***************************************************************** 01/18/06 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 14.15 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** Send News Stories to news@energy-net.org with title on subject line and first line of body NUCLEAR POLICY 1 [NYTr] 2002 Memo Dismissed Niger Yellowcake Claims 2 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: Iraq's hot properties | 3 AFP: US memo in 2002 doubted Niger uranium sale to Iraq 4 Fwd: Konformist: Nuclear War Against Iran 5 Iaea Board To Hold Special Meeting On Iran On 2 February 6 IPS-English IRAN-NUKE PROGRAMME: Call for a Middle East free 7 [NYTr] Europe wants UN to force Iran into nuclear freeze 8 [NYTr] Rice rejects renewal of talks with Iran 9 [du-list] 1/18 Nuke Watch: Latest On The Iranian Nuclear 10 Guardian Unlimited: World Opposed to Nuclear Iran, Rice Says 11 Guardian Unlimited: Europe Rejects Nuclear Talks With Iran 12 AFP: Iran almost certain to be taken to Security Council over nuclea 13 AFP: UN watchdog confirms Feb 2 meeting on Iran nuclear row - 14 Guardian Unlimited: France Rejects Iranian Request for Talks 15 Guardian Unlimited: Russia urges caution as lobbying begins on Iran' 16 Guardian Unlimited: Kim Says He Wants to End Nuclear Standoff 17 AFP: NKorea's Kim vows to pursue six-way nuclear talks - 18 Guardian Unlimited: N. Korea Wants to Overcome 'Difficulties' 19 [NLCBW] (ADS): SFCHRON: Why the U.S. should never deploy its 20 US: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: U.S. nuclear forces, 2006 | 21 IPS: BRAZIL: An Energy Source Both Cheap and Eco-Friendly NUCLEAR REACTORS 22 Guardian Unlimited: Tory adviser says nuclear power should be last r 23 US: Guardian Unlimited: Cooling Problem Shuts Ariz. Reactor 24 US: The State: N.C. utility might build site 25 Baltic Times: NUCLEAR ROULETTE 26 US: Arizona Republic: Palo Verde shuts down a reactor 27 TheStar.com: Ontario plans public talks on nuclear power 28 UPI: British debate use of nuclear power 29 AFP: Radioactive produce on sale in Moscow 20 years after Chernobyl 30 US: PittsburghLIVE.com: Nuclear power may pop up in a decade - NUCLEAR SECURITY 31 US: Las Vegas SUN: Test Failures Slow U.S. Missile Defense 32 US: AP Wire: West Palm Beach man convicted of smuggling radioactive 33 US: PRN: Arizona Railroad Safety Hearing Reinforces Teamster Report NUCLEAR SAFETY 34 [du-list] Office Of The Surgeon General's Policy On Bio-Surety 35 US: STOP THE LAUNCH! Size matters, and Pu poison gas pellets are NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 36 [NYTr] Irish Govt studies recommendation over UK nuclear 37 US: Brattleboro Reformer: PSB will review Vt. Yankee dry cask propos 38 Albuquerque Tribune: Lab will front work on Yucca 39 US: North County Times: Nuclear waste hurts local economy 40 Las Vegas SUN: New Mexico lab chosen to coordinate Yucca Mountain wo 41 DOE: OCRWM Selects Sandia as Lead Laboratory 42 BBC: Dublin rapped over 43 US: Daily Evergreen: Nuclear radiation center gets funding for fuel 44 Pahrump Valley Times: Getting laws past the public - sneak-sneak 45 US: Deseret News: State of Utah: Education, stopping nuclear waste 46 News & Star: Irish broke rules in Sellafield row PEACE US DEPT. OF ENERGY 47 DOE: USDA and DOE to Coordinate Research of Plant and Microbial Geno 48 DOE: DOE Issues Salt Waste Determination for the Savannah River Site 49 New Mexican: First of new LANL pension plans to be discussed 50 Hanford News: Bechtel National manager takes job in London office 51 Hanford News: PNNL to develop centers to warn of latent attacks 52 Tri-Valley Herald: Los Alamos lab workers appeal pension proposal 53 Tri-Valley Herald: Departure from lab prompts shuffle 54 BoiseWeekly: What if something went wrong with the INL's pride and j 55 DOE: Environmental Management Site-Specific Advisory Board, Rocky 56 lamonitor.com: Retirees keep eyes on pension moves 57 Rocky Mountain News: Rocky Flats trial nearing ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 [NYTr] 2002 Memo Dismissed Niger Yellowcake Claims Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2006 16:39:45 -0600 (CST) Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit The New York Times - 18 January 2006 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/18/politics/18niger.html 2002 Memo Doubted Uranium Sale Claim By ERIC LICHTBLAU WASHINGTON, Jan. 17 - A high-level intelligence assessment by the Bush administration concluded in early 2002 that the sale of uranium from Niger to Iraq was "unlikely" because of a host of economic, diplomatic and logistical obstacles, according to a secret memo that was recently declassified by the State Department. Among other problems that made such a sale improbable, the assessment by the State Department's intelligence analysts concluded, was that it would have required Niger to send "25 hard-to-conceal 10-ton tractor-trailers" filled with uranium across 1,000 miles and at least one international border. The analysts' doubts were registered nearly a year before President Bush, in what became known as the infamous "16 words" in his 2003 State of the Union address, said that Saddam Hussein had sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. The White House later acknowledged that the charge, which played a part in the decision to invade Iraq in the belief that Baghdad was reconstituting its nuclear program, relied on faulty intelligence and should not have been included in the speech. Two months ago, Italian intelligence officials concluded that a set of documents at the center of the supposed Iraq-Niger link had been forged by an occasional Italian spy. A handful of news reports, along with the Robb-Silberman report last year on intelligence failures in Iraq, have previously made reference to the early doubts expressed by the State Department's bureau of intelligence and research in 2002 concerning the reliability of the Iraq-Niger uranium link. But the intelligence assessment itself - including the analysts' full arguments in raising wide-ranging doubts about the credence of the uranium claim - was only recently declassified as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by Judicial Watch, a conservative legal group that has sought access to government documents on terrorism and intelligence matters. The group, which received a copy of the 2002 memo among several hundred pages of other documents, provided a copy of the memo to The New York Times. The White House declined to discuss details of the declassified memo, saying the Niger question had already been explored at length since the president's State of the Union address. "This matter was examined fully by the bipartisan Silberman-Robb commission, and the president acted on their broad recommendations to reform our intelligence apparatus," said Frederick Jones, a spokesman for the National Security Council. The public release of the State Department assessment, with some sections blacked out, adds another level of detail to an episode that was central not only to the debate over the invasion of Iraq, but also in the perjury indictment of I. Lewis Libby Jr., the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney. In early 2002, the Central Intelligence Agency sent the former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV to Niger to investigate possible attempts to sell uranium to Iraq. The next year, after Mr. Wilson became a vocal critic of the Bush administration's Iraqi intelligence, the identity of his wife, Valerie Wilson, a C.I.A. officer who suggested him for the Niger trip, was made public. The investigation into the leak led to criminal charges in October against Mr. Libby, who is accused of misleading investigators and a grand jury. The review by the State Department's intelligence bureau was one of a number of reviews undertaken in early 2002 at the State Department in response to secret intelligence pointing to the possibility that Iraq was seeking to buy yellowcake, a processed uranium ore, from Niger to reconstitute its nuclear program. A four-star general, Carlton W. Fulford Jr., was also sent to Niger to investigate the claims of a uranium purchase. He, too, came away with doubts about the reliability of the report and believed Niger's yellowcake supply to be secure. But the State Department's review, which looked at the political, economic and logistical factors in such a purchase, seems to have produced wider-ranging doubts than other reviews about the likelihood that Niger would try to sell uranium to Baghdad. The review concluded that Niger was "probably not planning to sell uranium to Iraq," in part because France controlled the uranium industry in the country and could block such a sale. It also cast doubt on an intelligence report indicating that Niger's president, Mamadou Tandja, might have negotiated a sales agreement with Iraq in 2000. Mr. Tandja and his government were reluctant to do anything to endanger their foreign aid from the United States and other allies, the review concluded. The State Department review also cast doubt on the logistics of Niger being able to deliver 500 tons of uranium even if the sale were attempted. "Moving such a quantity secretly over such a distance would be very difficult, particularly because the French would be indisposed to approve or cloak this arrangement," the review said. Chris Farrell, the director of investigations at Judicial Watch and a former military intelligence officer, said he found the State Department's analysis to be "a very strong, well-thought-out argument that looks at the whole playing field in Niger, and it makes a compelling case for why the uranium sale was so unlikely." The memo, dated March 4, 2002, was distributed at senior levels by the office of Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and by the Defense Intelligence Agency. A Bush administration official, who requested anonymity because the issue involved partly classified documents, would not say whether President Bush had seen the State Department's memo before his State of the Union address on Jan. 28, 2003. But the official added: "The White House is not an intelligence-gathering operation. The president based his remarks in the State of the Union address on the intelligence that was presented to him by the intelligence community and cleared by the intelligence community. The president has said the intelligence was wrong, and we have reorganized our intelligence agencies so we can do better in the future." Mr. Wilson said in an interview that he did not remember ever seeing the memo but that its analysis should raise further questions about why the White House remained convinced for so long that Iraq was trying to buy uranium in Africa. "All the people understood that there was documentary evidence" suggesting that the intelligence about the sale was faulty, he said. * ================================================================ .NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems . Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us . .339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org .List Archives: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/ .Subscribe: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr ================================================================ ***************************************************************** 2 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: Iraq's hot properties | thebulletin.org Review of "DOD Should Evaluate Its Source Recovery Effort and Apply Lessons Learned to Future Recovery Missions," General Accountability Office, September 2005. By Andrew J. Grotto January/February 2006 pp. 61-63 (vol. 62, no. 01) © 2005 [A] sk big city mayors to list the terrorist threats they worry about most, and they'll probably put a "dirty bomb" attack near or at the top of the list. Of the unconventional weapons that a terrorist could use to attack the United States, a dirty bomb is arguably the most probable. The components for building a dirty bomb are (comparatively speaking) more numerous and technologically less complex to work with than those needed to construct and deliver a viable nuclear, chemical, or biological weapon. Built by packing conventional explosives with radioactive materials, a dirty bomb is primarily a psychological weapon, designed to induce chaos and panic by preying on the public's fear of radiation. If especially potent radiological materials are used, a dirty bomb attack also has the potential to cause massive economic damage--trillions of dollars, under some plausible scenarios. A troubling new report issued by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) in September 2005 ("DOD Should Evaluate Its Source Recovery Effort and Apply Lessons Learned to Future Recovery Missions"), suggests that the Iraq War may have elevated the dirty bomb threat by creating a window of opportunity for terrorists or others to steal from Iraq's unprotected inventory of thousands of radiological sources that were used in a variety of industrial, medical, and other applications. Common sources include nuclear well-logging tools, used in oil exploration, and teletherapy devices, used to treat cancer. In the chaos that followed the fall of Baghdad, these sources were often left unguarded, making them attractive targets for sophisticated looters. (Even to the untrained eye, radiological sources may appear valuable, thereby attracting salvagers who may be unaware of the potential of their plunder. In 1987, for instance, scavengers in the Brazilian town of Goiania dismantled a radiotherapy machine containing cesium 137 and inadvertently contaminated hundreds of people and 40 city blocks.) What's especially frustrating about this mess is that the Defense Department knew prior to the invasion and occupation of Iraq that thousands of radiological sources were scattered across the country. Yet, the GAO concludes, the Pentagon "was not ready to collect and secure radiological sources in Iraq at the start of the hostilities in March 2003." As a result, during the first six months of the conflict, Defense provided no guidance to commanders in the field on how to collect and secure radiological sources. Troops did not have the proper equipment or training and were forced to improvise. Even Defense's 11-person Nuclear Disablement Team--sent to Iraq to deal with nuclear weapons facilities--lacked the proper equipment. The GAO described an instance where the team "had to move highly radioactive sources with an ice cooler that was lined with lead bricks." The underlying cause of this chaos was the failure of the Pentagon to adequately consult and coordinate with other U.S. agencies--most notably, the Energy Department, which is the U.S. agency with the most expertise and experience in dealing with radiological sources. The Pentagon, acting through the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), which is responsible for preventing the spread of unconventional weapons, didn't begin coordinating with Energy until the month hostilities began. From that point, bureaucratic politics impeded progress. Such interagency friction--in this case, a series of technical and legal disputes--is perhaps unsurprising. What is especially remarkable, the GAO found, was the friction within Defense (between DTRA and the military) over something as basic as to what extent the military would provide security for DTRA and Energy technical experts working in the field. By September 2003, according to the GAO, many of these problems appeared to have been resolved, enabling DTRA to collect and secure approximately 1,400 radiological sources in 140 collection missions and to verify the security of an additional 700 sources. The total number of sources remaining in Iraq is unknown, however, because Saddam Hussein's regime did not keep comprehensive records. The State Department has helped Iraq create an Iraqi Radiological Source Regulatory Agency, and Energy and State are providing the fledgling agency with financial and technical assistance. It's an impressive record of accomplishment, although it's distressing that it took the Pentagon so long to get its act together. The report is wanting in one crucial respect, however: It fails to detail why the Pentagon neglected to have a plan in place before the war. The GAO's description of Defense's slippage on potential radiological threats emanating from Iraq--its failure to anticipate looting, to provide troops with the right equipment, and to draw on the expertise of other agencies--would be an appropriate picture of Defense's planning for the Iraq invasion writ large. What specific bureaucratic and political forces caused Defense to determine that Iraq's radiological sources posed a threat, but then wait so long to act? It's hard to believe that there's not more to this story than interagency bickering. The GAO hints at one explanation, but demurs on saying it outright: The Pentagon did not regard radiological sources as a serious threat. The report found that Defense "has not comprehensively reviewed its experiences in collecting and securing radiological sources in Iraq," which suggests a lack of interest in the matter. The persistence of bureaucratic obstacles is also strong evidence of the Pentagon's apathy--if the senior leadership had perceived unsecured radiological sources as a high-priority threat, they would have intervened and settled the matter. In fairness to Defense, another possible explanation is that the Pentagon could not have pulled together a plan in the short period between when the Bush administration made the decision to invade Iraq and the launching of the invasion. If that is the case, then the heightened risk of a dirty bomb attack on U.S. soil is yet another consequence of the White House's rush to war. Andrew J. Grotto is a national security analyst at the Center for American Progress, where he researches and writes on nuclear weapons strategy and nonproliferation. January/February 2006 pp. 61-63 (vol. 62, no. 01) © 2005 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Copyright 2005 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists ***************************************************************** 3 AFP: US memo in 2002 doubted Niger uranium sale to Iraq Wed Jan 18, 2:41 PM ET WASHINGTON (AFP) - Well before President George W. Bush" /> President George W. Bushsaid in 2003 that Iraq" /> Iraqwas buying uranium from Niger, a high-level State Department intelligence assessment deemed the deal "unlikely" for several reasons, a US daily reported. The document cast doubt on the alleged purchases as France controlled the uranium industry in Niger and could block the sale, Niger was avoiding actions that risked it losing US and other foreign aid, and moving tonnes of uranium by truck across the border would be very difficult to do and easy to detect. The March 2002 memo was distributed at senior levels, but a White House official would not say whether Bush had seen it before his State of the Union address in January 2003, in which he cited the uranium deal as a sign Iraq was secretly developing nuclear weapons, The New York Times daily said. Known as the infamous "16 words," the charge was pivotal in justifying the US-led invasion of Iraq two months later. The White House has since admitted it was based on faulty intelligence and should have been struck from the speech. While the State Department's intelligence assessment has been mentioned in past media reports and by a bipartisan commission that last year analyzed intelligence failures in Iraq, it was never disclosed in its entirety. The memo was only recently declassified as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by Judicial Watch, which provided The New York Times with a copy. Judicial Watch director Chris Farrell said the analysis was "a very strong, well-thought-out argument that looks at the whole playing field in Niger, and it makes a compelling case for why the uranium sale was so unlikely." Italian intelligence officials recently concluded that some of the documents supporting the alleged Iraq-Niger-uranium link had been forged by an occasional Italian spy. Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 4 Fwd: Konformist: Nuclear War Against Iran Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2006 00:04:26 -0600 (CST) From: "Robert Sterling" Mailing-List: list konformist@yahoogroups.com; contact konformist-owner@yahoogroups.com Date: Sun, 15 Jan 2006 15:08:41 -0000 Subject: Konformist: Nuclear War Against Iran Please send as far and wide as possible. Thanks, Robert Sterling Editor, The Konformist http://www.konformist.com Nuclear War Against Iran By Michel Chossudovsky GlobalResearch.ca 1-5-6 The launching of an outright war using nuclear warheads against Iran is now in the final planning stages. Coalition partners, which include the US, Israel and Turkey are in "an advanced stage of readiness". Various military exercises have been conducted, starting in early 2005. In turn, the Iranian Armed Forces have also conducted large scale military maneuvers in the Persian Gulf in December in anticipation of a US sponsored attack. Since early 2005, there has been intense shuttle diplomacy between Washington, Tel Aviv, Ankara and NATO headquarters in Brussels. In recent developments, CIA Director Porter Goss on a mission to Ankara, requested Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan "to provide political and logistic support for air strikes against Iranian nuclear and military targets." Goss reportedly asked " for special cooperation from Turkish intelligence to help prepare and monitor the operation." (DDP, 30 December 2005). In turn, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has given the green light to the Israeli Armed Forces to launch the attacks by the end of March: All top Israeli officials have pronounced the end of March, 2006, as the deadline for launching a military assault on Iran.... The end of March date also coincides with the IAEA report to the UN on Iran's nuclear energy program. Israeli policymakers believe that their threats may influence the report, or at least force the kind of ambiguities, which can be exploited by its overseas supporters to promote Security Council sanctions or justify Israeli military action. (James Petras, Israel's War Deadline: Iran in the Crosshairs, Global Research, December 2005)The US sponsored military plan has been endorsed by NATO, although it is unclear, at this stage, as to the nature of NATO's involvement in the planned aerial attacks. "Shock and Awe" The various components of the military operation are firmly under US Command, coordinated by the Pentagon and US Strategic Command Headquarters (USSTRATCOM) at the Offutt Air Force base in Nebraska. The actions announced by Israel would be carried out in close coordination with the Pentagon. The command structure of the operation is centralized and ultimately Washington will decide when to launch the military operation. US military sources have confirmed that an aerial attack on Iran would involve a large scale deployment comparable to the US "shock and awe" bombing raids on Iraq in March 2003: American air strikes on Iran would vastly exceed the scope of the 1981 Israeli attack on the Osiraq nuclear center in Iraq, and would more resemble the opening days of the 2003 air campaign against Iraq. Using the full force of operational B-2 stealth bombers, staging from Diego Garcia or flying direct from the United States, possibly supplemented by F-117 stealth fighters staging from al Udeid in Qatar or some other location in theater, the two-dozen suspect nuclear sites would be targeted. Military planners could tailor their target list to reflect the preferences of the Administration by having limited air strikes that would target only the most crucial facilities ... or the United States could opt for a far more comprehensive set of strikes against a comprehensive range of WMD related targets, as well as conventional and unconventional forces that might be used to counterattack against US forces in Iraq (See Globalsecurity.org at http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/iran-strikes.htmIn November, US Strategic Command conducted a major exercise of a "global strike plan" entitled "Global Lightening". The latter involved a simulated attack using both conventional and nuclear weapons against a "fictitious enemy". Following the "Global Lightening" exercise, US Strategic Command declared an advanced state of readiness (See our analysis below) While Asian press reports stated that the "fictitious enemy" in the Global Lightening exercise was North Korea, the timing of the exercises, suggests that they were conducted in anticipation of a planned attack on Iran. Consensus for Nuclear War No dissenting political voices have emerged from within the European Union. There are ongoing consultations between Washington, Paris and Berlin. Contrary to the invasion of Iraq, which was opposed at the diplomatic level by France and Germany, Washington has been building "a consensus" both within the Atlantic Alliance and the UN Security Council. This consensus pertains to the conduct of a nuclear war, which could potentially affect a large part of the Middle East Central Asian region. Moreover, a number of frontline Arab states are now tacit partners in the US/ Israeli military project. A year ago in November 2004, Israel's top military brass met at NATO headqaurters in Brtussels with their counterparts from six members of the Mediterranean basin nations, including Egypt, Jordan, Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria and Mauritania. A NATO-Israel protocol was signed. Following these meetings, joint military exercises were held off the coast of Syria involving the US, Israel and Turkey. and in February 2005, Israel participated in military exercises and "anti-terror maneuvers" together with several Arab countries. The media in chorus has unequivocally pointed to Iran as a "threat to World Peace". The antiwar movement has swallowed the media lies. The fact that the US and Israel are planning a Middle East nuclear holocaust is not part of the antiwar/ anti- globalization agenda. The "surgical strikes" are presented to world public opinion as a means to preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons. We are told that this is not a war but a military peace-keeping operation, in the form of aerial attacks directed against Iran's nuclear facilities. Mini-nukes: "Safe for Civilians" The press reports, while revealing certain features of the military agenda, largely serve to distort the broader nature of the military operation, which contemplates the preemptive use of tactical nuclear weapons. The war agenda is based on the Bush administration's doctrine of "preemptive" nuclear war under the 2002 Nuclear Posture Review. Media disinformation has been used extensively to conceal the devastating consequences of military action involving nuclear warheads against Iran. The fact that these surgical strikes would be carried out using both conventional and nuclear weapons is not an object of debate. According to a 2003 Senate decision, the new generation of tactical nuclear weapons or "low yield" "mini-nukes", with an explosive capacity of up to 6 times a Hiroshima bomb, are now considered "safe for civilians" because the explosion is underground. Through a propaganda campaign which has enlisted the support of "authoritative" nuclear scientists, the mini-nukes are being presented as an instrument of peace rather than war. The low-yield nukes have now been cleared for "battlefield use", they are slated to be used in the next stage of America's "war on Terrorism" alongside conventional weapons: Administration officials argue that low-yield nuclear weapons are needed as a credible deterrent against rogue states.[Iran, North Korea] Their logic is that existing nuclear weapons are too destructive to be used except in a full-scale nuclear war. Potential enemies realize this, thus they do not consider the threat of nuclear retaliation to be credible. However, low-yield nuclear weapons are less destructive, thus might conceivably be used. That would make them more effective as a deterrent. ( Opponents Surprised By Elimination of Nuke Research Funds Defense News November 29, 2004) In an utterly twisted logic, nuclear weapons are presented as a means to building peace and preventing "collateral damage". The Pentagon has intimated, in this regard, that the 'mini-nukes' (with a yield of less than 5000 tons) are harmless to civilians because the explosions 'take place under ground'. Each of these 'mini- nukes', nonetheless, constitutes - in terms of explosion and potential radioactive fallout - a significant fraction of the atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. Estimates of yield for Nagasaki and Hiroshima indicate that they were respectively of 21000 and 15000 tons ( http://www.warbirdforum.com/hiroshim.htm In other words, the low yielding mini-nukes have an explosive capacity of one third of a Hiroshima bomb. The earth-penetrating capability of the [nuclear] B61-11 is fairly limited, however. Tests show it penetrates only 20 feet or so into dry earth when dropped from an altitude of 40,000 feet. Even so, by burying itself into the ground before detonation, a much higher proportion of the explosion energy is transferred to ground shock compared to a surface bursts. Any attempt to use it in an urban environment, however, would result in massive civilian casualties. Even at the low end of its 0.3-300 kiloton yield range, the nuclear blast will simply blow out a huge crater of radioactive material, creating a lethal gamma-radiation field over a large area. http://www.fas.org/faspir/2001/v54n1/weapons.htm Gbu 28 Guided Bomb Unit-28 (GBU-28) The new definition of a nuclear warhead has blurred the distinction between conventional and nuclear weapons: 'It's a package (of nuclear and conventional weapons). The implication of this obviously is that nuclear weapons are being brought down from a special category of being a last resort, or sort of the ultimate weapon, to being just another tool in the toolbox,' said Kristensen. (Japan Economic News Wire, op cit)We are a dangerous crossroads: military planners believe their own propaganda. The military manuals state that this new generation of nuclear weapons are "safe" for use in the battlefield. They are no longer a weapon of last resort. There are no impediments or political obstacles to their use. In this context, Senator Edward Kennedy has accused the Bush Administration for having developed "a generation of more useable nuclear weapons." The international community has endorsed nuclear war in the name of World Peace. "Making the World safer" is the justification for launching a military operation which could potentially result in a nuclear holocaust. But nuclear holocausts are not front page news! In the words of Mordechai Vanunu, The Israeli government is preparing to use nuclear weapons in its next war with the Islamic world. Here where I live, people often talk of the Holocaust. But each and every nuclear bomb is a Holocaust in itself. It can kill, devastate cities, destroy entire peoples. (See interview with Mordechai Vanunu, December 2005). Space and Earth Attack Command Unit A preemptive nuclear attack using tactical nuclear weapons would be coordinated out of US Strategic Command Headquarters at the Offutt Air Force base in Nebraska, in liaison with US and coalition command units in the Persian Gulf, the Diego Garcia military base, Israel and Turkey. Under its new mandate, USSTRATCOM has a responsibility for "overseeing a global strike plan" consisting of both conventional and nuclear weapons. In military jargon, it is slated to play the role of "a global integrator charged with the missions of Space Operations; Information Operations; Integrated Missile Defense; Global Command & Control; Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance; Global Strike; and Strategic Deterrence.... " In January 2005, at the outset of the military build-up directed against Iran, USSTRATCOM was identified as "the lead Combatant Command for integration and synchronization of DoD-wide efforts in combating weapons of mass destruction." To implement this mandate, a brand new command unit entitled Joint Functional Component Command Space and Global Strike, or JFCCSGS was created. JFCCSGS has the mandate to oversee the launching of a nuclear attack in accordance with the 2002 Nuclear Posture Review, approved by the US Congress in 2002. The NPR underscores the pre-emptive use of nuclear warheads not only against "rogue states" but also against China and Russia. Since November, JFCCSGS is said to be in "an advance state of readiness" following the conduct of relevant military exercises. The announcement was made in early December by U.S. Strategic Command to the effect that the command unit had achieved "an operational capability for rapidly striking targets around the globe using nuclear or conventional weapons." The exercises conducted in November used "a fictional country believed to represent North Korea" (see David Ruppe, 2 December 2005): "The new unit [JFCCSGS] has 'met requirements necessary to declare an initial operational capability' as of Nov. 18. A week before this announcement, the unit finished a command-post exercise, dubbed Global Lightening, which was linked with another exercise, called Vigilant Shield, conducted by the North American Aerospace Defend Command, or NORAD, in charge of missile defense for North America. 'After assuming several new missions in 2002, U.S. Strategic Command was reorganized to create better cooperation and cross-functional awareness,' said Navy Capt. James Graybeal, a chief spokesperson for STRATCOM. 'By May of this year, the JFCCSGS has published a concept of operations and began to develop its day-to-day operational requirements and integrated planning process.' 'The command's performance during Global Lightning demonstrated its preparedness to execute its mission of proving integrated space and global strike capabilities to deter and dissuade aggressors and when directed, defeat adversaries through decisive joint global effects in support of STRATCOM,' he added without elaborating about 'new missions' of the new command unit that has around 250 personnel. Nuclear specialists and governmental sources pointed out that one of its main missions would be to implement the 2001 nuclear strategy that includes an option of preemptive nuclear attacks on 'rogue states' with WMDs. (Japanese Economic Newswire, 30 December 2005) CONCEPT PLAN (CONPLAN) 8022 JFCCSGS is in an advanced state of readiness to trigger nuclear attacks directed against Iran or North Korea. The operational implementation of the Global Strike is called CONCEPT PLAN (CONPLAN) 8022. The latter is described as "an actual plan that the Navy and the Air Force translate into strike package for their submarines and bombers,' (Ibid). CONPLAN 8022 is 'the overall umbrella plan for sort of the pre- planned strategic scenarios involving nuclear weapons.' 'It's specifically focused on these new types of threats -- Iran, North Korea -- proliferators and potentially terrorists too,' he said. 'There's nothing that says that they can't use CONPLAN 8022 in limited scenarios against Russian and Chinese targets.'(According to Hans Kristensen, of the Nuclear Information Project, quoted in Japanese economic News Wire, op cit) The mission of JFCCSGS is to implement CONPLAN 8022, in other words to trigger a nuclear war with Iran. The Commander in Chief, namely George W. Bush would instruct the Secretary of Defense, who would then instruct the Joint Chiefs of staff to activate CONPLAN 8022. CONPLAN is distinct from other military operations. it does not contemplate the deployment of ground troops. CONPLAN 8022 is different from other war plans in that it posits a small-scale operation and no "boots on the ground." The typical war plan encompasses an amalgam of forces -- air, ground, sea -- and takes into account the logistics and political dimensions needed to sustain those forces in protracted operations.... The global strike plan is offensive, triggered by the perception of an imminent threat and carried out by presidential order.) (William Arkin, Washington Post, May 2005) The Role of Israel Since late 2004, Israel has been stockpiling US made conventional and nuclear weapons systems in anticipation of an attack on Iran. This stockpiling which is financed by US military aid was largely completed in June 2005. Israel has taken delivery from the US of several thousand "smart air launched weapons" including some 500 'bunker-buster bombs, which can also be used to deliver tactical nuclear bombs. The B61-11 is the "nuclear version" of the "conventional" BLU 113, can be delivered in much same way as the conventional bunker buster bomb. (See Michel Chossudovsky, http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO112C.html , see also http://www.thebulletin.org/article_nn.php?art_ofn=jf03norris ) . Moreover, reported in late 2003, Israeli Dolphin-class submarines equipped with US Harpoon missiles armed with nuclear warheads are now aimed at Iran. (See Gordon Thomas, http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/THO311A.html Late April 2005. Sale of deadly military hardware to Israel. GBU-28 Buster Bunker Bombs: Coinciding with Putin's visit to Israel, the US Defence Security Cooperation Agency (Department of Defense) announced the sale of an additional 100 bunker-buster bombs produced by Lockheed Martin to Israel. This decision was viewed by the US media as "a warning to Iran about its nuclear ambitions." The sale pertains to the larger and more sophisticated "Guided Bomb Unit-28 (GBU-28) BLU-113 Penetrator" (including the WGU-36A/B guidance control unit and support equipment). The GBU-28 is described as "a special weapon for penetrating hardened command centers located deep underground. The fact of the matter is that the GBU-28 is among the World's most deadly "conventional" weapons used in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, capable of causing thousands of civilian deaths through massive explosions. The Israeli Air Force are slated to use the GBU-28s on their F-15 aircraft. (See text of DSCA news release at http://www.dsca.osd.mil/PressReleases/36-b/2005/Israel_05- 10_corrected.pdf Extension of the War Tehran has confirmed that it will retaliate if attacked, in the form of ballistic missile strikes directed against Israel (CNN, 8 Feb 2005). These attacks, could also target US military facilities in Iraq and Persian Gulf, which would immediately lead us into a scenario of military escalation and all out war. At present there are three distinct war theaters: Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine. The air strikes against Iran could contribute to unleashing a war in the broader Middle East Central Asian region. Moreover, the planned attack on Iran should also be understood in relation to the timely withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon, which has opened up a new space, for the deployment of Israeli forces. The participation of Turkey in the US-Israeli military operation is also a factor, following last year's agreement reached between Ankara and Tel Aviv. More recently, Tehran has beefed up its air defenses through the acquisition of Russian 29 Tor M-1 anti-missile systems. In October, with Moscow`s collaboration, "a Russian rocket lifted an Iranian spy satellite, the Sinah-1, into orbit." (see Chris Floyd) The Sinah-1 is just the first of several Iranian satellites set for Russian launches in the coming months. Thus the Iranians will soon have a satellite network in place to give them early warning of an Israeli attack, although it will still be a pale echo of the far more powerful Israeli and American space spies that can track the slightest movement of a Tehran mullah's beard. What's more, late last month Russia signed a $1 billion contract to sell Iran an advanced defense system that can destroy guided missiles and laser-guided bombs, the Sunday Times reports. This too will be ready in the next few months. (op.cit.)Ground War While a ground war is not envisaged under CONPLAN, the aerial bombings could lead through the process of escalation into a ground war. Iranian troops could cross the Iran-Iraq border and confront coalition forces inside Iraq. Israeli troops and/or Special Forces could enter into Lebanon and Syria. In recent developments, Israel plans to conduct military exercises as well as deploy Special Forces in the mountainous areas of Turkey bordering Iran and Syria with the collaboration of the Ankara government: Ankara and Tel Aviv have come to an agreement on allowing the Israeli army to carry out military exercises in the mountainous areas [in Turkey] that border Iran. [According to] ... a UAE newspaper ..., according to the agreement reached by the Joint Chief of Staff of the Israeli army, Dan Halutz, and Turkish officials, Israel is to carry out various military manoeuvres in the areas that border Iran and Syria. [Punctuation as published here and throughout.] [Dan Halutz] had gone to Turkey a few days earlier. Citing certain sources without naming them, the UAE daily goes on to stress: The Israeli side made the request to carry out the manoeuvres because of the difficulty of passage in the mountain terrains close to Iran's borders in winter. The two Hakari [phonetic; not traced] and Bulo [phonetic; not traced] units are to take part in the manoeuvres that have not been scheduled yet. The units are the most important of Israel's special military units and are charged with fighting terrorism and carrying out guerrilla warfare. Earlier Turkey had agreed to Israeli pilots being trained in the area bordering Iran. The news [of the agreement] is released at a time when Turkish officials are trying to evade the accusation of cooperating with America in espionage operations against its neighbouring countries Syria and Iran. Since last week the Arab press has been publishing various reports about Ankara's readiness or, at least, agreement in principle to carry out negotiations about its soil and air space being used for action against Iran. (E'temad website, Tehran, in Persian 28 Dec 05, BBC Monitoring Services Translation) Concluding remarks The implications are overwhelming. The so-called international community has accepted the eventuality of a nuclear holocaust. Those who decide have swallowed their own war propaganda. A political consensus has developed in Western Europe and North America regarding the aerial attacks using tactical nuclear weapons, without considering their devastating implications. This profit driven military adventure ultimately threatens the future of humanity. What is needed in the months ahead is a major thrust, nationally and internationally which breaks the conspiracy of silence, which acknowledges the dangers, which brings this war project to the forefront of political debate and media attentiion, at all levels, which confronts and requires political and military leaders to take a firm stance against the US sponsored nuclear war. Ultimately what is required are extensive international sanctions directed against the United States of America and Israel. Michel Chossudovsky is the author of the international best seller "The Globalization of Poverty " published in eleven languages. He is Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Center for Research on Globalization, at www.globalresearch.ca . He is also a contributor to the Encyclopaedia Britannica. His most recent book is entitled: America's "War on Terrorism", Global Research, 2005., Related article: Planned US-Israeli Attack on Iran, by Michel Chossudovsky Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Centre for Research on Globalization. To become a Member of Global Research The Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) at www.globalresearch.ca grants permission to cross-post original Global Research articles in their entirety, or any portions thereof, on community internet sites, as long as the text & title are not modified. The source must be acknowledged and an active URL hyperlink address to the original CRG article must be indicated. The author's copyright note must be displayed. 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IMPEACH! http://fornits.com/renegade/peaars.cgi?keywords=impeach+bush Search /RENEGADE/ for articles that mention TERRORISM- http://fornits.com/renegade/peaars.cgi?keywords=terror&increment=weeks&many=26 [only articles for the last six months will be indexed] Search /RENEGADE/ for articles that mention ENVIRONMENT - http://fornits.com/renegade/peaars.cgi?keywords=ENVIRONMENT&increment=weeks&many=26 [only articles for the last six months will be indexed] /RENEGADE/ Search - GO TO: http://fornits.com/renegade/peaars.cgi? and just type in your topic. For differing results you may uncheck "article" and search on just "subject," etc. /RENEGADE/ also has "time-frame" in the search, so you can tailor your results that way, too. -- Peace! *STRIDER* Sector Air Raid Warden at /RENEGADE/ Home: http://fornits.com/renegade/ DEDICATED TO SPIRIT, TRUTH, PEACE, JUSTICE, AND FREEDOM Articles posted in the last 10 days: http://fornits.com/renegade/peaars.cgi?search=Search&increment=days&many=10 Blogs: Strider's RENEGADE [activism] http://striders-renegade.blogspot.com/ Strider's REDEMPTION SONG [movies, music & thoughts] http://striders-redemption-song.blogspot.com/ Bay_Area_Activist list ---- Membership by invitation only - moderated / archives for members only Contact bay_area_activist-owner@yahoogroups.com to request membership. EF! list --------------- earthfirstalert - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/earthfirstalert List-Subscribe: usenet: news:misc.activism.progressive e-mail: mailto:strider@fornits.com strider@fornits.com No War! No Nukes! Impeach! SOS! WHEN SPIDERS UNITE, THEY CAN TIE DOWN A LION -- Ethiopian Proverb ***************************************************************** 5 Iaea Board To Hold Special Meeting On Iran On 2 February Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2006 16:00:14 -0500 The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) today <"http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/MediaAdvisory/2006/MA200602.html">announced that its Board of Governors will hold a special meeting on Iran on 2 February in Vienna. The meeting was requested by France, Germany and the United Kingdom – the so-called “EU-3” – in a letter today to the Chair of the Board to discuss the implementation of IAEA Safeguards in Iran and related Board resolutions. The move comes a week after Tehran broke the IAEA seals on equipment used to produce enriched uranium, ending their suspension of those activities. Iran contends that it is only conducting research and development for peaceful purposes, but other countries, including the United States, suspect a clandestine effort to produce nuclear arms. Last September, the Board of Governors found that Iran’s breaches of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) were within the competence of the Security Council, which can impose sanctions, but did not refer the matter to the 15-member body. Earlier this week, IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei told Newsweek magazine that after three years of intensive work, the Agency cannot verify that Iran’s nuclear ambitions are entirely peaceful. “If they have the nuclear material and they have a parallel weaponization programme along the way, they are really not very far – a few months – from a weapon,” he said. 2006-01-18 00:00:00.000 ________________ For more details go to UN News Centre at http://www.un.org/news To change your profile or unsubscribe go to: http://www.un.org/news/dh/latest/subscribe.shtml ***************************************************************** 6 IPS-English IRAN-NUKE PROGRAMME: Call for a Middle East free Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2006 19:34:32 -0800 AP WD CR DV IP ML=20 IRAN-NUKE PROGRAMME: Call for a Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction Att.Editors: The following item is from the Emirates News Agency (WAM) ABU DHABI, Jan.18 (WAM) - Iran's going after weapons of mass destruction would only exacerbate the already tense situation in the Gulf and swell t= he gap of mistrust that exists between Iran and its Asian neighbours, a Unit= ed Arab Emirates (UAE) paper warned. =94During its recent summit, the Gulf Cooperation Council expressed legitimate concerns over the Iranian programme. But wisely enough, it refrained from explicitly criticising Iran in the final communiqu=E9. It = was a goodwill message and we hope the Iranians got it. We want to believe the Iranians when they say they are not developing a weapons programme,=94 wr= ote the 'Gulf News' in its editorial. In its daily comment, the Dubai-based paper said: =94Saudi Arabia and = Egypt again yesterday appealed to the Iranian leadership to abide by that promi= se. Both countries also urged the international community to stick to dialogu= e and transparent diplomacy in dealing with the issue. =94It is wise to use diplomacy with a 'proud' country such as Iran, sa= ys Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al Faisal. Cornering Iran using the threat of force, like what the U.S. and Israel are doing, will plunge thi= s region into chaos,=94 the paper remarked. The situation, it added, is bad as it is with Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon. But more important is the need for the big powers, especially th= e permanent members of the UN Security Council, to address the issue of nuclear weapons with one standard. According to the paper, Al Faisal is right when he says that the West bore some responsibility for the desire of some countries to pursue unconventional weapons by not only helping Israel develop more than 200 nuclear warheads but also granting the Jewish state immunity from international accountability. =94Arab states, particularly in the Gulf, which will naturally bear th= e burnt of an unconventional arms race, have frequently called for a Middle East free from weapons of mass destruction. =94It is time the West listened and acted thereupon. Not only against = the suspected states but also against those who do have such weapons, such as Israel,=94 concluded the paper. (WAM) =20 ***************************************************************** 7 [NYTr] Europe wants UN to force Iran into nuclear freeze Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2006 16:38:55 -0600 (CST) Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit sent by Simon McGuinness [It is difficult to determine where the imperial pretensions of certain European countries end and their role as poodles of US imperialism begins in relation to Iran. Corporations describe this effect as "synergy". Anti-imperialists the world over recognise it as the same old imperialist rhetoric. - SMcG] The Independent - 18 January 2006 http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article339305.ece Europe wants UN to force Iran into nuclear freeze By Anne Penketh, Diplomatic Editor European powers are pressing ahead with plans to refer Iran to the UN Security Council - hoping to force Tehran to resume a nuclear freeze - despite lacking support from China and Russia. A senior Foreign Office official said the Europeans intended to use the Security Council to bring to bear "gradual sustained pressure over time" on Iran. "Security Council involvement will have an impact - it has weight and authority. A country cannot ignore it without cost," said the official, who chaired talks in London on Monday attended by the five permanent members of the security council as well as Germany. Britain, France and Germany want the Security Council to oblige Iran to return to a freeze on enriching uranium, by making such a requirement legally binding. "After that, we can explore a range of other measures down the track," the official said. Economic sanctions have so far been ruled out as an option to punish Iran for ending a two-year voluntary moratorium on enriching uranium at its Natanz site. The Iranian move last week prompted Britain, France and Germany to break off talks, heralding a new phase of confrontation. But the military option is not on the table. "We are all committed to resolving this by diplomatic means," the British official stressed. However, he acknowledged it was not yet known whether Russia and China - allies of Iran on the Security Council - will back the Europeans' plan to refer Tehran to the council at an emergency session of the UN nuclear watchdog next month. Although Britain hopes to build a consensus for the move, the referral is expected to require a vote by the 35-nation governors' board of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), on which such nations as Syria, Belarus and Cuba sit. "A great deal of diplomacy" was still needed before the meeting on 2 February, the official said. The French Foreign Minister, Philippe Douste-Blazy, said yesterday, before heading to Russia for talks, that the credibility of the IAEA and the entire non-proliferation system was at stake over the Iran issue. UN officials said the main challenge for the Europeans, who are acting with US backing, is to get Iran on to the UN Security Council agenda, the bottom rung of a ladder that could eventually lead to punitive action. In the past, China has successfully blocked attempts to refer North Korea to the council. Russia, which like China is opposed to economic sanctions being imposed on Iran, remains hopeful that Tehran will accept a compromise solution involving the enrichment of uranium from Iran by the Russians. But Britain believes the Iranians are "playing with the Russians for tactical reasons," the senior British official said. The question overshadowing the crisis is whether Iran craves international respectability more than nuclear power, amid fears that the threat to refer the Islamic republic before the Security Council could be counter-productive. The IAEA chief, Mohamed ElBaradei, said that Iran's threat to end co-operation with UN snap inspections would "backfire" by fuelling suspicions about Iranian intentions, "and that will hurt Iran". British diplomats meanwhile played down Iran's threat to use oil as a bargaining tool - by suspending supplies in case of referral to the Security Council - arguing that Iranian allies such as China could be hurt by the move. Mr ElBaradei has fixed a deadline of 6 March, when the IAEA's next regular board meeting is scheduled, for Iran to come clean on the full extent of its nuclear programme. The Europeans and Britain believe Iran has been working on a nuclear weapons programme under cover of a civilian programme. However, Iran insists its intentions are peaceful. The Europeans clearly hope Iran does not want to be isolated, and it will yield to pressure. Iran's offer of more talks was rejected as "vacuous" by Britain yesterday. * ================================================================ .NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems . Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us . .339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org .List Archives: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/ .Subscribe: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr ================================================================ ***************************************************************** 8 [NYTr] Rice rejects renewal of talks with Iran Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2006 16:41:00 -0600 (CST) Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit AP via USA Today - Jan 18, 2006 http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-01-18-riceiran_x.htm?csp=34 Rice rejects renewal of talks with Iran WASHINGTON (AP) Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Wednesday brushed aside suggestions about a possible resumption of negotiations with Iran on its nuclear program. "There's not much to talk about," Rice said during a photo session at the State Department with the European Union's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana. Rice noted that Iran recently broke a suspension on research into atomic activities. Solana agreed that "there is not much point" in resuming talks if there is "nothing new on the table." Rice said Iran must not be allowed to have a nuclear weapons capability or "to pursue activities that might to a nuclear weapons capability." Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. * ================================================================ .NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems . Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us . .339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org .List Archives: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/ .Subscribe: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr ================================================================ ***************************************************************** 9 [du-list] 1/18 Nuke Watch: Latest On The Iranian Nuclear Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2006 19:36:55 -0800 Nuke Watch: Latest On The Iranian Nuclear Standoff Nuke Watch - Projects of the Peace No War Network January 18, 2006 URL: _http://www.nukewatch.net_ (http://www.nukewatch.net/) _http://www.PeaceNoWar.net_ (http://www.peacenowar.net/) Please cast your opinion votes on the current Iranian Nuclear standoff on our web page! URL: _http://peacenowar.net/newpeace/index.php?option=com_poll&task_ (http://peacenowar.net/newpeace/index.php?option=com_poll&task) 1/17: Greenpeace letter on Iran _Read the Letter_ (http://www.peacenowar.net/newpeace/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=43&Itemid=1) Cheney will Ask Mubarak for Egyptian Troops for Iraq: al-Zaman Will Cairo counter Tehran? (1/17: San Francisco Bay Area IMC) _Vice President Richard Bruce Cheney will meet Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak_ (http://www.sciencedaily.com/upi/?feed=TopNews&article=UPI-1-20060116-12075400-bc-egypt-cheney.xml) on Wednesday. _Al-Zaman ("The Times of Baghdad") says that its sources in Cairo_ (http://www.azzaman.com/azzaman/http/display.asp?fname=/azzaman/articles/2006/01/01-16/9955.htm) tell it that Cheney will ask that Egypt be ready to send troops to Iraq if the situation there calls for it. There has been no official acknowledgment of any such talks on either side, so it is a little speculative. But I think the reports are at least plausible, and are worth thinking about seriously. Iraqi politicians have repeatedly said that they might accept troops from other Muslim countries, but not from any direct neighbors. Egypt might therefore in principle be acceptable to them. The problem is that the government of Iraq is dominated by Shiites and Kurds, who are fighting Sunni Arabs. The Egyptians are Sunni Arabs, and will be suspected in Baghdad of sympathizing with the guerrilla movement. Still, if it were a matter of avoiding civil war or being taken out and shot by Zarqawi, perhaps the Shiite and Kurdish leaders could accept Egyptian troops out of desperation. Mubarak would certainly be happy to crack down on Muslim radicals such as the Zarqawi group, just as he has virtually destroyed the al-Jihad al-Islami and the al-Gama'ah al-Islamiyah in Egypt itself. The wording of the Al-Zaman article suggests that Cheney is angling with Mubarak for a contingency plan, in case things go very badly indeed when the US withdraws its troops. In other words, the Bush administration is going on hands and knees to Cairo because it is very, very desperate and very, very worried. Al-Zaman says that Cheney will also talk to Saudi Arabia about the issue. Since Saudi Arabia is a neighbor, and anyway doesn't have much of an army, presumably Cheney would be asking Riyadh to fund the Egyptian/ Arab peacekeeping force in Iraq. Saudi Arabia had played a similar role in funding the Syrian peacekeepers in Lebanon in the 1970s and after. Cheney will also seek greater support in the Arab world for the new Iraqi government, which will begin being formed as soon as the final results of the December 15 elections are announced. The previous Iraqi government had sometimes tense relations with the Arab League. Arab nationalist governments had tilted toward Saddam Hussein's Baath regime and had viewed the rise of a Shiite-Kurdish government in Baghdad, established by an American military intervention and with implicit Iranian support, with sullen suspicion. Mubarak may say "no." If he did show a willingness to get involved, what would impel it? 1. The Egyptian regime has been afraid of Iranian-inspired Muslim radicalism ever since the 1979 revolution. The opportunity to attempt to counter Iranian influence in Arab Iraq could seem attractive to the Egyptian military, and also could strike them as a form of self-defense. It is often forgotten that Muqtada al-Sadr's Kufa is not that far from Egypt's Asyut, and although Shiites are viewed as heretics by most Egyptians, Muslim radical ideas can jump across the sectarian divide. 2. Egypt receives $2 billion a year in US aid. Although that aid helps US corporations more than Egyptians, since it must be spent in the US, it is a prop for the regime. The opportunity to receive further aid from the US and Saudi Arabia for a role in Iraq could seem to the military regime in Cairo too good to pass up. _Significantly, al-Hayat reports that Cheney_ (http://www.daralhayat.com/world_news/01-2006/Item-20060116-d50d4626-c0a8-10ed-0013-5f0a58f030bd /story.html) is in charge of negotiating a free trade deal between Egypt and the United States, which would open the US market unrestrictedly to Egyptian exports and vice versa. _Bahrain, Jordan and Morocco already have such an arrangement_ (http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/storypage.aspx?StoryId=27070) . 3. If the US dumps the Iraq mess on the United Nations, and the Egyptian troops could serve under a UN command, the enterprise might be made palatable and legitimate to the Egyptian movers and shakers. That is, establishing order in the Arab nation in the wake of an imperial withdrawal (coded as a defeat) is a task that might appeal to the Egyptian political elite. 4. The Egyptian military has many contacts with the old Baathist elite that is a key player in the guerrilla movement, and might be able to broker an end to the unconventional civil war. 5. The Arab League member states _don't want Iran going nuclear_ (http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/Display_news.asp?section=World_News&subsection=Gulf,+Midd le+East+&+Africa&month=January2006&file=World_News2006011732220.xml) , and the Saudis have spoken publicly on this. An Egyptian military and intelligence presence in Iraq might strengthen Cairo's ability to monitor the Iranian program and would be a way for the Arabs to pressure Iran over it. The Egyptians want as a quid pro quo for the Americans to pressure Israel to give up its nukes, so as to make the Middle East a nuclear-free zone and stop the arms race in the region (which the Israeli Bomb impels). AP reported on Monday, Jan. 16 from Cairo: 'Egypt on Monday said it supported using nuclear technology for peaceful purposes but rejected the emergence of a nuclear military power in the region, in its first official reaction to the standoff over Iran's nuclear program. "All countries should adhere to their commitments in a way to allow the international community to be sure of the peaceful nature of the Iranian nuclear program, as we do not accept the emergence of a nuclear military power," Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said in a statement.' If the Kurds and the Shiites could be talked into it, a US withdrawal from Iraq in favor of an Arab League peace-keeping force might be the least bad end game for a terrifyingly unstable situation. The Article: _http://www.indybay.org/news/2006/01/1796122.php_ (http://www.indybay.org/news/2006/01/1796122.php) Iran Crisis: Cheney Plays the Egypt Card Vice president deals Mubarak in on nuclear standoff (1/17: Village Voice) With both Russia and China seeking to quiet the crisis over Iran’s nuclear program, Vice President Dick Cheney’s current visit to the Middle East, where he met with Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak Tuesday, seems likely to make matters worse. >> _Read More_ (http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0603,ridgeway,71804,6.html) ================================================================= Peace, No War War is not the answer, for only love can conquer hate Not in our Name! And another world is possible! Tel: (213)403-0131 Information for antiwar movements, news across the World, please visit: _http://www.PeaceNoWar.net_ (http://www.peacenowar.net/) Please Join PeaceNoWar Listserv, send e-mail to: _peacenowar-subscribe@lists.riseup.net_ (mailto:peacenowar-subscribe@lists.riseup.net) Please Donate to Peace No War Network! Send check pay to: ActionLA/SEE 1013 Mission St. #6 South Pasadena CA 91030 (All donations are tax deductible) <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> *To Translate this page to Arabic, please visit ajeeb.com: _http://tarjim.ajeeb.com/ajeeb/default.asp?lang=1_ (http://tarjim.ajeeb.com/ajeeb/default.asp?lang=1) *To Translate this page to French, Spanish, German, Italian or Portuguese, please visit Systran: _http://www.systransoft.com/_ (http://www.systransoft.com/) [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] To unsubscribe from this groups send a message to du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com. In the body of the message type unsubscribe and send. ***************************************************************** 10 Guardian Unlimited: World Opposed to Nuclear Iran, Rice Says From the Associated Press [UP] Wednesday January 18, 2006 9:02 PM AP Photo WX111 By BARRY SCHWEID AP Diplomatic Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Wednesday condemned Iran's decision to resume its nuclear program, saying the Islamic republic and its current leaders are not trusted with such technology. ``I think we have a good deal of coherence in the view of the major powers about the fact that Iran stepped over a line'' when it resumed reprocessing nuclear fuel, she said at a foreign policy forum. On Jan. 10, Iran removed some U.N. seals from its main uranium enrichment facility in Natanz in central Iran and resumed research on nuclear fuel - including small-scale enrichment - after a 2-year freeze. ``Nobody wants Iran to have that capability,'' Rice said at Georgetown University. Iran claims its purpose in processing is peaceful. The process also could produce weapons-grade nuclear material. Rice said Iran has a history of covering up its activities from oversight by the International Atomic Energy Agency, which will decide in early February whether to refer Tehran's activities to the U.N. Security Council. Despite Iran's stated objectives of developing more civilian energy, Rice said, ``no one does trust them with those technologies.'' ``The Iranians want to make this about their rights. It's not about their rights. It's about the ability of the international system to trust them with the capabilities and technologies that could lead to a nuclear weapon,'' Rice said. The United States, France, Britain and Germany want the Board of Governors of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency to convene an emergency meeting on Feb. 2 to refer Iran to the Security Council. President Bush called German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Wednesday to discuss recent developments in Iran, White House press secretary Scott McClellan said. He said the world's patience with Iran has worn thin. ``I think we're long passed the point of talk,'' McClellan said. ``We expect action from the regime in Iran. And the only action they have shown has run contrary to the demands of the international community.'' Earlier Wednesday, Rice brushed aside suggestions about a possible resumption of negotiations with Iran. France kept up the pressure, saying Iran must first suspend its nuclear activities. ``There's not much to talk about,'' Rice said during a photo session at the State Department with the European Union's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana. Solana agreed ``there is not much point'' in resuming talks if there is ``nothing new on the table.'' Later, after seeing Rice and national security adviser Stephen Hadley, Solana told reporters that Russia had proposed having the Security Council host a debate on Iran's nuclear activities. Solana said Russia made the proposal at a meeting Monday in London with senior U.S., European, Russian and Chinese diplomats. Such a debate would postpone a possible IAEA referral at least until the agency's March meeting. But Solana said ``we have the votes'' now to refer the dispute to the Security Council, and he did not support the notion of delay. Rice said Iran must not be allowed to have a nuclear weapons capability or ``to pursue activities that might to a nuclear weapons capability.'' In response to a question at the university, Rice said Iran presented ``a very difficult problem'' - for its support of terrorism in addition to its nuclear program. ``Iran, unlike so many countries in the region, has been going backward in terms of development at home,'' she said. She said that while much of Iran's population ``wants democracy and reform ... the unelected mullahs have done nothing but take power away'' from those seeking more democracy. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 ***************************************************************** 11 Guardian Unlimited: Europe Rejects Nuclear Talks With Iran From the Associated Press [UP] Wednesday January 18, 2006 9:47 PM AP Photo MOSB113 By ANGELA CHARLTON Associated Press Writer PARIS (AP) - Europe, backed by the United States, on Wednesday rejected Iran's request for talks on its nuclear program, cranking up international pressure on Tehran to suspend uranium enrichment. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said ``there's not much to talk about'' until Iran halts nuclear activity. But Iran's president accused the West of acting like the ``lord of the world'' in denying his country the peaceful use of the atom. The quick dismissal of Iran's request for a ministerial-level meeting with French, British and German negotiators focused attention on the next step: the U.S. and European push to refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council, which could impose economic and political sanctions. Russia and China, which have veto power on the council, appeared to remain the greatest obstacles. Both nations are opposed to sanctioning a country with which they have strong economic and strategic ties. In recent days, they have expressed reluctance even to the idea of referral. The national security adviser of Israel, which strongly supports hauling Iran before the Security Council, was in Moscow on Wednesday to make his country's case, as was the French foreign minister. Tehran's ambassador to Russia urged the Kremlin to resist what he called pressure from other countries. Even if there were consensus on sanctions, the five permanent Security Council members would be faced with a dilemma. Placing an embargo on Iran's oil exports would hurt Tehran, which earns most of its revenues from energy sales, but also roil world crude markets, spiking prices upward. Europe halted talks after Iran resumed uranium enrichment research this month. The West fears the nuclear program will lead to nuclear weapons, though Iran insists it is only for civilian use. ``Iran must return to a complete suspension of these activities,'' said French Foreign Ministry spokesman Denis Simonneau. He said Iran's decision to resume the research ``means that it is not possible for us to meet under satisfactory conditions to pursue these discussions.'' Simonneau said discussions are not possible either among ministers or ``at the level of civil servant'' as long as Iran pursues nuclear activities. In Washington, Rice and the European Union's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, also rejected any return to talks. France, Germany and Britain led the talks with Iran on behalf of the 25-member European bloc. Rice condemned Iran's decision to resume its nuclear program, saying the international community is united in mistrusting Tehran and its present leadership with such technology. Britain, too, refused to consider renewed talks. ``Iranian professions of continued interest in negotiations are ... not credible. The Iranians knew full well that resuming enrichment-related activity would trigger'' a halt to talks, and did it anyway, a British Foreign Office spokesman said Wednesday, speaking on condition of anonymity in keeping with government policy. In Vienna, the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, announced Wednesday that a special meeting of its 35-nation board of governors would be held Feb. 2. The United States, France, Britain and Germany had requested the meeting to consider referring Iran to the Security Council. Solana said that at a meeting in London on Monday, Russia proposed having the Security Council host a debate on Iran's nuclear activities. The proposal would postpone referral by the IAEA to the council for possible action against Iran at least until the agency's meeting in March. But Solana said ``we have the votes'' now to refer the dispute to the Security Council and that he did not support a delay. Even so, European allies will concentrate in coming weeks on building support among countries with a vote on the IAEA board, another British Foreign Office official told reporters. Egypt, which sits on the board, has balked at a formal referral, even after a direct request from Vice President Dick Cheney in talks Tuesday with President Hosni Mubarak. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier met in Cairo on Wednesday with his Egyptian counterpart and said the West's position met with ``understanding'' from Egypt. For its part, Iran sent a senior official to Cairo to meet Wednesday with Amr Moussa of the Arab League. The United States, Britain, France and Germany have drawn up a draft IAEA resolution that would ask the Security Council to press Tehran ``to extend full and prompt cooperation to the agency'' in its investigation of suspect nuclear activities - though it stops short of asking the council to impose sanctions. French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin said the IAEA meeting will be a ``very important moment.'' Speaking in Berlin after talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Villepin said European nations are seeking the ``greatest possible consensus to mark clearly the limit of what we can accept.'' However, neither he nor Merkel would say exactly what steps might be taken against Tehran. The German leader said Iran ``in no way fulfilled expectations'' during the two years of negotiations with Europe. President Bush called Merkel on Wednesday to discuss developments in Iran, said White House press secretary Scott McClellan. He said the world's patience with Iran has worn thin. ``I think we're long passed the point of talk,'' McClellan said. ``We expect action from the regime in Iran. And the only action they have shown has run contrary to the demands of the international community.'' Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad shrugged off attempts to refer Iran to the council. ``There isn't any problem. This is their endeavor,'' he told reporters. He accused the West of trying to deprive Iran of peaceful nuclear technology. ``We are asking they step down from their ivory towers and act with a little logic,'' he said. ``Who are you to deprive us from fulfilling our goals? You think you are the lord of the world and everybody should follow you. But that idea is a wrong idea.'' --- Associated Press writers Beth Gardiner in London, Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Henry Meyer in Moscow, George Jahn in Vienna and Barry Schweid in Washington contributed to this report. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 ***************************************************************** 12 AFP: Iran almost certain to be taken to Security Council over nuclear issue - VIENNA (AFP) - Iran is almost certain to be referred to the UN Security Council in February but sharp international divisions about how to crack down on the Iranian nuclear program remain, diplomats said. "One way or another it will move to New York," a senior European diplomat told AFP on Wednesday, certain that the United Nations watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency will send Iran before the Security Council when the IAEA's 35-nation board of governors meets in emergency session in ADVERTISEMENT [ src=] Vienna February 2-3. Iran said earlier this month it was terminating a voluntary moratorium on sensitive nuclear research, a move that prompted alarm around the world. But, said the diplomat, referral "is not going to change the situation really basically," referring to Russian and Chinese opposition to the US and European desire to threaten sanctions or other harsh measures in order to get Iran to guarantee it will not make nuclear weapons. The West has a majority of some 21 votes on the 35-member board, and Iranian allies Russia and China are expected to abstain when the Iranian issue comes up. But in New York, Russia and China each have a veto on the Council. US envoy to the UN John Bolton said in New York on Tuesday that the Iranian nuclear crisis was a key test for the Council, and warned there was no guarantee a consensus would be reached on how to deal with Tehran. "If the Security Council can't deal with something like the Iranian nuclear weapons program, then it's hard to imagine what circumstances the (UN) Charter contemplated the Council would be involved in," Bolton told reporters. "This is a clear threat to international peace and security as we've said for some time," he said. Iran claims that its nuclear program, and especially its making atomic reactor fuel that can also be bomb material, is a peaceful effort to generate electricity but the United States claims that Tehran is hiding covert weapons work. Britain, France and Germany had called Monday for the emergency IAEA meeting but fell short of saying this was to take Iran to the Security Council, as Russia and China, which both have strong trade ties with Iran, are against the sort of tough economic and other sanctions which the Council is empowered to impose. Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Wednesday there was only a "weak" chance of his country being referred to the Security Council and warned the European trio not to take any "hasty steps". Iranian national security spokesman Hossein Entezami repeated the threat that if Iran is referred to the Council, IAEA inspectors would lose their current level of access to the Islamic republic's nuclear facilities and Iran would resume full-scale uranium enrichment work -- which remains frozen for the time being. Iran has also threatened to use the oil it supplies to the already overheated world market as a weapon to retaliate for measures against its nuclear program. In Moscow, senior Israeli security experts met Russian officials Wednesday to discuss Iran's nuclear program. Israel's acting prime minister Ehud Olmert on Tuesday bluntly warned Iran that Israel would not allow anyone who threatened the existence of the Jewish state to acquire weapons of mass destruction. "Israel cannot allow in any way or at any stage someone who has such hostile intentions against us to obtain weapons that could threaten our existence," Olmert said. Non-proliferation expert Mark Fitzpatrick told AFP from his International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) think tank in London that "the Europeans and the Americans will be using the two weeks ahead of the IAEA meeting to round up votes" on the agency's board. Russia meanwhile is trying to save its diplomatic initiative to resolve the crisis, as it has proposed setting up a facility jointly with Iran for enriching uranium on Russian soil so that Iran does not obtain technology that is considered a "breakout capacity" for making nuclear weapons. Copyright © 2006 Yahoo! UK Limited. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 13 AFP: UN watchdog confirms Feb 2 meeting on Iran nuclear row - Wed Jan 18, 2:07 PM ET VIENNA (AFP) - The UN atomic watchdog said it would hold an emergency meeting on Iran" /> Iran's nuclear program but Tehran voiced confidence it would avoid referral to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions. Diplomats disagreed, however, saying Iran is almost certain to be referred to the council when the International Atomic Energy Agency" /> International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) 35-nation board of governors meets in Vienna February 2. Still, sharp international divisions remain about how to crack down on an Iranian nuclear program which the United States claims hides secret atomic weapons work. Unlike the IAEA, the Security Council has the power to enforce nuclear non-proliferation agreements but it may take measures short of sanctions, diplomats said. Referral (to the council) "is not going to change the situation," a diplomat said, referring to Russian and Chinese opposition to US and European pressure for a threat of UN sanctions or other measures. The current crisis began when Iran said earlier this month that it was terminating a voluntary moratorium on sensitive nuclear research. The IAEA confirmed Wednesday that it would hold the emergency meeting February 2 following a request by European Union" /> European Unionnegotiators Britain, France and Germany. The EU trio asked the IAEA in a letter for a meeting "to discuss the situation concerning the Iranian nuclear program in the light of the agency's statute, the implementation of the NPT (nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) Safeguards Agreement in the Islamic Republic of Iran and related board resolutions," according to a copy of the one-page text obtained by AFP. The trio decided to call for the special session after meeting in London on Monday with officials from the United States, China and Russia. The United States and the EU on Wednesday rebuffed an Iranian call for new talks on their nuclear dispute. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice" /> Condoleezza Riceand EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said the Iranians had yet to show they were ready for real talks. "It was the Iranians who walked away from the negotiations, who broke the moratorium (on nuclear activities)," Rice said. The West has a majority 21 votes on the IAEA board of governors, and Iranian allies Russia and China are expected to abstain when the Iranian issue comes up. But in New York, Russia and China each have a veto on the Security Council. Iran said confidently Wednesday there was only a "weak" chance of being hauled before the council, alluding to Russian and Chinese reluctance to make such a move. Iran is sticking by a freeze on full-scale uranium enrichment, the process that makes nuclear reactor fuel that can also be bomb material, but national security spokesman Hossein Entezami told the government newspaper Iran that this could change. "If our case goes to the Security Council, whether as a simple warning, to reinforce the head of the IAEA or even to decide on sanctions, the government will be obliged to put an end to the suspension of activities," he said. He said Iran would also "cease the application" of the additional protocol to the NPT which he said "gives agency inspectors a free hand". US envoy to the United Nations" /> United Nations, John Bolton, said in New York on Tuesday that the Iranian nuclear crisis was a key test for the council, and warned there was no guarantee a consensus would be reached on how to deal with Tehran. Also lobbying is Israel" /> Israel, whose view that Iran is an existential threat has been reinforced by a series of anti-Israeli outbursts by hardline Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He has called for the Jewish state to be "wiped off the map". Senior Israeli security experts were meeting Russian officials in Moscow to discuss the issue. Good relations with Iran are a high priority for both Russia -- whose arms and atomic energy sector have scored big Iranian orders -- and China, a major buyer of Iranian oil. Russia has proposed setting up a facility jointly with Iran -- and on Russian territory -- for enriching uranium to be used in the Islamic republic's first nuclear power plant at Bushehr, a proposal generally backed by the West and that Moscow says is still on the table. Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 14 Guardian Unlimited: France Rejects Iranian Request for Talks From the Associated Press [UP] Wednesday January 18, 2006 1:32 PM AP Photo VAH102 By NASSER KARIMI Associated Press Writer TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - France rejected Iran's request for more talks on Iran's nuclear program, saying Wednesday that Tehran first must suspend its atomic activities. Iran asked for a ministerial-level meeting, but its decision to resume some activities ``means that it is not possible for us to meet under satisfactory conditions to pursue these discussions,'' French Foreign Ministry spokesman Denis Simonneau said in Paris. U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns supported the idea that Iran should suspend its program and return to talks. ``There is a consensus that Iran should turn back, return to negotiations and suspend its nuclear program,'' Burns told reporters in Bombay, India, during a South Asia tour. ``But that's not the path Iran is on now.'' The Bush administration sent Burns to London to coordinate a strategy with Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia on dealing with Iran. Burns conceded differences remained after Tuesday's meeting. ``We reached a consensus on some points ... others need to be worked on,'' he said. Burns repeated U.S. demands that the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency refer Iran to the Security Council - where it could face sanctions - for resuming research on centrifuges used in uranium enrichment. Russia and China oppose sending Iran to the Security Council. Earlier Wednesday, Iran's foreign minister told state radio the nation's chances of being referred to the U.N. Security Council were slim. Manouchehr Mottaki did not give a reason for his view, but emphasized that Iran wanted to restart negotiations with Britain, France and Germany. The European states, with U.S. backing, were calling for a Feb. 2 meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency to discuss taking action against Iran following Tehran's decision earlier this month to resume small-scale enrichment of uranium - a process that can produce material for atomic reactors or bombs. A draft resolution for the meeting, read in part to The Associated Press in Vienna, Austria, says Britain is proposing that the 35-nation IAEA refer Iran to the Security Council, but it stops short of calling for punitive measures. Instead, the draft urges the 15-nation council to press Tehran ``to extend full and prompt cooperation to the agency'' in its investigation of suspect nuclear activities. Russia and China are wary of Security Council involvement, and other members of the IAEA board, such as Egypt, also are cautious. ``In view of the overall situation, we regard the possibility of the hauling of Iran's nuclear case to the Security Council to be weak,'' Mottaki told Iranian radio. ``During the past 10 days we have tried to relay our message to all relevant parties, including the Europeans, about readiness of Iran to negotiate on the production of nuclear fuel.'' Mottaki said he hoped European countries would avoid taking steps that could only worsen the current situation - an apparent reference to the talk of sanctions in the United States and Europe. The United States accuses Iran of trying to secretly build nuclear weapons - a charge Iran denies. Britain, France and Germany have been trying to persuade Iran to import nuclear fuel, but Iran has rejected this. Meanwhile, a delegation of Israeli security experts was in Moscow on Wednesday to meet with Russia's Security Council and Foreign Ministry in hopes of winning Russian backing for Security Council referral. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov indicated Tuesday that Moscow believes it is too early to talk about sanctions. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 ***************************************************************** 15 Guardian Unlimited: Russia urges caution as lobbying begins on Iran's nuclear ambition Ewen MacAskill, diplomatic editor Wednesday January 18, 2006 The Guardian British, French and German diplomats began an intensive round of worldwide lobbying yesterday to try to maximise a vote on Iran in Vienna early next month over its suspect nuclear weapons programme. The Europeans, backed by the US, are confident of securing a majority of the 35 board members of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN watchdog, for referral of Iran to the UN security council. But there are countries whose vote they cannot count on, such as Syria, Belarus, Cuba and Venezuela, and there are question marks over countries such as Algeria and Libya. The main focus of the diplomatic push will be Moscow and Beijing, both of whom are on the board and have vetoes at the security council. Neither committed themselves to supporting referral when they met the Europeans and the US in London on Monday. Gernot Erler, Germany's deputy foreign minister, yesterday described the London talks as "difficult". Philippe Douste-Blazy, the French foreign minister, speaking on the eve of today's visit to Moscow, said: "France will deploy all its efforts to ensure the international community is united ... for the credibility of the agency ... and above all for regional stability." He put Iran at the top of the agenda for talks in Moscow with Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, who distanced himself from the European position yesterday. Mr Lavrov, recalling how international sanctions had failed in Iraq, said: "Sanctions are in no way the best, or the only, way to solve the problem." A Russian compromise, in which Iran would carry out uranium enrichment in Russia, was still on the table, Mr Lavrov said. But a British official said: "I think Iran is playing with the Russia proposal for tactical reasons." The Europeans said negotiations with Iran had reached a dead end last week. But a spokesman for the Chinese foreign ministry said yesterday there was hope they could be restarted. [UP] Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 ***************************************************************** 16 Guardian Unlimited: Kim Says He Wants to End Nuclear Standoff From the Associated Press [UP] Wednesday January 18, 2006 4:32 PM AP Photo TOK811 By BURT HERMAN Associated Press Writer SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North Korean leader Kim Jong Il said he is committed to a peaceful resolution of the standoff over his country's nuclear ambitions, as Pyongyang confirmed Wednesday that the reclusive Kim had visited China over the past week. The trip - widely reported in South Korean media but previously not confirmed by either Beijing or Pyongyang - had raised expectations of a resumption of stalled six-nation talks on the North's nuclear programs. Kim's trip ended the same day the main U.S. nuclear envoy was in Beijing to meet with Chinese officials over the nuclear issue. News reports said Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill also talked with his North Korean counterpart, but Hill made no mention of any such meeting, and said no date had been set for the arms negotiations to resume. During Kim's visit, North Korea and China ``unanimously agreed to consistently maintain the stand of seeking a negotiated peaceful solution'' to the nuclear issue, the North's official Korean Central News Agency reported. However, Kim also mentioned ``difficulties'' facing the talks. The North has refused to return to the negotiations unless Washington ends financial sanctions imposed over Pyongyang's alleged illegal activities. U.S. officials have rejected the demand, saying the matter is a criminal issue unrelated to the nuclear talks. In September, the North agreed to abandon its nuclear programs in exchange for aid and security guara efficient mechanism to solve the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue appropriately, Hu reiterated China's principled stance, noting that it is a correct choice to properly settle the relevant problems by peaceful means through dialogues,'' the official Xinhua News Agency said. Hill gave no details of his meetings with Chinese officials during his daylong visit to Beijing. According to South Korea's Yonhap News Agency, Hill also held a meeting in the state guesthouse with his North Korean counterpart, Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan. The talks were mediated by Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei, Yonhap said. ``They had lunch together and discussed the nuclear issue,'' an unidentified source was quoted as saying by Yonhap. A U.S. Embassy spokeswoman, speaking on customary condition of anonymity, said she had no comment on whether Hill met with North Korean officials. Hill was wrapping up an Asian tour that included stops in Japan and South Korea. KCNA said Kim was in China on an ``unofficial visit'' from Jan. 10 through Wednesday at Hu's invitation. Kim rarely leaves the country and only then under tight security, shunning air travel in favor of trains. On Wednesday, a train believed to be carrying Kim crossed into North Korea around 10 a.m. after a 20-minute stop at the Chinese border city of Dandong, South Korea's Yonhap News Agency reported. Kim said he told Hu during their meeting in Beijing about his ``impressions of his visit to the central and southern parts of China where the cause of modernization is being successfully carried out,'' according to KCNA. South Korean and Japanese media had reported that Kim spent nearly a week in the heart of China's booming south, touring high-tech companies in a possible search for ideas to revive his nation's economy. China has normally refused to give information on his visits to the North's last major ally until after his departure. On Wednesday, state television devoted 10 minutes of its nightly news to coverage of Kim's trip. Footage showed Kim and Hu smiling and shaking hands as they posed for photographers. Kim was dressed in his usual gray Mao-style tunic and was sometimes shown bundled in a khaki jacket. Although his trip was not officially acknowledged until Wednesday, Kim didn't travel inconspicuously. He took over an entire luxury hotel in the southern city of Guangzhou and traveled by 30-car motorcade. A Japanese TV network showed what it said was Kim on a river cruise. Kim last visited China in 2004. In 2001, Kim visited Shanghai, the heart of communist China's experiment with capitalism. He toured its stock exchange, a software firm and joint-venture auto and electronics factories. --- Associated Press Writer Audra Ang contributed to this report from Beijing. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 ***************************************************************** 17 AFP: NKorea's Kim vows to pursue six-way nuclear talks - Wednesday January 18, 12:07 PM SEOUL (AFX) - North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il vowed at a summit with Chinese President Hu Jintao to pursue six-way nuclear disarmament talks, despite obstacles, Pyongyang's state media said. Both leaders agreed to push for 'a negotiated peaceful solution to the issue' through the talks, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said after confirming Kim's latest secret visit to China. 'He (Kim) pointed out that the DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) would join Chinese comrades in the efforts to seek a way of overcoming the difficulties lying in the way of the six-party talks and steadily advance the talks,' KCNA said. In response, Hu reaffirmed China's support for the talks, which also involve the US, Russia, South Korea and Japan. 'He (Hu) pointed out that the Chinese side is ready to ... put spurs to the six-party talks so that they may make steady progress,' the report said. The talks, aimed at convincing North Korea to drop its nuclear weapons ambitions, began in 2003 and are currently stalled over Pyongyang's demand that US financial sanctions against North Korea be lifted. The sanctions were imposed in September after Washington said Pyongyang was manufacturing counterfeit US dollar notes and using a Macau bank as a front for money laundering. Copyright © 2006 AFP AFX. All rights reserved. Republication or ***************************************************************** 18 Guardian Unlimited: N. Korea Wants to Overcome 'Difficulties' From the Associated Press [UP] Wednesday January 18, 2006 12:47 PM AP Photo XED106 By BURT HERMAN Associated Press Writer SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North Korean leader Kim Jong Il said he is committed to a peaceful resolution of the standoff over his country's nuclear ambitions, as Pyongyang confirmed Wednesday that the reclusive Kim had visited China over the past week. The trip - widely reported in South Korean media but previously not confirmed by either Beijing or Pyongyang - had raised expectations of a resumption of stalled six-nation talks on the North's nuclear programs. Kim's trip ended the same day the main U.S. nuclear envoy was in Beijing to meet with Chinese officials over the nuclear issue. News reports said Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill also talked with his North Korean counterpart, but Hill made no mention of any such meeting, and said no date had been set for the arms negotiations to resume. During Kim's visit, North Korea and China ``unanimously agreed to consistently maintain the stand of seeking a negotiated peaceful solution'' to the nuclear issue, the North's official Korean Central News Agency reported. However, Kim also mentioned ``difficulties'' facing the talks. The North has refused to return to the negotiations unless Washington ends financial sanctions imposed over Pyongyang's alleged illegal activities. U.S. officials have rejected the demand, saying the matter is a criminal issue unrelated to the nuclear talks. In September, the North agreed to abandon its nuclear programs in exchange for aid and security guarantees. Talks have been stalled ever since. Kim called for a joint effort with the Chinese ``to overcome the difficulties in the six-way talks and to find a way to move forward,'' according to KCNA. Chinese President Hu Jintao reiterated that the nuclear issue should be resolved at the six-party talks, which also include South Korea, Japan and Russia, Chinese state media reported. ``Describing the six-party talks as an efficient mechanism to solve the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue appropriately, Hu reiterated China's principled stance, noting that it is a correct choice to properly settle the relevant problems by peaceful means through dialogues,'' the official Xinhua News Agency said. Hill gave no details of his meetings with Chinese officials during his daylong visit to Beijing. According to South Korea's Yonhap News Agency, Hill also held a meeting in the state guesthouse with his North Korean counterpart, Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan. The talks were mediated by Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei, Yonhap said. ``They had lunch together and discussed the nuclear issue,'' an unidentified source was quoted as saying by Yonhap. A U.S. Embassy spokeswoman, speaking on customary condition of anonymity, said she had no comment on whether Hill met with North Korean officials. Hill was wrapping up an Asian tour that included stops in Japan and South Korea. KCNA said Kim was in China on an ``unofficial visit'' from Jan. 10 through Wednesday at Hu's invitation. Kim rarely leaves the country and only then under tight security, shunning air travel in favor of trains. On Wednesday, a train believed to be carrying Kim crossed into North Korea around 10 a.m. after a 20-minute stop at the Chinese border city of Dandong, South Korea's Yonhap News Agency reported. Kim said he told Hu during their meeting in Beijing about his ``impressions of his visit to the central and southern parts of China where the cause of modernization is being successfully carried out,'' according to KCNA. South Korean and Japanese media had reported that Kim spent nearly a week in the heart of China's booming south, touring high-tech companies in a possible search for ideas to revive his nation's economy. China has normally refused to give information on his visits to the North's last major ally until after his departure. On Wednesday, state television devoted 10 minutes of its nightly news to coverage of Kim's trip. Footage showed Kim and Hu smiling and shaking hands as they posed for photographers. Kim was dressed in his usual gray Mao-style tunic and was sometimes shown bundled in a khaki jacket. Although his trip was not officially acknowledged until Wednesday, Kim didn't travel inconspicuously. He took over an entire luxury hotel in the southern city of Guangzhou and traveled by 30-car motorcade. A Japanese TV network showed what it said was Kim on a river cruise. Kim last visited China in 2004. In 2001, Kim visited Shanghai, the heart of communist China's experiment with capitalism. He toured its stock exchange, a software firm and joint-venture auto and electronics factories. --- Associated Press Writer Audra Ang contributed to this report from Beijing. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 ***************************************************************** 19 [NLCBW] (ADS): SFCHRON: Why the U.S. should never deploy its Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2006 10:35:38 -0600 (CST) San Francisco Chronicle http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/01/18/EDGN8GOBER1.DTL Why the U.S. should never deploy its latest weapon - Brett Wagner Wednesday, January 18, 2006 The U.S. military-industrial complex has just developed a dangerous weapon that should never, under any circumstances, be deployed. No, I'm not talking about the "bunker-buster" nukes that were, thankfully, denied funding once again in next year's federal budget. The new weapon -- first reported in the press in 2004 -- is known in military circles as the Active Denial System. It has been nicknamed the "pain ray" -- and with good reason. According to DefenseTech.org, an online military information service, the new weapon "fires out millimeter waves -- a sort of cousin of microwaves, in the 95 GHz range. The invisible beams penetrate just 1/64th of an inch beneath the skin. But that's deep enough to heat up the water inside a person. Which is enough to cause excruciating pain. Seconds later, people have to run away. And that causes mobs to break up in a hurry." Charles Heal, a widely recognized authority on nonlethal weapons who has dubbed the ray the "Holy Grail of crowd control," likened it to having a hot iron pressed against the skin. Raytheon has reportedly developed such a device that can be mounted on a Humvee for the Pentagon. According to a recent report on Military.com, the head of the Army unit charged with rapidly securing new gear for use by troops, Col. Robert Lovett, "has requested that [the device] be rushed to the field to support military operations in Iraq." Lovett's memorandum cites a request by Col. James Brown, commander of the 18th Military Police Brigade, for the immediate deployment of the Active Denial System to help "suppress" insurgent attacks and quell prison uprisings. As a national security expert and a former professor for the U.S. Naval War College, I understand the urgency felt by commanders on the front lines to provide U.S. troops with the best weaponry available. But because of that built-in bias, we are fortunate to have a civilian-led military in order to keep our long-term interests in the proper perspective. Not only do I strongly disagree with the two colonels; I feel compelled to publicly oppose their request. Today's innovation is tomorrow's copy. For example, the baseball team lucky enough to include on its roster the pitcher who first developed the curveball had a temporary advantage, to be sure -- at least until all the other pitchers learned the same technique. Likewise, military innovation, once deployed, enjoys only a temporary advantage until adversaries and allies alike are able to catch up. That's why developing a pain ray and deploying one are inherently different actions. Studying the capability of millimeter waves to cause pain might help us develop defenses against that technology; however, deploying the weapon merely invites other nations to follow suit. The stigma of deploying such weapons, once the line is crossed, is difficult to "uncross" -- much like trying to put the "nuclear genie" back in the bottle. Rather than deploying a pain ray, President Bush should instead begin developing a plan -- drawing inspiration from the post-World War I leaders who banned the use of chemical weapons -- to forever ban the use of millimeter waves (or similar technologies) in combat or any other form of "crowd control." Otherwise, it will only be a matter of time before such weapons are used against American troops or by repressive regimes against their own citizens -- or perhaps even by the U.S. government against dissidents or unruly crowds in our own country. Harlan Ellison observed in August 1975, on the 30th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima: "For the first time we have a weapon that nobody has used for 30 years. This gives me great hope for the human race." Let's hope that 30 years from now, the same can be said about the pain ray. A new breed of weapon Directed-energy weapons could play a role in fighting conflicts in coming years and bring numerous advantages to U.S. troops who have to deal with a hostile but unarmed crowd. Active Denial System Sends a nonlethal beam of energy to repel people without injury Beam traveling at the speed of light, penetrates the skin to 1/64 of an inch, causing a burning sensation Antenna focuses the invisible beam Transmitter produces energy at a frequency of 95 GHz Range Beam: 700 yards Small-arms fire: about 1,100 A 2-second burst can heat the skin to 1300 F Normal: 98.60 F Source: Boeing; Defense Department; GlobalSecurity.org Associated Press Brett Wagner is president of the California Center for Strategic Studies (www.thecaliforniacenter.org) and executive director of the Swords into Plowshares Project. Page B - 9 URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/01/18/EDGN8GOBER1.DTL ***************************************************************** 20 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: U.S. nuclear forces, 2006 | thebulletin.org NRDC: Nuclear Notebook By Robert S. Norris and Hans M. Kristensen January/February 2006 pp. 68-71 (vol. 62, no. 1) © 2005 [F]ifteen years after the end of the Cold War, the United States continues to spend billions of dollars annually to maintain and upgrade its nuclear forces. It is deploying a larger and more accurate preemptive nuclear strike capability in the Asia-Pacific region, and shifting its doctrine toward targeting U.S. strategic nuclear forces against "weapons of mass destruction" complexes and command centers. As of January 2006, the U.S. stockpile contains almost 10,000 nuclear warheads. This includes 5,735 active or operational warheads: 5,235 strategic and 500 nonstrategic warheads. Approximately 4,225 additional warheads are held in the reserve or inactive stockpiles, some of which will be dismantled. Under plans announced by the Energy Department in June 2004 (and possibly revised in spring 2005), some 4,365 warheads are scheduled to be retired for dismantlement by 2012 (see Nuclear Notebook, September/October 2004). This would leave approximately 5,945 warheads in the operational and reserve stockpiles in 2012, including the 1,700-2,200 "operationally deployed" strategic warheads specified in the 2002 Moscow Treaty or Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT). To understand the composition of the U.S. stockpile, it is helpful to examine the terms used to describe the different categories of warheads. Active warheads are maintained in a ready-for-use status, with tritium and other limited life components installed, and may be either deployed or stored. The active warhead inventory is broken down into deployed warheads, responsive force warheads, and spares. Deployed warheads consist of operationally deployed warheads (for example, warheads on fielded strategic forces), warheads associated with weapon systems in overhaul, and fielded nonstrategic weapons. Responsive force warheads consist of active warheads not on deployed systems. These are kept in secure storage but are available to be returned to the operationally deployed force. Depending on the particular weapon system, this task may take days, weeks, or months. Spare warheads are part of the active but not operational inventory, and support routine maintenance and operations. Inactive warheads do not have limited life components installed or maintained, and may not have the latest warhead modifications. New war plans. The Defense Department is upgrading its nuclear strike plans to reflect new presidential guidance and a transition in war planning from the top-heavy Single Integrated Operational Plan of the Cold War to a family of smaller and more flexible strike plans designed to defeat today's adversaries. The new central strategic war plan is known as OPLAN (Operations Plan) 8044. Former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Richard B. Meyers described some of the planning changes in April 2005 Senate testimony: "[U.S. Strategic Command] has revised our strategic deterrence and response plan that became effective in the fall of 2004. This revised, detailed plan provides more flexible options to assure allies, and dissuade, deter, and if necessary, defeat adversaries in a wider range of contingencies." One member of the new family is CONPLAN 8022, a concept plan for the quick use of nuclear, conventional, or information warfare capabilities to destroy--preemptively, if necessary--"time-urgent targets" anywhere in the world. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld issued an Alert Order in early 2004 that directed the military to put CONPLAN 8022 into effect. As a result, the Bush administration's preemption policy is now operational on long-range bombers, strategic submarines on deterrent patrol, and presumably intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). ICBMs. In 2005, the Pentagon completed the retirement of the MX Peacekeeper ICBM, after almost 20 years of service. The missile's long and controversial history stretches back to the 1970s, when officials proposed many elaborate basing schemes to try and prevent a supposed "window of vulnerability" from increasing numbers of accurate Soviet ICBMs. By 1979 the program called for the deployment of 200 missiles, hidden among 4,600 shelters (one missile in each cluster of 23 shelters), in a kind of mobile shell-game spread over approximately 40,000 square miles of Utah and Nevada. In 1983, President Ronald Reagan canceled that basing scheme and cut the number of missiles to 100, to be placed in Minuteman missile silos, tacitly conceding that the vulnerability problem could not be solved or never existed in the first place. Two years later, Congress limited deployment to 50 missiles. The first 10 missiles, located at Warren Air Force Base (AFB), Wyoming, were declared operational on December 22, 1986, with the full force of 50 on alert two years later. The Pentagon phased out the MX over a three-year period beginning in October 2002; it deactivated the last missile on September 19, 2005. In the end, billions of dollars were expended to rectify an imaginary strategic vulnerability. The 2001 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) calls for MX silos to be retained, rather than destroyed as was required in the now-abandoned Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) II. The United States will keep MX missiles for possible use as space-launch vehicles, as target vehicles, or for redeployment. The missiles' 550 W87 warheads will be temporarily stored, and a portion will eventually replace W62 warheads on Minuteman III ICBMs under the Safety Enhanced Reentry Vehicle (SERV) program beginning this year. All W62s are scheduled to be retired in 2009. A Minuteman missile can carry one or two SERVs with W87 warheads, but apparently not three. In total, we estimate that 200 W87 warheads will be used to complement the W78 warheads assigned to Minuteman IIIs, with the balance placed in the responsive force of reserve warheads. Full operational capability of the SERV is scheduled for autumn 2010. The 500-strong Minuteman III force remains basically unchanged from last year. Under START I, the air force downloaded the 150 missiles located at Warren AFB to single-warhead configuration in 2001. With START II's ban on multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs) now a dead letter, U.S. officials revised earlier plans to download all Minuteman missiles to a single-warhead configuration. Although the air force plans to reduce the operational warhead loading on Minuteman IIIs to 500, it is considering keeping as many as 800 warheads for the Minuteman force. Minuteman modernization continues under an ambitious $7 billion-$8 billion, six-part program intended to improve the missile's accuracy and reliability and extend its service life beyond 2020. The United States test-launched four Minuteman IIIs from Vandenberg AFB, California, between July 14 and September 14, 2005. Three tests flew a single unarmed reentry vehicle, while the fourth missile carried two vehicles. An August 25 test used a Minuteman III from the 564th Missile Squadron at Malmstrom AFB, Montana, with a single vehicle. The air force stated that the test aimed to "demonstrate the ability to integrate a safety enhanced reentry vehicle" for W87 warheads onto the Minuteman III weapons system. Military officials executed the September 14 launch through the 20th Air Force's airborne launch control system using a U.S. Navy E-6B Mercury (TACAMO) aircraft. The air force issued a Mission Need Statement in 2002 for a new ICBM to be introduced in 2018. The air force has earmarked more than $10 million for 2006-2007 for studies to define the required capabilities and set milestones for missile development. Some defense strategists have suggested equipping a portion of the ICBM force with conventional warheads. There are rumors that the forthcoming Quadrennial Defense Review may recommend converting 50 of the 500 Minuteman missiles to conventional missions. Submarines. The navy decommissioned the Trident I C4 missile, after 26 years of service, in late October 2005, when the Alabama off-loaded the last 24 operational C4 missiles. The entire force of submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) is now comprised of Trident II D5 missiles. When missile conversion is completed in 2008, the United States will have 336 Trident II D5 SLBMs on 14 nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs), which is the force level decided on in the 1994 NPR; the missiles will be armed with approximately 2,000 warheads. The navy has extended the service life of the subs from 30 to 44 years. The oldest sub is scheduled to retire in 2029, when a new SSBN class will be introduced. The navy completed the first phase of downloading the warheads from all Trident II missiles in 2005 to keep pace with SORT goals. The navy has opted for a gradual decrease in the number of warheads on its SLBMs over several years, rather than a sudden drop just before the end of 2012, the treaty deadline. Under START, each Trident II D5 missile is counted as carrying eight warheads, though the actual number varies depending upon mission. We estimate that each missile now carries an average of six warheads. They will be further downloaded as 2012 approaches. During the past few years, the navy has significantly changed the homeporting of SSBNs to meet new planning requirements. It transferred two SSBNs from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean in 2002 and another in 2003. On August 17, 2005, the Louisiana left Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay, Georgia, on patrol. Rather than roaming the Atlantic during its 58-day patrol, the sub sailed around Cape Horn and ended up at its new homeport, Naval Submarine Base Bangor, Washington. On September 27, 2005, the Maine left Kings Bay on a similar journey, bringing to nine the number of SSBNs in the Pacific. Five subs remain in the Atlantic. The primary goal of the shift is to increase coverage of targets in China, according to navy officials. (Pacific-based SSBNs also target Russia and North Korea.) The buildup of the more capable Trident II D5s in the Pacific additionally "enhances system accuracy, payload, and hard-target capability, thus improving [U.S.] available responses to existing and emerging Pacific theater threats," Rear Adm. Charles B. Young, director of the navy's Strategic Systems Program, said in an August 2002 speech at the Strategic Weapons Facility Pacific. The four oldest Ohio-class SSBNs have been removed from the nuclear mission and are being converted into cruise missile submarines (SSGN) at a cost of $4.1 billion. Electric Boat Corporation, a division of General Dynamics, is the main contractor and built the original submarines. Work on the Ohio and Michigan is being done at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, Washington, after which the subs will be homeported at Bangor. Work on the Florida and Georgia is being done at Norfolk Naval Shipyard, Virginia, after which they will be homeported at Kings Bay. We estimate that the Defense Department transferred the nearly 1,000 W76 warheads from these four older SSBNs to inactive/responsive status and will eventually send them to the Pantex Plant in Texas for dismantlement. At least four important upgrades are under way involving the Trident II D5. The first is a life-extension program (LEP) for the W76 warhead that will significantly enhance the weapon's capability. Outfitting the W76/Mk-4 reentry vehicle with a new arming and fuzing subsystem (MC4700) will give the 100-kiloton W76 a ground-burst capability for the first time and will increase the types of targets that it can destroy. The modified W76 warhead, which may have its yield reduced by about 40 percent to 60 kilotons, according to a July report in Sante Fe's New Mexican newspaper, is designated the W76 Mod 1 (or W76-1), and the reentry vehicle is known as Mk-4A. The navy is working on a second warhead upgrade to equip the reentry vehicles with Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) receivers for increased accuracy. In 2004, Congress refused to fund the Enhanced Effectiveness (E2) Reentry Body program, which would have provided this capability, because of a concern that equipping SLBM reentry vehicles with GPS accuracy could lead to mini-nukes on the submarines. Using other funds, the navy supports programs to improve the missile's accuracy. One program aims to equip reentry vehicles with a three-axis flap system that steers the reentry vehicle during its descent toward its target, essentially creating a maneuverable reentry vehicle. In March 2005, the Tennessee launched a Trident II D5 missile equipped with an unarmed reentry vehicle fitted with the three-axis flap system and GPS. One navy admiral who participated in the test told us: "I had GPS signal all the way down and could steer it." The test was also significant because the D5's 2,200-kilometer (1,367-mile) trajectory was the shortest ever flown by a U.S. SLBM, according to the admiral, with the warhead impacting just 12-13 minutes after launch. The third modernization program involves upgrading the current Mk-6 guidance system and extending its service life. The Mk-6LE (life extension) is scheduled to be operational in 2013 and would last through 2042. The fourth upgrade involves refurbishing the solid propulsion motors of the Trident II D5. Defense awarded a $71.5 million contract to Alliant Techsystems for production of new solid propulsion systems for all three stages of the D5 through 2007. The navy continues to buy Trident II D5 missiles. It has bought 408 so far and requested an additional five missiles in 2005. Officials extended D5 production through 2013 and increased the total number to be procured from 453 to 561, at an additional cost of $12.2 billion. The total cost of the program is now $37 billion, or $66 million per missile. To make the D5 operational through 2042 (to the end of the extended service life of the Ohio-class SSBN), the navy will upgrade existing missiles to a new variant, the D5LE. In 2003, Congress budgeted $416 million to modernize the D5. At any given time, 336 Trident II D5s will arm the 14 U.S. SSBNs (including two sets for two SSBNs that will be in overhaul), 58 D5s will be allocated to Britain for their SSBNs, and the balance will be available for flight tests. The navy appears to have dropped plans to equip its new submarine-launched intermediate-range ballistic missile (SLIRBM) with dual nuclear-conventional capability in favor of developing only conventional warheads for the weapon. Defense awarded a $9.2 million, 16-month contract to Lockheed Martin in July 2005 to demonstrate and validate solid rocket motor technologies for a two-stage SLIRBM design. The program envisions fitting multiple SLIRBMs inside each missile tube on SSGNs, adding a second conventional strike weapon to the boats' Tomahawk sea-launched cruise missiles. The SLIRBM is intended to precisely deliver a conventional payload at ranges in excess of 1,770 kilometers (1,099 miles) within 10-15 minutes of launch. After a more than 11-year hiatus, the navy has resumed SLBM flight-testing in the Pacific. In November 2004, the Nevada launched two Trident II D5s down the Pacific Missile Range. In March 2005, the Tennessee test-fired a missile in the Atlantic, and in October the Royal Navy's Vanguard test-fired a D5 missile, also in the Atlantic. In anticipation of flight-testing in both oceans, the navy, with the help of the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, converted two 8-foot by 40-foot containers into vans for data processing and analysis during test-launches. Bombers and bomber weapons. The United States has two types of long-range bombers for nuclear missions: the B-2A Spirit and the B-52H Stratofortress. The B-52Hs are based at Barksdale AFB, Louisiana, and at Minot AFB, North Dakota; the B-2As are based at Whiteman AFB, Missouri. The B-52s can deliver cruise missiles, gravity bombs, or a combination of both; B-2s carry only bombs. Both have conventional missions as well. Neither bomber is maintained on day-to-day alert as during the Cold War, yet the alert level has increased with the recent tasking of bomber wings in Global Strike missions. In October 2004, for example, the air force launched 13 B-52s near-simultaneously from Barksdale AFB in a minimum--interval takeoff, with each bomber taking off within a minute or less of one another. The commander of the 8th Air Force at Barksdale AFB told the Times of Shreveport in October 2005 that the 8th Air Force is now "essentially on alert . . . to plan and execute global strikes" on behalf of Strategic Command. A five-year modernization effort completed in 2003 enables the B-2 to carry a mix of B61 and B83 nuclear bombs as well as various conventional weapons. B-2s are already capable of making some targeting changes en route, but the air force is replacing the onboard UHF and VHF radios, and satellite communications systems, with a new system that will allow crews to receive beyond-line-of-sight (BLOS) voice and data communications, and review full mission plans en route to their targets. An extremely high frequency (EHF) satellite communication will be added to ensure the bombers have secure BLOS communications in their nuclear mission. The air force is also equipping all B-2s with a new external coating known as alternate high-frequency material, which will increase the bomber's stealthiness and ease its maintenance. The program will be completed by 2011. The air force began installing the Avionics Midlife Improvement (AMI) on the B-52H in 2005, to improve the aircraft's navigation and nuclear weapons delivery. Installation on all bombers will be completed by September 2008. Technicians will also replace the bomber's existing satellite communication system with an EHF radio to improve connectivity in nuclear-strike scenarios. The weapons deployed on U.S. strategic bombers have a variety of capabilities. B61-7 bombs have multiple yield options, sometimes referred to as "dial-a-yield," ranging from 10 to 350 kilotons. The bomb, which is almost 12 feet long and weighs approximately 760 pounds, has five fuzing options: free-fall airburst, parachute-retarded airburst, free-fall contact burst, parachute--retarded contact burst, and parachute--retarded lay down delayed-surface burst (with 31-second and 81-second delays available). The B61-11 "bunker buster" is a B61-7 with a one-piece hardened--steel center case and a new nosepiece and rear subassembly, which provide for ground penetration and add approximately 450 pounds of weight. The 400-kiloton weapon is also equipped with a special ground-impact time-delay feature to allow it to penetrate 3-6 meters (10-20 feet) underground before detonation. The Pentagon and Los Alamos National Laboratory developed the Mod 11 to replace the 9-megaton B53 bomb, whose purpose was to hold selected deeply buried targets at risk. The B83 is a high-yield strategic bomb with variable yield options up to 1.2 megatons. It is designed for high-speed external carriage and low-altitude delivery against hard targets. The weapon is built for relatively hard impacts on irregular, reinforced concrete surfaces, such as ICBM silos. The bomb weighs 2,400 pounds and has four sections behind its hollow shock-absorbing nose. The first compartment houses the warhead; the mid-case contains the firing set and fuzing controls; the aft-case contains the arming system and thermal batteries; and the last compartment holds the parachute system, which contains a 46-foot Kevlar-nylon ribbon parachute that is held by 60 Kevlar suspension lines and deployed by three 4-foot diameter pilot chutes. The 180-pound parachute system can reduce the bomb's velocity from about 700 miles per hour to 44 miles per hour within a few seconds. The advanced cruise missile (ACM) and air-launched cruise missile (ALCM) carried on the B-52H are undergoing service life-extension programs to prolong their lifetimes through 2030. The ACM's forward-swept wings and tailplanes, flush air-intake, and flat, shielded jet exhaust make it difficult for radar to observe the missile. The ACM has a range of 3,000 kilometers (1,864 miles) and for guidance uses an inertial navigation system, together with a terrain contour matching (TERCOM) system to provide accuracies of 100-300 feet circular error probable. TERCOM uses a downward-pointing radar altimeter to determine the missile's altitude as it flies toward a target and compares the ground elevation profiles with maps stored in memory to determine if it is on course. The ALCM has the same navigation and guidance system but has a slightly shorter range of approximately 2,400 kilometers (1,491 miles). Both missiles are equipped with a W80-1 warhead, which has variable yield options up to 150 kilotons. The air force moved all remaining reserve ALCMs at Fairchild AFB, Washington, to Barksdale AFB in November 2005. The air force is studying options for a next-generation nuclear cruise missile. One possibility is a joint enhanced cruise missile with a nuclear payload and longer range to support Global Strike missions against "targets deep within future high-threat anti-access environments," according to air force documents. The new missile could be delivered by bombers or from various ground or sea platforms. Nuclear Surety Inspections. Air Combat Command's inspector general periodically conducts Nuclear Surety Inspections (NSI) to assess if rules, regulations, and procedures are being maintained to the highest standards. The inspections evaluate many areas, including weapon loading and mating procedures; storage, maintenance, and security practices; accident ("Broken Arrow") response; exercises to recapture and recover a nuclear weapon; processing and relaying emergency action messages; and permissive action link/use control operations that ensure that authorization orders are authentic. Inspectors conducted an NSI of the 5th Bomb Wing at Minot AFB from December 12 to 19, 2004 and rated the base satisfactory. An NSI conducted from July 9 to 16, 2005 of the 2nd Bomb Wing at Barksdale AFB was rated unsatisfactory. Inspectors visited Whiteman AFB in December 2003 for an NSI, and a follow-up was expected in mid-2005. From February 18 to 24, 2004, inspectors conducted an NSI of the 896th Munitions Squadron (MUNS) at Nellis AFB, Nevada. The 896th MUNS receives, ships, stores, and maintains a huge stockpile of nuclear weapons. The Weapon Storage Area consists of 790 acres, crisscrossed by 36 miles of roadway, and houses 75 specialized storage igloos. The inspectors graded 18 areas, and the MUNS received 17 excellent or satisfactory ratings and one outstanding. Nonstrategic nuclear weapons. The United States retains approximately 500 nonstrategic operational nuclear weapons and keeps another 790 in reserve. These include the B61-3,-4, and-10 gravity bombs and the W80-0 warhead for the nuclear Tomahawk land-attack cruise missile (TLAM/N). The B61-10 is no longer in the active stockpile, according to Energy documents. The 2001 NPR did not address nonstrategic nuclear weapons. The United States deploys B61 nonstrategic nuclear bombs at eight bases in six European countries for delivery by various U.S. and NATO aircraft. Additional tactical bombs are in reserve status stored at Kirtland AFB, New Mexico, and Nellis AFB. The air force deploys approximately 50 bombs with the 4th Fighter Wing at Seymour Johnson AFB, North Carolina. The 27th Fighter Wing at Cannon AFB, New Mexico, no longer has a nuclear mission, and the base is expected to be phased out under the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure process. U.S. delivery aircraft include the F-16C/D Fighting Falcon and F-15E Strike Eagle. NATO aircraft assigned nuclear missions include U.S.-supplied F-16s and German and Italian Tornado bombers. Under current air force planning, a portion of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) force will have nuclear capability starting in 2012. The JSF program completed an initial nuclear certification requirements plan in 2004, and more detailed procedures to make it nuclear capable began in 2005. Selected Los Angeles-class, improved Los Angeles-class, and some Virginia-class attack submarines can deploy with TLAM/Ns. The navy plans to refurbish the missiles, and Energy their W80-0 warheads, to extend their service life to around 2040. An estimated 320 TLAM/Ns are currently stored at the Strategic Weapons Facilities at Bangor, Washington, and King's Bay, Georgia, alongside strategic weapons for the SSBNs. While most U.S. nuclear-powered attack submarines (SSNs) were credited with some nuclear capability during the Cold War, today most SSNs do not have nuclear missions. In the Pacific Fleet, for example, less than half of the attack submarines regularly undergo nuclear certification. But if the order were given, Tomahawks could be redeployed in 30 days. We estimate that no more than 12 out of around 50 SSNs have nuclear capability. The navy has test-launched unarmed Tomahawks 92 times since 1978. Two of these were conducted in 2005, one from the Greenville and another from the Minneapolis-St. Paul. Nuclear warheads. To ensure the reliability of nuclear weapons beyond their original design lives, most of the warheads in the "enduring" stockpile are scheduled to undergo life-extension programs over the next decade. The first of these programs began in 1999 and was for the W87; it was completed in 2001. The B61-7/-11, W76, W78, W80, B83, and W88 warheads will also undergo life-extension programs. Some life-extension programs are substantial enough to change a warhead's modification designation. Accordingly, the W76 will become the W76-1, and the W80-0 and W80-1 will become the W80-2 and W80-3, respectively. The first production units of the W80-2 and B61-7/-11 are scheduled for delivery later this year, the W76-1 in 2007-2008, and the W80-3 around 2008. The B61-7/-11 LEP involves refurbishing the secondary. Strong congressional opposition to the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP) warhead program induced Energy to withdraw its 2006 funding request for the program, but hardened--case penetration tests applicable to RNEP will likely continue with Defense funding at Sandia National Laboratories. After spending almost $2 billion during more than a decade, Energy is still "reestablishing" small-scale plutonium pit production at Los Alamos. Lab scientists produced two certifiable W88 pits in 2003, four more in 2004, and six in 2005. Energy plans to test these pits in support of achieving W88 pit certification (for quantity production and stockpiling in the "war reserve") in 2007. Los Alamos aims to manufacture 10 W88 pits per year from 2008 to 2014. As part of its "pit campaign," Energy also hopes to "establish manufacturing process capability for all pit types" by 2009 and to "manufacture initial pit EDUs [engineering demonstration units] for Reliable Replacement [Warhead] pits" by 2012, according to its 2006 budget request. In total, Los Alamos could be making plutonium pits for as many as 30-40 new warheads per year after 2010, according to an October 2005 Albuquerque Journal interview with Linton Brooks, the administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration. Energy's plans for constructing a larger Modern Pit Facility at a new site are on hold. Nuclear Notebook is prepared by Robert S. Norris of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and Hans M. Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists. Direct inquiries to NRDC, 1200 New York Avenue, N.W., Suite 400, Washington, D.C., 20005; 202-289-6868. January/February 2006 pp. 68-71 (vol. 62, no. 1) © 2005 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists ACM: advanced cruise missile; ALCM: air-launched cruise missile; ICBM: intercontinental ballistic missile; MIRV: multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle; SLCM: sea-launched cruise missile; SLBM: submarine-launched ballistic missile. * Conversion of the Henry Jackson and the Alabama to Trident II D5 SLBMs will be completed in 2007 and 2008, respectively, bringing to 14 the number of SSBNs capable of carrying D5s. ** The first figure is the aircraft inventory, including those used for training, testing, and backup. The second figure is the primary mission aircraft inventory, the number of operational aircraft assigned for nuclear and/or conventional missions. *** The large pool of bombs and cruise missiles allows for multiple loading possibilities, depending upon the mission. U.S. stockpile Type Active Inactive/ Responsive Total [ height=] W62* 330 250 580 W78** 785 20 805 W76** 1,712 1,318 3,030 W88 404 0 404 W80-1** 1,450 361 1,811 B61-7 215 224 439 B61-11 20 21 41 B83-1/-0 320 306 626 W80-0 100 194 294 B61-3** 200 186 386 B61-4** 200 204 404 B61-10 0 206 206 W84* 0 383 383 W87 0 553 553 Total 5,736 4,226 9,962 *Warhead type to be fully dismantled. **Warhead type to be partially dismantled. U.S. stockpile [BulletinWire] Copyright 2005 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists ***************************************************************** 21 IPS: BRAZIL: An Energy Source Both Cheap and Eco-Friendly Inter Press Service News Agency Thursday, January 19, 2006 Mario Osava RIO DE JANEIRO, Jan 18 (IPS) - Very low-cost electricity that is not just clean but potentially beneficial for the environment, and comes from a flexible source that can be set up on any river without altering its course is the promise a Canadian company made in Brazil this week. Presented as "revolutionary" technology, the most important means of generating power "in the near future" is a floating turbine, developed in Brazil by Eco Hydro Energy Ltd., a company based in Vancouver, Canada. The innovative device uses the power of the river's flow to turn a rotor with mobile blades. The rotating movement feeds electromagnetic generators that produce electrical energy. There is no need for waterfalls, and the turbine can be anchored in the river in different ways. The turbine is installed on either fixed or floating platforms, the latter having the advantage of rising and falling with the river level, explained Wilson Pierazolli, an engineer at the Federal Centre of Technological Education (CEFET) in Minas Gerais, where a prototype of the turbine was evaluated, and research is being conducted on this alternative energy source. Slow-moving water, like that found in some rivers in the Amazon region and other plains, is no impediment to the working of this system. It just requires bigger equipment to make use of the greater water volume, depth and breadth of the rivers, Pierazolli told IPS. The turbine operates half submerged, damming back the water, which then flows under it more strongly and at higher speed, he explained. A turbine with a total diameter of 30 metres and 160 metres long on a great Amazonian river can generate 240 megawatts per hour, enough electricity to supply a city of nearly two million inhabitants, according to Colin Regan, founder and director of Eco Hydro in Vancouver. Regan and Johann Hoffmann, an Austrian who has lived in Brazil for 20 years, invented the technology. They were thinking of supplying electricity to isolated towns in the Amazon region, where there are 23,000 kilometres of rivers that mostly lack the gradient necessary for conventional hydroelectric power stations. Floating turbines have many advantages, according to the company. They do not require dams which flood extensive areas, they have almost zero environmental impact, and they can generate power 24 hours a day. They even help to decontaminate rivers, as the turbulence they produce oxygenates the water, thus improving conditions for aquatic life. The main advantage, however, is their low cost, since large construction projects are unnecessary. The company estimates the required initial investment at 450,000 dollars per megawatt capacity, which is half the cost of gas-burning thermoelectric power stations and one-third the cost of hydroelectric plants or wind energy. Operating costs are also less than one-third of those using other sources, such as natural gas, hydroelectricity and wind power. Only nuclear energy comes close at 25 dollars per megawatt-hour, compared to 15 dollars for floating turbines. Also, there are no climate-changing greenhouse gas emissions produced by the turbines, an important improvement on power stations that rely on fossil fuels like coal or gas. River water flows constantly in the same direction, and can be re-directed or their current altered to improve energy yield, unlike winds which are not constant and can change direction at any time, Regan said. Furthermore, wind energy is still very expensive, requires heavy subsidies, and the windmills are an eyesore and occupy huge areas, "sometimes killing birds," he added. Eco Hydro will now try to promote floating turbines in other countries, and to attract some large energy or industrial company to take on the challenge of manufacturing a river turbine with a capacity of "at least 50 megawatts," Regan announced. He estimates that his technology can be used to build turbine systems generating up to 500 megawatts. Depending on the river, floating turbines can be installed in arrays, a fixed distance apart. As for research, the next step is to develop mathematical models to find the best way to maximise energy production in each river situation by computer simulation, says José Raimundo da Luz, another engineer with CEFET, which has made a name for itself in small-scale hydroenergy research. The turbines present "another option" for generating power from water, but it's still in its early stages, and the energy yield in different conditions, especially on a large scale, has yet to be confirmed, was the evaluation Eliab Ricarte gave IPS. Ricarte is a researcher at the Ocean Technology Laboratory of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. The technology looks promising in smaller rivers, but its efficiency in converting water flow energy into electricity must be assessed, he said. Exposing it to evaluation by the scientific and technological community is one way to do this. The findings to date are based mainly on the operation of a small prototype installed on a stream in Itabirito, in Minas Gerais state. But this isn't enough data to calculate the efficiency and the real costs of a power plant that can generate hundreds of megawatts, Ricarte argued. His own work centres on a project to generate energy from ocean waves. (END/2006) Copyright © 2006 IPS-Inter Press Service. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 22 Guardian Unlimited: Tory adviser says nuclear power should be last resort Matthew Tempest, political correspondent Wednesday January 18, 2006 David Cameron's environmental policy adviser has warned the Conservative party against an unthinking embrace of nuclear power, as the government appears set to commission a new generation of reactors. Zac Goldsmith, the editor of the Ecologist and deputy chair of the Tory leader's new green policy review group, warned that there was "general support" for nuclear power among grassroots members, but it could only ever be the option of last resort. The potentially explosive issue is looming fast, as the government's new energy review reports back this summer - a year ahead of Mr Goldsmith's own 18-month policy review of Tory thinking on the environment, energy, housing and transport issues. Mr Cameron has already hinted he may back the likely greenlighting of nuclear in the energy review, saying he is "open minded" about the issue, and didn't have a "blanket view against nuclear power". He told Andrew Marr's Sunday AM show last weekend: "It may well be that in order to have a continued growing economy and energy security, it may well be that we have to build new nuclear power stations. I have an open mind on that; I will look at the evidence." But speaking to Guardian Unlimited yesterday, Mr Goldsmith said: "The truth is that if there was a poll of the party, there'd be general support for nuclear power. "[But] the only sensible position is a 'No, but possibly...' We need a radical programme of energy conservation. That can be the only position - that nuclear is only possible if we fail to exploit the alternatives. "That's my position, but we've got to have a debate within the party." He also hinted that the environmental "quality of life" 18-month policy review he is heading up - one of six overhauls of party policy Mr Cameron has commissioned - would not simply report back in one "big bang" in the summer of 2007. He told Guardian Unlimited: "We're going to look at all these issues over the next 18 months. It would be pointless to make our minds up now and spend the next 18 months simply defending them." But he added: "It's not just in 18 months - we will drop some [announcements] along the way. It could be very, very quickly," he hinted. If that is replicated across all six policy areas - the economy, quality of life, public services, homeland security, social justice and globalisation/development - it could mean a flurry of new policy position far faster than Labour strategists are expecting. Until now, the presumption was that Mr Cameron was aiming at repositioning the party's public image for the rest of this year, ahead of endorsing new policies in 18 months time, and then building up to the 2009/10 election. Another tricky area for the quality of life policy review - which is being chaired by the former Tory environment secretary, John Gummer, will be the expansion in aviation. The government's 2003 aviation white paper commits it to three new runways in the south east and the expansion of many regional airports over the next 30 years. Mr Goldsmith rejected that proposal point blank. He said: "We have to manage demand, we can't simply accommodate it with 'predict and provide' - that's unsustainable." He suggested that taxing aviation fuel - one of the longstanding demands of environmental campaigners, but explicitly ruled out by Tony Blair - could be on the Tory agenda. He said: "It's incredibly complicated. Taxing aviation fuel is the first thing you could do, but not the only thing. There are more subtle and radical ways." Email comments for publication to politics.editor@guardianunlimited.co.uk [UP] Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 ***************************************************************** 23 Guardian Unlimited: Cooling Problem Shuts Ariz. Reactor From the Associated Press [UP] Wednesday January 18, 2006 6:02 PM PHOENIX (AP) - A reactor at the nation's largest nuclear power plant was shut down because of a growing vibration in a coolant pipe. Arizona Public Service Co. had been operating the reactor, one of three at the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station, at about one-third of capacity because of vibration, but operators decided to shut it down Tuesday after the vibration rose above acceptable levels. The unit could be restarted within two days, said a spokesman for Arizona Public, Jim McDonald. Potential fixes could include adding shock absorbers, installing weights or heating the line. McDonald said the coolant line is used only the reactor is being shut down. ``It's used at low temperatures and low power when you're bringing the plant off-line,'' he said. The utility said the installation of the unit's new 800-ton steam generators and low-pressure turbines could have contributed to the increased vibration. Problems over the last two years at Palo Verde, about 50 miles west of downtown Phoenix, have caused more than a dozen shutdowns. Arizona Public owns 29.5 percent of the plant and operates it for a consortium of utilities. It supplies electricity to about 4 million customers in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and California. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 ***************************************************************** 24 The State: N.C. utility might build site The Associated Press 01/18/2 This month, Progress Energy expects to announce a preferred site for a nuclear power plant in either North Carolina or South Carolina, spokesman Keith Poston said. The utility has almost 1.4 million customers in North Carolina and South Carolina. A site for a second nuclear plant in Florida, where the company has an additional 1.5 million customers, should be announced by April, he said. Before clearing the way for construction, state regulators are expected to investigate whether the utility can squeeze more production out its existing plants. Certainly conservation and energy efficiency has a role to play, as does the continuing exploration of renewable resources, Poston said. Poston noted that Progress added 69,000 homes and businesses in its three states over the past year, Poston said, and expects to add 600,000 new customers over the next decade as the population boom continues in its service area. The options for the heavy-duty plants needed to supply all those customers come down to natural gas, oil, coal and nuclear, he said. We think that nuclear may end up as the best option for a variety of reasons, but were always going to have a mix of fuels to protect customers from volatility in supply and price, Poston said. Duke Energys utility division, Duke Power, is preparing to add up to 60,000 customers a year in its two-state service area of North Carolina and South Carolina, spokeswoman Rita Sipe said. Duke will select a nuclear power plant site in the Carolinas TheStateOnline ***************************************************************** 25 Baltic Times: NUCLEAR ROULETTE NEWS FROM ESTONIA,LATVIA AND LITHUANIA 18.01.2006 Lithuania really wants the country to remain a nuclear power. it’s one of the most nuclear energy-dependent countries in the world, and leaders are at pains to see their mega-kilowatt production capacity vanish. Rising energy prices and Russia’s new prickliness toward its neighbors have only strengthened these convictions in recent weeks, to the point that the government is now openly suggesting that the second unit of the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant should remain operational after 2009, despite pledges to the contrary. At the same time, the central forces behind this push – Prime Minister Algirdas Brazauskas and Economy Minister Kestutis Dauksys – are abuzz with activity as they try to muster support, both financial and political, for a new nuclear power plant. Recently they sent out query letters to several dozen top nuclear engineering firms around the world, and next week they will hold an international conference on the topic. In the meantime, Brazauskas is more frequently dropping hints that 2009 would be too early to shut down Ignalina. As one eurocrat was quoted this week: “No one in the commission really understands what Lithuania wants. One day it seems that Vilnius plans to build a new nuclear power station. The next day it turns out that they want to extend the life of the old reactor.” In other words, Lithuania wants to have their cake and eat it too. However appealing, this is myopic and self-defeating. If this keeps up, Lithuania’s leadership will commit an embarrassing – if not damaging – mistake of judgment. By signing the accession agreement with the European Union, Lithuania obligated itself to close down Ignalina – a plant that, due to the construction similarities it shares with the Chernobyl plant, gives many European bureaucrats the creeps. They want it closed, and there are no â€buts’ about it – even Moscow’s heavy-handedness. Unfortunately, as the two main advocates behind this are a populist Laborite running the Economy Ministry and a worn-down prime minister trying to salvage his government, chances are that Lithuania’s leadership might push too hard. In all likelihood, President Valdas Adamkus, who wants to see Lithuania retain the peaceful atom, will step in to bring the populist politicians to their senses, though the way Brazauskas and Dauksys are talking that might not be enough. It would appear that, given its experience with nuclear energy and support from neighbors, Lithuania has a chance to get a new nuclear power plant. It might not come about for another decade – leaving the country without nuclear power for several years – but that is the risk it will have to take. Slowly but surely, nuclear energy is making a comeback, and Lithuania is in a good position to benefit. Sending the wrong signals about Ignalina, however, will only rub Brussels the wrong way and make it all the harder to win approval for a new plant. ***************************************************************** 26 Arizona Republic: Palo Verde shuts down a reactor January 18, 2006 Ken Alltucker One of three reactors at the Palo Verde nuclear power plant shut down Tuesday after operator Arizona Public Service Co. discovered a problem with the unit's main emergency shut-down line. It's been a problem APS has monitored closely for years but became more pronounced when the Phoenix-based utility restarted Unit 1 the week before Christmas after a refueling and repair outage. Crews discovered that Unit 1's emergency shut-down line experienced an "acoustic impact" that vibrated the reactor's shut-down line beyond acceptable levels. APS had been operating the reactor at about one-third of capacity due to the vibrations, but operators decided to shut down the reactor and attempt to fix the problem. "It's a sound you would get when whistling into a Coke bottle," APS spokesman Jim McDonald said. "It creates a vibrating effect on the emergency shut-down line. We are shutting down Unit 1 and hope to come up in a relatively quick manner." McDonald said that crews believe that the unit could restart within two days after crews study and attempt a variety of repairs. Among the potential fixes could include adding shock absorbers, installing weights or adding heat to the emergency shut-down line to reduce the rattle and hum. The utility said a contributing factor to the higher level of vibrations could be the unit's new twin, 800-ton steam generators and low-pressure turbines. APS replaced those parts at a cost of more than $200 million during the latest refueling. "The steam generators did change the flow characteristics, which has an important role in all of this," McDonald said. The steam generators' replacement represents the unit's largest construction job since the reactor opened in 1986, and the new generators have the capability of boosting the 1,250-megawatt reactor's electricity output by about 3 percent. Federal regulators have approved more than 100 small expansions, known as "uprates," at nuclear plants across the nation. Some anti-nuclear groups have been critical of the process, especially at older nuke plants in the Northeast and Midwest, because they believe such expansions compromise safety. In 2002, Exelon Corp. discovered problems shortly after restarting its Quad Cities power plant in Illinois after an increase in power output. An investigation showed that a hole had formed in the plant's steam dryer, which was exacerbated in part by the higher level of vibrations resulting from the power uprate. The Quad Cities nuclear power plant has a far different design from the three Palo Verde units. McDonald said that Palo Verde Unit 2 did not experience any vibration-related problems when its steam generators were swapped out in 2003. Palo Verde, located 50 miles west of downtown Phoenix, is the nation's largest nuclear power plant and a critical source of power for the Southwest and the Valley. Although the nuclear power plant has been among the nation's top performing plants since it opened in 1986, it has experienced numerous outages over the past two years that have resulted in more than a dozen shutdowns. APS has estimated that the Palo Verde shutdowns last year cost the utility at least $40 million to replace the cheaper nuclear-generated electricity with more expensive electricity generated by natural gas or coal. Reach the reporter at ken.alltucker@arizonarepublic.comor (602) 444-8285. Copyright © 2006, azcentral.com. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 27 TheStar.com: Ontario plans public talks on nuclear power Wed. Jan. 18, 2006. | Updated at 04:19 PM DAVID COOPER/TORONTO STAR The Pickering Nuclear Generating Station is shown in this file photo from January 2004. PMCANADIAN PRESS Public debates over the prospect of new nuclear power plants in Ontario are being planned, government officials said today, but environmental groups are concerned that consultations will be rushed and that decisions will be pre-determined. Face-to-face meetings will allow debate between the public and government on a controversial report that recommends the province construct or replace up to 12,400 megawatts of nuclear power at a cost of up to $40 billion. The public was given 60 days to respond to the Dec. 9 report by the Ontario Power Authority on two provincial websites. Government officials confirmed today that there will also be ``face-to-face" public meetings, although Energy Minister Donna Cansfield said her department is still working on what kind of public forums would be held. "We're exploring all the possibilities on how we can best access as many people in Ontario as possible," Cansfield said. Energy Ministry spokeswoman Erica Botand said more details on the public consultation process could be announced within two weeks. But environmental groups are concerned the government has already decided to go ahead with nuclear power expansion and that any public hearings would be nothing more than a "dog and pony" show. Greenpeace Canada, an adamant opponent of nuclear power, wants ``Walkerton-style" town-hall hearings similar to those held by Justice Dennis O'Connor in his review of the tainted-water scandal in Walkerton several years ago. But Shawn-Patrick Stencil of Greenpeace argues that the government is trying to avoid lengthy hearings that could delay project launches past the October 2007 provincial election. "It's obvious that they're rushing this through," Stencil said. "They know that Ontarians are divided on nuclear power and they want to avoid public debate." Cansfield denies any decisions on building new nuclear power plants have been made. December's OPA report only offered advice on what mix of energy supply Ontario needs over the next two decades. Cansfield said she plans to formally respond to its suggestions, "hopefully by mid-March." The OPA would then be directed to create before summer an actual plan outlining how and when new power sources should be built. Stencil said based on his organization's meeting with Cansfield and top ministry officials last week, the province appears anxious to get nuclear projects going. Nuclear experts say if the province is serious about building new reactors, it needs to approve such plans soon, since it takes two to three years just to complete environmental assessments before several years of construction can even begin. Ontario faces potential electricity supply shortages over the next decade, especially under provincial commitments to close its four remaining coal-fired plants — often criticized as heavily polluters — by 2009. Stencil argues the government shouldn't rush a decision involving something as controversial as nuclear power. Despite nuclear proponents' assurances their plants are operated safely, Greenpeace warns of radioactive emissions and waste and the threat of a "catastrophic meltdown." Stencil also said the OPA's suggestions don't adequately consider the potential of renewable sources, such as wind and solar power. Cansfield said her vision of a viable Ontario energy supply includes those alternatives. "I'm a strong proponent around renewables, so I'm looking to suggestions" on building more such projects, Cansfield said, calling the OPA's recommendations "a very balanced report." Legal Notice: Copyright Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All www.thestar.com online since 1996. ***************************************************************** 28 UPI: British debate use of nuclear power United Press International - NewsTrack - 1/17/2006 12:07:00 PM -0500 Newstrack: A study finds that public schools in California, already the most segregated in the country, are becoming even more so. The son of a female Philadelphia police officer was charged Tuesday with killing a retired officer who used to date his mother. A North Carolina woman has been charged with arson and murder for allegedly setting a fire that killed her son and daughter. A former student at a Christian private school in Georgia and her father have filed a lawsuit over her expulsion for a same-sex relationship. The U.S. ambassador to South Korea used harsh words about the North Korean regime in answer to a question on the Web site "Cafe USA." A Swedish woman faces prosecution for failing to tell her husband or the doctors who delivered her children that she was HIV positive. The parliaments of Austria, Finland and Germany have refused to participate in a debate aimed at reviving a European constitution. Two groups of missing snowmobilers were found holed up in a cabin in Labrador after an intensive search hampered by blizzard conditions. The number of foreign visitors to Japan increased for the second year in row last year, apparently reaching a record high of 6.73 million people. A growing list of doctors in Australia have applied for permission to import RU486, the abortion pill that remains banned in the country. © Copyright 2006 United Press International, Inc. All Rights ***************************************************************** 29 AFP: Radioactive produce on sale in Moscow 20 years after Chernobyl - Wed Jan 18, 9:12 AM ET MOSCOW (AFP) - Large quantities of radioactive produce still reach market stalls in Moscow from western Russia and Belarus, almost 20 years after the nuclear accident at Chernobyl. "Around 830 kilogrammes of radioactive produce was confiscated from Mocow markets in 2005," said Elena Ter-Martirossov, spokeswoman for Radon, the municipal authority which handles the capital's radioactivity security. The figure for 2004 was 986 kilogrammes, around a tonne in 2003, three tonnes in 2002, and 1.5 tonnes in 2001, she said Wednesday. "Most of it comes from markets and consists of mushrooms and berries" from regions affected by the April 1986 explosion in Chernobyl, Ukraine. "There was a case, involving meat, in a shop two years ago, but it is very rare that shops are affected," she added. All marketplaces have a laboratory which checks goods before sale, while shops are also inspected, she explained. If contaminated goods are found, Radon is called in to handle the removal and treatment of these goods which are considered to be radioactive waste. Mushrooms and berries are more susceptible to radioactivity because they grow very close to the ground and quickly absorb any radioactive particles. Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 30 PittsburghLIVE.com: Nuclear power may pop up in a decade - FOR THE TRIBUNE-REVIEW Wednesday, January 18, 2006 The speed of American problem-solving takes the breath away sometimes. Let a new nuclear power plant be ordered today - and it might be up and running in 10 years! After all the hearings, impact statements, re-designs, protests, licensing inspections, all of that, you understand. Well, maybe people who are having trouble paying heating bills this winter can wait that long. More uranium-based electricity in the nation's power mix would trim demand for oil and natural gas. Just as drilling for more oil in Alaska and coastal waters would. And every other supply enhancement. We're paying now for taking cheap, U.S.-based energy for granted much too long under the regulatory heavy-hand. Nuclear power, homegrown in America, has been a particular orphan. Some dozen years ago a nuclear plant that took a dozen years to build near New York City was ready to be fueled and start generating. But just as Long Islanders were about to be endangered by cheap, reliable, non-polluting electricity, the $5 billion Shoreham plant was barred from ever emitting a volt. What a scandal - if the victims had been anybody but power investors. We're now approaching a third of a century since any U.S. utility had the guts to order a nuclear plant. The Three Mile Island "disaster" of 1979 didn't leak an x-ray's dose of radiation, but turned the public to jelly. No politician has ever lost popularity by opposing nuclear power. In Nevada it is a career. Deep under that state's Yucca Mountain, spent fuel from all the country's nuclear plants could be buried practically forever. But Yucca's got to be re-studied for the umpteenth time, while worn-out fuel rods are stored in water tanks "temporarily" - 30 or 40 years now - at every N-plant in the country, including a short drive from Pittsburgh. Politicians don't talk about that. Nor about the atom's quiet current production of 20 percent of the country's electricity, no thanks to any regime abroad. (Coal, another black sheep, generates 50 percent.) A couple of decades ago the coal storage piles froze solid at Duquesne Light's power plants in a long winter cold spell, but its Beaver Valley nuclear plant turned out kilowatts as easily as in May. The great depression in nuclear orders may finally be seesawing up against the strange, unwitting alliance of environmental fear-mongers and OPEC oil cartelists. By spooking the public against drilling, digging, refining and burning fossil fuels in the United States, they've given us high-priced, and more and more imported, oil and natural gas. So, the Associated Press reports that at least two utilities will show plans in a few weeks to build nuclear plants. Maybe 10 such plants will pop up, mostly in the Sunbelt. If you can imagine a 10-year time frame for popping up. It takes time to chase the scare away. Retired business editor Jack Markowitz writes Sundays and Wednesdays. E-mail him at . Images and text copyright © 2006 by The Tribune-Review Publishing Co. ***************************************************************** 31 Las Vegas SUN: Test Failures Slow U.S. Missile Defense Today: January 18, 2006 at 12:5:16 PST By RACHEL D'ORO ASSOCIATED PRESS FORT GREELY, Alaska (AP) - Behind the heavy barbed wire at this snowy range are silos containing eight interceptors designed to shoot down incoming enemy missiles. There were supposed to be as many as 16 in place by now. But after an embarrassing series of test failures in the ambitious, expensive and highly criticized program to build a national missile-defense shield, the U.S. military is slowing the deployment of interceptors while it conducts more testing. Fewer interceptors than the military had hoped for have been installed at Fort Greely, an 800-acre complex at the edge of an old burned spruce forest, and at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Vandenberg has just two interceptors instead of four. The government has spent about $100 billion on missile defense since 1983, including $7.8 billion authorized for the current fiscal year. Interceptors, however, have failed five times in 11 tests, even though some critics of the program say the tests have been practically rigged to succeed. Officials with the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency said its director, Air Force Lt. Gen. Henry Obering, decided to step back on the advice of two independent panels, which scrutinized the program after test failures in 2004 and 2005 in which the interceptors did not even make it out of their silos. "The review groups recommended that more interceptors be made available for both ground and flight testing," said MDA spokesman Rick Lehner. Under the program, interceptors would eventually be linked to other components, including satellites, ground- and sea-based radar, computers and command centers. The network would detect and track enemy warheads and launch interceptor rockets to destroy them. Interceptors now in place can be activated on a limited basis in case of an emergency, Lehner said. Military officials say the test failures have led to better equipment and a successful interceptor test Dec. 13 at Kwajalein Atoll in the central Pacific. Retired Army Gen. Bill Nance, a member of one of the review panels, said test failures were due more to hardware problems and the like than any fundamental design flaws. For example, officials said a kink in software timing kept the interceptor from launching in the December 2004 test, and an arm holding up the interceptor did not fully retract in the February test, automatically aborting the exercise. "I think this system is going to work," Nance said. Critics remain skeptical. Philip Coyle, a former chief of testing for the Pentagon and a critic of the missile defense system, said that if highly scripted tests fail, it is hard to see how they could succeed in a surprise attack. "The basic challenges haven't changed. Basically, hitting an enemy missile out in space, at 15,000 mph, is like trying to hit a hole-in-one in golf when the hole is going 15,000 mph," he said. He added that enemy countermeasures and decoys make the job even tougher. Forty silos are planned for Fort Greely, about 100 miles from Fairbanks. Silo construction is half-completed. Officials will not say when interceptors will fill them. "More will be deployed in 2006 and 2007," Lehner said, adding that he could not be more specific for security reasons. --- On the Net: Missile Defense Agency: http://www.mda.mil Center for Defense Information: http://www.cdi.org All contents copyright 2005 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 32 AP Wire: West Palm Beach man convicted of smuggling radioactive material Posted on Wed, Jan. 18, 2006 Associated Press MIAMI - An executive of an import and export company has been convicted of smuggling radioactive material from a Fort Lauderdale airport to the Bahamas, the U.S. Attorney's office said Wednesday. A jury found Harold J. DeGregory Jr., of West Palm Beach, guilty of three counts of illegal transportation of Iridium-192, a hazardous and radioactive material. He was also convicted of two counts of making a materially false statement to the U.S. government, the U.S. Attorney office said in a statement. DeGregory, president of the Fort Lauderdale-based H&G Import Export company, had made an agreement with the Bahamas Oil Refining Company to transport Iridium-192 to and from the Bahamas. BORC acquired Iridium-192, which is used for industrial radiography, from a U.S. company that legally shipped it to Fort Lauderdale, the U.S. Attorney's office said. During his trial, prosecutors argued that on at least three flights between August 2003 and November 2004, DeGregory failed to submit mandatory Hazardous Material Manifests and submitted false documents to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The documents stated he was transporting cargo, but did not mention the Iridium-192, the U.S. Attorney's Office said. DeGregory's sentencing is scheduled for April 14. He faces a maximum term of five years of imprisonment on each of his five convictions and up to $250,000 in fines. ***************************************************************** 33 PRN: Arizona Railroad Safety Hearing Reinforces Teamster Report PR Newswire TITLE="http://www.teamster.org"> Testimony Reveals Serious Security Gaps on Nation's Railroads WASHINGTON, Jan. 18 /PRNewswire/ -- The Arizona Corporation Commission conducted a hearing last month with senior inspectors of the state's Railroad Safety Section that should serve as an alarm bell to the public about the vulnerability of our nation's railways. Testimony at the Arizona hearing reinforces the findings of the Teamsters Rail Conference report, "HIGH ALERT: Workers Warn of Security Gaps on Nation's Railroads." The HIGH ALERT report documents a startling lack of safety and security in this post-9/11 era, based on a survey of more than 4,000 rail employees nationwide. Employees of Union Pacific, CSX, Burlington Northern Santa Fe, Norfolk Southern and others detailed multiple instances of operational security and safety lapses by the rail carriers that put the public at risk. Arizona's primary rail carriers are Union Pacific and Burlington Northern Santa Fe. Again and again, responses by the rail safety inspectors to the Arizona Commissioners' questions presented further evidence that the nation's rail carriers demonstrate a shocking lack of attention to safety and security of rail workers and the communities they serve. The Teamsters are lobbying the federal government and the appropriate federal agencies to address these critical security lapses. "The Arizona Railroad Safety hearing is another wake-up call to the rail carriers, who have for too long been left to their own devices," Murphy said. "The rail carriers' safety and security systems are woefully inadequate, and the consequences could be devastating. In the hands of the wrong people at the wrong place at the wrong time, it could be catastrophic." Here are some excerpts from the Arizona Railroad Safety hearing: Commissioner Kristin K. Mayes, who had read the Teamster Rail Conference HIGH ALERT report, asked about the degree to which the Inspectors were paying attention to potential terrorist threats to our rail system and Homeland Security issues. Commissioner Mayes asked, "Do you know of any homeland security money that is coming into Arizona for the protection of our switch yards, tracks and facilities set out facilities, anything like that? Do you know of any money that is being spent in Arizona on that issue?" Senior Rail Safety Inspector Brian H. Lehman answered: "Commissioner Mayes, there is none. There are no funds available through Homeland Security. It is the obligation of the railroads themselves." Commissioner Mayes responded, "I find that absolutely appalling. This is a national issue. I think this [HIGH ALERT] report put together by the workers of the railroads demonstrates that the railroads themselves are not getting the job done." Chairman Jeff Hatch-Miller asked if there had been any increase in "security staff required, or changes in operational procedures, or fortification of equipment?" Inspector Lehman responded, "Throughout the state of Arizona, the railroads, other than posting signs of private property, they have not beefed up their security, to my knowledge." Chairman Hatch-Miller asked, "Have they been required to -- by anyone?" Inspector Lehman said, "No." Chairman Hatch-Miller responded, stating that no one, not, "the federal government -- not the Congress, not the Department of Transportation, no one - - has required [the rail carriers] to change their activities based on the potential terrorism threat." Commissioner William Mundell said that what the "HIGH ALERT" report revealed was true. "John Murphy, Director of the Teamsters Rail Conference, told the Flagstaff Sun, and I wish I had thought of this quote," Murphy said. "'Since 2001, the federal government has spent billions on aviation and only a pittance on rail when it comes to security and safety.'" Mundell went on to say, "We learned [Union Pacific has] only one or two security guards for the whole metropolitan area of Phoenix, and they have eight-hour shifts. It's a joke -- one person for the whole metropolitan area of Phoenix on call 24 hours a day." Commissioner Mayes agreed that it was "shocking" and pointed out another glaring safety issue, saying, "The railroads are now pushing in other states to dropping the number of personnel they have on each train from two, which is ridiculously low to begin with, to one. In Arizona, at least we have a regulation that requires them to have two -- so from a safety perspective, at least we have two, and it is not enough." When questioning Inspector Tom Whitmer, a Hazardous Material Inspector with 21 years on the Rail Safety Section, 13 years as an FRA Certified Hazmat Inspector and an adviser to the Arizona Department of Emergency and Military Affairs, Commissioner Mayes asked, "One of the findings of the Teamsters' report was that too many times the workers were finding rail cars containing hazardous materials were going unsecured, were not guarded, were left out in the open. Switches were also left unattended. When you [Inspector Whitmer] are out there inspecting cars in Arizona, how often do you find the cars carrying hazardous materials are left unattended?" Inspector Tom Whitmer responded, "Almost always." Commissioner Mayes, unbelieving, had to ask again, "Almost always?" Inspector Whitmer repeated, "Almost always." Commissioner Mayes said, "That's shocking. And why is that? Is that because there is a lack of personnel?" Inspector Whitmer told her, "From my perspective, it hasn't been built into the equation yet. We are not up to speed as far as security issues." Commissioner Mayes asked, "One of the responses to the survey the Teamsters did was, 'was your train or equipment delayed or left unattended for an extended period of time prior to or during your tour of duty? Answer: Yes, 63 percent.' That comports with your answer, which is, 'do you see this often.'" Inspector Tom Whitmer said, "Yes," adding, "In a general sense, there is not much more security than there was prior to 9/11." Commissioner Mayes was incredulous, repeating, "There is not much more security than there was prior to 9/11. That's amazing." Commissioner Mayes then asked, "How often do you see that type of situation where you have set out facilities or [hazardous] tanker cars that are idle that are near populated areas?" Inspector Tom Whitmer responded, "It's a regular occurrence." He told the Commissioners that "the security issue is brand new and frankly I don't think it's really been figured out the best way to implement it." Chairman Hatch-Miller asked, "Have the federal standards in regards to the securing of hazardous liquids changed in the last five years?" Inspector Tom Whitmer responded, "Not that I'm aware of." Chairman Hatch-Miller asked, "So, basically the federal government hasn't asked for any different process to take place?" Inspector Tom Whitmer replied, "No, they have not." In sum, the testimony at the Arizona Rail Safety hearing reinforces the findings of the Teamsters "HIGH ALERT " report. The "HIGH ALERT " report reveals, as did the Arizona hearing, a shocking inattention to security by the nation's largest rail corporations. Rail employees have little, if any, training on the handling of hazardous materials. The practice of leaving rail engines and other machinery unlocked is far too common. The report's conclusions are that the nation's rail system is vulnerable to terrorist attack, and the rail corporations have not taken seriously the safety of their employees and the public. The Teamsters again call on the rail carriers to implement the recommendations detailed in "HIGH ALERT." If they refuse, the Teamsters Rail Conference will press Congress to institute regulations that compel them to do so. HIGH ALERT is online at http://www.teamster.org/divisions/rail/pdfs/railsecuritybook.pdf or contact the Teamsters Communications Department. The Teamsters Rail Conference represents more than 70,000 rail employees, including members of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes. HIGH ALERT REPORT - RECOMMENDATIONS In the five years since 9/11, the nation's rail carriers have, by virtually all accounts, failed to provide significant, measurable safety and security improvements to deter or respond to a terrorist attack on the U.S. rail network. z Rail workers, who spend their days on the front lines of the rail system, are intimately familiar with the system's vulnerabilities, its day-to-day operations, and the vital components of an effective security plan. It is critical that these workers and their representatives play a key role in establishing a viable security plan to be approved and enforced by the Transportation Safety Administration. Such a program, administered by the TSA, would address key issues including: * Securing the rail infrastructure at points of vulnerability, i.e., bridges, tunnels, yards, etc.; * Increasing minimum requirements for inspections of critical infrastructure, i.e., tracks, bridges, tunnels, track diamonds, signal systems, etc.; * Manning and securing the nation's movable railroad bridges; * Establish strict compliance standards and comprehensive reporting requirements; * Assessing penalties for carriers' compliance or reporting violations; * Improving storage of hazardous materials in transportation (i.e., in yards, rather than along rights of way); and * Securing equipment including, but not limited to, remote control devices. Further, the Safe Rails/Secure America survey points to other equally necessary measures to protect rail employees and U.S. residents who live near rail yards and lines. Among them: * Require rail corporations to provide backup for engineers. * Provide distress codes or signal system -- other than railroad radio -- to alert law enforcement officials of hijack, attack, or other emergency. * Provide adequate railroad or public security presence to prevent security breaches and to ensure timely response to emergencies. * Secure yards from trespassers. * Establish a system to notify rail workers of the railroad industry's national or local threat level. * Train all rail employees relative to the carriers' security plan, including the employees' specific roles and responsibilities related to such a security plan. * Provide distress signals for bridge tenders on movable bridges to alert authorities of security threats. * Restrict remote control use to non-hazmat shipments. * Penalize rail corporations who have failed to adequately train workers in security/terrorism prevention; inspections of infrastructure; hazardous materials (including nuclear waste); and OSHA's Emergency Action Plans and/or Emergency Response Plans. * Establish standard protocols for training that all rail corporations must provide. * Require all railroad subcontractors and their employees to receive standardized training and to undergo the same background, skills, and "fitness for duty" checks required of rail corporation employees. SOURCE International Brotherhood of Teamsters Web Site: http://www.teamster.org Copyright © 1996- PR Newswire Association LLC. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 34 [du-list] Office Of The Surgeon General's Policy On Bio-Surety Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2006 19:36:53 -0800 All, Have recently posted the OTSG's current policy on Bio-Surety if interested. This memo expires in 2007. Regards, Paul D. Lyons President, Desert Storm Justice Foundation, Inc. www.dsjf.org http://www.dsjf.org/Bio_Files/05-013%20Biosurety%20Policy.pdf [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] To unsubscribe from this groups send a message to du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com. In the body of the message type unsubscribe and send. ***************************************************************** 35 STOP THE LAUNCH! Size matters, and Pu poison gas pellets are Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2006 19:36:14 -0800 To: John Graham, Former President, American Nuclear Society (ANS) Date: January 17th, 2006 Dear Mr. Graham, Thank you for both your recent emails (shown below). The article you sent me (also shown below) doesn't deal with plutonium risks at all. And what is the phrase "tiny pellets of plutonium" -- the catch-phrase of the launch -- supposed to convey to the public, anyway? Each of the 72 "pellets" of plutonium on board New Horizons is about 3 ounces in weight, about 1/2 cubic inch in size, holds about 1800 Curies of plutonium, and is extremely hot to the (ouch) touch. Few reporters define their terms, but I've heard reporters describe the 132,500 Curies of plutonium on board New Horizons as "trivial." 132,500 Curies is NOT a "tiny" or "trivial" amount of plutonium, since death comes with near certainty from mere microCurie quantities of Pu-238, or even less. Even BIER VII accepts the Linear, No-Threshold (LNT) theory that any amount of radiation can cause cancer and other health effects. It's all about doing a proper risk assessment, but history has proven time and again that NASA's risk assessments are inaccurate. Microbiologists do not dispute that there are critical moments in DNA replication during which code replication after damage is imprecise, at best. They also agree that "double hit" damage can result in imperfect replication. So the "hot particle" theory may go by any name you choose, but it has not been discredited. Every ionizing radiation event can be harmful, as illustrated in my Tritium article which I just published on the Internet today; a link to it is included below. Comments are welcome, of course. Also, below is my report on the last American Nuclear Society meeting I attended, which was held near where I live. I am requesting that you ask the executive committee of the ANS to provide me with a life-time honorary membership so that I don't have to crash their meetings anymore, and can "learn" what you folks are claiming these days without ducking out as soon as I think I've been recognized. Tomorrow, perhaps the world will witness the violence of a "major malfunction" once again, whether New Horizons is attacked by terrorists, or fails of its own accord, or suffers a random "act of God" like being hit by a glove or something else that someone discarded on a previous visit to space and which is now "space debris" in Low Earth Orbit. This launch is not safe and should be stopped. What NASA is doing is negligent homicide because if NASA continues to launch plutonium into space, sooner or later there WILL be a serious accident. When there is, chances are better than 50/50 that the remnants of the containment will fall into the sea, or completely vaporize, or be lost on earth. Then, NASA will claim that the containment worked as designed, but the truth will be that thousands of people will die all around the world prematurely because NASA and its supporters ignored the facts. Plutonium should not be rocketed into space under any excuse. Getting to Pluto is no excuse. Sincerely, "Ace" Hoffman Concerned Citizen Carlsbad, CA P.S,: Can you tell me why there are no Radioactive Heater Unit (RHUs) on board New Horizons? There were about 130 of them on board Cassini, for instance -- a disgrace -- and nearly a dozen on each of the two recent Mars Rover missions. But there are none on board New Horizons. Why not? Attachments (6): 1&2) Your first and second emails to me 3) Letter from a newsletter subscriber regarding the necessity of leaving now for Pluto 4) Link to my article on attending the ANS Space Nuclear Power and Propulsion meeting last year 5) Link to my new Tritium report 6) Contact information for "Ace" Hoffman ============================================================ (1) John Graham's first letter to me: ============================================================ At 12:45 PM 1/13/2006 -0700, John Graham wrote: Subject: New Horizons mission >Mr. Hoffman > >If you wish I could give you facts for your publication Š unfortunately >your article on the New Horizons mission is full of errors and half truths >you may have picked up from others on the fringe. > >Even Tom Cochran of the NRDC has dropped his cock-eyed hot-particle theory. > >John Graham >Former President >American Nuclear Society ============================================================ (2) John Graham's second letter to me: ============================================================ At 08:06 AM 1/16/2006 -0800, "John Graham" wrote: Subject: Re: SFGate: Voyage to icy Pluto seeks to learn how the solar system was forged/Planet at the edge orbits among sun's vast store of comets Read and learn ---------------------------------------------------------------------- This article was sent to you by someone who found it on SFGate. The original article can be found on SFGate.com here: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/01/16/MNG30GO1VV1.DTL --------------------------------------------------------------------- Monday, January 16, 2006 (SF Chronicle) Voyage to icy Pluto seeks to learn how the solar system was forged/Planet at the edge orbits among sun's vast store of comets David Perlman, Chronicle Science Editor A spacecraft named New Horizons is about to embark on an extraordinary 10-year voyage to Pluto, the frozen planet nearly 4 billion miles away that orbits on the very outer edge of the solar system where no engineered visitor from Earth has ever ventured. NASA scientists and engineers announced Sunday that all systems are ready to launch the craft from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida early Tuesday afternoon on a mission that scientists hope will give the world new insights into the formation of the solar system some 4.5 billion years ago. "This will be the Everest of planetary exploration," New Horizon's chief scientist, Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo., said during a Webcast briefing. Pluto lies within a vast ring of icy dwarf objects known as the Kuiper Belt, a wilderness of fossil mini-planets where thousands of comets begin their flaring passage through the inner solar system and hundreds of thousands more remain in distant solar orbit. Discovered only in 1930 by the late astronomer Clyde Tombaugh, Pluto is now known to be a binary planet. Scientists suspect it formed early in the history of the solar system when some unknown object crashed into it, then split apart from it to become its major moon, Charon. New Horizons, when it reaches its target in 2015, also will explore Charon and then spend five months or more closely examining one or two other objects in the Kuiper Belt. From observations by the orbiting Hubble telescope and by major observatories on Earth, astronomers have learned that Pluto's surface consists of solidly frozen nitrogen, carbon monoxide and methane, as well as water ice -- all of them perhaps surrounding a rocky core. But the planet's surface may also hold spouting ice geysers, and its pinkish-orange color may be due to a coating of complex organic molecules, said astrophysicist Dale Cruikshank of NASA's Ames Research Center in Mountain View. At Pluto's perpetual temperature of some 387 degrees below zero Fahrenheit, however, no one believes that any life form would be possible. "We're expecting the unexpected," Cruikshank told reporters at the briefing after NASA engineers had given the go-ahead for Tuesday's launch. Pluto's surface ices are known to be evaporating at a rate of some 3 million tons a year, according to planetary scientist Fran Bagenal of the University of Colorado. As those gases have spewed into space for billions of years, the planet has acted like a colossal comet, she said. Less than 1,500 miles in diameter, Pluto is the smallest planet in the solar system and only two-thirds the size of Earth's moon. Although it is the first to be discovered within the Kuiper Belt, it is apparently by no means the largest planet there. In July, astronomers reported observing at least one object in the region bigger than Pluto. They named the object, more than 1,800 miles in diameter, Xena and said they also detected at least two other Kuiper Belt objects close to Pluto's size. Sophisticated instruments on New Horizons will hibernate inside a protective thermal blanket as the spacecraft speeds at 30,000 mph -- the swiftest ever space-bound vehicle -- past Jupiter and then picks up its speed to 47,000 mph and reaches Pluto by July 2015. Because sunlight is far too dim at Pluto to provide solar power for the instruments, radioactivity from 18 tiny pellets of plutonium -- not the isotope used in nuclear weapons -- will generate electricity. The instruments will take hundreds of pictures of Pluto and Charon, analyze the planet's surface gases and geology, measure its temperatures and study how the planet interacts with the solar wind -- the high-speed stream of charged particles that flow constantly from the sun. "We're poised to investigate a new world," said Cruikshank. E-mail David Perlman dperlman@sfchronicle.com. Copyright 2006 SF Chronicle ============================================================ 3) Letter from a newsletter subscriber regarding the necessity of leaving now for Pluto: ============================================================ My response shown below has been slightly modified from the original and resent. -- Ace At 02:07 PM 1/14/2006 -0500, ...............@aol.com wrote: >In a message dated 01/12/06 4:28:43 AM Central Standard Time, >rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com writes: > >>NASA probably chose this particular >>mission because they were sure no "anti-nuclear activist" could >>legitimately claim you could run experiments once you got to Pluto with >>solar power -- you needed (so NASA claimed) plutonium for THIS mission, and >>that's why THIS mission was chosen. Our claim that solar power could have >>been used for the Cassini / Huygens mission to Saturn was, in effect, >>validated by NASA's choice of Pluto as the next big nuclear target. > > >WHATEVER one thinks about the use of RTGs, I think it is erroneous to >suggest that we are sending a mission to Pluto primarily as an excuse to >use RTGs again (and making such a suggestion diverts attention and impairs >one's credibility in arguing against RTGs themselves). In fact, in order >to get enough fuel, NASA had to scrounge for it and cannibalize several >other uses. The reasons this mission is going to Pluto, and going now, >are that (1) Pluto is in fact the only one of the traditional nine planets >that we have not visited, and (2) it is important to reach Pluto, rapidly >receding from the sun in its orbit, before its atmosphere freezes and >conceals significant scientific data; it will be a quarter of a millennium >(250 years or so) before Pluto returns sunward and its atmosphere unfreezes. > >Respectfully, To: Q...@aol.com Subject: Re: New Lows in Government, New Horizons in Space January 14th, 2006 Hi, What are the chances that anything happened in the last 250 years on Pluto that we missed? My point is, that's barely an excuse to spend the money, let alone an excuse good enough to explain the need to suffer this sort of risk. If one were to put the exact same number of dollars (about $650 million) into studying one little acre of the rain forest of Brazil, a lot more scientifically valuable data would come of it, in the grand scheme of "things we need to know." It would have gone a long way towards building better levees in New Orleans before Katrina, too. I think that amount would have prevented the flooding. Also, I'm curious as to what you mean by "in order to get enough fuel, NASA had to scrounge for it and cannibalize several other uses." I suggested in the article that this rocket is a cobbled-together one-of-a-kind kludge that might or might not work, but you seem to be getting at something else. Thanks, Ace ============================================================ 4) Link to my article on attending the ANS Space Nuclear Power and Propulsion meeting last year: ============================================================ Start of the article: The American Nuclear Society held their annual meeting earlier this month in San Diego, California. It cost over $700 to attend, and you had to be a member of ANS, which is totally pro-nuclear. I'm against that. So I snuck in. On the first full day of the conference, I attended the opening series of sessions on Space Nuclear Power and Propulsion. Nils Diaz, the chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, started the day's space sessions. Diaz admitted to giving his first speech about space nuclear power and propulsion 30 days after telling his "boss" (presumably he meant King George) that he knew NOTHING about it (his boss replied: "You've got 30 days to learn!"). Mr. Diaz did not admit that he still knows nothing. To read the full article: http://www.animatedsoftware.com/environm/no_nukes/2005/ARoomFullofArrogance.htm ============================================================ 5) Link to my new Tritium report: ============================================================ Summary: Tritium users, producers, and regulators assert that tritium is "only" killing two in every ten million people (as if that can be ignored). Put another way, the nuclear industry estimates that there are 0.003 fatal cancers per million people per year caused by tritium, and wishes society would ignore even those deaths. But the actual death rate from tritium could be much higher than officially estimated, as will be argued below. There are places where the local concentration of tritium is a thousand times -- or more -- higher than average. The more susceptible members of our population are a hundred times or more, more susceptible to radiation's ill effects than the rest of us. Therefore, in some groups of people, tritium could be routinely killing a much greater percentage of people -- as many as a thousand times a hundred times more than the official estimate, or 200,000 in every ten million -- one in every 50 people. Tritium could be doing this TODAY, and we wouldn't even know it. And in addition to causing fatal cancers, tritium, at legal limits of contamination, or at ANY level, damages and sickens us all, although it is usually only the lifetime risk of fatal cancers and "gross genetic defects" for two generations (mother, child) which are tracked and studied at all. Tritium is something we should all educate ourselves about and understand -- what it is and how it hurts us. This newsletter provides an in-depth look at tritium, along with some basic background information. To read the full article: http://www.animatedsoftware.com/environment/tritium/2006/EPATritiumStandard.htm ============================================================ 6) Contact information for "Ace" Hoffman: ============================================================ ************************************************* ** THE ANIMATED SOFTWARE COMPANY ** Russell "Ace" Hoffman, Owner and Chief Programmer ** P.O. Box 1936, Carlsbad CA 92018-1936 ** (800) 551-2726 ** (760) 720-7261 ** Fax: (760) 720-7394 ** Visit the world's most eclectic web site: ** http://www.animatedsoftware.com ************************************************* IF YOU RECEIVED THIS EMAIL IN ERROR AND/OR DO NOT WISH TO RECEIVE ANY MORE EMAILS FROM US FOR ANY REASON, PLEASE CONTACT RUSSELL HOFFMAN AT: rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com MailTo:rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com?Subject=Unsubscribe-me-please . Please be sure that "Unsubscribe-me-please" appears in the subject line. ***************************************************************** 36 [NYTr] Irish Govt studies recommendation over UK nuclear Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2006 16:41:01 -0600 (CST) Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit RTE News, 18 January 2006 15:43 http://www.rte.ie/news/2006/0118/sellafield.html Govt studies recommendation over Sellafield The Government is studying a recommendation from the legal advisor to the European Court of Justice that Ireland breached protocols by attempting to take Britain before the United Nations instead of the EU over Sellafield discharges. The Government wanted to use the UN Convention on the Law of the Seas as a legal means of closing the plant, but the European Commission had demanded the matter be dealt with through EU institutions. This recommendation will come as a blow to the Government's international legal bid to close Sellafield. The determination from the European Court of Justice should be delivered later this year. However, the expectation now must be that Ireland will lose the case, given that the court accepts the recommendation of its legal advisor in 80% of cases. While not conceding yet, Environment Minister Dick Roche said if the court rules it does have exclusive jurisdiction and the UN avenue is closed off, then he expects the European Commission to take robust action on Ireland's concerns over Sellafield. Minister Roche maintained this was something the commission had not been doing to date. He said Ireland would continue to pursue every diplomatic and legal option to secure the closure of Sellafield. * ================================================================ .NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems . Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us . .339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org .List Archives: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/ .Subscribe: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr ================================================================ ***************************************************************** 37 Brattleboro Reformer: PSB will review Vt. Yankee dry cask proposal January 18, 2006 Brattleboro, VT By KRISTI CECCAROSSI Reformer Staff BRATTLEBORO -- A final round of reviews begins soon on a plan to build nuclear waste storage sites on the grounds of Vermont Yankee. On Jan. 30, the state's Public Service Board will start two weeks of hearings in Montpelier on the controversial proposal. It's up to the board to decide if installing steel and concrete containers to hold high-level nuclear waste at the Vernon plant is in the best interest of the state. The Public Service Board is a three-member, quasi-judicial board; its role is to advocate for ratepayers in all matters related to energy and utilities. Nuclear waste at the 33-year-old plant is currently stored in a 40-foot deep pool in the reactor building. Plant owners say the pool will be filled to capacity by 2007 or 2008 -- figuring that Vermont Yankee will soon boost its power output by an additional 20 percent. Although the power boost, or uprate, is still pending federal review, plant owners already have won approval from several key committees. Entergy Nuclear, owners of the plant, insist the dry casks are necessary to continue operation of the plant. The Public Service Board hearings are open to the public. The hearings will include highly technical testimony and cross-examination of witnesses. Attorneys and engineers from Entergy will argue in favor of the proposal. Nuclear watchdog groups New England Coalition and Citizens Awareness Network are opponents in the case, as well as the Windham Regional Commission. The state's Department of Public Service will represent ratepayers in hearings. From Jan. 30 to Feb. 9, hearings will be Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, starting at 9:30 a.m.; on Tuesdays at 12:30 p.m.; on Thursdays at 1:30 p.m. All hearings take place on the third floor of the Chittenden Bank Building on State Street in Montpelier. The proposed dry casks would be used to hold the older -- less "hot" -- fuel assemblies stored in the pool, making way for newer ones that will be taken from the reactor's core. Entergy's application to the state for permission to construct the containers describes them as "temporary" storage. Temporary, because the federal Department of Energy is ultimately responsible for removal and storage of the used fuel. But plans to build a permanent nuclear storage facility for the country have been tied up for years in Congress, and critics say the dry casks could remain in Vernon indefinitely. Public Service Board officials say an eventual ruling will be based on the technical hearings, pre-filed evidence and testimony collected from residents during a public hearing held in Brattleboro last fall. Kristi Ceccarossi can be reached at kceccarossi@reformer.comor (802) 254-2311, ext. 160. Copyright ©1999-2005 New England Newspapers, Inc., ***************************************************************** 38 Albuquerque Tribune: Lab will front work on Yucca Sandia to oversee technical labor on project By James W. Brosnan Scripps Howard News Service January 18, 2006 WASHINGTON - Sandia National Laboratories was named today to spearhead the federal government's long-stalled effort to bury high-level nuclear waste at the Yucca Mountain project in Nevada. A Department of Energy release said Sandia will be the central manager for technical and scientific work on Yucca Mountain, replacing a consortium of Bechtel Corp. and Science Applications International. The move comes as the Department of Energy prepares its final push to persuade the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to license the waste depository, which is located about 100 miles north of Las Vegas and opposed by most Nevada officials. The announcement did not include a dollar figure. Five years ago, while serving as energy secretary, Gov. Bill Richardson awarded a $3.1 billion contract to Bechtel-SAIC to manage the Yucca Mountain project. That contract expires Feb. 12. Ironically, a team of Bechtel and the University of California last month beat out Lockheed Martin, which operates Sandia, for the contract to manage Los Alamos National Laboratory. Bechtel-SAIC spokesman Jason Bohnes said today's announcement came as "no surprise to us," because the Yucca Mountain project is in transition from preparatory work to a license application. Bohnes said the company will appoint a transition officer to work with Sandia. He said the impact on the workforce of 1,400 is still undetermined. Sandia spokesman Michael Padilla said in a written statement that the lab "welcomes the opportunity to help with a project critical to America's energy future." The Yucca Mountain project has met delay after delay since Congress first designated it in 1987 as the nation's nuclear repository, exasperating project supporters like Sen. Pete Domenici, who chairs both the Energy Committee and the Appropriations subcommittee with jurisdiction over Yucca Mountain. The Albuquerque Republican said today's announcement "is good news for Sandia and Yucca Mountain." "Sandia National Laboratories will be a major contributor to research and work done on nuclear waste issues, which is the key to the future of nuclear power development in our country," Domenici said. Energy Department officials said Sandia proved itself in managing the scientific investigations that led to the successful licensing of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad, which takes very low-level nuclear waste. "The project needs to provide a solid, fully defensible technical basis to the NRC, and designating Sandia our lead laboratory means our science work will be properly integrated by the nation's very best in repository science," said Paul Golan, acting director of the Office of Radioactive Waste at DOE. The Government Accountability Office has criticized the Energy Department for ineffective quality assurance over the data and software used to predict whether the Yucca Mountain repository could leak. In one report in 2004 the congressional watchdog office said the department's "heavy reliance on contractors and inadequate oversight" would increase the chances for quality-related problems and possibly jeopardize licensing. The agency also said DOE and Bechtel had failed to ensure a work environment in which which employees could raise concerns "without fear of reprisal." But last year it was Bechtel employees who reported to the Energy Department the discovery that a U. S. Geological Survey worker had fabricated documentation of his work in e-mails written between 1998 and 2000, according to stories in Nevada newspapers. 2006 © The Albuquerque Tribune Privacy Policy| ***************************************************************** 39 North County Times: Nuclear waste hurts local economy North San Diego and Southwest Riverside County News January 17, 2006 8:22 PM PST By: ROCHELLE BECKER In every news story two weeks ago about the new cuts in Homeland Security anti-terror funding for San Diego, the threat of a terrorist attack at San Onofre was mentioned repeatedly. Let's think about this: If Homeland Security funding is restored, does the threat go away? What would be the economic impacts to San Diego from a radioactive release at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station? Who would be visiting Legoland, SeaWorld, our wonderful zoos or our beautiful seashore? Who visits Chernobyl? Each day the byproduct of nuclear generation ---- high-level radioactive waste ---- increases on our fragile and eroding coast. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has licensed a "temporary" on-site radioactive waste facility at San Onofre. The commission has no definition for "temporary," and recent legislation introduced by Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., supports leaving this radioactive material at reactor sites. This legislation has growing bipartisan support. San Diego deserves to know how much contaminated radioactive waste will be allowed to be stored on our coast and for how long, but our cities and counties have not been asking for these answers. The California Energy Commission has recommended a full, in-depth cost/benefit/risk analysis to ascertain the economic impacts of the state's continued reliance on aging reactors, including increasing needs for security and storage of the high-level radioactive waste produced each day. Until it is decommissioned and removed from our coast, San Onofre will pose a threat to our economy. In the meantime, the responsible action is to study how to replace this nuclear generation and limit the amount of high-level radioactive waste stored in our county. California needs to determine the real costs of producing renewable and sustainable energy within the next 15 years when the current nuclear license expires. The Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility invites our fellow San Diegans, our cities and our state to support the Energy Commission's recommendation. Until our elected officials and oversight agencies look carefully at the true costs of continuing to increase the stockpiles of high-level radioactive material stored on our coast, the economic risks of a radioactive release due to an accident, earthquake or terrorist attack multiply. San Diego resident Rochelle Becker is executive director of Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility (www.a4nr.org). . webmaster@nctimes.com © 1997-2006 North County Times – Lee Enterprises editor@nctimes.com ***************************************************************** 40 Las Vegas SUN: New Mexico lab chosen to coordinate Yucca Mountain work Today: January 18, 2006 at 13:58:5 PST ASSOCIATED PRESS ALBUQUERQUE (AP) - Sandia National Laboratories has been chosen as the lead federal lab to coordinate science work on the $58 billion Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada, the U.S. Department of Energy said Wednesday. Sandia has done work on the planned repository for 20 years, lab spokesman Michael Padilla said. The DOE's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, OCRWM, made the selection announcement. Project contractor Bechtel SAIC Co. currently oversees the work. Bechtel will continue to be responsible for above-ground design efforts, the agency said in a news release. Designating Sandia will give the federal agency a strong, central leader for the science program and will increase the project's credibility both with the scientific community and with federal regulators, the DOE said. "The independent expert review that the scientists at Sandia will perform will help ensure that the technical and scientific basis for the Yucca Mountain repository is without question," said OCRWM's acting director, Paul Golan. The contract is in effect, although some final details are being worked out with the DOE's National Nuclear Security Administration, according to Craig Stevens, a DOE spokesman in Washington, D.C. "We really see Sandia's involvement as a positive step in making sure the work done at Yucca is based on sound science," Stevens said. Shifting lab responsibilities and so-called post-closure work to Sandia will affect contract talks with Yucca Mountain project contractor Bechtel SAIC Co., said Jason Bohne, a Bechtel spokesman in Las Vegas. Bohne on Wednesday denied the Energy Department decision showed it plans to sever ties with Bechtel, which has some 1,300 contract employees on the Yucca project under a $3.2 billion five-year contract that expires March 31. There are another 350 laboratory workers on the project in Nevada, Bohne said. Sandia did much of the site work that led to the opening of the DOE's Waste Isolation Pilot Project near Carlsbad, N.M. The nuclear waste dump, which opened in March 1999, buries plutonium-contaminated waste from the nation's defense work in ancient underground salt beds. Earlier this month, the DOE announced a reorganization of federal offices overseeing the Yucca Mountain project, which would bury the nation's most radioactive waste. The reorganization, ordered by Golan, came after design changes and investigations into critics' claims that the project is based on flawed science. The Energy Department plans to use Yucca Mountain as a geologic repository to entomb 77,000 tons of nuclear waste now stored at more than 100 commercial, industrial and military sites in 39 states. Congress and President Bush picked the site in 2002. The project has suffered such setbacks as missing its license application deadline, congressional funding cuts and revelations that geologists may have falsified data. The government also is rewriting radiation safety rules after a federal court threw out the first ones. Last year, officials pushed back the target date for Yucca Mountain's opening from 2010 to 2012 or later. The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission's review of the application is expected to take several years. OCRWM said Sandia will provide the technical support for the NRC's review, including assigning work to other national laboratories, subcontractors, federal agencies, universities and expert panels. Sens. Jeff Bingaman and Pete Domenici praised the selection of Sandia. Bingaman, D-N.M., said it "speaks very highly of the work the lab has already done on the Nevada site and all of the work it did to certify WIPP." Domenici, R-N.M., said work on nuclear waste issue is key to the future of the nation's nuclear power development. --- On the Net: Yucca Mountain project: http://www.ymp.gov Sandia National Laboratories: http://www.sandia.gov All contents copyright 2005 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 41 DOE: OCRWM Selects Sandia as Lead Laboratory January 18, 2006 Also reserves building at Idaho National Laboratory as future training facility WASHINGTON, DC - The Department of Energys Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management (OCRWM) has announced it will designate Sandia National Laboratories as its lead laboratory to integrate repository science work for the Yucca Mountain Project. That work, which is currently overseen by OCRWMs contractor Bechtel SAIC, will be led by Sandia once the transition of responsibilities is completed. We believe that establishing Sandia as our lead laboratory is an important step in our new path forward. The independent, expert review that the scientists at Sandia will perform will help ensure that the technical and scientific basis for the Yucca Mountain repository is without question, OCRWMs Acting Director Paul Golan said. Sandia has unique experience in managing scientific investigations in support of a federally licensed geologic disposal facility, having served in that role as the scientific advisor to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad, New Mexico. The plan to designate Sandia as the lead laboratory builds on DOEs successful experience at WIPP, where a single national laboratory coordinated post-closure science work while a contractor performed work on the design of pre-closure, or above ground facilities. Bechtel will continue to be responsible for above ground design efforts, while Sandia will concentrate on integrating all post-closure science. The move more clearly aligns responsibilities within the competencies of the projects participants and will more effectively leverage the capabilities of Sandias experience with repository science issues. Designating Sandia as the lead laboratory will provide OCRWM with strong, centralized leadership for its science program and will increase technical credibility with the scientific community, as well as the projects regulators and stakeholders. As OCRWMs lead laboratory, Sandia will provide management and integration services for all Yucca Mountain scientific programs necessary. These services will support OCRWMs license application and its defense in the Nuclear Regulatory Commissions review process, including the allocation of funding and the assignment of technical tasks to selected supporting organizations such as other national laboratories, subcontractors, federal agencies, universities, and expert panels. In addition, Acting Director Golan announced that the department will transfer possession of Building TAN-607 at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) from its Office of Environmental Management to OCRWM. OCRWM plans to hold TAN-607 in reserve as a future training facility for Yucca Mountain workers. TAN-607 has many of the basic features and equipment that will eventually be used at Yucca Mountain. The facility will be used to train spent nuclear fuel handlers with non-radioactive material. INL had initially planned to begin dismantling TAN-607 starting this month. TAN-607 was activated in 1954 with the capability to conduct research and development in high radiation fields. The 153,000 square-foot building has facilities to accommodate manufacturing and maintenance-type activities in large shops and high bays. TAN-607s hot shop is the largest shielded, remote handling facility in the United States with radio-controlled cranes and numerous remote manipulators. The transfer of the facility becomes effective March 1, 2006. Todays announcements follow the October 25 announcement that OCRWM had instructed Bechtel to devise a plan to operate Yucca Mountain as a primarily clean or non-contaminated canister-handling facility. Switching to a clean-canistered design simplifies the project and frees it from having to construct several large facilities for the repeated handling of bare spent fuel. Our goal with announcing the switch to a clean-canistered design and with making Sandia our lead laboratory is to focus on simpler, safer, and more reliable operations, Acting Director Golan said. The project needs to provide a solid, fully defensible technical basis to the NRC, and designating Sandia our lead laboratory means our science work will be properly integrated by the nations very best in repository science. Media contact(s): Craig Stevens, 202/586-4940 [ ] U.S. Department of Energy | 1000 Independence Ave., SW | Washington, DC 20585 1-800-dial-DOE | f/202-586-4403 | ***************************************************************** 42 BBC: Dublin rapped over Last Updated: Wednesday, 18 January 2006 [Sellafield] The row centres on coastal emissions from the Sellafield plant Legal action over emissions from the Sellafield nuclear plant in Cumbria breached EU rules, a judge has said. The Irish government launched legal action at the United Nations in 2001 over alleged marine pollution of the Irish Sea from the West Cumbrian site. But the European Court of Justice says Dublin should have asked the European Commission to settle the row. However, Irish lawyers insist they were right because of the alleged flouting of UN environmental protection laws. The European Commission argued the row over Sellafield was a matter which could and should be tackled within the EU. Spent fuel Wednesday's opinion is not a final verdict. That will be delivered later this year by the full court. Advocate General Miguel Poiares Maduro said Ireland had breached its "duty of cooperation" under EU law by bringing in the UN. Sellafield's controversial mixed oxide plant (Mox) recycles plutonium from spent nuclear fuel from all over the world. It was constructed by British Nuclear Fuel following an environmental impact study published in 1993. The plant was completed in 1996, but authorisation to operate it only came in October 2001, after five public inquiries into its economic justification. Less than a month later, Ireland took its complaints to the UN body, citing environmental and health concerns over emissions and complaining the UK had failed to provide Dublin with a copy of the report assessing the plant's economic justification. ***************************************************************** 43 Daily Evergreen: Nuclear radiation center gets funding for fuel replacement Wednesday, 1/18/2006 DAN THOMPSON(Bio) STAFF WRITER As part of a national initiative, the WSU Nuclear Radiation Center will operate using a new fuel, and the federal government will foot the bill. The money to pay for the fuel conversion, up to $7 million, will come from the Global Threat Reduction Initiative program, according to a release from the Arms Control Association. That means no money for the project will come from the pockets of WSU students, faculty or other state taxpayers. The ultimate goal of the $98 million initiative is to shut down reactors across the world that run on highly-enriched uranium, which provides the kick of an atomic bomb more easily than other fuels. The program hopes to shut down or convert Russian HEU nuclear reactors in Seversk and Zheleznogorsk by 2008 and 2011, respectively. But that is not enough, according to the arms control release: Officials must vigilantly do the same domestically that they are doing with Russian reactors. “If we’re going to impose rules on the rest of the world then the U.S. has to comply at the same time,” said Ken Spitzer, WSU associate vice provost for research. "This is important to tell the rest of the world that we’re going to make our changes too.” Until a new WSU reactor director is chosen within a few months, Spitzer said he will oversee its operations. In the interest of international proliferation prevention, Congress set aside the $7 million to convert HEU sites at four state universities – Purdue, Oregon State, Wisconsin and WSU. However, the change from highly-enriched uranium to low-enriched uranium will not affect the operations of the WSU reactor, since the research can be completed safely with either fuel. “It’s safe so long as it’s kept within reactors,” Spitzer said. LEU can still be used to make nuclear weapons, but since all four sites are research-oriented facilities, they should not experience any problems with the conversion. “With most of these, it really doesn’t change the performance,” said Michael Corradini, an engineering professor at the University of Wisconsin. Corridini oversees many of the operations at the reactor on the Madison campus. “The perception is that if you’ve got high-enriched uranium, you shouldn’t have it,” Corradini said. The conversion doesn’t bother Corradini, however, because he said he supports global efforts to reduce nuclear products. “What’s good for the goose is good for the gander,” he said. Corradini expected the conversion at Wisconsin to take place sometime in 2007 or 2008. Spitzer set no such timetable for the reactor at WSU, but he said since it’s federal money, the federal officials will decide when the reactor will make the switch. The WSU reactor started operations in 1961 and has used the same fuel since 1978. It does not require fuel changes, Spitzer said, because it uses one atom at a time, so a little fuel can help conduct plenty of research. Originally the Global Threat Reduction Initiative program was known as the Russian Transition Initiatives, focusing on redirecting former Soviet weapons scientists into more peaceful projects, according to the arms control release. That program received $40 million from Congress until it got the new name and an expanded mission. SUMMARY: The nuclear reactor at WSU will change its fuel in a few years to comply with international standards.[ border=] The Daily Evergreen, P.O. Box 642510, 113 Murrow East, Pullman, WA 99164, (509) 335-4573 Contact Us | Comments/Suggestions ©1999-2006 WSU Student Publications Board ***************************************************************** 44 Pahrump Valley Times: Getting laws past the public - sneak-sneak January 18, 2006 In November, U.S. Rep. James Gibbons of Nevada slipped an amendment into a budget reconciliation bill. The amendment would have allowed the acquisition of public land under the guise of mining law. It was so loosely written that some critics argued it would allow commercial resorts to be carved out of national parks. As word spread of what Gibbons' amendment contained, a wave of opposition swept across the West. Hunting and fishing groups, rural communities, and environmental groups lined up against the amendment. Newspaper editorials in every Western state denounced the provision. And the Senate balked. Faced with certain defeat, Gibbons withdrew the amendment. Much of the commentary about the affair focused on the amendment's intent. Less attention went to the method of using an unannounced non-germane amendment to a budget bill, probably because it is so routine in Congress. The technique robs the public of advance notice of what members of Congress do. It also prevents hearings at which the public can be heard. In this particular case, Gibbons contended that he'd held hearings earlier, including at least one in Nevada. But those hearing were on the general subject of mining law changes and did not provide the public with any proposed language. If Gibbons was planning his amendment during those hearings, he did not share the amendment with the public. Members of Congress often use this method to win enactment of language that they know could not win in an open and honest legislative process. In December 2004, for instance, U.S. Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia, a Democrat, slipped an amendment into House Resolution 4818, a budget measure. It provides that any "educational institution that receives federal funds ... shall hold an educational program on the United States Constitution on Sept. 17 of such year for the students." This is not a measure that could have passed on its own merits - it interferes with local school curricula (in many school districts the constitution section of the school year is not in September) - so Byrd dared not propose his idea as an independent measure. Now the nation's schools are saddled with the result. In May, in a particularly sleazy maneuver, Republicans in the House used support for U.S. troops in Iraq to enact a highly controversial measure requiring states to adopt new driver licenses according to federal guidelines - very possibly laying the groundwork for a national identification card. This provision was stuck into House Resolution 1268, a supplemental war funding measure. Some Democrats wanted to stage a Senate filibuster against the maneuver, but Democratic floor leader Harry Reid - terrified that the Democrats would be tagged as anti-troops - refused to sanction it. Perhaps the best example of one of these kinds of schemes is the famous "Screw Nevada Bill" - actually an amendment to an energy appropriations bill. It short circuited the scientific suitability studies of three possible sites for a dump for high-level nuclear wastes and directed study only of Nevada's Yucca Mountain. This was a case where the maneuver was not necessary; the votes were there to pass it on its own, as an independent measure. Nevadans can take some comfort from knowing that at least the same kind of thing cannot happen in their Legislature. Article 4, Section 17 of the Nevada Constitution says state legislative acts can "embrace one subject only... Each law enacted by the Legislature shall embrace but one subject..." This requirement is sometimes stretched to the limit, but it is still a basic protection that usually works. What is unfortunate is that such a prohibition is needed to stop lawmakers from using such a shoddy practice. Myers is a veteran capital reporter. His column, "Against the Grain," appears here on Wednesdays. For comment or questions, please e-mail webmaster@pahrumpvalleytimes.com Copyright © Pahrump Valley Times, 1997 - 2006 ***************************************************************** 45 Deseret News: State of Utah: Education, stopping nuclear waste among guv's top priorities Wednesday, January 18, 2006 By Lisa Riley Roche Deseret Morning News BOUNTIFUL — "Utah rocks!" Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. used those words from his youngest son to sum up his second annual State of the State address Tuesday evening. ['Image'] Tom Smart, Deseret Morning NewsGov. Jon Huntsman Jr. kisses his wife, Mary Kaye, after he delivered the State of the State speech Tuesday night. The governor, who delivered his nearly half-hour speech in the multipurpose room of Washington Elementary School, had a more specific message for lawmakers — remove the sales tax on food. "Now is the time. This is the session. Let's rally together once and for all and remove the sales tax on food," Huntsman told an audience of lawmakers, state officials and other invited guests seated in folding chairs under a pair of basketball nets. The GOP leader also called for more money to be spent on education and transportation, citing an economy that "has fully recovered and is strong," as well as reiterating his commitment to stopping the storage of high-level nuclear waste in the state. "We have the need, we now have the resources," Huntsman said, "to make certain that Utah students are receiving a world-class education, one that will make them competitive with students from California to Connecticut and from Beijing to Brussels." He cited his budget requests for a voluntary, all-day kindergarten program in the state's Title 1 schools that serve disadvantaged students, as well as for enhancing training for math and science teachers. While the governor said "building intellectual infrastructure" is just as crucial to the state's success as building roads, he also warned that the economy can't continue to prosper without an adequate transportation system. One of the most enthusiastic bursts of applause during his speech came when Huntsman reminded his audience — many of whom had just fought rush-hour commuter traffic on I-15 — that he helped broker the deal that will enable the nearby Legacy Parkway to be completed. Huntsman also heard sustained applause when he offered a message to those "who want to use our pristine state as a dumping ground: We do not produce spent nuclear fuel, we do not benefit from it, and we will not store this deadly material in Utah." In all, the governor was interrupted by applause about 20 times. He used no props during his speech, although at one point he referred to several state employees by name as examples of those who deserve a raise this session. But it was taxes that dominated his address, especially his call for an end to taxing food. Huntsman had pledged during his campaign to remove the tax, which he described Tuesday as first levied during the Great Depression as a last-ditch effort to raise state revenues. Although lawmakers have a record $1 billion in extra money to spend this session, the governor had budgeted only $37 million toward the estimated $226 million price tag for taking sales tax off food at the state and local level. "I have good news tonight. The Great Depression is long gone, our state is in strong fiscal shape," Huntsman said, suggesting Utahns can be given immediate relief at the checkout counter "by making modest adjustments to our allocation of existing revenue streams." Examples he gave during what seemed to be the most complicated portion of his speech included increasing the share of sales-tax revenues local governments get to keep, collecting more of the sales taxes owed on online purchases and additional revenue growth. His proposal — coming on the second day of the 2006 Legislature as members of the Republican majority in the House and Senate grow farther apart on what should be done about the much-hated food tax — had legislative leaders scratching their heads. House Speaker Greg Curtis, R-Sandy, said he believed the governor "kind of" backed a House GOP plan to let local governments raise sales taxes on nonfood purchases to offset their share of the lost revenue. Unlike Huntsman, though, House Republicans want the state's portion of sales taxes collected on food — about $166 million annually — to be taken as a tax cut, part of the $230 million they've promised to slash this session. The Senate GOP members have yet to take a position on any tax cuts, including removing the sales tax from food, although they are strongly leaning toward giving Utah families earning less than $40,000 a year a $75 credit on their income taxes — a $100 million tax cut. Senate President John Valentine, R-Orem, said after the speech it appeared that the governor had softened an earlier suggestion he'd like also to raise the state's portion of sales taxes on non-food purchases. "Offsets mean a tax increase so someone else can have a tax decrease. I can't support that," Valentine said. But he said he wasn't sure where else Huntsman would find additional revenue, given that online purchases, for example, only generate $500,000 in sales taxes. However, both Valentine and Curtis said there's a possibility there could be enough new revenue to pay for the state's share of taking the tax off food when the final revenue projections for the upcoming budget year are released near the end of the session. Huntsman told a reporter after his speech that the questions raised about his plan to take sales taxes off food are "what we work out over the next six weeks." ['Photo'] Deseret Morning News graphic E-mail: lisa@desnews.com © 2006 Deseret News Publishing Company [ /] ***************************************************************** 46 News & Star: Irish broke rules in Sellafield row Published on 18/01/2006 Ireland has breached EU rules in its long-running dispute with the UK over the Sellafield nuclear plant, a European Court judge said today. The Dublin Government launched legal action at the United Nations in 2001 over marine pollution from the site, on the Irish Sea coast in West Cumbria. But an Advocate-General at the European Court of Justice backed the European Commission’s case that Ireland should have tried to settle its dispute under EU jurisdiction. It is the first legal action involving an EU rule which obliges the member states not to take a dispute concerning EU law to “any other means of settlement“. The conflict over Sellafield, argued the Commission, was a matter which could and should be tackled with the EU. “As environmental protection constitutes an area of shared competence in EU law, Community institutions should be given precedence as the forum for dispute resolution,” said a Commission submission to the court. Today’s “opinion” is not a final verdict, which will be delivered later this year by the full court. But in a majority of cases, the final result reflects the views of the Advocate-General, who today recommended that Ireland pays the costs of the case. Lawyers for the Irish Government maintained Dublin was right to turn to the UN, because the case against the UK concerned the alleged flouting by the Sellafield plant’s operators of marine environmental protection obligations under the UN Tribunal on the Law of the Sea. The Tribunal itself concluded that the dispute was solely based on UN requirements, even recommending “provisional measures” to resolve the problem, including further exchanges of information between the UK and Ireland, the monitoring of potential risks for the Irish Sea and pollution prevention measures. But Advocate General Miguel Poiares Maduro said today there were remedies for such cases under EU law – and Ireland should not have asked the UN body to interpret EU directives and the UK’s obligations under them. Furthermore, said the Advocate General, Ireland had breached its “duty of cooperation” under EU law: “By instituting UN dispute settlement proceedings against the UK concerning the Sellafield Mox Plant, without prior consultation with the Commission, Ireland has failed to fulfil its Treaty obligations.” In cases where even part of a dispute between EU member states was governed by EC law, they had to be dealt with in the European Court of Justice: “Where the case raises issues of Community law, member states must settle their differences within the Community.” The Sellafield Mox (mixed oxide) plant recycles plutonium from spent nuclear fuel. It was constructed by British Nuclear Fuel following an environmental impact study published in 1993. The plant was completed in 1996, but authorisation to operate it only came in October 2001, after five public inquiries into its economic justification. Less than a month later, Ireland took its complaints to the UN body, citing environmental and health concerns regarding Sellafield’s emissions and complaining that the UK had failed to provide Dublin with a copy of the report assessing the plant’s economic justification. ***************************************************************** 47 DOE: USDA and DOE to Coordinate Research of Plant and Microbial Genomics January 17, 2006 -- Soybean DNA to be Decoded -- WASHINGTON  The U.S. Departments of Agriculture and Energy announced Monday they will share resources and coordinate the study of plant and microbial genomics, and the Department of Energy will tackle the sequencing of the soybean genome as the first project resulting from the agreement. "This agreement demonstrates a joint commitment to support high-quality genomics research and integrated projects to meet the nations agriculture and energy challenges, said Dr. Colien Hefferan, administrator of USDAs Cooperative State Research, Extension and Economics Service (CSREES), who signed the agreement for USDA. "Both agencies will leverage their expertise and synergize activities involving agricultural- and energy-related plants and microbes," said Dr. Ari Patrinos, Department of Energy Associate Director of Science for Biological and Environmental Research. "We will enhance coordination of proposed sequencing projects through the Biological and Environmental Research Microbial Sequencing Program or the Joint Genome Institute's Community Sequencing Program." USDA and DOE will establish a framework to cooperate and coordinate agency-relevant plant and microbial genome sequencing and bioinformatics that can serve the needs of the broader scientific community and solve problems that are important to each agencys mission. This agreement could help speed the deployment of emerging technologies, such as improved methods of gene identification and sequence assembly. The DOE Joint Genome Institute (DOE JGI) will sequence the genome (decode the DNA) of the soybean, Glycine max, the worlds most valuable legume crop. Soybean is of particular interest to DOE because it is the principal source of biodiesel, a renewable, alternative fuel. Biodiesel has the highest energy content of any alternative fuel and is significantly more environmentally friendly than comparable petroleum-based fuels, since it degrades rapidly in the environment. It also burns more cleanly than conventional fuels, releasing only half of the pollutants and reducing the production of carcinogenic compounds by more than 80 percent. Over 3.1 billion bushels of soybeans were grown in the U.S. on nearly 75 million acres in 2004, with an estimated annual value exceeding $17 billion, second only to corn and approximately twice that of wheat. The soybean genome is about 1.1 billion base pairs in size, less than half the size of the maize or human genomes. "The soybean represents an excellent example of how DOE JGI is playing a key role in 'translational genomics,' that is, applying the tools of DNA sequencing and molecular biology to contributing to the development of new avenues for clean energy generation and for crop improvement," said DOE JGI Director Dr. Eddy Rubin. "Effective application of translational genomics to soybean requires detailed knowledge of the plant's genetic code. With this starting material in hand, researchers in academia, industry and agriculture will be better positioned to optimize soybean for the broadest range of uses." The DOE Joint Genome Institute, supported by the DOE Office of Science, unites the expertise of five national laboratories, Lawrence Berkeley, Lawrence Livermore, Los Alamos, Oak Ridge, and Pacific Northwest, along with the Stanford Human Genome Center to advance genomics in support of the DOE mission related to clean energy generation and environmental characterization and clean-up. JGIs Walnut Creek, Calif. Production Genomics Facility provides integrated high-throughput sequencing and computational analysis that enable systems-based scientific approaches to these challenges. CSREES advances knowledge for agriculture, the environment, human health and well-being, and communities by supporting research, education and extension programs in the Land-Grant University System and other partner organizations. For more information, visit http://www.csrees.usda.gov/. DOEs Office of Biological and Environmental Research manages a diverse portfolio of research to develop fundamental biological information and to advance technology in support of DOE's missions in biology, medicine and the environment. For more information, visit http://www.sc.doe.gov/ober/ober_top.html Media contact(s): Jennifer Martin (CSREES), 202/720-8188 Jeff Sherwood (DOE), 202/586-5806 David Gilbert (JGI), 925/296-5643 U.S. Department of Energy | 1000 Independence Ave., SW | Washington, DC 20585 1-800-dial-DOE | f/202-586-4403 | ***************************************************************** 48 DOE: DOE Issues Salt Waste Determination for the Savannah River Site January 18, 2006 WASHINGTON, DC - The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today issued the waste determination for the treatment and stabilization of low activity salt-waste at the Savannah River Site allowing for significant reductions in environmental and health risks posed by the material. Stored in forty-nine underground tanks, approximately 36 million gallons of radioactive waste is left over from plutonium production during the Cold War. In addition, the department issued an amended Record of Decision and Implementation Plan to the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. Todays announcement clears the way for the removal and treatment of this waste, but more importantly, protects the health and safety of our workers, the surrounding communities and the environment, said Assistant Secretary of Energy for Environmental Management, James Rispoli. This determination will allow us to move forward in emptying the tanks to the greatest extent feasible. Today, approximately 33.8 million gallons of the waste stored in the tanks is comprised of salt waste. The remaining 2.6 million gallons consists of sludge that has settled to the bottom of the tanks, and is being treated as part of the SRS High-Level Waste Program. The department anticipates moving forward with this plan in 2006, once the appropriate permits are issued by the state of South Carolina. To treat and dispose of the tank waste, DOE will undertake a two-phase, three-part process. The first, or interim, phase consists of two parts: + Beginning in 2006, SRS will treat some of its lowest activity salt waste through a process involving deliquification, dissolution and adjustment of the waste (DDA). + Beginning in approximately 2007, SRS will process some additional salt waste having a slightly higher activity level using an Actinide Removal Process (ARP) and a Modular Caustic Side Solvent Extraction Unit (MCU). The second and longer-term phase, high capacity salt processing, is scheduled to begin in 2011 with the start up of the Salt Waste Processing Facility and involves the separation and processing of the remaining (and majority) of the salt waste, augmented as necessary by continued use of the Actinide Removal Process. Media contact(s): Mike Waldron, 202/586-4940 Julie Petersen, 803/952-7697 [ ] U.S. Department of Energy | 1000 Independence Ave., SW | Washington, DC 20585 1-800-dial-DOE | f/202-586-4403 | ***************************************************************** 49 New Mexican: First of new LANL pension plans to be discussed Wed Jan 18, 2006 11:21 pm By Andy Lenderman The New Mexican | Retirement plans are changing for thousands of current and former employees at Los Alamos National Laboratory as part of the change in management. Some retired scientists have expressed concern and surprise about the pending changes, which the University of California says are required by the government. Three new pension plans will be created later this year, although eligibility varies. Details of two plans, to be developed by a private company, have yet to be released. The first new pension plan is being considered today at a meeting of the University of California Board of Regents, which currently manages the lab for the U.S. Department of Energy. Its called the University of California Retirement Plan-Los Alamos National Laboratory . University President Robert Dynes is proposing to carve out the lab employees and retirees from the universitys larger retirement system and place them in their own separate fund. No benefits will be reduced under the (new) plan, the university reported in a news release last week. As of July, the larger University of California Retirement Plan had assets of $41.8 billion and liabilities of $37.2 billion. Of that, the Los Alamos National Laboratory portion has assets of $4.3 billion and liabilities of $4.3 billion , university officials explained Tuesday. There were 4,061 lab retirees and other eligible members receiving benefits from the universitys pension plan in July, spokesman Chris Harrington said. Also in July, there were 9,730 Los Alamos workers who were members of the universitys retirement plan. We believe we have an incredibly strong and stable pension plan, and we intend to keep it that way, said Judy Ackerhalt, a deputy humanresources director at the university . For now, the UCRP-LANL plan will cover everyone involved with the lab, including retirees, according to the university. But that will change after June 1, when a private company called Los Alamos National Security LLC, is scheduled to take over the labs management. That company will have two pension plans for its workers, Harrington said. The Los Alamos National Security benefits plans have yet to be discussed in detail. The company must propose a plan to the Department of Energy for approval. We are moving fast track on that because weve got to get through the approval process and weve got to be able to make offers to employees, said Sue Kuntz, a spokeswoman for Los Alamos National Security. But the UCRP-LANL plan  scheduled for board action today  seemed to be drawing more attention from retirees Monday and Tuesday. Joe Ladish, a spokesman for a group of retirees and lab workers, said the move to create UCRP-LANL was unanticipated . We are concerned, Ladish said. I would say this was a surprise to most people that Ive talked to. In particular, it was a surprise to the retirees. U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman, DN .M., said benefits have been his main concern throughout the management change at the lab. During the next six months, I will be watching closely to see that LANL retirees and current employees see a benefits package that is equivalent to the package offered under the prior contract, he said in a statement. For more information about the UCRP-LANL plan, go to the universitys Web site at www.universityofcalifornia. edu/regents/regmeet/jan06. html. Details of the proposed changes are listed under the Special Committee on Compensation . Contact Andy Lenderman at 995-3827 or alenderman@sfnewmexican . ©2006, Santa Fe New Mexican, all rights reserved. Opinions ***************************************************************** 50 Hanford News: Bechtel National manager takes job in London office This story was published Wednesday, January 18th, 2006 By the Herald staff Jim Betts, the project manager for Bechtel National at Hanford's vitrification plant, has accepted a job as manager of construction in Bechtel's London office. He has overseen progress at the vit plant since the ground breaking. He will be replaced by Bill Elkins, a longtime Bechtel employee who most recently has served as the principal vice president and program manager for the Iraq Infrastructure Reconstruction Program. In that position, he was responsible for contracts valued at $2.8 billion. He also has worked at the Department of Energy's Savannah River site in South Carolina for 14 years and was president of Bechtel Savannah River before taking the Iraq assignment. Elkins will report to Project Director Jim Henschel. © 2006 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 51 Hanford News: PNNL to develop centers to warn of latent attacks This story was published Wednesday, January 18th, 2006 By John Trumbo, Herald staff writer Pacific Northwest National Laboratory has enlisted the University of Washington to help develop regional centers to analyze data that may warn officials of a potential terrorist attack. Washington was among several universities chosen to work with PNNL's National Visualization and Analytics Center in support of the Department of Homeland Security's mission. The other universities include the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and Georgia Institute of Technology, Purdue University and Indiana University School of Medicine and Pennsylvania State University. Last year, PNNL chose Stanford University as its first regional center. With visualization analytics, data can be mapped according to a variety of factors to show the potential relationships of people, places, activities and time elements. It's a concept PNNL has been working on for 10 years, and for which it was awarded a $2.5 million grant from the Department of Homeland Security in May 2004. Jim Thomas, PNNL's chief scientist for information technologies and director of the national visualization analytics center in Richland, said it's important to develop the technologies and "to stimulate the next generation of talent that's required for both invention and operation of the field's new suite of tools." The University of Washington will establish a Pacific Rim regional center, and will work with private companies on a process known as "collaborative visual analytics." North Carolina and Georgia Institute of Technology will develop techniques and tools to assist security analysts and combine the tools in an artificial analytic reasoning system that taps into multi-media databases. Purdue and Indiana will do research that will help specialists quickly look up and analyze information that involves several areas, including emergency planning and response. Pennsylvania State University's mission is to develop tools that can extract and safely store pertinent information - such as place and time - from a variety of data sources to help analysts anticipate, prevent and respond to major events. Visualization analytics is gaining attention worldwide, said Thomas, who was a keynote speaker on the topic in Europe last summer. "The universities will provide some creative ideas and technologies that will help us address problems, and to produce the next generation talent base," Thomas said. With 100 people at PNNL already working on the visualization analytics program, Thomas expects the mission to grow as interest develops worldwide. "I expect there will be tens and hundreds of millions of dollars invested in this (research), globally," Thomas said. © 2006 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 52 Tri-Valley Herald: Los Alamos lab workers appeal pension proposal Article Last Updated: 01/18/2006 06:42:49 AM Employees try to delay separation from UC By Ian Hoffman, STAFF WRITER Workers and labor advocates at Los Alamos nuclear-weapons laboratory in New Mexico made urgent appeals Tuesday to slow the University of California's move toward separating them from its richly funded, $42 billion pension plan. The university's Board of Regents was to consider today in San Diego a proposal for creating a new Los Alamos pension plan, with $4.2 billion in assets but slightly less well-funded than the larger university plan for future retirement payouts. The rock-solid pensions paid at Los Alamos and its sister lab in California, Lawrence Livermore, kept thousandsof scientists working on nuclear explosives for the U.S. government beyond the end of the Cold War, despite the allure of high-tech and academic jobs elsewhere. The university's pension plan has been so robust that workers have not had to contribute to their retirement for 15 years, and scientists at one of the UC-run federal weapons labs could expect after a 40-year career there to collect benefits equal to 100 percent of their best year's salary. But based on projections by outside actuaries, university retirement officials say the Los Alamos portion of the university plan is about 99 percent funded for future payouts, compared to more than 110 percent for the university retirement plan. The difference, according to university retirement officials, lies in the workers themselves. Sized up against the larger population of all university employees, Los Alamos workers are better paid and stay employed longer, resulting in larger future payouts. "That is one of the reasons that the LANL portion is less well funded. It's because of the demographics," said Gary Schlimgen, a UC retirement benefits official, on Tuesday. Retirement funds for workers at Lawrence Livermore lab are expected to be in a slightly stronger position, with just over full funding, in part because it is a younger lab with a younger workforce, UC officials said. The new Los Alamos pension fund, while $54 million underfunded against its future liabilities, still would be a very healthy retirement fund, university officials said. "It's really a strong and stable plan," said Judy Ackerhalt, a senior university benefits official. Several Los Alamos workers are suspicious nonetheless that the new pension plan will shortchange the benefits that they've been banking on. Preliminary details of its creation were published late last week, and workers want to study the assumptions behind university estimates of its assets and liabilities. "Our stand is we would like any implementation delayed until we have time to understand it," said Judith Binstock, a Los Alamos retiree who spent 26 years in the lab's weapons divisions and a member of the local Union of Professional and Technical Employees. Union members spent Monday and Tuesday phoning and e-mailing university officials, California state lawmakers and members of the New Mexico congressional delegation. UC's Ackerhalt was unable Tuesday to identify any costs or drawbacks to a delay in spinning off the new pension plan for Los Alamos, saying that her office would continue preparing requests for approvals from the U.S. Energy Department and the Internal Revenue Service. Contact Ian Hoffman at ihoffman@angnewspapers.com. © 2000-2006 ANG Newspapers ***************************************************************** 53 Tri-Valley Herald: Departure from lab prompts shuffle Article Last Updated: 01/18/2006 06:45:04 AM UC expected to name interim director after Lawrence Livermore official steps down By Ian Hoffman, STAFF WRITER The departure of a longtime Lawrence Livermore lab executive is prompting a fresh reshuffling at the top of the nuclear-weapons facility since its director headed off to a sister lab in New Mexico. Deputy lab director Wayne Shotts, a physicist and 31-year Livermore veteran in nuclear weapons design, intelligence and homeland security, says he will step down by Feb. 27 for retirement and a long-promised, round-the-world trip with his wife, Jacki. With Livermore director Mike Anastasio competing for the Los Alamos contract, Shotts ran the lab as acting director for a third of last year and thus far in 2006. He spoke warmly of the lab and its leadership in notifying the lab's senior management council of his departure and plans for his "once in a lifetime trip" to New Zealand, Australia, Africa and elsewhere. "A few of you will remember our early days of nuclear design and testing. More of you will recall the challenges and explosivegrowth of non-proliferation and counterterrorism activities," wrote Shotts, who won a coveted E.O. Lawrence Award from the U.S. Energy Department for contributions to advanced weapons designs and after the Sept. 11 attacks served as the lab's first homeland-security chief. "LLNL has been a terrific place to grow personally and professionally and to explore new technical and scientific dimensions that improve the security of the nation," he wrote. The University of California, as manager of the lab, is expected to name an interim lab director before Shotts' retirement, with associate director-at-large George Miller, a former weapons designer, mentioned as a candidate. But if the post remains vacant until Shotts leaves, acting command of the $1.9 billion-a-year institution would pass to Cherry Murray, a former Bell Labs scientist who is Livermore's deputy director over science and technology. Contact Ian Hoffman at . Meanwhile, the university is searching for a permanent lab director who also would head a likely UC/Bechtel-led team in competing to retain management of the lab. The U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration opened that competition last week but hasn't laid out its bid specifications or named a panel to review the bids. © 2000-2006 ANG Newspapers ***************************************************************** 54 BoiseWeekly: What if something went wrong with the INL's pride and joy? JANUARY 18, 2006 BY KARL GROSSMAN Erin Ruiz ALSO IN NEWS Poisons and people Avimor on the Move Coming Home With Hidden Wounds More (115)... ALSO IN NEWS Some Other News agency's Headline of the Week January 18, 2006 Fuzz Hounding Hood in Hoodie More (495)... "The INL is at it again, but this time they are working on a project that doesn't just affect our town," declared a June 10 newscast by the Idaho Falls station KIFI-TV. "Who would have thought that a place in little Southeast Idaho would help make the power system that pushes a spacecraft to Pluto?" Indeed, for the first time, Idaho National Laboratory has prepared a plutonium-fueled Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (RTG) for use on a space mission: NASA's New Horizons shot. On January 11, the window opened for a launch of a rocket from Florida, lofting New Horizons fitted with the RTG worked on and shipped out from INL with 24 pounds of plutonium fuel. But KIFI-TV--and INL--would be far from proud if there were an accident, and plutonium, considered the most deadly radioactive substance, were dispersed. NASA, in its "Final Environmental Impact Statement for the Cassini Mission," says the odds of an accidental release of plutonium "for the overall mission is estimated to be approximately 1 in 300." If that happens, people will die. A person need breathe in only the tiniest particle of plutonium--a millionth of a gram--to receive a fatal dose. The plutonium has nothing to do with powering the New Horizons space probe. The probe is to move through space powered by conventional chemical fuel once it separates from the Atlas rocket that lofts it. The plutonium and the RTG are to provide on-board electricity for the probe's instruments--a mere 180 watts--when it gets to its destination of Pluto. But until the probe leaves the rocket and breaks from the Earth's gravitational pull, the plutonium is a threat to life on Earth. Here, the federal government intends to "launch one of the most deadly materials on the planet on a rocket into space, but they don't seem to know plutonium is a boomerang, and it always comes back to bite you," comments Jeremy Maxand, executive director of the Snake River Alliance. NASA has divided into four phases the sequence preceding what it terms "escape" of the probe from the Earth's gravity and flight on to Pluto. In the most deadly scenario, plutonium is released in a launch accident, when it could could drift 62 miles from the launch site at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, says NASA. "A portion" of the plutonium, it says, could go well beyond that. Indeed, "two-thirds of the estimated radiological consequences would occur within the global population." That's because fine particles of the plutonium could become well mixed in the atmosphere and spread in a band around the Earth between latitudes 20 and 30 degrees north. That takes in parts of the Caribbean, North Africa, the Mideast, India, China and all of Mexico and Texas. Life elsewhere on Earth could be also affected if the plutonium-fueled probe launches, but falls back to Earth before its "escape." An "enormous disaster" could result if plutonium is released, says Dr. Ernest Sternglass, professor emeritus of radiological physics at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. The issue is how much plutonium is dispersed in respirable particles, he explains. "The problem is it takes so little plutonium," he says. NASA estimates the cost to decontaminate land on which the plutonium falls would range from "about $241 million to $1.3 billion per square mile." But compensation would be subject to the Price-Anderson Act, a U.S. law that caps how much people can collect for property damage, illnesses and death from a "nuclear incident." The limit is currently $10 billion. But the cap for damages from a "nuclear incident occurring outside the U.S. shall not exceed $100 million," the law stipulates. So people in foreign countries would be restricted to $100 million in compensation. This is in violation of the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, the basic international law on space--which the U.S. was central in drafting--which declares, "states shall be liable for damage caused by their space objects." Citing these concerns, the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space (www.space4peace.org) demanded prior to the launch that the New Horizons mission be cancelled. Bruce Gagnon, the group's coordinator, says "one thing we know is that space technology can and does fail and when you mix deadly plutonium into the equation, you are asking for catastrophe. NASA, he charges, is "playing nuclear Russian roulette with the public." With NASA planning a series of additional launches of plutonium-fueled space probes, and, under its $3 billion Prometheus project, seeking to build and launch atomic-powered rockets, accidents releasing nuclear materials into the environment are inevitable. Indeed, accidents have already happened in the U.S. space nuclear program. Of the 25 U.S. space missions using plutonium fuel, three have undergone mishaps, admits the NASA EIS on New Horizons. The worst occurred in 1964 and involved the SNAP-9A RTG with 2.1 pounds of plutonium fuel. It was to provide electricity to a satellite that failed to achieve orbit and dropped to Earth. The RTG disintegrated in the fall, spreading plutonium widely. Release of that plutonium caused an increase in global lung cancer rates, according to Dr. John Gofman, professor emeritus of medical physics at the University of California at Berkeley. After the SNAP-9A accident, NASA pioneered the development of solar energy in space. Now all satellites--and the International Space Station--are solar-powered. But NASA continues to use on plutonium power for space probes--even as the solar-powered Rosetta space probe, launched this year by NASA's counterpart, the European Space Agency now heads for a rendezvous with a comet near Jupiter. Along with the U.S. military, which for decades has been planning for the deployment of nuclear-energized weapons in space, NASA seeks wider uses of atomic power above our heads, and it promotes it even as new technologies are being developed to propel space probes and rockets through space. For instance, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California has been studying sending a space probe to Pluto propelled by solar sails--making use of the charged ions from the sun to move it through space. Gagnon says his organization is "building opposition to New Horizons and all missions that launch nuclear power in space. The public needs to know more about this issue and we need the grassroots to pressure Congress and NASA and others responsible. We say that NASA should be developing alternative, non-nuclear power sources for space travel." Furthermore, Gagnon says, "INL's expanding mission of processing plutonium will also mean that it will expanding 'opportunities' for local contamination. Show me any site where DOE has process plutonium that hasn't suffered contamination." Maxand says: "We have seen how the government places a higher priority on plutonium than people, and we will fight against the production of this poison in Idaho to the end." Karl Grossman, professor of journalism at the State University of New York/College at Old Westbury, authored The Wrong Stuff: The Space Program's Nuclear Threat To Our Planet (Common Courage Press) and wrote and narrated the TV documentary Nukes In Space. © Copyright 2006, BoiseWeekly ***************************************************************** 55 DOE: Environmental Management Site-Specific Advisory Board, Rocky FR Doc E6-499 [Federal Register: January 18, 2006 (Volume 71, Number 11)] [Notices] [Page 2922-2923] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr18ja06-35] Flats AGENCY: Department of Energy. ACTION: Notice of open meeting. SUMMARY: This notice announces a meeting of the Environmental Management Site-Specific Advisory Board (EM SSAB), Rocky Flats. The Federal Advisory Committee Act (Pub. L. 92-463, 86 Stat. 770) requires that public notice of this meeting be announced in the Federal Register. DATES: Thursday, February 2, 2006, 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. ADDRESSES: College Hill Library, Room L-107, Front Range Community College, 3705 W. 112th Avenue, Westminster, Colorado. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Ken Korkia, Executive Director, Rocky Flats Citizens Advisory Board, 12101 Airport Way, Unit B, Broomfield, CO, 80021; telephone (303) 966-7855; fax (303) 966-7856. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Purpose of the Board: The purpose of the Board is to make recommendations to DOE in the areas of environmental restoration, waste management, and related activities. Tentative Agenda: 1. Discussion on topics to include in the Board's recommendation on the Final Proposed Plan for Rocky Flats. 2. Discussion on the Board's Legacy Report. 3. Other Board business may be conducted as necessary. Public Participation: The meeting is open to the public. Written statements may be filed with the Board either before or after the meeting. Individuals who wish to make oral statements pertaining to agenda items should contact Ken Korkia at the address or telephone number listed above. Requests must be received at least five days prior to the meeting and reasonable provisions will be made to include the presentation in the agenda. The Deputy Designated Federal Officer is empowered to conduct the meeting in a fashion that will facilitate the orderly conduct of business. Individuals wishing to make public comment will be provided a maximum of five minutes to present their comments. Minutes: The minutes of this meeting will be available for public review and copying at the office of the Rocky Flats Citizens Advisory Board, 12101 Airport Way, Unit B, Broomfield, CO, 80021; telephone (303) 966-7855. Hours of operations are 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., [[Page 2923]] Monday through Friday. Minutes will also be made available by writing or calling Ken Korkia at the address or telephone number listed above. Board meeting minutes are posted on RFCAB's web site within one month following each meeting at: http://www.rfcab.org/Minutes.HTML. Issued at Washington, DC, on January 11, 2006. Carol Matthews, Acting Advisory Committee Management Officer. [FR Doc. E6-499 Filed 1-17-06; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 6450-01-P ***************************************************************** 56 lamonitor.com: Retirees keep eyes on pension moves The Online News Source for Los Alamos ROGER SNODGRASS, roger@lamonitor.com, Monitor Assistant Editor Recently retired from Los Alamos National Laboratory, Bill Stanbro was not alone in expressing concern about the pension item on the tomorrow agenda for the University of California Board of Regents. "It's not clear what they're up to there," he said this morning. Late last week, a number of retirees sounded an alarm about UC's plans to set up a separate pension plan for LANL under a proposal submitted by UC President Robert C. Dynes. E-mails were posted and calls went out for congressional intervention from individuals and representatives of retiree and employee groups. An e-mail authorized by Manuel Trujillo of the Union of Professional and Technical Employees to the New Mexico congressional delegation and a California lawmaker said. "We would like your help in forestalling what appears to be an imminent massive (in the billion dollar range) raid on the pension fund assets," the letter began. "There's so much ambiguity in that process," Trujillo said this morning. "I believe President Dynes is doing something unilateral that should be done in consultation with the employees who are being affected." Trujillo said this morning that he was on his way to San Diego, where he planned to speak at the meeting. In order to meet its obligations under the new contract, a compensation committee of the board will be considering a first step of transition, spinning off a cloned pension plan that would include "all assets and liabilities of Los Alamos National Laboratory active, inactive, and retired members," according to the action item for the meeting. The new plan would be called the UCRP-LANL Plan. Current retirees would remain in that plan, after assets for active and inactive members are spun off into a new account under the laboratory's next manager, Los Alamos National Security LLC. UC in its announcement said that current LANL retirees would continue to have their pensions paid from the UCRP-LANL plan and that the responsibilities and investment policies would remain the same. But retirees said this is coming up for a vote Wednesday and they don't known what is going on. "The English language used by earthlings is not very good at dealing with a complex subject in a short period of time," said Charles Mansfield, head of the Laboratory Retiree Group, this morning. Mansfield has been communicating with the two nonvoting, retiree representatives on the board of regents, Adrian Harris and Dick Jenson. "Let me emphasize the point Adrian made in his e-mail to you," wrote Jenson Monday. "That is, the terms of the defined benefit plan are sacred." Both Mansfield and Trujillo said a separate plan within the current UCRP plan raises questions. Trujillo is concerned that splitting off current LANL pension assets would open the door to short-changing both current and future retirees from LANL. An article in the Oakland Tribune today, cited a report prepared by the university that shows the Los Alamos portion of the UCRP plan having a deficit of $54 million, after having been over funded by $265.7 million the year before. A UC spokesperson was unavailable on short notice this morning to explain the decline. "We've lobbied in Congress for the past two years. We've asked about a true independent accounting or audit of our independent plan, and we've never gotten a response," Trujillo said. Mansfield, eyeing pension funds under assault around the country, thinks a separate fund would be inherently easier to transfer later. Even a pension plan that stays within UC could be unloaded to a new corporate entity with fewer qualms about changing the terms, he said. "It introduces an element of instability that I'm not happy about at all," Mansfield said. The Board of Regents is holding meetings at the Price Center, UC San Diego, starting today. Wednesday, they will also discuss the status of the competition and the transition to the new management. On the web: Board of regents agenda and information on web cast of the meeting -http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/regents/regmeet/jan06.html © 2003 Los Alamos Monitor All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 57 Rocky Mountain News: Rocky Flats trial nearing January 18, 2006 The long federal trial over whether the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant damaged its neighbors' property values is nearing an end in Colorado U.S. District Court. Closing arguments began today before Colorado U.S. District Judge John Kane and will continue into Friday. After that, Kane will instruct the jury and deliberations will begin. The trial of the $500 million class action lawsuit, filed 15 years ago, began in October. It had been expected to end before Christmas but has taken longer. The thousands of plaintiffs are seeking compensatory and punitive damages from Dow Chemical Co. and Rockwell International Corp., which operated the nuclear weapons plant in Jefferson County for the U.S. Department of Energy. The plaintiffs contend that careless handling of hazardous materials at the plant lowered their property values and interfered with their use and enjoyment of their property. They also contend that Dow, Rockwell and the DOE have covered up how harmful the plant really was. The defendants contend that only miniscule, harmless amounts of radioactive plutonium and other dangerous materials ever escaped outside the plant. Much of the case has centered on an FBI raid at Rocky Flats in the summer of 1989. Rockwell, which ran Rocky Flats at the time, pleaded guilty in 1992 to 10 federal environmental crimes and paid a fine of $18.5 million. The weapons plant, built in the 1950s during the Cold War era, has been shut down. Its 6,500-acre site has undergone environmental cleansing and is slated to become a wildlife refuge. site mapSubscribe | E-mail alerts| Site Map| Photo Reprints| Corrections 2005 © The E.W. Scripps Co. ***************************************************************** NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: *****************************************************************