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                         NUCLEAR POLICY
 
1 Bush 'SALTING' IRAQ  With WMDs?
2 Guardian Unlimited: Bush Takes Fresh Shot at Iraq War Critics
3 Guardian Unlimited: Iran denies claims about nuclear plan
4 Pravda: Russia fails to convince Iran of the need to compromise -
5 Bellona: Iran rejects Moscow’s uranium enrichment compromise
6 Xinhua: Top Iranian lawmaker defines enrichment at home as principle
7 Xinhua: IAEA chief to head for Iran within days   
8 IRNA: VP stresses Iran's right to nuclear energy
9 IRNA: Indonesia stresses Iran's right to nuclear energy
10 Guardian Unlimited: Former Iran President Speaks Against Nukes
11 Korea Herald: KOREA'S IMAGE ABROAD: Danger in Korea, Western myth No
12 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: N.Korea Proposed Roadmap at Six-Party Tal
13 North Korea Times: North Korea proposes nuclear disarmament
14 Korea Times: [An Asia Pacific Millennium] No Nukes! ...For You 
15 AU ABC: Aid to N Korea on hold until nuclear programs dismantled.
16 AFP: N.Korea offered plan for nuclear dismantlement - official -
17 Guardian Unlimited: Full Agenda Awaits Bush in Asia
18 RIA Novosti: Russia to equip Topol-M systems with new warheads
19 IRNA: Israel's implementation of UN resolutions key to ME peace - Pa
20 Guardian Unlimited: Merkel's Party Easily Approves Coalition
 
                         NUCLEAR REACTORS
 
21 US: 456 percent rate increase to decommission the Haddam Neck  
22 SABCnews.com: SA's nuclear power plant reopens
23 US: NRC: New NRC Resident Inspector Assigned to Indian Point 2 Nucle
24 BBC: Nuclear plant on course to
25 Xinhua: US asks India to separate civil nuclear facilities   
26 Reuters: Sydney nuclear reactor terror plot target-police
27 US: NRC: Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste; Revised Notice of Meet
28 US: NRC: Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards Subcommittee Meeti
29 US: Times Herald-Record: Leak's source still murky
30 Japan Times: Reactor increase not needed to cut CO 2 drastically: re
 
                          NUCLEAR SECURITY
 
31 Xinhua: US govt neglects key recommendations by 9/11 panel: report  
32 Guardian Unlimited: Nuclear Link Alleged in Australia Arrests
 
                          NUCLEAR SAFETY
 
33 [du-list] FYI from Dan Fahey
34 [du-list] USUK DU turns up in Japan
35 US: [du-list] Phosgene Gas
36 US: SFBV: Depleted uranium: Dirty bombs, dirty missiles, dirty bulle
37 US: HVN: State legislation proposes to help veterans exposed to depl
 
                         NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
 
38 US: NRC: NRC Closely Monitoring Efforts to Determine Status of Spent
39 Guardian Unlimited: Senate Cuts Spending for Nev. Nuclear Dump
40 US: Deseret News: Environment agency hires Kemp Spangler
41 US: Deseret News: Utah isn't a dumping ground 
42 US: Daily Cardinal: UW fueling nuclear energy recycling - 
43 US: Salt Lake Tribune: Nukes at root of Goshute dispute 
44 US: PE.com: Perchlorate settlement proposed
45 AU ABC: Senator stands by ACT-based waste dump probe. 
 
                           PEACE
 
 
                        US DEPT. OF ENERGY
 
46 lamonitor.com: LANL set for full-scale emergency exercise 
47 lamonitor.com: Einstein still shines bright on Los Alamos 
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                         FULL NEWS STORIES
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 1 Bush 'SALTING' IRAQ  With WMDs?
 
Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2005 17:18:08 -0600 (CST)

X-Fingerprint: owner-imap@chumbly.math.missouri.edu-127.127

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

Plame Network Stopped Bush From 'SALTING' IRAQ With WMDs
By Wayne Madsen11-12-5
http://waynemadsenreport.com/

New aspect of Valerie Plame/Brewster Jennings exposure revealed.
According
to U.S. intelligence sources, the White House exposure of Valerie Plame
and
her Brewster Jennings & Associates was intended to retaliate against the
CIA's work in limiting the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
WMR has reported in the past on this aspect of the scandal. In addition
to
identifying the involvement of individuals in the White House who were
close to key players in nuclear proliferation, the CIA
Counter-Proliferation Division prevented the shipment of binary VX nerve
gas from Turkey into Iraq in November 2002. The Brewster Jennings network
in Turkey was able to intercept this shipment which was intended to be
hidden in Iraq and later used as evidence that Saddam Hussein was in
possession of weapons of mass destruction. U.S. intelligence sources
revealed that this was a major reason the Bush White House targeted Plame
and her network.

CIA counter-proliferation network prevented a WMD "salting" operation by
Bush White House in Iraq.

In fact, U.S. intelligence sources report that the first shipment of VX
nerve gas to Saddam Hussein was carried out between 1988 and 1989. The
gas
was shipped to Iraq by a U.S. company that was established in 1987 -- The
Carlyle Group.

U.S. intelligence sources have also confirmed that Israeli military
officers served unofficially with the U.S. Central Command headquarters
in
Baghdad. The Israelis were attached to the J2X (Joint Intelligence
Liaison)
in Baghdad. Their presence in Baghdad, according to the sources, was kept
secret.

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

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
*****************************************************************
 2 Guardian Unlimited: Bush Takes Fresh Shot at Iraq War Critics
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 
 	 
Monday November 14, 2005 10:31 PM

AP Photo WHRE103 

By TERENCE HUNT 

AP White House Correspondent 

ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE (AP) - President Bush hurled new criticism
at Iraq war critics on Monday as he headed for Asia, accusing
some Democrats of ``sending mixed signals to our troops and the
enemy.'' 

``That is irresponsible,'' Bush said in prepared remarks he
planned to deliver to U.S. forces during a refueling stop in
Alaska. Excerpts were released by the White House as Bush flew
to Elemendorf Air Force Base on the initial leg of an eight-day
journey to Japan, South Korea, China and Mongolia. Bush had
hopes of improving his image on the world stage. 

``Reasonable people can disagree about the conduct of the war,
but it is irresponsible for Democrats to now claim that we
misled them and the American people,'' Bush said in his prepared
remarks. 

``Only one person manipulated evidence and misled the world -
and that person was Saddam Hussein,'' Bush added. 

The president sought to defend himself against criticism by
Democrats that he manipulated intelligence and misled the
American people about Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction
as he sought grounds to go to war against Saddam's regime in
2003. 

Meanwhile, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley told
reporters aboard the presidential aircraft that two agenda items
on Bush's Asia trip were the huge Chinese trade surplus with the
United States and a U.S.-Japanese dispute over U.S. beef
imports. 

Neither dispute was expected to be resolved on the president's
trip, Hadley said. 

``I don't think you're going to see headline-breakers'' from the
president's trip, Hadley said. 

On Sunday, Hadley acknowledged ``we were wrong'' about Iraq's
weapons of mass destruction, but he insisted in a CNN interview
that the president did not manipulate intelligence or mislead
the American people. 

Iraq and other problems - from the bungled response to Hurricane
Katrina to the indictment of a senior White House official in
the CIA leak investigation - have taken a heavy toll on the
president's standing. Nearing the end of his fifth year in
office, Bush has the lowest approval rating of his presidency
and a majority of Americans say Bush is not honest and they
disapprove of his handling of foreign policy and the war on
terrorism. 

In his prepared Alaska remarks, Bush noted that some elected
Democrats in Congress ``have opposed this war all along. 

``I disagree with them, but I respect their willingness to take
a consistent stand,'' he said. ``Yet some Democrats who voted to
authorize the use of force are now rewriting the past. They are
playing politics with this issue and sending mixed signals to
our troops and the enemy.'' 

In the Senate, 29 Democrats voted with 48 Republicans for the
war authorization measure in late 2002, including 2004
Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry of
Massachusetts, and his running mate, John Edwards of North
Carolina. Both have recently been harshly critical of Bush's
conduct of the war and its aftermath. 

On Capitol Hill, top Democrats stood their ground in claiming
Bush misled Congress and the country. ``The war in Iraq was and
remains one of the great acts of misleading and deception in
American history,'' Kerry told a news conference. 

Democrats offered a proposal urging the president to outline an
estimate for a phased withdrawal of U.S. troops. The Senate was
expected to vote on it on Tuesday, as well as on a rival GOP
Iraq policy proposal that does not include a withdrawal
provision. 

Bush is expected to get a warmer welcome in Asia than he did
earlier this month in Argentina at the Summit of the Americas,
where Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez led a protest against
U.S. policies and Bush failed to gain support from the 34
nations attending for a hemisphere-wide free trade zone. 

Japan, the first stop on Bush's trip, and Mongolia, the last,
are likely to give him the most enthusiastic response, while
China and South Korea probably will be cooler but respectful. 

In South Korea, Bush also will attend the Asia-Pacific Economic
Conference summit in Busan, where 21 member states are expected
to agree to support global free-trade talks. The summit also is
expected to agree to put early warning and information-sharing
systems in place in case of bird flu outbreaks. 

``It is good for the president to show up in Asia and say, `We
care about Asia,' because that is in doubt in the region,'' said
Ed Lincoln, senior fellow in Asia and economic studies at the
Council on Foreign Relations. 

At his first stop, in Kyoto, Japan, the president will deliver
what aides bill as the speech of the trip on the power of
democracy - not only to better individual lives but contribute
to the long-term prosperity of nations. 

The remarks - aimed at China - will hold up such nations as
Japan, Australia and South Korea as models because of their
strong democratic traditions and willingness to help establish
democracy in Afghanistan and Iraq. 

Bush also is expected to press China to reduce its trade
surplus, revalue its currency and curb the piracy of American
movies, software and other copyright material. 

China's leadership in six-party talks aimed at ending North
Korea's nuclear ambitions also will be a key topic when Bush
meets Chinese President Hu Jintao in Beijing. 

Bush will also be working the issue when he sits down with
Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in Kyoto and spends a
day with South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun ahead of the APEC
meetings. Japan and South Korea are part of the six-way talks. 
		 	 	   
      Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
 3 Guardian Unlimited: Iran denies claims about nuclear plan
 
Robert Tait
Monday November 14, 2005
The Guardian 		
 		
Iran was under renewed pressure yesterday over its nuclear 
programme after reports that US officials had found information 
on a stolen laptop computer that they claimed proved Iran was 
attempting to develop a nuclear warhead.

American intelligence agents have briefed senior officials from 
the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on the alleged 
evidence contained on the computer, according to the New York 
Times. The agency is scheduled to meet in Vienna on Thursday week 
to consider referring the Iranian case to the UN security 
council.

The laptop, said to have been obtained from a source inside Iran, 
contains more than 1,000 pages of computer simulations and 
accounts of experiments believed to be part of a long-term 
programme to design a nuclear warhead compatible with Iran's 
Shahab missile and capable of reaching Israel and other Middle 
Eastern countries.

The computer documents specified a blast of about 600 metres
(2,000ft) above a target, considered to be the optimum height
for a nuclear explosion.

Conscious of US intelligence failures that falsely projected
weapons of mass destruction inside Iraq, the Bush administration
has kept the information secret but has briefed IAEA officials,
including the agency's director, Mohamed ElBaradei, as well as
the British, French and German governments, in an effort to turn
up the heat on Tehran. Other countries on the IAEA board have
also been brought into the loop, but unlike Britain, France and
Germany, are said to be sceptical.

An American official yesterday insisted the laptop finding was
"strongly suggestive" that Iran had made "significant
advancement toward weaponisation".

Another official said: "It is one more piece of a strong
circumstantial case that they are pursuing a nuclear weapon."

Iran called the claims "worthless and naive". Hamid Reza Asefi,
a foreign ministry spokesman, said: "The baseless claim made us
laugh. We do not use laptops to keep our classified documents.
It is another fuss ahead of the IAEA board meeting to poison the
board's atmosphere."

The revelations came as Iran rejected a compromise proposal,
made with US and EU support, enabling it to maintain a uranium
enrichment programme as long as that process is completed in
Russia.

"What matters to us is to preserve nuclear technology in Iranian
hands," Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, said.
"Nuclear technology is the right of Iranians. It is a right no
one can deny."

The rejection, during a visit to Tehran by the Russian security
council secretary, Igor Ivanov, did not bode well for renewed
talks between Iran and Europeans. EU foreign ministers last week
began studying a proposal from Mr Larijani to reopen talks. Iran
has balked at suggestions that it once again freezes uranium
conversion as a pre-condition to fresh talks.
 	
[UP] 

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
 4 Pravda: Russia fails to convince Iran of the need to compromise -
                            
PRAVDA.Ru

  11/14/2005 15:14   
  
If Iran does not find a compromising decision for its nuclear 
problems, it may find itself internationally isolated The 
Secretary of the Russian Security Council, Igor Ivanov, finished 
his visit to Iran yesterday. This trip of the Russian official 
has received an extensive coverage in Western media: foreign 
reporters believed that Mr. Ivanov was going to meet the Iranian 
administration and discuss plans about the enrichment of uranium 
on Russia's territory, which would be subsequently used for 
nuclear power plants in Iran.

World news agencies reported that the European Union has already 
come to terms with such a compromise. [Russia Iran nuclear 
program] 

During his stay in Iran's capital, Tehran, Igor Ivanov had
meetings with all top officials of the country, including the
newly-elected President, Mahmoud Ajmadinejad. Official news
reports from Tehran say, though, that Russia and Iran failed to
reach any considerable progress as a result of the talks in
Tehran. The head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization,
Gholamreza Aghazadeh, stressed out that the Iranian nuclear 
fuelwould be produced on the territory of Iran. "We did not set 
forth any alternative suggestions. The visit was to identify 
certain opportunities, which Russia could use to ease the 
currently intense situation with the Iranian nuclear program," 
Igor Ivanov said. 

The West strongly objects to Iran's plans to create the complete
nuclear cycle on its territory thinking that Iran might secretly
develop a military nuclear program too. Iran, in its turn, tries
to do its best to keep the uranium-enrichment right for the
nuclear energy industry of the country. There is very little
time left to solve the crisis: on November 24 the 
IAEAadministration will gather to decide whether they should send 
the Iranian nuclear dossier to the UN Security Council. It is not 
ruled out that the international community may eventually decide 
to impose economic sanctions against Tehran. 

Russia is willing to regulate the conflict with the help of
diplomatic means. Igor Ivanov's visit to Tehran exercised the
attempt of the Russian administration to find a compromising
decision of the entire problem. IAEA's chairman, Mohamed
El-Baradei, is set to follow Igor Ivanov's steps and visit 
Tehranin the near future as well. Baradei's visit will have a 
similar goal: to try to convince the Iranian leadership of the 
need to accept Russia's uranium-enrichment suggestion. 

"Iran does need to find a compromise to avoid international 
sanctions. However, the current Iranian administration wants the 
West to acknowledge the nation's rightto produce the nuclear fuel 
independently," the head of the center for strategic and 
political research, Vitali Naumkin said. 

The New York Times unveiled sensational information during Igor
Ivanov's visit to Iran. As it turns out, US special services
obtained a laptop that had been stolen from Iranian officials
and presented the information from the computer to the IAEA's
administration. The computer files supposedly confirmed the
nuclear military ambition of Iran. "This is ridiculous. This 
information leak has a goal to affect the forthcoming session of 
the IAEA board in Vienna on November 24," an official spokesman 
for the Foreign Affairs Ministry of Iran, Hamid Reza Hasif said. 

Such incidents have already occurred on the eve of the US-led 
invasion in Iraq in 2003. Washington was trying to prove back 
then that Saddam Hussein had the WMD arsenal at his disposal. 
Everyone knows that the "reliable evidence" proved to be a hoax 
afterwards. 

Igor Ivanov visited Baghdad after his meetings in Tehran were 
over. The Russian official had a chance to see the horror of the 
ongoing Iraqi tragedy: a bomb blew up in the area, where Iraqi 
governmental and diplomatic institutions are located.   
  
Read the original in Russian: (Translated by: Dmitry Sudakov)
 
Pravda.Ru   
    
  ©1999-2002 "PRAVDA.Ru". When reproducing our materials in
*****************************************************************
 5 Bellona: Iran rejects Moscow’s uranium enrichment compromise
 
The head of Iran's nuclear agency ruled out a compromise
proposal that uranium enrichment for his country's controversial
nuclear programme be carried out in Russia, saying Saturday that
enrichment must be done in Iran, the Associated Press reported
Sunday. 

  The head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization Gholamreza
Aghazadeh (left) greets Russian Security Council Secretary Igor
Ivanov in Tehran.   

  AFP   

Charles Digges, 2005-11-14 10:24

European negotiators with the European Union (EU) and the United
States were reportedly willing to accept the arrangement as a
compromise to allow Iran to move ahead with its nuclear
programme while ensuring it does not produce nuclear weapons.
Enrichment can produce material for bombs and for nuclear
reactor fuel. 

The fuel would presumably be used in the Bushehr reactor on the
Persian Gulf, which has been under construction with Russian
co-operation for nearly the past decade. The light water reactor
has been a thorn in the side of the US security establishment,
and a bone of heated contention between Moscow and Washington,
which has repeatedly demanded that Russia cease nuclear
co-operation with Iran. Moscow has insisted that Iran’s nuclear
programme is for peaceful purposes, and may help the country
build some five more reactors once Bushehr is completed. 

But even Moscow, who has counted on Iran as a market for its own
uranium fuel, has since 2002 been arguing with Iran about who
will maintain control of the fuel once it has been burned.
Moscow had initially intended to produce Bushehr’s fuel and take
the spent nuclear fuel (SNF) back to Russia for reprocessing.
But Tehran steadily began to cool on that idea to such a degree
that Moscow has even offered to pay Iran for Bushehr’s eventual
(SNF). The reactor is some 80 percent complete. 

These hassles now appear to be moot as Iran has announced its
intentions to enrich its own uranium, taken from reopened mines
in the country and enrich it to fuel levels.

  Aghazadeh gives a press conference in Tehran rejecting Russian
compromises.   

  AFP   

Fuel on Iranian soil 

Iranian Vice President Gholamreza Aghazadeh, who heads Iran's
nuclear agency, said after talks with Russia’s Security Council
chief Igor Ivanov that Iran was open to other proposals,
pointing to an earlier Iranian offer that other countries
participate in the enrichment process on Iranian soil as a
guarantee that the programme is used only for peaceful purposes,
AP reported. 

But Aghazadeh flatly rejecting Russia’s—or any other
country’s—invitation to enrich uranium abroad, AP reported. 

"What is important for us is that we be entrusted to carry out
enrichment in Iran. As for participation by other countries in
Iran's uranium enrichment programme, we will consider it if
there are any proposals," he said. 

When asked if Tehran would agree to enrichment being carried out
abroad, Aghazadeh said, "Iran's nuclear fuel will be produced
inside Iran." 

Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asfi seconded
Aghazadeh, saying Sunday that "Enrichment should be carried out
on Iranian soil, as other Iranian officials have said before,"
he told reporters. 

The rejected compromise 

Under the proposal that was floated by Russia to help ease the
tension with the EU and United States, Iran would be allowed to
carry out an initial step in making nuclear fuel—converting
uranium ore into the uranium hexafluoride gas that is the
feedstock for making enriched uranium. 

But enrichment itself would be done in Russia under an offer
said to have been favourably accepted by the 
EU and the United States. 

Iran says it only wants to enrich uranium to low levels for
atomic reactor fuel and argues such work is a right enshrined by
the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), of which the Islamic
Republic is a signatory.
 
But the enrichment process can be diverted to military purposes,
and the United States and European Union fear that Iran’s
clerical regime is merely using an atomic energy drive as a
cover for weapons development. 

Iran already moving ahead to make enrichment possible 
Iran has already taken initial steps to pave the way for uranium
enrichment inside Iran. 

Last week, Aghazadeh said Iran would give the outside world a 35
percent share in its uranium enrichment programme, allowing
other countries to have a role in and monitor uranium enrichment
at Iran's facility in the centrally located town of Natanz, news
agencies reported. Aghazadeh said at the time that giving other
nations and foreign companies such a role was the "maximum
concession" Tehran could offer. 

In Vienna on Friday, a diplomat within the ranks of the UN’s
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed that a
position paper entitled "Elements of a Long-Term Solution" had
been passed on to the Russians by the UN nuclear watchdog agency
about a week ago, AP said. 

The IAEA plans on November 24th to discuss whether to refer Iran
to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions connected to
its nuclear programme, representatives for the agency have said
in recent week. . 

Where Tehran ran afoul of the West 

Iran triggered the latest stand-off in August when it
effectively broke off negotiations on a package of incentives
for restraining its nuclear plans and resumed conversion
activities it had suspended a year ago. 

The IAEA has demanded Iran return to a full freeze of
enrichment-related work and return to negotiations with Britian,
France and Germany. Iran says it is willing to negotiate, but
not suspend all of its activities, AFP reported. 

Asefi said Iran wanted to see a "balanced approach" to its
nuclear programme, and repeated that talks needed to be widened
to involve countries other than the so-called EU3. 

He also reacted to reports that US intelligence officials have
shown IAEA members a stolen Iranian laptop computer containing
nuclear designs as proof the country is secretly pursuing a
nuclear weapons programme. 

The New York Times reported on its web site Saturday that during
the demonstration of the laptops contents, which took place in
Vienna in mid-July, officials displayed selections from more
than a thousand pages of Iranian computer simulations and
accounts of experiments, saying they showed a long effort to
design a nuclear warhead. 

"This is worthless and naive. We usually don't carry our secrets
around in laptops," Asefi laughed when asked to respond to the
report, AFP said.   

  Publisher: Bellona Foundation, President: Frederic Hauge
Information: info@bellona.no, Technical contact:
webmaster@bellona.no
Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00 Telefax: +47 22 38 38 62  * P.O.Box
2141 Grunerlokka, 0505 Oslo, Norway
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 6 Xinhua: Top Iranian lawmaker defines enrichment at home as principle   

  www.xinhuanet.com
    
  www.chinaview.cn 2005-11-15 05:11:22   
  

    TEHRAN, Nov. 14 (Xinhuanet) -- The top Iranian lawmaker said
on Monday that uranium enrichment at home is a principle for
Iran,the semi-official Mehr news agency reported. 

    "We welcome any proposal to participate in nuclear
technology projects, but enriching in the Iranian territory is a
principle based on Iran's right, which we insist should be
protected," Aladdin Borujerdi, chairman of the Majlis
(parliament) National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, was
quoted as saying. 

    Borujerdi echoed remarks made by nuclear chief Gholamreza
Aghazadeh that Iran's nuclear fuel must be produced in the
Iranian territory after a meeting with visiting Russian Security
Council Secretary Igor Ivanov. 

    Borujerdi said that the United States was trying to wage
psychological warfare against Iran by accusing it of developing
nuclear weapons. 

    It was reported that the United States and the European
Union (EU) have been mulling a proposal on the Iranian nuclear
issue,which allows Tehran to carry out uranium conversion on
condition that the actual enrichment be performed in Russia. 

    It was said that the proposal was presented by Russia, but
Ivanov denied it during his visit to Iran. 

    The Austrian press agency reported Sunday that chief of
theInternational Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Mohamed ElBaradei
has planned to visit Iran within days to persuade it to accept
the proposal over enrichment abroad. 

    Iran has been under pressure from the EU and the IAEA to
suspend all enrichment-related activities since it resumed
uranium conversion work, a preparatory step for enrichment, in
early August. 

    Tehran rejects the US accusation as politically
motivated.Enditem   

  Copyright ©2003 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 7 Xinhua: IAEA chief to head for Iran within days   

  www.xinhuanet.com
    
  www.chinaview.cn 2005-11-14 11:04:13   

    VIENNA, Nov. 13 (Xinhuanet) -- Chief of the International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Mohamed ElBaradei plans to fly to
Iran within days and persuade it to move its uranium enrichment
program to Russia, the Austrian press agency reported Sunday. 

    Under a proposal being floated, Iran will be allowed to
carry out an initial step in making nuclear fuel -- converting
uranium ore into the uranium hexafluoride gas that is the
feedstock for making enriched uranium. But enrichment itself
will be done in Russia. 

    The European Union and the United States have endorsed the
proposal as a way to ensure that Iran's nuclear program is for
peaceful purpose. 

    But Gholamreza Aghazadeh, head of Iran's nuclear agency, had
rejected the proposal, insisting the program must be carried out
on Iran's own soil. 

    An Austrian diplomatic official, cited by the agency,
downplayed Aghazadeh's reaction, saying it was given before he
had seen the details of the plan, which would first be presented
in its entirety to the Iranians by ElBaradei and senior agency
officials traveling with him. 

    The IAEA Board of Governors will meet in the Austrian
capital on Nov. 24 to discuss whether to refer Iran's nuclear
case to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions. Enditem 
 
  Copyright ©2003 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 8 IRNA: VP stresses Iran's right to nuclear energy

Nov 14, IRNA                                                                                                           

Iran's First Vice-President Mohammad-Reza Bahonar on Monday
stressed the country's indisputable right to develop nuclear
energy for peaceful purposes.

 Bahonar made the remarks during an interview with `Asahi
Shimbun' published simultaneously with his official six-day
visit to Japan.

 Asked about the status of nuclear talks with the three European
states (Germany, France and Britain), he said the "ground has
been paved for resumption of negotiations."
 The daily quoted Bahonar as saying nuclear talks will re-open
in the near future and that the European side gave a positive
reaction to Iran's offer in this regard.

 The vice-president welcomed talks of a possible transfer of the
enrichment process to Russia if "it will help build confidence
in the international community and at the same time guarantee
Iran's rights."
 "In talks between Iran and the International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA), Tehran should not be the only side called upon to
comply with regulations.

 "A bright future lies ahead for a final decision if both sides
pay attention to their bilateral obligations," he said.

 Iranian First Vice-President Bahonar arrived in Tokyo Monday to
hold talks with senior Japanese officials.

 He is scheduled to hold talks with top officials of Japan's
legislature, House of Councillors President Oogi Chikage and
House of Representatives Speaker Yohei Kono, and a number of
other senior government officials during this official visit.

 The two sides are to discuss bilateral relations as well as
regional and international developments during this important
visit, it was further learned.


*****************************************************************
 9 IRNA: Indonesia stresses Iran's right to nuclear energy

Kuala Lumpur, Nov 14, IRNA                                                                                                               

Indonesia-Iran-Nuclear 

Speaker of the Indonesian House of Representatives Agung Laksono
in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, on Monday stressed Iran's
right to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

 Laksono's remarks were made at a meeting with an Iranian
parliamentary delegation headed by Lenjan MP and member of the
Majlis majority faction, Mohsen Kouhkan, on the sidelines of the
Asian Parliaments' Assembly meeting.

 He said the peaceful use of nuclear technology was the right of
all nations, adding that the Iranian nation had every right to
benefit from peaceful nuclear energy.

 Pointing to Iran's important position in the region and the
Islamic world as a whole, he called for strengthening of
 Tehran-Jakarta cooperation on various regional and
international developments.

 The Indonesian official invited Iran's Majlis Speaker
Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel to pay a visit to his country.

 Kouhkan, for his part, said expansion of ties with the Islamic
world was among the fundamental priorities of Iran's foreign
policy and called for promotion of parliamentary ties between
the two countries.

*****************************************************************
 10 Guardian Unlimited: Former Iran President Speaks Against Nukes
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 
 	 
Monday November 14, 2005 9:16 PM

AP Photo VIE125 

By BRIAN MURPHY 

AP Religion Writer 

VIENNA, Austria (AP) - The former president of Iran urged all
religious leaders Monday to fight to abolish atomic and chemical
weapons - an apparent attempt to support Tehran's position as it
nears another key showdown with U.N. nuclear inspectors. 

Mohammad Khatami told a conference on Islam's global roles that
it was the duty of ``the entire religious community to save the
world from atomic bombs and chemical weapons.'' The comments fit
with repeated statements by Iranian officials that their nuclear
program is peaceful and atomic arms are against the nation's
political and religious principles. 

Khatami also took an indirect swipe at the United States and
allies for remarks that ``fan the flame of war between Muslims
and Christians.'' 

Khatami's comments carried extra resonance in Vienna, where the
International Atomic Energy Agency's 35-nation board is
scheduled to meet Nov. 24 and could consider referring Iran to
the U.N. Security Council to face possible sanctions over its
nuclear program. 

Current proposals to avoid U.N. action include possibly asking
Iran to move its uranium enrichment program to Russia. 

Washington says Iran seeks to produce nuclear warheads, but
Tehran says its program is solely to produce electricity and
insists every nation has that right. 

Khatami did not specifically name the United States, but sharply
denounced past phrases from the White House and other nations
that have spoken of a ``crusade'' against Islamic terrorism.
Many Muslims find the word offensive because it evokes the
memories of the medieval Christian armies sent to battle Islam. 

``To fan the flames of war between Muslims and Christians is an
unethical act ... only made by a bullying and violence-seeking
people,'' Khatami said. 

The conference, hosted by Austria before it takes over the
European Union presidency in January, includes some of the most
prominent - and embattled - Muslim leaders, including Iraqi
President Jalal Talabani and Afghan President Hamid Karzai. 

Austria's foreign minister, Ursula Plassnik, urged Western and
Muslim leaders to show greater courage to unite against groups
promoting cultural intolerance and violence in the name of
Islam. 

``We should not concede the public space to those who abuse
religion ... and abuse culture to reach their aims,'' she said.
``We must speak out.'' 

Plassnik said the message of the gathering was to display
``courage, not to shy away from difficult subjects'' such as the
roots of terrorism and social tensions in Europe - most recently
driven home by the riots across France and last week's triple
suicide blasts in Amman, Jordan, that killed 57 people. 

``We are facing challenges within Islam,'' she said. ``The
challenges of pluralism, the challenges of development, the
challenges inside our own European community ... We have to
listen to each other, and we have to open our eyes and ears.'' 

A message from U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan appealed for
the ``logic of peace'' to overcome radical Islam and other forms
of extremism. 

``We must respond to extremism, but not in kind,'' said Annan's
text, read by his personal representative, Lakhdar Brahimi. ``If
we respond to violence with violence, to anathema with anathema,
to exclusion with exclusion, we accept the logic of those we
hope to defeat.'' 
		 	 	   
      Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
 11 Korea Herald: KOREA'S IMAGE ABROAD: Danger in Korea, Western myth No.1   

2003-11-18 ±è´ë¸® ¼öÁ¤          -->   
      
Very few Koreans can conceive the possibility of the North 
attacking 

The following is the second in a five-part series of articles on
how Korea is conceived by foreigners and what efforts Koreans
should make to enhance its images abroad. - Ed.

By Tracey Stark

It is a commonly held belief in the West that the Korean
Peninsula is a powder keg waiting to be ignited by some random
event, resulting in a second Korean War. 

A foreigner might also believe that in Seoul - a scant 50
kilometers from the North Korean border - there is palpable fear
and worry that their northern neighbor, nay, their brothers, are
inclined to attack. But ask any Korean or foreign resident
walking down the street and they will tell you the same thing:
Anxiety over the communist state to the north is minimal and
seldom a subject of everyday conversation.

 "When I traveled abroad it was something people asked me about
often," said Lim Seung-eun, 27. "I was even urged not to return
to Korea by my friends in Australia."

 A teacher in Gyeonggi Province from the United Kingdom, Graeme
Armitage, 27, recalled before coming to Korea more than three
years ago that although he and his parents didn't have any
preconceived notions about Korea, he had friends and family who
continually confused North and South Korea, and thought he was
going to live in the communist North.

 "There was no concern from my parents that I was in any danger,
but other relatives weren't so clued up on Korea. They knew very
little about the place."

 Western media may be partly to blame. News with the mention of
Korea is most often sensationalized stories about the looming
threat of North Korea, or a story involving large animals
running wild through Seoul. (Recently a story about a woman in
Seoul whose baby stroller got caught in the doors of a subway is
being shown frequently on CNN.)

 That is changing these days with international events being
held in Korea like the World Cup, Pusan International Film
Festival and the current Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation
summit being held in Busan. While the coverage may only last a
few days, and then return to the ongoing saga of the six-party
talks, it is effective in separating myth from reality.

 "Before I came to Korea I didn't know what to expect. It seems
like all the news you hear about the country has to do with
North Korea's aggressive stance," said Dan Secor, a 34-year-old
American, who lives in Ilsan with his Korean wife. "But you get
here and see that this country has been neglected by the media."

 Secor added that on a trip home to Massachusetts when he told
people he was in Korea the second most frequent question - after
the North Korean issue - was "Did you see the elephants run
rampant through Seoul?" referring to an isolated event in a very
small part of a very large town.

 A group of dedicated Koreans have taken up the task of
spreading the truth about South Korea. The Voluntary Agency
Network of Korea began in 1999 and now has 15,000 members and
set its task as the disseminating of the truth about Korea. 

"All VANK's members are guiding overseas Koreans and foreigners
so that they can better understand Korean culture, language, or
situation, etc. through e-mail or postal-mail and at the same
time we are building friendships, bridging cultures and changing
the image of Korea as cyber diplomats," VANK's website,
www.prkorea.com, says.

 But the question must be posed: Why would people worry?

 For starters, in the event of a war, the initial bombardment on
Seoul would be in the neighborhood of 500,000 rounds per hour
landing on Seoul, according to the U.S. military. This
bombardment wouldn't be contained for several days. The outcome
would be disastrous.

 Secondly, North Korea dropped out of the Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty and then subsequently bragged about
possessing nuclear fissile material - enough for several
warheads. They have also advanced in short- and long-range
missile technology. 

With the breaching of multiple international agreements on the
part of North Korea, it is accepted by many in the South that
the North's government can't be trusted. But with recent
progress in the six-party talks and the nuclear threat
diminished, the world may be breathing a collective sigh of
relief.

 Very few ordinary Koreans can conceive the possibility of the
North attacking them.

 "They look like us and we speak the same language. The only way
they would attack is if they were attacked first," said student
Cho Hyun-i. She added that it was unlikely that South Korea
would make such a move and pointed to the United States as the
most likely catalyst of a war ever starting on the peninsula.

 With a population of 48 million in an area about the same size
as the U.S. state of Virginia (population 7.4 million), crime
can be another worry.

 The numbers show this to be false as well, as 2002 crime rates
for Korea were significantly lower than those of neighboring
Japan, in most areas, and the United States, United Kingdom and
Germany in all categories.

 The overall crime rate was 1,674 incidents per 100,000 people
in Korea, while those numbers were more than one third higher in
Japan at 2,240 per 100,000. The United States and the United
Kingdom followed with 4,119 and 11,240 per 100,000 people
respectively. Murder rates in 2002 for Korea, the United States
and United Kingdom per 100,000 were 2.1, 5.6 and 3.5
respectively. Rape and sexual assault in those same three
nations were 19.8, 33 and 86.6 per 100,000 respectively.

 "I feel safer walking down the street late at night in Seoul
than I did in Boston," said Secor. He added that the drug
culture of the big cities of America were what led to higher
crime rates. "Korea seems pretty drug-free."

 An outsider may be surprised to see many busloads of Korean
police around the city, but this in no way reflects a high crime
rate. They are most often used as crowd control around important
buildings or to prevent the frequent protests from getting out
of hand around the capital.

 "It's a reflection of our growth as a democracy to see so many
protests. Under President Park (Chung-hee) these things would
not have been permitted," said university student Cho.

 Although it may not be an urban utopia, Seoul has lifted its
status in the world from the center of government of a
less-developed, semi-democratic nation, to a rapidly growing,
culturally diverse, center for international business and
travel. Infrastructure improvements and an economy that made a
quick recovery from the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis has
proven to the international business community that Korea is no
longer a poor Hermit Kingdom.

 "Life is too short to worry about such things. We have learned
a lot from our mistakes of the past. We will someday be united
and that will make everyone in the world safer," Lim said.

 (traceystark@heraldm.com)


2005.11.15
 
*****************************************************************
 12 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: N.Korea Proposed Roadmap at Six-Party Talks: Minister 
 
  Home> National/Politics    Updated Nov.14,2005 19:10 KST   
 
  North Korea presented a roadmap for the dismantling of its
nuclear program during six-nation talks in Beijing that went
into recess on Friday, according to Unification Minister Chung
Dong-young. 

The minister on Monday told broadcasters the North envisages
five steps in the process: suspension of nuclear tests; ban on
nuclear relocation; ban on additional nuclear production; a
verifiable end to nuclear activities and dismantlement; return
to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the IAEA. 

Asked about the chances of a visit to Pyongyang by President Roh
Moo-hyun, Chung said that although the North promised a return
visit to Seoul when the first inter-Korean summit was held in
June 2000, the situation had changed in the five years since
then, and it was more important that the summit takes place at
all than where it takes place. 

Reporters also put Chung on the spot over a civil servant who
got into trouble with the president¡¯s public relations aide for
giving an interview to a conservative newspaper. ¡°I don¡¯t know
the details of the incident exactly,¡± Chung responded. ¡°But
it¡¯s a personal matter to decide to give an interview to a
specific newspaper.¡± 

Asked about the block resignation of the Uri Party¡¯s leadership
after a rousting in recent by-elections, Chung echoed comments
from former president Kim Dae-jung. ¡°The ruling party has been
isolated due to the defection of traditional supporters and has
failed to receive public approval,¡± he said. ¡°In that sense,
it¡¯s good for the ruling party¡¯s emergency leadership to
apologize to the public and to seek ways to start anew.¡± 

(englishnews@chosun.com ) 

*****************************************************************
 13 North Korea Times: North Korea proposes nuclear disarmament
 
NorthKoreaTimes.com     

Tuesday 15th November 2005     Issue 572   

Big News Network

                Monday 14th November, 2005  (UPI)
                                
North Korea has proposed a five-step plan to give up its nuclear
weapons program, a top South Korea official said Monday.
 
However, the plan was said to appear contingent upon Pyongyang
getting the aid it is demanding. It was believed to be the first
time North Korea has detailed an action plan, Voice of America
said.
 
South Korean Unification Minister Chung Dong-young told
reporters in Seoul that Pyongyang presented a five-point plan
during last week's six-nation meeting in Beijing.
 
He said the North Koreans say they would halt plans for a
nuclear test and refrain from transferring nuclear materials or
technology. Later, the nation would formally end construction of
any more nuclear weapons, and eventually dismantle its nuclear
programs under international supervision.
 
As a final step, North Korea would return to the global
Non-Proliferation Treaty it withdrew from in January 2003.
 
Chung calls the North Korean proposal meaningful. 

*****************************************************************
 14 Korea Times: [An Asia Pacific Millennium] No Nukes! ...For You 

Hankooki.com > The Korea Times > Opinion   

By Philip Dorsey Iglauer

 Preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons is touted as an
obvious global norm, a moral undertaking to be lauded by any
mainstream and respectable member of the international community.

 The anxiety, however, underlying nuclear non-proliferation
policies is that nations with nuclear weapons deny others from
possessing them out of a base desire to get the political upper
hand. This ambition to apply foreign policy leverage over other
countries belies the ostensible motivation for stemming the
proliferation of very dangerous weapons out of an altruistic
concern for global peace and safety. 

When some countries are nuclear-armed and others are not, it
represents a significant security inequality between the
nuclear- and non-nuclear-armed countries. 

Global nuclear non-proliferation regimes and institutions should
restrain both sides. They should both stem the spread of these
very dangerous weapons and curtail that unfair political
advantage of nuclear-armed countries to preempt a justifiable
national insecurity among the non-nuclear nations. This was the
reason why West Germany resisted signing the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty until Article V was included,
guaranteeing the peaceful use of nuclear energy (See my Aug. 15,
2005 column ``A Morgenthau Plan for North Korea?¡¯¡¯).

 But countries with nukes consider their atomic status as a
vital part of their international stature, as well as a
deterrence against attacks by rival states. A state without
nuclear weapons, or without the security of a nuclear umbrella,
will find itself at a disadvantage when dealing with other
nations. They will consequently strive to develop and acquire
nuclear weapons despite international laws and norms. 

Nations with the capacity to get nukes are compelled to do so
because of this inequality. 

The United States provides this kind of security to Japan, South
Korea, Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

 That is why governments that are not protected by a nuclear
umbrella must acquire nukes to ensure the security of their
country and increase their influence when dealing with rival
states. 

This political phenomenon between the nuclear haves and
have-nots explains the dynamic at work between North Korea and
Iran, on the one hand, and nuclear-armed states and their allies
struggling to stop them, on the other.

 The first to develop the atomic bomb was the United States at
the end of World War II. U.S. atomic power was greeted with
anxiety by the Soviet Union, which developed its own bomb soon
after. Thus, proliferation began in earnest. Next, Great Britain
and France developed and tested nuclear weapons in 1952 and
1960, respectively. 

Then came China and India. In the 1950s, China was threatened
with U.S. nuclear attack three times. In the U.S. confrontation
with China in the Korean War, Washington threatened to decimate
Beijing with an atomic assault; China was also threatened by the
United States in two other incidents over Chinese islands being
used by the Taiwanese military against the mainland. 

In 1964, after China successfully tested its first nuclear bomb,
Taiwan quickly lost its drive to retake the mainland. U.S.
rapprochement with the Peoples Republic of China soon followed.

 The case of China is the most pertinent example of why nuclear
non-proliferation is destined to fail. If a nation cannot rely
on others for nuclear protection, and if it has the capability
to research and develop nuclear weapons, it will do so in order
to protect its interests and national security. 

India tested its first nuclear weapon in 1974. India¡¯s
territorial insecurities with China through the 1950s and 60s
spurred it toward the comfort of the bomb. By 1962, both New
Delhi and Beijing deployed massive numbers of troops on each
other¡¯s borders. When India¡¯s defeat by Chinese forces in the
Indo-Chinese War in 1962 was piqued with humiliation in 1964 as
Beijing tested a Chinese doomsday machine, New Delhi pushed
toward development of its own ``Hindu¡¯¡¯ bomb (See my Oct. 31,
2005 column, ``Room Enough In Asia for Its Giants?¡¯¡¯).

 India¡¯s nukes sparked Pakistani security concerns and a
nuclear program of its own. After losing East Pakistan
(Bangladesh) in a humiliating defeat in a 1971 war with India,
Islamabad became obsessed to increase its regional might. Prime
Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, whose daughter would later also be
prime minister, demanded Pakistan develop its own ``Islamic
bomb¡¯¡¯ to secure the country¡¯s interests. Finally, in May
1998, Pakistan announced that it had conducted five successful
nuclear tests.

 The Asia Pacific region is rift with atomic jitters. Though
Japan has no political will for acquiring weapons of mass
destruction, the country is a voracious consumer of nuclear
energy. Japan is the third largest atomic energy producer in the
world after the U.S. and France (South Korea is estimated as the
world¡¯s sixth). Tokyo has plans to produce over 40 percent of
its electricity through atomic reactors. And Japan had 4.7 tons
of plutonium, according to 1995 stats. 

Experts believe Japan has the technology, raw materials, and the
capital to produce state-of-the-art ballistic missiles in 12
months if necessary. Thus, some analysts consider it a ``de
facto¡¯¡¯ nuclear state for this reason. These analysts cite
Japan¡¯s space exploration program, including its M-5
three-stage solid fuel rocket, a close copy of the U.S. LG-118
ICBM. 

This reality makes it clear that powerful non-nuclear states,
such as Iran and North Korea, will turn to nuclear weapons as an
important part of their national security strategy. If global
non-proliferations regimes fail to both restrain the political
advantage of nuke nations to assuage the national insecurity of
non-nuke countries, then Iran and North Korea, and others, will
be compelled to develop nuke weapon programs. 

ephilip2005@hotmail.com 11-14-2005 17:04         
  
*****************************************************************
 15 AU ABC: Aid to N Korea on hold until nuclear programs dismantled.

15/11/2005. ABC News Online
 	
By North Asia correspondent Shane McLeod 

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer says Australia will not give
more aid to North Korea until it dismantles its nuclear
programs. 

Mr Downer is in South Korea at this week's Asia Pacific Economic
Cooperation (APEC) summit. 

North Korea says it no longer needs humanitarian help and has
instead asked aid donors to provide development projects. 
The United Nations World Food Program will leave the country by
the end of this year. 

Mr Downer says the consequences of the new policy will be
catastrophic and will cost lives. 

He says Australia will not provide development aid until North
Korea dismantles its nuclear programs. 

After that he says Australia stands ready to provide significant
aid and support. 

*****************************************************************
 16 AFP: N.Korea offered plan for nuclear dismantlement - official -
     
Monday November 14, 06:51 PM 

SEOUL, (AFP) - North Korea proposed a five-stage plan for the
gradual elimination of its nuclear weapons drive at last week's
six-nation talks, South Korea's top official on ties with
Pyongyang said. 

Unification Minister Chung Dong-Young said the plan showed the
North was serious about giving up its nuclear weapons. 

"North Korea has proposed a five-stage road map on nuclear
dismantlement," Chung told reporters. 

Under the plan, North Korea said it would halt any nuclear
testing and stop any transfer of nuclear technology while
shutting down production of additional nuclear weapons, Chung
said. 

North Korea said it would also allow outside inspections of
nuclear facilities and dismantle its nuclear weapons before
returning to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and accepting
International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards. 

Three days of six-nation talks ended in stalemate in Beijing on
Friday. The two Koreas, the United States, China, Russia and
Japan pledged to push ahead with diplomatic efforts and resume
talks soon. 

At a previous round in September they issued a joint statement
of principles in which North Korea promised to scrap its nuclear
programs in exchange for energy assistance and other benefits. 

But a day later Pyongyang insisted it would not dismantle its
nuclear arsenal before the United States supplied it with a
light-water atomic reactor to generate electricity. 

The United States says North Korea must disarm first. 

The nuclear crisis flared in October 2002 after the United
States accused North Korea of cheating on a 1994 accord by
running a secret uranium-enrichment programme to make weapons. 

                                 
   Copyright © 2005 AFP. All rights reserved. All information
*****************************************************************
 17 Guardian Unlimited: Full Agenda Awaits Bush in Asia
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

Monday November 14, 2005 12:46 PM

AP Photo XDG101 

By JENNIFER LOVEN 

Associated Press Writer 

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush embarks Monday on an eight-day
Asian trip with a full plate: Preparing for a possible bird flu
pandemic. Boosting global free-trade talks and tackling sticky
trade issues with China. Promoting democracy. Keeping U.S.
partners on track in ridding North Korea of its nuclear weapons
programs. 

White House officials predicted that Bush's visits to Japan,
South Korea, China and Mongolia would produce few tangible
breakthroughs. Analysts said that was appropriate, since the
trip's value lies in countering a drift in the region away from
the United States. 

China is growing in economic and military might and in its
global involvement, which is causing some to worry whether
Beijing seeks to rival, or supplant, U.S. influence. Meanwhile,
a new collection of Asian states known as the East Asia Summit
added participation by Australia, New Zealand and India, but
still excludes Washington. 

``It is good for the president to show up in Asia and say, `We
care about Asia,' because that is in doubt in the region,'' said
Ed Lincoln, senior fellow in Asia and Economic Studies at the
Council on Foreign Relations. 

White House aides had looked to a November packed with foreign
travel as a way to help divert attention from Bush's domestic
troubles and slumping poll numbers. 

It hasn't worked out that way. 

Democrats have seized on the indictment of Vice President Dick
Cheney's top aide in the CIA leak case to raise anew that Bush's
main justification for the 2003 Iraq invasion, that Saddam
Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, was wrong. 

Continuing a counterattack that began Friday with a sharp rebuke
to his critics, the president was pausing at Elmendorf Air Force
Base in Alaska en route to Asia on Monday to promote his
war-on-terror and Iraq policies. 

Even while abroad lately, Bush hasn't always fared well. Just
over a week ago, he saw his desires for a Western
Hemisphere-wide free-trade pact dashed at a Latin American
summit marked by violent anti-American protests. 

The main reason for Bush's Asia trip is the annual summit of
Pacific Rim leaders at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation
forum, held this year in Busan, South Korea. 

The president will press the 20 other APEC leaders to pay more
attention to weapons proliferation, put early warning and
information-sharing systems in place in case of bird flu
outbreaks and add momentum to December talks on a new global
trade pact. 

On the sidelines, Bush will showcase his support for democratic
reforms by meeting with the leaders of Malaysia and Indonesia -
two moderate Muslim-majority nations that have turned in recent
years to representative governments. 

His first Asia stop is Kyoto, Japan, where on Tuesday he will
give what aides bill as the speech of the week on the power of
democracy, not only to better individual lives but contribute to
the long-term prosperity of nations. 

The remarks will hold up such nations as Japan, Australia and
South Korea as models because of their strong democratic
traditions and willingness to help establish democracy in places
like Afghanistan and Iraq. 

But the speech is clearly aimed, at least in part, at communist
China. ``There's going to be a lot of change in Chinese society
and these are things that will help the Chinese move forward,''
Mike Green, the National Security Council's senior director for
Asia, said in describing the message. 

But Lincoln, the Council on Foreign Relations analyst, said it
could be a big mistake for Bush to open an Asian journey with a
speech that could unnecessarily provoke Beijing, especially when
the centerpiece of the week is a state visit to China. 

Aside from the contents of the speech, Lincoln said Bush should
think twice before choosing Japan as the backdrop.
Japanese-Chinese relations are tense lately, not least because
of a recent visit by Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi
to a Tokyo shrine that recalls for many Japan's militaristic
past and its World War II invasion of China. 

What's more, Bush is closing his trip in Mongolia, on China's
doorstep, to deliver another speech that celebrates the former
communist country's emerging democracy. 

``To me, (China) seems like the kind of country you want to
handle in a somewhat delicate way, rather than kick them in the
rear,'' Lincoln said. 

That's especially true given the high stakes in the U.S.-China
relationship. Bush plans to press China to revalue its currency,
reduce its vast trade surplus with the United States and curb
the piracy of American movies, software and other copyright
material. 

China's leadership in six-party talks with North Korea aimed at
ending Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions also will be a key topic
when Bush meets with Chinese President Hu Jintao in Beijing. 

Since Japan and South Korea are also U.S. partners in those
negotiations, Bush will also be working the issue when he sits
down with Koizumi in Kyoto and spends a day with South Korean
President Roh Moo-hyun ahead of the APEC meetings. 

Military ties are another major issue with all three countries.
U.S. officials worry about a huge military buildup in China, a
realignment plan was recently announced for U.S. troops in
Japan, and the Pentagon has begun a major drawdown of American
forces in South Korea. 
		 	 	   
      Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
 18 RIA Novosti: Russia to equip Topol-M systems with new warheads
 
14/ 11/ 2005                                  

VLASIKHA (MOSCOW REGION), November 14 (RIA Novosti) - New 
warheads for the strategic missiles currently being tested will 
be installed on silo-based and mobile Topol-M missiles, the 
commander of Russia's strategic missile forces said Monday.

 Colonel General Nikolai Solovtsov did not elaborate on the 
number of warheads slated to be installed, nor did he specify the 
deadline for installation. 

Solovtsov said Russia and the United States would cut down their 
strategic nuclear stocks to 1,700-2,200 warheads under the 
Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty by January 1, 2012.
 
© 2005 "RIA Novosti"   






*****************************************************************
 19 IRNA: Israel's implementation of UN resolutions key to ME peace - Pak MP

Islamabad, Nov 14, IRNA                                                                                                                  

Pakistan-Israel-UN resolutions 

A senior lawmaker in Pakistan on Monday called for
implementation of United Nations resolutions by Israel to pave
the way for establishment of sustainable peace in the Middle
East.

 There cannot be two opinions and the world community should
know that without implementation of UN resolutions,peace in the
Middle East will remain a mere dream, asserted Assadullah Bhutto
in an interview with IRNA.

 He blamed the "selective" approach of leading world nations in
the lingering Palestinian issue that was in contrast to the
world body's role in trying to resolve the issue.

 The lawmaker emphasized that the UN's resolutions on Israel
should be implemented in letter and spirit as with all issues
affecting the world as a selective approach would lead the world
nowhere.

 The world body moves swiftly when it comes to handling issues
affecting non-Muslim entities but becomes almost indifferent
when it comes to settling problems, particularly those
concerning Muslims such as Palestine and Kashmir, he contended.

 On the same subject, he maintained that world opinion was being
molded to put pressure on the Islamic Republic of Iran and find
a pretext for economic sanctions to be imposed on the country
because of its peaceful nuclear program.

 However, the world community, particularly the US and its
allies, are closing their eyes and mind to the nuclear arsenal
of Israel, the lawmaker argued.

 Bhutto, who is also president of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal's
Sindh province chapter, called strongly for resolution of the
Iran nuclear issue following the model used in the North Korea
nuclear standoff.

 MMA is an alliance of six mainstream politico-religious parties.

 He said the fact that Iran had been fully cooperating with the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) deserves commendation
as this was not the case with Israel, which had flatly declined
to allow a fact-finding mission into the plight of Palestinians.

 To a question, Assadullah Bhutto, the chairman of the MMA's
committee on legal matters, charged Tel Aviv was formed under a
deep-rooted conspiracy against the Muslim ummah, especially
Middle Eastern countries' interests.

 That a state (Israel) was created by accommodating people from
all across the globe and continues to flout the laws and
conventions of the world with impunity is unprecedented, he said.

 He said that dogs and even wild animals in the United States
and Europe had certain rights, but Palestinians on their own
land had been made slaves to Zionists.

 Regarding the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), he
alleged that the Muslim body, on paper, looked quite impressive
but on ground the situation was quite different.

 "The OIC is hostage to the whims of pro-US rulers. Muslim
rulers should at least raise their voices to defend the civil
rights of Palestinian Muslims before there are signs of
liberation of their land from Zionists clutches," he
contended.		 				 		 			
*****************************************************************
 20 Guardian Unlimited: Merkel's Party Easily Approves Coalition
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 
 	 
Monday November 14, 2005 3:01 PM

AP Photo CDU111 

By MELISSA EDDY 

Associated Press Writer 

BERLIN (AP) - Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic party on
Monday overwhelmingly approved a coalition agreement with the
Social Democrats that will make her Germany's first woman
chancellor. 

In a show of hands, only three of 116 delegates voted against
the agreement that will establish a left-right coalition if
approved, as expected, later in the day by outgoing Chancellor
Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democrats. 

Merkel thanked the delegates and urged her party to maintain its
unity as the new government tackles Germany's ``unbelievably big
problems.'' 

``Germany stands at a crossroads where it is about whether we
will preserve what makes this country strong: a social market
economy in times of globalization, a policy of people in times
of the threat from terrorism,'' Merkel said. 

She said earlier that the so-called ``grand coalition'' with
Schroeder's party was ``the only prospect'' to restoring the
economy and Germans' battered faith in politics. 

Leaders from the Social Democrats, or SPD, and the Christian
Democrats and their sister party, the Bavaria-only Christian
Social Union, both overwhelmingly approved the 143-page document
on Sunday before taking it to their members. 

Franz Muentefering, outgoing head of the SPD, told 500 party
faithful in the southwestern city of Karlsruhe that the
coalition agreement was the best outcome after the inconclusive
election. 

``It is better to participate in government with the strength we
have than to be without influence in opposition. Let's do it,''
Muentefering said to a standing ovation. ``What we have here is
not a program of market radicalism and it is not a populist
one.'' 

Merkel told delegates from the CDU that theirs is the party of
``change'' and outlined the new course her government will
follow, including ``an improvement in trans-Atlantic
relations.'' 

The SPD members were voting not only on the deal but also on
whether to approve new party leaders and Muentefering's
participation in the new government as labor minister and deputy
chancellor. 

Delegates applauded when deputy SPD leader Ute Vogt introduced
both Schroeder and Muentefering, saying they had ``fought until
they were exhausted'' in the last election. Schroeder was
visibly moved by the long standing ovation before he took the
podium to urge adoption of the coalition agreement. 

In September's election, the voters' message was that ``we want
the SPD to govern,'' Schroeder said. ``It has become clear that
Germans want cooperation that goes far beyond the political
camps to date.'' 

``I will put it mildly: All of us would be ill-advised to not
take this chance.'' 

If the coalition agreement goes through as expected, parliament
will formally elect Merkel on Nov. 22. 

Titled ``Together for Germany - with courage and humanity,'' the
coalition deal is the product of nearly two months of tough
negotiations between the Social Democrats and the conservatives. 

After a Sept. 18 parliamentary election denied both Merkel's
party and the Social Democrats a clear majority, they were
forced to work together in the so-called ``grand coalition.'' As
part of the deal, each side holds eight of 16 Cabinet posts, and
the agreement includes policies from each camp's election
platform. 

As such, the Social Democrats agreed to an increase in
value-added tax to 19 percent in 2007, from 16 percent today -
holding off conservatives' wishes to increase the tax next year.
The increased VAT will partly be used to cut a payroll levy for
unemployment insurance, but also partly to help plug a gaping
budget shortfall of euro35 billion (US$41 billion). 

Muentefering noted that the Social Democrats extracted extra
income tax for higher earners and successfully defended plans to
shut down the country's nuclear power plants, among other
things. 

``None of these are small things,'' he said. ``There's a whole
lot of social democracy in there.'' 

``We made bitter compromises,'' Muentefering said. ``We stand by
them.'' 

The new income tax will mean a new top rate of 45 percent,
compared with the current 42 percent, also going into effect in
2007. 

--- 

Associated Press correspondent Geir Moulson in Karlsruhe,
Germany, contributed to this report. 	 
		 	 	   
      Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
 21 456 percent rate increase to decommission the Haddam Neck  
 
Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2005 15:12:12 -0800

<x-flowed>


Hartford Courant today.



http://www.courant.com/news/local/hc-cynukemess.artnov12,0,6222764.story?coll=hc-headlines-home 


State Questions Nuclear Rate Hike
Electric Customers Could Get Rebates If Judge Deems 456 Percent Increase 
Excessive
By GARY LIBOW
Courant Staff Writer

November 12 2005

The state's consumer counsel Friday questioned whether the 456 percent rate 
increase given Connecticut Yankee Atomic Power Co. to decommission the 
Haddam Neck plant is justified.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission quietly allowed Connecticut Yankee 
to increase its annual decommissioning ratepayer charge from $16.7 million 
to $93 million in February. The rate increase was included in customer 
bills with little fanfare.
Consumer Counsel Mary Healey said her office, the state Department of 
Public Utility Control and attorney general have been fighting the "awfully 
high" decommissioning charges, now estimated at approximately $831.3 million.
"Just the order of magnitude raises questions whether it was prudent or 
not," Healey said.
Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, in a telephone interview Friday, said 
he considers the performance of Connecticut Yankee's management 
"incompetent and outrageous." Ratepayers shouldn't be forced to subsidize 
Connecticut Yankee's mismanagement, he said.
An administrative judge is reviewing Connecticut Yankee's cost estimate to 
determine its validity and is expected to make a recommendation to FERC in 
December. FERC typically grants the rate increase requests quickly to keep 
from burdening the applicant financially while the request is deliberated. 
Costs deemed excessive would be rebated.
Connecticut Yankee spokeswoman Kelley Smith said the utility, which had the 
burden to prove its rate increase was prudent and justified, cites four 
primary causes for the increase.
Smith said the 9/11 terrorist attacks resulted in increased security and 
insurance costs. The Department of Energy's continued failure to 
permanently remove Connecticut Yankee's spent fuel was likewise costly, she 
said.
Connecticut Yankee has built concrete casks to house more than 1,000 
uranium-laden spent fuels. The utility claims the costs to continue to 
store the rods and provide around-the-clock security continues to mount and 
the federal government has not taken steps to move the contaminants 
off-site to a permanent repository.
Smith also pointed to the negative impact of declines in the financial 
markets during 2000-2002 that cut earnings on the decommissioning fund and 
termination of the decommissioning contract with Bechtel Nuclear that left 
Connecticut Yankee to complete the work itself.
If FERC determines the $93 million decommissioning price isn't prudent, 
Connecticut Yankee would be directed to issue rebates.
Blumenthal, the DPUC and other state consumer watchdogs say Connecticut 
Yankee's lengthy avoidance in measuring levels of potentially 
cancer-causing Strontium-90 at its decommissioned plant will cost 
ratepayers millions of dollars.
The ratepayers are customers of the nine utility companies, which include 
Connecticut Light & Power Co. and United Illuminating Co., that own 
Connecticut Yankee.
Strontium-90 is found in nuclear reactor waste, a by-product of the fission 
of uranium and plutonium in nuclear reactors.
The federal Environmental Protection Agency considers Strontium-90 "one of 
the more hazardous constituents of nuclear wastes." Internal exposure to 
the chemical similar to calcium is linked to bone cancer, cancer of the 
soft tissue, and leukemia, the agency states.
Jim Reinsch, president of Bechtel Nuclear, the firm Connecticut Yankee 
contracted in 1999 to decommission the site and later fired, testified 
under oath that plant ownership didn't want to test for contaminants like 
Strontium-90.
When Strontium-90 was found in 2001 to have "severely contaminated" the 
nuclear plant's groundwater, Reinsch testified Bechtel informed Connecticut 
Yankee of the urgent need for extensive groundwater characterization and 
monitoring.
"CY would not own up to its responsibilities to determine the extent of 
groundwater contamination and then develop a cost effective means to 
address it and would not accept Bechtel's recommendations for doing so," 
Reinsch stated.
Bechtel sued Connecticut Yankee for $93.5 million, accusing the utility of 
grossly understating the levels of groundwater contamination making it 
impossible for Bechtel to complete the job on schedule and within budget. 
Connecticut Yankee counter-sued Bechtel, accusing the company of delaying 
the decommissioning and failing to abide by the terms of its contract. 
Bechtel, which was fired in 2003, is seeking $90 million from Connecticut 
Yankee for unlawful termination.
Blumenthal said Connecticut Yankee has a moral and potentially legal 
responsibility to identify contamination.
"It seems like a see no-evil, hear no-evil avoidance of responsibility," 
Blumenthal said Friday. Connecticut Yankee "had a very profound moral 
responsibility to disclose any such problems, which it failed to do."
In its 2001 groundwater report to the state Department of Environmental 
Protection, Connecticut Yankee reported tests for "gamma emitting" 
radionuclides and tritium were good.
Strontium does not emit gamma radionuclides, just beta, according to Haddam 
resident Ed Schwing, a former member of the Citizens Decommissioning 
Advisory Committee.
Connecticut Yankee stated in the 2001 report it would perform quarterly 
groundwater sampling from 20 monitoring wells, with analysis including 
tritium, boron and "gamma spectroscopy."
DEP in 2001 requested that Connecticut Yankee conduct more extensive 
sampling, including hard to detect radionuclides such as Strontium, Schwing 
said. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission also urged Connecticut Yankee to 
test more comprehensively, he said.
"Connecticut Yankee neglected the groundwater contamination issue until 
they were forced to do it, but kept on dragging their feet," Schwing charges.
Mike Firsick, a DEP health physicist, said the state in 2001 told 
Connecticut Yankee" to test the site for possible strontium contamination.
"Typically, if you don't look for it, you don't have a problem with it," 
Firsick said Friday. "I wanted [testing] to be all inclusive. Since they 
were decommissioning, I wanted to make sure they would check for 
everything. It was for the purpose of being thorough and complete."
Firsick said DEP continues to closely monitor Connecticut Yankee.
"I think we have the origin of groundwater contamination well-bounded," he 
said. "There is a through review of the groundwater monitoring, reports 
quarterly."
When Connecticut Yankee states the decommissioning is completed, Firsick 
said DEP plans to test the site for 18 months to ensure the environment 
isn't contaminated.

Copyright 2005, Hartford Courant
------------------------------------------------------------------------




</x-flowed>
*****************************************************************
 22 SABCnews.com: SA's nuclear power plant reopens

south_africa/general
 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 
South African Broadcasting Corporation Copyright ©

November 14, 2005, 11:00

South Africa's Koeberg, Africa's only nuclear-fired power
station, was up and running today after a shutdown on Friday due
to technical problems, a spokesperson said.
 
"It started up yesterday and should be fully running by early
afternoon," Carin de Villiers, Koeberg spokesperson, said.
 
Large parts of the Western Cape province including Cape Town
were plunged into chaos after one of Koeberg's two French-built
reactors tripped, causing the station to shut. The other unit
was down due to planned repairs and will only restart early next
month.
 
Power was restored to the region after about 2 hours as
electricity from coal-fired stations in the northern provinces
filled the gap left on the grid. De Villiers said a technical
fault on the connecting network had interrupted supply, causing
Koeberg to automatically shutdown.
 
South Africa sees nuclear power as central to cover its future
energy needs as it scrambles to find new sources of power with
demand fast approaching existing capacity. It is investing
billions of rands in a new pebble bed nuclear reactor project
that will operate near the Koeberg facility. - Reuters 				

*****************************************************************
 23 NRC: New NRC Resident Inspector Assigned to Indian Point 2 Nuclear Plant
 
News Release - Region I - 2005-06
 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 

Office of Public Affairs, Region I No. I-05-062                          
November 10, 2005 CONTACT:     Diane Screnci (610) 337-5330 Neil 
A. Sheehan (610) 337-5331                     E-mail:   
  

Pa., have assigned Gregory T. Bowman as the new resident
inspector at Indian Point 2 in Buchanan, N.Y. He joins NRC
Senior Resident Inspector Mark Cox at Unit 2. Two resident
inspectors are also assigned to Indian Point 3: Senior Resident
Inspector Tom Hipschman and Resident Inspector Brian Wittick.
Both Indian Point units are operated by Entergy Nuclear. 

Greg Bowmans experience and commitment to safety will help the
NRC ensure that Indian Point continues to conduct operations
with the highest safety standards to protect public health and
safety, said NRC Region I Administrator Samuel J. Collins. 

Bowman joined the NRC in 2002 as a reactor inspector in the
Regional Office. Prior to joining the agency, he worked at the
Bechtel-Bettis Atomic Power Laboratory in Charleston, SC., as a
training supervisor. 

Bowman is a graduate of the University of Virginia, where he
earned a bachelors degree in chemical engineering. He also
completed the U.S. Navys nuclear power school. 

Each U.S. commercial nuclear site has at least two NRC resident
inspectors. They serve as the agency's eyes and ears at the
facility, conducting inspections, monitoring major work projects
and interacting with plant workers and the public. 

The Indian Point resident inspectors can be reached at
914/739-9360.   



  


 	Last revised Thursday, November 10, 2005 	   
*****************************************************************
 24 BBC: Nuclear plant on course to
 
Last Updated: Monday, 14 November 2005
 
[Thorp reprocessing plant]                              

The Thorp complex could reopen in the Spring of 2006                                                              

Nuclear bosses at the Sellafield plant in Cumbria say a 
reprocessing facility, at the centre of a leak probe should be 
working again by Spring 2006. 

Acid containing 20 tonnes of uranium and 160kg of plutonium 
spilled from a ruptured pipe at the Thorp complex into a sealed 
cell earlier this year. 

A subsequent inquiry by the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate 
(NII) found "significant deficiencies" at the site. 

Operator British Nuclear Group said the complex should be working 
again by May. 

Work at Thorp was halted when the leak, which could have occurred 
as long ago as August 2004, was discovered in April. 

'Extensive work' 

Two senior members of staff were disciplined after its discovery. 

Officials said a clean-up operation is making good progress and 
about half the recommendations of the NII have been implemented. 

A British Nuclear Group spokesman said: "The provisional internal 
planning assumption was that all areas of the plant would be 
operational by March 2006. 

"We now have a firm plan for Thorp re-start which takes account 
of the extensive work required to re-start the plant and will 
allow a prudent amount of time for NII assessment and endorsement 
of the repair option. 

"Due to the complexity of the plant, it will progressively start 
up over a       period of weeks. 

"Following completion of the repair work and processing of the 
recovered liquor through the chemical separation process, 
shearing of fuel is programmed to commence in May 2006. 

"The re-start plan will remain under constant review to take 
account of any additional regulatory requirements." 

*****************************************************************
 25 Xinhua: US asks India to separate civil nuclear facilities   

  www.xinhuanet.com

  www.chinaview.cn 2005-11-14 21:51:46   

    NEW DELHI, Nov. 14 (Xinhuanet) -- India should first present
a "credible plan" to separate its civil nuclear facilities from
the military ones before the United States starts changing laws
to realize a civilian nuclear deal with India, said US
Ambassador to India David C. Mulford here Monday. 

    Indo-Asian News Service quoted Mulford as saying that
India's credible plan to separate civilian nuclear facilities
would suffice for the US government to present the proposal to
the Congress. 

    "The US seeks to normalize civil nuclear relations with
India. The administration would first take a look at India's
plan of separating its civil and nuclear industries," Mulford
said. "If the administration finds India's plan credible, it
would take the legislation forward." 

    India and the United States signed an agreement to carry out
full civil nuclear energy cooperation during Indian Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to Washington in July. The US
government had suggested the possibility of amending the US laws
and guidelines of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) to lift bars
on India's access to nuclear fuel and technologies for civilian
use. 

    Mulford will leave for Washington on Tuesday, likely to take
stock of developments in the India-US cooperation, including
energy and trade. 

    Whether India can promote a credible separation plan of its
civilian nuclear facilities will decide the process of the
India-US full civil nuclear cooperation, he said. 

    The Bush administration hopes to present the draft
legislation to the Congress sometime in January next year before
President George W. Bush visits India. Enditem   

  Copyright ©2003 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 26 Reuters: Sydney nuclear reactor terror plot target-police

 Reuters.com
 	 	
Mon 14 Nov 2005 2:04 AM ET                                      

 By Michael Perry

 SYDNEY, Nov 14 (Reuters) - Eight Sydney men arrested on
terrorism charges may have been planning a bomb attack against
the city's nuclear reactor, police said on Monday.

 Their Islamic spiritual leader, also charged with terrorism
offences, told the men if they wanted to die for jihad they
should inflict "maximum damage", according to a 21-page police
court document.

 The document outlines how the men, arrested last week in the
nation's biggest security swoop, bought chemicals used in the
London July 7 bombs, had bomb-making instructions in Arabic and
videos entitled "Sheikh Osama's Training Course" and "Are you
ready to die?"

 Under the heading "Targets", police said three of the men were
stopped near Sydney's Lucas Heights nuclear reactor in December
2004. A security gate lock had recently been cut.

 Australia, a staunch U.S. ally with troops in Iraq and
Afghanistan, has never suffered a major peacetime attack on home
soil. The country has been on medium security alert since
shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States
by Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network.

 The document said six of the men went on "hunting and camping
trips", which police described as jihad training camps, in the
Australian outback in March and April 2005.

 "This training is consistent with the modus operandi of
terrorists prior to attacks," the police document said, adding
one man attended a training camp in Pakistan in 2001.

 "EXTREMIST ADVICE"

 Police said a Melbourne-based Muslim cleric, arrested in the
security swoop and charged with terror offences along with eight
other men in Melbourne, was the spiritual leader of the Sydney
and Melbourne groups.

 Muslim teacher Abdul Nacer Benbrika, also known as Abu Bakr,
gave "extremist advice and guidance" and "has publicly declared
his support of a violent jihad", the document said.

 At a February meeting Benbrika talked to the Sydney men about
fighting those who opposed Sharia law.

 "If we want to die for jihad, we have to have maximum damage.
Maximum damage. Damage their buildings, everything. Damage their
lives," said Benbrika, according to the document.

 But Benbrika said the men needed their mothers' permission to
go on jihad.

 Police said the men were an extremist sub-group of the
religious Ahel al Sunna wal Jamaah Association, a Sunni Islamic
group that follows a fundamentalist jihad ideology. They said
the group had little or no respect for Australian law or society.

 In Australia's biggest counter-terrorism swoop last week, 18
men were arrested and charged with offences including acts in
preparation of a terrorist attack, being a member of a terrorist
group and conspiracy to commit a terrorist act.

 Nine men were arrested in Melbourne and nine in Sydney, one of
whom was transferred to Melbourne on Monday. All have been
remanded in custody and no pleas have been entered.

 Police said the Sydney men had bought chemicals to produce
"peroxide-based explosives" and had a computer memory stick
containing instructions in Arabic to make explosives.

 Between August and November 2005 the Sydney men had bought or
ordered hundreds of litres of chemicals, steel drums, batteries,
plastic piping, circuit kits, stopwatches and ammunition.

 Police said during raids on the men's homes they seized
chemicals, boxes of ammunition and firearms, machetes, samurai
swords and books, cassettes and videos on terrorism and jihad.

 During Benbrika's Melbourne court appearance last week, police
said the cleric called bin Laden a "great man" that defends
Muslims fighting U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

 Police told the court that one man had expressed a desire to
become a "martyr" in Australia.

 The Australia Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) earlier
this month said for the first time that Australia had home-grown
extremists, some of whom had trained overseas. Muslims make up
1.5 percent of Australia's 20 million population. 

© Reuters 2005. All Rights Reserved.                                              [ border=]  
*****************************************************************
 27 NRC: Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste; Revised Notice of Meeting
 
                         FR Doc E5-6244 
[Federal Register: November 14, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 218)] 
[Notices] [Page 69169] From the Federal Register Online via GPO 
Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr14no05-71]                         
 
The agenda for the 165th ACNW meeting scheduled to be held on 
November 14-16, 2005 has been revised to reflect the changes 
noted below. Notice of this meeting was previously published in 
the Federal Register on Thursday, November 3, 2005 (70 FR 66864).
 
Monday, November 14, 2005 10:15 a.m.-12:15 p.m.: Public Comment 
Session (Open)--The Committee will hear presentations from and 
hold discussions with interested stakeholders on the issues 
discussed during the earlier sessions. Scheduled presenters 
include: Dr. Dade Moeller, Chairman of the Board, Dade Moeller 
and Associates; Dr. Thomas Tenforde, President, National Council 
on Radiation Protection; Dr. John Kessler, Manager, Electric 
Power Research Institute High-Level Waste and Spent Nuclear Fuel 
Program; and Mr. Martin Malsh, Esq., State of Nevada. 1:30 
p.m.-3:30 p.m.: Public Comment Session--Continued (Open)--The 
Committee will continue to hear presentations from and hold 
discussions with interested stakeholders on the issues discussed 
during the earlier sessions.
 
3:45 p.m.-4:15 p.m.: ACNW Roundtable Discussion (Open)-- The 
Committee will review the matters discussed from the previous 
public sessions and decide whether it intends to provide advice 
to the Commission.
 
4:15 p.m.-5:30 p.m.: Preparation of ACNW Reports/Letters 
(Open)--The Committee will discuss proposed ACNW reports on 
matters considered during this meeting.
 
Tuesday and Wednesday, November 15-16, 2005 The agenda for 
Tuesday and Wednesday, November 15-16, 2005 remain the same as 
previously announced in the Federal Register on November 3, 2005.
 
For further information, contact Ms. Sharon A. Steele (telephone 
301-415-6805) between 7:30 a.m. and 4 p.m., ET. Dated: November 
7, 2005.
 
Andrew L. Bates, Advisory Committee Management Officer.
 
[FR Doc. E5-6244 Filed 11-10-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P

 
*****************************************************************
 28 NRC: Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards Subcommittee Meeting on 
 
                         FR Doc E5-6245 
[Federal Register: November 14, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 218)] 
[Notices] [Page 69169] From the Federal Register Online via GPO 
Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr14no05-72]                         
 
Power Uprates; Notice of Meeting The ACRS Subcommittee on Power 
Uprates will hold a meeting on November 29-30, 2005, Room T-2B3, 
11545 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland.
 
The agenda for the subject meeting shall be as follows: Tuesday, 
November 29, 2005-8:30 a.m. until the conclusion of business.
 
Wednesday, November 30, 2005-8:30 a.m. until the conclusion of 
business. The Subcommittee will review the application by Entergy 
Nuclear Northeast (Entergy) for an extended power uprate for the 
Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station. The Subcommittee will hear 
presentations by and hold discussions with representatives of the 
NRC staff, their contractors, Entergy and other interested 
persons regarding this matter. The Subcommittee will gather 
information, analyze relevant issues and facts, and formulate 
proposed positions and actions, as appropriate, for deliberation 
by the full Committee.
 
Members of the public desiring to provide oral statements and/or 
written comments should notify the Designated Federal Official, 
Mr. Ralph Caruso (Telephone: 301-415-8065) five days prior to the 
meeting, if possible, so that appropriate arrangements can be 
made.
 
Electronic recordingswill be permitted. Signs will not be 
permitted in the meeting room.
 
Further information regarding this meeting can be obtained by 
contacting the Designated Federal Official between 7:30 a.m. and 
4:15 p.m. (e.t). Persons planning to attend this meeting are 
urged to contact the above named individual at least two working 
days prior to the meeting to be advised of any potential changes 
to the agenda.
 
Dated: November 4, 2005.
 
Michael L. Scott, Branch Chief, ACRS/ACNW.
 
[FR Doc. E5-6245 Filed 11-10-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P

 
*****************************************************************
 29 Times Herald-Record: Leak's source still murky

Wells to help track tritium 
 

www.recordonline.com

November 14, 2005

   By Greg Bruno
   Times Herald-Record
   gbruno@th-record.com
   
   Buchanan – No one expects three-eyed bass to start jumping in
the Hudson.
   But as operators of Indian Point continue to assess the
source of radioactive coolant beneath the waterfront nuclear
plant, some can't help but wonder: How safe is the river? 
   "I'm particularly concerned about the leak's potential
effects on the Hudson River and the area's drinking water," U.S.
Rep. Sue Kelly wrote to Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman
Nils Diaz last month. 
   "My constituents and I would like our overall safety concerns
addressed more urgently."
   Warranted or not, the concern stems from the discovery in
September that tritium, a slightly radioactive isotope, was
leaking from one of Indian Point's spent-fuel pools. 
   Testing of groundwater nearby revealed levels in one well 10
times the federal government's safe drinking water standard.
   Tritium, a nuclear power production byproduct considered one
of the least dangerous radionuclides, is still considered a
carcinogen by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 
   Last week, underwater divers plied the pool's stainless steel
liner searching for holes in the 30-year-old tank. So far, the
search has come up empty.
   The company is also planning to drill. Nine new wells are
slated for around the plant to help determine whether tritium
from the pool is moving toward the river.
   Despite what plant owner Entergy Nuclear Northeast calls an
"aggressive" response to the leak, company officials insist
claims of crisis are overblown.
   "This low-grade hysteria is doing a disservice" to the
public, said Fred Damico, Entergy's top Indian Point official.
"We're taking this very serious; we're not out to hide anything."
   Such assurances, however, have done little to quiet the
critics. 
   "Reactors are like used cars," said Marilyn Elie of the
Westchester Citizens Awareness Network, one of many
organizations seeking to close the plant. 
   "You can only keep patching them up for so long and then you
just can't throw enough money at them to keep them operating
safely," she said.
   Neil Sheehan, an NRC spokesman, said additional federal
inspectors plan to examine the company's response to the leak,
as well as ongoing plant operations. 
   Nonetheless, neither the regulatory agency nor Entergy said
the river has been impacted by the fuel pool leak. 
   "The initial results seem to indicate that the contamination
is contained," Sheehan said.
   The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation,
on the other hand, is treading more lightly.
   While the agency does not believe tritium in the
concentrations measured would cause significant ecological harm
if it reached the waterway, spokeswoman Gabrielle DeMarco
acknowledged "the DEC is working to determine whether the Hudson
has been impacted." 
   In a separate development involving Indian Point, a state
appellate court on Thursday upheld a regulation requiring power
plants to use the best technology available for water-cooling
intake structures.
   Critics claim millions of fish are killed annually by Indian
Point's system, which uses billions of gallons of Hudson River
water daily to cool its twin reactors.
   They say the company should install new cooling towers at a
cost of $1 billion if relicensed, a stipulation Entergy is
fighting.
   
  
Have a tip about a news story? Contact THR Managing Editor Meg
McGuire at mmcguire@th-record.comor call 346-3041.
 
   Record Online is brought to you by the Times Herald-Record,
       serving New York's Hudson Valley and the Catskills.
                                 
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*****************************************************************
 30 Japan Times: Reactor increase not needed to cut CO 2 drastically: research

  Tuesday, November 15, 2005   
  
Carbon dioxide emissions can be cut by 70 percent by 2050 in
Japan even without adding nuclear power plants if the country
improves energy efficiency and increases natural energy
generation, a governmental environmental institute said.

 The government aims to build more nuclear plants to cut carbon
dioxide emissions, but the alternatives are "worth trying for
future generations' sake," Junichi Fujino, a researcher at the
National Institute for Environmental Studies, said last week.

 According to research by the institute under the Environment
Ministry, Japan can cut carbon dioxide emissions by increasing
use of fuel cells, wind power generation and other new types of
energy.

 Britain and Germany have already come up with goals to cut
nearly 60 percent of carbon dioxide emissions by 2050 in the
runup to international negotiations beginning this year on
long-term global warming gas reduction goals after the Kyoto
Protocol expires in 2012.

 The research shows placing solar battery panels on the roofs of
half of houses and buildings and constructing as many windmills
at parks and other places as possible could generate 120 million
kw, equivalent to the electricity generated by dozens of nuclear
reactors.

 In addition, Japan should produce hydrogen out of natural fuels
in and outside Japan and supply hydrogen to fuel cells used in
automobiles and home appliances.

 The country also should reduce energy consumption by refining
city structures and the traffic system, the institute said.

 In a combination of all the above measures, Japan can reduce
carbon dioxide emissions to less than 400 million tons a year,
or 30 percent of what they are currently, the research shows.

 The Japan Times: Nov. 15, 2005
(C) All rights reserved 

*****************************************************************
 31 Xinhua: US govt neglects key recommendations by 9/11 panel: report   

  www.xinhuanet.com

  www.chinaview.cn 2005-11-15 05:46:09   

    WASHINGTON, Nov. 14 (Xinhuanet) -- The US government failed
to adopt key recommendations made by a former panel
investigating the Sept. 11 terror attacks, including detainee
treatment and arms proliferation, a report said Monday. 

    The report, made by former members of the late 9/11
Commission,criticized the Bush administration for not adopting
proper standards in treating captured terror suspects and for
lacking of progress on combating weapons proliferation related
to terrorism. 

    It urged the US government to adopt standards for terror
suspects that are in accord with international law. 

    Moreover, the country should work with its allies to develop
mutually acceptable standards for terrorist detention and these
standards should cover the treatment of detainees held by all
elements of the US government, said the report. 

    On arms proliferation, Thomas Kean, former chairman of the
commission, said although the issue is always regarded as the
country's biggest threat and al Qaeda has sought nuclear weapons
for a decade, "the most striking thing to us is that the size of
the problem still totally dwarfs the policy response." 

    "In short, we still do not have a maximum effort against the
most urgent threat," he said. 

    The bipartisan 9/11 commission was established as an
independent investigative body by the US Congress after the
Sept. 11 attacks and formally disbanded after submitting its
final report in July last year. 

    At present, its former members continue working as the 9/11
Public Discourse Project, which tracks implementation of the
report's recommendations. 

    Monday's report was presented as findings of the project.

  Copyright ©2003 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 32 Guardian Unlimited: Nuclear Link Alleged in Australia Arrests
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

Monday November 14, 2005 2:46 AM

By MERAIAH FOLEY 

Associated Press Writer 

SYDNEY, Australia (AP) - Three recently arrested terror suspects
had been stopped and questioned by police last December near
Australia's only nuclear reactor, according to a police document
released Monday. 

The document also outlined what it said were plans by the men to
stockpile chemicals for making explosives and that they
``obtained extremist advice and guidance'' from a firebrand
cleric arrested along with them. 

The three men arrested near the nuclear reactor were among 18
terror suspects arrested in Sydney and Melbourne last week and
accused of plotting to carry out a ``catastrophic'' attack in
Australia. The police document identifies the nuclear reactor as
a possible terror target. 

A police fact sheet, provided during a court hearing last week
and released publicly on Monday, alleges that three of the eight
Sydney suspects were stopped in their car near the nuclear
facility in southern Sydney in December 2004. 

The men also had an off-road motorbike and claimed they were
there to ride, the document said, noting that all three gave
different versions of the day's events to police. 

Police inquiries revealed the lock of a gate to a reservoir of
the reactor had recently been cut, the document said. 

The three - Mazen Touma, Mohammed Elomar and Abdul Rakib Hasan -
along with five other Sydney men, have been charged with
conspiring to manufacture explosives in preparation for a
terrorist act. 

Their lawyer has said prosecutors have produced no evidence of
an imminent terror attack in the country. 

The police fact sheet, which outlines the prosecution's case
against the eight Sydney suspects, said members of the group
sought materials to produce explosives, ordering dozens of
gallons of chemicals. 

During a search of Elomar's home on June 27, police said they
found a computer memory stick which contained instructions in
Arabic for making TATP, or triacetone triperoxide, a highly
unstable explosive made from commercially available chemicals. 

Australian police have said TATP is similar to the bombs used by
suicide bombers the July 7 attacks on London's public transport
system, but British authorities have refused to confirm those
reports. 

The statement also said some of the men attended a terrorist
training camp at a rural property in a remote area of New South
Wales state, and ``obtained extremist advice and guidance'' from
the firebrand cleric, Abu Bakr, who made headlines last year by
calling Osama bin Laden a ``great man.'' 

Abu Bakr, whose real name is Abdul Nacer Benbrika, was among the
men arrested during last week's raids. 

Another of the men arrested, Abdulla Merhi, wanted to carry out
attacks to avenge the war in Iraq, police said in a Melbourne
court. Australian Prime Minister John Howard was a strong
supporter of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and has sent hundreds
of troops to the country. 	 
		 	 	   
      Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
 33 [du-list] FYI from Dan Fahey
 
Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2005 15:12:14 -0800

<x-flowed>
UNEP's new report, "Assessment of Environmental 'Hot Spots' in Iraq,"
illustrates the complexity and diversity of environmental health issues
in Iraq.  The report is limited in scope, focusing on four industrial
sites near Baghdad and one near Mosul, but the conduct of the
assessment is rather remarkable given the instability in Iraq.  DU is
mentioned in the full report, but there is no new information about
either the use or fate of DU munitions.  This report shows there are
many hazardous toxins in Iraq that present risks to the health of
soldiers and civilians alike.

Press release: http://postconflict.unep.ch/pressiraq10nov2005.htm
Full report: http://postconflict.unep.ch/publications/Iraq_ESA.pdf











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 34 [du-list] USUK DU turns up in Japan
 
Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2005 15:12:49 -0800

<x-flowed>
Daily Yomiuri Online, Sat, 12 Nov 2005 9:48 PM PST
Govt demands payment to dispose of DU scrap 
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/features/science/20051110TDY02008.htm
A metal factory owner who found depleted uranium (DU) in imported scrap was 
asked to pay more than 220,000 yen when he asked the Education, Science and 
Technology Ministry to dispose of the hazardous material for him, The 
Yomiuri Shimbun learned Wednesday.

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 35 [du-list] Phosgene Gas
 
Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2005 15:13:03 -0800

<x-flowed>


Pike County News Watchman

Wednesday, Oct. 26, 2005


Plant cylinders may hold toxic phosgene gas

VAN ROSE
Staff Writer

A corrosive chemical warfare agent could be deteriorating uranium
storage
cylinders stockpiled at U.S. Department of Energy facilities in Piketon
and
elsewhere, according to a federal memorandum obtained by a Louisville,
Ky.,
newspaper.

The internal memo - made public by The Courier-Journal in an article
published
yesterday - was sent from DOE Assistant Inspector General Alfred K.
Walter to
managers of Energy Department offices in Oak Ridge, Tenn., and Lexington,
Ky.,
on Sept. 30.

It stated, among other information, that as many as 406 cylinders
currently stored
at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Piketon are suspected to
contain
residual amounts of phosgene, a caustic, toxic gas once stored in the
metal
containers that were manufactured as early as 1940 and acquired from the
U.S.
Army's Chemical Warfare Service.

However, the possibility of phosgene gas - used as a chemical agent by
German
forces during World War I - being present in the cylinders is "extremely
remote,"
said Laura Schachter, public affairs officer for the DOE
Portsmouth/Paducah (Ky.)
Project Office in Lexington.

She said many of the cylinders in question - containers 30 inches in
diameter and
seven feet in length, classified as "model 30A cylinders" - were washed
clean
before they were filled with depleted uranium hexafluoride, or DUF6, a
by-product
of the uranium enrichment process.

"There are so many processes and procedures used to clean them out,"
Schachter said.  "The gas might be gone."

The Portsmouth plant is not alone.  As many as 1,825 cylinders are
located at the
Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant, with another 309 at DOE's East Tennessee
Technology Park in Oak Ridge suspected to contain phosgene gas.

DOE has known about possible contamination of stored uranium at the
three sites
since an October 2000 report by its Office of Environmental, Safety and
Health
stating some cylinders "may contain residual phosgene that was not purged
prior
to the cylinders being filled with UF6," said Walter in the DOE memo.

As a result, shipment of uranium cylinders from the ETTP to the
Portsmouth plant
has been temporarily halted until the threat can be assessed, Schachter
said.  The
Portsmouth plant is the location of a facility being constructed to
convert DUF6 into
a more stable form.

A U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission official said the unexpected
introduction
of phosgene into the conversion process could have "catastrophic" safety
consequences and added he had not been told to expect the gas to be
present in
the cylinders, Walter explained.

Employees of the United States Enrichment Corporation, which operates
the
Portsmouth and Paducah plants, would be protected if an accidental
release of
any material from the cylinders was to occur, said Jack Williams, an
enrichment
corporation public affairs officer at Portsmouth.

"Our employees wear personal protective equipment and respirators," he
said.
"We have a number of procedures in place so our employees know exactly
what to
do in the event of any unplanned release from a cylinder."

If an individual was to come in direct contact with phosgene, known
results could
include respiratory failure and death as the colorless gas would contact
water in
lung tissue and become carbon dioxide and hydrochloric acid.  Phosgene
can
also cause severe burns if it comes in contact with skin.

USEC Inc., the enrichment corporation's Bethesda, Md.-based parent
company,
gained ownership of 141 of the 406 potentially contaminated cylinders at
the
Portsmouth plant when the company was privatized in the 1990s, according
to
Williams.

The company performs periodic maintenance and surveillance of uranium
cylinders in search of deterioration, Schachter said, the guidelines of
which are
"very strict."

Some corrosion found on 30A cylinders at Oak Ridge could be attributed
to
phosgene since the gas is known to deteriorate metals like steel, which
comprises
the containers, Walter explained in the memo.

A recent report from Oak Ridge National Laboratories "emphasized that
some
model 30A cylinders at Paducah have deteriorated to a minimum thickness,
while
others have possibly been breached," he added.

Failure by both DOE and USEC Inc. to notice such corrosion for so many
decades
makes Ewan Todd wonder what else has been overlooked.

Todd, a technical expert for public interest group Portsmouth/Piketon
Residents
for Environmental Safety and Security, has recently been trying to stop
USEC in
its pursuit of a 30-year operational license for a proposed American
centrifuge
plant, or ACP, through the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

If an appeal he submitted to the NRC this month is not accepted and USEC
is
licensed, it could mean the transportation of more cylinders to the
Portsmouth
plant and a greater health and safety threat to local residents near the
facility, he
thinks.

"The ACP would have up to a thousand of these cylinders on our roads
every
year," Todd said.  "We have no assurance that they won't be compromised
by
phosgene corrosion or some other, as-yet undiscovered, weakness.  An
accident
releasing hydrofluoric acid won't be pretty."

Officials at all three plant sites are currently conducting reviews of
project records
and historic documents that relate to the 30A cylinders, Schachter said.

"They have records on every cylinder," she added.  "They are looking to
determine what the history and project records say about the cylinders
that may be
in question."

The DOE memo was provided to the News Watchman by Courier-Journal staff
writer James Malone.




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 36 SFBV: Depleted uranium: Dirty bombs, dirty missiles, dirty bullets

San Francisco Bay View - 

11/9/05 

A death sentence here and abroad 

by Leuren Moret 
    
  At an April press conference, a group of New York Army
National Guard vets raised their hands when asked if they have
health problems. The soldiers, all from the 442nd Military
Police Company, are complaining of headaches and fatigue after
what they think is exposure to depleted uranium during their
recent tour in Iraq.

 Photo: www.american freepress.net   

“Military men are just dumb stupid animals to be used as pawns
in foreign policy.” - Henry Kissinger, quoted in “Kiss the Boys
Goodbye: How the United States Betrayed Its Own POW’s in
Vietnam” 

Vietnam was a chemical war for oil, permanently contaminating
large regions and countries downriver with Agent Orange, and
environmentally the most devastating war in world history. But
since 1991, the U.S. has staged four nuclear wars using depleted
uranium weaponry, which, like Agent Orange, meets the U.S.
government definition of Weapons of Mass Destruction. Vast
regions in the Middle East and Central Asia have been
permanently contaminated with radiation. 

And what about our soldiers? Terry Jemison of the Department of
Veterans Affairs reported this week to the American Free Press
that “Gulf-era veterans” now on medical disability since 1991
number 518,739, with only 7,035 reported wounded in Iraq in that
same 14-year period. 

This week the American Free Press dropped a “dirty bomb” on the
Pentagon by reporting that eight out of 20 men who served in one
unit in the 2003 U.S. military offensive in Iraq now have
malignancies. That means that 40 percent of the soldiers in that
unit have developed malignancies in just 16 months. 

Since these soldiers were exposed to vaccines and depleted
uranium (DU) only, this is strong evidence for researchers and
scientists working on this issue, that DU is the definitive
cause of Gulf War Syndrome. Vaccines are not known to cause
cancer. One of the first published researchers on Gulf War
Syndrome, who also served in 1991 in Iraq, Dr. Andras
Korényi-Both, is in agreement with Barbara Goodno from the
Department of Defense’s Deployment Health Support Directorate,
that in this war soldiers were not exposed to chemicals,
pesticides, bioagents or other suspect causes this time to
confuse the issue. 

This powerful new evidence is blowing holes in the cover-up
perpetrated by the Pentagon and three presidential
administrations ever since DU was first used in 1991 in the
Persian Gulf War. Fourteen years after the introduction of DU on
the battlefield in 1991, the long-term effects have revealed
that DU is a death sentence and very nasty stuff. 

Scientists studying the biological effects of uranium in the
1960s reported that it targets the DNA. Marion Fulk, a nuclear
physical chemist retired from the Livermore Nuclear Weapons Lab
and formerly involved with the Manhattan Project, interprets the
new and rapid malignancies in soldiers from the 2003 war as
“spectacular … and a matter of concern.” 

This evidence shows that of the three effects which DU has on
biological systems - radiation, chemical and particulate – the
particulate effect from nano-size particles is the most dominant
one immediately after exposure and targets the Master Code in
the DNA. This is bad news, but it explains why DU causes a
myriad of diseases which are difficult to define. 

In simple words, DU “trashes the body.” When asked if the main
purpose for using it was for destroying things and killing
people, Fulk was more specific: “I would say that it is the
perfect weapon for killing lots of people.” 

Soldiers developing malignancies so quickly since 2003 can be
expected to develop multiple cancers from independent causes.
This phenomenon has been reported by doctors in hospitals
treating civilians following NATO bombing with DU in Yugoslavia
in 1998-1999 and the U.S. military invasion of Iraq using DU for
the first time in 1991. Medical experts report that this
phenomenon of multiple malignancies from unrelated causes has
been unknown until now and is a new syndrome associated with
internal DU exposure. 

Just 467 U.S. personnel were wounded in the three-week Persian
Gulf War in 1990-1991. Out of 580,400 soldiers who served in
Gulf War I, 11,000 are dead, and by 2000 there were 325,000 on
permanent medical disability. This astounding number of disabled
vets means that a decade later, 56 percent of those soldiers who
served now have medical problems. 

The number of disabled vets reported up to 2000 has been
increasing by 43,000 every year. Brad Flohr of the Department of
Veterans Affairs told American Free Press that he believes there
are more disabled vets now than even after World War II. 

They brought it home 

Not only were soldiers exposed to DU on and off the
battlefields, but they brought it home. DU in the semen of
soldiers internally contaminated their wives, partners and
girlfriends. Tragically, some women in their 20s and 30s who
were sexual partners of exposed soldiers developed endometriosis
and were forced to have hysterectomies because of health
problems. 

In a group of 251 soldiers from a study group in Mississippi who
had all had normal babies before the Gulf War, 67 percent of
their post-war babies were born with severe birth defects. They
were born with missing legs, arms, organs or eyes or had immune
system and blood diseases. In some veterans’ families now, the
only normal or healthy members of the family are the children
born before the war. 

The Department of Veterans Affairs has stated that they do not
keep records of birth defects occurring in families of veterans. 

How did they hide it? 

Before a new weapons system can be used, it must be fully
tested. The blueprint for depleted uranium weapons is a 1943
declassified document from the Manhattan Project. 

Harvard President and physicist James B. Conant, who developed
poison gas in World War I, was brought into the Manhattan
Project by the father of presidential candidate John Kerry.
Kerry’s father served at a high level in the Manhattan Project
and was a CIA agent. 

Conant was chair of the S-1 Poison Gas Committee, which
recommended developing poison gas weapons from the radioactive
trash of the atomic bomb project in World War II. At that time,
it was known that radioactive materials dispersed in bombs from
the air, from land vehicles or on the battlefield produced very
fine radioactive dust which would penetrate all protective
clothing, any gas mask or filter or the skin. By contaminating
the lungs and blood, it could kill or cause illness very
quickly. 

They also recommended it as a permanent terrain contaminant,
which could be used to destroy populations by contaminating
water supplies and agricultural land with the radioactive dust. 

The first DU weapons system was developed for the Navy in 1968,
and DU weapons were given to and used by Israel in 1973 under
U.S. supervision in the Yom Kippur war against the Arabs. 

The Phalanx weapons system, using DU, was tested on the USS
Bigelow out of Hunters Point Naval Shipyard in 1977, and DU
weapons have been sold by the U.S. to 29 countries. 

Military research report summaries detail the testing of DU from
1974-1999 at military testing grounds, bombing and gunnery
ranges and at civilian labs under contract. Today 42 states are
contaminated with DU from manufacture, testing and deployment. 

Women living around these facilities have reported increases in
endometriosis, birth defects in babies, leukemia in children and
cancers and other diseases in adults. Thousands of tons of DU
weapons tested for decades by the Navy on four bombing and
gunnery ranges around Fallon, Nevada, is no doubt the cause of
the fastest growing leukemia cluster in the U.S. over the past
decade. The military denies that DU is the cause. 

The medical profession has been active in the cover-up - just as
they were in hiding the effects from the American public - of
low level radiation from atmospheric testing and nuclear power
plants. A medical doctor in Northern California reported being
trained by the Pentagon with other doctors, months before the
2003 war started, to diagnose and treat soldiers returning from
the 2003 war for mental problems only. 

Medical professionals in hospitals and facilities treating
returning soldiers were threatened with $10,000 fines if they
talked about the soldiers or their medical problems. They were
also threatened with jail. 

Reporters have also been prevented access to more than 14,000
medically evacuated soldiers flown nightly since the 2003 war in
C-150s from Germany who are brought to Walter Reed Hospital near
Washington, D.C. 

Dr. Robert Gould, former president of the Bay Area chapter of
Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR), has contacted three
medical doctors since February 2004, after I had been invited to
speak about DU. Dr. Katharine Thomasson, president of the Oregon
chapter of the PSR, informed me that Dr. Gould had contacted her
and tried to convince her to cancel her invitation for me to
speak about DU at Portland State University on April 12.
Although I was able to do a presentation, Dr. Thomasson told me
I could only talk about DU in Oregon “and nothing overseas …
nothing political.” 

Dr. Gould also contacted and discouraged Dr. Ross Wilcox in
Toronto, Canada, from inviting me to speak to Physicians for
Global Survival (PGS), the Canadian equivalent of PSR, several
months later. When that didn’t work, he contacted Dr. Allan
Connoly, the Canadian national president of PGS, who was able to
cancel my invitation and nearly succeeded in preventing Dr.
Wilcox, his own member, from showing photos and presenting
details on civilians suffering from DU exposure and cancer
provided to him by doctors in southern Iraq. 

Dr. Janette Sherman, a former and long-standing member of PSR,
reported that she finally quit some time after being invited to
lunch by a new PSR executive administrator. After the woman had
pumped Dr. Sherman for information all through lunch about her
position on key issues, the woman informed Dr. Sherman that her
last job had been with the CIA. 

How was the truth about DU hidden from military personnel
serving in successive DU wars? Before his tragic death, Sen.
Paul Wellstone informed Joyce Riley, R.N., B.S.N., executive
director of the American Gulf War Veterans Association, that 95
percent of Gulf War veterans had been recycled out of the
military by 1995. Any of those continuing in military service
were isolated from each other, preventing critical information
being transferred to new troops. The “next DU war” had already
been planned, and those planning it wanted “no skunk at the
garden party.” 

The US has a dirty (DU) little (CIA) secret 

A new book just published at the American Free Press by Michael
Collins Piper, “The High Priests of War: The Secret History of
How America’s Neo-Conservative Trotskyites Came to Power and
Orchestrated the War Against Iraq as the First Step in Their
Drive for Global Empire,” details the early plans for a war
against the Arab world by Henry Kissinger and the neo-cons in
the late 1960s and early 1970s. That just happens to coincide
with getting the DU “show on the road” and the oil crisis in the
Middle East, which caused concern not only to President Nixon.
The British had been plotting and scheming for control of the
oil in Iraq for decades since first using poison gas on the
Iraqis and Kurds in 1912. 

The book details the creation of the neo-cons by their
“godfather” and Trotsky lover Irving Kristol, who pushed for a
“war against terrorism” long before 9/11 and was lavishly funded
for years by the CIA. His son, William Kristol, is one of the
most influential men in the United States. 

Both are public relations men for the Israeli lobby’s
neo-conservative network, with strong ties to Rupert Murdoch.
Kissinger also has ties to this network and the Carlyle Group,
who, one could say, have facilitated these omnicidal wars
beginning from the time former President Bush took office. It
would be easy to say that we are recycling World Wars I and II,
with the same faces. 

When I asked Vietnam Special Ops Green Beret Capt. John
McCarthy, who could have devised this omnicidal plan to use DU
to destroy the genetic code and genetic future of large
populations of Arabs and Moslems in the Middle East and Central
Asia - just coincidentally the areas where most of the world’s
oil deposits are located - he replied: “It has all the
handprints of Henry Kissinger.” 

In Zbignew Brzezinski’s book “The Grand Chessboard: American
Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives,” the map of the
Eurasian chessboard includes four regions strategic to U.S.
foreign policy. The “South” region corresponds precisely to the
regions now contaminated permanently with radiation from U.S.
bombs, missiles and bullets made with thousands of tons of DU. 

A Japanese professor, Dr. K. Yagasaki, has calculated that 800
tons of DU is the atomicity equivalent of 83,000 Nagasaki bombs.
The U.S. has used more DU since 1991 than the atomicity
equivalent of 400,000 Nagasaki bombs. Four nuclear wars indeed,
and 10 times the amount of radiation released into the
atmosphere from atmospheric testing! 

No wonder our soldiers, their families and the people of the
Middle East, Yugoslavia and Central Asia are sick. But as Henry
Kissinger said after Vietnam when our soldiers came home ill
from Agent Orange, “Military men are just dumb stupid animals to
be used for foreign policy.” 

Unfortunately, more and more of those soldiers are men and women
with brown skin. And unfortunately, the DU radioactive dust will
be carried around the world and deposited in our environments
just as the “smog of war” from the 1991 Gulf War was found in
deposits in South America, the Himalayas and Hawaii. 

In June 2003, the World Health Organization announced in a press
release that global cancer rates will increase 50 percent by
2020. What else do they know that they aren’t telling us? I know
that depleted uranium is a death sentence … for all of us. We
will all die in silent ways. 

To learn more 

Sources used in this story that readers are encouraged to
consult: 

American Free Press four-part series on DU by 

Christopher Bollyn. 

Part I: "Depleted Uranium: U.S. Commits War Crime 

Against Iraq, Humanity," 

http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/depleted_uranium.html 

Part II: "Cancer Epidemic Caused by U.S. WMD: MD Says 

Depleted Uranium Definitively 

http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/cancer_epidemic_.html 

Part III: "DU Syndrome Stricken Vets Denied Care: 

Pentagon Hides DU Dangers to Deny Medical Care to 

Vets", 

http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/du_syndrome.html 

Part IV: "Pentagon Brass Suppresses Truth About Toxic 

Weapons: Poisonous Uranium Munitions Threaten World", 

http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/pentagon_brass.html 

August 2004 World Affairs Journal. Leuren Moret: 

"Depleted Uranium: The Trojan Horse of Nuclear War," 

http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/2004/DU-Trojan-Horse1jul04.htm 

  

August 2004 Coastal Post Online. Carol Sterrit: "Marin 

Depleted Uranium Resolution Heats Up - GI's Will Come 

Home To A Slow Death," 

http://www.coastalpost.com/04/08/01.htm 

  

World Depleted Uranium Weapons Conference, Hamburg, 

Germany, October 16-19, 2004: 

http://www.uraniumweaponsconference.de/speakers.htm 

  

International Criminal Tribunal for Afghanistan. 

Written opinion of Judge Niloufer Baghwat: 

http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2004/Afghanistan-Criminal-Tribuna
l10mar0 

4.htm 


"Discounted Casualties: The Human Cost of Nuclear War" 

by Akira Tashiro, foreword by Leuren Moret, 

http://www.chugoku-np.co.jp/abom/uran/index_e.html 

Leuren Moret is a geoscientist who has worked around the world
on radiation issues, educating citizens, the media, members of
parliaments and Congress and other officials. She became a
whistleblower in 1991 at the Livermore Nuclear Weapons Lab after
experiencing major science fraud on the Yucca Mountain Project.
An environmental commissioner in the City of Berkeley, she can
be reached at leurenmoret@yahoo.com.       

San Francisco Bay View National Black Newspaper 4917 Third Street 
San Francisco California 94124 Phone: (415) 671-0789 Fax: (415) 
671-0316 Email: <font color="#FFFFFF">editor@sfbayview.com</font>  
*****************************************************************
 37 HVN: State legislation proposes to help veterans exposed to depleted uranium   

Hudson Valley News: 

Monday, November 14, 2005 

Ulster County Legislator Susan Zimet has been pressing for
action on helping veterans exposed to depleted uranium (DU) to
get the best screening and treatment available. 

Zimet has found an ally in the state legislature  Assemblyman
Jeffrey Dinowitz. Basically (he) has chosen to pick up the
battle on behalf of the veterans who are coming home incredibly
sick and not getting the proper treatment that they need and
deserve, Zimet said. He is going to be introducing legislation
at the state level. 

The legislation would direct the New York State Division of
Veterans Affairs to aid any soldier or veteran in obtaining
federal treatment services, including the best medical practices
used to screen for DU. A task force would be established to
study the health effects of exposure to depleted uranium. 

Zimet joined Dinowitz in Manhattan for a news conference to
announce the legislation.   
  
  HEAR today's news on MidHudsonRadio.com, the Hudson Valley's
                only Internet radio news report. 
*****************************************************************
 38 NRC: NRC Closely Monitoring Efforts to Determine Status of Spent Fuel Segments
Unaccounted for at Hatch Nuclear Plant

News Release - Region II - 2005-04
 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 

Office of Public Affairs, Region II
  No. II-05-043   		        November 10, 2005   
  CONTACT:     Ken Clark (404) 562-4416
 Roger D. Hannah (404) 562-4417     E-mail:   
  

agency is closely monitoring efforts by Southern Nuclear
Operating Co. to determine the disposition of pieces of spent
nuclear fuel which cannot be accounted for in the spent fuel
storage pools at the Hatch nuclear power plant near Baxley, Ga. 

Loren R. Plisco, deputy administrator of the NRC Region II
office in Atlanta, said the company has reported to the NRC that
it has been unable to reconcile its inventory based on an
initial review of records of spent fuel storage locations and
visual verifications of fuel within the plants spent fuel pools.
The company told the NRC it estimates that, collectively, the
fuel rod pieces total approximately 68 inches. 

The NRC in February ordered all commercial nuclear power plant
licensees to inventory their spent fuel pools, Plisco said. The
company initiated its examination of the contents in May. The
company completed its initial spent fuel assessment on Oct.28
and reported to the NRC today the identification of possible
fuel pins and other pieces for which there was no inventory or
accounting. 

NRC officials said agency inspectors have been monitoring the
companys progress as fuel pieces were found and collected from
the spent fuel pools, beginning with the first indication of an
accounting problem last May. The NRC this week has been
conducting an on-site inspection of the plants material control
and accounting program as a followup to the NRC Bulletin. 

Because of extensive radiological and security measures in
place, NRC officials said it is highly unlikely that the
material is in an uncontrolled location or that it poses any
risk to the public. 

The NRC said its inspectors will closely follow an exhaustive
investigation of what happened to the missing pieces and of what
caused the problem. The investigation may take several months.   



  


 	Last revised Monday, November 14, 2005 	   
*****************************************************************
 39 Guardian Unlimited: Senate Cuts Spending for Nev. Nuclear Dump
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

Monday November 14, 2005 11:46 pm

By ANDREW TAYLOR 

Associated Press Writer 

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Senate voted Monday to cut significantly
the budget for the troubled Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump as
negotiators tried to finalize several other spending bills
before stopgap funding expires. 

The $450 million Yucca Mountain budget - down $127 million from
each of the last two years - is included in a final bill funding
energy and water programs for fiscal 2006, which cleared the
Senate by an 84-4 vote. Senate negotiators immediately headed to
a House meeting room for talks on two other bills. 

The urgency comes as lawmakers try to wrap up work on the 11
spending bills comprising the approximately one-third of the
federal budget that Congress passes each year. After years of
consistent increases, the overall budget for domestic agencies -
with the exception of the Homeland Security Department - is
essentially frozen or even slightly below last year's levels. 

The Senate vote clears the sixth of 11 spending bills for
President Bush's signature. Lawmakers hope to complete action on
remaining domestic bills by Friday, when a bill funding agency
budgets on a stopgap basis expires. The temporary funding bill
has been in place since the budget year began Oct. 1. 

The advances on the appropriations bills contrasts with the
difficulties House leaders have had in passing $50 billion-plus
in cuts over five years to so-called mandatory spending - the
approximately 55 percent of the budget for programs like
Medicare and Medicaid that goes up automatically each year. GOP
leaders scrapped plans for a vote last week. 

Meanwhile, a $453 billion defense measure, though nearly
complete, is being held in reserve despite protests from the
Pentagon. GOP leaders may use the politically unstoppable bill
to carry other legislative freight. 

The Yucca nuclear waste repository in Nevada would be funded at
$450 million for the 2006 budget year. Bill negotiators also
ditched a controversial House plan to supplement Yucca with
interim storage sites for nuclear waste. 

The final figure was also less than the House and the Senate
passed during earlier debates. More delays in the oft-delayed
project caused lawmakers to curb Yucca Mountain's budget. 

Those cuts helped free up funds for the Corps of Engineers,
which received $5.6 billion, $1 billion above Bush's request.
That includes $8 million requested by Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La.,
for the Corps to design a plan to bring south Louisiana up to
Category Five hurricane protection. 

The bill also kills off a program to study and develop a
``bunker buster'' nuclear warhead, ending a three-year battle
between the Pentagon and lawmakers opposed to the project.
Opponents have argued it would send the wrong nuclear
nonproliferation message to the world. Instead the
administration plans to pursue a conventional weapon that can
penetrate hardened underground targets. 

But the White House is showing much less flexibility on numerous
other battles playing out on the other spending bills. 

The White House, working in concert with House GOP leaders, has
forced the Senate to give up on a series of budget tricks it
used to add funding for programs favored by lawmakers. The
Senate has had to relent on plans to transfer $7 billion from
defense to domestic programs. 

Senators also abandoned more than $3 billion made available
through an accounting gimmick for programs including health
research, medical training and heating subsidies for the poor.
That move came as House-Senate negotiators worked on a sweeping
measure providing $143 billion in discretionary funding for
labor, health and education programs. 

Without the extra cash, however, lawmakers were unable to
fulfill funding promises made under Bush's landmark No Child
Left Behind education bill. And research funding for the
National Institutes of Health would be virtually frozen. 

Programs funded by the education and health bill faced a $1.1
billion cut over last year's levels once $800 million in extra
costs to implement to new prescription drug benefit are factored
in. 

The energy bill also would: 

-Provide $220 million, about a third what the administration had
sought, to build a plant at the DOE's Savannah River complex in
South Carolina to convert excess weapons-grade plutonium to a
mix-oxide fuel for use in a commercial reactor. 

-Provide $130 million for various Energy Department programs for
research into the nuclear fuel cycle for commercial power
plants, including money to look into the feasibility of fuel
reprocessing, which was abandoned by the United States in the
1970s because of nuclear proliferation risks. 
		 	 	   
      Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
 40 Deseret News: Environment agency hires Kemp Spangler
 
[deseretnews.com] 

Monday, November 14, 2005

Environment agency hires Kemp Spangler                        

The Utah Department of Environmental Quality has hired Donna Kemp 
Spangler to serve as the agency's public information officer.

       DEQ executive director Dianne Nielson said Spangler's
experience as a former environmental reporter will be an asset
in the public information post.

       "She will be responsible to help us effectively
communicate complex environmental issues so the public can make
informed decisions," Nielson said.

       Spangler replaces Laura Vernon, who resigned to take a
position in the private sector.

       Spangler's most recent position was at the Exchange
Monitor Publications in Washington, D.C., where she reported on
a variety of nuclear waste, nuclear energy, low-level waste
disposal and homeland security issues. From 1999 to 2004, she
was an environmental reporter for the Deseret Morning News. She
has worked at newspapers in Washington state and Oregon. She
earned a bachelor of arts degree in communications from the
University of Portland, has co-written a book and has received
numerous awards as a journalist.
 			  		 		   
© 2005 Deseret News Publishing Company 	 		 			 		 	 [ /] 
*****************************************************************
 41 Deseret News: Utah isn't a dumping ground 

[deseretnews.com] 

Monday, November 14, 2005 

Deseret Morning News editorial 

Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. makes a lot of sense when he notes that he 
is working hard to keep spent nuclear fuel rods out of the state 
and that he spent a lot of time getting the federal government to
agree to move hazardous mill tailings from the banks of the 
Colorado River — and that an effort by Envirocare to expand its 
hazardous waste site should be considered in that light. 

The governor told this newspaper last week he won't 
approve the expansion. That's significant, considering the 
governor's signature would be necessary in order for the 
expansion to happen. 

We share the governor's concerns. All Utahns should. The 
issue isn't so much whether the items stored by Envirocare pose 
a huge safety risk, or whether the company has been following 
rules. Envirocare has a commendable record on both counts. 
Rather, the issue concerns what the current generation of Utahns 
would like to bequeath as a legacy. Do people who live here 
today want to host ever-expanding operations that will render 
parts of the state unusable for generations? Do they want to 
open their arms to all sorts of hazardous material just for the 
money such things could bring? 

Envirocare's new owners are seeking to add 536 acres to 
the 543 acres the disposal site now covers. While the company is 
not seeking to dispose of waste that is any more hazardous than 
that which it current accepts, the expansion would allow it to 
stay in business longer, and it also would help make the 
operation more efficient, officials have said. 

But if the governor's mood is any indication, Utahns are 
getting a little tired of requests that involve undesirable 
materials of any type. 

At the moment, the state has all it can handle trying to 
keep Private Fuel Storage, a consortium of Eastern nuclear 
energy concerns, from bringing their highly radioactive spent 
nuclear fuel rods to a "temporary" resting place in Skull 
Valley. Utah recently picked up a powerful ally in this fight 
when Nevada Sen. Harry Reid, the Senate minority leader, agreed 
to help. 

That fight is far from won. And while there is a huge 
difference between spent fuel rods, which won't cool down for at 
least 10,000 years, and the Class A radioactive waste Envirocare 
stores, the principle is the same. Too many people view the Utah 
deserts as dispensable, or as convenient places to put the 
things nobody wants. The federal government once had that 
attitude when it conducted several above-ground nuclear tests 
that sent loads of radiation into the state. 

Huntsman campaigned on a promise to keep Utah from 
becoming a dumping ground. His statements against Envirocare's 
expansion reaffirm that promise. 

© 2005 Deseret News Publishing Company 	 		 			 		 	 [ /] 
*****************************************************************
 42 Daily Cardinal: UW fueling nuclear energy recycling - 

Monday, November 14, 2005 

Dan Molzahn The Daily Cardinal                                 

Across the United States, radioactive uranium rods
wait in storage containers at nuclear power plants, mounting
into a large waste issue for the national government and utility
companies. As waste builds, many Midwestern universities,
including UW-Madison, are looking to improve nuclear fuel
reprocessing techniques and streamline the nuclear fuel cycle,
which would reduce the overall volume of toxic waste. 

“There is a lot of interest in Washington in nuclear fuel
reprocessing,” said Paul Wilson, associate professor of
engineering at UW-Madison. “Specific technologies are still in
question, but the fundamental idea of recycling spent nuclear
fuel rods than simply burying it in the ground is one that is
gaining a lot of interest right now because of the long-term
consequences.” 

“Spent nuclear rods” removed from reactors contain un-decayed
uranium, plutonium and other radioactive byproducts which may
cause cancer and other diseases. These waste products need to be
stored indefinitely in metal and concrete casks to prevent
catastrophe, but reprocessing the used rods would reduce waste
volume and ease storage problems. 

Without reprocessing nuclear fuel stored in the United States,
the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear repository would be
immediately near capacity with the backlog of nuclear waste.
This would create a need for a second repository, a task
increasingly difficult with political opposition to nuclear
technology and waste. Deep geologic repositories are currently
the best method for nuclear waste disposal, but their durability
over thousands of years while fuel degrades is yet to be
determined. 

Recycling nuclear fuel involves removing unused uranium elements
from “spent” nuclear fuel and recasting rods to be again placed
inside a nuclear reactor. Current reprocessing technology can
perform this task, but it is inefficient and not cost-effective
for the nuclear industry. 

“We want to look at the pretty gritty processing, chemical
engineering, nuclear engineering and all these associated
technologies to make it more efficient,” said Michael Corradini,
UW-Madison engineering physics professor. “And as you make it
more efficient, meaning that you can do the task for less money
or less materials, it becomes more interesting for the industry
to use. And the benefit is we recycle a whole lot of stuff and
we only get rid of a small fraction [of waste].” 

As plants continue to produce electricity, recycling uranium
resources is a great option to reduce the flow of waste to
repositories. Many nuclear power plants are scheduled for
renewal in coming years, ensuring the flow of radioactive waste
for decades. 

“When we do start [building nuclear power plants] again in five
years or so, it’s not clear that they need to be a lot better
than they are right now for producing electricity; they’re
pretty good at it, in terms of making money for utilities and
economically producing electricity. So what is going to drive
that necessity is the issue of waste and sustainability,” Wilson
said.
 
Instituting reprocessing and making the fuel cycle more
efficient would require less uranium to be extracted from the
ground, possibly the largest environmental impact in the entire
nuclear industry, said Richard Shaten, UW-Madison faculty
associate and instructor of Environmental Studies. 

Nuclear power makes up approximately 20 percent of consumed
electricity—mechanisms that make the industry more sustainable
and efficient would benefit all consumers. Research at
UW-Madison could improve reprocessing techniques, make recycling
uranium resources viable for the nuclear industry and in turn
reduce stress on national toxic waste repositories. 

 Copyright © 1892-2005 The Daily Cardinal Media Corporation. All
*****************************************************************
 43 Salt Lake Tribune: Nukes at root of Goshute dispute 

Article Last Updated: 11/14/2005 12:39:22 AM 

Tribe divided: Opponents of the Skull Valley dump say tribal 
leaders are quashing their voice 

By Judy Fahys The Salt Lake Tribune 

Just days after members of the Skull Valley Goshutes filed a 
federal appeal to overturn a license for a nuclear waste site on 
their land, the disputed leader of the band Saturday again 
canceled tribal elections. 

It was the fourth time in a year that Chairman Leon Bear 
scrapped the vote, and some members are again calling for an 
independent observer to ensure fair elections. 

In all four cases, Bear reportedly blamed a lack of a 
quorum, but critics say the election was called off before 
members could organize at the tribal meeting hall in the heart 
of the Goshute Village in Tooele County. 

They say the terms of Bear and his niece, vice chairwoman 
Lori Skiby, ended last year, but Bear is maneuvering to prevent 
them from electing new leaders. The Goshutes have about 121 
members, about 70 of whom are adults eligible to vote. 

"We're tired," said Margene Bullcreek, one of the Goshutes 
opposed to the waste. "We're tired of talking and not being 
heard." 

A sharp divide has grown in the eight years since the 
three-person executive committee led by Bear signed a lease for 
Private Fuel Storage, a consortium of nuclear utility companies, 
to store spent reactor fuel storage on Goshute land. 

Federal regulators approved a license for the facility in 
September. If built, a 100-acre pad would be able to hold up to 
44,000 tons of waste - roughly all the waste ever generated by 
the U.S. commercial nuclear industry - on its way to 
yet-to-be-approved permanent disposal. 

The tribal divide goes deeper than the nuclear waste issue. 
In recent months, Bear was sentenced to probation on tax fraud 
charges stemming from a leadership corruption case. And, in a 
separate criminal case, three Goshutes who claim they won a 2001 
executive committee election pleaded guilty for using tribal 
funds illegally. 

Bear did not respond to a request to comment. But, in an 
interview with National Public Radio last month he said a 
majority of members support the nuclear-waste project. 

"Storage is going to have to be had," he said. "It might as 
well be us. We'll get paid to store spent fuel." 

In contrast, Bullcreek and six other Goshutes opposed to the 
waste project filed a federal appeal last week that asks to have 
the licensing decision thrown out. Bullcreek was in Wisconsin on 
Sunday for a conference dealing with the dangers of transporting 
nuclear waste and the impact on American Indians, according to 
the La Crosse (Wisconsin) Tribune. 

There was some good news for the opponents last week, when 
Nevada Sen. Harry Reid dropped his opposition to a plan to 
create a new Utah wilderness area that could block the waste 
site. 

Utah's congressional delegation wants to create the Cedar 
Mountain Wilderness Area near the Skull Valley Goshute 
Reservation. Such a designation would keep the Bureau of Land 
Management from approving a rail line to the site. 

The proposed wilderness provision has in the past been 
stymied by several senators, including Reid. 

Bear's critics said Sunday it was not apathy but a feeling of
helplessness that is driving the low election turnout. Many 
members have to come from out of state to take part in the 
elections, and they have grown weary of getting here, only to 
have the election canceled, said Bullcreek. 

"It's a boycott," she said. 

Tribal business continues to be carried out by leaders who 
aren't really elected, critics say. And, they say, Bear 
continues to punish them by refusing to distribute the tribal 
benefit checks and housing benefits that his supporters receive. 

Sammy Blackbear said it is understandable that Goshutes 
don't participate in elections declared by Bear. Many feel the 
U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs, which is supposed to help with 
elections, favors the pro-waste faction. 

"They know it's rigged, and we are not going to have a fair 
election," said Blackbear, one of the would-be tribal leaders 
sentenced in the 2001 election case. 

He said he will begin looking for an independent official, 
like a member of Congress, to help oversee an election. 

"That's what we need," he said. "We need someone to come in 
and intervene to ensure we have a fair election. 

fahys@sltrib.com 

What's next? 

* The federal Bureau of Indian Affairs still has to decide on 
final approval for the 121-member Skull Valley Band to lease 
land for the site. 

* The U.S. Bureau of Land Management also make a decision on 
a right-of-way the company needs to build and use a rail spur 
that would take waste from a point near I-80 and Delle. 

* State attorneys await a decision on whether the U.S. 
Supreme Court will hear its appeal of a case brought by PFS and 
the Skull Valley Band against state laws to block the waste 
project. The court's ruling would be on the timing of the issue, 
not the substance. Utah attorneys filed an appeal of the NRC 
ruling Tuesday. 

* Utahns hope to get support for a new law that would 
emphasize reprocessing of nuclear waste and long-term storage. 
If they succeed, the PFS storage would not be needed. 

* As it develops plans for transporting waste to the remote 
site, PFS would begin construction of the concrete and soil pads 
that for the storage containers. The consortium hopes to begin 
in two years. 

Â© Copyright 2005, The Salt Lake Tribune. 
*****************************************************************
 44 PE.com: Perchlorate settlement proposed

| Inland Southern California | Inland News
 
PLAN: Water officials will consider an offer to drill wells to
test the extent of an area's contamination.
 
07:41 AM PST on Monday, November 14, 2005 

By JENNIFER BOWLES / The Press-Enterprise
 
Regional water quality officials will consider a proposed
settlement Wednesday that calls on Goodrich Corp. to drill test
wells to find out how extensively a rocket fuel chemical has
invaded a major Inland drinking water source. 

While the 10-month testing effort would help decide how to
attack the plume of perchlorate and other contaminants that lurk
deep below Rialto and Colton, activists will ask the Santa Ana
Regional Water Quality Control Board to reject the settlement
and force Goodrich to immediately provide replacement water. 

"We feel the residents of Rialto need clean water now," said
Davin Diaz of the Center for Community Action and Environmental
Justice in San Bernardino. "Not in one year, not in two years." 

The meeting will be held Wednesday night at the Rialto City
Council Chambers. 

The groundwater basin in question is a major source of drinking
water for 150,000 people in Rialto and Colton. 

The source of the perchlorate is believed to be a 160-acre
industrial area in north Rialto where Goodrich and several
companies operated. 

Perchlorate, used in rocket fuel, munitions and fireworks, can
impair thyroid function. The thyroid regulates metabolism and
produces hormones essential for brain and bone development in
fetuses and newborns. 

California's current perchlorate "health goal" -- considered
safe for everyone but not an enforceable limit -- is six parts
per billion in drinking water. Most water agencies have stopped
using wells that contain higher levels than that, and in some
cases, refuse to serve any water containing perchlorate. 

The regional water board began investigating the source of the
contamination about four years ago and has ordered more than 20
companies to conduct soil and groundwater tests. 

The regional board ordered Goodrich in 2001 to come up with a
plan to define the plume, but rescinded the order the next year
when the company assured regulators it would cooperate. 

The company later paid $4 million to four local water agencies
so they could outfit some tainted wells with treatment devices. 

In exchange, the company had a two-year window in which it
didn't have to conduct any tests. 

Craig Moyer, an attorney for Goodrich, said if the new
settlement is approved, the testing effort will cost the company
at least $2 million. 

Moyer said Goodrich is hoping the results will show that other
companies at the industrial site contributed to the plume. 

"There are still fireworks companies on the site using
perchlorate, which gives us some pause," Moyer said. 

Goodrich operated a facility on the industrial site from 1957 to
1963, conducting research and development for Titan missile
rockets, Moyer said. 

Another major company, Black & Decker Inc., is fighting charges
that a subsidiary is tied to the contamination. 

In all, fifteen wells that serve Rialto and Colton have been
knocked out because of the contamination. 

It's unknown if the perchlorate that has tainted seven wells in
Fontana is related to the same source, said Kurt Berchtold,
assistant executive officer for the regional water board. 

Berchtold said the settlement would allow regulators to know the
extent of the underground contamination before ordering wellhead
treatment because pumping those wells could change the formation
of the estimated six-mile-long plume. 

"You could be pulling it down deeper in the basin and actually
making things worse," he said. 

After the 10 months of testing, Berchtold said, Goodrich and
other companies could be on the hook for replacement water or
for well-head treatment. 

Reach Jennifer Bowles at 951-368-9548 or 
jbowles@pe.comMore

2005, The Press-Enterprise Company  
*****************************************************************
 45 AU ABC: Senator stands by ACT-based waste dump probe. 

15/11/2005. ABC News Online

Northern Territory Country Liberal Party Senator Nigel Scullion
has defended a decision to hold a nuclear waste dump Senate
inquiry in Canberra. 

The decision means the inquiry will visit none of the three
Territory sites where the Federal Government plans to build the
dump.

 Territory Labor Senator Trish Crossin says the process has
become a joke.

 But Senator Scullion says it is up to the committee where it
holds the inquiry and he sees no problem with having it in
Canberra.

 "Obviously there wasn't much time simply because the same
committee as I understand it is examining the IR [industrial
relations] legislation, but I understand that they've decided
that they will be held in Canberra but what I also understand is
that they will be flying people [in], for example the Central
Land Council and other interested parties, to give evidence
before the hearing," he said.

 Senator Scullion says the committee is free to choose where it
holds hearings.

 Mr Scullion says the same committee has to consider the
industrial relations legislation and Canberra is as good a place
as any.

 "[It is] very important that people recognise that this is not
only about actually hearing something in a place. If people
think that they really need to be there I understand that
there's a process to apply to go down and give evidence but the
best way to give evidence is simply make a written submission,"
he said. 

*****************************************************************
 46 lamonitor.com: LANL set for full-scale emergency exercise 

The Online News Source for Los Alamos
 

CAROL A. CLARK, lanews@lamonitor.com, Monitor Staff Writer

Los Alamos National Laboratory is set to hold its 2005 Full
Participation Emergency Exercise on Wednesday. 
The exercise is required by the Department of Energy to test the
laboratory's ability to respond to an emergency.

The exercise will involve several lab organizations, along with
several outside agencies including the Los Alamos police and
fire departments, the Los Alamos Medical Center and the
DOE/National Nuclear Security Administration Los Alamos Site
Office. 

"During the exercise, LANL employees may observe emergency
vehicles and 'Exercise in Progress' signs in the vicinity," said
Public Affairs spokesperson Kathy DeLucas. "And we want the
community to be aware of the exercise so they won't be alarmed
if they see emergency vehicles and other activity."

LANL Emergency Operations Office Director Beverly Ramsey spoke
about the exercise. 
"I anticipate the public might see the Los Alamos Fire
Department coming to the lab and they might see members of the
police department," Ramsey said. "The details aren't known but
the exercise will begin at the lab. I don't know if county sites
will be involved."

Ramsey said a set of controllers and a safety officer will be on
hand throughout the exercise. 
"The whole purpose of the exercise is so people who respond to
emergencies have the opportunity to train and practice," she
said. "DOE is coming out to evaluate our response and
capabilities."

Ramsey said during the exercise people will take part as either
participants, controllers, evaluators or observers.

Ramsey said Los Alamos is extremely fortunate to have a
laboratory and a county that work so well together on emergency
issues.

"We have an excellent working relationship between Los Alamos
County and the emergency response division at the laboratory,"
Ramsey said. "Max Baker (county administrator), Doug MacDonald
(fire chief) and Doug Tucker (deputy fire chief) and Wayne Torpy
(police chief) and Phil Taylor (county emergency coordinator)
have all participated in weekly training sessions since July.
And they will be in the emergency operations directorate in the
event of an emergency."

Ramsey said there is a great deal of commitment on behalf of the
county and she really appreciates that.

"We are better prepared than most counties because of that
commitment," she said. "The relationship between the
laboratory's emergency response and the county is extraordinary
and really should be celebrated."

Wednesday's full-scale exercise will be aligned with the work
day, starting around 7:30 a.m. and ending around 5 p.m.

The public is urged to contact authorities if they notice
anything suspicious around town while the exercise is being
conducted, she said.

"The real world intervenes even when we have an exercise,"
Ramsey said.

For information, contact the Emergency Operations Center at
667-6211.   

  © 2003 Los Alamos Monitor All Rights Reserved.   
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 47 lamonitor.com: Einstein still shines bright on Los Alamos 

The Online News Source for Los Alamos
 
ROGER SNODGRASS, , Monitor Assistant Editor

In many ways, Los Alamos National Laboratory owes its existence
and daily bread to an eccentric genius named Albert Einstein,
who blazed new territory that is still being explored today. 
A 100 years after the publication in 1905 of his revolutionary
scientific papers on special relativity, the photoelectric
effect and Brownian motion, 2005 has been a year to reflect on
the author's many groundbreaking accomplishments and his
profound influence.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science has
designated this year as "The Year of Physics," in honor of the
"annus mirabilis" - Einstein's miraculous year of discovery. 

Many other scientific institutions around the world have joined
the centenary celebration. Topical books and biographical
documentaries have flourished. Symposia, memorial essays,
special publications and speeches have showered attention not
only on the scientific achievement, but also on the human side
of Einstein, as well as his spiritual and political dimensions.

In fact, the celebration has been so popular and so successful
that AAAS has extended it into next year. 
Tom Bowles, the laboratory's chief scientist said the laboratory
would hold its own observance in respect to Einstein next spring.

"The reason is science," he said. "And the reason this lab
exists is Einstein." 
Coming out of a turbulent and difficult year, Bowles added,
"We'll have a chance to stop for a day and think, 'Hey, that's
why we're here.'"

Einstein's influence on Los Alamos has been both direct and
indirect, and it has been lasting.

The letter

On Aug. 2, 1939, Einstein signed a letter to President Roosevelt
alerting him to the implications of "some recent work" that
"leads me to expect that the element uranium may be turned into
a new and important source of energy in the immediate future."

Einstein warned in what became one his most historic letters,
"that extremely powerful bombs of a new type may thus be
constructed."

The last of his seminal papers written in 1905 had contained his
most famous equation, E=MC2, which implied, in effect, that
matter could be converted into enormously powerful quantities of
energy, ultimately unlocking the door to atomic weapons and
atomic power.

But it was Einstein's fame that came after 1917, his theory of
general relativity, setting forth the idea that gravity could be
explained as a curvature in the fabric of space and time, and
his Nobel Prize for physics in 1922, that gave him the
credibility to influence Roosevelt.

There was an irony in Einstein's role, as historian Richard
Rhodes described in his definitive history, "The Making of the
Atomic Bomb."

The Germans had already invaded Poland and were threatening
Belgium.

When Einstein was approached by Leo Szilard and Eugene Wigner to
help them engage Roosevelt in realizing the explosive potential
of an atomic chain reaction, Einstein said, "I never thought of
that."

Nevertheless, he agreed to help, and when the letter was
delivered on Oct. 11 by an intermediary, Alexander Sachs,
Roosevelt understood the message and the scientific authority
behind it.

In Senate testimony Sachs said Roosevelt replied, "Alex, what
you are after is to see that the Nazi's don't blow us up."

Calling in an aide, as Rhodes related the story, Roosevelt said,
"This requires action."

In a subsequent letter, described by biographer Ronald W. Clark
in "Einstein, The Life and Times," Einstein pursued the matter,
calling for a framework of "large-scale experiments and
exploration of practical applications." He also foreshadowed
what would become the Manhattan Project - "a nonprofit
organization which, with the approval of the governmental
committee, could secure from governmental or private sources or
both, the necessary funds for carrying out the work."

He was there at the beginning, but suspicions about Einstein's
socialist associations and pacifist beliefs excluded him from
all but a few minor theoretical calculations for the Navy during
the war years, according to the historians.

He would always be associated with the atomic bomb, despite his
repudiations and his many countervailing efforts.

Before the war was over, he wrote prophetically to Nils Bohr,
expressing concerns about secret military build-ups in all
countries, according to a letter cited by Clark, "which will
lead inevitably to preventive wars and to destruction even more
terrible than the present destruction of life."

Einstein on the mind

Sixty years later, scientists at Los Alamos are still pursuing
problems posed by Einstein and building on a foundation he
formulated.

"Einstein was certainly seminal in many of the areas in which
the laboratory and its scientific staff finds itself involved,"
said LANL Chief Science Officer Tom Bowles.

Nearly anywhere one looks, he said, Einstein's theories and
interests are at work.

"During the last five to 10 years of his life, he was trying to
understand the possible unification of the different forces of
nature - why were there four different forces and not just one?"
Bowles said. "He was really handicapped because our knowledge of
the strong and weak nuclear forces were pretty limited at that
time. But a lot of the research that I and many other people at
the lab are involved in has been to further our understanding of
the strong and weak nuclear forces. Einstein was the father in
the field."

Bowles also finds traces of Einstein's influence in the
laboratory's work in chemical and materials science, quantum
information and cosmology. Relativistic computation is essential
for work in the Los Alamos Neutron Scattering Center, where
particles are accelerated to a level where special relativity
applies. Precise geophysical position coordinates can only be
precise when the effects of general relativity are considered.

As a student at Princeton, Bowles said the ghost of Einstein was
still very much around.

Einstein took up residence in Princeton in 1933 and died there
in 1955.

A favorite story that was told at Princeton teas, Bowles said,
was about Einstein playing with a little puzzle that required
maneuvering a ball into a final point. Unable to succeed
quickly, he asked his host if he could take it home.

"When he brought it back a week later," Bowles said, "he told
his host that he enjoyed solving it." He said, "Oppy couldn't do
it."

Oppy, of course, was Robert Oppenheimer who became a colleague
of Einstein's at the Institute of Advanced Studies.

"It wasn't a personal, but an intellectual rivalry," said
Bowles. "They challenged each other, and Oppenheimer was also a
man who had a very broad view of the world."

For many scientists at Los Alamos, Einstein is not only a symbol
of a high ideal, but a fundamental part of their professional
lives.

Sterling Colgate is senior scientist and one of the laboratory's
most prominent elder statesmen. An astrophysicist and member of
the National Academy of Sciences, his work on the lab's Vela
satellites in the late 50s and early 60s opened a vast new field
of investigation on the relationship between gamma ray bursts
and cosmic explosions.

He said, "Much of general relativity has taken a big reality
adjustment with the discovery of black holes."

Colgate first learned about Einstein at the old Ranch School
that preceded the scientific laboratory here.

"Having a focus on him this year has made for some excellent
lectures and talks," he said, calling attention especially to a
recent PBS film in the Nova series. "The sweep of science is an
extraordinary story. There will always be an Einstein for every
age."

Not everybody is completely in the Einstein camp.

Michael Nieto, an astrophysicist who has been tracking a
yet-unexplained acceleration in the motion of several deep solar
system spacecraft said he is a devil's advocate, in the great
scientific quest to unify Einstein's general theory of
relativity with quantum mechanics.

He compared it to being from Boston and being asked to comment
on the Yankees.

"I have greater and greater respect for what Einstein did, but
I'm a Red Sox fan," he said. "I learned quantum theory first and
it overwhelmed me. I believed it in my soul."

Astrophysicist Emil Motolla said he was looking at a poster in
his office, during a recent telephone interview, with an
Einstein quotation: "Great spirits have always encountered
violent opposition from mediocre minds."

When Einstein died, Motolla said, "I am working in general
relativity and thinking about problems he was concerned with -
black holes and cosmology. These are all hot topics right now."

Einstein included a fudge factor in his equations for general
relativity to compensate for a discrepancy that contradicted
what most astronomers thought at the time was a static universe.

Later, Einstein told George Gamow, one of the foremost advocates
of the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe, the
cosmological constant was his biggest blunder.

Only in very recent times, Motolla pointed out, has that blunder
not only been vindicated but rather given a far more potent name
- dark energy.

Dark energy, an unexplained phenomenon that seems to be pushing
the galaxies apart, is now thought to make up 70 percent of the
universe.

Mottola's work proposes a quantum mechanical alternative to
Einstein's theory of general relativity in describing what we
know as black holes.

"I have proposed a radical new idea on what the final state of
gravitational collapse might be," he said. "We are suggesting
that black holes are not black holes, but rather something dark
and cold."

Mottola and his colleagues call it a "Gravastar," something more
like a bubble than infinitely dense matter, something in fact
more like the "Super Atom," that was predicted by Einstein and
his colleague Satyendra Nath Bose in 1924, and known as a
Bose-Einstein condensate.

As an inspiration or a hurdle - for him or beyond him - there
seems to be no way around Einstein, one way or the other, for
quite some time to come.

Sources: "The Making of the Atomic Bomb," by Richard Rhodes.
Simon and Schuster, 1986; "Einstein, The Life and Times," by
Ronald W. Clark, The World Publishing Company, 1971.

And on the web:

http://www.physics2005.org/events/projects.html#teachers

http://www.aip.org/history/einstein/index.html   

  © 2003 Los Alamos Monitor All Rights Reserved.   
    
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