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                         NUCLEAR POLICY
 
1 [SPAM] Source of Forged Niger-Iraq Uranium Documents Identified
2 US: [NYTr] Carter: Americans were misled on Iraq war
3 US: [NYTr] Plame & the Niger Lie: Congress Wants Cheney to Testify
4 US: [NYTr] Squeezing Bush on his Prewar WMD Hype
5 US: [NYTr] Sen.Milkulski Urges Bush to 'Come Clean' on Leak
6 Independent: The Niger connection 
7 WorldNetDaily: Authoritative misinformation on Iran
8 Xinhua: Iran to involve foreign investments in nuclear program   
9 Mos News: UN Nuclear Watchdog Satisfied With Russia-Iran Nuclear Coo
10 AFP: US, EU-3 to confer on Iran offer of nuclear talks
11 AFP: India could revise stand on Iran over nuclear program - FM -
12 AFP: Iran to convert more uranium - 
13 AFP: Iran issues fresh nuclear challenge - 
14 Guardian Unlimited: N. Korea Chafes at U.N. Human Rights Plan
15 AFP: US under pressure to break Korean nuclear stalemate
16 US: USNews.com: The name's Richardson, and when there's trouble
17 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: Japan-North Korea Talks End Without Progr
18 US: mainetoday.com: Maine must seek out alternatives 
19 US: statesman.com: Reid takeover of Senate signals new Democratic co
20 US: OrlandoSentinel.com: Fix nuke-weapons treaty - 
21 Sunday Herald: Nuclear war may no longer be inevitable, but that has
22 Daily Times: No Indian-style nuclear deal for Pakistan 
 
                         NUCLEAR REACTORS
 
23 Bellona: Red Report Presented in Krasnoyarsk
24 Sunday Herald: Scottish farms still contaminated by Chernobyl fallou
25 US: Times Herald Record: Indian Point adds e-mails
26 US: courant.com: Yankee, Bechtel Gird For Court 
27 US: HVN: Another Indian Point siren test is scheduled
28 Telegraph: Britons back new nuclear plants
29 MNT: Chernobyl legacy sheds light on link between thyroid cancer and
30 US: St. Petersburg Times: Nuclear power plant offline for fueling
31 US: SLO Tribune: Diablo grade falls on clerical mistakes
 
                          NUCLEAR SECURITY
 
32 US: FLORIDA TODAY: Workers cleared for rocket jobs
 
                          NUCLEAR SAFETY
 
33 Depleted Uranium dirty bomb is PRENATAL Terrorism
34 US: Brampton Guardian: Incinerator issue not over yet 
35 Fiji Times: Too little, too late - Nuke test veterans - 
 
                         NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
 
36 NEWS.com.au: Outback 'best' for nuclear dumping - SA - 
37 Sunday Herald: MoD ignores call to clean up radioactivecoastal waste
38 canadaeast.com: N.B. on list for national waste site
39 Salt Lake Tribune: Officials seeking input on Utah nuke processing
40 US: Pueblo Chieftain: Cotter orders layoffs
41 US: Mercury: Defining moment for landfill's radioactive ooze
42 Mos News: Russia Ratifies Spent Nuclear Fuel Convention 
43 AU ABC: Crossin to seek nuclear waste laws probe. 
44 US: Arizona Daily Sun: Uranium mines poised to reopen - 
45 AU ABC: Indigenous owners stage dump protest in Sydney
46 AU ABC: NT advice says no legal basis for nuclear dump challenge
47 AU ABC: Pressure increases on Senator to oppose nuclear dump
 
                           PEACE
 
 
                        US DEPT. OF ENERGY
 
48 Pocatello Idaho State Journal: Energy experts warn of global crisis
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 1 [SPAM] Source of Forged Niger-Iraq Uranium Documents Identified
 
Date: Sat, 5 Nov 2005 10:10:09 -0600 (CST)

X-Fingerprint: owner-imap@chumbly.math.missouri.edu-127.127

 Source of Forged Niger-Iraq Uranium Documents Identified

    By Elaine Sciolino and Elisabetta Povoledo
    The New York Times

    Friday 04 November 2005

    Rome - Italy's spymaster identified an Italian occasional spy
named Rocco Martino on Thursday as the disseminator of forged
documents that described efforts by Iraq to buy uranium ore from Niger
for a nuclear weapons program, three lawmakers said Thursday.

    The spymaster, Gen. Nicolr Pollari, director of the Italian
military intelligence agency known as Sismi, disclosed that Mr.
Martino was the source of the forged documents in closed-door
testimony to a parliamentary committee that oversees secret services,
the lawmakers said.

     Senator Massimo Brutti, a member of the committee, told reporters
that General Pollari had identified Mr. Martino as a former
intelligence informer who had been "kicked out of the agency." He did
not say Mr. Martino was the forger.

    The revelation came on a day when the Federal Bureau of
Investigation confirmed that it had shut down its two-year
investigation into the origin of the forged documents.

    The information about Iraq's desire to acquire the ore, known as
yellowcake, was used by the Bush administration to help justify the
invasion of Iraq, notably by President Bush in his State of the Union
address in January 2003. But the information was later revealed to
have been based on forgeries.

    The documents were the basis for sending a former diplomat, Joseph
C. Wilson IV, on a fact-finding mission to Niger that eventually
exploded into an inquiry that led to the indictment and resignation
last week of Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis
Libby.

    Mr. Martino has long been suspected of being responsible for
peddling the false documents. News reports have quoted him as saying
he obtained them through a contact at the Niger Embassy here. But this
was the first time his role was formally disclosed by the intelligence
agency.

    Neither Mr. Martino nor his lawyer, Giuseppe Placidi, were
available for comment.

    Senator Brutti also told reporters that Italian intelligence had
warned Washington in early 2003 that the Niger-Iraq documents were
false.

    "At about the same time as the State of the Union address, they
said that the dossier doesn't correspond to the truth," Senator Brutti
said. He said he did not know whether the warning was given before or
after President Bush's address.

    He made the claim more than once, but gave no supporting evidence.
Amid confusing statements by various lawmakers, he later appeared to
backtrack in conversations with both The Associated Press and Reuters,
saying that because Sismi never had the documents, it could not
comment on their merit.

    There had long been doubts within the United States intelligence
community about the authenticity of the yellowcake documents, and
references to it had been deleted from other presentations given at
the time.

    Senator Luigi Malabarba, who also attended Thursday's hearing,
said in a telephone interview that General Pollari had told the
committee that Mr. Martino was "offering the documents not on behalf
of Sismi but on behalf of the French" and that Mr. Martino had told
prosecutors in Rome that he was in the service of French intelligence.

    A senior French intelligence official interviewed Wednesday in
Paris declined to say whether Mr. Martino had been a paid agent of
France, but he called General Pollari's assertions about France's
responsibility "scandalous."

    General Pollari also said that no Italian intelligence agency
officials were involved in either forging or distributing the
documents, according to both Senator Brutti and the committee
chairman, Enzo Bianco.

    Committee members said they were shown documents defending General
Pollari, including a copy of a classified letter from Robert S. Muller
III, the director of the F.B.I., dated July 20, which praised Italy's
cooperation with the bureau.

    In Washington, an official at the bureau confirmed the substance
of the letter, whose contents were first reported Tuesday in the
leftist newspaper L'Unit`. The letter stated that Italy's cooperation
proved the bureau's theory that the false documents were produced and
disseminated by one or more people for personal profit, and ruled out
the possibility that the Italian service had intended to influence
American policy, the newspaper said.

    As a result, the letter said, according to both the F.B.I.
official and L'Unit`, the bureau had closed its investigation into the
origin of the documents.

    The F.B.I. official declined to be identified by name.

    After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Italy's military intelligence
service sent reports to the United States and Britain claiming that
Iraq was actively trying to acquire uranium, according to current and
former intelligence officials.

    Senator Brutti told reporters on Thursday that indeed Sismi had
provided information about Iraq's desire to acquire uranium from Niger
as early as the 1990's, but that it had never said the information was
credible.

    Thursday's hearing followed a three-part series in La Repubblica,
which said General Pollari had knowingly provided the United States
and Britain with forged documents. The newspaper, a staunch opponent
of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, also reported that General
Pollari had acted at the behest of Mr. Berlusconi, who was said to be
eager to help President Bush in the search for weapons in Iraq.

    Mr. Berlusconi has denied such accounts.

    La Repubblica said General Pollari had held a meeting on Sept. 9,
2002, with Stephen J. Hadley, then the deputy national security
adviser. Mr. Hadley, now the national security adviser, has said that
he met General Pollari on that date, but that they did not discuss the
Niger-Iraq issue.

    "Nobody participating in that meeting or asked about that meeting
has any recollection of a discussion of natural uranium, or any
recollection of any documents being passed," Mr. Hadley told a
briefing on Wednesday in Washington. "And that's also my
recollection."

    At the time, Mr. Hadley took responsibility for including the
faulty information in Mr. Bush's State of the Union address.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/110405Z.shtml
*****************************************************************
 2 [NYTr] Carter: Americans were misled on Iraq war
 
Date: Sat, 5 Nov 2005 14:03:10 -0600 (CST)


Via NY Transfer News Collective  *  All the News that Doesn't Fit
 
CNN - Nov 4, 2005
http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/11/04/carter.lookback/index.html?section=cnn_topstories

Carter: Americans were misled on war

Former president says Bush policy is a 'radical departure'

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Former President Jimmy Carter said Friday that
there isn't "any doubt" the American people were misled about the war in
Iraq and that President George Bush's policy on the war is a "radical
departure from the policies of any president."

In an interview with CNN, Carter addressed some of the comments made in his
new book, "Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis." In the book he
says the Bush administration was determined to attack Iraq using "false and
distorted claims after 9/11."

Carter said the Bush administration spoke of mushroom clouds, weapons of
mass destruction and the threat of thousands of Americans dying to garner
support for the war. No weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq.
(Watch Carter's interview -- 8:33)

He was careful to say he didn't know whether intelligence was misinterpreted
or purposely twisted, and Carter praised the attempts by his fellow
Democrats in Congress to press efforts to look into the matter. (Watch how
the Senate went into secret session over the intelligence used to back the
war -- 3:05)

"If the investigation would go ahead and proceed, as Democrats have been
trying to in the Senate now for more than 18 months, then we will know the
circumstances under which the American people -- and I think an entire world
-- was misled about what was going on in Iraq," he said.

Carter added that he had seen no evidence the White House was involved in
the CIA leak investigation that ensnared Vice President Dick Cheney's chief
of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, last week.

Libby is accused of lying to investigators and a grand jury probing the
disclosure of the identity of a CIA officer whose husband had challenged
administration claims that then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had been
trying to restart his nuclear weapons program.

Carter also said that the administration's pre-emptive strike doctrine
directed against the possible future use of weapons of mass destruction is a
spurious basis for a war when there is no immediate threat to America's
security.

"We'll bomb, strafe and send missiles against their people even though our
security's not directly threatened," he said. "This is contrary to
international law. It's also contrary to what every president has done in
this country for more than 100 years, Democrat or Republican."

As the former president spoke from the Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia,
protests in Mar del Plata, Argentina -- where Bush is attempting to promote
free trade among the 34 nations comprising the Summit of the Americas -- had
turned violent. (Full story)

Shown live footage of the protests, Carter said the United States'
reputation in the world is as low as it's been in his lifetime and that the
United States has lost its prestige, authority and influence in Latin
America. He added, however, that the chief opponent to the Free Trade Area
of the Americas, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, is a "demagogue." (Read
about Congressional passage of the Central American Free Trade Act)

Before the protests turned violent, Chavez denounced capitalism to thousands
of demonstrators from his perch in front of a six-story banner of communist
revolutionary Che Guevara. Protesters, including Argentine soccer legend
Diego Maradona, listened as Chavez claimed he would "bury" the Free Trade
Area of the Americas proposal. Maradona wore a shirt accusing Bush of war
crimes, while protesters called the U.S. president a "terrorist" and a
"fascist." (Watch the protests -- 1:25)

Carter defended Bush and dismissed as rhetoric the words of the Venezuelan
president.

"The personal attacks on the president and the condemnations of America by
Hugo Chavez from Venezuela, I think, are completely unjustified and uncalled
for," Carter said. "Chavez is a difficult person with whom to deal
personally. I know from my own experience."

Carter was voted out of office in 1980 -- 25 years ago on Friday -- after
Iranian militants took Americans captive in the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. The
hostages were freed after 444 days as Carter left office.
       
                                *
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 3 [NYTr] Plame & the Niger Lie: Congress Wants Cheney to Testify
 
Date: Sat, 5 Nov 2005 14:05:40 -0600 (CST)


Via NY Transfer News Collective  *  All the News that Doesn't Fit
 
The Nation - Nov 3, 2005
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat?bid=1&pid=33242

Congressman Want Cheney to Testify

by John Nichols

Vice President Dick Cheney has had very little to say about the indictment
of his former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, on charges of
perjury and obstruction of justice, and even less to say about aspects of
the investigation that have touched on his own actions before and after the
invasion of Iraq. Now, three key Democrats in the U.S. House of
Representatives want to give the vice president an opportunity to clear the
air.

Recalling that Cheney's former boss, then-President Gerald Ford, testified
before the House after his controversial pardon of former President Richard
Nixon in 1974, Representatives John Conyers Jr., the Michigan Democrat who
is the ranking minority member of the House Judiciary Committee; Henry
Waxman, the California Democrat who is the ranking minority member of the
Government Reform Committee; and Maurice Hinchey, the New York Democrat who
has been one of the most outspoken critics of the administration's misuse of
intelligence during the period before the Iraq War began, have asked the
vice president to "make yourself available to appear before Congress to
explain the details and reasons for your office's involvement -- and your
personal involvement - in the disclosure of Valerie Wilson's identity as a
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operative."

The letter, sent to Cheney on Thursday, two days after Democratic Leader
Harry Reid forced the Senate into closed session to discuss investigations
of efforts by the administration to inflate intelligence assessments of the
threat posed by Iraq, offers the latest signal that Congressional Democrats
are determined to hold key players in the administration, particularly
Cheney, to account.

"We are going to do everything we can to force this administration and this
Congress to face up to the truth and to face up to their responsibility
under the Constitution," said Hinchey.

"The people who wrote the Constitution that set this government up knew what
they were doing. They knew what would happen if you let a regime go its own
way without oversight. That's why they set up the system of checks and
balances," added Hinchey. "This Congress has shunned its responsibility,
tossed its obligations under the Constitution aside  allowing the
administration to do whatever it chooses, even to the point of looking aside
when the administration lies to Congress and violates federal laws. That's
got to stop. We cannot have a monolithic government. We have to restore some
balance, where the legislative branch is a part of this process. And we
think that one way to do that is by asking the vice president, in light of
the questions that have arisen with regards to his actions, to come to
Congress and answer the questions that are on the minds of the American
people and their representatives.

It may be true that the House, like the Senate, is controlled by a
Republican majority that is uncomfortable calling members of the
administration to account, admits Hinchey. But, the veteran representative
from New York says, Republicans ought to ask themselves whether they want to
allow partisanship to stand in the way of their responsibilities under the
Constitution. Hinchey says Congressional leaders of both parties should, as
well, be concerned about their responsibility to help the American people
sort through not just what happened when Cheney's chief aide apparently set
out to punish Ambassador Joe Wilson, who had raised pointed questions about
the administration use of intelligence, by revealing that Wilson's wife was
a CIA operative -- but also broader questions about why the vice president's
office was so determined to attack that critic, a former ambassador who had
revealed how the administration deliberately used faulty intelligence to
make the "case" for war.

"It's just intolerable for any Congress, no matter which party is in charge,
to look aside when an administration engages in the sort of behavior that
this administration has engaged in-- and that is especially true when those
behaviors, those issues relate to the most serious decision that any
Congress can take: the decision to go to war," the congressman explained.

Three senior members of the House have refused to look aside. And, while it
may be the case that Cheney will disregard their request, the American
people are unlikely to be so dismissive. Polls show that, by a wide
majority, Americans think the vice president has been less than forthcoming
with regards to his actions, and that they want answers from Cheney about
the Wilson case and all of the issues it has raised.

Here is the letter that asks for those answers:

Dear Mr. Vice President:

In response to significant public scrutiny, President Gerald R. Ford came to
Capitol Hill on October 17, 1974 to testify before the House Judiciary
Committee's Subcommittee on Criminal Justice on why he pardoned President
Richard M. Nixon. At the time of President Ford's appearance before
Congress, you served as his Deputy Chief of Staff and later became his Chief
of Staff. With that precedent in mind, we respectfully request that you make
yourself available to appear before Congress to explain the details and
reasons for your office's involvement -- and your personal involvement - in
the disclosure of Valerie Wilson's identity as a Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA) operative.

Last week, your former Chief of Staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby was indicted
for committing perjury and obstructing the investigation of Special Counsel
Patrick Fitzgerald into the disclosure of Valerie Wilson's identity.
According to the indictment, you and members of your office were involved in
discussions about Valerie Wilson and her work for the CIA. In fact, the
indictment alleges that you personally informed Mr. Libby that Valerie
Wilson worked in the CIA's Counterproliferation Division and that you had
learned this information from the CIA.

It is extremely important with regard to the maintenance of the integrity of
our democratic republic that the full and complete truth of this matter be
made available to the American people. Unfortunately, doubts and questions
will continue to grow until the nation learns the complete story behind the
leak of Valerie Wilson's identity. There are many wide-ranging questions
about your involvement with the disclosure of Valerie Wilson's identity to
which the American people deserve answers, including:

7 Why were you and other officials in your office investigating Valerie
Wilson's employment with the CIA?

7 Did you authorize Mr. Libby to disclose Valerie Wilson's identity to the
news media? Were you aware that he was doing so?

7 At the time of the leak, Valerie Wilson's husband, former Ambassador
Joseph Wilson, had been publicly questioning the Administration's claim that
Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger, which had been used as a primary
justification for war. At the time of the leak, did you believe the claim
that Iraq had sought uranium from Niger was true? When did you first learn
that the uranium claims were untrue? Was the disclosure of Valerie Wilson's
identity an attempt to discredit her husband and what he had been saying
about the uranium claims being false?

7 When you learned that the leak had occurred, did you investigate whether
any members of your staff were responsible for this act? If so, when did you
do so and what were your findings? Do you think that those involved with the
leak should be allowed to maintain their security clearances?

We therefore encourage you to follow the example of your former boss,
President Ford, by testifying before Congress. Openness and sunshine are the
best way to restore public trust that the White House is operating
ethically, efficiently, and in compliance with rules protecting national
security.

Sincerely,

Maurice Hinchey 
Henry Waxman 
John Conyers, Jr.

[An expanded paperback edition of John Nichols' biography of Vice President
Dick Cheney, The Rise and Rise of Richard B. Cheney: Unlocking the Mysteries
of the Most Powerful Vice President in American History (The New Press:
2005), is available nationwide at independent bookstores and at
www.amazon.com. The book features an exclusive interview with Joe Wilson and
a chapter on the vice president's use and misuse of intelligence.
Publisher's Weekly describes the book as "a Fahrenheit 9/11 for Cheney" and
Esquire magazine says it "reveals the inner Cheney."]
       
                                *
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.NY Transfer News Collective    *    A Service of Blythe Systems
.          Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us         .
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 4 [NYTr] Squeezing Bush on his Prewar WMD Hype
 
Date: Sat, 5 Nov 2005 14:05:59 -0600 (CST)


Via NY Transfer News Collective  *  All the News that Doesn't Fit
 
The Nation - Nov 3, 2005
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/capitalgames?bid=3&pid=33084

Squeezing Bush on his Prewar WMD Hype

by David Corn

When Senator Pat Roberts, the Republican chairman of the intelligence
committee, promised in 2004 that his committee would investigate how Bush
had used (or abused) the prewar intelligence on Iraq's WMDs--an unkept
promise that led to the Democratic shutdown of the Senate this week--he made
that promise to me.

Actually, what the Democrats did was not bring the Senate to a halt; much of
the media mistakenly reported their action was a shutdown. Instead, the
Senate Democrats, deploying the rarely used Rule 21, forced the Senate into
a closed session--no TV cameras, no visitors, no reporters--in order to
discuss (that is, complain about) Roberts' failure to produce the so-called
Phase II report, which was supposed to examine whether Bush administration
officials had misrepresented the prewar intelligence to whip up public
support for the invasion of Iraq. With this maneuver, the Democrats cast
attention on the GOP attempt to duck this issue, and pushed the Republicans
to establish a bipartisan panel that would review the progress (or lack
thereof) of the Phase II inquiry. This panel--which is investigating the
investigation--is to report back to the rest of the Senate by mid-November.

But back to me. On July 9, 2004, Roberts' committee released a report on the
prewar intelligence. It concluded that the intelligence had been botched and
noted that the major conclusions of the intelligence community were "either
overstated, or were not supported by, the underlying intelligence report."
The failure of the intelligence community was obvious in the weeks after the
invasion. But what Roberts report did not investigate was whether Bush and
his aides had hyped problematic intelligence. For instance, the National
Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, which was produced in October 2002,
reported--errantly--that Iraq had an active biological weapons R&D program.
Yet Bush in a speech declared that Iraq had "stockpiles" of biological
weapons. Having an R&D program is not the same as possessing loads of
ready-to-use weapons.

Roberts' investigation had ignored such exaggerations of the Bush
administration. At that press conference, Senator Jay Rockefeller, the
senior Democrat on the intelligence committee, pointed this out:

I have to say, that there is a real frustration over what is not in this
report, and I don't think was mentioned in Chairman Roberts' statement, and
that is about the--after the analysts and the intelligence community
produced an intelligence product, how is it then shaped or used or misused
by the policy-makers?

Roberts indicated that his committee would get to this in a second phase of
the investigation, one that would not likely be finished until after the
upcoming presidential election. Was that a coincidence? One intelligence
committee staffer told me that such an inquiry could be completed within a
month or two.

During the Q&A, Roberts called on me, and I asked:

Given that 800 American G.I.s have lost their lives so far, thousands have
had serious injuries, lost limbs, all on the basis of false claims, and that
American taxpayers have had to kick in almost $200 billion, don't the
American public and the relatives of people who lost their lives have a
right to know before the next election whether this administration handled
intelligence matters adequately and made statements that were
justified--before the election, not after the election?

No, Roberts essentially said. His actual response was this:

We simply couldn't get that done with the work product that we put out. And
he has pointed out that that has a top priority. It is one of my top
priorities. It's his top priority, along with the reform effort....It
involves probably three things -- or at least three. One is the prewar
intelligence on Iraq, which is what you're talking about. Secondly is the
situation with the assistant secretary of defense, Douglas Feith, and his
activity in regards to material that he provided with a so-called
intelligence planning cell to the Department of Defense and to the CIA. And
then the left one -- what is the last one? What's the third one? Help me
with it....There is a third one, and I don't know why I can't come up with
it right now. But, anyway, it is a priority. And, hey, I have told Jay, I
have told everybody on the other side of the aisle, everybody on our side of
the aisle, "We'll proceed with phase two. It is a priority." I made my
commitment, and it will be done.

******

Don't forget about DAVID CORN's BLOG at www.davidcorn.com. Read recent
postings on the Rove/Libby scandal, Samuel Alito and other in-the-news
matters.

******

Roberts has a rather elastic idea of what makes a commitment. After the
election, his committee did little, if any, work on the Phase II project, as
I reported last spring. Moreover, in March, Roberts declared that further
investigation was pointless. He said that if his investigators asked Bush
officials whether they had overstated or mischaracterized prewar
intelligence, they'd simply claim their statements had been based on "bum
intelligence." And he huffed, "To go though that exercise, it seems to me,
in a postelection environment--we didn't see how we could do that and
achieve any possible progress. I think everybody pretty well gets it." So
after making a promise in July to get it done, he then decided to drop the
ball. Democrats, including Rockefeller, protested. But they didn't make too
much noise about this.

Then came Rule 21. The Democrats had considered calling on Rule 21 to
initiate a closed session in 2004 to highlight the inaction on Phase II,
according to a senior Democratic staffer. The staff of Senator Tom Daschle,
the Democratic leader at the time (who would be defeated in the November
election), had researched how to pull off such a maneuver. Daschle wanted to
give Republican Senate majority leader Bill Frist advance notice of the
move, but he never pulled the trigger.

This year, with Senator Harry Reid now leading the Democrats, the Democratic
leadership decided not to be so polite and to invoke Rule 21 as a surprise.
"The Democratic leadership had finally gotten to the point where--after
sending letters to Roberts and holding meetings on this--they figured the
only way to draw attention to the Phase II cop-out was to do this," the
Democratic staffer says. "It also had the ancillary benefit of changing the
subject from Alito to what Bush said to justify the war, and it served as a
bridge between the Libby indictment and arraignment. It also made the point
that Fitzgerald's investigation was a criminal investigation and was not
designed to get into the question of whether Bush had misrepresented the
intelligence. That's the job of Congress--or should be."

There's still no guarantee that Roberts and the Republicans will efficiently
and vigorously tackle the Phase II assignment. According to a statement
released by Rockefeller, the intelligence committee in February 2004 decided
that Phase II would focus on five subjects. As he put it,

1. Whether public statements, reports, and testimony regarding Iraq by U.S.
Government officials made between the Gulf war period and the commencement
of Operation Iraqi Freedom were substantiated by intelligence information;

2. Pre-war intelligence assessments about post-war Iraq;

3. Any intelligence activities relating to Iraq within the Office of the
Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, headed by Douglas Feith;

4. The use by the Intelligence Community of information provided by the
Iraqi National Congress; and

5. The post-war findings about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and
weapons programs and links to terrorism and how they compare with pre-war
assessments.

This past spring, Roberts told me that the report would not only look at
what Bush administration officials said about WMDs in Iraq before the war;
it would also examine statements made by leading Democrats about Iraq prior
to the war--presumably people like Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Bill
Clinton, and John Edwards. Roberts' intent is obvious: to make it seem that
everyone was wrong. Thus, Bush would deserve no blame. But Bush had ready
access to all the intelligence, and it was his job to review it carefully
and to represent it accurately to the American public before taking the
country to war. Nevertheless, the Phase II report could become a spin job
geared more toward distraction than disclosure.

With the Libby indictment as the backdrop, the Senate Democrats, thanks to
Rule 21, did remind the public and the media that Bush's use of
misinformation (or disinformation) to sell the war remains an open question.
But this battle over the run-up to the war is far from over, and Phase II
will likely not be the end of it.

       
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*****************************************************************
 5 [NYTr] Sen.Milkulski Urges Bush to 'Come Clean' on Leak
 
Date: Sat, 5 Nov 2005 14:06:12 -0600 (CST)


Via NY Transfer News Collective  *  All the News that Doesn't Fit
 
AP via Yahoo - Nov 5, 2005
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051105/ap_on_go_co/democrats_cia_leak

Senator Urges Bush to 'Come Clean' on Leak

WASHINGTON - President Bush should "come clean" about any White House
officials involved in the leak of the name of undercover CIA operative
Valerie Plame and "honor his pledge to fire all those involved," Sen.
Barbara Mikulski (news, bio, voting record) of Maryland said Saturday in the
Democrats' weekly radio address.

"It's been one week since the vice president's chief of staff was indicted,
and there are still very serious questions about how his White House misused
and manufactured intelligence to sell and defend the war in Iraq," Mikulski
said.

Democrats last week forced the Republican-controlled Senate into an unusual
closed session, questioning information that Bush used in the run-up to the
war in Iraq and accusing Republicans of ignoring the issue. Republicans
later agreed to a bipartisan review of the Senate Intelligence Committee's
investigation into prewar intelligence.

Mikulski said the indictment of Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of
staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, was part of a "remarkable" few weeks of
Republican scandal, including the investigation of Senate Majority Leader
Bill Frist, R-Tenn.

"I can't remember a situation like this since the Watergate scandal brought
down the Nixon administration," she said.

Mikulski also said she was disappointed that Bush did not nominate a woman
to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Bush
originally selected White House counsel Harriet Miers but chose federal
appellate judge Samuel Alito after Miers withdrew.

Copyright ) 2005 The Associated Press.
       
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*****************************************************************
 6 Independent: The Niger connection 

Britain insists it did not rely on forgeries for its case
against Iraq. But its own 'evidence' came from the same shady
Italian intelligence broker. 

Andrew Buncombe, John Phillips and Raymond Whitaker report 

Published: 06 November 2005 

A political scandal in Italy, involving allegations that Italian
secret agents followed a shady intelligence operator around
London as he headed for a meeting with MI6, has called into
question one of Britain's last justifications for the invasion
of Iraq. 

Silvio Berlusconi's government has admitted that agents of
Sismi, the Italian military intelligence service, tracked the
movements in London of Rocco Martino, an ex-informer, in the
autumn of 2001. It did not say whether the British authorities
were informed, but admitted that Mr Martino was also followed by
Sismi in the US, without the knowledge of the FBI. 

According to Italian press reports, however, Mr Martino had a
meeting with the Secret Intelligence Service in London. A year
later, the 66-year-old, who made a living peddling information
to intelligence services and journalists, was the source of
forged documents purporting to show that Saddam Hussein was
buying uranium for nuclear weapons from the west African state
of Niger. 

The documents were used by the US to make its case for war.
President George Bush cited the uranium claim in his State of
the Union address in January 2003. But as soon as the US passed
the documents to the UN's nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, it
denounced them as obvious fakes. The ensuing controversy in
America has now resulted in charges against a top former White
House official, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, and a continuing
investigation into Karl Rove, Mr Bush's closest aide. 

But while the US has admitted the uranium claim should never
have been made, Tony Blair's government, which first made the
allegation public in its September 2002 dossier on Iraq's
alleged weapons of mass destruction, still insists it was
supported by "separate intelligence". 

Britain has always refused to disclose the nature of this
information, even to the IAEA, because it was provided by a
"foreign service". 

In October 2001, Sismi sent its British and American
counterparts a dossier on alleged Iraqi attempts to buy uranium
from Niger. Whether Rocco Martino delivered it to MI6
headquarters in Vauxhall Cross, as some Italian reports claim,
is not clear. 

But Vincent Cannistraro, a senior former official with the CIA,
told The Independent on Sunday that "some of the text of the
2001 report showed up in the later [forged] documents. 

"There seems to be a common source ... it seems that the
[separate] British intelligence came from the same false and
discredited source." 

A public row in Italy involving the head of Sismi, General
Nicolo Pollari, has brought to light much information on the
Niger uranium claims. Sismi has acknowledged informing other
intelligence services, including the CIA, in a letter on 15
October 2001, of "evidence of intelligence" on Iraqi efforts to
procure uranium from Niger. 

The information came from a woman who worked at the Niger
embassy in Rome, given the code name of La Signora by Sismi. She
also provided Niger's cryptographic codes and other internal
documents. 

The CIA questioned the report, and General Pollari says he also
recorded his doubts in writing at the time. But he does not
appear to have told his counterparts in other countries, where
La Signora was still "a reliable source". 

Sismi says it was next involved in 2002, when Mr Martino began
offering the fake Niger documents to anyone willing to buy them.
His first client is reported to have been the French
intelligence service, but in October 2002 they were given to the
American embassy in Rome by Panorama, a Berlusconi-owned
magazine he had approached. 

What happened next is the subject of furious argument in Italy.
General Pollari says he warned other countries about the
forgeries, including Britain. 

In spring 2003, according to his account, Mr Martino approached
the British embassy in Brussels, saying an "associate" could
provide information on Iraq, Niger and uranium. The British
asked Sismi to identify the man from CCTV images, and the
Italians asked them to string him along in order to uncover the
associate. Eventually Mr Martino admitted there was no one else
involved. 

The Sismi chief identified Mr Martino as the source of the
forged documents in a closed Italian parliamentary committee
meeting last week. He described Mr Martino as a former
intelligence informer who had been "kicked out of the agency".
Both men have claimed that at the time he was hawking around the
documents, Mr Martino was working for the French, a possible
source of Britain's "separate intelligence". A senior French
intelligence official declined to say whether Mr Martino had
been a paid agent of France, The New York Times reported last
week, but called General Pollari's assertions that France
disseminated the false documents "scandalous". 

General Pollari's critics in Italy claim he worked closely with
American neo-conservatives to spread the Niger uranium claims to
the highest levels of the US administration, bypassing the CIA.
He is said to have had a meeting in Rome in December 2001 with a
group of neo-cons led by Michael Ledeen, an influential hawk
close to Israel and involved in the Iran-Contra scandal in the
1980s. 

The same critics see Mr Martino as a useful pawn. In an Italian
newspaper yesterday, he repeated that he had not forged the
documents nor known them to be forged. He is unlikely tohave
imagined their impact. 

Revelations in Italy support the Butler inquiry's statement that
British intelligence had not seen the forged documents when Mr
Blair's WMD dossier was published in September 2002. But the
inquiry's conclusion that Britain's "separate intelligence" was
"credible" has been widely criticised. 

� 2005 Independent News & Media (UK) Ltd. 
*****************************************************************
 7 WorldNetDaily: Authoritative misinformation on Iran

  SATURDAY NOVEMBER 5 2005           
                            
[Supercritical Thoughts] [Gordon Prather] 
 
Posted: November 5, 2005

The Arms Control Association claims that: 

Through its public education and media programs and its
magazine, (Arms Control Today), ACA provides policymakers, the
press and the interested public with authoritative information,
analysis and commentary on arms control proposals, negotiations
and agreements, and related national security issues. 

Authoritative? 

Then how to explain this recent posting on their websiteby
"research analyst" Paul Kerr? 

On Nov. 24, following an anticipated report from
Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei, the International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA) Board of Governors is set to evaluate
Iran's cooperation with a Sept. 24 resolution that found Tehran
in "non-compliance" with its agency safeguards agreement. 

Under the IAEA statute, the board is required to notify the
Security Council if a state-party to the nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) is found in noncompliance with its
agency safeguards agreement. 

Those "authoritative" statements are � at best � misleading. 

In the first place, the IAEA statute doesn't even mention the
NPT. 

How could it? 

The agency's genesis was President Eisenhower's "Atoms for
Peace"address to the U.N. General Assembly. The resulting IAEA
statute was unanimously approved by the General Assembly in
October 1956. 

According to which: 

"The agency shall seek to accelerate and enlarge the
contribution of atomic energy to peace, health and prosperity
throughout the world. 

It shall ensure, so far as it is able, that assistance provided
by it or at its request or under its supervision or control is
not used in such a way as to further any military purpose. 

Hence the primary mission of the IAEA is to facilitate the safe
and secure transfer � and subsequent application � of "atomic
energy." 

The IAEA statute effectively establishes a mechanism � the IAEA
Safeguards and Physicial Security regime � for accomplishing its
corrolary mission: to ensure that "special fissionable and other
materials" are "not used in such a way as to further any
military purpose." 

If and when the IAEA Board concludes that safeguarded materials
are being used in furtherance of a military purpose, then "the
agency shall notify the Security Council, as the organ bearing
the main responsibility for the maintenance of international
peace and security." 

The objectives of the NPT � which did not enter into force until
1970 � are a) to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and
weapons technology, b) to foster the peaceful uses of nuclear
energy, and c) to further the goal of achieving general and
complete disarmament. 

The NPT attempted to "freeze" the number of nuclear-weapon
states at five (U.S., Russia, UK, France and China). All other
NPT signatories were required to forswear nuclear weapons and to
conclude comprehensive safeguards agreements with the IAEA on
all their "source" and "special nuclear" materials. 

These agreements � "NPT safeguards agreements" � remain in force
only so long as the agreement state remains a signatory to the
NPT. 

When North Korea refused in February 1993 to allow a "special
inspection" to determine if all materials and activities that
should have been declared had been declared, the IAEA Board
concluded that North Korea was "in non-compliance with its
Safeguards Agreement" and referred this "non-compliance" to the
U.N. Security Council. 

On March 12, 1993, North Korea gave the obligatory three-months
notice that it was withdrawing from the NPT � rendering its NPT
safeguards agreement null and void. 

What did the Security Council do? 

On May 11, 1993, the Council called upon the DPRK to comply with
the Agreement. 

<img width=300
height=250
src="http://z1.adserver.com/w/cp.x;rid=14;tid=7;ev=1;dt=3;ac=26;c
=327;" border=0>

So, in June 1993 North Korea temporarily "suspended the
effectuation" of its NPT withdrawal. 

On Jan. 6, 2003, as a result of Bush-Cheney unsubstantiated
charges that North Korea had � unknown to the IAEA � a
clandestine nuclear weapons program, the IAEA Board adopted a
resolution calling upon North Korea to cooperate fully and
urgently or be deemed "in further non-compliance with its
safeguards agreement." 

On Jan. 11, 2003, North Korea announced the "effectuation" of
its previous withdrawal from the NPT. 

Despite repeated referrals by the IAEA Board, at no time has the
Security Council concluded that North Korea is a threat to
international peace and security. 

Now, as a result of Bush-Cheney unsubstantiated charges that
Iran has � unbeknownst to the IAEA � a clandestine nuclear
weapons program, the IAEA Board has adopted a resolution calling
upon Iran to relinquish its "inalienable right" to enjoy the
benefits of "atomic energy" or be deemed "in further
non-compliance with its safeguards agreement." 

According to Kerr, "there seems to be little chance that the
board will refer the matter to the U.N. Security Council." 

That's probably not authoritative misinformation.
 
Physicist James Gordon Prather has served as a policy
implementing official for national security-related technical
matters in the Federal Energy Agency, the Energy Research and
Development Administration, the Department of Energy, the Office
of the Secretary of Defense and the Department of the Army. Dr.
Prather also served as legislative assistant for national
security affairs to U.S. Sen. Henry Bellmon, R-Okla. -- ranking
member of the Senate Budget Committee and member of the Senate
Energy Committee and Appropriations Committee. Dr. Prather had
earlier worked as a nuclear weapons physicist at Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory in California and Sandia National
Laboratory in New Mexico. 

� 2005 WorldNetDaily.com, Inc. 
webmaster@worldnetdaily.com
*****************************************************************
 8 Xinhua: Iran to involve foreign investments in nuclear program   

  www.xinhuanet.com

  www.chinaview.cn 2005-11-06 03:33:13   

    TEHRAN, Nov. 5 (Xinhuanet) -- The Iranian government has
approved a plan to involve foreign enterprises and organizations
into the country's uranium enrichment program, the semi-official
Mehr newsagency reported on Saturday. 

    Mehr said the plan was ratified at Wednesday's cabinet
meeting,which paved the way for international parties to
participate inthe work at the uranium enrichment plant located
in the central Iranian town of Natanz. 

    The cabinet has also authorized the Atomic Energy
Organization of Iran (AEOI) to take necessary measures to
attract foreign and domestic investment in the uranium
enrichment process, the report said. 

    Managerial methods as well as allocation of shares of every
active participant will be suggested by the AEOI but ratified by
the cabinet, Mehr added. 

    The plan will be sent to the parliament for approval before
taking effect, according to the report. 

    In order to disperse the international suspicion on the
country's motivation of nuclear research while keeping the
highly sensitive uranium enrichment program, Iranian President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad proposed to invite foreign parties into the
program on Sept. 18 in a speech delivered at the United Nations
General Assembly. 

    Tehran believes that foreign participation can provide
objective guarantees that its nuclear research will not
bediverted to military purposes, but the European Union (EU),
the long-time broker of the Iranian nuclear issue, insists that
Iranmust completely halt all activities related to uranium
enrichment.Tehran has repeatedly asserted that uranium
enrichment, a keystage for building nuclear fuel cycle, is a
legitimate and undeniable right enshrined by the
Non-Proliferation Treaty.Iran suspended enrichment-related
activities in November 2004to build confidence in talks with the
EU but resumed uranium conversion work, the preparatory step for
enrichment, in early August this year. 

    In response, the International Atomic Energy Agency in late
September adopted a EU-drafted resolution, urging Iran to
re-suspend all enrichment-related activities or face a referral
ofits nuclear case to the UN Security Council for possible
sanctions.Tehran rejected the resolution, saying it will never
return to the full suspension and was prepared to resume uranium
enrichment activities under guarantee measures in the future.The
United States accuses Iran of developing nuclear weapons,
acharge rejected by Iran as politically motivated. Enditem   

  Copyright �2003 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 9 Mos News: UN Nuclear Watchdog Satisfied With Russia-Iran Nuclear Cooperation - 

- MOSNEWS.COM

A satellite image of the Bushehr power plant / Photo from
www.parstimes.com 	 	
 	 	
Created: 05.11.2005 11:01 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 11:01 MSK 	
 	
MosNews
 	 	 	 	 
	 	 		 	
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has no complaint
against Russia or Iran in relation to the construction of the
Bushehr nuclear power plant, the head of the Federal Atomic
Energy Agency Rosatom Aleksandr Rumyantsev was quoted by
Itar-Tass news agency as saying. 

�There are no complaints against us from the IAEA, or against
Iran, because we are following all the required procedures,� he
said. 

�Iran has signed the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, albeit not
ratified it yet. There is also the additional IAEA protocol,
under which Iran must provide any information that interests the
Agency for the purpose of overseeing the peaceful use of atomic
energy,� he explained. �So there are no criticisms of us from
the IAEA,� he summed up.

On Friday Foreign Ministers of India and Russia supported the
way of resolving the dispute over Iran�s nuclear programme
within the ambit IAEA.

Sergei Lavrov and his Indian counterpart Natwar Singh agreed in
a telephone conversation that the UN nuclear watchdog would be
the right place for resolving the Iran nuclear issue, with the
help of political and diplomatic efforts.

The U.S. and EU are demanding the transfer of Iran�s nuclear
dossier to the UN Security Council. During the last vote at IAEA
in Vienna, India had voted against Iran resisting this move. 	 	
	 	 	 	     
Copyright � 2004 MOSNEWS.COM
*****************************************************************
 10 AFP: US, EU-3 to confer on Iran offer of nuclear talks

 Sun Nov 6, 6:10 PM ET 		 	 

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States will on Monday contact EU
diplomats about reports that Iran" /> Iranhad sent a letter
seeking to renew talks on its controversial nuclear weapons
program. 

 "We will be in touch with the EU-3 on Monday morning so we can
become fully informed about the letter's content but until we
are in touch with the EU-3 we are going to withhold comment,"
State Department spokesperson Justin Higgins told AFP. 

Iranian news agencies reported that the country's top nuclear
official, Ali Larijani, had sent a letter to foreign ministers
from Britain, France and Germany "insisting on the necessity of
negotiations". 

However, Iran was swiftly rebuffed so long as it rejects a
renewed freeze on fuel cycle work. 

Talks between Iran and the so-called EU-3 broke off in August
when Iran resumed uranium conversion in defiance of
international calls to maintain a suspension. 

Officials said Iran would convert a fresh batch of uranium ore
in a flagrant rejection of EU calls for a renewed freeze on such
activities that prompted an EU diplomat to reject the Iranian
request out-of-hand. 

"If these reports were true this would be another step that
would take Iran in the wrong direction and serves only to
further isolate Iran from the international community," Higgins
said. 


  Copyright � 2005 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 11 AFP: India could revise stand on Iran over nuclear program - FM -

 Sun Nov 6, 3:32 PM ET 		 	 

NEW DELHI (AFP) - India, which earlier this year voted in favour
of an IAEA motion against Iran" /> 's nuclear program, could
reverse its stand at an upcoming meeting if the resolution
proposed stronger action, Foreign Minister Natwar Singh said. 

 "If a resolution is placed at the IAEA which is more severe
than the last one, which says that this matter must go to the UN
Security Council, I can as foreign minister of India tell you
that my recommendation to the government will be to revise our
vote," he said. 

Singh, who is under fire for charges in a UN report that he
benefited from deals linked to the UN oil-for-food programme for
Iraq" /> , said New Delhi would vote at an International Atomic
Energy Agency" /> meeting in Vienna on November 24 based on "our
vital national interest." 

A UN report by former US Federal Reserve" /> chairman Paul
Volcker said Singh and India's ruling Congress party were among
beneficiaries worldwide allowed to buy Iraqi oil at below market
rates in return for kickbacks to the regime of Saddam Hussein"
/> . 

India was among 22 of the IAEA's 35 member countries that voted
in September for a resolution creating the conditions for
referring Iran to the UN Security Council over its nuclear
programme. 

The United States suspects Iran is using its nascent nuclear
power program to develop the capability to build nuclear
weapons, a suspicion Tehran says is unfounded. 

  Copyright � 2005 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 12 AFP: Iran to convert more uranium - 

 Sunday November 6, 09:41 PM 

TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran said that it will convert new consignments
of uranium at its plant outside the central city of Isfahan, in
defiance of pressure to renounce such sensitive nuclear
activities. 

"We have told the (International Atomic Energy) Agency that we
are going to inject new initial materials (uranium ore) into the
production chain," Javad Vaidi, an official from Iran's Supreme
National Security Council, told state television on Sunday. 

Uranium conversion is the precursor to uranium enrichment, a
process that can be used to make the fuel for civilian power
stations or the explosive core of a nuclear bomb. 

The IAEA has already called on Iran to suspend all uranium
enrichment activities in a resolution that set out the
conditions for hauling Tehran before the UN Security Council
over its nuclear programme. 


   Copyright � 2005 AFP. All rights reserved. All information
*****************************************************************
 13 AFP: Iran issues fresh nuclear challenge - 

 Monday November 7, 01:25 AM 


TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran again defied the international community
over its nuclear programme, announcing it would soon embark on
fresh nuclear fuel work and was seeking investors for uranium
enrichment activities. 

Officials said Sunday Tehran would be converting a fresh batch
of uranium ore -- the precursor step before enrichment -- in a
flagrant rejection of calls from Europe and the United States
for Tehran to halt all such activities. 

The state press also said the government had given the country's
atomic energy agency the go-ahead to look for foreign and
domestic investors in uranium enrichment, even though this
practice remains suspended. 

The decisions appear a fresh sign of Iran's determination to
make full use of the nuclear fuel cycle, despite the
international pressure to cease all enrichment-related
activities as proof it is not seeking a nuclear bomb. 

They come three weeks ahead of a meeting of the UN nuclear
watchdog which could theoretically send Iran to the Security
Council and amid mounting concerns about the direction of
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government. 

"The government is authorising the Iranian atomic energy agency
to seek Iranian or foreign investors -- from the public or
private sectors -- for the Natanz enrichment project," the press
said, apparently quoting from an official directive. 

According to the press, the decision was taken on Wednesday by
the cabinet. 

The central town of Natanz is the site of Iran's nuclear
enrichment plant, which is to host thousands of centrifuges
which spin at supersonic speeds to enrich the uranium. 

The enrichment process provides the fuel for civilian nuclear
power stations but in highly enriched form the uranium can also
be used to make the explosive core of a nuclear bomb. 

Iran also said on Sunday that it will be converting new
consignments of uranium at its plant outside the central city of
Isfahan, after resuming this crucial part of the fuel cycle in
August following a suspension. 

"We have told the (International Atomic Energy) Agency that we
are going to inject new initial materials (uranium ore) into the
production chain," Javad Vaidi, an official from Iran's Supreme
National Security Council, told state television. 

Iran says it only wishes to enrich to the low-level purity
required for reactor fuel but its enemies have accused Tehran of
seeking to make a nuclear bomb. 

European countries, led by Britain, France and Germany, had
attempted to persuade Iran to permanently suspend uranium
enrichment as a watertight guarantee that its nuclear programme
was peaceful. 

However the talks came to a shuddering halt when the Islamic
republic in August resumed its uranium conversion activities,
the precursor of enrichment. 

Iran has vehemently maintained that its right to enrichment is
enshrined under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), a
position reaffirmed on Sunday by foreign ministry spokesman
Hamid Reza Asefi. 

"We will never abandon our right to the nuclear fuel cycle," he
told reporters, at the same time stating that "the door is open
to discussions, nothing has been closed." 

International concern about Iran's nuclear policy of hardline
Ahmadinejad's administration has intensified after he called for
Israel to be "wiped off the map". 

On the horizon now looms the November 24 meeting of the IAEA,
where the United States and Europe could call for Tehran to be
hauled up before the UN Security Council if it does not halt all
uranium enrichment related activities. 

Previous attempts for such a move have foundered over the
opposition of Russia and Moscow is once again expected to play a
key role in November's meeting. 

Iran also moved to weigh the scales in its favour by last week
allowing UN inspectors access to the Parchin military site,
where Washington alleges Iran may be testing high-explosive
charges with an inert core of depleted uranium. 


   Copyright � 2005 AFP. All rights reserved. All information
*****************************************************************
 14 Guardian Unlimited: N. Korea Chafes at U.N. Human Rights Plan
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

Saturday November 5, 2005 7:46 AM

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North Korea has accused the United
States of attempting to overthrow the communist regime with a
human rights law and warned of an ``ultra hard-line'' response
if it does so, according to a North Korean news report on
Saturday. 

An unidentified delegate issued the warning before the United
Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters in New York on
Monday, said the report on North's Korean Central Broadcasting
Station, a state-controlled radio station monitored by South
Korea's Yonhap news agency. North Korean officials often make
policy statements through state-run media. 

The North Korean envoy protested against the North Korean Human
Rights Act enacted by Congress last year that lets the U.S.
administration spend up to $24 million a year to help improve
human rights in the totalitarian country. 

``The purpose of this law lies in switching the system or
overthrowing the government under the cloak of promoting human
rights and democracy and facilitating market economy in our
country,'' the North's delegate was quoted as saying. 

``We will put up ultra hard-line responses to this kind of
hostility to safeguard our sovereignty as well as people's
freedom and safety,'' the delegate said without elaborating on
the ``responses.'' 

The North's delegate also berated the European Union over its
efforts to introduce a resolution on the North's human rights to
the U.N. General Assembly. 

Reports of torture and public executions are a few of the
atrocities that have emerged from the isolated North, raising
international concerns. Between 150,000 and 200,000 people are
believed to be held in prison camps there for political reasons,
a State Department report said earlier this year. 

However, human rights concerns in North Korea have often been
overshadowed by the international crisis over its nuclear
weapons program. 

The North and the United States have held four rounds of
negotiations so far to resolve the nuclear dispute. The talks,
which also involve China, South Korea, Japan and Russia, are
scheduled to resume in Beijing on Nov. 9.	 
		 	 	   
      Guardian Unlimited � Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
 15 AFP: US under pressure to break Korean nuclear stalemate

 Sun Nov 6, 4:03 AM ET 		 	 

WASHINGTON, (AFP) - The United States is under pressure to give
some concessions upfront for North Korea" /> to fulfill a pledge
to abandon its nuclear weapons program, as multilateral talks
enter a crucial phase this week. 

 At the last round of the talks, North Korea pledged to abandon
its nuclear weapons arsenal in return for wide-ranging benefits,
in the first-ever accord signed by the United States, China, the
two Koreas, Russia and Japan since six-way negotiations began in
August 2003. 

But a key question has cropped up ahead of the fifth round of
talks in Beijing, set to begin Wednesday: Who should make the
first move under the so-called "commitment for commitment,
action for action" principle they agreed upon? 

"I think the next round is unlikely to yield significant
progress, because the two sides are very far apart on what each
of them should do at the beginning," said Selig Harrison,
director of the Asia program at the Washington-based Center for
International Policy. 

The United States wants North Korea to set the ball rolling by
launching the process of dismantling its nuclear weapons
program. 

North Korea, on the other hand, expects substantial benefits
upfront from the United States before beginning any effort to
surrender what is literally its only negotiating weapon. 

Harrison believes Pyongyang wants the United States to "take
some steps" leading to normalized relations, such as North
Korea's removal from the US list of states accused of sponsoring
terrorism. 

The hardline communist state does not currently have diplomatic
relations with the United States. 

Removal from the terrorism list is crucial for the impoverished
North Korea to join the World Bank" /> and the Asian Development
Bank and seek developmental aid. 

By waiting for the United States to initiate steps towards
normalization of relations, North Korea may be testing whether
Washington is genuine in its desire to end any bid for regime
change in the reclusive state. 

There continues to be a split in the US administration on its
policy towards North Korea, diplomatic sources said, adding that
this was having a direct impact on the negotiating strategy of
the chief US envoy to the six-party talks, Christopher Hill. 

For example, Hill was unable to get clearance from Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice" /> to fly to Pyongyang to talk directly
with the top North Korean leadership. A trip, diplomats said,
could have underlined US sincerity in wanting to resolve the
nuclear crisis. 

"The combination of a relatively inflexible and deeply divided
foreign policy establishment in Washington and a brutal and
difficult ... dictatorship in Pyongyang makes it very hard to
imagine that we can proceed ahead without many bumps on the
road," said Kurt Campbell, a former deputy assistant secretary
of defense for East Asian and Pacific affairs. 

"Our allies are looking at the United States to see whether the
traffic jam when it comes to developing a coherent policy from
the United States has finally been solved because of the
interaction between the engagers and the hardline critics," he
said. 

The United States agrees that the process and timetable for
denuclearization of the Korean peninsula is going to be
difficult. 

"The next phase -- working out the details of the DPRK's (North
Korea's) denuclearization, as well as corresponding measures the
other parties will take -- will involve tough negotiations,"
Hill told a congressional hearing recently. 

"We will be drawing up timelines and sequencing of actions. The
issues are complex and interrelated," he said of the upcoming
round of talks. 

Joseph DeTrani, the special US envoy to the talks, said North
Korea had to resolve the highly emotive issue of its kidnapping
of Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s before any
consideration could be given to its removal from the terrorism
list. 

But there had been little progress in high-level negotiations in
Beijing last week over the abduction issue between Japan and
North Korea. 

"If there is no progress in the Japanese-North Korean talks, it
is not likely there will be any significant progress in the
six-party talks, because the United States needs the freedom to
remove North Korea from the terrorism list as a first gesture in
order to get a good North Korean gesture," Harrison said. 

But DeTrani indicated some US flexibility in resolving the
nuclear crisis, which flared up in October 2002 after Washington
accused North Korea of running a secret uranium-enrichment
program. 

"No one is asking the DPRK to unilaterally dismantle all their
programs before anything else happens. 

"We are talking about actions for actions, words for words; we
are talking about proper sequencing. This is the hard work that
we are all talking about, and we need to get to that," he said.
	 		 			
  + World - AFP 			
*****************************************************************
 16 USNews.com: The name's Richardson, and when there's trouble
afoot, he's often the guy to see 

11/14/05 

Talking truth to power The name's Richardson, and when
there's trouble afoot, he's often the guy to see 

Three weeks ago, with the blessing of the Bush administration,
Gov. Bill Richardson was in North Korea to discuss its
contentious nuclear weapons program. It was classic Richardson,
a Democrat who has crossed party lines when he thought it was
the right thing to do and whose public life over three decades
has included seven terms in Congress, high-wire negotiations
with some of the world's biggest thugs, two cabinet posts under
President Clinton, and now the Statehouse of New Mexico, his
adopted home state. 

Richardson may be America's most prominent Hispanic politician.

The son of an American businessman and a Mexican mother, he grew
up in Mexico City, attended prep school, college, and graduate
school in New England, and flirted with a professional baseball
career before choosing the contact sport of politics. In his new
book, Between Worlds--The Making of an American Life, Richardson
lays out his rough rules for negotiation with some of the
world's worst bad guys, like Saddam Hussein, and speaks to his
vision for the United States. Excerpt: 

William Barloon and David Daliberti were oil mechanics working
in Kuwait for U.S. defense contractors when they decided to hook
up with some friends manning a United Nations observation
station near the Kuwait-Iraq border. They took a wrong turn and
soon found themselves in Iraq and under arrest by Saddam
Hussein' s border guards. There were hints in Iraq's
state-controlled press of spying and potential sabotage. Not
true: These guys had had a couple of beers, set off in search of
their buddies, and lost their way. For that, they were sentenced
to eight years in Abu Ghraib Prison, where Saddam had locked up
and tortured enemies real and imagined over the decades. The
Clinton administration, not contesting the official charge of
entering the country illegally, said it would press for the
release of Barloon, 39, and Daliberti, 41, but would make no
concessions to Iraq. There would be no quid pro quo. 

About a month later, I got a call from Peter Bourne, who had
worked for former President Jimmy Carter as his drug czar and
who was then active in international relief efforts. The Iraqis
had called Bourne, apparently to express their unhappiness with
the negotiations over the fate of Barloon and Daliberti. As he
told it, both Carter and the Rev. Jesse Jackson had talked to
Iraq's representatives, but there was no movement and no
prospect of it in the foreseeable future. 

The Iraqis clearly were seeking a way out of what was an
embarrassing episode at a particularly sensitive time. Saddam's
people wanted to talk to someone they thought they could trust.

That someone, Bourne insisted, was me. The Iraqis knew of my
connections to the Clinton White House and the work I had done
in North Korea and other trouble spots, Bourne said, and they
considered me an honest broker. This was something of a
backhanded compliment, considering the source. I was leery about
getting involved with the Iraqis on any level, not least as a
freelance diplomat. But in the end, I figured, there was nothing
to be lost in taking a first step. I contacted Clinton's
national security adviser, Tony Lake, to let him know about the
overture and seek guidance. 


Bourne arranged for me to meet in New York with Nizar Hamdoon, 
Iraq's ambassador to the United Nations. A first step led to 
subsequent steps. Over the next three months, Hamdoon and I met 
10 times at his official residence in New York, usually over a 
sumptuous Iraqi lunch.

Hamdoon, an elegant rail of a man with a black mustache and a 
seemingly permanent smile, made plain what we already knew--that 
the Iraqis wanted to free Barloon and Daliberti. By this time, 
the oil workers' wives were waging an effective international 
media campaign for the release of their husbands. Even the White 
House was feeling some heat.

Still, in our first nine meetings, Nizar had asked for everything 
from the end of the U.N.'s economic sanctions on Iraq to medical 
equipment to be delivered by a third country. Not a chance, said 
the White House. Saddam also wanted something else: a letter from 
Clinton expressing the American president's appreciation for the 
Iraqi dictator's gesture and a formal thank-you from the United 
States government for turning over the oil workers. No way, I 
told Hamdoon. Near the end of the ninth meeting, he insisted, 
once more, on the Clinton letter and the public thank-you from 
the government. "Nizar, this just is not going to happen, and I'm 
out of here," I told him. This is sometimes a useful technique in 
negotiations with autocrats or their minions because if talks are 
to be broken off, they want to be the ones to do it. Sure enough, 
Hamdoon called a week later and said I had to come back to talk.

"Screw you, Nizar, we're done."

Hamdoon's grasp of the English vernacular was excellent. "Really, 
Bill, we can do this. Let's meet one more time." We did and he 
tried, yet again, to play his losing hand. I said no. But I did 
say I would make an appropriate statement, as a United States 
congressman, if the oil workers were released to me. We agreed, 
finally, that there would be no Clinton letter and no U.S. 
government thank-you note, but that any communique or statement 
by me would have to be negotiated with Iraqi Deputy Prime 
Minister Tariq Aziz. The decision on whether to release the 
prisoners ultimately would fall to Saddam.

It was sometime around noon when our Iraqi drivers escorted us 
from our Baghdad hotel across town to a compound of palaces, 
outbuildings, ponds, and gardens. We went through several 
checkpoints, manned by uniformed armed guards and buttressed by 
sandbags, and pulled up to the entrance of a particularly 
impressive palace. Amazingly, there was no security at the gate. 
But as we drove through, we looked directly at an armored 
personnel carrier, its gun lined up perfectly with the front 
entrance. The building was huge, with what seemed to be dozens of 
ornate, empty rooms. Where was everyone? We were taken to one of 
these rooms, dominated by a portrait of Saddam, and told to wait. 
An interpreter joined us and, five minutes later, someone else 
arrived and escorted us to another room, one big enough to 
accommodate eight or nine entrances. There were floor-to-ceiling 
curtains, and beneath them I could see a half-dozen pairs of 
shoes. From North Korea to Angola, I'd seen a lot of strange and 
unsettling things, but the sight of these feet sticking out from 
under a curtain in Saddam Hussein's palace was the most bizarre.

We sat down. Moments later, a door opened and eight military 
officers, all ramrod-straight Republican Guardsmen, each with a 
sidearm and a carbon-copy Saddam mustache, marched in and lined 
up along one wall. The show was getting better by the second.

Two minutes later, another door opened and Saddam Hussein walked 
in, trim and broad-shouldered in his uniform. I am a big man, and 
Saddam, in his shiny black boots, appeared even taller. He seemed 
relaxed, but he had a twitch on the right side of his face that 
caused one eye to blink rapidly. As he entered, we stood. He sat 
and motioned us to do the same. I sat beside him, and we stared 
at each other for a few moments.

I began to speak and Calvin, my invaluable aide, took notes on 
3-by-5 index cards. My hands were sweating. I started by noting 
all the help provided by Iraq's ambassador to the United Nations 
and told him how appreciative we were that he had decided to see 
us. We hoped our differences could be resolved diplomatically and 
peacefully.

"Iraq has not received an American in a long period of time," 
Saddam said. "We are thus required to talk about a great number 
of issues."

Suddenly, the Iraqi dictator slammed his hand hard on the table, 
stood up, and walked out of the room.

"What the hell's going on?" I asked the interpreter.

"You crossed your legs," he said.

"So?"

"You showed the dirty bottom of your shoe," he said. "That's an 
insult in Arab culture. You must apologize."

Aziz, Iraq's influential deputy prime minister, speaks fluent 
English. He came over and repeated what would be required of me.

"He left, Tariq," I said. "What do you want me to do--apologize 
to an empty chair? Is he coming back?"

Aziz shrugged. Fifteen minutes later, Saddam returned, sat down, 
and played the staring game again. Now I was really sweating. 
Should I grovel and apologize or keep on talking as if nothing 
happened? If I do, maybe he'll respect me for that. Option B 
seemed best. I kept both feet on the floor and plowed ahead.

"On behalf of the American people and President Clinton, I would 
like to request the release of the two Americans in your custody. 
The release would be viewed as an important humanitarian gesture. 
I am just one politician in a government with many pockets of 
power. Congress has a lot of power and influence in the 
international relations field. We do not always agree with the 
president; in fact, I did not vote for the war because I believed 
further diplomatic activity should have been pursued. (Later, 
when I became United Nations ambassa-dor and had to deal with 
Saddam again, I realized that my congressional vote on the war 
was a mistake.)

Nervously, I pressed on. "I am a close friend of President 
Clinton," I said, "and I have taken a number of diplomatic 
initiatives such as this . . . I am not an official envoy. I 
don't work for President Clinton, and I cannot negotiate for him 
or for the United States. . . . The current relationship is not 
helpful for Iraqi citizens or the United States, and it has 
potentially drastic implications for the entire region, including 
the Israeli-Palestinian problem. Should you release the two 
Americans, I believe the American people would appreciate this 
humanitarian gesture."

I'd made my case. The meeting was now into the second hour. Now 
what? There was a silence of about two minutes, with Saddam 
staring at me with his small, beady eyes; then he spoke.

Saddam said he appreciated my comments and gave us his word that 
the entire matter would be treated confidentially. Then he got to 
the point: "Based on the principles that you have appealed to me, 
and on the respect that you have shown me, and the request of 
Bill Clinton, and the long journey you have taken without any 
reassurances, I will use the constitutional powers vested in me 
in the Iraqi Constitution and release the two individuals to your 
custody. You will be able to take them with you." I immediately 
said that he was doing the right thing and instinctively put a 
hand on his arm in a gesture of goodwill. Saddam started, the 
only emotion he'd shown the entire time except for his bolting 
over the display of my heel, and along the wall, eight hands 
suddenly touched sidearms. But Saddam composed himself, the 
Republican Guard relaxed, and Iraq's dictator in chief continued.

"However, I want to be certain, in regard to the two individuals, 
that the Iraqi courts have acted in a just and honorable manner. 
The court has issued harsher sentences for non-Americans accused 
of illegally crossing the border. And this includes Arabs as 
well. In accordance with the law, courts pass sentences, but I 
can't deny that the courts, when considering a case involving 
Americans, [may] be influenced by the state of relations between 
Iraq and the United States. But I am not accusing them of that. 
The courts acted appropriately." This homage to Iraqi justice and 
the rule of law was touching, but I knew it was bulls- - -, and 
somehow I sensed that he knew I knew it was bulls- - -. We both 
knew the only law that mattered in Iraq was Saddam's law.

We were nearing the end of our conversation when Saddam brought 
in the Iraqi-controlled media for a photo op. While they were 
taking pictures and rolling tape, Saddam told me these images 
were not good politics in Iraq, given that they showed him with 
an American. I responded in kind: I wouldn't be using these 
pictures in my next re-election campaign either.

We said our goodbyes and waited. The Iraqi News Agency was 
breaking the story the way its boss wanted it broken: "President 
Saddam Hussein told Richardson that he accepts the plea by 
President Bill Clinton, the Congress, and the American people. 
His excellency issued an order . . . to pardon the two detainees 
and set them free immediately." The Iraqis, in other words, 
wanted to make it sound as if I was an official envoy after all. 
I set the record straight in my statement to the international 
press: "I undertook this mission as a member of Congress and not 
as a presidential envoy. There was no quid pro quo or concessions 
. . . I commend the Iraqi government for taking this positive 
humanitarian action."

Later that day, the Iraqis brought in two Americans. They looked 
scruffy and confused but otherwise reasonably fit. Barloon and 
Daliberti knew something was going on because they had been 
better fed over the past few days, but they didn't know exactly 
what was happening. It was an emotional moment. They didn't 
recognize me--there was no reason they should--so I just held out 
a hand to each of them and said: "I'm Congressman Bill Richardson 
from New Mexico, and you've been released to me. I'm taking you 
home." Both men burst into tears.

From the book Between Worlds by Bill Richardson with Michael 
Ruby.Copyright (c) 2005 Bill Richardson. Published by G. P. 
Putnam's Sons.

Copyright � 2005 U.S.News & World Report, L.P. All rights
*****************************************************************
 17 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: Japan-North Korea Talks End Without Progress
 
  Home> National/Politics    Updated Nov.5,2005 17:27 KST   
 
   
  The two-day bilateral talks between Japan and North Korea
ended on Friday in Beijing with both sides agreeing to push
ahead with efforts to establish diplomatic relations. Though the
two countries decided to arrange more working-level talks in the
future, observers say the latest round of talks gave little
ground on long-standing points of tension such as the North's
abduction of Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 80s. 

In 2002, North Korea admitted abducting 13 Japanese citizens and
sent back five of them to Japan, saying the other eight had
died. Tokyo has been demanding proof, insisting some of them
could still be alive. 

No answers or agreements were found in the issues of Pyongyang's
nuclear program and North Korea's demand for compensation for
Japan's oppression during the colonial era. 

Arirang News 

  
  
*****************************************************************
 18 mainetoday.com: Maine must seek out alternatives 

In 1994, Maine relied on fossil fuels for only 10 percent of its
electric power generation. --> 

  [Kennebec Journal and Morning Sentinel] 

  Sunday, November 6, 2005 

By COLIN HICKEY Staff Writer

 Copyright � 2005 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.          
  
In 1994, Maine relied on fossil fuels for only 10 percent of its
electric power generation.

Eight years later the percent had soared to 77 percent, and that
makes Rep. Kenneth Fletcher, R-Winslow, worried.

"As long as we are dependent on fossil fuels, we are going to be
at the mercy of the worldwide market," Fletcher said.

Fletcher is a member of a task force formed by the Legislature
last year that is charged with reducing that reliance on
petroleum and natural gas.

With abundant water, wind and biomass sources of power in the
state, renewable energy could be the solution to that problem,
Fletcher argued.

"We could become the least- dependent fossil-fuel state in the
nation if we put our minds to it," Fletcher said.

Fletcher argues that achieving this goal should be a priority.
To ignore the problem, he said, almost guarantees instability,
both in price and supply.

That is hard to avoid, he said, when your electric power supply
is so reliant on one source of energy. Natural gas is the fuel
of choice in Maine these days, and it comes through two
pipelines based in Canada, Fletcher said.

If natural-gas prices go up significantly, the price of electric
power will rise as well, although to a lower degree initially
due to the way in which energy for electric power is purchased.

Supply might be a bigger concern.

Fletcher said that supply could be compromised for several
reasons. When demand for natural gas increases -- such as in
deep winter cold spells -- suppliers have every incentive to
divert fuel to home-heating needs because that is more
profitable than power generation.

Terrorism and natural disasters are another concern. One bomb or
one severe storm could damage one or both of the pipelines
enough to cut off supply at least temporarily. 

Beth Nagusky, executive director of the state Office of Energy
Independence and Energy, has said publicly that Maine's heavy
dependence on natural gas could result in a shortage at some
point and force rolling blackouts and other drastic measures.

Nagusky, thus, shares Fletcher's anxiety over the state's
natural-gas dependence.

"We are very concerned," she said. "We have been concerned for
years about the lack of fuel diversity and relying so heavily on
fossil fuels, a high proportion of which is imported, which are
subject to high price spikes."

Eleven years ago the situation was much different. At that time,
nuclear energy accounted for 57 percent of Maine's electrical
generation. Renewable sources contributed 33 percent and fossil
fuels provided the final 10 percent.

The low cost of natural gas and optimistic views on supply led
to the dramatic shift in the power-supply portfolio; the loss of
the Maine Yankee nuclear power plant was another major factor.

But the price and supply of natural gas in recent years has
called into question the wisdom of that shift. 

No surprise, then, that state officials have begun to rethink
that power-supply portfolio.

Nagusky, by legislative directive, is the one who formed the
Renewable Energy Task Force.

She said the tremendous jumps in oil prices over the last year
led to the move.

"I think, unfortunately, energy policy in the state goes from a
panic to complacency," she said. "Right now we are at the panic
stage. My office hopefully focuses on the short term -- making
it through this winter -- and the long term -- ending the
dependence on fossil fuels."

The long-term solution, she said, is twofold: developing
conservation and energy-efficiency programs to reduce energy
consumption; and tapping into renewable-energy sources at a
greater level.

"I'm optimistic that current market conditions offer a prime
opportunity to bring on new renewable resources," she said.
"That is the silver lining of high costs. 

When they happened in the late '70s and early '80s, we became
much more energy efficient as a society, and in Maine we turned
to renewable power. The problem is we forgot those lessons the
second the oil crisis stopped."

Nagusky said hydroelectric dams, wind turbines, solar energy and
tidal power could all be part of the movement to greater
development of renewable-energy sources.

She said wind power has the potential to supply up to 1,000
megawatts of electric power, a level that would represent close
to 30 percent of Maine's current capacity. So far, however, wind
doesn't contribute a single megawatt.

Fletcher sees biomass facilities and hydroelectric dams as the
best means of increasing renewable-energy capacity. In the case
of dams, he favors getting existing ones up to full efficiency
rather than building additional ones.

A return to nuclear energy is not inconceivable either.

"I know it has been discussed," Nagusky said. "There is more and
more attention focused on nuclear energy. I think the disposal-
of-(nuclear)-waste issue is a serious issue that needs to be
considered."

Fletcher said Maine has the natural resources to get up to 55
percent of its electric energy capacity through renewable
sources, and he thinks this could be accomplished within five
years.

The potential is there, he said. What's needed, he added, is the
will.

Colin Hickey -- 861-9205

chickey@centralmaine.com   

the Kennebec Journal or Morning Sentinel for just

Copyright � 2005, Blethen Maine Newspapers, Inc.  
*****************************************************************
 19 statesman.com: Reid takeover of Senate signals new Democratic combativeness
 
Minority leader has plenty of parliamentary firepower to wage a
guerrilla fight against Republicans, and he knows how to use it.
 
By Scott Shepard 
WASHINGTON BUREAU 
Sunday, November 6, 2005 

WASHINGTON -- Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist learned the hard
way last week to be careful what you wish for. Once-docile
Democrats are now in open revolt, ready to exploit Senate rules
and procedures to thwart the Republican leadership. 

Frist wished for the defeat of Tom Daschle in last year's
election -- even ignored Senate traditions and worked hard for
it -- and he got it. Daschle became the first Senate leader in
more than a half-century to lose re-election. 

Now, instead of the mild-mannered South Dakotan leading the
Democrats, Frist has to deal with feisty Harry Reid, a miner's
son from the Nevada desert and a former welterweight boxer. The
65-year-old Reid, though bespectacled and soft-spoken, has shown
he is more cunning and daring than Daschle in confronting Frist
and the Bush administration, and he is willing to bring the
Senate to a grinding halt, as he did Tuesday, to the surprise of
Frist and the White House. 

That combativeness is a factor the Republican leadership must
consider in the coming fight over President Bush's legislative
proposals and Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito. 

Frist was visibly shaken by Reid's surprise attack last week,
the invocation of a seldom-used Senate rule, No. 21, to convene
a closed session of the Senate to discuss matters of national
security. 

His voice quivering with anger, Frist complained that he had
never been "slapped in the face" in such a way by "the previous
Democratic leader," that is, Daschle. 

In fact, however, before his defeat last year, Daschle had his
staff research how to use Rule 21 to do exactly what Reid used
it for, to force the Republicans to jump-start an investigation
into the way the White House used faulty intelligence about
Saddam Hussein's weapons to make the case for going to war
against Iraq. 

Daschle, though, decided a better course would be to seek
Frist's cooperation in getting that investigation completed,
according to The Washington Post, even though Frist had shunned
Senate protocol and campaigned in South Dakota for the
Democratic leader's opponent, John Thune. 

Tuesday, almost exactly a year after the election, without
warning, Reid took control of the Senate with Rule 21 and got
exactly what he wanted: the appointment of a Senate task force
to assess what progress, if any, has been made in the past year
on the Iraq weapons intelligence investigation. 

Republicans dismissed Reid's actions as a cheap political stunt.
The next morning, the Republican National Committee embarked on
an Internet-based campaign to brand Reid and his followers as
"Clare Luce Democrats," a reference to the 20th-century
playwright who declared that Franklin Roosevelt had "lied us
into war" against Germany and Japan. 

Even though Frist insisted after the two-hour closed session
that he and Reid had restored their working relationship, he
wrote on his Internet blog that Reid was guilty of a "political
temper tantrum" that was "a feeble attempt to give purpose to a
party with no agenda." 

Reid, not surprisingly, was unrepentant. He said he had "zero
regret" and declared a "great victory for the American people"
in getting the Republican-led Intelligence Committee to restart
its investigation. 

And his fellow Democrats said it was about time that their party
went on the offensive against the president and his party,
especially on the issue of whether the White House was honest
about the threat that Saddam posed to national security. Some
took to referring to Reid as "Give 'Em Hell Harry," a tip of the
hat to another combative Democrat, Harry Truman. 

Experts suggested that Reid's actions may have been as much
about other issues facing the White House and Congress as the
administration's use or misuse of prewar intelligence, most
especially the nomination of Alito to replace Associate Justice
Sandra Day O'Connor, an important swing vote on issues of
importance to Democrats. 

"This may have gone well beyond the intelligence matters," said
Lewis Gould, an emeritus professor of American history at the
University of Texas. "It may have been a warning from the
Democrats that they are not going to roll over on anything,
including Alito's nomination." 

Thomas Mann, a senior analyst and congressional expert at the
Brookings Institution, said Reid's invocation of Rule 21 "sent a
shot across the bow as a warning of what life might be like in a
post-nuclear option Senate," a reference to Frist's plan
employing extraordinary parliamentary procedures to impose a ban
on judicial filibusters. 
  
Presented by The Austin American-Statesman. Contact us.
*****************************************************************
 20 OrlandoSentinel.com: Fix nuke-weapons treaty - 

Opinion
                                                                
Alexander Hart |        
Posted November 5, 2005 	
 
Nuclear weapons find no rival in sheer destructive power. Most
world leaders claim to support nuclear disarmament, but if the
disarmament regime is to prevail, we must re-examine its
keystone, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Although
it is the most widely accepted nuclear treaty, debilitating
structural flaws prevent it from advancing global disarmament.

 Under the NPT, nuclear-weapons states are defined as having
"manufactured and exploded a nuclear weapon or other nuclear
explosive device prior to January 1, 1967." Where do India,
Pakistan, Israel and possibly Iran and North Korea stand under
this definition? Allowing them to participate as non-nuclear
states would be a mockery of the NPT. We need to subject them to
all relevant international safeguards and inspections, which can
be accomplished only by bringing them into the treaty. The
treaty's definition of a nuclear-weapons state is too
restrictive to represent modern political reality and must be
modified if the NPT is to be effective.

The NPT guarantees the "inalienable right to develop
research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful
purposes without discrimination." This clause protects the right
to civil nuclear power. It also allows countries to stockpile
enriched uranium under the guise of fueling their nuclear
submarines. Nations can legally produce weapons-grade plutonium
while claiming that it is just a byproduct of their nuclear
reactors. They can even conduct nuclear-weapons research as long
as they don't actually test a bomb. They can do all of this
while still fulfilling their obligations under the NPT. After
providing three months' notice to withdraw from the treaty, the
nation can legally produce nuclear weapons.

 The only way to prevent nuclear materials from ending up in
weapons would be to ban nuclear power. But nuclear power is not
inherently evil and should not be banned. Still, the potential
for abuse under the current NPT is wholly unacceptable. A
modified treaty should include stronger inspection and
enforcement measures. The guaranteed consequence of strong
economic sanctions against any nation cloaking a nuclear-weapons
program in the robe of the NPT should dissuade most nations from
doing so.

 But worst, the NPT's flaws are difficult to correct. After
gaining the support of a majority of the non-nuclear-weapons
states and the unanimous consent of the nuclear-weapons states,
an amendment must survive the veto powers of at least 25 nations
to take effect. If the NPT is to be useful, it must be
responsive to change and modernism, adaptable to situations
unforeseen by its architects. Instead of the complex veto system
currently in place, amendments should require only a simple
majority of nations be party to the treaty. This method is in
keeping with the democratic spirit of the United Nations but
will not be impossible.

 We can rescue the NPT. And we must. As long as nuclear weapons
exist, we face the threat of nuclear war and uncountable loss of
life. For everyone's sake, let's fix the treaty and get back on
the road to disarmament.


� 2005 Orlando Sentinel Communications           
*****************************************************************
 21 Sunday Herald: Nuclear war may no longer be inevitable, but that hasnt stopped
every country wanting to own the ultimate weapon. And why not? -

  Ian Bell 
 
 YOU probably remember the peace dividend. That was the bounty
for all mankind guaranteed by the fall of the Soviet Union and
the end of the cold war. Five decades of mutual paranoia would
be lifted from our shoulders; Cruise missiles would be beaten
into GameBoys; and all the insane sums spent previously on
unused whizzbangs would be put to sensible uses.

You dared to believe it, didnt you, just for a brief second?
Cant be blamed for that. Who goes on getting tooled up for
Armageddon when there is nobody credible left to fight? If the
USSR had been sent into economic defeat, it stood to reason that
the democracies would find other outlets for their wealth and
energies. If there was nobody left to deter, clearly the
instruments of deterrence were superfluous. We could buy
ourselves some peace.

It didnt happen. The runners in the nuclear arms race barely
missed a beat. Reason had nothing to do with it. Older players
in the game, such as Britain, had a few embarrassing moments
when they were asked where the missiles were currently pointed,
and why. New and eager prospective members of the club drew a
simple lesson: this crap works. Buy yourself something new and
thermonuclear and the arts of diplomacy become a little less
relevant.

The toys in question are weapons of mass destruction, of course,
the very best. The world abhors them. The world, if you believe
its statesmen, would like rid of them. But if you happen to be a
state that already has them, or thinks it might have use for a
few, the moral parameters appear to change. Your WMD are my
necessary defensive capabilities held, regrettably, in the name
of peace and security.

The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NNPT) was supposed to put
an end to such sophistry. It was nobodys idea of a charitable
gesture. It was the device by which the five existing holders of
top-grade WMD (the United States, Russia, Britain, France and
China) would seek to persuade or cajole all other states into
abandoning their nuclear ambitions. If a lid could be put on the
box, Pandora might behave herself and the top five could proceed
to disarm.

Three problems. First, the official nuclear powers had no
intention of ever relinquishing all the really good stuff. What
would the generals say? When did you hear a British government,
of any party, declare an ambition to become nuke-free within a
stated timetable? When did you last hear of a British government
engaged in negotiations with anyone on the subject? Disarm? No
fear. Ditto the other four.

Secondly, and consequently, there was the logical flaw in
non-proliferation. If it worked, where would potential enemies
come from? Why would the arsenals be required? But if your
intention was to keep your own arsenal come what may, what
better way to justify it than with a few potential enemies, real
or actual? Best not to make too much of a fuss, then, over the
NNPT, unless a fuss is convenient. Better, perhaps, to use it as
a bargaining chip: the people we like get to join the club; the
rest can make up the numbers as potential foes.

That was the third point. Three of the Wests sometime friends
saved everyone a lot of bother simply by ignoring the NNPT.
Israel, India and Pakistan refused to sign and set about
acquiring nukes without anyones permission. No wars ensued.
Nobody threatened to invade, bomb reactors, or even impose
sanctions. WMD were loose in the world and the world, more or
less, shrugged. What can you do?

Quite a lot if you can only allege that Saddam might have
fancied a warhead or two of his own, prove that North Koreas
nut-job dictator has a crude weapons programme at his disposal,
or allege that Iran has ambitions. Clearly, none of these states
can match Chinas record on democracy or human rights, but unlike
China and ourselves they are unstable. Or to put it another way:
they justify the weapons whose possession we claim as a right.
They are the necessary enemy.

Iran is certainly flavour of the month for John Reid, defence
secretary. Last week he was using that countrys (still
non-existent) nuclear threat to explain to the Commons
cross-party defence committee why Britain cannot afford to
relinquish its nuclear capabilities. The Iranians had been
deceiving the world, he said, and not complying with their
obligations under the non-proliferation treaty. Unlike Israel.

The real point was to prepare the way for the eventual
replacement of the Trident submarine-launched system.
Undoubtedly, like a good client, HMG will wait to see what the
Americans come up with before a choice is made. Equally
predictably, the Blair government will do whatever it can to
ensure that MPs are denied a vote on Trident-replacement. The
boats carrying the nukes will not have to be replaced for at
least 15 years, but Reid is keen to make a start.

At this point you might be asking yourself how many victims of
the London bombings on July 7 might have been saved by improved
nuclear weapons. You might ask, as many Americans asked at the
time, what George Bushs proposed grandiose missile defence
shield would have done to prevent 9/11. But this is
full-spectrum paranoia, and like the war on terror, it is
self-fulfilling.

Invade Iraq and, as night follows day, there are terrorist
bombings in Europe. Replenish your nuclear arsenal and ambitious
states around the world, nice or not so nice, decide they want
to play with the big boys. Reid would have it that a potential
nuclear threat doesnt mean we no longer need the SAS to assault
terrorists, any more than the London bombers obviate the need
for a nuclear capacity. But he misses the point: in his world,
all is escalation, permanent and eternal. The trouble is, he
cannot keep the game within the club, even if that is his aim.
The worse trouble is, his American friends are using the gift of
club membership as a form of patronage.

India is the prime case in point. Just lately, Washington has
taken to ignoring the fact that the Indians have broken every
nuclear rule going, even as America inveighs, with possible
justification, against Iran. Currently, George W is offering to
overturn screeds of American law, including his countrys own
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act, in exchange for Delhis
friendship. Countries that fail to put their nuclear industries
under international safeguards  the beef against Iran  or who
have detonated a nuclear device since 1978 are supposed to be
denied Americas co-operation. India is therefore disqualified,
but George doesnt care.

India could be a very useful regional ally, after all, what with
its proximity to China. But nobody is bothering to ask why Delhi
thinks it needs an estimated 50 warheads, or why it plans to
produce 400 to 500 more over the next decade, other than as a
subscription to the club. Is India threatened by Pakistan or
China? Possibly so. Certainly, the potential exists. But why
would India then have need of an inter-continental ballistic
missile (ICBM), now being planned, when its existing Agni rocket
can hit its regional rivals easily?

The ICBM might one day take an Indian into space. In the
meantime, or at least in the near future, it could strike Europe
or America. Indian officials have already admitted that such
would be the presumed targets.

Not that Delhi would do any such thing, of course. A capability
of that magnitude would merely demonstrate that India had joined
the top table in the peaceable, stable club of those we trust.
Yet in the world of changing friend and ever-altering foe, Reids
language, and British policy, is stripped bare. Why should India
be denied the accoutrements of global power? And which successor
to Bush, witnessing the explosive economic growth on the
subcontinent, will fail to detect a new enemy emerging from a
former ally?

The only way to get rid of nuclear weapons is to get rid of
them. If Britain replaces Trident with the latest American kit,
acquired at a special discount rate, what entitles us to pick on
Iran or North Korea, to deny them their status symbols or, as
they might see it, their own guarantors of security? And what
entitles us to lecture anyone on the iniquities of weapons of
mass destruction?

Were the good guys. We, along with our American friends, are the
best of the good guys. Which is to say that alone among the
weapons fetishists of world history, we are the only people ever
to have developed and dropped atomic weapons on anyone. Its what
we call moral authority. John Reid, with his range of threats,
his potential enemies, and his refusal to rid the world of a
plague, knows all about that.

For most of my life nuclear war seemed imminent. Then we
believed the cloud might have passed. Check the horizon now, but
rest assured: Britain will do its bit. 

06 November 2005 

  � newsquest (sunday herald) limited. all rights reserved   
*****************************************************************
 22 Daily Times: No Indian-style nuclear deal for Pakistan 

November 07, 2005  	   

By Khalid Hasan

WASHINGTON: The United States has no intention of offering 
Pakistan the kind of nuclear cooperation deal it signed with 
India in July this year, according to Nicholas Burns, under 
secretary of state.

Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on
Wednesday, Burns, who was in New Delhi two weeks ago, when asked
if a similar deal may be demanded by Pakistan, replied, �We have
an important relationship with Pakistan. We are not offering the
same deal to Pakistan, for a variety of reasons. As said by
Secretary (of State Condoleezza) Rice, it is necessary to
dehyphenate our policy in South Asia. For a long term, it has
been a zero sum nature of relationship in the region. It is time
to have a full-blown relationship with Pakistan in
counter-terrorism, but with India, we can have a separate
relationship.�

He said the July 18 accord with India, signed when Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh paid an official visit to Washington, is
a strategic relationship in the civil nuclear field. He
disclosed that Rice met President Pervez Musharraf at the UN and
briefed him about the deal with India. Asked if Pakistan would
accept the emerging relationship between the US and India, he
replied he could not say if Pakistan is happy about it or Gen
Musharraf is happy about it, but some Pakistani officials have
stated that they would like the US to have a similar
relationship with their country. He called the deal with India a
�unique arrangement�. 

After his testimony, in an informal chat with journalists
covering the hearing, he was asked by this correspondent what
Gen Musharraf had said to Rice when she briefed him on the
Indo-US nuclear agreement of July 18. He declined an answer. It
is learnt that Pakistan�s reaction so far has been
�businesslike�. 

No Pakistani embassy representative was present at the hearing,
which took place in a room packed to capacity.

On Kashmir, Burns said he did not see the US role as
�mediatory�. Kashmir, he added, is a sensitive issue. �In the
wake of the recent devastating earthquake, India has extended
assistance to Pakistan, which is a welcome sign. This is a very
slow rapprochement. We will help if we can. In fact, behind the
scenes, we have been helpful. Pakistan-India relations have
registered an improvement,� he said. 

            
Daily Times - All Rights Reserved
*****************************************************************
 23 Bellona: Red Report Presented in Krasnoyarsk
 
Alexander Nikitin presented the Bellona report �Russian Nuclear
Industry�The Need for Reform� at a press conference Wednesday in
Krasnoyarsk.

  Alexander Nikitin   
  Kommersant Krasnoyarsk   

Vera Ponomareva, 2005-11-05 12:53

The theme of the report presented at Wednesday's press
conference in Krasnoyarsk is Russia's policy in the sphere of
nuclear power, and the structure and current state of its
nuclear complex. 

The report contains a detailed overview of the current state of
Russia's nuclear industry, as well as recommendations for
improving safety and dealing with potential threats. 

The authors of the report are Bellona employees Alexander
Nikitin, Igor Kudrik, Nils B�hmer, and Charles Digges, as well
as Vladimir Kuznetsov of the Green Cross nuclear safety project,
and environmentalist and journalist Vladislav Larin of the NGO
Ecopress Centre.

  The Russian Nuclear Industry�The Need for Reform   
  
  Released November 2004, the forth Bellona report on the
Russian nuclear industry sugests solutions as well as giving
further details on the current situation.
   

At the press conference, Nikitin commented on the construction
in Zheleznogorsk of a new RT-2 processing facility spent nuclear
fuel, and gave a number of reasons why construction should be
halted. 

According to Nikitin, the SNF processing facility is
economically infeasible. 

�Without doubt, this will make quick bucks on a huge scale, but
the money is in no way commensurate with the losses.
Construction of this facility will create yet another nuclear
dumping ground in Russia.� 

Radioactive waste will be transported through a tunnel under the
Yenisei River for underground storage on the opposite bank. 

�Storing liquid radioactive waste underground, which many
Rosatom experts think is an effective and environmentally safe
way to store radioactive waste, is a very controversial and
dangerous idea,� Nikitin said. 

At the Severny firing range some 4-6 kilometres from the
Yenisei, some 5 million cubic meters of liquid radioactive waste
have already been buried. At present, the underground
radioactivity is gradually moving towards a tributary to the
Yenisei � the Bolshoi Tel River. Underground storage of liquid
radioactive waste has been practised for more than 30 years at
the Siberian Chemical Combine and the Dmitrovgrad Nuclear
Reactor Institute. 

According to Nikitin, other countries have already shown that
recycling spent nuclear fuel is economically inefficient. 

�Experts say that the amount required to finish construction of
the first part of the RT-2 facility has been substantially cut
by the Nuclear Power Ministry, which puts construction costs at
$2 billion dollars. In comparison, the Thorp facility at
Sellafield has half of the capacity that RT-2 is supposed to
have, yet cost $4.35 billion in 1994. The facility at Rokkasho
in Japan, which deals with 800 tons of spent nuclear fuel, cost
$17 billion.� 

Construction of the RT-2 SNF-processing facility, which is
projected to have a capacity of 1,500 tons of SNF, began in
1984. In 1989, the USSR's nuclear energy ministry halted
construction following protests by residents of Krasnoyarsk
Krai. In January 1991, the ministry adopted a resolution to halt
construction for 5 years. In 1994, construction was allowed to
resume following a Presidential Order On State Support for
Structural Reconstruction and Conversion of the Nuclear Industry
at Zheleznogorsk, Krasnoyarsk Krai.

  Publisher: , President: 
Information: , Technical contact: 
Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00 Telefax: +47 22 38 38 62  * P.O.Box
2141 Grunerlokka, 0505 Oslo, Norway
*****************************************************************
 24 Sunday Herald: Scottish farms still contaminated by Chernobyl fallout - 

  By Rob Edwards, Environment Editor 
 
 NEARLY 20 years after the Chernobyl reactor in Ukraine exploded
and showered Europe with radioactivity, farms in Scotland are
still paying the price.

Eleven farms covering 11,300 hectares in Ayrshire and the
central belt are still so contaminated by the accident that
their sheep are considered unsafe to eat.

The concentrations of caesium-137 from Chernobyl in the animals
exceed the safety limit of 1000 becquerels of radioactivity per
kilogram. Farmers have to mark radioactive sheep with indelible
paint, and cant have them slaughtered for food until they fall
below the limit.

The revelation came in response to questions asked in the
Scottish parliament by the Scottish National Party chairman,
Bruce Crawford MSP. After all these years, Scotland is still
suffering the after-effects of Chernobyl, he told the Sunday
Herald.

In these circumstances it is utterly ludicrous that the Blair
government seems intent on foisting a new generation of nuclear
power stations on this country. We must learn the lessons of
last century and must not repeat past mistakes.

 No matter how much technology might have improved, radioactive
waste is still produced, leaving a deadly inheritance for
hundreds of thousands of years, he said.

Chernobyl was the worlds worst nuclear accident. Errors by
control room staff in an old and poorly designed reactor led to
an explosion which ripped apart the building on April 26, 1986.

A massive cloud of radioactivity then blew over western Europe,
falling to earth in rain. Caesium-137 and other radioactive
isotopes got into the soil and peat, and were then taken up by
grass and plants.

As a result, grazing animals, particularly those in wet upland
areas, became contaminated. As well as in sheep, high levels of
caesium-137 have been detected in Highland deer and grouse in
the past.

In 1987, restrictions on the movement and slaughter of sheep
were imposed on 73 farms in southwest and central Scotland.
Although the number affected has declined over the years, nobody
expected contamination to last so long. In the last three years
only seven farms have had restrictions lifted. 

Around �3 million has been paid out to compensate Scottish
farmers for the loss. 
06 November 2005 

  � newsquest (sunday herald) limited. all rights reserved   
*****************************************************************
 25 Times Herald Record: Indian Point adds e-mails


www.recordonline.com

November 5, 2005

 Buchanan 

    Indian Point has taken a page out of the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission's playbook. 

   As part of the "ongoing commitment" to transparency, plant
owner Entergy Nuclear Northeast has added e-mail updates to its
list of communication tools. People interested in updates about
plant issues can sign up for free alerts at
www.safesecurevital.org.

    "Entergy has always been at the forefront of using new
technology to improve communications," said Laurence P.
Gottlieb, a company spokesman.

    In September, following criticism that the agency was slow
to respond to a leak in one of Indian Point's spent-fuel pools,
the NRC established a page on its Web site to post investigation
updates. 

   That investigation is continuing. For more details, visit:
www.nrc.gov/reactors/plant-specific-items/indian-point-issues.html.
 
Greg Bruno 
			 

   Record Online is brought to you by the Times Herald-Record,
       serving New York's Hudson Valley and the Catskills.
                                 
     40 Mulberry Street * PO Box 2046 * Middletown, NY 10940
  Telephone 845-341-1100 or 800-295-2181 outside the Middletown,
                           N.Y., area.
                                 
   CopyrightOrange County Publications. All rights reserved. 
*****************************************************************
 26 courant.com: Yankee, Bechtel Gird For Court 

CONNECTICUT NEWS   

 Nuclear Plant, Firm Trade Barbs

 November 5, 2005 

By GARY LIBOW, Courant Staff Writer   

I HAVE A CALL in to Gary to clarify the wording in -- HADDAM - 
The Connecticut Yankee Atomic Power Co. and Bechtel Power Co. - 
two nuclear industry Goliaths whose relationship has soured - 
will go to trial this spring, with the extent of groundwater 
contamination at the Connecticut Yankee nuclear power plant 
likely to be in the spotlight.

Bechtel has sued Connecticut Yankee, charging that it failed to 
disclose serious groundwater contamination until after it had 
committed to a fixed price and schedule for the decommissioning 
of CY's Haddam Neck nuclear power plant.

In 1999, Connecticut Yankee hired Bechtel to decommission the
plant, which produced 110 billion kilowatt hours of electricity
over 28 years.

The trial is scheduled to begin in May in Superior Court in
Hartford.

Groundwater contamination has come into the spotlight this week
with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's announcement that
contaminated water had leaked from a pool at the plant that
contained spent nuclear fuel for an undetermined period. 

An NRC inspector is scheduled to conduct tests and take concrete
samples from the spent nuclear fuel pool building on Monday.

Bechtel filed a breach of contract complaint against Connecticut
Yankee in mid-2003, less than a week after the plant owners said
it was poised to fire Bechtel for allegedly shoddy performance.

Bechtel charges that Connecticut Yankee mismanaged the
decommissioning. The owner's failure to disclose problems from
years of poor operation delayed cleanup work nearly three years
and increased costs, Bechtel alleges.

Bechtel claims Connecticut Yankee's refusal to approve a prompt
assessment of the presence of Strontium 90 and other groundwater
contaminants significantly delayed the work. The presence of
contaminants made it difficult to adhere to the decommissioning
schedule, Bechtel argues.

Connecticut Yankee terminated Bechtel's contract, effective July
13, 2003.

Connecticut Yankee filed a lawsuit weeks later, charging Bechtel
with poor performance that forced delays in decommissioning work.

"CY terminated Bechtel in the summer of 2003 for defaulting on
its decommissioning contract obligations," Connecticut Yankee
spokeswoman Kelley Smith said Friday. "Since the termination, CY
had taken over the project and is successfully completing
decommissioning, including building demolition and site and
groundwater cleanup." 

According to Connecticut Yankee's legal action, Bechtel
demonstrated an extensive, long-standing pattern of deficient
performance and project mismanagement.

Connecticut Yankee, in its lawsuit, stated that Bechtel
conducted site inspections and had full access to its records -
including site characterization reports, test and fuel data and
groundwater monitoring data.

Connecticut Yankee stated that Bechtel understood the scope of
groundwater contamination at the plant site and vowed to provide
all its resources during a 54-month decommissioning schedule. 	 

  To comment on this story, or to request a correction click
here to send a message to Karen Hunter, The Courant's reader
representative.  <b>Click here </b>to read Karen's daily Weblog.

the Hartford Courant

courant.com is Copyright � 2005 by The Hartford Courant   

*****************************************************************
 27 HVN: Another Indian Point siren test is scheduled

; Entergy launches new e-mail service   

Hudson Valley News story

Weekend, November 5-6, 2005 

Will it work? 

There will be another full Indian Point siren system test on
Tuesday, November 15 from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. Two separate siren
soundings will take place. 

During the full-system activation test, all 154 sirens around
the nuclear power plant will be activated for three to four
minutes. 

This will be the third such test in recent weeks. The system
partially failed in the two previous attempts in Rockland, then
in Orange County. Entergy, which owns and operates Indian Point,
has promised to install a brand new system to correct the
problems it has been facing. 

Meanwhile, Entergy announced Friday that it has added a new
e-mail update feature on its website. By logging onto
www.safesecurevital.org, visitors will be able to sign up to
receive the latest essential information about the facility.
Entergy has always been at the forefront of using new technology
to improve communications, and this is only the first piece of a
much larger plan we are currently implementing to strengthen
both non-emergency and emergency information, said Laurence
Gottlieb, director of communications for Entergy Nuclear
Northeast. 

The six areas for which updates will be provided cover siren
tests and upgrades, spent-fuel storage, general announcements as
well as safety, security, the environment and general energy
issues.   
  
  HEAR today's news on MidHudsonRadio.com, the Hudson Valley's
                only Internet radio news report. 
*****************************************************************
 28 Telegraph: Britons back new nuclear plants
 
The survey, carried out by Mori on behalf of EDF Energy, the UK
arm of the French utility giant, revealed that a majority of
people now believe nuclear power has a vital role to play in
meeting Britain's energy requirements and in reducing carbon
dioxide emissions. 

The Mori poll showed that 55 per cent of those questioned
believed that old nuclear power plants should be replaced with a
mix of new nuclear stations and other renewable sources of
energy such as wind power. 

It also revealed that 54 per cent of those polled agreed with
the statement that although nuclear energy has disadvantages,
the country needs it as "part of the energy balance, with coal,
gas and wind power". Nearly four out of 10 people questioned
believed that planning restrictions should be relaxed to make it
easier to build nuclear power stations on the same sites as old
ones. 

The cabinet has been split over the issue of building new
nuclear generators, but the Mori poll will give a boost to the
industry's supporters, who include Tony Blair and Sir David
King, the government's chief scientific adviser. 

They see nuclear power as the best way to reduce the carbon
emissions that contribute to global warming. 

Vincent de Rivaz, the chief executive of EDF Energy, said:

"What's vital is maintaining a diverse energy mix in the future.
That includes more renewables, new nuclear stations as well as
clean coal and gas plants combined with energy efficiency
measures. Diversity is crucial to address climate change, ensure
security of supply and provide value for money for consumers." 

However, the Mori poll also shows that the majority of people
(76 per cent) believe nuclear plants are vulnerable to terrorist
attack, while over half think that atomic energy causes
dangerous pollution. 

The survey also illustrates a wide level of ignorance about the
UK's energy requirements. Over half of those questioned (54 per
cent) said they were not aware that the UK will suffer an energy
shortfall unless new plants are built to replace nuclear
stations that are due to be decommissioned over the next two
decades. 

Nearly a quarter thought that nuclear power plants produce
carbon dioxide when, in fact, they produce no emissions of the
gas. 

The Department of Trade and Industry is about to begin an energy
review which will look at the nuclear power issue. 

The main hurdles to building new nuclear plants are the unsolved
issue of where to store radioactive waste and the initial cost
of construction. 

De Rivaz told MPs last week that new nuclear power plants should
be built to help to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, increase
security of supply and lower energy price volatility.

EDF Energy's French parent is a large nuclear generator.

Speaking to the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee,
he said that potential investors in nuclear stations were being
deterred because the Government did not have a long-term energy
policy. 

� Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2005.
*****************************************************************
 29 MNT: Chernobyl legacy sheds light on link between thyroid cancer and
radiation exposure
 
Medical News Today

www.medilexicon.com            

Category: Cancer/Oncology News

 Article Date: 06 Nov 2005[ align=] 

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 nine 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." 

Abstract: 999
 2024 Head and neck cancer
 The Chernobyl legacy: relationship between radiation exposure,
RET rearrangement and BRAF mutation in childhood thyroid cancer

 G. Thomas1, S. Jeremiah1, J. Bethel1, T. Bogdanova2, M.
Tronko2, CTB Pathology Panel
 1South West Wales Cancer Institute, Human Cancer Studies Group,
Swansea, United Kingdom
 2Institute of Endocrinology and Metabolism, Kiev, Ukraine

 There was a large increase in the incidence of papillary
thyroid cancer inj those areas of Ukraine exposed to radioactive
fallout following the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant accident in
April 1986. This increase was most pronounced in those who were
children at the time of the accident. Thyroid cancer is usually
very rare in children (aged under 16 at operation). 131-I has a
relatively short physical half-life (7 days) and the rate of
thyroid cancer has dropped back to background levels (of the
order of 1 per million per year) in those who were born after
1st January 1987. The Chernobyl Tissue Bank
(www.chernobyltissuebank.com) was established in 1998 to collect
biological samples from those aged under 19 (i.e.born after 26th
April 1967) at the time of the accident who subsequently
developed thyroid tumours and were resident in the areas of
Ukraine and Russia most highly contaminated by radioiodine in
fallout. The continued collection of material has allowed us to
collect samples from children from the same geographical area,
but born more than 9 months after the accident, and whose
thyroid cancer therefore is not the result of exposure to
radioiodine. This is a unique situation that provides the
opportunity to link molecular biology of cancer with a known
environmental exposure to a mutagen. 

The aim of this study was to investigate whether the frequency
of ret rearrangement and BRAF mutation in papillary carcinoma of
the thyroid (PTC) is related to exposure to radiation or the age
of the patient at clinical diagnosis. RNA extracted from 52
cases of PTC were obtained from the Chernobyl Tissue Bank. The
cases were divided into 4 groups matched on age, sex and place
of residence. Two groups of 13 cases were from the areas of
Ukraine most heavily contaminated with radioiodine, one group
was born before the accident (1A), and the other born after
1/1/87 (1B) and therefore not exposed to radioiodine. Two other
groups of 13 cases were from areas of Ukraine not exposed to
significant fallout, one born before the accident (2A) and the
other after 1/1/87 (2B). All patients were aged under 16 at the
time of operation. The expression of ret was determined by
RT-PCR for the extracellular and intracellular regions of c-ret
[1] and PTC1 and 3 rearrangements were identified by
rearrangement specific RT-PCR. For BRAF, mutation at position
1746 was identified by PCR followed by restriction enzyme
digestion [1]. There was no significant difference among the
groups with respect to type or overall frequency of ret
rearrangement. The most frequent rearrangement was PTC3,
accounting for 16 of the 25 cases positive for ret
rearrangement. Only one case (in group 2B) was positive for BRAF
rearrangement. This study shows that contrary to other reports
in the literature, there is no association of either ret
rearrangement per se, or PTC3 rearrangement in particular, with
radiation exposure. Thyroid cancer presenting in adults is
typified by a higher frequency of BRAF mutation (58% in a series
from Ukraine). We suggest that the pattern of molecular
biological alterations observed in post Chernobyl thyroid cancer
is related to the age of the patients under study, rather than
to exposure to radioiodine. The Chernobyl experience suggests
that age at diagnosis should be taken into account before
conclusions are drawn regarding the relationship between
molecular biology and radiation. This has implications for
current studies in breast cancer following radiotherapy for
Hodgkin's Disease. 

[1] Powell et al., J Pathology (2005) 205: 558-564

 Kirsten Mason
 kirsten.mason@toniclc.com
 Federation of European Cancer Societies
 http://www.fecs.be

� 2003-2005 Medical News Today   

*****************************************************************
 30 St. Petersburg Times: Nuclear power plant offline for fueling

 By Times Staff Writer

 Published November 5, 2005
 
CRYSTAL RIVER - As scheduled, the nuclear unit at Progress
Energy's Crystal River energy complex has shut down temporarily
so crews can replace fuel and perform maintenance on the
838-megawatt generating plant. 

Extra workers have come to Crystal River to help replace
one-third of the nuclear fuel in the reactor and perform major
maintenance on the unit, the company said in a news release.
Nuclear power plants are shut down every two years or so to
replace fuel and perform maintenance. The nuclear unit is one of
five electric generating plants at Crystal River; the other four
are fueled by coal. These and other Florida generating plants
will provide electric power for customers while the nuclear
plant is out of service. [Last modified November 5, 2005,
01:22:18]


� 2005 � All Rights Reserved � St. Petersburg Times
490 First Avenue South � St. Petersburg, FL 33701 �
727-893-8111
*****************************************************************
 31 SLO Tribune: Diablo grade falls on clerical mistakes


Posted on Sat, Nov. 05, 2005  
   
Federal regulators are unhappy that three recent drills were 
identified as actual emergencies

 By David Sneed The Tribune

Federal watchdogs have downgraded a key safety rating at Diablo
Canyon nuclear power plant after operators misidentified three
recent drills as actual emergencies in their paperwork. 

The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Friday lowered
Diablo Canyon's performance rating in the area of emergency
exercises. This is one of 15 aspects of plant operation that the
agency evaluates. 

Diablo was given satisfactory grades in the other 14 performance
areas. The evaluations are based heavily on forms plant
operators submit. 

"We place great importance on the accuracy of the reports we
receive from our licensees," said Victor Dricks, NRC spokesman.
"It's significant because it reflects a declining trend." 

In response, plant owner Pacific Gas and Electric Co. has
arranged additional training for plant operators to make sure
they are filling out their NRC documentation correctly, said
Jeff Lewis, plant spokesman. 

The plant's managers hope to have the problem corrected by the
end of the year. Lewis stressed that the paperwork errors did
not pose a public safety threat. 

"This means that we've got an area we need to focus on," he
said. "These errors didn't prevent us from making the correct
safety decisions." 

Plants operating without safety issues in any of the 15 areas
the NRC inspects are given a green color coding. 

Areas with problems are given white ratings. Diablo Canyon's
drill performance rating dropped from green to white Friday. 

Almost all of the nation's 103 operating nuclear reactors,
including the two at Diablo Canyon, typically have green ratings
in all 15 areas of performance with ratings occasionally
dropping temporarily into white until problems are corrected. 

Diablo Canyon typically operates in the 95th percentile in its
drill performance rating, Lewis said. The incorrectly completed
forms caused both reactors to slip below the 90th percentile
into the white category. 

The percentile ratings are based on the number and seriousness
of the mistakes made.   

*****************************************************************
 32 FLORIDA TODAY: Workers cleared for rocket jobs

November 5, 2005                      

Machinists still on strike
 
BY TODD HALVORSON 

CAPE CANAVERAL - Inspectors and technicians filling in for
striking Boeing Co. machinists are experienced and certified to
finish an upper-stage booster for a plutonium-fueled spacecraft
NASA aims to launch in January, company officials said Friday.

The machinists, who walked off the job this week, have raised
questions about the qualifications of the workers put in place
to prepare NASA's nuclear-powered New Horizons spacecraft for
its trip to Pluto.

The company says the replacement technicians and inspectors are
highly experienced and hold all of the required certifications.

"They are essentially the managers of the people who are on
strike," Boeing spokeswoman Tina Lange said Friday. "These are
very qualified people. In many cases, they are the people who
hired and trained the people who are on strike."

The developer of NASA's New Horizons spacecraft -- Johns Hopkins
University Applied Physics Laboratory -- on Thursday concurred
with a Boeing plan to use replacement workers to process a Star
48 upper stage that will propel the probe on the world's first
mission to Pluto.

The spacecraft must be launched during a window that extends
from Jan. 11 through Feb. 14 or be delayed until early 2007.
Boeing is scheduled to deliver the upper stage Dec. 1.

Striking members of the International Association of Machinists
and Aerospace Workers Local Lodge 1163 in Cape Canaveral are
questioning whether the replacement workers are fully certified
to do the job.

Striking Boeing trainer Jimmy Williams said the company put 25
to 30 managers through classroom training needed to perform work
done by rank-and-file Delta rocket technicians and inspectors.

But in certain areas, such as crane operations, the managers did
not complete a three-step on-the-job training program needed to
earn required job certifications, Williams said.

"As of right now, all the people trained and certified to do the
work are on this side of the fence," Williams, 53, of Cocoa
Beach said as he picketed outside the main gate to Cape
Canaveral Air Force Station.

Lange said 12 replacement workers -- five technicians, two
inspectors and five electrical, mechanical and operational
engineers -- would complete work on the upper stage.

The replacement personnel on average have nine years of
technician experience working on upper stages and 16 years of
experience on the Delta rocket program, she said.

They hold all the required certifications to finish the job and
in some areas received special training from the spacecraft
developer, Lange said.

Ken Warren, a spokesman for the Air Force's 45th Space Wing,
which oversees operations at the Cape Canaveral launch base,
said the wing would not allow replacement workers to do the job
without proper work certifications.

"That's just not going to happen," he said.

Striker Al Bilotta, a lead technician with Boeing, said the
managers in any case have no recent experience doing hands-on
work with upper stage boosters.

"I don't care if they are engineers. If they haven't done the
work, they haven't done the work," he said.

Leaving the work to managers and engineers with no recent
hands-on experience is dangerous, given the extra risk involved
in the Pluto mission, said union business representative Johnny
Walker.

NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is equipped with a generator that
will convert heat from the natural decay of 24 pounds of
plutonium-238 into electricity to power spacecraft systems.

Contact Halvorson at 639-0576 or   

*****************************************************************
 33 Depleted Uranium dirty bomb is PRENATAL Terrorism
 
Date: Fri, 4 Nov 2005 10:27:58 -0600 (CST)


Ra Energy Fdn.
Raleigh Myers
Worksheet bio
http://raenergy.igc.org/ArchitypeOfFairness.html
Blog
http://raenergy.blogspot.com/

If what we are contemplating is not fair to our progeny we have a failed
event in retrospect
--Raleigh

Depleted Uranium dirty bomb is Prenatal Terrorism

FOCUS: Every DU Bomb A Dirty Bomb _ Prenatal Terrorism
http://groups.google.com/groups?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GWYA,GWYA:2005-04,GWYA:en&q=Depleted+Uranium+is+dirty+bomb+terrorism

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GWYA,GWYA:2005-04,GWYA:en&q=Depleted+Uranium+is+dirty+bomb+terrorism

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

Some other lectures leading to solutions
http://raenergy.igc.org/Googleclick.html

Franklin Roosevelt said that the domination of our nation by large
corporations is the
definition of fascism. http://www.rense.com/general63/ssi.htm

-Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the
fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first
existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much of higher
consideration.
-Abraham Lincoln

Under the placid surface [of the economy], there are disturbing trends:
huge
imbalances, disequilibria, risks -- call them what you will.
Altogether the circumstances seem to me as dangerous and intractable
as any I can remember, and I can remember quite a lot.
Paul Volcker, Former US Federal Reserve Bank Chairman
April 10, 2005.

"Should any political party attempt to abolish social security,
unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you
would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a
tiny splinter group, of course, that believes that you can do these
things. Among them are a few Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional
politician or businessman from other areas. Their number is negligible,
and they are stupid."

-- President Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1952

"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises
in moral philosophy: that is the search for a superior moral
justification for selfishness."
-- John Kenneth Galbraith

"Fascism should more appropriately be called CORPORATISM because it is a
merger of state and corporate power." -- Benito Mussolini (from
Encyclopedia Italiana, Giovanni Gentile, editor).
http://raenergy.igc.org/republicanfascistparty.html

Ra Energy Fdn.
Raleigh Myers
Worksheet bio
http://raenergy.igc.org/bio.html
Blog
http://raenergy.blogspot.com/

Call to Action blog a virtual seminar for change
http://www.google.com/search?q=Global+Vote+raenergy&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&filter=02Eigc%2Eorg%2Faction%2Ehtml

Newsgroups beginning in the eighties
http://groups-beta.google.com/groups?q=%22Ra+Energy+Fdn.%22&start=0&scoring=d&ie=UTF-8
&

and web
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GWYA,GWYA:2005-04,GWYA:en&q=%22Ra+Energy+Fdn%2E%22

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can
change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has. - - Margaret
Mead

Let us experiment with laws and customs, with money systems and
governments, until we chart the one true course - until we find the
majesty of our proper orbit as the planets above have found theirs& And
then at last we shall move all together in the harmony of our sphere
under the great impulse of a single creation - one unity, one system, one
design.
Roger Bacon

FAIR USE NOTICE: This may contain copyrighted (C ) material the use of
which
has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Such
material is made available for educational purposes, to advance
understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and
social justice issues, etc. It is believed that this constitutes a 'fair
use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C.
section 107 of the US Copyright Law. This material is distributed without



 

*****************************************************************
 34 Brampton Guardian: Incinerator issue not over yet 

Sunday, November 6th, 2005     
    
Recently, the City of Brampton passed an interim control bylaw
temporarily prohibiting any new or expanded incinerators. This
is welcome news to everyone concerned about the proposal by
Mississauga Metals &Alloys (MM) to build and operate an
incinerator for radioactive waste in Brampton. 

However, the proposed incinerator for radioactive waste is just
one part of the problem our community faces. First, MM has not
withdrawn its application to the Canadian Nuclear Safety
Commission (CNSC) for a license to build and operate this
incinerator. It is still proceeding. We must continue to
vigorously oppose this application. 

Second, MM is forging ahead with its application to expand its
facility and operations at 75 SunPac Blvd. in Brampton.
Currently, MM possesses two licenses from the CNSC to process
radioactive materials, the company is licensed to possess
natural and enriched uranium. Right now, only a couple of
hundred meters from residences, a nursing home, a church and a
large condominium, MM daily processes radioactive zirconium. And
they are pursuing plans to expand this potentially dangerous
activity by applying to build a 35,000 sq.-ft. addition, to add
a second processing line of non-radioactive zirconium and to
increase on-site storage from 40 to 100 tonnes. 

Zirconium is a very dangerous substance, it is rated as 4
(extreme) on the flammability scale. Especially when powdered or
in small shavings or particles it is prone to self-ignition.
Water cannot be used to extinguish a zirconium fire, it may
cause an explosion. Fires should be extinguished with dry sand
or a proprietary metal fire extinguishant. 

Clearly the current and proposed activities of this company are
totally unsuitable adjacent to a rapidly growing residential
area. 

The interim measures taken by the City of Brampton are welcome
and a significant step in the incinerator opposition. The
radioactive incinerator may be a future problem in our city if
we don't continue to fight it. However, the current activities
of MM and their expansion pose a much more immediate threat to
our community and must be vigorously opposed as well. 
Dora Jeffries, Brampton

 Brampton Guardian | Orangeville Banner |
Georgetown Independent &Free Press   
    
  � Copyright 1996-2005
*****************************************************************
 35 Fiji Times: Too little, too late - Nuke test veterans - 

(Monday, November 07, 2005) 

AS the nation prepares for this week's Remembrance Day
celebrations, Christmas Island nuclear test veterans are ruing
the fact that $20,000 allocated to them in 2006 national budget
has come a little too late for some members. 

Christmas Island Veterans Association navy veteran and nuclear
activist Paul Ah Poi said the $20,000 came too late for three
members who lost their battle with cancer this year after
struggling in vain to get the Government to pay for their
medical expenses.

Christmas Islands veterans are Fiji soldiers and naval personnel
who took part in the 1950s British nuclear bomb experiments in
Micronesia.

"Just this year, when government announced it's willing to pay
medical expenses of some of our members, one of us passed away
the following Monday. It came a bit too late," Mr Ah Poi said.

Numbered at 285 men during the Christmas Island nuclear
exercises, there are little over 100 who are still alive.

"Even though Christmas Island may be a different mission
altogether, we would just like to be remembered like those who
fought in the World Wars, the Malayan Campaign and in
peacekeeping duties as well." Mr Ah Poi is apprehensive of the
$20,000 given specifically for the Christmas Island veterans as
previous budgetary allocations were not honoured. 

Copyright � 2004, Fiji Times Limited. All Rights Reserved
*****************************************************************
 36 NEWS.com.au: Outback 'best' for nuclear dumping - SA - 

By Dan Box and Tom Richardson

 November 07, 2005                                               

AUSTRALIA is the best country to build an international nuclear
waste dump, says the former head of Pangea, the British-backed
company that tried to build one in outback South Australia. As
pressure grows on Australia to build a desert facility, Charles
McCombie, now executive director of the Association for Regional
and International Underground Storage, a lobby group campaigning
for an international nuclear waste site, plans to visit Sydney
next year "and deliberately try to stir the pot regarding
Australia," he said. 

"You could put a map of Australia on the wall, throw a dart at
it and have a 99% chance of finding a site," Mr McCombie said. 

His arrival is part of a renewed campaign to re-establish
Australia as an international waste site. The secretary of the
Australian Nuclear Association is lobbying for the country to
establish a 'cradle to grave' nuclear industry - where uranium
is mined, refined and sent overseas as fuel for nuclear reactors
then brought back and buried in the Australian desert. 

Legislation will be tabled in the Senate this week aimed at
stripping the Northern Territory of the ability to resist
Federal Government pressure to accept a nuclear waste storage
site. 

"You have the best country in the world for the disposal of
high-level waste, let alone low-level waste," Mr McCombie said. 

"If Australia just said tomorrow, 'Let's look at this seriously', 
I would be there, heart and soul, trying to make that take place, 
and I wouldn't be alone," he said. Pangea's plans for a 
commercial waste dump won high-level political backing before 
collapsing in the face of public opposition in 1998. 

While the proposed storage site in the Northern Territory is
intended to handle only commonwealth waste, many in the industry
see it as a necessary step towards establishing an international
dump. One senior banking source said foreign companies had
expressed interest in such a site, but would need government
backing to move forwards. 

In September, former Labor prime minister Bob Hawke told an
audience of business leaders in Sydney: "What Australia should
do, in my judgment, as an act of economic responsibility is say:
we will take all the world's nuclear waste." 

His speech had reawakened international interest in Australia as
a waste dump site, Mr McCombie said. 

George Fox, chairman of the Engineers Australia nuclear
engineering panel, said: "If we said we are happy to receive
nuclear waste from any part of the world that would obviously
generate much export revenue." 

Roger Goldsworthy, who was a Liberal mines and energy minister
in South Australia in the early 1980s, has also thrown his
weight behind the idea. 

Mr Goldsworthy granted the 1982 lease to Western Mining
Corporation to run the Olympic Dam uranium mine. 

Australian Nuclear Association secretary Clarence Hardy said:
"There will be some public resistance but more importantly it
will make Australia billions of dollars." 

Economic modelling done on the failed Pangea proposal showed it
would generate about $US100 billion ($136 billion) in export
revenues over 40 years. 

Any dump site is likely to meet fierce local resistance,
however. 

A delegation of traditional owners of two of the three proposed
sites in the Northern Territory has travelled to Canberra to
lobby senators against the plans. 

William Tilmouth of the Alcoota Aboriginal Corporation, said:
"That land is not vacant. There is over 5000 people living
within that area and the people don't want it poisoned." 		  		
                                
*****************************************************************
 37 Sunday Herald: MoD ignores call to clean up radioactivecoastal waste - 

  By Rob Edwards, Environment Editor 
 
 One of Scotlands most popular coastal resorts, used by
thousands of families every year, is badly contaminated with
radioactive waste dumped by an old military base, the Sunday
Herald can reveal.

But in a move which has frustrated the Scottish Environment
Protection Agency (Sepa), angered experts and infuriated local
residents, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) is refusing to take
responsibility for cleaning it up.

A survey commissioned by Sepa has uncovered nearly 100 radiation
hotspots around the shore at Dalgety Bay in Fife. 

According to government advisers, people who come into contact
with the contamination could receive doses of radiation in
breach of official safety limits. There is a danger of skins
burn and, at worst, an increased risk of cancer.

Dalgety Bay was surveyed by Babcock Engineering Services of
Rosyth during March this year. A copy of the report summarising
the results of the survey was released by Sepa last week in
response to a request by the Sunday Herald.

Radioactive contamination up to 48 times higher than normal
levels was found at 97 separate locations on the foreshore, the
report said. 

The area includes a beach and Scotlands largest sailing club,
and is next to a housing estate.

 Contamination was first discovered at Dalgety Bay in 1990,
prompting a flurry of official inquiries and promises to clean
the area up. 

During the 1990s, radioactive waste was regularly removed from
the foreshore and taken to the Rosyth naval dockyard for
storage. But in recent years, the report revealed, the
contamination has returned  and none of it has been removed. 

Sepa is now pressing the MoD for a solution. We are committed to
undertake further monitoring and removal of radioactive
material, which requires the MoDs assistance in disposal, said
Colin Bayes, Sepas director of environmental protection.

A full scientific investigation is needed to map out the sources
and spread of the contamination, and work out how to prevent it,
he argued. The contamination at Dalgety Bay is of continued
concern.

Dr Michael Clark, a radiation expert from the governments Health
Protection Agency, said that prolonged contact with some of the
waste at Dalgety Bay could give skin exposures that exceed the
radiation dose limits for the public.

In June this year, the government Committee on Medical Aspects
of Radiation in the Environment pointed out that cancer rates in
the part of Fife that includes Dalgety Bay were unusually high.
But it said the figures were hard to interpret.

According to Sepa, the radioactivity comes from waste dumped on
the foreshore after the nearby naval air base at Donibristle
closed in 1959. The dials of planes at the base were coated with
luminous, radioactive radium so they could be read at night.

The planes were broken up and burnt along with other rubbish,
then disposed of as landfill to form a new headland at Dalgety
Bay. 

The surrounding foreshore is now littered with bits of metal and
furnace clinker which set off radiation monitors.

But the MoD pointed out that Dalgety Bay had not been a defence
estate since the mid-1960s. 

We continue to work closely with Sepa to establish the cause of
the contamination, but investigations so far have proved
inconclusive, said an MoD spokeswoman.

Last week, Sepa met the MoD to discuss how to tackle the
pollution. Tomorrow, the agencys radiation experts will be
talking with representatives of Dalgety Bay and Hillend
Community Council.

The council will be calling for the contamination to be removed
as soon as possible. The community is tired of this matter not
being properly dealt with, said chairman Colin McPhail.

 Fife Council and the Scottish Executive both stressed that the
risk was low. It was disappointing that radiation levels had not
reduced, said an Executive spokesman, but the situation was
being monitored.

But this wasnt good enough for David Harvie, author of Deadly
Sunshine a history of radium . Radiation cannot be destroyed,
and sweeping it under the carpet will simply not do, he said. 
06 November 2005 

  � newsquest (sunday herald) limited. all rights reserved   
*****************************************************************
 38 canadaeast.com: N.B. on list for national waste site

As published on page A1 on November 5, 2005                                             
 
By SHANNON HAGERMAN dgleg@nb.aibn.com
 	 	 	 	 	 
Premier Bernard Lord did not rule out the possibility of storing 
Canada's nuclear waste in New Brunswick but added there's more 
nuclear reactors in central Canada where spent fuel will need 
storage facilities.

Lord said political leaders shouldn't jump to a
"not-in-my-backyard" stance when it comes to storing Canada's
nuclear waste, saying the decision should be based on science.

"I could do like everybody else and say, 'No, we don't want it
here.' No one would jump and say bring it here," the premier
told reporters in Saint John on Friday.

"(But) I think the decision has to be based on science and
scientific data. What is the safest for Canadians will make more
sense and what is cost effective."

He said there are more nuclear waste reactors in central Canada
than there are in New Brunswick.

"It will probably make more sense to do it somewhere else, but
we will take the time. I think there has to be a real, reasoned
discussion on this and not just a knee-jerk reaction."

A federally appointed panel said New Brunswick, Ontario,
Saskatchewan and Quebec are potential locations for a long-term
nuclear waste facility.

Three out of the four provinces operate nuclear reactors, while
Saskatchewan is the country's largest uranium producer.

Political leaders in Ontario and Saskatchewan are already
rejecting the idea of nuclear waste dumps within their borders.

Saskatchewan Premier Lorne Calvert slammed the door shut on the
idea earlier this week.

"Under my leadership in this province there will not be in
Saskatchewan a nuclear waste disposal facility," he said. "The
people of Saskatchewan have said to me in my conversations with
them, it's not something they want to pursue, it's not something
my government wants to pursue."

The final report of the Nuclear Waste Management Organization
was given to the federal government Thursday.

Noting that Canada is running out of storage room at its nuclear
power stations, the report said the disposal site would be
chosen in about 30 years.

"This decision-making process will take place over a very
lengthy period of time," said organization president Elizabeth
Dowdeswell in an interview from Toronto. "As we actually see
examples of such sites in operation there are people who become
more engaged in the conversation."

Dowdeswell said any community that agrees to be the site of a
waste disposal facility would have to be willing.

Nuclear waste produced by NB Power's Point Lepreau reactor is
already stored in New Brunswick in concrete cylinders and
vaults, said Pamela McKay, a spokesperson for the utility.

The waste is stored on site at the nuclear plant but the utility
acknowledges a long-term storage solution must be found.
 		 		 					 								 		 		 		 		 		 		 	   
Copyright � 2005 Brunswick News Inc. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 39 Salt Lake Tribune: Officials seeking input on Utah nuke processing

Article Last Updated: 11/05/2005 02:14:52 AM 

White Mesa: The plant continues to receive foreign ore shipments,
which roll through Moab 

By Judy Fahys The Salt Lake Tribune 

MOAB - About 250 tons of ore from Japan has rolled through here 
on trucks bound for the White Mesa uranium mill, about an hour 
down the highway. 

The ore may have arrived tidy, contained in plastic bags and 
packed metal containers, but state regulators acknowledged 
Friday the public relations around the ore has been rather 
messy, often leaving people concerned and confused. 

Department of Environmental Quality Director Dianne Nielson 
said she has asked regulators overseeing the White Mesa mill to 
do more to inform Utahns about future plans to recycle uranium 
at the site. The move was welcomed by Radiation Control Board 
members, some of whom also felt a bit left out of the loop on 
the Japan ore. 

"I think the more people know about it and feel included, the 
better they feel about it," said Karen Langley, chairman of the 
radiation board, which had its meeting in Moab this month. 

Nielson noted that the state could improve public involvement 
through the license amendment process, which International 
Uranium Corp. (IUC) must go through every time it wants to put 
"alternate feed" through the White Mesa mill. Alternate feed is 
basically milling leftovers called tailing that are recycled at 
White Mesa, one of only two operating uranium mills in the 
United States. 

IUC has used nothing but alternate feed at its plant for six 
years. Until recently, uranium prices have been so low, there 
has been no demand for milling. But that appears to be changing 
as the price rises from under $9 several years ago to around $34 
today. 

Nielson said regulators will: 

l Make it routine to provide updates on any license 
amendments. 

l Keep a full record of amendment-related materials at 
libraries in Grand and San Juan counties. 

l Include a hearing in the public review period for license 
amendments. 

These moves would not have helped in the Japan flap. Under its
state license, IUC needs special permission to process alternate 
feed - but not ore - and the 500 tons coming from Japan is ore. 

Castle Valley resident Bob Lippman urged the board to 
undertake a broader look at the issue of radioactive material in 
Utah. He called the potential hazards of radioactive material 
"the big elephant in the room" that everyone seems to ignore. 

Even before the U.S. Energy Department has removed a 
shovelful of contaminated uranium waste from the Atlas Corp. 
site north of Moab, people are talking about a "nuclear 
renaissance," he noted. 

Meanwhile, the legacy of the past two booms includes more 
than a billion dollars worth of cleanups, thousands of sick 
uranium workers and energy and security policies that fall 
short. 

These factors tell us "we have a lot of homework to do and a 
much larger spectrum of concerns to address," he said. 

fahys@sltrib.com 

And more may be coming from Oklahoma 

The International Uranium Corp. has a request pending to 
process 32,000 tons of contaminated material from a cleanup of 
the Fansteel site in Muskogee, Okla. The company's mill at White 
Mesa, south of Blanding in southeastern Utah, would extract 
uranium and dispose of leftover material in containment ponds on 
site. The Utah Division of Radiation Control is taking public 
comment on the proposal through Dec. 2. More information about 
the proposal can be found at 
http://www.radiationcontrol.utah.gov/MILLS/IUCamend.pdf. 

© Copyright 2005, The Salt Lake Tribune. 
*****************************************************************
 40 Pueblo Chieftain: Cotter orders layoffs

Online - Pueblo, Colorado U.S.A
 
Saturday November 05, 2005    

  CHIEFTAIN PHOTO/FILE The Cotter Corp. uranium mill outside
Canon City.   

 By TRACY HARMON THE PUEBLO CHIEFTAIN 

CANON CITY - Cotter Corp. announced Friday that 78 uranium mill
workers - most of the workforce - will be laid off temporarily
during the next 60 days while the company addresses a host of
startup issues. 

Last spring Cotter Corp. launched a multimillion-dollar
renovation of the aged uranium mill south of Canon City in an
effort to ramp back up to full operation to meet growing world
nuclear demand. 

A number of supply and production problems now are slowing the
company's timeline for achieving full production, Cotter Corp.
spokesman Jerry Powers said. 

"We don't have a good economics with our current operations. We
have a problem with the supply of ore, some production problems
and there are a lot of other factors," Powers said. 

"The mill will not shut down completely but 78 people will be
laid off within the next 60 days." 

The layoffs will hit workers at both the company's Western Slope
mines and at the Canon City mill. 

The company's long-term objective remains to produce both
uranium and vanadium from the ore, Powers said. The mill
converts uranium ore into "yellowcake" which is used in the
nuclear fuel cycle and another product of the ore - vanadium -
is used to strengthen steel. 

"The (future) changes include expanding the company's mineral
resource base and increasing and improving the mill's
capabilities and output," Cotter Corp. president Richard Cherry
said. 

"Recent trials to increase mining and processing output from
Colorado ores is showing promise, but cannot be implemented in
the current production environment." 

"We hope that as we move forward with these changes the company
will again be able to expand its employment at both locations,"
Cherry said. 

Cotter stored waste from the uranium milling process between
1958 and 1978 in the old tailings ponds. Contamination from
those impoundments leached into groundwater in the neighboring
Lincoln Park community in south Canon City prompting a Superfund
cleanup designation in 1984. 

Today newer impoundment ponds, which are lined, are in use for
tailings storage. The Superfund designation continues as cleanup
efforts are ongoing. 

www.chieftain.com Star-Journal Publishing Corp. Pueblo, Colorado 
U.S.A.                                                                 
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 41 Mercury: Defining moment for landfill's radioactive ooze

News - 11/06/2005 - 

Evan Brandt, ebrandt@pottsmerc.com11/06/2005

Sometimes, it all comes down to a definition.                                                   

For example, the Pottstown Landfill�s permit to discharge the 
polluted ooze that leaches out of it into the sewer system 
prohibits "wastewater containing radioactive wastes." 

And even though a recent state report identified a radioactive
substance as being present in that leachate, it does not violate
the permit because it cannot be defined as "radioactive waste,"
according to officials.

A September report issued by the Pennsylvania Department of
Environmental Protection identified tritium, which is
radioactive, as being "evident in leachate" from the Pottstown
Landfill, which pre-treats the leachate before discharging it
into the sewer system.

Although the report notes that tritium is the only radioactive
substance found in the leachate that approaches a level
requiring regulation, it is still too diluted at the point where
the leachate is released into the sewer system to be above the
National Primary Drinking Water Standards regulated by the
Environmental Protection Agency.

Failure to cross that threshold means the Pottstown Borough
Authority, which owns and operates the wastewater treatment
plant, cannot hold the landfill liable for fines or penalties
"up to $25,000 per day per violation" as outlined in the permit,
said Brent Wagner, the plant�s chief operator.

"It is of absolutely no concern to us because (the tritium�s
radiation level) is below the drinking water standards," Wagner
said.

While he did not disagree with Wagner, David Allard, who heads
the DEP�s Bureau of Radiation Protection, said the answer is
actually a little more complicated.

"From a legal standpoint, there is no definition of radioactive
waste," Allard said. 

As for tritium, Allard said it is a common component of landfill
leachate and said the level of radiation is so low that,
"although I wouldn�t ever recommend drinking leachate, from a
radiological point of view, you could drink it."

Were the tritium considered a waste, and if it could be shown to
have been present in the leachate every day, just one year�s
worth of fines could have earned the borough more than $9
million.

Wagner reviewed the DEP report, titled "Radiation, Radioactivity
&Environmental Surveillance at Pottstown Landfill," after it was
forwarded to the plant this week by The Mercury.

Up until that point, officials at the plant said they were
unaware of the report�s existence.

Wagner said he checked with DEP and EPA officials after reading
the DEP report and was assured the landfill leachate is not in
violation of the permit because while it is radioactive, it is
not "radioactive waste."

That position is identical to the one taken by Waste Management,
Inc., the corporation that owns the nearly 300-acre landfill
site in West Pottsgrove. 

A statement issued through Waste Management spokeswoman Patty
Barthel noted that "the sampling of the landfill�s wastewater
for radioactivity is conducted annually."

The statement read "as has always been our position, we have not
violated our permit because our wastewater does not contain
�radioactive waste.� The laws and regulations define
�radioactive waste.� It is a complicated subject and starts with
the Atomic Energy Act."

Waste Management took pains to point out in its statement that
"virtually everything in the world contains small amounts of
radioactive materials. Not all wastes that contain radiation are
�radioactive wastes.�"

The statement further noted that the landfill "has not and does
not discharge �radioactive waste� into the Borough of
Pottstown�s wastewater system as regulated by the Clean Water
Act governing POTW operations."

The statement was referring to the limits the permit puts on
what can be put into the system and how much.

The permit regulates things like pH level, "noxious or
malodorous liquids, gases or solids," explosive substances or
even "any wastewater which causes a hazard to human life or
creates a public nuisance due to its characteristics."

Karen Owens, the plant�s assistant superintendent and the
administrator who deals with these regulations, said those
restrictions are largely dictated by the EPA to comply with the
Clean Water Act, enacted in 1972.

However, more recent government studies have indicated that
those kind of safety thresholds for radiation may not be as
protective of human health as previously thought.

A study released this June by the National Research Council, an
arm of the National Academy of Science, found that even low
doses of ionizing radiation, if experienced steadily over a long
period of time, are likely to pose some risk of cancer and
genetic defects that can be passed on to offspring.

It also called for further studies to confirm and research this
finding.

"The scientific research base shows that there is no threshold
of exposure below which low levels of ionizing radiation can be
demonstrated to be harmless or beneficial," committee chair
Richard R. Monson, associate dean for professional education and
professor of epidemiology at Harvard School of Public Health,
said at the time of the report�s release.

In other words, while low levels of ionizing radiation pose low
risk, longtime exposure, even at low levels, increases the
threat to health.

"The health risks -- particularly the development of solid
cancers in organs -- rise proportionally with exposure," Monson
said. "At low doses of radiation, the risk of inducing solid
cancers is very small. As the overall lifetime exposure
increases, so does the risk."

Allard said he is familiar with that study and while he agreed
with its conclusions, he said there is a point at which the risk
is so small that regulating to protect against it is
cost-prohibitive.

"We have to ask ourselves at what point do we stop investing
millions of dollars to protect ourselves from a minimal risk?"
Allard asked.

While there is no indication that the EPA plans on altering its
safe drinking water standards as the result of this study, at
least one other federal agency -- the Occupational Health and
Safety Administration -- is considering it.

In light of the report�s conclusion, it has extended until the
end of this month the comment period on whether the agency
should revise its decades-old regulation on this hazard.

However, absent any new guidelines from the EPA, the treatment
plant must be guided by current regulations, officials said.

The issue may be relevant in another context however.

David Allebach, solicitor for the Pottstown Borough Authority,
confirmed that the authority is about to enter into negotiations
with Waste Management regarding leachate treatment.

The current contact, enacted in 1990, expires Dec. 31 and the
landfill�s circumstances have changed radically.

Permanently closed in the beginning of October, the landfill
will nevertheless continue to generate leachate for years to
come, even if it is not generating revenue.

Under the current contract, Pottstown received reciprocal
benefits for treating the leachate, including free recycling
pick-up and disposal, as well as not having to pay tipping fees
for its trash, which helped to keep the borough�s annual garbage
fees down.

As this round of negotiations begins, Pottstown has formed a
committee to prepare and one of its primary charges is trying to
put a monetary value on the service the sewer plant provides the
landfill by treating its leachate.

How the radioactivity in the leachate will figure into those
discussions remains unclear.

The DEP report says the tritium in the leachate is likely from
"EXIT" signs that are allowed to use tritium to illuminate the
signs even in the absence of power. They are regulated by the
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and are not supposed to be
disposed of in municipal landfills, Allard said.

Two other primary sources of radiation in the landfill are
thorium and uranium contained in sludge that is a by-product of
the processing done at Cabot Supermetals in Boyertown; and the
sludge from the Royersford wastewater treatment plant which
collected radioactivity from a laundry at the Limerick nuclear
power plant where worker uniforms were washed.

Radiation in sludge can be a problem for the Pottstown sewer
plant as well, Wagner said.

He said a recent shipment of Pottstown sludge set off radiation
alarms at a landfill because of iodine 131, a radioactive
substance used in nuclear medicine and usually excreted by
patients within 24 hours of cancer treatments.

In fact our exposure to radiation is primarily from natural
background sources -- 82 percent -- according to the National
Academy of Sciences study. Of the 18 percent of exposure that
comes from man-made sources, 21 percent of that comes from
nuclear medicine, the study reported.

Because iodine 131 degrades so fast, it is allowed to be
deposited in landfills once it is identified as the source of
radiation in sludge, Wagner said.

The closure of the Pottstown Landfill has made the disposal of
sewer sludge more expensive and the borough authority is in the
process of building a facility to further dry and process its
sludge to the point where it can be sold and used as fertilizer.

Owens said those plans include more sophisticated equipment to
detect radiation in the sludge. 

�The Mercury 2005                                       

*****************************************************************
 42 Mos News: Russia Ratifies Spent Nuclear Fuel Convention 
                           
MOSNEWS.COM
 
Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law ratifying The
Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management,
Gazeta.ru reported.

Russia signed the convention that unites 34 states, including 21
ones operating nuclear power plants, at the order of former
President Boris Yeltsin as far as in 1999. The document itself
was adopted in Vienna in 1997.

It includes safety requirements for spent fuel management when
the spent fuel results from the operation of civilian nuclear
reactors and radioactive waste management for wastes resulting
from civilian applications. The Convention does not apply to a
Party�s military radioactive waste or spent nuclear fuel unless
the Party declares it as spent nuclear fuel or radioactive waste
for the purposes of the Convention, or if and when such waste
material is permanently transferred to and managed within
exclusively civilian programs. It also contains provisions to
ensure that national security is not compromised and that
Parties have absolute discretion as to what information is
reported on material from military sources. 	 	
 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 
  Write us: <b>info@mosnews.com</b>
Copyright � 2004 MOSNEWS.COM
*****************************************************************
 43 AU ABC: Crossin to seek nuclear waste laws probe. 

07/11/2005. ABC News Online


Labor Senator Trish Crossin says she will move a motion in the
Senate today, calling for an inquiry into the Federal
Government's nuclear waste laws.

 The House of Representatives last week passed the bill, which
enables a dump to be built in the Northern Territory.

 The NT Government is vehemently opposed to the facility and has
today presented senators in Canberra with a petition with the
signatures of 9,000 people who are against it.

 Senator Crossin has also called on CLP Senator Nigel Scullion
to cross the floor and vote against the legislation.

 "This is bully boy tactics from the Federal Government
overriding the rights of Territorians and if Senator Scullion
can't even stand up for that then not only should he resign from
the party but he should get out of Parliament," she said.

 "The CLP ought to put somebody there who can represent
Territorians properly." 

*****************************************************************
 44 Arizona Daily Sun: Uranium mines poised to reopen - 
		
www.azdailysun.com

Sunday, November 6, 2005        

By CYNDY COLE Sun Staff Reporter 11/06/2005

Soaring uranium prices are spurring a prospecting frenzy on the 
Arizona Strip north of the Grand Canyon, with at least one 
company considering reopening mining operations near Fredonia. 

"The Strip mines are still, I think, some of the richest mines
in the United States," said Ron Hockstein, president of
International Uranium Corporation, which has four mines there,
including two south of Fredonia near Hack Canyon. "...We'd like
to put those into production as quickly as we can." 

Whether his mines will reopen depends on the prices of compounds
used in processing the radioactive ore, finding workers and the
cost of gasoline to truck it about 300 miles to Blanding, in
southeast Utah, one of two uranium mills still operating in the
United States. 

If the mines were to reopen, it could mean at least dozens, if
not hundreds, of jobs for Fredonia. 

Coconino County Supervisor Carl Taylor is working on an economic
plan for the region, one not based solely on mining, which he
dubs "not as desirable" as other jobs. 

Still, "People in Fredonia see this as an opportunity," he said. 

The Bureau of Land Management expects mining corporations to
stake out 1,500 to 2,000 claims on the Strip by the end of this
year. 					

That compares with 10,000 claims that were active in the boom
time of the 1980s. 

Uranium mining on the Strip essentially ended in 1990, when
prices for uranium fell to $7 per pound, Arizona Strip BLM
spokesman David Boyd said. 

Now it's resurfacing across the Colorado Plateau. 

Prices for the element used in nuclear weapons, nuclear power
plants and medicine have rebounded nearly five-fold. 

"There's about six or eight other companies drilling up there as
we speak," Arizona Mine Inspector Doug Martin said. 

While they may be doing initial work to find ore, no company has
filed paperwork with the BLM or state to reopen or establish a
uranium mine on the Strip at this point, Boyd and Martin said. 

Mining will not be allowed inside national monuments on the
Strip. 

To the east, the Navajo Nation has banned uranium mining across
its land, blaming it for cancer and other health problems.
Uranium mine workers in Utah have received settlements as a
result of health problems. 

This time around, mining would be safer, Martin said, and the
workers would have to wear equipment that would monitor their
exposure to radiation. 

Nuclear power production across the U.S. is near record levels
and is predicted to increase next year, according to U.S. Energy
Information Association data. 

The United States gets about 20 percent of its energy from
nuclear power plants, according to the association. 

Cyndy Cole can be reached at ccole@azdailysun.com or at
913-8607. 					 					 				 				 				 				 				 				 				 			  
		 		
 Site last updated: 11/06/2005, 07:52 AM
 � 2000-2005 Arizona Daily Sun
*****************************************************************
 45 AU ABC: Indigenous owners stage dump protest in Sydney
 
 Sunday, 6 November 2005. 13:36 (AEDT)Sunday, 6 November 2005.

Vote nears: Traditional owners and other NT leaders are taking
their concerns to senators. 

Traditional owners from the Northern Territory have gathered
outside Lucas Heights nuclear reactor in Sydney to rally against
plans to place a nuclear waste facility on their land. 

The 14 owners are from Harts Range and Mt Everard in Central
Australia - two of the three possible sites identified by the
Federal Government. 

They were travelling with the Central Land Council's David Ross;
the Member for the Central Australian seat of MacDonnell, Alison
Anderson, and the Territory's Deputy Chief Minister, Syd
Stirling. 

Mr Stirling will meet tomorrow with senators who could vote down
the Commonwealth's nuclear legislation. 

He will also be present a petition with 9,000 signatures to the
Territory's CLP Senator Nigel Scullion. 

Mr Stirling says the Territory's campaign against the dump is
gathering interest and support. 

"We'll test that tomorrow of course ... we'll have a range of
meetings with a number of senators that we can get hold of
before the debate and the vote in the Senate," he said. 

*****************************************************************
 46 AU ABC: NT advice says no legal basis for nuclear dump challenge
 
 Sunday, 6 November 2005. 15:39 (AEDT)Sunday, 6 November 2005.

 The Northern Territory Government has been advised there is no
legal avenue to stop a nuclear waste facility being built in the
Territory. 

The House of Representatives has passed legislation enabling the
Federal Government to force a waste dump at one of three sites
in the Territory. 

The Senate is likely to consider it this week. 

There has been speculation as to whether the Territory
Government would pursue High Court action to stop the Federal
Government's plans, as happened in South Australia. 

A spokesman for the Territory's Chief Minister Clare Martin says
legal advice has now been received on the matter. 

He says the federal legislation is watertight and any legal
challenge has been ruled out. 


*****************************************************************
 47 AU ABC: Pressure increases on Senator to oppose nuclear dump
 
 Monday, 7 November 2005. 08:42 (AEDT)Monday, 7 November 2005.

 The Northern Territory Chief Minister is increasing the
political pressure on Country Liberal Party (CLP) Senator Nigel
Scullion to cross the floor on the Commonwealth's nuclear waste
dump legislation. 

Deputy Chief Minister Syd Stirling will meet with Senator
Scullion today in Canberra in a last ditch effort to make him
cross the floor over the proposed development of a nuclear waste
facility being built in the Territory. 

The Territory's Chief Minister, Clare Martin, yesterday ruled
out going to the courts to stop the Federal Government's plans
to build the dump after being advised its legislation is
watertight. 

She has now turned all her attention on the vote of Senator
Scullion. 

"What's he there in Canberra to do if he's not to stand up for
the Territory? Particularly as a Senator," Ms Martin said. 

"That legislation can be knocked off if Nigel Scullion crosses
the floor." 

Mr Stirling also plans to meet with Family First Senator Stephen
Fielding and the Nationals' Barnaby Joyce. 

The Federal Government's radioactive waste bill is up for debate
in the Senate this week. 

*****************************************************************
 48 Pocatello Idaho State Journal: Energy experts warn of global crisis

csantee@journalnet.com Casey Santee - Journal Writer

Harold S. Blackman, Ph.D., deputy associate lab director for 
Science and Technology at the Idaho National Laboratory, answers 
questions from the audience following his presentation at the 
Energy Symposium Saturday at Idaho State University. Journal 
photo by billscha@journalnet.com" Bill Schaefer

POCATELLO 

World governments better do everything possible to develop 
sustainable fuel sources because a global energy crisis is on the 
horizon, according to Leonard Bond.

Bond and other experts spoke at the Idaho Energy Symposium 
Saturday morning at Idaho State University.

"We're going to need everything this planet can give us," Bond 
told the crowd gathered in the university's Physical Science 
building.

Bond, the Director of the Center for Advanced Energy Studies in 
Idaho Falls, made grim predictions for current energy sources. He 
said global oil production will peak this year or next year and 
the supply could be exhausted by 2070. He said natural gas could 
be gone by 2025 and coal by 2150.

His solution? Nuclear energy.

"The rest of the world is going to go nuclear whether we like it 
or not," he said, adding that China has plans to build two new 
atomic power plants per year for the foreseeable future. 

Bond said the main problem with nuclear power in the United 
States is more political than technical, citing a collective 
"scare factor" in the minds of Americans. He said contrary to 
popular belief, the waste can be stored safely underground at 
facilities such as at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. By harnessing the 
power of the atom and recycling the spent fuel, he said people 
could generate enough energy to last the planet for hundreds of 
years .

Bond also mentioned hydrogen technology for cars and other 
alternative sources such as biomass, geothermal and wind power. 
He said many will provide important niche roles in the future. 

Harold Blackman, an official with Idaho National Laboratory, 
spoke about the connection between energy and water. And Susan 
Capalbo, a Montana State University professor of agricultural 
economics, talked about storing carbon waste from fossil fuels 
underground. 

This document was originally published online on Sunday, November 
06, 2005


Copyright 2005 Pocatello Idaho State Journal P O Box 431 
Pocatello, ID 83204-0431
    
*****************************************************************

NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 this 
material is distributed without profit or payment to those who 
have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for 
non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more 
information go to: 
<http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml> 
    
*****************************************************************