***************************************************************** 08/04/05 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 13.179 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** Send News Stories to news@energy-net.org with title on subject line and first line of body NUCLEAR POLICY 1 Independent: Never again? How the war in Iraq spurred a new nuclear 2 Reuters: Iran hopes for nuclear restart by early next week 3 Reuters: Iran president to pick cabinet, nuclear team 4 Reuters: EU prepares U.N. Iran nuclear warning -diplomats 5 Guardian Unlimited: U.S. Warns Iran Against Resuming Nukes 6 [NYTr] US: No progress in N Korea talks 7 60 Years After the Decision to Use the Atom Bomb 8 Korea Herald: Future of 6-party talks to solve nuclear crisis 9 Xinhua: 6-party talks to continue, US saying nearing end 10 Reuters: CHRONOLOGY-Six-country talks on N.Korea nuclear programmes 11 Reuters: N.Korea holding out at marathon nuclear talks 12 Reuters: Hope of accord fading as N.Korea talks hit day 11 13 Guardian Unlimited: North Korea Balks at Nuclear Statement 14 Guardian Unlimited: N. Korea Seeks Peaceful Nuclear Activities 15 US: U.S. suppressed footage of Hiroshima for decades 16 [NYTr] Revisiting Hiroshima 17 Fwd: U.S. suppressed footage of Hiroshima; PeaceWorks ad 18 IRNA: Britain's secret nuclear deal with Israel revealed by BBC 19 BBC: The men who bombed Hiroshima 20 Xinhua: Pakistani delegation leaves for India for nuclear 21 Daily Times: Talks on nuclear CBMs tomorrow 22 RedNova News: Bonanza for UK Energy 23 Guardian Unlimited: Officer's Letters Describe WWII Bombings 24 India Outlook: N-pact a blunder - NDA 25 deccan herald: Nuclear deal with US not a surrender: PM 26 Deccan Herald: Vajpayee seeks national debate on N-deal 27 AFP: India, Pakistan in talks to avoid 'accidental war' as peace dri 28 Guardian Unlimited: Nuclear brinkmanship NUCLEAR REACTORS 29 [NukeNet] Japanese nuclear power and nuclear proliferation in 30 US: The NRC Issues White Violation at Three Mile Island 31 US: Platts: Groups can't join in former Davis-Besse worker's NRC pro 32 US: JOURNAL NEWS: Indian Point 2 to get extra NRC scrutiny 33 US: NRC: Duke Energy Corporation, et al.; Catawba Nuclear Station, U 34 US: NRC: Certain Licensees Authorized To Possess and Transfer Items 35 US: NRC: Carolina Power and Light Company; H.B. Robinson Independent 36 US: NRC: Amergen Energy Company, LLC; Notice of Receipt and Availabi 37 US: NRC: Carolina Power and Light Company, H.B. Robinson Steam Elect 38 ForUm: The second block of Zaporozhye nuclear power plant 39 US: RedNova News: OPINION: Nuclear Power Not a Solution to Air Quali NUCLEAR SECURITY NUCLEAR SAFETY 40 US: t r u t h o u t - Report Challenges Plutonium Standards 41 BBC: Hiroshima health effects linger 42 US: Planet Jackson Hole: Plutonium in the Greater Yellowstone NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 43 US: Rocky Mountain News: Groups urge tighter plutonium standard 44 AU ABC: Federal Govt takes control of NT uranium 45 US: AU ABC: New company to search for uranium in SA 46 US: AU ABC: NT uranium mine move 'reshaping federalism' 47 Bellona: Sweden plan to send spent nuclear fuel to Sellafield 48 BBC: Nuclear staff suspended over 49 Las Vegas SUN: Plane crash risks left out of Yucca Mountain 50 Las Vegas SUN: DOE: Nevada misspent Yucca oversight funds 51 US: Waco Tribune Herald: Navy moves forward with old plant cleanup 52 US: NEWS.com.au: Howard Government seizes uranium mines | NUCLEAR DE 53 US: TheOmahaChannel.com: State Parties At Odds Over Waste Dump News 54 US: NEWS.com.au: Feds seize uranium mines 55 US: ZDNet.com: Avaya's IP solution to nuke waste accident risk | IP 56 US: AU ABC: Labor split over uranium, says mining company. 57 AU ABC: Farmer finds backyard a proposed nuclear dump site 58 AU ABC: Pastoralist prepares for new fight with Govt over waste - 59 AU ABC: Public's fear of radioactive waste 'unreasonable'. 60 Whitehaven News: Thorp leak: two bosses suspended 61 US: Western Skies - Commentary: Uranium Mining - August 4, 2005 PEACE 62 [NYTr] Granma on Hiroshima, Nagasaki 63 US: Hiroshima Day Reflection by Dorothy Day 64 SF Chronicle: HIROSHIMA: Reconciling the Memories / A-bomb anniversa 65 SF Chronicle: WHEN HORROR HIT HOME / The world changed forever 66 Marin Independent Journal: Life after Hiroshima 67 Reuters: Hiroshima a pacifist bastion 60 years after A-bomb US DEPT. OF ENERGY 68 Nuke Weapons Laser at Livermore Lab Questioned 69 PISJ: Energy bill may pay dividends for Idaho lab ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 Independent: Never again? How the war in Iraq spurred a new nuclear arms race www.independent.co.uk As the world prepares to mark the anniversary of Hiroshima, Iran is poised to go nuclear amid a new global arms race By Anne Penketh, Diplomatic Editor Published: 05 August 2005 Tomorrow at 8.15am, a minute's silence will reverberate around the world. The people of Japan will commemorate the victims of the first atomic bomb, which was dropped by an American B-29 on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945. Half a world away, in Tehran, the new hard man of Iranian politics, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, will take the oath of office before the country's parliament. His presidency heralds a new era of uncertainty in Iran's fraught relations with the West over its nuclear ambitions. In Beijing, urgent talks on curbing North Korea's nuclear weapons programme are close to collapse. And in Pakistan, efforts are still being made to roll up the world's biggest nuclear proliferation scandal. Sixty years after Hiroshima, whose single bomb killed 237,062 people, a new nuclear arms race has begun. A crisis is deepening with Iran over its suspected nuclear weapons activities. Tehran is threatening to resume uranium conversion next week, prompting an emergency meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency which could result in Iran being referred to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions. At the six-party talks in Beijing, North Korea is refusing to abandon a nuclear weapons programme that could lead to another mushroom cloud over Asia. International investigators are struggling to wrap up the lucrative black market that spread a web of proliferation across at least two continents thanks to the greed of one man: the father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb. The scientist A Q Khan, who sold nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya, and possibly others, is now under house arrest. Al-Qa'ida has still not been vanquished in its hideouts, while there are still fears that the terrorists could be working on the production of a " dirty" bomb that would spread radiation and panic in major cities. In the light of the war on Iraq, which did not have nuclear weapons, second-tier nations have judged that North Korea was spared invasion because of its nuclear deterrent, and drawn their own strategic conclusions. International attempts to renew a global pact banning the proliferation of nuclear weapons have foundered. In short, the system of safeguards aimed at preventing a repeat of the horrors of Hiroshima is in disarray. The review of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) by 189 states collapsed two months ago amid recriminations and accusations that the nuclear five had no intention of living up to their treaty commitments to pursue nuclear disarmament. All signs are that the treaty intended to protect the world from nuclear peril is dead. Pyongyang has pulled out, boasting that it now has nuclear weapons, and other members such as Iran, Egypt and South Korea have been caught cheating. But the regime had already been seriously undermined by states that remained outside the NPT and became nuclear powers: Israel, India and Pakistan. The NPT review at the UN in the spring provided a timely opportunity to tighten nuclear safeguards. Instead, the month-long conference turned into a bitter slanging match in which the US administration ignored its own record and turned up the heat on Iran and North Korea. At the heart of the four-decades-old NPT is a "grand bargain". The five nuclear powers - US, Britain, France, Russia and China - agreed to work towards nuclear disarmament. In return, the non-nuclear states gave up any ambition to develop nuclear weapons; they agreed to open up all their facilities to inspection; and in return they were guaranteed the benefits of peaceful nuclear technology. The big five have always been open to the charge of hypocrisy. Behind the rhetoric of disarmament, they have tried everything in their power to prevent second-tier powers from obtaining nuclear arms, while clinging on to their own nuclear arsenals despite strategic cuts. Both the US and Britain are upgrading: the Bush administration is developing nuclear "bunker busters" that can strike deep underground, while Britain has ordered a new generation of Trident missiles. With the NPT seriously weakened, the challenge now is to keep the genie in the bottle, as regional rivalries in the Middle East and Asia risk going nuclear. For the Bush administration, openly hostile to a UN solution, the answer has been talk or bomb: negotiate with states that already have a weapon (such as North Korea), or to take preemptive strikes against those that do not (such as Iraq). US officials say acting outside the treaty has produced results: it brought Libya back into the fold in 2003, when Colonel Muammar Gaddafi decided to scrap his weapons of mass destruction. Yet this approach contains the risk of opening the path to nuclear blackmail, which is how North Korea has coaxed the West into compensating the hermit state in return for concessions on its nuclear programme. As with Iran, negotiations have stalled on the North Korean insistence that it has the right to a civilian programme, if it renounces nuclear weapons. Iran, an NPT member which insists on its treaty right to pursue nuclear power, has been infuriated by US co-operation with India, a non-member of the NPT, which blasted its way into the nuclear "club" in tit-for-tat tests with Pakistan in 1998. In a world no longer guided by a universally accepted regime, countries are weighing the nuclear option. Arab states consider nuclear-armed Israel, and are drawing their own conclusions. Iran is hemmed in by hostile neighbours such as Israel and Pakistan. A nuclear test by North Korea could prompt Taiwan and Japan to follow down that road. Preoccupied with Iraq, the US has decided to follow a diplomatic route in dealing with Iran. But if the Security Council fails to reach agreement on punishment for Tehran's infringement, the military option would loom again. Israel has made no secret of its intention to halt militarily the Iranian nuclear weapons programme, as it did when it struck Iraq's Osiraq reactor in 1981, delaying but not ending Saddam Hussein's nuclear quest. But if Israel did strike, the Iranians could hit back anywhere in the region. Its nuclear programme would go underground, and the hand of the hardliners in Tehran would be reinforced. As one expert put it, an Israeli attack would be " a free pass for the mullahs". The question now is whether nuclear deterrence works. The threat of American nuclear attack, albeit veiled, did not deter Saddam Hussein from invading Kuwait. On the other hand, North Korea's boasting of a nuclear arsenal saved it from invasion. And nuclear weapons have not - yet - been used on the battlefield. Today, the "official" nuclear powers could annihilate the world many times over. And 40 other countries have the know-how to join their club. Sixty years after Hiroshima, who can say with confidence: "Never again"? Never again? 60 years since the first use of a nuclear weapon in war. 160,000 people died when the bomb was dropped at 8.15am on Hiroshima, with another 77,062 dying later. $27bn is spent each year by the US on nuclear weapons and related programmes 11, 000 active, deliverable nuclear weapons in the world. The US has 6,390, Russia 3,242 and Britain 200 15,654 sq miles, total land area used by US nuclear weapons bases and facilities 4 other states known or thought to have nuclear weapons: India, Israel, Pakistan, North Korea 5 acknowledged nuclear states: China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, United States 1 number of islands vaporised by nuclear testing: Elugelab, Micronesia, 1952 16 in length of 'Davy Crockett', the smallest nuclear weapon ever produced 40 states with technical ability to make nuclear weapons, including Egypt and South Korea 30,000 Kazakh conscripts served at Semipalatinsk, the Soviet test site. There were 456 tests conducted between 1945 and 1991 at the site 100 maximum number of those Kazakh conscripts still alive today 200 estimated number of nuclear weapons possessed by Israel 0 estimated number of nuclear weapons possessed by all the Arab states 100,000 people were members of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in 1984 150 estimated number of nuclear weapons possessed by India 75 estimated number of nuclear weapons possessed by Pakistan 40, 000 people are currently members of CND 900 years is the time it will take for radioactive elements in Pripyat, near Chernobyl, to decay to safe levels following the disaster 19 years ago Also in this section + Evolution dispute now set to split Catholic hierarchy + Bin Laden spiritual adviser may be the senior partner + The recipe for a powerful woman: Live in the US, work in business and go into politics Independent Porfolio Content + UN admits Haiti force is not up to the job it faces © 2005 Independent News & Media (UK) Ltd. ***************************************************************** 2 Reuters: Iran hopes for nuclear restart by early next week Wed Aug 3, 2005 1:19 PM ET (Adds EU official, paragraphs 6 and 7) By Parisa Hafezi TEHRAN, Aug 3 (Reuters) - Iran said it hoped to resume work at a uranium conversion plant by early next week, backtracking from an earlier plan to restart on Wednesday but still rejecting Western appeals to keep the project frozen. The European Union has warned Iran any resumption of nuclear fuel activities would mean an end to two years of talks on Iran's atomic ambitions. Tehran says it wants only to generate electricity but the West suspects it aims to make nuclear bombs. If Iran resumes work and the EU declares the talks over, the EU would then back U.S. calls to start a process that could end with the Islamic Republic being referred to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions. Chief nuclear negotiator Hassan Rohani said he had sent a letter to the EU complaining that the bloc was making "unacceptable threats". "We hope to restart work by the beginning of next week when preparations are complete," he told state television, speaking on the day that Iran's new, conservative President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took office. An EU official told Reuters in Brussels the new timeframe was a step in the right direction. "This is an indication that ties have not been severed and that Iran is interested in learning more about the proposals which the EU3 have to make," he said. Rohani said he would probably not remain Iran's top negotiator under Ahmadinejad, but that his successor would not change Iran's nuclear policies. Iranian officials have repeatedly said the decision to resume nuclear fuel work was irreversible, but would be carried out under the supervision of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors. The IAEA said it would take at least a week to send surveillance equipment from its headquarters in Vienna and install it in the central city of Isfahan, where Iran hopes to convert uranium ore into feed gas for centrifuges. Centrifuges then enrich uranium by spinning it at supersonic speed. INTERNATIONAL CRISIS The EU3 of Britain, France and Germany planned to offer Iran nuclear, political and economic incentives to freeze its nuclear fuel activities indefinitely, and have said a resumption would torpedo two years of hard bargaining and spark an international crisis. EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said Ahmadinejad faced "a strategic choice, to continue down a road that leads to isolation, or to decide on and reap the benefit of international cooperation," according to the pre-publication summary of an article for Germany's Capital magazine. Iran insists the EU recognise its right to enrich uranium, something the bloc has refused to do. Iranian officials accuse the EU of breaking a 2004 deal under which Iran suspended nuclear fuel work, saying the bloc has dragged its heels in the talks started under that agreement. Iran, like all signatories of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, is obliged to open civilian nuclear sites to inspection. Tehran has agreed to allow cameras at its facilities. The EU3 are holding back a request for a special session of the IAEA board of governors in the hope of a diplomatic solution, an EU official said. In Iran's opaque political system, analysts are split on whether top policy makers are somehow setting the stage for Ahmadinejad to save the day with a new deal or whether he is subservient to their greater national goals. EU officials said they still suspected Iran was manoeuvring to put the Europeans on the defensive but would not carry out its threat to restart the conversion of uranium ore into a gas used for nuclear fuel enrichment. (Additional repoting by Paul Taylor in Brussels) © Reuters 2005. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 3 Reuters: Iran president to pick cabinet, nuclear team Thu Aug 4, 2005 7:16 AM ET By Jon Hemming TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's new President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad promises to deliver a "new era of justice", but for now he has to pick a cabinet accepted by hardliners who helped elect him and deal with a diplomatic row over nuclear policy. Ahmadinejad inherits a diplomatic stand-off the European Union has warned could end in Iran referred for U.N. sanctions if it does not back down from its threat to restart nuclear work the bloc suspects might be aimed at building an atomic bomb. The former Revolutionary Guard began his first day in office on Thursday issuing austere edicts asking for his picture not to be put up in government offices and ordering civil servants not to waste money sending him letters of congratulations. The real work of his government begins after Saturday when he takes the oath of office and announces his cabinet which is expected to contain a blend of conservatives and technocrats. His choices are likely to be determined by deference to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's most powerful figure, whose hand Ahmadinejad bent over and kissed as his first act as president. "He has to consult with the Supreme leader," said a political analyst who declined to be named. "He came to power with the hardliners' backing, now he has to satisfy them." The nuclear issue is set to dominate the opening of Ahmadinejad's presidency. Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Hassan Rohani said on Wednesday he might be removed by Ahmadinejad, but said there would be no policy change under a new negotiating team. "Iran's nuclear policy is ... decided by top officials. It will not be changed," he told state television. Local media have said former state broadcasting chief Ali Larijani, a hardliner close to Khamenei, would replace Rohani and take charge of the nuclear negotiations with the EU. CONTINUITY A nuclear expert is also tipped for the Foreign Ministry. Ali Akbar Salehi, Iran's former envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) with a doctorate in nuclear physics, is a strong contender for foreign minister, newspapers said. Bijan Namdar Zanganeh, after eight years heading the oil ministry and 22 years as a minister, is also due for a change, something he hinted strongly at last week. "This is the last news conference I am attending as the oil minister of the Islamic Republic of Iran," he said. Establishment hardliners have repeatedly criticised Zanganeh for what they call rampant corruption, especially in the negotiation of Iran's buy-back oil deals. Ahmadinejad's candidates for oil minister of OPEC's second biggest producer have provoked mixed emotions in foreign executives, though they do not expect radical change in policy. The list of five possible successors includes several unknown quantities to oil multinationals -- among them acting mayor of Tehran Ali Saeedlou, Hossein Nejabat -- a member of the parliamentary energy commission and Kamal Daneshyar who heads the energy commission. The safest bets for foreign energy investors are deputy oil minister Mohammad Reza Nematzadeh, who heads the state-run National Petrochemical Company (NPC) and Ali Beheshtian, a former deputy oil minister for onshore affairs who manages the petrochemical industry's investment company. The new ministers are expected get the necessary approval in cabinet with few hitches, though some of Ahmadinejad's allies who dominate the assembly have warned him not to think of incorporating any reformers from the ousted government. Reformers too say they want nothing to do with the new government so as not to be tarred by any its failures. "The cabinet should be from the same political group. Such cabinet will take full responsibility for its actions," the Aftab-e Yazd newspaper quoted the brother of the last president and leading reformer Mohammad Reza Khatami as saying. © Reuters 2005. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 4 Reuters: EU prepares U.N. Iran nuclear warning -diplomats Thu Aug 4, 2005 12:33 PM ET By Francois Murphy and Louis Charbonneau VIENNA/BERLIN, Aug 4 (Reuters) - The European Union will call a meeting of the U.N. nuclear watchdog's governing board early next week to warn Iran against restarting nuclear work that could be used to develop bombs, diplomats said on Thursday. Iran threatened repeatedly to resume uranium processing this week. The EU responded by saying any resumption of nuclear fuel activities would mean an end to two years of talks on Iran's nuclear programme. Tehran says it only wants to generate electricity but the West suspects it is trying to make bombs. "This board meeting is just to warn the Iranians," a diplomat close to negotiations between Tehran and the EU's three biggest powers -- France, Britain and Germany -- said, adding the meeting was tentatively scheduled for Tuesday. He said the EU was not aiming at this meeting to refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council, which has the power to impose sanctions. "We want to have a resolution before they can take off the (IAEA) seals. It has nothing to do with the Security Council," the diplomat close to the talks said. A second diplomat confirmed there would be a meeting early next week. Iran said on Monday it would restart a uranium conversion plant in the central city of Isfahan, one of the nuclear activities it agreed to suspend under a November deal with the European Union. Conversion is the step before enrichment, which can purify uranium to the level needed to fuel nuclear reactors or bombs. The Islamic republic initially rejected calls by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to wait until next week for surveillance equipment to be installed before restarting the Isfahan facility. APPARENT CLIMBDOWN In an apparent climbdown, chief Iranian nuclear negotiator Hassan Rohani said on Wednesday that Tehran hoped to restart work at Isfahan by early next week. The European trio is due to present proposals for economic, political and nuclear incentives to Iran this weekend, in exchange for which it hopes Tehran will scrap its most sensitive nuclear activities. In a letter to Rohani on Tuesday urging Iran not to resume conversion, the foreign ministers of France, Britain and Germany said they would be seeking a special session of the IAEA board of governors "in the next few days" to discuss the way ahead. For two years, Washington has tried to have Iran referred to the Security Council for violating its obligations under the global pact against the spread of nuclear weapons. Its efforts were, however, blocked by other countries including the European trio, which wanted to persuade Iran to voluntarily give up all potentially weapons-related technology. © Reuters 2005. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 5 Guardian Unlimited: U.S. Warns Iran Against Resuming Nukes From the Associated Press [UP] Thursday August 4, 2005 7:46 PM By BARRY SCHWEID AP Diplomatic Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - Any move by Iran to resume nuclear activity would prompt the United States to try to put the issue before the United Nations for possible punitive action, the State Department warned Thursday. That process would begin with an immediate U.S. call for the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency's board of governors to meet in Vienna, State Department spokesman Tom Casey said. But ``for the moment, as long as they are maintaining the suspension there is not an immediate need for such a meeting,'' he said. The International Atomic Energy Agency could report Iranian violations to the U.N. Security Council, which then would decide whether to impose economic and political sanctions on Iran. Casey said ``that's been our long-standing position'' and the European allies who are negotiating with Iran with hopes of ending any nuclear weapons program agree with it. Also, he said the Bush administration continues to support the diplomacy authorized by the European Union and conducted by Britain, France and Germany. In Vienna, the U.N. agency urged Iran not to resume uranium conversion until the agency can set up a system to monitor the activity, which can be used for a nuclear program. In Iran, however, President-elect Mahmoud Ahmadinejad railed against nuclear weapons in a speech, saying the West should disarm, and supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei suggested Iran would continue with its nuclear program despite intense Western pressure. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005 ***************************************************************** 6 [NYTr] US: No progress in N Korea talks Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2005 19:14:20 -0500 (CDT) autolearn=ham version=3.0.4 X-Spam-filter-host: pascal.ctyme.com - http://www.junkemailfilter.com Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit AFP via Al Jazeera - Aug 2, 2005 http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/36967704-F9E8-4A5E-8C22-2053789B54F1.htm US: No progress in N Korea talks The United States says it has failed to overcome key differences with North Korea in talks on its nuclear weapons programmes. The United States admitted it was not seeing eye-to-eye with North Korea on disarmament issues, as it struggled to persuade the North Korean state to abandon its nuclear weapons programmes and end a three-year stand-off. Japan said the talks, in their eighth day, were nearing "the moment of truth" and it was up to North Korea to make the next move. The talks - involving China, Japan, the two Koreas, Russia and the United States - have been hampered by differences about what should be in a Chinese draft document aimed at establishing a framework to rid the Korean peninsula of nuclear weapons. "I need to be very clear that there are a lot of differences between the North Korean side on one hand and everyone else on the other hand," US envoy Christopher Hill said as he left his hotel for the meeting. "Frankly we were not able to bridge any differences. I wish I could report more progress from yesterday." Hill said that although he saw no imminent breakthroughs, the United States was committed to solving the dispute through dialogue. "We felt the second draft was actually better than the first draft. It clearly reflected the comments of all the parties. And we continue to believe it is a basis for finding an eventual resolution," he said. Demands rejected In Tokyo, Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura indicated that North Korea was rejecting US demands that it commit itself in writing to dismantling its nuclear projects and admit to having a uranium enrichment programme. The United States accused North Korea of running a secret uranium enrichment programme in 2000, but Pyongyang has denied this. North Korea raised the stakes in February when it declared it possessed nuclear weapons as a deterrent to what it said were US plans to launch a nuclear attack. Japan's Asahi Shimbun newspaper said Tokyo and Washington also wanted a phrase in the final text stating that Pyongyang had to abandon all its nuclear programmes, both for weapons and civilian purposes. Its sources said the Chinese and Russian delegates were demanding only that North Korea dismantle its nuclear weapons programmes, the newspaper said. Responsibility The fourth round of talks, which came after a break of more than a year, have been the longest since the process started in 2003 and have been characterised by greater willingness from all sides. Japanese envoy Kenichiro Sasae said on Tuesday that the responsibility was on North Korea to decide what happens next. "The negotiations seem to be nearing the moment of truth at last," he said as he left his hotel for the talks. "There still remain a lot of differences in the positions of the participating countries. "Today's negotiations will largely depend on moves on North Korea's part." Machimura suggested the talks might last until the end of this week. The United States and North Korea, still observing a truce after the Korean war in the early 1950s, have met eight times on the sidelines of the talks in the past week, a breakthrough in itself. But Hill said they were unlikely to meet again on Tuesday. North Korea was persuaded back to the negotiating table after a 13-month interval partly by softer rhetoric from the Americans. AFP * ================================================================ .NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems . Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us . .339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org .List Archives: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/ .Subscribe: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr ================================================================ ***************************************************************** 7 60 Years After the Decision to Use the Atom Bomb Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2005 23:32:35 -0500 (CDT) version=3.0.4 X-Spam-filter-host: pascal.ctyme.com - http://www.junkemailfilter.com Institute for Public Accuracy 915 National Press Building, Washington, D.C. 20045 (202) 347-0020 * http://www.accuracy.org * ipa@accuracy.org ___________________________________________________ Thursday, August 4, 2005 60 Years After the Decision to Use the Atom Bomb GAR ALPEROVITZ, garalper@ncesa.org, http://www.bsos.umd.edu/gvpt/alperovitz Alperovitz is the author of "The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb." He said today: "New research into Japanese decision-making now suggests that the atomic bomb played only a secondary role in Japan's surrender. ... Studies by historians Tsuyoshi Hasegawa and Pulitzer Prize winner Herbert Bix tie in with long-established evidence suggesting that months before the bombings, top American and British policy makers were aware that a declaration of war by the Soviet Union combined with assurances for the Japanese emperor would likely end the war. However, they preferred to use the atomic bomb for political reasons, many scholars believe. Most American military leaders criticized the bombing publicly after the war -- including General (later President) Dwight D. Eisenhower, President Truman's chief of staff Admiral William D. Leahy, and even the well-known 'hawk,' General Curtis LeMay." TSUYOSHI HASEGAWA, hasegawa@history.ucsb.edu, http://www.instadv.ucsb.edu/pa/display.aspx?pkey=1297 Hasegawa said today: "Contrary to the conventional American thought, the atomic bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki did not have the most decisive impact on Japan's decision to surrender. Truman and Stalin were in intense competition. Truman wanted to force Japan to surrender by dropping the atomic bombs before the Soviets entered the war [against Japan]. Stalin wanted to join the war before Japan surrendered. Prior to the atomic bombing on Hiroshima, in order to avoid unconditional surrender, Japan was trying to terminate the war through Moscow's mediation. The Hiroshima bomb did not change this policy. To Truman's disappointment, however, taking advantage of Japan's reliance on Moscow, after the Hiroshima bomb, Stalin advanced the date of attack on Japan, and managed to join the war in the nick of time. Only when the Soviets entered the war, did the Japanese Emperor decide to surrender by accepting the Potsdam Declaration." GREG MELLO, gmello@lasg.org, http://www.lasg.org Director of the Los Alamos Study Group, Mello said today: "No matter what one's issue may be -- health care, poverty, education, or whatever -- no serious progress can be made while we as a society embrace weapons of mass destruction. ... We, especially those of us in New Mexico, must embrace nuclear disarmament or we will remain trapped in a spiral of violence to which we ourselves are a primary contributor." DAVID KRIEGER, dkrieger@napf.org, http://www.nuclearfiles.org, http://www.wagingpeace.org Krieger is the president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. He said today: "The obliteration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki six decades ago provided the world with its first look at a technology that could destroy countries, end civilization, and foreclose a human future. The U.S. and Russia each continue to maintain more than 2,000 nuclear warheads on hair-trigger alert, ready to be fired in moments. It is certain that nuclear weapons cannot defend against nuclear weapons; nor can missile defenses." [For more background, see the Aug. 1 edition of Time magazine featuring an article titled "Crossing the Moral Threshold" by David M. Kennedy, professor of history at Stanford University. Kennedy wrote: "[Secretary of War Henry] Stimson appointed the so-called Interim Committee on May 1, 1945, to give advice on the [atom] bomb's use against Japan. Scholars have probed the record of the committee's month-long existence in vain for evidence of the kind of deliberative decision-making process that the resort to nuclear weaponry might seem to have warranted. Stimson asked the committee primarily for recommendations about how, not whether, to use the new weapon. Members spent only about 10 minutes of a lunch break discussing a possible demonstration of the bomb's effect in an unpopulated area. No other alternatives were brought forward. Without qualifications, the committee recommended 'that the bomb should be used against Japan as soon as possible.'" ] For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy: Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167 _________________________________________________________________ You received this message as a subscriber on the list: public@lists.accuracy.org To be removed from the list, send any message to: public-unsubscribe@lists.accuracy.org For all list information and functions, including changing your subscription mode and options, visit the Web page: http://lists.accuracy.org/lists/info/public ***************************************************************** 8 Korea Herald: Future of 6-party talks to solve nuclear crisis 2005.08.04 BEIJING - As the longest round of the six-nation talks on the North Korean nuclear standoff wound down, the big question is what the future holds for this multilateral framework. This fourth round of talks, successful or not, is only the beginning of a start toward resolving the lengthy controversy over North Korea's nuclear ambitions, which are rooted in its struggle to survive. As top U.S. negotiator Christopher Hill said, parties made a lot of "compromises" and were exceptionally eager to make "a substantial progress," although fundamental differences remained unchanged. The final draft on the joint statement sets the principles for the North's nuclear disarmament in a broader and more comprehensive tone; the more difficult job of discussing specific actions and their sequence is left pending for the six countries: the two Koreas, the United States, China, Japan and Russia. As South Korean officials said, the purpose of this fourth round of talks was to go back to the basics by looking at the basis of the nuclear standoff. At this round they reconfirmed the origin of their differences on North Korea's nuclear projects and what principles to use in future efforts to resolve the problem. A "strategic" North Korean decision to agree to the Chinese draft is seen as a confirmation the North is truly willing to change. The North Korean delegation, indeed, displayed a vastly different attitude in the negotiations throughout. Instead of calling sessions with reporters out of the blue to protest whenever the negotiations hit a sticking point, as in the previous rounds, North Korea's chief negotiator Kim Kye-gwan remained calm and collected. His only encounter with reporters waiting outside the North Korean Embassy on Tuesday afternoon was also conducted quietly, with Kim saying that although there were differences they were willing to get a result. It remains to be seen whether unpredictable North Korea will maintain this attitude so as not to upset the latest positive development. The United States, for its part, also showed a changed attitude by holding numerous bilateral meetings with the North Koreans and calling the encounters "discussions" instead of "contacts" as the talks progressed. Although tired and exhausted from the marathon negotiations, all delegations expressed hopes this willingness to talk without recriminatory and antagonistic comments provides an appropriate launching pad for resolving the nuclear problem, where previously the talks hit deadlock time after time mainly due to stubbornness. (angiely@heraldm.com) By Lee Joo-hee and Kim Man-yong Korea Herald and Herald Business correspondents ***************************************************************** 9 Xinhua: 6-party talks to continue, US saying nearing end www.xinhuanet.com www.chinaview.cn 2005-08-04 07:14:36 BEIJING, Aug. 3 (Xinhuanet) -- Delegates to the six-party talks on the Korean nuclear issue wrapped up their ninth day of discussions on Wednesday night and agreed to continue the talks on Thursday. No ending date has been set so far for the record-long fourth-round negotiations, while the draft joint statement, which has been revised for three times, was yet to be accepted by all the parties. "I have no good news, neither bad news nor frightening news to report," US Chief Negotiator Christopher Hill told reporters at the hotel gate Wednesday night after a lengthy bilateral consultation with the Chinese delegation. Hill said the US side has no plan to hold more bilateral consultations with the DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) delegation on Thursday. Piao Jianyi, a professor with the Asian-Pacific Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that the talks might end on Thursday if all parties concerned could be persuaded to accept the draft document. Jin Linbo, head of the Asia-Pacific Office under the China Research Institute of International Studies, said the talks would possibly conclude or take a recess within this week. Jin believed that the process depends on the attitude of the United States and said that there is still time for the participants to seek a solution. The Korean Peninsula nuclear talks, involving China, the DPRK, the United States, the Republic of Korea, Russia and Japan, resumed on July 26 after a 13-month impasse. Over the past nine days, the six parties have held frequent bilateral and multilateral consultations. Japanese delegation head Sasae Kenichiro said on Wednesday afternoon that the six parties were still striving for reaching a consensus. Sasae told reporters the six delegations to the ongoing talks continued to make revisions to and coordinate their stances on the latest draft of a common document during Wednesday's negotiation, with China serving as the key coordinator. A series of one-on-one contacts were made on Wednesday for the negotiators to exchange views on the latest draft common document, which is aimed at establishing a framework for future talks on the eventual settlement of the nuclear issue. Earlier reports said a chief delegates' session, planned for Wednesday afternoon, was canceled, which observers say may indicate the failure to make a "final comment" on the draft document. Hill said on Wednesday morning that the latest draft document "narrowed differences" among all sides, and that an agreement could be possibly reached. He said that the draft, presented by the Chinese delegation, was "really designed to narrow the differences and maybe even gotto the point where we can really agree on something." It should be the last version for the common document as the six delegations would make a "final comment" on the latest fourth draft on Wednesday, he said. According to Hill, the negotiators "are really getting close, close to the end of this round" of the nuclear talks. The DPRK delegation, in its first open statement on the current talks on Tuesday afternoon, admitted differences existed between it and the United States. DPRK delegation head Kim Kye-gwan said that his delegation had hours of consultations with the US delegation over past days. "Though there are disagreements between the two, we wish to be able to minimize the differences and achieve a result in the talks," he said. Kim, also vice foreign minister of the DPRK, reiterated his country's stance that Pyongyang's abandonment of its nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons programs depends on whether the UnitedStates removes its nuclear threat against the DPRK and establishes mutual trust with Pyongyang. The DPRK delegation remained silent on Wednesday. Enditem Copyright ©2003 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 10 Reuters: CHRONOLOGY-Six-country talks on N.Korea nuclear programmes Wed Aug 3, 2005 10:58 PM ET SEOUL (Reuters) - East Asian powers seeking a solution to the crisis over North Korea's nuclear ambitions are holding a marathon fourth round of talks in Beijing after 13 months of stalemate. Following is a chronology of the talks involving North and South Korea, China, Japan, Russia and the United States: - - - - October 2002 - Top State Department envoy James Kelly confronts Pyongyang with evidence Washington says points to covert uranium enrichment programme. Pyongyang says "it is entitled to possess not only nuclear weapons but other types of weapons more powerful than them in defence of its sovereignty in face of the U.S. threat". December 2002 - North Korea says it plans to restart Yongbyon reactor, disables International Atomic Enegery Agency surveillance devices at Yongbyon and expels IAEA inspectors. January 2003 - North Korea says it is quitting the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, with immediate effect. At talks between U.S. team led by Kelly and North Koreans and China in Beijing, American officials say North Korea told the United States that it has nuclear weapons and might test them or transfer them to other countries. August 2003 - First round of six-way talks on the nuclear issue take place in Beijing. North Korea threatens to test nuclear bomb and test-fire new missile. October 2003 - North Korea says it has enhanced its "nuclear deterrent" with plutonium reprocessed from thousands of nuclear fuel rods. Pyongyang says it is willing to display the deterrent. January 2004 - Pyongyang permits unofficial U.S. delegation, including nuclear expert, to tour Yongbyon. U.S. nuclear expert Sigfried Hecker says he is not convinced North Korea could turn its nuclear technology into a weapon or mount it on a missile. February 2004 - The father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb, scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, admits to passing on uranium-linked technology to Libya, Iran and North Korea. Pyongyang calls Khan's confession a lie. Second round of six-party talks held in Beijing. June 2004 - Third round of talks held in Beijing. U.S. proposes fuel aid and security guarantees to North Korea if it scraps nuclear programmes. February 10, 2005 - North Korea's Foreign Ministry issues statement saying it has manufactured nuclear weapons for self-defence and is pulling out of six-way talks indefinitely. June 17 - North Korean leader Kim Jong-il tells senior South Korean envoy in Pyongyang that North Korea can return to talks as early as July, if United States meets certain conditions, such as treating North Korea with "respect". July 9 - North Korea announces it has agreed to return to the stalled talks in last week of July. July 22 - North Korea calls for a peace treaty to replace the armistice that ended the 1950-53 Korean War, saying it would resolve the nuclear crisis on the Korean peninsula. July 26 - Six-party envoys begin fourth round of talks. © Reuters 2005. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 11 Reuters: N.Korea holding out at marathon nuclear talks Thu Aug 4, 2005 8:49 AM ET By Teruaki Ueno and Jack Kim BEIJING (Reuters) - North Korea held out against heavy pressure on Thursday as marathon nuclear crisis talks appeared to be running out of steam, with China flagging the possibility that the six parties would wind up without even a joint statement. Three previous rounds of talks failed to end the crisis, and negotiators from the two Koreas, the United States, Japan, Russia and host nation China -- meeting for the fourth time in two years -- faced the prospect of another abortive outcome. With agreement still elusive, a delegation spokesman for host China said the parties were working to narrow their differences but left open the prospect that they might not reach agreement on a statement. "The joint document is not the barometer for whether the six party talks are a success or not," Qin Gang told reporters, adding that the talks would continue into an eleventh day on Friday and were still progressing towards denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula. Chief delegates were due to meet at 1300 GMT on Thursday. A fourth round without agreement would call the entire talks process into question -- an outcome which could tempt Washington to take the issue to the U.N. Security Council. That option has been opposed by Pyongyang's closest ally, China, which has much at stake as host of the six-party talks, and by North Korea, which has denounced the possibility of U.N. sanctions as tantamount to war. "WE ALL KNOW THE SCORE" Weary envoys to the talks held bilateral contacts but all eyes were on Pyongyang's delegation, which continued to refuse to sign up to even the barest statement of principle. Chinese officials have put forward multiple drafts, to no avail. "Everyone knows the score right now," top U.S. negotiator Christopher Hill told reporters earlier in the day. "We are waiting for North Korea to give an answer to the Chinese draft and they know exactly what the situation is." Hill added: "We really need clarity on the principles, it is precisely the clarity that we are seeking. That is so necessary. "Everyone in Washington very much wants to see we reach an agreement, an agreement on principles, so that we can move on." With no end-date set, Hill said he would stay in Beijing "as long as I feel it is useful to be here". A Japanese delegation source said earlier the talks were likely to go into the weekend. Both Hill and Japanese chief delegate Kenichiro Sasae were consulting the Chinese to seek a way out of the impasse. "I'm going to meet the Chinese but much depends on whether North Korea is ready to make an important decision," Sasae told reporters. Pyongyang is demanding energy aid, security guarantees and diplomatic recognition in return for scrapping its nuclear programmes. Washington has insisted the programmes are jettisoned before concessions flow to the impoverished, reclusive state. Intelligence experts estimate the North Koreans have stockpiled enough plutonium for up to nine nuclear weapons. Diplomats and South Korean media have said the Chinese draft statement contained points on the North's dismantling of the programmes and matching measures by the other parties. Other points included supplying the energy-strapped North with heavy fuel oil and electricity, a provision on the peaceful use of nuclear energy by Pyongyang, and normalisation of its relations with the United States and Japan. The crisis erupted in October 2002 when Washington confronted the state with evidence it was violating international protocol by pursuing a clandestine uranium enrichment weapons programme. The North Koreans responded by throwing out U.N. weapons inspectors, abandoning the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and restarting their mothballed Yongbyon reactor. Pyongyang upped the stakes in February, announcing it now had nuclear weapons and demanding aid, assurances and diplomatic recognition from Washington in return for scrapping them. This fourth round of six-party talks has been the most promising in terms of an unprecedented level of contact between the U.S. and North Korean delegations, with at least six one-on-one meetings in the first seven days, as well as the length of debate over the joint statement. © Reuters 2005. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 12 Reuters: Hope of accord fading as N.Korea talks hit day 11 Thu Aug 4, 2005 6:08 PM ET By Benjamin Kang Lim BEIJING, Aug 5 (Reuters) - Gruelling six-party talks aimed at defusing a crisis over North Korea's nuclear ambitions enter an 11th day on Friday, but a joint communique may prove elusive with Pyongyang insisting on the right to peaceful nuclear programmes. Three previous rounds of talks failed to end the three-year-old crisis, and negotiators from the two Koreas, the United States, Japan, Russia and host nation China faced the prospect of another abortive outcome in round four. North Korea's negotiator Kim Kye-gwan said late on Thursday his country was committed to denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula but gave no sign of budging on U.S. demands that it scrap all its nuclear programmes. "All countries in the world have the right to peaceful nuclear activities," Kim said. "We are not a defeated nation in war and we have committed no crime so why should we not be able to conduct peaceful nuclear activities?" A spokesman for the Chinese delegation said the parties were working to narrow their differences but left open the prospect that they might not reach agreement on a statement. "The joint document is not the barometer for whether the six-party talks are a success or not," Qin Gang told reporters. Qin said he was neither excessively optimistic nor pessimistic but noted the six parties have held 72 bilateral meetings in the past 10 days and were progressing, however slowly, towards a nuclear-free Korean peninsula. A fourth round without agreement would call the entire talks process into question -- an outcome which could prompt Washington to take the issue to the U.N. Security Council. That option has been opposed by Pyongyang's closest ally, China, which fought alongside the North against the United States and the South during the 1950-53 Korean War and now is concerned about the prospect of instability on its northeastern border. Pyongyang has denounced the possibility of U.N. sanctions as tantamount to war. IN THE SPOTLIGHT The spotlight is on Pyongyang's negotiators, who continue to refuse to sign up to even the barest statement of principle. Chinese officials have put forward multiple drafts, the latest two-pages long, to no avail. "We cannot have a situation where the DPRK pretends to abandon its nuclear programmes and we pretend to believe them," top U.S. negotiator Christopher Hill told reporters on Thursday. "We need to have a situation where we know precisely what they have agreed to do, what they have agreed to abandon so we can precisely react to that." On Thursday evening, the U.S. position had not changed, with Hill saying: "We do need clarity." North Korea, where 1 million died of famine in the past decade, is demanding energy aid, security guarantees and diplomatic recognition in return for scrapping its nuclear programmes. Washington has insisted the programmes are jettisoned before concessions flow to the impoverished, reclusive state. Intelligence experts estimate the North Koreans have stockpiled enough plutonium for up to nine nuclear weapons. A Japanese delegation source has said the talks could go into the weekend. The crisis erupted in October 2002 when Washington confronted the state with evidence it was violating international protocol by pursuing a clandestine uranium enrichment weapons programme. The North Koreans responded by throwing out U.N. weapons inspectors, abandoning the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and restarting their mothballed Yongbyon reactor. Pyongyang upped the stakes in February, announcing it now had nuclear weapons and demanding aid, assurances and diplomatic recognition from Washington in return for scrapping them. © Reuters 2005. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 13 Guardian Unlimited: North Korea Balks at Nuclear Statement From the Associated Press [UP] Thursday August 4, 2005 2:31 PM AP Photo BEJ106 By ALEXA OLESEN Associated Press Writer BEIJING (AP) - North Korea's refusal to abandon all nuclear programs, including those it claims are for peaceful use, was the main unresolved dispute Thursday with the United States at deadlocked nuclear disarmament talks, according to a news report. As the talks reached a 10th day, North Korean delegates met Thursday afternoon for about an hour with the United States and South Korea to discuss the basic agreement on principles for future arms discussions that the North has refused to endorse, the main South Korean envoy said. Deputy Foreign Minister Song Min-soon said North Korea ``has clarified its position'' on the latest draft, declining to elaborate. The North wants to limit the agreement to only mention its ``nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons program,'' which the United States has refused to accept, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported, citing an unnamed South Korean official. That issue is the main remaining difference preventing an agreement at the talks, the official said. The main U.S. envoy has said an agreement must also include the elimination of programs that could possibly be diverted for weapons use and stressed Washington's position that the North not even be allowed to use nuclear technology for peaceful power generation. Envoys have suggested in recent days that this round of arms talks involving the two Koreas, the United States, Russia, China and Japan was nearing its end, but gave no sign they had agreed to anything. All six head delegates were to meet later Thursday, and the Chinese government said the talks would continue Friday. ``I'm neither overly optimistic or pessimistic, it's a process,'' said Qin Gang, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman. ``Through dialogue, we will reach greater understanding.'' Earlier, Washington's chief negotiator, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, said North Korea must specify exactly what it would dismantle under the nuclear agreement. Hill said Thursday that Washington had done all it could during the discussions - indicating the talks may be headed toward stalemate unless China can persuade its ally the North to agree to a statement. The North ``has got to make one very basic decision,'' Hill said, referring to whether Pyongyang would sign the two-page document that is backed by the other five countries involved in the talks. ``It's not easy for them. I don't want to pressure them. But they've got to be able to do it,'' he said. ``We cannot have a situation where (North Korea) pretends to abandon their nuclear program and we pretend to believe them.'' ``We need to have a situation where we know precisely what they have agreed to do, exactly what they have agreed to abandon,'' Hill said. Japan's government spokesman also said the success of the talks hinged on Pyongyang. ``We have not seen sufficient progress,'' Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda said. ``Whether or not we can reach an agreement ... depends on North Korea's efforts.'' The head of Russia's delegation, Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Alexeyev, returned to Beijing on Thursday to rejoin the talks, the embassy said. Alexeyev left the talks Saturday to return to Moscow. Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura said earlier this week in Tokyo that disputes centered on to what extent the North's nuclear program should be dismantled and whether it should retain the right to peaceful use of nuclear technology. Negotiators from all sides have repeatedly expressed determination to make progress in this round of talks - the fourth in a series that began in 2003, which have so far failed to make any breakthroughs on the standoff. The North Koreans and Americans have said they want to narrow their differences. But Pyongyang's chief negotiator insisted Tuesday - the only time the North has made a public statement during the talks - that the Stalinist regime won't give up its atomic weapons program until Washington withdraws alleged threats. The nuclear crisis erupted in late 2002 after U.S. officials said the North admitted violating a 1994 deal by embarking on a secret uranium enrichment program. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005 ***************************************************************** 14 Guardian Unlimited: N. Korea Seeks Peaceful Nuclear Activities From the Associated Press [UP] Thursday August 4, 2005 5:01 PM AP Photo XIN101 By BURT HERMAN Associated Press Writer BEIJING (AP) - North Korea's envoy to disarmament talks said Thursday that Pyongyang insists on retaining the right to ``peaceful nuclear activities'' - a condition that other delegates say has deadlocked the talks. ``We are for denuclearizing, but we also want to possess the right to peaceful nuclear activities,'' said Kim Kye Gwan, a North Korean vice foreign minister. ``Every country in the world has the right to peaceful nuclear activities. ``As you know, only one country is opposing that,'' Kim said, apparently referring to the United States. Kim spoke briefly to reporters outside the North Korean Embassy in Beijing after a 10th day of talks. Other delegates say North Korea's refusal to commit to giving up all nuclear programs - even those that it says are for peaceful use - has brought the six-nation talks to a standstill. China said diplomats would meet again Friday. Late Thursday, all six head delegates held a rare nighttime meeting to try to resolve the impasse. Diplomats from China, the host, asked whether they wanted to continue this round of talks, and all agreed, said the chief U.S. envoy, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill. ``We all felt duty-bound to continue, because I think there is a feeling that we have taken this further than we ever have in the past,'' Hill said. ``We'd like to see if we can get to an agreement, and we're not there yet. No one is quite ready to say we can't get there.'' Earlier Thursday, North Korea, South Korea and the United States met to seek consensus on the statement of principles for eliminating the North's nuclear ambitions. Hill said it was the first such three-way meeting. North has refused to sign an agreement endorsed by the other five countries trying to persuade the hard-line regime to disarm. Seoul's top envoy, Deputy Foreign Minister Song Min-soon, said North Korea ``clarified its position'' on the latest draft, but he would not elaborate. Dismissing talk of possible failure, the Chinese government said the fact that discussions were continuing was a positive sign. ``We've made progress in that we've been able to deepen mutual understanding. That in itself is progress, and there has been no breakdown in the talks,'' Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said. Three previous rounds of six-nation talks in Beijing since 2003 have failed to bridge differences. The North wants to limit the agreement to mentioning only its nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons program, which the United States has refused to accept, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported, citing unnamed South Korean officials. Earlier Thursday, Hill said North Korea must specify exactly what it would dismantle under the nuclear agreement. He has said any agreement must include eliminating any nuclear programs that could possibly be diverted for weapons use. The North ``has got to make one very basic decision,'' Hill said, referring to whether Pyongyang would sign the two-page document. ``It's not easy for them. I don't want to pressure them. But they've got to be able to do it. We cannot have a situation where (North Korea) pretends to abandon their nuclear program and we pretend to believe them,'' he said. ``We need to have a situation where we know precisely what they have agreed to do, exactly what they have agreed to abandon.'' The Clinton administration agreed to help build two nuclear reactors in North Korea to generate electricity under a 1994 deal for the communist nation to halt its atomic weapons development. That project stalled after U.S. officials said in late 2002 that the North admitted violating the agreement by launching a secret uranium enrichment program, sparking the latest nuclear standoff. The Bush administration has said it does not want to repeat previous American mistakes and has criticized the earlier reactor project. Japan's government said Thursday the success of the talks hinged on Pyongyang. ``We have not seen sufficient progress,'' Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda said in Tokyo. ``Whether or not we can reach an agreement ... depends on North Korea's efforts.'' Kim, the North Korean envoy, insisted Tuesday that the hard-line regime will not give up its atomic weapons program until Washington withdraws what it believes are threats to its security. Some 32,500 U.S. troops are based in South Korea, but Washington has denied it has any intention of invading to end the nuclear standoff. The head of Russia's delegation, Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Alexeyev, returned Thursday to Beijing to rejoin the talks, the Russian Embassy said. He left Saturday for Moscow. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005 ***************************************************************** 15 U.S. suppressed footage of Hiroshima for decades Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2005 01:58:11 -0500 (CDT) version=3.0.4 X-Spam-filter-host: pascal.ctyme.com - http://www.junkemailfilter.com Hello friends, As we prepare to observe the 60th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it is interesting to see how our government took steps back then to keep the American people from understanding the horrors of the crimes against humanity they had perpetrated in unleashing these hellish weapons on hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians. The same sort of hiding the reality of war from the population is going on to this day, as the article below points out so well. I really hope that as many of you as possible will join us for the Hiroshima commemoration this Saturday evening. You should have received notice of this in our other e-mails, so I won't repeat it here. Please check our website at http://peaceworks.missouri.org or call us at 573-875-0539 if you need details. And please remember, we are gathering to honor the memories of those who've died, but, more importantly, we are gathering to build momentum to prevent future Hiroshimas and to eliminate the terror of the nuclear threat that has hung over all of us over these past six decades. Peace all, Mark Haim U.S. suppressed footage of Hiroshima for decades http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N02633708.htm WASHINGTON, Aug 3 (Reuters) - As the world prepares to mark the 60th anniversary of the dropping of the first atomic bomb on Saturday, some American media experts see uncomfortable echoes between the suppression of images of death and destruction then and coverage of the war in Iraq today. As author Greg Mitchell lays out in an article in Editor & Publisher this week, in the weeks following the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, U.S. authorities seized and suppressed film shot in the bombed cities by U.S. military crews and Japanese newsreel teams to prevent Americans from seeing the full extent of devastation wrought by the new weapons. Tens of thousands died in each attack. The U.S. military footage shot in color was classified as secret. It remained hidden until the early 1980s and has never been fully aired. The Japanese film shot in black and white was declassified and returned to Japan in the late 1960s. Some of the images captured in the days after the bombings will finally be shown on a U.S. cable television channel as part of a documentary on Saturday. "Although there are clearly huge differences with Iraq, there are also some similarities," said Mitchell, co-author of "Hiroshima in America" and editor of Editor & Publisher. "The chief similarity is that Americans are still being kept at a distance from images of death, whether of their own soldiers or Iraqi civilians," he said. In May, the Los Angeles Times released a survey of six months of media coverage of the Iraq war in six prominent U.S. newspapers and two newsmagazines -- a period during which 559 coalition forces, the vast majority American, were killed. It found they had run almost no photographs of Americans killed in action. The same publications ran only 44 photos to represent the thousands of Westerners wounded during that same time. "There's a mixture of censorship and self-censorship. In an information age, unfortunately what is missing is truthful and factual information," said Yahya Kamalipour, a communications professor at Purdue University in Indiana and author of "Bring 'Em On: Media and Politics in the Iraq War." Examples of overt censorship are the Pentagon's ban on filming the coffins of dead servicemen and women being brought back to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, as well as its continuing legal fight to prevent the publication of photographs and videos of detainee abuse in Abu Ghraib prison. 'TOO SHOCKING' Self-censorship happens when individual editors decide not to run photographs or footage of casualties because they deem them "too shocking" for readers or because they wish to avoid controversy or criticism. "So much of the media is owned by big corporations and they would much rather focus on making money than setting themselves up for criticism from the White House and Congress," said Ralph Begleiter, a former CNN correspondent, now a journalism professor at the University of Delaware. Last October, Begleiter filed a lawsuit to force the Pentagon to release military photographs and video of the coffins being returned. In April, the Pentagon made public more than 700 images all taken before June 2004. Begleiter said it appeared the military had stopped taking pictures of casualties being returned to avoid being forced to release more images. In May 2004, when ABC's Nightline screened the names and photos of 721 U.S. forces killed in the Iraq war without any commentary, it caused furor. One company which owned eight ABC stations ordered them not to show the program and some conservatives denounced it as an anti-war gimmick. One month before, when four U.S. contractors were murdered in Fallujah and their charred bodies were strung up from a bridge, most TV stations did not use the images. A survey of the 20 top circulating newspapers in the United States found only seven put a picture of the bodies on their front pages. In 1945, U.S. policymakers wanted to be able to continue to develop and test atomic and eventually nuclear weapons without an outcry of public opinion. "They succeeded but the subject is still a raw nerve. Americans remain very divided about nuclear weapons. We'll never know what impact the footage, if widely aired, might have had on the nuclear arms race and nuclear proliferation that plagues and endangers us today," Mitchell said. Mid-Missouri Peaceworks 804-C E. Broadway Columbia, MO 65201 573-875-0539 E-mail: peacewks@coin.org Web site: http://peaceworks.missouri.org "Dissent is the highest form of patriotism" --Thomas Jefferson You are receiving this posting from Mid-Missouri Peaceworks because you've signed up to receive our activist updates. If you'd ever like to be taken off the list, please reply to this posting or send an e-mail to peacewks@coin.org putting "unsubscribe" in the subject line. ***************************************************************** 16 [NYTr] Revisiting Hiroshima Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2005 19:10:56 -0500 (CDT) autolearn=ham version=3.0.4 X-Spam-filter-host: pascal.ctyme.com - http://www.junkemailfilter.com Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit sent by Ed Pearl Information Clearing House - Aug 2, 2005 Revisiting Hiroshima By Noam Chomsky 08/02/05 "ICH"--THIS month's anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki prompts only the most sombre reflection and most fervent hope that the horror may never be repeated. In the subsequent 60 years, those bombings have haunted the world's imagination but not so much as to curb the development and spread of infinitely more lethal weapons of mass destruction. A related concern, discussed in technical literature well before 9-11, is that nuclear weapons may sooner or later fall into the hands of terrorist groups. The recent explosions and casualties in London are yet another reminder of how the cycle of attack and response could escalate, unpredictably, even to a point horrifically worse than Hiroshima or Nagasaki. The world's reigning power accords itself the right to wage war at will, under a doctrine of "anticipatory self-defence" that covers any contingency it chooses. The means of destruction are to be unlimited. US military expenditures approximate those of the rest of the world combined, while arms sales by 38 North American companies (one in Canada) account for over 60 per cent of the world total (which rose 25 per cent since 2002). There have been efforts to strengthen the thin thread on which survival hangs. The most important is the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which came into force in 1970. The regular five-year review conference of the NPT took place at the United Nations in May. The NPT has been facing collapse, primarily because of the failure of the nuclear states to live up their obligation under Article VI to pursue "good faith" efforts to eliminate nuclear weapons. The United States has led the way in refusal to abide by the Article VI obligations. Mohamed El-Baradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, emphasizes that "reluctance by one party to fulfil its obligations breeds reluctance in others." President Jimmy Carter blasted the United States as "the major culprit in this erosion of the NPT. While claiming to be protecting the world from proliferation threats in Iraq, Libya, Iran and North Korea, American leaders not only have abandoned existing treaty restraints but also have asserted plans to test and develop new weapons, including antiballistic missiles, the earth-penetrating 'bunker buster' and perhaps some new 'small' bombs. They also have abandoned past pledges and now threaten first use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states." The thread has almost snapped in the years since Hiroshima, repeatedly. The best known case was the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962, "the most dangerous moment in human history," as Arthur Schlesinger, historian and former adviser to President John F. Kennedy, observed in October 2002 at a retrospective conference in Havana. The world "came within a hair's breadth of nuclear disaster," recalls Robert McNamara, Kennedy's defence secretary, who also attended the retrospective. In the May-June issue of Foreign Policy, he accompanies this reminder with a renewed warning of "apocalypse soon." McNamara regards "current US nuclear weapons policy as immoral, illegal, militarily unnecessary and dreadfully dangerous," creating "unacceptable risks to other nations and to our own," both the risk of "accidental or inadvertent nuclear launch," which is "unacceptably high," and of nuclear attack by terrorists. McNamara endorses the judgment of William Perry, President Bill Clinton's defence secretary, that "there is a greater than 50 per cent probability of a nuclear strike on US targets within a decade." Similar judgments are commonly expressed by prominent strategic analysts. In his book Nuclear Terrorism, Harvard international relations specialist Graham Allison reports the "consensus in the national security community" (of which he has been a part) that a "dirty bomb" attack is "inevitable," and an attack with a nuclear weapon highly likely, if fissionable materials - the essential ingredient - are not retrieved and secured. Allison reviews the partial success of efforts to do so since the early 1990s, under the initiatives of Sen. Sam Nunn and Sen. Richard Lugar, and the setback to these programmes from the first days of the Bush administration, paralysed by what Sen. Joseph Biden called "ideological idiocy." The Washington leadership has put aside nonproliferation programmes and devoted its energies and resources to driving the country to war by extraordinary deceit, then trying to manage the catastrophe it created in Iraq. The threat and use of violence is stimulating nuclear proliferation along with jihadi terrorism. A high-level review of the "war on terror" two years after the invasion "focused on how to deal with the rise of a new generation of terrorists, schooled in Iraq over the past couple years," Susan B. Glasser reports in The Washington Post. "Top government officials are increasingly turning their attention to anticipate what one called 'the bleed out' of hundreds or thousands of Iraq-trained jihadists back to their home countries throughout the Middle East and Western Europe. 'It's a new piece of a new equation,' a former senior Bush administration official said. 'If you don't know who they are in Iraq, how are you going to locate them in Istanbul or London?"' US terrorism specialist Peter Bergen says in The Boston Globe that "the president is right that Iraq is a main front in the war on terrorism, but this is a front we created." Shortly after the London bombing, Chatham House, Britain's premier foreign affairs institution, released a study drawing the obvious conclusion - denied with outrage by the government - that "the UK is at particular risk because it is the closest ally of the United States, has deployed armed forces in the military campaigns to topple the Taleban regime in Afghanistan and in Iraq ... (and is) a pillion passenger" of American policy, sitting behind the driver of the motorcycle. The probability of apocalypse soon cannot be realistically estimated, but it is surely too high for any sane person to contemplate with equanimity. While speculation is pointless, reaction to the threat of another Hiroshima is definitely not. On the contrary, it is urgent, particularly in the United States, because of Washington's primary role in accelerating the race to destruction by extending its historically unique military dominance. [Noam Chomsky is a professor of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the author, most recently, of Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance. ] (c) 2005 by Noam Chomsky * ================================================================ .NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems . Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us . .339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org .List Archives: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/ .Subscribe: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr ================================================================ ***************************************************************** 17 Fwd: U.S. suppressed footage of Hiroshima; PeaceWorks ad Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2005 15:37:40 -0500 (CDT) X-Spam-filter-host: pascal.ctyme.com - http://www.junkemailfilter.com To: "Activist Contacts" Message-ID: X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal From: "Mid-Missouri Peaceworks" Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2005 21:41:57 -0500 Subject: [ActionGreens] U.S. suppressed footage of Hiroshima + 20 Years w/PW + 1,063 on Signature Ad Hello friends, As we prepare to observe the 60th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I'm passing along three items in this post: 1) An article from Reuters documenting how our government took steps back then to keep the American people from understanding the horrors of the crimes against humanity they had perpetrated in unleashing these hellish weapons on hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians. The same sort of hiding the reality of war from the population is going on to this day, as the article below points out so well. 2) A set of reflections I sent out to our local list yesterday on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of my working with Mid-Missouri Peaceworks. 3) The text of the signature ad that Peaceworks and the other groups in the Columbia Peace Coalition will be running this Saturday in the Columbia Tribune and this Friday in the Columbia Missourian. This year 1,063 people signed the statement, an all time record for our annual Hiroshima ad. This ad continues a tradition begun in 1961, when 20 people signed the first of these ads calling for the elimination of nuclear weapons. Any feedback would be most welcome. I hope that all of you around the country who are participating in Hiroshima anniversary commemorations and anti-nuclear demonstrations find lots of support and participation. Peace all, Mark Haim U.S. suppressed footage of Hiroshima for decades http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N02633708.htm WASHINGTON, Aug 3 (Reuters) - As the world prepares to mark the 60th anniversary of the dropping of the first atomic bomb on Saturday, some American media experts see uncomfortable echoes between the suppression of images of death and destruction then and coverage of the war in Iraq today. As author Greg Mitchell lays out in an article in Editor & Publisher this week, in the weeks following the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, U.S. authorities seized and suppressed film shot in the bombed cities by U.S. military crews and Japanese newsreel teams to prevent Americans from seeing the full extent of devastation wrought by the new weapons. Tens of thousands died in each attack. The U.S. military footage shot in color was classified as secret. It remained hidden until the early 1980s and has never been fully aired. The Japanese film shot in black and white was declassified and returned to Japan in the late 1960s. Some of the images captured in the days after the bombings will finally be shown on a U.S. cable television channel as part of a documentary on Saturday. "Although there are clearly huge differences with Iraq, there are also some similarities," said Mitchell, co-author of "Hiroshima in America" and editor of Editor & Publisher. "The chief similarity is that Americans are still being kept at a distance from images of death, whether of their own soldiers or Iraqi civilians," he said. In May, the Los Angeles Times released a survey of six months of media coverage of the Iraq war in six prominent U.S. newspapers and two newsmagazines -- a period during which 559 coalition forces, the vast majority American, were killed. It found they had run almost no photographs of Americans killed in action. The same publications ran only 44 photos to represent the thousands of Westerners wounded during that same time. "There's a mixture of censorship and self-censorship. In an information age, unfortunately what is missing is truthful and factual information," said Yahya Kamalipour, a communications professor at Purdue University in Indiana and author of "Bring 'Em On: Media and Politics in the Iraq War." Examples of overt censorship are the Pentagon's ban on filming the coffins of dead servicemen and women being brought back to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, as well as its continuing legal fight to prevent the publication of photographs and videos of detainee abuse in Abu Ghraib prison. 'TOO SHOCKING' Self-censorship happens when individual editors decide not to run photographs or footage of casualties because they deem them "too shocking" for readers or because they wish to avoid controversy or criticism. "So much of the media is owned by big corporations and they would much rather focus on making money than setting themselves up for criticism from the White House and Congress," said Ralph Begleiter, a former CNN correspondent, now a journalism professor at the University of Delaware. Last October, Begleiter filed a lawsuit to force the Pentagon to release military photographs and video of the coffins being returned. In April, the Pentagon made public more than 700 images all taken before June 2004. Begleiter said it appeared the military had stopped taking pictures of casualties being returned to avoid being forced to release more images. In May 2004, when ABC's Nightline screened the names and photos of 721 U.S. forces killed in the Iraq war without any commentary, it caused furor. One company which owned eight ABC stations ordered them not to show the program and some conservatives denounced it as an anti-war gimmick. One month before, when four U.S. contractors were murdered in Fallujah and their charred bodies were strung up from a bridge, most TV stations did not use the images. A survey of the 20 top circulating newspapers in the United States found only seven put a picture of the bodies on their front pages. In 1945, U.S. policymakers wanted to be able to continue to develop and test atomic and eventually nuclear weapons without an outcry of public opinion. "They succeeded but the subject is still a raw nerve. Americans remain very divided about nuclear weapons. We'll never know what impact the footage, if widely aired, might have had on the nuclear arms race and nuclear proliferation that plagues and endangers us today," Mitchell said. ----------------------------------------------------------------- STATEMENT OF PW DIRECTOR MARK HAIM: Working Together, Reflections on Two Decades with Peaceworks By Mark Haim This week marks an anniversary I never anticipated. No, Im not speaking of 60 years since the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, but rather something more personal. It was 20 years ago this week that I began working for Peaceworks, then called the Mid-Missouri Nuclear Freeze. The Columbia Nuclear Freeze had first been organized in early 1982 and had mobilized a significant activist base for a winning city ballot campaign calling for a mutual, verifiable halt to the arms race. Unfortunately, in late 1983 several people in leadership roles left town and the group went dormant. In the spring and summer of 1985, Anna Ginsburg, an organizer with the state Freeze organization, encouraged some of us here in Columbia to reorganize, and we started meeting in July. Just in time for the 40th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we held a news conference to announce that the Freeze had been reorganized and was kicking off a major campaign to halt nuclear testing. In the mid-1980s there was great concern about the nuclear threat, and significant recognition that this issue was one that could make all the others a moot point. Dozens of community members and students flocked to the Freezes banner. From the start we felt it critical to organize both on the campuses and out in the community. From the start, we also recognized that people-to-people grassroots organizing was critical to building the kind of participatory, empowering movement that was essential to bringing about the sorts of changes we so clearly needed to make. Right from the get-go, we were out petitioning, doing door-to-door canvasses, organizing house parties, building a speakers bureau and more. Some people said the Nuclear Freeze movement was a mile wide and only an inch deep, as it focused solely on nuclear weapons. From its inception, however, the movement was made up primarily of progressives with a much more substantial agenda. We shared a strong commitment to social justice and the creation of a sustainable future. At the same time we realized that we would only have the opportunity to pursue this vision if we managed to survive the intense saber rattling and threat of mutual annihilation posed by hair-trigger, first-strike nuclear systems that were growing exponentially in both the U.S. and Soviet arsenals. The Freeze and the broader global disarmament movement played a significant role in ending the Cold War and, as the 80s came to a close, we were in a better position to work on some of the other critical concerns that faced humanity. I will always be appreciative of the friends and fellow activists who shared a sense of what could be done and joined in expanding the Freeze s mission to include projects like establishing the Peace Nook, taking on doing Earth Day organizing, setting up the Center for Sustainable Living and working on global justice issues. Over the past four years we have had to redirect our efforts once again into putting out fires in the war and peace arena. While wed rather be proactively working on campaigns to promote renewable energy or address the threat of global climate change, the rogue regime in Washington has set out pursing global domination as if on steroids. Weve been forced to struggle to prevent or end wars. These conflicts were legitimated by the crimes of 9-11, and then justified by lies, with support maintained only through an extremely well oiled propaganda machine that has a significant portion of our population scared silly, abysmally ignorant of global realities and generally distracted most of the time. Put simply, we have a lot of work to do to turn this around. As I look out in these difficult times, I feel challenged, sometimes on almost every front, yet I feel most fortunate. The Columbia-Mid-Missouri community has really done an amazing job of supporting our efforts over these past 20 years. I cant begin to express the gratitude I feel to the literally hundreds of individuals and families whove given so generously of themselves and their resources. In many cases people have dug deep over, and over, and over again. It is trite to say we could not have done this without the support of so many, but trite or not, its the reality. It has also been an amazing privilege to work with hundreds of volunteers, young, old and in-between. Its not just the camaraderie Ive had the joy of experiencing; the sense of shared purpose. Its also the opportunity to be with folks as they develop powerful understandings of the world they live in and, as they do, to watch them grow and change and become more responsible, compassionate, caring and capable people. The process of movement building by its nature has been somewhat erratic, affected, no doubt, by events of the day, the collective sense of urgency these imply, the degree to which progressive-thinking folks are feeling empowered and much more. One thing that is clear to me is that an implicit piece of building a successful movement for social change is creating a shared culture. Some of this involves shared values, like non-violence, mutual aid, respect for diversity and voluntary simplicity. It is also essential in this process that we build traditions of sharing. The Peaceworks community comes together with some frequency, whether to participate in demonstrations and peace gatherings, for big community events like Earth Day, or to share each others company, as well as to break bread together, at events like our annual dinner, or the upcoming Hiroshima commemoration and lantern float. It is times like these, when the community comes together, that we gain a sense of who we are, how many of usliving in this often isolating and alienating cultureactually share common values and a vision of a future that works for all, in harmony with nature. I find that this is a source of renewal. It gives me, and I hope many of you, some of the energy and hope needed to carry on and move forward, even when the state of the world is not, by any stretch of the imagination, what wed like it to be. So, as I look back on two decades, I must say thank you many, many times over to all whove participated in and sustained this work. I also must once again exhort not just the active participation of all of you reading this, urging you to turn out and to be part of our community, but also exhort and encourage you to hold, honor and share the vision of a good and decent future. In a time when hope and optimism seem in short supply, it is essential for us to be both grounded in reality and at the same time visionaries who dare to dream, to think big, and to encourage others everywhere to join us in making our vision a reality. Few will find strength in, or be motivated to work to move forward, a slightly watered down version of Bushs agenda. Sadly, thats what many so-called political realists are offering. In reality, for humanity to survive and thrive, we must get many, many more people to start thinking outside the box and working to actualize a positive vision offering a far more meaningful, connected, peaceful, just and sustainable future for all. Here in mid-Missouri, that is just what Ive had the opportunity to work at with so many good friends and allies over these past 20 years. I look forward to continuing this effort and to having the opportunity to share this work, as well as this play, with many of you in the days, weeks, months and years ahead. Again, many thanks! ----------------------------------------------------------------- SIGNATURE AD TEXT: The Hiroshima-Nagasaki signature ad was first run here in Columbia in 1961 with approximately 20 names. This year the statement will be run in the Tribune Saturday with 1,063 names, the most ever. Ending Six Decades of Nuclear Terror We have lived far too long with a nuclear albatross around our necks. It is time for the American people to take the lead in insisting that our government act to end the nuclear terror that overshadows all of our lives daily, threatening our destruction. Sixty years ago, on August 6, 1945, U.S. forces dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Three days later a second one was used against Nagasaki. Approximately 100,000 human beings died in the Hiroshima blast; 70,000 died in Nagasaki. Thousands more have died due to aftereffects of those bombs. Today we live in a world with eight acknowledged nuclear powers and a number of other states are seeking these ultimate weapons of mass destruction. As one of the signatories to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the United States is legally obligated to pursue universal nuclear disarmament; instead, U.S. policies call for maintaining arsenals of thousands of warheads in perpetuity. Today, the Bush administration is pushing for the development of a whole new generation of useable nuclear weapons and the administrations Nuclear Posture Review calls for targeting of non-nuclear states. Both policies make nuclear war more likely. Nuclear dominance is central to our governments global imperial strategy. This, along with the invasion of Iraq, which did not have nuclear weapons, and the simultaneous use of diplomacy with North Korea, has sent the signal that nuclear weapons are needed for deterrence, creating greater proliferation incentives. We, the American people, must find our voice. We must serve as a counterweight to the power of a military-industrial complex that profits from our fears. They seek to sell us space-based weapons and new nuclear systems costing, ultimately, trillions, but that are incapable of providing us with real security. We must call for a foreign policy consistent with the noble ideals upon which our nation was founded. Peace, justice and democracy do not flow from the barrel of a gun or the head of a nuclear missile. Wed all be much safer if we, and the worlds other nuclear powers, verifiably eliminated WMDs within our arsenals. For our security, it is imperative that our nation take up the tools of peacemakers. We, the people of the United States, must urge President Bush and our elected officials to recognize that we can only end terrorism through a commitment to international law and through partnership with others to create peaceful, sustainable economies. We call upon all governments to halt the international arms trade and to work toward nuclear disarmament and ultimately, general disarmament. We support non-violent conflict resolution, a non-interventionist foreign policy and the redirection of the hundreds of billions of dollars currently being squandered on the worlds military toward environmental improvement and fulfilling the worlds unmet needs for adequate nutrition, housing, health care and education. Mid-Missouri Peaceworks 804-C E. Broadway Columbia, MO 65201 573-875-0539 E-mail: peacewks@coin.org Web site: http://peaceworks.missouri.org "Dissent is the highest form of patriotism" --Thomas Jefferson ***************************************************************** 18 IRNA: Britain's secret nuclear deal with Israel revealed by BBC London, Aug 4, IRNA UK-Israel Nuclear Arms Britain secretly sold Israel 20 tonnes of heavy water for its nuclear programme in 1958, according to official documents disclosed by the BBC. The decision to export the heavy water, used in the production of plutonium, was found to have been made by civil servants and apparently without the prior consent of Prime Minister Harold Macmillan's Conservative government and the US at the time. The revelation is seen undermining the UK's current leading role in EU attempts to prevent Iran using its right to enrich uranium under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Keeping the deal secret may also be a contributory factor in why successive British government have remained so reluctant to put pressure on Israel to admit, let alone destroy, its nuclear arsenal and join the NPT. The documents, discovered at the Public Records Office by the BBC's Newsnight programme, reveal that Britain supplied the heavy water to Israel without safeguards against military use, enabling the production of nuclear weapons. The deal was kept secret by being structured as a resale to Norway, but was delivered in two separate shipments from a UK port to Israel's underground reactor at Dimona in the Negev desert. It was only after the assumed nuclear weapons programme was subsequently revealed by the Daily Express that the Foreign Office was compelled to prevent a further shipment in 1961. Robert McNamara, who became US Defence Secretary in 1961, insisted that the Kennedy Administration strived to stop Israel from going on to build nuclear weapons and said he had never known about Britain's secret sale at the time. "The fact Israel was trying to develop a nuclear bomb should not have come as a surprise but that Britain should have supplied it with heavy water was indeed a surprise to me," McNamara told Newsnight programme, broadcast on Wednesday. "It's very surprising to me that we weren't told because we shared information about the nuclear bomb very closely with the British," he said. Former British Defence Secretary Lord Gilmour, who was not a minister but was active in Conservative politics during the era, described the revelations as "extraordinary". "They've gone out of their way to do it without safeguards," he said. "One would have thought that any reasonably educated civil servant wouldn't have dreamed of doing anything like this without consulting a minister but as far as I can see they didn't." It has previously been disclosed that the 20 tons of heavy water originated from Norway, but Oslo has remained silent that it was bought by Britain and sent to Israel. Nuclear specialist, Frank Barnaby, who said he also had "no idea at all" that the UK was involved in assisting Israel to develop nuclear weapons, described Britain's role as "rather foolhardy." "I would have thought a cautious government would have in no way been seen to be doing anything to help the Israeli nuclear programme," he told the BBC. ***************************************************************** 19 BBC: The men who bombed Hiroshima Last Updated: Thursday, 4 August 2005 By Matthew Davis BBC News, Washington [Enola Gay crew, Dutch Van Kirk is top row, second from left: Photo courtesy Smithsonian Institution)] The crew of the Enola Gay posed for photographs before their mission They were young men hoping to help end World War II. But to their mission's critics, the crews that dropped the atomic bombs on Japan were part of a war crime. Three men involved in the attack on Hiroshima shared with the BBC their memories of a day that has stayed with them for 60 years. Theodore "Dutch" Van Kirk - Navigator Morris "Dick" Jepson - Weapons test officer Dr Harold Agnew - Scientist, on observation plane Theodore "Dutch" Van Kirk, 84 The day before the mission we sat through briefing on Tinian island where they told us who was assigned to which plane, and we ran through what we were going to do. [Dutch Van Kirk at the US National Air and Space Museum] Mr Van Kirk (left) has never doubted the bomb's morality About 2pm we were told to get some sleep. But I don't know how they expected to tell us were we dropping the first atomic bomb on Japan and then expect us to sleep. I didn't get a wink. Nor did most of the others. But at 10pm we had to get up again because we were flying at 2.45am. They briefed us that the weather was good, but they were sending weather observation planes up so we would have the best information on targeting Hiroshima. We had a final breakfast and then went down to the plane shortly after midnight. There was a great jolt on t aircraft and we were thrown off the floor. Someone called out 'flak' but of course it was the shockwave from the bomb Dutch Van Kirk Crew's joint statement There was a lot of picture-taking and interviewing going on - by the military - and it was a relief to get in the Enola Gay about an hour before we took off. We flew in low over Iwo Jima while the bomb crew checked and armed Little Boy (the uranium bomb) and once we cleared the island we began climbing to our bombing altitude of just over 30,000 feet. It was perfectly clear and I was just doing all the things I'd always done as a navigator - plotting our course, getting fixes to make sure we were on course and reading the drifts so we knew the wind speed. As we flew over an inland sea I could make out the city of Hiroshima from miles away - my first thought was 'That's the target, now let's bomb the damn thing'. But it was quiet in the sky. I'd flown 58 missions over Europe and Africa - and I said to one of the boys that if we'd sat in the sky for so long over there we'd have been blown out of the air. Once we verified the target, I went in the back and just sat down. The next thing I felt was 94,000lbs of bomb leaving the aircraft - there was a huge surge and we immediately banked into a right hand turn and lost about 2,000 feet. We'd been told that if we were eight miles away when the thing went off, we'd probably be ok - so we wanted to put as much distance as possible between us and the blast. All of us - except the pilot - were wearing dark goggles, but we still saw a flash - a bit like a camera bulb going off in the plane. There was a great jolt on the aircraft and we were thrown off the floor. Someone called out 'flak' but of course it was the shockwave from the bomb. [Hiroshima explosion (Photo: Smithsonian Institution)] Within a minute of the blast a white cloud had reached 42,000ft The tail-gunner later said he saw it coming towards us - a bit like the haze you see over a car park on a hot day, but moving forwards a great speed. We turned to look back at Hiroshima and already there was a huge white cloud reaching up more than 42,000 feet. At the base you could see nothing but thick black dust and debris - it looked like a pot of hot oil down there. We were pleased that the bomb had exploded as planned and later we got to talking about what it meant for the war. We concluded that it would be over - that not even the most obstinate, uncaring leaders could refuse to surrender after this. In the weeks afterwards, I actually flew back to Japan with some US scientists and some Japanese from their atomic programme. We flew low over Hiroshima but could not land anywhere and eventually landed at Nagasaki. We didn't hide the fact that we were American and many people turned their faces away from us. But where we stayed we were made very welcome and I think people were glad that the war had ended. Morris "Dick" Jepson, 83 I was a young second lieutenant in the US Air Forc and was designated as the weapons test officer on the Enola Gay. [Enola Gay returns after Hiroshima mission (photo: Smithsonian Institution)] For Dick Jepson, the Enola Gay flight was his first combat mission The bomb was designed to detonate when it was about 1,500 feet - or about one-and-a-half seconds - above the ground to ensure the maximum possible destructive range. To that end it contained a range of radar-designated electronics. In the run-up to the mission I had spent five months at Harvard and three months at MIT studying radar design. z For several months I worked on developing the electronics that would allow the bomb to detonate above the ground, flying test missions over southern California. The Manhattan Project [to build the atomic bomb] was compartmentalised so the thousands of people working on it could not know the full details of the plan, but I was in no doubt I was training for an atomic bomb drop. On the day of the mission, I had to perform some final tests on the electronics that operated the bomb. Everyone's thoughts turned what devastation there would have been down below - we all had that thought on our mind because we had seen what the bomb could do Morris "Dick" Jepson There was a box in the plane's forward compartment that connected to the bomb via a cable system. My final job was to climb down into the bomb bay, crawl around the bomb and manually arm the device. I took out three testing plugs that isolated the bomb and put in three red firing plugs. The most important thought in my mind was that this would detonate and end the war. Unlike the others, this was the only combat mission I had been on, but there was only one point when I was apprehensive. I knew how long it took for the bomb to fall and detonate - 43 seconds - so I counted but nothing happened. I just thought this was devastating. But in the excitement I had counted too fast. That second, the crew reported a huge flash and it had gone off. A few seconds later I felt the first blast wave. There was a second shockwave and I knew by the delay that it had detonated at the right height - and this second wave was the force of the bomb bouncing back off the ground. Everyone's thoughts turned to what devastation there would have been down below - we all had that thought on our mind because we had seen what the bomb could do. But it was the right thing to do. Dr Harold Agnew, 85 I had come from working on the Manhattan Project a Los Alamos and my abiding memory is of it being a very exciting time, working with all the best scientific minds of the day. [Dr Harold Agnew, here with the plutonium core of the Nagasaki bomb] Dr Harold Agnew, with the plutonium core of the Nagasaki bomb I describe myself as a 'grunt' at that time, I did what I was told to do. But I was part of a great undertaking. For the Hiroshima mission I was on board The Great Artiste, a second B-29 that had tailed the Enola Gay to the bombing zone. We'd flown alongside them all the way up there and were about four or five miles off to one side of Hiroshima, dropping gauges with parachutes that would measure the yield of the bomb. After we dropped our gauges I remember we made a sharp turn to the right so that we would not get caught in the blast - but we still got badly shaken up by it. I don't think anyone realised exactly what would happen. It was the only uranium bomb to be dropped. My honest feeling at the time was that they deserved it, and as far as I am concerned that is still how I feel today. People never look back to what led up to it - Pearl Harbour, Nanking - and there are no innocent civilians in war, everyone is doing something, contributing to the war effort, building bombs. What we did saved a lot of lives in the long run and I am proud to have been part of it. After the war I returned to the University of Chicago to continue my studies and later rejoined Los Alamos, where I eventually became director of the laboratory. About three-quarters of the US nuclear arsenal was designed under my tutelage at Los Alamos. That is my legacy. ***************************************************************** 20 Xinhua: Pakistani delegation leaves for India for nuclear www.xinhuanet.com www.chinaview.cn 2005-08-04 20:18:55 ISLAMABAD, Aug. 4 (Xinhuanet) -- A nine-member Pakistani delegation left for New Delhi on Thursday for two-day experts-level talks with their Indian counterparts on Nuclear Confidence Building Measures (CBMs), beginning on Aug. 5. Tariq Osman Hyder, Additional Secretary in Pakistani Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who is leading the delegation, told reporters that he is hopeful of fruitful outcome of the talks. "We are going with an open heart," Hyder said. Local Reports suggest that the two sides are likely to formalize an agreement on advance notification of missile tests. The two countries give advance information on missile testing under an understanding, but they want to ink a formal agreement. The draft agreement on pre-flight testing of missiles is ready and was discussed extensively at the last round of bilateral talkson nuclear CBMs in Islamabad last year. The talks would look into the proposals for the establishment of a hotline between the two foreign secretaries, up-gradation of the existing hotline between the Pakistani and Indian directors general of military operations and exchange of nuclear doctrines. The two sides will also explore the proposal of a nuclear restraint regime and the setting up of nuclear risk reduction centers during discussions that are aimed at reducing the risk of accidental or unauthorized use of nuclear weapons. Difficult questions such as the deployment, mating, targeting and de-alerting of nuclear weapons are also likely to figure in the talks. Experts-level talks on conventional CBMs will also be held in New Delhi on Aug. 8. A Pakistani delegation on Economic and Commercial Cooperation headed by Commerce Secretary Tasneem Noorani will also leave for New Delhi on Aug.8 to attend a two-day meeting within the framework of the Pak-Indo Composite Dialogue process initiated early last year. The two-day talks to be held on Aug. 9 and 10 are expected to take up various items of agenda including the report of the Joint Study Group and the issue of non-tariff barriers to enhance trade between the two countries. Home Secretary-level meeting on terrorism and drug trafficking between the two countries will be held in New Delhi on Aug. 29 and30 as a part of the Composite Dialogue process. Enditem Copyright ©2003 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 21 Daily Times: Talks on nuclear CBMs tomorrow Friday, August 05, 2005 NEW DELHI: A Pakistani delegation will arrive here tomorrow (Friday) for two-day expert-level talks with India on Nuclear Confidence Building Measures (CBMs). Foreign Affairs Ministry additional secretary Tariq Osman Hyder will lead the nine-member delegation. Indian External Affairs Ministry Additional Secretary Meera Shankar will lead the Indian side in talks. Later, experts-level talks on Conventional CBMs will be held here on August 8. Indian External Affairs Ministry Joint Secretary Dileep Sinha will lead the Indian delegation while Hyder will lead the Pakistani delegation. agencies Home | National Daily Times - All Rights Reserved Site developed and hosted by WorldCALL Internet ***************************************************************** 22 RedNova News: Bonanza for UK Energy Posted on: Wednesday, 3 August 2005, 21:00 CDT Jul. 31--British and European energy giants will lead the multi-billion dollar takeover wave to sweep America after the passing of its controversial energy bill. UK companies Centrica and National Grid have confirmed their interest in taking part; Germany's Eon -- which owns UK brand Powergen -- has also been named as a likely acquirer. The US is deregulating its energy market, one of the most restricted in the world, to help bring down prices to consumers in the wake of $60 a barrel oil and peaking gas prices. Many UK and European firms, which face slowing growth at home, see the expanding US economy -- growing at an annual rate of 3.4 percent according to figures released on Friday -- as the last great energy frontier. The energy bill, passed by the US Senate on Friday, is unpopular with environmentalists because it gives $14.5bn (£8.1bn, E11.9bn) in tax breaks and subsidies to US energy firms, opens up oil drilling in Alaska and subsidises new nuclear power plants. It also repeals the legislation that blocks consolidation in the industry, the depression-era Public Utilities Holding Company Act, an anti-trust measure that has long restricted the world's largest power market. National Grid, which owns five utilities in north-east America, is tipped to be the most aggressive player. It sold four of its UK gas distribution businesses in June, leaving it the $3.8bn cash it has earmarked for acquiring US transmission and distribution businesses. A US spokeswoman for the company said: "It [the new bill] would allow National Grid to invest in new areas and new geographic regions. Right now, the way it's set up, we are only allowed to buy systems that touch each other." A US-based banker tipped National Grid to take over California utility Pacific Gas &Electric Corporation, a perfect fit since it was forced to sell most of its power generation assets after the California energy crisis. The deal was impossible previously because of the distance from National Grid's existing US assets. NiSource in the Midwest would be a good fit for Eon, which already owns Kentucky utility LG. The banker said Eon could have expanded into Chicago and Illinois if it wasn't for the previous act. Eon raised speculation it was back in expansion mode in March when it lifted a E5bn limit previously imposed on acquisitions. A spokesman at Centrica, which owns the Direct Energy brand, said: "We are always looking at ways to boost our presence in the US. But it's fair to say that, like National Grid, there are regulatory issues." John Reynolds, head of power banking at Houlihan Lokey, said: "I don't think 'wave' is too strong a word for it. You look at the average size of a utility company in the US: it's considerably smaller than in Europe. There are big economies of scale in the power sector which offer benefits to the shareholders of companies and their consumers." The previous act banned non-utility companies from buying utilities and would only allow acquisitions where a buyer's existing utility was capable of integration with the one it was taking over, limiting mergers to particular regions. Competing with the European firms will be the more acquisitive US utilities such as Atlanta-based Southern Company and MidAmerican Energy Holdings, controlled by investment guru Warren Buffett. Regulators at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) have only lightly enforced the previous utilities act recently, believing its demise was imminent. Duke Energy's acquisition of Cinergy and MidAmerican Holdings' acquisition of Scottish Power subsidiary Pacificorp should not strictly have been allowed. Buffett was thought to be betting, as it turns out rightly, that by the time the deal came before regulators the act would be long gone. The repeal could also make the US a fertile hunting ground for banks and private equity firms looking for reliable regulated returns. With more than 70 local utilities that have been unable to consolidate, there's no shortage of bite-sized targets. The US Senate on Friday night finally passed the energy bill in a vote of 74 to 26. Congress passed it on Thursday by 275 to 156. It will now go for signing by President Bush. The only risk is the paradoxical protectionist streak of legislators. Bankers fear some of the previous act's stringent requirements may be transferred to one of the battery of bodies regulating the US power firms. ----- go to http://www.thebusinessonline.com. Copyright (c) 2005, The Business, London Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News. For information on republishing this content, contact us at (800) 661-2511 (U.S.), (213) 237-4914 (worldwide), fax (213) 237-6515, or e-mail reprints@krtinfo.com. Source: Sunday Business ***************************************************************** 23 Guardian Unlimited: Officer's Letters Describe WWII Bombings From the Associated Press [UP] Thursday August 4, 2005 8:01 AM AP Photo NY193 By WILLIAM C. MANN Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - In two years of submarine combat duty, U.S. naval officer Thomas O. Paine thought he had seen the worst of World War II. Then he saw what atomic bombs did to the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. ``I'll just say that no description seems ample to describe the power that was unleashed,'' the 24-year-old wrote to his parents. ``It is beyond belief almost, and makes what we did to Germany and Tokyo and Sasebo and Agana at Guam as nothing,'' according to one of dozens of letters in his file in the Library of Congress. In describing the aftermath of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, and three days later on Nagasaki, the letters reveal a young man wrestling with the awesomeness of the deed. ``Perhaps you wouldn't like to hear about it, but I think more people should know about it,'' he wrote home on Oct. 7, 1945, from Sasebo, 30 miles north of Nagasaki. He underlined ``should.'' Paine's letters are preserved because of a later service to his country. As NASA director in 1969-70, he sent up the first seven Apollo manned missions, culminating with the first footprints on the moon. Still, he never forgot the devastation he saw from the bombs nicknamed Little Boy and Fat Man, the only nuclear weapons used in war. Paine, who died in 1992, was no peacenik. His father was a Navy commodore and Paine volunteered for the Naval Reserve. After becoming an officer on the fast track, Paine joined the submarine service. Submariners had the second-highest casualty rate of any U.S. wartime naval service behind merchant mariners, the targets of enemy submarines. Duty took Paine to Japan little more than a month after the bombs forced the Japanese to surrender and avoided what would have been an extremely bloody U.S. invasion of the Japanese home islands. Paine's job was to inspect and document enemy submarines left from the war before they were to be destroyed or impounded. ``If you can visualize a molten street car, or an area miles square with no object bigger than a fireplace log in it, where it is impossible to tell where the streets and buildings were located, where some 80,000 people were living one second and completely disintegrated along with all their buildings the next, if you can visualize this, you can imagine the process of the Atomic Bomb,'' he wrote. ``Then imagine a town with all doctors, all policemen, all firemen, the total military garrison and every hospital wiped out, and further imagine it saturated with dead and the dying, and you have visualized Nagasaki. ``The details are even worse, and I'll spare you that anyway,'' Paine wrote. Paine's elder son, George T. Paine, born seven years after the war, said his father was struck by ``the scope of destruction by fire bombs'' dropped on Japan near the war's end. The lingering effects of nuclear bombs - which kill with radiation for years after their use - later convinced him that nuclear war was far worse, George Paine said. During the presidential campaign of 1964, Paine, then a General Electric Co. executive in Santa Barbara, Calif., founded Scientists and Engineers for Johnson to raise money for President Johnson's campaign against the conservative Republican Sen. Barry Goldwater of Arizona. In a 1970 interview, Paine said he generally was apolitical but had been swayed by the ``casual way that Goldwater was talking about nuclear weapons. ... I just didn't think, as a citizen who knew about the power of nuclear weapons, I could sit on the sidelines while this sort of thing went on.'' Generally, Paine's letters were small talk about family and the frustration of his inability to wangle a way for the woman who would become his wife, Australian Barbara Pearse, to go to his parents in California to await his arrival and their marriage. But when he spoke of the post-bomb Japan, the words flowed. On Oct. 23, in a letter from Kure, 10 miles south of Hiroshima, Paine writes of the destruction around his ship caused by wave after wave of U.S. warplanes in the weeks before atomic bombs were used: battleships listing or sunk; battered aircraft carriers left as hulks in the water; twisted steel; and blackened dockyards. ``Inside Kure Wan (Harbor) lie about 20 destroyers, with guns removed. ... The town of Kure lies before us, with the middle 80 percent of the town as level as a golf course, completely burnt out by B-29s. Over the hill lies an enormous scar on the face of the earth, where 100,000 people lived in a place called Hiroshima a few months ago,'' he wrote. ``Well, we said we'd make them regret Pearl Harbor - and we did.'' Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005 ***************************************************************** 24 India Outlook: N-pact a blunder - NDA outlookindia.com | wired PTI PRINT EMAIL RS-PM NEW DELHI, AUG 4 (PTI) Opposition NDA today charged the UPA Government with having committed "a blunder and a horrible mistake" by agreeing to separate country's civilian and defence nuclear installations under the recently inked Indo-US nuclear pact. "It is a blunder and a horrible mistake. This is a kind of blunder late Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru comitted by raising the Kashmir issue in the United Nations," senior BJP leader Sushma Swaraj said initiating a discussion in the Rajya Sabha on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's statement on his visit to the US. "We have only got a promisory note from the United States" in return for virtually agreeing to do everything that is prescribed under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty even though India was not a signatory to it, she said. Claming what has been mentioned in PM's statement did not fully reflect facts, Swaraj quoted US Assistant Secretary of State Nicholas Burn as saying that India has virtually conceded to everything that signatories to NPT have agreed to. It was regrettable that the UPA Government has not understood negative implications of such a surrender to the United States, she said. India agreed to a seven-point formula on nuclear cooperation, she said adding in return, it got from the US only a promise to consider amendment to its laws to lift restrictions on civilian nuclear cooperation with India. Asserting the country's security preparedness should not be undermined, Swaraj said the country would have better bargaining power only when it was powerful. This was precisely what the Vajpayee government did by going ahead with country's nuclear tests in 1998 to have a minimum critical deterrent, she said. Swaraj criticised the Prime Minister for having taken a unilateral decision without consulting political parties. "You have not even consulted UPA allies. You have sidelined Indian Parliament," she said. Strongly rebutting Swaraj, senior Congress member Ambika Soni accused BJP of "degenerating" the discussion on this historical development which only reflected "bankruptcy" of ideas. "Congress party will not compromise on national interests and Congressmen have made great sacrifice to ensure that national prestige is fully protected," she said adding "we have not gone to Kandahar taking terrorists" as happened during the NDA regime. "It is unfortunate that the NDA government was unable to see the positive outcome of the Indo-US pact including cooperation in knowledge and agriculture which will improve the life of majority population and youth living in rural areas," she said. Soni said it goes to the credit of the Prime Minister for having taken a stand on Iraq during his visit to the US and wondered how many leaders from NDA had taken such a bold step. She said it went to the credit of the Prime Minister that his US visit enabled India to come out of the nuclear isolation particulary after 1998 Pokhran blasts. Nilotpal Basu (CPI-M) said his party would have preferred a national debate first before jumping to a conclusion that nuclear energy was the best option for country's energy security. "I would like to know from the Prime Minister whether there was a national debate in the country on the issue and what should be the appropriate energy mix," he said regretting "lack of transparency", on the issue. Basu said his party was not for nuclear stockpiling and any kind of jingoism. His party would have been happier if the government in its effort to come out of nuclear isolation had combined the principle of moving towards nuclear free world. The CPI-M member said the government should pursue an independent nuclear programme. He did not agree with NDA government's agrument that respect to a nation would grow only from power saying "it is a self-destructive argument". ©Outlook Publishing (India) Private Limited 2005 ***************************************************************** 25 deccan herald: Nuclear deal with US not a surrender: PM Letters to Editor New Delhi: PTI Prime Minister Manmohan Singh rejected the Opposition charge that the Indo-US nuclear deal had resulted in India surrendering the autonomy of managing its strategic nuclear assets. Replying to a special discussion on his recent visit to the US, the Prime Minister said "we have not surrendered in any way the effectiveness of our stratgic nuclear assets programme". Seeking to dispel fears on the feasibility of separating civilian and military nuclear installations, Dr Singh said the approval of the Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission was taken before the Joint Statement with US President George W Bush was signed. He said he was "cautious" about the issue and until he had received the approval of AEC chief, he refused to sign it leading to a delay in inking of the pact by 15 minutes. 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 ***************************************************************** 26 Deccan Herald: Vajpayee seeks national debate on N-deal Letters to Editor New Delhi: PTI Opposition and Left parties in the Lok Sabha on Thursday expressed concern over the impact of the Indo-US nuclear deal on India's independent foreign policy with former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee asking the government to clarify whether "indirect conditionalities" have been imposed on the country. Seeking a national debate and a consensus on the nuclear question, Mr Vajpayee asked whether India's future interests had been taken into account while entering into deals which, among other things, entailed separation of the country's civilian and military nuclear facilities. Initiating a debate on the statement made by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh regarding his recent US visit, Mr Vajpayee, who made his speech while being seated, said in a world faced with terrorism, "we cannot say with conviction when which facility will be required to safeguard our national interests". He expressed apprehension that the nuclear deal with the US could affect production of nuclear materials by India which, in turn, would impact national security. 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 ***************************************************************** 27 AFP: India, Pakistan in talks to avoid 'accidental war' as peace drive falters Thursday August 4, 02:38 PM NEW DELHI (AFP) - Officials of India and Pakistan will meet in New Delhi Friday to pursue discussions on nuclear safeguards aimed at cutting risks of accidental war between them amid a faltering peace drive. Analysts say the mood has changed from the heady optimism three months ago when leaders of the nuclear-armed neighbours declared the peace process aimed at ending nearly 60 years of mutual hostility "irreversible." Fuelling tensions at Friday's talks on confidence-building measures (CBMs) involving nuclear and conventional arsenals will be Islamabad's unhappiness over a US decision last month to share nuclear technology with India. "Pakistan's reaction has not been very positive and that is a major factor to be taken into account when dealing with nuclear CBMs," said Kalim Bahadur, who teaches Asian studies at New Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University. "Pakistan's position also is it should have arms parity with India in spite of the vast differences in population and economies," he said. New Delhi has rejected such proposals on the grounds Pakistan's arsenal buildup targets India specifically. India says it does not base its defence capacity on any country or threat and "does not want to be restrained in developing its arms capability," Bahadur said. On the table will be draft agreements thrashed out last year to set up nuclear hotlines and early notification of missile tests. India and Pakistan, which often test-fire nuclear-capable missiles, already have an informal deal to warn each other before such tests but have been seeking to make it formal. "But even on these it will be very difficult to reach any conclusion in light of the domestic Pakistan context. This will overshadow the talks," said Bahadur. Pakistani analysts agreed there was scant chance of progress in the talks. Pakistan's The News, which usually reflects the views of the Pakistani establishment, reported last month that Islamabad plans to emphasize military balance at the meeting. "Pakistan will insist on a strategic regime to be put in place which covers the nuclear as well as conventional force balance," said Riffat Hussain, head of strategic studies at Islamabad's Quaid-e-Azam University. "This will be yet another round of talks without any agreement." Underlying the chillier atmosphere is the longstanding row over the future of scenic Kashmir which sparked two of three wars between the countries and brought them to the brink of another conflict in 2002. In Islamabad, irritation is growing with what Pakistan sees as India's reluctance to move decisively to resolve the issue of Kashmir. Islamabad sees such a settlement as central to mending ties. In New Delhi, after a wave of spectacular militant attacks in Kashmir, Premier Manmohan Singh has been telling Pakistan to rein in militants based on its soil that are fighting New Delhi's rule in the Indian zone of Kashmir. Still, analysts say the faltering peace process pace does not herald its collapse. "The desire for peace is there among the people," said Pranay Sharma, foreign correspondent of The Telegraph, based in Calcutta. Also, both governments are aware of the consequences of a breakdown. India does not want its economic boom reined in by worries the two nations are sliding toward nuclear armageddon. Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf "is facing a lot of problems with Al-Qaeda regrouping, Islamic extremism. Also the London bombings have brought the focus back on him," Sharma said. "This not the right time for him to break away from the talks process." Mindful of these concerns, Musharraf and Singh agreed in a telephone conversation last weekend to "eschew statements" that "vitiate" the peace process, news reports from Islamabad said. While Pakistan is unhappy over the nuclear deal, "it knows, despite being a close US ally, it can't get what India is getting after the Khan episode," said Sharma, referring to the scandal in which the architect of Pakistan's nuclear capability, Abdul Qadeer Khan, sold atomic secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea. "They may bargain for more debt write-offs or other things but they have to grudgingly accept what India got," Sharma said. Copyright © 2005 AFP. All rights reserved. All information ***************************************************************** 28 Guardian Unlimited: Nuclear brinkmanship Iran Leader Thursday August 4, 2005 Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was sworn in as president of Iran yesterday at a difficult time. It came as an unpleasant surprise in June when this little-known populist hardliner trounced a candidate from the reformist wing of the country's byzantine political scene. Now, just as the former revolutionary guard and mayor of Tehran replaces the pro-reform Mohammad Khatami, comes a potentially fateful moment in the long-running row over Iran's nuclear ambitions. The Islamic Republic insists it has the right to nuclear power generation - though it is blessed with vast reserves of oil and gas. The US and others suspect that its real intention is to secretly develop nuclear weapons. This explosive issue has been kept under control for two years as Britain, France and Germany, representing the EU, have adopted a carefully calibrated carrot-and-stick approach. They learned the hard way in Iraq that having no policy allows the US to go it alone, so the Europeans have bent over backwards in the face of suspicion and hostility from Washington to ensure diplomacy works. Now though, with Iran's hawks in the ascendant, a crisis is looming. Appeals by the International Atomic Energy Agency - the UN's nuclear watchdog - have fallen on deaf ears in Tehran, where the authorities insisted again yesterday that they will unilaterally resume the uranium ore conversion they suspended when talks began last year. That would pre-empt delivery of a long-awaited package of EU incentives being unveiled this weekend. The coming days will tell whether this is brinkmanship or an end to negotiations. The stakes are high - though cool nerves are in order, especially given the dismal state of intelligence about Iraqi WMD. The latest US estimate is that Iran is a decade away from making a bomb, very different from what may be a self-serving Israeli view that it is already far closer to that goal. There is obvious danger in the fact that the nuclear issue is coming to a head so soon after Mr Ahmadinejad's election dashed hopes of advances for reformists and strengthened the baleful influence of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Like other unfree regimes, Iran's thrives on external pressure. The new president has already complained that he is the target of a smear campaign linking him to the occupation of the US embassy in Tehran after Ayatollah Khomeini's 1979 revolution. Mistrust between the two countries still runs deep. Yet even moderates argue that Iran is entitled to nuclear power, as indeed it is under the terms of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. The problem is that it has been caught red-handed cheating in the past. The fact that the five "official" nuclear powers have not met their own disarmament obligations, and that Israel (aided by Britain in the 1950s, as we report today), as well as India and Pakistan all have weapons outside the treaty does not mean Iran should be allowed to follow suit. It has to choose between a road that may lead to UN sanctions and isolation, or the international cooperation, trade and investment needed to feed and employ a young and fast-growing population. If Iran does reject the EU offer, which includes civilian nuclear technology, it will be hard to avoid the conclusion that its true goal is military. The lesson of Iraq is that engagement with a difficult regime is more likely to encourage change than sanctions and war. Iran, famously part of George Bush's "axis of evil", has behaved with constructive restraint over Iraq and Afghanistan. But its domestic record is lamentable and human rights abuses commonplace. Shirin Ebadi, the Iranian lawyer and Nobel prize laureate, insisted yesterday that the gradual social, media and legal advances of recent years must not be reversed. That is a brave and optimistic assertion that will not easily survive a crisis with the west over nuclear weapons. [UP] Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005 ***************************************************************** 29 [NukeNet] Japanese nuclear power and nuclear proliferation in Date: Thu, 04 Aug 2005 14:35:27 -0700 MIME_QP_LONG_LINE,SP_HAM_EXTREME,SUBJ_GROUP,WHITE_PHRASE autolearn=ham version=3.0.4 X-Spam-filter-host: darwin.ctyme.com - http://www.junkemailfilter.com NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet@energyjustice.net) Media Release Thinking the Unthinkable: Japanese nuclear power and nuclear proliferation in East Asia A report entitled “Thinking the Unthinkable: Japanese nuclear power and nuclear proliferation in East Asia” will be released at the World Conference Against A- and H-Bombs to Commemorate the 60th Anniversary of the Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The conference is being organized by the Japan Congress Against A- and H-Bombs and commences on 4 August 2005 in Hiroshima. The report has been translated into Japanese and the Japanese and English versions will be released simultaneously. The report, written by Dr. Frank Barnaby, and Shaun Burnie, is a joint publication of the Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center (CNIC) and the Oxford Research Group (ORG). It addresses the question of whether or not a future Japanese government might take a political decision to develop nuclear weapons and concludes that Japan’s existing plutonium programme is a driver for nuclear proliferation in the East Asian region and further afield. The report recommends abandoning plutonium use on the grounds of non-proliferation. It suggests that such a change will require active citizen opposition in Japan based upon informed debate and mobilization, aided by support from overseas. About the authors Dr. Barnaby was Executive Secretary of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs in the late 1960s and Director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute from 1971-81 and is now a Nuclear Issues Consultant to ORG. Shaun Burnie is Coordinator of Greenpeace International nuclear campaigns. Launch: The English report will be distributed to English speaking participants at the conference. The Japanese report will be distributed to participants at the following two workshops. One of the authors,Shaun Burnie,will also participate in these workshops. Hiroshima, 5 August 2005, 9:00 ~ 12:00 Session 5: Withdrawal from Plutonium Reprocessing and MOX Use Plan, and Reform of Nuclear Policy (RCC Bunka Center, Hiroshima-shi, Naka-ku, Hashimoto-cho 5-11 (082-222-2277)) Nagasaki, 8 August 2005, 9:30 ~ 12:30 Session 3: Towards the Reform of Nuclear Policy ­ Reprocessing and MOX Use Plan (NBC Video hall, Nagasaki-shi, Uamachi 1-35 (095-826-5300)) The report is available at the following URLs: English: http://cnic.jp/english/publications/orgjapanprolif.html Japanese: http://cnic.jp/modules/mydownloads/singlefile.php?cid=0&lid=6 Contacts: Philip White, CNIC International Liaison Officer (phone (03) 5330 9520) Hideyuki Ban, CNIC Co-Director (at the conference) Citizens' Nuclear Information Center 3F Kotobuki Bdg, 1-58-15, Higashi-Nakano, Nakano-ku, Tokyo 164-0003 Phone: 81-3-5330-9520 Fax: 81-3-5330-9530 http://cnic.jp/english/ cnic@nifty.com _______________________________________________________________________ Subscribe/Unsubscribe Here: http://www.energyjustice.net/nukenet/ Change your settings or access the archives at: http://energyjustice.net/mailman/listinfo/nukenet_energyjustice.net ***************************************************************** 30 The NRC Issues White Violation at Three Mile Island Date: Thu, 04 Aug 2005 14:35:57 -0700 X-Spam-filter-host: darwin.ctyme.com - http://www.junkemailfilter.com Three Mile Island Alert, Inc. 315 Peffer Street Harrisburg, PA 17102 MEDIA ADVISORY August 4, 2005 Contact: (717)-541-1101 Eric J. Epstein ericepstein@comcast.net The NRC Issues White Violation at Three Mile Island 50% of emergency responders not retrained; including ³key responders² The NRC has issued a Violation relating to another staffing deficiency at Three Mile Island where ³approximately 50% of the emergency responders² were ³overdue² for their annual training for ³an approximate five month period². Earlier this year INPO placed TMI on probation after 25 percent of the operating crews demonstrated their inability to protect the public in event of an actual emergency. In other words, if another accident had happened, there was a 1 in 4 chance that the operators would once again be unable to prevent core damage. Eric Epstein, Chairman, Three Mile Island-Alert, a safe energy organization based in Harrisburg and founded 1977, stated that a troubling trend is evident at Three Mile Island. ³Staffing cuts, forced overtime and an aging workforce has undermined training and eroded safety margins at Three Mile Island.² The determination was made by Samuel J. Collins, NRC Regional Administrator on July 29, 2005. A copy of the NRC¹s ³Final; Significance Determination² is available at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html ***************************************************************** 31 Platts: Groups can't join in former Davis-Besse worker's NRC proceeding + Two advocacy groups don't have standing to intervene in the case of Andrew Siemaszko, the former Davis-Besse worker who was penalized by the NRC, an NRC Atomic Safety & Licensing Board ruled yesterday. The board said the Union of Concerned Scientists and Ohio Citizen Action would not "suffer a concrete and particularized harm" if the penalty imposed on Siemaszko were upheld. Siemaszko was banned from involvement in NRC-licensed activities for five years as a result of his alleged role in activities connected with the degradation of the Davis-Besse reactor head. The board said the groups could apply by Aug. 15 for "discretionary intervention," meaning that their input could aid the NRC in making decisions even if they don't meet requirements for standing. Washington (Platts)--3Aug2005 Copyright © 2005 - Platts, All Rights Reserved [The McGraw-Hill Companies] ***************************************************************** 32 JOURNAL NEWS: Indian Point 2 to get extra NRC scrutiny By MICHAEL RISINIT (Original publication: August 4, 2005) BUCHANAN — Federal regulators will pay extra attention to Entergy's operation of the Indian Point 2 nuclear power plant in Buchanan after determining a nitrogen leak last winter incapacitated one of the pumps used to shut down the reactor during an emergency and compromised two others. In a letter sent this week to Fred Dacimo, vice president of Entergy Nuclear Northeast, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission faulted the company for its failure to find and fix the leak in a timely manner. NRC Regional Administrator Samuel J. Collins said that Entergy noted an improper condition on Nov. 21, 2004, which allowed water to leak past several closed valves and release dissolved nitrogen into the housing of three pumps. That prevented one pump, known as the #23 safety injection pump, from properly operating and jeopardized two others. The pumps are part of a backup system used to cool the reactor with water during an accident and have since been fixed. How many days the #23 pump didn't work is unknown. It was working Dec. 24, the last successful quarterly surveillance test. It wasn't working Jan. 27 when the gas was discovered in the casing surrounding the pump, according to NRC records. NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said yesterday the malfunction didn't endanger the public or workers. The facility has other safety systems that can be used to shut down the reactor. "But it's a decline in the safety margins. That's something we need to address," Sheehan said. Sheehan said the NRC will let stand the "white" rating it assigned to the reactor in June, when the NRC notified Entergy of its initial inspection and report on the incident. The white rating represents a "low to moderate" safety violation against Indian Point 2. White is second on a four-level scale of safety concerns — green, white, yellow, red — with red being the highest concern. Entergy spokesman Jim Steets characterized the incident as an "isolated matter." "It's just not a really good performance on our part. It's not an indication of any trend," Steets said. Steets said Entergy would "support and cooperate" with any NRC inspections. Sheehan said the white rating carries with it supplemental inspections of Indian Point 2, the older of two operating nuclear power plants at the Buchanan site, for up to a year. Routine inspections at the plant last year totaled almost 8,000 hours, according to the NRC. -914-694-9300 - - - - - Copyright 2005 The Journal News, . Inc. newspaper serving Westchester, Rockland and Putnam Counties in New York. ***************************************************************** 33 NRC: Duke Energy Corporation, et al.; Catawba Nuclear Station, Units FR Doc E5-4143 [Federal Register: August 4, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 149)] [Notices] [Page 44946-44948] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr04au05-58] 1 and 2; Notice of Consideration of Issuance of Amendment to Renewed Facility Operating Licenses, Proposed No Significant Hazards Consideration Determination, and Opportunity for a Hearing The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC or the Commission) is considering issuance of amendments to Renewed Facility Operating License Nos. NPF-35 and NPF-52 issued to Duke Energy Corporation (the licensee) for operation of the Catawba Nuclear Station, Units 1 and 2, located in York County, South Carolina. The proposed amendment would revise the Technical Specification 3.7.9, ``Standby Nuclear Service Water Pond (SNSWP),'' temperature limit from 91.5 [deg]F to 95 [deg]F. Before issuance of the proposed license amendment, the Commission will have made findings required by the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended (the Act), and the Commission's regulations. The Commission has made a proposed determination that the amendment request involves no significant hazards consideration. Under the Commission's regulations in Title 10 of the Code Of Federal Regulations (10 CFR), Section 50.92, this means that operation of the facility in accordance with the proposed amendment would not (1) involve a significant increase in the probability or consequences of an accident previously evaluated; or (2) create the possibility of a new or different kind of accident from any accident previously evaluated; or (3) involve a significant reduction in a margin of safety. As required by 10 CFR 50.91(a), the licensee has provided its analysis of the issue of no significant hazards consideration, which is presented below: 1. Does operation of the facility in accordance with the proposed amendment involve a significant increase in the probability or consequences of an accident previously evaluated? No. This license amendment request proposes a change to the SNSWP [Standby Nuclear Service Water Pond] TS [Technical Specification] requirement for maximum temperature. The SNSWP is the safety related ultimate heat sink utilized by the NSWS [Nuclear Service Water System]. Neither the NSWS nor the SNSWP is capable of initiating an accident. Therefore, the probability of initiation of any accident cannot be affected. The technical evaluation provided in support of this amendment request demonstrated that with a maximum allowable SNSWP temperature of 95 [deg]F as specified in SR 3.7.9.2, the environmental qualification limit for applicable safety related equipment is not reached and the peak containment pressure remains below the TS limit. This amendment request does not involve any change to previously analyzed dose analysis results. The accident of interest from a dose perspective is the Main Steam Line Break Accident. The dose release path during this accident is via steaming of the Reactor Coolant System through the steam generator power operated relief valves. The results of this accident have been reviewed with the revised SNSWP temperature limit and it has been determined that the Reactor Coolant System cooldown is terminated early enough such that the dose analysis results are not adversely impacted. Therefore, there is no increase in any accident consequences. 2. Does operation of the facility in accordance with the proposed amendment create the possibility of a new or different kind of accident from any accident previously evaluated? No. This proposed amendment does not involve addition, removal, or modification of any plant system, structure, or component. This change will not affect the operation of [[Page 44947]] any plant system, structure, or components as directed in plant procedures. Operation of the facility in accordance with this amendment does not create the possibility of a new or different kind of accident from any accident previously evaluated. 3. Does operation of the facility in accordance with the proposed amendment involve a significant reduction in the margin of safety? No. Margin of safety is related to confidence in the ability of the fission product barriers to perform their design functions following any of their design basis accidents. These barriers include the fuel cladding, the Reactor Coolant System, and the containment. The proposed changes have no impact on fuel cladding performance. In addition, Reactor Coolant System performance (as determined by its impact on dose analysis results) continues to be acceptable as indicated above. Finally, containment performance (as determined by calculated containment peak pressure) remains acceptable. Therefore, the performance of these fission product barriers either during normal plant operations or following an accident will not be affected by the changes associated with this license amendment request. In addition, the operation of the NSWS and the SNSWP either during normal plant operations or following an accident will not be adversely impacted by implementation of the proposed amendment. The NRC staff has reviewed the licensee's analysis and, based on this review, it appears that the three standards of 10 CFR 50.92(c) are satisfied. Therefore, the NRC staff proposes to determine that the amendment request involves no significant hazards consideration. The Commission is seeking public comments on this proposed determination. Any comments received within 30 days after the date of publication of this notice will be considered in making any final determination. Normally, the Commission will not issue the amendment until the expiration of 60 days after the date of publication of this notice. The Commission may issue the license amendment before expiration of the 60- day period provided that its final determination is that the amendment involves no significant hazards consideration. In addition, the Commission may issue the amendment prior to the expiration of the 30- day comment period should circumstances change during the 30-day comment period such that failure to act in a timely way would result, for example in derating or shutdown of the facility. Should the Commission take action prior to the expiration of either the comment period or the notice period, it will publish in the Federal Register a notice of issuance. Should the Commission make a final No Significant Hazards Consideration Determination, any hearing will take place after issuance. The Commission expects that the need to take this action will occur very infrequently. Written comments may be submitted by mail to the Chief, Rules and Directives Branch, Division of Administrative Services, Office of Administration, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, and should cite the publication date and page number of this Federal Register notice. Written comments may also be delivered to Room 6D59, Two White Flint North, 11545 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland, from 7:30 a.m. to 4:15 p.m. Federal workdays. Documents may be examined, and/or copied for a fee, at the NRC's Public Document Room (PDR), located at One White Flint North, Public File Area O1 F21, 11555 Rockville Pike (first floor), Rockville, Maryland. The filing of requests for hearing and petitions for leave to intervene is discussed below. Within 60 days after the date of publication of this notice, the licensee may file a request for a hearing with respect to issuance of the amendment to the subject facility operating license and any person whose interest may be affected by this proceeding and who wishes to participate as a party in the proceeding must file a written request for a hearing and a petition for leave to intervene. Requests for a hearing and a petition for leave to intervene shall be filed in accordance with the Commission's ``Rules of Practice for Domestic Licensing Proceedings'' in 10 CFR Part 2. Interested persons should consult a current copy of 10 CFR 2.309, which is available at the Commission's PDR, located at One White Flint North, Public File Area O1F21, 11555 Rockville Pike (first floor), Rockville, Maryland. Publicly available records will be accessible from the Agencywide Documents Access and Management System's (ADAMS) Public Electronic Reading Room on the Internet at the NRC Web site, http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/cfr/. If a request for a hearing or petition for leave to intervene is filed by the above date, the Commission or a presiding officer designated by the Commission or by the Chief Administrative Judge of the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel, will rule on the request and/or petition; and the Secretary or the Chief Administrative Judge of the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board will issue a notice of a hearing or an appropriate order. As required by 10 CFR 2.309, a petition for leave to intervene shall set forth with particularity the interest of the petitioner in the proceeding, and how that interest may be affected by the results of the proceeding. The petition should specifically explain the reasons why intervention should be permitted with particular reference to the following general requirements: (1) The name, address and telephone number of the requestor or petitioner; (2) the nature of the requestor's/petitioner's right under the Act to be made a party to the proceeding; (3) the nature and extent of the requestor's/petitioner's property, financial, or other interest in the proceeding; and (4) the possible effect of any decision or order which may be entered in the proceeding on the requestors/petitioner's interest. The petition must also identify the specific contentions which the petitioner/requestor seeks to have litigated at the proceeding. Each contention must consist of a specific statement of the issue of law or fact to be raised or controverted. In addition, the petitioner/requestor shall provide a brief explanation of the bases for the contention and a concise statement of the alleged facts or expert opinion which support the contention and on which the petitioner intends to rely in proving the contention at the hearing. The petitioner/requestor must also provide references to those specific sources and documents of which the petitioner is aware and on which the petitioner intends to rely to establish those facts or expert opinion. The petition must include sufficient information to show that a genuine dispute exists with the applicant on a material issue of law or fact. Contentions shall be limited to matters within the scope of the amendment under consideration. The contention must be one which, if proven, would entitle the petitioner to relief. A petitioner/requestor who fails to satisfy these requirements with respect to at least one contention will not be permitted to participate as a party. Those permitted to intervene become parties to the proceeding, subject to any limitations in the order granting leave to intervene, and have the opportunity to participate fully in the conduct of the hearing. If a hearing is requested, the Commission will make a final determination on the issue of no significant hazards consideration. The final determination will serve to decide when the hearing is held. If the final determination is that the amendment request involves no significant hazards consideration, the Commission may [[Page 44948]] issue the amendment and make it immediately effective, notwithstanding the request for a hearing. Any hearing held would take place after issuance of the amendment. If the final determination is that the amendment request involves a significant hazards consideration, any hearing held would take place before the issuance of any amendment. Nontimely requests and/or petitions and contentions will not be entertained absent a determination by the Commission or the presiding officer of the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board that the petition, request and/or the contentions should be granted based on a balancing of the factors specified in 10 CFR 2.309(c)(1)(i)-(viii). A request for a hearing or a petition for leave to intervene must be filed by: (1) First class mail addressed to the Office of the Secretary of the Commission, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, Attention: Rulemaking and Adjudications Staff; (2) courier, express mail, and expedited delivery services: Office of the Secretary, Sixteenth Floor, One White Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland 20852, Attention: Rulemaking and Adjudications Staff; (3) E-mail addressed to the Office of the Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, hearingdocket@nrc.gov; or (4) facsimile transmission addressed to the Office of the Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC, Attention: Rulemakings and Adjudications Staff at (301) 415-1101, verification number is (301) 415-1966. A copy of the request for hearing and petition for leave to intervene should also be sent to the Office of the General Counsel, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, and it is requested that copies be transmitted either by means of facsimile transmission to 301-415-3725 or by e-mail to OGCMailCenter@nrc.gov. A copy of the request for hearing and petition for leave to intervene should also be sent to Ms. Anne Cottingham, Esquire, Winston and Strawn LLP, 1700 K Street, NW, Washington, DC 20006, attorney for the licensee. For further details with respect to this action, see the application for amendment dated July 25, 2005, which is available for public inspection at the Commission's PDR, located at One White Flint North, File Public Area O1 F21, 11555 Rockville Pike (first floor), Rockville, Maryland. Publicly available records will be accessible from the Agencywide Documents Access and Management System's (ADAMS) Public Electronic Reading Room on the Internet at the NRC Web site, http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html. Persons who do not have access to ADAMS or who encounter problems in accessing the documents located in ADAMS, should contact the NRC PDR Reference staff by telephone at 1- 800-397-4209, 301-415-4737, or by e-mail to pdr@nrc.gov. Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 29th day of July 2005. For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Sean E. Peters, Project Manager, Section 1, Project Directorate II, Division of Licensing Project Management, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. [FR Doc. E5-4143 Filed 8-3-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P ***************************************************************** 34 NRC: Certain Licensees Authorized To Possess and Transfer Items FR Doc E5-4144 [Federal Register: August 4, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 149)] [Notices] [Page 44948-44952] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr04au05-59] Containing Radioactive Material Quantities of Concern; Order Imposing Additional Security Measures (Effective Immediately) The Licensees identified in Attachment A to this Order hold licenses issued by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC or Commission) or an Agreement State, in accordance with the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended, and 10 CFR parts 50, 70 and 71, or equivalent Agreement State regulations. The licenses authorize them to possess and transfer items containing radioactive material quantities of concern. This Order is being issued to all such Licensees who may transport radioactive material quantities of concern under the NRC's authority to protect the common defense and security, which has not been relinquished to the Agreement States. The Orders require compliance with specific additional security measures to enhance the security for transport of certain radioactive material quantities of concern. On September 11, 2001, terrorists simultaneously attacked targets in New York, NY, and Washington, DC, utilizing large commercial aircraft as weapons. In response to the attacks and intelligence information subsequently obtained, the Commission issued a number of Safeguards and Threat Advisories to Licensees in order to strengthen Licensees' capabilities and readiness to respond to a potential attack on this regulated activity. The Commission has also communicated with other Federal, State and local government agencies and industry representatives to discuss and evaluate the current threat environment in order to assess the adequacy of the current security measures. In addition, the Commission commenced a comprehensive review of its safeguards and security programs and requirements. As a result of its initial consideration of current safeguards and security requirements, as well as a review of information provided by the intelligence community, the Commission has determined that certain security measures are required to be implemented by Licensees as prudent, interim measures to address the current threat environment in a consistent manner. Therefore, the Commission is imposing requirements, as set forth in Attachment B \1\ of this Order, on all Licensees identified in Attachment A of this Order. These additional security measures, which supplement existing regulatory requirements, will provide the Commission with reasonable assurance that the common defense and security continue to be adequately protected in the current threat environment. These additional security measures will remain in effect until the Commission determines otherwise. ----------------------------------------------------------------- ---------- \1\ Attachment B contains Safeguards Information and will not be released to the public. ----------------------------------------------------------------- ---------- The Commission recognizes that Licensees may have already initiated many of the measures set forth in Attachment B to this Order in response to previously issued Safeguards and Threat Advisories or on their own. It is also recognized that some measures may not be possible or necessary for all shipments of radioactive material quantities of concern, or may need to be tailored to accommodate the Licensees' specific circumstances to achieve the intended objectives and avoid any unforeseen effect on the safe transport of radioactive material quantities of concern. Although the security measures implemented by Licensees in response to the Safeguards and Threat Advisories have been adequate to provide reasonable assurance of adequate protection of common defense and security, in light of the continuing threat environment, the Commission concludes that the security measures must be embodied in an Order, consistent with the established regulatory framework. The Commission has determined that the security measures contained in Attachment B of this Order contains Safeguards Information and will not be released to [[Page 44949]] the public as per Order entitled, ``Issuance of Order Imposing Requirements for Protecting Certain Safeguards Information,'' issued on November 5, 2004.'' To provide assurance that Licensees are implementing prudent measures to achieve a consistent level of protection to address the current threat environment, all licensees identified in Attachment A to this Order shall implement the requirements identified in Attachment B to this Order. In addition, pursuant to 10 CFR 2.202, I find that in light of the common defense and security matters identified above, which warrant the issuance of this Order, the public health and safety require that this Order be immediately effective. Accordingly, pursuant to Sections 53, 63, 81, 103, 104, 161b, 161i, 161o, 182 and 186 of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended, and the Commission's regulations in 10 CFR 2.202 and 10 CFR Parts 50, 70 and 71, it is hereby ordered, effective immediately, that all licensees identified in attachment A to this order shall comply with the following: A. All Licensees shall, notwithstanding the provisions of any Commission or Agreement State regulation or license to the contrary, comply with the requirements described in Attachment B to this Order. The Licensees shall immediately start implementation of the requirements in Attachment B to the Order and shall complete implementation by January 17, 2006, or before the licensee's next shipment after the 180 day implementation period of this Order. This Order supersedes the additional transportation security measures prescribed in the Manufacturer's and Distributor's Order issued January 12, 2004. B. 1. All Licensees shall, within twenty (20) days of the date of this Order, notify the Commission, (1) if they are unable to comply with any of the requirements described in Attachment B, (2) if compliance with any of the requirements is unnecessary in their specific circumstances, or (3) if implementation of any of the requirements would cause the Licensee to be in violation of the provisions of any Commission or Agreement State regulation or its license. The notification shall provide the Licensees' justification for seeking relief from or variation of any specific requirement. 2. Any Licensee that considers that implementation of any of the requirements described in Attachment B to this Order would adversely impact the safe transport of radioactive material quantities of concern must notify the Commission, within twenty (20) days of this Order, of the adverse safety impact, the basis for its determination that the requirement has an adverse safety impact, and either a proposal for achieving the same objectives specified in the Attachment B requirement in question, or a schedule for modifying the activity to address the adverse safety condition. If neither approach is appropriate, the Licensee must supplement its response to Condition B.1 of this Order to identify the condition as a requirement with which it cannot comply, with attendant justifications as required in Condition B.1. C. All Licensees shall report to the Commission when they have achieved full compliance with the requirements described in Attachment B. D. Notwithstanding any provisions of the Commission's or an Agreement State's regulations to the contrary, all measures implemented or actions taken in response to this order shall be maintained until the Commission determines otherwise. Licensee responses to Conditions B.1, B.2, and C above shall be submitted to the Document Control Desk, ATTN: Director, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555. In addition, Licensee submittals that contain sensitive security related information shall be properly marked and handled in accordance with Licensees' Safeguards Information or Safeguards Information--Modified Handling program. The Director, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation may, in writing, relax or rescind any of the above conditions upon demonstration by the Licensee of good cause. In accordance with 10 CFR 2.202, the Licensee must, and any other person adversely affected by this Order may, submit an answer to this Order, and may request a hearing on this Order, within twenty (20) days of the date of this Order. Where good cause is shown, consideration will be given to extending the time to request a hearing. A request for extension of time in which to submit an answer or request a hearing must be made in writing to the Director, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555, and include a statement of good cause for the extension. The answer may consent to this Order. Unless the answer consents to this Order, the answer shall, in writing and under oath or affirmation, specifically set forth the matters of fact and law on which the Licensee or other person adversely affected relies and the reasons as to why the Order should not have been issued. Any answer or request for a hearing shall be submitted to the Secretary, Office of the Secretary of the Commission, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, ATTN: Rulemakings and Adjudications Staff, Washington, DC 20555. Copies also shall be sent to the Director, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555, to the Assistant General Counsel for Materials Litigation and Enforcement, to the Office of Enforcement at the same address, to the Regional Administrator for NRC Region I, II, III, or IV, at the respective addresses specified in Appendix A to 10 CFR Part 73, appropriate for the specific facility, and to the Licensee if the answer or hearing request is by a person other than the Licensee. Because of possible disruptions in delivery of mail to United States Government offices, it is requested that answers and requests for hearing be transmitted to the Secretary of the Commission either by means of facsimile transmission to 301-415-1101 or by e-mail to hearingdocket@nrc.gov and also to the Office of the General Counsel either by means of facsimile to 301-415-3725 or by e- mail to OGCMailCenter@nrc.gov. If a person other than the Licensee requests a hearing, that person shall set forth with particularity the manner in which his interest is adversely affected by this Order and shall address the criteria set forth in 10 CFR 2.714(d). If a hearing is requested by the Licensee or a person whose interest is adversely affected, the Commission will issue an Order designating the time and place of any hearing. If a hearing is held, the issue to be considered at such hearing shall be whether this Order should be sustained. Pursuant to 10 CFR 2.202(c)(2)(i), the Licensee, may, in addition to demanding a hearing, at the time the answer is filed or sooner, move the presiding officer to set aside the immediate effectiveness of the Order on the ground that the Order, including the need for immediate effectiveness, is not based on adequate evidence but on mere suspicion, unfounded allegations, or error. In the absence of any request for hearing, or written approval of an extension of time in which to request a hearing, the provisions specified in Section III above shall be final twenty (20) days from the date of this Order without further order or proceedings. If an extension of time for requesting a hearing has been approved, the provisions specified in Section III shall [[Page 44950]] be final when the extension expires if a hearing request has not been received. An answer or a request for hearing shall not stay the immediate effectiveness of this order. Dated this 19th day of July 2005. For The Nuclear Regulatory Commission. J.E. Dyer, Director, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. Attachment A--List of Licensees Research and Test Reactor Licensees Mr. Ray Tsukimura, President, Aerotest Operations Inc., 3455 Fostoria Way, San Ramon, CA 94583 Mr. Stephen I. Miller, Reactor Facility Director, Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute, Naval Medical Center 8901 Wisconsin Ave., Bethesda, MD 20889-5603 Mr. Howard C. Aderhold, Director, Ward Center for Nuclear Sciences, Cornell University, 112 Ward Laboratory, Ithaca, NY 14853 Mr. Ward L. Rigot, Facility Director and Reactor Supervisor, Dow Chemical Company, 1602 Building, Midland, MI 48674 Dr. Keith E. Asmussen, General Atomics 3550 General Atomics Court, San Diego, CA 92121-1122 Mr. David Turner, Vallecitos Nuclear Center, General Electric Company, 6705 Vallecitos Road, Sunol, CA 94586 Dr. John S. Bennion, Reactor Manager/Supervisor, Idaho State University, P.O. Box 8060, Pocatello, ID 83209 Mr. Michael Whaley, Manager, KSU Nuclear Reactor Facility 112 Ward Hall, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS 66506-5204 Dr. John Bernard, Director of Reactor Operations, Nuclear Reactor Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology 138 Albany Street, Mail Stop NW 12-208, Cambridge, MA 02139 Mr. Andrew Cook, Nuclear Reactor Program, North Carolina State University, 2500 Stinson Drive, Raleigh, NC 27695 Dr. Seymour H. Weiss, NIST Center for Neutron Research, National Institute of Standards and Technology, U.S. Department of Commerce, 100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8561, Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8561 Mr. Gerald D. Wicks, Nuclear Reactor Program, North Carolina State University, 2500 Stinson Drive, Raleigh, NC 27695 Mr. Andrew C. Kauffman, The Ohio State University Nuclear Reactor Laboratory, 1298 Kinnear Road, Columbus OH, 43212-1154 Mr. Steve Reece, 100 Radiation Center, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331 Dr. Fred Sears, Breazeale Nuclear Reactor, Penn State University, University Park, PA 16802 Edward Merritt, Purdue University, Nuclear Engineering Bldg., 400 Central Dr., West Lafayette, IN 47907-2017 Mr. Stephen G. Frantz, Director, Reed Reactor Facility, Reed College, 3203 SE Woodstock Blvd., Portland, OR 97202 Mr. Glenn C. Winters, Director, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 110 8th Street, Nuclear Engineering and Science Building, Troy, NY 12180- 3590 Mr. Terence Tehan, Rhode Island Atomic Energy Commission, Rhode Island Nuclear Science Center, 16 Reactor Road, Narragansett, RI 02882-1165 Mr. David Vasbinder, Occupational and Environmental Safety, University at Buffalo, 220 Winspear Avenue, Buffalo, NY 14214-1034 Mr. Robert O. Berry, Department of Nuclear Engineering, Texas A University, Mail Stop 3133, College Station, Texas 77843-3133 Mr. Jim Remlinger, Nuclear Science Center, Texas Engineering Experiment Station, 1095 Nuclear Science Road, College Station, Texas 77843 Mr. Tim DeBey, U.S. Geological Survey, 6th and Kipling, Denver Federal Center, Building 15, MS 974, Denver, Colorado 80225 Mr. John G. Williams, Nuclear Reactor Laboratory, University of Arizona, Old Engineering Building, Room 114, Tucson, AZ 85721-0020 Dr. David M. Slaughter, Director, UC Davis McClellan Nuclear Research Center, 5335 Price Avenue, McClellan, CA 95652 Dr. George Miller, Department of Chemistry, UC Irvine, 326 Rowland Hall, Irvine, CA 92697-2025 Dr. William Vernetson, Ph.D., Director of Nuclear Facilities, University of Florida, 202 Nuclear Science Building, Gainesville, FL 32611-8300 Mr. Rich Holm, 214 NEL, University of Illinois, 103 South Goodwin Avenue, Urbana, Illinois 61801 Mr. Vincent Adams, University of Maryland, Department of Materials & Nuclear Engineering, Bldg. 090 Room 2308, College Park, MD 20742-2115 Mr. Leo Bobek, Nuclear Radiation Laboratory, University of Massachusetts Lowell, One University Avenue, Pinanski Energy Center, Lowell, MA 01854 Mr. Chris Becker, Phoenix Memorial Laboratory, Ford Nuclear Reactor, University of Michigan, 2301 Bonisteel Boulevard, Ann Arbor, MI 48109- 2100 Mr. Ralph Butler, MU Research Reactor, 1513 Research Park, Columbia, Missouri 65211 Mr. Bill Bonzer, Reactor Director, Nuclear Reactor Facility, 1870 Miner Circle, Rolla, MO 65409-0630 Dr. Robert D. Busch, Chief Reactor Supervisor, Chemical and Nuclear Engineering Department, University of New Mexico, 209 Farris Engineering Department, Albuquerque, NM 87131-1341 Mr. David S. O'Kelly, Nuclear Engineering Teaching Lab, University of Texas, 10100 Burnet Road, Austin, TX 78758 Mr. Paul E. Benneche, Acting Director, UVA Nuclear Reactor Facility, P.O. Box 400322, Charlottesville, VA 22904-4322 Dr. Melinda Krahenbuhl, 122 S. Central Campus Drive, Room 104, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112 Mr. Robert J. Agasie, Reactor Director, Nuclear Reactor Laboratory, 1513 University Avenue, Room 141ME, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53706-1687 Dr. Gerald E. Tripard, Nuclear Radiation Center, Roundtop Drive, Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99164-1300 Mr. Stephen J. LaFlamme, Director, Nuclear Reactor Facility, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, 100 Institute Road, Worcester, MA 01609-2280 Mr. Stanley Addison, RSO, Radiation Safety Office, 201 Hall Health Center, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195-4400 Mr. Erhard W. Koehler, Manager Direct Programs, U.S. Maritime Administration, 400 7th Street, Washington, DC 20590 Dr. Lynell W. Klassen, Associate Chief of Staff, Research and Development 151, Reactor Manager, Veterans Affairs Medical Center, 4101 Woolworth Avenue, Omaha, NE 68105 Mr. Marc DelVechio, Department of Public Safety, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 110 Eighth Street, Troy, NY 12180-3590 Power Plants--Senior Executive Contacts Mr. William Levis, Senior Vice President and Chief Nuclear Officer, PSEG Nuclear LLC-X15, Salem Nuclear Generating Station, Units 1 and 2, Hope Creek Generating Station, Unit 1, Docket Nos. 50-272, 50-311, & 50-354, License Nos. DPR-70, DPR-75, & NPF-57, End of [[Page 44951]] Buttonwood Road, Hancocks Bridge, NJ 08038 Mr. Michael Kansler, President, Entergy Nuclear Operations, Inc., Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station, Unit 1, Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station, James A FitzPatrick Nuclear Power Plant, Indian Point Nuclear Generating Station, Units 2 and 3, Docket Nos. 50-293, 50,271, 50-333, 50-247, & 50-286, License Nos. DPR-35, DPR-28, DPR-59, DPR-26, & DPR- 64, 440 Hamilton Avenue, White Plains, NY 10601 Mr. Gene St. Pierre, Site Vice President, FPL Energy, Seabrook Station, Unit 1, Docket No. 50-443, License No. NPF-86, Central Receiving, Lafayette Road, Seabrook, NH 03874 Mr. L. William Pearce, Vice President, FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company, Beaver Valley Power Station, Units 1 and 2, Docket Nos. 50-334 & 50-412, License Nos. DPR-66 & NPF-73, Route 168, Shippingport, PA 15077 Mr. George Vanderheyden, Vice President, Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant, Inc., Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant, Units 1 and 2, Docket Nos. 50-317 & 50-318, License Nos. DPR-53 & DPR-69, 1650 Calvert Cliffs Parkway, Lusby, MD 20657-4702 Mrs. Mary G. Korsnick, Vice President, R. E. Ginna Nuclear Power Plant, LLC, Docket No. 50-244, License No. DPR-18, 1503 Lake Road, Ontario, NY 14519-9364 Mr. James A. Spina, Vice President, Nine Mile Point Nuclear Station, LLC, Nine Mile Point Nuclear Station, Units 1 and 2, Docket Nos. 50-220 & 50-410, License Nos. DPR-63 & NPF-69, 348 Lake Road, Oswego, NY 13126 Mr. Britt T. McKinney, Senior Vice President and Chief Nuclear Officer, PPL Susquehanna, LLC, Susquehanna Steam Electric Station, Units 1 and 2, Docket Nos. 50-387 & 50-388, License Nos. NPF-14 & NPF-22, 769 Salem Boulevard, NUCSB3, Berwick, PA 18603-0467 Mr. David A. Christian, Sr. Vice President and Chief Nuclear Officer, Dominion Nuclear Connecticut, Inc., Virginia Electric and Power Company, Millstone Power Station, Units 2 and 3, North Anna Power Station, Units 1 and 2, Surry Power Station, Units 1 and 2, Docket Nos. 50-336, 50-423, 50-338, 50-339, & 50-280, & 50-281, License Nos. DPR- 65, NPF-49, NPF-4, NPF-7, DPR-32, & DPR-37, Innsbrook Technical Center, 5000 Dominion Boulevard, Glen Allen, VA 23060 Mr. Dhiaa M. Jamil, Vice President, Duke Energy Corporation, Catawba Nuclear Station, Units 1 and 2, Docket Nos. 50-413 & 50-414, License Nos. NPF-35 & NPF-52, 4800 Concord Road, York, South Carolina 29745 Mr. L. M. Stinson, Vice President--Farley Project, Southern Nuclear Operating Company, Inc., Joseph M. Farley Nuclear Plant, Units 1 and 2, Docket Nos. 50-348 & 50-364, License Nos. NPF-2 & NPF-8, 40 Inverness Center Parkway, Birmingham, Alabama 35242 Mr. H. L. Sumner, Jr., Vice President--Nuclear, Hatch Project, Southern Nuclear Operating Company, Inc., Edwin I. Hatch Nuclear Plant, Units 1 and 2, Docket Nos. 50-321 & 50-366, License Nos. DPR-57 & NPF-5, 40 Inverness Center Parkway, Birmingham, Alabama 35242 Mr. G. R. Peterson, Vice President, Duke Energy Corporation, William B. McGuire Nuclear Station, Units 1 and 2, Docket Nos. 50-369 & 50-370, License Nos. NPF-9 & NPF-17, 12700 Hagers Ferry Road, Huntersville, NC 28078 Mr. Ronald A. Jones, Vice President, Oconee Site, Duke Energy Corporation, Oconee Nuclear Station, Units 1, 2 and 3, Docket Nos. 50- 269, 50-270, & 50-287, License Nos. DPR-38, DPR-47, & DPR-55, 7800 Rochester Highway, Seneca, SC 29672 Mr. Don E. Grissette, Vice President, Southern Nuclear Operating Company, Inc., Vogtle Electric Generating Plant, Units 1 and 2, Docket Nos. 50-424 & 50-425, License Nos. NPF-68 & NPF-81, 40 Inverness Center Parkway, Birmingham, Alabama 35242 Mr. C. J. Gannon, Vice President, Carolina Power & Light Company, Progress Energy, Inc., Brunswick Steam Electric Plant, Units 1 and 2, Docket Nos. 50-325 & 50-324, License Nos. DPR-71 & DPR-62, Hwy 87, 2.5 Miles North, Southport, North Carolina 28461 Mr. James Scarola, Vice President, Carolina Power & Light Company, Shearon Harris Nuclear Power Plant, Unit 1, Docket No. 50-400, License No. NPF-63, 5413 Shearon Harris Road, New Hill, North Carolina 27562- 0165 Mr. Dale E. Young, Vice President, Supervisor, Licensing and Regulatory Programs, Florida Power Corporation, Crystal River Nuclear Generating Plant, Unit 3, Docket No. 50-302, License No. DPR-72, 15760 W. Power Line Street, Crystal River, Florida 34428-6708 Mr. J. W. Moyer, Vice President Carolina Power & Light Company, Progress Energy, H. B. Robinson Steam Electric Plant, Unit 2, Docket No. 50-261, License No. DPR-23, 3581 West Entrance Road, Hartsville, South Carolina 29550 Mr. Brian J. O'Grady, Site Vice President, Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant, Units 1, 2 and 3, Tennessee Valley Authority, Docket Nos. 50-259, 50- 260, & 50-296, License Nos. DPR-33, DPR-52, DPR-68, 10835 Shaw Rd., Athens, AL 35611 Mr. William R. Lagergren, Site Vice President, Watts Bar Nuclear Plant, Unit 1, Tennessee Valley Authority, Docket No. 50-390, License No. NPF- 90, Highway 68 Near Spring City, Spring City, TN 37381 Mr. Randy Douet, Site Vice President, Sequoyah Nuclear Plant, Units 1 and 2, Tennessee Valley Authority, Docket Nos. 50-327 and 50-328, License Nos. DPR-77 and DPR-79, 2000 Iugo Ferry Road, Soddy Daisy, TN 37379 Mr. J. A. Stall, Senior Vice President, Nuclear and Chief Nuclear Officer, Florida Power and Light Company, St. Lucie, Units 1 and 2, Turkey Point Nuclear Generating Station, Units 3 and 4, Docket Nos. 50- 335, 50-389, 50-250, & 50-251, License Nos. DPR-67, NPF-16, DPR-31, & DPR-41, 700 Universe Boulevard, Juno Beach, Florida 33408-0420 Mr. Mano K. Nazar, Senior Vice President and Chief Nuclear Officer, Indiana Michigan Power Company, Nuclear Generation Group, Donald C. Cook Nuclear Plant, Units 1 and 2, Docket Nos. 50-315 & 50-316, License Nos. DPR-58 & DPR-74, One Cook Place, Bridgman, MI 49106 Mr. Gary Van Middlesworth, Site Vice President, Nuclear Management Company, LLC, Duane Arnold Energy Center, Docket No. 50-331, License No. DPR-49, 3277 DAEC Road, Palo, IA 52324-9785 Mr. William T. O'Connor, Jr., Vice President--Nuclear Generation, Detroit Edison Company, Fermi, Unit 2, Docket No. 50-341, License No. NPF-43, 6400 North Dixie Highway, Newport, MI 48166 Mr. Michael G. Gaffney, Site Vice President, Kewaunee Nuclear Power Plant, Nuclear Management Company, LLC, Docket No. 50-305, License No. DPR-43, N490 Highway 42, Kewaunee, WI 54216-9511 Mr. John Conway, Site Vice President, Nuclear Management Company, LLC, Monticello Nuclear Generating Plant, Docket No. 50-263, License No. DPR-22, 2807 West County Road 75, Monticello, MN 55362-9637 Mr. Daniel J. Malone, Site Vice President, Nuclear Management Company, LLC, Palisades Nuclear Plant, Docket No. 50-255, License No. [[Page 44952]] DPR-20, 27780 Blue Star Memorial Highway, Covert, MI 49043-9530 Mr. Dennis L. Koehl, Site Vice President, Nuclear Management Company, LLC, Point Beach Nuclear Plant, Units 1 and 2, Docket Nos. 50-266 & 50- 301, License Nos. DPR-24 & DPR-27, 6590 Nuclear Road, Two Rivers, WI 54241-9516 Mr. Thomas J. Palmisano, Site Vice President, Nuclear Management Company, LLC, Prairie Island Nuclear Generating Plant, Units 1 and 2, Docket Nos. 50-282 & 50-306, License Nos. DPR-42 & DPR-60, 1717 Wakonade Drive East, Welch, MN 55089 Mr. Christopher M. Crane, President and Chief Nuclear Officer, Exelon Generation Company, LLC, AmerGen Energy Company, LLC, Braidwood Station, Units 1 and 2, Byron Station, Units 1 and 2, Dresden Nuclear Power Station, Units 2 and 3 , LaSalle County Station, Units 1 and 2, Quad Cities Nuclear Power Station, Units 1 and 2, Limerick Generating Station, Units 1 and 2, Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station, Units 2 and 3, Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station, Clinton Power Station, Three Mile Island Nuclear Station, Unit 1, Docket Nos. 50-456, 50-457, 50-454, 50-455, 50-237, 50-249, 50-373, 50-374, 50-254, 50-265, 50-352, 50-353, 50-277, 50-278, 50-219, 50-461, & 50-289, License Nos. NPF-72, NPF-77, NPF-37, NPF-66, DPR-19, DPR-25, NPF-11, NPF-18, DPR-29, DPR-30, NPF-39, NPF-85, DPR-44, DPR-56, DPR-16, NPF-62, & DPR-50 , 4300 Winfield Road, Warrenville, IL 60555 Mr. Mark Bezilla, Vice President, Davis-Besse, FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company, Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station, Docket No. 50- 346, License No. NPF-3, 5501 North State Route 2, Oak Harbor, OH 43449- 9760 Mr. Richard Anderson, Vice President--Nuclear, FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company, Perry Nuclear Power Plant, Unit 1, Docket No. 50- 440, License No. NPF-58, 10 North Center Street, Perry, OH 44081 Mr. Jeffrey S. Forbes, Site Vice President, Entergy Operations, Inc., Arkansas Nuclear One, Units 1 and 2, Docket Nos. 50-313 & 50-368, License Nos. DPR-51 & NPF-6, 1448 S. R. 333, Russellville, AR 72802 M. R. Blevins, Senior Vice President and Chief Nuclear Officer, TXU Generation Company, LP, Comanche Peak Steam Electric Station, Units 1 and 2, Docket Nos. 50-445 & 50-446, License Nos. NPF-87 & NPF-89, 5 Miles North of Glen Rose, Glen Rose, TX 76043 Mr. Randall K. Edington, Vice President-Nuclear and CNO, Nebraska Public Power District, Cooper Nuclear Station, Docket No. 50-298, License No. Dpr-46, 1200 Prospect Road, Brownville, NE 68321 Mr. George A. Williams, GGNS Vice President, Operations, Entergy Operations, Inc., Grand Gulf Nuclear Station, Unit 1, Docket No. 50- 416, License No. NPF-29, Bald Hill Road-Waterloo Road, Port Gibson, MS 39150 Mr. Paul D. Hinnenkamp, Vice President--Operations, Entergy Operations, Inc., River Bend Station, Unit 1, Docket No. 50-458, License No. NPF- 47, 5485 U.S. Highway 61N, St. Francisville, LA 70775 Mr. James J. Sheppard, President and Chief Executive Officer, South Texas Project Nuclear Operating Company, Docket Nos. 50-498 & 50-499, License Nos. NPF-76 & NPF-80, South Texas Project Electric Generating Company, Units 1 and 2, 8 Miles West of Wadsworth, on FM 521, Wadsworth, TX 77483 Mr. Joseph E. Venable, Vice President Operations, Entergy Operations, Inc., Waterford Steam Electric Generating Station, Unit 3, Docket No. 50-382, License No. NPF-38, 17265 River Road, Killona, LA 70057-2065 Mr. Charles D. Naslund, Senior Vice President and Chief Nuclear Officer, Union Electric Company, Callaway Plant, Unit 1, Docket No. 50- 483, License No. NPF-30, Junction Hwy CC & Hwy O: 5 Miles North of Hwy 94, Portland, MO 65067 Mr. Gregory M. Rueger, Senior Vice President, Generation and Chief Nuclear Officer, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant, Units 1 and 2, Docket Nos. 50-275 & 50-323, License Nos. DPR-80 & DPR-82, 9 Miles Northwest of Avila Beach, Avila Beach, CA 93424 Mr. R. T. Ridenoure, Vice President--Chief Nuclear Officer, Omaha Public Power District, Fort Calhoun Station, Unit 1, Docket No. 50-285, License No. DPR-40, Fort Calhoun Station FC-2-4 Adm., 444 South 16th Street Mall, Omaha, NE 68102-2247 Mr. Gregg R. Overbeck, Senior Vice President, Nuclear, Arizona Public Service Company, Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station, Units 1, 2 and 3, Docket Nos. 50-528, 50-529, & 50-530, License Nos. NPF-41, NPF-51, & NPF-74, 5801 S. Wintersburg Road, Tonopah, AZ 85354-7529 Mr. Harold B. Ray, Executive Vice President, Southern California Edison Company, San Onofre Nuclear Station, Units 2 and 3, Docket Nos. 50-361 & 50-362, License Nos. NPF-10 & NPF-15, 5000 Pacific Coast Highway, San Clemente, CA 92674 Mr. J. V. Parrish, Chief Executive Officer, Energy Northwest, Columbia Generating Station, Docket No. 50-397, License No. NPF-21, Snake River Warehouse, North Power Plant Loop, Richland, WA 99352 Mr. Rick A. Muench, President and Chief Executive Officer, Wolf Creek Nuclear Operating Corporation, Wolf Creek Generating Station, Unit 1, Docket No. 50-482, License No. NPF-42, 1550 Oxen Lane, NE, Burlington, KS 66839 Mr. Jeffrey B. Archie, Vice President, Nuclear Operations, South Carolina Electric and Gas Company, Virgil C. Summer Nuclear Station, Docket No. 50-395, License No. NPF-12, Hwy 215N at O.S. Bradham Boulevard, Jenkinsville, South Carolina 29065 [FR Doc. E5-4144 Filed 8-3-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P ***************************************************************** 35 NRC: Carolina Power and Light Company; H.B. Robinson Independent FR Doc E5-4145 [Federal Register: August 4, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 149)] [Notices] [Page 44940-44942] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr04au05-56] Spent Fuel Storage Installation; Environmental Assessment and Finding of No Significant Impact The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC or Commission) is considering issuance of an exemption to Progress Energy Carolinas, Inc. also known as Carolina Power & Light Company (CP or licensee), pursuant to 10 CFR 72.7, from specific provisions of 10 CFR 72.212(a)(2), 72.212(b)(2)(i)(A), 72.212(b)(7), and 72.214. The licensee wants to use the Transnuclear, Inc. (TN) NUHOMS Storage System, Certificate of Compliance No. 1004 (CoC or Certificate) Amendment No. 8 (24PTH DCS), to store spent nuclear fuel under a general license in an Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation (ISFSI) associated with the operation of the H. B. Robinson Steam Electric Plant, Unit No. 2 (HBRSEP2), located in Darlington County, South Carolina. The requested exemption would allow CP to use the TN NUHOMS[supreg]-24PTH system with revised transfer cask/dry shielded canister (TC/DSC) handling and lifting height specifications prior to completion of the proposed TN NUHOMS CoC Amendment No. 8 rulemaking. Environmental Assessment (EA) Identification of Proposed Action: The proposed action would exempt CP from the requirements of 10 CFR 72.212(a)(2), 72.212(b)(2)(i)(A), 72.212(b)(7), and 72.214 and enable CP to use the TN NUHOMS[supreg]- 24PTH cask design with modifications at HBRSEP2. These regulations specifically require storage in casks approved under the provisions of 10 CFR Part 72 and compliance with the conditions set forth in the CoC for each dry spent fuel storage cask used by an ISFSI general licensee. The TN NUHOMS[supreg] CoC provides requirements, conditions, and operating limits in Attachment A, Technical Specifications. The proposed action would exempt CP from the requirements of 10 CFR 72.212(a)(2) and 72.214 enabling the licensee to store fuel in the TN NUHOMS[supreg]-24PTH DSC system prior to the effective date of the final rule change for the Amendment No. 8 approving the issuance of this amended CoC. The proposed action would also exempt CP from the requirements of 10 CFR 72.212(b)(2)(i)(A) and 72.212(b(7) to allow lifting and handling a loaded TC/DSC above the height limit in the proposed Amendment No. 8. Specifically, the exemption would be from the requirement to limit the lift height of a loaded TC/DSC to 80 inches when outside the spent fuel pool building. In lieu of this requirement, CP stated that the TC/DSC will not be lifted higher than 80 inches when not being handled by devices that meet the existing 10 CFR Part 50 license heavy load requirements. Additionally, TN identified an issue in the proposed Amendment No. 8 CoC that resulted in a need for clarification to the proposed technical specifications in regard to thermal loading patterns and transit times for the 24PTH DSC. CP stated that a limit of 1.3 kilowatts decay heat level per fuel assembly will [[Page 44941]] be imposed to ensure cask loadings are bounded by the analyses supporting the proposed Amendment No. 8. Further, the NRC staff identified an issue in the proposed Amendment No. 8 CoC related to the potential for air (oxygen) to come in contact with spent fuel during DSC draining and vacuum drying evolutions. CP committed to implementing procedural controls to ensure that (1) only nitrogen or helium is used for blowdown during vacuum drying evolutions, and (2) when draining water from the DSC at or below the level of the fuel cladding, a nitrogen cover will be used. CP requested that the exemptions remain in effect for 90 days following the effective date of the final rule change to 10 CFR 72.214 to incorporate TN CoC No. 1004, Amendment No. 8. The proposed action would allow CP to use the -24PTH system as described in the TN NUHOMS[supreg] CoC amendment requests currently under staff review and subject to the commitments made by CP with respect to the issues that have been identified in the proposed CoC for TN NUHOMS[supreg] Amendment No. 8. The proposed action is in accordance with the licensee's request for exemption dated June 13, 2005, as supplemented July 20, 2005. Need for the Proposed Action: The proposed action is needed because CP plans to initiate the transfer of the HBRSEP2 spent fuel pool contents to the ISFSI in August 2005. The fuel transfer campaign was scheduled to begin in late July 2005. The licensee has planned its dry fuel campaign to support the HBRSEP2 Refuel Outage 23 (RO-23), currently scheduled to begin on September 17, 2005. The licensee stated that the exemption is requested to maintain the ability to offload a full core of 157 fuel assemblies upon restart from RO-23 in October 2005. Additionally, if no fuel is transferred to dry storage prior to the start of RO-23, there would be insufficient space in the spent fuel pool for the 56 new fuel assemblies that will be loaded into the reactor core during RO-23. This would complicate the fuel handling evolutions required for core reload during the outage. The proposed action is necessary because the 10 CFR 72.214 rulemaking to implement the TN NUHOMS[supreg] CoC Amendment No. 8 is not projected for completion until late Fall 2005, which will not support the HBRSEP2 fuel transfer and dry cask storage loading schedule. Environmental Impacts of the Proposed Action: The NRC has completed its evaluation of the proposed action and concludes that there will be no significant environmental impact if the exemptions are granted. The staff reviewed the analyses provided in the TN NUHOMS amendment applications addressing the NUHOMS[supreg] -24PTH, -32PT, and -24PHB systems. Included in those applications were TC/DSC lifting and handling height technical specification revisions. The staff has completed Safety Evaluation Reports (SERs) associated with reviews of the applications. The SER for the TN NUHOMS[supreg] -24PTH system documenting the staff's safety findings and conclusions was published in the Federal Register on May 25, 2005. The SER documenting the staff's safety finding associated with the lifting and handling height restriction revision was included as an enclosure to the letter to U. B. Chopra, dated March 30, 2005. The thermal loading pattern issue identified by TN was reviewed by the staff and found to be acceptable, with a 1.3 kW per assembly decay heat limit. The staff-identified issue regarding spent fuel in an oxidizing environment was reviewed and found acceptable provided the spent fuel environment for short term operations, draining and vacuum drying, is limited to an inert atmosphere (nitrogen or helium). The staff agrees that both CP commitments, regarding the decay heat limit per fuel assembly and the limiting of blowdown and draining evolutions to an environment of nitrogen or helium, will maintain safety regarding fuel loading and transfer operations. The NRC concludes that there is reasonable assurance that the proposed exemptions have no impact on off-site doses. The potential environmental impact of using the NUHOMS[supreg] system was initially presented in the Environmental Assessment (EA) for the Final Rule to add the TN Standardized NUHOMS[supreg] Horizontal Modular Storage System for Irradiated Nuclear Fuel to the list of approved spent fuel storage casks in 10 CFR 72.214 (59 FR 65898, dated December 22, 1994). The potential environmental impact of using the NUHOMS[supreg] -24PTH system was initially presented in the Environmental Assessment (EA) for the direct final rule to add the 24PTH system to the Standardized NUHOMS[supreg] system, Amendment No. 8 (70 FR 29931, dated May 25, 2005). The TN -24PTH, -32PT, and -24PHB systems do not increase the probability or consequences of accidents, no changes are being made in the types of any effluents that may be released offsite, and there is no significant increase in occupational or public radiation exposure. Therefore, there are no significant radiological environmental impacts associated with the proposed action. With regard to potential nonradiological impacts, the proposed action does not have a potential to affect any historic sites. It does not affect nonradiological plant effluents and has no other environmental impact. Therefore, there are no significant nonradiological environmental impacts associated with the proposed action. Accordingly, the NRC concludes that there are no significant environmental impacts associated with the proposed action. Alternative to the Proposed Action: Since there is no significant environmental impact associated with the proposed action, alternatives with equal or greater environmental impact were not evaluated. As an alternative to the proposed action, the staff considered denial of the proposed action. Denial of the exemption would result in no change in current environmental impact. Agencies and Persons Consulted: This exemption request was discussed with Mr. Henry Porter, Assistant Director of the Division of Waste Management, Department of Health and Environmental Control, for the State of South Carolina, on July 13, and July 27, 2005. He stated that the State had no comments on the technical aspects of the exemption. The NRC staff has determined that a consultation under Section 7 of the Endangered Species Act is not required because the proposed action will not affect listed species or critical habitat. The NRC staff has also determined that the proposed action is not a type of activity having the potential to cause effects on historic properties. Therefore, no further consultation is required under Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act. Finding of No Significant Impact The environmental impacts of the proposed action have been reviewed in accordance with the requirements set forth in 10 CFR Part 51. Based upon the foregoing Environmental Assessment, the Commission finds that the proposed action of granting the exemption from specific provisions of 10 CFR 72.212(a)(2), 72.212(b)(2)(i)(A), 72.212(b)(7), and 10 CFR 72.214, to allow CP to use a modified version of the proposed CoC No. 1004, Amendment No. 8, subject to conditions, will not significantly impact the quality of the human environment. Accordingly, the Commission has determined that an environmental impact statement for the proposed exemption is not warranted. [[Page 44942]] In accordance with 10 CFR 2.390 of NRC's ``Rules of Practice,'' final NRC records and documents regarding this proposed action are publically available in the records component of NRC's Agencywide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS). The request for exemption dated June 13, 2005, and July 20, 2005, was docketed under 10 CFR Part 72, Docket No. 72-60. These documents may be inspected at NRC's Public Electronic Reading Room at . These documents may also be viewed electronically on the public computers located at the NRC's Public Document Room (PDR), O1F21, One White Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, MD 20852. The PDR reproduction contractor will copy documents for a fee. Persons who do not have access to ADAMS or who encounter problems in accessing the documents located in ADAMS, should contact the NRC PDR Reference staff by telephone at 1-800-397-4209 or (301) 415-4737, or by e-mail to . Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 29th day of July, 2005. For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. L. Raynard Wharton, Project Manager, Spent Fuel Project Office, Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards. [FR Doc. E5-4145 Filed 8-3-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P ***************************************************************** 36 NRC: Amergen Energy Company, LLC; Notice of Receipt and Availability FR Doc E5-4146 [Federal Register: August 4, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 149)] [Notices] [Page 44940] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr04au05-55] of Application for Renewal of Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station, Facility Operating License No. Dpr-16, for an Additional 20-Year Period The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC or Commission) has received an application, dated July 22, 2005, from AmerGen Energy Company, LLC, filed pursuant to Section 104b (DPR-16) of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended, and 10 CFR Part 54, to renew the operating license for the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station. Renewal of the license would authorize the applicant to operate the facility for an additional 20-year period beyond the period specified in the current operating license. The current operating license for the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station (DPR-16) expires on April 9, 2009. The Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station is a Boiling Water Reactor designed by General Electric. The unit is located near Forked River, NJ. The acceptability of the tendered application for docketing, and other matters including an opportunity to request a hearing, will be the subject of subsequent Federal Register notices. Copies of the application are available for public inspection at the Commission's Public Document Room (PDR), located at One White Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike (first floor), Rockville, Maryland, 20582 or electronically from the NRC's Agencywide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS) Public Electronic Reading Room under accession number ML052080172. The ADAMS Public Electronic Reading Room is accessible from the NRC's Web site at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html In addition, the application is available at http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/licensing/renewal/applicati ons.html. , on the NRC's Web page, while the application is under review. Persons who do not have access to ADAMS or who encounter problems in accessing the documents located in ADAMS should contact the NRC's PDR Reference staff at 1-800-397-4209, extension 301-415-4737, or by e-mail to pdr@nrc.gov. A copy of the license renewal application for the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station is also available to local residents near the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station at the Lacey Public Library, 10 East Lacey Road, Forked River, NJ 08731. Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 29th day of July, 2005. For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Samson S. Lee, Acting Program Director, License Renewal and Environmental Impacts Program, Division of Regulatory Improvement Programs, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. [FR Doc. E5-4146 Filed 8-3-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P ***************************************************************** 37 NRC: Carolina Power and Light Company, H.B. Robinson Steam Electric FR Doc E5-4147 [Federal Register: August 4, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 149)] [Notices] [Page 44942-44946] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr04au05-57] Plant, Unit No. 2; Exemption 1.0 Background Carolina Power & Light Company (CP or the licensee) is the holder of Renewed Facility Operating License No. DPR-23, which authorizes operation of the H. B. Robinson Steam Electric Plant, Unit No. 2 (HBRSEP2). The license provides, among other things, that the facility is subject to all rules, regulations, and orders of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC, the Commission) now or hereafter in effect. The facility consists of a pressurized-water reactor located in Darlington County, South Carolina. 2.0 Request/Action By letter dated February 22, 2005, as supplemented by letters dated May 10, July 6, and July 14, 2005, the licensee submitted a request for an exemption from the requirements of Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations (10 CFR) Section 50.68(b)(1) during the spent fuel pool (SFP) activities related to the underwater handling, loading, and unloading of the dry shielded canister (DSC) NUHOMS[supreg] -24PTH, as described in proposed Amendment No. 8 to Certificate of Compliance No. 1004 listed in 10 CFR 72.214 at HBRSEP2. Section 50.68(b)(1) of 10 CFR sets forth the following requirement that must be met, in lieu of a monitoring system capable of detecting criticality events. Plant procedures shall prohibit the handling and storage at any one time of more fuel assemblies than have been determined to be safely subcritical under the most adverse moderation conditions feasible by unborated water. The licensee is unable to satisfy the above requirement for handling of the Transnuclear (TN) NUHOMS[supreg]-24PTH DSC authorized by 10 CFR Part 72 at HBRSEP2. Section 50.12(a) allows licensees to apply for an exemption from the requirements of 10 CFR Part 50 if the application of the regulation is not necessary to achieve the underlying purpose of the rule and special conditions are met. The licensee stated in the application that compliance with 10 CFR 50.68(b)(1) is not necessary for handling the TN NUHOMS[supreg]-24PTH DSC system to achieve the underlying purpose of the rule. 3.0 Discussion Pursuant to 10 CFR 50.12, the Commission may, upon application by any interested person or upon its own initiative, grant exemptions from the requirements of 10 CFR Part 50 when (1) the exemptions are authorized by law, will not present an undue risk to public health or safety, and are consistent with the common defense and security; and (2) when special circumstances are present. Therefore, in determining the acceptability of the licensee's exemption request, the staff has performed the following regulatory, technical, and legal evaluations to satisfy the requirements of 10 CFR 50.12 for granting the exemption. 3.1 Regulatory Evaluation The HBRSEP2 Technical Specifications (TS) currently permit the licensee to store spent fuel assemblies in high-density storage racks in its SFP. In accordance with the provisions of 10 CFR 50.68(b)(4), the licensee takes credit for soluble boron for criticality control and ensures that the effective multiplication factor (keff) of the SFP does not exceed 0.95, if flooded with borated water. Section 50.68(b)(4) of 10 CFR also requires that if credit is taken for soluble boron, the keff must remain below 1.0 (subcritical) if flooded with unborated water. However, the licensee is unable to satisfy the requirement to maintain the keff below 1.0 (subcritical) with unborated water, which is also the requirement of 10 CFR 50.68(b)(1), during cask handling operations in the SFP. Therefore, the licensee's request for exemption from 10 CFR 50.68(b)(1) proposes to permit the licensee to perform spent fuel loading, unloading, and handling operations related to dry cask storage without being subcritical under the most adverse moderation conditions feasible by unborated water. Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations, Part 50, Appendix A, ``General Design Criteria (GDC) for Nuclear Power Plants,'' provides a list of the minimum design requirements for nuclear power plants. According to GDC 62, ``Prevention of criticality in fuel storage and handling,'' the licensee must limit the potential for criticality in the fuel handling and storage system by physical systems or processes. HBRSEP2 was licensed prior to the issuance of the GDC listed in 10 CFR 50, Appendix A; therefore, GDC 62 is not directly applicable. However, HBRSEP2 has committed to a plant-specific version of the 1967 draft GDC as discussed in its Updated Final Safety Analysis Report (FSAR), Section 3.1.2. The comparable GDC is Criterion 66, ``Prevention of Fuel Storage Criticality,'' that states: ``Criticality in the new and spent fuel storage pits shall be prevented by physical systems or processes. Such means as geometrically safe configurations shall be emphasized over procedural controls.'' Section 50.68 of 10 CFR Part 50, ``Criticality accident requirements,'' provides the NRC requirements for maintaining subcritical conditions in SFPs. Section 50.68 provides criticality control requirements that, if satisfied, ensure that an inadvertent criticality in the SFP is an extremely unlikely event. These requirements ensure that the licensee has appropriately conservative criticality margins during handling and storage of spent fuel. Section 50.68(b)(1) states, ``Plant procedures shall prohibit the handling and storage at any one time of more fuel assemblies than have been determined to be safely subcritical under the most adverse moderation conditions feasible by unborated water.'' Specifically, 10 CFR 50.68(b)(1) ensures that the licensee will maintain the pool in a subcritical condition during handling and storage operations without crediting the soluble boron in the SFP water. The licensee is authorized under general license to construct and operate [[Page 44943]] an Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation (ISFSI) at HBRSEP2. The ISFSI permits the licensee to store spent fuel assemblies in large concrete dry storage casks. As part of its ISFSI loading campaigns, the licensee transfers spent fuel assemblies to a DSC in the cask pit area of the SFP. The licensee performed criticality analyses of the DSC fully loaded with fuel having the highest permissible reactivity and determined that a soluble boron credit was necessary to ensure that the DSC would remain subcritical in the SFP. Since the licensee is unable to satisfy the requirement of 10 CFR 50.68(b)(1) to ensure subcritical conditions during handling and storage of spent fuel assemblies in the pool with unborated water, the licensee identified the need for an exemption from the 10 CFR 50.68(b)(1) requirement to support DSC loading, unloading, and handling operations without being subcritical under the most adverse moderation conditions feasible by unborated water. The NRC staff evaluated the possibility of an inadvertent criticality of the spent nuclear fuel at HBRSEP2 during DSC loading, unloading, and handling. The NRC staff has established a set of acceptance criteria that, if met, satisfy the underlying intent of 10 CFR 50.68(b)(1). In lieu of complying with 10 CFR 50.68(b)(1), the staff determined that an inadvertent criticality accident is unlikely to occur if the licensee meets the following five criteria: 1. The cask criticality analyses are based on the following conservative assumptions: a. All fuel assemblies in the cask are unirradiated and at the highest permissible enrichment, b. Only 75 percent of the Boron-10 in the fixed poison panel inserts is credited, c. No credit is taken for fuel-related burnable absorbers, and d. The cask is assumed to be flooded with moderator at the temperature and density corresponding to optimum moderation. 2. The licensee's ISFSI TS require the soluble boron concentration to be equal to or greater than the level assumed in the criticality analysis, and surveillance requirements necessitate the periodic verification of the concentration both prior to and during loading and unloading operations. 3. Radiation monitors, as required by GDC 63, ``Monitoring Fuel and Waste Storage,'' are provided in fuel storage and handling areas to detect excessive radiation levels and to initiate appropriate safety actions. 4. The quantity of other forms of special nuclear material, such as sources, detectors, etc., to be stored in the cask will not increase the effective multiplication factor above the limit calculated in the criticality analysis. 5. Sufficient time exists for plant personnel to identify and terminate a boron dilution event prior to achieving a critical boron concentration in the DSC. To demonstrate that it can safely identify and terminate a boron dilution event, the licensee must provide the following: a. A plant-specific criticality analysis to identify the critical boron concentration in the cask based on the highest reactivity loading pattern. b. A plant-specific boron dilution analysis to identify all potential dilution pathways, their flowrates, and the time necessary to reach a critical boron concentration. c. A description of all alarms and indications available to promptly alert operators of a boron dilution event. d. A description of plant controls that will be implemented to minimize the potential for a boron dilution event. e. A summary of operator training and procedures that will be used to ensure that operators can quickly identify and terminate a boron dilution event. On March 23, 2005, the NRC issued Regulatory Issue Summary (RIS) 2005-05, ``Regulatory Issues Regarding Criticality Analyses for Spent Fuel Pools and Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installations.'' In RIS 2005-05, the NRC identified an acceptable methodology for demonstrating compliance with the 10 CFR 50.68(b)(1) requirements during cask loading, unloading, and handling operations in pressurized-water reactor SFPs. The NRC staff has determined that implementation of this methodology by licensees will eliminate the need to grant future exemptions for cask storage and handling evolutions. However, since the licensee submitted its exemption request prior to issuance of the RIS and identification of an NRC-acceptable methodology for compliance with the regulations, the NRC staff has determined that it is still appropriate to consider the exemption request. 3.2 Technical Evaluation In determining the acceptability of the licensee's exemption request, the staff reviewed three aspects of the licensee's analyses: (1) criticality analyses submitted to support the ISFSI license application and its exemption request, (2) boron dilution analysis, and (3) legal basis for approving the exemption. For each of the aspects, the staff evaluated whether the licensee's analyses and methodologies provide reasonable assurance that adequate safety margins are developed and can be maintained in the HBRSEP2 SFP during loading of spent fuel into canisters for dry cask storage. 3.2.1 Criticality Analyses For evaluation of the acceptability of the licensee's exemption request, the NRC staff reviewed the criticality analyses provided by the licensee in support of its ISFSI license application. First, the NRC staff reviewed the methodology and assumptions used by the licensee in its criticality analysis to determine if Criterion 1 was satisfied. The licensee stated that it took no credit in the criticality analyses for burnup or fuel-related burnable neutron absorbers. The licensee also stated that all assemblies were analyzed at the highest permissible enrichment. Additionally, the licensee stated that all criticality analyses for a flooded DSC were performed at temperatures and densities of water corresponding to optimum moderation conditions. Finally, the licensee stated that it credited 90 percent of the Boron- 10 content for the fixed neutron absorber in the DSC. NUREG-1536, ``Standard Review Plan for Dry Cask Storage System,'' states that ``[f]or a greater credit allowance [i.e., greater than 75 percent for fixed neutron absorbers] special, comprehensive fabrication tests capable of verifying the presence and uniformity of the neutron absorber are needed.'' As part of an amendment to the Part 72 license for the Transnuclear NUHOMS[supreg]-24PTH design, the NRC staff reviewed and accepted the results of additional data supplied by the manufacturer that demonstrated that a 90-percent credit for the fixed neutron absorbers was acceptable. These tests and corresponding results are detailed in Appendix P of the Standardized NUHOMS[supreg] FSAR. Therefore, for the purposes of this exemption, the staff finds a 90- percent credit acceptable on the basis that it has previously been reviewed and approved by the NRC. Subsequently, based on its review of the criticality analyses and the information submitted in its exemption request, the NRC staff finds that the licensee has satisfied Criterion 1. Second, the NRC staff reviewed the proposed HBRSEP2 ISFSI TS. The licensee's criticality analyses credit soluble boron for reactivity control during DSC loading, unloading, and handling operations. Since the boron concentration is a key safety component necessary for ensuring subcritical conditions in the pool, the licensee must have a conservative ISFSI TS capable of ensuring that sufficient soluble boron is present to perform its safety function. The ISFSI TS applicable [[Page 44944]] to the NUHOMS[supreg]-24PTH DSC, and attached to the Certificate of Compliance No. 1004, contain the requirements for the minimum soluble boron concentration as a function of fuel assembly class, DSC basket type, and corresponding assembly average initial enrichment values. In all cases, the boron concentration required by the ISFSI TS ensures that the keff will be below 0.95 for the analyzed loading configuration. Additionally, the licensee's ISFSI TS contain surveillance requirements that assure it will verify the boron concentration is above the required level both prior to and during DSC loading, unloading, and handling operations. Based on its review of the HBRSEP2 ISFSI TS, the NRC staff finds that the licensee has satisfied Criterion 2. Third, the NRC staff reviewed the HBRSEP2 Updated FSAR and the information provided by the licensee in its exemption request to ensure that it complies with GDC 63. GDC 63 requires that licensees have radiation monitors in fuel storage and associated handling areas to detect conditions that may result in a loss of residual heat removal capability and excessive radiation levels and initiate appropriate safety actions. As previously described, HBRSEP2 was licensed prior to the issuance of the GDC listed in 10 CFR 50, Appendix A; therefore, GDC 63 is not directly applicable. However, HBRSEP2 has committed to a plant-specific version of the 1967 draft GDC as discussed in its Updated FSAR, Section 3.1.2. The comparable GDC is Criterion 18, ``Monitoring Fuel and Waste Storage,'' that states the following: ``Monitoring and alarm instrumentation shall be provided for fuel and waste storage and associated handling areas for conditions that might result in loss of capability to remove decay heat and detect excessive radiation levels.'' The NRC staff reviewed the HBRSEP2 Updated FSAR, plant-specific GDC, and exemption request to determine whether the licensee had provided sufficient information to demonstrate compliance with the intent of GDC 63. In its exemption request, the licensee stated that an area radiation monitor is located in the area of the SFP. Additionally, station procedures specify appropriate safety actions upon a high radiation alarm, including evacuation of local personnel, determination of cause, and determination of potential low water level in the SFP. In addition, personnel working in the area of the SFP wear individual, gamma-sensitive, electronic alarming dosimeters that provide an audible alarm should the dose or dose rate exceed pre-established setpoints. Based on its review of the exemption request, the HBRSEP2 Updated FSAR, and the licensee's plant-specific GDC, the NRC staff finds that the licensee has satisfied Criterion 3. Finally, as part of the criticality analysis review, the NRC staff evaluated the storage of non-fuel-related material in a DSC. The NRC staff evaluated the potential to increase the reactivity of a DSC by loading it with materials other than spent nuclear fuel and fuel debris. The approved contents for storage in the NUHOMS[supreg]-24PTH cask design are listed in the HBRSEP2 ISFSI TS Limiting Condition for Operation (LCO) 1.2.1 ``Fuel Specifications.'' This ISFSI TS LCO restricts the contents of the DSC to only fuels and non-fissile materials irradiated at HBRSEP2. As such, HBRSEP2 is prohibited from loading other forms of special nuclear material, such as sources, detectors, etc., in the DSC. Therefore, the NRC staff determined that the loading limitations described in the HBRSEP2 ISFSI TS will ensure that any authorized components loaded in the DSCs will not result in a reactivity increase. Based on its review of the loading restrictions, the NRC staff finds that the licensee has satisfied Criterion 4.3.2.2. Boron Dilution Analysis. Since the licensee's ISFSI application relies on soluble boron to maintain subcritical conditions within the DSCs during loading, unloading, and handling operations, the NRC staff reviewed the licensee's boron dilution analysis to determine whether appropriate controls, alarms, and procedures were available to identify and terminate a boron dilution accident prior to reaching a critical boron concentration. By letter dated October 25, 1996, the NRC staff issued a safety evaluation on licensing topical report WCAP-14416, ``Westinghouse Spent Fuel Rack Criticality Analysis Methodology.'' This safety evaluation specified that the following issues be evaluated for applications involving soluble boron credit: the events that could cause boron dilution, the time available to detect and mitigate each dilution event, the potential for incomplete boron mixing, and the adequacy of the boron concentration surveillance interval. The criticality analyses performed for the NUHOMS[supreg]-24PTH DSC are described in Section 6 of Appendix P of the FSAR for the Standardized NUHOMS[supreg] Horizontal Modular Storage System for Irradiated Nuclear Fuel. For this boron dilution evaluation, the licensee employed the same criticality analysis methods, models, and assumptions. These HBRSEP2 criticality calculations are based on the KENO V.a code. The calculations determined the minimum soluble boron concentration required to maintain subcriticality (keff eff eff eff eff of 1.0 requires the addition of 75,530 gallons of unborated water. Three examples of potential dilution sources were identified by the licensee: a 2-gpm flowrate from small failures or misaligned valves that could occur in the normal soluble boron control system or related systems, the failure of the 2-inch demineralized water header, and the maximum credible dilution event involving the rupture of a fire protection system header. To demonstrate that sufficient time exists for plant personnel to identify and terminate a boron dilution event, the licensee provided a description of [[Page 44945]] all alarms available to alert operators, and plant procedures, administrative controls, and training that will be implemented in response to an alarm. There is no automatic level control system for the SFP; therefore, any large, uncontrolled water addition would cause the SFP to overflow. However, a high level alarm in the control room would alert personnel of a potential boron dilution event when the water level reaches the high level setpoint. The highest uncontrolled dilution flow rate was determined to be the fire protection header on the SFP floor for fire hose station 104. As stated in the letter dated July 6, 2005, this fire protection header will be isolated during DSC loading and unloading to preclude this as a source of uncontrolled dilution to the SFP. The licensee has revised DSC loading and unloading procedures to include a requirement to close the fire protection system valve (FP-71) prior to placing fuel in the DSC during loading and prior to placing the loaded DSC back in the SFP during unloading. This change has resulted in the most limiting uncontrolled dilution source being identified as the assumed break of a 2-inch demineralized water header, which could cause a dilution flow of approximately 103 gpm. No other single source has been identified that would exceed this dilution rate. Therefore, the time to reach a critical boron concentration, as provided by licensee, is estimated to be 755 minutes. In the case of the 103-gpm demineralized water pipe rupture, there would be no alarm from the demineralized water system. However, there would be available approximately 10 hours to isolate the leak once the SFP high level alarm was received. This analysis provides reasonable assurance that dilution flows leading to pool overflow would be detected and isolated well before the critical boron concentration could be reached from credible dilution sources. The licensee stated that plant procedures do allow for continued operation with the SFP high level alarm illuminated. The licensee stated that operating procedures had been revised to specify that, if the SPF high level alarm is illuminated and there is fuel in the DSC in the SFP, then continuous coverage to monitor the SFP water level will be required. A local level indicator is available in the SFP. The personnel providing continuous coverage when the SFP Hi Level Alarm is illuminated or inoperable can use this indication to detect possible dilution of the SFP. The available time before criticality by dilution is sufficient to allow identification and termination of any credible source of dilution. When fuel is loaded in the DSC in the SFP, boron analyses of the SFP water are required at least once every 48 hours per the TS. Small dilution flows may not be readily identified by level changes in the SFP due to operational leakage through the pool liner and the SFP cooling system. The licensee determined that a dilution flow of 2 gpm would require approximately 26 days to dilute the boron concentration of the SFP near to that calculated as the critical boron concentration. Therefore, the reduction in boron concentration due to a dilution flowrate of 2 gpm would be detected by the required boron concentration surveillance well before a significant dilution occurs. To ensure that operators are capable of identifying and terminating a boron dilution event during DSC loading, unloading, and handling operations, operator training will be conducted. This training will highlight the boron concentration requirements for loading the DSC, the potential for criticality should boron concentration levels decrease, and the need for timely mitigating activities if a boron dilution event occurs. Operators and other personnel involved in the dry fuel storage implementation will receive this new training prior to loading of the first DSC. Additionally, before each DSC loading evolution, the crew involved in performance of the work will receive a pre-job briefing, where the need for boron concentration control will be discussed. Based on the NRC staff's review of the licensee's boron dilution analysis, the NRC staff finds the licensee has provided sufficient information to demonstrate that an undetected and uncorrected dilution from the TS-required boron concentration to the calculated critical boron concentration is very unlikely. Based on its review of the boron analysis and enhancements to the operating procedures and operator training program, the NRC staff finds the licensee has satisfied Criterion 5. Therefore, in conjunction with the conservative assumptions used to establish the TS-required boron concentration and critical boron concentration, the boron dilution evaluation demonstrates that the underlying intent of 10 CFR 50.68(b)(1) is satisfied. 3.3 Legal Basis for the Exemption 3.3.1 Authorized by Law This exemption results in changes to the operation of the plant by allowing the operation of the new dry fuel storage facility and loading of the NUHOMS[supreg]-24PTH DSC. As stated above, 10 CFR 50.12 allows the NRC to grant exemptions from the requirements of 10 CFR Part 50. In addition, the granting of the licensee's exemption request will not result in a violation of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended, or the intent of the Commission's regulations. Therefore, the exemption is authorized by law. 3.3.2 No Undue Risk to Public Health and Safety The underlying purposes of 10 CFR 50.68(b)(1) is to ensure that adequate controls are in place to ensure that the handling and storage of fuel assemblies is conducted in a manner such that the fuel assemblies remain safely subcritical. Based on the NRC staff's review of the licensee's exemption request, the licensee has demonstrated that sufficient controls are in place to provide reasonable assurance that there is no undue risk to public health and safety given conservative assumption in the criticality analysis (criterion 1 above); surveillances periodically verify the boron concentration before and during loading and unloading (criterion 2 above); radiation monitoring equipment is used to detect excessive radiation and initiate appropriate protective actions (criterion 3 above); only fuel authorized by the ISFSI TS will be loaded and stored in the ISFSI (criterion 4 above); and boron dilution events have been analyzed, and there are sufficient monitoring capabilities and time for the licensee to identify and terminate a dilution event prior to achieving a critical boron concentration in the cask (criterion 5 above). Therefore, the NRC staff concluded that the underlying purpose of the rule has been satisfied and that there is no undue risk to public health and safety. 3.3.3 Consistent with Common Defense and Security This exemption results in changes to the operation of the plant by allowing the operation of the new dry fuel storage facility and loading of the NUHOMS[supreg]-24PTH DSC. This change to the fuel assembly storage and handling in the plant does not affect the national defense strategy because the national defense is maintained by resources (hardware or software or other) that are outside the plant and that have no direct relation to plant operation. In addition, loading spent fuel into the NUHOMS[supreg]-24PTH DSC in the SFP does not affect the ability of the licensee to defend the plant against a terrorist attack. Therefore, the common defense and [[Page 44946]] security is not impacted by this exemption request. 3.3.4 Special Circumstances Pursuant to 10 CFR 50.12, ``Specific Exemption,'' the NRC staff reviewed the licensee's exemption request to determine if the legal basis for granting an exemption had been satisfied. With regards to the six special circumstances listed in 10 CFR 50.12(a)(2), the NRC staff finds that the licensee's exemption request satisfies 50.12(a)(2)(ii), ``Application of the regulation in the particular circumstances would not serve the underlying purpose of the rule or is not necessary to achieve the underlying purpose of the rule.'' Specifically, the NRC staff concludes that since the licensee has satisfied the five criteria in Section 3.1 of this exemption, the application of the rule is not necessary to achieve its underlying purpose in this particular case. 3.4 Summary Based upon the review of the licensee's exemption request to credit soluble boron during DSC loading, unloading, and handling in the HBRSEP2 SFP, the NRC staff concludes that pursuant to 10 CFR 50.12(a)(2) the licensee's exemption request is acceptable. However, the NRC staff places the following limitations/conditions on the approval of this exemption: 1. This exemption is limited to the loading, unloading, and handling of the DSC for only the TN NUHOMS[supreg]-24PTH at HBRSEP2. 2. This exemption is limited to the loading, unloading, and handling in the DSC at HBRSEP2 of Westinghouse 15 x 15 fuel assemblies that had maximum initial, unirradiated U-235 enrichments corresponding to the TS limitations in LCO 1.2.1 for Amendment 8 to the NUHOMS[supreg] -24PTH cask design. 4.0 Conclusion Accordingly, the Commission has determined that, pursuant to 10 CFR 50.12(a), the exemption is authorized by law, will not present an undue risk to the public health and safety, and is consistent with the common defense and security. Also, special circumstances are present. Therefore, the Commission hereby grants CP an exemption from the requirements of 10 CFR 50.68(b)(1) for the loading, unloading, and handling of the components of the Transnuclear NUHOMS[supreg]-24PTH dry cask storage system at HBRSEP2. However, since the licensee does not have an NRC-approved methodology for evaluating changes to the analyses or systems supporting this exemption request, the NRC staff's approval of the exemption is restricted to those specific design and operating conditions described in the licensee's February 22, 2005, exemption request. The licensee may not apply the 10 CFR 50.59 process for evaluating changes to specific exemptions. Any changes to the design or operation of (1) the dry cask storage system, (2) the spent fuel pool, (3) the fuel assemblies to be stored, (4) the boron dilution analyses, or (5) supporting procedures and controls, regardless of whether they are approved under the general Part 72 license or perceived to be conservative, will invalidate this exemption. Upon invalidation of the exemption, the licensee will be required to comply with NRC regulations prior to future cask loadings. Pursuant to 10 CFR 51.32, the Commission has determined that the granting of this exemption will not have a significant effect on the quality of the human environment (70 FR 43462). This exemption is effective upon issuance. Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 27th day of July 2005. For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Ledyard B. Marsh, Director, Division of Licensing Project Management, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. [FR Doc. E5-4147 Filed 8-3-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P ***************************************************************** 38 ForUm: The second block of Zaporozhye nuclear power plant Ukrainian Internet Newspaper JBE.ru - áàííåðíàÿ ñåòü 4 August Today at 7 a.m. the second block ha started working after the planned repair which lasted 59 days. Radiation of industrial platform is 12 micro roentgens per hour and index of buffer area is 8-12 micro roentgens. These indexes are norms for APP. Zaporozhye APP is the most powerful nuclear plant in Europe and the leader of electroenergetics in Ukraine. This is the unique energy complex consists of six different energy blocks with 6,000 megawatt of capacity. The first block was built in 1984 and the last one in 1995. Editorial staff: english@for-ua.com All rights are reserved by © LTD. Inter-Media, ForUm 2001-2005. www.redtram.com ***************************************************************** 39 RedNova News: OPINION: Nuclear Power Not a Solution to Air Quality Woes Posted on: Wednesday, 3 August 2005, 21:00 CDT Aug. 3--In his article on nuclear power plants, history professor Randall Beeman forgot his history. If Americans "believed they could no longer do big things" after 1975, it is for many reasons -- he mentions none. Just 12 years earlier our president was assassinated; a war that we did not and could not win had just ended; and for the first time a president resigned. Our national confidence as was dubious. Beeman uses five examples of "monumental" works that exemplify America's past. We can agree these are historically significant, but should they be works of which we should boast? The Manhattan Project? Should we be proud of developing the most hideous weapons ever devised? We all agree that a significant problem affecting the Central Valley is air quality. Experts see this as a cumulative problem to be resolved by myriad solutions. Yet Beeman simplifies the reasons for our poor air quality to motor vehicles traversing the valley and "the area's many power plants," none of which he discusses. I can imagine the air quality problem resolved, but not through construction of nuclear power plants. Beeman fails to relate the history of nuclear projects in Kern County and the Central Valley. Does he know about the attempt by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power to construct a nuclear power plant northwest of Wasco? Does he know about concerns of citizens regarding this project, questioning the water source to cool the facility; the disposition of salts from cooling towers on farmland surrounding the plant and impacts on climate from water vapor expelled from the plant? Since this was a city of Los Angeles facility, none of the power would have been realized by Kern County citizens. Lastly, is he aware that Kern County citizens overwhelmingly rejected this project in an advisory election? Beeman does not mention that the Sacramento Municipal Utility District built and ran a nuclear power plant for many years, only to shut it down because of maintenance problems and inefficiencies. Travel north on Highway 99. Somewhere near Galt, look east and see the cold, lifeless towers still looming on the horizon, a monument to failure. Beeman's reasons for building nuclear plants sound more like arguments against construction of them. He says those promoting nuclear power "make a strong argument that it has a fairly strong safety record" (emphasis added). If there is an accident at a hydroelectric plant, a wind farm or solar collectors, potential problems are very short term and site specific. We may be without power for a minimal amount of time. However, an accident at a nuclear power plant will result in long-term problems to human life and our land, air and water supplies. Our solutions for resolving air quality problems should rest with developing efficient transportation that will not pollute; perfecting solar and wind power; reducing our thirst for more electricity; conserving farmland; and making cities more livable. This is how we should use our ingenuity to create a better world, not building nuclear plants. Fred Simon of Bakersfield is a landscape architect and planner with his own business. Community Voices is an expanded commentary that may contain up to 500 words. The Californian reserves the right to reprint commentaries in all formats, including on its Web page. ----- To see more of The Bakersfield Californian, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.bakersfield.com. Copyright (c) 2005, The Bakersfield Californian Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News. For information on republishing this content, contact us at (800) 661-2511 (U.S.), (213) 237-4914 (worldwide), fax (213) 237-6515, or e-mail reprints@krtinfo.com. Source: The Bakersfield Californian View results © 2002-2005 RedNova.com. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 40 t r u t h o u t - Report Challenges Plutonium Standards Date: Thu, 04 Aug 2005 21:19:31 -0700 WHITE_ACRONYMS,WHITE_LINKS autolearn=ham version=3.0.4 X-Spam-filter-host: darwin.ctyme.com - http://www.junkemailfilter.com -- Peace, owlswan "Whenever 'A' attempts by law to impose moral standards upon 'B', 'A' is most likely a scoundrel." -- H. L. Mencken (1880-1956) American Journalist, Editor 175867b.jpg 1758689.jpg 1758696.jpg 17586a3.jpg 17586b2.jpg 17586c0.jpg 17586cf.jpg 17586dd.jpg 17586e8.jpg Print This Story17586fc.jpg1758734.jpg E-mail This Story175873f.jpg What do you think? The t r u t h o u t Town Meeting is in progress. Join the debate! And to read more articles on the Environment, please visit the t r u t h o u t environment page. Go to Original Report Challenges Plutonium Standards By Michelle Dunlop The Times-News Thursday 04 August 2005 Arco - A study, scheduled to be released today, suggests that federal drinking water standards for plutonium need to be revised. The report, published by the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, uses facts published by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for its conclusions, said Arjun Makhijani, president of the organization. Makhijani says EPA's guidelines are based on 1950s science and are 100 times weaker than what is needed to protect public health. The EPA guidelines limit transuranic radionuclides in drinking water to 15 picocuries per liter. Makhijani says the limit should be .15 picocuries per liter. IEER's report, however, should not be cause for mass public alarm. Testing of drinking water in states where plutonium poses a threat to water resources reveals that the stricter standard is already being met, Makhijani said. Therefore, Makhijani views his group's request to EPA as merely an acknowledgment of the most current scientific data available - something the agency has not done since crafting its plutonium and other transuranic radionuclides' standards since 1976. "The EPA does take what we do seriously," Makhijani said. "We look forward to a positive response from them." EPA spokesman Dale Kemery downplayed the IEER report. "Unless someone has significant information not previously available, then there is not a compelling case to change," Kemery said. States such as Idaho, Washington, South Carolina, Georgia, Oregon, New Mexico and Nevada all house large amounts of Department of Energy plutonium waste. In order to implement Makhijani's recommended standard, the Department of Energy would need to increase the frequency as well as the sensitivity of its monitoring at the Idaho National Laboratory site. The department may also have to change the way it disposes waste, including any waste that would be generated under the DOE's plan to consolidate plutonium-238 production at INL. Over 20 groups, including the Snake River Alliance, signed the letter Makhijani sent on Monday to Cynthia Dougherty, EPA's director of the office of groundwater and drinking water requesting the change. "Once plutonium gets into the water, it will not be possible to remediate it - and we have a ton of it here, literally, above the Snake River Plain Aquifer," said Jeremy Maxand, executive director of the Snake River Alliance. "Several major cleanup decisions at our site will be made in the next year or two, and the EPA needs to act to ensure that the DOE adheres to protective norms so far as drinking water is concerned." ------- Jump to today's TO Issues: Today's TO Issues -------------- Collapse of Antarctic Ice Shelf Could Have Global Effects Report Challenges Plutonium Standards Hunger Is Spreading in Africa Avian Flu Epidemic Nears Europe Disease Traced to Extreme Weather David Sirota | Debunking the Debate over 'Free' Trade and Low Prices White House Still Refuses to Say Whether Bush Opposes Contraception -------------- t r u t h o u t Town Meeting t r u t h o u t Home (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. t r u t h o u t has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is t r u t h o u t endorsed or sponsored by the originator.) "Go to Original" links are provided as a convenience to our readers and allow for verification of authenticity. However, as originating pages are often updated by their originating host sites, the versions posted on TO may not match the versions our readers view when clicking the "Go to Original" links. 175874c.jpg Print This Story175875f.jpg175876e.jpg E-mail This Story1758777.jpg 1758781.jpg | t r u t h o u t | town meeting | issues | environment | labor | women | health | voter rights | multimedia | donate | contact | subscribe | Attachment Converted: 175867b.jpg: 00000001,3ac5dfa8,00000000,00000000 Attachment Converted: 1758689.jpg: 00000001,3ac5dfa9,00000000,00000000 Attachment Converted: 1758696.jpg: 00000001,3ac5dfaa,00000000,00000000 Attachment Converted: 17586a3.jpg: 00000001,3ac5dfab,00000000,00000000 Attachment Converted: 17586b2.jpg: 00000001,3ac5dfac,00000000,00000000 Attachment Converted: 17586c0.jpg: 00000001,3ac5dfad,00000000,00000000 Attachment Converted: 17586cf.jpg: 00000001,3ac5dfae,00000000,00000000 Attachment Converted: 17586dd.jpg: 00000001,3ac5dfaf,00000000,00000000 Attachment Converted: 17586e8.jpg: 00000001,3ac5dfb0,00000000,00000000 Attachment Converted: 17586fc.jpg: 00000001,3ac5dfb1,00000000,00000000 Attachment Converted: 1758734.jpg: 00000001,45dfb0e0,00000000,00000000 Attachment Converted: 175873f.jpg: 00000001,45dfb0e1,00000000,00000000 Attachment Converted: 175874c.jpg: 00000001,45dfb0e2,00000000,00000000 Attachment Converted: 175875f.jpg: 00000001,45dfb0e3,00000000,00000000 Attachment Converted: 175876e.jpg: 00000001,45dfb0e4,00000000,00000000 Attachment Converted: 1758777.jpg: 00000001,45dfb0e5,00000000,00000000 Attachment Converted: 1758781.jpg: 00000001,45dfb0e6,00000000,00000000 ***************************************************************** 41 BBC: Hiroshima health effects linger Last Updated: Friday, 5 August 2005 By Chris Hogg BBC News, Tokyo [Keiko Ogura] Keiko Oruga was a young girl when the bomb was dropped Imagine what it is like to know that as a child you were doused in radioactive fallout. It fell on your clothes and on your skin. It was in the water you drank, the scraps of food you could find. It entered the fabric of the buildings you were sheltering in. What hidden damage was done in your earliest days? For those who were in Hiroshima on 6 August 1945 it is a fear they live with constantly. This is not history for them. It is an everyday concern. Keiko Ogura was a little girl living in the suburbs of Hiroshima when the bomb was dropped. "I don't have scars," she says, "but I do have nightmares." And then I thought about future, will I be able to have children normally Keiko Ogura Like thousands of other survivors - the hibakusha, as they are known in Japan - Keiko Ogura was given regular check ups by the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission in the first few months after the bomb was dropped. After the war, the Americans provided medical care for those affected. This also enabled scientists to study the effects of radioactive exposure on people. "Several times the car came and took me to the research centre where they examined me," she said. "I always had this fear. Is there anything on my body? It was a fear of the invisible. I had a little anaemia, so immediately I asked myself, is that anything to do with the bomb? And then I thought about my future, will I be able to have children normally?" Keiko Ogara's fears are not unusual. You hear similar stories from others who were exposed to the fallout as children. Medical study The people who were put through the terrible events of August 1945, and their offspring, are more closely monitored than almost anyone else by doctors and scientists. "This is the only place where we can research the effect of radiation on the human body," said Dr Saeko Fujiwara, at the Radiation Effects Research Foundation. "We study the relation between the level of exposure and that of radiation. Ours is the only major epidemiological study that can do this. That's why we're unique," she said. [Charles Waldren] Hiroshima research has helped set safety levels, Charles Waldren says That study has helped scientists to draw up the guidelines for safe exposure to radiation that is used around the world in the nuclear industry, for example. Charles Waldren, an American who is the foundation's chief scientist, believes that almost half a million radiation workers in the US and at least that many in Europe have benefited. "Our research allows people to continue to work at a level of exposure which is considered safe for the general welfare," he said. "I think risk estimates from radiation used in every country in the world come from our data." Cancer risks But the close monitoring of Hiroshima's citizens, those who were exposed to the blast and their children and grandchildren, is not just a matter of scientific curiosity. There is real concern about the survivors as they get older. The average age of the hibakushas is 72. When they were exposed to the radiation, they suffered damage to their genes, with those closest to the centre of the explosion the worst affected. In many cases their genes repaired themselves. It is possible that those repairs were imperfect, making it more likely that they will develop cancer in later life. [Professor Kenji Kamiya] There is an urgency to find new treatments, Kenji Kamiya says "Radiation induces genome damage," said Professor Kenji Kamiya, the director of the research institute for radiation, biology and medicine at Hiroshima University. "In some people that isn't fixed correctly. So 60 years later they have problems. The highest risk for A-bomb victims developing cancer is among the youngest who were exposed to the blast. These people are now approaching an age where they would be more likely to develop a cancer anyway," he said. Science does have some answers, but much more work is needed. "We are trying to develop new genome technology and new methods for diagnosis and treatment," Professor Kamiya said. "Re-generative medicine offers the possibility of repairing cell damage." The number of cancer cases among the survivors will continue to rise in the next few years, perhaps peaking in the 2020s. "That's why we have to rush to develop new treatments for these patients," he said. Sixty years after the bomb was dropped, science is still working hard to find ways to cope with its after-effects. And for survivors like Keiko Ogura, that means little chance in the short-term that her anxieties will go away. ***************************************************************** 42 Planet Jackson Hole: Plutonium in the Greater Yellowstone KYNF, DOE at loggerheads over Plutonium proposal By Gil Brady 8.04.05 Plutonium-238 is a highly radioactive element that NASA uses to make a sort of battery  known as RPSs  installed in satellites. Due to security considerations in the post-9/11 world, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is considering moving the nation's entire supply of Plutonium-238  39.5 kilograms  and consolidating the future production process to one location. It also wants to increase production of it to 5 kilograms per year. The DOE is looking at three sites: the Los Alamos National Lab in New Mexico, Oak Ridge National Lab in Tennessee, and the Idaho National Lab (INL), located about 40 miles west of Idaho Falls. The process for making Plutonium-238 requires taking Neptunium oxide, which is already stored at INL, and putting it into INL's Advanced Test Reactor. The Neptunium is irradiated, which turns some of it into Plutonium-238. The pencil-rod shaped "targets" are taken out and processed to extract the Plutonium, which then is turned into a Plutonium ceramic pellet. Finally, the pellets are put into the RPSs to create energy (see diagram on page 12). In the DOE's view, the INL is the "preferred" site for these activities, but Keep Yellowstone Nuclear Free (KYNF), a Jackson-based environmental group that monitors INL, is opposed to the idea. Tom Patricelli, president of KYNF, contends there are too many hazards at INL over the project's multiple-decades span to ensure its success and safety. Recent town hall meetings between INL officials and KYNF proved contentious. The technical nature of the plan makes for trouble completely understanding the full range of issues. The following conversation with John F. Kotek, a DOE official and Deputy Manager of INL, and Tim Jackson, INL's Communications Director, may help put some of the pieces together. Planet Jackson Hole: If all this stuff is going to be concentrated at INL before the new facility is built, what interim containment safeguards and upgrades will you or DOE install or implement to safeguard it? John Kotek: What we're doing right now is we're receiving the Neptunium and that's going into one of our secure storage vaults. And when we receive Plutonium-238 from other sites, that's handled the same way. It goes into our secure storage vaults here on the site. PJH: And this is through overland transportation? JK: Yes. PJH: There is a question of whether the consolidation of Pu-238 might be a precursor to launching a Star Wars program in Idaho out of INL  JK: People have speculated on that, but what we're talking about here is we're talking about producing Pu-238 for NASA missions  PJH: Those RPSs batteries, or the radio  JK: Those radioisotope power sources for NASA, or terrestrial, Earth-based national security missions. So, there's no space weapons application at all involved here. PJH: But at the same token, your draft [Environmental Impact Survey] summary says: "Due to its classified nature, a national security application can be characterized by what it is not." So if it ever came to that, you wouldn't be able to release that information publicly, would you? JK: Well, what I can tell you is what we know now. And that is we've been asked to produce this stuff [Plutonium-238] for NASA, space missions and for terrestrially based national security missions. Period. PJH: Of the existing Department of Energy nuclear sites  you have Oak Ridge in Tennessee, Los Alamos in New Mexico, and then INL in Idaho  why is the DOE considering Idaho when it has the highest seismic rating amongst the three available options? JK: A couple of things on that. One, we're looking at consolidating to minimize over the road transportation. When it comes to the security of the Idaho site, we actually have an excellent security force here  we're looking at consolidation for a few reasons: minimize transportation; take advantage of the existing safe and secure infrastructure, here at they Idaho National Lab; and given that three of the six steps in the process are already being conducted or plan to be conducted here in Idaho, it just made sense to look into doing it all in one place. PJH: But it is correct to say of the three available options  Tennessee, New Mexico, Idaho  Idaho is the highest seismic rated? JK: My seismic expert tells me that Los Alamos is actually higher, but I need to verify that. But in any event, let's talk about the seismic thing for a second ... There are commercial nuclear power reactors that operate on the California coast. The key is you design your facility to be able to withstand whatever the seismic hazard is that's present in that area. So, that's exactly what we would do here in Idaho ... with the ATR, that facility has also been designed to withstand seismic hazard that exits here on the site. And, what we do with the reactor is we have a seismic detection system that will shut the reactor down if it detects any significant seismic activity. So, when the Borah Peak earthquake hit in the early 1980s, the ATR was running when that happened, and the safety system worked exactly as it was designed: It shut itself down and the reactor maintained no damage and there was no radiation release as a result of it. PJH: So even though it [the ATR] is 40 years old, it has been built to highest current code or the code at its time? JK: At the time, they built it to what was even beyond what was required. And as we learn more about things like seismic hazards and other things, you're always ... looking for ways to make upgrades to make it better. And so, as the years have gone by, we've made upgrades not only to the seismic protection system, but [also] to the reactor control system. We've changed out key components in the reactor several times. We've done a lot of things to make that reactor better than it was than when it was first built. PJH: After 9/11 the Government Accounting Office did a comprehensive audit of the nation's commercial nuclear power plants. INL is not classified as commercial, or is it? JK: That's correct. No we're not. PJH: In keeping with this audit and focusing on security and the heightened risk of attack in April 2003 the Nuclear Regulatory Committee issued a new design basis threat that commercial nuclear plants must be prepared to defend against. Is INL obligated to conform to these new regulatory stands regarding post 9/11 security? JK: We're not obligated to adhere the NRC's; we're obligated to adhere to our own, which we are developing. PJH: So these standards of your own, do they include realistic force-on-force exercises to ensure the identification and potential correction of INL security vulnerabilities? [Force-on-force exercises simulate a full-scale, real world terrorist attack with ammunition counts and live participants] JK: Absolutely. TJ: In terms of the force-on-force exercises at INL, [it] has always passed its force-on-force exercises with flying colors. JK: And one thing, just to put a point on it: We spend about $50 million a year on safeguards and security at this site. We take this very seriously. PJH: Do these exercises include the use of adversary force and laser equipment to ensure real-world scenarios and accurate accounts of shots fired? TJ: I can say this: Force-on-force exercises are a part of the exercises that our security forces are trained for ... PJH: So, without going into details, what kind of guns might they have? Did it [the training] include the use of adversary force as a training exercise? TJ: Yeah. PJH: How vulnerable or invulnerable is INL to a full-force terrorist attack? JK: We believe our facilities are very well protected. Here's a quote for you. This was in Congressional testimony ... a guy by the name of Glenn Todnosky. His statement was: "The Idaho site has moved out aggressively with the very impressive design basis threat implementation plan, and they have also enthusiastically embraced the application of new technologies in their security plan." PJH: Who does Todnosky work for or represent? JK: He's the Department of Energy internal safety watchdog. And his official title is ... the director of oversight an assessment. TJ: It's an independent watchdog. PJH: Are security guards at INL allowed by Idaho law to carry semi-automatic weapons, and are they trained to use them with deadly force? TJ: We have a well-trained well-equipped security force, and they have a variety of armaments at their disposal. PJH: In the EIS: "Due to its classified nature, a national security application can be characterized by what it's not." And at your presentation at Snow King I asked you about someone's concern about a payload of Plutonium if it were to crash on a space mission it could contaminate two-thirds of the world's children. Does any of this ring a bell? JK: Yeah, I've heard some of that before. I think the specific two-thirds of the world's children ... that was probably Peter Rickard who said that. I think what he was referring to, just for background for you, was when they had the Cassini mission ... they had 72 pounds of Plutonium on it. They launched in 1997 and then it did an Earth fly-by in 1999, and I think he's referring to concerns folks had about if the craft had reentered the Earth's atmosphere on fly-by that you could have some sort of a burn up or something. What I can say about that is we are today building a radioisotope power source for the NASA New Horizon's mission to Pluto, which is to launch early next year. That mission does not involve an earth fly-by and so the type of scenario that was raised at that meeting isn't relevant. PJH: How does the public know what a credible accident scenario is for national security missions ... if that is classified information? JK: I can tell you that for the space missions they go through an extensive Environmental Impact Statement process at NASA, and when it comes to the national security applications, I'm going to have to talk to the headquarters program manager on that to find out what they do in terms of environmental analysis. That really is a program question as opposed to a field office question. PJH: INL is a 40-year-old Advanced Test Reactor, correct? JK: The advanced test reactor came on line in 1967; so, it's 38 years old. PJH: Some believe and have alleged that INL has a history of accidents, such as in the '90s, and that there were 30 emission-control breakdowns, eight of which INL's filtration system and emission-control system failed to prevent dangerous levels of radiation from seeping in the atmosphere. Can you speak to this? JK: Let me give you a little background here: When calculating our emissions and the effects of our emissions, we use something called the "Maximally Exposed Individual," which is our ... person living closest to the site. In no case did the Maximally Exposed Individual get more than what we call .07 millireps. PJH: Is this a hypothetical construct or is this an actual person that you assessed and studied? JK: In fact, it's not an individual. It really is a hypothetical based on emissions data and prevailing winds and that sort of thing. TJ: It's calculated at the site, and that hypothetical person would be at the site boundaries. JK: And so, the federal release limit that we're held to is a "Maximally Exposed Individual" are .10 millireps. The highest we've had over the last decade is .07 millireps ... That's over any given year. Last year's emissions data, the Maximally Exposed Individual from our site got .044 millireps. Which is less than 1/200th of the allowable level. So we very tightly control our emissions here on this site. PJH: Why doesn't the DOE just build a new state-of-the-art reactor with the latest safety systems at Los Alamos or somewhere else rather than trying to upgrade a 40-year-old reactor ... on a high seismic plain? JK: When it comes to building a new facility, we think the Advanced Test Reactor is very capable of meeting the needs and meeting the production goals for this project. Look at the commercial nuclear industry: Dozens of commercial nuclear power plants are now licensed to operate for 60 years. And there's no reason to believe that with proper maintenance, proper attention to detail at the ATR, we couldn't do the same thing. And third, we have an obligation to spend the taxpayer's dollars as wisely as we can. If we have an existing facility that's capable of doing the job, we think at the least it makes a lot of sense to look at that facility as the place to do the project that requires the capability that this facility provides. PJH: You said at the Snow King meeting that no decision has been made. But if you read the summary draft and watch the presentation ... it seems like they're tilting towards INL. JK: Whenever you go out and do an Environmental Impact Statement, you have an obligation to declare what your preferred alternative is, if you have one. In this case, for several of the reason we discussed earlier  minimizing transportation, taking advantage of the security infrastructure here, the strong technical capabilities of the people here in Idaho, as well as the facility we have here in Idaho  we declared that the preferred alternative. That doesn't make it a done deal. The Secretary of Energy still has the decision to make as to whether he wants to pursue the consolidation or not. And he'll weigh the environmental consequences, he'll weight costs, schedule considerations, he will most certainly be provided the public comments and he can weigh those. So, he'll factor in all of those different elements when he makes his decision whether to proceed or not. PJH: Are you saying the consolidation idea is still up in the air JK: Oh, sure. That's what the Environmental Impact Statement process is all about. Is laying a proposal for the Department to analyze and the public to comment on. And that's the hard part about these EIS documents, because you have to come out and talk about your preferred alternatives and you talk about it, and you repeat it so much that people think it's  PJH: Fait accompli? JK: They come away with that perception. Keep Yellowstone Nuclear Free poses questions Tom Patricelli, president of Keep Yellowstone Nuclear Free (KYNF), outlined a few of the issues his nonprofit still has with the Department of Energy's (DOE) plan to consolidate storage and production of Pu-238 at the Idaho National Lab (INL). Planet Jackson Hole: Does the public get a fair opportunity to engage in the DOE's INL proposal? Tom Patricelli: The DOE releases a massive, highly technical, 500-page document and they want the lay public to read that, digest it, and form informed, coherent questions in essentially two weeks time. And when they do show to ask questions, they're limited to three minutes of comment ... And when you get the Department of Energy giving their pitch for 35 minutes, it's certainly not a level playing field when they restrict the public and groups to three and five minute statements. And then when they bring in a person called "the facilitator" and he, you know, refuses to let groups use the podium supplied by Snow King and tries to forcibly take microphones away from people, I don't think that's really indicative of good public outreach by the DOE. PJH: I noticed on your talking points memorandum, in the '90s, INL's filtration system, which is designed to keep radioactive and other toxic emissions from escaping into the environment, broke down 30 times. On this memorandum it says eight of those breakdowns involved filter failures causing dangerous levels of radiation to be released into the atmosphere. Is that your memorandum? How do you know this and can you prove it? TP: Those come from many different sources, including Department of Environmental Quality report, the DOE's own document. It's well-documented stuff. PJH: If the public wanted to check this out, where would you direct them to go? TP: We file numerous Freedom of Information Acts requests where documented accidents and emission control system failures is accessible through FOIA. And we've gathered much of the information you just quoted from these FOIA requests. If the public wanted to go through that process, it's a very lengthy and time-consuming process, but it's available to the public as well as groups like us. And they can contact us at Keep Yellowstone Nuclear Free if they want more information. PJH: It seems that there are two main rationales for why [the DOE] is leaning toward INL. One, in their contention, it has the experience, and two, the systems in place to increase production of Plutonium-238. But their other rational is that after 9/11, consolidating all the nation's supply would be best done at one site, and they say INL fits the bill on those points. TP: We do recognize and appreciate some of the benefits of consolidation. But here's a benefit of consolidating this project at Los Alamos: You're going to have what [DOE] said is a minimum of 55,000 drums of nuclear and toxic waste generated by this project. Now, that stuff from INL is going to have to be put into drums, loaded on trucks, and sent across the highways for a 1,000 miles, down to WHIP in New Mexico. That's when it's the most vulnerable ... to accidents, attacks  PJH: Would transuranic waste be attractive to terrorists? TP: Absolutely, It's highly radioactive. It could cause great damage. PJH: Like to make a dirty bomb? TP: Sure, if they were somehow to get their hands on it. You know. Who knows? Kill the truck driver, take the drum. Sure, that would be an ideal dirty bomb. Transuranic means elements higher on the periodic table than uranium. Highly radioactive stuff. It's the worst of the waste. My point about consolidation, if all of this were to happen at Los Alamos, the WHIP [Waste Isolation Process] is essentially right next door to Los Alamos. So, they would be reducing the highway mileage this hyper-toxic waste would have to be traveling. PJH: What do you say to people that this initiative at INL would create 75 to 100 long-term and, relative to this economy, high-paying jobs? TP: I think the long-term things to keep in mind are the potential and long-term consequences of a catastrophic accident from a major earthquake at INL, which we all know is in an active seismic zone. The DOE modeled this type of accident themselves, what they call a major loss of coolant accident at the advanced nuclear reactor. You lose all the coolant water that keeps the nuclear core of the reactor from being exposed to the air. When people talk about a meltdown, essentially what happens is you lose the coolant and the nuclear core is exposed to the air and it starts to melt. You could have an explosion, you have a meltdown and radiation is released in massive quantities to the air, and at their system at INL the emergency firewater injection system is not up to seismic code. At all. And this is in DOE documents, again. The environment and human beings do not react well to plutonium and radiation in general. www.planetjh.com | Copyright © 2004-2005 Planet Jackson Hole, Inc.. All Rights Reserved. | Site developed by CryBaby ***************************************************************** 43 Rocky Mountain News: Groups urge tighter plutonium standard By Ann Imse, Rocky Mountain News August 4, 2005 Federal limits on plutonium and other radioactive contaminants in water are dangerously high and should be lowered to the standard Colorado uses, environmental groups said Wednesday. The standard they propose is 0.15 picocuries of contaminants per liter of water, the amount Colorado regulators allow for water leaving Rocky Flats, the nearly demolished former nuclear weapons plant. The Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, the National Resources Defense Council and Clean Water Action were among the groups urging the stricter standard. The current limits are 100 times too high and are "based on obsolete, 1950s science," said Dr. Arjun Makhijani, president of IEER and author of the report. "The current scientific assessment of plutonium indicates that the dose to human bones is far greater than was estimated at the time standards were published." The report said plutonium and similar radioactive materials concentrate near the surface of bone, and thus cause more internal radioactive damage than estimated in the past. The report cited Colorado's limit in urging a change in the national standard. When the state's Water Quality Control Commission tightened its limit in 2002, it said that plutonium is difficult to remove from water and very hazardous to human health. The Colorado limit was set to reduce the risk of cancer to one person in a million, even after drinking 2 liters of such water a day for 30 years. A layer of natural clay under Rocky Flats protected deep ground water from contamination, officials say. Any contaminated ground water above the clay emerges on the surface and is captured in holding ponds, where it is cleaned before flowing into creeks. When the ponds caught small amounts of americium last year, a microfiltration system was installed to remove it to the 0.15 picocurie standard, said John Corsi, spokesman for the Rocky Flats cleanup contractor, Kaiser-Hill. The cleaned water was then released into a stream, he said. Rocky Flats, which stopped making weapons in 1989, must meet the 0.15 picocuries standard "in perpetuity," Corsi added. Rocky Flats polluted the water in two nearby reservoirs when winds picked up contaminated soil and blew it off site years ago. Standley Lake still has very small amounts of plutonium in the sediment but is deemed safe by the state. Great Western Reservoir once provided drinking water but it was closed. Waters considered most at risk from nuclear-weapons-facility plutonium are the Columbia River in Washington, the Snake River in Idaho and the Savannah River between South Carolina and Georgia. imsea@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-5438 2005 © Rocky Mountain News ***************************************************************** 44 AU ABC: Federal Govt takes control of NT uranium 20:23 (ACST)Thursday, 4 August 2005. 21:23 (AEDT)Thursday, 4 The Federal Government is to take control of uranium mining in the Northern Territory. The Federal Government has taken over responsibility for approving all new uranium mines in the Northern Territory after a meeting with the Territory Government. The Commonwealth says the Territory "abdicated" all responsibility for uranium mines, while the NT Government says it was strong-armed into the change. Federal Resources Minister Ian Macfarlane went into the meeting with the NT Mines Minister, Kon Vatskalis, armed with legal advice saying the Commonwealth could overturn the Territory's ban on uranium mines. But Mr Macfarlane says that advice never hit the table because Mr Vatskalis "abdicated" all responsibility for uranium mines. "They have this morning decided that they will just pass the whole process to us," Mr Macfarlane said. "For reasons of bringing certainty to the uranium industry in the Northern Territory, the Commonwealth must accept that responsibility and where the Northern Territory is stepping away from it we will give certainty to the resources sector." Mr Macfarlane says he wanted an arrangement by which both governments would share responsibility for a decision regarding uranium mining. But he says Mr Vatskalis left the Commonwealth no choice. "We have a system available to them under their Northern Territory Mining Act and the Northern Territory Mine Management Act where they can make this decision and the Commonwealth would remain silent," he said. "They've decided not to be involved in that process, they've decided not to take any part in the consideration of that process and that's why it's an abdication of responsibility." But Mr Vatskalis says the NT Government was overruled. "What the Commonwealth have decided to do now is to take control of uranium in the Territory, control overall," he said. Mr Vatskalis would not confirm whether he actually refused to cooperate with the Commonwealth. "Let's wait and see what's going to happen," he said. "We had very preliminary discussions with the Minister. The Minister indicated he is prepared now to take control of the mine and allow uranium mining in the Territory. "We will continue discussions with the Commonwealth to see what's going to happen." The federal Labor Member for Lingiari, Warren Snowdon, says the NT Government has a clear mandate to block uranium mining. He says the Federal Government's move is the beginning of the end for self-government by the Territory. "This is twice in the space of a fortnight where we've seen the Commonwealth override the interest and the rights of Territorians," he said. "Firstly with the announcement of a nuclear waste dump, because they can. "Now because they want to open the field of uranium mining up in the Territory, because they know they can't do it in any other state." Northern Territory Opposition Leader Jodeen Carney says Chief Minister Clare Martin has given in to the Commonwealth and should not have misled Territory voters at the last election. "She said to the people of the Northern Territory that there would be no uranium mines," Ms Carney said. "She must have know that that promise, like so many others, could not have been kept. "This is about her credibility. She is a chameleon, there's no doubt about that." The Northern Territory Environment Centre says the NT Government has a moral and legal responsibility not to let the Commonwealth take over on uranium mines. Centre spokesman Peter Robertson says it would be diabolical to have the Federal Government in control of uranium licences. "We've got a Commonwealth Government that will approve any uranium mine anywhere in the Northern Territory no matter how environmentally sensitive, how culturally sensitive, how socially impactful it might be," he said. "They are besotted with uranium mining. They can't be trusted. They broke their promise about the waste dump. They will break any promise they make that they give about the safety of uranium mines." Related Video Govt takes control of NT uranium industry The Federal Government has taken control of the Northern Territory's uranium mining industry, declaring it "open for business". MPEG2Real BroadbandWin BroadbandReal DialupWin Dialup Related Audio Federal Govt seizes control of approval process of new mines in NT In an unexpected move, the Federal Government today seized control over the approval process for new mines in the Territory effectively cutting the NT government out of the picture. MP3RealMedia 28k+WinMedia 28k+ ***************************************************************** 45 AU ABC: New company to search for uranium in SA 18:47 (ACST)Thursday, 4 August 2005. 19:47 (AEDT)Thursday, 4 Adelaide-based mineral explorer Southern Gold has announced the formation of a new company to search for uranium in the South Australia's Gawler Craton region. Southern Uranium Limited will explore a 4,000 square kilometre region of the Gawler Craton, which is home to BHP Billiton's Olympic Dam copper and uranium mine. Southern Gold's managing director, Stephen Biggins, says growing demand for uranium prompted the company to create the new, uranium-specific exploration business. "It's been driven fundamentally by growing demand for uranium, outstripping supply," he said. "It's also been driven by the need to find a real alternative to greenhouse gas emitting fuels and it's really been driven by growth in China and in India." ***************************************************************** 46 AU ABC: NT uranium mine move 'reshaping federalism' (ACST)Friday, 5 August 2005. 07:35 (AEDT)Friday, 5 August 2005. A constitutional expert says the Federal Government's decision to take over the awarding of uranium mining licences in the Northern Territory signifies a remodelling of the country's federal system of government. The mining industry has hailed the move as offering certainty that will lead to a "prolonged uranium boom" Dr John Williams from the Australian National University (ANU) says it is a bold move by the Commonwealth. "Federalism in one sense is being reshaped as we speak and in many ways the states are becoming service deliveries, and so is the case for the Territory Government," he said. "So the Commonwealth is clearly being quite bold and emboldened. "I think by the fact that it now controls the Senate that any of these changes that it wants to make it will be able to put through at its will." Federal Resources Minister Ian Macfarlane says he hopes the Northern Territory Government will reconsider its opposition to uranium mining in the future. Mr Macfarlane yesterday announced the Commonwealth will take responsibility for approving all new uranium mines in the Territory. He hopes the Territory Government will eventually opt to play a role in assessing new uranium mines. "If at any time the Northern Territory Government wants to be involved in that process I would more than welcome them," he said. NT Chief Minister Clare Martin does not appear to be taking his offer seriously. "There is no process for us to be involved with - since self-government we have not had control and the Federal Government has never talked any different to us," he said. Ms Martin says the Minister's offer is just a political stunt. "It is the Federal Government's control over uranium mines and I think I've said that very clearly and whatever Ian Macfarlane says, that is a fact of life - we are a territory, we do not have that control," she said. Meanwhile, the mining industry has hailed the move as a step forward by the Federal Government. The industry argues it provides greater certainty because the Northern Territory Government's position on new uranium mines was not clear. Batavia Mining is exploring about 5,000 square kilometres of land for uranium, mainly in central Australia. Director Neil Biddle says there is likely to be more exploration investment in the Territory. "I think we're just starting to see the beginning of a prolonged uranium boom," he said. "This certainly will add value to exploration acreage in the Northern Territory - I have no doubt about it." Mr Biddle says the increase in interest will come from around the world. It is a view shared by Compass company director Malcolm Humphreys, who is exploring for uranium near Batchelor. "It seems like it would be a positive for exploration companies," he said. Mr Humphreys says there is now greater certainty for investors. "There has been an element of confusion over policy which has been a negative," he said. Mr Humphreys says Compass could be mining for uranium in about five years. However, Alistair Stephens from Arafura Resources says it is difficult to tell what the long-term implications will be. Mr Stephens says it is unclear what would happen if there was a change in Federal Government. "The whole issue is clouded by policy and without a clear change of the Labor Government's policy at this stage, you'd have to have to consider the implications long-term if Labor wishes to maintain that policy," he said. "What the implications are the Federal Government granting those licenses, if there happened to be a change of government." The Northern Territory Minerals Council has expressed confidence the federal Labor Party will change its policy against any new uranium mines. Mining council spokeswoman Kezia Purick says while it is a valid concern, there are signs of change within Labor. "Over the last three to six months there has been a bit of a sea change within the Labor Party that we have observed in so much as members of that Party, politicians and others, have started to say that perhaps the Party needs to look at that policy and to revisit the issue of uranium exploration and mining and also nuclear energy," she said. ***************************************************************** 47 Bellona: Sweden plan to send spent nuclear fuel to Sellafield In a surprising move Swedish company Studsvik-SVAFO have announced the first Swedish plans, for more than 20 years, to ship spent nuclear fuel to British Sellafield plant for reprocessing. Norwegian authorities have announced protests against the transport. The Sellafield site. Sweden wants to reprocess a total amount of 4,7 tonnes of nuclear fuel at the Magnox-reprocessing plant. Photo: Erik Martiniussen/ Bellona Erik Martiniussen, 2005-08-04 13:33 In contrast to the established Swedish policy, Swedish company Studsvik-SVAFO is now planing to send spent nuclear fuel to British plant Sellafield for reprocessing. The spent fuel origin from the first Swedish reactor, R1, which was in operation in Stockholm from 1954 to 1970. The plans involve shipping a load of 4,7 tonnes of metallic uranium to Sellafield. The reprocessing will generate a total volume of 1600 litres of highly active waste, which will be shipped back to Sweden for final disposal. The fuel also contains 1.1 kilogram of plutonium, which will be converted into Mixed Oxide Fuel (MOX), and sent back to Sweden. First load for 20 years Even though the amounts of material, which are involved, are small, the plans are considered politically controversial. In the 1980’s the Swedish government subsequently reversed its spent fuel policy of reprocessing in favour of the direct disposal of its spent nuclear fuel. If the new plans are materialised the spent fuel will be the first Swedish load to reach British shores for more than 20 years. 1982 was the last year Swedish nuclear fuel was shipped to Britain for reprocessing. If everything goes as Studsvik-SVAFO expects the fuel will be shipped to Sellafield during the summer of 2007, and reprocessed in the 40 years old Magnox reprocessing plant, also known as the B205-plant, at Sellafield. The Magnox reprocessing plant is the one of the two reprocessing plants at Sellafield, which pollutes the most. There are plans to close it down in 2012. The Swedish authorities are expected to make a decision regarding the transport this August. At the moment the fuel are stored at the Swedish research institute Studsvik, near the town of Nyköping. The Sellafield plant Together with Norwegian authorities Bellona was working for several years to stop the controversial discharges of radioactive technetium-99 (Tc-99) from Sellafield, a nuclide with a half-life of 213.000 years. The work was crowned with success in April 2004 when the operator of the plant, British Nuclear Group (BNG), decided to start cleaning out the material from the discharges. But even though Tc-99 now is cleaned out, the plant is still polluting the Irish Sea with radioactive materials, such as small amounts of plutonium, Cesium-137 and Cobolt-60. These are all artificial and toxic radioactive isotopes, with a rather long half-life. Most of the pollution descends from the Magnox reprocessing plant. The British nuclear transport vessels Pacific Pintail and Pacific Teal in the harbour of Barrow. Photo: Erik Martiniussen/ Bellona Kept in secret It is the Environmental Foundation Bellona, which have brought the Swedish reprocessing plans to light. Even though the North Sea countries have worked together in the OSPAR-process for several years, to stop the radioactive discharge form Sellafield, the Swedes haven’t lifted on finger to inform the Norwegians about their intentions. In a letter to the Bellona Foundation the Swedish Nuclear Power Inspectorate (SKI) have written that it is no longer necessary to retrieve governmental permission to ship Swedish fuel to Sellafield. Spent Nuclear fuels from Swedish nuclear power plants are currently stored at the central interim storage at the Oskarshamn nuclear power plant. Anyway the old fuel, from the R1 reactor, is such a type that it is more difficult to store, and deposit than ordinary fuel, made of uranium dioxide (UO2). The fuel is of a metallic form, very similar to British Magnox fuel, and corrodes easily in contact with water. That’s the reason why Studsvik-SVAFO has proposed to reprocess the fuel in Sellafield. Norwegian protests It exists though several alternative method’s to treat the fuel. One alternative is to use a dry storage option, awaiting the development of a national treatment solution. Such alternatives have been considered by SKB International Consultants, but their report is being held back by the Swedish authorities as a Swedish business secret. A letter from the Bellona Foundation informed the Norwegian government about the Swedish plan yesterday. Norwegian Minister of the Environment, Knut Arild Hareide, told Norwegian press last night that he had strong objections against the Swedes shipping fuel to Sellafield, and said he would bring the case up with the Swedish Minister of the Environment. Publisher: , President: Information: , Technical contact: Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00 Telefax: +47 22 38 38 62 * P.O.Box 2141 Grunerlokka, 0505 Oslo, Norway ***************************************************************** 48 BBC: Nuclear staff suspended over Last Updated: Thursday, 4 August, 2005 [Thorp reprocessing plant] The Thorp managers were suspended in April A senior manager has been disciplined and another is facing action after a leak at the Sellafield nuclear plant. The pair were suspended in April at the time of the leak at the plant's Thorp reprocessing complex, but details have only just emerged. The action was taken after acid containing 20 tonnes of uranium and 160kg of plutonium leaked from a pipe. One of the managers has now returned to work, while the other remains suspended pending a disciplinary hearing. 'Significant deficiencies' A statement issued by Sellafield operator British Nuclear Group, said: "Two senior managers in Thorp were suspended in relation to the discovery of dissolver liquor in the plant's feed clarification cell. "One has been through disciplinary process and has now returned to work. "The outcome of the process is between the company and the individual and it is not considered appropriate to comment further. "The second individual remains suspended pending the disciplinary hearing." In June an investigation into the leak by the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII) found "significant deficiencies". It ordered improvements, which must be introduced by October. Work at the Thorp complex was halted when the leak, which could have occurred as long ago as August 2004, was discovered in April. ***************************************************************** 49 Las Vegas SUN: Plane crash risks left out of Yucca Mountain plan, NRC staff says Today: August 04, 2005 at 23:3:53 PDT By ERICA WERNER ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON (AP) - The Energy Department left out risk factors related to potential airplane crashes and hazards at the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump in planning for the project, nuclear regulatory staff told the agency in a memo released Thursday. The department undercounted the number of Air Force plane crashes at the site in Nevada during the 1990s, and discounted the possibility of jettisoned ordnance, birds hitting planes and cruise missile testing at the Nevada Test Site, the memo by Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff said. The Energy Department also made an unsupported assumption that airplanes that malfunction outside the no-fly zone would never enter the zone and crash into the dump, the memo said. The memo relates to aircraft failures and problems, as opposed to potential terrorist attacks, at the proposed dump site 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. It was written as part of the consultation between the Energy Department and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as the department prepares a license application to operate the dump. An accompanying cover letter says the NRC has concluded its review of aircraft hazard issues at Yucca Mountain, but that the issues outlined in the memo remain unresolved. "DOE should note that it may need to address some or all of these items in a potential (license application), depending on the final aircraft hazard analysis approach used," says the letter signed by Lawrence E. Kokajko, deputy director of the division of high-level waste repository safety at the NRC's Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards. Energy Department spokesman Craig Stevens emphasized that the NRC had closed its review of the issue. "This letter shows that we are one step closer to meeting the needs and concerns of the NRC," Stevens said. "After fully reviewing this letter the department will work with the NRC and provide them with enough information to fully allay their concerns." Yucca Mountain is planned as an underground repository for 77,000 tons of the nation's nuclear waste. Delays have pushed back the planned license application date to next spring at the earliest. --- On the Net: Nuclear Regulatory Commission: http://www.nrc.gov/ Energy Department's Yucca Mountain site: http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov/ All contents copyright 2005 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 50 Las Vegas SUN: DOE: Nevada misspent Yucca oversight funds Today: August 04, 2005 at 11:17:35 PDT By Suzanne Struglinski SUN WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON -- Clark County misspent about $163,000 in federal funds earmarked for Yucca Mountain oversight, according to an Energy Department inspector general office report released today. Clark County officials strongly deny misspending money and plan to appeal. The report audited the spending of the Yucca oversight money by Nevada's state government as well as by Nye, Lincoln and Clark counties and identified $1.2 million in "questionable costs." Prior reports also found misuse of the money, and the auditors are again recommending that the Energy Department exercise more control over how the money is spent. The latest audit says the state and local governments "continued to use oversight funds for activities either unrelated to the Yucca Mountain project or specifically prohibited by the applicable Appropriations Act." Under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, the federal law that guides the plans to build a nuclear waste repository at Yucca, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, Nevada and local governments can get federal money to monitor government work. In fiscal year 2003 and 2004, the Energy Department allocated a total of $14.5 million for the state government and 10 local governments, including Clark County. The inspector general's office found: ••• Clark County incorrectly spent more than $163,000, including $87,000 to hire contractors to monitor federal legislation and meet with federal officials and $70,000 to prepare a "visioning report" for Indian Springs. Clark County also misspent some of the federal money for work on Nevada Test Site-related issues, to attend conferences and buy office supplies for other programs. The county has paid back $960 so far. "While the Act allows Clark County to provide information regarding activities of the State of Nevada, Secretary of Energy or Nuclear Regulatory Commission, meetings and discussions with other federal officials were not permitted oversight activities," according to the report. ••• The state improperly spent more than $81,000 to pay for attorney costs, Nevada Test Site activities, tours of Yucca with non-Nevada residents and "excessive conference costs." The report noted that the state paid back $74,000 of the "erroneous expenditures." ••• Nye County inappropriately spent about $720,000 and Lincoln County incorrectly used more than $211,000. Clark County officials strongly disagree with the report. They plan to appeal to the Energy Department's Yucca Mountain program office. "We are disappointed by the report," said Irene Navis, planning manager for the county's nuclear waste division. "We absolutely welcome scrutiny because we are using federal dollars. But we believe the results are incorrect as they relate to Clark County." Navis noted that the Energy Department had approved as appropriate all the expenditures that were questioned in the report. Navis said the county can prove that it did not use money for any activities that are banned under federal law, such as lobbying, forming coalitions and outreach outside the state. "The bottom line is that we are not violating any federal laws," she said. She also noted that the last time there was a review for the 2001 and 2002 fiscal years, the inspector general's office questioned $177,000 in expenses, but after county appeal that figure was reduced to just $38,000. All contents copyright 2005 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 51 Waco Tribune Herald: Navy moves forward with old plant cleanup By Jennifer Alexander Tribune-Herald staff writer Thursday, August 04, 2005 The United States Navy has taken another step toward completely handing over the former naval weapons plant to the city of McGregor. The Navy has asked the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to modify the compliance portion of its resource conservation recovery act permit. TCEQ spokeswoman Andrea Morrow said the request is under review. The compliance portion of the permit currently requires the deed owner to be responsible for cleaning up any industrial waste present at the former Naval Weapons Industrial Reserve Plant, which now serves as an industrial park for the city. The compliance plan ... requires groundwater monitoring and unit maintenance for 30 years, she said. They have requested to replace the plan with one that covers each unit as opposed to the entire plant. The Navy is still responsible (for cleanup), but now they can re-deed the facility, she said. The Navy plans to hand over the deed for the industrial park to the city, which economic development director Leo Connor said could happen as early as June. Morrow said the review process is lengthy, but a public comment hearing has been set for December. Connor said the change in the compliance clause will help attract new tenants to the park. The Navy has been cleaning up all along, he said, but the clause makes leasing difficult. Without the change, responsibility for cleanup would fall to the city once it receives the deed to the land. Connor said in some parts of the industrial park, the Navy is digging wells and draining groundwater to test it for levels of perchlorate, a by-product of rocket fuel production. The U.S. Army Ordnance Corps established the weapons plant in 1942, which was most recently occupied by the Naval Air Systems Command. Operations at the plant included the manufacture of weapons and rocket propulsion systems. According to a U.S. Department of Defense Web site dedicated to perchlorate studies, the Navy has conducted groundwater tests to monitor perchlorate levels since 1992. jalexander@wacotrib.com 757-5748 © 2005 Cox Texas Newspapers, L.P. - The Waco Tribune-Herald The Waco Tribune-Herald RSS feeds [ border=] ***************************************************************** 52 NEWS.com.au: Howard Government seizes uranium mines | NUCLEAR DEBATE | (05-08-2005) By Ashleigh Wilson and Katharine Murphy August 05, 2005 THE HOWARD Government has seized control of uranium mining in the Northern Territory to give "certainty" to the industry and ensure the expansion of exports to meet growing demands for nuclear energy worldwide. In a move defying an election pledge by Clare Martin's Labor Government to block new mines, federal Resources Minister Ian Macfarlane declared in Darwin the Territory was "open for business" The move also puts new pressure on federal Labor's controversial three-mines policy, with Mr Macfarlane saying he would like to see another uranium mine within five years. Mr Macfarlane said the commonwealth had assumed control of uranium mining in the Territory to give "certainty" to the industry, which was being held back by the Territory Government's opposition to new uranium mines. "You can't have uncertainty based on a political whim, and that's why we stepped in," Mr Macfarlane said. "The Territory Government has simply abdicated its responsibilities and in that situation we can't allow that uncertainty to continue. We will consider proposals as they are brought forward and based on that; any proposal will be given consideration." Mr Macfarlane said any approval for new uranium mines would depend on the support of traditional Aboriginal landowners and would need to satisfy environmental and safety standards. Neither the traditional owners nor the Northern Land Council were prepared to comment last night. Australia's booming minerals industry welcomed yesterday's developments and urged the governments of Western Australia, Queensland and South Australia to reconsider their bans on new uranium mining. "With global markets for uranium buoyant, there is considerable scope for an expansion of Australia's uranium trade," said Minerals Council of Australia chief executive Mitch Hooke. There are only three operating uranium mines in Australia: Ranger in the Northern Territory and Olympic Dam and Beverley in South Australia. However, there are dozens of deposits around the country, including several in the Territory, that have been left undeveloped because of mining bans. Mr McFarlane's move increases pressure on the ALP, which has been battling internal divisions over its three-mines uranium policy, with some sections of the party pushing for the industry to be expanded and others digging in behind the policy. Debate about the use of nuclear energy - considered cleaner and in some cases safer than coal-fired power - has intensified in Australia and overseas in recent months. The Howard Government has urged the states for months to remove barriers to uranium mining. Australia is currently in the middle of sensitive negotiations to secure a new agreement to export uranium to China. Ms Martin said Mr Macfarlane had "tried a desperate political stunt" to deflect attention from the commonwealth's effort "to force a nuclear dump on Territorians". The commonwealth has always retained the power to approve new uranium mines under self-government rules for the Territory. Territory Mines Minister Kon Vatskalis said Canberra had "bulldozed" the Territory Government. Mr Macfarlane said the Territory contained about $12 billion in known uranium deposits. He said mining companies could now approach the federal Government seeking approval to mine uranium in the Territory. He said there were more than 12 companies exploring for uranium in the Territory. "Those companies are reporting various grades of uranium and it will then be a case of deciding whether or not these grades are commercial and able to be developed," he said. 2005 News Limited. All times AEST (GMT + 10). ***************************************************************** 53 TheOmahaChannel.com: State Parties At Odds Over Waste Dump News Conference KETV 7 UPDATED: 6:34 pm CDT August 3, 2005 Nebraska’s two senators are at odds over a news conference called earlier this week. On Monday, Nebraska's Republican Party held a media briefing to blame Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson for the legal settlement in a radioactive waste dump case. Democrats claim Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel's press secretary, Lou Ann Linehan, orchestrated the news conference. Linehan denies that her office planned it, and only admits to calling State Auditor Kate Witek to see if she would interested in attending the newser. ***************************************************************** 54 NEWS.com.au: Feds seize uranium mines (04-08-2005) + August 04, 2005 From: AAP THE Federal Government has declared the Northern Territory open to uranium mining, taking control of the future of its rich uranium deposits. The move came after the NT Labor Government, vehemently opposed to uranium mining, walked away from any responsibility for new mines during a 15-minute meeting between the federal and territory resource ministers in Darwin. Federal Resources Minister Ian Macfarlane said the Government had sought legal advice after NT Chief Minister Clare Martin vowed in June, in the lead-up to the NT election, to ban new uranium mines. The NT Government had obtained its own similar advice, which found the commonwealth had the power to override any ban. "For the good of the Territory and for the good of the resources industry in territory, we can't allow this confusion to continue," Mr Macfarlane said. "This no uranium policy is a nonsensical policy. "The Northern Territory is open for business on uranium mining. "We were (reluctant) to go down this road, even as late as this morning I was asking the Territory Government to co-operate. "But if they're not prepared to do that ... the commonwealth will act to accept that responsibility." About a dozen companies are exploring for uranium in the resource-rich Territory, home to some $12 billion worth of known uranium deposits, Mr Macfarlane said. "There is a worldwide demand for uranium at the moment, ... and people are literally coming and beating on your door," he said. "It's simply not feasible to refuse the opportunity to develop a resource based on a political whim." But confusion remains, with NT Mining Minister Kon Vatskalis contradicting the federal minister, saying the NT Government had not walked away from the meeting but was "bulldozed". "Our Government will not approve any new uranium mines in the Territory, we don't want new uranium mines," he said. "We didn't abdicate, we didn't roll over. 'Simply the Federal Government bulldozed us, and they said 'tough, we are going to say that you are going to have uranium mines in the Territory'." Ms Martin later weighed in saying the Territory had not given up any power on the mines because it never had any power to begin with. "The Federal Government ... has full control over uranium mining because we are not a state," she said. However, the NT Government is a regulator of the Territory's only operating uranium mine, Ranger, surrounded by the World Heritage-listed Kakadu National Park. The NT Government prosecuted Ranger owner Energy Resources of Australia in June after 28 workers fell ill after drinking or showering in water contaminated with uranium last year. Environmentalists described Canberra's attempt to override the NT ban as "bully boy" tactics, while federal Labor MP Warren Snowdon said the Federal Government had "fired the first shot in the dismembering of self-government in the NT". Federal Country Liberal Party Senator Nigel Scullion said the NT Government had abdicated any right for the NT to be involved in any prospective uranium mining ventures. "In washing its hands of the opportunity for joint decision making with the commonwealth, the Martin Government has torn up the right for Territorians to be party to an agreement on uranium mining in the territory," Mr Scullion said. Already grappling with federal moves to establish an unwanted nuclear waste dump in the Territory, the NT Government said the uranium issue would add to the push for the Territory to become a state. SitemapCopyright 2005 News Limited. All times AEST (GMT + 10). ***************************************************************** 55 ZDNet.com: Avaya's IP solution to nuke waste accident risk | IP Telephony 8/4/2005 -Posted by Russell Shaw @ 4:30 am Fellow VoIP blogger and TMCnet President Rich Tehrani is at his company's VoIP Developer Conferencein San Francisco. Last night, he put up a fascinating blog entry that he titled Avaya Touts Just In Time Communications. Rich recounts a session yesterday in which IP telephony solutions provider Avaya'sdirector of application enablement services Scott McKechnie talked about an IP-enabled application Avaya built for crisis management in nuclear waste transport. You're talking nuclear waste transport accident, you are talkin' trouble. Not a nuke bomb trouble- but I should point out that it was 60 years ago Saturday that residents of Hiroshima experienced the ultimate dimension of nuclear harm. "He (McKechnie) gave an amazing example of an application they built for a railroad hauling nuclear waste across the country," Rich writes. "At every stop in every small town the police have to block off the railroad tracks to ensure there is no car accident with the trains carrying waste. "Avaya worked with the railroad company and integrated a system that merged the company's GPS receivers in the trains to a communications system that automatically calls the sheriff in each town ahead of schedule to tell them that they need to protect the railroad crossing," Rich adds. "The sheriff's office has to press a button to signify they understand the message. In case of derailment, the system "automatically launches a conference with the appropriate people, " Rich explains, "notifies emergency services and does whatever else is needed." The URI to TrackBack this entry is: http://blogs.zdnet.com/ip-telephony/wp-trackback.php?p=574 NetworksCopyright ©2005 CNET Networks, Inc. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 56 AU ABC: Labor split over uranium, says mining company. 03/08/2005. ABC News Online Update: Wednesday, August 3, 2005. 3:00pm (AEST) A company looking for uranium in central Australia says a gulf seems to be developing between federal and state Labor parties over their policies on uranium mining. Deep Yellow is exploring for uranium at New Well, 150 kilometres north-west of Alice Springs. Federal Labor opposes any new uranium mines in Australia. But the Northern Territory Government says it is possible that policy will change in the future. And Deep Yellow's James Pratt says the South Australian Labor Government is in favour of new mines. "Let me say I was in South Australia two months ago at an energy conference and the South Australian mines Minister told everybody there that they were beholden to federal Labor policy, but they didn't agree with it so the contention seems to be within Labor." ***************************************************************** 57 AU ABC: Farmer finds backyard a proposed nuclear dump site AM - Thursday, 4 August , 2005 08:20:00 Reporter: Anne Barker TONY EASTLEY: Australian farmers will tell you they have to contend with a lot. That's on top of drought and falling commodity prices, but a grazier in the Top End faces the prospect of having a national nuclear waste dump smack in the middle of his cattle property, near Katherine. Anne Barker reports. (Sound of cows lowing) ANNE BARKER: Barry Utley and his wife Valerie were looking forward to a quiet retirement on their cattle station, Yeltu Park, 40 kilometres south of Katherine. But now their plans may be doomed because the Utleys face the prospect of having a nuclear waste dump plonked in the middle of their property. BARRY UTLEY: First we heard of it, a friend rang up and said it's in the NT news. We'd never heard from Canberra until the Tuesday afterwards. ANNE BARKER: The Utleys run 650 head of Brahman stock on their 230-square kilometre station, but one small pocket of land in the middle called Fisher's Ridge is not theirs. It's surrounded on all sides by Yeltu Park, but it's owned by the Defence Department and it's now one of three sites in the Northern Territory short-listed for a national nuclear waste repository. BARRY UTLEY: We're very upset about it. We wanted to retire here because we can handle this sized property, and all your dreams they were just dashed away. ANNE BARKER: But realistically will it have any real impact on your cattle business? BARRY UTLEY: Well, I think there would be some buyer-resistance about buying cattle so close to a nuclear dump. (Sound of Katherine residents talking) ANNE BARKER: The Federal Government's plans for a nuclear waste dump have upset more than just the Utleys. As Commonwealth officials left Yeltu Station and headed towards town, scores of Katherine residents were preparing to vent their anger at a divided public meeting. VOX POP 1: We don't want it in the Territory, but if it has to be in the Territory it should be in a more suitable site. VOX POP 2: You Minister, why don't you go ahead and provide the facility, make some money for us. You have done nothing… ANNE BARKER: Many locals, like Katherine Mayor Anne Shepherd and long-time resident June Tapp are concerned that Fisher's Ridge sits on a large underground aquifer system that connects some of the Top End's pristine waterways. ANNE SHEPHERD: It's on the edge of the Tindal Aquifer and over an Aquifer that supplies four Indigenous communities, which I think is… you know, it's very remiss of any Government to consider that site. JUNE TAPP: I don't know whether it's safe or it's not, but if it's safe, as I say, take it down to the Lodge, put it under Kirribilli House. I think they've got a hide. ANNE BARKER: The Commonwealth officials have given assurances that any dump at Fisher's Ridge would be above-ground and completely contained, preventing any contamination of the surrounding environment. And not all Katherine residents are ruling out the potential benefits of a nuclear dump. Mick Pierce, from the Jawoyn Association says although Fisher's Ridge contains a sacred Aboriginal site, traditional owners remain open minded. MICK PIERCE: We see it as an opportunity. It's simply a matter of people want the benefit of radioactive isotopes and they will undoubtedly want the benefit of nuclear power once fuel prices get off the map. TONY EASTLEY: Mick Pierce from the Jawoyn Association in Katherine talking there to our reporter Anne Barker. ***************************************************************** 58 AU ABC: Pastoralist prepares for new fight with Govt over waste - Thursday, 04/08/2005 A Northern Territory pastoralist has a sense of deja vu over a Federal Government plan to build a nuclear waste dump near his boundary. Meetings were held yesterday in the Territory to air concerns over three sites being considered, two near Alice Springs and one near Katherine. Twenty-three years ago Dick Cadzow fought plans for a high temperature incinerator to dispose of chemicals on his property near Tennant Creek. Now living on Mount Riddock Station, he is concerned about the new plan to store waste. "Don't want it, simple as that; still like to hear both sides of the argument," Mr Cadzow said. "The Government wants to be pretty specific about what is going to go there. "It needs to be in legislation and they want to have bipartisan support. So the other fellows have got to live with it too." ***************************************************************** 59 AU ABC: Public's fear of radioactive waste 'unreasonable'. 04/08/2005. ABC News Online The Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) says there is little chance radioactive waste could spill while being transported to a nuclear waste dump in the Northern Territory. ANSTO says much of the debate about the dump is not based on fact. ANSTO's chief executive, Ian Smith, says the public's fear of radioactive waste is understandable but technically it is unreasonable. He says there are much more dangerous materials being stored and transported in the Northern Territory. "If you gave me the opportunity of driving behind a truck transporting low-level radioactive waste or a truck transporting cyanide I know which one I would choose," Dr Smith said. Dr Smith says history shows there is little chance of an accident during the transportation of intermediate-level waste, which he says is solidified so there is no potential for fires or explosions. ***************************************************************** 60 Whitehaven News: Thorp leak: two bosses suspended Published on 04/08/2005 By Alan Irving TWO Sellafield bosses have been suspended over the radioactive liquor leak which has closed Thorp for months and put the plant’s future in doubt. Both are senior managers in charge of operations and have been ordered to stay at home – on full pay – pending possible disciplinary action. If found to be seriously at fault they face the sack. Because of their high-ranking status the two managers are employed by British Nuclear Group as personal contract holders. This means they are in line for bonuses for good production and safely meeting operational targets. British Nuclear Group confirmed to The Whitehaven News: “Two senior managers in Thorp have been suspended in relation to the discovery of dissolver liquor in the plant’s feed clarification cell. They will now be the subject of separate disciplinary processes. In the light of the commencement of disciplinary proceedings in relation to the two individuals it would be inappropriate to comment further at this stage.†Peter Clements, Sellafield site convenor for the staff union Prospect, said: “As far as I am concerned the management are following the normal procedures. There has been an investigation into the incident and these two managers have been suspended. “My member will have union representation at any disciplinary hearing. The other is not a union member but would still be able to have some kind of representation. It would be prejudicial to say any more at the moment.†Thousands of gallons of highly radioactive liquor leaked into a contained cell and remained undetected for months. A report blamed the ‘new plant’ culture in which operatives believed “material losses on this scale could not conceivably be due to a leak; there had to be an error in the paperworkâ€. The inquiry found many staff felt Thorp was so new it couldn’t leak. Sellafield site boss Bary Snelson said: “We will systematically address and resolve every issue raised in the inquiry report. There is no room for complacency in our industry and I will personally be ensuring these recommendations are implemented in Thorp and across Sellafield.†The leak was not detected until April 19. CCTV inspection showed that about 83 cubic metres of liquor had escaped through a fracture. Thorp’s new owners, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) confirmed this week that it would like to see Thorp re-open following speculation that some senior figures thought it might be more cost-effective for it to stay closed. Copeland council leader Elaine Woodburn met the NDA’s chief executive and finance director. She said: “While the NDA will not be making a recommendation to government, their advice will be that, subject to the regulators being satisfied about safety, Thorp should re-open as soon as possible. “The NDA is extremely positive about the area, they have a job to do and Thorp will continue to do part of that job, but we will be keeping fingers crossed that nothing more goes wrong.†***************************************************************** 61 Western Skies - Commentary: Uranium Mining - August 4, 2005 + WESTERN SKIES - August 4, 2005 *** COMMENTARY: URANIUM MINING *** ERIC WHITNEY: Given the history of nuclear development in the West, not everyone is convinced that re-opening uranium mines in Colorado is such a good idea. Rhonda Claridge lives in San Miguel county, upstream of the town of Uravan. RHONDA CLARIDGE: Uravan, in Southern Colorado, was once a bustling uranium mill town in the West End of our county. There, unbeknownst to employees, uranium ore was covertly transformed into green sludge and used in the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Now Uravan is a deserted cleanup site, too hazardous for residence. Chainlink fencing encloses ponds full of radioactive salts. In the surrounding hills, thorium still laces the ground where cattle graze, and tailings heaped outside of open pit uranium mines continue to leach runoff into the San Miguel River, like open sores. So it was with some consternation that I learned recently about the resurgence of uranium mining in the West End. After twenty years of dormancy, new owners of the Cotter Corporation have been granted a permit to mine uranium in San Miguel County. Apparently, there's a sudden demand for yellowcake, a three-hundred percent price jump. The President says, "It is time for this country to start building nuclear power plants again." Industry spokespeople at the Uranium Expo held in Grand Junction last month said we're on the precipice of "the Third Uranium Boom." "The sky is the limit," they touted, urging investment. Even some environmentalists support a resurgence of nuclear power as the only antidote to global warming. After all, nuclear energy does not involve burning fossil fuels; it's clean. But to say that nuclear energy is clean is to use one of those oversimplified, fuzzy euphemisms. It's true that we'd solve the problem of fossil fuel emissions, but then we'd increase the problem of what to do with radioactive waste and the risk of a nuclear meltdown, two reasons why building nuclear power plants was phased out by the 1980s. As my neighbor put it when I mentioned the renewed interest in uranium, "Didn't we learn anything the last time?" Industry pundits say we have. As one geologist states, the atomic power business has seen "a continual evolution of design and safety for thirty years." Yet if one examines the record of the Cotter Corporation, the same old problems persist. The Cotter Corporation is an affiliate of General Atomics, whose recent attempt to import 10 million pounds of radioactive soil from New Jersey and to store it at Cañon City has been forestalled by the Colorado legislature. Why? Because radioactive waste is not safe, nor is there yet any viable design to dispose of it. Hence, the controversy over depositing radioactive waste in Yucca Mountain in Nevada. The Cotter Corporation has accumulated one-hundred-forty violations of environmental and public health regulations, since its operations began in 1959, most recently because a mill employee ingested uranium when a pipeline broke at the Cañon City mill. And since General Atomics manufactures weapons, will depleted uranium from Colorado be used in weapons and expose our troops to radioactive dust, which happened in the first Gulf War? As for the risk of a meltdown, the fact that a simple failure of communication nearly caused one at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island, doesn't give one faith that it couldn't happen today. "To err is human," the saying goes. That the Bush administration "has ordered the national laboratories to begin research on new nuclear weapons designs and to prepare the underground test sites in Nevada for nuclear tests if necessary in the future" is equally disconcerting. The fact is that nuclear energy is not the only option. Besides solar, wind, and hydropower, there is Jimmy Carter's seemingly forgotten suggestion: energy conservation. I believe with the right leadership, America can come up with solutions that don't cause more problems. WHITNEY: Rhonda Claridge is a writer and professor of English who lives in San Miguel County. That wraps up this edition of Western Skies, Stephen Raher is our associate producer, Delaney Utterback handles the information technology. I'm Eric Whitney, thanks for tuning in. ***************************************************************** 62 [NYTr] Granma on Hiroshima, Nagasaki Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2005 19:10:08 -0500 (CDT) autolearn=ham version=3.0.4 X-Spam-filter-host: pascal.ctyme.com - http://www.junkemailfilter.com Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit sent by Waldo Granma International - August 2, 2005 http://www.granma.cu/aleman/portugues/documento/ingles04/003.html Havana. August 2, 2005 Hiroshima and Nagasaki: The worst act of terrorism in history BY ROSE ANA DUEQAS AND RAISA PAGES THE sun was shining and the sky was blue on August 6, 1945, as 12-year-old Miyoko Matsubara began work with more than 200 classmates from her girls junior high school in Hiroshima, Japan, demolishing wooden houses for firebreaks. They were laughing and calling out to each other. It was 8:15 a.m. The worst act of terrorism in historySuddenly, my best friend, Takiko, shouted, I hear the sound of a B-29! Thinking this was not possible because the all-clear had sounded, I looked up and saw a luminous body drop from the tail of the planeI heard an indescribable, deafening roar. When I regained consciousness, the bright sunny morning had turned into night. I was in a dense dusty mist. Takiko, who had been standing next me, had simply disappearedThe only clothes left on me were dirty white underwear. The white color protected me from deathI realized that my face, hands, and legs had been burned and were swollen with the skin peeled off and hanging down in shreds. I frantically started running. On my way home, I saw a lot of people. All of them were almost naked and looked like characters out of horror movies with their skin and flesh horribly burnt and blistered. Thousands were trapped under collapsed buildings. Dead and dying people lay everywhere; crawling and shuffling, they tried to get away from the burning fires that surrounded them. Their eyes were hanging out of their sockets, their hair stood on end; they walked with their arms out in front of them, crying out for their mothers and whispering desperately for water, water! It was the end of World War II. A U.S. Air Force plane had just dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, a city of 350,000, mostly civilians. Shock waves from the explosion leveled all houses within a mile and a half of ground zero. Most of those indoors were crushed under the destroyed buildings or burned alive by the ensuing firestorm. About 100,000 people died instantly, including 8,000 schoolchildren like Miyoko who had been mobilized to build firebreaks. Three days later, on August 9 the United States dropped another atomic bomb on the city of Nagasaki, right over its most densely populated area, instantly killing 74,000 and injuring another 75,000. Many people lay agonizing with little or no medical care for days or weeks with maggots infesting their rotting flesh before they died from heavy doses of radiation, burns and other injuries. More than 60,000 died within months, and another 70,000 died by 1950; many were slow deaths, from cancer. Sixty-five percent of those killed on the day of the bombing in Hiroshima were elderly people, women, and children. In Nagasaki, about 10,000 of the dead were Koreans, among the 2 million living in Japan at the time, many as slave laborers. Around 40 percent of those who died in both cities were never found. They evaporated into thin air, burned into ashes, or were carried out to sea when they stumbled into the rivers for water. The official defense for the attacks with the A-bomb which some still stand by today was a lie: that the bombings would accelerate Japans surrender, end the war and save lives. Actually, Japan had already expressed its desire to end the war and the United States knew it and ignored it. The chief of staff of the U.S. armed forces at the time, Admiral William D. Leahy, admitted, The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons. It was my reaction that the scientists and others wanted to make this test because of the vast sums that had been spent on the project. Truman knew that, and so did the people involved. Ironically, government officials admitted as such only a year later. Previously, the United States had firebombed almost every other city of Japan, including Tokyo. On March 9 of that same year, 300 U.S. bombers dropped oil and then more than 1,600 tons of napalm-filled bombs on that city. More than 100,000 residents of Tokyo burned to death. A report filed at the time by the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey concluded that probably more persons lost their lives by fire in Tokyo in a six-hour period than at any time in the history of man. David Kruidenier was a navigator flying B-29 bombing raids in Japan in 1945. He admitted: We had been firebombing the largest cities in order to kill the maximum number of civilians, and Hiroshima was the largest untouched available city remaining. With just one bomb, they did what had previously required hundreds of planes and thousands of tons of explosives. THE START OF THE COLD WAR It is apparent that the A-bomb was dropped to test it on live targets and to prove the overwhelming military superiority of the United States: it not only had a plutonium bomb, it was willing to use it. This message of terror and intimidation was aimed at the rest of the world, particularly the Soviet Union. The allies had already agreed at Yalta that the USSR would attack Japan three months after Germany surrendered. Stalin had notified the United States that the Russian armies would be ready for that attack on schedule: August 8. But the United States did not want the USSR to go to war with Japan. The bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6. US imperialism was not in the war simply to defeat the German Nazis and Japanese imperialists. It had its eyes on the war booty: Europe and possibly China. The Soviet Union had done what the United States needed: it had defeated Germany with the blood of millions of Russian workers and peasants who were defending their homeland and the conquests of their Revolution. The United States didnt need it as an ally any longer. Soon after the Japanese government surrendered on August 14, President Truman halted all lend-lease shipments, including food, to the Soviet Union, its ally during the war. By October, Truman was attempting to rally the people of the United States for a confrontation with the USSR the communist threat. There can be no compromise with the forces of evil....[The] atomic bombs which fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki must be a signal, Truman stated. The civilian populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were murdered not to end World War II, but to begin the Cold War. The so-called American Century had begun. Immediately after the bombing, the United States began to lie about what it had done. On August 9, the same day that Nagasaki was bombed, President Harry Truman stated, The world will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base. That was because we wished in this first attack to avoid, insofar as possible, the killing of civilians. DISTORTING HISTORY The term terrorism has been mystified by the big business media. If an Iraqi, tired of watching how children die in his country, straps explosives to his waist and blows them up as a U.S. military convoy goes by, it is an act of terrorism. But if a U.S. soldier fires missiles at that countrys civilian population, it is not terrorism it is a defensive military action against an insurgency. Until 1960, the U.S. government prohibited the release of photographs documenting damage from the bombings. Christian Herter, U.S. secretary of state at the time, wrote to John McCone, director of the Atomic Energy Commission, that his department had "serious reservations about the release of these photographs because we have been concerned over the political impact in Japan particularly, and because of our reluctance to present the Communists with a propaganda weapon they would use against us in all parts of the world. Within Japan, during the U.S. occupation that lasted from the end of the war until 1952, U.S. officials introduced a Press Code, censoring Japanese news reports and scientific publications carrying information on the A-bomb attacks. The occupation authorities confiscated diaries, poems, photographs, movie film, medical specimens, slides for microscopes and doctors records on the treatment of radiation: tens of thousands of objects. All types of terrorist acts are repugnant, but besides condemning them it is necessary to understand why such acts occur. The intellectual Atilio Borsn warned of the trap set by well-meaning intellectuals to use that happy expression of Alfonso Sastres: they invite us to condemn such monstrosities out of hand, but without asking ourselves about their causes, shutting down all discussion about the other terrorism, that which emerged and was consolidated as state policy beginning with Hiroshima and Nagasaki and iImplemented by Washington with the ethical and political backing of the governments of advanced capitalism. The ideologues of the day take institutionalized terrorism and naturalize it, make it invisible, Borsn affirms, noting that through this ideological alchemy, such terrorism becomes the war against terrorism, while the terrorism of their adversaries rotates its dialectical relationship with the first and becomes the sinister expression of a few evil geniuses who are running wild through the world. Recent statements by the U.S. president exemplify how this ideological hocus-pocus is managed, when he had the cynicism to say that These kind of people who blow up subways and buses are not people you can negotiate with or reason with or appease, repeating that anyone who kills innocent people is a terrorist. So what kind of people ordered the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with atomic bombs werent the children and other human beings who died in those acts of terror innocent people? What were the four million Vietnamese who were massacred fighting for their countrys independence? What are the Iraqis who are invaded, occupied, tortured and murdered? What were the 73 Cubans who died in a plane that was blown up in mid-flight, with the bomber protected by the U.S. government? Imperialism does not seek the reasons that generate violence it multiplies it with acts of terror. What ethics were applied by Harry Truman when he wanted to terrify the world by dropping the two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? We are still suffering the consequences of that horrific act. The official U.S. version of those terrible attacks should be pulverized into dust. The world was never the same after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The truth about the worst act of terrorism in history must be known. Only by transforming the economic and social systems that generate violence capitalism itself can we combat the roots of the violence that predominates in todays world. * ================================================================ .NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems . Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us . .339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org .List Archives: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/ .Subscribe: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr ================================================================ ***************************************************************** 63 Hiroshima Day Reflection by Dorothy Day Date: Thu, 04 Aug 2005 14:35:50 -0700 X-Spam-filter-host: darwin.ctyme.com - http://www.junkemailfilter.com The following passionate piece was written by Dorothy Day in September 1945, and published in the Catholic Worker. I've written a few reflections of my own, and Kimberly Radigan has put in a prayer We have God, the God who gave us life and the promise of peace on earth, to thank that we have not used these terrible weapons again in the past 60 years. God has given us the wisdom and the will to form international laws and bodies to hold back the human urge to use whatever weapons are available. Yet the "depleted" uranium weaponry being used by the US today, against international law, is slowly but surely poisoning the gene pool of all living creature, as the sandstorms of Iraq slowly diffuse throughout the globe. The warmongers are pushing hard for nuclear war. Let us pray for peace, sanity, and an end to the satanic powers that are currently running things. In the name of the Prince of Peace, who wields the iron rod with which to rule the nations (Rev 19: 16) Carol Wolman ----- Original Message ----- From: Kimberly Redigan To: kredigan@yahoo.com Sent: Wednesday, August 03, 2005 7:54 PM Subject: Hiroshima Day Reflection Dear Friends, Although I know that this piece by Dorothy Day is one with which most of you are familiar, I thought it would be worth reflecting on as we prepare to head for Oak Ridge and the Nevada Test Site for this Saturday's Hiroshima Day actions, which this year - the 60th anniversary - fall directly on the Feast of the Transfiguration. Whereever we may find ourselves on Saturday, let us pray deeply for an end to the death and destruction and greed and racism to which we have become so addicted in this nation. Special intentions for the nuclear victims of the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the prisoners who languish in our prisons and torture camps both at home and abroad, and for those who suffer because of U.S. violence . . . especially in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Haiti, and our own cities. Much Peace, Kim "We Go on Record: the CW Resonse to Hiroshima" By Dorothy Day The Catholic Worker, September 1945 Mr, Truman was jubilant. President Truman. True man; what a strange name, come to think of it. We refer to Jesus Christ as true God and true Man. Truman is a true man of his time in that he was jubilant. He was not a son of God, brother of Christ, brother of the Japanese, jubilating as he did. He went from table to table on the cruiser which was bringing him home from the Big Three conference, telling the great news; "jubilant" the newspapers said. Jubilate Deo. We have killed 318,000 Japanese. That is, we hope we have killed them, the Associated Press, on page one, column one of the Herald Tribune, says. The effect is hoped for, not known. It is to be hoped they are vaporized, our Japanese brothers -- scattered, men, women and babies, to the four winds, over the seven seas. Perhaps we will breathe their dust into our nostrils, feel them in the fog of New York on our faces, feel them in the rain on the hills of Easton. Jubilate Deo. President Truman was jubilant. We have created. We have created destruction. We have created a new element, called Pluto. Nature had nothing to do with it. Created to Destroy "A cavern below Columbia was the bomb's cradle," born not that men might live, but that men might be killed. Brought into being in a cavern, and then tried in a desert place, in the midst of tempest and lightning, tried out, and then again on the eve of the Feast of the Transfiguration of our Lord Jesus Christ, on a far off island in the eastern hemisphere, tried out again, this "new weapon which conceivably might wipe out mankind, and perhaps the planet itself." "Dropped on a town, one bomb would be equivalent to a severe earthquake and would utterly destroy the place. A scientific brain trust has solved the problem of how to confine and release almost unlimited energy. It is impossible yet to measure its effects." "We have spent two billion on the greatest scientific gamble in history and won," said President Truman jubilantly. The papers list the scientists (the murderers) who are credited with perfecting this new weapon. One outstanding authority "who earlier had developed a powerful electrical bombardment machine called the cyclotron, was Professor O. E. Lawrence, a Nobel prize winner of the University of California. In the heat of the race to unlock the atom, he built the world's most powerful atom smashing gun, a machine whose electrical projectiles carried charges equivalent to 25,000,000 volts. But such machines were found in the end to be unnecessary. The atom of Uranium-235 was smashed with surprising ease. Science discovered that not sledgehammer blows, but subtle taps from slow traveling neutrons managed more on a tuning technique were all that were needed to disintegrate the Uranium-235 atom." (Remember the tales we used to hear, that one note of a violin, if that note could be discovered, could collapse the Empire State Building. Remember too, that God's voice was heard not in the great and strong wind, not in the earthquake, not in the fire, but "in the whistling of a gentle air.") Scientists, army officers, great universities (Notre Dame included), and captains of industry -- all are given credit lines in the press for their work of preparing the bomb -- and other bombs, the President assures us, are in production now. Great Britain controls the supply of uranium ore, in Canada and Rhodesia. We are making the bombs. This new great force will be used for good, the scientists assured us. And then they wiped out a city of 318,000. This was good. The President was jubilant. Today's paper with its columns of description of the new era, the atomic era, which this colossal slaughter of the innocents has ushered in, is filled with stories covering every conceivable phase of the new discovery. Pictures of the towns and the industrial plants where the parts are made are spread across the pages. In the forefront of the town of Oak Ridge, Tennessee is a chapel, a large comfortable-looking chapel benignly settled beside the plant. And the scientists making the first tests in the desert prayed, one newspaper account said. God, Our Creator Yes, God is still in the picture. God is not mocked. Today, the day of this so great news, God made a madman dance and talk, who had not spoken for twenty years. God sent a typhoon to damage the carrier Hornet. God permitted a fog to obscure vision and a bomber crashed into the Empire State Building. God permits these things. We have to remember it. We are held in God's hands, all of us, and President Truman too, and these scientists who have created death, but will use it for good. He, God, holds our life and our happiness, our sanity and our health; our lives are in His hands. He is our Creator. Creator. And as I write, Pigsie, who works in Secaucus, New Jersey, feeding hogs, and cleaning out the excrement of the hogs, who comes in once a month to find beauty and surcease and glamour and glory in the drink of the Bowery, trying to drive the hell and the smell out of his nostrils and his life, sleeps on our doorstep, in this best and most advanced and progressive of all possible worlds. And as I write, our cat, Rainbow, slinks by with a shrill rat in her jaws, out of the kitchen closet here at Mott Street. Here in this greatest of cities which covered the cavern where this stupendous discovery was made, which institutes an era of unbelievable richness and power and glory for man …. Everyone says, "I wonder what the Pope thinks of it?" How everyone turns to the Vatican for judgement, even though they do not seem to listen to the voice there! But our Lord Himself has already pronounced judgement on the atomic bomb. When James and John (John the beloved) wished to call down fire from heaven on their enemies, Jesus said: "You know not of what spirit you are. The Son of Man came not to destroy souls but to save." He said also, "What you do unto the least of these my brethren, you do unto me." [The following text appeared as an introduction to this article when it was reprinted in the July-August 1975 issue of The Catholic Worker.] (This August marks the 30th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. On that day a new age of fear was unveiled. Each year the U.S. budget provides more and more money for arms, B-1 bombers, Trident submarines. Towns across the country are prospective sites for nuclear power plants. It is for each of us to resist, as far as we can, this movement of power, and fear, and destruction. One very immediate way is war tax resistance, highlighted in this issue of CW. In September, 1945, Dorothy Day wrote the following position statement on the atom bomb. We reprint it now as a reminder of our responsibility to preserve life. Eds. Note.) __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ***************************************************************** 64 SF Chronicle: HIROSHIMA: Reconciling the Memories / A-bomb anniversary in U.S., Japan no big deal in China / 'All they did was kill people, burn our houses,' villager says Jehangir S. Pocha, Chronicle Foreign Service Thursday, August 4, 2005 Beijing -- The U.S. bombing of Hiroshima, which killed 140,000 people, and Nagasaki, where 80,000 perished, brought a terrible end to Japan's colonial ambitions and ushered in a new era of Japanese pacifism. But the solemnity with which Japan and much of the world are marking this weekend's 60th anniversary of the bombings at the end of World War II is not in evidence in China. Instead, the sentiments here range from indifference to dismissal. "It's not a big event in China," Chu Shulong, director of the Institute of Strategic Studies at Tsinghua University in Beijing, said of the anniversary. "We do not think that anyone deserves nuclear bombing, but Japan should learn the real lessons of history -- who caused the war and what happened." More than 20 million Chinese died when Japanese troops invaded Manchuria in 1931 and went on to occupy large swaths of China, including Beijing, Nanjing and Shanghai. "We called it the dark time," said Ma Ji Gao, 77, a retiree in a small village called Xia Shi Gou in central Shanxi province, which the Japanese had occupied for its rich coal deposits. During the war, he said, his family hid him indoors to keep him safe from the Japanese occupiers, but many of his friends were tortured or murdered. "All they did was kill people, burn our houses, burn the mountains and fields -- and, of course, they were especially interested in raping our women," he said. "Once you let them close to you, you were dead." Hundreds of thousands of Chinese were sent to Japanese labor camps, where they were routinely tortured, starved and worked to death. Thousands of women were forced into sexual slavery. Chinese captives were subjected to bizarre medical experiments. In what remains one of the war's most enduring legacies, Japanese forces used biological and chemical agents banned by international law on Chinese forces and civilians. In 1945 the retreating Japanese army hurriedly buried stockpiles of these illicit weapons across China's northeastern provinces, which still kill and injure local farmers who accidentally unearth them. China's chief complaint is that Japan "has never apologized adequately, genuinely or consistently," Chu said. "The problem is that they apologize one day, and the next day their prime minister visits the Yasukuni war shrine," where some of Japan's war criminals are buried, he added. This weekend's anniversary ceremonies in Japan could have been an opportunity for both countries to reconcile their painful differences, but neither has displayed any interest in doing so. The Chinese government still hasn't replied to an invitation to attend ceremonies in Hiroshima, a Japanese Embassy spokesman in Beijing said, nor has Tokyo made a special effort to reach out to the Beijing government. Japanese Foreign Ministry spokesman Akira Chiba insisted that his country had already atoned for its war record and that China's ire over Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visits to the Yasukuni shrine was based on a misunderstanding of Japanese culture. "In Japan, we pray at a shrine to soothe the souls of the dead, not to glorify the dead," Chiba said during a recent visit to Beijing. Such words grate on Chinese ears. A common sentiment is that Japan got only what -- perhaps even less -- than it deserved for the suffering it caused across Asia. "(Calculating) the deaths, you will see our numbers are still much higher than theirs," a Chinese youth recently wrote in a local Internet chat group, where some of the worst anti-Japanese feelings are vented. "No recognition is made to us, so why should we care about them?" In earlier years, the Chinese government had papered over such resentment in a bid to attract Japanese investment. This policy of keeping bilateral relations "economically warm but politically cold," as Beijing put it, allowed China to benefit from $45 billion in Japanese investment. Sino-Japanese trade reached $167 billion last year, and Japan has given more than $30 billion in direct aid to China since 1979. But new political exigencies have finally catapulted politics over economics. China's growing might and Japan's desire to become a "normal" nation have resulted in a rivalry for regional dominance that has hijacked politics in both countries "to such as extent that it denies them rationality in decision making and may undermine the national interest of both," said Jing Huang, a senior fellow at the foreign policy studies program of the Brookings Institute in Washington. Keeping wartime grievances alive also serves the purposes of China's aging leaders, he added. "With the Communist Party's legitimacy fading, it wants to keep reminding people how much they suffered," Huang said. "Then they can say, 'Look, it's all because of the greatness of the Chinese Communist Party that we have pulled you out of this misery and made the country confident and proud.' " Sino-Japanese rivalry also has touched Japan's bid to become a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, which the United States supports. Chiba said China's intense opposition, on the basis of Japan's war record, was misplaced, and that the coming anniversary should be a good time for the world to reconsider Japan's history since World War II. "Japan has never fought a war over the last 60 years and not acquired nuclear weapons," Chiba said. "In contrast, Beijing is a nuclear weapons state that has fought three 'hot' wars since 1945 -- in Korea in the 1950s, with India in 1962, and with Vietnam in 1978." Efforts to get Chinese authorities to comment on the record elicit only silence. In fact, to blunt criticism at home, Beijing's rhetoric about Japan's wartime actions has been accompanied by a deliberate effort to gloss over Tokyo's postwar record and its own militarism throughout the region. Zhong Bin, 21, a student from the North China University of Technology in Beijing, said none of his textbooks mentioned Japan's postwar apologies, discussed its postwar pacifism or elaborated on its extensive aid to developing countries. But he acknowledged that what he had been taught might have been twisted. "Here, the media ... only shows the attitude of the government," he said. "There are too many things the government does not want us to know, but at least we know this." Page A - 13 The San Francisco Chronicle] ***************************************************************** 65 SF Chronicle: WHEN HORROR HIT HOME / The world changed forever when the United States dropped nuclear bombs on the people of Nagasaki and Hiroshima Thursday, August 4, 2005 "Our end drifts nearer," wrote poet Robert Lowell. "The moon lifts/radiant with terror." From his precarious Cold War perch, in the poem "Fall 1961," Lowell caught the defining horror of the age in that compact image. Even the moon, under the threat of man's nuclear devastation, takes on a luminous vulnerability. Anything, everything might be destroyed -- and thereby becomes more desperately cherished. Mary McCarthy called the dawn of the nuclear era the "hole in human history," the glittering black heart of modern consciousness. Sixty years ago this week, with the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, history was pulverized. Time stopped. The doomsday clock began to tick. The planet has churned on since then, past other wars and new world orders, presidents and prime ministers, the thawing of the American- Soviet freeze and the metastasizing of terrorist cells. But like the cloud of radiation that billowed from that first impact on Aug. 6, 1945, the bomb and the threat of ultimate destruction it carried lingers on in uncountable, unfathomably complex ways. It shapes our connections to each other and our descendants, to politics and the Earth, to meaning itself. It looms, in Robert Jay Lifton's telling phrase, over "the future of immortality." In the arts, the culture's deepest pools of meditation, rage, grief and transmutation, the legacy of Hiroshima may have its most enduring hold. "The artist is a prophet of forms," as Lifton writes. By making Armageddon a plausible reality rather than a Biblical portent, Hiroshima altered both the character of human life and the apprehension of the future. The artist -- not the scientist -- became our most invaluable witness, the prophet, ironic celebrant and grimacing clown of profound uncertainty. The 1950s and '60s swarmed with convulsive responses to the bomb's mind- bending implications. Hiroshima reverberated in the protest poetry of Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" and "Plutonian Ode," the kitschy scenarios of 1950s sci-fi movies, Kurt Vonnegut's holocaust-haunted novels "Cat's Cradle" and "Slaughterhouse Five" and composer Krzysztof Penderecki's harrowing "Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima." The fixation may have loosened somewhat, with the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. But now, with a newly unstable geopolitical map, the nuclear threat confounds and unsettles afresh. Today, 60 years after the World War II endgame at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, direct vapor trails of the bomb are still apparent. Two years ago, in a grimly rhapsodic exhibit at San Francisco's Hosfelt Gallery, "100 Suns," Michael Light recommissioned government photographs of nuclear tests that landed like so many transfixing spores from the defining mushroom cloud of 1945. In the current Bay Area Now 4 group show at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, fabric artist Anna Von Mertens' irony-laced "Black and White" works the spidery pattern of a nuclear explosion into the domestic icon of a hand- made quilt. This fall, the San Francisco Opera will premiere a major new opera, "Dr. Atomic," about physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer and the creation of the atomic bomb. The piece, by composer John Adams and librettist/director Peter Sellers, opens Oct. 1 at the War Memorial Opera House. Hiroshima's imprint on the arts is by no means limited to works that directly confront the bomb and its immediate fallout. Instead, it is ever- present, the inescapable bass line that grounds and inflects artistic expression across the spectrum. Consider, in the spirit of random sampling from post-Hiroshima 20th century culture, Samuel Beckett and Johnny Rotten. The playwright and the punk rocker may have come at their notions of existential futility from different realms, but in the enveloping shade of the nuclear age, the distance from Beckett's baffled tramps who "can't go on" in "Waiting for Godot" (1953) or the blighted loner of "Krapp's Last Tape" (1957) is not so great to Rotten's coyly despairing (and defiantly liberating) epigram: "Where there's no future there can't be sin." Neither Beckett nor Rotten were addressing the atomic menace directly. But as it does for artists of all stripes, the specter of cataclysmic destruction hovers and defines, shapes, mocks and paradoxically makes more urgent any enterprise of art. Much of this occurs in subconscious or subliminal ways. In his 1997 TV series "American Visions," writer and critic Robert Hughes viewed the mid- century American art movements through the lens of a post-Hiroshima sensibility. From the spiritual yearnings of abstract expressionists to the Cold War fetishism of Jasper Johns' targets and American flags and Andy Warhol's pop iconography, Hughes found a questing search for meaning in an age newly haunted by mortality. Even Warhol's Marilyn Monroe multiples, to Hughes, have "the stink of death." The artist began inscribing her image, Hughes says, only after she was dead. Filmmakers around the world have treated the Hiroshima legacy in oblique and complicated ways. Coming at the bomb directly, as Vincent Canby once observed, risked grotesque trivialization. "Anything less than a masterwork," he wrote in 1989, "is likely to look like a standard disaster movie, a pompous 'Towering Inferno.' " After several early films that defended the U.S. decision to drop the bomb ("The Beginning of the End" in 1957, "Above and Beyond" in 1952), Hiroshima fed a collective state of mind in Hollywood, a restless anxiety that informed everything from the sci-fi doomsday movies of the 1950s to the sardonic humor of "Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb" (1964) and "Catch-22" (1970) to the violent catharses of Peckinpaugh, Scorsese, Coppola and Tarantino. Sci-fi was a particularly fertile field. Man-made Frankensteins and others hoary monsters gave way to such emblems of Cold War paranoia as "War of the Worlds," "On the Beach" and "Invasion of the Body Snatchers." Repression, manipulation and outright denial have been recurring patterns of the Hiroshima legacy. In "The Perfect Machine: TV in the Nuclear Age," Joyce Nelson argued that the medium itself was a kind of devious warhead of ideas. "By uniting North American society around television," she argued in this 1987 polemic, "the dominant military-industrial powers subtly united the populace around all technological advances, including the perfection of nuclear weapons." Single-hero dramas like "Kojak," "Quincy" and "MacGyver," she went on, reinforced the power of government-like authority figures over the bumbling common folk of sitcoms ("Family Ties," "Rhoda," "Three's Company"). Histrionic as such arguments may sound, they reflect a deep unease about the kind of ultimate, centrally controlled power made manifest in the atomic bomb. Ten years ago, in a revealing controversy over the narrative of history, the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., faced a firestorm of protest when it organized a 50th anniversary exhibit around the Enola Gay, the airplane that carried the Hiroshima bomb. Veterans' groups objected to the museum's proposed "balanced" view of the bombing, which would have included images of ground zero and an exploration of arguments for and against Truman's decision. Many scholars lined up on the opposite side, accusing the museum of "patriotic correctness" if it caved. The result pleased no one -- a content-free showing of the plane itself with virtually no context. Hiroshima and Nagasaki remain the anomalous, outsized events that both dwarf and demand response, comprehension, an ongoing, awe-struck awareness of their magnitude and implications. Historians go on sifting the evidence; the library of books on the bomb and its makers continues to grow. But still we recoil, just as we do at the spectacle of massive human suffering on Sept. 11, 2001, from the imagery, the actuality of nuclear detonation. The duty of remembering belongs to everyone. It is the artists, more than any of us, who are called to speak up. There are times, to be sure, when they fumble or exploit, trivialize or blur. But whether in the sleekly seductive flank of a bomber plane in a James Rosenquist painting or poet Stephen Dunn imaging the finger of some world leader about to push a fatal button ("cocked/like an apostrophe/on the wrong side of a possessive"), the horror show of Hiroshima plays on and on. It may not often be the subject or even subconscious terrain of an artist's work. But Hiroshima changed everything. It made ultimate obliteration possible, spawning revulsion and irony, rage and a kind of resigned detachment of meaning and utterance, gesture and content. Everything became more urgent, and everything, in a certain sense, ceased to matter. It created the modern dilemma, the perplexity and provisional quality of experience. "Now I become Death, the shatterer of worlds," Oppenheimer famously said, quoting the ancient Bhagavad Gita after witnessing the first nuclear test in the New Mexico desert. History collapsed in 1945. Ancient visions of apocalypse flared to life over a city in Japan. Past and future were burned together. Artists have stood watch there ever since. E-mail Steven Winn at . Page E - 1 The San Francisco Chronicle] ***************************************************************** 66 Marin Independent Journal: Life after Hiroshima Greenbrae woman recalls the day the bomb fell Beth Ashley June Weden, 77, was in Hiroshima when the atomic bomb fell 60 years ago. A photo of her husband, Dr. Elmer Weden Jr., is behind her in her living room. IJ photo/Frankie Frost SIXTY years have passed, but June Weden remembers vividly the day the atomic bomb fell, raining fire, ruin, smoke and death on the city where she lived. "I thought the world was coming to an end," says Weden, 77, now a resident of Greenbrae. Weden was a girl of 17, living in Hiroshima, when an American B-29, the Enola Gay, flew overhead, unleashing the most powerful weapon the world had ever seen. In an instant, 80,000 people died. She still wipes away a tear, talking about the loss of a young cousin and the death of her grandmother, trapped in the ruins of their home. But 60 years is a long time, she says, and she does not dwell on the horrors of that day. "Time heals a lot of things." Born in San Francisco, Weden had gone to Hiroshima in 1940 with her family to visit relatives. When the war broke out in 1941, they had no choice but to stay. The war quickly engulfed their lives. "My father always believed that someday we would be bombed," she says, so the family made preparations, stockpiling food and clothing in a "getaway" guest house and surrounding their home in Hiroshima with sandbags and tanks of water to fight fire. By 1945, air raids were a daily event. American bombers attacked the naval base at Kure to the west and the steel manufacturing city of Kokura to the southeast: "the night sky was always aglow." Like most of their neighbors, she and her family had dug a shelter in their yard, and "we crammed ourselves in there almost every night. My father said it was like digging our own graves." On the morning of Aug. 6, she was sick in bed with gastroenteritis. Her brother and sister had taken a train, as was customary for the city's young people, to help with the rice harvest in the countryside. Her mother and grandmother were elsewhere in the house when she saw a lone B-29 through her window and heard the sounds of air raid sirens. Her mother, fetching water from a pump in the yard, saw three tiny parachutes drifting out of the sky -Êprobably monitoring instruments dropped from an escort plane. The all-clear had already sounded and her mother was back in the house when "suddenly there was a blinding flash followed immediately by a gut-wrenching explosion. The house went up and I went up with it and then everything crashed to the ground." Imprisoned in the wreckage, she struggled to get free. "I could hear eerie moans and groans all around me." When she freed herself 20 minutes later, her face and arms were bleeding from cuts. The world was dark. The air was full of particles, the sky was gray with dust. She saw her mother, her face bloodied from flying debris. They heard the cries of her grandmother, still trapped in the ruins. Mother and granddaughter struggled to reach her, but the beams that imprisoned her were too heavy. "A group of men (came by and told us to leave." By then, coals from the kitchen hibachi had ignited the wreckage of their home. Leaving her grandmother in the flames, says Weden, was "one of the most devastating moments of my life." The two began walking toward the getaway cottage their father had rented. The cottage was 20 miles away, so they walked all day, through the ruined streets, past burning homes and the bodies of dead and dying. "The blind were leading the blind. The wounded were draped over the wounded." Weden remembers that a group of Japanese soldiers was billeted in a school near their home: the men had taken their shirts off in the morning heat, and looked up when the bomb exploded. "All of them were burned," she said. "Their upper bodies and faces were charred, and the skin hung loosely from them. Those who were still alive were blinded. Their skin was shiny from the ooze of body fluid. They ran around like ants." Buildings had collapsed onto the city's narrow streets, so there were no paths to walk, only debris to be climbed. Weden was still clad in her nightie-kimono; her feet were bare. She clutched a small kettle in her hand (she doesn't know why). Her mother carried a bagful of family papers, including their passports, which had miraculously slid from a second-story window onto the ground by their home. Throughout the long walk, the two didn't cry. "I had to help her, she had to help me. All we thought about was survival," Weden remembers. They arrived at the farmhouse at about 5 p.m. "We were greeted by the owners of the (guesthouse) who treated us to hot tea, rice balls and pickles." Their father, who had been at work in the city, arrived at dusk. Though it was useless in the ruins, he had carried his bicycle with him. It was late at night when Weden's brother and sister arrived. "It was unbelievable - we were all together under the same roof after such a terrible day," she said. Days later, family members returned to their home to claim the grandmother's bones. In the ruins, they found a silver chain blackened from fire belonging to Weden, the only memento she has saved. The family stayed in its rural refuge for almost two years. Their mother cooked outdoors. Her father caught trout in a nearby river. Then her father, who was in the export-import business, built them a house in the heart of the blasted city, defying those who said Hiroshima could not be habited for 75 years. For months, they lived almost alone in the ruins. Gradually others returned. Today, the city is a thriving metropolis. Weden, who visited in 1998, could no longer locate the place where she lived. After the war, she worked for the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, helping study the effects of radiation on those exposed to the bomb. While there, she met Elmer Weden, an American physician doing radiological research for the government, who later became her husband. She also attended university, and in 1953 came to the United States for graduate work at the University of Michigan. Her brother and sister came later, and her parents, wanting to be near their children, followed. Her sister now lives in Millbrae, her brother in Burlingame. Her father died of stomach cancer at age 59, perhaps due to radiation. Her mother died five years ago at the age of 93. Weden says she suffered no ill effects from the bomb. She and Elmer Weden, who left his research position to become a surgeon, were married in Portland, Ore., in 1954 and moved to San Anselmo in 1956. He died last year. Weden fell short in a runoff against Barbara Boxer for Marin County supervisor in 1976. Weden is often asked whether she thinks dropping the bomb was the right thing to do, and she still struggles with her answer. "I guess if I had been Harry Truman I might have (decided to do it). The war had been going on for so long, and the impact of that first one was so great that I think the emperor would have said 'let's end this war.' But dropping the second one (on Nagasaki) three days later - that was kind of unjustified. They only dropped that because it was a different kind of bomb and they wanted to test it out." For years, she looked on the atomic bomb as a deterrent to further wars. "We haven't had any big wars since." But today she is "a little fearful." "There are some people in the world if they could get their hands on a bomb would use it tomorrow. It is not a deterrent for them. "I do think nuclear energy should be used for peaceful purposes. But to use it for war; it is a waste of money, a waste of everything." Copyright © 1999-2005 by MediaNews Group, Inc. and ANG Newspapers ***************************************************************** 67 Reuters: Hiroshima a pacifist bastion 60 years after A-bomb Thu Aug 4, 2005 1:10 AM ET By George Nishiyama HIROSHIMA, Japan, Aug 4 (Reuters) - Sixty years after the atomic bombing that killed thousands in the blink of an eye and devastated his home city of Hiroshima, Sunao Tsuboi is worried Japan may again be headed down the path of militarism. The survivor of the world's first atomic bombing has vowed, like many other Hiroshima residents, to keep the city a bastion of pacifism. "Everything I hear these days makes me really upset," said Tsuboi, 80, who was a university student when the bomb exploded over Hiroshima on the morning of Aug. 6, 1945. Tsuboi, who was about 1 km (0.6 miles) from ground zero -- the point where the bomb detonated -- was hurled 10 metres (30 feet) through the air and suffered burns over much of his body. "I get a strong feeling that Japan is leaning to the right, that we're going down a road that we've been down before," he said, his face still visibly scarred from the burns. Japan's ruling party, in its latest call for a more assertive security stance, this week proposed that the military should not be limited to a self-defence role but should take part in international efforts to secure peace overseas. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has made annual visits to Tokyo's Yasukuni shrine for war dead, seen by critics as a symbol of Japan's past militarism, and a school textbook written by nationalist historians has stirred criticism of a whitewash. Thousands died instantly in the Hiroshima bombing, with the toll rising to some 140,000 by the end of 1945 out of the city's estimated population of 350,000. More have succumbed to cancer and other radiation-related ailments since then. On Aug. 9, 1945, three days after the Hiroshima attack, another atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. Japan surrendered on Aug. 15, bringing to an end the military aggression that had culminated in its entry into World War Two. Proposals laid out in a draft for a new constitution by Koizumi's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) mark a drastic departure from the principles of the pacifist constitution, unchanged since it was drafted by the postwar Occupation authorities. A key section of the constitution, Article 9, renounces the right to maintain a military or wage war, though Japanese governments have interpreted it as allowing forces for defence, the now-240,000 member Self-Defence Forces. "We must by all means save Article 9. It may be idealistic, but it's something that the world should strive to achieve," said Tsuboi, who heads a group of Hiroshima victims. Recent administrations have stretched the constraints of the constitution to allow non-combat support for the U.S.-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, but many members of the conservative LDP have long chafed at the limits of the U.S.-drafted document. A DIFFERENT MOOD Faced with the threat of North Korea's missile and nuclear programmes, Japanese public opinion has shifted away from once-overwhelming opposition to revising Article 9, although those backing a change still fall short of a majority. Some politicians have even broken a decades-old taboo to suggest Japan should possess nuclear arms. "Japan is clearly leaning to the right and the trend has become very strong," said Motofumi Asai, a former diplomat who is president of the Hiroshima Peace Institute. In Hiroshima, now a modern, bustling city of 1.2 million, the mood is different. "In places like Tokyo, pacifism is no longer 'fashionable'. But in Hiroshima, it's still very much alive," Asai said. "In Hiroshima, people have a strong sense of identity as victims of the A-bomb. They feel they have to be a beacon of pacifism and of efforts to abolish nuclear weapons." The Peace Memorial Park and the A-bomb Dome -- the ruined shell of a building that was near ground zero -- have become synonymous with the city and serve as reminders of the bombing 60 years ago this week. Faced with the passing of the generation who experienced the bombing, most schools in Hiroshima have "peace studies" courses to keep memories of the tragedy alive. Students learn about it by listening to survivors' accounts. "We should stick with Article 9," said 16-year-old Madoka Tamura, a student at the private Notre Dame Seishin High School. "Someone has to give up weapons, because otherwise others won't." Some of her classmates said Japan may need a military for self-defence but should keep to its pacifist principles. "As a country which suffered war and as one of only two cities to have suffered an atomic bombing, we need to have a strong desire for peace," said Haruka Daimyoji, 17. "If the military were to get out of control, we are the ones to stop it." Others said debate on the constitution and the military's role was fine as long as politicians recognised the consequences of war. "They should first visit the peace museum, and then think about it," said Keitaro Nomura, president of Hiroshima Junior Chamber, an organisation of young business executives. © Reuters 2005. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 68 Nuke Weapons Laser at Livermore Lab Questioned Date: Thu, 04 Aug 2005 14:36:01 -0700 version=3.0.4 X-Spam-filter-host: darwin.ctyme.com - http://www.junkemailfilter.com Hi, friends and colleagues -- Below is official Dept. of Energy skepticism about the National Ignition Facility nuke weapons mega-laser voiced by Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman at Livermore Lab yesterday. Read, please. Then, PLEASE call your U.S. Senators and your Representative and tell them that the NIF funding removed in the budget process by the Senate should NOT be restored later this year in conference committee. Forward this news article if possible to them. THANK YOU in advance for your calls. -- Marylia Kelley Secretary skeptical of laser Bodman is first U.S. secretary to doubt the project will help nuclear deterrence By Ian Hoffman, STAFF WRITER Alameda Newspapers Group/Inside Bay Area LIVERMORE -- For the first time, a U.S. energy secretary publicly has admitted uncertainty over whether a giant laser at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory - now the nations largest scientific construction project - is needed for maintaining the U.S. nuclear arsenal. I dont know, Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said Wednesday at the lab. Certainly there are strong beliefs among the leadership of this laboratory that it is. Bodman, an MIT-trained chemical engineer and former professor, said he tends to trust their judgment. Yet while Bodman toured the stadium-sized National Ignition Facility, his staff rebuffed requests by Livermore officials for Bodman to hold a news conference there. I always believe in taking people at their word, that they're correct, and so I assume it is. But I want to verify it, Bodman told reporters later. This is a lot of money we're talking about, and there's some controversy in Washington about funding this program. Led by New Mexico Republican Pete Domenici, senators have cut $163 million from the big laser, including all of its construction funding. Counterparts in the House preserved money for the laser, which is scheduled for completion in 2008. Lawmakers of the two chambers will negotiate on the laser and other differences in their funding bills on their return from recess. Critics of NIF called Bodmans comments refreshing and encouraging. Congress funded the 192-beam laser on the strength of arguments that it is essential for maintaining U.S. nuclear warheads and bombs while the nation holds to a moratorium on explosive nuclear tests - even as the cost of the laser soared from less than $1 billion to more than $4 billion. Three previous energy secretaries or high-ranking subordinates have assured Congress that NIF and its goal of triggering a miniature thermonuclear explosion inside a lab were critical to preserving the U.S. nuclear deterrent. The reasons are partly political. The Clinton administration reached an agreement with senior nuclear weapons scientists to provide giant new experimental facilities such as NIF if weaponeers would drop or soften their objections to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. The Senate rejected the treaty, but energy secretaries have kept the bargain with the nuclear weapons labs despite concerns over whether the hydrogen targets will work and whether the lasers crystals can handle the intense light energy needed to attempt fusion. Its not going to ignite, its not going to meet its initial design criteria. Theyre not going to get the shots at the power they thought they were, says Thomas Cochran, a physicist and nuclear-weapons analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council. He said Bodman should get good, independent technical advice on what the laser is capable of doing and at what expense. NIF, Cochran said, was always meant to certify the continued operation of Livermore laboratory, not the stockpile. U.S. weapons scientists are sharply divided on the usefulness of the big laser. Some say it is essential. Livermores own most prolific bomb designer argues the machine is worse than useless for weapons because it draws money and time away from more important studies. Such critics say U.S. nuclear weapons were tested rigorously and will explode with extraordinary reliability, regardless of whether the big laser is built. Advocates of the laser say the focal point of its many beams will come closer to creating the extreme temperatures and pressures inside stars and exploding nuclear weapons than any other experimental facility. Scientists plan to measure how bomb materials and parts behave under those conditions and use those measurements to increase the accuracy of supercomputer simulations used to verify the operation of nuclear weapons. Over time, however, critics worry the use of tiny fusion explosions - if they are achieved on the big laser - will pull the computer simulations farther and farther away from actual nuclear tests, a phenomenon called code drift. Absent care in translating the experimental results to massive H-bomb detonations, weaponeers would risk having less reality in the basic tools they use to certify that aged, modified or entirely new nuclear weapons will work. I will want to personally understand some of the details of that linkage before I draw my own conclusions, Bodman told reporters Wednesday. Marylia Kelley, head of a Livermore-based watchdog group, Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment, has spent years learning about and arguing against the National Ignition Facility. Its a key question, and if he visits it thoroughly and honestly, I think he'll find NIF is not needed, she said. Contact Ian Hoffman at ihoffman@angnewspapers.com Marylia Kelley Executive Director Tri-Valley CAREs (Communities Against a Radioactive Environment) 2582 Old First Street Livermore, CA USA 94551 - is our web site address. Please visit us there! (925) 443-7148 - is our phone (925) 443-0177 - is our fax ***************************************************************** 69 PISJ: Energy bill may pay dividends for Idaho lab Pocatello Idaho State Journal By Dan Boyd- Journal Writer ARCO - The massive energy bill which passed Congress last week and now awaits President George W. Bush's signature could eventually mean big things for the Idaho National Laboratory. In fact, perhaps no other single laboratory stands to benefit from the landmark legislation quite as much as INL. By granting authority to move forward with cutting-edge hydrogen research and the next generation nuclear reactor, the bill opens the door to INL appropriations of more than $1 billion through the next decade. Officials with Battelle Energy Alliance, the INL site contractor, are reviewing the legislation to see exactly how else the bill might impact the laboratory's work. "It's still premature (to talk about details)," said Brad Bugger, communications director for the Department of Energy in Idaho. "We'll see what the administration does. "We ain't counting our chickens until they hatch ... What the energy bill does is authorize more than allocate." The bill gives the go-ahead to designing the long-discussed next generation nuclear power plant and targets 2021 as the date to have such work done, but it will be up to Congress to provide the financial backing. Idaho Sen. Larry Craig is a member of both the Appropriations, and Energy and Natural Resources committees and the veteran Idaho officeholder played a key role in the energy bill's passage. "We need new, clean energy production in the United States," Craig said. "If we don't begin to design and ultimately build new nuclear energy facilities in this country, then we have no other options for producing emission- free electricity, and eventually hydrogen." One section of the bill deals with hydrogen and high-temperature hydrogen production in particular. That could bolster INL's current research on hydrogen fuel cells. The laboratory will also initiate the Intermountain West Geothermal Coalition - a group including universities and governmental agencies that will study geothermal energy and be overseen by Boise State University. Craig press secretary Dan Whiting said the bill ranks among the senator's top career accomplishments and is virtually tailor-made for INL. "This bill is designed to kind of resuscitate the commercial nuclear industry in the U.S," he said. But Whiting also warned that as both a government brainchild and a construction project, the next generation reactor could be far more expensive than currently estimated. This June, the fiscal year 2006 appropriations bill was passed and included $40 million for INL's advanced reactor, which is viewed by many as a precursor to the Generation IV nuclear reactor. Bush is expected to sign the energy bill into law on Aug. 8 in New Mexico. This document was originally published online on Thursday, August 04, 2005 Copyright © 2005 Pocatello Idaho State Journal P O Box 431 Pocatello, ID 83204-0431 ***************************************************************** NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: *****************************************************************