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                         NUCLEAR POLICY
 
1 US: Guardian Unlimited: Senate Emerges From Closed Session on Iraq
2 AFP: Iran parliament delays reprisal threat over nuclear pressure -
3 Guardian Unlimited: Korean Nuke Negotiator's Remarks Clarified
4 US: MSNBC.com: Heated day in D.C. leads to more prewar probes -
5 Guardian Unlimited: U.N. Nuclear Chief Urges Cooperation
6 Guardian Unlimited: The Blairite love affair with the bomb will cost
7 London Times: Giving up our nuclear weapons is too risky, says Reid 
8 CCTV: China on nuclear issues
9 RIA Novosti URGENT: Adamov lawyers appeal against extradition to U.S
10 BBC: Blair makes climate summit call
11 Independent: Britain will keep nuclear weapons, Reid says 
12 AFP: Britain still needs nuclear arms, defence minister Reid says -
13 Daily Times: ElBaradei wants talks on nuclear-materials pact 
14 Daily Times: Pakistan supports UN nuclear safeguards 
15 Guardian Unlimited: Reid hints at Trident replacement
16 Webindia123.com: Pakistan supports IAEA call for nuke safeguards
17 Guardian Unlimited: 'Dirty Bomb' Seen As the Likeliest WMD
 
                         NUCLEAR REACTORS
 
18 US: EFMR Monitoring Group¹s 2005  Biennial  
19 US: NRC: Public Comments on Potential Environmental Impacts are Key 
20 EducationGuardian.co.uk: Universities go nuclear with £6m research b
21 Sydney Mornign Herald: Nuclear power must be on agenda - govt - 
22 ECCO 13: Chernobyl Legacy Sheds Light on Link Between Thyroid 
23 canadaeast.com: Second nuclear plant needed for power-hungry
24 US: NRC: NRC Proposes Using Risk Information for Refining Emergency 
25 Independent: France's EDF wants to build nuclear power stations in U
26 Daily Times: Pakistan to import nuclear plants, UNGA told 
27 US: NRC: Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards; Meeting of the AC
28 US: NRC: Rulemaking To Establish a Regulatory Framework for the Expa
29 Japan Times: Kanagawa opposes nuclear carrier
30 Eureka Alert: Making nuclear power more attractive
31 CBC Nova Scotia: Utilities worry at power summit 
32 CBC Saskatchewan: Calvert interested in selling uranium to Chinese
33 CBC New Brunswick: Public utilities worry at power summit
34 Business Gazette: NUCLEAR SKILLS DEVELOPMENT 
 
                          NUCLEAR SECURITY
 
35 US: Gazette.com: The hunt for ‘dirty bombs’ in city 
36 Guardian Unlimited: Nightmare of 'Loose Nukes' Still Haunts
 
                          NUCLEAR SAFETY
 
37 US: US Military Threatens US with WMD's
38 [DU-WATCH] Beyond Treason: Veterans exposure-
39 [du-list] Iraq War Veteran, suffering from DU, visits Japan to
40 AFP: British tribunal recognises Gulf War Syndrome 
41 China Daily: Radioactive metal bar kills 1, poisons 100 
42 US: cbs4denver.com: Colorado Springs Testing Radiation Monitors
 
                         NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
 
43 RGJ: Pay attention to the end game
44 US: Las Vegas SUN: BLM blocking Skull Valley nuclear waste project 
45 US: NRC: NRC to Hold Public Meeting Nov. 9 on Rulemaking Concerning 
46 Sydney Morning Herald: Traditional owners reject N-dump sites - 
47 AP Wire: USEC announces job cuts at Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant
48 AU ABC: Nuclear dump bill changes 'worthless'
49 INSIDE JoongAng Daily: Dump vote spurs pleas to keep calm
50 US: JournalNews: Route for nuclear waste to include Butler County
51 AU ABC: Green group fears waste dump size. 
 
                           PEACE
 
 
                        US DEPT. OF ENERGY
 
52 Rocky Mountain News: Council rezones Superfund site
53 Salt Lake Tribune: A light comes on: Energy Department wisely drops
54 PISJ: ISU researchers explore cool uses for heat-loving bacteria
55 Boston Globe: Manhattan Projects for everyone! -
56 AFP: CH2M HILL Mound, Inc. Announces Building Demolition Complete at
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                         FULL NEWS STORIES
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 1 Guardian Unlimited: Senate Emerges From Closed Session on Iraq
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

Tuesday November 1, 2005 11:31 PM

AP Photo WCAP106 

By LIZ SIDOTI 

Associated Press Writer 

WASHINGTON (AP) - Democrats forced the Republican-controlled
Senate into an unusual closed session Tuesday, questioning
intelligence that President Bush used in the run-up to the war
in Iraq and accusing Republicans of ignoring the issue. 

``They have repeatedly chosen to protect the Republican
administration rather than get to the bottom of what happened
and why,'' Democratic leader Harry Reid said. 

Taken by surprise, Republicans derided the move as a political
stunt. 

``The United States Senate has been hijacked by the Democratic
leadership,'' said Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee.
``They have no convictions, they have no principles, they have
no ideas,'' the Republican leader said. 

Democrats sought assurances that Intelligence Committee Chairman
Pat Roberts of Kansas would complete the second phase of an
investigation of the administration's prewar intelligence. 

After about two hours, senators returned to open session having
appointed a six-member task force - three members from each
party - to review the committee's progress and report back to
their respective leaders by Nov. 14. 

Roberts' committee produced a 511-page report in 2004 on flaws
of an Iraq intelligence estimate assembled by the country's top
analysts in October 2002, and he promised a second phase would
look at issues that couldn't be finished in the first year of
work. 

The committee worked on the second phase of the review, Roberts
said, but it has not been finished. He blamed Democrats for the
delays and said his staff had informed their Democratic
counterparts on Monday that the committee hoped to work on and
complete the second phase next week. 

``Now we have this ... stunt 24 hours after their staff was
informed that we were moving to closure next week,'' a clearly
angry Roberts told reporters. ``If that's not politics, I'm not
standing here.'' 

In mid-afternoon Tuesday, Reid demanded the Senate go into
closed session. The public was ordered out of the chamber, the
lights were dimmed, and the doors were closed. No vote is
required in such circumstances. 

Reid's move shone a spotlight on the continuing controversy over
prewar intelligence. Despite administration claims, no weapons
of mass destruction have been found in Iraq, and some Democrats
have accused the White House of manipulating the information. 

Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis
``Scooter'' Libby, was indicted last Friday in an investigation
that touched on the war, the leak of the identity of a CIA
official married to a critic of the administration's Iraq
policy. 

``The Libby indictment provides a window into what this is
really all about, how this administration manufactured and
manipulated intelligence in order to sell the war in Iraq and
attempted to destroy those who dared to challenge its actions,''
Reid said before invoking Senate rules that led to the closed
session. 

Libby resigned from his White House post after being indicted on
charges of obstruction of justice, making false statements and
perjury. 

Democrats contend that the unmasking of Valerie Plame was
retribution for her husband, Joseph Wilson, publicly challenging
the Bush administration's contention that Iraq was seeking to
purchase uranium from Africa. That claim was part of the White
House's justification for going to war. 

As Reid spoke, Frist met in the back of the chamber with a
half-dozen senior GOP senators, including Roberts, who bore the
brunt of Reid's criticism. Reid said Roberts reneged on a
promise to fully investigate whether the administration
exaggerated and manipulated intelligence leading up to the war.
Reid claimed that Republicans have repeatedly rebuffed
Democratic pleas for a thorough investigation. 

Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., a former majority leader, said a
closed session was appropriate for such overarching matters as
impeachment and chemical weapons - the two topics that last sent
the senators into such sessions. 

In addition, Lott said, Reid's move violated the Senate's
tradition of courtesy and consent. But there was nothing in
Senate rules enabling Republicans to thwart Reid's effort. 

The Senate had been considering a budget bill when it went into
closed session. 
		 	 	   
      Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
 2 AFP: Iran parliament delays reprisal threat over nuclear pressure -
                           
 Tue Nov 1, 1:18 PM ET 
		 	 
 TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran " /> 's parliament decided to delay any 
retaliation to criticism from the UN's nuclear watchdog, but 
upheld the threat of reprisals if the country is referred to the 
Security Council. 

The conservative-held assembly had threatened to immediately push 
through a bill that would limit the powers of International 
Atomic Energy Agency " /> (IAEA) inspectors by halting 
application of an additional protocol to the nuclear 
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
 
This protocol, crucial to an IAEA probe into allegations the
Islamic republic is seeking nuclear weapons, was signed by the
previous reformist government but has not been ratified by
parliament.
 
The threat came after a tough IAEA resolution passed in
September, which chastised Iran for being in "non-compliance"
with the NPT. This paves the way for the case to be sent to New
York.
 
But the official news agency IRNA said members of parliament's
foreign policy commission had changed the draft bill to
stipulate reprisals only if the Islamic republic "is reported or
referred to the UN Security Council."
 
The IAEA's 35-nation board of governors is next due to discuss
Iran on November 24.
 
Following approval by the commission, the draft bill will go
back to parliament for a vote, although further changes are
possible. Any laws passed by parliament are also subject to the
approval of the Guardians Council, an unelected vetting body
likewise controlled by hardliners.
 
The commission's spokesman, Kazem Jalali, said the bill would
force the government to "stop voluntary and legally non-binding
measures".
 
IRNA said the new version of the bill states that if sent to the
Security Council, "Iran would then carry out its executive,
research and scientific activities in order to achieve the
nation's nuclear rights within the NPT."
 
These would also entail a resumption of uranium enrichment work
-- which has been suspended since late 2003 as a
"confidence-building measure".
 
Iran says it only want to enrich uranium to make reactor fuel,
but critics argue Iran can not be trusted with a technology that
can also be diverted to military purposes.
 
"If the ruling system of the international community inflicts
duties upon us that go beyond the laws and regulations ... there
is no reasonable room for cooperation and voluntary acts,"
Jalali was quoted as saying.
 
In August Iran rejected an EU offer of trade and other
incentives in exchange for a cessation of fuel work and resumed
uranium conversion, a precursor to enrichment work.
 
The move led to a breakdown in talks with Britain, France and
Germany, and the IAEA's resolution urged Iran to return to a
full suspension of fuel cycle activities.
 
Iran has so far refused to do so.
 

  Copyright © 2005 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 3 Guardian Unlimited: Korean Nuke Negotiator's Remarks Clarified
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

Tuesday November 1, 2005 2:46 AM

AP Photo TOK202 

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - The U.S. Embassy in Seoul clarified
Monday that Washington's chief nuclear negotiator was referring
to a North Korean diplomat's quarrel with anti-communist
activists when he commented the envoy's remarks on the nuclear
issue were ``inexcusable.'' 

North Korea's deputy chief of mission to the United Nations, Han
Song Ryol, said in Washington on Thursday that his country won't
give up or provide details of its nuclear programs unless it
gets civilian nuclear reactors from the United States first. 

His rare trip also included meetings with members of Congress,
where a hearing on defectors from the communist state was taking
place. The North Korean diplomat ran into anti-Pyongyang
activists from the hearing and they got into a squabble. 

According to South Korea's Yonhap news agency, one of the
activists said peace on the Korean Peninsula could be achieved
by overthrowing the regime of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. 

The remark so angered Han, according to Yonhap, that he
responded, ``Do you want to die, bastard?'' 

Upon arriving in Seoul on Sunday for talks on the nuclear issue,
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill said Han's
remarks were ``inexcusable.'' 

Hill said this after a reporter asked for comments on Han's
remarks on the nuclear issue. But the U.S. Embassy said Hill was
referring to the North Korean diplomat squabbling with
anti-North Korea activists. 

``He was not talking about the reactor. He was talking about
Ambassador Han's remarks to the dissidents,'' said U.S. Embassy
spokesman Robert Ogburn. ``I misunderstood the question ... and
so did'' Hill, Ogburn said. 

Han did not return a phone message left at the North Koreans'
U.N. mission on Monday. 

Separately Monday, North Korea alleged that U.S. spy planes flew
about 180 missions over the communist state in October, claiming
the flights show the United States isn't serious about resolving
the nuclear arms issue. 

Pyongyang publishes a monthly tally of U.S. aerial espionage.
The U.S. military doesn't comment, although it acknowledges
monitoring North Korean military activity. 

Citing an unidentified military source, the North's official
Korean Central News Agency claimed that American aircraft,
including U-2 spy planes, RC-135 reconnaissance planes and EP-3
electronic surveillance planes spied on ``strategic military
objects,'' coastal areas and under the sea. 

Hill was in Seoul to meet his South Korean counterpart, Deputy
Foreign Minister Song Min-soon, and left for Tokyo on Monday
morning. 

His Asian trip is part of a flurry of diplomacy aimed at laying
the groundwork for a new round of international talks on North
Korea's nuclear programs scheduled for early November. No
specific date has been announced yet. 

The talks include China, Japan and Russia, the United States and
the two Koreas. 
		 	 	   
      Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
 4 MSNBC.com: Heated day in D.C. leads to more prewar probes -

Following unusual closed Senate session, Democrats claim victory
  
  [Image: Bill Frist]   
  Dennis Cook / AP

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., talks to the
press on Capitol Hill Tuesday after Democrats forced the
Republican-controlled Senate into an unusual closed session to
discuss prewar intelligence.

MSNBC staff and news service reports


WASHINGTON - Democrats claimed "victory for the American people"
Tuesday after the Senate Intelligence Committee agreed to
continue an investigation into prewar intelligence claims made
by the Republicans, the Senate minority leader said. 

Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., forced the
Republican-controlled Senate into an unusual closed session for
more than two hours Tuesday, accusing Republicans of ignoring
intelligence that President Bush used before invading Iraq. 

A phase-by-phase investigation will resume, Reid announced after
the secret session. It will be the second stage of a probe that
Democrats have been pressing for for a year. 

An appointed six-member task force - three members from each
party - will review the committee's progress and report back to
their respective caucuses by Nov. 14. 

Despite prewar claims, no weapons of mass destruction have been
found in Iraq, and some Democrats have accused the
administration of manipulating information.

"They have repeatedly chosen to protect the Republican
administration rather than get to the bottom of what happened
and why," Reid said. 

Taken by surprise, furious Republicans derided the unexpected
closed Senate session as a political stunt.

"The United States Senate has been hijacked by the Democratic
leadership," said Majority Leader Bill Frist during the tense
hours on Capitol Hill. "They have no convictions, they have no
principles, they have no ideas."

In a speech on the Senate floor, Reid said the American people
and U.S. troops deserved to know the details of how the United
States became engaged in the war, particularly in light of the
indictment of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick
Cheney's former chief of staff.

"Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) has been trying for a year to get the
intelligence committee to keep its promise and investigate the
misuse of intelligence information," Sen. Charles Schumer,
D-N.Y., said shortly before the session ended. "We just thought
we couldn't wait any longer for them to keep giving excuses.
This is very serious." 

When the closed session started, the public was ordered out of
the chamber, the lights were dimmed, senators filed to their
seats on the floor and the doors were closed. No vote is
required in such circumstances.

Provoked by Libby indictment
Libby was indicted last Friday in an investigation that touched
on the war, the leak of the identity of a CIA official married
to a critic of the administration's Iraq policy. 

Libby resigned Friday after being indicted on charges of
obstruction of justice, making false statements and perjury in
an investigation by a special prosecutor into the unauthorized
leak of a CIA agent's identity.

Reid accused Republicans of playing upon post-9/11 fears as
grounds for going to war. 

"Obviously we know now their nuclear claims were wholly
inaccurate," he said. "But more troubling is the fact that a lot
of intelligence experts were telling the Administration then
that its claims about Saddam's nuclear capabilities were false."

The Senate Intelligence Committee, chaired by Sen. Pat Roberts,
R-Kan., produced a 511-page report last summer on flaws of an
Iraq intelligence estimate assembled by the country's top
analysts in October 2002, and he promised a second phase would
look at issues that couldn't be finalized in the first year of
work.

The committee had started the second phase of the review,
Roberts said, but it has not been completed. He said he had
intended all along to work on the second phase beginning next
week. 

Democrats challenging war justification
Democrats contend that the unmasking of Valerie Plame was
retribution for her husband, Joseph Wilson, publicly challenging
the Bush administration's contention that Iraq was seeking to
purchase uranium from Africa. That claim was part of the White
House's justification for going to war.

Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., said Reid was making "some sort of
stink about Scooter Libby and the CIA leak."

A former majority leader, Lott said a closed session is
appropriate for such overarching matters as impeachment and
chemical weapons - the two topics that last sent the senators
into such sessions.

In addition, Lott said, Reid's move violated the Senate's
tradition of courtesy and consent. But there was nothing in
Senate rules enabling Republicans to thwart Reid's effort.

As Reid spoke, Frist met in the back of the chamber with a
half-dozen senior GOP senators, including Roberts, who bore the
brunt of Reid's criticism. Reid said Roberts reneged on a
promise to fully investigate whether the administration
exaggerated and manipulated intelligence leading up to the war.

The Senate had been considering a budget bill when it went into
closed session. 
The Associated Press contributed to this report.

*****************************************************************
 5 Guardian Unlimited: U.N. Nuclear Chief Urges Cooperation
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

Tuesday November 1, 2005 2:01 AM

By NICK WADHAMS 

Associated Press Writer 

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - In his first speech at the United Nations
since winning the Nobel Peace Prize, U.N. nuclear agency chief
Mohamed ElBaradei warned Monday that threats to arms control and
nonproliferation ``cannot be wished away.'' 

ElBaradei, beginning his third and final term as head of the
U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency, told the General
Assembly that his goals in the year ahead would include bringing
North Korea back into the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and
answering unresolved questions about Iran's nuclear program. 

``The current challenges to international peace and security,
including those related to nuclear nonproliferation and nuclear
arms control, cannot be wished away,'' told the assembly in his
annual report. ``It is urgent and indispensable that we continue
to build a global security system that is equitable, inclusive
and effective.'' 

ElBaradei and the agency he leads won the 2005 peace prize on
Oct. 7. The Norwegian Nobel Committee said it wanted to honor
him at a time when the threat of nuclear weapons is on the rise
and that cooperation is the best way to meet that threat. 

He made no major policy statements in his speech, limiting
himself to brief summations of the IAEA's work and modest calls
for nations to resolve their differences over disarmament and
nonproliferation. 

In particular, he cited the failure of a conference in May to
review the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, in which no major
progress was made toward disarmament or nonproliferation. World
leaders who gathered at a summit in September also failed to
reach any new agreements. 

While those concerns are among the most pressing, ElBaradei also
said that he would also grapple with nations' renewed interest
in nuclear power because of the risk of climate change and fears
of energy security. 

He noted that Asia and Eastern Europe, which account for 2 of
the 24 nuclear energy plans now under construction. 

``Elsewhere plans remain more modest, but it is clear that
nuclear energy is re-emerging in a way that few would have
predicted just a few years ago,'' ElBaradei said. 
		 	 	   
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
 6 Guardian Unlimited: The Blairite love affair with the bomb will cost Britain dear
 
Comment 
		
Replacing Trident would be a scandalous waste of public funds. 
The case for it is an argument for universal proliferation           
 		
David Clark
Tuesday November 1, 2005
The Guardian 		
 		
Tony Blair is trying to look purposeful as he enters his final 
stretch as prime minister; but on what may prove to be the most 
important decision of his remaining time in office, he continues 
to send mixed signals. A formal announcement on a replacement for 
Britain's Trident nuclear force is expected in this parliament, 
and we are told that no options are being ruled out, including 
the option of not replacing it. As if to underline how unlikely 
this is, we are also told that the government is "committed to 
retaining Britain's independent nuclear deterrent".

This might be called the Vicky Pollard approach to defence policy 
- "No but yeah but no". Like the Little Britain character, the 
government hides behind incoherence, hoping that those looking 
for answers about how and when a decision is going to be taken 
will give up out of sheer exasperation. Nevertheless, there can 
be little doubt about where this debate is heading. Blair's 
insistence that all options are on the table is about as 
convincing as his insistence at the start of 2003 that no 
decision had been taken to invade Iraq. Don't be surprised to 
discover at some point in the future that we have already passed 
the Crawford moment on Trident replacement.

Like Iraq, the decision will have been taken in principle long
before it is announced in public; and like Iraq, it will be
taken for the worst of all reasons - as an act of political
positioning. Real security considerations are a negligible
factor in the development of Labour's nuclear-weapons policy,
the burden of the past weighing too heavily for objectivity to
intrude. For ministers who toiled through the wilderness years,
the idea that Labour might once again embrace unilateralism is
enough to induce a nervous tick. Fearing the "I told you so"
scorn of the opposition benches and Wapping editorialists, New
Labour will spend billions of pounds of public money to prove
yet again that it is not old Labour in disguise.

Some will even relish the controversy. Never skipping an
opportunity to win kudos on the right by fighting their own
party, the Blairites will seek to construct this debate as a
re-run of the one that absorbed Labour throughout the 1980s,
portraying anyone opposed to nuclear modernisation as a
throwback to a failed Bennite past. But the strategic context
couldn't be more different. Indeed, there are good reasons for
those who supported the party's decision to abandon unilateral
disarmament then to oppose the replacement of Trident now. It is
the Blairites who remain stuck in the past.

The salient fact is that Britain faces no threat remotely
comparable to the one that confronted it during the cold war.
What Nato had to contend with then was a Soviet Union armed not
just with nuclear weapons, but with an overwhelming superiority
in conventional forces and the ability to project it across
western Europe. It was this integrated war-fighting capability
that had to be deterred, and the existence of a separate British
nuclear capability added credibility to Nato's defensive
posture. Opponents of the British bomb argued that the Soviet
Union was a status quo power, uninterested in world domination,
and that in any case the British deterrent wasn't truly
independent

There was a degree of truth in the first argument and rather a
lot in the second, but the idea that it would be better to keep
nuclear weapons just in case was always more convincing than the
suggestion that we could depend on the goodwill of the Soviet
leadership for our security. For how long would the Soviet Union
have remained a status quo power if the prospect of an easy
victory against the west had been in the offing? That, in a
nutshell, is why Labour kept losing the argument in the 1980s.

But where is the territorial threat to Britain today? Certainly
not from Russia. Although it has taken a pronounced
authoritarian turn, it has trouble enough holding on to its own
sovereign territory in the northern Caucasus and has no prospect
of recovering its lost superpower status. The now fashionable
threat scenarios of rogue tyrants holding the world to ransom
with weapons of mass destruction owe more to the evil
supervillains and doomsday machines of popular fiction than any
serious strategic analysis.

Countries such as North Korea and Iran may stockpile modest
nuclear arsenals, but they will never acquire the means to
incapacitate a western country with a first strike, the essence
of a real war-fighting capability. Deterrence means instilling
in the mind of a potential adversary the inevitability that
aggression would meet with a devastating response. Since the
west has the means to do this with conventional force alone, the
threat of incinerating a rogue state's population with a nuclear
strike would have no additional deterrence value. Does President
Ahmadinejad's recent outburst change the strategic equation as
far as Britain is concerned? No, but it might make sense for
those living at a safe distance to be less judgmental of
Israel's nuclear programme. The emerging nuclear threats are
regional in scope.

Perhaps aware of how implausible these scenarios are, the
government's last line of defence is to argue that we cannot
know what security challenges Britain will face in 2025 when
Trident reaches the end of its operational life. But what
country couldn't say the same? This sounds more like an argument
for universal proliferation than anything else. Besides, the
scale of threat requiring a British nuclear response would take
years, and probably decades, to emerge. If we wanted to hedge
against that remote possibility, we could retain the research
and development capacity to reconstitute a nuclear force within
a realistic timescale, and at much lower cost. This status of
"virtual" nuclear power is more or less the one occupied by
Japan, a country with far more obvious deterrence needs.

Issues of prestige mean that getting out of the nuclear business
would be a courageous step, similar in many ways to the Wilson
government's decision to pull back from east of Suez in 1967. It
would make a statement of realism about Britain's role in the
world and how to maximise its impact with finite resources.
Anything else would be a scandalous waste of public funds and
ought to be opposed even by those of a hawkish disposition, on
the pragmatic grounds that the money should be spent on
capabilities with actual military use.

Unfortunately, it says something depressing about modern British
politics that it is in many ways easier to imagine this being
done by a Conservative government, unencumbered by the need to
fight its demons and advertise its toughness, than by the
current Labour leadership. Ministers will continue to obfuscate
for the time being, but all the signs are that Labour is set to
enjoy the unique distinction of having held two diametrically
opposed positions on nuclear weapons within the space of 20
years - and being equally wrong on both occasions.

· David Clarkis a former Labour government adviser
 	
[UP] 
      Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
 7 London Times: Giving up our nuclear weapons is too risky, says Reid - 

Michael Evans

Appearing before the Commons Defence Committee for the first
time since becoming Defence Secretary, Mr Reid said that the
Government needed to look decades ahead to judge what the
greatest threats would be, and that it was important to keep a
range of weapon systems to counter them. 

For as long as there were countries potentially hostile to
Britain that acquired nuclear weapons, “we’ll retain ours”, he
said. 

The issue of Britain’s long-range Trident ballistic missile
deterrent was raised by the defence committee because of
indications that the Government planned to decide on a
replacement system during the present Parliament. 

Mr Reid said that it was not necessary to make the decision
during this Parliament but added that it would be “highly
desirable” and that discussions about “the nature of the future
threats” were already under way. “We face a range of threats at
this moment, running from individual acts of terrorism through
to nuclear threats,” he said. 

The four Trident ballistic missile submarines are expected to
remain in service until at least 2020. But decisions on a
replacement have to be made years in advance because of the long
time it takes to develop and build a delivery system and warhead
capable of deterring potential enemies for another 20 or 30
years beyond 2020. 

Mr Reid reminded MPs that Britain’s Trident system was an
“absolute minimum” deterrent: only one submarine was ever out on
patrol and it never carried more than 48 warheads. 

The Government was also ready to put Trident into disarmament
negotiations once the Russians and the Americans agreed to
reduce their nuclear weapons stocks below a certain level. 

However, other countries — India, Pakistan and North Korea — had
acquired nuclear weapons, and “more worrying, some countries
have been trying to develop nuclear weapons by deceiving the
world, not complying with their obligations under the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty, for instance Iran”. 

Mr Reid told the MPs: “I think it would be naive to believe that
there will be no further proliferation.” 

He confirmed that the options for a replacement deterrent did
not exclude turning to a ground-based or airborne nuclear weapon
system. 

Britain’s original long-range nuclear deterrent was carried by
the RAF’s Victor, Vulcan and Valiant bombers in the 1950s. The
Royal Navy’s Polaris ballistic missile submarines came into
service in 1968, the HMS Resolution making the first deterrent
patrol. The Polaris missile was upgraded secretly with a
Chevaline multiple warhead in the early 1970s. 

Mr Reid said that, historically, two thirds of Britons supported
having a nuclear deterrent. 

Britain used to have shorter-range nuclear weapons as well:
Royal Navy depth bombs and RAF freefall WE177 bombs. But they
were dismantled, leaving Trident as the sole deterrent. 

VANGUARD FACTS

 
+ Each submarine carries 16 Trident D5 missiles 


+ The missiles are 42ft (12.8m) long, 6ft in diameter, weigh 60
tonnes and have a range of 4,000 nautical miles. 


+ Technically, each missile can carry 12 warheads, capable of
engaging different targets at once. 


+ The Government is committed, however, to sending each patrol
out with no more than 48 warheads 


+ The four Vanguard class submarines that came into service in
the 1990s displace 16,000 tonnes and are nearly 490ft long. They
carry a crew of more than 130   	 		

sponsorship in Times Online, The Times and The Sunday Times. 
Copyright 2005                 Times Newspapers Ltd.
*****************************************************************
 8 CCTV: China on nuclear issues

[CCTV.com International]                                                                                                                                                                                                      
 	 		 
cctv.com 11-01-2005 14:54 
				
China has reiterated its position on the nuclear standoffs
involving the Korean peninsula and Iran. At the 60th UN General
Assembly, China's ambassador for Disarmament Affairs, Hu Xiaodi,
said the fourth round of six party talks on the DPRK nuclear
issue had reached a joint declaration. 

It means the parties have set the general targets and basic
principles for the talks. Speaking Monday, Hu said all the
achievements show the willingness of the governments involved to
solve the dispute through dialogue. The Chinese ambassador also
promised continuous efforts and support to resolve the matter
peacefully. While discussing Iran, Hu said the International
Atomic Energy Agency still has a role to play and the top
priority is the early resumption of talks between Iran and the
European Union. China's expecting patience and flexibility from
both sides, to allow the resumption of the stalled talks. 
Editor:Chen Zhuo  Source:CCTV.com
 		 
Copyright © 2005 China Central Television, All
*****************************************************************
 9 RIA Novosti URGENT: Adamov lawyers appeal against extradition to U.S.
 
01/ 11/ 2005                                  

GENEVA, November 1 (RIA Novosti)-The defense team representing
Yevgeny Adamov, an ex-nuclear power minister of Russia, has
filed an appeal against his extradition to the United States,
where he is wanted on embezzlement charges, attorney Stefan
Wehrenberg said Tuesday. 

The appeal has been sent to Switzerland's highest court, the
Federal Court in Lausanne. Its rulings cannot be appealed.
 







© 2005 "RIA Novosti"   




*****************************************************************
 10 BBC: Blair makes climate summit call
 
Last Updated: Tuesday, 1 November 2005
 
[George Bush and Tony Blair at July's G8 summit in Gleneagles.  
Image: Chris Young/H.M. Government via Getty Images]                                 
This week's meeting follows on from the July G8 summit in 
Gleneagles                                                            

Technology and science will provide at least part of the solution 
to global warming, Tony Blair said as 20 nations held talks in 
London. 

The prime minister was speaking at the two-day G8 summit of 
energy and environment ministers. 

The focus is on curbing climate change through technology, not 
binding deals. 

Mr Blair said there were divisions over the Kyoto climate 
agreement. But he said economic growth could be combined with 
helping the environment. 

The meeting brought together the G8 group of industrialised 
countries alongside developing world nations. 

It paves the way for a major summit in Montreal later the next 
round of United Nations climate negotiations, which open in 
Montreal later this month. 

Private firms' role 

Mr Blair has described the UN as the "only forum" for formal 
talks on future treaties but in recent weeks he has downplayed 
the impact of the Kyoto Protocol. 

He has expressed doubts there will ever be another treaty which 
sets mandatory, binding targets on greenhouse gas emissions. 

Major developing countries such as India and China are also known 
to be sceptical about a "child-of-Kyoto" deal. 

[Anti-nuclear protesters project an image reading &quot;80 
failures&quot; onto a cooling tower at the Temelin nuclear power 
plant in south Bohemia last month.  Image: AP/CTK/David Veis] 
Nuclear power - on the agenda as a climate-friendly technology                                                             

Mr Blair said: "The solutions will come in the end, in part at 
least, through the private sector in developing the technology 
and science." 

Countries, such as the USA, were taking action on their own, he 
said. 

And he argued the issue would never be tackled properly unless 
the world could combine the need for growth with "a proper and 
responsible attitude" towards the environment. 

"The blunt truth about the politics of climate change is that no 
country will want to sacrifice its economy in order to meet this 
challenge," he said. 

"But all economies know that the only sensible, long-term way to 
develop is to do it on a sustainable basis." 

Timetable call 

Mr Blair said people were very nervous about talks of specific 
frameworks and targets. 

"People fear some external force is going to impose some internal 
target on you which is going to restrict your economic growth," 
he said. 

"I think in the world after 2012 we need to find a better, more 
sensitive set of mechanisms to deal with this problem." 

The discussions follow the climate agreement drawn up at July's 
G8 summit in Gleneagles, which emphasised the importance of 
climate-friendly technologies such as clean coal, nuclear power 
and renewables. 

Environment Secretary Margaret Beckett told the summit there was 
more evidence the oceans were warming and the strength of 
hurricanes had increase in the last 30 years. 

"We face a timetable that is driven by nature, science and by the 
predicted effect of climate change on our world, not by our own 
negotiating processes," said Mrs Beckett. 

End of Kyoto? 

Many opposition politicians and environmental groups are critical 
of any move away from Kyoto, saying that binding targets are the 
best way forward. 

Liberal Democrat environment spokesman Norman Baker said: "It is 
all very well for the government to trumpet the merits of 
technology in reducing carbon emissions, but it simply isn't 
enough; we need robust, measurable targets, not just vague 
aspirations." 

Conservative shadow environment secretary Oliver Letwin is in 
Washington for talks with Republican congressmen about climate 
change. He said technology and market forces had to be used to 
fight climate change. 

But Mr Letwin added: "We also believe it is essential to have a 
post-Kyoto treaty with clear targets." 
*****************************************************************
 11 Independent: Britain will keep nuclear weapons, Reid says 

By Andy McSmith 

Published: 02 November 2005 

Britain will keep nuclear weapons for as long any potential
enemy anywhere in the world has them, John Reid, the Defence
Secretary, said yesterday. 

The fact that they were useless against international terrorism
was no argument for getting rid of them when other countries
were acquiring nuclear weapons, he told the House of Commons
Select Committee on Defence.
 
His remarks suggest that the Defence Secretary, like the Prime
Minister, has privately decided that the UK will have to start
developing a new generation of nuclear weapons in the next few
years. He told the MPs it was "highly desirable" but not
"essential" that a decision was made before the next general
election.
 
But he added that it was still an open question what form of
nuclear deterrent the UK would develop to replace Trident, which
is expected to be obsolete by about 2020. The Independent
reported yesterday that Ministry of Defence planners were
considering replacing Trident with cheaper air-launched missiles.
 
Speaking to Labour MPs on Monday night, Mr Reid pointed out that 
within a few years satellites may be capable of detecting 
submarines at great depths, which would turn Trident into a 
visible target.
 
Mr Reid did not say publicly which countries were classed as
"potential enemies" - but privately military planners still
allow for the long-term possibility that the Russian government
will be taken over by aggressive nationalists.
 
"We have always maintained that so long as some other state that
is a potential threat has nuclear weapons, we will retain them.
That is the assumption we have at the moment and it is that
assumption that we will assess against an analysis of what might
be future threats," he told the committee.
 
"Probably more worrying, some countries have been trying to
develop nuclear weapons by deceiving the world, not complying
with their obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty, for
instance in Iran. I think it would be naive to believe that
there will be no further proliferation."
 
Mr Reid admitted that nuclear weapons could notbe used to deter
terrorists, but he added: "It is equally true that you can't use
special forces to deter a nuclear attack. That does not mean to
say that special forces are redundant."
 
Last night, Mr Reid agreed to hold a private meeting with a
group of Labour MPs, to smooth over growing opposition to the
prospect of spending billions of pounds on a new generation of
nuclear weapons. He was urged to produce a list of tests that
would have to be met before Britain committed itself to
developing more nuclear weapons, like Gordon Brown's five
economic tests that have to be met before joining the euro.
 
David Chaytor, one of the MPs seeking the meeting, said: "John
Reid has himself suggested that there's a large number of
questions that have to be answered, such as which countries are
likely to be potential enemies. Most Labour MPs would agree that
these questions and the responses should be made public." 

© 2005 Independent News & Media (UK) Ltd. 
*****************************************************************
 12 AFP: Britain still needs nuclear arms, defence minister Reid says -
                           
 Tue Nov 1,12:08 PM ET 
		 	 
LONDON (AFP) - Defence Secretary John Reid has rejected 
suggestions that terrorism has rendered Britain's nuclear weapons 
"redundant," as the government faces a decision on whether to 
renew its nuclear arsenal. 

 Reid told a parliamentary committee on Tuesday that Britain --
scene of apparent suicide bombings in July which left more than
50 dead -- needed a variety of capabilities to meet a range of
potential threats.
 
The British government is likely to decide before 2010 whether
to replace its Trident submarine-launched nuclear-tipped
ballistic missile system, which comes up for renewal in around
15 years.
 
While acknowledging that nuclear weapons -- a holdover from the
Cold War -- are no deterrent against individual terrorists, Reid
said they still had a place in modern warfare.
 
"It is equally true that you can't use special forces to deter a
nuclear attack. That does not mean to say that special forces
are redundant," he told the House of Commons defence committee.
 
"We face a range of threats at this moment -- running from
individual acts of terrorism through to nuclear threats. We need
a range of responses that include special forces right through
to nuclear threats (weapons)."
 
He said that the nuclear deterrent review would start from the
position that as long as there was a the potential for a
nuclear-armed enemy state, Britain would have to retain a
nuclear capability.
 
"That is the assumption we have at the moment and it is that
assumption that we will assess against an analysis of what might
be future threats," he said.
 
Reid added that Britain had reduced its nuclear weapons to an
"absolute minimum," while countries such as India and Pakistan
have been acquiring them.
 
"Probably more worrying, some countries have been trying to
develop nuclear weapons by deceiving the world, not complying
with their obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty, for
instance in Iran
" /> ," he said.
 
Britain has four Trident submarines in service: HMS Vanguard,
Victorious, Vigilant and Vengeance. They each have 16 multiple
warhead nuclear missiles with a range of 12,000 kilometres
(7,500 miles).
 
If ministers do decide to replace Trident, Reid said, they would
have to choose whether to stick with a purely submarine-based
deterrent or utilise land or air based systems.
 
  Copyright © 2005 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 13 Daily Times: ElBaradei wants talks on nuclear-materials pact 

November 02, 2005  	   

UNITED NATIONS: Chief UN nuclear watchdog Mohamed ElBaradei
called on Monday for the start of negotiations on a long-stalled
global treaty banning the production of nuclear materials for
weapons. 

“It is essential that we take steps to eliminate both access to
and production of material for nuclear weapons,” ElBaradei, the
director-general of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy
Agency, told the UN General Assembly. 

The assembly called in 1993 for negotiation of such a pact -
also known as the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty. 

But talks have never gotten off the ground, and last July the
Bush administration said it no longer wanted verification
measures in the treaty because they would be too costly and
unreliable. 

ElBaradei, who was presenting the IAEA’s annual report to the
191-nation UN assembly, also expressed disappointment that
neither last May’s Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference
nor last month’s World Summit reached any new agreements on
measures to curb the spread of atomic arms and promote
disarmament. Agreements were blocked at both meetings by a clash
of interests among various governments and blocs. 

The United States sought to highlight its concerns about Iran’s
nuclear programme and play down new disarmament commitments,
while Iran pushed the right of developing nations to harness
nuclear energy. Egypt pushed for a crackdown on Israel’s
presumed but undeclared nuclear arms, and nonaligned nations
pressed the major powers to agree to eventually destroy all
their atomic weapons. 

“The current challenges to international peace and security,
including those related to nuclear nonproliferation and nuclear
arms control, cannot be wished away,” ElBaradei said. “It is
urgent and indispensable that we continue to build a global
security system that is both equitable and inclusive.” 

Among his agency’s top priorities for the coming year were to
convince North Korea, which has pulled out of the
Non-Proliferation Treaty and declared it has nuclear bombs, to
return to the treaty’s control regime, and to obtain assurances
from Iran about the goal of what Tehran insists is a peaceful
nuclear programme but which others say aims to make weapons.
reuters 

Daily Times - All Rights Reserved
*****************************************************************
 14 Daily Times: Pakistan supports UN nuclear safeguards 

November 02, 2005  	   

UNITED NATIONS: Pakistan has expressed its support for the
International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) call for all states
to fully comply with their respective nuclear safeguard
obligations. “At the same time, the Agency’s safeguards should
not be used to serve partisan political objectives,” emphasized
Ambassador Aizaz Ahmed Chaudhry, the acting permanent
representative of Pakistan to the United Nations. He was
speaking in the UN General Assembly’s plenary meeting during its
‘Report of the International Atomic Energy Agency.’ 

“Its verification regime could remain credible only if it is
applied on a non-discriminatory basis, as stipulated in the
Agency’s Statutes,” he added. 

For over 30 years, Pakistan has enjoyed an excellent operational
and safety record of its two nuclear power plants, KANUPP and
CHASNUPP which both operate under IAEA safeguards, he said. 

He also asserted “given our safety record, the application of
IAEA Safeguards on our civilian nuclear power plants, and the
strict controls in place on all our nuclear facilities, Pakistan
expects that the international community will extend its support
and cooperation to meet our rising nuclear power needs.”

The ambassador said that Pakistan values the commendable role
being played by the IAEA in the development and transfer of
peaceful nuclear technology in agriculture, food, human health,
water resources management, protection of the environment and
industrial applications. “We share the Agency’s view that many
of these applications are proving to be important tools for
social and economic development around the world.” 

“We give the highest level of importance to the safety and
security of our nuclear installations, particularly as we expand
our nuclear power generation capacity for economic development.
Pakistan has successfully established a strong safety culture in
its nuclear activities. We are diligently adhering to the
principles of the Nuclear Safety Convention, which Pakistan
signed at the time of its inception,” he said. 

He said Pakistan has taken additional steps to augment the
safety and security of nuclear installations and to prevent WMD
proliferation. A Nuclear Command and Control Authority
responsible for Pakistan’s strategic assets has been in place
since 2000. 

“These assets are vital for our strategic deterrence posture.
There is no question of their falling into the wrong hands,” he
said. 

In terms of strengthening the Agency’s safeguard system, the
ambassador added “Pakistan stresses the need for a balanced
approach between the promotional aspects and safety or security
related concerns in all of the Agency’s functions.” online 

Daily Times - All Rights Reserved
*****************************************************************
 15 Guardian Unlimited: Reid hints at Trident replacement
 
Matthew Tempest and agencies
Tuesday November 1, 2005 		
 		
The defence secretary, John Reid, today dropped a broad hint the 
government will commission a replacement for the Trident nuclear 
deterrent, saying the UK needed a "range of responses" to counter 
future threats.

Against the background of rising demand among Labour MPs for a 
full debate and a vote on the cost of replacing Trident, Mr Reid 
said that some form of nuclear weapon was far from "redundant".

Questioned by the defence select committee today - after a stormy 
debate on the issue at last night's meeting of the parliamentary 
Labour party - Mr Reid said the government's review of a 
replacement for the ageing submarine-based Trident system would 
start from the assumption that as long as there was a potential 
enemy state with nuclear weapons, Britain would have to retain a 
nuclear capability. 

"That is the assumption we have at the moment and it is that 
assumption that we will assess against an analysis of what might 
be future threats," he told the committee. 

While Britain had reduced its nuclear weapons capability to an
"absolute minimum", Mr Reid said, other countries such as India
and Pakistan had been acquiring them. 

"Probably more worrying, some countries have been trying to
develop nuclear weapons by deceiving the world, not complying
with their obligations under the non-proliferation treaty, for
instance in Iran," he said. 

He added: "I think it would be naive to believe that there will
be no further proliferation." Mr Reid stressed that just because
nuclear weapons were not a deterrent against terrorism, it did
not mean that they were no longer necessary. 

"It is equally true that you can't use special forces to deter a
nuclear attack. That does not mean to say that special forces
are redundant," he said. 

"We face a range of threats at this moment - running from
individual acts of terrorism through to nuclear threats. We need
a range of responses that include special forces right through
to nuclear threats. 

"Not all of those response are responses to everything but the
range of them is necessary in order to meet the range of
threats." 

He said that while it was "highly desirable" that a decision on
a replacement for Trident be taken in the current parliament, it
was not "absolutely necessary". 

If ministers did decide to go ahead, they would then have to
make a decision on whether to continue with a submarine-based
system or to switch to a land-based or air-launched deterrent.

In an interview with the Guardian in September Mr Reid promised
that - as has not happened with previous decisions on the UK's
nuclear weapons systems - an open debate would precede the
government's decision.

At a meeting of the PLP last night Mr Reid told MPs: "I defy
anyone here to say we will not need a nuclear weapon in 20 to 50
years time."

Opponents of replacing Trident, such as MPs Gordon Prentice and
Paul Flynn, complained that the meeting did not get to vote on a
motion questioning the wisdom of spending the estimated £25bn on
a new nuclear weapons system.
 	
[UP] 

      Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
 16 Webindia123.com: Pakistan supports IAEA call for nuke safeguards

United Nations | November 01, 2005 7:15:05 PM IST
 
Pakistan has expressed support for the International Atomic
Energy Agency's (IAEA) call for all states to fully comply with
their respective nuclear safeguard obligations. 	

However, "the agency's safeguards should not be used to serve
partisan political objectives," said Aizaz Ahmed Chaudhry, the
acting permanent representative of Pakistan to the UN, reports
Online news agency.

"Its verification regime could remain credible only if it is
applied on a non-discriminatory basis as stipulated in the
agency's statutes," he added, speaking at the UN General
Assembly's plenary meeting.

For over 30 years, Pakistan has enjoyed an excellent operational
and safety record of its two nuclear power plants, both
operating under IAEA safeguards, he said. 

"Given our record of safety, the application of IAEA safeguards
in our civilian nuclear power plants and the strict controls in
place on all our nuclear facilities, programmes and
technologies, Pakistan expects that the international community
shall extend its support and cooperation to meet our rising
nuclear power generation needs and its various applications in a
number of areas," Aizaz added.

He said Pakistan has taken additional steps to augment the
safety and security of nuclear installations and to prevent WMD
(weapons of mass destruction) proliferation. 

"These assets are vital for our strategic deterrence posture.
There is no question of their falling into the wrong hands," he
said. 

(IANS)

© 2000-2005 Suni System (P) Ltd. 
*****************************************************************
 17 Guardian Unlimited: 'Dirty Bomb' Seen As the Likeliest WMD
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

Tuesday November 1, 2005 7:31 PM

AP Photo NY394 

By CHARLES J. HANLEY 

AP Special Correspondent 

ROTTERDAM, The Netherlands (AP) - Truckloads of vegetables,
dishware, even cranberry juice are setting off the radiation
alarms at Europe's biggest port, as thousands of shipping
containers bound for America pass through Rotterdam's new
``dirty bomb'' detectors. 

``They talk about our 'false' or 'innocent' alarms,'' Dutch
Customs' Bert Wiersema said of his equipment, sensitive to even
traces of radioactivity. ``It doesn't matter. We want to detect
everything.'' 

And so far, over 18 months, they've detected everything but
bombs. 

The Dutch are learning daily lessons in a 21st-century school of
counterterrorism, pioneering use of technology Washington would
like to see deployed at shipping hubs around the world, a
forward defense against any terrorist bid to sneak a radiation
dispersal device, or dirty bomb, into an American port. 

Such hypothetical weapons, pairing ordinary explosives with
radioactive material, are seen as the likeliest ``weapon of mass
destruction'' terrorists might use. They topped the list in a
U.S. Senate survey in June of 85 government officials and other
U.S. and international experts. From Siberia to the U.S.
heartland, teams are busy locking down potential sources of
dirty-bomb material, such as disused radiation therapy
equipment. 

But how serious is the threat? 

Only 40 percent in that survey thought such an attack likely in
the next 10 years. Many experts note that, unlike a nuclear
bomb, a radiological device wouldn't cause tens of thousands of
casualties or ``mass destruction.'' Some complain the news media
overplay the potential and underplay the difficulty of
assembling such a weapon. 

An example from Russia's rebellious Chechnya illustrates that
difficulty: In 1999 three looters tried to steal rods of highly
radioactive cobalt-60 from an abandoned chemical factory. All
three died of radiation exposure, one reportedly within 30
minutes. 

``It's not a trivial thing to do, build a dirty bomb. It's not
simply a matter of tying a rod of cesium to a couple of sticks
of dynamite and running away,'' said physicist Benn Tannenbaum,
who has studied the question for the American Association for
the Advancement of Science. 

The rods, powders and pellets of cesium-137, cobalt-60 and other
radioactive isotopes are housed in tens of thousands of heavily
shielded pieces of equipment worldwide - for cancer radiation
therapy, in industrial gauges, in food irradiators, among other
uses. 

Old portable generators from Soviet days, powering Arctic
beacons and other remote instruments, are among the most
dangerous, each holding the equivalent of the strontium-90
radioactivity released by the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear plant
accident. 

The Russians, with U.S. aid, have recovered 72 strontium
generators and about 1,000 other disused or abandoned
radioactive sources. In the United States itself, the Energy
Department has recovered about 11,000 of these ``orphan''
sources, under a program greatly accelerated since the Sept. 11
attacks. Thousands more remain out there worldwide, including
hundreds more old generators. 

In former Soviet republics, from Estonia to Tajikistan, the
International Atomic Energy Agency has helped secure about 100
sources. But IAEA program chief Vilmos Friedrich said those were
``the highest priority only. The job is not complete by any
means.'' 

If a cache of iridium-192 or thulium-170 does fall into the
wrong hands, U.S.-bound smugglers would have to evade almost 500
radiation monitors installed at U.S. land crossings, seaports
and mail facilities in recent years. 

Washington is working to extend that line of defense abroad, to
container ports of origin. But thus far only Rotterdam and
Piraeus, Greece, participate in the ``Megaports'' network.
Others have been slow to accept the added expense and the risk
of delaying cargo traffic. 

Customs manager Wiersema says he's heard few complaints from
shippers about delays, and Dutch Customs has ordered 30 more
monitors - at a total cost of at least $18 million - to add to
the four on loan from the Americans. 

At a container terminal at the heart of Rotterdam's vast harbor,
the routine looks smooth. Trucks hauling 40-foot seagoing
containers toward their cargo ships first roll slowly between
two 20-foot-high white pillars, housing detectors that profile
any gamma or neutron radiation on computer screens in a nearby
command post. 

Manning those screens, Wiersema's agents are now expert readers
of the distinctive ``signatures'' of vegetables, ceramics and
other items with slightly radioactive minerals. If anything's
suspicious, they order the container to an enclosure where
powerful X-rays probe for material that is extremely dense, like
radioisotopes. 

None has turned up, and that's fine, Wiersema said. ``This isn't
cocaine or cigarettes,'' his agents' usual smuggling haul.
``There aren't a million bombs. But it's important for
prevention. They know we're here.'' 

The greatest deterrent to would-be bombers remains the radiation
itself. How would novices extract, handle, transport such
material? 

``Very quickly,'' Tannenbaum said dryly. ``You'd wear lead
underwear and a lead apron. You'd use tongs to keep yourself
separated from it.'' Some experts even theorize, improbably,
that relay teams of ``suicide technicians'' would be needed. 

An official U.S. planning scenario envisions a worst case: a
bomb laden with powerfully radioactive cesium chloride powder,
whose blast kills relatively few people, but whose long-term
contamination keeps many blocks of a city uninhabitable for
years. 

A dirty bomb, if not a mass killer, would be ``an economic
weapon and a fear weapon,'' said Carolyn MacKenzie, an IAEA
radiation source specialist. ``Spreading radioactive materials
around can shut down an area for a very, very long time.'' 

But is a highly lethal load of radioactivity necessary? Some
suggest a dirty bomber could achieve his goal, terrorizing a
population, with a small amount of low-level radioactivity,
posing little threat - as long as Geiger counters go off in New
York, Washington or whichever city. 

The IAEA urges governments to plan carefully to keep the public
well informed in such an emergency. Then, said MacKenzie, ``it
is up to the press not to inspire fear.'' 

--- 

NEXT: Part IV - Nuclear terrorism. 

--- 

On the Net: 

Proceedings of the 2003 IAEA conference ``Security of
Radioactive Sources'': 

http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publications/PDF/Pub1165-web.pdf 
		 	 	   
      Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
 18 EFMR Monitoring Group¹s 2005  Biennial  
 
Date: Tue, 01 Nov 2005 14:32:41 -0800

<x-flowed>

                          November 1, 2005


To the Reader:


  Enclosed please find a copy of the EFMR Monitoring Group¹s 2005  Biennial 
Report.

  EFMR's annual budget has been reviewed, audited and approved for over 
twelve years by GPU Nuclear, AmerGen, PECO Energy, Exelon, and 
FirstEnergy.. All expenses, disbursements and expenditures are reconciled 
on an annual basis.  EFMR has operated under-budget for twelve consecutive 
years.

  Feel free to direct any concerns, comments, or suggestions to me.



                      Sincerely,


                      Eric J. Epstein, Coordinator
                       ericepstein@comcast.net


Correction: On Page 8, paragraph 2, lines 2-3: ³Early 1990s² should read 
³mid 1980s².

</x-flowed>

Attachment Converted: "c:\program files\eudora\attach\EFMR Biennial Report.pdf"
*****************************************************************
 19 NRC: Public Comments on Potential Environmental Impacts are Key Part of Oyster Creek
License Renewal Review

News Release - Region I - 2005-05 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY 
COMMISSION 

Office of Public Affairs, Region I No. I-05-056                          
November 1, 2005 CONTACT:     Diane Screnci (610) 337-5330 Neil 
A. Sheehan (610) 337-5331                     E-mail: 
opa1@nrc.gov  
  

says public comments received today at meetings regarding the
Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station are essential to help
the agency determine whether to relicense the plant for another
20 years. 

A key element of our relicensing process is listening to what
area residents have to say, said Michael Masnik, the NRC project
manager who is leading the environmental review associated with
the application. With our mission of openness, hearing what the
public has to say is very important. 

Masnik said that because the agency places such a heavy emphasis
on public comment, two sessions have been scheduled: one from
1:30 to 4:30 p.m. and a second from 7 to 10 p.m. to ensure those
who cannot attend during the day have the opportunity to be
heard in the evening. The sessions are taking place at the
Quality Inn at 815 Route 37 in Toms River. 

The comments received from the public will be reviewed not just
by the NRC but also by well-respected national laboratories to
enable the agency to reach a decision about adding two decades
to the license for the plant, which is located in Lacey Township
(Ocean County), N.J., and operated by AmerGen. The facilitys
current 40-year license is set to expire in April 2009. 

The specific focus of todays meetings will be any potential
environmental impacts resulting from an extension of the plants
license. The conclusion of this environmental scoping process
will be on Nov. 15. The findings of the environmental review
will be published in a draft report due out next June. The
public will then have an opportunity to comment on that report
before issuance of the final version in January 2007. 

The environmental review will be carried out in line with the
National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, which requires that
federal agencies follow a systematic approach in evaluating
potential environmental impacts associated with certain actions,
including nuclear power plant license renewal. That includes a
review of the impacts of the proposed action and any mitigation
for those impacts the agency considers to be significant. In
addition, it requires the consideration of alternatives to the
proposed action, including the no-action alternative. 

AmerGen submitted a license renewal application for Oyster Creek
on July 22. As part of its application, the company submitted an
environmental report. The application can be reviewed via the
NRCs web site at:
www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/licensing/renewal/applications/oys
tercreek.html. It is also available for review at the NRCs
Public Document Room in Rockville, Md., which can be reached by
phone at 1-800-397-4209, and at the Lacey Branch of the Ocean
County Library, located at 10 E. Lacey Road.   



  


 	Last revised Tuesday, November 01, 2005 	   
*****************************************************************
 20 EducationGuardian.co.uk: Universities go nuclear with £6m research boost
 
Donald MacLeod
Tuesday November 1, 2005 		
 		
British research councils today announced a £6m effort to 
increase nuclear expertise at UK universities - and to make the 
technology a more acceptable energy source.

It is the funding bodies' single largest commitment to fission
reactor research for more than 30 years. 

The four-year programme aims not only to do research that could
make nuclear power more attractive, but to train a new
generation of engineers for an industry suffering a shortage of
recruits.

The Keeping the Nuclear Option Open programme will be led by
Imperial College London, in collaboration with the universities
of Manchester, Sheffield, Leeds, Bristol, Cardiff and the Open
University. 

The programme was announced at the launch of Imperial College's
Energy Futures Lab, which aims to play a major role in setting
the energy agenda over the next 20 to 50 years.

Supporters of nuclear power now see it as an increasingly
attractive option for combating climate change, because it is a
low-carbon alternative to burning fossil fuels. 

Research will examine issues such as how nuclear reactor systems
function, how reactors are monitored, and how reactor waste can
be dealt with. 

Professor Robin Grimes, the project co-ordinator at Imperial,
said: "Having neglected nuclear reactor science and technology
for 20 years, it is now clear that a broad research programme is
necessary if we are to be in position to underpin a new reactor
based generating capacity.

"Nuclear power is clearly a route to achieving the UK's
commitment to reducing its carbon emissions under the Kyoto
accord.

"We also intend that our programme will begin to address the
acute shortage of people with the science and engineering
background necessary to pursue a career related to the
generation of electricity from nuclear reactors," he added. 

Professor Julia King, principal of the faculty of engineering,
said: "We are excited that Imperial is leading this important
initiative. The award reinforces Imperial's position as a
leading player in a broad range of advanced energy technologies. 

"The initiative reverses the trend towards decline in nuclear
research, at a critical time for UK energy policy. It also
enables us to help train a new generation of engineers in
nuclear power and their skills will be essential for the future
of the industry," she added. Greenpeace said £6m was a tiny sum
in terms of nuclear research - but nevertheless criticised the
programme. 

"Any research and development should be going on renewable
sources and energy efficiency, which have always been
underfunded," said Jean McSorley, senior adviser on the group's
nuclear campaign.
 	
[UP] 

   EducationGuardian.co.uk © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
 21 Sydney Mornign Herald: Nuclear power must be on agenda - govt - 

[www.smh.com.au]  

 November 2, 2005 - 9:54AM
 
Politicians standing in the way of a nuclear power industry are
guilty of "environmental vandalism", the environment minister
has said. 

Senator Ian Campbell is representing Australia at a major
environmental summit in London, comprising the G8 nations,
burgeoning powers China, India, Mexico, Brazil and South Africa
plus other major nations such as Indonesia. 

He described it as "a turning point" in environmental history,
with nations becoming increasingly urgent in attempts to curtail
the starkly-evident acceleration in global warming. 

Prompting the urgency was the need to reduce carbon emissions
while growing economies stoke up their burgeoning economies,
with China alone to build 500 coal-fired power stations in the
next 25 years. 

The meeting addressed the need for such new power stations to
employ 'carbon capture' technology that liquefy emissions for
storage rather than release them as gas into the atmosphere. 

Senator Campbell said Australian companies could capitalise on
the need for these technologies, and predicted Australian
governments - federal and state - will have to commit much more
to nurturing private sector research and development in that
area. 

"I can absolutely assure you there will be a need for more,"
Sen. Campbell said. 

"The imperative is to invest massive amounts of money in new
technology. 

"It's a do or die matter for the planet and that will involve
public sector investment leveraging private sector investment." 

The meeting here was called by British Prime Minister Tony
Blair, who himself had committed his Labour government to
revisiting nuclear power plants. 

Australia stood to benefit from a revival of the nuclear
industry due to its position as repository of the world's
biggest uranium supply, and Senator Campbell said there must not
be political impediments to growing the industry. 

"If it can create energy with zero emissions it has to be on the
table," he said. 

"You don't want to rule out any options for ideological reasons. 

"Any politician who stands in the way of providing uranium to
the world is committing an outrageous act of environmental
vandalism." 

The Kyoto protocol is due to expire in 2012, but the unforeseen
explosion in China and India's economies required action well
before then to curb emissions, with China set to become the
world's biggest carbon emitter within 20 years. 

It also recognised the failure of Kyoto to stem climate change
as nations had sacrificed Kyoto targets at the altar of economic
growth, with the new model favouring the expansion of
counter-carbon technology and the growth of the likes of nuclear
and alternative fuels. 

"Binding caps are not likely to be part of the beyond-Kyoto
agreements," Sen. Campbell said. 

"I'm far more optimistic after the meeting than I was before it,
because people really want to act now. 

"It's a very important turning point, as the world moves forward
to address this." 
© 2005 AAP

Copyright © 2005. The Sydney Morning Herald. 
*****************************************************************
 22 ECCO 13: Chernobyl Legacy Sheds Light on Link Between Thyroid 
Cancer and Radiation Exposure 

PARIS, FRANCE -- November 1, 2005 -- Study results presented at
the 13th European Cancer Conference (ECCO 13) have provided
further valuable insights into certain genetic mutations which
occur in childhood thyroid tumours and their link to both
radiation exposure and patient age.
 
The unique circumstances of this study were provided for by the
legacy of the radioactive accident at Chernobyl Nuclear Power
Plant in April 1986. Exposure to radioactive fallout led to a
large increase in the incidence of papillary thyroid cancer
(PTC), which was particularly pronounced in those who were
children at the time of the accident. In normal circumstances,
thyroid cancer is rare in children under the age of sixteen.
 
The Chernobyl Tissue Bank was established in 1998 to collect
biological samples from those aged under 19 at the time of the
accident who subsequently developed thyroid tumours and were
resident in the areas of Ukraine and Russia contaminated by the
radioactive iodine (131-I) fallout. Radioactive iodine 131-1 has
a short half-life of seven days and quickly dissipates in the
environment.
 
The investigators were aware of the fact that the incidence of
thyroid cancer had dropped down to normal occurrence rates in
those children born 9 months after the Chernobyl accident. The
continued collection of material by the Tissue Bank gave the
investigators a unique opportunity to compare the samples
gathered from children who experienced the Chernobyl accident
with those born 9 months after the incident whose thyroid
cancers were unlikely to arise from exposure to 131-I.
 
The overall aim of the study was to compare the genetic
mutations found in childhood thyroid cancer sufferers born
before and after the accident  and assess the link to radiation
exposure or patient age at diagnosis. Overall, 52 cases of PTC
were studied, using tissue obtained from the Chernobyl Tissue
Bank. These cases were split into four groups matched according
to age, sex and place of residence.
 
Two groups of 13 cases were from the areas of Ukraine most
heavily contaminated with radioiodine  one group of 13 born
before the accident and the other born after the 1st January
1997, and therefore spared exposure to radioiodine. The two
other groups of 13 cases were from other areas of the Ukraine
which were not exposed to significant radioiodine fallout 
again consisting of one group of children with PTC born before
the accident and one group born after 1st January 1987.
 
Molecular biology studies found no difference with respect to
type or overall frequency of a particular genetic mutation,
known as ret rearrangement, between any of the groups  despite
the fact that ret rearrangement had been thought to be a
potential marker of radiation exposure.
 
This study therefore shows that, contrary to other reports in
the literature, there is no association between ret
rearrangement and radiation exposure. Rather, the study
investigators believe that the real link between the patterns of
molecular biological alterations observed post-Chernobyl in
thyroid cancer might actually be related to the age of the
patients under study, rather than radioiodine exposure. Only one
child out of the 52 studied had a specific gene mutation, known
as BRAF, which is typically present at higher levels in adult
thyroid cancer sufferers. In contrast, 58% of adult thyroid
cancer patients in the Ukraine show this mutation.
 
Overall, the insights provided by the study of Chernobyl
children with thyroid cancer suggest that age at diagnosis of
cancer should be taken into account before drawing conclusions
about any link between the specific molecular biology of the
cancer and radiation exposure  as this may actually have more
significance.
 
Principle study investigator, Dr Gerry Thomas from the South
West Wales Cancer Institute, UK commented, "The investigation of
the molecular biology of thyroid cancer has shown that thyroid
cancer in children is very different from that in adults.
Attention is turning to the effect that age of the patient may
have on other types of cancers. A better understanding of the
biology of cancer will help us tailor treatments to different
groups of patients in the future."
 
"Through the catastrophic accident at Chernobyl we have been
able to glean further insight into the precise molecular link
between radiation and cancer," stated Dr Thomas. "These study
findings may have important implications for other ongoing
investigations, such as those which are looking at the molecular
nature of breast cancer in women who have previously undergone
radiotherapy treatment for Hodgkin's disease. There is much
debate about whether we in Europe should reconsider nuclear
power as an option to meet our increasing energy demands. It is
important that we take the opportunity to study the consequences
of the Chernobyl accident in a proper scientific way, so that we
can balance the risks against the benefits of different
solutions to the energy problem in an educated way."
 
[1] Powell et al., J Pathology (2005) 205: 558-564
 
[Presentation: The Chernobyl legacy: relationship between
radiation exposure, RET rearrangement and BRAF mutation in
childhood thyroid cancer. Abstract: 999]

SOURCE: Federation of European Cancer Societies 

 All contents Copyright (c) 1995-2005 Doctor's Guide Publishing
               Limited. All rights reserved. .--> 
*****************************************************************
 23 canadaeast.com: Second nuclear plant needed for power-hungry
Maritimes: P.E.I. power boss

CP Atlantic Regional News
                                                                                
CHRIS MORRIS
 	 	 	 	 	 	 
SAINT JOHN, N.B. (CP) - The time has come to look into building a 
second nuclear reactor in the Maritimes to satisfy the region's 
growing demand for electricity, the head of Prince Edward 
Island's electric utility said Monday.

 Jim Lea, president of Maritime Electric, told an energy
conference that while it's fine to talk about wind power and
energy conservation, the region needs a new source of constant
and reliable power.

 Construction of a second reactor, most likely at the same site
as the region's first reactor in Point Lepreau, N.B., would be a
10-to 15-year project, he said.

 "When we look at the reliability and the cost of nuclear energy
and compare that with the costs of fossil fuels and the need to
reduce greenhouse gases, we don't have too many options," Lea
told the Atlantic Power Summit in Saint John, N.B.

 "I raised it at this conference because I believe we have to
start thinking about it soon."

 The other two Maritime energy chiefs at the summit, David Hay
of NB Power Corp. and Ralph Tedesco of Nova Scotia Power Inc.,
reacted cautiously to Lea's suggestion.

 "In Nova Scotia, by statute, nuclear is today not an option,"
Tedesco said. "But it is an important part of the overall supply
picture in the Maritimes."

 Hay said NB Power is focused on completing New Brunswick's
$1.4-billion plan to refurbish the existing, 23-year-old reactor
at Point Lepreau.

 The overhaul is expected to last 18 months, from April 2008 to
September 2009.

 Meanwhile, Hay said he believes public opinion is softening
toward nuclear power.

 "Fossil fuel prices have just gone out of this world . . .
(and) no one could have predicted that," he said. "But on the
nuclear front, I think people are seeing that the operating
rates and the safety records - all of those aspects of nuclear -
have improved dramatically in the last 15 to 20 years.

 So, yes, people are feeling more comfortable about it."

 The idea of expanding nuclear power in the Maritimes is moving
up the region's political agenda.

 In New Brunswick, Opposition Liberal Leader Shawn Graham is
calling for construction of a second reactor at the Lepreau site.

 Lord said Monday he is not ruling out the possibility and
admits there have been discussions with Atomic Energy of Canada
Ltd.

 "But we're far from making any announcement on a second or a
third nuclear power plant," he said, raising the possibility of
even more reactors down the road.

 Lord said the problem is money.

 "If anyone thinks we should have another nuclear power plant,
I'd like to see what their financial contribution would be," he
said.

 Once the Lepreau upgrade is completed, it's expected the
680-megawatt Candu reactor will continue pumping electricity
into the Maritime grid for the next two to three decades.

 Lea said Maritime Electric wasn't interested in becoming a part
owner of a future nuclear plant.

 He said the Island utility likes the current arrangement it has
with NB Power where it is a long-term customer for the
province's output, including its nuclear output.

 Lea said promoting nuclear does not go against the island's
bucolic image as a haven of renewable energy.

 He said energy needs range from constant, base-load demand to
peaking energy requirements.

 Wind and renewable energy can meet some of the middle
requirements for power, but they are not sufficient to supply
base-load demand, Lea said.

 "Energy supply requires a basket of resources. This is not a
tomorrow project, but it is time to talk, to raise the concept."

Copyright © 2005 Brunswick News Inc. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 24 NRC: NRC Proposes Using Risk Information for Refining Emergency Reactor Cooling Requirements
 
News Release - 2005-14 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office 
of Public Affairs     Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC 
20555-0001     E-mail: No. 05-147     November 1, 2005   
  

use of risk information in refining requirements for how nuclear
power plants must safely handle loss-of-coolant accidents of
various sizes. 

The changes are outlined in a prospective rule that would be
available for all currently operating plants to voluntarily
implement. The proposed rule would divide all coolant piping
breaks currently considered in emergency core cooling
requirements into two size groups: breaks up to and including a
transition size, and breaks larger than the transition size up
to the largest pipe in the reactor coolant system. The
transition size was determined through input from an expert
panel as well as consideration of uncertainties in established
pipe-break frequencies. The change would focus plant resources
on the areas of higher risk significance. 

All the possible pipe breaks would still be covered under this
rule change, said Jim Dyer, Director of the NRCs Office of
Nuclear Reactor Regulation. Breaks in the smaller group are
considered more likely, and theyd be analyzed using existing
criteria for ensuring the reactor core stays cool during and
after an accident. Breaks in the larger group are considered
less likely and would be analyzed with less-stringent methods,
but plants would still have to show us they can mitigate the
effects of those breaks and maintain core cooling. 

Under the proposed rule change, plant operators could consider
actions to optimize safety and operational benefits. For
example, a plant might be able to eliminate fast starting and
loading times for one or more emergency diesel generators, which
would improve the diesels overall reliability. The proposed rule
includes criteria for ensuring these actions would continue to
provide acceptable protection of public health and safety. 

For more information on the proposed rule, contact NRC staff
member Richard Dudley by phone at 301-415-1116 or via e-mail at
. 

Comments on the changes will be accepted for 90 days following
publication of the proposed rule in the Federal Register,
expected shortly. Comments may be mailed to: Secretary, U.S.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, ATTN:
Rulemakings and Adjudications Staff. They may be e-mailed to: ,
via the NRCs rulemaking Web site at , or through the Federal
Rulemaking Portal at . Comments may also be faxed to the
Secretary at 301-415-1101, or hand-delivered to 11555 Rockville
Pike, Rockville, Md., between 7:30 a.m. and 4:15 p.m. on federal
workdays.   



  


 	Last revised Tuesday, November 01, 2005 	   
*****************************************************************
 25 Independent: France's EDF wants to build nuclear power stations in UK 

By Michael Harrison 

Published: 02 November 2005 


The state-owned French power company Electricité de France would
be keen to build a new generation of nuclear power stations in
the UK if Tony Blair gives the go-ahead to such a programme, its
chief executive Pierre Gadonneix said yesterday. 

Speaking in London as the roadshow began for EDF's 7bn (£5bn)
share offer later this month, M. Gadonneix said he would
"certainly" be interested in financing, constructing and
operating new reactors. But he added that it was a sensitive
topic and the UK government would first have to secure public
support for a new nuclear programme. "We are keen to co-operate
in making government and public acceptance as wide as possible,"
M. Gadonneix added. 

EDF's head of UK operations, Vincent de Rivaz, is due to set out
the French company's proposals in more detail when he gives
evidence today before the Commons environmental audit committee.
M. de Rivaz is expected to spell out how a new nuclear programme
could be funded and what kind of guarantees would be needed to
encourage private investment. 

EDF is the world's biggest nuclear electricity generator and it
has the world's youngest fleet of stations. The group operates
58 reactors across 19 locations, accounting for 17 per cent of
global nuclear capacity. Three-quarters of its output is nuclear
and it has 42 million customers worldwide, including 28 million
in France. 

M. Gadonneix said EDF planned 28bn of expenditure between 2006
and 2008 of which 8bn would be devoted to acquisitions and
development of the group. EDF also said that once it became a
publicly listed company it would have the ability to finance
acquisitions by issuing shares. 

In the UK, the group owns London Electricity and Seeboard and
has 5 million customers. It is the country's biggest distributor
of electricity with three local grids. Asked whether EDF was
interested in further UK acquisitions, M. Gadonneix said: "Never
say never but at the moment we have no specific plans." 

The French government is selling off a 15 per cent stake in EDF.
About 35 per cent of the shares will be reserved for retail
investors in France and Japan, a further 15 per cent will be
allocated to staff and the remaining 50 per cent will be sold to
institutional investors around the world. Its shares will be
priced in a range from 29.5 to 34.1 and trading is due to begin
on the Euronext Paris exchange on 21 November. 

© 2005 Independent News & Media (UK) Ltd. 
*****************************************************************
 26 Daily Times: Pakistan to import nuclear plants, UNGA told 

November 02, 2005  	   

UNITED NATIONS: Pakistan told the UN General Assembly on Tuesday
that it will import nuclear plants and civilian technology as
part of a 25-year plan to meet the country’s rising energy needs.

“Nuclear power generation is an indispensable element of our
national energy strategy,” Ambassador Aizaz Ahamed Chaudhry,
Pakistan’s deputy permanent representative to the UN, said while
discussing the annual report of the International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA).

“Our ‘Energy Security Plan’ envisages substantial increase of
nuclear electricity generation from the present 425 MWe to 8,800
MWe by the year 2030, representing an increase in the share of
nuclear energy from the present 0.8% to 4.2%,” he said.

“Given our record of safety, the application of IAEA safeguards
on our civilian nuclear power plants, and the strict controls in
place on all our nuclear facilities, programmes and
technologies, Pakistan expects that the international community
shall extend its support and cooperation to meet our rising
nuclear power generation needs and its various applications in a
number of areas.” 

Chaudhry said the IAEA should aid in the transfer of safe
technology to developing countries. The work of the Agency’s
Technical Cooperation Programme was particularly crucial and
should be strengthened and expanded. 

Pakistan has two nuclear power plants and was building a third,
he said. Pakistan also had a nuclear desalination plant and food
and medical product irradiation plants, as well as nuclear
medical centres. In all of those facilities, Pakistan had
adhered strictly to safety and security measures outlined in the
Nuclear Safety Convention. “We have further strengthened
security measures around our nuclear installations to avoid any
possibility of sabotage or illicit acquisition or trafficking of
nuclear material,” Chaudhry said. 

These included steps, in cooperation with the international
community and the IAEA, to eliminate an underground
proliferation network; that a nuclear command and control
authority had been in place since 2000; that an independent
Nuclear Regulatory Authority was in its fifth year of existence;
Pakistan’s parliament had promulgated a comprehensive Export
Control Act which dealt with nuclear and biological weapons,
material, goods, technologies, equipment and their means of
delivery. 

Chaudhry stressed that the IAEA find balance between safety and
security concerns and promotional requirements in its work.
Safeguards had to be complied with, but verification must be
conducted in a non-discriminatory way, so as to ensure that the
agency’s safeguards were not used to serve partisan political
objectives. 

The IAEA could not be an investigative body, he said. The
agency’s mission could be enhanced by avoiding its
politicisation and adhering to its technical nature; by a
greater emphasis on its technical cooperation activities;
through the allocation of more resources for technical
cooperation; and through greater involvement of developing
countries in technical cooperation projects. app 

Daily Times - All Rights Reserved
*****************************************************************
 27 NRC: Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards; Meeting of the ACRS 
 
                         FR Doc E5-6020 
[Federal Register: November 1, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 210)] 
[Notices] [Page 65936-65937] From the Federal Register Online via 
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr01no05-113]                         
 
Subcommittee on Reliability and Probabilistic Risk Assessment; 
Notice of Meeting The ACRS Subcommittee on Reliability and 
Probabilistic Risk Assessment (PRA) will hold a meeting on 
November 17-18, 2005, Room T- 2B3, 11545 Rockville Pike, 
Rockville, Maryland.
 
The entire meeting will be open to public attendance.
 
The agenda for the subject meeting shall be as follows: Thursday, 
November 17, 2005--8:30 a.m. until the conclusion of business.
 
Friday, November 18, 2005--8:30 a.m. until the conclusion of 
business The purpose of this meeting is to discuss the details of 
the Standardized Plant Analysis Risk (SPAR) program.
 
The Subcommittee will hear presentations by and hold discussions 
with representatives of the NRC staff, and their contractors 
regarding this matter. The Subcommittee will gather information, 
analyze relevant issues and facts, and formulate proposed 
positions and actions, as appropriate, for deliberation by the 
full Committee.
 
Members of the public desiring to provide oral statements and/or 
written comments should notify the Designated Federal Official, 
Mr. Eric A. Thornsbury, (Telephone: 301-415-8716) five days prior 
to the meeting, if possible, so that appropriate arrangements can 
be made. Electronic recordings will be permitted.
 
Further information regarding this meeting can be obtained by 
contacting the Designated Federal Official between 7:30 a.m. and 
4:15 p.m. (ET). Persons planning to attend this meeting are
 
[[Page 65937]] urged to contact the above named individual at 
least two working days prior to the meeting to be advised of any 
potential changes to the agenda.
 
Dated: October 25, 2005.
 
Michael L. Scott, Branch Chief, ACRS/ACNW.
 
[FR Doc. E5-6020 Filed 10-31-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P

 
*****************************************************************
 28 NRC: Rulemaking To Establish a Regulatory Framework for the Expanded 
 
                         FR Doc E5-6021 
[Federal Register: November 1, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 210)] 
[Notices] [Page 65935-65936] From the Federal Register Online via 
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr01no05-112]                         
 
Definition of Byproduct Material Established by the Energy Policy 
Act; Meeting AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
 
ACTION: Notice of meeting.
 
[[Page 65936]]
 
SUMMARY: Section 651(e) of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 expanded 
the definition of byproduct material as defined in the Atomic 
Energy Act of 1954, as amended. To comply with the Congressional 
mandate, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is changing its 
regulations to expand the definition of byproduct material to 
include the following materials produced, extracted, or converted 
after extraction for use for commercial, medical, or research 
activities: (1) Discrete sources of radium-226, (2) 
accelerator-produced radioactive material, and (3) discrete 
sources of naturally occurring radioactive material, other than 
source material, that the Commission, in consultation with the 
Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, the 
Secretary of Energy, the Secretary of Homeland Security, and 
other appropriate Federal agencies, determines would pose a 
threat to public health and safety or the common defense and 
security similar to the threat posed by a discrete source of 
radium-226. To aid in the rulemaking process, NRC is holding a 
public meeting with a ``roundtable'' format (defined further in 
the body of this notice) to solicit input, that may be useful in 
drafting a proposed rule, from stakeholders. The meeting is open 
to the public, and all interested parties may attend.
 
Individuals unable to attend the meeting will be able to listen 
by teleconference.
 
 
DATES: November 9, 2005, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Registration is 
from 8:30 a.m. to 9 a.m.; however, all persons planning to attend 
the meeting are encouraged to preregister in order to facilitate 
security check-in on the day of the meeting.
 
 
ADDRESSES: Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Two White Flint North, 
Room T-2B3, 11545 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland.
 
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Leslie Kerr, telephone (301) 
415-6272, e-mail lsk@nrc.gov, of the Office of Nuclear Material 
Safety and Safeguards, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 
Washington, DC 20555- 0001. Questions on the meeting format, 
including participation in the roundtable, should be directed to 
the meeting facilitator, Francis ``Chip'' Cameron. Mr. Cameron 
can be reached at 301-415-1642 or

 
fxc@nrc.gov. To preregister to attend the meeting in person or to 
participate via teleconference, please contact Jayne McCausland, 
telephone (301) 415-6219, fax (301) 415-5369, or e-mail 
jmm2@nrc.gov.
 
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Section 651(e) of the Energy Policy 
Act of 2005 (the Act) expanded the definition of byproduct 
material in Section 11e. of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 to 
include certain naturally occurring and accelerator produced 
radioactive material (NARM) and required the NRC to provide a 
regulatory framework for licensing and regulating the additional 
byproduct material. The NRC is conducting a rulemaking to revise 
its regulations to expand the definition of byproduct material to 
include: (1) Any discrete source of radium-226 that is produced, 
extracted, or converted after extraction for use for commercial, 
medical, or research activities; (2) accelerator-produced 
radioactive material that is produced, extracted, or converted 
after extraction for use for commercial, medical, or research 
activities; and (3) any discrete source of naturally occurring 
radioactive material, other than source material, that is 
extracted or converted after extraction for use for commercial, 
medical, or research activities that the Commission determines, 
in consultation with the Administrator of the Environmental 
Protection Agency, the Secretary of Energy, the Secretary of 
Homeland Security, and the head of any other appropriate Federal 
agency, would pose a threat to public health and safety or the 
common defense and security similar to the threat posed by 
discrete sources of radium-226.
 
NRC is holding a public meeting on November 9, 2005 to solicit 
input from stakeholders on the regulation of NARM. The format for 
this public meeting will be a ``roundtable'' format. Participants 
at the roundtable will be the invited representatives of the 
broad spectrum of interests who may be affected by this 
rulemaking. The roundtable format is being used for this meeting 
to promote a dialogue among the representatives at the table on 
the issues of concern. Although the focus of the discussion will 
be on the invited participants at the table, an opportunity will 
be provided for comment and questions from the audience. 
Questions on the meeting format, including participation in the 
roundtable, should be directed to the meeting facilitator, 
Francis ``Chip'' Cameron. Mr. Cameron can be reached at 
301-415-1642 or fxc@nrc.gov. An agenda for the meeting will be 
posted to the NRC's rulemaking website: 
http://ruleforum.llnl.gov. Those planning to attend the meeting 
are encouraged to preregister for the meeting by notifying Ms. 
Jayne M. McCausland, telephone (301) 415-6219, fax (301) 
415-5369, or e-mail jmm2@nrc.gov. If an attendee will require 
special services, such as services for the hearing impaired, 
please notify Ms. McCausland of these requirements when 
preregistering. Individuals unable to attend the meeting will be 
able to listen by teleconference. For teleconference information, 
please contact Ms. McCausland. The NRC is accessible to the White 
Flint Metro Station.
 
Visitor parking near the NRC buildings is limited.
 
Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 20th day of October, 2005.
 
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
 
Charles L. Miller, Director, Division of Industrial and Medical 
Nuclear Safety, Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards.
 
[FR Doc. E5-6021 Filed 10-31-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P

 
*****************************************************************
 29 Japan Times: Kanagawa opposes nuclear carrier

Wednesday, November 2, 2005   
  
YOKOSUKA, Kanagawa Pref. (Kyodo) Kanagawa Gov. Shigefumi
Matsuzawa and Yokosuka Mayor Ryoichi Kabaya agreed Tuesday to
urge the government to nullify its agreement with the United
States to deploy a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier at the U.S.
Navy base in Yokosuka.

 Following a meeting between the two, Matsuzawa said the
government "is dishonest in accepting the deployment of the
nuclear carrier without a second thought while saying it will
respect local opinion."

 Responding to Foreign Minister Taro Aso's remarks that the
negative local reaction to the planned deployment stems from
"emotional reasons," Matsuzawa said. "We have become concerned
about the carrier's security."

 "You cannot conclude our reaction comes merely from emotional
reasons," he said.

 The Japan Times: Nov. 2, 2005
(C) All rights reserved 

*****************************************************************
 30 Eureka Alert: Making nuclear power more attractive
 
EurekAlert! ]] Public release date: 1-Nov-2005

 Contact: Laura Gallagher
 l.gallagher@imperial.ac.uk
44-20-7594-6702

 Imperial College London
Making nuclear power more attractive
 
Increasing the safety and reliability of nuclear power as a
solution for satisfying energy needs is the challenge addressed
by a new initiative announced today. The £6.1 million Keeping
the Nuclear Option Open programme will investigate how nuclear
power can become a more appealing option for future energy
production. 

The initiative was announced today at the launch of Imperial
College London's Energy Futures Lab, which aims to play a major
role in setting the energy agenda over the next 20 to 50 years. 

Proponents see nuclear power as an increasingly attractive
option for combating climate change because it is a low carbon
alternative to burning fossil fuels. The Imperial College-led
initiative will examine issues such as how nuclear reactor
systems function, how reactors are monitored and how reactor
waste can be dealt with. 

The researchers hope that the four-year project will help
increase the acceptability of nuclear power as an alternative
source of energy and maintain the UK's expertise in nuclear
technology. 

Funded by Research Councils UK, it represents the single largest
research council commitment to fission reactor research for more
than thirty years. Imperial will be working in collaboration
with the Universities of Manchester, Sheffield, Leeds, Bristol,
Cardiff and the Open University on the programme. 

Professor Robin Grimes, the Principle Investigator and project
co-ordinator at Imperial, said: "Having neglected nuclear
reactor science and technology for twenty years, it is now clear
that a broad research programme is necessary if we are to be in
position to underpin a new reactor based generating capacity.
Nuclear power is clearly a route to achieving the UK's
commitment to reducing its carbon emissions under the Kyoto
accord. 

"We also intend that our programme will begin to address the
acute shortage of people with the science and engineering
background necessary to pursue a career related to the
generation of electricity from nuclear reactors," he added. 

Professor Julia King, Principal of the Faculty of Engineering,
said: "We are excited that Imperial is leading this important
initiative. The award reinforces Imperial's position as a
leading player in a broad range of advanced energy technologies. 

"The initiative reverses the trend towards decline in nuclear
research, at a critical time for UK energy policy. It also
enables us to help train a new generation of engineers in
nuclear power and their skills will be essential for the future
of the industry," she added. 

###

*****************************************************************
 31 CBC Nova Scotia: Utilities worry at power summit 

  Last updated Nov 1 2005 10:01 AM AST
CBC News   

  Energy executives in all three Maritime provinces are
grappling with how to meet the region's insatiable demand for
power in the face of skyrocketing prices.

 Public power utilities in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince
Edward Island are meeting in Saint John, N.B., this week to look
for solutions to the region's looming energy troubles. They're
trying to figure out how to deliver a reliable supply of
electricity to customers in the future.

 All the power companies are talking about wind power as part of
their generating system, but no one is suggesting that windmills
will satisfy the bottomless appetite for electric power in this
region into the future.
 
  + INDEPTH: Sources of energyNB Power president David Hay says
his focus is on nuclear power and ensuring the $1.4-billion
refurbishment project at Point Lepreau is finished on time and
on budget.
 										 Maritime Electric president Jim Lea says P.E.I. buys
95 per cent of its electricity from New Brunswick's nuclear
generator. 

Lea wants leaders in the Maritime power industry to start
planning for a second nuclear generator. He says it would take
up to 15 years to build it, and discussions need to start now.

 "When we look at the the reliability and the cost of nuclear
energy and compare it with what's happening with fossil fuels we
don't have too many options," said Lea.
 										 										 Nova Scotia Power's Ralph Tedesco says
while his province doesn't buy nuclear power, it is essential to
the region. 

"Certainly in New Brunswick nuclear is part of that diverse
supply, but in Nova Scotia nuclear is not an option by statute,
but certainly it is an important part of the overall supply
picture in the Maritimes," he said.

 Tedesco says he is focused on raising money to put high-tech
scrubbers on existing coal-fired plants, and will pay for that
with a new round of applications for rate increases paid by Nova
Scotia Power customers.
   
      
  Copyright © CBC 2005   
*****************************************************************
 32 CBC Saskatchewan: Calvert interested in selling uranium to Chinese

  Last Updated Nov 1 2005 03:55 PM CST
   
  NDP Premier Lorne Calvert says he's interested in selling
Saskatchewan uranium to China and wouldn't rule out storing
nuclear waste here.

 China wants to build dozens of nuclear power plants over the
next 15 years to meet its soaring power demands.

 Calvert says China's plans should create a strong demand for
uranium from this province.

 It would also create more nuclear waste which would have to be
stored somewhere.

 Calvert said he does not rule out storing nuclear waste in the
province, but any proposal would first have to be carefully
studied and debated by Saskatchewan people.

 "We all share responsibility, in my view, for the future of the
planet. On this we're not divided by specific lines," he said.

 Calvert and Industry Minister Eric Cline recently returned from
a trade mission to China and other Asian countries.

 For decades, uranium mining has been a contentious issue among
members of the New Democratic Party. The party moved to a
pro-development policy in the early '90s.
   
  Copyright © CBC 2005   
*****************************************************************
 33 CBC New Brunswick: Public utilities worry at power summit
 
  Last updated Nov 1 2005 10:06 AM AST
 CBC News  

  Energy executives in all three Maritime provinces are
grappling with how to meet the region's growing power needs in
the face of dwindling supply and skyrocketing prices.

 Public power utilities in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince
Edward Island are meeting in Saint John this week to look for
solutions to the region's looming energy troubles. They are
trying to figure out how to deliver a reliable supply of
electricity to customers in the future.
 
  + INDEPTH: EnergyAll the companies are talking about wind
power as part of their generating system, but no one is
suggesting that windmills will satisfy the seemingly bottomless
appetite for electric power in the region.

 NB Power president David Hay says his focus is on nuclear power
– making sure the $1.4 billion refurbishing project at Point
Lepreau is finished on time and on budget.

P.E.I.'s Maritime Electric president Jim Lea says
his province buys 95 per cent of its electricity from the New
Brunswick nuclear plant. Lea wants leaders in the Maritime power
industry to start planning for a second nuclear plant. He says
it would take up to 15 years to build it, and discussions need
to start now.

 "When we look at the the reliability and the cost of nuclear
energy and compare it with what's happening with fossil fuels we
don't have too many options," said Lea.
 
  + FROM OCT. 31, 2005: Island power chief endorses Lepreau 2
ideaNova Scotia Power's Ralph Tedesco says while his province
doesn't buy nuclear power, it is essential to the region.
"Certainly in New Brunswick nuclear is part of that diverse
supply, but in Nova Scotia nuclear is is not an option by
statute, but certainly it is an important part of the overall
supply picture in the Maritimes."

Tedesco says he is focused on raising money to put high-tech 
scrubbers on existing coal fired plants, and will pay for that 
with a new round of applications for rate increases paid by Nova 
Scotia Power customers.
   
  Copyright © CBC 2005   
*****************************************************************
 34 Business Gazette: NUCLEAR SKILLS DEVELOPMENT 

Published in Business
Gazette on Wednesday, November 2nd 2005 

GENII, the UKs only Centre of Vocational Excellence in Nuclear
Engineering Technology is well under way preparing an extensive
portfolio of nuclear-related training courses.

GENII achieved interim CoVE status in 2003. The CoVE was
officially opened in May this year by Sir Anthony Cleaver,
Chairman of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority. 

An example of these developments is that GENII, in collaboration
with North Highland College, can now offer the Radiation Safety
Practice Stage 1 (RSP 1) qualification. This is recognised
within the nuclear industry as providing the suitable
educational background for radiation protection advisers and
monitors. The practical theme and case studies that runs
throughout the course enables the student to effectively use
standard instruments and equipment.

The course has a theoretical element and a substantial practical
element. The underpinning theory will be delivered through
web-based techniques and each student will have access to
learning materials through the internet supported by a course
handbook. 

The commitment a student would be expected to undertake is on
average:

Online study  GENII or Home Based, four hours

Weekly Tutorial (Local)  B111 Sellafield Centre, one hour

Practical Experiment (Local), B111 Sellafield Centre, two hours

Further study can take place at home.

The Radiation Safety Practice course is just one of a suite of
nuclear-related training courses on offer.

Starting in January 2006 GENII will be able to offer BTEC
programmes for the first time. The BTEC courses are in Process
Plant (Control and Operations) and are available at levels 2, 3
or 4. Robotics training will also be provided.

GENII are currently heavily involved in the development of the
Foundation Degree specialising in Nuclear Engineering (process
control) and robotics. It is expected that the suite of training
courses and degree qualifications that will be offered through
the CoVE will ensure that we can equip the nuclear industry with
the necessary skills for the future.

For further information contact:

Les Agnew, Nuclear Business Development Manager on 01900 701300,
lagnew@gen2training.co.uk or www.gen2training.co.uk.
*****************************************************************
 35 Gazette.com: The hunt for ‘dirty bombs’ in city 

ColoradoSprings.com        November 01, 2005   

Radiological sensor systems will be popping up on a few traffic 
signal poles throughout Colorado Springs. Rob Helt, a senior 
traffic engineer, made an adjustment on one device last week.   

By PAM ZUBECK THE GAZETTE

Four traffic-signal poles in Colorado Springs soon will take on
a more ominous purpose: measuring radiation such as that found
in ‘dirty bombs.’ 

Detection devices made by Mobile Detect, Inc. of Toronto will
transmit radiation levels to the city’s central traffic control
center. 

High levels will trigger cameras to start filming in an effort
to capture clues as to the deadly substance’s source. 

This is likely the first city in the nation to test a radiation
detection system that reports data through a traffic signal
system, said John Merrick, the city’s principal traffic
engineer. 

“I think this could change the way we do homeland security,”
Merrick said. 

If the $48,000, city-funded trial works, Merrick would propose
expanding the concept citywide by placing sensors at 100
intersections. Cost: $2.5 million. 

Merrick doesn’t expect the city to cough up the cash. Instead,
he would pursue funding from the Department of Homeland
Security. 

“I would say, ‘Hey, I have a rational system. Why don’t you make
a demo of Colorado Springs and put in a system citywide?’” 

Merrick isn’t dreaming. 

The federal government allocated roughly $7 billion this year
for high-tech efforts to defend against potential terrorist
attacks with biological, chemical or nuclear weapons. 

The Department of Homeland Security got $1 billion for research,
and one of its longterm visions is a national sensor system that
could continuously monitor the air for pathogens, dangerous
chemicals and other hazards. The sensors would be linked to
central control centers, resembling the military’s worldwide
surveillance for a missile attack. 

Although that concept is a long way off, Merrick thought the
city should determine whether his idea could work locally.
Although locations identified as likely terrorist targets are
secret, Merrick said Colorado Springs’ five military bases may
be in the cross hairs, notably Northern Command, the nation’s
homeland defense command, at Peterson Air Force Base. 

“I have a system of 520 sig-nals that are connected by a
communication system,” he said. “That’s a network that has a
wide range of potential uses.” After realizing that potential,
Merrick went on the Internet to find what was available. He’s
convinced Mobile Detect is the only firm that can tie in to the
city’s traffic signal equipment, at least for now. 

Although some may question whether terrorists would choose
Colorado Springs, Merrick isn’t deterred. 

“As far as I know, there’s never been a radiological attack,” he
said. “But there had never been a 9/11 either, and it wouldn’t
be that difficult to do.” 

Merrick is mostly worried about terrorists planting a deadly
package that would silently expose large numbers of people. 

“They could take this small amount and put it in a place where
lots of people are standing,” he said, noting radiological
material can be bought on the Internet. “In five or six weeks,
they (those exposed) will have flu symptoms, and in the sixth
week, they die.” 

Here’s Merrick’s concept: A sensor that can detect radiation up
to a radius of 200 yards is installed on a traffic signal pole
and tied into the city’s traffic signal system. When a dangerous
level of radiation is detected, data is beamed to the city’s
traffic operations center where traffic cameras, which normally
sense for traffic and don’t record, start filming in four
directions. 

Although the equipment can detect small amounts of substances
used for medical purposes, such low levels won’t trigger
filming. 

The idea is to identify suspicious activity related to a
dangerous exposure. If the city were equipped with enough
detection devices and several alerted a danger, authorities
might be able to target a suspect vehicle common in all the
films, Merrick said. 

One unknown is whether the black and white digital film will be
sharp enough to identify a person or vehicle, Merrick said.
Sites haven’t been chosen for the four trial devices, which will
be moved from place to place during the months-long trial. 

Also, Mobile Detect is so new — the company formed less than a
year ago — it has no track record. Its detection devices are
being installed at Ottawa International Airport and also in
vehicles used by the Canadian National Police Force, said
company president Chris Clarke. 

If the concept proves out, the city could apply for federal
funds to install the system permanently, which would require new
training for how to integrate the sensors into local response
plans, Merrick said. 

CONTACT THE WRITER: 636-0238 or 

zubeck@gazette.com 

  Copyright 2005, The Gazette, a division of Freedom Colorado
*****************************************************************
 36 Guardian Unlimited: Nightmare of 'Loose Nukes' Still Haunts
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

Tuesday November 1, 2005 8:31 PM

AP Photo NY397 

By CHARLES J. HANLEY 

AP Special Correspondent 

VIENNA, Austria (AP) - After years of warnings, hard work and
billion-dollar budgets, the ``loose nukes'' of Russia and other
nations are coming under tighter control, and nuclear smuggling
cases have fallen sharply, international and U.S. agencies
report. 

Despite the good news, however, the potential nightmare of
nuclear terrorism still haunts those charged with preventing it. 

``There's still so much to be done,'' said Jerry Paul, whose
U.S. Energy Department office aims to complete work by late 2008
upgrading security at Russian nuclear sites, two years ahead of
the original schedule. 

Here in Vienna, the International Atomic Energy Agency says only
a dozen incidents of uranium or plutonium trafficking were
reported worldwide in 2004, down from an average of about 30 a
year in the mid-1990s. Only one reported last year involved
bomb-grade material, and that was a minor amount. 

``What does it mean?'' asked Anita Nilsson, the agency's nuclear
security chief. ``That we can relax and go on holiday? I don't
think so.'' 

In a nuclear world of too many unknowns, experts say, no one
should expect al-Qaida's leadership to abandon its longtime goal
of a doomsday weapon. More than a decade after it first showed a
nuclear bent, however, there's no evidence the terror group has
found anything but dead ends. 

In 1994, for example, al-Qaida agreed to pay $1.5 million for a
cylinder supposedly holding bomb material, highly enriched
uranium, but it turned out to be radioactive junk, an al-Qaida
ex-operative later testified in a U.S. court. In 2001, in
Afghanistan, U.S. forces found a crude ``superbomb'' drawing and
related writings at an al-Qaida location, but they displayed
more nuclear ignorance than know-how. 

Now al-Qaida's leaders are either captured or deep in hiding,
their movements, communications, finances circumscribed. 

``With the pressure they're under, our assessment is that the
most likely threat comes from conventional weapons'' - ordinary
explosives - ``because they know they can do it,'' Donald Van
Duyn of the FBI's Counterterrorism Division said in Washington. 

Since the late 1990s, sensational, thinly supported reports in
the Arab and Western news media have repeatedly claimed that
al-Qaida had obtained enriched uranium or even complete atom
bombs - from the Russian mafia, from Ukrainians in Afghanistan,
or from Kazakhs, or Chechens. But among the more than 730 cases
of trafficking or loss confirmed by the IAEA since 1993, no
terrorist connection was ever established. 

Almost all involved non-bomb material - low-grade uranium or
radioactive sources, such as cesium-137 sealed in
radiation-therapy equipment. Sometimes workers pilfered material
from nuclear sites in the former Soviet Union in hopes of
finding a buyer. Some traffickers dealt in abandoned radioactive
sources. 

In the last known case of smuggling of bomb material, confirmed
last year, an individual was arrested in June 2003 trying to
cross from ex-Soviet Georgia into Armenia with six ounces of
highly enriched uranium - a tiny fraction of what's needed for a
nuclear device. Its origin hasn't been determined, and further
details weren't released. 

Such trafficking surged after the Soviet Union's breakup in 1991
weakened government controls there. In 1994-95, European and
Russian authorities foiled nine attempts to smuggle small
amounts of highly enriched uranium or plutonium, the other bomb
fuel. Cases typically involved opportunists seeking buyers.
Investigators are not known to have found links to foreign
governments. 

Why has activity declined dramatically? ``Apparently it's the
result of improved security at nuclear facilities, and the
vigilance of law enforcement authorities, especially in European
countries,'' said Viacheslav Turkin, in charge of IAEA's
trafficking database. 

Since 1994, Russian work crews and U.S. money - some $6 billion
thus far - have been hardening walls, installing surveillance
cameras and radiation detectors, and otherwise ``locking down''
600 tons of Russian bomb-grade material that isn't inside
warheads. 

The Energy Department's Paul, chief deputy in the National
Nuclear Security Administration, pointed out that 75 percent of
the buildings in Russia's vast nuclear network have gotten full
upgrades. ``We're very proud of the progress,'' he said in
Washington. 

Others note, however, that the unimproved sites hold most of the
nuclear material. The pace of work has been tripled this year in
hopes of meeting the 2008 target. 

In Latvia, Romania and elsewhere, meanwhile, the IAEA and the
U.S., Russian and other governments are retrieving highly
enriched uranium from university and other nuclear research
reactors, and working to convert them to low-enriched fuel. But
these ``takebacks'' are going slowly, and more than 100 such
reactors worldwide still run on highly enriched uranium, with up
to 55 pounds of the bomb-usable material. 

That's the amount the IAEA calls ``significant,'' that is,
possibly enough to build a bomb. 

Physicists debate whether nonspecialists could readily fabricate
a basic, Hiroshima-style weapon, in which two loads of highly
enriched uranium are slammed together to create a critical mass,
a fission reaction and a blast. 

The IAEA's Jacques Baute, a former French weaponeer, is
skeptical. ``You would get a critical accident. You would kill
people around it. But it would not be the same as a Hiroshima.''
Much more goes into true bomb design, Baute said. 

He worries instead about terrorists acquiring a readymade bomb
along with people who know how to use it. Others note, however,
that Japan's Aum Shinrikyo terrorist cult, with millions of
dollars and thousands of adherents in Russia, failed to acquire
a nuclear weapon there in the early 1990s despite years of
effort. 

If they're proficient in conventional bombings, terror groups
may be unwilling or unable to invest the time and resources to
develop - with unpredictable results - chemical, biological,
radiological or nuclear arms, U.S. congressional researchers
argued in a 2004 study. 

The IAEA's Nilsson finds such discussions ``irrelevant.'' 

``If it would happen with even the crudest nuclear explosive
device, it would change so many things and be so catastrophic
that we can't think about it,'' she said. 

But the ``odds'' on worst cases will always be discussed, as in
an official U.S. report to the U.N. Security Council that warned
of ``a high probability'' al-Qaida would attempt a WMD attack
``within the next two years'' - a report issued two years and
five months ago. 

--- 

On the Net: 

Congressional Research Service 2005 report ``Nuclear Terrorism:
A Brief Review of Threats and Responses'': 

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/terror/RL32595.pdf 
		 	 	   
      Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
 37 US Military Threatens US with WMD's
 
Date: Tue, 1 Nov 2005 12:15:53 -0600 (CST)


   http://www.mcall.com/news/local/all-a1_5dumpoct30,0,986529.story

    Army Secret Surfaces: Deadly Chemicals at Sea
    By John Bull
    The Morning Call

Sunday 30 October 2005

Millions of pounds of unused weapons of mass destruction were dumped
in oceans before Congress banned the practice in 1972. The threat
is still out there, and may be growing.

First of a Two-Day Series

A clam dredging operation off the coast of Atlantic City, N.J., in
2004 pulled up an old artillery shell.

The long-submerged, World War I-era explosive was filled with a
black, tar-like substance.

Bomb disposal technicians from Dover Air Force Base in Delaware
were brought in to dismantle it. Three of them were injured, one
hospitalized with large, pus-filled blisters on his arm and hand.

The shell was filled with mustard gas in solid form.

What was long-feared by the few military officials in the know had
come to pass: Chemical weapons that the Army dumped at sea decades
ago had finally ended up on shore in the United States.

While it has long been known that some chemical weapons went into
the ocean, records obtained by the Daily Press of Newport News,
Va., show that the previously classified weapons-dumping program
was far more extensive than has ever been suspected.

The Army now admits in reports never before released that it secretly
dumped 64 million pounds of nerve and mustard gas agent into the
sea, along with 400,000 chemical-filled bombs, land mines and rockets
and more than 500 tons of radioactive waste either tossed overboard
or packed into the holds of scuttled vessels.

A Daily Press investigation also found:

These weapons of mass destruction virtually ring the country,
concealed off the coasts of at least 11 states: six on the East
Coast, including New Jersey and Maryland, two on the Gulf Coast,
and in California, Hawaii and Alaska. Few, if any, state officials
have been informed of their existence.

The chemical agents could pose a hazard for generations. The Army
has examined only a few of its 26 dump zones, and none in 30 years.

The Army can't say exactly where all the weapons were dumped from
World War II to 1970. Army records are sketchy, missing or were
destroyed.

More dump sites probably exist. The Army hasn't reviewed records
from the World War I era, when ocean dumping of chemical weapons
was common.

"We do not claim to know where they all are," said William Brankowitz,
a deputy project manager in the U.S. Army Chemical Materials Agency
and a leading authority on the Army's chemical weapons dumping. "We
don't want to be cavalier at all and say this stuff was exposed to
water and is OK. It can last for a very, very long time."

A drop of nerve agent can kill within a minute. When released in
the ocean it lasts up to six weeks, killing every organism it touches
before breaking down into its nonlethal chemical components.

Mustard gas can be fatal. When exposed to seawater it forms a
concentrated, encrusted gel that lasts for at least five years,
rolling around on the ocean floor, killing or contaminating sea
life.

Sea-dumped chemical weapons may be slowly leaking from decades of
saltwater corrosion, resulting in a time-delayed release of deadly
chemicals over the next 100 years and an unforeseeable environmental
impact. Steel corrodes at different rates depending on the water
depth, ocean temperature and thickness of the shells.

That was the conclusion of Norwegian scientists who in 2002 examined
chemical weapons dumped off Norway's coast after World War II by
the U.S. and British military.

Overseas, more than 200 fishermen over the years have been burned
by mustard gas pulled on deck. A fisherman in Hawaii was burned in
1976 when he brought up an Army-dumped mortar round full of mustard
gas.

Although it seems unlikely the weapons will begin to wash up on
shore, last year's discovery that a mustard gas-filled artillery
shell was dumped off the coast of New Jersey was ominous for several
reasons.

It was the first ocean-dumped chemical weapon to make its way to
shore in the United States.

It was pulled up with clams in relatively shallow water only 20
miles off the coast of Atlantic City. The Army had no idea chemical
weapons were dumped in the area.

Most alarming: It was found intact in a residential driveway in
Delaware.

It had survived being dredged up and put through a crusher to create
cheap clamshell driveway fill sold throughout the Delmarva Peninsula
in Delaware and Maryland.

Decades of Dumping

The United States never used chemical weapons in war but amassed a
huge stockpile to be unleashed if enemy forces used them first.
Their existence was a known, ultimately successful, deterrent.

The Army's secret ocean-dumping program spanned at least three
decades, from 1944 to 1970.

The dumped weapons were deemed to be unneeded surplus. They were
hazardous to transport, expensive to store, too dangerous to bury
and difficult to destroy.

In the early 1970s, the Army publicly admitted it had dumped some
chemical weapons off the U.S. coast. Congress banned the practice
in 1972. Three years later, the United States signed an international
treaty prohibiting ocean disposal of chemical weapons.

Only now have Army reports come to light that show how much was
dumped, what kind of chemical weapons they were, when they were
thrown overboard, and rough nautical coordinates of where some are
located.

The reports contain bits and pieces of information on the Army's
long-running ocean dumping program. The reports were released to
the Daily Press, which cross-indexed them to obtain the most
comprehensive, detailed picture yet compiled of what was dumped,
where and when.

To put the information in context, the newspaper also examined
nautical charts, National Archive records and scientific studies
and interviewed many experts on unexploded ordnance and chemical
warfare, both in the country and overseas.

The Army's Brankowitz created the seminal report on ocean dumping.
He examined classified Army records and in 1987 wrote a lengthy
report on chemical weapons movements over the decades. It included
the revelation that more than a dozen shipments ended in the ocean.
The report was not widely disseminated.

His follow-up report in 1989 revealed, through review of other
previously classified documents, the rough nautical coordinates of
some dump sites and the existence of more dump zones. In 2001, a
computer database was created to include additional dump zones the
Army discovered and more details of some of the dumping operations.

The database summary and the 1989 report had never before been
released publicly.

"I know I didn't find everything," said Brankowitz, who has worked
for more than 30 years on chemical weapons issues for the Army.
"I'm very much convinced there are records at the National Archives
that have been misfiled. Short of a major research effort that would
cost a lot of money, we've done the best we can."

The reports reveal that the Army created at least 26 chemical weapons
dump sites off the coastlines of at least 11 states, but knows the
rough nautical coordinates of only half the sites.

At least 64 million pounds of liquid mustard gas and nerve agent
in one-ton steel canisters were dumped into the sea, along with at
least 400,000 chemical-filled bombs, grenades, land mines and rockets
as well as radioactive waste, according to the reports.

The Army's documents are incomplete or vague. Years of records are
missing or were destroyed to clear office space at the Aberdeen
Proving Ground in Maryland, a longtime chemical weapon research and
testing base.

And the Army has not reviewed its records of chemical weapons dumping
before World War II, when it was common to just throw the weapons
into the ocean in relatively shallow water, Brankowitz said.

As a result, more dump sites probably exist, he conceded.

Possible Environmental Disaster

The environmental impact of chemical weapons dump sites is unknown,
but potentially disastrous.

The ocean depth varies widely off the East Coast, as a rule gradually
deepening to 600 feet before hitting the outer continental shelf,
which drops off into very deep water. The shelf's location can be
as close as 60 miles or as far as 200 miles from shore.

"The perception at the time was the ocean is vast, it would absorb
it," said Craig Williams, director of the Chemical Weapons Working
Group in Kentucky, a grass-roots citizen group. "Certainly, it is
insane in retrospect they would do it."

"It would be inevitable, I assume, all of this will be released
into the ocean at some point or another," said Williams, who has
fought Army plans to incinerate some of the 44 million pounds of
chemical weapons the country now has stockpiled. "I don't think
anyone knows for sure the true danger. It's just a matter of opinion.
You can say, 'It's going to kill everyone,' or you can say, 'It's
not a problem.' The truth is somewhere in between."

Based on the information available, the Army presumes most of the
weapons are in very deep water and are unlikely to jeopardize divers
or commercial fishing operations that dredge the ocean bottom.

John Chatterton doesn't believe that.

"I don't think it all is where they say it is," said Chatterton, a
25-year veteran diver who searches for undiscovered shipwrecks as
host of the History Channel's "Deep Sea Detectives." "I've found a
lot of stuff where it's not supposed to be. Absolutely, positively,
it is not a guarantee it is there [in deep water]."

Chemical weapons were dumped long before electronic navigation
systems were invented. Their nautical locations are based on the
word of ship captains, who surely wanted to ditch their cargo quickly
and, Chatterton suspects, probably cut corners.

"The guys who were doing this were scared of this stuff. They were
well-motivated to get rid of this stuff as fast as they could,"
Chatterton said. "So they could take it all the way out there or
else they could say, 'This is good enough,' and be back in port in
three hours. I know what they did. It's mariner nature."

State officials in the dark

One of the first of the now-identified dump zones created at the
end of World War II was also one of the largest.

The Army dubbed it Disposal Site Baker.

The Army has only the vaguest idea where it is on the ocean floor
somewhere off Charleston, S.C., according to the most specific of
surviving records.

"I have never had any information to suggest this was done," said
Charles Farmer, a marine biologist who has worked for South Carolina's
Department of Natural Resources for almost 40 years. "I would say
this is not well-known to us at all. This is something that is new,
at least to me. It's incredible some of the things we've managed
to do."

The first documented dump off that state took place in March 1946
when four railroad cars full of mustard gas bombs and mines were
tossed over the side of the USS Diamond Head, an ammunition ship.

Several months later, an estimated 23 barges full of German-produced
nerve gas bombs and U.S.-made Lewisite bombs were dumped in the
same location. Lewisite is a blister agent chemically akin to mustard
agent. A single barge carried up to 350 tons.

"If we don't have any idea of depths of water or location, hell,
they could be anywhere," Farmer said. "As we have more and more
activity and more and more development off the coast, I hope this
was buried in 6,000 feet of water or a lot of this stuff is going
to come back to haunt us."

There is one indication those weapons were dumped in relatively
shallow water: Army records show that many of those 23 slow-moving
barges were unloaded in one-day, out-and-back operations.

The records leave no doubt that other chemical weapons were dumped
close to shore:

In 1944, at least 16,000 mustard-filled 100-pound bombs were unloaded
off the coast of Hawaii in deep water only five miles from shore.

Several mustard gas bombs fell into the Mississippi River near
Braithwaite, La., in 1945 and have never been found.

A reported 124 leaking German mustard gas bombs were tossed in the
Gulf of Mexico off Horn Island in Mississippi in 1946 from a barge
that returned to port a few hours later. The island is part of Gulf
Islands National Seashore, a popular vacation and fishing destination.

A 1947 dump site in the Aleutian Islands, part of Alaska, is only
12 miles from a harbor.

Dump Sites Moved North

By the 1950s, the Army shifted much of its chemical dump operations
north to the Virginia-Maryland border and into deeper water.

In 1957 the Army dumped 48 tons of Lewisite off the coast of Virginia
Beach in 12,600 feet of water.

Three more dump zones were created more than 100 miles off the
coastline between Chincoteague, Va., and Assateague, Md., tourist
spots known for their unsullied beaches and populations of wild
horses.

Dumped there in roughly 2,000 feet of water were at least 77,000
mustard-filled mortar shells, 5,000 white phosphorous munitions,
1,500 one-ton canisters of Lewisite and 800 55-gallon barrels of
military radioactive waste.

It could not be determined what kind of radioactive waste was dumped.
But there is one indication it could be highly dangerous nuclear
waste with a half-life of thousands of years.

National Archive records of the Army's secretive chemical weapons
escort unit, reviewed by the Daily Press, show numerous shipments
in the 1950s between a laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tenn., other Army
bases with chemical weapons slated for sea disposal, and the Yuma
Testing Station in Arizona.

Oak Ridge was where thermonuclear weapons were being developed at
the time. Yuma was a military test ground for weapons in development.
Records show a shipment on March 7, 1953, was of 35,000 pounds of
unidentified "classified materials." The Army apparently stopped
dumping radioactive waste in the late 1960s, the records show, when
chemical weapons disposal operations again headed north in the
Atlantic.

Dumping off Jersey Coast

Two ships full of the most potent of all nerve gases, known as VX,
were scuttled in 6,000 feet of water many miles off Atlantic City
as part of Operation CHASE.

CHASE was Pentagon shorthand for Cut Holes And Sink 'Em.

The nerve gas was in rockets that were encased in concrete before
the ships were scuttled.

The Army desperately wanted to get rid of these particular weapons.
They also contained jet fuel to propel the rockets. The fuel had a
tendency to "auto-ignite," or spontaneously explode.

The ships - the SS Corporal Eric G. Gibson and SS Mormactern -
remain a potential danger. Although the rockets were encased in
concrete, scientists don't know how quickly concrete breaks down
from water pressure at such depths.

A third ship that was scuttled nearby is no longer a hazard: It
blew up on its way to the ocean floor on Aug. 7, 1968.

That ship, the SS Richardson, was filled with conventional,
high-explosive weapons and 3,500 one-ton containers of mustard agent
mixed with water. It was on its way to the bottom in 7,800 feet of
water when a chain-reaction explosion went off, presumably caused
by water pressure on one of the weapons that set off the rest.

"This is really quite disturbing," said U.S. Rep. Robert Andrews,
D-N.J., who has been fighting Army plans to dump chemically neutralized
nerve gas in the Delaware River. "I did not know of any of this.
It's a very serious problem that state officials haven't been told."

Not on Any Maps

Boaters, divers, fishermen and commercial seafood trawlers have no
way to steer clear of the dump sites.

That's because the Army has put only one of its 26 known chemical
weapons dumps on nautical charts, according to records kept by the
National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.

The federal agency in charge of undersea cable-laying operations,
as well as gas and oil ventures, has only a vague idea of where
chemical weapons were thrown into the ocean, said spokesman Gary
Strasburg.

That agency, Minerals Management Service, knows only what the Army
has revealed to the agency: that chemical weapons were dumped at
sea and that some are somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico and at a
location somewhere off the coast of South Carolina, agency records
show.

The impact of dumping operations has never been studied. Few
scientists knew it was done, so studies of the decline in sea life
over the years has never focused on the possibility of leaking
chemical weapons.

Commercial fishing operations, as well as scallop and clam trawlers,
have been forced to go farther and farther from shore over the last
25 years because sea life has thinned for unknown reasons. Some
scallopers now dredge in up to 400 feet of water, which is more
than 100 miles from the shore in some East Coast locations.

The bottom-dwelling cod population in the Northern Atlantic has
been decimated.

Another Cause of Deaths?

Hundreds of bottlenose dolphins mysteriously washed up on Virginia
and New Jersey shores in 1987. They died with massive, never-explained
skin blisters that resembled mustard gas burns on humans.

Federal marine scientists ultimately attributed the unprecedented
number of dolphin deaths to a combination of morbillivirus related
to distemper in dogs and potent vibrio bacteria from industrial
pollutants.

That combination has killed other marine mammals over the years.
But none of them has ever been found with their skin partially
peeling off.

One marine mammal specialist who suspects leaking chemical weapons
killed the dolphins met with Army officials and was told dumping
had been done but was assured the weapons were unloaded in water
too deep to harm the coastal-living creatures.

"You'd see the photos and you'd say, 'Man, this animal was burned
by something,"' said Bob Schoelkopf, director of the Marine Mammal
Stranding Center in Brigantine, N.J. He said "it is a very good
possibility" leaking chemical weapons killed the dolphins.

"It'd be nice to see the Army go down there and investigate, but
nobody wants to open that book, it seems," Schoelkopf said. "You'd
think they'd want to go look at those sites and say once and for
all this isn't a problem. The amazing thing is they are not being
monitored."

The Army also wondered if its chemical weapons were responsible for
the dolphin deaths and was preparing to investigate some dump zones.
The project was scrapped when the deaths were attributed to the
virus and bacteria, said the Army's Brankowitz.

Little or No Monitoring

Over the decades, the Army has conducted environmental tests on
only four of its dump sites, and none since 1975.

Some of the last tests the Army conducted were on the nerve gas-filled
ships off the coast of New Jersey, and they found no evidence the
weapons had leaked, Brankowitz said.

He said that leads the Army to presume the pressure on the weapons
as they sank to the bottom crushed the shells and squirted their
deadly contents onto the seabed, where they long ago broke down
into their non-lethal chemical components.

That may be wishful thinking, according to some scientists.

Shells filled with chemical weapons are more likely to slowly leak
over time than to be crushed while sinking, said Peter Brewer, a
marine scientist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute
in California.

Regardless, he said, he considers the dangers of leaking chemical
weapons in deep-water sites to be low.

He noted that the only Army chemical weapons dump site on nautical
charts - the wreck of the SS William Ralston, which was scuttled
117 miles off the coast of San Francisco in the 1950s - has not
been found to be leaking, although he said scientists have monitored
it only "from a distance."

Not far from that wreck, scientists have determined that drums of
radioactive waste dumped by industry in the 1950s have so corroded
they now are paper-thin with holes in some of them, said Richard
Charter, a California environmentalist with Environmental Defense.

He said he fears recent congressional approval of offshore gas and
oil exploration off the East and West coasts permitted through last
year's lifting of a 22-year-old moratorium could release the chemical
agents from their containers.

"It certainly is within the realm of possibility," he said. "This
is an invasive activity."

Seismic exploration is conducted by setting off massive air guns
on the ocean surface and measuring the blasts when they bounce off
the ocean floor. Such exploration, and drilling operations, have
been conducted for decades in the Gulf of Mexico without releasing
chemical warfare agents dumped by the Army in that body of water.

Leaking Shells

Overseas, scientists who monitor chemical weapons dump sites off
the coasts of other countries have identified an unmistakable problem
in the Skagerrak Straits, a narrow but deep body of water that
separates Norway and Denmark.

In 2002, Norwegian scientists sent a deep-diving, remote-operated
vehicle to investigate four ships full of captured German chemical
weapons. The U.S. and British military scuttled them after World
War II in roughly 2,000 feet of water.

The Norwegians discovered the sunken ships remain intact. Some of
the shells had leaked. Others were slowly corroding. That revealed
a problem that could last hundreds of years, the scientists concluded.

Soil sediment showed high levels of arsenic, a component of some
of the chemical weapons. Arsenic is bioaccumulative. This means
bottom-feeding shellfish are likely to be contaminated and pass
arsenic up the food chain to accumulate in humans who eat them, the
scientists discovered.

Also worrisome: Nets from fishing trawlers were found tangled on
some of the weapons-filled wrecks.

"It might be possible to get chemical ammunition in the nets, which
could then be brought up to the surface and poison fishermen," the
scientists wrote in a report on the expedition. "It is also a
possibility that fishing equipment could damage the wrecks and
expose the chemical ammunition to the water, increasing the release
of the agents to the environment."

While the Army may not have known better at the time, it is obligated
to at least assess the danger the dump sites pose today, said Lenny
Siegel, executive director of the Center for Public Environmental
Oversight, who has specialized in chemical weapons issues.

"If no one does a study looking for three-legged fish, how do they
know it's not a problem?" he asked. "My guess is the risks are
remote in most cases, but I think you have to at least evaluate the
risk. They have to take continuing responsibility.

"They need to see if there is an impact on the food chain. If there
is, you have to warn people. If so, they have to do something with
them."

MONDAY: After World War II, the Army secretly dumped its overseas
chemical weapons stockpiles off the shores of more than a dozen
other countries. One scientist calls them a "disaster looming."

--------

John Bull is a reporter for the Daily Press of Newport News, Va.,
a Tribune Publishing newspaper.



 

*****************************************************************
 38 [DU-WATCH] Beyond Treason: Veterans exposure-
 
Date: Wed, 2 Nov 2005 00:09:26 -0600 (CST)


Thanks for that info, Mark.  Cheers, Elaine
 
Thought for the day:
 
If vegetarians eat vegetables, what do humanitarians eat?

Mark Gailey <felixcat@iclub.org> wrote:
http://www.beyondtreason.com/

Veterans (and Gulf region) exposure- 

Depleted Uranium
Biological and Chemical warfare
Experimental Vaccinations

110 minute DVD - free to military personnel and veterans
2 1/2 minute movie trailer - free .wmv download
documented research on accompanying CD

Mark Gailey
http://www.libertyfelix.net/ 

SPONSORED LINKS 
U s government grant Berea kentucky hotel Berea kentucky Kentucky Berea kentucky real estate U s government student loan 

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 39 [du-list] Iraq War Veteran, suffering from DU, visits Japan to
 
Date: Tue, 01 Nov 2005 14:32:02 -0800

<x-flowed>
Dear all,

     In relation to the International Action Day for Banning DU Weapons,
which is Nov. 6, ICBUW (International Coalition to Ban Uranium
Weapons)-Japan has invited Mr. Gerald Matthew, a US Iraq War Veteran, and
his wife, Janise, to Japan in collaboration with some 30 DU-concerned
groups.

    Gerald and Janise Matthew will arrive in Japan on Nov. 2 and give talks
about their sufferings from DU through Nov. 8 in some of the major cities
such as Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Osaka and Tokyo where they will make an appeal
at the Foreign Correspondents Club, too.

     His case is described briefly by the summary of the article, "Depleted
Uranium Toll in Iraq" by John Friedman (The Nation, August 1), which is
pasted below.

----------
"DEPLETED URANIUM TOLL IN IRAQ" by John Friedman (The Nation, August 1)

http://www.thenation.com/docprem.mhtml?i=20050801&s=infact

Home  Issues  August 1, 2005 issue  In Fact...

editorial | posted July 14, 2005 (August 1, 2005 issue)

In Fact...

DEPLETED URANIUM TOLL IN IRAQ
John S. Friedman writes: A group of soldiers who served in Iraq plan to file
a lawsuit within a month in Federal District Court against the Army for
violating its regulations by not offering safeguards against exposure to
depleted uranium, used in tank armor and artillery, and for not providing
adequate medical treatment. Although DU has been linked to Gulf War
syndrome, and scientists are concerned about civilian exposure to it during
the 1999 war in Kosovo, the Pentagon continues to deny that DU inhalation
has harmful health effects. After being misdiagnosed by the Army, the nine
soldier plaintiffs, from New York National Guard units, who suffer from a
variety of health problems, were tested by a private laboratory, which in
most cases found DU traces in their bodies. A child of Gerard Matthew,
conceived after the father returned from Iraq, was born with a deformed hand
and missing fingers. Matthew, a member of a transport unit from Harlem,
blames his exposure to DU-laden dust. Asked about the soldiers' symptoms, an
Army spokesperson said, "These concerns are not likely attributed to
exposure to depleted uranium." The Army's environmental tests of selected
sites did not detect any DU. Dr. Asaf Durakovic, who supervised the
soldiers' private DU testing and sent his own team to measure sites in Iraq,
called those results "hogwash." In June Louisiana became the first state to
require that vets be tested for DU.





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 40 AFP: British tribunal recognises Gulf War Syndrome 

 Tue Nov 1,10:57 AM ET 
		 	 
LONDON (AFP) - A British tribunal has recognised for the first
time that a former soldier was suffering from Gulf War Syndrome
" /> Gulf War Syndromeand should receive an invalidity pension. 

"This is a landmark ruling. It is the definitive case on Gulf
War Syndrome to date," said Mark McGhee, the soldier's lawyer.
 
"This is going to have massive implications for hundreds of Gulf
War
" /> Gulf Warveterans, who clearly suffer from Gulf War
syndrome."
 
The army disputes the term "Gulf War Syndrome", an umbrella term
for a number of illnesses, some serious, which have affected
servicemen returning from Operation Desert Storm in 1991 to
liberate Kuwait from Iraqi troops.
 
The Pensions Appeal Tribunal, which hears appeals from veterans
who have had their claims for war pensions rejected, found that
"veterans of the Gulf War later developed an excess of
symptomatic ill health over and above that expected in the
normal course of events".
 
They added: "The term Gulf War Syndrome is the appropriate
medical label to be attached to this excess of symptoms and a
useful umbrella for that label."
 
Ex-soldier Daniel Martin, 35, suffers from a variety of
illnesses including joint pain, poor concentration and memory,
asthma and chronic fatigue syndrome.
 
Like other veterans, he blames cocktails of drugs prescribed by
military doctors to protect against chemical attack, as well as
exposure to depleted uranium munitions.
 
His battle with the Ministry of Defence (MoD) dates back to 2000.
 
"I have had to see so many doctors and been knocked down so many
times by the MoD and Veterans Agency, I feel pleased now that a
court of law looked at all the evidence and came up with the
conclusion I have known all along," he said after the ruling on
Monday.
 
The MoD has rejected the existence of Gulf War Syndrome for 14
years. Some progress was made in September when for the first
time they allowed the use of the expression as a "general term"
but not as a "medical term".
 
Support groups say that 500 ex-British servicemen have died as a
result of Gulf War Syndrome and another 6,000 are still
suffering from associated illnesses.
 
About 53,000 British soldiers took part in Desert Storm.
 
  Copyright © 2005 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 41 China Daily: Radioactive metal bar kills 1, poisons 100 

 By Li Fangchao 

 Updated: 2005-11-02 05:44 

HARBIN: An elderly woman has died and her 13-year-old
granddaughter is seriously ill after being exposed to radiation
from a metal bar a neighbour had picked up as scrap. 

Over a hundred others living nearby have been found to be
suffering from the affects of radiation. The man who picked up
the metal bar and his 9-year old son have been treated for
radiation poisoning along with three others who were seriously
affected. 

Police in Harbin, capital of Northeast China's Heilongjiang
Province, are investigating how the radioactive metal bar came
to be thrown away without being properly processed. 

Xu Hong, a 13-year-old girl, and her 82-year-old grandmother,
surnamed Cui, are the worst affected victims. Xu was temporarily
living with her grandmother in an apartment complex in Harbin's
Daoli District while her parents decorated their new home. 

The source of the radiation was found to be a metal bar, usually
used in industrial X-ray equipment, picked up by their ground
floor neighbour Bai Yuhai. 

According to Guo Weihua, from the provincial supervision station
for the radioactive environment, Bai found the bar on the coal
heap in the community's boiler room. "There should be a lead
protective layer on the outside, someone obviously stripped off
the lead to sell it," Guo said. 

The reason Xu and her grandmother were seriously affected was
because Xu did her homework on the balcony in front of Bai's
house, and her grandmother's age made her susceptible to the
radiation, Guo said. 

The pair were sent to hospital after developing acute radiation
poisoning in mid-July. Cui died on October 20. 

According to Xu's mother, her daughter is now recovering well in
hospital, but doctors said even if Xu recovers now, it is likely
that she will develop problems in the future. 


(China Daily 11/02/2005 page3) 

*****************************************************************
 42 cbs4denver.com: Colorado Springs Testing Radiation Monitors
 
Nov 1, 2005 12:46 pm US/Mountain
 
(AP) COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. Monitors designed to detect and
help track down radiation sources such as "dirty bombs" will be
installed on traffic-light poles in an early test of a homeland
security system.

The devices, made by Mobile Detect Inc. of Toronto, will
transmit radiation levels to the city's traffic control center.
High radiation levels will trigger cameras to start filming in
an attempt to find clues to the source.

"I think this could change the way we do homeland security,"
said John Merrick, the city's lead traffic engineer.

The city is paying for the $48,000 trial, which will include
four detectors. If they are deemed a success, Merrick said, he
will propose expanding the network to cover 100 intersections
for an estimated $2.5 million.

Merrick said he would ask the federal Department of Homeland
Security to pay if the system is expanded.

The federal government allocated about $7 billion for high-tech
defenses against potential terrorist attacks with biological,
chemical or nuclear weapons. The Department of Homeland Security
got $1 billion for research, and one of its long-term goals is a
national sensor system to monitor the air for hazards.

That concept is a long way off, but Merrick wanted the city to
determine whether his idea could work locally.

Merrick said Colorado Springs' five military bases could be
terrorist targets, especially the U.S. Northern Command, the
nation's homeland defense nerve center, at Peterson Air Force
Base.

Mobile Detect's devices are being installed at Ottawa
International Airport and in vehicles used by the Canadian
National Police Force, said company president Chris Clarke.

The company is a year old. 

(© 2005 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material
*****************************************************************
 43 RGJ: Pay attention to the end game

[Reno Gazette-Journal]  [Reno Gazette-Journal]  

November 01, 2005 Reno, Nevada, USA 775-788-6200   

Time to support a comprehensive energy policy?          

When all is said and little is done, who will achieve tax 
sensibility first?   Good lives are not reserved for the young       
Gaining life experience...       

When in confusion or doubt or out of sorts, fall asleep...                                                                           

I turned on Fox News last Friday just at the moment reporters
were running out of the federal court house where indictments
were filed against Vice President Cheney’s chief of staff,
Scooter Libby. “Running” is a kindness. Several seemed, more
accurately, to waddle quickly. Apparently, investigative
journalism doesn’t develop physical fitness.

On the other hand, Fox’s lovely Megyn Kendall looked incredibly
composed outside the courthouse as she reported on the charges,
even while flipping through the 20-page document. Kendall,
incidentally, is legally blonde—and perhaps even naturally so.

These have been several whirlwind weeks for political junkies,
who are, fortunately for our GDP, a minority of the population.
First, there was the nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme
Court: “Too old looking,” I thought, forgetting Ruth Bader
Ginsberg. And who was it that commented her being approved of by
Senators Chuck Shumer and Harry Reid was “the kiss of death?” In
the end, I was sorry Miers withdrew without testing the Senate’s
ability to grill a woman—and without testing its collective
capacity to understand how Miers’ expertise in business law
might have added to the court’s intelligence on many of the
cases reaching its docket. 

Independent of that bruhaha, Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma (R)
posed for one of those old-time, Virgina City-style, “Wanted
Dead or Alive” posters, with the latter state of being scratched
out. By a vote of 15 for and 82 against, his proposal to defund
$452 million for the construction of a bridge to a town in
Alaska with a population of 50 ($4.46 million per) and another
between Anchorage and a wetlands populated only by non-homo
sapiens was shot down by our elected mainstream.

Coburn’s plan was to offset expenses for the rebuilding of a
major route across Lake Ponchartrain into New Orleans that was
destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. He would also have offset the
rebuild by cutting from the federal budget $500,000 for a
sculpture park in Seattle. Personally, I’ve got to support him
on that call. I haven’t seen the plans for the sculpture, but
the kiss of death for that project is being supported by the
astute and intelligent Senator Patty Murray.

Nevertheless, I’ve got to oppose the good Senator’s attempt to
scratch an animal facility in Westerly, Rhode Island ($200,000).
I know Westerly. Well, actually, I don’t know Westerly; I know
only my favorite Aunt May’s former house in Westerly where I
learned to dig up onions from a neighbor’s plot and eat them
whole with my cousin Tim, surreptitiously, but, oddly enough,
still discovered and humorously indicted for the same by Aunt
May.

Right is right, and wrong is wrong, and I can’t actually
remember if I lied to my aunt about the onion business that she
discovered as she gave Tim and me good night kisses.

But back to the budget. Senator Coburn, according to Knight
Ridder/Tribune business news, is joined in his parsimony by
Republican Senators John McCain (Arizona), Lindsey Graham and
Jim DeMint (South Carolina), Sam Brownback (Kansas), John Sununu
(New Hampshire), and Nevada’s own John Ensign.

On the other hand, Nevada’s own Harry Reid opposes: he listened,
along with House Democatic leader Nancy Pelosi, as Vincent
Wilson, a New Orleans contractor, proclaimed, “We will not
settle for crumbs.” That reminds me of one of my mother’s famous
sayings: “Beggars can’t be choosers;” but surely she didn’t mean
to be heartless to a hurricane entrepreneur.

I remember last March, Senator Reid pointed out the federal
budget in our ever so secular nation is a moral document: He
told how a group of ministers, meeting in Las Vegas, shared with
him the story of a poor man named Lazarus who lived outside the
gates of a rich man and was ignored, but then the rich man went
to Hell and Lazarus received a ticket to Heaven. This left me
feeling better about not being rich, and almost grateful to the
government for taxing the berichness out of me, in addition to
wondering what stayed in Vegas.

Of course I jest. Senator Reid—in fact the entire Nevada
congressional delegation—is happy to defund the Yucca Mountain
project after millions and millions and millions have flowed
into the state for it. The sacrifices the few other
congressional porkbusters would make in their own districts pale
beside this. Waste not, haplessly comes to my mind, but want for
generated power to fire the U.S. economy and heat U.S. homes
through the freezing winters of global warming. That’s common
sense?

And speaking of common sense, I’m puzzling over how it became a
crime to lie about a non-crime (presuming, of course, there was
a lie)? Never was I spanked for denying that I never hit one of
my sisters. I’m confused over that double negative thing. Minus
one times minus five is positive five. I deny I didn’t do a
non-crime becomes five counts of misrepresentation and perjury?
Go figure.

Yet finally, what’s roiling me in the wakes of what I’ve still
got to believe are indiscriminate natural disasters and
purposeful human carnage in Iraq and around the world is the
blinders we wear in looking at the end game. Let’s take
education, for example. That’s a public role just about everyone
supports—often more reverently than national defense. What’s the
end game when students graduate from high school ill-prepared
for employment or college?

In 1993, Philadelphia philanthropist Walter Annenberg gave $500
million to several school districts around the country. Writing
a “My Turn” column in Newsweek, Evan Keliher, a 30-year teaching
veteran of the Detroit school district, said, “I’ve never
claimed to be a psychic, but I did predict...[the money] would
fail to make any difference in the quality of public education.
Regrettably, I was right.”

Reporters quizzed Theodore Sizer, former dean of Harvard
Graduate School of Education and director of the Annenberg
Institute for School Reform, about positive results from grant
money. He couldn’t think of one in the 15 years of his
experience. The Wall St. Journal on Friday quoted Arthur Levine,
president of Columbia University’s Teachers College, saying
graduate education programs were “‘inadequate and appalling’
...and call[ing] for the abolition of the Ed.D degree.” Of
course, his own students and the education establishment were
appalled to hear the programs suffer from “lax admissions
standards, weak faculties and inappropriate degree
requirements....”

Teacher Keliher recommends forgetting education fads and going
back to three-part, tried and true (since Euclid) teaching: a
teacher, a chalkboard and a room full of willing students. I
asked my community college classes for comment, and there was
universal cynicism about the room full of willing students. So
far, they’ve settled on only two means to achieve these: a
teacher who makes the study “interesting” and “relevant” and
more classroom discipline. 

Nevertheless, many of them are not at all sure either relevance
or discipline would have improved their high school
attentiveness. Almost all, on the other hand, are at college to
gain the skills or degree needed to get a better job. That leads
me to believe a dose of reality might be the key. Let’s give all
disgruntled 16-year-olds a year off from school, a year in which
they support themselves—or two or three years, whatever it takes
to be tired of a “dead end” job and examine the result for their
lives.

And let’s look at the results in Iraq: two successful elections,
a constitution, the beginnings of democratic aspiration, and a
genocide trial—and, yes, 2,000 American military deaths—before
deciding to pull out by Christmas (errrr, the “Happy Holidays!”)
season.

Let’s look at the results of relief as we pour millions (mostly
not offset) into the hurricane doughnut hole so we might, just
might, catch and eliminate the worthless and fund only the
sensible. I can’t get the picture out of my mind of South
Floridians who didn’t evacuate for Wilma driving up in SUVs to
receive supplies of water they hadn’t stockpiled in advance, and
MREs, all the while complaining of delays.

Can you imagine the liability if any of these folk get food
poisoning? That could be the next tobacco lawsuit. 

Pay attention to the end game. 


© Copyright Reno Gazette-Journal, a Newspaper.
*****************************************************************
 44 Las Vegas SUN: BLM blocking Skull Valley nuclear waste project 

Today: November 01, 2005 at 21:19:3 PST 

By PAUL FOY ASSOCIATED PRESS 

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - A federal Bureau of Land Management
official said Tuesday he was refusing to give the agency's
approval for a rail spur for a nuclear waste stockyard in Utah's
west desert. 

The utilities backing the project say they might resort to
trucking the waste on a state highway, but the BLM official in
charge said his agency had the power to veto that, too. 

"We're not able to bring anything to conclusion on their
behalf," Glenn A. Carpenter, field manager for the bureau's Salt
Lake district, told The Associated Press. 

The BLM's refusal is one of a series of bureaucratic obstacles
erected by the state's congressional delegation to stop Private
Fuel Storage, a consortium of out-of-state utilities that won
approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in September to
build the way-station for nuclear waste. 

The Skull Valley band of Goshute Indians signed a lucrative
contract to take the radioactive waste from other states'
nuclear-powered utilities. 

The utilities call it a temporary solution pending a resolution
of the troubled federal project at Nevada's Yucca Mountain, but
Utah politicians fear it will become a permanent repository. 

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said the Bureau of Land Management's
refusal to cooperate is a sign that the Bush administration is
"on our side." In a statement issued Tuesday, Hatch said the
agency has "jammed" the license authorized but not yet issued by
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The stockpiling of 44,000
tons of spent nuclear fuel would take place about 45 miles
southwest of Salt Lake City. 

"This is one of many administrative and legal hurdles we are
raising that PFS has to clear for Skull Valley to ever become a
reality," Hatch said. 

In an interview, Carpenter said the BLM cannot make a decision
to authorize the construction of a Skull Valley rail line over
government land because of restrictions Rep. Jim Hansen, R-Utah,
wrote into a 2000 defense appropriations bill. 

Hansen's provision blocked the bureau from changing a land-use
plan to grant a right of way across government land for the rail
line. The Bureau of Land Management can't act until the Pentagon
studies how proposed wilderness areas for Utah's west desert
might affect operations at the Utah Test and Training Range. The
Pentagon is nowhere near starting the study. 

Private Fuel Storage Chairman and Chief Executive Officer John
Parkyn has said he might be able to get around the problem by
shipping the waste by truck, but Carpenter said that was no
certain bet. 

Two-lane State Route 196 is not wide enough to accommodate
trucks hauling the steel casks holding the nuclear waste, he
said, and the Bureau of Land Management would have to grant a
new right of way for any widening project. The state isn't
likely to back road reconstruction for a project it's vigorously
opposing. 

In the end, the Hasting's Cutoff, a route used by the ill-fated
Donner Party in 1846, could defeat Private Fuel Storage's
proposal. 

Carpenter said the reworked tracks of Hasting's Cutoff and
subsequent Lincoln Highway are historic Skull Valley assets that
could be damaged by a rail spur crossing them to Indian
reservation. 

Even if the bureau had authority to change its land-use plan for
Skull Valley, Carpenter hinted it would be hesitant to endanger
"an old route that remains traveled to this day, worn in the
landscape by subsequent travel." 

         All contents copyright 2005 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
 45 NRC: NRC to Hold Public Meeting Nov. 9 on Rulemaking Concerning New Authority over Radioactive Material
 
News Release - 2005-14 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office 
of Public Affairs     Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC 
20555-0001     E-mail: opa@nrc.gov No. 05-146     November 1, 
2005   
  

discussion open to the public Nov. 9 at agency headquarters in
Rockville, Md., to seek input on a new rulemaking to extend NRCs
regulatory authority over accelerator-produced radioactive
material and certain discrete sources of naturally occurring
radioactive material. 

The Energy Policy Act of 2005 gave the NRC regulatory authority
over additional radioactive materials, including
accelerator-produced radioactive material and any discrete
source of radium-226 that is produced, extracted or converted
after extraction for use in commercial, medical or research
activities. NRC authority also can be extended over naturally
occurring radioactive material that the Commission, in
consultation with other federal agencies, determines is a threat
to public health and safety or the common defense and security. 

The meeting will be held in room T2B3 of Two White Flint North,
11545 Rockville Pike, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Discussion will be
held in a roundtable format to solicit input from stakeholders
for a proposed rule. Participants at the roundtable will be
invited representatives of the broad spectrum of interests
potentially affected by this rulemaking, such as state
regulatory agencies and members of the nuclear medicine and
radiopharmaceutical industries. Members of the audience will
have an opportunity to comment and ask questions.
Teleconferencing will be available. 

Those planning to attend the meeting are encouraged to
pre-register by notifying Jayne M. McCausland, at (301) 415-6219
or by e-mail at jmm2@nrc.gov. Teleconference information will be
available through Ms. McCausland.   



  


 	Last revised Tuesday, November 01, 2005 	   
*****************************************************************
 46 Sydney Morning Herald: Traditional owners reject N-dump sites - 

[www.smh.com.au]  

 November 1, 2005 - 4:00PM
 
Traditional owners in the Northern Territory have rejected two
of three possible sites proposed by the federal government for a
nuclear waste facility. 

Aboriginal people living in small communities and outstations
near the commonwealth-owned sites have serious concerns for
their safety should the building of the low-level waste dump go
ahead. 

Science Minister Brendan Nelson has compiled a shortlist of
three possible locations for a Commonwealth Radioactive Waste
Management Facility. 

These are Defence Department properties at Mount Everard and
Harts Range near Alice Springs and Fishers Ridge, near
Katherine, in the Northern Territory. 

But the Central Land Council (CLC) this week circulated a letter
stating it opposes a nuclear waste dump on or near their
traditional land. 

The CLC said traditional landowners on both sites had recently
informed them they were strongly opposed to any nuclear waste
management facility being located on any part of their country. 

The CLC has formally notified Dr Nelson and Labor deputy leader
Jenny Macklin of landholders' concerns. 

"Of primary concern is the need to keep their country safe and
healthy for present and future generations, and to be able to
continue to use their country for hunting and getting
bushtucker," the letter says. 

"Despite assurances that the radioactive waste will be carefully
managed their view is that the radioactive waste facility poses
serious long-term risks to country and people. 

"Many Aboriginal people live near the sites in small communities
and outstations and they are extremely worried about the
proposals. 

"They fought hard to get their country back and they believe
they should not be the ones to have to live with radioactive
waste on their land." 

Dr Nelson has introduced into parliament laws which will
over-ride the Native Title Act and NT laws aimed at preventing
the establishment of a nuclear waste dump in the territory. 

In its letter, the CLC described the push to override
landholders' rights and NT laws as "a deeply disturbing
development". 

Ms Macklin on Tuesday said Dr Nelson was refusing to listen to
the concerns of people living near the proposed sites. 

In addition, she said the government was reversing a promise
made in the lead-up to last year's federal election that the NT
would not be a nuclear waste dumping ground. 

"Communities in the Northern Territory have every right to be
outraged at this under-handed betrayal," Ms Macklin said. 

"The transport and disposal of nuclear waste is an issue of
serious public concern and local communities must be involved in
any decision-making that affects them." 

The Northern Land Council (NLC), whose region covers the other
proposed site, has offered an alternative plan to find a nuclear
waste dump site if those on the government's shortlist fall
through. 

Dr Nelson has said he will consider the NLC's proposal to put
forward other sites on indigenous land, provided traditional
owners agree and cultural issues are addressed. 

The CLC does not support such an approach. 
© 2005 AAP

Copyright © 2005. The Sydney Morning Herald. 
*****************************************************************
 47 AP Wire: USEC announces job cuts at Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant

| 11/01/2005 | 

Associated Press

PADUCAH, Ky. - About 100 salaried jobs will be cut at the
Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant as part of a companywide
realignment, USEC Inc. said. 

Most of the job cuts will occur by late November. The reductions
follow 13 voluntary layoffs of salaried workers in September. 

Company spokeswoman Elizabeth Stuckle said the new cuts are "all
nonunion, particularly focused on management." 

USEC also is offering 70 voluntary layoffs - roughly 45 salaried
and 25 hourly - at the closed uranium enrichment plant in
Piketon, Ohio. Stuckle said jobs not cut there through voluntary
layoffs will be eliminated involuntarily. 

The company also is eliminating 10 combined information
technology and security jobs at both plants. Those, combined
with new cuts and September layoffs, total nearly 200 at both
plants this fall, Stuckle said. 

"No further layoffs are planned, but we will continue to
evaluate operations and look for areas where we can improve
productivity and efficiency," she said. 

The cuts will lower Paducah plant employment to about 1,100. The
reductions follow the elimination of 220 nuclear workers' union
hourly jobs in 2003, Stuckle said. 

USEC, formerly U.S. Enrichment Corp., assumed uranium enrichment
operations from the U.S. Department of Energy in 1998. 

Information from: The Paducah Sun, http://www.paducahsun.com  

*****************************************************************
 48 AU ABC: Nuclear dump bill changes 'worthless'
 
20:01 (ACST)Tuesday, 1 November 2005. 20:01 (AEST)Tuesday, 1

 The Northern Territory Environment Centre (NTEC) says
amendments to Commonwealth legislation relating to a nuclear
waste dump are not worth the paper they are printed on. 

Federal legislation was introduced last month which will
override any Territory laws aimed at stopping a dump being built
in NT. 

The changes proposed by the CLP's Dave Tollner would have the
Territory Government nominate a representative to the regulatory
body that would oversee the dump, and would limit what type of
waste would be stored there. 

Mr Tollner says his amendments would prevent "high level" waste
from being stored in a Territory facility. 

NTEC spokesman Peter Robertson says that means nothing, because
Australia classifies as "intermediate" spent nuclear fuel waste
that the rest of the world labels as "high level". 

"Any person who knows anything about nuclear reactors and
radioactivity knows that spent fuel is literally millions of
times more radioactive than the sorts of hospital waste and
other material that is being talked about as going to this
facility," he said. 

"I mean it's not even in the same ballpark in terms of its
danger to the environment and to human beings." 

NT Chief Minister Clare Martin, who has promised to fight moves
to build a dump in the Territory, says she is also not tempted
by the amendments. 

She any amendments proposed by Mr Tollner will not change her
opposition to the legislation. 

"The only line I've had for both Dave Tollner and Nigel
Scullion, particularly Nigel Scullion who has that critical vote
in the Senate: vote against the legislation," she said. 

*****************************************************************
 49 INSIDE JoongAng Daily: Dump vote spurs pleas to keep calm

November 2, 2005 KST 14:14 

  November 02, 2005 ¤Ñ A day before a binding referendum to
select a site for the nation's first permanent nuclear waste
dump, community leaders of four candidate cities said they were
concerned that whatever the outcome of the vote, it will split
communities and stir protests by the losing contenders.

 Plans in 2003 to build a dump site in Buan, 280 kilometers (174
miles) south of Seoul in North Jeolla province, resulted in
violent protests about the method of selecting the site. After
withdrawing the designation of the site, Seoul tried a new tack,
asking local governments to apply to host the facility and
unveiled an expanded list of incentives that included 300
billion won ($288 million) and a promise to relocate the
headquarters of Korea Hydro &Nuclear Power Co. to the area.

 Those promises triggered a rush of applicants despite the
frantic efforts of environmental groups who tried to scuttle the
whole plan again. Four candidates emerged: Gunsan in North
Jeolla province and Gyeongju, Pohang and Yeongdeok in North
Gyeongsang province. Residents there will go to the polls today,
and the locality with the highest "yes" vote will be named as
the nuclear dump site.

 Environmentalists cried "foul," complaining that some
government officials in the four areas had been campaigning
illegally for a favorable vote. Even the ancient enmities
between the southwest and southeast regions of Korea were
invoked in an attempt to keep the facility in the local area,
dump opponents charged.

 The furor prompted the governor of North Gyeongsang province,
Lee Eui-geun, to urge residents of the three candidates in his
province yesterday to "accept whatever result the voting brings."

 "Each area is divided into those who approve the plan and those
who don't and each has seen intense conflicts," said Lim
Hai-jung, the president of Kunsan National University. "But the
choice is up to our citizens, so let's accept the results,
whether you are a politician or a member of a civic group."
 
by Jung Kyung-min, Jung Ha-won hawon@joongang.co.kr>   
	  
Copyright by Joins.com, Inc. Terms of Use |
*****************************************************************
 50 JournalNews: Route for nuclear waste to include Butler County
 
 	
By Mary Lolli butler county bureau
 	 	 	 		 		 		 	 	 	 	 	 	 		 	 	
HAMILTON  Nuclear waste from a Columbus laboratory will be
hauled through Butler County during the next month on its way to
a disposal site in South Carolina.
 

Butler County Emergency Management Agency Director William
Turner on Monday issued a public advisory concerning the planned
shipment of the radioactive waste.
 
For obvious security reasons we are not providing the media or
the public with specific information on the route of travel, or
the dates and times of the shipments, Turner said. However, we
do want to assure the public that our public safety responders
are well-trained and equipped to address any potential issues
that might arise out of these shipments.
 
Although Turner was prohibited from giving the exact routing of
the waste, state EMA officials conducted a closed briefing for
police and fire officials from cities and townships that abut
Interstate 75.
 
I think people will be able to figure out the routing on their
own, Turner said, noting that the briefing was targeted for
officials from Middletown, Monroe, and Liberty and West Chester
townships.
 
Turner said 15 truckloads of nuclear waste from decommissioned
Battelle Laboratories sites in Columbus will be routed through
Butler County on their way to Savannah River, S.C.
 
The waste will not be shipped in a convoy, but rather will be
moved a truckload at a time throughout the month, Turner said.
 
From the mid-1940s through the mid-1980s Battelle Laboratories
conducted nuclear research and development under both federal
and private commercial contracts at two Columbus area sites.
 
Clean-up of the sites began in 1989 and involves removal of all
structures, equipment and radioactive soils.
 
According Turner, waste from the site was being shipped to a
disposal site near Carlsbad, N.M., but state legislators there
recently passed a resolution blocking the importation of nuclear
waste from outside the state.
 
That prompted the rerouting of the waste from Battelle through
our county, Turner said.
 
Mondays briefing of fire and police officials  conducted by Tom
Breckenridge, a radiation and transportation specialist with the
Ohio EMA  included basic radiation safety information.
 
In addition, Turner said the containment units the nuclear waste
is shipped in are built to withstand the impact of a loaded
freight train.
 
These are more secure than the gasoline and propane tankers that
travel our roadways every day, Turner said.
 
The Battelle nuclear waste isnt the first to be shipped through
the county.
 
Butler roadways served as the route for waste shipped from the
now-closed Fernald Nuclear Plant near the Butler County-Hamilton
County border and the former Mound Laboratories in Miamisburg.
 
We just want the public to be aware that this stuff is coming
through the county and we dont want people to be alarmed, Turner
said.
 

Contact Mary Lolli at (513) 820-2192, or e-mail her at .
 
Journal-News.com: Contact Us | Advertise | | RSS
 
Copyright ©2005 Cox Ohio Publishing, Dayton, Ohio, USA. All
 
*****************************************************************
 51 AU ABC: Green group fears waste dump size. 

02/11/2005. ABC News Online

The Northern Territory Environment Centre says it is worried
there are no details limiting the size of a nuclear waste
facility planned for the Territory.

 The centre's Peter Robertson says there is nothing in the
initial plans to limit its capacity and the site could just
continue to expand.

 "There's nothing to stop them as time goes by from making the
facility bigger and bigger to accommodate more and more waste,
including waste from overseas, so this is the very core of the
problem that it's going to already get the high level waste from
Lucas Heights, it could get other high level waste from
overseas," he said.

 Debate will continue in Federal Parliament today on legislation
that paves the way for a nuclear waste dump in the NT. 

&copy; 2005 ABC| Privacy Policy


*****************************************************************
 52 Rocky Mountain News: Council rezones Superfund site

Former radioactive waste dump to turn into lofts, businesses

By Alan Gathright, Rocky Mountain News
November 1, 2005

Lauding the triumph of a 16-year grass-roots crusade to clean up 
a radioactive waste dump in south Denver's Overland Neighborhood, 
the City Council unanimously voted Monday night to rezone the 
Shattuck Superfund Site so it can one day become lofts and 
commercial space. 

The nearly 6-acre site at 1805 S. Bannock St. had been left 
contaminated with low-level radioactive waste by the defunct 
Shattuck Chemical Co., whose plant salvaged uranium from 
defective fuel rods rejected by nuclear reactors into the 1970s. 

 When the Environmental Protection Agency proposed sealing the
radioactive waste in the site with a 14-foot-deep cement cap in
the early 1990s, a protest sparked by six neighborhood women -
and joined by then-Mayor Wellington Webb and Colorado
congressional lawmakers - forced the EPA to acknowledge that its
plan couldn't guarantee protection of human health or the
environment. 

Since 2000, the EPA has been conducting a $50 million program to
remove the radioactive waste and ship it by rail to an Idaho
storage facility. Cleanup is scheduled for completion by next
summer. 

Councilwoman Peggy Lehmann praised the neighborhood activists as
"people who would not take no for an answer . . . who knew that
burying radioactive waste in the middle of Denver, Colo., was
not right." 

Residents expressed excitement about the transformation of the
toxic dump into a potential mixed-use development that could
involve residential, research and retail projects. Proceeds from
any development will help defray the cost of the cleanup. 

"To be at this point in this historic battle is almost
unbelievable," said Catherine Sandy, owner of a nearby hair
salon who helped lead the fight as the one-time president of the
Overland Neighborhood Association. "This is what we've been
desperately seeking and fighting for in our neighborhood." 

In other business, the council voted 11-2 to pay a $22,250
settlement to Jeffrey R. Mayton, an HIV-infected homeless man
who alleged he had his shoulder dislocated during a
confrontation with Denver police last year when he was found
rummaging through a trash bin. Council members Jeanne Robb and
Jeanne Faatz voted against the settlement. Faatz said she
opposed paying a man who'd been charged with resisting arrest. 

But Mayton's attorney, Daniel M. Murphy, said a judge threw out
criminal charges against his client. Murphy said the sickly,
135-pound man was simply scrounging for books to sell at the
flea market when he was brutalized by two officers investigating
reports of a possible identity thief "Dumpster-diving" for
residents' discarded documents. 

Mayton, who denied resisting arrest, alleged that the officers
slammed him to the ground with his arms locked behind him, then
initially denied him medical treatment and covered up the injury
in reports, Murphy said. "It was so egregious," the attorney
said. 

The assistant city attorney who handled the case could not be
reached for comment Monday afternoon. 

gathrighta@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-5486   

2005 © Rocky Mountain News
*****************************************************************
 53 Salt Lake Tribune: A light comes on: Energy Department wisely drops
misbegotten program BUNKER BUSTER BOMBS 

Opinion 

Article Last Updated: 10/30/2005 11:08:21 PM 

A light has come on at the Energy Department. 

Now the Republicans who represent Utah in Congress will no 
longer be blinded by party loyalty and will be able to see how 
both common sense and the interests of their state were against 
the misbegotten nuclear "bunker buster" project. 

It was announced last week that the National Nuclear Security 
Administration, the part of Energy that designs the nation's 
nuclear weapons, wants Congress to forget the agency's earlier 
request for $4 million for bunker buster development. 

The Bush administration still wants a weapon that can 
penetrate deeply fortified enemy command centers. But now the 
plan is to let the Pentagon invent it, and to blow up the 
bunkered bad guys with conventional explosives. 

It's not that some underground command centers, weapons labs, 
etc., won't need eliminating. It's just that it is tactically, 
politically and morally wrong to invent a new kind of nuclear 
weapon on a planet that already has far too many. 

The desire for nuclear weapons is part of what defines a 
renegade nation. The fear that Iraq, Iran and North Korea have 
or want to have them is Exhibit 1 in the case for those nations 
constituting an Axis of Evil. 

Why the administration and most of the Utah delegation ever 
thought that the U.S. could claim either the moral or the 
tactical high ground by inventing a new weapon of mass 
destruction is unfathomable. 

Utahns, given their history of downwind contamination from 
previous experiments, should especially fear any new rounds of 
nuclear testing in the desert Southwest. Yet, throughout the 
debate, only Rep. Jim Matheson, the delegation's lone Democrat, 
could be heard to oppose it. 

Not only would American pursuit of a new nuke encourage other 
nations to indulge their own nuclear aspirations, good arguments 
were also made that a nuclear bunker buster would not be more 
useful than a conventional version. 

It wouldn't necessarily be better at reaching its buried 
targets but, once it blew up, would be much more destructive of 
surrounding populations and buildings, loosing the same kind of 
firestorms and radiation associated with surface-detonated 
nukes. 

Bad ideas like this have a habit of coming back. So we will 
have to make sure that this bad idea never busts out again. 

Â© Copyright 2005, The Salt Lake Tribune. 
*****************************************************************
 54 PISJ: ISU researchers explore cool uses for heat-loving bacteria
: Bugs that live in geothermal areas could help clean up contamination

Pocatello Idaho State Journal: 

By University Relations

Researchers at Idaho State University are studying bacteria that 
live in geothermal areas for use in cleaning up contaminants. 
Submitted photo.

POCATELLO 

 Idaho State University researchers are studying how 
single-celled bacteria living in Pacific Northwest geothermal 
areas may eventually be used to assist in the cleanup of metal 
contamination, nuclear waste and other hazardous materials.

"We're just trying to take advantage of what nature already 
offers by using microbes to clean up hazardous waste," said 
Timothy Magnuson, ISU biology assistant professor. "The 
geothermal featu res of this region are potential gold mines' to 
be explored for utilizing and understanding these organisms." 
Most of the organisms now being studied came from a geothermal 
area in southeast Oregon's Alvord Desert, but ISU researchers are 
beginning to take a look at organisms living in Idaho geothermal 
features.

The organisms being studied by ISU researchers can be used to 
clean up metal pollutants such as uranium, arsenic, and chromium. 
They may have practical applications at the Idaho National 
Laboratory and could be used to help clean up selenium and othe r 
by-products of southeast Idaho and Wyoming phosphate mining 
operations. The way these microbes process wastes is similar to 
how humans process oxygen when they breathe. When humans breathe, 
they take in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide and other 
products.

Originally, it was discovered that microbes living in extreme 
environments could essentially "breathe" iron, arsenic, and 
selenium, using the metals in their respiration processes. ISU 
researchers are studying how "thermophilic organisms," those 
living in a hot springs ecosystem, can reduce metals through 
their respiration.

The hot springs projects and related sub-projects have been 
funded for about $500,000 through grants from the National 
Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Energy, Inland Northwest 
Research Alliance, and the National Aeronautics and Space 
Administration. 

They are also working with the Department of Energy on a project 
to look at a subset of iron-reducing organisms that are 
acid-specific, which means they thrive in acidic conditions. This 
project is bringing in about $500,000 to ISU researchers.

"It just so happens there are several uranium-contaminated sites 
in the country that are quite acidic," Magnuson said. "Our goal 
is to understand how these acid-loving bacteria handle contamina 
nts such as uranium and chromium. These specialized bacteria then 
may be able to be used in these very acidic sites to help 
detoxify the contaminants."  

There are some bacteria that are able to convert a form of 
oxidized uranium that is soluble in water to another form of 
uranium that solidifies and precipitates out of the water and is 
no longer mobile and won't migrate into ground water and 
aquifers. This could have important practical applications for 
cleaning up contaminated sites.

ISU researchers, however, are at the basic, not applied, research 
stage.
  
"Our goal is to understand how these organisms transform these 
different metals," Magnuson said. "We want to know how they do 
this in terms of their biochemistry. We are trying to tear cells 
apart and look at the biochemistry behind these processes. We can 
apply that knowledge to enhancing these organisms' ability to 
transform pollutants. The more we know about these organisms and 
their processes, the better prepared we will be to take these org 
anisms out into the field."

Eventually, these organisms may be used to cleanup acidic, 
uranium-contaminated sites. Those in charge of cleanup may be 
able to "feed" additional acidic materials to acid-loving 
bacteria that can break down uranium. 

This would allow the acid-loving bacteria to flourish and to be 
better able to break down the contaminants.

"We may be able to enhance the growth of the organisms that are 
already there, and once you do that, they can really take off and 
reduce the metals of interest," Magnuson said. "It's actually 
very simple, and just takes advantage of what nature has to 
offer." 

A full team of ISU researchers has been working on these microbe 
studies. Besides Magnuson, one post-doctoral associate, one 
doctoral student, three master's students, a technician and "a 
whole army" of undergraduate students have been working on these 
projects.

"I feel good about the regional importance of our work," Magnuson 
said. "It really ties in nicely with the needs of the Idaho 
National Laboratory, and also with southeast Idaho phosphate 
mining issues and selenium contamination. We're looking at 
possible strategies to remediate some of these local problems." 

This document was originally published online on Tuesday, 
November 01, 2005

*****************************************************************
 55 Boston Globe: Manhattan Projects for everyone! -

By Alex Beam, Globe Columnist  |  November 1, 2005
 
Last month, high-profile, high-tech highbrows Ray Kurzweil and
Bill Joy penned a New York Times op-ed essay calling for ''a new
Manhattan Project" to develop scientific defenses against
biological viral threats, natural or human made. Flirting with
the memory of the original Manhattan Project, the authors
fretted that the publicly available 1918 influenza genome
constitutes a ''weapon of mass destruction." Much hand-wringing
ensued.

The Times op-ed pages provide a fertile breeding ground for
would-be Manhattan Projects, perhaps understandably, as the
newspaper is in Manhattan. Last year, columnist Thomas Friedman
called for ''a grand China-U.S. Manhattan Project -- a crash
program to jointly develop clean alternative energies, bringing
together China's best scientists and its ability to force pilot
projects, with America's best brains, technology and money."
Friedman also advocated an M.P. ''to develop a hydrogen-based
energy economy."

Let a thousand Manhattan Projects bloom!

Friedman's M.P.s should not be confused with US Senator Bill
Frist's call this summer for a similar-sounding ''Manhattan
Project for the 21st Century" to bolster our country's
bioterrorism defenses. Senator Frist has since moved on to his
personal Manhattan Project, trying to explain away what might be
insider trading in the stock of a company his family controls.

It could be argued that one Manhattan Project -- the
super-secret, maximally funded World War II push to develop the
atom bomb for America -- was quite enough. Instead, it has
become the advocate's favorite metaphor for throwing an unholy
amount of money at whatever cause he or she deems to be of
paramount importance, right now.

Examples given: the ''three-phase architectural plan for secure
worldwide data sharing" referenced in a Network World article
about a National Security Agency proposal to improve the
security of commercial software. Contributors to the National
Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation have proposed on its
website an M.P. ''to develop our power for collective vitality,
wisdom and evolution. In the same way that the power of the atom
existed for time immemorial, this collective human power already
exists deep within our individual and collective selves."

Pols have been carpet-bombing us with the Manhattan Project meme
in calling for US energy independence from foreign fossil fuel
suppliers. In several important campaign speeches, John Kerry
said last year ''a new Manhattan Project" devoted to
commercializing renewable energy sources ''will be central to my
presidency."

But that wasn't the only M.P. that Kerry proposed during the
2004 campaign.

According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Kerry, while juggling
Nevada's political hot potato -- the proposed nuclear waste
storage facility at Yucca Mountain -- called for ''a new
Manhattan Project" to deal with nuclear waste. One presidency
can't have too many Manhattan Projects, I always say.

In 2003, Gary Crossen, a lawyer and a member of the Needham
School Committee, wrote in the Globe that ''we should look to
Washington for an educational Manhattan Project of sorts -- a
focused, well-financed effort to insure that every local
community has the plan in place and the resources required to
meet the challenge." Like Bill Frist, Crossen now has his own,
personal Manhattan Project: combating the aftershocks of a
searing Board of Bar Overseers report that accused him and two
other lawyers of bringing ''shame and disrepute" on the legal
profession. (Crossen has called the judgment ''gravely and
fundamentally flawed.")

Sooner or later, everyone champions their own personal M.P. In
1990, oilman T. Boone Pickens called for a new Manhattan Project
to convert 2 1/2 million government vehicles from gasoline to
natural gas. At the time, he was the chief executive of Mesa
Limited Partnership, one of the nation's largest independent gas
producers. A few years ago, the president of Hitco Carbon
Composites, speaking at the industry's carbon fiber conference,
challenged the public and private sectors to join a new
Manhattan Project to ''embrace the new products and
technologies, including carbon fiber composites and high
performance silica insulation as building materials to protect
our people and institutions." Well, yes.

What would be my own Manhattan Project? I suppose becoming a
better person would be a worthwhile goal. Splitting the atom
looks easy by comparison.

 Alex Beam is a Globe columnist. His e-dress is beam@globe.com.
© Copyright 2005 Globe Newspaper Company. More: 
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 56 AFP: CH2M HILL Mound, Inc. Announces Building Demolition Complete at
Miamisburg Mound Project Site

Tuesday November 1, 4:47 pm ET 

MIAMISBURG, Ohio, Nov. 1 /PRNewswire/ -- The U.S. Department of
Energy (DOE) and cleanup contractor CH2M HILL Mound, Inc.
announced today that demolition of more than 566,000 square-feet
of nuclear, radiological and commercial facilities at the
Miamisburg Mound Project site is complete.

In December 2002, DOE awarded CH2M HILL a $314-million,
performance-based contract to accelerate the safe closure of the
nuclear facilities at the former Mound Plant in Miamisburg,
Ohio. DOE established the 306-acre site in 1946 to conduct
nuclear research, design development, manufacturing, and testing
of nuclear weapons and spacecraft components.

CH2M HILL's accelerated baseline targets completion of the
project less than two years from previous contractors'
estimates. To achieve cleanup and closure of the site, CH2M HILL
Mound, Inc. is providing facility demolition, environmental
restoration and waste management services, including:

     * Demolition of 64 facilities and transfer of nine
facilities to the

       Miamisburg Mound Community Improvement Corporation (MMCIC) 
for industrial reuse

     * Removal of all above ground utility structures and
components

     * Investigation, clean up, closure and documentation of 73
soil
       contaminated sites

     * Storage, characterization, processing, packaging and 
shipment of materials from the cleanup process

Since the contract's inception nearly three years ago, CH2M HILL
Mound, Inc. has focused on safe, accelerated delivery of the
project. During demolition of 64 buildings, the project did not
experience a lost work day case or recordable case by the
Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).

"I am very pleased that through this closure contract, we have
been able to safely meet our commitments to our regulators and
stakeholders," said Jim Rispoli, Assistant Secretary of Energy
for Environmental Management.

"The safe completion of the demolition work is attributable to
the workforce at Mound," said John Lehew, president and site
manager.

Also completed earlier this year were the final shipments of
transuranic (TRU) waste and excess nuclear materials from the
site.

Headquartered in Denver, employee-owned CH2M HILL is a global
firm providing engineering, construction, operations, and
related technical services to public and private clients. With
more than $3 billion in revenue, CH2M HILL is an industry
leading program management, construction management for fee, and
design firm, as ranked by Engineering-News Record (2005). The
firm's work is concentrated in the areas of transportation,
water, energy, environment, communications, construction, and
industrial facilities. CH2M HILL has more than 15,000 employees
in 450 offices worldwide.

     CONTACT:
     Lynette Bennett
     CH2M HILL Mound, Inc.
     (937) 673-4574
     Lynette.Bennett@ch2m.com


Source: CH2M HILL Mound, Inc.
                                
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