the Iraqi
insurgency to rage. 

The eight memos - all labeled ``secret'' or ``confidential'' -
were first obtained by British reporter Michael Smith, who has
written about them in The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Times. 

Smith told AP he protected the identity of the source he had
obtained the documents from by typing copies of them on plain
paper and destroying the originals. 

The AP obtained copies of six of the memos (the other two have
circulated widely). A senior British official who reviewed the
copies said their content appeared authentic. He spoke on
condition of anonymity because of the secret nature of the
material. 

The eight documents total 36 pages and range from 10-page and
eight-page studies on military and legal options in Iraq, to
brief memorandums from British officials and the minutes of a
private meeting held by Blair and his top advisers. 

Toby Dodge, an Iraq expert who teaches at Queen Mary College,
University of London, said the documents confirmed what
post-invasion investigations have found. 

``The documents show what official inquiries in Britain already
have, that the case of weapons of mass destruction was based on
thin intelligence and was used to inflate the evidence to the
level of mendacity,'' Dodge said. ``In going to war with Bush,
Blair defended the special relationship between the two
countries, like other British leaders have. But he knew he was
taking a huge political risk at home. He knew the war's legality
was questionable and its unpopularity was never in doubt.'' 

Dodge said the memos also show Blair was aware of the postwar
instability that was likely among Iraq's complex mix of Sunnis,
Shiites and Kurds once Saddam was defeated. 

The British documents confirm, as well, that ``soon after 9/11
happened, the starting gun was fired for the invasion of Iraq,''
Dodge said. 

Speculation about if and when that would happen ran throughout
2002. 

On Jan. 29, Bush called Iraq, Iran and North Korea ``an axis of
evil.'' U.S. newspapers began reporting soon afterward that a
U.S.-led war with Iraq was possible. 

On Oct. 16, the U.S. Congress voted to authorize Bush to go to
war against Iraq. On Feb. 5, 2003, then-Secretary of State Colin
L. Powell presented the Bush administration's case about Iraq's
weapons to the U.N. Security Council. On March 19-20, the
U.S.-led invasion began. 

Bush and Blair both have been criticized at home since their WMD
claims about Iraq proved false. But both have been re-elected,
defending the conflict for removing a brutal dictator and
promoting democracy in Iraq. Both administrations have dismissed
the memos as old news. 

Details of the memos appeared in papers early last month but the
news in Britain quickly turned to the election that returned
Blair to power. In the United States, however, details of the
memos' contents reignited a firestorm, especially among
Democratic critics of Bush. 

It was in a March 14, 2002, memo that Blair's chief foreign
policy adviser, David Manning, told the prime minister about the
dinner he had just had with Rice in Washington. 

``We spent a long time at dinner on Iraq,'' wrote Manning, who's
now British ambassador to the United States. Rice is now Bush's
secretary of state. 

``It is clear that Bush is grateful for your (Blair's) support
and has registered that you are getting flak. I said that you
would not budge in your support for regime change but you had to
manage a press, a Parliament and a public opinion that was very
different than anything in the States. And you would not budge
either in your insistence that, if we pursued regime change, it
must be very carefully done and produce the right result.
Failure was not an option.'' 

Manning said, ``Condi's enthusiasm for regime change is
undimmed.'' But he also said there were signs of greater
awareness of the practical difficulties and political risks. 

Blair was to meet with Bush at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, on
April 8, and Manning told his boss: ``No doubt we need to keep a
sense of perspective. But my talks with Condi convinced me that
Bush wants to hear your views on Iraq before taking decisions.
He also wants your support. He is still smarting from the
comments by other European leaders on his Iraq policy.'' 

A July 21 briefing paper given to officials preparing for a July
23 meeting with Blair says officials must ``ensure that the
benefits of action outweigh the risks.'' 

``In particular we need to be sure that the outcome of the
military action would match our objective... A postwar
occupation of Iraq could lead to a protracted and costly
nation-building exercise. As already made clear, the U.S.
military plans are virtually silent on this point.'' 

The British worried that, ``Washington could look to us to share
a disproportionate share of the burden. Further work is required
to define more precisely the means by which the desired end
state would be created, in particular what form of government
might replace Saddam Hussein's regime and the time scale within
which it would be possible to identify a successor.'' 

In the March 22 memo from Foreign Office political director
Ricketts to Foreign Secretary Straw, Ricketts outlined how to
win public and parliamentary support for a war in Britain: ``We
have to be convincing that: the threat is so serious/imminent
that it is worth sending our troops to die for; it is
qualitatively different from the threat posed by other
proliferators who are closer to achieving nuclear capability
(including Iran).'' 

Blair's government has been criticized for releasing an
intelligence dossier on Iraq before the war that warned Saddam
could launch chemical or biological weapons on 45 minutes'
notice. 

On March 25 Straw wrote a memo to Blair, saying he would have a
tough time convincing the governing Labour Party that a
pre-emptive strike against Iraq was legal under international
law. 

``If 11 September had not happened, it is doubtful that the U.S.
would now be considering military action against Iraq,'' Straw
wrote. ``In addition, there has been no credible evidence to
link Iraq with OBL (Osama bin Laden) and al-Qaida.'' 

He also questioned stability in a post-Saddam Iraq: ``We have
also to answer the big question - what will this action achieve?
There seems to be a larger hole in this than on anything.'' 

--- 

On the Net: 

http://hosted.ap.org/specials/dowdoc/fcolegal020308.pdf 

http://hosted.ap.org/specials/dowdoc/manning020314.pdf 

http://hosted.ap.org/specials/dowdoc/meyer020318.pdf 

http://hosted.ap.org/specials/dowdoc/ods020308.pdf 

http://hosted.ap.org/specials/dowdoc/ricketts020322.pdf 

http://hosted.ap.org/specials/dowdoc/straw020325.pdf 

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-1648758,00.html 

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1593607,00.html 
		 	 	   
      Guardian Unlimited � Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
 6 Daily Times REGION: EU underlines Iran N-freeze must continue 

Daily Times - Site Edition      Saturday, December 30, 1899   
	     

* ElBaradei calls on Iran to respond to nuclear questions

BRUSSELS: The European Union reiterated on Friday that Iran must
maintain its freeze on key nuclear activities as a condition for
continuing bilateral talks, according to draft summit
conclusions.

The 25-nation bloc, which has offered the prospect of a trade
and cooperation accord to Tehran, stressed that the
international community needs �objective guarantees� that its
nuclear plans were only for peaceful purposes.

�The European Council underlines that maintaining the suspension
of activities linked to enrichment and to all reprocessing
activities was a condition for the continuation of the whole
process,� they said.

�The EU is ready to examine means to further develop political
and economic cooperation with Iran, following the measures taken
by this country to respond to ... concerns by the fight against
terrorism, human rights and Iran�s approach to the Middle East
peace process,� said the French-language text.

The European bloc has persisted with a policy of constructive
engagement with the Islamic republic, despite US suspicions that
it is developing nuclear military capabilities.

Iran agreed last month to resume EU talks in August, after its
presidential elections this week and after the EU comes up with
concrete proposals at the end of July on cooperation with Tehran
over its nuclear programme.

But it has since complained that Britain, France and Germany
have been seeking to drag out the talks, and therefore Iran�s
nuclear suspension. A quick resumption of talks, however, may
not be acceptable to the Europeans.

Iran�s presidential election on Friday was too close to call,
with reformists claiming they could score a stunning upset
against top cleric Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.

The election had been painted as a one-horse race for
Rafsanjani, who is hoping his image as a business-savvy moderate
can woo voters tired of political deadlock, international
isolation and economic stagnation. 

Meanwhile, in Vienna the UN atomic agency chief Mohamed
ElBaradei called Friday on Iran to answer all questions about
its nuclear programme as soon as possible, saying this is
crucial for talks with the EU on guaranteeing the Islamic
Republic is not making atomic weapons.

�I�d like to clear all the past undeclared nuclear activities in
Iran, because again without clearing the past it would be
difficult for the Europeans and others to regulate the future,�
ElBaradei told reporters as a weeklong meeting of his
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) ended in Vienna. afp 
Home | Foreign 
*****************************************************************
 7 Hankyoreh: [Editorial] Six-Party Talks Depend on United States 

Updated : Jun.20.2005 03:00 KST

Since the meeting between Kim Jong Il and Chung Dong Young, the 
government has been working in earnest to get the six-party 
process restarted. The foreign ministry has dispatched people to 
the US and Russia, and starting Tuesday prime minister Lee Hae 
Chan and deputy defense minister Song Min Soon will be meeting 
with members of China's leadership. On Monday there is a summit 
between president Roh Moo Hyun and Japanese prime minister 
Junichiro Koizumi. On Tuesday the world will be watching what 
happens in Seoul as there will be ministerial talks. One hopes to 
see more concrete discussion about intra-Korean relations and 
also about the nuclear issue. 

Many experts are saying that the North has decided it is coming 
back to the six-party talks but is hesitating because it has not 
received a sure sign from the US. The Korean government seems to 
share that analysis. When the North's National Defence Commission 
chairman Kim Jong Il said his condition for returning to the 
talks was recognition and respect from the US, that meant he 
wants the US to respect the North's system and recognize it as a 
partner in the negotiations. That is not something inconsistent 
with the principle of resolving the nuclear issue diplomatically 
and peacefully, something agreed on by all the parties to the 
six-party talks. 

The US's attitude is of concern. It is acting reserved, saying 
"there is no date until there's a date." Some hard-liners 
disregard chairman Kim's statements, saying they are "more 
rhetoric" and "delay tactics." The North and the US of course 
need to meet firsthand to see what each others' intentions are, 
but it is inevitably going to be an obstacle to restarting the 
talks if the suspicions come first. If US president George W. 
Bush truly wants a diplomatic and peaceful resolution, he will 
have to get his internal house in order and bring clarity to the 
differing views there. 

Negotiations are give and take. The North has taken a step
closer, and the US must respond accordingly. The question of
whether the six-party talks reopen and provide for a resolution
of the nuclear issue or not depends on the attitude of the US. 

The Hankyoreh, 20 June 2005. 

[Translations by Seoul Selection(PMS)] 
		 	
Copyright 2005 Hankyoreh Plus inc.   
y
*****************************************************************
 8 Korea Herald: Korea, U.S. to discuss nuclear safety   
        

2005.06.20
 

South Korea and the United States will hold a workshop this week
to discuss improving security at South Korea's nuclear
facilities, the Ministry of Science and Technology said
yesterday.

 The three-day meeting to start today will touch on the defense
and security of nuclear facilities and atomic materials in
transit.

 "Around 50 locals scientists and security officials along with
U.S. experts will take part in detailed discussions to enhance
protection for the critical facilities in South Korea," said a
ministry official.

 He said the United States raised security for its nuclear power
plants and related sites after the terrorist attacks of 2001 and
the meeting will give South Korea a chance to review how changes
implemented by Washington then can be emulated here. The meeting
will also discuss ways to help raise security awareness for the
managers of key facilities.

 Washington is pushing for other countries to follow its lead
and upgrade security at their nuclear facilities. 

The United States withheld the transfer of nuclear fuel to one
South Korean experimental reactor for four months from September
2004 to January 2005 for failing to meet nuclear security
standards.

 Three officials from the Sandia National Laboratories under the
U.S. Department of Energy will attend the meeting scheduled to
be held at the National Nuclear Management and Control Agency
(NNCA) in Daejon.

 South Korean ministry officials and researchers from the NNCA,
the Korea Hydro &Nuclear Power Co. and the Korea Atomic Energy
Research Institute will attend along with state security
personnel.

 South Korea has 20 commercial nuclear reactors and one
30-megawatt Hanaro experimental reactor used for research
purposes.

*****************************************************************
 9 Korea Herald: [EDITORIAL] Acting on Kim's promise   

2005.06.20

Kim Jong-il's promise to return to the six-way talks next month,
though conditional, has eased South Korean concerns about the
escalating Pyongyang-Washington confrontation on North Korea's
nuclear weapons program. As a condition, he demands a U.S.
promise of due recognition and respect for North Korea as a
sovereign state.

 In meeting South Korean Unification Minister Chung Dong-young
on Friday, Kim said the talks will resume if the United States
has an unwavering willingness to recognize and respect North
Korea. He added a final decision will be made after
consultations with the United States.

 The initial U.S. reaction to Kim's remarks was tinged with
skepticism, with the State Department saying, "The fact remains
that North Korea needs to return to the talks, without
preconditions, and engage in a constructive manner." But Kim's
message, the most promising since the last round of the talks a
year ago, merits careful consideration. In fact, North Korea is
not demanding too much, given U.S. President George Bush's
earlier reference to post-nuclear crisis transition to "more
normal relations" with North Korea.

 U.S. negotiators will do well to keep in mind that it is not
just substance but a gesture of goodwill that counts in engaging
North Korea. They should understand that Kim's stance on the
six-way talks was softened after Bush called him "Mr. Kim
Jong-il" and his secretary of state referred to North Korea as a
sovereign state. In reciprocity, Kim referred to the U.S. leader
as "H.E. Bush" or "Mr. Bush," depending on interpretation,
during his talks with Chung.

 A test of Kim's sincerity will come tomorrow when inter-Korean
ministerial-level talks are held on the reunion of separated
families around the Aug. 15 Liberation Day, the reopening of
general-level military talks and other pending issues. He
committed himself to family reunions and military talks. But
what counts are not words but his actions.

 
*****************************************************************
 10 Korea Herald: Korea, U.S. to discuss nuclear safety   

2005.06.20

South Korea and the United States will hold a workshop this week
to discuss improving security at South Korea's nuclear
facilities, the Ministry of Science and Technology said
yesterday.

 The three-day meeting to start today will touch on the defense
and security of nuclear facilities and atomic materials in
transit.

 "Around 50 locals scientists and security officials along with
U.S. experts will take part in detailed discussions to enhance
protection for the critical facilities in South Korea," said a
ministry official.

 He said the United States raised security for its nuclear power
plants and related sites after the terrorist attacks of 2001 and
the meeting will give South Korea a chance to review how changes
implemented by Washington then can be emulated here. The meeting
will also discuss ways to help raise security awareness for the
managers of key facilities.

 Washington is pushing for other countries to follow its lead
and upgrade security at their nuclear facilities. 

The United States withheld the transfer of nuclear fuel to one
South Korean experimental reactor for four months from September
2004 to January 2005 for failing to meet nuclear security
standards.

 Three officials from the Sandia National Laboratories under the
U.S. Department of Energy will attend the meeting scheduled to
be held at the National Nuclear Management and Control Agency in
Daejon.

 South Korean ministry officials and researchers from the NNCA,
the Korea Hydro &Nuclear Power Co. and the Korea Atomic Energy
Research Institute will attend along with state security
personnel.

 South Korea has 20 commercial nuclear reactors and one
30-megawatt Hanaro experimental reactor used for research
purposes.


*****************************************************************
 11 Korea Herald: Flurry of inter-Korean activities ahead of July   

(angiely@heraldm.com) By Lee Joo-hee

2005.06.20
        

A brighter light seems to be shining on the Korean Peninsula
after the surprise meeting between North Korean leader Kim
Jong-il and South Korean Unification Minister Chung Dong-young
with a flurry of inter-Korean activities in store.

 Starting off with a Cabinet-level meeting in Seoul tomorrow,
North and South Korea agreed to revive military talks and family
reunion events, as well hold maritime discussions. 

The Koreas also agreed to discuss a direct air route to link
Seoul with Pyongyang instead of using the detour over the West
Sea. It now takes about 50 minutes to fly between the two
capitals.

 At Chung's proposal, the two Koreas are also to look into
real-time video reunions for separated family members. There are
about 120,000 Koreans waiting to reunite with their lost
families, but approximately 5,000 die of old age each year
without fulfilling their wish.

 The North and South have also agreed that a high-rank North
Korean delegation should be sent to Seoul for the joint
celebration of Liberation Day on Aug. 15.

 Government sources say that although the agreements were made
verbally, they are taken seriously because they came from the
communist leader himself. 

Government officials said the outcome could become a firm
foundation to upgrade the slowly evolving inter-Korean
relations. 

All inter-Korean activities have been put on hold since July
last year when North Korea protested to South Korea's decision
not to send a delegation to attend a ceremony marking the
birthday of late leader Kim Il-sung, father of Kim Jong-il, and
Seoul's acceptance of a large number of North Korean defectors.

 The suspension came coincidently with the deadlock in the
six-party talks comprising the two Koreas, the United States,
China, Japan and Russia, and blocked the flow of inter-Korean
relations since the historic summit in 2000 between Kim Jong-il
and then president of South Korea Kim Dae-jung.

 Kim Jong-il also dealt with speculation that North Korea takes
a pessimistic view of the Roh Moo-hyun government by telling
Chung, "I am fully aware that the (Roh) participatory government
has a will to reconcile and cooperate with North Korea."

 With expectations that Pyongyang's return to the disarmament
negotiations would have a complementary effect on inter-Korean
relations, the key development from the meeting is the consensus
to revive military talks, analysts said.

 The first and second round of military talks were in May and
June last year, successfully agreeing on ways to calm tensions
in the West Sea and suspending propaganda activities in areas
near the Military Demarcation Line. The next round of talks
would aim to ease tensions even further.

 Kim agreed to improve the atmosphere of the Cabinet-level
talks, which have previously mainly consisted of short exchanges
of greetings and strenuous arguments. 

The spotlight is now on scheduled Cabinet-meetings to be held
from tomorrow through Friday in Seoul. 

The talks will naturally center on the basic agreements made
between Chung and Kim Jong-il, as well as economic cooperation
and more discussion on North Korea's return to the six-party
talks urged by the international community. 

Citing Washington's "hostility," North Korea has been boycotting
the negotiations and on Feb. 10 also declared it possesses
nuclear weapons. 

 
*****************************************************************
 12 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: 'No Date Until We Have a Date', U.S. Tells N.Korea
 
  Home> National/Politics    Updated Jun.19,2005 20:40 KST   
 
(englishnews@chosun.com ) 

  The U.S. on Friday reacted cautiously to North Korean leader
Kim Jong-il��s recent remarks that his country may rejoin
six-party talks on its nuclear program in July. ��The important
thing to keep in mind is that until we have a date, we don't
have a date. What we are looking for -- the real issue for us --
is getting back to the talks,�� State Department spokesman Adam
Ereli said. He reiterated Washington would accept no conditions
for North Korea��s return to talks and urged Pyongyang to do so
quickly. 

Meanwhile, a State Department official said the fact that North
Korea used the inter-Korean dialogue channel rather than the
U.S. or China to convey the message was an important
development. He said the U.S. was paying attention as North
Korean statements gradually moved in a positive direction. 

(englishnews@chosun.com ) 

*****************************************************************
 13 Las Vegas SUN: After 6 Decades, Report on A-Bomb Found

Today: June 19, 2005 at 7:32:26 PDT 

 By KENJI HALL ASSOCIATED PRESS 

TOKYO (AP) - The censored stories written by an American
journalist who sneaked into a southern Japanese city soon after
it was leveled by a U.S. atomic bomb have surfaced six decades
later. 

They offer an unflinching account about the "wasteland of war"
and its radiation-sickened inhabitants. 

The national Mainichi newspaper this month began serializing
George Weller's stories and photographs from Nagasaki, about 614
miles southwest of Tokyo, for the first time since they were
rejected by U.S. military censors and lost 60 years ago. 

Weller's reportage about the unknown affliction he called
"disease X" appeared in the paper in Japanese and on its Web
site edition in English. 

By hiring a Japanese rowboat, catching trains and later posing
as a U.S. Army colonel, Weller, an award-winning reporter for
the now-defunct Chicago Daily News, slipped into Nagasaki in
early September 1945, the paper said. 

It was about a month after the two A-bomb strikes - the first in
Hiroshima on Aug. 6, the second in Nagasaki on Aug. 9 - that had
led to Tokyo's Aug. 15, 1945, surrender ending the war. 

Weller, who died in 2002, was the first foreign journalist to
set foot in the devastated city, which Gen. Douglas MacArthur,
head of the U.S. occupation in Japan, had designated off-limits
to reporters, it said. 

Carbon copies of his stories, running to about 25,000 words on
75 typed pages, along with more than two dozen photos, were
discovered by his son, Anthony, last summer at Weller's
apartment in Rome, Italy, the Mainichi said. 

Anthony Weller, a novelist living in Annisquam, Massachusetts,
couldn't be reached for comment. He plans to publish his
father's stories. 

Though he skirted American authorities to get into Nagasaki,
Weller submitted his reports - the first was dated Sept. 6 - to
the censors. The stories infuriated MacArthur so much he
personally ordered that they be quashed, and the originals were
never returned. 

Anthony Weller told Mainichi he thought wartime officials wanted
to hush up stories about radiation sickness and feared that his
father's reports would sway American public opinion against
building an arsenal of nuclear bombs. The first batch of stories
were finished just as a delegation of American scientists was to
visit the city to test for radiation. 

About 70,000 people were killed in the explosion. 

In a Sept. 8, 1945 dispatch, Weller walked through the city - a
"wasteland of war" - and found evidence to back the talk of
radiation fallout from American radio reports. 

Though thousands of burn victims had died within a week after
the attack, doctors were stumped by "this mysterious 'disease
X'" which sickened and was killing many Japanese as well as
allied soldiers freed from prison camps a month later. 

"In swaybacked or flattened skeletons of the Mitsubishi arms
plants is revealed what the atomic bomb can do to steel and
stone, but what the riven atom can do against human flesh and
bone lies hidden in two hospitals of downtown Nagasaki," he
wrote. 

One woman at a hospital "lies moaning with a blackish mouth
stiff as though with lockjaw and unable to utter clear words,"
her legs and arms covered with red spots. Others suffered from a
dangerously high-temperature fever, a drop in white and red
blood cells, swelling in the throat, sores, vomiting, diarrhea,
internal bleeding or loss of hair. 

The next day, he met a Japanese doctor and X-ray specialist who
thought that the bomb had showered the population with harmfully
high levels of beta and gamma radiation. But nobody could say
for sure. 

"The atomic bomb's peculiar 'disease,' uncured because it is
untreated and untreated because it is not diagnosed, is still
snatching away lives here," Weller wrote. 

Weller was 95 when he died in December 2002. He won the Pulitzer
Prize, the most prestigious journalism honor in the United
States, for an eyewitness account of an emergency appendectomy
carried out by a pharmacist's mate on a Navy submarine
underwater in the South China Sea. He also covered the French
Indochina war in Southeast Asia and World War II in Europe, as
well as wrote stories from the Mideast, Africa, the Soviet Union
and other parts of Asia. 

--- 

Mainichi newspaper:
http://mdn.mainichi.co.jp/specials/0506/0617weller.html

-- 


 
*****************************************************************
 14 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: Seoul Hopeful of 'Momentum' From Pyongyang Meeting
 
  Home> National/Politics    Updated Jun.19,2005 21:24 KST   
 
Unification Minister Meets Kim Jong-il
 Unification Minister Meets North Korean Head of State 
The Dear Leader Grants an Audience 

Seoul is asking the U.S., Japan, China and Russia for active
cooperation to restart six-party talks on North Korea��s nuclear
program, after a meeting between Unification Minister Chung
Dong-young and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il which the
government believes has paved the way for a successful outcome
of the talks. 

��Kim Jong-il��s statement that if the U.S. respects and
acknowledges North Korea, Pyongyang would return to the
six-party talks in July has raised expectations for the restart
of the six-party talks and created a momentum for a solution to
the North Korean nuclear issue,�� an official said Sunday. ��We
plan to hold close talks with the U.S. and other participating
nations in the six-party talks.�� 

Chung and Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon on Sunday met separately
with U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, who is
visiting Korea, to brief him on the meeting. ��It��s important
that the U.S. creates an atmosphere to restart the talks and
shows a sincere attitude,�� Chung said. 

Hill said the meeting between Chung and Kim was a positive step
in restarting the six-party talks, and achieved important
momentum for resolving the nuclear issue. He expressed
confidence that it would lead to a diplomatic resolution to the
nuclear dispute. 

The government has also sent Vice Foreign Minister Lee Tae-shik
to the U.S, Deputy Foreign Minister Song Min-soon to China and
senior diplomat Kim Won-soo to Russia to brief the partners in
talks on the Pyongyang meeting. Seoul plans to explain things to
Tokyo when President Roh Moo-hyun meets Japanese Prime Minister
Junichiro Koizumi on June 20. 

Meanwhile, a State Department official said the fact that North
Korea used the inter-Korean dialogue channel to convey its
message rather than the U.S. or China was an important
development. Speaking on condition of anonymity, he said the
U.S. was paying attention as North Korean statements gradually
moved in a positive direction. 

The government will once re-emphasize the need for a peaceful
solution to the nuclear dispute during the 15th round of
inter-Korean ministerial level talks in Seoul. There, it will
also lay out a specific schedule for the restart of military
talks and reunions of separated families - issues on which Chung
and Kim reached consensus. Seoul may also decide to provide the
North with 400,000 tons of food aid and additional fertilizer. 

(Kwon Kyeong-bok, kkb@chosun.com ) 

*****************************************************************
 15 INSIDE JoongAng Daily: [EDITORIALS] A coolheaded response
 
June 20, 2005 KST 12:14 (GMT+9)

  The reaction of U.S. government officials and North Korea
experts to the meeting between North Korean leader Kim Jong-il
and Unification Minister Chung Dong-young is cautious and
discreet. It contrasts with that of the South Korean government,
which attaches significant meaning to it. To narrow the gap in
understanding between the two governments, it is necessary for
South Korea to give a full explanation of the contents of the
meeting to Washington as soon as possible. 

While saying, "We have yet to find out the details of the
meeting," the U.S. State Department maintained the position that
"if the North comes back, the six-party talks will resume. But
the North's return to the talks is not enough; there should be
progress in the talks over the dismantling of the North Korean
nuclear program." 

Mr. Kim said, "We can return to the six-party talks even in
July," but he didn't specify the date. And he attached a
precondition: "If the United States has a firm intention to
recognize and respect us." Washington seems not to give much
credence to Mr. Kim's words. If there is a gap between Seoul and
Washington, there will be disharmony over the solution to the
North's nuclear problem. We can expect smooth U.S.-South Korean
cooperation only when both countries share information on the
conversation Mr. Chung had with Mr. Kim. 

It seems that Mr. Kim wanted to show the outside world that the
North has the will to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula, and to
let the world know that the United States hasn't abandoned its
hostile policy toward North Korea. Some experts analyze that Mr.
Kim aimed to use the meeting both as leverage for escaping
international pressure to abandon North Korea's nuclear program
and as a wedge to create a crack in U.S.-South Korean relations. 

In the South, there already are people who urge Washington to
respond immediately, saying, "The ball is in the United States'
court," or who say optimistically, "North Korea has taken steps
to return to the six-party talks." The government must respond
coolheadedly, watching the development of the situation. 

Our goal is denuclearizing and establishing peace on the Korean
Peninsula. To make the meeting an occasion for solving the
nuclear problem and inter-Korean relations, we have to behave
discreetly. We can't achieve our goals if there is a problem in
the U.S.-South Korea alliance by behaving as if we give priority
to inter-Korean cooperation.   
	  
  2005.06.19       

Copyright by Joins.com, Inc. Terms of Use |
*****************************************************************
 16 Xinhua: DPRK willing to rejoin six-party talks in July   

  www.xinhuanet.com

  www.chinaview.cn 2005-06-18 02:13:36   

  S. Korean Unification Minister Chung Dong-young (L) smiles
with DPRK top leader Kim Jong Il (C) as former S. Korean
intelligence chief Lim Dong-won looks on in Pyongyang June 17.  

    SEOUL, June 17 (Xinhuanet) -- The Democratic People's
Republic of Korea (DPRK) is willing to return to the six-party
nuclear talks in July, if the United States recognizes and
respects Pyongyang, said South Korean Unification Minister Chung
Dong-young on Friday. 

    Chung made this remarks in a televised press conference on
Friday evening, hours after his returning from a four-day
Pyongyang visit where he met with the DPRK's top leader Kim Jong
Il. 

    The South Korean official and his 40-member government
delegation attended a joint celebration held in Pyongyang to
commemorate the 5th anniversary of the inter-Korean summit
between South Korean former President Kim Dae-jung and the DPRK
top leader Kim Jong Il in June 2000. 

    "During the two-and-half-hour meeting with Kim Jong Il, we
fully and deeply exchanged views on politics, economy, military
and humanitarian issue, especially on the nuclear issue," Chung
told reporters at the beginning of the press conference. 

    Besides the meeting, Kim Jong Il also had lunch with Chung
and other seven members from the South Korean government and
civic delegations who were there to attend the joint
celebration. 

    Chung is the first South Korean senior official in the
administration of South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun to meet
the DPRK top leader. 

    Chung said the atmosphere of the meeting is "very sincere,
frank and honest." 

    "On the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula, Kim Jong Il
said denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula is the teachings of the
deceased Kim Il Sung. The inter-Korean agreement on
denuclearizingthe Korean Peninsula remains valid," Chung told
reporters. 

    South Korea and the DPRK ratified the Declaration on
Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula in February 1992. 

    The South Korean official, who also serves as head of the
South Korean National Security Council, quoted Kim Jong Il as
saying that the DPRK "has never given up or rejected" the
nuclear talks. 

[S. Korean Unification Minister Chung Dong-young (L) poses with
DPRK top leader Kim Jong Il (R) in Pyongyang June 17.]   
  S. Korean Unification Minister Chung Dong-young (L) poses with
DPRK top leader Kim Jong Il (R) in Pyongyang June 17.  

    "Chairman Kim Jong Il said the DPRK is willing to return to
the six-party talks even in July, if the US intention of
recognizing and respecting the DPRK is clear," Chung said,
adding that Kim also said it needs further detailed negotiation
between the DPRK and the United States over the resumption of
the six-party talks. 

    Kim Jong Il also gave "positive evaluation" to the recent
Seoul-Washington summit, and said he will closely monitor the US
subsequent attitude, according to Chung. 

    "The DPRK is willing to return to the NPT (Nuclear
non-Proliferation Treaty) and receive inspection of the IAEA
(International Atomic Energy Agency) after the solution of the
nuclear issue. It is unnecessary for the DPRK to have nuclear
weapons," Chung quoted Kim Jong Il as saying 

    Chung said when he told Kim a multilateral security
safeguard is better than a bilateral one between the DPRK and
the United States, Kim replied "It is reasonable, (we) will
discuss the proposal carefully in future." 

    The South Korean official said Kim promised to give reply
after carefully study of the "important proposal" raised by the
South Korean government concerning the solution of the nuclear
issue on the Korean Peninsula. 

    However, Chung did not give detailed explanation to the
so-called "important proposal" which was first put forward by
South Korean delegation at inter-Korean vice-ministerial talks
held in May. 

    "Kim said there is no reason to harbor hard feelings about
Mr. Bush...Kim further said he has thought well of the United
States since the (former US President Bill) Clinton's
administration," briefed Chung. 

    Chung and Kim also made several agreements on improving
inter-Korean exchanges. Under the agreements, the DPRK will send
influential official to attend a joint celebration to be held in
Seoul around Aug. 15 to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the
liberation of the Korean Peninsula from Japan's colonial rule. 

    The two also agreed to resume reunions of separated family
members, reopen inter-Korean general-level military talks and
opena direct flight route between Seoul and Pyongyang. 

    Chung's meeting with Kim has attracted much attention from
local and world media as the six-party nuclear talks have been
suspended for almost one year. 

    China, the DPRK, the United States, Russia, South Korea and
Japan have convened three rounds of six-party nuclear talks in
Beijing, making efforts to peacefully resolve the nuclear issue
onthe Korean Peninsula. 

    However, the fourth round of the multilateral talks failed
to be convened in last September as the DPRK refused to attend
the talks, citing US hostile policy. 

    Local media has spoke highly of Chung-Kim's meeting,
commenting it boosts the prospect of restarting six-party talks.
Enditem     

  Copyright �2003 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 17 INSIDE JoongAng Daily: South seeks to avoid riling North
 
June 20, 2005 KST 12:14 (GMT+9)

  June 20, 2005 �� South Korea has asked for U.S. support to
keep relations with North Korea calm, and the U.S. envoy in
charge of the six-party nuclear disarmament talks has agreed to
the request, officials said yesterday.

 Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon met Saturday with Christopher
Hill, U.S. assistant secretary of state for East Asian and
Pacific Affairs and Washington's chief negotiator at the
six-nation talks, to provide the details of South Korean
Unification Minister Chung Dong-young's meeting with North
Korean leader Kim Jong-il. 

Mr. Kim told Mr. Chung on Friday that the North was willing to
return to the stalled disarmament talks next month if the United
States extends recognition and shows Pyongyang respect. 

Seoul took a series of diplomatic steps over the weekend to keep
the momentum alive. 

Negotiations have been stalled for a year, and Pyongyang and
Washington have exchanged barrages of insults. North Korea has
demanded that the United States apologize for labeling it as an
"outpost of tyranny." 

"I contacted the U.S. government through various channels, and
the response was very positive," Mr. Ban said yesterday. "The
United States will make its position official." 

But the immediate U.S. response after Mr. Chung announced North
Korea's willingness to resume the talks was cool. "The important
point to keep in mind is that until we have a date, we don't
have a date," Adam Ereli, deputy State Department spokesman,
said Friday in Washington, referring to a return to the
negotiating table. 

Mr. Ban, however, was more optimistic yesterday after his
Saturday meeting with Mr. Hill. 

"The key is to maintain the right atmosphere for the talks," Mr.
Ban said. "The countries involved in the talks should give
thoughtful consideration that trivial remarks and actions do not
destroy the mood. I told Mr. Hill that it is critical to
maintain a positive tone when making remarks toward North Korea
for a while, and he completely agreed to it."

 Mr. Hill said he had agreed that the United States would keep a
"positive tone," according to Maureen Cormack, the spokeswoman
at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul. She quoted Mr. Hill as saying that
he is "very supportive of contacts that South Korea had with
North Korea over the last few days," and the inter-Korean
meeting was a "positive initiative, but we really need a date
for the six-nation talks if we are really going to build on this
positive initiative."	 

by Park Shin-hong, Ser Myo-ja myoja@joongang.co.kr>   
	  
Copyright by Joins.com, Inc. Terms of Use |
*****************************************************************
 18 Korea Times: Most South Koreans Think Highly of Kim Jong-ils Remarks 

Hankooki.com > The Korea Times > Nation   

SEOUL (Yonhap)_ More than 67 percent of South Koreans believe
that last week��s talks between their unification minister and
North Korean leader Kim Jong-il will help ease tension on the
Korean Peninsula, a survey showed Sunday. 

South Korean Unification Minister Chung Dong-young met the North
Korean leader in Pyongyang for nearly five hours on Friday for
��in-depth�� discussions on the ongoing tension over the
communist country��s nuclear program and other pending
inter-Korean issues. 

Back in Seoul, Chung quoted Kim Jong-il as saying that North
Korea is willing to rejoin stalled six-nation talks as early as
July if it gets ��respect�� as a sovereign state from the United
States. 

The North Korean leader also expressed a strong desire to
improve ties with Seoul by agreeing to resume family reunions
and re-convene a suspended military and other inter-Korean
dialogue. 

According to the survey conducted by Global Research, a
Seoul-based private firm, on Saturday, 67.2 percent of 500 men
and women aged 20 or more believe that the Pyongyang meeting was
productive. 

About 31.2 percent said the talks achieved nothing and the
remaining 1.6 percent refused to answer the question, it said. 

06-19-2005 23:02         
*****************************************************************
 19 Deseret News: Senate committee funds bunker-buster study 

[deseretnews.com] 

Saturday, June 18, 2005 

By Leigh Dethman 
Deseret Morning News 

Funding for research of the controversial "bunker-buster" bomb 
quietly passed through a U.S. Senate committee, just weeks after 
the House shunned the controversial weapon. 

The Senate Appropriations Committee included $4 million 
in the Energy and Water Appropriations bill Thursday to fund an 
Air Force bunker-buster study. In late May, the House deleted 
that same $4 million to fund research of the "mini-nuke" from 
their energy bill. 

Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, vowed to continue to fight to 
eliminate funding for a "new generation of nuclear weapons." He 
cited a recent report by the National Academy of Sciences that 
concluded that an American attack with a bunker buster could 
cause "from hundreds to over a million" casualties. 

Bunker busters, officially called "nuclear 
earth-penetrators," are weapons that would be able to slam into 
underground facilities. 

Anti-nuclear activists are worried that if the weapon is 
built, testing will be performed at the Nevada Test Site. 

"We're concerned that testing a second generation of 
nuclear weapons could lead to the creation of a second 
generation of down-winders," said Vanessa Pierce of the Healthy 
Environment Alliance of Utah. 

Pierce criticized Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, who sits on 
the Senate Appropriations Committee, for not "seizing the 
opportunity" to stop funding for the bunker buster. 

She claims the senator from Utah lost his chance to make 
any real impact on the bunker-buster debate by allowing the 
funding proposal to pass through his committee. 

"Bennett knows how to work the system, and it's our 
impression that he chose not to use his influence to cut the 
funds," Pierce said. "We're very disappointed in him." 

A Bennett spokeswoman, however, said the Utah senator 
supported the funding because it will not lead to future testing.

"This research and study provides a way to avoid testing. 
Sen. Bennett is supportive of that," spokeswoman Mary Jane 
Collipriest said." They should be grateful for this study and 
research then because through it we will be able to avoid 
testing." 

Although the bunker buster would be designed for 
underground warfare, Utahns may be nervous because in the past 
venting has occurred at the Nevada Test Site. 

In 1970, a 10 kiloton nuclear bomb, code-named Baneberry, 
exploded in a test 900 feet underground at the test site. It 
vented with material breaking through the surface. Baneberry 
spewed a cloud of radioactive debris into the atmosphere. 

E-mail: ldethman@desnews.com 

� 2005 Deseret News Publishing Company 
*****************************************************************
 20 Spectrum: Senate panel OKs nuke bomb study

St. George - www.thespectrum.com
 
   Saturday, June 18, 2005   

 
+ Matheson says he will battle against $4 million for 'bunker
buster' work
 
By DENNIS CAMIRE Our Capitol Bureau 

WASHINGTON - Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, said Friday that he
would continue to fight a Senate panel's move to pay for a study
of a nuclear "bunker buster" weapon.

 The Senate Appropriations Committee approved $4 million for the
Air Force to study a small nuclear weapon designed to penetrate
deep underground to destroy enemy bunkers. It's included in a
$31.2 billion spending bill for the nation's energy and water
programs.

 The House approved its $29.7 billion energy and water bill May
24 but for the second year in a row did not include money for
the weapon's study.

 Matheson said his top reason for wanting to fight against the
$4 million study of the "bunker buster" was the potential that
it could lead to testing the new weapons in Nevada.

 "We have a long history of that testing having created health
problems and cancer deaths in Utah and other states," he said.
"The government lied before about it, and I don't trust it now."

 The congressman also said he was concerned that the Pentagon
was wasting money on new weapons systems that would never be
used.

 "We ought to be spending money to develop new weaponry and
innovations that would be used in the actual field of battle,"
he said. "I'm not convinced that we would ever want to use one
of these ('bunker buster') weapons."

 A National Academies of Science report in May concluded that
the use of such a weapon in an urban area could cause up to a
million civilian casualties, even if design problems could be
overcome.

 Matheson said there was a bipartisan group led by Rep. David L.
Hobson, R-Ohio, chairman of the House Appropriations energy and
water subcommittee, fighting to keep the bunker buster study
from being done.

 Hobson has been an outspoken opponent of the bunker buster for
years and was successful in keeping it from being funded last
year, Matheson said.

 "The House made it clear that emphasizing 'bunker busters'
threatens public support for maintaining the deterrence value of
our nation's nuclear stockpile in a way that threatens national
security," Matheson said. "I support that conclusion."

 Matheson said he would continue to press for removal of the
bunker buster money when House and Senate negotiators meet to
work out the differences between their respective chambers'
versions of the bill.

 Other funding in the Senate version of the bill includes $577
million for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository and $339
million for a mixed oxide fabrication facility to turn spent
nuclear fuel and plutonium from dismantled nuclear weapons into
fuel for nuclear reactors. 

Originally published June 18, 2005 

*****************************************************************
 21 Salt Lake Tribune: Utah group opposes study of bunker buster bomb

Article Last Updated: 06/18/2005 01:46:39 AM 

By Tom Harvey The Salt Lake Tribune 

A Utah group raised alarms Friday about the recommendation 
from a U.S. Senate committee for more funds to study the 
so-called bunker buster nuclear bomb and to maintain the nuclear 
weapons test site in Nevada in case it is used in the future. 

A report released Friday showed the Senate Energy and Water 
Appropriations Committee recommended $5 million for continued 
studies of the bunker buster, officially known as the Robust 
Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP). Supporters say it might be 
needed to attack underground facilities of U.S. enemies by 
penetrating the ground and exploding. 

In addition, the committee recommended approval of $25 
million to maintain the Nevada Test Site in case testing of 
nuclear weapons is resumed there. 

Some Utahns fear the resumption of nuclear testing of the 
bunker buster or other weapons could spew radioactive debris 
into Utah as it did during Cold War testing. Utahns blame the 
testing for illnesses and numerous deaths. Testing ended in 1992 
with an international moratorium. 

An environmental group, the Healthy Environmental Alliance, or
HEAL Utah, renewed its previous criticism of Sen. Bob Bennett as 
a member of the committee for failing to oppose the bunker buster
and Nevada Test Site funding. 

"We're very disappointed that, to the best of our knowledge, 
he made no attempt to cut that funding," said Vanessa Pierce, 
HEAL program director. 

Bennett, in the past, has said he supported research into 
the bunker buster and did not see that as a prelude to testing. 
He said any resumption of testing would have to be approved by 
Congress. 

"Senator Bennett is opposed to nuclear testing," his 
spokeswoman, Mary Jane Collipriest, said Friday. 

"He believes the ongoing study and research of the RNEP is 
important to prevent the need for testing." 

© Copyright 2005, The Salt Lake Tribune. 
*****************************************************************
 22 TomPaine.com - The Folly Of Space Weapons

[A Project of the Institute for America's Future]   

Richard F. Kaufman
 												
June 15, 2005
 												 					
Richard F. Kaufman, a former general counsel of the
congressional Joint Economic Committee, and director of the
Bethesda Research Institute, is vice chair of�Economists for
Peace and Security (EPS). Mr. Kaufman gave this statement during
an EPS panel session on Missile Defense, Space and the
Non-Proliferation Treaty,�during the NPT Review Conference. 

The White House let it be known on May 18 that President Bush
will soon issue a national security directive on the subject of
weapons in space. The announcement and accompanying statements
by Air Force officials, together with earlier developments,
reveals much about the connection between missile defense and
the militarization of space, and the possible consequences for
nuclear proliferation. 

New Bush Policy On Space Weapons 

The president is expected to adopt a new policy incorporating
the long-standing view of the Air Force and the present civilian
leadership of the Pentagon who advocate U.S. military
superiority in space. This view, in its present form, goes back
to the 2001 report of the commission headed by Donald Rumsfeld
which recommended, among other things, that a) the United States
should move forward with a missile defense program and b) the
president should have the option of deploying weapons in space. 

The decision to adopt a new space weapons policy appears to be,
at least in part, a result of the difficulties being experienced
with the missile defense program. Within the Missile Defense
Agency there have been delays and failures at several critical
areas of technology from the land based missiles to, most
importantly, the space-based laser. That weapon is common to
both the missile defense program and the proposed weaponization
of space. Meanwhile, the Air Force has been developing other
space-based weapons such as the experimental satellite called
the XSS-11 which was launched in April and is intended to
disrupt other satellites. 

The Rumsfeld report stated that an explicit policy is needed to
direct capabilities for space including weapons systems that
operate in space. How we would operate in space was hinted at a
year ago when Pete Teets, the former acting secretary of the Air
Force, told a symposium on space warfare, according to The New
York�Times , that we havent reached the point of bombing and
strafing from space. Nonetheless, we are thinking about the
possibilities. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld speaks about the need
to defend our assets in spacemeaning our communications
satellites, space stations and other facilities. Gen. Lance
Lord, head of the Air Force Space Command, puts it more
sweepingly. We must establish and maintain space superiority
the general said in a recent congressional appearance. That
means freedom to attack as well as freedom from attack. (To
digress briefly from the subject of these remarks, one can only
wonder at this militarized usage of the concept of freedom,
usually reserved to describe values found in the constitution
such as freedom of speech, and freedom of worship, or in the
ideals expressed by Franklin Delano Roosevelt when he spoke of
freedom from hunger and freedom from fear.) 

The ABM treaty severely restricted ballistic missile defenses
and prohibited putting components such as lasers in space. U.S.
withdrawal from the agreement eliminated those restrictions and
laid the foundation for a new policy in which the deployment of
weapons in space is linked with missile defense. Paul Wolfowitz,
who was Rumsfeld's former deputy, made the linkage explicit in
an Oct. 2002 statement, in which he said: Space offers
attractive options not only for missile defense but for a broad
range of interrelated civil and military missions. Wolfowitz
went on to say, It truly is the ultimate high ground. The Air
Force declared in 2004 that its strategy is to dominate space.
John Bolton, assistant secretary of state, left little doubt
that this is also the administrations view when he said: We
are not prepared to negotiate on the so-called arms race in
outer space. We just dont see that as a worthwhile enterprise. 

Missile Defense Bogged Down 

The fact that the missile defense program is seriously bogged
down has been clear for some time. Although there have been
numerous and well-publicized test failuressuggesting that
deployment schedules would not be metthe more meaningful
evidence of serious problems was reflected in the financial
data. This seems counterintuitive because of the extraordinary
sums that have been and are continuing to be spent. For example,
the Bush administration plans to spend about $11 billion for
missile defense in the coming year. This figure is high, but
taking inflation into account it is not substantially greater
than what has been spent in recent years. 

The Economists for Peace and Security study, The Full Costs of
Ballistic Missile Defense , indicates the significance of the
annual expenditures and the projected trends. The report
estimates that the life cycle costs of all the systems that
comprise the missile defense program will be as much as $1.2
trillion. The estimated completion date for three of the�four
major systems plannedthat is, the land-based, sea-based, and
air-based systemsis 2015. (This assumes the space-based laser,
which is the most costly of the systems, will be built later.)
To meet that target, about half the full costs of the program,
or about $500 billion, would be incurred through 2015. 

Under these reasonable assumptions, the schedule for building
what the administration calls a layered program is a demanding
one, and there must be a steep spending path to achieve it. We
estimated when the report was issued�two years ago that, in
order to meet the schedule, annual spending for missile defense
would have to reach about $25 billion by 2005 and $50 billion by
2007. In other words, the amounts being spent on missile defense
are far below what would need to be spent to meet the
administrations objectives for a layered missile defense. 

Now, this does not mean that the administration or the Pentagon
have given up on missile defense. The history of major weapons
systems shows that they usually do not get terminated because of
technical or cost problems. When the problems of developing a
new weapon are seen as severe, the schedule tends to be
stretched out. They are kept in the research and development
phase, until they are deemed ready for deploymentand that can
take years or decades. Missile defensewhich goes back to
President Reagans 'Star Wars' program and even earlieris a
prime example of this pattern. 

Increasing Proliferation 

To those who advocate them, missile defense and weapons in space
are two sides of the same coin. One is intended to protect U.S.
interests and assets on Earth, the other is intended to do the
same in space. Each is seen as necessary to assure U.S. military
dominance. From this perspective, the fact that they are not
cost-effective, that they may not achieve their intended aims,
and that they may jeopardize the interests they are supposed to
serve is not controlling. 

The greatest danger is that these programs may exacerbate the
difficulties of preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
This is so for several reasons: 
  1. The missile defense program has not yet solved the problem
of decoys and chaff�that are likely to be used by an aggressor
to penetrate defenses. One possible solution is to arm the
defensive missiles with nuclear devices which could explode
close enough to an offensive missile to destroy it, together
with any chaff and decoys. 
  2. There are concerns that if, at some future time, it became
possible to deploy an effective missile defense program, it
would give the United States�a first-strike capability; that is,
the ability to launch nuclear weapons against any country
without having to fear a second strike against the United
States�by the other country. U.S. missile defense is already
causing other nations to increase their missile capabilities and
their ability to penetrate U.S. defenses. This action-reaction
dynamic may be contributing to decisions by other nuclear and
non-nuclear countries to consider increasing or establishing
their own nuclear capabilities. 
  3. The United States is developing more powerful missiles for
the missile defense program, in particular for boost phase
interceptors. These missiles can be used for offensive as well
as defensive purposes, and they could be used by the United
States�in its strategic offensive program. In addition, the
United States�is offering to share missile defense technology
with nations who agree to be missile defense partners. The
shared technology could presumably include missiles which could
possibly be incorporated or adapted in their nuclear arms
programs. 
  4. The Full Costs of Missile Defense report states that the
Bush administration is exploring aggressively both the
space-based kinetic systems such as what was formerly called
Brilliant Pebbles, and the space-based laser. The reason, the
report suggests, is the administrations desire to seize the
initiative in space warfare, space countermeasure weapons and
military dominance of space that goes well beyond missile
defense. 

Space: Just Another Environment 

The proponents of placing weapons in space argue that space is
just another environment for weapons and warfare, just as the
land, the sea and the air have been. Although an international
treaty bans nuclear weapons in space, there should be little
doubt that the proponents of space weaponization mean to include
nuclear weapons in what is to them just another environment.
										 										 					
TomPaine.com.]    										  [ /]    									 									
*****************************************************************
 23 Kargil 1999: N-Missiles Had Been Readied For Launch
 
Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 01:07:35 -0400

 



  http://www.dawn.com/2005/06/20/top4.htm
 N-missiles had been readied for launch': Kargil
crisis




By Anwar Iqbal

WASHINGTON, June 19: The Pakistani military had
prepared their nuclear-tipped missile to fight
back a possible Indian attack during the Kargil
crisis and former US President Bill Clinton had
conveyed this news to the then prime minister
Nawaz Sharif, one of Mr Clinton's close aides said
here.

Bruce Riedel, a special assistant to the president
and a senior director of Near East and South Asian
affairs at the National Security Council in the
Clinton era, was present in the July 4, 1999
meeting between the two leaders.

In a new book, "Pakistan Between Mosque And
Military," Mr Riedel is quoted as saying that Mr
Sharif "wanted desperately" to find a solution
that would allow Pakistan to withdraw from Kargil
"with some cover."

The author, Husain Haqqani, has spoken to a number
of senior US officials who dealt with Pakistan
during major crises confronting the country during
the last 58 years and includes their description
of crises like the 1971 disaster and the Kargil
dispute in his book.

"Without something to point to, Mr Sharif warned
ominously, the fundamentalists in Pakistan would
move against him and this meeting would be his
last with Mr Clinton," says Mr Riedel.

"Mr Clinton asked Mr Sharif if he knew how
advanced the threat of nuclear war really was? Did
Mr Sharif know his military was preparing their
nuclear-tipped missiles? Mr Sharif seemed taken
aback and said only that India was probably doing
the same.

"The president reminded Mr Sharif how close the US
and Soviet Union had come to a nuclear conflict in
1962 over Cuba. Did Mr Sharif realize that if even
one bomb was dropped . Mr Sharif finished his
sentence and said it would be a catastrophe."

According to Mr Riedel, during the same meeting
President Clinton also raised the issue of
Pakistan's reluctance to help the US catch Osama
bin Laden and other Al Qaeda leaders.

"The president was getting angry. He told Mr
Sharif that he had asked repeatedly for Pakistani
help to bring Osama bin Laden to justice from
Afghanistan. Mr Sharif had promised often to do so
but had done nothing. Instead the ISI worked with
bin Laden and the Taliban to foment terrorism."

Mr Riedel recalls that Mr Clinton's draft
statement on the Kargil crisis also mentioned
Pakistan's role in supporting terrorists in
Afghanistan and India.

Going back to the meeting, Mr Riedel says: "Was
that what Mr Sharif wanted, Mr Clinton asked? Did
Mr Sharif order Pakistani nuclear missile force to
prepare for action? Did he realize how crazy that
was? You have put me in the middle today, set the
US to fail and I won't let it happen. Pakistan is
messing with nuclear war."

At the end of that meeting, Mr Sharif agreed to
announce a Pakistani withdrawal from Kargil and
restoration of the sanctity of the Line of Control
in return for Mr Clinton taking a personal
interest in resumption of the India-Pakistan
dialogue.




*****************************************************************
 24 Daily Yomiuri: U.S. made Japan drop Lucky Dragon probe 

The Yomiuri Shimbun 

A document in the U.S. National Archives shows that the United
States exerted pressure on the Japanese health ministry to drop
research into the radioactive contamination of tuna following a
1954 U.S. hydrogen bomb test that irradiated a Japanese trawler
in the South Pacific, it was learned Saturday. 

The proof was reported by Hiroko Takahashi, an expert on U.S.
history at Hiroshima City University's Hiroshima Peace
Institute. 

About nine months after the test, the then Health and Welfare
Ministry suddenly discontinued research on tuna caught in waters
off Bikini Atoll, where the test was conducted. 

Twenty-three crewmen aboard the 140-ton Fukuryu Maru No. 5, out
of Yaizu in Shizuoka Prefecture, better known overseas as the
Lucky Dragon, were irradiated during the test on March 1, 1954. 

According to Takahashi, the document, dated Jan. 5, 1955, was
written by the U.S. tuna investigation association and was
addressed to Dr. W.R. Boss of the division of biology and
medicine at the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. 

The one-page letter mentioned the Japan-U.S. conference
concerning the effect and usage of radioactive substance held in
Tokyo in November 1954. The letter to Boss said the conference
clearly influenced the Japanese government to stop on Jan. 1,
1955, research into the effects of radiation exposure on the
tuna, and thanked him for his help in stopping the study. 

The Health and Welfare Ministry started the research immediately
after the test and confirmed the tuna caught by the Lucky Dragon
was contaminated with radioactivity and ordered the catch
destroyed. 

The ministry confirmed that a wide area around the atoll was
radioactive after the United States dropped a hydrogen bomb on
it. But about one month later, after a bilateral conference, the
ministry suddenly stopped its research, saying that while the
internal organs of tuna caught in the area were highly
radioactive, the flesh of the tuna was safe for human
consumption. 

The United States settled the incident politically with Japan by
paying the government 2 million dollars in compensation, while
not acknowledging its legal responsibility for the incident. The
relationship between the death of Aikichi Kuboyama, who was the
chief radio operator of the Lucky Dragon, and his exposure to
radioactivity was never properly investigated. 

"The content of the Japan-U.S. conference is classified even
today, and there are lots of unclear points," Takahashi said.
"The document shows that the research was stopped not by Japan
of its own accord, but as a result of the consideration the
Japanese government gave to the wishes of the U.S. government." 

Osamu Ishii, professor emeritus at Hitotsubashi University and
an expert on the history of international relations, said: "For
the United States, the research into radioactive contamination
of tuna could have raised anti-U.S. sentiment in its ally Japan,
and the United States feared that Japan would leak the data on
radiation to the Eastern bloc in the fierce competition with the
then Soviet Union for nuclear development. The document showed
that the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission prevented these
possibilities." 

Takahashi is to publish the document in a book titled
"Kakusareta Hibakusha" (Hidden Radioactivity Victims), cowritten
with other researchers and to be published this month by
Gaifusha Publishing Inc.   

Copyright 2005 The Yomiuri Shimbun 
*****************************************************************
 25 BBC: Scrap UK nuclear arms - Portillo
 
Last Updated: Sunday, 19 June, 2005
 
[Michael Portillo]                              

A nuclear deterrent would be a waste of money, Mr Portillo says                                                              

The UK should scrap its nuclear arsenal, former defence secretary 
Michael Portillo has said. 

He wrote in the Sunday Times that the existence of the Soviet 
Union had demanded a nuclear deterrent but "none of those 
considerations applies today". 

"Aircraft carriers and submarines that fire cruise missiles" 
would be more "useful", Mr Portillo said. 

Defence Secretary John Reid told ITV's Jonathan Dimbleby show the 
UK would keep "the minimum nuclear deterrent". 

A government decision on replacing the Trident nuclear deterrent 
is due within three or four years. 

Mr Portillo, who stood down from his Kensington and Chelsea seat 
at the last election, said: "Whatever residual risk may be posed 
by Russia's poorly managed nuclear arsenal can be handled by the 
United States. 

"If the UK diverts billions of pounds from its future defence 
budgets into nuclear weapons that will never be used, it will 
have less money to spend on useful things such as aircraft 
carriers and submarines that fire cruise missiles." 

He added: "We could be more powerful and a more useful ally for 
America if we did not waste money on renewing the nuclear 
deterrent." 

Mr Reid told Jonathan Dimbleby that in the past five years "we 
have reduced the number of warheads, we have de-targeted the 
Trident boats, we've reduced the number of boats at sea on 
nuclear weapons, we got rid of our free-fall nuclear bombs". 

But he added: "While others have nuclear weapons we have said we 
will retain the minimum nuclear deterrent."                                                      



*****************************************************************
 26 The Australian: Nuclear option 'not very realistic' for Australia 

[June 20, 2005]
 	 
Andrew Trounson

HONG KONG-based power company China Light & Power, joint 
developers of one of China's first nuclear power plants, is 
sceptical of Australia ever turning nuclear for its power needs.

While China had plans to significantly expand its nuclear power 
capacity, the abundance of cheap coal and gas in Australia 
remained a major hurdle for a nuclear power plant, CLP's head of 
Asian operations, Richard McIndoe told The Australian. 

Australia would instead be better off reducing carbon emissions 
by developing technology, he said. 

CLP owns the coal-fired Yallourn power station in Victoria and 
the Torrens Island gas-fired power station in South Australia. It 
is considering building a new 400MW gas-fired power plant at 
Tallawarra in NSW. 

In March, CLP became Australia's fifth largest power retailer 
after acquiring Victorian retailer TXU from Singapore Power for 
$2.18 billion. 

Over the weekend, CLP rebranded itself as TRUenergy. 

"I don't think (nuclear power in Australia) is particularly
realistic. It would be a difficult challenge," Mr McIndoe said. 

In China, however, the authorities had committed to sourcing at
least 10 per cent of the country's mammoth power demands from
nuclear energy. 

Installed power capacity at China was growing at about 65,000MW
year - more than double the total installed capacity in
Australia's National Electricity Market. 

Mr McIndoe said CLP was interested in NZ-based Meriden Energy's
renewable energy business Southern Hydro, which is up for sale.
Southern Hydro ranks as Australia's largest privately held
renewable energy business, boasting wind and hydro power assets. 

But Mr McIndoe was cautious on whether CLP would bid, noting CLP
preferred to build its own generation. 

In the wake of the takeover tussle for listed renewable energy
company Pacific Hydro, Southern Hydro is being tipped to sell
for at least $1.2 billion. 

"I'm not in the market just to pay up to buy a renewable
business. Some of the prices you have seen on recent deals are
quite high," he said. 

CLP has a target of sourcing 5 per cent of its energy from
renewables by 2010, with China, India and Australia its key
focus. 

Mr McIndoe said the acquisition of TXU had balanced out an
energy portfolio in Australia that had previously been too
heavily weighted to the volatile generation market. The company
was now seeking further growth in Australia while maintaining
that balance. 

He said acquisitions would continue to play a role and that CLP
had the fire power. 

CLP now had 1.1 million power customers in Australia and would
ideally like to double that. But Mr McIndoe said opportunities
were limited given the lack of privatisation plans in NSW and
Queensland. 
		 		 	 			
� The Australian   
*****************************************************************
 27 Marshfield News Herald: Electric bills rise during nuclear plant downtime
 
  Sun, Jun 19, 2005
 
By Jonathan Gneiser
 Central Wisconsin Sunday
 
Residents throughout central Wisconsin can expect higher than
normal electric bills primarily due to about a four-month outage
at the Kewaunee Nuclear Power Plant.

Baseload power plants like Kewaunee, which is owned by Wisconsin
Public Service Corporation and Alliant Energy, are the least
expensive way of generating power, said Al Herrman, manager of
wholesale services for WPSC. 


  Average electric residential bill for June

Consolidated Water Power Company: $28.82
Marshfield Utilities: $48.12
Medford Electric Utility:	$47.72
Stratford Municipal Water and Electric Utility:	$52.04
Wisconsin Public Service Corporation $62.82
Wisconsin Rapids Water-works and Light: $47.60
Source: Public Service Commission of Wisconsin 
  

The plant, which was shut down for scheduled maintenance, is
awaiting the completion of safety inspections and repairs before
it can be restarted, said John Christensen, account executive
for WPSC wholesale services.

"When they go down, we have to go to market and buy power from
combustion turbines," he said. "We're replacing nuclear fuel
with natural gas, which is a lot more expensive."
It's costing WPSC about $200,000 per day to find replacement
power for what had been produced by the Kewaunee plant, Herrman
said. The company's total costs due to the plant's outage are
approaching $100 million.

When other sources of electric generation around the state are
off-line, it further impacts electric costs because other
companies are competing for the same replacement power, Herrman
said.

Marshfield Utilities purchases power from WPSC, and the cost of
replacement energy is passed on through the Power Cost
Adjustment Clause, said utility manager Joe Pacovsky, who added
that Marshfield electric customers' PCAC is rising $0.0267 per
kilowatt hour.

Increasing costs of fuel for generating plants, especially
natural gas, also are being passed on, Pacovsky said.

The cost of constructing new plants and transmission lines will
be a factor in customer's bills for the next three or four
years, Herrman said.

Storms also can have an impact on electric bills, Christensen
said. If the one major power line that crosses the state's
western border is taken out by severe weather, the company must
purchase more power from within the state, which is more
expensive.

On average, WPSC purchases 20 percent of its power from outside
of the state annually, Christensen said.

Had the Arrowhead-Weston transmission line been in place,
electric companies would have had more access to lower-cost
energy, Herrman said. The controversial power line has been
planned to run from Duluth, Minn., to Rothschild.

"It limits where, when and how we can get that power here," said
Keith Wohlfert, communications coordinator of Adams-Columbia
Electric Cooperative, based in Friendship. "The result, bottom
line: It costs more."
ACEC, which purchases power from Alliant Energy, also is seeing
an increase in its PCAC due to the extra cost of replacement
energy, Wohlfert said.

"Day in, day out - Wisconsin collectively consumes more energy
than we generate," he said.

New electric generation sources in the state tend to be natural
gas fired plants, while coal-fired plants are creating a lower
percentage of the state's electric generation, Wohlfert said.

The cost of transporting coal into the state is rising, he said.

Demand drives the cost up, said Lee Babcock, Marshfield
Utilities office manager. Peak use of electricity during the
summer corresponds with whenever there's a prolonged heat wave,
typically in July or August.

"It's a trend that doesn't appear to be changing any time soon,"
Babcock said. "There's too many pressures on the cost." 


Copyright � 2004 
*****************************************************************
 28 THE JOURNAL NEWS: NRC finds problem at Indian Point 2

By GREG CLARY

gclary@thejournalnews.com

(Original publication: June 18, 2005)
 
Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials confirmed late yesterday
that the federal agency had issued a preliminary "low to
moderate" safety violation against Indian Point.

Human error led to inert nitrogen collecting around a backup
cooling pump and stopping it from operating properly, according
to federal officials and documents from the NRC and the plant's
owner, Entergy Nuclear Northeast, that were obtained by The
Journal News.

NRC officials said the gas leak did not pose a threat to the
public or to workers at Indian Point 2, the older of two
operating nuclear power plants at the Buchanan site, where the
leak happened.

The nitrogen leak was found and reported to the NRC by Entergy,
but wasn't discovered until it had been leaking for 17 days,
likely in the early part of the year, though the exact dates
were unavailable late yesterday.

"It should not have happened and it should not go undetected,"
said Neil Sheehan, an NRC spokesman.

Sheehan said that if the finding is confirmed after officials
hear from Entergy, the agency would increase oversight at the
plant with supplemental inspections to ensure that there wasn't
a chronic problem.

Jim Steets, a spokesman for Entergy, yesterday acknowledged that
one of the three backup cooling pumps had been rendered
inoperable.

He said the company hadn't made a decision yet about disputing
the level of the violation.

He said company officials were still determining whether the
other two pumps would have worked. Only two pumps are required
to operate the backup cooling system, Steets said.

"It's not horrible, but it's not good performance on our part,"
Steets said. "It is a human performance issue."

The pumps are part of a backup cooling system that is activated
in case the reactor's main cooling mechanism fails to function
properly, company and NRC officials said.

Sheehan said there was enough redundancy in those emergency
mechanisms that the loss of one pump was not significant.

The pumps, which NRC officials said are each smaller than an
average office desk, sit inside casings that should periodically
be inspected for the presence of gas. Steets said that when
nitrogen was found in machinery connected to the casings,
workers should have investigated the possibility that the gas
had backed up in the pump casings.

The concern, according to the NRC, was that the gas could bind
the pumps. The amount of gas that escaped was small, NRC
officials said.

Steets said no disciplinary action was taken against any worker
as a result of the mistake.

The low-to-moderate rating is noted as a "white" finding, second
to the bottom of a list of four. Green means low, yellow means
substantial and red represents a high safety concern.

The NRC called the white finding preliminary and agency
officials said Entergy needed to decide shortly whether it would
challenge the finding or accept it and the intensified levels of
inspections that come with it.

The NRC sent a letter yesterday about the violation to a range
of local officials, including mayors, state legislators, four
county executives and emergency management coordinators.

Federal regulators last month gave Indian Point a top grade for
2004, its second consecutive "green" designation. The latest
problem occurred after that regulatory period.

Sheehan and other NRC officials said there was no relationship
between this problem and two recent daylong shutdowns at Indian
Point 3.

  Copyright 2005 The Journal News, a Gannett Co. Inc. newspaper
serving Westchester, Rockland and Putnam Counties in New York.
*****************************************************************
 29 Indian Express: Nuclear power is not cheap
 
June 20, 2005

M.V. RAMANA AND AMULYA K.N. REDDY                                 
  	 
Though nuclear power currently constitutes only about 3 per cent 
of the country�s generating capacity, the Department of Atomic 
Energy (DAE) plans to increase its capacity by a factor over 
eight in the next 15 years or so. The DAE claims that nuclear 
power is the solution to our energy needs and that it is cheaper 
than electricity from coal-based thermal plants that are far away 
from coal mines. This claim is not borne out if one compares the 
costs of generating electricity at the Kaiga atomic power station 
and the Raichur Thermal Power Station VII � both plants of 
similar size and recent vintage, and far away from coal supplies.

The cost of generating electricity depends on three main 
underlying costs: the capital cost, the annual fuelling and 
operations and maintenance costs, and the waste management 
expenses. Another variable is the choice of discount rate, a 
measure of the scarcity of capital. Official bodies like the 
Central Electric Authority and Planning Commission use a 12 per 
cent nominal discount rate while planning and evaluating 
projects. The capital cost includes the construction cost of the 
generating facility and, in the case of nuclear reactors, the 
cost of the initial loading of fuel and heavy water. 
Specifically, the construction cost of the Kaiga I &II plants was 
Rs 2,896 crore, and that of the RTPS VII station was Rs 612 
crore; the Kaiga III &IV plants under construction are projected 
to cost Rs 3,282 crore. The initial loading costs for two 220 MW 
reactors are Rs 1045 crore for the heavy water and Rs 184 crore 
for the uranium.

Several assumptions have to be made in order to estimate 
generation costs. These assumptions have all been chosen to be 
favourable to nuclear power. One is that the Kaiga III &IV plants 
will be built on schedule at the estimated cost. Thus far, all of 
the DAE�s nuclear reactors � including Kaiga I &II � have had 
time and cost overruns. Second, following the DAE, one assumes 
that the enormous costs of dealing with radioactive nuclear 
wastes, which are extremely long lived and represent a burden to 
future generations, is offset by the plutonium recovered through 
the expensive method of reprocessing.

However, for RTPS VII, the cost of waste (ash) disposal is taken 
to be Rs 174/tonne, much more than current practice. A third 
assumption is that all plants operate at 80 per cent efficiency 
(load or capacity factor). Fourth, the lifetime of the Kaiga 
reactors (without any major refurbishment) is taken as 40 years, 
whereas RTPS VII is assumed to operate only for 30 years. 
Finally, following the Expert Committee on Fuels for Power 
Generation, the effective cost of domestic coal with calorific 
content of 3,750 kCal/kg at the Raichur plant � assuming that the 
coal is transported from a mine nearly 1500 km away � is taken to 
be Rs 1,412/tonne. The corresponding cost for imported coal with 
calorific content of 5,400 kCal/kg is Rs. 2,175/tonne.

Armed with these assumptions, one can calculate the (levelised) 
costs of generating electricity at these stations using standard 
methods. These calculations show that at the 12 per cent nominal 
discount rate, and assuming a 6 per cent inflation rate, each 
unit of electricity from the Kaiga stations is about 33 to 40 per 
cent more expensive than from RTPS VII. Only for discount rates 
of 8.33 per cent or lower does nuclear power from Kaiga I &II 
stations become cheaper than thermal power from RTPS VII. While 
there is debate on the appropriate discount rate for public 
investments, there can be no doubt that 8.33 per cent is a low 
rate for long-term investments, especially in a country with 
multiple and more pressing demands for capital. All of this is 
for an optimistic capacity factor of 80 per cent. If the capacity 
factor is only 75 per cent, then nuclear power is cheaper than 
coal power only for discount rates lower than 7.7 per cent. These 
estimates are almost completely based on experiences with 
actually constructed power plants. Past experience also shows 
that the DAE�s rosy projections of costs coming down in the 
future should be viewed with scepticism.

Nuclear power plants, therefore, have been and remain a costlier 
way of trying to address India�s electricity needs than 
coal-based thermal plants. It is time to stop throwing good money 
after bad, stop constructing more nuclear reactors, and focus on 
other sources of power, including incorporating measures to 
reduce the pollution impacts of coal power, as well as energy 
conservation measures.

Ramana is fellow, Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in 
Environment and Development, Bangalore, and Amulya K. N. Reddy is 
on the Board of Directors of the International Energy Initiative

� 2005: Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
*****************************************************************
 30 York Daily Record: No new nukes - 
 		
Opinion > Letters to the Editor        

Sunday, June 19, 2005 

I am writing in regards to Sen. John McCain and Sen. Joe
Lieberman�s promotion of nuclear power in their global warming
bill that they are planning to add as an amendment to the
Senate�s energy plan. Although the reduction of global warming
gas emissions is an important goal, giving more than $5 billion
in government subsidies to nuclear power is not the best way to
solve this problem.

Nuclear technology is expensive, and nuclear waste remains lethal 
for generations. Reintroducing this long-abandoned energy option 
will not be the most efficient way to combat global warming.

Renewable energy solutions are already being implemented in many 
states and offer a less expensive, less wasteful and less 
dangerous alternative to the senators� proposed nuclear energy 
option.

Our tax dollars will go further if they go toward energy 
technologies that can continue to sustain our future, instead of 
reintroducing an already failed option from the past.

I strongly discourage the Pennsylvania congressional delegation 
from supporting the McCain-Lieberman global warming bill with 
nuclear subsidies because the technology is outdated, dangerous, 
expensive and inefficient. 

JENNY REYNOLDS 
PENN ENVIRONMENT 

Copyright � York Daily Record 2005 122 S. George St., P.O. Box 
15122 York, PA 17405, (717) 771-2000
 				
*****************************************************************
 31 LA Times: Nuclear Energy: Risks and Rewards 

  [The Los Angeles Times - latimes.com]     Letters HOME | HELP 
	
 	   June 18, 2005   	  latimes.com : Opinion : Letters   	   	

   
LETTER TO THE EDITOR Nuclear Energy: Risks and Rewards   Re
"Nuclear Waste Outpaces Solutions," June 12: During the two-year
period, 1991-93, I was responsible for the engineering design of
upgrade modifications at the Dresden nuclear station in Morris,
Ill., featured in your article. At the time, on-site storage of
spent nuclear fuel had already become a critical problem. The
failure of the Department of Energy to move forward with the
Yucca Mountain waste depository in Nevada since then has only
exacerbated this problem.

 It certainly is poor policy to let nuclear waste accumulate in
casks at nuclear power plants, but it is much more dangerous to
curtail the use of nuclear energy. Our energy options are so
limited by the prospect of global warming that we must use all
the non-greenhouse-gas-emitting technologies we can, and nuclear
has been the most successful. With 20% of our electricity coming
from nuclear in the U.S., it is only outpaced by coal-burning.

Given the risks of thick-walled, reinforced-concrete casks
compared to disastrous climate change, I'll take nuclear power
any day.

Arthur Sanders

 Los Angeles

*****************************************************************
 32 deccan herald: Canada seeks India's help for revival of nuclear plant   
    
  Mumbai: UNI 
  
  Canada has sought the assistance of the Nuclear Power 
Corporation of India Limited n replacing the coolant system at 
its Point Lepreau nuclear station. 
  
''We have been recently approached by Canada for help in its
replacement. Our track record has been very impressive. Since it
is a policy matter, the issue has to be discussed and decided by
the Union Government,'' a senior official told UNI on condition
of anonymity. 

He said the order could be huge as the coolant system could be
described as the heart of the reactor and if replaced, it can
extend the life of the plant by 30 years. 


If the government permits, the NPCIL can deliver the goods as it
has considerable experience in en-masse coolant channel
replacement, having carried out similar exercises at the
Rajasthan and Madras Atomic Power Stations. 


The coolant channel at Unit-2 of the Rajasthan Atomic Power
Station (RAPS) was replaced in record time and the experience
gained was utilised for a similar exercise at MAPS-1 and MAPS-2. 


Interestingly, Canada had supplied pressurised heavy water
reactors to India in the mid-60s when the second phase of
nuclear revolution in the country had started. The fact that
Canada was now looking towards India to repair its plant, was a
tribute to the achievements of the country's nuclear scientists. 


India has 14 operational nuclear plants and eight are under
construction. However, reports from Canada indicate that there
is some opposition to funding the revival project. The
administration of New Brunswick where the nuclear station is
located, has asked the federal government for 400 to 600 million
dollars to subsidise the 1.4 billion dollar reconstruction of
the plant. 


The authorities feel refurbishment of the over two-decade-old
power plant could be prohibitively expensive and have not
guaranteed good performance on a long-term basis. Instead, they
said, non-conventional energy sources could be tried out. 


Environmentalists have also been alleging that nuclear power
plants are plagued with unresolved safety issues, high security
risks, chronic under performance problems and massive cost
overruns and toxic waste.   

  Copyright 2005, The Printers (Mysore) Private Ltd., 75, M.G. 
Road, Post Box No 5331, Bangalore - 560001 Tel: +91 (80) 25880000 
Fax No. +91 (80) 25880523   
*****************************************************************
 33 Sofia Morning News: Czech, Russian Bids for Belene Nuke Construction

[Sofia News Agency]                                                           

Business: 18 June 2005, Saturday.

Two consortiums - a Czech and a Russian one - will bid for a
contract with Bulgaria's government to build a EUR 2 B nuclear
plant, the energy ministry has said.
 
The two consortiums - one led by the Czech Skoda company and
another by Russia's Atomstroyexport - were the only bidders that
met the Friday deadline for acquiring tender papers, according
to ministry's spokeswoman Tanya Gigova.
 
The applicants must submit their detailed offers of technical
specifications and financial blueprints by July 17. 

The bidders for the construction of Bulgaria's second nuclear
plant include an annual turnover of at least USD 5 B and
previous experience in the construction and commissioning of
water-pressurized nuclear units. 

The construction of the Belene nuke, which has been frozen for
more than a decade due to environmentalist protests, is expected
to start operating in 2011 earliest. 

The project which under preliminary estimates will cost some EUR
2 B have attracted the interest of two investors - Russia's RAO
and Italy's Enel. 

Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov has recently launched the
idea that the construction of the nuclear plant should be
undertaken by a public-private partnership with participation of
all Balkan countries.[ width=] 

 
  NOVINITE.COM

Bulgaria news Novinite.com (Sofia News Agency -
www.sofianewsagency.com) is unique with being a real time news
provider in English that informs its readers about the latest
Bulgarian news. The editorial staff also publishes a daily
*****************************************************************
 34 Rocky Mountain News: Uranium outlook gaining energy

Demand for fuel alternative drives a 'mini-boom'

By Ellen Miller, Special to the News
June 18, 2005

GRAND JUNCTION - Growing demand for uranium to fuel nuclear power 
plants as an alternative to coal and natural gas has created a 
"mini- boom" in an area where uranium once was king. 

About 275 people registered for Uranium Expo 2005, a weekend 
conference here intended to gather uranium producers, investors 
and contractors who are seeing renewed interest and opportunities 
in the industry. 

 "We're in a mini-boom, and people are starting to realize it,"
said Arden Larson, a Grand Junction geologist who is chairman of
the conference and also serves as chairman of the Colorado
Plateau unit of the American Society of Mining Engineers. 

"We're here because uranium is a legacy in Grand Junction," he
said, recalling the uranium mining boom in the 1940s and 1950s
on the Western Slope and in eastern Utah triggered by demand
from the nuclear arms build- up. 

Ironically, the dismantling of nuclear arms is partially driving
the current boomlet, Larson said. 

The 104 nuclear power reactors operating in the United States
use 65 million pounds of uranium per year, and domestic mining
produces only 2.3 million pounds, Larson said. The rest comes
from reprocessing nuclear weapons and buying mined ore from
Canada. 

"But most of the nuclear- weapon fuel is gone now, so this boom
is real," Larson said. "We think prices could get to a couple of
hundred dollars a pound before there's enough investment to get
sizable mining going again." 

Uranium prices have risen to $30 per pound, up from $8 per pound
five years ago. Several long-dormant mines have re- opened on
the Western Slope, and several more are preparing to, he said. 

"It's not inexpensive to mine," Larson said. "Safety,
ventilation and environmental regulations are much more strict
and expensive, so we can't operate like the old days. 

"A guy can't put uranium in his pickup and drive it to the
market." 

Speakers at Uranium Expo 2005 are scheduled to address the
area's history with uranium, the expensive legacy of lung
illnesses caused by poor working conditions, updates on the
industry, and financial problems and opportunities. 

One of the speakers is Ron Greenwood, of Bernville, Pa., a
mechanical engineer who was part of the cleanup team after the
near-disaster at Three Mile Island in 1979. 

Greenwood said containment and contingency planning for the
"what ifs" kept the problem from being far worse but at the same
time show "why it's expensive to build plants."  

� The E.W. Scripps
*****************************************************************
 35 ajc.com: Nuclear bomb to stay in Savannah waters 

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published on: 06/18/05                                                                                                                                                                                                  
					 							 						 					 				 			 		 	 	 	 			 	 	 	 		 	 	

SAVANNAH  A 7,600-pound nuclear bomb dumped off the Georgia
coast in 1958 remains lost  and is best left unfound, the Air
Force concluded after its first hunt for the missing nuke in
decades. 

Radiation tests conducted by government scientists almost nine
months ago failed to locate any trace of the bomb in the waters
off Tybee Island near Savannah, the Air Force said in a report
released Friday.


  STEPHEN MORTON / AP(ENLARGE)  

  Air Force nuclear weapons adviser Billy Mullins points to an
area surveyed during a search last fall for a 7,600-pound
nuclear bomb that was jettisoned off the state's coast in 1958.
   
"We haven't found where the bomb is," Billy Mullins, an Air
Force nuclear weapons adviser who led the search, told a news
conference in Savannah. "We still think it's irretrievably lost.
We don't know where to look for it." 

The Air Force says the bomb is incapable of an atomic explosion
because it lacks the plutonium capsule needed to trigger a
fission reaction. The device does contain an undisclosed amount
of uranium and about 400 pounds of conventional explosives. 

"The best course of action in this matter is to not continue to
search for it and to leave the property in place," said the
report by the Air Force Nuclear Weapons and Counterproliferation
Agency. 

A damaged B-47 bomber jettisoned the Mark-15 nuke into Wassaw
Sound, where the Wilmington River meets the Atlantic Ocean about
15 miles from Savannah, in February 1958 after colliding with a
fighter jet during a training flight. 

The military never recovered the bomb and gave up searching for
46 years until last year, when a retired Air Force pilot said
his private search team had detected unusually high radiation
levels in the sound. 

Government scientists investigated the claims by Derek Duke of
Statesboro, taking radiation readings and soil samples Sept. 30
from an area of water the size of four football fields. 

Dragging radiation detectors behind a boat, researchers found
areas with elevated radiation levels. But they detected no
traces of enriched uranium that would give away the bomb's
location. 

"We found nothing out there other than naturally occurring
radioactive materials," Mullins said. "It's been in the mud for
thousands of years. It's the same thing you'd find in your back
yard." 

There was no dispute from Duke, who has spent more than five
years searching for the bomb and has often disagreed with the
Air Force's claim that the bomb's nuclear trigger was disarmed. 

"I'll have to agree with them," Duke said of the report.
"Whatever we thought we saw maybe wasn't anything at all." 

In a July 2001 report, the Air Force estimated that the bomb
lies buried beneath 8 to 40 feet of water and 5 to 15 feet of
mud and sand. 

Mullins stood by that earlier report's conclusions that trying
to remove the bomb would be more dangerous than leaving it
undisturbed. 

"Entombed in the mud as deep as it is, it does not represent any
danger to public safety," he said. "If you happened to hit it
just wrong with your crane or your shovel, you could detonate
the high explosives." 

City officials on Tybee Island, a beach community of 3,400
residents, urged the government four years ago to recover the
lost weapon. But after hearing the Air Force report Friday,
island City Manager Bob Thomson agreed that it's best left
alone. 

"I'm not saying it's a good thing that we have a warhead out
there," Thomson said. "But I believe the greatest danger is it
being disturbed from its watery grave." 	   

*****************************************************************
 36 WorldNetDaily: 'Fixing' intelligence
 
  SATURDAY JUNE 18 2005           
                            
� 2005 WorldNetDaily.com 

By now, all members of the Commission on the Intelligence
Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass
Destruction ought to have fallen on their swords. 

Why? 

Here is the way the commissioners began their report made to
President Bush just a month before the London Sunday Times
published the so-called Downing Street Memo. 

On the brink of war, and in front of the whole world, the United
States government asserted that Saddam Hussein had reconstituted
his nuclear weapons program, had biological weapons and mobile
biological weapon production facilities, and had stockpiled and
was producing chemical weapons. 

All of this was based on the assessments of the U.S.
intelligence community. 

And not one bit of it could be confirmed when the war was over. 

What was contained in the Downing Street Memo that should cause
Commission members to fall on their swords? 



Well, central to the memo was the report Richard Dearlove �
director of the British equivalent of our CIA � made of his
just-completed talks with then-CIA Director George Tenet and
then-National Security Adviser Condi Rice. 

Dearlove reported that "military action was now seen as
inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military
action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But
the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy." 

Intelligence was being "fixed"? Now, admittedly, the
Commission's report was about U.S. intelligence capabilities. 

And the Commission did note that all of these ridiculous charges
about Saddam's "reconstitution" of his WMD capabilities � known
to have been completely destroyed under U.N. supervision by
1997� were based upon "assessments of the U.S. intelligence
community." 

But shouldn't the Commission have at least mentioned � if not
lamented � the inexplicable failure of our intelligence
community to even take note of � much less accept � the reports
provided them by the International Atomic Energy Agency,
especially in the months leading up to the pre-emptive attack on
Iraq to "disarm" Saddam Hussein? 

In his final report before being forced to withdraw from Iraq at
the end of 1998 by President Clinton, Director General Mohamed
ElBaradei had reported: 

"The verification activities have revealed no indications that
Iraq had achieved its program objective of producing nuclear
weapons or that Iraq had produced more than a few grams of
weapon-usable nuclear material or had clandestinely acquired
such material. 

Furthermore, there are no indications that there remains in Iraq
any physical capability for the production of weapon-usable
nuclear material of any practical significance. 

But even more significantly, ElBaradei reported: 

There were no indications of significant discrepancies between
the technically coherent picture that had evolved of Iraq's
clandestine nuclear weapons program and the information
contained in Iraq's "Full, Final and Complete Declaration." 

In other words, as of late 1998, the Iraqis were telling the
truth! 

Nevertheless, in 2002 Bush claimed to have "slam-dunk"
intelligence that Saddam had not only reconstituted his nuke
programs, but would have nukes to give terrorists within a year
or less. 

So ElBaradei and his IAEA inspectors went back in and conducted
a total of 218 inspections at 141 sites, including 21 sites
designated by Bush that the IAEA had never inspected before. 

Result? On March 7, 2003, ElBaradei told the Security Council: 

"After three months of intrusive inspections, we have to date
found no evidence or plausible indication of the revival of a
nuclear weapon program in Iraq." 

Twelve days later Bush invaded Iraq. 

There is no evidence that Bush-Cheney-Rice paid any attention
whatsoever at any time to the null results obtained in Iraq by
the U.N.'s intrusive go-anywhere see-anything inspectors. 

On the contrary, there is plenty of evidence that Bush et al.
disputed their results and attempted to influence � "fix" is the
word Dearlove used � their conclusions. 

They even "bugged" ElBaradei and Hans Blix, chairman of the U.N.
Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, hoping to
learn something they could use to "influence" them. 

So, shouldn't the Commission have at least mentioned the fact
that U.N. inspectors refuted every one of the specific charges
made by Bush-Cheney-Rice-Powell, supposedly based upon U.S.
intelligence assessments? 

The "yellowcake" from Niger? Forgeries. 

The "aluminum" tubes? Rockets. 

The mobile "bio-warfare" lab? Hydrogen for weather balloons. 

All Bush-Cheney-Rice-Powell charges refuted publicly, with
"expert" support. 

Nevertheless, the Commission concluded there was no evidence
that Bush-Cheney had "fixed" U.S. intelligence so as to provide
a justification to wage war on Iraq. 

But what is inexplicable is the Commission's failure to note the
well-documented attempts by Bush-Cheney to intimidate ElBaradei
and Hans Blix and to "fix" the findings of their U.N. inspectors.
 
Physicist James Gordon Prather has served as a policy
implementing official for national security-related technical
matters in the Federal Energy Agency, the Energy Research and
Development Administration, the Department of Energy, the Office
of the Secretary of Defense and the Department of the Army. Dr.
Prather also served as legislative assistant for national
security affairs to U.S. Sen. Henry Bellmon, R-Okla. -- ranking
member of the Senate Budget Committee and member of the Senate
Energy Committee and Appropriations Committee. Dr. Prather had
earlier worked as a nuclear weapons physicist at Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory in California and Sandia National
Laboratory in New Mexico. 

[WorldNetDaily.com] 

*****************************************************************
 37 Daily Times: UN accepts US plan to boost nuclear security 

Daily Times - Site Edition      Saturday, December 30, 1899   
	     
* IAEA sets up special committee to handle nuclear verification

VIENNA: The United Nations� nuclear watchdog on Friday approved
a US proposal aimed at boosting and enforcing global atomic
security rules following North Korean and Iranian nuclear
crises. 

The International Atomic Energy Agency�s (IAEA) board of
governors unanimously approved the plan to set up a committee to
examine how the nuclear safeguards regime can be improved. 

�The board of governors decides to set up a committee on
safeguards and verification to consider ways and means to
strengthen the safeguards system,� said a document on the
board�s decision, obtained by Reuters. 

The United States issued a statement saying the committee would
help �strengthen the agency�s ability to monitor and enforce
compliance with nuclear non-proliferation obligations�.
Washington accuses Iran of following North Korea�s example of
developing nuclear weapons under cover of a civilian atomic
energy programme. Tehran vehemently denies this, insisting its
nuclear ambitions are limited to generating electricity. 

The head of the US delegation, Ambassador Jackie Sanders, said
the committee should help the agency increase its ability to
detect new kinds of safeguards breaches. 

�The proliferation challenges of today, including non-compliance
by North Korea and Iran and the revelation of (illicit) nuclear
procurement networks calls for more evolution,� Sanders told
reporters outside the IAEA boardroom. 

�This new committee should play a key role in helping us meet
those challenges,� she said. Iran hid its nuclear enrichment
programme from the IAEA for nearly two decades before officially
declaring it in October 2003. North Korea expelled UN inspectors
on Dec. 31, 2002 before withdrawing from the nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the first country to leave the
global anti-arms pact. 

Diplomats on the board said IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei had
originally opposed the plan, but significant revisions were made
to overcome IAEA objections. 

ElBaradei told reporters the committee would be a �reality
check� to ensure its safeguards system was adequate. 

Among the compromises Washington accepted to the plan, first
proposed by US President George W Bush last year, was to set it
up for an initial 2-year period as opposed to leaving it
open-ended, diplomats on the IAEA board told Reuters. Also,
instead of barring suspected violators of the NPT from the
committee, as Bush had proposed, any country on the IAEA�s
35-nation board would be allowed on it, the IAEA document said. 

ElBaradei said the IAEA needed more authority to make sure there
are no more secret nuclear weapons programmemes like the ones
developed by Iraq, North Korea and Libya. �We need as much
authority as we can (get) to do a credible job,� ElBaradei said.
In the text of a speech he gave to the board on Thursday,
ElBaradei was more specific. 

�We have learned the hard way. We learned in Iraq in 1990, we
have learned in North Korea, we have learned in Libya that we
cannot provide you a sense of full security, or with assurances
that go beyond our authority,� ElBaradei said. reuters 
Home | Foreign 
*****************************************************************
 38 [DU List] Collateral risk: DU research gap could impact
 
Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2005 00:50:53 -0700

 
<x-flowed>
  Collateral Risk: DU Research Gap Could Impact Vermont Troops
Kathryn Casa, The Vermont Guardian


       June 17, 2005 - By the end of June, more than 600 Vermont National 
Guard members will be deployed in and around heavy combat areas in Iraq, 
where battlefield exposure to depleted uranium - a highly toxic and 
radioactive battlefield poison widely used by the United States in combat 
zones - has now become routine, military watchdogs say.

       During the recent legislative session, Vermont lawmakers and state 
leaders turned aside a modest proposal to assess the impact of Vermont 
National Guard members deployed in dangerous and highly stressful war zones.
       However, other legislatures have been aggressively pursuing measures 
aimed at safeguarding their troops.

       Louisiana last week became the first state to require returning 
troops to be tested for exposure to depleted uranium. And, like both the 
Louisiana House and Senate, the Connecticut House unanimously passed 
similar legislation earlier this month. That bill, which has broad 
bipartisan co-sponsorship, is now before the state's Senate. Lawmakers from 
at least seven other states interested in drafting similar legislation have 
contacted Rep. Patricia Dillon, D-New Haven, the Connecticut author of the 
bill.

       Ninety Vermonters are currently serving in combat zones, including 
25 assigned to a military police company based in the Sunni stronghold of 
Tikrit, the hometown of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein; and 65 are 
attached to a Mississippi National Guard unit in Najaf, according to Lt. 
Veronica Saffo, a National Guard spokeswoman in Colchester.

       Twenty Vermont soldiers are in Iraq working as support staff; 600 
are based in Kuwait, where they rotate in and out of combat; and 65 are 
guarding civilian security contractors in Saudi Arabia.

       On Thursday, another 400 Vermont troops are scheduled to leave for 
Iraq as part of a brigade combat team. Their base is not identified ahead 
of time for security reasons, Saffo said. But "they will be in the combat 
areas, definitely in the villages and working with the Iraqi police as part 
of a significantly sized brigade combat team," she confirmed.

       The Department of Defense said depleted uranium use in Iraq is 
significantly lower than the 320 tons fired during the first Gulf War. 
Outside watchdogs say up to 150 tons of DU have been fired during the 
current Iraq conflict.

       No DU weapons systems have been used in Afghanistan, according to 
the Pentagon, where six Vermonters are stationed and another 50 are headed 
later this month.

       "Previous to the Gulf War, no special training was mandated 
concerning DU," according to Barbara Goodno with the Defense Department's 
deployment health office. "Soon after the Gulf War, awareness training was 
instituted for service members who may be exposed to DU weapons, 
specialized teams . who may have higher than average exposure receive 
increased training."

       But according to a 2000 study by the nonpartisan Government 
Accountability Office, a survey two years earlier by the Army's Special 
Assistant for Gulf War Illnesses of more than 1,600 personnel, found that 
only 65 percent received required DU training. "We also found a great deal 
of disparity among units in that three units had not conducted the required 
DU training at all," the GAO reported.

       None of the branches of the military had made sufficient progress in 
implementing DU training, the study found, concluding that "service members 
were only marginally better prepared to contend with DU hazards than they 
had been during the Gulf War."

       Saffo said all Vermont troops participate in annual DU training and 
get more intensified training prior to their deployment. "There is a list 
of specific core training requirements mandatory for all units in the Army. 
Every year the commanders of every unit in the state have to make sure the 
soldiers get the specialized training provided by the Army."

       But Joyce Riley, a Gulf War National Guard veteran and executive 
director of the American Gulf War Veterans Association in Versaille, MO, 
calls the Pentagon's claim of better training "a lie."

       "They have used hundreds of tons of DU over there," said Riley, who 
hosts a daily radio talk show. "We are overwhelmed with phone calls from 
people who have just returned from Iraq who are not getting treatment."

       Just 180 Vermont National Guard members have returned from Iraq and 
Afghanistan thus far. Although they are given physical and mental health 
screening, they are not routinely tested for DU exposure, said Anselm 
Beach, a spokesman for the Veterans Administration Hospital in White River 
Junction.

       Returning troops are reporting primarily "readjustment issues," 
noted Beach. "Some muscular skeletal problems because you have soldiers 
wearing 60 pounds of gear, some issues with hearing from explosions . the 
regular things with combat, but nothing out of the ordinary."

       The hospital would test for DU exposure only if symptoms prompt a 
doctor to recommend it, Beach said.

       However, a group of congressional Democrats would like to see DU 
testing standardized. On May 17, Washington Rep. Jim McDermott, a Vietnam 
veteran, and 21 other Democrats introduced a bill in Congress that would 
require the Environmental Protection Agency and the Centers for Disease 
Control and Prevention (CDC) to report to Congress on the health effects of 
DU exposure, not only on veterans but also on their children born after 
exposure to DU munitions.

       "There are countless stories of mysterious illnesses, higher rates 
of serious illnesses and even birth defects," McDermott said on the floor 
of the House. "We do not know what role, if any, DU plays in the medical 
tragedies in Iraq, but we must find out."

       In 1997, federal medical researchers at the Naval Health Research 
Center and the CDC determined that babies born to Gulf War veterans were 
more likely to suffer from certain birth defects including malformations of 
the eyes, jaw, and spine.

       DU danger

       Depleted uranium, a highly toxic and radioactive byproduct of the 
uranium enrichment process, is widely used in U.S. weapons systems because 
of its ability to penetrate steel and its low cost. It is also used to line 
tanks, and advocates say its strength and efficiency as a weapon is a 
benefit for U.S. troops.

       But the term "depleted" is a misnomer, since DU contains about 60 
percent of the radioactivity found in natural uranium, according to Tod 
Ensign, a veteran and attorney with the veterans advocacy group Citizen 
Soldier in New York.

       "When a DU shell strikes its target, up to 70 percent of the 
depleted uranium vaporizes into fine dust, which then settles out in the 
surrounding soil and water," he wrote. "Over half of the aerosolized 
particles are smaller than 5 microns and anything smaller than 10 microns 
can be inhaled. Once lodged in the lungs, these particles can emit a steady 
dose of alpha radiation."

       Goodno said all service members in the field carry protective masks 
for use against chemical or biological attack, which could also be used "in 
extreme cases" to prevent DU inhalation. "Protective equipment is only 
required as a precaution for those who have repeated, prolonged exposure" 
to DU, she noted.

       Some veterans of the first Gulf War say DU exposure has led to a 
battery of debilitating symptoms including headaches, fatigue, joint pain, 
sleep disturbance, and frequent urination, which they call Gulf War syndrome.

       Ensign reports that months before the first Gulf War, the Army's 
Armament, Munitions, and Chemical Command published the following warning: 
"Following combat, the condition of the battlefield and the long term 
health risks to natives [sic] and combat veterans may become issues in the 
acceptability of the continued use of DU for military applications." The 
report added that DU has been "linked to cancer when exposures are internal."

       Iraqi doctors and researchers have reported dramatic increases in 
cancer and childhood leukemia since the early 1990s.

       Of the nearly 700,000 troops who fought in the first Gulf War, more 
than 187,000 had been granted some level of disability status for injury or 
illness related to their service, according to Veterans Administration 
statistics for February 2005. More than 10,000 of the returning Gulf War 
veterans have died.

       The Defense Department continues to insist that there is no 
scientific evidence that links exposure to depleted uranium to any of the 
symptoms, and that no single diagnosis explains the symptoms.

       Of the 104 soldiers known to have been hit by "friendly fire" DU 
munitions during the 1991 war, according to Goodno, 70 participated in a VA 
follow-up program. All of them had inhalation exposure, and about one third 
had embedded DU shrapnel. "Those veterans with retained DU shrapnel 
continue to excrete elevated levels of urinary uranium," she noted. "To 
date, none of these individuals have developed kidney abnormalities, 
leukemia, bone or lung cancer, or any other uranium-related health problems."

       But McDermott asks, "If DU is so safe, why do American soldiers need 
to wear protective clothing in the first place?"

       He urged Congress, "Let the Pentagon prove that it is safe."

       � Copyright 2005 The Vermont Guardian


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</x-flowed>
*****************************************************************
 39 [du-list] US Censored stories from  Nagasaki bombing published
 
Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2005 00:51:26 -0700

 
<x-flowed>
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000963439

SPECIAL REPORT: A Great Nuclear-Age Mystery Solved



By Greg Mitchell

Published: June 16, 2005 11:45 PM ET

NEW YORK One of the great mysteries of the Nuclear Age was solved today: 
What was in the censored, and then lost to the ages, newspaper articles 
filed by the first reporter to reach Nagasaki following the atomic attack 
on that city on Aug. 9, 1945?

The reporter was George Weller, the distinguished correspondent for the 
now-defunct Chicago Daily News. His startling dispatches from Nagasaki, 
which could have affected public opinion on the future of the bomb, never 
emerged from General Douglas MacArthur's censorship office in Tokyo. Carbon 
copies were found just two years ago when his son, who talked to E&P from 
Italy today, discovered them after the reporter's death.

Four of them were published today for the first time by the Tokyo daily 
Mainichi Shimbun, which purchased them from Anthony Weller. He told E&P he 
hopes to put them and others together into a book.

The articles published in Japan today reveal a remarkable and wrenching 
turn in Weller's view of the aftermath of the bombing, which anticipates 
the profound unease in our nuclear experience ever since. "It was 
remarkable to see that shifting perspective," Anthony Weller says.

An early article that George Weller filed, on Sept. 8, 1945 -- two days 
after he reached the city, before any other journalist -- hailed the 
"effectiveness of the bomb as a military device," as his son describes it, 
and makes no mention of the bomb's special, radiation-producing properties.

But later that day, after visiting two hospitals and shaken by what he saw, 
he described a mysterious "Disease X" that was killing people who had 
seemed to survive the bombing in relatively good shape. A month after the 
atomic inferno, they were passing away pitifully, some with legs and arms 
"speckled with tiny red spots in patches."

The following day he again described the atomic bomb's "peculiar disease" 
and reported that the leading local X-ray specialist was convinced that 
"these people are simply suffering" from the bomb's unknown radiation effects.

Anthony Weller, a novelist who lives near Gloucester, Mass., told E&P that 
it was one of great disappointments of his father's life that these 
stories, "a real coup," were killed by MacArthur who, George Weller felt, 
"wanted all the credit for winning the war, not some scientists back in New 
Mexico." Others have suggested that the real reason for the censorship was 
the United States did not want the world to learn about the morally 
troubling radiation effects for two reasons: It did not want questions 
raised about the use of the weapon in 1945, or its wide scale development 
in the coming years.

"Clearly," says Anthony Weller, "they would have supplied an eyewitness 
account at a moment when the American people badly needed one."

***
How did George Weller get the scoop-that-wasn't?

After years of covering the Pacific war, Weller arrived in Japan with the 
first wave of reporters and military in early September. He had already won 
a Pulitzer for his reporting in 1943. Appalled by MacArthur's censors, and 
"the conformists" in his profession who went along with strict press 
restrictions, he made his way, with permission, to the distant island of 
Kyushu to visit a former kamikaze base. But he noted that it was connected 
by railroad to Nagasaki. Pretending he was "a major or colonel," as his son 
put it, he slipped into the city (perhaps by boat) about three days before 
any of his colleagues, and just after Wilfred Burchett had filed his first 
report from Hiroshima.

Once arrived, Weller toured the city, the aid stations, the former POW 
camps, and wrote numerous stories within days. According to his son, he 
managed to send the articles to Tokyo, not by wire, but by hand, and felt 
"that the sheer volume and importance of the stories would mean they would 
be respected" by MacArthur and his censors.

Although Weller did not express any outward disapproval of the use of the 
bomb, these stories -- and others he filed in the following two weeks from 
the vicinity -- would never see the light of the day, and the reporter lost 
track of his carbons. He would later summarize the experience wit the 
censorship office in two words: "They won."

In the years that followed, Weller continued his journalism career, winning 
a George Polk award and other honors and covering many other conflicts. 
Neither the carbons nor the originals ever surfaced, before he passed away 
in 2002 at the age of 95. It was then that his son made a full search of 
the wildly disorganized "archives" at his father's home in Italy, and in 
2003 found the carbons just 30 feet from his dad's desk.

And what a find: roughly 75 pages of stories, on fading brownish paper, 
that covered not only his first atomic dispatches but gripping accounts by 
prisoners of war, some of whom described watching the bomb go off on that 
fateful morning. Remarkably, Anthony also found a couple dozen photos his 
father had snapped in Nagasaki.

Anthony Weller says he attempted to package the material as a book or a 
major magazine piece in the States, but after a slow response, sold a 
partial package to Mainichi Shimbun, one of the largest-circulation 
newspapers in the world.

***
In the first article published today by the Japanese paper, the first words 
from Weller were: "The atomic bomb may be classified as a weapon capable of 
being used indiscriminately, but its use in Nagasaki was selective and 
proper and as merciful as such a gigantic force could be expected to be." 
Weller described himself as "the first visitor to inspect the ruins."

He suggested about 24,000 may have died but he attributed the high numbers 
to "inadequate" air raid shelters and the "total failure" of the air 
warning system. He declared that the bomb was "a tremendous, but not a 
peculiar weapon," and said he spent hours in the ruins without apparent ill 
effects. He did note, with some regret, that a hospital and an American 
mission college were destroyed, but pointed out that to spare them would 
have also meant sparing munitions plants.

In his second story that day, however, following his hospital visits, he 
would describe "Disease X," and victims, who have "neither a burn or a 
broken limb," wasting away with "blackish" mouths and red spots, and small 
children who "have lost some hair."

A third piece, sent to MacArthur the following day, reported the disease 
"still snatching away lives here. Men, women and children with no outward 
marks of injury are dying daily in hospitals, some after having walked 
around three or four weeks thinking they have escaped.

"The doctors ... candidly confessed ... that the answer to the malady is 
beyond them." At one hospital, 200 of 343 admitted had died: "They are dead 
-- dead of atomic bomb -- and nobody knows why."

He closed this account with: "Twenty-five Americans are due to arrive Sept. 
11 to study the Nagasaki bomb site. Japanese hope they will bring a 
solution for Disease X."




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Greg Mitchell (gmitchell@editorandpublisher.com) is editor of E&P and 
co-author, with Robert Jay Lifton, of "Hiroshima in America," and other books.


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 40 Pasadena Star-News: A-bomb survivors still getting help

www.pasadenastarnews.com

Article Published: Friday, June 17, 2005 - 9:27:13
 		   	 	
Area's Hiroshima, Nagasaki victims part of ongoing medical
program

By Kimm Groshong , Staff Writer

LOS ANGELES -- Offering medical and emotional support nearly 60
years after the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
Japanese and American physicians have again teamed to continue a
decades-long collaboration to care for the more than 400 atomic
bomb survivors living in the Los Angeles area. 

Every other year since 1977, the Los Angeles County Medical
Association has certified a team of Japanese physicians from the
Hiroshima Prefectural Medical Association to examine atomic bomb
survivors in Los Angeles under the supervision of volunteer
American physicians. 

"We remember that today, long after the combatants and generals
have gone their separate ways, the disease processes continue
on,' said Clayton Patchett, LACMA's incoming president and a
Pasadena orthopedic surgeon on the staff of Huntington Hospital. 

"The survivors ... were not granted a reprieve by treaties and
their suffering has not been confined by national boundaries.' 

The Radiation Effects Research Project is the outcome of a
request Kaz Suyeishi made to the Japanese welfare minister in
1976. Suyeishi, then a Los Angeles resident and a Hiroshima
A-bomb survivor, said she begged the minister to send Japanese
doctors to provide examinations and psychological support for
A-bomb survivors living in the United States. 

"We support the survivors in the United States and they need our
support psychologically and a little bit economically,' said
Makoto Matsumura, the team leader from the Hiroshima Prefectural
Medical Association. 

During the project's previous exams, doctors have identified
malignancies in Los Angeles atomic bomb survivors and flown them
to Hiroshima for free treatment. 

Suyeishi, the president of the American Society of Hiroshima
Nagasaki A-Bomb Survivors, said that kind of medical support was
particularly important in previous years because it was often
difficult for A-bomb survivors to get good medical insurance
coverage in the United States. 

Nobuo Nishi, the assistant team leader of the project from the
Hiroshima Prefectural Medical Association, said none of the
examination findings from the 2003 visits showed a clear
relationship with the patients' exposure experiences. But he
said more data would be needed to understand any underlying
trend. 

"The effects of this event didn't stop; they're ongoing,'
Patchett said. "Certainly it's the purpose of these examinations
to document that. And we're not really sure what the endpoint
will be ... we know that the process isn't over.' 

The project is also recruiting children of A-bomb survivors to
study any genetic effects of the radiation exposure. 

The doctors will examine about 140 Los Angeles-areasurvivors
through Monday. Studies also are completed in Honolulu, Seattle
and San Francisco. 

Suyeishi, also known as "mama-san,' said "I always say I wish I
could forget the horrible memory.' She was outside marveling at
the beauty of American planes overhead when the bomb dropped on
Hiroshima. And despite her desire to never think of the travesty
that day, she said, "I thought it was my responsibility to speak
up with my own experience,' to ensure it never happens again. 

Kimm Groshong can be reached at (626) 578-6300, Ext. 4451, or by
e-mail at kimm.groshong@sgvn.com. 		   	 	
 		   			 		   	 	
        Copyright � 2005 Los Angeles Newspaper Group     
*****************************************************************
 41 London Times: Government told to forget nuclear pills - 

Sunday Times - Times thetimes.co.uk
    
June 19, 2005                  

Richard Oakley
 		   		 		
THE government should not bother issuing more iodine tablets, 
intended to protect against exposure to nuclear radiation, when 
the current batch expires later this year, according to a group 
of experts. 

The tablets were sent to every Irish household in 2002 at a cost 
of �2.3m as part of the national emergency plan in response to 
the September 11 terrorist attacks on America. They were 
distributed to protect Irish people from radiation in the event 
of an incident at Sellafield nuclear facility. 

The current batch will soon be out of date, but further supplies
are considered unnecessary by a group of experts, convened by
Mary Harney, the tanaiste and health minister. 

The group reached the decision during its first meeting and is
unlikely to change it despite a planned review of the policy in
other countries. It plans, however, to consider if supplies
should be maintained for certain �at risk� groups. 

The department has said the present national supply can be used
until the end of the year, even though the tablets have a March
2005 expiry date. It was discovered that the tablets would be
ineffective in the event of an incident at Sellafied because
they protect against a form of radioactive material no longer
handled at the plant. 

The department of health said the group reached a consensus
because the shelf-life of the tablets had been extended and
there was a reduced risk from Sellafield. �The threat has
significantly reduced due to the closure of older reactors in
the UK, in particular the Calder Hall reactors at Sellafield,�
said the department. 

John Gormley, of the Green party, said the advice showed the
decision to issue the tablets was �a very expensive, but useless
PR exercise�. 

�The government came up with this iodine tablet plan at a time
when it was found to be unprepared to deal with a nuclear
accident at Sellafield,� he said. �A promise was given and they
had to go through with it, even though the threat the tablets
could protect against did not exist. It was a total waste of
money.� 

The department of health had previously defended the issuing of
the tablets arguing they could protect against possible nuclear
incidents at other sites in Britain and elsewhere. 

The decision to issue the current batch in mid-2002 followed a
controversial radio interview with Joe Jacob, the then minister
for state at the department of public enterprise, on the Marian
Finucane show. He struggled to reassure people that the country
was prepared for an accident or act of sabotage at Sellafield. 

The September 11 attacks had raised concerns that terrorists
might fly hijacked planes into the nuclear facility in Cumbria
in England. Jacob advised people to stay indoors and avoid
contaminated food, but his performance was heavily criticised by
opposition parties. 

Up to 12.6m tablets were posted to homes with a further 1.6m
given to health boards to distribute to those who may not have
received them in this way.   	 		

  The Sunday Times       

Copyright 2005                 Times Newspapers Ltd.
*****************************************************************
 42 KRT Wire: U.S. asked Japan to end health studies after bomb test, letter shows

| 06/18/2005 | 

The Yomiuri Shimbun

TOKYO - (KRT) - A document in the U.S. National Archives shows
that the United States exerted pressure on the Japanese health
ministry to drop research into the radioactive contamination of
tuna following a 1954 U.S. hydrogen bomb test that irradiated a
Japanese trawler in the South Pacific. 

The finding was reported Saturday by Hiroko Takahashi, an expert
on U.S. history at Hiroshima City University's Hiroshima Peace
Institute. 

About nine months after the test, the then Health and Welfare
Ministry suddenly discontinued research on tuna caught in waters
off Bikini Atoll, where the test was conducted. 

Twenty-three crewmen aboard the 140-ton Fukuryu Maru No. 5, out
of Yaizu in Shizuoka Prefecture, better known overseas as the
Lucky Dragon, were irradiated during the test on March 1, 1954. 

According to Takahashi, the document, dated Jan. 5, 1955, was
written by the U.S. tuna investigation association and was
addressed to Dr. W.R. Boss of the division of biology and
medicine at the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. 

The one-page letter mentioned the Japan-U.S. conference
concerning the effect and usage of radioactive substance held in
Tokyo in November 1954. The letter to Boss said the conference
clearly influenced the Japanese government to stop on Jan. 1,
1955, research into the effects of radiation exposure on the
tuna, and thanked him for his help in stopping the study. 

The Health and Welfare Ministry started the research immediately
after the test and confirmed the tuna caught by the Lucky Dragon
was contaminated with radioactivity and ordered the catch
destroyed. 

The ministry confirmed that a wide area around the atoll was
radioactive after the United States dropped a hydrogen bomb on
it. But about one month later, after a bilateral conference, the
ministry suddenly stopped its research, saying that while the
internal organs of tuna caught in the area were highly
radioactive, the flesh of the tuna was safe for human
consumption. 

The United States settled the incident politically with Japan by
paying the government $2 million in compensation, while not
acknowledging its legal responsibility for the incident. The
relationship between the death of Aikichi Kuboyama, who was the
chief radio operator of the Lucky Dragon, and his exposure to
radioactivity was never properly investigated. 

"The content of the Japan-U.S. conference is classified even
today, and there are lots of unclear points," Takahashi said.
"The document shows that the research was stopped not by Japan
of its own accord, but as a result of the consideration the
Japanese government gave to the wishes of the U.S. government." 

Osamu Ishii, professor emeritus at Hitotsubashi University and
an expert on the history of international relations, said: "For
the United States, the research into radioactive contamination
of tuna could have raised anti-U.S. sentiment in its ally Japan,
and the United States feared that Japan would leak the data on
radiation to the Eastern bloc in the fierce competition with the
then Soviet Union for nuclear development. The document showed
that the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission prevented these
possibilities." 

Takahashi is to publish the document in a book titled
"Kakusareta Hibakusha" (Hidden Radioactivity Victims),
co-written with other researchers and to be published this month
by Gaifusha Publishing Inc. 

--- 

� 2005, The Yomiuri Shimbun. 

Visit the Daily Yomiuri Online at
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/index-e.htm/

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.   
*****************************************************************
 43 DesMoinesRegister.com: An eight-year battle for compensation in Middletown is over.

By REID FORGRAVE REGISTER STAFF WRITER 

June 19, 2005                  

Middletown, Ia. � A sign that marks the entrance to this
southeast Iowa town proclaims its point of pride as much as the
dark cloud that's hung over it for decades:

"Welcome to Middletown, Home of the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant."

Today � more than half a century after 4,000 workers began
assembling and testing some of this country's most impressive
nuclear weapons, and eight years after they slowly came to
realize the plant probably caused widespread illnesses � a hint
of sunlight pokes through the dark cloud.

It's a day of celebration in Middletown, population 535, but the
celebration is tinged with frustration after years of jumping
through bureaucratic hoops.

Today is 30 days after the Department of Health and Human
Services approved a recommendation that qualifying workers with
radiation-induced illnesses should receive $150,000 and medical
care. The end of a 30-day waiting period without congressional
action to block the approval means the long-awaited compensation
package is official.

The checks from the Department of Labor, which should start
filtering down within a couple of months to the 364 former
nuclear workers and their surviving families who have already
filed claims, aim to compensate for lost lives, harrowing
illnesses and decades of more questions than answers from the
government.

But for many of those receiving checks, including Anita Loving,
46, of Fairfield, today is bittersweet.

"I'm still really angry because my dad didn't see this," said
Loving, who will receive $300,000 because both of her parents
worked at the plant and died of cancer. "He was the one who
deserved it, not me. He wanted to see they got recognized and
got compensated. But it wasn't about the money. It was about
recognizing they didn't take care of him like they should have.
They snowed everybody, not just my dad."

Loving's mother, Mary Frances Pirtle, had breast cancer and died
at 71. Her father, Wendell Pirtle, died this spring of colon
cancer. The World War II bomber pilot was 82 and had worked at
the plant for more than 20 years.

Both parents are part of a group of former workers diagnosed
with at least one of 22 specific cancers, who will automatically
receive compensation.

U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, a Democrat from Iowa, planned to mark the
occasion Saturday with plant workers.

"These people worked in a very dangerous situation," he said
earlier. "They weren't getting shot at. But what they did was as
dangerous as what anyone else did during the long years of the
Cold War. . . . America owes them a great debt."

The workers' eight-year battle for compensation began with a
letter.

Bob Anderson was a plant guard supervisor from 1968 until 1973.
Anderson was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in 1988 and
says the slow-growing cancer will kill him.

In 1997, Anderson was taking a class at Southeastern Community
College when the teacher assigned the students to write letters
to government officials about environmental issues.

Anderson wrote to Harkin about the disproportionate number of
workers suffering from cancer. He made no mention of monetary
compensation, just that he wanted people to know of the dangers.

"From then," said Anderson, now 65 and living in Wheaton, Ill.,
"it's grown into a life of its own."

The Army claimed no nuclear weapons were made there. Anderson
persisted.

Harkin contacted the Department of Energy, who said nuclear
weapons were, in fact, made at the plant.

Filing the claims has been arduous. The government originally
demanded that workers prove how much radiation they were exposed
to and the likelihood of that causing their illnesses.

"People had lots of exposure," said Dr. Lar Fuortes, director of
the Burlington Atomic Energy Commission Plant-Former Worker
Program at the University of Iowa. "But you can't tell who's who
because the exposure data doesn't exist. The fairest thing is to
compensate all those who worked on Line 1. . . . In the justice
system you don't want to falsely convict somebody. Here you
don't want to falsely exclude somebody."

Last summer, a petition was approved to give automatic
compensation of $150,000 plus medical expenses to plant workers
who suffered from one or more of 22 specified cancers. Fuortes
said 364 workers so far have been approved for the special group
that gets the automatic compensation.

He expects an additional 150 to 200 former employees will
qualify, but they haven't filed a claim. He hopes the final
number to receive the $150,000 checks will be between 500 and
600, and he wants word to reach the several hundred employees
who transferred to an ammunition plant in Amarillo, Texas, after
the nuclear part of the Middletown plant closed in 1975.

All told, 1,128 people have already filed claims with the
Department of Labor. Claims in 525 cases have been denied
because the illnesses aren't covered; 624 cases were referred to
the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.

"We have been up and down the ladder so many times on this one,"
Harkin said. "We thought we had it so many times, and they
pulled it back. I wouldn't blame (the workers) if they don't
believe it until they got the check. But Sunday is the final
bell. The checks will be cut. No other escape hole now."

Another program under the Department of Labor, the so-called
Part E under the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Program
Act, deals with former workers who have occupational illnesses
related to plant work, such as chronic beryllium disease, lung
disease and asthma. A worker who has already qualified for the
automatic compensation benefit may also be eligible for this
money, in addition to the original $150,000.

The additional compensation varies but will not exceed $250,000
per claim, and it depends on age, percent of the body affected
and the amount of earnings lost.

The compensation checks assuage some of the workers' anger at
not being told of the dangers.

"You can never replace the people who are gone," said Anderson,
the former guard who started it all and who will receive a
$150,000 check. "But it does provide closure. Someone owned up
to it. Now you know why your spouse became ill and why they
suffered so much."

Workers wonder whether their protracted battle illustrates
democracy at its best or bureaucracy at its worst.

"It's the finest example of both," Harkin said. "Bob contacted
me, and it shows that democracy does work. But it also shows
bureaucracy can be painfully frustrating and awfully slow
sometimes."

U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley, a Republican from Iowa, blames the
Department of Energy, as well as military secrecy, for the delay.

"Can you imagine hiding behind national security for something
that happened in the 1950s and 1960s?" Grassley asked.

Lasca Yerington's first husband, Willard Courtney, died of colon
cancer after working nine years on Line 1. Her sister, Paula
Graham, has devoted countless hours to help widows of workers
fill out claims.

"Justice is this: They acknowledge they did this, and they take
care of medical care for these people," Graham said.

Like many, Ed Webb won't believe the workers have won until he
receives a check.

He's had his share of health problems: three heart attacks,
respiratory problems, prostate cancer that spread to his kidney.

"We were working on the same thing we dropped on Hiroshima, and
we didn't even wear gloves," Webb said. "I just feel I and the
rest of these people deserve honesty. Period. That's it. Not
money. Just honesty."

***

More questions?

Contact the University of Iowa College of Public Health's
Burlington Atomic Energy Commission
Plant-Former Worker Program.
 PHONE: (866) 282-5818, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays
 MAIL: BAECP-FWP, Department of Occupational and Environmental
Health, 100 Oakdale Campus, 222 IREH, Iowa City, IA 52242-5000
 ONLINE: www.public-health.
uiowa.edu/baecps

***

Requests

NEED TO FILE CLAIM : Former workers who have yet to file claims
can contact the Energy Employees Occupational Illness
Compensation Program Act resource center at (866) 540-4977 to
request forms and inquire about filing. Claim forms are also
available online at owcp/eeoicp/claimsforms.htm. 
CLAIM ALREADY FILED : Those with questions who have already
filed claims can call the Department of Labor district office at
(888) 805-3389.
 ADDITIONAL INFORMATION : The main Web page for the Energy
Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act is
owcp/eeoicp/main.htm .

 	 	   
    
      Copyright � 2005, The Des Moines Register.
*****************************************************************
 44 RedNova News: Study Shows Importance of Exposure Age for Hanford 
Nuclear Workers Cancer Risk
 
Posted on: Thursday, 16 June 2005,

CHAPEL HILL - The ages at which workers are exposed to low doses
of ionizing radiation apparently make a difference in whether
they will develop cancer, according to a new University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill study.

UNC scientists investigated deaths among workers at the U.S.
Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Richland, Wash. The
Hanford Site produced plutonium for atomic weapons, including
the first plutonium bombs dropped during World War II.

Researchers say the largest cancer risk from older-age exposures
is for lung cancer.

"Findings of radiation-related cancer risks among nuclear
workers have been questioned in the past by other scientists who
concluded that most occupational exposures were too low to cause
a detectable increase in cancer rates," said Dr. Steven B. Wing,
associate professor of epidemiology at the UNC School of Public
Health. "Predictions based on studies of survivors of the atomic
bombings of Japan during the war suggested that cancer risks
from radiation exposures of Hanford workers would be too small
to detect."

The new study evaluated radiation risks by using measurements of
workers’ radiation exposures recorded on radiation-sensitive
badges worn on the job, Wing said. Cancers were identified
through death records. Researchers identified 8,153 deaths,
including 2,265 from cancer, among 26,389 workers hired between
1944 and 1978 and followed through 1994 	 . 

"We found no relationship between radiation doses and deaths
from causes other than cancer, primarily heart disease and
stroke," he said. "Additionally, radiation doses received at
younger ages were not associated with cancer deaths. However,
readings on radiation badges worn by workers when they were ages
55 and above were associated with death rates for cancer, and
particularly for lung cancer."

A report on the findings appears in the June 17 issue of
Occupational and Environmental Medicine, a professional journal.
Dr. David B. Richardson, assistant professor of epidemiology, is
co-author.

The two found that cancer death rates increased, on average,
about 3 percent for every additional rem (a unit of radiation
dose) received at ages 55 and above, Wing said. For lung cancer,
the increase was about 9 percent per rem. U.S. workers are
permitted to receive up to five rem per year, roughly 15 times
more than average annual background radiation.

"Findings of increased cancer associated with low-level
radiation exposures among nuclear workers are important for
several reasons," he said. "Among the considerations are common
exposures to radiation from medical procedures, the push for new
nuclear power plants and debates over whether to release
radioactively contaminated metals into the consumer
recycled-metal market."

"Studies of cancer following long-term exposure to low-level
ionizing radiation are especially relevant to occupational and
environmental protection standards and to compensation programs
for radiation-exposed workers and veterans," Richardson said.

As people get older, they may become more susceptible to a
variety of exposures, including heat and cold, infections,
pharmaceuticals and toxic chemicals, he said. In contrast,
researchers studying Japanese A-bomb survivors concluded that
older people were less sensitive to radiation-induced cancer.
"Results from Hanford may be different because the older A-bomb
survivors had to be especially strong to survive the immediate
effects of the blasts," Wing said. "Survival of the fittest
could have made radiation appear to be less important among the
older survivors."

Older people may be more sensitive to radiation because they
already have accumulated a lifetime of exposures to radiation,
chemicals and other carcinogens, he said. They already may have
gone through some of the cellular transformations that lead to
cancer.

"Also, aging brings declines in immune function and the ability
to repair genetic damage," Wing said.

Although radiation risks were higher for older workers in the
UNC study, it would be inappropriate to conclude that younger
people are not at risk, he said. He and Richardson could not
examine cancers that did not lead to death, and they could not
examine other possible effects of radiation, including genetic
damage that could be passed on to children and impacts on
developing fetuses.

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
supported the research.

On the Internet:
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 

© 2002-2005 RedNova.com. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 45 Deseret News: Questions haunt many Downwinders 

[deseretnews.com] 

Friday, June 17, 2005 

By Joe Bauman Deseret Morning News 

A Malad, Idaho, man who was part of a study of possible 
connections between atomic testing fallout in southern Utah and 
thyroid abnormalities is dismayed federal officials are ending 
the study before all subjects could be examined. 

J Truman, who grew up in Enterprise, Washington County, 
says his earliest memory is sitting on his father's knee, 
watching the sky light up during an atomic bomb test at the 
nearby Nevada Test Site. 

He "never forgot it, nor how it scared me," he says. 
Today he is the director of Downwinders, the anti-atomic testing 
activist group that tracks the health effects of fallout from 
bomb tests conducted in the 1950s and early 1960s. 

Truman was among the school students in Washington County 
in 1965 who form the core subjects for the study of possible 
connections between fallout and thyroid abnormalities. 

Dr. Joseph L. Lyon of the University of Utah has been 
conducting the study for the past 3 1/2 years. But because the 
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is refusing to fund 
it further, the study is ending after examining 1,700 of about 
4,500 subjects that include a control group from Arizona. 

Lyon said Monday that researchers will be notifying 
hundreds about thyroid abnormalities and advising them to seek 
medical follow-up. 

For 40 years, Truman said, there has been no definitive 
answer to "the question most important to all the thousands of 
residents of Washington County � school kids when we started � 
what the fallout did to us. What risks of cancer and other 
thyroid disorders did it leave us with? What medical nightmares 
may the future hold?" 

Answers still are not available, he wrote in an e-mail, 
"simply because CDC doesn't feel like signing a check to finish 
the study!" 

Lyon pointed out that the CDC paid close to $50 million 
to study possible health effects from radiation at the nuclear 
weapons laboratory at Hanford, Wash. That study came up with no 
association between the radiation and health effects, he said. 

"We're at $8 million," he added, referring to the U. 
study. 

"We're saying we have found an association (between 
fallout and health effects) and these people do have problems, 
and they need further follow-up. And the answer from the 
government is, 'Yeah, we're not interested.' " 

CDC director Dr. Julie Louise Gerberding wrote earlier 
this year: "The scientific quality of the study was questioned 
by external scientific reviews. . . . Both reviews focused on 
the lack of scientifically defensible dosimetry (the method of 
measuring how much radiation was absorbed in a single exposure), 
power and treatment of uncertainty. Those issues form the 
foundation upon which the study is based." 

Lyon wrote two letters to the CDC challenging those 
statements. 

In the shorter version, dated April 29, he spells out the 
study's responses: 

� "The dosimetry model we have developed and are using in 
this study has been rigorously reviewed and is widely accepted 
by radiation researchers as the most advanced work in this area. 
There is no basis upon which to criticize this model as being 
scientifically unsound," he wrote. 

� The researchers carried out "multiple power 
calculations, which have included taking into account associated 
uncertainties, for your agency and the National Academy of 
Science. We have always demonstrated that we have sufficient 
statistical power to conduct this study." 

� The team did a great deal of work on the uncertainties 
associated with the dosimetry model. It "demonstrated that 
explicitly accounting for uncertainties actually increased, 
rather than decreased, the measured risk of thyroid disease due 
to radiation exposure." 

� The process used by CDC to review the team's latest 
grant application "was stacked to deliver a negative review on 
scientific questions that we had been told by CDC and previous 
reviewers were settled." The word "stacked" was in italics. 

� "The public has not been involved in an advisory 
capacity on this study, despite being the largest single 
environmental carcinogenic exposure in Utah" as well as in the 
United States, he wrote. 

"Gerberding didn't even respond to the letter," Lyon said.

The CDC did not respond to a Deseret Morning News request 
for comments on the latest developments. 

Morale among his team is not good, Lyon said. 

"The assumption was, this is an important study," he 
said. "But we're all finding there's little interest from the 
politicians. And from the standpoint of the CDC, they did not 
want to see this study continued." 

E-mail: bau@desnews.com 

� 2005 Deseret News Publishing Company 
*****************************************************************
 46 The Courier-Mail: Doubt on NT uranium mining 

[19jun05]

Source: AAP                                                     

By Karen Michelmore

THE re-elected Northern Territory Government's anti-uranium 
policy could set it on course for a showdown with the Federal 
Government.

The Howard Government has been vocal in its support for an 
increase in uranium mining, given high world uranium prices.

 But the NT Labor Government, returned in a landslide on the
weekend, has promised no new uranium mines will be established
in the territory.

 Environmentalists have hailed the election result, in which
Labor could have 15 to 18 of the 25 Legislative Assembly seats,
as a big win for the environment.

 The Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) said it sent a
"clear message to Canberra" that territorians were opposed to
uranium mining. 

"It's a clear end to this push for expanded uranium mining in
the territory," ACF nuclear campaigner Dave Sweeney said.

 "What that (the election) does is send a very clear message to
industry that they are not going to get new uranium projects in
the NT."

 The territory holds rich uranium deposits, with Energy
Resources of Australia (ERA) currently mining at Ranger, which
is surrounded by Kakadu National Park.

 French nuclear power company Cogema is lobbying traditional
owners in a bid to mine its multi-million dollar, 14,000 tonne
Koongarra deposit in Kakadu National Park.

 And West Australian-based Arafura Resources is seeking
permission to mine 200 tonnes of uranium a year at Yalyirimbi in
Central Australia.

 NT Chief Minister Clare Martin today reiterated her opposition
to uranium mining.

 "There is no difference between the territory Labor and federal
Labor and other state Labor parties in our attitude towards
uranium," she said.

 "We (have) made it very clear ... that I would not support and
Cabinet would not support a uranium mine at Koongarra.

 "I think that would be a real desecration of Kakadu National
Park, and certainly as tourism minister and chief minister, you
just wouldn't do that."

 However, it is believed new uranium mining in the territory
could be possible, at ERA's Jabiluka deposit, if the company
gained the support of traditional owners.

 Mining at ERA's Ranger deposit is expected to wind up about
2008, with the company leaving open the door to possible future
mining if it obtains the consent of traditional owners.

 Under a landmark deal, traditional owners have a right of veto
over the project.

 The NT Opposition has criticised Labor's anti-uranium mining
policy, saying it sent the worst possible message to business
investors.

 "Two companies, possibly looking to invest millions in the
territory mining uranium, have been told they have wasted their
money because the Labor government will not allow another new
mine," Mr Burke said this week.

 "Business around Australia will be watching and shaking their
heads in disbelief at the way the Labor Government is conducting
itself."

� Queensland Newspapers   
*****************************************************************
 47 AU ABC: Labor uranium promise 'hypocritical'
 
Australian Broadcasting Corporation Online">   

 Saturday, 18 June 2005. 09:00 (AEST)Saturday, 18 June 2005.

 The mining industry has reacted with disappointment, but not
surprise, to the Northern Territory Chief Minister's ban on new
uranium mines if the ALP is re-elected. 

On ABC radio yesterday, Clare Martin ruled out any new uranium
mining if Labor wins today's vote. 

Territory-based uranium exploration companies say that decision
was not a shock, with Greens preferences in marginal seats on
the line. 

But the exploration director for Aldershot Energy, Brian
Richardson, says it is hard to justify, with the Ranger uranium
mine still running. 

"To allow mining but not allow exploration is just
hypocritical," he said. 

He says Greens leaders around the world are turning to nuclear
energy as alternatives like solar power prove untenable. 

"We've tried wind, and none of those technologies will ever be
able to generate power for a major city," he said. 

Mr Aldershot says Labor's ban would tie the Territory to fossil
fuels.

*****************************************************************
 48 Daily Sentinel: Crowd at GJ uranium expo talks of boom
 
Saturday, June 18, 2005                                                                                                                                                                                                 
	 	
The prospect of another uranium boom in the United States is
attracting an international crowd to Two Rivers Convention
Center today. 

Several Canada-based companies are among the uranium boosters
seeking money and minerals at the Uranium Expo, an event that
organizers hope to stage annually. The expo began Friday with a
small trade show and continues today with a series of speakers. 

Lori Walton, president and director of Firestone Ventures Inc.
of Edmonton, Alberta, said she decided to attend the conference
to promote her companys planned uranium mining venture in
Alberta but also to learn whats happening with the industry in
the United States. 

Were looking to raise awareness of our company and our work so
people will buy our stock, she said. 

Firestone Ventures has interests in gold, zinc, and copper
throughout Central and North America, but began searching for
uranium only recently, Walton said. She and other uranium
speculators at the expo said they believe uranium is on the
beginning edge of a long-term boom. 

There is not enough uranium in the world today to power enough
nuclear reactors for todays and tomorrows electrical needs,
Walton said. Im convinced (the boom) is real. 

Uranium prices recently rose to about $29 per pound from
single-digit lows, said Chad Wasilenkoff, chief executive
officer of British Columbia-based Titan Uranium Exploration and
a private enterprise, Fortress Financial, that is looking for
uranium projects to fund in the United States. 

I feel fairly confident well see $50 within the next 12 months,
Wasilenkoff said. In two years, he said, the price of uranium
could reach $100 per pound. 

Demand is increasing exponentially, and supply is decreasing,
especially with high-grade (uranium ore), he said. 

More than 30 nuclear power plants are in the planning or
construction stage in China and India, Wasilenkoff said, and
more nuclear plants are in store for other parts of the world 
including the United States  as the demand for energy increases. 

Wasilenkoff said that Friday he heard as many as eight proposals
from people who own uranium claims in western Colorado. Hell
take the proposals back to his companys geologists, who will
study them and decide how much commercial potential they have. 

Ralph Kettell, president of Concentric Energy Corp., which is
developing a uranium property in Arizona, said his company is a
co-sponsor of the Uranium Expo because he wants to bring
together investors and uranium experts interested in what he
believes is the next uranium boom. 

Wed like to increase awareness of whats going on in the uranium
market, not just for investors, but for people who have been in
the business, Kettell said. 	 

  � 2005 Cox Newspapers, Inc. - The Daily Sentinel   
    
*****************************************************************
 49 Cincinnati Enquirer: Nuclear 'waste' is valuable resource
 
Saturday, June 18, 2005 

Your voice: G. Ivan Maldonado 
  	 
Nearly 25 years after Congress called for construction of an
underground nuclear waste repository, many Americans still don't
comprehend that the "waste" is worth a fortune.

The highly radioactive material that's usually called waste,
stored at sites around the country in preparation for shipment
to the repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, is actually used
nuclear fuel. It contains uranium and plutonium that can be
extracted to make new reactor fuel for generating electricity.

It's an enormously valuable energy source that should be
recycled, which would extend nuclear resources and reduce the
costs of disposal and nuclear power. This would help nuclear
power to meet the nation's increasing need for clean energy.
There's nothing new about nuclear recycling: It's precisely what
France, Germany, Belgium, Great Britain and Japan have been
doing for many years.

A House Appropriations Committee has directed the Department of
Energy to accelerate a program that could lead to reprocessing
of used nuclear fuel within a few years.

Reprocessing also reduces the volume of nuclear waste to
one-fifth its size, and reduces its toxicity. Indeed, it
eliminates most of the waste from nuclear power generation.
Instead of having to build another repository, there would be
enough space in the Yucca Mountain facility to hold waste from
nuclear power plants as well as from the U.S. defense program.
Tens of billions of dollars would be saved.

Reprocessing would need to be done differently than in the past.
U.S. reprocessing work was halted in 1977 when President Jimmy
Carter declared that the extraction of plutonium could lead to
nuclear weapons proliferation. But researchers believe that the
technology can be made proliferation-proof. Besides, the
decision to halt U.S. reprocessing has not deterred rogue
countries from seeking to establish nuclear arsenals.

The opportunity to expand the use of nuclear power through
reprocessing is a better and far more workable approach for
achieving energy security than disposing used nuclear fuel as if
it were waste. The effort in Congress to lift the ban makes
sense: increase funding on research to make it
proliferation-proof; don't hamper the expansion of nuclear power
in the process; adjust future policy in response to technical
progress.

Dr. G. Ivan Maldonado is an associate professor in the
Department of Mechanical, Industrial and Nuclear Engineering at
the University of Cincinnati. 
	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 
Copyright1995-2005. The Cincinnati Enquirer, a Gannett Co.
*****************************************************************
 50 DenverPost.com: Uranium boom fuels upbeat industry meet

Article Launched: 06/19/2005 01:00:00 AM                                                        
		
  By Nancy Lofholm Denver Post Staff Writer   

Grand Junction - Nearly 110 years after the country's first
uranium claims were staked in western Colorado and a
quarter-century after the uranium industry last went bust, a
gathering of industry representatives this weekend heralded a
new boom in radioactive rock. 

Uranium Expo 2005 brought together nearly 300 people from 45
uranium-related companies and five countries Friday and
Saturday, giving heavyweight credence to what had been hinted at
with the reopening of mothballed mines and the scramble for more
uranium processing facilities: Another uranium boom is underway. 

"Talk about a uranium boom - we are in one," said Arden Larson, a 
Grand Junction geologist who organized the conference to bring 
together a uranium-focused group, ranging from miners seeking 
jobs to mining-company executives looking for investors and 
properties. 

Mining in a rich uranium belt arching across western Colorado
has already gone through booms in the 1950s and 1970s. But an
estimated 75 million pounds of uranium and 500 million pounds of
the steel hardener vanadium still are locked in ore under the
Uravan Uranium Belt - enough for a third boom. 

The catalyst for that boom is a shortage that 				 				 					
					 					 				 				 				 					 					 				 has pushed uranium
prices to nearly $30 a pound from a low of $7 and vanadium to
more than $10 a pound, up from $2. 

That financial news was displayed in the form of a steeply
climbing graph on the back of uranium-oxide-yellow T-shirts worn
by conference workers. 

That news also sparked the donning of containment suits and
respirators by a small group of sign-waving protesters outside
the Two Rivers Convention Center. 

"This is all centered around greed," Joel Prudhomme, a member of
the group Voice of Reason, said of the uranium hoopla taking
place inside the building. 

The participants inside, including a large contingent of Canadian 
mining companies that have been snapping up hundreds of mining 
claims in western Colorado and eastern Utah, were more keyed into 
the term "demand." 

"The demand is increasing. There is no doubt about it. The world
needs more uranium," said Tom Pool, chairman of Golden-based
International Nuclear Inc. 

Pool said the world's annual uranium consumption stood at about
175 million pounds a year ago. By 2015, that demand is projected
to rise to 200 million pounds, as more nuclear power plants are
built and the 440 nuclear reactors around 				 				 					 					
					 				 				 				 					 					 				 the world use up more of
the dwindling stockpile of existing uranium. 

The boom that already has half a dozen mines reopened in
Colorado won't be as easy as taking old mines out of mothballs
and cranking up mills into high gear. 

The industry faces a shortage of trained miners, a need for more
milling capabilities and a lack of places to deposit tailings. 

Since the last boom, uranium mining and milling regulations have
been tightened, bringing more permitting requirements, more
safety rules to follow and increased bonding to cover
reclamation and cleanup of sites. 

Staff writer Nancy Lofholm 				 				 					 					 					 				 				
				 					 					 				 can be reached at 970-256-1957 or
nlofholm@denverpost.com. 				 				 				 			   		 		 		
 			   				 					 					 					 				 			   			   				 					 					
  All contents Copyright 2005 The Denver Post or other copyright
*****************************************************************
 51 Epping Forest Guardian: Nuclear Secret In Waltham Abbey 

By David Jackman

SECRET documents published after 20 years reveal that a huge
area of land in Waltham Abbey was considered as the site for a
nuclear waste dump. 

The fact is revealed in papers released by Nirex, the UK's
nuclear waste consultants, under the Freedom of Information Act. 

While the exact location is not specified papers seen by the
Guardian describe it as 329 acres of Ministry of Defence-owned
land. 

It was among an initial list of 537 sites, which was whittled
down to a shortlist of 12 sites in the late 1980s. Bradwell,
which is the site of a nuclear power station, and Potton Island,
near Southend, were the two Essex sites on the final shortlist. 

The Nirex report states: "The way evaluation criteria were used
to assess the sites was never discussed with stakeholders and
was conducted in secret. 

"The sites considered in the site selection process, other than
Dounreay and Sellafield, have never been published in line with
Government policy to keep the information confidential to
prevent blight affecting any of the areas that have been
considered as having possible sites. 

"Several requests for the list over the years have been refused
but the list has now been presented following the Freedom of
Information Act." 

A new review of long-term radioactive waste management options
is being undertaken with recommendations due in July next year,
to be followed by a period of public consultation. 

The Waltham Abbey site and another at RAF Wethersfield near
Saffron Walden were discounted at the first stage of the
selection process. 

The report, describing the Waltham Abbey site, said: "The deep
geology was considered unlikely to meet the identified
geological requirements or the site had an environmental status
that would be likely to rule out development." 

Nirex says the old list "will not form the starting point of any
new site selection exercise". 

However the document adds: "The geology in the UK has not
changed so sites that were considered to be potentially suitable
previously on geological grounds could be considered suitable in
a future site selection process. 

"Equally given the developments that have occurred, sites where
the geology was viewed as less favourable previously could be
included in the new site selection process. In short, the look
of any future list cannot be predicted at this stage and no
sites can be ruled in or out at this point." 

Essex County Council leader Lord Hanningfield said: "I'm
obviously very concerned that such a study was undertaken in
absolute secrecy and without any involvement from the affected
community. 

"However I am pleased both that this previously secret historic
data has finally been published and that Nirex has committed
itself to a much more open public consultation when it launches
any future search for sites. 

"Essex County Council will be forthright in our representation
of the people of Essex during any future exercise. We will
obviously expect Nirex to stand by its commitment that the named
sites will not be a starting point for the next consultation
exercise. 

"Given that south Essex is now a major growth area, I cannot
believe that these sites would be identified in any future
exercise." 

Friends of the Earth's director Tony Juniper said: "It is an
absolute disgrace that the location of these sites has been kept
from the public for so long. 

"Despite what ministers may say, Nirex has made it quite clear
that each of the sites considered geologically suitable in the
past could be considered suitable in the future. 

"Every community named on this list should take steps to help
halt plans to expand nuclear power in the UK. 

"The best way to begin dealing with the UK's nuclear waste
legacy starts with halting the production of any more. 

"We support moves for the safe long-term management of our
existing radioactive waste. But the UK's energy future must lie
in energy efficiency, the production of safe, renewable energy
and the cleaner use of fossil fuels, not in trying to breathe
new life into the discredited, dangerous and expensive disaster
of nuclear power." 

9:59am Saturday 18th June 2005
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 52 Boston Globe: Army handed revised bill - 

Boston.com - 

Starmet cleanup cost up by $3.1m
 
By Davis Bushnell, Globe Correspondent  |  June 19, 2005 

CONCORD -- The estimated cost of removing more than 3,700
barrels of depleted uranium from Starmet Corp.'s Superfund site
in West Concord has now increased by $3.1 million, according to
state Department of Environmental Protection officials.

As a result, according to department spokesman Joseph Ferson,
the DEP sent a June 13 letter to the Army asking it to pick up
the revised tab of $8.3 million for removing those barrels, a
step considered crucial to cleaning up the 46-acre property off
Route 62.

The Army, which agreed in April 2004 to pay for removing and
disposing of the barrels containing low levels of radioactive
material, has 20 days to reply to the request for more money,
Ferson said. The barrels are stored in Starmet buildings.

Ben Porritt, a spokesman for the US Justice Department, which is
handling the matter for the Army, said, ''We've received the
letter and are reviewing the next steps."

Starmet's predecessor company, Nuclear Metals Inc., produced
uranium-tipped bullets for the Army from 1970 to 1999. In 2003,
the Army and four other parties were cited by the US
Environmental Protection Agency for contaminating the property,
which in June 2001 went on the agency's Superfund list of the
nation's most polluted sites.

Bids submitted by two out-of-state contractors three months ago
exceeded the original cleanup estimate of $5.2 million, Ferson
noted, because of additional charges for evaluating and
disposing of the barrels. Also, the DEP will have to spend more
on overseeing the process, he said.

Since the 2004 agreement with the Army involved the state
Attorney General's Office as well, it is believed that the Army
will comply with the request for more funds, said Ferson.

If the Army does comply, then a contractor will be selected and
start the yearlong project during the summer, he said.

The sooner the work gets started, the better, a remediation
specialist and a Concord citizens group member said.

The disposal of the barrels of uranium represents ''the last
obstacle" to pinpointing the extent of the property's
contamination, said Bruce Thompson, project manager for Windsor,
Conn.-based de maximis inc., which is conducting a remedial
investigation of the Starmet property for the Army and the other
parties cited by the EPA. ''After a contractor has removed those
barrels, we've got to go into the buildings and investigate
what's left," in terms of other possible contaminants, he said.

The barrels continue to be guarded around-the-clock and do not
constitute a present danger, Thompson and others have said.

Although the delays in removing the barrels have been very
frustrating, ''I think the Army will meet its obligations and
come up with the extra money," said James West, technical
assistance coordinator for the Citizens Research and
Environmental Watch group. It has a $50,000 technical-assistance
grant from the EPA.

In addition to the Army, the others responsible for the
property's contamination are the US Department of Energy,
Whittaker Corp. of Simi Valley, Calif., Textron Inc. of
Providence, and MONY Life Insurance Co. of New York City.[ /]  �

Copyright 2005 Globe Newspaper Company. More: 
*****************************************************************
 53 NEWS.com.au: Doubt on NT uranium mining 

(19-06-2005)
 
By Karen Michelmore June 19, 2005

From: AAP

THE re-elected Northern Territory Government's anti-uranium
policy could set it on course for a showdown with the Federal
Government. The Howard Government has been vocal in its support
for an increase in uranium mining, given high world uranium
prices.

 But the NT Labor Government, returned in a landslide on the
weekend, has promised no new uranium mines will be established
in the territory.

 Environmentalists have hailed the election result, in which
Labor could have 15 to 18 of the 25 Legislative Assembly seats,
as a big win for the environment.

 The Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) said it sent a
"clear message to Canberra" that territorians were opposed to
uranium mining.

 "It's a clear end to this push for expanded uranium mining in
the territory," ACF nuclear campaigner Dave Sweeney said.

 "What that (the election) does is send a very clear message to
industry that they are not going to get new uranium projects in
the NT."

 The territory holds rich uranium deposits, with Energy
Resources of Australia (ERA) currently mining at Ranger, which
is surrounded by Kakadu National Park.

 French nuclear power company Cogema is lobbying traditional
owners in a bid to mine its multi-million dollar, 14,000 tonne
Koongarra deposit in Kakadu National Park.

 And West Australian-based Arafura Resources is seeking
permission to mine 200 tonnes of uranium a year at Yalyirimbi in
Central Australia.

 NT Chief Minister Clare Martin today reiterated her opposition
to uranium mining.

 "There is no difference between the territory Labor and federal
Labor and other state Labor parties in our attitude towards
uranium," she said.

 "We (have) made it very clear ... that I would not support and
Cabinet would not support a uranium mine at Koongarra.

 "I think that would be a real desecration of Kakadu National
Park, and certainly as tourism minister and chief minister, you
just wouldn't do that."

 However, it is believed new uranium mining in the territory
could be possible, at ERA's Jabiluka deposit, if the company
gained the support of traditional owners.

 Mining at ERA's Ranger deposit is expected to wind up about
2008, with the company leaving open the door to possible future
mining if it obtains the consent of traditional owners.

 Under a landmark deal, traditional owners have a right of veto
over the project.

 The NT Opposition has criticised Labor's anti-uranium mining
policy, saying it sent the worst possible message to business
investors.

 "Two companies, possibly looking to invest millions in the
territory mining uranium, have been told they have wasted their
money because the Labor government will not allow another new
mine," Mr Burke said this week.

 "Business around Australia will be watching and shaking their
heads in disbelief at the way the Labor Government is conducting
itself."

PolicyCopyright 2005 News Limited. All times AEST (GMT + 10).
*****************************************************************
 54 WGRZ: West Valley waste ruling

2 On Your Side - News www.wgrz.com
                                                                                                                                        Posted by:                                                       Nancy Sanders,                                                         
6/18/2005 7:09:20

Shipments of low level nuclear waste at West Valley will be 
stepped up following a decision this week by the Energy 
Department. 

The Energy Department has been debating the best way to handle 
the out-of-state shipment of waste generated from cleanup of the 
site. The most dangerous waste will be stored on site for several 
more years. The low-level waste will be shipped out by truck or 
train over the next 10 years. It will take more thatn 600 
shipments by rail or nearly 2,000 by truck.

  Copyright � 2005 by WGRZ-TV Buffalo. Terms of Service    
[Gannett]   





*****************************************************************
 55 Pantagraph.com: Opinion - Illinoisans have lot at stake in Yucca Mountain dispute 

06/18/05
                                                                 
Pantagraph Editorial 														 061805 opinion 1 1 The

Residents of Central Illinois are affected by an uncooperative
U.S. Geological Survey scientist who may have abdicated his
responsibilities to the public in a search for a permanent
burial site for spent nuclear fuel.

 Scientist Joseph Hevesi has been supoenaed to appear before a
House subcommittee on June 29 because he has refused to
cooperate with investigators. E-mails he wrote to fellow
scientists between 1998 and 2000 that questioned Yucca Mountain
scientific reports were uncovered and publicly revealed this
spring by the U.S. Energy Department.

 There are widely varied interpretations of his e-mails that
have brought 22 years and more than $7 billion worth of testing,
at electric users' expense, to a virtual standstill at Yucca
Mountain, the site chosen as the best in the United States for
long-range storage of spent nuclear fuel.

 The e-mails suggest quality assurance testing was not done as
required in trying to determine whether water seeping into or
flowing through the mountain less than 100 miles from Las Vegas
would allow special metal casks to corrode and allow radioactive
waste to escape.

 Yucca Mountain advocates label Hevesi as a disgruntled employee
who was pressured because of budget and time constraints. And
some have pointed the finger at Democratic Senate leader Harry
Reid, who has led efforts to cut Yucca Mountain funding since
the state was unsuccessful in stopping the U.S. government from
designating the mountain as the official nuclear repository.

 Opponents call Hevesi's e-mails the "smoking gun" that proves
Yucca Mountain is not a safe storage place.

 The official storage place is supposed to provide safe storage
for nuclear waste for 10,000 years -- based on scientific
assumptions that no one can prove and for which no one will ever
be held accountable.

 If years of fraudulent documentation by Hevesi and other
scientists has helped lead the United States to this point with
Yucca Mountain, it's understandable why the scientist has to be
subpoenaed and has been uncooperative.

 What's really criminal is that this revelation causes even more
delay in moving spent nuclear fuel from more than 130 temporary
facilities in 39 states, including Illinois, to a permanent
repository. The temporary sites include the Clinton Nuclear
Power Plant. Temporary storage could also become a problem at
nuclear reactors in Joliet, Rockford, Morris, LaSalle and the
Quad Cities.

 About half of the electricity produced in Illinois is from
nuclear power.

 And Illinoisans whose electricity is produced from nuclear
power have been paying a monthly fee on their electric bills
since 1983 to help finance development of a permanent U.S.
nuclear disposal site. More than $2 billion of the $22 billion
collected nationally thus far has come from Illinois residents.

 So Illinois should have more than a passing interest in what
happens as a result of testimony by Hevesi and other scientists
working at Yucca Mountain.

Copyright � 2005, Pantagraph Publishing Co. All rights
*****************************************************************
 56 deseret news: Goshute nuclear plan flayed 

[deseretnews.com] 

Saturday, June 18, 2005 

About 50 in House sign letter opposing storage 

By Jerry Spangler Deseret Morning News 

WASHINGTON � More than four dozen Democratic House members have 
signed a letter written by Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, urging 
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to reject a license application
by Private Fuel Storage to store spent nuclear fuel on Goshute 
tribal lands in Utah's Tooele County. 

['Photo'] [''] 
Deseret Morning News graphic 

Kucinich, who is still seeking co-signers for the letter 
to be sent next week, called the proposal "unjust, extremely 
dangerous and unnecessary. The history of exploitation and 
racism carried out towards Native Americans by the U.S. 
government is well documented, and we must not relive it." 

Among the signers is Rep. Shelley Berkley, a Nevada 
Democrat who is joining the PFS fight even though many in the 
Utah delegation have been lukewarm in supporting Nevada's 
opposition to a permanent spent-fuel waste dump at Yucca 
Mountain. 

None of the three Utah members of the House had seen the 
letter as of Friday, but all were supportive. 

"I applaud him for what he's doing," said Scott Parker, 
spokesman for Rep. Bishop, R-Utah. He added the Utah delegation 
has sent its fair share of letters to the NRC asking for the 
same thing. 

Charles Isom, spokesman for Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah, 
said Cannon hasn't seen the letter but has signed similar 
letters by the delegation in the past. 

The staff of Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, is reviewing the 
letter. The congressman had not yet seen it. 

Kucinich, one of the few presidential candidates to 
campaign in Utah during the past election, said it "is unjust 
for the United States to target a destitute and vulnerable 
Native American tribe" and that the Skull Valley band of 
Goshutes possesses an "inextricable spiritual attachment to the 
land they inhabit, and many tribal members say it is all they 
have left." 

Despite the opposition voices of Kucinich and the others, 
the NRC is widely expected to ratify the recommendation of the 
Atomic Safety and Licensing Board (ASLB) to grant PFS a license 
to store up to 40,000 tons of nuclear waste for up to 40 years 
at the site about 70 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. 

Utah officials, who have been fighting the proposal during 
the licensing process, recently lost another round before the 
ASLB to reconsider its earlier ruling. 

A consortium of nuclear power utilities that makes up PFS 
could begin shipments of spent fuel to Utah within another year 
or so, depending on the result of the state's inevitable court 
challenges to the license. 

Kucinich echoed what others critics, including Utah 
officials, have said for years. 

"This proposal is a safety risk to all Americans along 
the transportation routes to the proposed facility," he wrote. 
"Transporting casks cross-country creates the possibility of a 
potentially catastrophic radioactivity release due to an 
accident or terrorist attack." 

The letter says that nuclear waste could be a primary 
terrorist target and that handling and transportation of nuclear 
waste increases the likelihood of accidents. 

"Transportation routes proposed by rail, road and barge 
could pass through as many as 44 states and the District of 
Columbia, putting the waste within half a mile of 50 million 
people," he said. "Transportation of such high volumes of 
nuclear waste would put virtually every part of the country at 
risk." 

Kucinich also said dry casks like the ones that would be 
used in Skull Valley are an unproven technology and have had 
problems with hairline fractures, explosions due to chemical 
reactions and welding failures. 

"There is no good reason to construct this facility, but 
there are many reasons to oppose it. PFS' proposal is dangerous 
to Americans, violates the rights of the Skull Valley band of 
Goshutes and is not in our national interest," he wrote. 

� 2005 Deseret News Publishing Company 
*****************************************************************
 57 AU ABC: Greenies won't let Martin's uranium promise go. 

19/06/2005. ABC News Online
 	
"Australian Broadcasting Corporation Online">   

Northern Territory environmentalists say they will hold Labor to
its commitment to stop the development of any more uranium mines.

 Last week, Chief Minister Clare Martin said she would ban any
new uranium mines within the next four years if she won
yesterday's election.

 The Environment Centre of the Northern Territory (ECNT) says it
expects Ms Martin to keep her promise now she has won a second
term.

 The ECNT's Peter Robertson says solar energy is infinitely
preferable to either coal or nuclear power.

 "What we need in the Territory and elsewhere around Australia
-and around the world - is a shift away from fossil fuels into a
new future that's based on energy efficiency, reduced energy
demand and renewable energies," he said. 

"Now that they've made that announcement, we think it's a very
serious commitment and we're very pleased with it, and we will
make sure that they stick by it." 

*****************************************************************
 58 Independent: BNFL told to combat threat of nuclear contamination on Cumbrian 
beaches - 

Jason Nisse

www.independent.co.uk

BNFL told to combat threat of nuclear contamination on Cumbrian
beaches After the Thorp leak, Environment Agency gets tough over
problems at waste-storage site near Sellafield 

By Jason Nisse 

19 June 2005
 	 

BNFL, which is facing a potential prosecution over a recent
nuclear leak at Sellafield, has been told by the Environment
Agency to come up with an action plan to prevent 950,000 cubic
metres of nuclear waste oozing out on to beaches in Cumbria. 

The waste is stored in the low-level waste repository at the
village of Drigg, near Sellafield. Although it was transferred
from BNFL's ownership to the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority
(NDA) earlier this year, it is managed by British Nuclear Group,
a BNFL subsidiary. 

In a secret report, prepared by the state-owned nuclear group
for the Environment Agency three years ago, BNFL warned that
coastal erosion could mean that in 500 years, waste from Drigg
could fall from the repository on to the beaches and be washed
into the sea. 

In this scenario, the risk of contamination would be 100 times
the risk target - which is that there would be a one in a
million chance of death from radiation for local residents. 

Much of the waste in Drigg has a radioactive life running into
thousands of years. 

The Environment Agency launched a consultation last week on what
BNFL should do about the problem, seeking the views of the
company, residents and environmental experts. 

At the moment, the waste is stored in trenches, covered by soil.
Ian Streathfield, the nuclear regulator at the Environment
Agency, said that the options put to the BNFL are: stopping
further storage of certain nuclear waste at the site; removing
some of the waste from Drigg; building a new, thicker cap for
the waste trenches; and making BNFL manage the site for twice as
long as the 150 years it had proposed. "The solution could
involve any or all of these proposals," said Mr Streathfield.
"Any option has advantages or disadvantages, in terms of costs
and benefit." 

Removing some of the waste would be a massive headache for BNFL,
as would stopping further disposals at Drigg, which is the
largest waste-storage facility in the UK. Much of the long-term
waste - which would need to be removed - was dumped at Drigg in
the 1980s and is buried below other waste. 

Stopping further shipments would mean the NDA changing its
low-level waste strategy completely. Drigg has been operating
since 1959 and it was planned to continue until 2050, taking up
to 500,000 cubic metres more waste. Unless another site could be
found near Sellafield, this waste would have to be transported
by train across the country. 

The consultation on what is to be done at Drigg will continue
until January, and a solution will have to be approved by the
secretaries of state for health and for environment, food and
rural affairs. 

A spokesman for BNFL said: "We are aware of the concerns of the
Agency, and once the process comes to a decision, we will act
upon it." 

The problems at Drigg have emerged only weeks after a report on
the Thorp fuel reprocessing plant at Sellafield, which found
that radioactive liquid had been leaking, undetected, from a
pipe until discovered in April, creating a pool of 83,000
litres. 

This is being cleaned up and BNFL is being investigated by the
Nuclear Industries Inspectorate over the incident. Industry
experts believe that the NII may prosecute BNFL for breaches of
health and safety over the Thorp leak. 

The Government dropped plans to privatise BNFL two years ago but
this month will start attempting to sell Westinghouse, the BNFL
subsidiary that builds nuclear reactors. 

NM Rothschild, the merchant bank, is advising on the sale and
will invite bids from interested parties. 	           

�2005 Independent News &Media (UK) Ltd.   
*****************************************************************
 59 MDN: A Nagasaki Report

Mainichi Daily News
 
By George Weller   
  
  American reporter George Weller   

American George Weller was the first foreign reporter to enter
Nagasaki following the U.S. atomic attack on the city on Aug. 9,
1945. Weller wrote a series of stories about what he saw in the
city, but censors at the Occupation's General Headquarters
refused to allow the material to be printed. Weller's stories,
written in September 1945, can be found below. 

NAGASAKI, Sept.8 -- The atomic bomb may be classified as a
weapon capable of being used indiscriminately, but its use in
Nagasaki was selective and proper and as merciful as such a
gigantic force could be expected to be. 

The following conclusions were made by the writer - as the first
visitor to inspect the ruins - after an exhaustive, though still
incomplete study of this wasteland of war. 

Nagasaki is an island roughly resembling Manhattan in size and
shape, running in north and south direction with ocean inlets on
both sides, what would be the New Jersey and Manhattan sides of
the Hudson river are lined with huge-war plants owned by the
Mitsubishi and Kawanami families. 

The Kawanami shipbuilding plants, employing about 20,000
workmen, lie on both sides of the harbor mouth on what
corresponds to battery park and Ellis island. That is about five
miles from the epicenter of the explosion. 

B-29 raids before the Atomic bomb failed to damage them and they
are still hardly scarred. 

Proceeding up the Nagasaki harbor, which is lined with docks on
both sides like the Hudson, one perceives the shores narrowing
toward a bottleneck. The beautiful green hills are nearer at
hand, standing beyond the long rows of industrial plants, which
are all Mitsubishi on both sides of the river. 

On the left, or Jersey side, two miles beyond the Kawanami yards
are Mitsubishi's shipbuilding and electrical engine plants
employing 20,000 and 8,000 respectively. The shipbuilding plant
damaged by a raid before the atomic bomb, but not badly. The
electrical plant is undamaged. It is three miles from the
epicenter of the atomic bomb and repairable. 

It is about two miles from the scene of the bomb's 1,500 feet
high explosion where the harbor has narrowed to 250 foot wide
Urakame River that the atomic bomb's force begins to be
discernible. 

This area is north of downtown Nagasaki, whose buildings
suffered some freakish destruction, but are generally still
sound. 

The railroad station, destroyed except for the platforms is
already operating. Normally it is sort of a gate to the
destroyed part of the Urakame valley. In parallel north and
south lines? here the Urakame river, Mitsubishi plants on both
sides, the railroad line and the main road from town. For two
miles stretches a line of congested steel and some concrete
factories with the residential district "across the tracks. The
atomic bomb landed between and totally destroyed both with half
(illegible) living persons in them. The known dead-number 20,000
police tell me they estimate about 4,000 remain to be found. 

The reason the deaths were so high -- the wounded being about
twice as many according to Japanese official figures -- was
twofold: 

1. Mitsubishi air raid shelters were totally inadequate and the
civilian shelters remote and limited. 

2. That the Japanese air warning system was a total failure. 



    
  Weller's son, Anthony, holding his father's camera and a
photograph he took in Nagasaki.   

I inspected half a dozen crude short tunnels in the rock wall
valley which the Mitsubishi Co., considered shelters. I also
picked my way through the tangled iron girders and curling roofs
of the main factories to see concrete shelters four inches thick
but totally inadequate in number. Only a grey concrete building
topped by a siren, where the clerical staff had worked had
reasonable cellar shelters, but nothing resembling the previous
had been made. 

A general alert had been sounded at seven in the morning, four
hours before two B-29's appeared, but it was ignored by the
workmen and most of the population. The police insist that the
air raid warning was sounded two minutes before the bomb fell,
but most people say they heard none. 

As one whittles away at embroidery and checks the stories, the
impression grows that the atomic bomb is a tremendous, but not a
peculiar weapon. The Japanese have heard the legend from
American radio that the ground preserves deadly irradiation. But
hours of walking amid the ruins where the odor of decaying flesh
is still strong produces in this writer nausea, but no sign or
burns or debilitation. 

Nobody here in Nagasaki has yet been able to show that the bomb
is different than any other, except in a broader extent flash
and a more powerful knock-out. 

All around the Mitsubishi plant are ruins which one would gladly
have spared. The writer spent nearly an hour in 15 deserted
buildings in the Nagasaki Medical Institute hospital which
(illegible). 

Nothing but rats live in the debris choked halls. On the
opposite side of the valley and the Urakame river is a three
story concrete American mission college called Chin Jei, nearly
totally destroyed. 

Japanese authorities point out that the home area flattened by
American bombs was traditionally the place of Catholic and
Christian Japanese. 

But sparing these and sparing the allied prison camp, which the
Japanese placed next to an armor plate factory would have meant
sparing Mitsubishi's ship parts plant with 1,016 employees who
were mostly Allied. It would have spared a Mounting factory
connecting with 1,750 employees. It would have spared three
steel foundries on both sides of the Urakame, using ordinarily
3,400 but that day 2,500. And besides sparing many
sub-contracting plants now flattened it would have meant leaving
untouched the Mitsubishi torpedo and ammunition plant employing
7,500 and which was nearest where the bomb up. 

All these latter plants today are hammered flat. But no saboteur
creeping among the war plants of death could have placed the
atomic bomb by hand more scrupulously given Japan's inertia
about common defense. 

Part 2

NAGASAKI, Saturday, Sept.8 (odn) -- In swaybacked or flattened 
skeletons of the Mitsubishi arms plants is revealed what the 
atomic bomb can do to steel and stone, but what the riven atom 
can do against human flesh and bone lies hidden in two hospitals 
of downtown Nagasaki. Look at the pushed-in facade of the 
American consulate, three miles from the blast's center, or the 
face of the Catholic cathedral, one mile in the other direction, 
torn down like gingerbread, and you can tell that the liberated 
atom spares nothing in the way. The human beings whom it has 
happened to spare sit on (illegible) One tiny family board their 
platforms in Nagasaki's two largest (illegible) hospitals, their 
shoulders, arms and faces are strapped in bandages.

Showing them to you, as the first American outsider to reach 
Nagasaki since the surrender, your propaganda-conscious official 
guide looks meaningfully in your face and wants to knew: "What do 
you think?"

What this question means is: do you intend saying that America 
did something inhuman in loosing this weapon against Japan? That 
is what we want you to write.

Several children, some burned and others unburned but with 
patches of hair falling out, are sitting with their mothers. 
Yesterday Japanese photographers took many pictures with them. 
About one in five is heavily bandaged, but none of showing signs 
of pain.

Some adults are in pain as they lie on mats. They moan softly. 
One woman caring for her husband, shows eyes dim with tears. It 
is a piteous scene and your official guide studies your face 
covertly to see if you are moved.

Visiting many litters, talking lengthily with two general 
physicians and one X-ray specialist, gains you a large amount of 
information and opinion on the victims. Statistics are variable 
and few records are kept. But it is ascertained that this chief 
municipal hospital had about 750 atomic patients until this week 
and lost by death approximately 360.

About 70 percent of the deaths have been from plain burns. The 
Japanese say that anyone caught outdoors in a mile by half-mile 
area was burned to death. But this is known to be untrue because 
most of the allied prisoners burned in the plant escaped and only 
about one-fourth were burned. Yet it is undoubtedly true that 
many at 11:02 o'clock on this morning of Aug. 9 were caught in 
debris by casual fires which kindled and caught during the next 
half hour.

But most of the patients who were gravely burned have now passed 
away and those on hand are rapidly curing. Those not curing are 
people whose unhappy lot provides the mystery aura around the 
atomic bomb's effects. They are victims of what Lt. Jakob Vink, 
Dutch medical officer and now allied commandant of prison camp 14 
at the mouth of Nagasaki harbor calls "disease." Vink himself was 
in the allied prison kitchen abutting the Mitsubishi armor plate 
department when the ceiling fell in but he escaped this 
mysterious "disease X" which some allied prisoners and many 
Japanese civilians got.

Vink points out a woman on a yellow mat in hospital, who 
according to hospital doctors Hikodero (sic) Koga and Uraaji 
(sic) Hayashida have just been brought in. She fled the atomic 
area but returned to live. She was well for three weeks expect a 
small burn on the heel. Now she lies moaning with a blackish 
mouth stiff as though with lockjaw and unable to utter clear 
words.

Her exposed legs and arms are speckled with tiny red spots in 
patches.

Near her lies a 15-year-old fattish girl who has the same blotchy 
red pinpoints and nose clotted with blood. A little farther on is 
a window lying down with four children, from one to about 8, 
around her. The two smallest children have lost some hair. Though 
none of these people has either a barn or a broken limb, they are 
presumed victims of the atomic bomb.

Dr. Uraji Hayashida shakes his head somberly and says that he 
believes there must be something to the American radio report 
about the ground around the Mitsubishi plant being poisoned. But 
his next statement knocks out the props from under this theory 
because it develops that the widow's family has been absent from 
the wrecked area ever since the blast yet shows symptoms common 
with those who returned.

According to Japanese doctors, patients with these late 
developing symptoms are dying now a month after the bombs fall, 
at the rate of about 10 daily. The three doctors calmly stated 
that the disease has them nonplussed and that they are giving no 
treatment whatever but rest. Radio rumors from America received 
the same consideration with the symptoms under their noses. They 
are licked for cure and do not seem very worried about it. 

Part 3

NAGASAKI, Saturday, Sept.8 (odn) -- In swaybacked or flattened 
skeletons of the Mitsubishi arms plants is revealed what the 
atomic bomb can do to steel and stone, but what the riven atom 
can do against human flesh and bone lies hidden in two hospitals 
of downtown Nagasaki. Look at the pushed-in facade of the 
American consulate, three miles from the blast's center, or the 
face of the Catholic cathedral, one mile in the other direction, 
torn down like gingerbread, and you can tell that the liberated 
atom spares nothing in the way. The human beings whom it has 
happened to spare sit on (illegible) One tiny family board their 
platforms in Nagasaki's two largest (illegible) hospitals, their 
shoulders, arms and faces are strapped in bandages.

Showing them to you, as the first American outsider to reach 
Nagasaki since the surrender, your propaganda-conscious official 
guide looks meaningfully in your face and wants to knew: "What do 
you think?"

What this question means is: do you intend saying that America 
did something inhuman in loosing this weapon against Japan? That 
is what we want you to write.

Several children, some burned and others unburned but with 
patches of hair falling out, are sitting with their mothers. 
Yesterday Japanese photographers took many pictures with them. 
About one in five is heavily bandaged, but none of showing signs 
of pain.

Some adults are in pain as they lie on mats. They moan softly. 
One woman caring for her husband, shows eyes dim with tears. It 
is a piteous scene and your official guide studies your face 
covertly to see if you are moved.

Visiting many litters, talking lengthily with two general 
physicians and one X-ray specialist, gains you a large amount of 
information and opinion on the victims. Statistics are variable 
and few records are kept. But it is ascertained that this chief 
municipal hospital had about 750 atomic patients until this week 
and lost by death approximately 360.

About 70 percent of the deaths have been from plain burns. The 
Japanese say that anyone caught outdoors in a mile by half-mile 
area was burned to death. But this is known to be untrue because 
most of the allied prisoners burned in the plant escaped and only 
about one-fourth were burned. Yet it is undoubtedly true that 
many at 11:02 o'clock on this morning of Aug. 9 were caught in 
debris by casual fires which kindled and caught during the next 
half hour.

But most of the patients who were gravely burned have now passed 
away and those on hand are rapidly curing. Those not curing are 
people whose unhappy lot provides the mystery aura around the 
atomic bomb's effects. They are victims of what Lt. Jakob Vink, 
Dutch medical officer and now allied commandant of prison camp 14 
at the mouth of Nagasaki harbor calls "disease." Vink himself was 
in the allied prison kitchen abutting the Mitsubishi armor plate 
department when the ceiling fell in but he escaped this 
mysterious "disease X" which some allied prisoners and many 
Japanese civilians got.

Vink points out a woman on a yellow mat in hospital, who 
according to hospital doctors Hikodero (sic) Koga and Uraaji 
(sic) Hayashida have just been brought in. She fled the atomic 
area but returned to live. She was well for three weeks expect a 
small burn on the heel. Now she lies moaning with a blackish 
mouth stiff as though with lockjaw and unable to utter clear 
words.

Her exposed legs and arms are speckled with tiny red spots in 
patches.

Near her lies a 15-year-old fattish girl who has the same blotchy 
red pinpoints and nose clotted with blood. A little farther on is 
a window lying down with four children, from one to about 8, 
around her. The two smallest children have lost some hair. Though 
none of these people has either a barn or a broken limb, they are 
presumed victims of the atomic bomb.

Dr. Uraji Hayashida shakes his head somberly and says that he 
believes there must be something to the American radio report 
about the ground around the Mitsubishi plant being poisoned. But 
his next statement knocks out the props from under this theory 
because it develops that the widow's family has been absent from 
the wrecked area ever since the blast yet shows symptoms common 
with those who returned.

According to Japanese doctors, patients with these late 
developing symptoms are dying now a month after the bombs fall, 
at the rate of about 10 daily. The three doctors calmly stated 
that the disease has them nonplussed and that they are giving no 
treatment whatever but rest. Radio rumors from America received 
the same consideration with the symptoms under their noses. They 
are licked for cure and do not seem very worried about it. 

Part 4

NAGASAKI, Sept.9 (cdn) -- The atomic bomb's peculiar "disease," 
uncured because it is untreated and untreated because it is not 
diagnosed, is still snatching away lives here.

Men, woman and children with no outward marks of injury are dying 
daily in hospitals, some after having walked around three or four 
weeks thinking they have escaped.

The doctors here have every modern medicament, but candidly 
confessed in talking to the writer - the first Allied observer to 
Nagasaki since the surrender - that the answer to the malady is 
beyond them. Their patients, though their skin is whole, are all 
passing away under their eyes.

Kyushu's leading X-ray specialist, who arrived today from the 
island's chief city Fukuoka, elderly Dr. Yosisada Nakashima, told 
the writer that he is convinced that these people are simply 
suffering from the atomic bomb's beta Gamma, or the neutron ray 
is taking effect.

"All the symptoms are similar," said the Japanese doctor. "You 
have a reduction in white corpuscles, constriction in the throat, 
vomiting, diarrhea and small hemorrhages just below the skin. All 
of these things happen when an overdose of Roentgen rays is 
given. Bombed children's hair falls out. That is natural because 
these rays are used often to make hair fall artificially and 
sometimes takes several days before the hair becomes loose."

Nakashima differed with general physicians who have asked the 
regiment to close off a bombed area claiming that returned 
refugees are infected from the ground by lethal rays.

"I believe that any after effect out there is negligible. I mean 
to make tests soon with an electrometer," said the specialist.

A suggestion by Dutch doctor Lt. Jakob Vink, taken prisoner and 
now commander of the allied prison camp here, that the drug 
(illegible) which increased white corpuscles be tried brought the 
answer from Nakashima that it would be "useless, because the 
grave (illegible).

At emergency hospital No. 2, commanding officer young Lt. Col. 
Yoshitaka Sasaki, with three rows of campaign ribbons on his 
breast, stated that 200 patients died of 343 admitted and that 
the expects about 50 more deaths.

Most severe ordinary burns resulted in the patients (sic) deaths 
within a week after the bomb fell. But this hospital began taking 
patients only from one to two weeks afterward. It is therefore 
almost exclusively "disease" cases and the deaths are mostly 
therefrom.

Nakashima divides the deaths outside simple burns and fractures 
into two classes on the basis of symptoms observed in the post 
mortem autopsies.

The first class accounts for roughly 60 percent of the deaths, 
the second for 40 percent.

Among exterior symptoms in the first class are, falling hair from 
the head, armpits and public zones, spotty local skin hemorrhages 
looking like measles all over the body, lip sores, diarrhea but 
without blood discharge, swelling in the throat (illegible) of 
the epiglottis and retropharynx and a descent in number of red 
and white corpuscles.

Red corpuscles fall from a normal 5,000,000 to one-half, or 
one-third while the white's almost disappear, dropping from 7,000 
or 8,000 to 300 to 500.

Fever rises to 104 and stays there without fluctuating.

Interior symptoms of the first class revealed in the postmortems 
seems to show the intestines choked with blood which Nakashima 
thinks occurs a few hours before death.

The stomach is also blood choked, also mesenterium. Blood spots 
appear in the bone narrow and bus-arachnoydeal, oval blood 
(illegible) on the brain which, however, is not affected. Going 
up part of the intestines have a little blood, but the congestion 
is mainly in (illegible) down passages.

Nakashima considers that it is possible that the atomic bomb's 
rare rays may cause deaths in the first class, as with delayed 
X-ray burns. But second class has him totally baffled. These 
patients begin with slight burns which make normal progress for 
two weeks. They differ from simple burns, however, in that the 
patient has a high fever. Unfevered patients with as much as 
one-third of the skin area burned have been known to recover. But 
where fever is present after two weeks, healing of burns suddenly 
halts and they get worse. They come to resemble septic ulcers. 
Yet patients are not in great pain, which distinguishes them from 
any X-ray burns victims.

Up to five days from the torn to the worse, they die.

Their bloodstream has not thinned as in first class and their 
organs after death are found in a normal condition of health. But 
they are dead - dead of atomic bomb - and nobody knows why.

Twenty-five Americans are due to arrive Sept. 11 to study the 
Nagasaki bombsite. Japanese hope that they will bring a solution 
for Disease X. 


-----------------------------------------------------------------
"A NAGASAKI REPORT" by George Weller 

Copyright (c) 2005 by Anthony Weller.
 All rights reserved.
 Published with permission of Anthony Weller, Gloucester,
Massachusetts through Dunow &Carlson Literary Agency, New York
via Tuttle-Mori Agency, Inc., Tokyo.   

� 2005 The Mainichi Newspapers Co. 
*****************************************************************
 60 Daily Times: Musharraf offers N-disarmament 

Daily Times - Site Edition      Saturday, December 30, 1899   
	     
* Pakistan, NZ agree to cooperate in agriculture, education and
health

AUCKLAND: Pakistan President Gen. Pervez Musharraf said Friday
he has proposed nuclear disarmament with India to ensure peace
and stability between the nuclear-armed neighbours. 

Gen Musharraf said Pakistan had gone �much further� than
proposing a no first-strike nuclear policy in order to build
confidence between the South Asian rivals. 

�We have suggested (nuclear) disarmament and reduction of
forces,� he said. Pakistan also opposes nuclear proliferation
and was �against any other country acquiring nuclear weapons,�
he told reporters after talks with New Zealand Prime Minister
Helen Clark in the northern city of Auckland.

Clark said she hoped recent confidence-building measures between
the two neighbours �might extend into the nuclear arena�.
Musharraf said he was committed to a �rapprochement� with India,
and was working with its Prime Minister Manmohan Singh toward
that goal. Progress toward ending the decades-old fight over
Kashmir was being made, he said. 

�We see light at the end of the tunnel in our efforts to resolve
the Kashmir dispute once and for all,� he said, adding that the
�opportunity must be grasped�. �I have no doubt it can be
resolved,� he later told the Auckland Foreign Correspondents�
Club. Musharraf and Clark discussed terrorism, trade and human
rights in their talks on Friday. The Pakistani president spoke
about the situation in Afghanistan. New Zealand officials have
described relations between the two countries as �friendly but
slight� and Musharraf said the relationship needed to be
strengthened. �We need to expand our relations beyond a shared
passion for cricket,� Musharraf said after the talks. Clark
appreciated Pakistan�s role in the fight against terrorism. She
said New Zealand would assist Pakistan in the fields of
education and primary healthcare.

Musharraf said Pakistan would sponsor its students seeking
higher education in New Zealand. Clark said her government would
look into ways to accommodate Pakistani students. Both nations
said they are keen to expand trade links. Current two-way trade
is worth less than $71 million a year. He said in a television
interview that Pakistan wants to learn from New Zealand�s
advanced agricultural industry. �We are an agrarian society, we
are the fifth largest milk producer in the world and I know you
are experts on agriculture, dairy, on livestock. We have to
learn from you this way,� he said.

He said Pakistan as well as the rest of South and Central Asia
were �being left out of the loop� of economic advancement in
East Asia and Australia and New Zealand. President General
Pervez Musharraf also met New Zealand�s Governor General Dame
Silvia Cartwright on Friday. On Saturday, Musharraf was
scheduled to visit a dairy farm, a museum and high-tech company.
He is due to fly to Kuala Lumpur on Sunday morning. agencies 
Home | Main 
*****************************************************************
 61 DenverPost.com - OPINION: tribes recapturing control                         
 			 			 			 			 				 			 			 			 				 				 				
Article Launched: 06/18/2005 06:45:00 PM                                                        
		
report card: state of the rockies 2005 Western tribes recapturing 
control over lives
 			 			 			 			 			 			 			 			 			 			 			 			 
  By Walter Hecox and Rebecca Schild   

Editor's note: This is the second in a periodic series about
regional trends and issues that were examined in the 2005
Colorado College State of the Rockies Report Card. 

Around the West, Native American nations are recapturing control
over their lives, communities, tribal lands and heritage.
Examples of this trend include: 

The Southern Utes in southwest Colorado are trying to save their
culture and language from extinction, while equipping their
children with the education necessary to succeed in today's
world. They have established the Southern Ute Academy, reacting
to what the mother of one student argued: "When you lose your
language, you lose yourself." 

The Taos Pueblo in northern New Mexico has fought long and hard
to recover Blue Lake, considered the source of their creation
and essential to the very identity of the Taos Pueblo people.
After 64 years, the lake and surrounding land are now available
exclusively for tribal use. 

The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes in Montana
petitioned to regain control over the bison range intricately
tied to their culture, finally reaching an agreement with
federal agencies to have significant management responsibilities 
for the National Bison Range. Fred Matt, tribal chairman, says, 
"The tribes' presence on the Bison Range is something everyone 
will benefit from. We owe this to our ancestors." 

As professor Charles Wilkinson of the University of Colorado law
school has noted, "Over the past two generations, the tribes
have achieved dramatic successes. ... Tribal governments now are
clearly the real governments in Indian country." What is going
on around the Rockies to fuel these and other examples of Native
Americans recapturing control over their lands and lives? The
question can't be discussed without considering the matter of
tribal sovereignty. The National Congress of American Indians
states that Indian nations are sovereign governments, recognized
in the U.S. Constitution and in hundreds of treaties, providing
a broad range of governmental services on tribal lands
throughout the country. However, one must keep in mind that, in
the words of 19th century U.S. Chief Justice John Marshall,
tribes are "domestic, dependent sovereigns" over which Congress 
has authority. The challenge facing tribal governments, then, is 
to maintain and exercise their powers of self- governance in the 
context of their relationship with the federal and state 
governments. 

The Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development takes 
a different slant, first admitting that the term "sovereignty" 
has multiple meanings, interpretations and implications, even 
when applied to Indian affairs. At the term's core, however, is 
"the inherent right or power to govern." 

So there are three dimensions to our approach toward tribal 
sovereignty: Indian tribes possess inherent power over all 
internal affairs; States are precluded from interfering with 
tribes in their self-government; and Congress has full power to 
limit such sovereignty. So, tribes possess powers of 
self-government other than those that Congress has specifically 
removed. 

The Colorado College State of the Rockies Project has spent six 
months sifting through dozens of examples of Native American 
individuals, communities and tribes exercising their sovereign 
authority to regain self-governance in areas of culture and 
language, social and political conditions, and environmental and 
natural resources. The following examples from the                                                              
2005 Colorado College State of the Rockies

Report Card stand out, both for the energy and enthusiasm
embedded in actions taken, and for the range of activities
Native Americans are tackling. Not all may approve of outsiders,
or even other Native Americans, but the freedom to choose tribal
futures is inherent in the proper use of sovereignty: 

Isleta Pueblo, N.M.: Acting under the amended Clean Water Act
that authorized the Environmental Protection Agency to treat
Indian nations as states with regard to water quality, the
pueblo sued the city of Albuquerque over discharges from its
waste-treatment facility into the Rio Grande, 5 miles upstream
from the Isleta Pueblo Reservation. The court upheld the right
of the pueblo to establish more stringent water quality
standards than those applied by the federal government. 

Navajo Nation in portions of New Mexico, Arizona, Utah: With 60
percent of reservation residents without phone service and the
cost of connecting some homes by landline in the range of
$100,000, the tribe has established Sacred Wind Communications,
a Navajo-run company creating a hybrid system of wireless
communications to serve even the most remote residents. 

Skull Valley Goshutes in Utah: Nuclear waste disposal usually
creates the ultimate "not-in-my-backyard" response from those
who live near a proposed storage site. But the Goshutes of the
Skull Valley Reservation in Utah are pursuing the opportunity to
create on the reservation a "temporary" storage site for
thousands of tons of nuclear waste, considering it an economic
boon for this small, 18,000-acre reservation with 500 members.
Authority exists under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act for the
federal government to seek out volunteer candidates for
temporary storage until a permanent facility is completed. 

The state of Utah and many other opponents do not believe
"temporary" storage means what it says, given continuing
problems with the Department of Energy's proposed "permanent"
storage facility at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. 

Other examples can be found in the 2005 Rockies Report Card. Not
everyone will agree that all cases of exercising sovereignty are
"positive," and some may not even agree that Native Americans
should have the right to such sovereignty. But researchers at
the Rockies Project find this wave of actions by 				 				 					
					 					 				 				 				 					 					 				 tribes and
reservations an exciting and encouraging trend throughout our
region, one that will bring control of lives and communities
back down to the people who are closest to the problems and
whose solutions are most innovative. 

Professor Hecox is director of the State of the Rockies Project
at Colorado College. Rebecca Schild is a project student
researcher and is majoring in international sustainable
development. 

For more information on the Rockies Report Card, go to
www.coloradocollege.edu/stateoftherockies. 				 				 				 			  
		 		 		
All contents Copyright 2005 The Denver Post or other copyright
*****************************************************************
 62 lamonitor.com: LANL projects restored 

The Online News Source for Los Alamos
 

ROGER SNODGRASS, roger@lamonitor.com, Monitor Assistant Editor

EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the first of a two-part series on the
Senate Appropriations Committee approval of a bill to fund the
Department of Energy and Los Alamos National Laboratory. Part 2
will review legislative action on the Reliable Replacement
Warhead and the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator. 
House and Senate conferees may need to find a compromise over
appropriations for the National Nuclear Security Administration,
which manages the nuclear weapons complex for the Department of
Energy.

There is a long way to go before that, but the Senate
subcommittee chaired by Sen. Pete Domenici, R-NM, took a path
that diverged in some ways from the funding bill that has
already passed the House, both of which differed in a few areas
from Bush administration proposals. 

The full Senate Appropriations Committee approved Domenici's
subcommittee recommendations Thursday funding the national
laboratories among other federal projects.

The House bill has passed the full House; the Senate bill is
still in process. 
"I am proud of the bill we've put together," Domenici announced,
as the measure cleared his subcommittee Tuesday. "I have
attempted to restore this scientific capability that is
essential to the certification of our nuclear deterrent without
the validation of underground testing."

An announcement from Domenici's office on Thursday, after the
full committee vote, expressed the senator's optimism that the
full Senate would be receptive to the funding priorities
contained in the bill. 
Domenici emphasized the strong boost his subcommittee gave to
the DOE Office of Science and stockpile research and development.

For DOE's Office of Science, the Senate appropriations committee
approved $3.7 billion in basic scientific research, $240 million
over the budget request and $97 million over last year.

The funding includes $290 million to restore funding for
domestic fusion research and $100 million to support for full
scientific utilization of all DOE facilities.

The House version of the appropriations bill proposed cutting
Lab Directed Research and Development, a fund that underwrites
many scientific collaborations throughout the national
laboratories.

The House bill went farther than the administration's suggested
cuts in LDRD spending, reducing available funding from $400
million o $150 million and calling for DOE to explain why the
money should not be open to competition from non-Laboratory
entities

Domenici's bill called rather for an increase, allowing up to 8
percent of each lab's budget for self-initiated research,
compared to the current 6 percent and the administration's 5
percent share.

"We are pleased that the Senate Appropriations Committee has
indicated its strong support for the Laboratory Directed
Research and Development (LDRD) program at the Department of
Energy's National Laboratories," said Chris Harrington,
spokesperson for the University of California in Washington,
D.C., today. "LDRD is critical to developing the new ideas that
will keep these laboratories at the forefront of science and
technology."

In other items of interest to Los Alamos, Domenici's
recommendation added funds for Advance Simulation Computing,
earmarking $75 million for a new 150-teraflop machine. A
teraflop is a trillion operations per second.

Domenici's announcement said, "LANL has been running a
calculation on the existing computer for the past 19 months. The
new computer will only take three months to develop a solution
for the same calculation."

LANL has the most responsibility for extending the life of
nuclear weapons components, the statement added, but the slowest
computer, compared to the supercomputers at Sandia and Lawrence
Livermore national laboratories.

The Senate bill supports proceeding with the Chemistry and
Metallurgy Building Replacement ($65 million) at LANL which the
House bill put on hold; and ($7.68 million) toward a Modern Pit
Facility, the proposed factory for building replacement nuclear
triggers for the aging nuclear stockpile, which was also left
without funding by the House.

The Senate bill eliminates funds for a major laser project at
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The House and the
administration called for $141 million for a project that has
suffered a history of cost overruns and delays.

"NIF construction must wait until additional resources can be
found to balance the needs between support of the stockpile and
the single-minded desire to build NIF." Domenci said today. "NIF
construction should not come at the expense of all the other
stewardship programs. NIF is just one of many tools that must be
supported."

House and Senate appropriators agreed on who should manage
cleanup in the nuclear complex, a task traditionally handled by
the Office of Environmental Management of the Department of
Energy.

NNSA has tried to have the responsibility transferred to them,
to avoid conflicting responsibilities and turf fights. They
planned originally to create a separate contract, for example,
for the cleanup at Los Alamos beginning in October 2007.

Domenici's bill, like the House bill, keeps the work in
Environmental Management.   

  � 2003 Los Alamos Monitor All Rights Reserved.   
*****************************************************************
 63 lamonitor.com: Dirty container detection capabilities presented at LANL 

The Online News Source for Los Alamos
 
CAROL A. CLARK, lanews@lamonitor.com, Monitor Staff Writer

Detecting dirty cargo containers amid some 16 million arriving
in the United States by ship, truck and rail each year is a
daunting task. 

Some 200 million cargo containers move between major seaports
worldwide each year, according to a U.S. Customs Service fact
sheet.

And the problem continues to grow. 

The volume of trade moving through America's 102 seaports has
nearly doubled since 1995, with more than a million cargo
containers currently passing through customs annually.

In 2001, U.S. Customs processed more than 214,000 vessels. 
About 90 percent of the world's cargo now moves by container.

The problems are worsened by the surge in traffic in
containerized freight, according to U.S. Customs. Ever larger
ships, some with more than 7,000 cargo containers each, are
docking at American ports. 

The top 10 U.S. Ports of Import include New York, Los Angeles,
Long Beach, Charleston, Seattle, Norfolk, Houston, Oakland,
Savannah and Miami.

Problems are particularly acute at the ports of Los Angeles and
Long Beach, the nation's busiest, handling roughly a third of
all containers that arrive in the United States each year.

Nuclear physicist Cal Moss gave the first half of the third
lecture in the summer seminar series sponsored by the Center for
Homeland Security at the Los Alamos National Laboratory on
Wednesday.

Moss spoke to a group of LANL students; many who are Department
of Homeland Security undergraduate scholars and graduate school
fellows from around the country.

The students are interested in pursuing basic science and
technology innovations that can be applied to the DHS mission.

Tom Wehner, Ph.D., and technical staff member in LANL's Center
for Homeland Security attended Wednesday's presentation and
stated that through the lectures, the students are privy to the
best in homeland security research.

"This seminar series is so exciting because we are sharing with
students the hottest topics in homeland security," said Wehner.
"This series is presenting the kind of research that is making
such a difference in our nation's security."

Moss addressed the latest developments in active interrogation
techniques to detect Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) in cargo
containers with the students.

"Some 70 percent of international goods arrive in containers so
you'd expect smugglers to try to use them," Moss said.
"Radiography is often used to inspect cargo but cannot detect
HEU. We need to come up with a better way to detect HEU."

One of the students questioned the presence of human health
concerns with scanner radiation.

Moss explained that cargo is initially scanned at a low beam
similar to the level of a chest x-ray until the lack of human
beings inside containers is ascertained. Inspectors then crank
up the beam during a 60-second scan to detect nefarious
chemicals lurking inside.

Moss is an expert in the field. He wrote his doctoral thesis on
gamma-ray spectroscopy using a van de Graaff accelerator.

His LANL work includes the design of nuclear instruments for
space satellites and participation in monitoring the down
blending of HEU from Russian weapons for use in U.S. reactors.

The Advanced Nuclear Technology Group, NIS-6 published an
abstract in which photofissions were induced in samples of HEU
with masses up to 22 kg using bremsstrahlung photons from a
pulsed 10-MeV electron linear accelerator.

Neutrons were detected between pulses by large 3He detectors and
the data analyzed with the Feynman variance-to-mean method.

The effects of shielding materials, such as lead and
polyethylene, and the variation of the counting rate with
distance for several configurations were measured.

For comparison, a beryllium block was inserted in the beam to
produce neutrons that were also used for interrogation.

Because both high-energy photons and neutrons are very
penetrating, both approaches can be used to detect shielded HEU;
the choice of approach depends on the details of the
configuration and the shielding, according to the abstract.

Nuclear chemist Robert Estep presented the second half of
Wednesday's presentation. He addressed the latest developments
in algorithms for radiological and nuclear detectors and other
timely topics.

"The goal is to improve isotope identification in the field,"
Estep said. "The current analysis methods are unreliable when
shielding is present. The latest Material Basis Set (MBS) allows
advanced analysis at the sensor head and corrects for shielding
effects while identifying isotopes. The MBS method solves this
problem."

Estep described the ongoing MBS Development Work at Los Alamos
including:

Multiple Isotope MBS (MIMBS)


+  Development of a full-up multiple isotope MBS solver.


+  Identify all isotopes present with shielding corrections.


+  PC only-would be too slow for current handhelds

Lite version of multiple isotope solver


+  Compact enough to run on current handhelds.


+  Method was outlined in a 2004 INMM article.

Collaboration on new handheld project


+  A "third generation" handheld has been proposed at LANL.


+  Would have the processing power needed for full MIMBS.


+  Ideal platform for full MIMBS plus other MBS algorithms.

Estep also is an expert in his field. He developed active and
passive neutron detection systems for nuclear safeguards. He is
the original developer of the tomographic gamma scanner method,
now in worldwide use for the characterization of radioactive
waste.

Next week's seminar will include a lecture on Plume and Urban
Modeling by scientist Michael Brown at 10 a.m. Wednesday at LANL.

For information, call 665-8031.   

  � 2003 Los Alamos Monitor All Rights Reserved.   
*****************************************************************
 64 Newsday.com: Senate panel OKs BNL funding
                                             
                        		     
, Jun 19, 2005, 11:26 PM EDT     NEW YORK NOW:

Brookhaven National Lab (Newsday Photo, 1997/John H.
Cornell Jr.) 	 	
	   	 	
BY INDIA AUTRY
WASHINGTON BUREAU
 	 	
June 18, 2005

The Senate appropriations committee voted Friday to increase 
funds for New York's research in nuclear energy and beach 
protection.
 
Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton would get about $42 
million more than last year.
  
BNL's Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, the device that
re-creates the "big bang," would receive an additional $5
million, bringing its budget up to full funding, about $136
million. The House approved the same amount last month.
 
President George W. Bush's budget proposed to slash collider
funds $12.8 million from last year's levels, which would have
cut operation time in half.
 
Brookhaven's Center for Functional Nanomaterials would get a
$36.5 million increase, a figure Bush supported.
 
Additional funding is key to the lab, among the world's leading
nuclear physics facilities, said Israel Klein, spokesman for
Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), in a phone interview.
 
Without full funding for the lab, Long Island would have lost
3,000 full-time jobs and 4,000 guest jobs per year, Klein said.
 
The Senate committee also voted to give $2.5 million to a
project canceled by Bush's budget, which would develop ways to
prevent erosion along 83 miles of southern Long Island
shoreline, from Fire Island Inlet to Montauk Point. Rep. Tim
Bishop (D-Southampton) secured $200,000 in the House at the end
of last month. 	 	 

Copyright � 2005, Newsday, Inc.    

*****************************************************************
 65 ABQjournal: 2 LANL Staffers Accused of Fraud 

Albuquerque Journal newspaper. 

Thursday, June 16, 2005 

Albuquerque Journal--> Journal Staff Report 

Los Alamos National Laboratory officials have referred the 
activities of two employees to law enforcement authorities in 
connection with alleged fraudulent purchasing activities. Both 
employees also have been placed on leave pending the outcome of 
internal and external investigations. 

The two could face disciplinary action, including 
termination. The activities of the two employees do not appear 
to be related. 

In one instance, lab personnel became aware of what appears 
to be a fraudulent purchasing scheme in which an employee was 
collecting payments for purchases. The employee's apparent 
fraudulent activity appears to have begun in the past three 
months. Lab personnel are conducting further reviews to 
determine the full extent of this fraudulent activity. 

In the other instance, the lab's business controls detected 
apparent fraudulent activity in which an employee used vehicle 
charge cards to obtain about $3,000 worth of gasoline. After the 
discovery, the employee admitted to using the cards to purchase 
gasoline for acquaintances in exchange for money. The employee 
apparently had fraudulently activated seven charge cards that 
were supposed to be assigned to vehicles in the lab's fleet. 

The laboratory detected the apparent fraudulent criminal 
activity and took appropriate action within about two weeks of 
its inception in late May. Since the incident, the laboratory 
has completed an inventory of vehicle credit cards and has 
accounted for all of the cards associated with the lab fleet of 
government vehicles. 

In February, two lab employees were sentenced to jail time 
for fraudulent purchases totalling more than $300,000. The two 
took advantage of an antiquated purchase-tracking system that is 
in the process of being replaced. The 2002 purchasing scandal 
resulted in the resignation of lab director John Browne and 
contributed to the federal government decision to put the lab's 
management contract out for bid for the first time in nearly 60 
years. 

"I am disappointed to learn that two employees apparently 
decided to violate the public trust," laboratory director Robert 
Kuckuck said. "These isolated incidents do not reflect the 
character of this laboratory and its dedicated work force. I 
sincerely hope the prompt discovery of these activities will 
serve as a warning that such actions will not go undetected and 
carry serious consequences." 

As part of ongoing efforts to further strengthen management 
practices, the lab's current manager, the University of 
California, has been conducting internal control reviews to 
ensure that weaknesses are not present or, if identified, are 
corrected. The University of California's vice president for 
financial management personally visited the laboratory Tuesday. 

Copyright Albuquerque Journal 

Steve@abqjournal.com 
    
*****************************************************************

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have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for 
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