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                         NUCLEAR POLICY
 
1 [NYTr] Iran: Fabricating a Crisis is Playing to Lose
2 IPS-English POLITICS: US Tries to Pressure Iran with Attack
3 In Face Of Stalemate, Annan Urges Disarmament Negotiators To Take Pr
4 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Welcomes Russian Nuclear Offer
5 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Wants More Work on Nuke Deal
6 Guardian Unlimited: U.N. Security Council Nations to Meet
7 Guardian Unlimited: U.S. Repeats Claim of Support Against Iran
8 Guardian Unlimited: U.S. Envoy Warns China Over Iran Nukes
9 SF Chronicle: Experts doubt expediency of attacking Iran
10 IRNA: Arab lawyers back Iran in nuclear standoff 
11 AFP: US could pull out of nuke deal if India backs Iran - envoy -
12 AFP: Iran backs Russian uranium enrichment plan 
13 AFP: Russia plan may resolve Iran nuclear row: Straw -
14 IRNA: Russia fully supports Iran's nuclear programs: diplomat 
15 AFP: South Africa told to take moral stance on Iran nuclear row -
16 Guardian Unlimited: Many in Congress Hawkish on Iran
17 Guardian Unlimited: U.S. Increases Pressure on North Korea
18 Guardian Unlimited: SKorea Warns U.S. Against Pressuring North
19 AFP: SKorea asks Indonesia to host three-nation talks with NKorea
20 AFP: US puts China, South Korea on the spot over Korean nuclear cris
21 [NYTr] In crisis, Washington manufactures new tensions
22 US: Las Vegas SUN: Sen. Reid Says Bush Should 'Come Clean' 
23 [NYTr] So When Is the EU Going to Denuclearize?
24 PROBLEMS DIVIDE DAVOS DELEGATES
25 Interfax: Putin proposes setting up intl centers of nuclear fuel cyc
26 British Nuclear Fuels plc: BNFL Announces Westinghouse Sale
27 RIA Novosti: Russian, Kazakh presidents agree to step-up cooperation
28 RIA Novosti: Russia, Kazakhstan to form joint group for nuclear coop
29 AFP: China to drive world economy as US stumbles: economists -
30 Daily Times: VIEW: Chimera of Russia’s gas power 
31 IRNA: World press body calls on Israel to stop harassing nuclear whi
32 Mos News: Environmental Study Finds Pacific Oil Pipeline Unsafe —
33 Yorkshire Post Today: Cold War secrets revealed as nuclear bunker 
34 AFP: Davos forum opens with, global economy in spotlight - 
 
                         NUCLEAR REACTORS
 
35 More nukes for Ontario? Straightgoods.com
36 US: Guardian Unlimited: Ill. Power Co. to Settle Leak Cases
37 CBN: Nuke reactor signs high-cost contract
38 US: AP Wire: Exelon negotiates with property owners near nuclear pla
39 HindustanTimes.com: Pak seeks US cooperation in nuclear energy
40 US: newsobserver.com: Atoms again
41 US: NRC: NRC’S 18th Annual Regulatory Information Conference to Be M
42 IRNA: EU wants to launch debate on nuclear energy 
43 Globe and Mail: Ontario faces court challenge over proposed nuclear 
44 Xinhua: Hainan to develop nuclear power   
45 Reuters: Turkey set to complete nuke plants study this week
46 US: NRC: Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards; Meeting of the 
47 US: NRC: Risk-Informed Changes to Loss-of-Coolant Accident Technical
48 US: NRC: Nuclear Management Company, LLC; Notice of Withdrawal of 
49 US: NRC: Agency Information Collection Activities: Proposed Collecti
50 US: NRC: Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards; Meeting Notice
51 US: NRC: Subcommittee Meeting on Planning and Procedures; Notice of 
52 AFP: Interest revives worldwide in nuclear energy 
53 ITAR-TASS: Russia, Kazakhstan can make steps to develop cooperation 
54 US: State Port Pilot: No new reactor for Brunswick Plant
55 US: WQAD: Nuclear plant owner to compensate residents near radioacti
56 US: Brattleboro Reformer: Battle over VY uprate isn't over
 
                          NUCLEAR SECURITY
 
57 AFP: Plutonium monitor could help nuclear police - New Scientist -
 
                          NUCLEAR SAFETY
 
58 [DU-WATCH] nothing depleted about depleted uranium
59 [du-list] Hidden Combat Wounds: Extensive, Deadly, Costly
60 [du-list] PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONS - IRAQ BODY COUNT - PART 1
61 US: Tritium leak dangers downplayed
62 US: Rutland Herald: Brattleboro nixes evacuation issue
63 Radio New Zealand: French nuclear test fallout hit Tahiti - report
64 US: WVLT: Sick Nuclear Workers Speak Out
65 asahi.com: Bomb left invisible scar that can't heal
 
                         NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
 
66 US: Las Vegas SUN: U.S. shoulders some burden for Henderson perchlor
67 US: Kansas City Star: Dirty bomb cleanup rules provoke criticism
68 reviewjournal.com: Yucca pageantry 
69 reviewjournal.com: Opinion: Beautiful but naive (Pro Yucca woman)
70 reviewjournal.com: Legislator pursues agency
71 US: NPR: U.S. Grapples with Solution to Nuclear Waste Disposal
72 US: News Journal: Nuclear waste remains an unresolved dilemma 
73 Blackpool Today: BNFL to get new owners in ВЈ5bn deal 
74 US: CNW Group: UEX to Initiate Final Feasibility Study at West Bear
75 US: TheBostonChannel.com: Town, Waste Plant Square Off Over Radioact
76 US: AFP: Russia plans mine on the moon by 2020 -
77 KLFY: Legislators travel to Netherlands to view uranium plant
78 UPI: Nuke waste panel wants delay on new plants
79 US: UPI: Radioactive leak taints water in Chicago
80 American Chronicle: DAVIS, PORTER CALL FOR FULL COMPLIANCE WITH YUCC
 
                           PEACE
 
 
                        US DEPT. OF ENERGY
 
81 The State: Delay, cost hit SRS plant
82 DOE: Department of Energy Supercomputers to Analyze Hurricane 
83 DOE: Department of Energy Conducts Energy Saving Assessment at 
84 Hanford News: Energy committee head with Hanford ties named
85 Hanford News: PNNL scanner checking for explosives in London
86 Hanford News: State supports nuclear ban in court
87 PE.com: Inspector general faults controls over Lawrence Livermore ba
88 DOE: Office of Arms Control and Nonproliferation; Proposed Subsequen
89 DOE: Office of Science; Basic Energy Sciences Advisory Committee
90 DOE: Environmental Management Site-Specific Advisory Board, Nevada
91 KLASTV.com: Homeland Security Builds $33 Million Lab at Nevada Test 
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                         FULL NEWS STORIES
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 1 [NYTr] Iran: Fabricating a Crisis is Playing to Lose
 
Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2006 16:46:37 -0600 (CST)

Via NY Transfer News Collective  *  All the News that Doesn't Fit
 
sent by Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory

Granma Daily - Jan 24, 2006
http://www.granma.cubaweb.cu/secciones/ingles/noticias/art33.html

Iran: 
Fabricating a Crisis is Playing to Lose

A Conversation with Ahmad Edrisian, Iranian Ambassador to Cuba

by Elson Concepcion Perez

To talk about a supposed crisis today regarding the Iran nuclear
question could just as easily be substituted by another one on human
rights or democracy. Everything comes through the perspective of the
West. It is an invention of the US government and the Europeans.

The origin of the problem is the new colonization that the West wants to
impose on the peoples of the Third World, said Ahmad Edrisian, the
Iranian ambassador to Cuba, in an interview with Granma.

Granma: What does Iran seek with its nuclear program?

Ahmad Edrisian: Iran is a member of the International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA) and a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

We support the abolition of all atomic weapons and defend our right to
research and develop nuclear energy with peaceful ends for scientific
development in medicine, agriculture and the environment.

Granma: How does Iran manifest that intention?

Ahmad Edrisian: We have been conversing for two and a half years on this
with representatives of the European Union, the so-called troika
(Germany, France and England).

The basis of the talks is to create a climate of trust and remove any
international concern about the topic. At the same time we defend the
legitimate right to peaceful nuclear development in the framework of the
IAEA and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

To achieve that objective, two years ago Iran suspended all nuclear
activity.

Our cooperation with the IAEA is clear: We have admitted and received
more than 1,500 inspectors a day that have monitored all the activities
at our plants. There are also IAEA cameras installed and not one time
has any irregularity in the nuclear program been observed.

And there is more: our president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has repeated that
Iran is willing to receive international cooperation for peaceful
nuclear development. We have nothing to fear. We can show all our
plants, all our activities. There is nothing hidden, nothing
confidential.

Iran has used everything to create and maintain a climate of trust. We
hope the Europeans and the North Americans recognize our right to
develop nuclear energy for peaceful ends, which is the right of all
countries that sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Besides, article 4 of that accord compels all signatory countries with
this technology to help those countries that dont have it and wish to
develop it.

Granma: So why the crisis?

Ahmad Edrisian: Unfortunately, after two years the Europeans don't want
to recognize the legitimate right of Iran and their proposals completely
ignore us.

In reality, we were expecting a different attitude from Europe.
Nonetheless, we are willing to talk and negotiate with the Europeans and
with other countries. I repeat, our decision is to create a climate of
trust and not confrontation.

It is so much so that recently we began a period of limited activity in
nuclear research at our plants, with prior coordination with the IAEA.

Granma: To enrich uranium?

Ahmad Edrisian: I must clear up one more time that this research is in
no way related to enriching uranium, something we have yet to begin,
despite it being one of our rights.

It is evident that the nuclear scandal that the West is trying to drum
up regarding Iran is totally fictitious.

It is medieval to say that Iran does not have the right to carry out
scientific research about nuclear energy. Or is that the countries of
the Third World are forbidden from using this energy with peaceful ends
for their development?

What occurs is that the West wants to monopolize this technology and
then sell it at a very high price to the underdeveloped countries.

Granma: But are there threats with the Security Council?

Ahmad Edrisian: We can define Iran's position like this: First, we have
not begun to enrich uranium. Second, the Iranian parliament recently
approved a law that says if the country is taken to the UN Security
Council by this blackmail of the West, all cooperation with the IAEA
will cease. Obviously, as a country we will continue to belong to the
Non-Proliferation Treaty.

The threat to take the matter before the Security Council has no legal
basis, and pursues political objectives.

And anyhow, the Security Council is not the end of the world and Iran is
determined to defend its legitimate rights.

We warn that taking Iran to the Security Council will create a new
crisis, this time real, instead of eliminating the artificial one
created by the West.

The world must take note that the Europeans and the United States are
making judgments about the "supposed intention" of Iran to develop
nuclear activity. They make conclusions based on presumptions without
any real basis.

The European governments will learn that in the future they will not
benefit from making scandals and creating artificial conflicts. They
should be intelligent and proceed very carefully. We hope there will be
growing security in the world. Fabricating a crisis is playing to lose.
Problems have to be resolved through dialogue.

Iran is willing to talk with the Europeans, with the Non-Aligned
countries, and with everyone.

Granma: Are there other arguments?

Ahmad Edrisian: Let's not forget that the nuclear weapons that the West
possess could destroy the entire world more than ten times over.

Israel, for example, has dozens of nuclear warheads and is a threat to
regional and world peace. The IAEA has never verified or monitored this
activity. Nobody says anything about it.

It is the same as what happens with the topics of human rights and
democracy. That is, the model they want to import to the countries of
the Third World.

And it is worth asking how is it possible that those who make wars, drop
bombs, make thousands of nuclear arms, torture in their jails, and
wiretap --that is to say, the biggest violators of human rights in the
world--can try and impose their model on everyone else.

The United States should not be talking about human rights or democracy
when its governments financed and supported military dictatorships in
Latin America and other continents.

The attitude of the Iranian people is that of the peoples of the world
who have awakened and are not going to accept more colonization.

The position of the government and the people of Iran can be summarized
in the following:

Attain peace and security in the world. We are against terrorism in all
its forms. We are real defenders of human rights. We are against the
proliferation of arms of mass destruction and we demand total and
complete disarmament.

In addition, the Iranian Islamic Republic strives to make South-South
cooperation a reality.

toplab@toplab.org
http://www.toplab.org

"My fellow Americans, major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the
battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed."
                                        --George W. Bush, May 1, 2003

"...I told the American people that the road ahead would be difficult, and
that we would prevail. Well, it has been difficult--and we are
prevailing."
                                        --George W. Bush, June 28, 2005

U.S. military fatalities through May 1, 2003: 140
U.S. military fatalities through June 28, 2005: 1743
U.S. military fatalities as of January 25, 2006: 2237

Iraqi civilian fatalities through May 1, 2003: 1982
Iraqi civilian fatalities through June 28, 2005: 22,563  25,560 (estimated)
Iraqi civilian fatalities as of January 25, 2006: 28,088  31,676 (estimated)

Sources: http://www.iraqbodycount.net/ http://icasualties.org/oif/
       
                                *
================================================================
.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 IPS-English POLITICS: US Tries to Pressure Iran with Attack
 
Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2006 19:57:39 -0800

<x-flowed>
ROMAIPS EU MM NA HD IC IP BW=20
POLITICS: US Tries to Pressure Iran with Attack Stories
Analysis by Gareth Porter*

WASHINGTON, Jan 25 (IPS) - Recent reports in the Turkish and German press=
  of the U.S. asking the Turkish government to support a possible attack o=
n Iran and alerting allied countries of preparations for such an attack a=
ppear to be part of a strategy to pressure the Iranian regime rather than=
  the result of a new policy to strike Iran.

The stories appeared in Turkish and German newspapers after a Dec. 12 mee=
ting between U.S. Central Intelligence Agency Director Porter Goss and hi=
s Turkish counterpart. The Turkish centre-left newspaper Cumhuryet report=
ed that Goss had warned the Turkish government to be ready for possible U=
.S. use of airpower against both Iran and Syria.

On Dec. 23, the German news agency DDP quoted =94Western security sources=
=94 as saying that Goss had asked the Turkish prime minister to support a=
  possible strike against Iranian nuclear and military facilities. And the=
  Berlin daily Der Tagesspiegal cited NATO intelligence sources as saying =
that the United States had informed NATO allies that it was studying the =
military option against Iran.

The reports, which have not been picked up in U.S. news media, seemed to =
suggest that the George W. Bush administration was now closer to war agai=
nst Iran. But the circumstantial evidence points to strategic disinformat=
ion planted by the administration -- perhaps with help from friendly offi=
cials in NATO -- to ratchet up the pressure on Iran over its position on =
nuclear fuel enrichment.

The reports are unlikely to be effective in getting Iran to be more forth=
coming, however. None of the stories suggested that the military option w=
as anything more than a possibility. That would not represent anything ne=
w, because the administration's public posture since August 2005 had been=
  that the =94military option=94 was on the table.

The press reports do refer to possible air attacks on Iran, but since fal=
l 2004, Bush administration planning for possible military action against=
  Iranian nuclear facilities appears to have focused on commando operation=
s to sabotage them rather than on air attacks.

Jushua Kurlantzick of The New Republic wrote in Gentleman's Quarterly las=
t May that top officials had adopted a new strategy of =94deterrence and =
disruption=94 toward Iran in the fall of 2004 that was aimed ultimately a=
t covert operations by special forces to damage nuclear sites, according =
to a government official.

Kurlantzick's source confirmed, in effect, an earlier report by Seymour H=
ersh in the New Yorker that the administration had approved conducting co=
vert probes by reconnaissance missions in Iran to identify potential nucl=
ear sites as targets for later military strikes. But it suggested any suc=
h strikes would be by commando teams rather than from the air.

=94You'll start seeing reports of an 'accidental gas leak' at Natanz [an =
Iranian nuclear facility],=94 the official was quoted as saying.

The choice of covert operations instead of airstrikes in administration p=
lanning reflected the serious downside associated with an overt attack on=
  Iran. Administration policymakers were concerned about the likelihood of=
  Iranian retaliation -- in Iraq, Afghanistan or elsewhere in the Middle E=
ast -- for an open military air attack against Iranian targets.

Nor did they regard Israeli air strikes as any more likely to avoid Irani=
an retaliation against the United States, since they would require U.S. s=
upport. In a book recently published by the National Defence University's=
  Institute of Strategic Studies, Thomas Donnelly, a stalwart defender of =
administration policy at the American Enterprise Institute, noted that if=
  Israeli planes stuck Iranian nuclear targets, =94The Iranians would sure=
ly hold us responsible and target U.S. interests in retaliation.=94

Administration policymakers apparently hoped that the United States and I=
srael could deny responsibility for a covert operation, thus reducing the=
  likelihood or intensity of Iranian responses to the strikes, as well as =
opposition from allies around the world.

Patrick Clawson, deputy director of the Washington Institute for Near Eas=
t Policy (WINEP), which is close to both Bush administration and Israeli =
policy makers, suggested in an interview with Hersh in late 2004 that if =
military action was to be carried out against Iran, it would be =94much m=
ore in Israel's interest -- and Washington's -- to take covert action=94.

The U.S. military option remained in the background as the second Bush ad=
ministration began in January 2005. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice t=
old a London news conference in early February that an attack on Iran ove=
r its nuclear programme was =94not on the agenda at this point=94.

But after Iran indicated its intention to go ahead with uranium enrichmen=
t in August 2005, the administration reversed that declaratory policy. On=
  Aug. 11, Bush declared in a press conference that =94all options are on =
the table=94.

=46rom then the =94military option=94 was an integral part of the U.S. st=
rategy of diplomatic pressure on Iran. But that policy decision sharpened=
  a conflict between the Bush administration and its three European allies=
  -- especially the British, French and Germans -- over the issue of the u=
se of military force against Iran.

It took Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder only a few hours to respond to Bush'=
s move to put the military option ostentatiously on the table by declarin=
g that the alliance should =94take the military option off the table=94.

In September, however, Schroeder's Social Democrats were defeated by the =
opposition Christian Democrats, as the administration had hoped, and by e=
arly October Angela Merkel was on her way to forming a new government. Un=
dersecretary of State R. Nicholas Burns was then dispatched to meet with =
representatives of Britain, France and Germany to =94begin discussing way=
s to ratchet up the pressure on Tehran=94, according to a report by the W=
all Street Journal's Carla Anne Robbins on Oct. 6.

Burns' top priority was certainly to get the European allies to integrate=
  the idea that the military option is =94on the table=94 into its negotia=
ting stance on Iran's nuclear policy. Subsequently, Britain's Tony Blair =
began to echo Bush's position on the military option, presumably at U.S. =
insistence, but Merkel and French President Jacques Chirac avoided any en=
dorsement of that posture.

Having failed to get agreement by the European three to exploit the milit=
ary option in the diplomatic maneuvering with Iran, the Bush administrati=
on apparently felt that it needed to take other steps to increase the pre=
ssure on Tehran, including arranging for sensational newspaper articles t=
o appear in the Turkish and German press.

It would not have been the first time a U.S. administration had used such=
  leaks about a possible military action as part of a campaign to put pres=
sure on foes to make diplomatic concessions.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower and his Secretary of State John Foster Dul=
les feinted toward a military intervention in Indochina at the time of th=
e 1954 Dienbienphu crisis and the start of the Geneva Conference on a set=
tlement of the war.

Privately, however, both men opposed U.S. intervention in Indochina and h=
inted that the suggestions of intervention were a bluff to influence Sovi=
et and Chinese diplomacy at Geneva.

The ruse worked in 1954, inducing the Soviets and Chinese to put pressure=
  on their Vietnamese allies to make far-reaching concessions in negotiati=
ng the Geneva accords. It is far less likely that such tactics will succe=
ed with Iran, which is being asked to sacrifice its own central security =
interests rather than those of an ally.

*Gareth Porter is an historian and national security policy analyst. His =
latest book, =94Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to W=
ar in Vietnam=94, was published in June 2005.
*****
+POLITICS-US: The Demagogue Neocons Love to Hate (http://ipsnews.net/news=
.asp?idnews=3D31890)
+IRAN: 'Air Strikes Under Consideration' (http://ipsnews.net/interna.asp?=
idnews=3D31761)

(END/IPS/NA/MM/EU/IP/HD/IC/BW/GP/KS/06)

=20
=3D 01251634 ORP007
NNNN

</x-flowed>
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 3 In Face Of Stalemate, Annan Urges Disarmament Negotiators To Take Pragmatic Steps
 
Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2006 14:00:49 -0500

New York, Jan 25 2006  2:00PM
 
As delegates participating in the world's sole multilateral forum 
for disarmament negotiations gathered in Geneva to begin their annual 
session, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged 
them to take a pragmatic approach to breaking the stalemate that 
has dogged efforts to reduce arsenals in recent years.

In his <"http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2006/sgsm10320.doc.htm">message 
to the Conference on Disarmament, Mr. Annan called attention 
to key setbacks. “An already weakened global disarmament machinery 
has been eroded yet further by the disappointing results 
of the 2005 Review Conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation 
of Nuclear Weapons, the impasse in the Conference on Disarmament 
and, not least, the absence of any reference to disarmament and 
non-proliferation in the Outcome Document of the 2005 World Summit,” 
he said.

Negotiators must examine the political sources of the problem and 
take concerted action “based on pragmatism and realism,” he said 
in a message delivered on Tuesday by the Conference Secretary-General, 
Sergei Ordzhonikidze.

“Capitals need to thoroughly reassess attitudes towards the Conference, 
and develop a new political consensus on priorities in arms 
control and disarmament,” he stressed, voicing hope that the delegates 
would explore ways of making the Conference more effective 
as part of the overall efforts to reform the UN.

For the past seven years, the Conference has not been able to agree 
on a work programme, chiefly because of disagreements over how 
to tackle the issue of nuclear arms. The Conference, which meets 
periodically throughout the year, has 65 member countries as well 
as numerous other States that participate as observers.
 2006-01-25 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
*****************************************************************
 4 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Welcomes Russian Nuclear Offer
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

Wednesday January 25, 2006 12:33 PM

AP Photo MOSB103 

By STEVE GUTTERMAN 

Associated Press Writer 

MOSCOW (AP) - Iran's top nuclear negotiator said Wednesday that
Tehran views Moscow's offer to have Iran's uranium enriched in
Russia as a positive development but no agreement has been
reached between the countries. 

Chief negotiator Ali Larijani also reiterated Iran's threat to
renew enrichment activities if it is referred to the U.N.
Security Council. 

Moscow has proposed having Iran's uranium enriched in Russia,
then returned to Iran for use in the country's reactors - a
compromise that could provide more oversight and ease tensions
with the United States and European Union over Iran's nuclear
program. 

``Our view of this offer is positive, and we tried to bring the
positions of the sides closer,'' Larijani said a day after talks
with Russian Security Council chief Igor Ivanov, which included
discussion of the plan. ``This plan can be perfected in the
future, during further talks that will be held in February.'' 

The West fears Iran wants to develop a nuclear bomb but Tehran
says its intentions are peaceful and that it wants only civilian
nuclear energy. Uranium enrichment is a possible precursor to
making atomic weapons. 

A British Foreign Office official, speaking on condition of
anonymity in keeping with government policy, said foreign
ministers from the five permanent U.N. Security Council members
- Britain, France, Russia, China and the United States - plus
Germany would meet in London next week to discuss the next steps
in the crisis over Iran's nuclear program. The meeting will take
place on the sidelines of a donors' conference on Afghanistan. 

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack also said Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice was expected to use the Afghan meeting to
hold discussions with key nations on Iran's nuclear program. 

The meeting comes ahead of a Feb. 2 emergency board session of
the International Atomic Energy Agency, which can refer Iran to
the Security Council. European countries believe they have
enough votes to haul Iran before the council, but they are
seeking support from Russia, China and key developing nations. 

On Tuesday, Larijani and Ivanov said in a joint statement that
Tehran's nuclear standoff must be resolved by diplomatic efforts
in the IAEA. The statement reflected Russia's efforts to delay
Iran's referral to the Security Council and Moscow's opposition
to international sanctions against Tehran. 

Larijani said Iran would welcome talks with European countries,
though an Iranian proposal to return to talks with the EU was
recently rejected. 

But he warned that any attempt to refer Iran to the Security
Council would lead it to move forward with a full-scale uranium
enrichment program. 

``If they use political pressure, if our dossier is handed over
or opened in an unofficial way by the Security Council ... our
actions will not be limited to research,'' he said. ``Then we
will begin industrial enrichment.'' 

Haggling has continued over the specifics of Russia's offer,
including Tehran's proposal to have China involved in the
Russian enrichment process. 

Larijani suggested it would take some time to work out details
of the proposal. Some critics allege the Iranians are using the
proposal to stall for time as Western diplomatic pressure
mounts. 

Russian officials have said further talks on the initiative will
be held in Russia around Feb. 16 - well after the IAEA session. 

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw urged Tehran on Tuesday to
seriously consider Russia's offer in an effort to end the
standoff. Straw also said in an interview with The Associated
Press that he hoped the IAEA would refer the matter to the
Security Council. 

In Washington, Rice said that ``referral absolutely has to be
made'' on Feb. 2, while remaining vague on what action she
thought the Security Council should take, and when. 

In China on Wednesday, Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick
said he warned Chinese leaders that allowing Iran to develop
nuclear weapons could threaten Beijing's crucial supplies of
Middle Eastern oil. 

China has refrained from supporting a referral to the Security
Council, prompting suggestions that Beijing wants to avoid
angering Iran, a major oil source for its energy-hungry economy. 

Zoellick said he warned Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and other
officials in meetings Tuesday that if they were concerned about
energy security, it would be ``extremely dangerous'' to allow
nuclear weapons development in the Middle East, center of the
world oil industry. 

---- 

Associated Press Writers Beth Gardiner in Nicosia, Cyprus, and
Joe McDonald in Chengdu, China contributed to this report. 	 
		 	 	   
      Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
 5 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Wants More Work on Nuke Deal
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

Wednesday January 25, 2006 11:03 PM

AP Photo XHS102 

By STEVE GUTTERMAN 

Associated Press Writer 

MOSCOW (AP) - Iran's top nuclear negotiator said Wednesday that
a Russian proposal to enrich uranium for the Islamic republic
needs more work, and renewed a threat that, if the issue is
referred to the U.N. Security Council, Tehran will forge ahead
with technology that can make nuclear arms. 

Ali Larijani's comments came amid quickening diplomatic
negotiations ahead of a crucial Feb. 2 meeting of the U.N.'s
International Atomic Energy Agency, which could refer the issue
to the Security Council. The 15-member council has the power to
impose sanctions on Iran. 

Larijani suggested it would take time to work out details of
Russia's proposal - a Western-backed compromise that could
provide more oversight and ease fears that Tehran is using its
pursuit of atomic power as a front for a nuclear weapons
program. 

In Washington, President Bush said Russia's proposal offered the
best chance for resolving the impasse, adding ``it's important
for us to exhaust all diplomacy'' in dealing with Iran. 

If such efforts do not work, Bush said, ``clearly, there's a set
of different options available through the Security Council, and
now we're working with our friends to review those options.'' He
made his remarks in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. 

Iran, which insists its program is peaceful, has welcomed
Moscow's suggestion that uranium could be enriched in Russia,
then returned to Iran for use in the country's reactors. But
haggling has continued over the specifics. 

Uranium enrichment can produce fuel for nuclear reactors to
generate electricity or, if sufficiently processed, the material
for nuclear warheads. 

``Our view of this offer is positive, and we tried to bring the
positions of the sides closer,'' Larijani told reporters
Wednesday, a day after talks with Russian security council chief
Igor Ivanov. ``This plan can be perfected in the future, during
further talks that will be held in February.'' 

``There are lots of details surrounding this offer that must be
must be decided - the location of the plant, the form of
participation, technical cooperation,'' Larijani said. 

Speaking to Iranian state television after returning to Tehran,
Larijani said the ``minds of Iran and Russia are getting
closer'' but more effort was needed. 

Russian officials have said further talks on the proposal would
be held in Russia around Feb. 16 - two weeks after the emergency
IAEA board meeting in Vienna, Austria. 

Larijani also said Tehran would welcome talks with European
countries - though an Iranian proposal to renew talks with the
European Union was recently rejected. 

State television quoted Larijani as saying Iran was ready to
negotiate with all countries except Israel. Iranian officials
normally reject negotiations with both Israel and the United
States and it was not clear whether his comments signaled a
shift in position. 

Larijani reiterated that any attempt to refer Iran to the
Security Council would lead the country to move forward with a
full-scale uranium enrichment program. 

``If they use political pressure, if our dossier is handed over
or opened in an unofficial way by the Security Council, then
according to a parliament decision we are obligated to revoke
the fulfillment of all moratoriums,'' he said. ``In this
situation, our actions will not be limited to research. Then we
will begin industrial enrichment.'' 

He said Tehran also would be obliged to forsake a 2003 agreement
with the IAEA that gave the agency more power to inspect Iranian
nuclear sites and warned of unspecified additional actions to be
revealed ``in due time.'' 

Iran removed IAEA seals from equipment Jan. 10, ending a
15-month moratorium, and announced it would restart research on
nuclear fuel including what it described as small-scale
enrichment. 

European countries believe they will have enough votes at the
emergency IAEA board session next week to haul Iran before the
Security Council - a move also favored by the United States -
but they want broad support, especially from Russia and China.
Moscow and Beijing, which have close commercial ties with Iran
and wield veto power in the Security Council, are not eager to
see the issue come before the powerful U.N. body. 

The issue also was expected to come up Monday on the sidelines
of a donors conference on Afghanistan in London, with the State
Department saying Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would use
the forum to discuss Iran's nuclear program with key nations. 

In Vienna, a diplomat accredited to the IAEA - who demanded
anonymity because he is not authorized to discuss the planned
meeting with the media - said Washington and the Europeans would
use the meeting to try to persuade reluctant Russia and China to
support referral. 

Larijani, meanwhile, was expected to meet with top Chinese
officials in Beijing Thursday. 

On Wednesday, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick
said he had warned Chinese officials that allowing Iran to
develop nuclear weapons could threaten Beijing's crucial
supplies of Middle Eastern oil. 

The Russian enrichment plan presents President Vladimir Putin
with an opportunity to please the West without sacrificing ties
with Iran. Russia is building a reactor for Iran's first nuclear
power plant. 

Putin called for the creation of an international system of
facilities to provide enrichment and other nuclear-cycle
services to nations that want nuclear power. In televised
comments Wednesday, he said Russia could establish the prototype
facility on its territory. 

--- 

Associated Press writers George Jahn in Vienna, Austria, and
Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Iran contributed to this report. 
		 	 	   
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
 6 Guardian Unlimited: U.N. Security Council Nations to Meet
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

Wednesday January 25, 2006 11:18 AM

By BETH GARDINER 

Associated Press Writer 

NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) - Ministers from U.N. Security Council
member countries will meet in London next week to discuss the
next steps in the crisis over Iran's nuclear program, officials
said Wednesday. 

A British Foreign Office official, speaking on condition of
anonymity in keeping with government policy, said foreign
ministers from the five permanent Security Council members -
Britain, France, Russia, China and the United States - plus
Germany would meet on the sidelines of a donors' conference on
Afghanistan. 

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack also said Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice was expected to use the Afghan meeting to
hold discussions with key nations on Iran's nuclear program. 

The Jan. 31-Feb. 1 meeting comes ahead of a Feb. 2-3 emergency
meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency. 

European countries believe they have enough votes to haul Iran
before the Security Council for restarting its contentious
nuclear program, but they are seeking support from Russia, China
and key developing nations. 

The West fears Iran wants to develop a nuclear bomb, but Tehran
says its intentions are peaceful and that it is only seeking to
develop the capacity for civilian nuclear energy.	 
		 	 	   
      Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
 7 Guardian Unlimited: U.S. Repeats Claim of Support Against Iran
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

Thursday January 26, 2006 12:03 AM

By ANNE GEARAN 

AP Diplomatic Writer 

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration renewed its claim
Wednesday that the United States and European allies have enough
support from other countries to take Iran before the U.N.
Security Council but also indicated some key nations have not
committed to that course. 

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the United States
is encouraging Russia and other nations to vote to refer Iran's
case to the Security Council when the U.N. nuclear watchdog
agency holds an emergency meeting on the issue next week. 

``We believe it's time. Many other members of the international
community believe it's time, as well,'' McCormack said. 

Russia, India and China are allies and trading partners of Iran
who have been reluctant to see Tehran punished or ostracized
through the Security Council. All three sit on the board of
governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which meets
in Vienna on Feb. 2. 

``Right now, we're talking with the Russians, as well as others,
about what the diplomatic next steps should be,'' McCormack
said. 

President Bush, meanwhile, expressed doubts about Iran's new
president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, citing in particular his
statements calling for elimination of the state of Israel. ``I
am very concerned about a president of a great country like Iran
declaring his intent, or his interest, in the destruction of one
of our closest allies,'' Bush said in an interview with The Wall
Street Journal. ``And that should be of concern to people who
care for the peace around the world.'' 

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will have a chance to lobby
her Russian and Chinese counterparts Monday, during a special
meeting on Iran in London. 

As for India, the U.S. ambassador there said a landmark nuclear
energy deal between India and the United States will fail in
Washington if New Delhi supports Iran in the IAEA vote. 

The deal, seen as a cornerstone of the emerging alliance between
India and the United States, ``will die in the Congress,'' U.S.
Ambassador David Mulford said. 

McCormack put the issue more delicately. 

``We would certainly encourage and we would hope that India
would vote for referral to the Security Council,'' McCormack
said. 

``We deal with the Indian government on these two issues as
separate issues. Certainly, they come up in the same
conversations; I'll tell you that.'' 

The administration also stressed that the mere act of referring
Iran's case to the powerful U.N. body, which can impose a range
of sanctions or other measures, may be enough to persuade Tehran
to give up disputed nuclear activities. 

``It changes the dynamic to have the Iranian weapons program in
the spotlight in the Security Council rather than considered at
a technical agency in the U.N.,'' U.N. Ambassador John R. Bolton
told reporters in Washington. 

Russia has said the Iran issue should be resolved at the level
of the IAEA, which has repeatedly sent inspectors to Iran to
survey what Tehran insists is a purely peaceful program to
develop the know-how to produce nuclear energy. The United
States says Iran really wants to build a bomb, and that it must
be prevented from mastering aspects of nuclear technology that
could be misused. 

Even if the U.S. and its allies prevail in scheduling and
winning a vote at the IAEA, it is not clear that the Security
Council would then vote for severe penalties. The United States
is not pushing for tough economic sanctions now, but has not
specified what action it wants instead. 

Iran's top nuclear negotiator seemed to warm to a Russian
proposal Wednesday that could defuse the nuclear crisis, but he
said the plan needs work. Ali Larijani said Tehran and Moscow
could discuss the proposal further next month - just when the
Security Council could take up the Iranian case. 

``Over the years, they have made every effort to try to avoid
being referred to the Security Council. I think this is just one
more move that they are making,'' McCormack said. 

Russia has offered to perform sensitive uranium enrichment on
Iran's behalf, a compromise that would let Iran pursue
legitimate civilian nuclear technology. 

Larijani also repeated a threat that any attempt to refer Iran
to the Security Council would lead the country to move forward
with a full-scale uranium enrichment program. 

Meanwhile, the former U.N. chief weapons inspector who turned
out to be right that Iraq did not posses unconventional weapons
was skeptical of taking Iran to the Security Council. 

``I think that would harden Iran's attitude,'' Hans Blix said.
``It doesn't help very much to go to the Council.'' 

Blix, a Swedish diplomat who once ran the IAEA, spoke in
Washington at the 25th anniversary of the Arms Control
Association, a private group. 
		 	 	   
      Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
 8 Guardian Unlimited: U.S. Envoy Warns China Over Iran Nukes
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

Wednesday January 25, 2006 10:18 AM

CHENGDU, China (AP) - Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick
said Wednesday he warned Chinese leaders that allowing Iran to
develop nuclear weapons could threaten Beijing's crucial
supplies of Middle Eastern oil. 

China has refrained from supporting a U.S.-backed proposal to
take the dispute over Iran's nuclear program to the U.N.
Security Council, prompting suggestions that Beijing wants to
avoid angering Iran, a major oil source for its energy-hungry
economy. 

Zoellick said he warned Premier Wen Jiabao and other officials
in meetings Tuesday that if they were concerned about energy
security, it would be ``extremely dangerous'' to allow nuclear
weapons development in the Middle East, center of the world oil
industry. 

``In their own interests for energy security, they need to steer
this in another direction,'' Zoellick told reporters during a
stop in this southwestern Chinese city.	 
		 	 	   
      Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
 9 SF Chronicle: Experts doubt expediency of attacking Iran

[San Francisco Chronicle] 
				 
Anna Badkhen, Chronicle Staff Writer

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

If all else fails in the attempt to prevent Iran from developing
a nuclear capability, would the United States, or perhaps
Israel, as some have suggested, resort to military force? And
would such an option succeed? 

While European officials trying to find a diplomatic solution
have said the military option is "off the table" and the United
States has urged that the matter be taken up with the U.N.
Security Council, both Vice President Dick Cheney and Israel's
defense minister, Saul Mofaz, have said the possibility of a
military strike should not be dismissed. 

But military analysts are split on whether America has the means
to take out a nascent nuclear program that Washington has deemed
a national security threat. 

Some are skeptical that a bombing or missile strike would
destroy Iran's suspected nuclear weapons plants rather than
merely setting back the program, parts of which Tehran likely
has hidden in different parts of the vast, mountainous country
in anticipation of such attacks, according to intelligence
analysts. 

"We can define a target set that we want to take out in the name
of delaying Iran's nuclear development, and we're perfectly
capable of taking out that target set," said Flynt Leverett, an
expert on Iran at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at
Brookings Institution and the former senior director for the
Middle East Initiative at the National Security Council. 

"The question is, what have you accomplished by taking out those
targets?" he asked. 

Analysts and politicians often cite Israel's bombing of Iraq's
nuclear reactor at Osirik in 1981 as a precedent for a
pre-emptive strike. But Tehran has probably learned the lessons
of Iraq's experience, when U.S.-made Israeli F-15 and F-16 jets
blasted the reactor near Baghdad with 2,000-pound bombs,
destroying the facility in less than two minutes, said Richard
Russell, a Middle East specialist at the Defense Department's
National Defense University. 

Instead of one major facility, intelligence analysts believe
Iran has as many as 20 nuclear facilities dispersed throughout a
country larger than Alaska. It is possible that Iran has hidden
and fortified some -- or even most -- of its nuclear facilities
underground. 

"It's a difficult targeting package," said Russell. "You can set
them back, but ... much of what we can destroy, the Iranians can
reconstitute domestically." 

Speculation about possible military options has grown in recent
days after Iran defied the international community by deciding
to renew its uranium enrichment efforts. President Bush said on
Monday that the West could be "blackmailed" if Iran were to get
a nuclear weapon. 

In response, Washington and the European Union want the U.N.
Security Council to consider economic sanctions against Tehran.
But that drive has been slowed by Russian resistance to pressing
the case against Iran and by the Atomic Energy Agency, the
U.N.'s nuclear watchdog, which is refusing to speedily issue a
report condemning Iran's nuclear activities. 

Iran denies that it is seeking to develop nuclear weapons,
insisting that its nuclear research aims only to develop
reactors that would produce electricity for civilian use. 

While stopping short of making direct threats, American
politicians appear to have kept open the option of a military
strike. 

"No president should ever take the military option off the
table," Cheney said last week when asked about Iran. "Let's
leave it there." 

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a likely presidential candidate in
2008, said that "there is only one thing worse than ...
exercising the military option (against Iran). That is a
nuclear-armed Iran. The military option is the last option but
cannot be taken off the table." 

But U.S. intelligence, which faces a credibility problem after
claims that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction
proved false, may not have the full picture of Iran's nuclear
facilities either, said Russell. 

"We know about the big infrastructure, but the question is, what
don't we know about it? We should assume that we suffer from
grave, grave shortcomings on intelligence about Iran," he said. 

If attacked, Iran is likely to retaliate against American and
Israeli targets in the region, warned Joseph Cirincione, the
director for non-proliferation at the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace in Washington. If American troops remained
in Iraq, they would become easy targets for Iranian bombers who
could sneak in through the porous Iraq-Iran border. 

"Even a limited strike on Iranian targets could have ...
military or political consequences in Iraq," said Cirincione. 

Iranian forces also could launch strikes against U.S. diplomatic
missions in the Gulf region or even carry out terrorist attacks
within the United States, said John Pike, director of
GlobalSecurity.org, a military think-tank in Washington. 

"It's risky because both sides have the capacity to escalate,"
Pike said. 

Although Israel has the military capacity to strike Iran's
potential nuclear sites, and although a nuclear Iran is a much
more acute threat to Israel than to Washington, military
analysts agree that if there were an attack against Iran, it
would be carried out by the United States. 

"I don't think it is right for Israel to act alone," said Avi
Dichter, former Shin Bet director and a candidate for the
Israeli parliament. "Israel has the ability to relay
intelligence and insights to (other) countries, which will
enable them to act more effectively than Israel." 

Any strike on Iran's nuclear facilities would first require
destruction of the Iranian air force and anti-aircraft weapons
plus the targeting of support infrastructure, such as the
Revolutionary Guard facilities. Such operation would take at
least "a couple of weeks," Russell estimated. 

Iran has F-4- and F-5-type fighter jets, SA-2-type medium- to
long-range surface-to-air missiles and short-range
surface-to-air missiles and 23mm, double-barrel anti-aircraft
guns, according to GlobalSecurity.org. This year, Iran also will
purchase Tor-M1 tactical surface-to-air missiles from Russia. 

Pike said the Pentagon would have to follow up the air strikes
against nuclear and Revolutionary Guard facilities with a ground
attack, possibly rolling an armored regiment up Khuzestan, a
troubled province in southwestern Iran and home to most of
Iran's crude oil reserves and a disenchanted ethnic Arab
population. On Tuesday, two bombs exploded in the Khuzestan city
of Ahvaz, killing six people and wounding more than 30. 

"If we were to respond to the oppressed people of Khuzestan, we
would also unburden the mullahs of all of their oil revenue,"
Pike said. 

But if the minority Arabs in Iran might welcome a U.S.
intervention, it is doubtful that the rest of Iran's 68 million
population would, say other experts. And they doubt that the
United States could sustain a ground war in Iran, especially if
it still has troops bogged down in Iraq and 30,000 more
stationed in South Korea. 

"The ground force option is not a viable option." Russell said. 

In addition to physical losses resulting from Iran's
retaliation, a strike against Iran would have "enormous
political consequences" for Washington, which would struggle to
get support for an attack against Iran both domestically and
internationally, Russell warned. 

"It would be an extraordinarily difficult political achievement
for the United States to rally international and domestic
opinion to support a military option against Iran," Russell
warned. "We've spent most of our political capital on Iraq. If
push were to come to shove and the Americans were to think of a
serious military operation, the Europeans will quickly break
ranks, as much as they support our concern on Iran." 

European nations share Washington's concern that Iran is on its
way to becoming a nuclear power. 

An attack on Iran's nuclear facilities would also strengthen the
otherwise unpopular government in Tehran, said Pike. 

"If I were one of the ayatollahs, I would say: 'Our people have
forgotten why we chant "death to America" on Fridays. But after
the Americans have blown us up a couple of times, people have
come to their senses and given our government the lease on life
for at least another generation,' " Pike said. 

But Pike said it is possible that the Bush administration has
already made up its mind to launch strikes against Iran -- the
same way it had made up its mind to attack Iraq months before
the war began in 2003. 

"For the last 15 years, American governments have said that
atomic ayatollahs are unacceptable," he said. "(Today) even if
there was a clandestine nuclear program, we can't tolerate the
program that we see." 

Chronicle Foreign Service reporter Matthew Kalman contributed to
this report from Jerusalem. E-mail Anna Badkhen at
abadkhen@sfchronicle.com. 				
Page A - 1 			

The San Francisco Chronicle] 
*****************************************************************
 10 IRNA: Arab lawyers back Iran in nuclear standoff 

Damascus, Jan 25, IRNA                                                                                                           

Iran-Lawyers-Nuclear issue 

The director-general of Syria's Radio and TV, Fayez al-Sayegh, 
said Tuesday it is obvious that regional countries as well as the 
Arab and Islamic worlds support Iran's nuclear programs.

 "We are obligated to back the efforts of an Islamic country to
achieve advanced nuclear technology given the realities of the
world of today," he told IRNA on the sidelines of the 22nd
conference of the Arab Lawyers Union (ALU) held in Damascus,
Syria.

 Rebuking some states in the Persian Gulf region for their
concerns over Iran's nuclear activities, he said, "We should
harness our potentials to back Iran in its nuclear plan. There
is no place for concern."
 The Syrian official disclosed that "a serious move will be
taken by the international community should Islamic and Arab
countries follow the stance taken by Syria of supporting Iran's
nuclear plan." "We do support Iranian President Ahmadinejad
stance on the nuclear issue of insisting on his country's right
to access nuclear technology and develop nuclear energy for
peaceful ends," prominent Egyptian lawyer Sameh Ashoor, who is
president of the ALU, told IRNA.

 Sameh Ashoor has already asked Syrian President Bashar al-Assad
to adopt an initiative by which to draw other Arab as well as
Persian Gulf countries to Iran's side in the nuclear issue.

 Ashoor, who is also chief of the Egyptian Lawyers Union, said
that Egyptian lawyers back President Ahmadinejad's opposition to
the US' and Europe's view that Iran should not be allowed to
become a nuclear power.


*****************************************************************
 11 AFP: US could pull out of nuke deal if India backs Iran - envoy -

 Wed Jan 25, 11:40 AM ET 		 	 

NEW DELHI (AFP) - India could lose out on a historic nuclear
deal with the United States if it does not vote against Iran" />
Iranat a key meeting of the UN nuclear watchdog agency, the US
ambassador to India warned. 

Ambassador David Mulford also warned that Washington was not
convinced by India's statements on separation of its civilian
and military nuclear programmes, a key pre-condition for the
bilateral deal. 

If India decides not to back an International Atomic Energy
Agency" /> International Atomic Energy Agency(IAEA) resolution
against Iran, "the effect on members of the US Congress with
regard to (India-US) civil nuclear initiative will be
devastating," Mulford told the Press Trust of India (PTI) news
agency. 

"I think the Congress will simply stop considering the matter. I
think the initiative will die in the Congress not because the US
administration would want it to," he said. 

"This should be part of the calculations India will have to keep
in mind," Mulford said. 

"India will have to make a determination on what its national
interests are. That is an issue firmly in the hands of the
Indian government to decide," the US diplomat said. 

Mulford said India will also need to convince the 44-member
Nuclear Suppliers' Group (NSG), which, in addition to the US
Congress, has to endorse the bilateral accord. 

"It is not just the United States. (It's) the NSG, which says,
'Wait a minute, if we are going to make this very special
one-time change, unique change for India in the nuclear field
and they don't stand up on this (Iran) issue, why should we make
the change'," he said. 

Mulford said the "observation" has been conveyed to officials in
New Delhi. 

"We have made it known to them that we would very much like
India's support because India has arrived on the world stage and
is a very, very important player in the world. 

"And if it opposes Iran having nuclear weapons, we think they
should record it in the vote," he said. 

India, which carried out a string of nuclear tests in 1998 and
declared itself to be a nuclear-armed state, bristled at
Mulford's comments, saying New Delhi would be guided by its own
national interest. 

"We have seen the remarks attributed to the US ambassador in
India concerning a possible vote on the Iran nuclear issue at
the IAEA," foreign ministry spokesman Navtej Sarna said. 

"The position that India will take on this issue at the IAEA
will be based on India's own independent judgement and we
categorically reject any attempt to link this to the proposed
India-US agreement on civil nuclear energy cooperation, which
stands on its own merits. 

"With regard to negotiations on the proposed agreement, India
will proceed on the basis of its own national interests, as
acknowledged by the US ambassador himself," Sarna said. 

Under the Indo-US nuclear deal, signed by US President George W.
Bush" /> President George W. Bushand Indian Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh last July, India would get advanced nuclear
technology which it has been denied for 30 years for conducting
nuclear tests and refusing to sign on to the nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). 

Mulford labelled the agreement as a once-in-a-lifetime deal. 

"India is a non-signatory to the NPT and has in the meantime
developed nuclear weapons (and yet) it's being given a chance to
become a single exception in the system," he said. 

Under the historic accord, India must also separate civilian and
military nuclear programs in exchange for advanced civilian
nuclear technology. It would place its civilian nuclear reactors
under IAEA inspection. 

Mulford said Washington felt the ideas put forth by India on
nuclear programme separation had not met the "test of
credibility". 

The negotiations process needs to be completed before Bush's
visit to New Delhi in March, he said, cautioning that if not,
the "historic opportunity" would be "much less practical." 

The comments came less than a week after US Undersecretary of
State Nicholas Burns spoke in New Delhi of unspecified
"difficulties" in finalising the pact. 	 		 			
 							 				 					 					 					 					 					 					 					 					
Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The
*****************************************************************
 12 AFP: Iran backs Russian uranium enrichment plan 

 Wed Jan 25, 4:06 AM ET 		 	 

MOSCOW (AFP) - Iran" /> said that it backed a plan to enrich its
uranium in Russia to defuse an international row over its
nuclear power programme, but warned against Western attempts to
put the debate before the United Nations" /> . 

 "We positively evaluate this offer. This plan can be perfected
during the coming talks in February," top Iranian negotiator Ali
Larijani was quoted as saying by RIA Novosti agency in Moscow. 

Under the deal, uranium for Iran's nascent nuclear power
programme would be enriched in Russia in order to allay Western
and Israeli fears that the Islamic republic secretly plans to
build a nuclear weapon under cover of the civilian power
project. 

However, Larijani warned that a US and European push for the
International Atomic Energy Agency" /> to refer the controversy
over Iran's atomic programme to the UN Security Council would
scupper the deal. 

"If the matter is referred to the UN Security Council or is used
for political pressure Iran will begin industrial enrichment of
uranium," he was quoted as saying by ITAR-TASS news agency. 

Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The
*****************************************************************
 13 AFP: Russia plan may resolve Iran nuclear row: Straw -

1-25-2006

NICOSIA (AFP) - British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw bluntly
told Iran it must stop nuclear fuel research if it is to avoid
being hauled before the UN Security Council but said a Russian
compromise plan may head off the crisis.

Straw told reporters during a visit to Cyprus that Britain
welcomed the initiative, which involves Moscow enriching uranium
on Russian soil for Iran, saying it "may provide a solution."

But he added: "What the world is also looking for is for Iran to
stop the beginnings [ src=] of running its centrifuges if it is
to avoid reference to the Security Council."

The West, which suspects Iran of covert efforts to build nuclear
weapons, is demanding that Tehran halt sensitive nuclear
research involving the testing and development of centrifuges
used to enrich uranium on a small scale.

Iran says this research -- resumed earlier this month after a
two-year freeze -- is different from industrial scale enrichment
and insists its nuclear programme is only directed at making
atomic energy.

But the West fears the research will allow Iran to master a
process that could be diverted towards making nuclear weapons.

Straw said that by breaking the seals on the centrifuges, Iran
had broken its obligations to the so-called EU-3 of Britain,
France and Germany.

"We've always said, the Iran that we want to see is able to run
a nuclear power programme but that has to be in circumstances in
which the world as a whole has objective guarantees that this
programme is not going to be used to develop any nuclear weapons
capability," Straw said

Iran earlier expressed qualified support for the Russian
proposal but vowed to start industrial-scale enrichment at home
if it is referred to the Security Council.

"We positively evaluate this offer," top Iranian negotiator Ali
Larijani was quoted as saying by RIA Novosti agency after talks
with Russian security and energy officials in Moscow.

But he was also quoted by ITAR-TASS news agency as saying: "If
the matter is referred to the UN Security Council or is used for
political pressure, Iran will begin industrial enrichment of
uranium." 
                                
                                
    Copyright © 2006 Yahoo! UK Limited. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 14 IRNA: Russia fully supports Iran's nuclear programs: diplomat 

Dushanbe, Jan 25, IRNA                                                                                                           

Russia-Iran-Nuclear issue 

Russian Ambassador to Tajikistan Ramazan Abdullatipov here
Tuesday expressed his country's full support for Iran's peaceful
nuclear programs.

 Talking to reporters, Abdullatipov said that despite the
ongoing hue and cry against Iran's nuclear activities, Russia
would continue its cooperation with Tehran in accordance with
previous agreements.

 He recalled that the alliance which deposed former Iraqi
president Saddam Hussein from power claimed his country was
producing nuclear weapons which later turned out to be erroneous.

 He said he believed Iran's nuclear programs were for peaceful
purposes, and recalled that during his meetings with senior
Iranian officials, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyed Ali
Khamenei, some two years ago everyone confirmed the peaceful
nature of Iran's nuclear activities.

 During that visit, he said he was convinced that Iran's
officialdom was not interested in nuclear weapons production
because "they have no need for such weapons."
 The envoy concluded by saying the current ballyhoo against
Iran's nuclear activities is politically motivated, and stressed
the importance of continuing cooperation with Iran to resolve
the issue.

*****************************************************************
 15 AFP: South Africa told to take moral stance on Iran nuclear row -
     
 Wed Jan 25, 11:12 AM ET 		 	 

JOHANNESBURG (AFP) - South Africa should use its "high moral
ground" to vote against Iran" /> Iran's nuclear programme at a
key meeting of the UN nuclear watchdog agency, US ambassador
Gregory Schulte said. 

"I hope South Africa will, rather than taking position in the 
middle ... use its moral high ground to help in our effort to 
drive Iranian leadership in a different direction," the SAPA news 
agency quoted the ambassador to the 

"International Atomic Energy Agency"

Related information on International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) 
as saying. 

South Africa last week called for continued negotiations to 
resolve a dispute over Iran's nuclear programme following a US 
and European Union" /> European Unionthreat to hold Tehran to 
account before the UN Security Council. 

"South Africa continues to consult with the concerned governments 
and members of the International Atomic Energy Agency board of 
governors to find concrete workable proposals that can assist in 
resolving this matter in a sustainable manner," a foreign 
ministry statement said. 

The communique followed talks between South African Deputy 
Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad and acting Iranian Foreign Minister 
Mehdi Mostafavi and called for "continuing dialogue and 
negotiations to reach a long-term agreement." 

The Vienna-based IAEA board, which has 35 member nations, is
holding an emergency meeting over the Iran issue on February 2. 

The West wants to refer Iran immediately but Russia wants Iran
allowed time until a regular IAEA board meeting on March 6 to
comply with the atomic agency's demands. 

Schulte, speaking to South African reporters from Vienna via
videophone, said taking Iran to the UN Security Council was
merely a pressure tactic and not the start of a war. 

"Everyone wants a political settlement, everyone wants a
diplomatic solution, but for that to be successful, the
political leadership needs to come to the conclusion that they
need to give up their nuclear ambitions," said Schulte. 

"There is a tendency to think if you go to the Security Council
you are going to war. No-one is talking war, no-one is talking
military options. It is simply taking the diplomacy to a new
level," he added. 

Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The
*****************************************************************
 16 Guardian Unlimited: Many in Congress Hawkish on Iran
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

Wednesday January 25, 2006 12:33 PM

By LIZ SIDOTI 

Associated Press Writer 

WASHINGTON (AP) - As the Bush administration pushes to refer
Iran to the U.N. Security Council, many members of Congress are
advocating get-tough approaches and say military force should
remain an option to thwart Tehran's nuclear ambitions. 

Lawmakers largely back the effort to haul Iran before the
Security Council over the Iranian government's refusal to give
up its uranium enrichment program. But some say they doubt that
a simple reprimand from the council - seen as a likely outcome -
will be enough to persuade Iran to change course. 

Rather, Republicans and Democrats alike say the United States
should seek international economic sanctions that are harsh
enough to hurt Iran, while securing assurances from Tehran's
major trading partners that they will abide by any restrictions
the Security Council imposes. 

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has repeatedly emphasized
that the United States is committed to addressing the Iran
standoff diplomatically and is working to line up support for a
vote of the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency to refer
Iran to the Security Council. 

A British Foreign Office official said Wednesday that foreign
ministers from the five permanent Security Council members -
Britain, France, Russia, China and the United States - plus
Germany will discuss the situation with Iran while in London
next week for a donors' conference on Afghanistan. 

In Moscow, Iran's top nuclear negotiator said Wednesday that
Tehran views Russia's offer to have Iran's uranium enriched in
Russia as a positive development but no agreement has been
reached between the countries. 

Chief negotiator Ali Larijani also reiterated Iran's threat to
renew enrichment activities if it is referred to the U.N.
Security Council. 

Rice has shied away from discussions of possible U.S. military
action, saying the United States is focused on a diplomatic
course. But she has consistently said President Bush reserves
the right to use any option, including force. 

Lawmakers say the threat that Iran could obtain weapons of mass
destruction is so serious that the international community must
act decisively to halt Iran's nuclear program. The Bush
administration should not rule out other avenues should
diplomatic efforts fail, they say. 

``It's important to give diplomacy a try, but I don't believe we
should take any option - including military force - off the
table,'' said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, chairman of the Senate
Armed Services emerging threats subcommittee. 

``If you eliminate the threat of military action, the
possibility of it, then there's no way to secure compliance,''
added Rep. Gary Ackerman, D-N.Y., a House International
Relations Committee member. 

The standoff with Iran over its nuclear program has intensified
in the month that Congress has been away from Washington for its
holiday break. 

Iran has broken U.N. seals at a uranium enrichment plant and
said it was resuming nuclear research after a 2-year hiatus.
European countries declared dead their negotiations with Iran
over its nuclear program. 

The Iranian government claims its intention is purely peaceful -
to generate electricity. But the United States and its allies
fear Iran has a more threatening objective - making nuclear
bombs. 

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said diplomatic efforts must be
exhausted before turning to the ``last option,'' the use of
force. 

``There's only one thing worse than the United States exercising
a military option, and that is Iran having nuclear weapons,''
the No. 2 Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee said
on ``Fox News Sunday.'' 

Some analysts have said that while an American military strike
could destroy Iran's nuclear facilities, it would anger U.S.
allies, intensify the Muslim world's bitterness toward the
United States, drive up oil prices and rally Iranians behind
their president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. 

Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., said the United States and European
countries must do everything possible to secure the support of
China and Russia to take Iran before the Security Council, and
then stake out ``a tough posture'' that includes sanctions. 

However, said Obama, a Senate Foreign Relations Committee
member, ``We have to be judicious in how we apply sanctions -
there may be some sanctions that may not make a difference.'' 

Rep. Christopher Smith, R-N.J., vice chairman of the House
International Relations Committee, said: ``We need to use the
diplomatic means very, very aggressively.'' 

Some lawmakers are suggesting that new Iranian leadership is
needed. 

Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., said that for now, the United States and
its allies must intensify its pressure on Iran to halt its
nuclear program. ``But ultimately,'' he said, ``there must be
change in the country's leadership. The current Iranian
government is a corrupt and dangerous regime that's out of step
with its citizens.'' 

Cornyn said Iran has become more authoritarian and autocratic.
``We need to do a better job of letting pro-democracy forces in
Iran know that we are supportive of their efforts of peaceful
regime change,'' he said. 

Meanwhile, a bipartisan group of senators led by Sens. Charles
Schumer, D-N.Y., and Norm Coleman, R-Minn., has introduced a
resolution condemning Iran's nuclear program, calling for the
immediate suspension of uranium enrichment activities and
endorsing a referral of Iran to the Security Council. 

At the same time, Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., is pushing his own
resolution that in part accuses Bush of ignoring the threat of
Iran for years. 

--- 

On the Net: 

CIA World Factbook on Iran:
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ir.html	 
		 	 	   
      Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
 17 Guardian Unlimited: U.S. Increases Pressure on North Korea
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

Wednesday January 25, 2006 5:03 AM

AP Photo SEL104 

By BURT HERMAN 

Associated Press Writer 

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - South Korea's president on Wednesday
warned Washington against pressuring North Korea to force the
totalitarian regime's collapse, apparently rebuffing U.S.
demands that Seoul move against Pyongyang's alleged illegal
financial activities. 

Meanwhile, the North reiterated Wednesday that it will stay away
from international negotiations on its nuclear programs until
recently imposed U.S. sanctions over the illegal activities are
lifted. 

Appearing at his annual New Year's news conference, President
Roh Moo-hyun avoided directly answering whether the South
believes the North is engaged in counterfeiting, money
laundering and drug trafficking, as Washington alleges. He said
the matter required review and consideration of how measures are
``related to efforts to resolve the nuclear issue and if that
involves any intention to pressure North Korea's regime.'' 

But Roh said coercive steps were not the way to resolve the
latest dispute over the North's nuclear ambitions, which erupted
in late 2002 after U.S. officials accused Pyongyang of running a
secret uranium enrichment program. 

``I don't agree to some opinions inside the U.S. that appear to
be wanting to take issue with North Korea's regime, apply
pressure and sometimes wishing for its collapse,'' he said. ``If
the U.S. government tries to resolve the problem that way, there
will be friction and disagreement between South Korea and the
U.S.'' 

He added that there's no such friction yet because the opinions
don't reflect current U.S. policy. 

Despite that, tensions between the South and Washington were
laid bare when South Korea's Foreign Ministry said Wednesday
that it hadn't been asked by a visiting U.S. Treasury Department
delegation to take action to prevent illegal financial activity
by the North. 

The U.S. officials were on a trip through the region to present
evidence of their claims against Pyongyang, and a statement from
the U.S. Embassy on Tuesday said they had urged the South to
strengthen controls to prevent proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction by financially isolating those who seek to do so and
their support networks. 

``The U.S. Treasury Department team did mention the need for
general cooperation ... but didn't urge our government to take
specific actions, either officially or unofficially,'' the South
Korean Foreign Ministry said. 

The ministry said the embassy's press release on the visit
``overstates some of what was discussed between the two sides
and does not correctly reflect'' the discussion. 

But U.S. Embassy spokesman Robert Ogburn said ``we still stand
by our press release,'' declining to give details of what exact
measures were discussed. 

Washington has rebuffed Pyongyang's demands for lifting the
sanctions to resume six-nation nuclear talks, saying the
measures are unrelated to the weapons issue. 

On Wednesday, the North repeated its demand. 

``If the U.S. truly wants the resumption of the six-party talks
and their progress, it had better opt for lifting its financial
sanctions against (North Korea) and coexisting with it,'' the
North's official Korean Central News Agency said in a
commentary. 

The nuclear talks have failed to make any progress since
September on implementing an agreement where the North pledged
to abandon its atomic programs in exchange for security
guarantees and aid. 

Seoul been noncommittal on whether it shares a U.S. belief that
the North engaged in illicit activities, apparently out of
concern it could affect a resolution of the nuclear crisis. 

In September, the United States slapped sanctions on a bank in
the Chinese territory of Macau, alleging it helped the North
distribute counterfeit currency and engage in other illicit
activities. 

Washington also has sanctioned North Korean companies it claimed
were fronts for proliferating weapons of mass destruction. 

North Korea, which had used the Macau bank for decades as a main
channel for outside funds, called the sanctions a ``sheer lie''
and evidence of U.S. hostility against the communist regime. 

Wary of Pyongyang's anger, South Korea also hasn't committed
itself to the Proliferation Security Initiative, which involves
maritime drills to stop and search ships suspected of carrying
nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, materials to make
them, or missiles to deliver them. 

But the South said Tuesday it will provide ``possible
cooperation'' with the effort, such as sending delegates to
observe exercises and including weapons of mass destruction
interdiction drills in regular military exercises with the U.S. 

South Korea made clear that it was not considering participation
in PSI drills or providing logistical support. 

About a dozen PSI drills have been held since the program was
launched in 2003 with 11 countries. Since then, five other
countries have actively participated, while 60 more expressed
support of its goals. 

--- 

Associated Press writers Kwang-tae Kim and Jae-soon Chang
contributed to this report.	 
		 	 	   
      Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
 18 Guardian Unlimited: SKorea Warns U.S. Against Pressuring North
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

Wednesday January 25, 2006 6:33 AM

AP Photo SEL104 

By BURT HERMAN 

Associated Press Writer 

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - South Korea's president on Wednesday
warned Washington against pressuring North Korea to force the
totalitarian regime's collapse, while the North kept up its
demands that Washington lift financial sanctions. 

The North reiterated its vow to stay away from international
nuclear disarmament talks until the U.S. lifts sanctions it
recently imposed over allegations of Pyongyang's involvement in
counterfeiting of U.S. currency and other illegal activities. 

Appearing at his annual New Year's news conference, South Korean
President Roh Moo-hyun avoided directly answering whether the
South believes the North is engaged in counterfeiting, money
laundering and drug trafficking, as Washington alleges. 

He said the matter required review and consideration of how
measures are ``related to efforts to resolve the nuclear issue
and if that involves any intention to pressure North Korea's
regime.'' 

But Roh said coercive steps were not the way to resolve the
latest dispute over the North's nuclear ambitions, which erupted
in late 2002 after U.S. officials accused Pyongyang of running a
secret uranium enrichment program. 

``I don't agree to some opinions inside the U.S. that appear to
be wanting to take issue with North Korea's regime, apply
pressure and sometimes wishing for its collapse,'' he said. ``If
the U.S. government tries to resolve the problem that way, there
will be friction and disagreement between South Korea and the
U.S.'' 

He added that there's no such friction yet because the opinions
don't reflect current U.S. policy. 

Despite that, tensions between the South and Washington were
laid bare when South Korea's Foreign Ministry said Wednesday
that it hadn't been asked by a visiting U.S. Treasury Department
delegation to take action to prevent illegal financial activity
by the North. 

The U.S. officials were on a trip through the region to present
evidence of their claims against Pyongyang, and a statement from
the U.S. Embassy on Tuesday said they had urged the South to
strengthen controls to prevent proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction by financially isolating those who seek to do so and
their support networks. 

``The U.S. Treasury Department team did mention the need for
general cooperation ... but didn't urge our government to take
specific actions, either officially or unofficially,'' the South
Korean Foreign Ministry said. 

The ministry said the embassy's press release on the visit
``overstates some of what was discussed between the two sides
and does not correctly reflect'' the discussion. 

But U.S. Embassy spokesman Robert Ogburn said ``we still stand
by our press release,'' declining to give details of what exact
measures were discussed. 

Washington has rebuffed Pyongyang's demands for lifting the
sanctions to resume six-nation nuclear talks, saying the
measures are unrelated to the weapons issue. 

On Wednesday, the North repeated its demand. 

``If the U.S. truly wants the resumption of the six-party talks
and their progress, it had better opt for lifting its financial
sanctions against (North Korea) and coexisting with it,'' the
North's official Korean Central News Agency said in a
commentary. 

The nuclear talks have failed to make any progress since
September on implementing an agreement where the North pledged
to abandon its atomic programs in exchange for security
guarantees and aid. 

Seoul been noncommittal on whether it shares a U.S. belief that
the North engaged in illicit activities, apparently out of
concern it could affect a resolution of the nuclear crisis. 

In September, the United States slapped sanctions on a bank in
the Chinese territory of Macau, alleging it helped the North
distribute counterfeit currency and engage in other illicit
activities. 

Washington also has sanctioned North Korean companies it claimed
were fronts for proliferating weapons of mass destruction. 

North Korea, which had used the Macau bank for decades as a main
channel for outside funds, called the sanctions a ``sheer lie''
and evidence of U.S. hostility against the communist regime. 

Wary of Pyongyang's anger, South Korea also hasn't committed
itself to the Proliferation Security Initiative, which involves
maritime drills to stop and search ships suspected of carrying
nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, materials to make
them, or missiles to deliver them. 

But the South said Tuesday it will provide ``possible
cooperation'' with the effort, such as sending delegates to
observe exercises and including weapons of mass destruction
interdiction drills in regular military exercises with the U.S. 

South Korea made clear that it was not considering participation
in PSI drills or providing logistical support. 

About a dozen PSI drills have been held since the program was
launched in 2003 with 11 countries. Since then, five other
countries have actively participated, while 60 more expressed
support of its goals. 

--- 

Associated Press writers Kwang-tae Kim and Jae-soon Chang
contributed to this report.	 
		 	 	   
      Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
 19 AFP: SKorea asks Indonesia to host three-nation talks with NKorea

  Wednesday January 25, 12:53 PM 

 JAKARTA (AFX) - Indonesia said it has been asked by South Korea
to host three-nation talks with North Korea as a possible way of
defusing tensions over wider talks on the Stalinist nation's
nuclear program.

 Defense Minister Juwono Sudarsono said his South Korean
counterpart Yoon Kwang-ung had raised the issue during his visit
to Jakarta Monday.

 The proposed three-way talks, Sudarsono said, would either be
held in Jakarta or on the resort island of Bali 'as soon as
possible.'

 The meeting would hopefully 'help create peaceful climates and
solution' to North Korea's refusal to return to six-party talks
with the United States, China, South Korea, Japan and Russia,
Sudarsono told reporters.

 Jakarta would send official invitations to the two Korean
defense ministers to attend the talks, he said.

 Six-party talks, aimed at ending North Korea's nuclear weapons
drive, have stalled since negotiations ended in a stalemate in
November.

 North Korea has refused to return to the talks as a protest
over US sanctions related to its alleged counterfeiting and
money-laundering.
   
 Copyright © 2006 AFP AFX. All rights reserved. Republication or
*****************************************************************
 20 AFP: US puts China, South Korea on the spot over Korean nuclear crisis - 

 Wednesday January 25, 06:10 PM 

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States has put South Korea and
China on the spot by heightening financial sanctions on North
Korea and simultaneously pushing for the Stalinist state to
return to nuclear talks.

Pyongyang says it would not return to the six-party talks unless
the United States lifts the sanctions in retaliation for North
Korea's alleged counterfeiting and money laundering activities.

Washington has refused to budge, saying it cannot compromise
with "criminal activity" and [ src=] posing a major challenge to
talks host China and neighbour South Korea to woo back North
Korea to the negotiating table.

The United States also raised the stakes by pressuring South
Korea, which is rapidly building ties with North Korea, to
impose a financial squeeze on its northern neighbour in a bid to
force it to abandon its alleged counterfeiting of US dollar
notes.

In a rare outburst, South Korean President President Roh
Moo-Hyun warned Wednesday of friction developing with the United
States if it continued to put pressure on North Korea.

South Korea is torn between appeasing its key ally, the United
States, and building bridges with its neighbour half a century
after the Korean War.

Beijing is under pressure to revive the six-party talks stalled
since November as it would pave the way for a warm US welcome
for Chinese President Hu Jintao when he visits Washington in
April.

"This issue is only a skirmish in preparation for a huge battle
-- over whether North Korea is willing to give up its nuclear
weapons," said Richard Bush, head of Northeast Asian policy
studies at Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think tank.

He said that China, North Korea's biggest ally and supplier of
desperately needed aid, and South Korea should tell North Korea
to stop linking counterfeiting to the nuclear talks, which
involve the three and the United States, Japan and Russia.

The expert acknowledged that it was legitimate for China and
South Korea to want to be assured that there was a basis to the
financial sanctions.

"But now that we have our taking steps to assure them that there
is a basis, I would hope that they would say to North Korea,
'you have no reason to hold up the resumption of the six-party
talks which concerns totally separate issues and by the way,
counterfeiting another country's currency is an act of bad
faith,'" he said.

Some wonder why the United States, having highlighted North
Korea's contraband trade for years, imposed the sanctions at a
critical juncture of the nuclear talks, especially after North
Korea has agreed in principle to abandon its atomic weapons for
diplomatic, security and aid guarantees.

"I know from my time in government that there is never a good
time to take an action that someone will perceive as a hostile
act. You can always come with a reason why it is a bad time to
do it," said Bush, a former national intelligence officer.

US Treasury officials visited Seoul this week to try to convince
South Korean officials that North Korea was guilty of
counterfeiting US currency and money-laundering. The visit is
part of an Asian trip also covering Hong Kong, Macau, Beijing
and Tokyo to highlight US concerns about alleged illicit North
Korean financial and drug activities.

The Treasury in September labelled a Macau-based bank Banco
Delta Asia a "primary money laundering concern" and then
blacklisted eight North Korean companies in connection with the
bank that it said were involved in spreading weapons of mass
destruction.

North Korea pockets up to one billion dollars a year from
counterfeiting US greenbacks, trafficking illicit narcotics,
smuggling contraband smokes and even peddling knockoff Viagra,
according to US government estimates.

"I don't think we should turn a blind eye to these important
issues just because we are dealing with the nuclear issue," said
Peter Brookes, a former US deputy assistant secretary of defense.

"Is it okay for North Korea to traffic heroin and pollute
societies just because they want to get into the table to talk
about nuclear weapons," he asked. 

                                
Copyright © 2006 Yahoo! UK Limited. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 21 [NYTr] In crisis, Washington manufactures new tensions
 
Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2006 12:21:49 -0600 (CST)

Via NY Transfer News Collective  *  All the News that Doesn't Fit
 
Workers World - Jan 26, 2006
http://www.workers.org/2006/us/bush-0126/

In crisis, Washington manufactures new tensions

By Fred Goldstein

The Bush administration, besieged by crises at home and abroad, is
manufacturing new international tensions.

It is pushing the government of Iran up against the wall, demanding
that it cede its sovereign right to develop peaceful nuclear
technology.

In Iraq in the last week, three U.S. helicopters have been shot down.
The Iraqi resistance has escalated since the Dec. 15 election as U.S.
and Iraqi puppet casualties mount. Washington has announced it is
sending 2,000 military police to Iraq to "supervise" the Iraqi police.
This is an open admission that the Pentagon cannot trust the Iraqi
police force.

It has been over a month since the much-heralded Iraqi elections and
the result has still not been announced, indicating behind-the-scenes
antagonisms among Washington's collaborators that cannot be resolved.

In Pakistan, the CIA and the Pentagon on Jan. 13 launched four
missiles from a Predator drone that struck dwellings in the village of
Damadora, near the Afghan border. U.S. authorities claimed they were
trying to kill Ayman al-Zawahiri, an alleged al-Qaeda leader. But
instead they killed 18 villagers, including children. The strikes were
in complete violation of Pakistani sovereignty and provoked mass
outpourings throughout the country. The strikes weakened Pakistani
President Pervez Musharraf, a close collaborator of the Pentagon.

In Afghanistan, a Canadian envoy and his aides were killed by the
resistance on the eve of an announcement by the Canadian government
that it was going to increase its troop strength in the country from
500 to 2,000. The puppet Afghan forces of the government of Ahmad
Karzai have suffered heavy casualties and the resistance continues,
despite 20,000 U.S. troops and thousands of German troops.

At home, the Bush administration has been rocked by the Abramoff
scandal, which is aimed at numerous Bush allies in the Republican
Party. Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby,
has been indicted and Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove is
under investigation. Bush is facing congressional hearings, lawsuits
and growing cries for impeachment because of the illegal wiretapping
of thousands of people in the U.S. without a court order.

When in trouble, create a wider crisis

Bush's antidote to all this is to create a new international crisis by
declaring Iran to be a threat to "stability," to the Middle East, to
the U.S. and the world, because it wants to have nuclear technology to
generate electric power and for a multitude of scientific purposes
generally available to all the imperialist countries and many less
developed capitalist countries.

Washington is going through the Iraq scenario--raising the specter of
weapons of mass destruction and demanding sanctions on Iran. To this
end it has bulldozed the European imperialists, the Russian capitalist
government and the People's Republic of China into calling on Iran to
cease research on its program for the enrichment of uranium.

Washington claims that this program is really a cover for developing
nuclear weapons and is therefore a threat. It could not, however, get
China and Russia to agree to UN sanctions.

It is now universally understood and well documented that all the U.S.
government claims about weapons of mass destruction that served as the
basis for the invasion of Iraq were fraudulently concocted by the
White House, the Pentagon and the CIA, and underwritten by the State
Department.

The Iranian government has submitted to numerous intrusive inspections
by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which concedes that
it has never found any evidence of Iranian intentions to carry out a
weapons program. The "suspicion" that such a program exists is
entirely based upon unfounded assertions by the Bush administration
and its imperialist allies in Britain, France and Germany.

The pretext for Washington creating the crisis was the announcement by
the Iranian government that it was going to break the IAEA seals on
its nuclear installation at Isfahan and resume its research on uranium
enrichment. Washington went into high gear, whipping up fear and
hysteria about the danger of Iran developing a nuclear bomb and
so-called "violations of confidence."

The facts in the case are as follows: After Sept. 11, Bush declared
Iran to be part of the "axis of evil" along with Iraq and North
Korea--three countries that had won their independence from
imperialism by revolution and armed struggle.

Iran has a long history of nuclear research and development, which
began under U.S. auspices when the Shah was still in power in the late
1960s. But in late 2003 Washington declared, without a single bit of
evidence, that Iran was seeking to build nuclear arms in violation of
the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

With the U.S. government in the background, the so-called E3--Britain,
France and Germany--began negotiations with Iran over the issue. On
Nov. 14, 2004, the Iranians agreed to cease their research but only on
the ground that the E3 recognize the cessation as " a voluntary
confidence-building measure and not a legal obligation."

The E3 agreed--because it was well known that the development of
peaceful nuclear technology is not only permitted under Article IV of
the NPT, but encouraged. Therefore, the Iranians were acting
completely within their treaty obligations in pursuing their research
program and were not required to stop. They did so to make a goodwill
gesture--under pressure.

No to `nuclear and scientific apartheid'

After two years of negotiations with the European imperialists, the
Iranians were getting nothing but inspections, harassment and demands
from the IAEA, Washington, Paris, Berlin and London. Their nuclear
program was in a complete stall with no end in sight.

Frustrated by the stalling tactics of the imperialists, Iran in August
2005 began the conversion of yellow-cake uranium to gas, whereupon the
IAEA issued an order for Iran to stop its conversion. The speaker of
the Iranian parliament, the Majlis, then declared the IAEA order
illegal under the NPT.

On Dec. 26, 2005, Iranian Foreign Minister Manoucher Mottaki declared:
"We do not accept nuclear apartheid and scientific apartheid."
(Aljazeera.com, Dec. 26) Later he said that Iran was ready to discuss
its nuclear program "but that does not mean that we are waiting for
any country's permission for the right of Iranian nation and the
Islamic republic to enjoy nuclear technology." (Aljazeera.com, Jan. 5)

On Jan. 5, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad insisted that Iran would
resume its nuclear research. Speaking to thousands of people in the
holy city of Qom and referring to the Western powers, he said:
"Recently, some of them have said the Iranian nation has no right to
nuclear research. But they should know that the Iranian nation and
government will defend the right to nuclear research and technology
and will go forward prudently.

"By relying on its young scientists, Iran will use this technology for
medicine, industry, energy in the near future," he said to cries of
support.

Washington's nuclear policy for the Shah

Can the Iranian people regard the U.S. government as anything but a
potential aggressor? It was the CIA that overthrew the popularly
elected nationalist government of Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953, after he
nationalized Iranian oil. It was the U.S. government that put in place
the repressive regime of the Shah. The Shah then gave the oil to a
consortium of U.S. oil companies.

It was the CIA that set up the Savak police torturers who tried to
destroy all left and progressive forces in the country. And it is the
U.S. government that has had an attitude of implacable hostility to
Iran ever since the puppet Shah was overthrown by the revolution of
1979.

As for nuclear development and the needs of Iran, it is important to
note that when the Shah came to power, he and his U.S. overseers set
up a plan to have 23 nuclear power stations in the country. Both
Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, under President Richard M. Nixon,
and President Gerald Ford signed orders authorizing U.S. government
and industry support for Iran's nuclear development.

It was not out of concern for Iranian national development that
Washington promoted nuclear technology. It was for the profit of the
U.S. nuclear industry and also because U.S. oil companies felt that
the more Iran was able to use nuclear energy instead of oil to
generate electricity, the more oil it would make available to the oil
companies to market at a profit.

So nuclear technology was good for Iran, as far as Washington was
concerned, as long as the counter-revolutionary Shah of Iran was
watching over the Persian Gulf, with weapons supplied by the U.S., to
enforce the rule of the Pentagon and big oil. But once a revolutionary
regime was set up that took the oil back and declared its independence
from U.S. imperialism, then nuclear development became "a threat to
stability" - that is, the stability of imperialist rule.

The U.S. nuclear threat

The U.S. government still possesses 10,600 nuclear weapons--more than
the rest of the world combined. It is the only government in the world
to ever have used nuclear weapons, having bombed the civilian
populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing an estimated 200,000
with two bombs. The Pentagon is now working to develop new nuclear
weapons for use on the battlefield and is incorporating the use of
tactical nuclear weapons into its battle plans, to be used in
conjunction with conventional weapons.

In a blunt act of international terrorism, the Bush administration
recently declared openly that it reserved the right to carry out a
nuclear first strike and, furthermore, that these strikes could be
carried out against non-nuclear nations as well as nuclear ones.
Washington has supported the development of an estimated 200 nuclear
weapons by the Zionist settler regime of Israel.

These nuclear military doctrines and developments must be placed in
the context of threats by Washington against Iran, North Korea, Syria,
Cuba and Venezuela, and also accusations by Secretary of Defense
Donald Rumsfeld about China's military development

Denying self-defense to intended targets

The Bush administration's nuclear policy is that of an imperialist
power that presumes to dictate to its intended victims that they have
no right of self-defense. When Washington was aiming to attack Iraq,
it used the UN as a cover to disarm the country. It has aimed at
"regime change" in Iran with the goal of recolonizing it, even while
its colonial adventure in Iraq is going down in flames. Wash ington's
objective is not only to keep Iran from developing nuclear technology
but also to cut off any possibility of it developing weapons of
self-defense against the Pentagon or its Israeli cat's-paw.

U.S. imperialism has long sought to overthrow the socialist government
of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. It is trying to remove
the possibility that the DPRK could have a nuclear self-defense in the
event of an attack by the U.S., which has never abandoned its global
ambitions to conquer Asia.

This new crisis manufactured by the Bush administration is meant to
terrorize the Iranian people and their government into submission. But
there is every sign that it is having exactly the opposite effect.
Washington is moving towards a confrontation that is very dangerous.
The anti-war movement must take heed of this new threatening
development coming out of Washington, put it high on the agenda, and
tell Washington: "Hands off Iran!"

This article is copyright under a Creative Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
Subscribe wwnews-subscribe@workersworld.net
       
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 22 Las Vegas SUN: Sen. Reid Says Bush Should 'Come Clean' 

Today: January 25, 2006 at 5:41:2 PST 

ASSOCIATED PRESS 

WASHINGTON (AP) - 

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid urged President Bush Tuesday
to "come clean" in next week's State of the Union speech and
acknowledge "the costs of Republican corruption." 

"In his 2000 campaign, George Bush promised to bring 'dignity'
to the White House, but we've since found that he brought Jack
Abramoff instead," said Reid, D-Nev. He spoke at the Center for
American Progress, a liberal think tank, in remarks previewing
Democratic criticism of the presidential speech on Jan. 31. 

"President Bush needs to quit stonewalling about his White
House's connection to corruption, and finally tell us how he's
going to reform Washington," Reid said. 

Asked about the criticism, White House press secretary Scott
McClellan said, "This is more of the kind of partisan attacks
that we see in this city that only lower the discourse in this
town." 

McClellan repeated refusals to disclose details of
administration contacts with Abramoff, the disgraced ex-lobbyist
who has pleaded guilty to corruption charges. 

"There's a difference between responding to questions like that
and engaging in a fishing expedition that has nothing to do with
the investigation," he said. 

Reid ticked off a list of what he termed Bush failures,
contending Bush policies have made the country less safe, driven
up debt and increased dependence on foreign oil. 

He noted problems with the newly implemented Medicare
prescription drug plan. "The state of our union today is that we
have seniors begging in the streets for the medicine they need,"
Reid said. 

Reid also said Bush was "deeply dishonest" when he promised in
his 2003 State of the Union not to pass along problems to future
generations. Instead, younger generations will pay "so he can
hand out tax breaks to special interests and the wealthy," Reid
said. 

The 15-minute speech was prefaced by a video showing Bush clips
from past speeches followed by quotes meant to show a failure to
deliver. Reid said the video showed the president "has been
giving us doublespeak for years." 

All contents copyright 2005 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
 23 [NYTr] So When Is the EU Going to Denuclearize?
 
Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2006 15:17:43 -0600 (CST)

Via NY Transfer News Collective  *  All the News that Doesn't Fit
 
sent by mart

Dawn (Pakistan) - January 25, 2006
http://www.dawn.com/2006/01/24/op.htm#4

When will EU denuclearize?

By Syed Sikander Mehdi

There is no nuclear bomb on Iranian soil. Even the worst foes of the Islamic
Republic agree that Iran does not have a bomb. According to a rather
optimistic projection of the American intelligence agency, CIA, the country
is about 10 years away from making the weapons.

However, the bomb which is nowhere in sight in Iran is causing tremors in
the corridors of power in Europe and North America. The US and EU-3 (Great
Britain, France and Germany), in particular, seem to be determined to
contain Tehran's atomic ambition and save the world from the non-existent
Iranian weapons of mass destruction. But what about the nuclear weapons
which are there on the territories of the European countries?

These are the American, British and French bombs which have already been
manufactured, which are ready for use and which pose grave threats to Europe
and the rest of the world.

It is, indeed, interesting to note that the US, the sole superpower which is
in the forefront of the campaign against Iran's atomic programme, deployed
its own nuclear weapons in Europe way back in September 1954, when it
delivered gravity bombs to its bases in Britain. "During the next decade,"
observe Robert Norris and Hans Kriestensen in their report published in the
November/December 2004 issue of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, "weapons
went to Germany, Italy, France, Turkey, Netherlands, Greece and Belgium." In
1971, the number of US nuclear warheads based in Europe peaked at
approximately 7,300.

One may argue that the placement of the bombs onEuropean territories was a
Cold War imperative and the US has already withdrawn most of its weapons
from there. However, even more than a decade after the dissolution of the
Soviet union and end of the Cold War, the United States still has 480
nuclear bombs deployed in Europe.

Worse still, the US is opposed to any suggestion for the withdrawal of its
nuclear weapons from Europe. Such is the state of affairs even when the
demand for the removal of these weapons is growing in Belgium, Germany,
Norway and elsewhere in Europe. On March 22, 2005, for instance, the Belgian
senate foreign affairs committee adopted a resolution calling for the
removal of US nuclear weapons from Belgium and Europe. A month later, on
April 21, a resolution was approved unanimously by the full senate.

Around the same time, on May 2, 2005, the German magazine Der Spiegel
published a public opinion poll that showed overwhelming support (76 per
cent) for removing the weapons. Likewise, a number of European political
parties and leaders have also called for the removal of the American nuclear
weapons from Europe. But the weapons remain there and the US continues to
resist all demands for their withdrawal.

These 480 nuclear warheads are not the only nuclear weapons on the
territories of the European states. In addition, there are the British and
French atomic bombs - bombs which should be more deadly than the one which
Iran has not manufactured as yet, although the latter is technologically
incapable of doing so in the near future.

The French nuclear arsenal with 482 strategic nuclear weapons is the third
largest in the world. Of course, the country has undertaken sweeping
reduction of its weapons, it is reportedly also engaged in modernizing its
sea-bed nuclear force, with the first of a new SSBN class, the Le
Triomphant, along with a new SLBM, the M-45.

Great Britain, like France, has also considerably reduced its nuclear
arsenal. However, its nuclear stockpile, according to 2002 estimate of the
Natural Resources Defence Council, is about 200 of one type - much less than
what it had in mid-1970s when the stockpile had peaked at some 350 warheads.

All these nuclear weapons - American, British and French - are deadly, are
on European Union territories and need to be destroyed as other nuclear
weapons manufactured by other countries.

But it is clear that the US and EU-3 are after the Iranian bomb. It seems as
if they have certain other compelling reasons for targeting Iran. This
impression is further strengthened when noted that Iran has put forward a
fairly strong case in its defence. It has, in fact, reiterated again and
again that its programme is for peaceful purposes only; it is a signatory to
the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT); it is a member of the International
Atomic energy Agency (IAEA); its nuclear activities are constantly monitored
by the agency; and when IAEA expressed its reservations regarding its
nuclear research programme, Iran voluntarily allowed the agency to put seals
on its nuclear research facilities.

By and large, Iran has enjoyed good relations with the IAEA and as pointed
out by its supreme national security secretary, Ali Larijani, "the country
has allowed 1400 man-hours of inspection of its nuclear sites." According to
a report, the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad categorically refuted
the charge that Iran was making the bomb.  He said: "We are a civilized and
ancient nation, and a nation that has culture and logic does not need
nuclear weapons."

Maintaining that such weapons are sought by people who intend to solve
everything through brute force and bullying, he added: "Unfortunately, today
people face rulers who think they have more rights than other nations
because their arsenals are stocked with nuclear, biological, and chemical
weapons."

However, the nuclear stand-off between Iran and the West continues. Indeed,
ever since a group of Iranian exiles, the National Council of Resistance of
Iran (NCRI), revealed in August 2002 that Iran was hiding a uranium
enrichment plant at Natanz and other nuclear sites, Iran has come under
increasingly pressure from the US and the EU-3. Claiming that it is an
independent, sovereign state, that it is opposed to nuclear colonialism and
has a right to atomic research, Iran has resisted all such pressures and
accused the West of double standards. This has resulted in worsened ties
with the US and certain European states.

The situation deteriorated further when the IAEA board of governors adopted
a resolution on Iran's atomic programme in its meeting held in September
2005. Drafted by Britain, France and Germany, the resolution called on Iran
to halt its enrichment programme and warned that the matter could be
referred to the UN Security Council if Iran failed to heed the call.
However, the issue was not immediately referred to the Security Council and
it was hoped that diplomacy would somehow resolve the issue.

But this was not to be and the hurling of accusations and
counter-accusations have further marred the prospects for an understanding
over the nuclear issue. There is a strong possibility that the matter may be
taken up by an extraordinary meeting of the IAEA board of governors and that
eventually the UN Security Council would be approached for the imposition of
sanctions on Iran. Tehran resents such moves and threatens the withdrawal of
its cooperation with IAEA if the Security Council is approached.

Given the state of affairs, Iran-bashing will not deliver the goods. The
nuclear standoff may, in fact, further whip up nuclear nationalism in
revolutionary Iran and any intervention from outside may ultimately cause
grave regional and global insecurities.

It is, therefore, important that the European Union concentrate on the
substantive issue and strive for the banishment of all nuclear weapons in
every continent. It could earn credibility if it launches a vigorous
campaign for the withdrawal of American nuclear weapons from Europe and for
the total destruction of British and French nuclear warheads. The EU would
then be on a very high political, military and moral grounds and in a
position to ask other states to give up their nuclear ambitions.
       
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 24 PROBLEMS DIVIDE DAVOS DELEGATES
 
Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2006 00:00:40 -0600 (CST)

The Guardian (London) Thursday January 26, 2006

A lengthy list of policy headaches ranging from Iran's nuclear threat to 
the stalled global trade talks greeted more than 2,000 business, 
government and civil society leaders as they gathered in the Swiss ski 
resort of Davos for the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum.

Faced with a cocktail of problems that would have spelled political and 
economic chaos a generation ago, sharp divisions were evident from the 
outset between pessimists convinced the world is living on borrowed time 
and optimists who argued that the doomsters are ignoring signs of hope.

Jim O'Neill, head of global economic research at Goldman Sachs, professed 
himself to be "quite cheerful and getting more optimistic". The world 
economy was on course to enjoy the best three years of growth since the 
second world war and there was evidence that China - a big theme at Davos 
this year - was forcing countries such as Japan, India and Germany to 
embrace much needed reforms.

With Germany's chancellor, Angela Merkel, opening the WEF last night, Mr 
O'Neill said Europe's biggest economy was, at last, turning the corner. "A 
bit of a mini-revolution has been going on in Germany."

A different insight came from Stephen Roach, for years the most bearish of 
Wall Street analysts, on the US economy. Mr Roach, the chief economist at 
Morgan Stanley, said markets and policymakers had developed "a dangerous 
degree of complacency", assuming that an unbalanced world economy could 
continue without correction.

Mr Roach, who delivered a similar warning at last year's Davos, said Asian 
central banks had helped to keep the show on the road for longer than 
could have been expected, but that with Alan Greenspan, the chairman of 
the Federal Reserve, due to be replaced by Ben Bernanke after more than 18 
years at the helm of the US central bank, tougher times were coming.

The American consumer - both "the weakest link" and the most important - 
had continued to drive the world economy by spending on the back of a 
property bubble but the boom was running out of steam with the key 
indicator of home mortgage refinancing down 45% from peak levels a year 
ago.

A number of sessions in Davos over the next few days will be devoted to 
the price of oil, which has stayed higher for longer than participants 
envisaged a year ago. China's strong growth is seen as a prime cause of 
the rise in all commodity prices, including oil and Mr O'Neill said that 
even if the country's growth rate halved to 5% it would still overtake the 
US to be the world's biggest economy by the middle of the century.

Amid fears in the west that spectacular growth in China and other 
developing countries would lead to job losses in the west, the US labour 
secretary, Elaine Chao, sought to reassure American workers yesterday that 
a 30,000 cut in Ford's workforce announced last week was not the start of 
a rise in unemployment.

"While these jobs may be going away there are new jobs that are being 
created and therefore the retraining and training of new workers coming 
into the workforce is of paramount importance," she said, adding that 2.4m 
jobs were created in 2005.

Hopes for an immediate breakthrough on two pressing issues - Iran and 
trade - looked remote last night.  Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general, 
saw little prospect of Iran's nuclear programme being discussed by the UN 
security council next month because it would take time for the 
International Atomic Energy Agency to prepare a report.

Trade sources also said a meeting of 25 ministers planned for the fringes 
of the WEF was unlikely to jumpstart the talks before April's deadline.

#############

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/news/archives/2006/01/25/why_davos_is_necessary.html#more

Why Davos is necessary

By Guardian Unlimited / World news 01:48pm

It's easy to knock the World Economic Forum, writes Larry Elliott in 
Davos.  Sure, it's exclusive (though no longer quite the preserve of the 
corporate elite it was a decade ago). True, the sessions where the 
deal-making is done are shrouded in secrecy. Yes, of course, it's a 
five-day talk fest 5,000 feet up in a Swiss ski resort. The fact is, 
though, that Davos - however inadequately and however incompletely - 
fulfils a need.

Even a couple of hours spent in Davos reveals what this need is. There is 
a political reality gap between the avalanche of problems, global in their 
scope, precariously poised to descend on the unwitting citizens of the 
world, and the creaking, nation-focused machinery for coping with them.

Take the big agenda at last year's Davos - taking steps to speed up 
development in Africa. The UK spent a large chunk of 2005 cajoling the 
rest of the G8 industrial nations to stump up extra money for debt relief 
and aid, and to open their markets to goods from poor countries.

Despite the effort, there was only limited success. Many G8 countries 
could see the argument for providing extra financial help to kick start 
Africa's development, but worried about the cost to their own taxpayers. 
Similarly, when it came to the crucial talks on trade in Hong Kong last 
December, the case for a fairer global trading system played second fiddle 
to defending the interests of European and American farmers.

Blair, with good reason, is worried about Africa falling off the radar 
screen in 2006 as new issues rise to the top of the agenda. Davos is one 
forum where cross-cutting global issues can be discussed, but as a talk 
shop it lacks the teeth needed to effect change.

A similar sense of political structures not being up to the job is evident 
from the three other big issues at Davos this year - energy, climate 
change and the threat of a US crash. There are those who argue that none 
of these problems are real, just as there are those who say that the real 
problem facing Africa is not money but bad government.

But there are those in Davos who do think that oil prices heading for $70 
a barrel, melting polar ice caps, and a US trade deficit of 6% and rising, 
are serious problems. Like many of the disenchanted voters in developed 
countries who have long since lost faith in traditional politics, they are 
searching around for institutions and structures that can provide answers.

Larry Elliott is the Guardian's economics editor



 

*****************************************************************
 25 Interfax: Putin proposes setting up intl centers of nuclear fuel cycle
services

Interfax.com    Text version    Site map   

Jan 25 2006 2:36PM
 
ST.PETERSBURG. Jan 25 (Interfax) - Russian President Vladimir
Putin has proposed instituting a system of international centers
for providing nuclear fuel cycle services, including enrichment. 

Russia "is prepared to set up an international center of this
kind on its territory," Putin told a meeting of the Eurasian
Economic Cooperation Organization in St.Petersburg on Wednesday. 

Putin also said that such centers "must be supervised by the
International Atomic Energy Agency and be accessible without
discrimination." 

© 1991-2006 Interfax
 All rights reserved
 
News and other data on this web site are provided for
information purposes only, and are not intended for
republication or redistribution. Republication or redistribution
of Interfax content, including by framing or similar means, is
expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of
Interfax.   
*****************************************************************
 26 British Nuclear Fuels plc: BNFL Announces Westinghouse Sale
 
WARRINGTON, England, January 24 /PRNewswire/ -- British Nuclear
Fuels plc (BNFL) today announced that it has selected Toshiba
Corporation, the highest bidder, as the preferred bidder for the
sale of Westinghouse Electric Company. 

"This bid is a win-win. We are pleased that by selecting Toshiba
we have achieved our dual objectives of doing the best for our
employees and the British taxpayers," said Mike Parker, BNFL
CEO. "Toshiba is a strong company with a long record of business
success, and will ensure that the decades-long contributions of
Westinghouse to the nuclear industry - and to the U.S. and
global economies - continue to grow." 

BNFL conducted a fair bidding process designed to ensure a level
playing field and secure the best business result. Today's
announcement comes after multiple rounds of bidding that began
in the autumn. BNFL expects the sales contract to be signed in
the near future. 

"This sale will ensure Westinghouse's continued leadership in
the commercial nuclear industry. Westinghouse is built on
generations of American ingenuity and we will continue to grow
and serve the U.S. and the world as nuclear energy becomes ever
more important," said Steve Tritch, President and CEO of
Westinghouse Electric Company. 

The Toshiba bid will be recommended for approval by the BNFL
Group Board later this week.   

Copyright © 1996-2003 PR Newswire Association LLC. All Rights
Reserved. 
*****************************************************************
 27 RIA Novosti: Russian, Kazakh presidents agree to step-up cooperation
 
25/ 01/ 2006                                  

ST. PETERSBURG, January 25 (RIA Novosti) - The Russian and
Kazakhstan's presidents signed a bilateral agreement and made a
joint statement during a meeting Wednesday.

 Putin and Nazarbayev, currently in the Russian northwestern
city of St. Petersburg for a session of the Interstate Council
of the Eurasian Economic Community (Eurasec), signed a protocol
on amendments to the Caspian Sea delimitation agreement of July
6, 1998.

 Nazarbayev said the document would open the way for joint,
equal development of the three largest oil fields on the Caspian
shelf - Kurmangazy, Tsentralny and Khvalynsky - located on the
sea border between Russia and Kazakhstan.

 The northern Caspian region's oil reserves are officially
estimated at about 1.2 billion metric tons (8.8 billion barrels).

 The leaders also issued a joint statement on cooperation in the
peaceful use of nuclear energy.

 Eurasec, an economic club of former Soviet countries formed in
2000, expanded Wednesday, admitting Uzbekistan as a new member
to the organization that includes Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan,
Kyrgystan, and Tajikistan.
 
		© 2005 "RIA Novosti"   
*****************************************************************
 28 RIA Novosti: Russia, Kazakhstan to form joint group for nuclear cooperation
 
25/ 01/ 2006                                  

ST. PETERSBURG, January 25 (RIA Novosti) - Russia and Kazakhstan
will form a joint working group to implement agreements between
the countries' presidents on the peaceful use of nuclear energy,
the head of the Russian Federal Atomic Energy Agency (Rosatom)
said Wednesday.

 "The presidents gave instructions for a working group to be
formed," Sergei Kiriyenko said. "A specific set of decisions on
integration will be ready by May 15."

 He said the group would consist of Russian representatives from
Rosatom, and Kazakh representatives from the country's fuel and
energy ministry.

 Kiriyenko had previously said Russia intended to restore the
nuclear power infrastructure that existed during the Soviet
period, and was initiating talks with Ukraine and Kazakhstan on
the subject.

 "All nuclear power facilities on the territory of Russia,
Ukraine and Kazakhstan are part of the single complex of the
former Soviet Ministry of Medium Machine Building, which we need
to restore," Sergei Kiriyenko said.

 Most of the technological complex of the former Soviet Ministry
of Medium Machine Building fell to Russian hands after the
disintegration of the Soviet Union, but some of its elements are
located in other Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)
countries, Kiriyenko said. Uranium is mined in Kazakhstan, while
Ukraine produces turbines, he said.
 
© 2005 "RIA Novosti"   
*****************************************************************
 29 AFP: China to drive world economy as US stumbles: economists -

 Wednesday January 25, 07:26 PM 

DAVOS, Switzerland (AFP) - Deepening concern about US deficits
and a possible oil supply shock are weighing on a world economy
that will be driven largely by China during 2006, a panel of
leading economists predicted at the World Economic Forum.

"This is the year to watch out carefully for the end of the
great American spending binge," Stephen Roach, chief economist
at US bank Morgan Stanley, told the annual meeting of global
business and political leaders.

Just hours after China announced [ src=] that its economy had
grown by 9.9 percent in 2005, the panel said Chinese growth was
set to continue at the kind of pace that helped it leapfrog over
Britain and France to become the world's fourth-biggest economy.

However the four economists cautioned that while Chinese
policymakers appeared to be moving to prevent their economy
overheating, there was little sign of action in the United
States to tackle imbalances.

Roach cautioned that investors appeared to be "plugging ahead
irrespective of current account issues and the asset price
bubble." 

"What's occurring right now in markets and in policy circles is
a dangerous degree of complacency. And out of complacency
usually comes the surprise that ends up doing the most damage to
markets and economies."

The danger lurking behind the high US current account deficit is
that foreign investors might begin to lose confidence in the US
economy and start withdrawing their assets.

This would cause a fall in the value of the dollar and could
lead to a sharp growth-dampening increase in US interest rates.

Roach also said data from the United States indicated that "the
property bubble is nearing an end," potentially drying up the
last source for the spending spree.

The panel warned that other parts of the world such as Asia --
where savings levels are high -- would need to compensate for a
forthcoming slump in US consumption.

"When the US increases its savings -- and it must increase its
savings -- that will reduce aggregate demand in the world," said
banker Jakob Frenkel of American International Group.

"This is the time the rest of the world must reduce its savings
to make up for the slack. That's the tango principle," he added.

Laura Tyson of the London Business School commented: "I think
that's understood as a policy issue in China. I don't think it's
understood as a policy issue in the United States."

Growth in China fuelled by export demand is set to reach 8.8 to
9.3 percent in 2006, according to Min Zhu, executive assistant
president Bank of China.

"I would say Chinese GDP (gross domestic product) is still
underestimated," he added, pointing to "millions" of small and
medium-sized businesses that were not accounted for in domestic
economic data.

"There is still room for China to grow."

Highlighting a "fundamental change in the centre of gravity" in
the world economy, Frenkel said national savings in China
amounted to 45 percent of GDP compared with 10 percent in the
United States. 

"You do not need to be a nuclear scientist to ask where the
growth will continue in the future," he added, also pointing to
China's booming imports from the rest of Asia, which are
fuelling the regional economy.

French Finance Minister Thierry Breton acknowledged China's
stature as he arrived in the Swiss Alpine resort of Davos.

"I think the big story is that China is moving up," he told
journalists.

"We tried to be prepared in France for many years -- China is an
extremely important industrial partner in this new global
environment."

Concern also focused on the potential for an energy shock caused
by bottlenecks in supplies due to a shortage of capacity or
political problems.

"The real question is what is the probability of a supply shock
on the energy front," Laura Tyson of the London Business School
underlined, amid consensus on the durability of high oil prices.

The economists admitted they were largely "in the dark" on oil
due to international tensions over Iran, a rebellion in Nigeria
and the potential for a repeat of Hurricane Katrina, which
temporarily shut down extraction in the Gulf of Mexico. 
                                
    Copyright © 2006 Yahoo! UK Limited. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 30 Daily Times: VIEW: Chimera of Russia’s gas power 

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

—Joseph S Nye 

It is one thing to hold the high hand in a game that you play
only once. For the game to go on indefinitely, you must maintain
the trust of the other players. Russia discovered that its
threats against Ukraine were too costly to its reputation as a
reliable supplier for Europe

Russia began 2006 by cutting off natural gas exports to Ukraine
after its government refused to pay a fourfold increase in the
subsidised price. The crisis in Ukraine, many of whose
Soviet-era industries depend on cheap Russian gas, soon spread
to Europe, which consumes 80 percent of Russian gas exports,
when Ukraine began to divert gas from the pipeline that crosses
its territory.

Ironically, 2006 is also the year that Russia takes over the
chair of the Group of Eight industrialised countries, which is
set to meet in Moscow this spring. The improbable theme that
Russian President Vladimir Putin chose for the conference is
energy security.

Even though it is no longer a global superpower, Russia’s vast
oil and gas reserves make it an energy superpower, and Putin
seems intent on playing that card. Oil provides somewhat less
economic power than gas because it is a fungible commodity, and
interruptions of supply can be made up by purchases on world
markets. But gas is expensive to transport, for it depends on
costly pipelines or gas liquefaction facilities that cannot be
replaced quickly when flows are interrupted.

Gas provides a tempting form of leverage, and Russia had already
used it against Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Moldova. But
when Gazprom, the Russian state gas monopoly, followed Putin’s
instructions to turn off the spigot to Ukraine, Russia crossed a
new threshold.

At first glance, this looks like a classic case of a large
country bullying a small country into submission. As Thucydides
put it in his history of the Peloponnesian War, “The strong do
as they will and the weak suffer what they must.” 

Russia had supported the losing side in Ukraine’s “Orange
Revolution” a year ago, and it was time for payback. But, as it
turned out, Putin miscalculated. He underestimated both
Ukraine’s leverage as the primary conduit for Russian gas
exports to Europe and Europe’s influence as the major consumer
of Russian gas. In the process, he damaged Russia’s reputation
as a reliable supplier of natural gas.

The result was a hastily patched together deal in which Russia
and Ukraine each gave ground on price, and a shadowy Swiss-based
company half-owned by Gazprom rolled supplies of cheap gas from
Turkmenistan into the equation. Some analysts, as well as former
Ukrainian prime minister, Yuliya Tymoshenko, alleged corruption
against the company, RosUkrEnergo.

But, charges of corruption aside, this outcome indicates that
gas is not such an easy source of hard economic power as it
would first appear. Some economists argue that there is little
power in relationships where buyers and sellers consent to a
price that clears a market. However, in cases where buyers and
sellers are not equally dependent upon the relationship, the
greater vulnerability of the more dependent party can be used as
a source of coercive power by the less dependent party. Russia
thought it was less dependent than Ukraine, and decided to
exercise that power. 

But it is one thing to hold the high hand in a game that you
play only once. For the game to go on indefinitely, you must
maintain the trust of the other players. In other words, the
shadow of the future suggests that a moderate strategy is best.

Russia quickly discovered that its threats against Ukraine were
too costly to its reputation as a reliable supplier for Europe.
When considered in this wider European context, there was more
symmetry in the Russia-Ukraine energy relationship than the
simple numbers on energy dependence implied at first glance.

Where does this leave Europe’s energy security? Germany’s
Economics Minister, Michael Glos, has said that Russia’s
questionable dependability means that the time has come to
explore other energy sources. That will not be easy. Gas
provides nearly a quarter of Europe’s energy, compared to 14
percent for nuclear power. Even if governments rethink their ban
on new nuclear plants, accelerate development of windmills and
solar panels, and search for new gas supplies, Europe will
remain dependent on Russian gas for more than a decade.

At the same time, as Europe’s largest consumer of Russian gas,
Germany has built its hopes for energy security on developing a
rich web of economic ties with Russia. Former chancellor Gerhard
Schroeder even became chair of a Russian-German consortium to
build a new gas pipeline from Russia to Germany. But, as the
Ukraine episode indicates, pipelines dedicated to a single
country may be less reliable than those that run through several
countries. 

If Russia is going to throw its weight around, it is better to
have allies among those affected. The key to energy security is
diversity – of pipelines as well as sources of supply. Small
neighbours without options will suffer, but Europe may not. In
the end, the next decade will be marked by a delicate balance in
which Europe remains dependent on Russian gas, but Russia’s need
for export revenues will also make it dependent on Europe. The
lesson from the Ukraine episode is that while Russia is less of
a gas superpower than it would appear, Europe would be wise for
to start building greater diversity into the energy
relationship. —DT-PS

Joseph S Nye is a professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of
Government. His latest book is ‘The Power Game: A Washington

Daily Times - All Rights Reserved
*****************************************************************
 31 IRNA: World press body calls on Israel to stop harassing nuclear whistleblower - 

Brussels, Jan 25, IRNA                                                                                                           

IFJ-Israel-Vanunu 

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) called Tuesday
for an end to official harassment of Mordechai Vanunu, the man
who told the world that Israel possessed nuclear weapons as
Israeli judges moved to send him back to jail for speaking to
journalists.

 Vanunu will appear in court Wednesday charged with violating
restrictions that prevent him leaving the country and ban him
from speaking to foreigners. If found guilty, he could be jailed
for nine months on a total of 21 criminal counts, noted an IFJ
statement.

 "This man has served his time for revealing what everyone has
known for many years," said Aidan White, IFJ general secretary.

 "Now he is being harassed simply for talking to journalists. He
is being intimidated by absurd and unjust restrictions that have
no place in a democracy. This case must be reviewed and the
legal restrictions on him should be lifted."
 Vanunu has challenged limitations imposed upon him in April
2004 upon his release from jail in which he served 18 years,
most of it in isolation.

 He was prohibited from leaving Israel or speaking to
non-Israeli citizens. Earlier this month, his lawyers failed to
get the restrictions lifted by the Israeli Supreme Court.

 Since leaving jail, Vanunu has lived at the Pilgrims' Hostel of
the Anglican cathedral in Jerusalem. He says he has a right to
speak out and has no additional information that would
compromise state security.

 The IFJ says that as well as lifting restrictions on Vanunu,
Israel should "face up to the truth about its place in the
democratic world."
 Protection for whistleblowers like Vanunu is vital to free
expression, says the IFJ, which is campaigning for greater
protection for journalists' sources of information.

 The Brussels-based IFJ is the world's biggest journalists'
organization representing over 500,000 journalists in more than
110 countries.

*****************************************************************
 32 Mos News: Environmental Study Finds Pacific Oil Pipeline Unsafe —
Greenpeace Russia - 

MOSNEWS.COM
 
Photo from www.gettyimages.com          
 	 	
Created: 25.01.2006 11:37 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 11:43 MSK 	
 	
An expert study has found that the plans to build the East
Siberia-Pacific oil pipeline, which is to run just 800 meters
from Lake Baikal’s shoreline, are unacceptable, the Ekho Moskvy
radio station has been told by Greenpeace Russia spokesman
Yevgeny Usov on Tuesday, Jan. 24. 

The final meeting of the state environmental expert commission
set up to evaluate the East Siberia-Pacific pipeline feasibility
study was held earlier on Tuesday, Usov said. He added that the
final appraisal paper saying that the project was
environmentally dangerous had been signed by 40 of the 52
experts.

“This outcome is rather unexpected although it is quite right
from the legal and environmental points of view. Recent events
demonstrated that [the state-owned oil pipelines operator]
Transneft was prepared to push the project through by hook or by
crook brushing people’s opinion aside,” said Usov.

Usov noted that the experts’ conclusion is “very important for
the country, it is one of the socially important things which
let me hope that one day we will be living a sane life, that
environmental reasons can prevail over an immediate desire to
earn more money”.

“Now Rostekhnadzor [Russian Federal Service for Ecological,
Technological and Nuclear Monitoring] is expected to issue an
official paper to confirm the experts’ decision. And we hope
that this service will not give in to Transneft’s pressure and
abide by the law,” said Usov.
 	 	
[Рейтинг@Mail.ru]       
*****************************************************************
 33 Yorkshire Post Today: Cold War secrets revealed as nuclear bunker 
prepares to open its doors                                                               

Paul Jeeves

STANDING in the middle of a York housing estate, it is a grim 
reminder of a time when fear of nuclear war gripped the world.

But the secrets of a Cold War bunker which remained
locked away for more than a decade will now be revealed to the
public. Its blast doors are expected to open for guided tours in
May.

English Heritage has undertaken a ВЈ250,000 restoration of the
reinforced concrete bunker and is now looking for guides to
conduct the tours around its three levels.

Audio-visual effects and staff dressed in period uniforms will
allow visitors the chance to sample what it would have been like
to work in the bunker, which acted as a nerve centre for
monitoring the threat of nuclear explosions.

If a nuclear strike had happened, up to 60 staff who worked in
the bunker when it was fully operational would have reported
back to the Government with details of casualties and radiation
fallout in the area.

English Heritage's collections manager for the North, Kevin
Booth, said: "It is an eerie experience going down into the
bunker, and it will give people a reminder of a piece of history
which feels strangely a long time ago.

"It might have only closed 14 years ago, but visitors will be
taken aback by how rudimentary some of the equipment looks. 
"People will be able to draw their own conclusions as to whether
the monitoring systems would have worked if there had been a
nuclear attack."

The Royal Observer Corps bunker, which is hidden beneath an
earth mound off Acomb Road in York, was opened on December 16,
1961.

It was built in the grounds of a large Edwardian property,
Shelley House, which was sold off for redevelopment. The bunker
now stands near to a new development of flats.

In its eerie confines, up to 60 members of the Royal Observer
Corps and Home Office scientists could live for at least two
weeks, self-contained but chillingly aware in the event of
conflict of the destruction on the surface.

The bunker, designed to withstand ferocious bombardment, was put
on full alert during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962.
It remained operational until 1991, and was closed the the
following year.

English Heritage began the restoration programme more than three
years ago to address major problems with damp and repair
ventilation systems and lighting.

The revamp is nearing completion and artefacts from the early
1990s ranging from large telephone exchanges to torches,
mattresses and blankets will add an extra element of
authenticity.

The bunker is now regarded as the nation's most complete Cold
War relic, and in 2000 was given the same protection as
Stonehenge as a scheduled monument.

All rights reserved © 2006 Johnston Press New Media. 
*****************************************************************
 34 AFP: Davos forum opens with, global economy in spotlight - 

 Wednesday January 25, 11:54 PM 

DAVOS, Switzerland (AFP) - Power brokers from the worlds of
business and politics opened their annual Davos forum, with a
strong emphasis on Asia's emerging giants and concern over the
health of the global economy. 

China and India are high on the agenda of the World Economic
Forum, which this year is gathering more than 2,300 leaders,
officials and executives for five days of high-powered
networking. 

Chinese Vice Premier Zeng Peiyan, the kingpin behind his
nation's five-year economic planning cycle, was a keynote
speaker of the opening day, immediately after German Chancellor
Angela Merkel formally kicks proceedings into gear. 

Cheng Siwei, vice president of the Chinese parliament, gave a
foretaste of the debate to come, noting that China's foreign
trade surplus jumped more than 200 percent to just over 100
billion dollars. 

The vast nation has unofficially become the world's
fourth-largest economy after reporting near double-digit growth
for 2005, and experts here predict it will continue apace, with
China also moving more investment dollars abroad. 

This year's gathering in the snow-clad, picture-postcard Swiss
Alps resort aims to put business firmly back on centre stage
after gripes over last year's flirtation with Hollywood
celebrity. 

"It's a unique cast," founder and chief executive Klaus Schwab
told a news briefing on Wednesday, saying the heads of all major
international institutions, including the United Nations,
International Monetary Fund and World Trade Organisation were in
attendance. 

"All people who are in charge of international issues can be
found over the next three or four days here in Davos." 

Schwab also underscored the ongoing technological revolution,
noting that "we are now moving from globalisation to
'googleisation'." 

With information available around the clock and around the
world, "the real competitive advantage (now) comes from being
innovative", he said. 

Senior economists warned that the United States was still
failing to tackle its swollen deficit and consumer spending
spree, while there were heightened fears of a possible cut in
vital oil supplies. 

Stephen Roach, chief economist of US bank Morgan Stanley, said
there was a "dangerous degree of complacency" over the
situation. 

Separately, disputes between Russia, Europe's biggest natural
gas supplier, and neighbours Ukraine and Georgia have raised
questons about its reliability as a long-term provider,
providing fuel for key debates here on energy. 

The fears coincide with a brief spike in oil prices to nearly 70
dollars per barrel, and a survey of business participants at
Davos underlined concern over tight energy supplies. 

This year's president of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting
Countries, Edmund Daukoru of Nigeria, is scheduled for his first
major public appearance here alongside outgoing president Sheikh
Ahmad Fahd al-Sabah of Kuwait. 

Other major international issues due to be thrashed out at Davos
include Iran, terrorism, the Middle East, regional security
problems and the future of the European Union. 

Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the UN's nuclear watchdog, will speak
at a time when the international community is demanding severe
action against Iran over its atomic programme. 

The foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany, who have
been leading negotiations with Tehran over its programme, will
meet again here. 

Other leaders present include: UN chief Kofi Annan, presidents
Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan and Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria
and prime ministers Ibrahim Jaafari of Iraq and Recep Tayyip
Erdogan of Turkey. 

Former US president Bill Clinton has also agreed to come. 

However, a repeat of last year's headline-grabbing initiatives
on tackling poverty or global warming is unlikely this time
around. 

Middle East peace brokers are focussed on Wednesday's voting in
the Palestinian territories and, in a few months, in Israel,
where Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has been incapacitated after a
brain haemorrhage. 

Copyright © 2006 AFP. All rights reserved. All information
*****************************************************************
 35 More nukes for Ontario? Straightgoods.com
 
Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2006 10:30:44 -0600 (CST)

from: http://www.straightgoods.ca/ViewFeature6.cfm?REF=54
More nukes for Ontario?

Opponents have short deadline to object to 1100 page report's recommendations.

Dateline: Tuesday, January 24, 2006

by Hugh Robertson

The Ontario Power Authority (OPA) report, released December 9, 2005, 
outlines a 20 year plan for Ontario' electrical system and has 
ramifications that reach far into the future. The main recommendations are 
contentious on two fronts: first, by suggesting that an increase in supply 
is needed and secondly, that nuclear energy should provide half the energy 
supply by 2025.

Ontarians have 60 days, already largely taken up by winter holidays and the 
federal election campaign, to respond to this contentious plan. It is 
simply unacceptable for the government to allow only sixty days for 
comments on proposals that could cost $100 billion and will bequeath future 
generations with an enduring legacy of toxic nuclear waste.

67eea0.jpg
Both the magnitude and the long term implications of the energy problem 
demand that we not be panicked into hasty decisions. All too frequently in 
North America in recent years, governments and lobbies have capitalized on 
fear to railroad through major decisions without sufficient democratic input.

We do not want secret negotiations behind our backs, particularly since 
every time we open our monthly electricity bills we are reminded of earlier 
financial fiascos that promised us "abundant, affordable" energy but 
instead landed us with billions of dollars of debt. Ontarians are entitled 
to a transparent and participatory process in resolving the energy problem....

whole article at: http://www.straightgoods.ca/ViewFeature6.cfm?REF=54

Penney Kome, author and journalist
http://penneykome.ca
Editor, Straight Goods, http://straightgoods.com 

[demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/octet-stream which had a name of 67eea0.jpg]
*****************************************************************
 36 Guardian Unlimited: Ill. Power Co. to Settle Leak Cases
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

Wednesday January 25, 2006 6:03 PM

BRACEVILLE, Ill. (AP) - A nuclear power plant is buying out one
property owner and negotiating financial settlements with 14
others after elevated levels of a radioactive substance were
discovered near the site of a 1998 pipeline valve break. 

Higher than normal tritium levels were found in groundwater near
the site of the valve break in November. 

One well at Exelon Corp.'s Braidwood Generating Plant, about 60
miles southwest of Chicago, showed levels more than 11 times
higher than the federal limit for groundwater, according to the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Tritium is commonly found in
groundwater but is more concentrated in water used in nuclear
reactors. 

Recent environmental tests at more than 200 sites on plant
property and on private land around the plant indicate there's
no health or safety threat to the area, Exelon spokesman Craig
Nesbit said. 

He said Tuesday that Exelon agreed to compensate the property
owners because ``We don't want these people to suffer any harm
for something we did.'' 

Exelon announced this week that it is offering free well tests
to 28 property owners who live next to the 5-mile pipeline. 

The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency cited Exelon for
two violations of the state's groundwater standards and given
the company until Feb. 3 to file a report about the tritium
levels.	 
		 	 	   
      Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
 37 CBN: Nuke reactor signs high-cost contract

25 Jan 2006 

Spanish manufacturing company Equipos Nucleares, S.A. (ENSA) is 
the latest in a string of suitors selected for partnership with 
PBMR for the proposed construction of the pebble bed modular 
reactor demonstration power plant (DPP) to be built at Koeberg in 
the Western Cape.   

The ENSA deal covers the design and manufacture of the 
Main Power System (MPS) Pressure Boundary (PB) for this world 
first inherently safe Generation IV reactor.   

The Pressure Boun dary is integral to the construction of the DPP 
as it acts as the entire steel exoskeleton (pressure envelope) 
for 12 sub-systems contained in the reactor unit, the power 
conversion unit, and the pressure relief system, and comprises 
some 2 000 tons of steel. (Picture of the PBMR Main Power System 
(MPS) attached).  

"This contract with ENSA is yet another step forward in PBMR's 
commitment to delivering to its client, Eskom, and fellow South 
Africans, a product of the highest quality, safet y and 
reliability. We have been in lengthy negotiations with the 
Spanish group and are confident that their international 
expertise and commitment to localisation initiatives will prove 
that we have made the best choice," said Brent Hegger, Project 
Director for the Demo Plant.   

The contract comprises the design and manufacture, preparation 
for shipment, project management, quality assurance, and 
configuration management, with completion anticipated in May 
2009.   

Functions of the pressure boundary include containment of the 
helium coolant; a barrier to the release of fission products into 
the environment, and structural support. The design ensures the 
prevention of; chemical attack by air or water entering the 
system, any unplanned reactivity increases, and a loss of heat 
removal capability.  

ENSA is committed to endeavouring to promote local fabrication to 
the extent of 50 percent of product and has a five year 
relationship with DB Thermal , its South African representative. 
This agre ement between ENSA and DB Thermal caters for the 
possibility of DB Thermal becoming involved in the manufacturing 
process of certain components which could constitute between as 
much as 30 – 50 percent of the order value.   

PBMR awaits certain procedural and judicial milestones before 
proceeding with its nuclear build programme and these include a 
positive Record of Decision (RoD) from the Department of 
Environmental Affairs and Tourism (DEAT), a nd a Licence to 
Construct from the independent Nationa l Nuclear Regulator (NNR).   

Nuclear construction is anticipated during 2007.                             

*****************************************************************
 38 AP Wire: Exelon negotiates with property owners near nuclear plant

Posted on Wed, Jan. 25, 2006 

 Associated Press 

BRACEVILLE, Ill. - A Will County nuclear power plant is
negotiating financial deals with 15 nearby property owners after
elevated levels of a radioactive substance were discovered near
the site of a 1998 pipeline valve break. 

Recent environmental tests at more than 200 sites on plant
property and on private land around Exelon Corp.'s Braidwood
Generating Plant indicate there's no health or safety threat to
the area, Exelon spokesman Craig Nesbit said. 

Even so, Exelon has agreed to buy out one property owner and
compensate 14 others for any lost property value. "We don't want
these people to suffer any harm for something we did," Nesbit
said Tuesday. "We will make them whole." 

Exelon announced this week that it is offering free well tests
to 28 property owners who live next to the 5-mile pipeline. 

In November, higher than normal tritium levels were found near
the site of the valve break that allowed several million gallons
of water being pumped from the plant to the Kankakee River to
escape on plant property, about 60 miles southwest of Chicago. 

One well on Exelon's property showed tritium levels more than 11
times higher than the federal limit for groundwater, according
to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Tritium is commonly found
in groundwater but is more concentrated in water used in nuclear
reactors. 

The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency has cited Exelon
for two violations of the state's groundwater standards and
given the company until Feb. 3 to file a report about the
tritium plume. Nesbit said the company has drilled 158
monitoring wells to determine how it has spread. 

email this
print this<img
*****************************************************************
 39 HindustanTimes.com: Pak seeks US cooperation in nuclear energy

  Wednesday, January 25, 2006|19:30 IST   

Press Trust of India

Asserting that it is against proliferation of nuclear weapons,
Pakistan has sought the US cooperation in the field of
civilian-nuclear energy as being done in the case of India.

Pakistan hoped to get a positive response during President
George W Bush's visit to the region in March.

At a luncheon meeting with Bush at the Oval Office in Washington
on Tuesday, visiting Pakistan Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said
"we are against proliferation of nuclear weapons by anybody."

"We also strive for peace in our area. It's an area which has a
lot of challenges, and we are pursuing peace with all our
neighbours. We want solution of all disputes, including the
Kashmir dispute," Aziz said.

"And we want to fight terrorism in all its forms and
manifestations. There is no good terrorist or bad terrorist. and
terrorism knows no borders. Our coalition with the United States
in fighting terrorism is very important to all of the world and
all of civil society," he said.

Bush and Aziz had a "wide ranging" discussion on issues covering
defence cooperation, the long-term Pak-US strategic ties, talks
with India and cooperation in civilian-nuclear energy in the
wake of growing energy needs of Pakistan.

After the meeting, Aziz told Pakistani media that he took up the
issue of according a civilian-nuclear deal to Pakistan during
his talks with Bush.

Pakistan seeks the US assistance in acquisition of nuclear
technology for peaceful purposes, he said, adding it plans to
produce 8800 MW of electric energy through nuclear technology to
meet its growing requirements in next 20 years.   
    
*****************************************************************
 40 newsobserver.com: Atoms again

Editorials
 
Wednesday, January 25, 2006

North Carolina's incessant and growing appetite for electricity
may require more nuclear power. But the case must be made 

Number-crunchers for Progress Energy know the company will save
millions on construction costs and through other efficiencies if
it can expand the nuclear power generating capacity at its
Shearon Harris plant in southwestern Wake County. Thus the
company's widely anticipated decision to start the process that
could lead to a second reactor at the Harris site.

Applying for a license from the federal Nuclear Regulatory
Commission does not commit Raleigh-based Progress to going ahead
with the new reactor. But it is a step with potentially huge
consequences for the company and the region it serves.

North and South Carolina are growing in population at a dizzying
rate, making the search for increased supplies of reliable,
affordable electricity a social and economic imperative. New
customers bring their own appliances and computers that run all
day, every day. They have been drawn here -- and will keep
coming -- because of industries locating in the region,
industries that are themselves thirsty for power. It would be
disastrous economically if the lights flickered.

But is a new reactor at the Shearon Harris site in the best
interest of this region? Is it a prudent expenditure for
Progress, a regulated utility that will expect its customers to
absorb the enormous costs involved in a new nuclear unit? Those
are tough questions, and they need to be sharply debated.In its
favor, the nuclear industry has provided the nation with
electricity for four decades, with a generally respectable track
record aside from the troubling issue of waste disposal.

Cleaner than carbon

Nuclear doesn't pose the same kind of pollution problems that
coal- and gas-fired power plants do. Despite the near-meltdown
at Three Mile Island in 1979, there have been no catastrophic
accidents in this country with large-scale releases of
radioactive contamination. Designs for new nuclear power plants
feature improved safety measures (Shearon Harris is the last of
the old-design plants to go on line, in 1987). Europe, Russia
and Japan now quench their energy thirst mainly with atoms, with
few problems. They likely will continue that course, if they are
to meet the goals of the Kyoto anti-global warming treaty.

Still, nuclear plants old or new are highly complicated and
inherently dangerous, posing risks that only multiply in heavily
populated regions such as the Triangle. A major accident at
Shearon Harris could have consequences over a broad stretch of
territory where thousands have their homes and livelihoods.

Those risks naturally are part of the debate.

The Bush administration may be pushing nuclear for air-quality
reasons, but it also extends a hand to a favored industry.

Progress is rushing its plans partly because the recently passed
energy bill gives the first few companies to build new nuclear
plants hefty subsidies. Progress and North Carolina's other big
utility, Duke Power, are racing for that revenue.

The waste dilemma

The administration is less engaged in finding a site to store
the highly radioactive spent fuel rods that nuclear plants
generate -- a big negative for Progress' plans. By now the
federal government was supposed to have opened a repository for
plant wastes that remain deadly for hundreds of thousands of
years. But common-sense environmental concerns have stymied the
opening of a facility under Nevada's Yucca Mountain.

It may be decades before Yucca opens, if ever. For now,
companies store decades worth of wastes at their power plants.

Shearon Harris holds the nation's largest stockpile, submerged
in cooling pools.

The waste is dangerous in its own right, but stockpiles also are
potentially vulnerable to terrorist attack. Storage near U.S.
cities seems on its face not to make much sense. Under the
present scenario, a new Shearon Harris reactor would mean even
waste stored there.

The Bush energy policy also takes the easier nuclear route
rather than pressing for conservation and for alternative energy
sources such as wind and solar. It may be true at this point
that no alternative source is as cheap as nuclear. But
Washington hasn't adequately invested in research into
alternatives. Those renewable sources must be more carefully
explored, even if they wouldn't eliminate the need for large
"base load" power plants.

Notwithstanding all that, Progress wants the option of doubling
its nuclear capacity at Shearon Harris. Before it receives the
go-ahead, it must convince the federal government and the state
Utilities Commission -- as well as the court of public opinion
-- that a new reactor in Wake County would represent progress
not only for the company, but for the region. All rights
reserved. This copyrighted material may not be published,
broadcast or redistributed in any manner.
   
 © Copyright 2006, The News & Observer Publishing Company
*****************************************************************
 41 NRC: NRC’S 18th Annual Regulatory Information Conference to Be March 
7-9 in Rockville, Md.

News Release - 2006-008 - 

U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs     
Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC 20555-0001     E-mail: 
opa@nrc.gov www.nrc.gov   

  No. 06-008     January 24, 2006   
  
  More than 1,000 people are expected to attend the Nuclear
Regulatory Commissions Regulatory Information Conference (RIC),
March 7-9, at the Marriott Bethesda North, 5701 Marinelli Road,
Rockville, Md. Attendees will include representatives from more
than 20 foreign countries. Also expected are staff members from
the U.S. Congress. 

Speakers at the conference will include Nuclear Regulatory
Commission Chairman Nils Diaz and Commissioners Edward
McGaffigan, Jeffrey Merrifield, Gregory Jaczko and Peter Lyons.
The conference is free and open to the public. Those interested
in attending can register at the NRCs Web site,
http://www.nrc.gov/public-involve/conference-symposia/ric/registr
ation.html, and onsite registration will also be available
during the conference. The RIC is a joint presentation of the
NRCs Offices of Nuclear Reactor Regulation and Nuclear
Regulatory Research. 

The conference brings together NRC staff, regulated utilities
and other interested stakeholders to meet and discuss nuclear
safety topics and regulatory trends. Topics at this years RIC
include licensing new nuclear power plants, emergency
preparedness lessons from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and the
proposed national high-level radioactive waste repository at
Yucca Mountain. 

The conference agenda is available on the NRCs Web site at this
address:
http://www.nrc.gov/public-involve/conference-symposia/ric/.   


 	Last revised Wednesday, January 25, 2006 	   
*****************************************************************
 42 IRNA: EU wants to launch debate on nuclear energy 

Brussels, Jan 25, IRNA                                                                                                           

EU-Nuclear energy-Debate 

In the face of rising oil prices and growing energy consumption,
the European Union's interest in nuclear energy is also
ascending.

 "There is more interest for nuclear energy (in Europe). All
options should be taken open," EU Commissioner for Energy Andris
Piebalgs told a press conference in Brussels Tuesday afternoon.

 "I think it is important that countries that are ready to
debate on nuclear energy should do it. For some countries, it is
part of their response to the security of supply and, in others,
it is part of their response to the climate change. What is
important is to relaunch the debate," he said.

 Presenting to journalists an opinion poll on European citizens'
views related to energy policy, Piebalgs said renewable energies
such as solar energy were a top favorite.

 The survey showed that a majority of EU citizens (47 percent)
would prefer European-level decisions on the new energy
challenges such as energy supply security, growing energy
consumption and climate change.

 Thirty-seven percent of European citizens prefer energy
decisions on a national level.

 Only 23 percent support reduction of dependence on oil.

*****************************************************************
 43 Globe and Mail: Ontario faces court challenge over proposed nuclear plants
 	
 By MARTIN MITTELSTAEDT 						 		
Wednesday, January 25, 2006 Page 		
ENVIRONMENT REPORTER 	 		 		

TORONTO -- Several environmental groups intend to challenge the
legality of the Ontario government's controversial proposal to
spend between $56-billion and $83-billion on new power plants
without an environmental assessment. 

Greenpeace, the Pembina Institute and the David Suzuki
Foundation will launch the court challenge, which could delay by
several years the massive electricity spending the government
says is required to replace the province's aging generating
stations. 

Environmentalists recently asked Energy Minister Donna Cansfield
for the assessment, which they say is required under Ontario's
Environmental Assessment Act. 

The legislation calls for large provincial undertakings that
could damage the environment to be subjected to scrutiny. 

"We've told the minister, we're putting our cards on the table,
that they need to do an environmental assessment and we're
prepared to go to court [if they don't]," said David Martin, an
energy analyst with Greenpeace. 

He said the scope of the proposal, the first version of which
was issued in December by the Ontario Power Authority and calls
for spending up to $40-billion on new nuclear power plants,
among other items, is so massive it needs to have an independent
public review. 

"This is an $80-billion plan plus. It's one of the most
important and costly undertakings that will take place in the
next 20 years. . . . It deserves to be tested publicly" through
an assessment, Mr. Martin said. 

The Ministry of Energy is disputing that the government must
hold such a wide-ranging assessment, according to Erika Botond,
a spokeswoman for Ms. Cansfield. 

She says the province intends to hold environmental reviews only
on the construction of individual power plants, not the
government's overall electricity plan. 

"My understanding is there will be an environmental-assessment
process for specific projects as they move along," she said. 

The ministry's approach would allow the government to avoid
scrutiny of such important topics as its demand-and-supply
projections for electricity, and the amount of power that could
be gained from renewable sources. 

But the government may be on weak ground in its view that it can
avoid a full-blown environmental assessment for its overall
plan. 

The last time the province raised such a massive series of
electricity investments was in 1989, during the last Liberal
government. 

In a proposal that is similar to the current one, the former
Ontario Hydro called for the construction of up to 15 new
nuclear reactors, part of a massive $61-billion energy plan that
the province said was needed to prevent power shortages. 

That plan led to the most costly environmental assessment in
Canadian history, and the eventual abandonment of the scheme in
1993 after evidence at two years of public hearings showed that
none of the reactors were actually needed. 

Rather than facing a shortage of electricity, the province went
on to experience an electricity glut that lasted nearly 10
years. 

Mr. Martin, of Greenpeace, said government officials have been
reluctant to have an assessment because of concerns that it
could delay new generating stations. 

It takes about 10 years for nuclear plants to make it from the
drawing board to a grid connection. 

The OPA proposal is open for a 60-day public comment period that
ends in February. Ms. Botond said the province will also have
public consultations. 	 	 		 						Search
globeandmail.com

Wednesday, January 25, 2006                                                     
*****************************************************************
 44 Xinhua: Hainan to develop nuclear power   
  

www.xinhuanet.com

  www.chinaview.cn 2006-01-25 20:16:19   

    HAIKOU, Jan. 25 (Xinhuanet) -- Hainan Province in south
China is resolved to develop nuclear power in addition to
hydropower, wind power and thermal power derived from gas and
clean coal in the years to come. 

    Nuclear power plants will help solve the power demand crisis
in this island province, according to a document entitled
"Hainan Power Grid Development Plan for the 11th Five-Year-Plan
Period (2006-2010) and Long-Term Development Prospects and Goals
for the year 2020". 

    According to the development document, Hainan, the largest
special economic zone in China, will see a huge rise in power
demand in the next few years. 

    It is expected that the demand for electric power in the
province will grow at an average annual rate of 15 percent from
2006 to 2010. It is estimated that 17.5 billion kw/hours of
power will be required in 2010. The local power grid's maximum
load will rise to 26 billion kw/hours the same year. 

    An official with Hainan Provincial Development and Reform
Bureau underscored the urgency of nuclear power development by
saying it was imperative for Hainan to build nuclear power
plants in the long run. 

    "In the early years of the province, Hainan considered
developing nuclear power, but was obliged to discontinue this
work," said the official. 

    Hainan, which previously came under jurisdiction of
Guangdong Province, became a province in its own right in April
1988. It has many natural advantages in terms of nuclear power
development including having a shoreline of 1,528 km and 68
bays. Enditem   

  Copyright ©2003 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved.

*****************************************************************
 45 Reuters: Turkey set to complete nuke plants study this week
                                
Wed 25 Jan 2006 9:29 AM ET                                      

ANKARA, Jan 25 (Reuters) - Turkey will complete a preliminary 
study this week on construction of nuclear power stations as part 
of its strategy to avoid future energy shortfalls, officials said 
on Wednesday.

 Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's office will receive the study
and is expected to make a decision soon on building between
three and five nuclear power plants with a total capacity of
5,000 megawatts, they said.

 "Seismic research for the plants and examination of their
environmental effects have been made. Our studies covered eight
different potential sites," an official told Reuters.

 "A number of issues such as seismic faultlines, water,
transport, communications and infrastructure are being discussed
in a sensitive way in order to choose the best location."

 Turkey straddles seismic faultlines and is highly prone to
earthquakes.

 The Prime Ministry and Energy Ministry will jointly decide the
final location of the plants.

 Previous efforts to build a nuclear power plant in Turkey
stretching back 30 years have failed due to cost and opposition
from environmentalists.

 Turkey has no nuclear power plants at present. Oil and natural
gas imports, along with coal and hydro-electric power, account
for most of its current needs.

 But a recent spat over natural gas between Russia and Ukraine,
Turkey's Black Sea northern neighbours, along with recent falls
in Iranian gas exports to Turkey, have highlighted the country's
vulnerability to external energy shocks.

 Russia stepped in on Tuesday to help Turkey cover a four
million cubic metre shortfall in its Iranian gas imports. Russia
already supplies 65 percent of Turkey's total gas imports.

 Turkey has also suffered from record high oil prices.

 Turkish officials have said in the past the nuclear power
plants will be funded partly by the public sector but mostly by
private financiers.

 Turkey aims to put its nuclear power plants into service in
2012 under energy ministry projections.

 It has begun talks with leading nuclear power producers such as
the United States, Britain, China and Japan on technology
transfer and the costs. 

© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.                                              [ border=]  
*****************************************************************
 46 NRC: Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards; Meeting of the 
 
                         FR Doc E6-850 
[Federal Register: January 25, 2006 (Volume 71, Number 16)] 
[Notices] [Page 4177] From the Federal Register Online via GPO 
Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr25ja06-114]                         
 
Subcommittee on Plant License Renewal; Notice of Meeting The ACRS 
Subcommittee on Plant License Renewal will hold a meeting on 
February 8, 2006, Room T-2B3, 11545 Rockville Pike, Rockville, 
Maryland.
 
The entire meeting will be open to public attendance.
 
The agenda for the subject meeting shall be as follows: 
Wednesday, February 8, 2006--1:30 p.m. until 5 p.m. The purpose 
of this meeting is to discuss the License Renewal Application for 
Brunswick Units 1 and 2 and associated Safety Evaluation Report 
(SER) related to the License Renewal. The Subcommittee will hear 
presentations by and hold discussions with representatives of the 
NRC staff, Carolina Power & Light Company now doing business as 
Progress Energy Carolinas Incorporated, and other interested 
persons regarding this matter. The Subcommittee will gather 
information, analyze relevant issues and facts, and formulate 
proposed positions and actions, as appropriate, for deliberation 
by the full Committee.
 
Members of the public desiring to provide oral statements and/or 
written comments should notify the Designated Federal Official, 
Mr. John G. Lamb (telephone 301/415-6855) five days prior to the 
meeting, if possible, so that appropriate arrangements can be 
made.
 
Electronic recordings will be permitted.
 
Further information regarding this meeting can be obtained by 
contacting the Designated Federal Official between 7:30 a.m. and 
4:15 p.m. (ET). Persons planning to attend this meeting are urged 
to contact the above named individual at least two working days 
prior to the meeting to be advised of any potential changes to 
the agenda.
 
Dated: January 12, 2006.
 
Michael L. Scott, Branch Chief, ACRS/ACNW.
 
[FR Doc. E6-850 Filed 1-24-06; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P

b 
*****************************************************************
 47 NRC: Risk-Informed Changes to Loss-of-Coolant Accident Technical 

RIN 3150-AH29
 
                         FR Doc E6-857 
[Federal Register: January 25, 2006 (Volume 71, Number 16)] 
[Proposed Rules] [Page 4061] From the Federal Register Online via 
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr25ja06-18]                         
 
Requirements; Extension of Comment Period
AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
 
ACTION: Proposed rule: Extension of comment period.
 
SUMMARY: On November 7, 2005 (70 FR 67598), the Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission (NRC) published for public comment a 
proposed rule amending its regulations to permit current power 
reactor licensees to implement a voluntary, risk-informed 
alternative to the current requirements for analyzing the 
performance of emergency core cooling systems during 
loss-of-coolant accidents. On December 6, 2005, the Nuclear 
Energy Institute (NEI) requested a 30 day extension to the 
comment period for the proposed rule. On December 20, 2005, the 
Westinghouse Owners Group submitted a letter endorsing the NEI 
extension request. The extension requests were based on the 
occurrence of two major holidays during the comment period which 
limited the time available to coordinate industry comments from 
owners groups, vendors, and licensees. The NRC is extending the 
comment period on the proposed rule by an additional 30 days from 
the original February 6, 2006 deadline until March 8, 2006. This 
comment period extension also applies to related public comments 
submitted on the NRC report on Seismic Considerations for the 
Transition Break Size (70 FR 75501).
 
 
DATES: The comment period has been extended and now expires on 
March 8, 2006. Comments received after this date will be 
considered if it is practical to do so, but the Commission is 
able to ensure consideration only for comments received before 
this date.
 
 
ADDRESSES: Mail written comments to: Secretary, U.S. Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001. Attn: 
Rulemakings and Adjudications Staff.
 
Hand delivered comments should also be addressed to the 
Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and delivered to: 
11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, MD, between 7:30 am and 4:15 pm 
Federal workdays.
 
You may also provide comments via the NRC's interactive 
rulemaking Web site http://ruleforum.llnl.gov. This site also 
provides the availability to upload comments as files (any 
format), if your web browser supports that function. For 
information about the interactive rulemaking site, contact Ms. 
Carol Gallagher, (301) 415-5905; e-mail: CAG@nrc.gov. Certain 
documents relating to this rulemaking, including comments 
received, may be examined at the NRC Public Document Room, 11555 
Rockville Pike, Room O1-F21, Rockville, MD. The same documents 
may also be viewed and downloaded electronically via the 
rulemaking Web site; http://ruleforum.llnl.gov. Documents created 
or received at the NRC after November 1, 1999 are also available 
electronically at the NRC's Public Electronic Reading room on the 
Internet at http://www.nrc.gov/NRC/ADAMS/index.html. From this 
site, the public can gain entry into the NRC's Agencywide 
Document Access and Management System (ADAMS), which provides 
text and image files of NRC's public documents.
 
For more information, contact the NRC Public Document Room (PDR) 
Reference staff at 1-800-397-4209, 202-634-3273 or by e-mail to 
pdr@nrc.gov. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Richard F. Dudley, 
Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001; telephone (301) 415-1116, 
e-mail rfd@nrc.gov. Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 18th day 
of January, 2006.
 
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
 
Annette L. Vietti-Cook, Secretary of the Commission.
 
[FR Doc. E6-857 Filed 1-24-06; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P

 
*****************************************************************
 48 NRC: Nuclear Management Company, LLC; Notice of Withdrawal of 
 
                         FR Doc E6-886 
[Federal Register: January 25, 2006 (Volume 71, Number 16)] 
[Notices] [Page 4177] From the Federal Register Online via GPO 
Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr25ja06-113]                         
 
Application for Amendment to Facility Operating License The U.S. 
Nuclear Regulatory Commission (the Commission) has granted the 
request of Nuclear Management Company, LLC (NMC) to withdraw its 
application of April 1, as supplemented May 26, August 25, and 
November 22, 2005, for proposed amendment to Facility Operating 
License No. DPR- 20 for the Palisades Nuclear Plant located in 
VanBuren County, Michigan.
 
The proposed amendment would have changed Technical Specification 
(TS) 3.7.8, ``Service Water System,'' to provide a one-time 
extension to the Completion Time for restoring a service water 
train to operable status.
 
The Commission had previously issued a Notice of Consideration of 
Issuance of Amendment published in the Federal Register on May 
10, 2005 (70 FR 24654). However, NMC's letter of January 5, 2006, 
withdrew the proposed change.
 
For further details with respect to this action, see the 
application for amendment dated April 1, as supplemented May 26, 
August 25, and November 22, 2005, and NMC's letter of January 5, 
2006, which withdrew the application for license amendment. 
Documents may be examined, and/or copied for a fee, at the NRC's 
Public Document Room (PDR), located at One White Flint North, 
Public File Area 01 F21, 11555 Rockville Pike (first floor), 
Rockville, Maryland. Publicly available records will be 
accessible electronically from the Agencywide Documents Access 
and Management Systems (ADAMS) Public Electronic Reading Room on 
the internet at the NRC Web site, 
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams/html. Persons who do not have 
access to ADAMS or who encounter problems in accessing the 
documents located in ADAMS, should contact the NRC PDR Reference 
staff by telephone at 1-800-397-4209, or 301-415-4737 or by email 
to pdr@nrc.gov. Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 17th day of 
January 2006.
 
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
 
L. Mark Padovan, Project Manager, Plant Licensing Branch III-1, 
Division of Operating Reactor Licensing, Office of Nuclear 
Reactor Regulation.
 
[FR Doc. E6-886 Filed 1-24-06; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P

 
*****************************************************************
 49 NRC: Agency Information Collection Activities: Proposed Collection; 
 
                         FR Doc E6-887 
[Federal Register: January 25, 2006 (Volume 71, Number 16)] 
[Notices] [Page 4176-4177] From the Federal Register Online via 
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr25ja06-112]                         
 
Comment Request AGENCY: U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). 
ACTION: Notice of pending NRC action to submit an information 
collection request to OMB and solicitation of public comment.
 
SUMMARY: The NRC is preparing a submittal to OMB for review of 
continued approval of information collections under the 
provisions of the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (44 U.S.C. 
Chapter 35). Information pertaining to the requirement to be 
submitted: 1. The title of the information collection: NRC Form 
7, ``Application for NRC Export/Import License, Amendment, or 
Renewal,'' formerly, ``Application for License to Export Nuclear 
Equipment and Material.'' 2. Current OMB approval number: 
3150-0027. 3. How often the collection is required: On occasion; 
for each separate export, import, amendment, or renewal license 
application, and for exports of incidental radioactive material 
using existing general licenses.
 
4. Who is required or asked to report: Any person in the U.S. who 
wishes to export or import (a) nuclear material and equipment 
subject to the requirements of a specific license; (b) amend a 
license; (c) renew a license, and (d) for notification of 
incidental radioactive material exports that are contaminants of 
shipments of more than 100 kilograms of non-waste material using 
existing NRC general licenses.
 
5. The number of annual respondents: 319. 6. The number of hours 
needed annually to complete the requirement or request: 788 hours 
(2.4 hours per response). 7. Abstract: Persons in the U.S. 
wishing to export or import nuclear material and equipment 
requiring a specific authorization, amend or renew a license, or 
wishing to use existing NRC general licenses for the export of 
incidental radioactive material over 100 kilograms must file an 
NRC Form 7 application. The NRC Form 7 application will be 
reviewed by the NRC and by the Executive Branch, and if 
applicable statutory, regulatory, and policy considerations are 
satisfied, the NRC will issue an export, import, amendment or 
renewal license.
 
Submit, by March 27, 2006 comments that address the following 
questions: 1. Is the proposed collection of information necessary 
for the NRC to properly perform its functions? Does the 
information have practical utility? 2. Is the burden estimate 
accurate? 3. Is there a way to enhance the quality, utility, and 
clarity of the information to be collected? 4. How can the burden 
of the information collection be minimized, including the use of 
automated collection techniques or other forms of information 
technology? A copy of the draft supporting statement may be 
viewed free of charge at the NRC Public Document Room, One White 
Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike, Room 0-1 F21, Rockville, MD 
20852. OMB clearance requests are
 
[[Page 4177]] available at the NRC worldwide Web site 
http://www.nrc.gov/public-involve/doc-comment/omb/index.html. The 
document will be available on the NRC home page site for 60 days 
after the signature date of this notice.
 
Comments and questions about the information collection 
requirements may be directed to the NRC Clearance Officer, Brenda 
J. Shelton, (T-5 F52), U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 
Washington, DC 20555-0001, or by telephone at 301-415-7233, or by 
Internet electronic mail to INFOCOLLECTS@NRC.GOV. Dated at 
Rockville, Maryland, this 19th day of January 2006.
 
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
 
Brenda J. Shelton, NRC Clearance Officer, Office of Information 
Services.
 
[FR Doc. E6-887 Filed 1-24-06; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P

 
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 50 NRC: Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards; Meeting Notice
 
                         FR Doc E6-889 
[Federal Register: January 25, 2006 (Volume 71, Number 16)] 
[Notices] [Page 4177-4178] From the Federal Register Online via 
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr25ja06-115]                         
 
In accordance with the purposes of Sections 29 and 182b. of the 
Atomic Energy Act (42 U.S.C. 2039, 2232b), the Advisory Committee 
on Reactor Safeguards (ACRS) will hold a meeting on February 
9-11, 2006, 11545 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland. The date 
of this meeting was previously published in the Federal Register 
on Tuesday, November 22, 2005 (70 FR 70638).
 
Thursday, February 9, 2006, Conference Room T-2b3, Two White 
Flint North, Rockville, Maryland 8:30 a.m.-8:35 a.m.: Opening 
Remarks by the ACRS Chairman (Open)-- The ACRS Chairman will make 
opening remarks regarding the conduct of the meeting.
 
8:35 a.m.-10:30 a.m.: Application of TRACG Code for Analyzing 
ESBWR Stability (Open/Closed)--The Committee will hear 
presentations by and hold discussions with representatives of the 
NRC staff and General Electric (GE) Nuclear Energy regarding 
application of the TRACG Code for analyzing Economic Simplified 
Boiling Water Reactor (ESBWR) stability.
 
Note: A portion of the session may be closed to discuss the GE 
Nuclear Energy proprietary information.
 
10:45 a.m.-12:15 p.m.: Evaluation of Human Reliability Analysis 
(HRA) Methods Against Good Practices (Open)--The Committee will 
hear presentations by and hold discussions with representatives 
of the NRC staff regarding the draft NUREG report on the 
Evaluation of HRA Methods Against Good Practices specified in 
NUREG-
 
[[Page 4178]] 1792, ``Good Practices for Implementing Human 
Reliability Analysis.'' 1:15 p.m.-2:45 p.m.: Proposed Revisions 
to SRP Section 14.2.1, ``Generic Guidelines for Extended Power 
Uprate Testing Programs'' (Open)--The Committee will hear 
presentations by and hold discussions with representatives of the 
NRC staff regarding the proposed revisions to the Standard Review 
Plan (SRP) Section 14.2.1, ``Generic Guidelines for Extended 
Power Uprate Testing Programs,'' and related matters.
 
3 p.m.-5 p.m.: Draft ACRS Report on the NRC Safety Research 
Program (Open)--The Committee will discuss the draft ACRS report 
to the Commission on the NRC Safety Research Program.
 
5:15 p.m.-6:45 p.m.: Preparation of ACRS Reports (Open)--The 
Committee will discuss proposed ACRS reports on matters 
considered during this meeting. Also, the Committee will discuss 
a draft ACRS response to the Commission request in the December 
20, 2005 Staff Requirements Memorandum regarding ACRS plans to 
manage the anticipated increased workload in the areas of 
advanced reactor designs and combined license applications.
 
Friday, February 10, 2006, Conference Room T-2b3, Two White Flint 
North, Rockville, Maryland 8:30 a.m.-8:35 a.m.: Opening Remarks 
by the ACRS Chairman (Open)-- The ACRS Chairman will make opening 
remarks regarding the conduct of the meeting.
 
8:35 a.m.-10 a.m.: FERRET Reactor Vessel Fluence Methodology 
(Open)--The Committee will hear presentations by and hold 
discussions with representatives of the NRC staff regarding the 
FERRET methodology which is used to predict the fluence on the 
reactor vessel wall due to neutron leakage from the core.
 
10:15 a.m.-11:15 a.m.: Subcommittee Reports (Open)--The Committee 
will hear reports by and hold discussions with cognizant Chairmen 
of the ACRS Subcommittees regarding: interim review of the 
Brunswick Nuclear Plant license renewal application and the 
associated NRC staff's draft Safety Evaluation Report; safety 
conscious work environment and safety culture; proposed Revision 
4 to Regulatory Guide 1.82, ``Water Sources for Long-Term 
Recirculation Cooling Following a Loss-of-Coolant Accident;'' and 
the draft Regulatory Guide, ``An Approach for Risk-Informed 
Changes to Loss-of-Coolant Accident Technical Requirements.'' 
11:15 a.m.-12:15 p.m.: Future ACRS Activities/Report of the 
Planning and Procedures Subcommittee (Open)--The Committee will 
discuss the recommendations of the Planning and Procedures 
Subcommittee regarding items proposed for consideration by the 
full Committee during future meetings. Also, it will hear a 
report of the Planning and Procedures Subcommittee on matters 
related to the conduct of ACRS business, including anticipated 
workload and member assignments.
 
1:15 p.m.-1:30 p.m.: Reconciliation of ACRS Comments and 
Recommendations (Open)--The Committee will discuss the responses 
from the NRC Executive Director for Operations to comments and 
recommendations included in recent ACRS reports and letters.
 
1:30 p.m.-3:30 p.m.: Draft ACRS Report on the NRC Safety Research 
Program (Open)--The Committee will discuss the draft ACRS report 
to the Commission on the NRC Safety Research Program.
 
3:45 p.m.-7 p.m.: Preparation of ACRS Reports (Open)--The 
Committee will discuss proposed ACRS reports.
 
Saturday, February 11, 2006, Conference Room T-2b3, Two White 
Flint North, Rockville, Maryland 8:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.: 
Preparation of ACRS Reports (Open)--The Committee will continue 
its discussion of proposed ACRS reports.
 
12:30 p.m.-1 p.m.: Miscellaneous (Open)--The Committee will 
discuss matters related to the conduct of Committee activities 
and matters and specific issues that were not completed during 
previous meetings, as time and availability of information 
permit.
 
Procedures for the conduct of and participation in ACRS meetings 
were published in the Federal Register on September 29, 2005 (70 
FR 56936). In accordance with those procedures, oral or written 
views may be presented by members of the public, including 
representatives of the nuclear industry. Electronic recordings 
will be permitted only during the open portions of the meeting. 
Persons desiring to make oral statements should notify the 
Cognizant ACRS staff named below five days before the meeting, if 
possible, so that appropriate arrangements can be made to allow 
necessary time during the meeting for such statements. Use of 
still, motion picture, and television cameras during the meeting 
may be limited to selected portions of the meeting as determined 
by the Chairman. Information regarding the time to be set aside 
for this purpose may be obtained by contacting the Cognizant ACRS 
staff prior to the meeting. In view of the possibility that the 
schedule for ACRS meetings may be adjusted by the Chairman as 
necessary to facilitate the conduct of the meeting, persons 
planning to attend should check with the Cognizant ACRS staff if 
such rescheduling would result in major inconvenience.
 
In accordance with Subsection 10(d) Public Law 92-463, I have 
determined that it may be necessary to close a portion of this 
meeting noted above to discuss and protect information classified 
as GE Nuclear Energy proprietary information pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 
552b( c) (4). Further information regarding topics to be 
discussed, whether the meeting has been canceled or rescheduled, 
as well as the Chairman's ruling on requests for the opportunity 
to present oral statements and the time allotted therefor can be 
obtained by contacting Mr. Sam Duraiswamy, Cognizant ACRS staff 
(301-415-7364), between 7:30 a.m. and 4:15 p.m., ET. ACRS meeting 
agenda, meeting transcripts, and letter reports are available 
through the NRC Public Document Room at pdr@nrc.gov, or by 
calling the PDR at 1-800-397-4209, or from the Publicly Available 
Records System (PARS) component of NRC's document system (ADAMS) 
which is accessible from the NRC Web site at 
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html or 
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/ (ACRS & 
oc-collections/ (ACRS & ACNW Mtg schedules/agendas).
 
Videoteleconferencing service is available for observing open 
sessions of ACRS meetings. Those wishing to use this service for 
observing ACRS meetings should contact Mr. Theron Brown, ACRS 
Audio Visual Technician (301-415-8066), between 7:30 a.m. and 
3:45 p.m., e.t., at least 10 days before the meeting to ensure 
the availability of this service. Individuals or organizations 
requesting this service will be responsible for telephone line 
charges and for providing the equipment and facilities that they 
use to establish the videoteleconferencing link. The availability 
of videoteleconferencing services is not guaranteed.
 
Dated: January 19, 2006.
 
Andrew L. Bates, Advisory Committee Management Officer.
 
[FR Doc. E6-889 Filed 1-24-06; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P

b 
*****************************************************************
 51 NRC: Subcommittee Meeting on Planning and Procedures; Notice of 
 
                         FR Doc E6-890 
[Federal Register: January 25, 2006 (Volume 71, Number 16)] 
[Notices] [Page 4179] From the Federal Register Online via GPO 
Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr25ja06-116] [[Page 4179]]
 
Meeting The ACRS Subcommittee on Planning and Procedures will 
hold a meeting on February 8, 2006, Room T-2B1, 11545 Rockville 
Pike, Rockville, Maryland.
 
The entire meeting will be open to public attendance, with the 
exception of a portion that may be closed pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 
552b(c)(2) and (6) to discuss organizational and personnel 
matters that relate solely to the internal personnel rules and 
practices of the ACRS, and information the release of which would 
constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.
 
The agenda for the subject meeting shall be as follows: 
Wednesday, February 8, 2006, 10 a.m.-11:30 a.m. The Subcommittee 
will discuss proposed ACRS activities and related matters. The 
Subcommittee will gather information, analyze relevant issues and 
facts, and formulate proposed positions and actions, as 
appropriate, for deliberation by the full Committee.
 
Members of the public desiring to provide oral statements and/or 
written comments should notify the Designated Federal Official, 
Mr. Sam Duraiswamy (telephone: 301-415-7364) between 7:30 a.m. 
and 4:15 p.m. (ET) five days prior to the meeting, if possible, 
so that appropriate arrangements can be made. Electronic 
recordings will be permitted only during those portions of the 
meeting that are open to the public.
 
Further information regarding this meeting can be obtained by 
contacting the Designated Federal Official between 7:30 a.m. and 
4:15 p.m. (ET). Persons planning to attend this meeting are urged 
to contact the above named individual at least two working days 
prior to the meeting to be advised of any potential changes in 
the agenda.
 
Dated: January 19, 2006.
 
Michael L. Scott, Branch Chief, ACRS/ACNW.
 
[FR Doc. E6-890 Filed 1-24-06; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P

 
*****************************************************************
 52 AFP: Interest revives worldwide in nuclear energy 

 Wednesday January 25, 05:26 PM 

PARIS (AFP) - Nuclear power, the long-time foe of the
environmental movement, is returning to favour in many countries
where issues of energy dependency and the rising cost of fossil
fuels are driving policy changes.

On Monday, Britain announced a public consultation on its future
energy supplies, raising the spectre of a return to nuclear
power, and France stressed the need for nuclear energy as part
of future EU policy during representations in Brussels.

Fossil fuels are estimated at [ src=] present to provide about
80 percent of the world's energy, but production of gas and oil
could reach its maximum in the next three decades, experts say.

Jean-Marie Chevallier, a director of Cambridge Energy Research
Associates and professor at France's Paris-Dauphine university,
sees the debate about nuclear power as "logical" in the current
environment.

Europe's dependence on foreign gas has come under the spotlight
in recent weeks following a standoff between Russia and Ukraine
at the start of the year, which saw supplies temporarily reduced
to some EU countries.

Furthermore, environmental concerns and the perceived inadequacy
of renewable energy to replace fossil fuels have pushed nuclear
power back up the agenda.

Nuclear energy appears to be "a partial solution," said
Chevallier, who stressed that only three European countries had
recently decided to build new nuclear power stations -- France,
Finland and Romania.

"Among the countries that one feels are beginning to think about
about nuclear power in Europe are Britain, Spain, Switzerland
and the Netherlands, which just extended the life of a nuclear
power station by 20 years," he added.

European Monetary Affairs Commissioner Joaquin Almunia recently
said that it would be "suicidal" for European government to
eschew nuclear power.

And French Finance Minister Breton laid out the French
government's vision of future energy policy in the EU on Monday.

European energy policy should take into account "the
increasingly tense situation worldwide between oil and natural
gas supply and demand (and) climate change," he said.

He added: "Maintaining the current contribution of nuclear power
to the European energy mix and preserving Europe's technological
and industrial edge in this field are issues of strategic
importance for the Union."

France, a leading exporter of electricity in the EU, derives
nearly all of its electricity from nuclear power.

Debate about nuclear power in Germany, where opposition is more
entrenched, is also re-emerging.

Chevallier also stressed that fears about climate change and
recognition of the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions were
further arguments in favour of nuclear power.

"Finland, a democratic country and very concerned by
environmental problems, has chosen to build a nuclear power
station rather than using Russian gas," he said.

In the United States, where the nuclear issue is not a hot topic
of public debate, authorities are nonetheless keen to acquire a
third-generation European Pressurized Water Reactor (EPR), being
developed jointly by French nuclear group Areva and Germany's
Siemens.

In Japan energy giant Toshiba on Tuesday said it had been named
the preferred bidder for US nuclear power plant maker
Westinghouse, beating out stiff competition from General
Electric.

Westinghouse has built 49 of the nuclear reactors now in service
in the United States with 35 constructed by General Electric.
The bid by Toshiba comes as Japan is anxious to re-launch its
nuclear energy program.

Chinese authorities have meanwhile undertaken a nearly
50-billion-dollar effort to build 40 reactors by 2020.

And in France, where 80 percent of electricity production is
nuclear-driven, President Jacques Chirac earlier this month
announced plans to develop a prototype fourth generation reactor
that would become operational in 2020. 

    Copyright © 2006 Yahoo! UK Limited. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 53 ITAR-TASS: Russia, Kazakhstan can make steps to develop cooperation 

25.01.2006, 13.02

ST. PETERSBURG, January 25 (Itar-Tass) - Russia and Kazakhstan
have prepared a joint statement on cooperation in the field of
the peaceful use of nuclear energy, Russian President Vladimir
Putin said on Wednesday at his meeting with Kazakh President
Nursultan Nazarbayev on Wednesday. 

Putin proposed discussing the promising lines of the two
countries’ cooperation “with a view for the statement on
cooperation in the peaceful use of nuclear energy prepared by
our colleagues”. 

“We have agreed in Astana (at the inauguration of Nazarbayev for
the third presidential term) that we can make certain steps
forward, look at what has been done and outline prospects for
development in directions that we consider substantial at
present,” the Russian presdent said. 

He thanked Nazarbayev for “insistent efforts to develop the
integration processes in the post-Soviet space”. 

Nazarbayev in turn stressed that Russia and Kazakhstan are
closely cooperating in space exploration projects. 

“Kazakhstan is ready to take part with its finances in the joint
space work on a serious basis. A Kazakh satellite is being
prepared for the launch. We are preparing a launch-pad for a new
rocket with ecologically pure fuel.” 

All this “brings our cooperation to a qualitatively new level”,
Nazarbayev said. 

“I want to confirm once again that Kazakhstan is interested in
the relations of friendship, partnership and alliance that have
been established between our countries and are developing for
good of our peoples,” he said. 


© ITAR-TASS. All rights reserved. You undertake not to copy,
*****************************************************************
 54 State Port Pilot: No new reactor for Brunswick Plant

Wednesday, January 25     Southport, NC   

Progress Energy Brunswick Plant will continue operating two 
nuclear reactors, not three. After evaluating several sites in 
North and South Carolina, the company plans to build an 
additional reactor at its Harris Nuclear Plant instead of here.
 
 Harris plant gets additional Progress Energy unit 

By Staff Writer 

It wasnt a question of whether Progress Energys Brunswick Plant
in Southport was a suitable site for building an additional
nuclear reactor. It was a matter of the companys Harris Nuclear
Plant being a better location.
 
That is what Progress Energy spokesman Keith Poston had to say
concerning the utility companys announcement Friday to evaluate
the possibility of a second reactor at the Harris Plant, located
in New Hill, about 20 miles southwest of Raleigh.
 
The announcement means Progress Energy is no longer considering
the Brunswick Plant for future expansion.
 
The Brunswick site was certainly suitable for expansion, Poston
said Tuesday. It was just a question of whether the Harris site
was a better site.
 
Poston said Progress Energy looked at three major factors at
each of its four plants within North and South Carolina:
proximity to cooling water, customer demand and cost. What it
came down to in the end, he said, was simple economics.
 
The Harris Plant, Progress Energys newest facility, was slated
for four nuclear reactors when it was built in the 1980s but
currently only operates with one, and has transmission capacity
to handle an additional reactor.
 
The plant was built out for two, which will make the project
cheaper. And this area is the fastest growing and has the
greatest customer concentration. It is good to have plants close
to where the heaviest demand is. It costs more to transmit
further from the demand. Were talking hundreds of millions of
dollars we will save in transmission line construction. That is
a significant cost savings, Poston said.
 
Having an available water supply was not an issue for the
Brunswick Plant, Poston said, but the Harris Plants water
source, Harris Lake, will be easy to expand if needed.
 
And we have the Cape Fear River nearby, he added.
 
With the heaviest demand already in the Triangle region of the
state, Poston said the recent announcement of a future state
port in Southport did not weigh in on the companys final
decision.
 
It didnt play a factor one way or the other, it wasnt a factor
on the positive or negative side, he said. This area is just
where the load is needed most. 

Progress Energy also announced Friday that it has selected
Westinghouse Electric Company to supply the reactor and any
future site expansions. The company is expected to announce a
new reactor site in Florida by April.
 
But Poston said a final decision to build another nuclear plant
is still several years away.
 
This is still just a proposal, he said. 

Progress Energy informed the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)
in August 2005 that it would seek a combined operating license
application (COL) for a nuclear reactor. The license application
process is expected to take nearly two years to complete.
 
If the company decides to move forward with the additional
reactor, the application for the COL could be filed in late 2007
or early 2008. If approved by the NRC, construction could begin
as early as 2010 and a new reactor could be online by 2016. 
  

  ©2005, State Port Pilot   
*****************************************************************
 55 WQAD: Nuclear plant owner to compensate residents near radioactive leak

BRACEVILLE, Ill. The owner of a nuclear power plant in Will 
County has offered to buy a nearby resident's property after the 
recent discovery of elevated levels of a radioactive substance in 
the groundwater.

Exelon Corporation owns the Braidwood Generating Plant. The 
company says the radioactive substance called tritium 
(TRIHT'-ee-uhm) poses no health or safety risk.

But state environmental regulators have cited Exelon for
violations to Illinois' groundwater standards. 

They gave the company until February Third to file a report 
explaining why the tritium levels near the plant are elevated.

A company spokesman says Exelon is negotiating financial 
agreements with 15 property owners near the plant to compensate 
them for any lost property value.(The plant is about 60 miles 
southwest of Chicago).                               

Copyright 2006 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This

 WQAD.com covers
32 counties in eastern Iowa and western Illinois.
   
All Rights Reserved.
*****************************************************************
 56 Brattleboro Reformer: Battle over VY uprate isn't over

January 25, 2006 Brattleboro, VT                                                                                 
 			 								 					
By KRISTI CECCAROSSI 
Reformer Staff

VERNON -- A plan to boost power output at Vermont Yankee may
have sailed past several roadblocks recently, but the so-called
uprate is not -- that's right, is not -- a done deal.

 Next month, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is expected to
issue its final approval of the 20 percent power increase. But
as that review wraps up, another legal battle over the uprate is
gaining steam.

 Both the New England Coalition, a nuclear watchdog group, and
the state's Department of Public Service have raised serious
questions about Vermont Yankee's ability to withstand an uprate
as it's been proposed by Entergy Nuclear, plant owners.

 The coalition and the department brought those questions to the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission to some avail; the commission
tinkered with the terms of the uprate before granting
preliminary approval in December. 

At the same time, groups have also brought concerns to the
Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, a quasi-judicial arm of the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

 A formal set of hearings before that board may not happen for
months, but it's there that opponents of the uprate see a
glimmer of hope.

 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will likely give plant owners
a green light on the uprate by next month, and when it does,
Entergy could start increasing power output immediately.
However, a future ruling from the Atomic Safety and Licensing
Board could reverse the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's approval
of the uprate.

 Short of that, the board could put more restrictions on terms
of the uprate. Ray Shadis, technical adviser for the New England
Coalition, says he'd count restrictions as a victory, too.

 "It would make for a safer plant," he said.

 Vermont Yankee officials maintain all necessary safety
precautions have been taken for the uprate.

 "We believe that the intervenors have a right to raise the
issues if they feel concerned and the [board] is the proper
forum ... But it's our view that each one of those issues raised
should not have an effect on the uprate," said Robert Williams,
spokesman for the plant.

 But no one really knows what will happen with the Atomic Safety
and Licensing Board challenge; this case is uncharted territory.
Of the 13 uprates that have been granted to nuclear power plants
across the country, this is the first that's ever been brought
to the board for review.

 If the uprate is approved, plant owners would use enhanced fuel
to increase power generation at the 33-year-old reactor. In
advance of federal approval, plant owners have already invested
millions of dollars to prepare Vermont Yankee for the boost.

 Critics have argued the plant is too old to handle an uprate.
According to Shadis, of the New England Coalition, Vermont
Yankee would be the oldest plant to increase its output by 20
percent in one swoop. The only other plant that's been boosted
20 percent is the Clinton Power Station, in Illinois, which was
built in 1985.

 On Tuesday parties in the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board
case held a telephone conference. During the call, Nuclear
Regulatory Commission staff argued that a key witness for the
New England Coalition shouldn't be allowed to testify, according
to Neil Sheehan, a spokesman for the commission. Officials said
allowing the witness, a former employee for the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission, to testify would be in violation of the
law.

 The issue is still being debated, but Shadis said if the
witness is banned, "it would be devastating" to the coalition's
case.

 During Tuesday's conference, parties tentatively scheduled
hearings in Windham County for this summer. Sheehan said members
of the public would be able to attend hearings, but not
participate because they would be quasi-judicial proceedings.

 While the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board still weighs the
uprate on a federal level, one more piece of the state's review
process still hangs in the balance.

 The Vermont Public Service Board must also sign off on the
uprate. Although that panel already OK'd the proposal in 2004,
its approval is conditional. The board must still rule whether a
safety assessment of the plant, conducted by the Nuclear
Regulatory Commision, is satisfactory, or if an independent
safety assessment is necessary.

 Word from the Public Service Board is anticipated by the end of
next month.

 
Kristi Ceccarossi can be reached at kceccarossi@reformer.comor
(802) 254-2311, ext. 160. 		   	 	

Copyright ©1999-2005 New England Newspapers, Inc., 
*****************************************************************
 57 AFP: Plutonium monitor could help nuclear police - New Scientist -

New Scientist 
				 									 					 					 	 		
 Wed Jan 25, 2:20 PM ET 		 	 

PARIS (AFP) - Scientists in the United States are testing a
prototype device that could help detect whether a country is
secretly harvesting plutonium from its civilian nuclear program
with the goal of making a nuclear bomb, a report says. 

 The device could greatly help combat proliferation of
weapons-grade plutonium among states that turn to nuclear power
in the coming decades to meet their energy needs, the report in
next Saturday's New Scientist says. 

But it is still being tested and thus cannot be used to defuse
the present row embroiling Iran" /> , which Western countries
suspect is trying to build a bomb. 

And if it works, it still could not thwart states that refuse
deals with nuclear inspectors or hide their reactors, it says. 

Plutonium is a man-made element created by the fission of
uranium fuel. It is itself fissile, capable of producing energy
either for generating electricity or for a bomb. 

At present, the International Atomic Energy Agency" /> (IAEA)
calculates the amount of plutonium produced by a reactor by
monitoring the amount of uranium fuel entering the core, the
total amount of time the reactor is operating and its power
output. 

But it is possible for a plant operator to produce more
plutonium than appears on the IAEA's books by altering the type
of fuel rods used in a reactor or the rate at which neutrons
permeate the vessel, New Scientist says. 

The detector built by researchers at Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory in California counts antineutrinos -- "ghostly"
sub-atomic particles that are generated by fission. 

Antineutrinos produced by uranium are distinctive because they
carry a higher energy than ones produced by plutonium. 

Over the course of a typical year-long fuel cycle, the pattern
of antineutrinos is predictable. Production of high-energy
antineutrinos falls off as uranium fuel runs down. 

If more plutonium is being produced than expected, the number of
these high-energy particles will fall at a higher rate as more
uranium is burned up. 

This telltale can be verified by measuring the temperature of
the water going into the reactor with that of the water going
out at that point in the fuel cycle. 

If those two sets of data do not tally with the IAEA's books,
something untoward has been going on -- excess plutonium has
been produced and has been diverted. 

The first prototype detector is being used to detect
antineutrinos at the San Onofre nuclear power plant at San
Clemente, California. 

Scientists in France and Brazil are also building their own
prototypes, the British scientific weekly says. 

For the detectors to work, they would have to be installed close
to the reactor. 

They would help the IAEA to keep a much closer eye on plutonium,
one of the most feared substances around. 

Plutonium is highly toxic as well as fissile, and could be used
to make a "dirty" bomb, in which radioactive particles are
dispersed around a city by conventional explosives. 

However, the invention would not help measure the output of
countries that refuse to have their facilities monitored, do not
declare their reactors or press ahead with building a nuclear
bomb using enriched uranium rather than plutonium. 	 		 			
 							 				 					 					 					 					 					 					 					 					
Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The
*****************************************************************
 58 [DU-WATCH] nothing depleted about depleted uranium
 
Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2006 01:20:45 -0600 (CST)

http://tinyurl.com/adoq2 [Global research]
Nothing depleted about 'depleted uranium'
Disturbing photos of children
By Abel Bult-Ito
January 22, 2006
news-miner.com and uruknet.info

Iraqi and visiting doctors, and a number of news reports, have reported 
that birth defects and cancers in Iraqi children have increased five- 
to 10-fold since the 1991 Gulf War and continue to increase sharply, to 
over 30-fold in some areas in southern Iraq. Currently, more than 50 
percent of Iraqi cancer patients are children under the age of 5, up 
from 13 percent. Children are especially vulnerable because they tend 
to play in areas that are heavily polluted by depleted uranium.

The Pentagon has been using radiooactive weapons for at least a decade 
and a half with full complicity of at least three White House 
administrations and Republican and Democratic congressional 
legislators. Conservatively, at least 300 tons and 1,700 tons of 
depleted uranium were used in the Gulf War and the current Iraq War, 
resectively. This is about 70 grams of depleted uranium per Iraqi 
citizen, and if inhaled or ingested, it is enough to kill them all.

Is this not radioactive genocide, especially when our troops used and 
continue to use most of the depleted uranium munitions in densely 
populated areas such as Baghdad and Fallujah? Depleted uranium has a 
half-life of billions of years. Consequently, Iraq will be a wasteland 
forever and essentially uninhabitable for anyone.

After the 1991 Gulf War, about 1 in 4, or 150,000, U.S. veterans came 
down with what is referred to as "Gulf War Syndrome." Most of the 
ailments characteristic of Gulf War Syndrome are consistent with 
radiation or heavy-metal poisoning. Veterans' children are now also 
born with higher proportions of birth defects and other genetic 
disorders, according to sporadic accuonts. The Pentagon continues to 
deny the harmful effects of depleted uranium or its role in Gulf War 
Syndrome.

As described by a report of the World Health Organization Depleted 
Uranium Mission to Kosovo, uranium can be found in rocks and soil and 
contributes to natural background levels of radioactivity. Depleted 
uranium is a waste product of uranium enrichment for nuclear reactors 
and is about 60 percent as radioactive as naturally occurring uranium. 
Depleted uranium is considered weakly radioactive.

Nevertheless, depleted uranium is considered nuclear waste and has to 
be disposed of accordingly, which is expensive and a potential 
environmental hazard. The nuclear industry must be very pleased the 
U.S. military has found a way to get this stuff off their hands 
cheaply.

Depleted uranium is really a misnomer, because the potentially harmful 
effects are by no means depleted. Research reports have found that when 
depleted uranium is ingested or inhaled, it can cause cancers and birth 
defects. It has considerable heavy-metal toxicity.

As stated in the WHO report, because of its high density, depleted 
uranium is used in armor-piercing ammunition and as reinforcement 
against conventional weapons. Upon impact, the depleted uranium 
fragments burn at intense heat, and 10 to 35 percent of it becomes 
aerosolized. This aerosolized uranium "dust" is the most harmful 
component because it can easily be ingested or inhaled.

Wind and people walking through it also easily disperse the depleted 
uranium dust. This dust is a predominant byproduct of military use of 
depleted uranium, in contrast to, for example, exposures in uranium 
mines or nuclear reactors.

Our troops in Iraq will be severely affected by this radioactive war, 
not only because a lot more depleted uranium has been used and 
continues to be used, but also because they have been there a lot 
longer than during the Gulf War. Hundreds of thousands of our troops 
will come down with Gulf War Syndrome as a result of depleted uranium 
poisoning, and thousands will die from it. Thousands of their children 
will be born with genetic diseases, cancers and birth defects.

The continued use of depleted uranium harms our own troops and innocent 
civilians exposed to our war machine, is un-American, and a crime 
against humanity. We need a worldwide ban on depleted uranium use.

You have probably noticed Fairbanks Daily News-Miner staff writer's 
reports as an "embedded journalist" with the 172nd Stryker Brigade 
Combat Team in Mosul, Iraq. Her "feel-good" stories do not tell you the 
reality of what is happening in Iraq. Will she report on depleted 
uranium poisoning as a result of heavy U.S. bombing of Mosul?

Sadly, she and those of the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, if they 
survive the war, will have a high chance of coming down with Gulf War 
Syndrome. How much support do you think they will then get from our 
government or their employers?
--------
Abel Bult-Ito is an associate professor of biology at the University of 
Alaska Fairbanks and is a member of the Fairbanks Coalition for Peace 
and Justice.
Photos of Babies Deformed at Birth as a Result of Depleted Uranium (DU) 
2003
photos: Dr. Jenan Hassan

		
---------------------------------
Win a BlackBerry device from O2 with Yahoo!. Enter now.

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*****************************************************************
 59 [du-list] Hidden Combat Wounds: Extensive, Deadly, Costly
 
Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2006 20:29:36 -0800

<x-flowed>
     ©     2005 Psychiatric Times. All rights reserved.
   Hidden Combat Wounds: Extensive, Deadly, 
Costly  http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleId=177101052

   By Arline Kaplan
   Psychiatric Times  January 2006  Vol. XXV  Issue 1
---------------------------------

     No Purple Hearts are awarded for the often hidden wounds of 
posttraumatic stress disorder, but ultimately those wounds can be 
deadly--linked to suicides, accidents and, over the long term, increased 
risk of death from cardiovascular diseases and cancer (Boscarino, 2005). 
Aware of the risks, government agencies, veterans groups and the U.S. 
Congress in recent months have grabbled with identification, treatment and 
benefit issues for the growing number of troops and veterans afflicted with 
PTSD.
     "Studies indicate that troops who serve in Iraq are suffering from 
[PTSD] and other problems brought on by their experiences on a scale not 
seen since Vietnam," according to one report (Robinson, 2004). The National 
Vietnam Veterans' Readjustment Survey (from 1986 to 1988) found that 15.2% 
of male and 8.5% of female Vietnam War veterans suffered from current PTSD 
(Schlenger et al., 1992).
     In Iraq and Afghanistan, the visible manifestations of the mental 
health toll of U.S. combat operations include suicides and medical 
evacuations. Official Army statistics from March 19, 2003, through July 31, 
2005, indicated that 6.4% of the 19,801 soldiers evacuated from Iraq and 
7.2% of the 1,733 evacuated from Afghanistan had psychiatric problems. 
Among the 1,275 psychiatric disorder evacuations from Iraq, 596 were for 
depression, 109 for suicidal ideation and 91 for PTSD. There have been 53 
suicides among service members fighting in Iraq and nine among those 
fighting in Afghanistan, as reported in a review of suicide data from 2003 
to July 19, 2005 (Ireland, 2005).
     Yet most suicides, according to veteran groups and media accounts, 
occur after troops return home. One highly publicized case was that of 
Marine reservist Jeffrey Lucey, deployed to Iraq for five months. When he 
returned home to Belchertown, Mass., he began drinking heavily and 
suffering from insomnia, night sweats, hallucinations and panic attacks. He 
received treatment at a Veterans Affairs facility, where he was described 
by one physician as having PTSD, depression with psychotic features, 
suicidal ideation and acute alcohol intoxication. One day, Lucey's father 
came home to find his son had hung himself in the cellar. On Lucey's bed 
were the dog tags of two unarmed Iraqi prisoners he said he had been forced 
to shoot (Srivastava, 2004). A recent Associated Press story (2005) 
reported that three men who had served with the Army's 10th Special Forces 
in Iraq returned home and committed suicide shortly thereafter.
     Other statistics and surveys are equally revealing. The Figure 
illustrates medical surveillance data obtained from the Army's Center for 
Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine on health assessment responses 
completed between January and August of 2005 by 193,131 troops returning 
from Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF). Col. Charles Hoge, M.D., chief of 
psychiatry and behavior services at the Walter Reed Army Institute of 
Research, told the U.S. House Committee on Veterans Affairs' Health 
Subcommittee last July that 19% to 21% of troops who have returned from 
combat deployments meet criteria for PTSD, depression or anxiety. Of these, 
15% to 17% of troops who served in Iraq and 6% of those who served in 
Afghanistan had PTSD symptoms when surveyed three to 12 months after their 
deployments. In general, PTSD rates were highest among units that served 
deployments of 12 months or more and had more exposure to combat.
     The numbers are similar to those published in another study (Hoge et 
al., 2004). Researchers studied the prevalence of mental health problems 
among members of three Army units and one Marine Corps unit before 
deployment or three to four months after returning from deployment to Iraq 
or Afghanistan. The rates of PTSD were significantly higher after combat 
duty in Iraq (18.0% for Army units and 19.9% for the Marine group) than 
before deployment (9.4%). There was a strong relationship between combat 
experiences-such as being shot at, handling dead bodies or killing enemy 
combatants-and the prevalence of PTSD. The study also found that the fear 
of stigmatization deterred some active duty personnel from seeking mental 
health care even when they recognized the severity of their psychiatric 
problems.
     A survey of 1,300 paratroopers three months after they had returned to 
Fort Bragg, N.C., after spending a year in Iraq found that 17.4% of the 
soldiers had PTSD symptoms (Associated Press, 2004). In another study 
comparing the mental health of men and women in violence-prone jobs (e.g., 
medics, mechanics, drivers) in Iraq, researchers found that 11% of the men 
and 12% of the women had PTSD symptoms when they were screened three months 
after their deployment ended (Elias, 2005).
     What Is the DoD Doing?
     The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) officials in charge of mental 
health services for service personnel and their families testified before 
Congress in July 2005 about efforts to identify and treat service members 
experiencing mental health problems. Every year, service personnel are 
screened for mental health problems during a preventive health assessment. 
Prior to deployment, they receive another screening. Those with unremitting 
mental health disorders are not deployed, William Winkenwerder Jr., M.D., 
M.B.A., assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, told the House 
Subcommittee on Military Personnel. Those for whom a mental health 
condition has resolved are permitted to stay on maintenance medication 
during deployment.
     Deployed military units embed mental health teams, unique to each 
service, to support the needs of each service. Military members and their 
families may also use Military OneSource--a confidential, around-the-clock 
information, education, referral and counseling service.
     In an interview with Psychiatric Times, Michael Kilpatrick, M.D., 
deputy director of the DoD's Deployment Health Support, explained that just 
as service members are leaving the Iraq or Afghanistan theaters, or within 
a few days of their returning home, they are asked to complete a four-page, 
post-deployment health assessment "that asks them about a full spectrum of 
medical symptomatology, both physical and mental health, as well as 
environmental concerns they may have." That assessment includes a 
face-to-face discussion with a medical provider in the military (e.g., 
physician, nurse practitioner or physician assistant) and documentation of 
the individual's responses to the health assessment questions.
     "The health care provider who goes over the assessment with the 
individual does not make a diagnosis but refers the individual to clinical 
areas for further evaluation and workup to determine if, in fact, there is 
a diagnosis because of the symptoms or concerns," Kilpatrick continued. For 
example symptoms such as anxiety, sleep problems and anger management 
issues may be indicative of possible PTSD. In testimony before the House 
Veterans Affairs Committee in July 2005, Kilpatrick noted, "Of the 138,000 
troops who returned in 2004 and received a post-deployment health 
assessment, 16% have been referred to mental health providers for further 
evaluation."
     Individuals with mental health referrals have options. "They can go to 
the base support area that may have counselors and chaplains to deal with 
it. They can also go to our primary care facilities, and many of those 
facilities are enhanced with behavioral health specialists, such as 
psychologists and psychiatrists, working with a primary care physician," 
Kilpatrick said. Additionally, they could go to a mental health clinic, 
where they would see a psychologist or psychiatrist.
     In testimony before the House Subcommittee on Military Personnel in 
October 2005, Winkenwerder recognized that "no one who goes to war remains 
unchanged." In response, he announced that DoD is instituting a short 
interview questionnaire (Post-Deployment Health Reassessment [PDHRA]) to be 
filled out by all service members, including those serving in the Reserves 
or National Guard, three to six months after they return home. The 
assessment is designed to identify health concerns and conditions that may 
have emerged following the service member's most recent deployment and to 
determine the types of information and assistance the individual would like 
to have. A credentialed health care provider (e.g., physician, physician 
assistant) reviews the assessment with the service member, discusses health 
concerns and makes referrals when needed. Active duty members can be 
referred to their primary care provider or mental health community support. 
Members of the Reserves or National Guard
  and separated veterans are referred to TRICARE, the DoD's worldwide 
health care program, or the VA.
     The PDHRA is scheduled to be used broadly by January, according to 
Kilpatrick. It was initiated because the Army looked at the mental health 
stressors troops were experiencing while deployed and after they got home, 
and its research data indicated that "at the three- to six-month period 
people were subscribing to more symptomatology than they had either at the 
time they just came home or while they were in the theater."
     To create the PDHRA, medical providers from DoD and VA with expertise 
in developing assessments used questions from standardized, validated 
survey instruments, Kilpatrick told PT. The PDHRA includes screens for 
anxiety, PTSD symptoms, interpersonal conflict, alcohol abuse and 
depression. Implementation of the program also has involved leadership and 
clinician education and training as well as outreach and education for 
service members.
     The PDHRA is undergoing pilot-testing for active duty personnel at 
three locations, for the National Guard in Arkansas and for the Army 
Reserve with the 88th Regional Readiness Command with units in six states. 
In the preliminary trials at active duty sites, researchers found that the 
percentage of returning troops referred for follow-up medical or mental 
health treatment was between 30% and 35%, and "it is a 50/50 split between 
mental/behavioral health and the physical health problems," according to 
Kilpatrick.
     The goal of both the post-deployment assessment and reassessment is to 
get service members early access to health care, Kilpatrick said, thereby 
eliminating the risk, for example, of PTSD symptoms developing into chronic 
PTSD. If care is needed, military and VA providers use jointly developed 
clinical practice guidelines for acute stress, PTSD, depression, substance 
use disorders and other health concerns.
     Importance of Early Intervention
     Studies of Vietnam War veterans underscore the importance of early 
treatment of PTSD symptoms to prevent emergence of other psychiatric and 
medical disorders. One recent study concluded that Vietnam War veterans 
with PTSD may be at increased risk of death (Boscarino, 2005).
     The national study examined the causes of death among 15,288 male U.S. 
Army veterans 16 years after they had completed a telephone health survey, 
which included questions related to PTSD symptoms and substance abuse, and 
30 years after their military service. The study confirmed that PTSD was 
associated with an adjusted all-cause mortality for both Vietnam War era 
and theater veterans. For PTSD-positive theater vets, the postwar mortality 
for all-cause, cardiovascular, cancer and external causes (e.g., deaths 
from suicides, homicides, accidents) was about twice as high as that of 
Vietnam War veterans without PTSD.
     The study was not a sample of patients who show up at VA hospitals, 
"it was a random sample of all U.S. Army veterans, some of whom got PTSD 
from Vietnam and some of whom got PTSD from life, and they die after a 
significant period of time," the study's author, Joseph Boscarino, Ph.D., 
told PT. The study results point to the importance of prevention and 
treatment, Boscarino noted.
     "If we can prevent or reduce the anxiety levels, we can prevent the 
long-term psychological sequelae … and we can also reduce [physical] 
disease outcomes," he said. "We know there are effective treatments for 
PTSD, the combination therapies are effective and the drug therapies are 
effective. Cognitive-behavioral therapy appears to be one of the most 
cost-effective methods, in my opinion, but there are other methods out 
there that have been effective."
     Boscarino acknowledged that various institutions might be concerned 
about the cost, compensation and disability issues connected with PTSD's 
link to medical conditions. "I got a call from a military person who said 
this kind of study is going to affect the nation's defense budget. I 
responded that it might be the case, but we have an obligation to the men 
and women in the Armed Forces. We can prevent [PTSD] from happening and if 
we do so, we will have lower costs, better quality of life and more 
productivity."
     Boscarino also believes that because of efforts by the DoD and VA, 
outcomes among troops experiencing PTSD who are returning from Iraq and 
Afghanistan may be much better than those for Vietnam War veterans. "When I 
was doing my postdoctoral fellowship at the West Haven [Connecticut] VA 
Hospital in the late 1970s, they were diagnosing many of the combat 
veterans as being alcoholic and psychotic. They probably were, but it 
likely had a lot to do with their undiagnosed PTSD," he said, explaining 
that the PTSD diagnosis was first included in the DSM-III in 1980. The VA, 
he said, now has the tools to screen, diagnose, refer and treat PTSD that 
it did not have 30 and 40 years ago.
     Is the VA Ready?
     In September 2004, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) 
raised questions as to whether the VA could meet an increase in demand for 
PTSD services at its facilities, emphasizing, "The VA does not have a count 
of the total number of veterans currently receiving PTSD services at its 
medical facilities and Vet Centers." It also pointed out that at six VA 
facilities investigators visited, the staff said they were able to keep up 
with current number of veterans seeking PTSD services, but might not be 
able to meet an increase in demand (GAO, 2004).
     One year later, Gordon H. Mansfield, deputy secretary of the VA, 
testified before the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs, "The VA is aware 
that there has been particular interest about mental health issues among 
OEF [Operation Enduring Freedom, Afghanistan] and OIF veterans and VA's 
current and future capacity to treat these problems, in particular PTSD," 
he said. "First, I want to assure the Committee that VA has the programs 
and resources to meet the mental health needs of returning OEF and OIF 
veterans. Second, in regard to PTSD among OEF and OIF veterans, I want to 
assure you that the PTSD workload that we have seen in these veterans has 
been only a small percentage of our overall PTSD workload. In [fiscal year] 
2004, we saw approximately 279,000 patients at VA health care facilities 
for PTSD and 63,000 in Vet Centers. Our latest data on OEF and OIF veterans 
indicate that as of February 2005, approximately 12,300 of these veterans 
seen as patients at [VA medical centers]
  VAMCs carried an ICD-9 code corresponding to PTSD. It is important to 
note, however, that this represents approximately 4.5% to 5% of VA's 
overall PTSD population. Additionally, more than 3,500 veterans received 
services for PTSD through our Vet Centers. Allowing for those who have 
received services at both VAMCs and Vet Centers, a total of approximately 
14,600 individual OEF/OIF veterans had been seen with actual or potential 
PTSD at VA facilities following their return from Iraq or Afghanistan. This 
figure represents only about 3% of the PTSD patients VA saw in FY 2004."
     PTSD Benefits Controversy
     A controversy over benefits exploded last August when the VA, acting 
on its Inspector General (IG)'s report, said it would audit files of 72,000 
veterans who were receiving full disability benefits for PTSD alone or in 
combination with other conditions. That announcement generated a widespread 
backlash. Some veterans groups protested that the review of PTSD cases was 
an excuse to cut benefits for older veterans and toughen qualifications for 
future ones. The Senate passed an amendment to a military/VA appropriation 
bill seeking to restrict the audit. Press reports linked one man's suicide 
to the impending review (Benjamin, 2005). In November 2005, the VA dropped 
its full-scale audit plans, stating that most of the problems came from 
administrative errors and not fraud.
     The focus on VA benefits for PTSD originally grew out of complaints 
from veterans about regional inequities in disability ratings and payments. 
For example, less than 3% of Illinois' disabled veterans are rated 100% 
disabled for PTSD, as compared to almost 13% in New Mexico (VA Office of 
the IG, 2005). Because of those complaints, in May 2005 the VA Inspector 
General examined the files of 2,100 randomly selected veterans with PTSD 
disability ratings. It found that 527 (25%) lacked documents to verify that 
a traumatic service-connected incident occurred before compensation 
benefits were granted. That 25% error rate equates to $860.2 million in 
questionable compensation payments in FY 2004, the IG report said. The IG 
also cited a dramatic increase in veterans filing for disability 
compensation for PTSD since 1999 (Table).
     After the VA conducted its own review of the 2,100 cases cited in the 
IG's report, VA Secretary R. James Nicholson released a statement saying, 
"The problems with these files appear to be administrative in nature, such 
as missing documents, and not fraud. In the absence of evidence of fraud, 
we're not going to put our veterans through the anxiety of a widespread 
review of their disability claims." Instead, the VA plans to improve its 
training for personnel who handle disability claims and toughen 
administrative oversight.
     "Not all combat wounds are caused by bullets and shrapnel," Nicholson 
said. "We have a commitment to ensure veterans with PTSD receive 
compassionate, world-class health care and appropriate disability 
compensation determinations."
     References
     Associated Press (2005), Special Forces suicides raise questions. Oct. 
19. Available at: www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,78508,00.html. 
Accessed Nov. 17, 2005.
     Associated Press (2004), Survey: soldiers suffer stress disorder. Aug. 
10. Available at: www.armytimes.com. Accessed Nov. 17, 2005.
     Benjamin M (2005), The V.A.'s bad review. Available at: 
www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/10/26/suicide/index.html. Accessed Oct. 27, 
2005.
     Boscarino JA (2005), Posttraumatic stress disorder and mortality among 
U.S. Army veterans 30 years after military service. Ann Epidemiol Aug 11 
[Epub ahead of print].
     Elias M (2005), Stress equal for female soldiers--Women do no better, 
no worse than men. USA TODAY Aug 18, D5.
     GAO (2004), VA and Defense Health Care. More Information Needed to 
Determine if VA Can Meet an Increase in Demand for Post-Traumatic Stress 
Disorder. Available at: www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-04-1069. Accessed 
Nov. 16, 2005.
     Hoge CW, Castro CA, Messer SC et al. (2004), Combat duty in Iraq and 
Afghanistan, mental health problems, and barriers to care. N Eng J Med 
351(1):13-22 [see comments].
     Ireland RR (2005), Suicide Prevention and Suicide Rates. Washington, 
D.C.; Office of Assistant Secretary of Defense.
     Robinson SL (2004), Hidden Toll of the War in Iraq. Washington, D.C.: 
Center for American Progress. Available at: www.americanprogress.org. 
Accessed Nov. 17, 2005.
     Schlenger WE, Kulka RA, Fairbank JA et al. (1992). The prevalence of 
post-traumatic stress disorder in the Vietnam generation: a multimethod, 
multisource assessment of psychiatric disorder. J Trauma Stress 5:333-363.
     Srivastava M (2004), Swallowed by pain. Dayton Daily News. Oct. 11. 
Available at: 
www.daytondailynews.com/project/content/project/suicide/daily/1011lucey.html. 
Accessed Nov. 17, 2005.
     VA Office of the IG (2005), Review of State Variances in VA Disability 
Compensation Payments. Report No. 05-00765-137. Available at: 
www.va.gov/oig/52/reports/2005/VAOIG-05-00765-137.pdf. Accessed Nov. 17, 2005.
























































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 60 [du-list] PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONS - IRAQ BODY COUNT - PART 1
 
Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2006 20:29:38 -0800

<x-flowed>
MEDIA LENS: Correcting for the distorted vision of the corporate media

January 25, 2006


MEDIA ALERT: PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONS - IRAQ BODY COUNT - PART 1


On the rare occasions when the issue of civilian casualties is discussed in 
the mainstream media three words are invariably mentioned: Iraq Body Count 
(IBC).

IBC describes itself as a project which maintains "the world's only 
independent and comprehensive public database of media-reported civilian 
deaths in Iraq that have resulted from the 2003 military intervention by 
the USA and its allies". (http://www.iraqbodycount.net/background.htm)

IBC is often described as an "anti-war" website - the home page shows an 
ominous photograph of a Stealth bomber dropping a stick of bombs. The words 
above the picture were spoken by General Tommy Franks: "We don't do body 
counts". Below, we find US General Mark Kimmitt's advice to Iraqis who see 
TV images of innocent civilians killed by coalition troops: "Change the 
channel."

This does indeed suggest an intense critical focus on suffering caused by 
British and US forces.

IBC is important, not least because it is often cited as a source in 
high-profile British and American media. Writing in the Independent, 
Washington editor Rupert Cornwell observed that IBC is "regarded as the 
most authoritative independent source on Iraqi casualties". (Rupert 
Cornwell, 'Debate rages over number of civilians killed in conflict,' The 
Independent, August 17, 2005)

The IBC website reports:

"It has been a heartening feature of the IBC project that press interest in 
our work has been wide-ranging and sustained. TV and radio broadcasters 
have included ABC (USA) News, CNN International, the BBC, the Canadian 
Broadcasting Company, National Public Radio (USA), Pacifica, and many 
regional and community stations." (http://www.iraqbodycount.org/coverage.php)

The list of media mentions recorded at the site continues for some 30 pages.

IBC is also important because its figures for civilian deaths in Iraq have 
been used by the British and American governments, and by the media, to 
attack or dismiss higher estimates in other studies. An editorial in the 
Washington Times, for example, noted that the October 2004 Lancet report 
estimated 100,000 excess civilian deaths, adding:

"At the time, the British research group Iraq Body Count had placed the 
number of confirmed deaths reported in the media at around 15,000 - 
probably a low estimate, but not by a factor of six." (Leader, 'The 
Lancet's Politics,' Washington Times, June 23, 2005)

Political editor John Rentoul wrote in the Independent on Sunday: "even 
Iraq Body Count, an anti-war campaign, puts the total attributable to 
coalition forces at under 10,000, rather than the figure with an extra zero 
that is the common misconception of anti-war propaganda". (Rentoul, 'Islam, 
blood and grievance,' The Independent on Sunday, July 24, 2005)

In October, 2004, the Guardian reported the British government's response 
to the Lancet report:

"The foreign secretary, Jack Straw... said the figure was very high, and 
that the website Iraq Body Count, relying on western press reports, had put 
the death toll at 16,000." (Patrick Wintour and Richard Norton-Taylor, 'No 
10 challenges civilian death toll,' The Guardian, October 30, 2004)


Certain To Be An Underestimate - The Self-Correcting Media

IBC is clear that there are inherent problems with its methodology. In 
response to the Lancet study, IBC pointed out:

"We have always been quite explicit that our own total is certain to be an 
underestimate of the true position, because of gaps in reporting or 
recording." (http://www.iraqbodycount.net/press/archive.phpPR10 November 7, 
2004)

But this humility is not consistently expressed. IBC's website also makes 
quite grand claims: "if journalism is the first draft of history, then this 
dossier may claim to be an early historical analysis of the military 
intervention's known human costs". 
(http://reports.iraqbodycount.org/a_dossier_of_civilian_casualties_2003-2005.pdf)

So what are the sources behind the database informing this "early 
historical analysis"? IBC reveals that these are "predominantly Western", 
with the "most prevalent" being "the major newswires and US and UK 
newspapers". 
(http://reports.iraqbodycount.org/a_dossier_of_civilian_casualties_2003-2005.pdf). 


In its report 'A dossier of civilian casualties 2003-2005', IBC noted that 
just three press agencies - Associated Press, Agence France Presse, and 
Reuters - provided one-third of all stories. Reliance on Western media is 
not deemed a problem, however, because they "are unlikely to suppress 
conservative estimates which can act as a corrective to inflated claims".

The report added:

"We have not made use of Arabic or other non English language sources, 
except where these have been published in English. The reasons are 
pragmatic. We consider fluency in the language of the published report to 
be a key requirement
for accurate analysis, and English is the only language in which all team 
members are fluent. It is possible that our count has excluded some victims 
as a result." (Ibid)

This is a remarkable explanation for such a serious omission, particularly 
in light of the immense media attention afforded to the IBC figures.

The website adds:

"The project relies on the professional rigour of the approved reporting 
agencies. It is assumed that any agency that has attained a respected 
international status operates its own rigorous checks before publishing 
items (including, where possible, eye-witness and confidential sources). By 
requiring that two independent agencies publish a report before we are 
willing to add it to the count, we are premising our own count on the 
self-correcting nature of the increasingly inter-connected international 
media network."

This is an admirable focus on the need for verification. However, as 
discussed, "the international media network" is heavily dominated by 
Western media in the IBC database - the idea that these media are 
"self-correcting" is flatly contradicted by media reporting on every 
conflict involving Western interests since 1945. Indeed, the notion that 
Western media exercise "professional rigour" is absurd. Noam Chomsky has 
explained the reality:

"The basic principle, rarely violated, is that what conflicts with the 
requirements of power and privilege does not exist." (Chomsky, Deterring 
Democracy, Hill and Wang, 1992, p.79)

As we have discussed in previous alerts, from its inception at the start of 
the 20th century, "professional" journalism has been inherently and 
massively biased in favour of powerful vested interests. It is exactly 
these interests that have so much at stake when civilians are being killed 
abroad. It is in exactly this situation that the mainstream media become 
wilfully blind, wilfully naпve, and in fact function as a propaganda system 
for state-corporate power.

Not only is IBC's surveillance-based total for Iraqi civilian deaths one of 
the most widely cited by journalists, it is also the lowest. Les Roberts, 
lead author of the Lancet report, told us last year:

"There are now at least 8 independent estimates of the number or rate of 
deaths induced by the invasion of Iraq. The source most favored by the war 
proponents (Iraqbodycount.org) is the lowest. Our estimate is the third 
from highest. Four of the estimates place the death toll above 100,000. The 
studies measure different things. Some are surveys, some are based on 
surveillance which is always incomplete in times of war. The three lowest 
estimates are surveillance based." (Roberts, email to Media Lens, August 
22, 2005)

Whereas the Lancet report estimated around 100,000 civilian deaths in 
October 2004, IBC reported 17,000 at that time. The Lancet authors found:

"Making conservative assumptions, we think that about 100,000 excess 
deaths, or more have happened since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Violence 
accounted for most of the excess deaths and air strikes from coalition 
forces accounted for most violent deaths." 
(http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/LAN410A.html)

Indeed 84 per cent of the violent deaths were reported to have been caused 
by the actions of 'coalition' forces and 95 per cent of those deaths were 
due to airstrikes and artillery.

By contrast, fully one year later, the Daily Telegraph reported that IBC 
had evidence that 26,000 to 30,000 Iraqi civilians had died since the war 
started in March 2003:

"Of those, about 9,000 were reported to have been killed by the US military 
itself." (Oliver Poole, 'Victims of insurgents in Iraq top 26,000,' Daily 
Telegraph, October 31, 2005)

In response, IBC pointed out, "it is likely that many if not most civilian 
casualties will go unreported by the media... our own total is certain to 
be an underestimate of the true position, because of gaps in reporting or 
recording". (Iraq Body Count, Quick FAQ and Press Release, 7th November 
2004, http://www.iraqbodycount.net/press/archive.php)

But as we will see, the problem is not merely that there are "gaps in 
reporting", but that there are gaps of a particular kind.

Senior figures from Jack Straw to George Bush have been quick to point the 
public in the direction of IBC and its figures. The Guardian reported last 
December:

"In a speech in Philadelphia on Monday, George Bush finally put a figure on 
the number of people killed in Iraq: 30,000. Since the US-led invasion, 
Bush said that '30,000 have died, more or less', a toll that includes both 
Iraq civilians and US troops." (Luke Harding, 'The question: Is Bush's Iraq 
death toll correct?' The Guardian, December 14, 2005)

"Other non-governmental organisations, though, suggest that Bush may have 
got it right. An independent watchdog group, Iraq Body Count, estimates 
that up to 30,892 Iraqis have died, a figure based on media reports."

Remarkably, Harding seemed to believe that Bush might not have based his 
figures on IBC's. IBC responded to a related error in Harding's article:

"Incidentally, if George Bush has used our numbers for his '30,000, more or 
less' death toll of 'Iraqi citizens' then he has misapplied them: ours is a 
count purely of non-combatant deaths and does not, for example, include 
Iraqi soldiers killed during the invasion nor other combatants thereafter." 
(Letter, Hamit Dardagan, Co-founder, Iraq Body Count, The Guardian, 
December 16, 2005)

Harding's claim that "up to 30,892 Iraqis have died" was simply false. But 
it is a claim regularly repeated across the media. Thus the Financial Times:

"The 30,000 estimate falls within the range compiled by Iraq Body Count, a 
group that tracks the number of Iraqis killed from media reports. It 
estimates that between 27,383 and 30,892 Iraqis have lost their lives in 
violence related to the invasion." (Demetric Sevastopulo, 'Bush 
acknowledges about 30,000 Iraqis have died,' Financial Times, December 13, 
2005)

In December the Independent on Sunday made fleeting mention of Iraqi 
casualties in its review of 2005:

"Death toll in Iraq war stands at 30,000 Iraqis, 2,140 US soldiers and 97 
British service personnel." (Independent on Sunday, December 18, 2005)

This was clearly a reference to the IBC total - for +civilians+, not all 
Iraqis. But anyway, as we have seen, the IBC figure is selective in its 
sources, is the lowest estimate of eight serious studies, and relies on 
"professional rigour" in the Western media that does not exist. As we will 
also see, realities on the ground in Iraq cast real doubt on the value of 
IBC's methodology and numbers.

Part 2 will follow shortly...


Write to Media Lens:
Email: editor@medialens.org

The first Media Lens book is now available: 'Guardians of Power: The Myth 
Of The Liberal Media' by David Edwards and David Cromwell (Pluto Books, 
London, 2006). For further details, please click here:

http://www.medialens.org/bookshop/guardians_of_power.php

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 61 Tritium leak dangers downplayed
 
Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2006 16:06:51 -0500

Braidwood Nuclear Power Plant Can Harm Human Health

Regarding radioactive tritium leaks and routine releases 
surfacing outside of Exelon's nuclear power plant, Paul Gunter, 
director of the Reactor Watchdog Project at Nuclear Information 
&amp; Resource Service, offers the following comments for 
quotation in the press He is available a: 202-328-0002 ext. 18:

"We have been monitoring this situation for many months in 
concert and in communication with local residents and Illinois 
government officials. We share their alarm at Exelon's and 
federal regulatory efforts to trivialize the potential human 
consequence from exposure to this radioactive form of hydrogen. 
By far the largest contribution of tritium to our water and air 
comes from these routine and accidental releases from nuclear 
power stations.

"It is disingenuous of federal and company officials to suggest 
that ingesting or inhaling this radioactive water is of little 
concern because tritium leaves the body quickly. 

In fact, residents with contaminated well water are chronically 
exposed from daily drinking, cooking and bathing with tritiated 
water. Moreover, some studies indicate that tritium can linger in 
the body for many months and even 
years.

"Clinical studies prove that laboratory exposure to tritium 
causes cancer, birth defects and genetic damage. Federal 
standards are not health and safety standards but rather 
permissible release limits to economically manage the large 
volume of radioactive waste generated at reactors.&nbsp; The 
recent release of the National Academy of Sciences report on the 
Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation (BEIR VII) confirms that 
there is no established safe threshold for radiation exposure 
without increased risk.

"It is of much concern that Exelon has held back release of 
information regarding millions of gallons of radioactive water in 
1998 and 2000, leaks not publicly reported until November 2005. 
When people are in put harm's way, they deserve prompt 
notification of the truth, not obfuscation or cover-up. 

"We believe the Braidwood leaks to be just the tip of the tritium 
iceberg. We are discovering a picture of similar leaks occurring 
at nuclear reactors around the country including Exelon's Dresden 
IL nuclear power station. Furthermore, a disturbing pattern is 
beginning to emerge; that the federal regulator the Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission has systematically chosen to turn a blind 
eye to the health hazards these leaks represent."

NIRS has extensive documentation of both the Braidwood and 
Dresden tritium leaks.

Linda Gunter is Director of Development and Media Relations at 
NIRS. She can be reached at: 202-328-0002 ext. 23.
*****************************************************************
 62 Rutland Herald: Brattleboro nixes evacuation issue

Rutland Vermont News & Information
 	 	 	 	 	 
January 25, 2006 


By DANIEL BARLOW Southern Vermont Bureau   

BRATTLEBORO — Town officials rejected a town meeting ballot
question posed by an anti-nuclear group based on a 2005 town
charter ruling that has been appealed to the Vermont Supreme
Court.

The Brattleboro Select Board denied Nuclear Free Vermont's Jan.
10 request for a ballot question asking for better evacuation
planning by state officials, based on advice from the town
attorney that the town charter does not give them that right.

But that interpretation disagrees with suggestions from the
Vermont Secretary of State's office and members of the
anti-nuclear group that state statute does allow the board to
approve such nonbinding referendums on the March 7 ballot.

Robert Fisher, the town attorney, said last week the
disagreement is similar to a civil case on appeal before the
state's highest court asking if Brattleboro residents have the
right to call for a special election to fill a midterm select
board vacancy.

At issue is the balance between rights spelled out in
Brattleboro's charter and rights granted to residents under
state statute. Fisher said that although state law allows select
boards to place such questions on the ballot, the town's charter
does not.

"Under our charter the only town meeting that the question can
be posed to is representative town meeting," Fisher said,
referring to a voting system unique to the Windham County town
that features a 140-member elected body voting on local school
and town budgets.

Nuclear Free Vermont member Ed Anthes said there were no
problems placing the same question on the town meeting ballots
for the nearby towns of Halifax, Dummerston, Guilford and
Marlboro. None of those towns have charters.

The group — as it has done in years past — will instead collect
the necessary signatures from 5 percent of Brattleboro's voters
to get the question on the ballot. The measure asks local select
boards to petition the Vermont Legislature to strengthen
evacuation tests in the southern part of the state, where the
Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant is located.

The group is asking that state first responder officials plan
for an evacuation of all of the area's population, as opposed to
only 20 percent as it does now, Anthes said. It also asks for
more emergency sirens in the towns and simultaneous evacuation
drills for local schools, hospitals and elder and child care
facilities.

Governments' slow response to Hurricane Katrina late last year
showed that there are serious gaps in evacuation planning.

"Right now, there is no sense of urgency and no accountability,"
Anthes said. "When we tell people that they are planning for the
evacuation of only 20 percent of the people, they sign the
petition right away."

Members of the Brattleboro Select Board did not vote Tuesday on
the request to place the question on the town meeting Australian
ballot; the board did vote 4-1 to reject placing it before
representative town meeting.

The balance between the town charter and state statute was
raised in March 2005 after Selectman Joerg Mayer resigned for
health reasons. More than 500 people signed a petition calling
for a special election to fill the midterm vacancy, but Fisher
and other town officials claimed that was not allowed under the
charter.

The town later filed a civil suit to seek clarification from the
courts on the issue — just days after another Brattleboro
resident filed a similar suit — and Windham Superior Court Judge
Karen Carroll upheld the town's actions in a July 2005 ruling.

Contact Daniel Barlow at daniel.barlow@rutlandherald.com
  
© 2006 Rutland Herald
*****************************************************************
 63 Radio New Zealand: French nuclear test fallout hit Tahiti - report
 
 Time:7:10 pm on 26 Jan [ width=] 

A report into France's nuclear weapons tests in the South
Pacific says each atmospheric test in Fangataufa and Mururoa
appears to have caused fallout in Tahiti. 

The findings are contained in a report by a commission of the
territorial assembly which has been published in excerpts by the
local Papeete newspapers ahead of its presentation in the
assembly next month. 

The report says the French state tried to downplay the effect of
the tests. 

The report is based on research by independent bodies, with the
French defence ministry refusing cooperation, citing secrecy for
security reasons. 

The opposition in French Polynesia boycotted the commission's
work and took court action, saying the assembly had no mandate
to conduct such an investigation. 			 						
Copyright © 2006 Radio New Zealand International 					 		 			 
Section Navigation -Find your way around
 
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 64 WVLT: Sick Nuclear Workers Speak Out

VOLUNTEER TV Knoxville, TN

January 25, 2006 
 
Dozens of sick nuclear workers met with an advisory board
Tuesday night in Oak Ridge to share concerns with the
government's compensation program. 

Volunteer TV's Gary Loe has more. 

Tuesday night, the advisory board listened as sick nuclear
workers, or their suriving relatives, told them their struggles
in dealing with cancer which they say was caused by on-the-job
exposure to radiation.  They want compensation for their
illnesses, but in many cases we heard Tuesday, they won't be
receiving any money from the federal government.  Many of these
former Y-12 workers stricken with cancer come to find answers to
why they've been denied compensation for their illnesses. 
Others choke back tears while recalling how a family member lost
a struggle with exposure to radiation while working at a
government bomb plant. 

"It's about we lost people who gave their lives, who were
exposed to something without their knowing, and we have a
right!" Beuhla Lindsay, who lost a loved one, said. 

Beuhla Lindsay and her brother Alvin Lindsay drove from Atlanta
to Oak Ridge, having just found out a federal government agency
denied their deceased father's compensation claim.  If approved,
claimants receive $150,000, and in some cases, certain medical
expenses. 

Gary Foster of Halls flips through his father's work and medical
records.  He says his dad has two cancers caused by radiation
exposure working at Y-12, but his compensation claim was also
denied. 

"Not just my dad, but there's a lot of people out there that
have cancer, and that's the only place they worked, technically,
my dad worked there 35 years, his whole working life, where else
could it have been caused from?" Foster said.  

A government spokesman says this advisory board will report its
findings to the secretary for Health and Human Services. 

"Very much interested in hearing what the thoughts are of the
people who've had their claims go through the process so that we
can do a better job of reacting to their concerns." spokesman
Larry Elliott said. 

Meantime, Lindsay says she's not here for the money.  She only
hopes her father did not die in vain. 

"I don't care what it takes, because it isn't right.  Our father
died trying to make a better life for us," Lindsay said. 

Workers at the former K-25 plant don't have to go through the
dose reconstruction process...they've been granted exemptions
and qualify if they meet certain criteria.   

      All content © Copyright 2001 - 2006 WorldNow and WVLT
VOLUNTEER TV,
a property of Gray Television, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
*****************************************************************
 65 asahi.com: Bomb left invisible scar that can't heal

01/25/2006 By AKIRA NAKANO

The Asahi Shimbun

HIROSHIMA--When the atomic bomb struck on Aug. 6, 1945, Michiko
Matsui was 9 years old, living at an evacuation home for
children just 2.5 kilometers from ground zero. Her parents
remained at the family home. 

When the bomb hit, shards of broken glass shredded her back, but
she took no notice. She rushed out into the streets of the
devastated city, looking for her parents. 

She fished charred bodies out of reservoir tanks hoping and
fearing she might recognize them. She went to every first-aid
station, standing before the injured, wrapped in white bandages,
with the undying belief that "my parents would surely notice
their only daughter is here." 

When the news came that Japan had surrendered, she was oblivious
to it. Instead, she continued hunting for her parents. 

Thirty-nine days after the bombing, she went back to the place
where her family home once stood. Digging in the earth, she
found white human bones. She believes they were the remains of
her parents. 

For Matsui, now 70 and living in Minami Ward, Hiroshima, it was
then that she felt the weight of all she had lost. 

"The keloid scars that remain in my heart never healed," she
said. "It doesn't matter how much time passed." 

An uncle, who had returned from the war, raised Matsui, and she
graduated from high school, became a public servant, and
eventually married another A-bomb survivor. 

When she was about 20, she began meeting each month with a group
of young people who also had been orphaned in the bombing. 

All of them had had hardships. She met a young man who had held
more than 20 jobs, trying to support his four siblings. A young
woman grew up being passed from one relative to the next.
Another young man had done time in juvenile detention for
stealing food. 

Many of them stared at the floor during meetings, hardly
speaking. A-bomb survivors often felt stigmatized, and they had
grown used to keeping quiet about their experiences. 

But public sentiment about the hibakusha was beginning to
change. In 1954 a Japanese fishing boat, the No. 5 Fukuryu Maru,
was exposed to nuclear fallout from a hydrogen bomb test carried
out at Bikini Atoll. The event marked the birth of the
anti-nuclear movement in Japan. Suddenly, A-bomb orphans were
being sought out to appear at peace meetings. 

Matsui was invited to a town in the Tohoku region where she was
welcomed by a sign that said: "A-bomb maidens arrive." Matsui
told the gathering about finding her parents' bones. 

"That must have been tough," someone said to her. "So, where are
your keloid scars?" 

The idea was that if she didn't have physical scars, she didn't
count as a bomb survivor. 

Matsui was stung. She and the other survivors were being treated
like circus animals. 

But an experience in 1988 led Matsui to come out once again and
speak about her experiences. 

Matsui was visiting her mother-in-law in hospital, and she tried
to give her water. An old woman lying in the next bed shouted at
her: "Don't give her water. I gave water to my daughter when the
A-bomb hit, and she died!" 

The woman was having a flashback to the agonizing experiences of
more than 40 years before. 

"This is how cruel the A-bomb is," Matsui recalled thinking at
the time. "I have to speak out and tell what survivors are going
through now, in their old age." 

The experience led her to attend the third U.N. Special Session
on Disarmament, where she gave testimony from aging survivors.
She would not speak about herself. 

Matsui lives with her husband, Shozo, 77, in a house that
survived the bombing. Near the entrance there is a grandfather
clock that stopped ticking 60 years ago. 

"Time has stopped from that moment on, for all of us who were
exposed that day," Shozo said. "We just have to go on carrying
this emptiness within our hearts." 

Matsui nodded. In her memories, her father stays frozen in time
at 35 years old and her mother is still 33. 

Many of her orphan friends died from cancer, including her best
friend, and Matsui herself was once hospitalized for cancer.
Matsui's days as a storyteller are over, she said. Her wounded
heart never mended. 

"No one understands anything," she said. "I hate being called an
A-bomb orphan. I hate being called an A-bomb
survivor."(IHT/Asahi: January 25,2006) 
  
  + The Asahi Shimbun Company  

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 66 Las Vegas SUN: U.S. shoulders some burden for Henderson perchlorate 

January 24, 2006 

ASSOCIATED PRESS 

HENDERSON, Nev., (AP) - An Oklahoma City chemical company
announced it will get a cash settlement of $20.5 million from
the federal government as part of its lawsuit to recoup some
costs of cleaning up perchlorate at its site in Henderson. 

Tronox Inc., formerly known as Kerr-McGee Chemical, said it
expects to receive the cash settlement within 90 days. The
government also has agreed to pay 21 percent of the costs that
Tronox may incur on or after Jan. 1, 2011, when its insurance
policy expires, according to the company. 

The Henderson chemical plant, which the U.S. Navy owned for
about 10 years before a predecessor of Kerr-McGee bought it in
1962, leaked perchlorate into the Colorado River while producing
the rocket fuel ingredient for the military and the space
program. 

Tronox has spent about $122 million to clean up its perchlorate
operations. The company discontinued production of perchlorate,
in 1998, and in 2000 the company filed suit against the
government to have the court define the costs it should pay. The
cleanup effort is expected to continue for years. 

The Nevada Department of Environmental Protection is supervising
the cleanup. The Southern Nevada Water Authority also monitors
the work, as do Colorado River water users downstream. 

For decades, water tainted with perchlorate seeped into the Las
Vegas Wash and was carried downstream to Lake Mead. 

If ingested, perchlorate can inhibit the ability of the thyroid
gland to produce hormones that control growth and metabolism. 

In 1997, Metropolitan Water District of Southern California
discovered perchlorate in the Colorado River water it delivers
to its customers. Studies have found trace amounts in the Las
Vegas drinking water supply and in lettuce and milk from dairy
cows exposed to Colorado River water. 

Federal regulators have not established a safe drinking water
standard for the chemical, but the Environmental Protection
Agency has endorsed a limit of 24.5 parts per billion that was
developed by the National Academy of Sciences. 

Water authority spokesman J.C. Davis said perchlorate
concentrations have been reduced from 10 parts per billion in
2002 to 3 parts per billion last year. One part per billion
equates to about half a teaspoon of water in an Olympic swimming
pool, he said. 

         All contents copyright 2005 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
 67 Kansas City Star: Dirty bomb cleanup rules provoke criticism

01/25/2006 | 

 The Associated Press 

WASHINGTON  The government issued cleanup standards Tuesday for
a dirty bomb attack that would sometimes be less rigorous than
standards for Superfund sites, nuclear power plants and nuclear
waste dumps. 

After such an attack, long-term radiation exposure could remain
at levels that would be expected to produce cancers in one of
every four persons who return to the contaminated sites,
anti-nuclear watchdog groups said after analyzing the new
federal guidelines. 

Dirty bombs  largely theoretical terrorist weapons  would use
conventional explosives to disperse radioactive material without
a nuclear explosion. Such weapons, which could use Cesium 137 or
other radioactives, would be useful as terror devices because
they can render an area dangerous or uninhabitable. 

The guidelines issued by the Homeland Security Department say
the impact from detonating a crude nuclear device or a dirty
bomb could vary widely, from contaminating a small area, such as
a single building or a city block, to conceivably many square
miles. So, it said, cleanup requirements also could vary widely. 

In some cases, the document suggested, long-term radiation
exposures of as much as 10,000 millirems per year  a level
equivalent to hundreds of chest X-rays a year or 30 times the
annual exposure to radiation from natural background sources 
could be allowed for areas that are returned to general use. 

The guidelines go into effect immediately but could be modified
after a public comment period. 

In some cases, the document suggested, long-term radiation
exposures of as much as 10,000 millirems per year  a level
equivalent to hundreds of chest X-rays a year or 30 times the
annual exposure to radiation from natural background sources 
could be allowed for areas that are returned to general use. 

The guidelines go into effect immediately but could be modified
after a public comment period. , brought sharp criticism from
some environmental groups and nuclear watchdog organizations. 

The guidelines go into effect immediately but could be modified
after a public comment period.

*****************************************************************
 68 reviewjournal.com: Yucca pageantry 

Opinion - LETTERS:                 

  Jan. 24, 2006

To the editor: 

Three cheers for Miss Nevada, Crystal Wosik. She had the guts to
say what no Nevada politician has dared to say in 25 years
("Miss Nevada supports nuclear waste facility," Friday). 

For those new to Nevada, the Yucca Mountain Project is Nevada's
political sacred cow. Gone is all semblance of honest and sober
discourse. In the back rooms away from the media, real people
have whispered for years that Nevada is losing billions of
dollars fighting the construction of a high-level nuclear waste
repository northwest of Las Vegas. 

People who oppose the repository are really not concerned with
safety, because if nuclear waste was put somewhere safe, people
might think that nuclear energy was a viable alternative fuel.
Repository foes want the potential for disaster hovering over
people so they keep their cause alive. And Nevada politicians
are still beating this dead horse because to not do so would put
them in political hot water, especially with some in the media.
It takes an honest woman to say what grown men fear to say. 

I agree with this young lady's mother that the judge who asked
Ms. Wosik about the Yucca Mountain Project, probably being one
of those "anti-nuke" folks, just wanted to knife her in the back
("Judges irk mother of Miss Nevada," Saturday Norm Clarke
column). 

Miss Nevada, I wish you well, for your courage and honesty shows
me you are a fine young woman. 

Jim Lamb 

HENDERSON 	   

Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2006
*****************************************************************
 69 reviewjournal.com: Opinion: Beautiful but naive (Pro Yucca woman)
 
  Jan. 25, 2006

To the editor: 

Crystal Wosik, Nevada's representative for the much-hyped Miss
America competition, is beautiful but misinformed and naive on
the subject of Yucca Mountain. 

Ms. Wosik was reported as telling pageant judges that Yucca
Mountain is "the best-built facility in the country." She was
also quoted as saying, "We just have to take one for the team"
("Miss Nevada supports nuclear waste facility," Friday). 

Ms. Wosik is young, but she is old enough to know that as far as
nuclear issues are concerned, Nevadans have been taking it in
the shorts from the entire country for generations. Much of our
land is polluted from years of nuclear weapons testing. Further,
there is no nuclear waste facility built on the site, only an
enormous tunnel. 

In addition to unproven science and potential groundwater
contamination, a core issue of the Yucca Mountain controversy is
the unacceptable risk of transporting high-level nuclear waste
over America's highways, past schools, hospitals and my house. 

Ms. Wosik is entitled to her opinion and should not be made to
feel she should apologize for expressing it. However, as a
representative of our state with national exposure, the
responsible course of action would be to educate herself on this
issue. 

Sharon Rorman 

LAS VEGAS 



'One for the team' 

To the editor: 

We should send Miss Nevada, Crystal Wosik, to Yucca Mountain. If
she thinks we should all "take one for the team," I say let's
put her first in line. 

Thank goodness beauty queens don't set public policy. 

Kenneth P. Landes 

LAS VEGAS 

Litmus test? 

To the editor: 

I didn't know that one's political leanings and opinions were
among the criteria to be selected as Miss Nevada. Perhaps
contestants should first be asked whether they are pro-life or
pro-choice, for or against gay marriage, Republican or Democrat,
conservative or liberal and, of course, for or against Yucca
Mountain before they are allowed to advance to the Miss America
contest. 

I certainly don't think Citizen Alert's Peggy Maze Johnson or
Nevada nuclear watchdog Bob Loux should establish the acceptable
criteria. 

Congratulations to Crystal Wosik for not being politically
correct when asked such inappropriate questions by Miss America
judges. 

Nick Aquilina 

LAS VEGAS 

THE WRITER IS A FORMER DIRECTOR OF THE NEVDADA TEST SITE. 

Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2006
 Stephens Media GroupPrivacy Statement
*****************************************************************
 70 reviewjournal.com: Legislator pursues agency
 
  Jan. 25, 2006

Committee chief asks Energy Department to turn over documents
	 
By STEVE TETREAULT <br/>STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU
	
WASHINGTON -- A House committee chairman Tuesday renewed demands
for the Energy Department to supply documents for an
investigation of Yucca Mountain e-mail messages. 

The House Government Reform Committee in July served DOE
officials with a subpoena to turn over thousands of pages
related to e-mails that questioned water infiltration research
at the proposed nuclear waste site in Nevada. 

Among the documents the committee subpoenaed was a copy of a
5,000-page draft license application dated July 2004 for the
proposed repository that the Energy Department has resisted
turning over to lawmakers. 

DOE officials said they have turned over more than 15,000 pages.
But draft licensing documents have not been among them. 

Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., the committee chairman, said Tuesday he
did not insist on getting the license application last summer
after discussing the matter with Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman. 

Davis said he also held off on demanding documents relating to
DOE reviews of the e-mail controversy. 

But now, Davis said in a letter to Bodman, "This important
investigation must not be further delayed." He set a Feb. 7
deadline for DOE to supply everything. 

The committee's Yucca Mountain inquiry is being conducted by
Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., who leads the subcommittee on federal
workforce and agency organization. 

"Now is the time to say enough is enough," Porter said. "We have
been more than patient." 

Porter said the House committee had addressed Energy Department
concerns over how documents would be handled so as not to affect
DOE studies. 

Disclosure of the e-mails in March threw the Yucca project into
turmoil by suggesting some quality assurance documentation had
been falsified. Porter's panel has held two hearings on the
matter and is preparing another one. 

The messages, written by hydrologists assigned by the U.S.
Geological Survey between 1998 and 2000, raise questions about
research on the rate at which rainfall might penetrate the
mountain ridge and infiltrate caches of radioactive waste buried
1,000 feet below the surface. 

Porter said that since the subpoena was issued last summer, the
Energy Department's inspector general issued a report in
November disclosing more e-mails that appear to be pertinent to
his investigation. 

Davis in his letter requested copies of all newly discovered
e-mails. 

The Energy Department has appealed to the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission to keep the draft license application out of public
view and has argued it is legally shielded from disclosure. 

DOE spokesman Craig Stevens said Tuesday the department is
awaiting the NRC's ruling before acting on the request from
Congress. 

Apart from that document, Stevens said DOE has given lawmakers
all relevant paperwork that they demanded. 

The subpoena demanded a list of scientists who were involved in
the water infiltration modeling. Stevens said no such list
existed. 

DOE has spent more than $1 million to recheck water infiltration
research and quality assurance documents, officials have said. 

"Experts are currently working on two reports that will provide
us all with important information on infiltration models,"
Stevens said. 	   

Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2006
 Stephens Media GroupPrivacy Statement
*****************************************************************
 71 NPR: U.S. Grapples with Solution to Nuclear Waste Disposal

[Listen to this story...] by David Kestenbaum  					 					 

All Things Considered, January 23, 2006 · A bill before Congress 
offers a temporary solution to U.S. nuclear waste problems: Leave 
the waste where it is -- at power plants around the country. The 
government is required by law to dispose of the waste. Now it's 
facing more than 60 lawsuits for failing to do so. 

'E-mail this Story' 

 			  		 		













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 72 News Journal: Nuclear waste remains an unresolved dilemma 

delawareonline Our Readers' Views 

01/17/2006 Our Readers' Views   01/16/2006

The Delaware Voice article by Robert G. Gallaghar, "Nuclear
power is safe and clean," makes erroneous assumptions. Favorable
cost comparisons with other sources of electricity do not take
into consideration the billions of dollars in subsidies borne by
taxpayers. These include subsidized fuel, insurance under the
Price Anderson Act and disposal of nuclear waste, as yet
unresolved.

He stated that nuclear power provides 20 percent of electricity.
Mining, milling, production of fuel, care and cooling of spent
fuel and eventual disposal of waste makes nuclear power
extremely energy-intensive.

After having spent $5 billion on Yucca Mountain, the licensing
of this site is now seriously questioned. If ever licensed, it
is barely sufficient to hold the waste already produced.

The dream of the nuclear industry has been the use of mixed
oxide fuel. This is a process by which waste from the weapons
program is processed into fuel used in nuclear power plants.
This was rejected by all administrations as too costly and
dangerous.

On March 30, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued a
construction authorization at Savannah River. Having barely
broken ground, the cost overrun is estimated to be $2.3 billion.

Plans to build new nuclear plants in six Southern states are on
the way. However, these plants are being built on existing
sites, which greatly curtails public participation. This
industry is well aware that the public has learned about nuclear
power in the last 30 years and that the NIMBY effect (not in my
back yard) may well stop it in its tracks.

Frieda Berryhill, Wilmington

Other banking jobs continue to move out of Delaware 

Gov. Minner is trying to keep people from losing their jobs due
to the sale of MBNA. That's fine. But where was she three years
ago, when PFPC, a subsidiary of PNC Bank, moved 143 jobs from
the Bellevue Corporate Center in Bellevue to King of Prussia,
Pa.?

PFPC continues to move jobs out of Delaware, and not a peep is
heard from the state about losing them.

Fran McBride, New Castle

Copyright ©             , The News Journal.
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 73 Blackpool Today: BNFL to get new owners in ВЈ5bn deal 

THE parent company of BNFL Springfields is to be sold in a deal 
rumoured to be worth ВЈ5bn.... 

American-owned Westinghouse has identified Japanese technology 
giant Toshiba as the preferred bidder for the business which 
employs more than 1,400 workers on the Fylde. The bid will go to 
the board tomorrow but bosses at Westinghouse said the deal could 
take a further 12 months to go through a lengthy US legal 
process.

Employees at the Springfields site at Salwick have been told it's 
business as usual until the deal goes through while being assured 
their jobs are secure.

But union leaders have expressed concern the new deal would put a 
question mark over the high level of health and safety at the 
South Fylde site along with security on the site.

Over the past decade the site has had a clean bill of health and 
only one black mark over security when a handgun went missing 
from offices at the Clifton site last October. It was later 
recovered.

But Philip Dewhurst, group director of BNFL corporate affairs,
said the safety and security of its workers at Springfields were
top priority.

He added: "First of all the deal is not signed and we have only
got Toshiba as one our preferred bidders.

"Secondly, we would not have chosen a bidder without checking
out their safety record. Toshiba have a high regard for the
safety of their staff at plants across the globe and safety is
paramount for them.

"BNFL want to have happy workers and we are confident their new
owners will continue to put their workers first, as Westinghouse
did.

"As far as job security goes there are no plans by Toshiba to
lay off any of the workforce so the 1,400 jobs at Springfields
are secure."

Mike Parker, chief executive officer at BNFL, said: "This bid is
a win-win. We are pleased that by selecting Toshiba we have
achieved our dual objectives of doing the best for our employees
and the British taxpayers."

Nuclear union Prospect will be meeting with BNFL bosses at a
meeting on Friday to discuss the deal with Toshiba.

Mike Graham, Prospect national secretary, said: "The big concern
that we have is the safety record and we need to discuss this at
the meeting.

"The British government has made a lot of money from this sale
and the health a safety aspect of the sale must be paramount in
our discussions."                                                                       

25 January 2006

All rights reserved © 2006 Johnston Press New Media. 
*****************************************************************
 74 CNW Group: UEX to Initiate Final Feasibility Study at West Bear
Uranium Deposit in 2006 

Trading Symbol: UEX-TSX 

VANCOUVER, Jan. 25 /CNW/ - UEX Corporation ("UEX") is pleased to 
announce that it has received the interim resource estimate 
report from Cameco Corporation ("Cameco") of Saskatoon, SK, for 
UEX's West Bear Uranium Deposit ("West Bear"). West Bear is 
located within the southern block of UEX's 100%-owned and 
operated Hidden Bay Project, in the Wollaston Lake area of 
northern Saskatchewan, approximately 340 kilometres north of La 
Ronge, SK. 

West Bear Highlights 

- Current indicated uranium resource of 46,500 tonnes grading 
1.385% 

U3O8, containing 1,391,000 pounds U3O8; 

- Value of uranium resource approximately $1,300/tonne (CDN) at 
$37.00 

(U.S.) uranium spot price as of January 23, 2006; 

- High probability of resource expansion from further sonic 
drilling; 

- Mineralization occurs near-surface, at 13 to 31 metres (42 to 
102 feet) 

depth; 

- Low cost, open pit mining planned at West Bear; 

- Existing infrastructure - 2 milling facilities less than 80 
kilometres 

(50 miles) from the deposit, toll milling arrangement to be 
negotiated; 

- Mining and haulage of material to a milling facility would be 
tendered 

out for contract. 

2005 West Bear Interim Resource Estimate Report 

In January 2005, UEX initiated a 101-hole, 2,793 metres sonic 
drilling program at West Bear, with the objective of determining 
a National Instrument 43-101 ("N.I. 43-101") compliant resource 
estimate of the deposit. Cameco carried out the sonic drilling 
program under an exploration management agreement with UEX on the 
Hidden Bay Project, an agreement that ended in December 2005. In 
early 2006, UEX assumed direct management of all exploration 
activities at the Hidden Bay Project. 

Based on the results of the 2005 sonic drilling program, Cameco 
calculated an interim resource estimate. West Bear is estimated 
to contain an indicated resource of 45,600 metric tonnes 
averaging 1.385% U3O8, for a total uranium content of 1,391,000 
pounds of U3O8, using a geostatistical-block model technique and 
the GEMCOM software package. The deposit also contains 0.34% 
nickel, 0.11% cobalt, and 0.50% arsenic. The boundaries of the 
deposit for Cameco's resource estimate were defined using a 
cut-off grade of 0.15% U3O8, and a grade/thickness parameter of 
0.45 m% U3O8. 

"It is UEX's opinion that the current resource at West Bear is 
economic and that is why we are moving aggressively to final 
feasibility in parallel with the environmental studies that have 
been underway since the summer of 2005," said Stephen Sorensen, 
President and CEO of UEX. 

This new interim resource estimate represents a three-fold 
increase in uranium grade and an increase in total pounds of 
uranium from the historical 1980 Gulf Minerals ("Gulf") resource 
estimate of 131,000 tonnes at an average grade of 0.44% U3O8, 
representing 1.26 million pounds of U3O8 (Note: Gulf's historical 
resource estimate was not calculated using current Canadian 
Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum categories, and no 
current resource or reserve confidence categories were applied). 

Cameco's 2005 interim resource estimate report notes that only 
two-thirds of the strike length of the mineralized area included 
as part of the historical resource outlined by Gulf was tested 
during the 2005 program. A number of historical Gulf holes 
indicate that uranium mineralization likely extends to the east 
up to 150 metres beyond the current boundaries of the deposit. 
This eastern area has the potential to significantly increase the 
total pounds of uranium contained in the deposit, and UEX plans 
to test the area with a sonic drill during the winter of 2006. 

Cameco's interim resource estimate report will be filed and 
available for review at www.sedar.com 

2006 Winter Exploration Program 

Roscoe Postle Associates Inc. of Toronto, ON, an independent firm 
of geological and mining consultants, has been engaged by UEX to 
direct the sonic drilling program at West Bear in 2006, and to 
incorporate newly-obtained 2006 data into Cameco's interim 
resource estimate. In its worldwide operations, Roscoe Postle 
Associates Inc. has considerable experience in estimating, 
auditing and reviewing mineral resources and is qualified to act 
as independent Qualified Persons for mineral resources and 
reserves under the standards set by N.I. 43-101. 

A 2006 winter exploration program budgeted at approximately $2.7 
million (CDN) is underway at the Hidden Bay Project, which 
includes a $700,000 (CDN) sonic drilling program at West Bear. 
One diamond drill is currently operating in the West Bear area, 
and drill testing of geophysical targets peripheral to West Bear 
is planned in order to locate additional deposits. Sonic drilling 
is expected to commence in early February 2006. 

The technical information in this document regarding Cameco's 
West Bear interim resource estimate report has been compiled and 
reviewed by Roger Lemaitre, P. Geo., a qualified person as 
defined by N.I. 43-101. 

2005-2006 West Bear Environmental Baseline Study 

An Environmental Baseline Study ("EBS") has been underway at West 
Bear since July 2005. An EBS is a required first step in any mine 
development plan and forms the basis of an Environmental Impact 
Statement ("EIS"), as is normally required for the development of 
uranium mines in Saskatchewan. Golder Associates of Saskatoon, 
SK, a division of a premier global group of consulting companies 
specializing in ground engineering and environmental science is 
carrying out the EBS, and continues to collect biological, 
hydrogeological and other environmental data in the West Bear 
area. The cost of the EBS is estimated at approximately $500,000 
(CDN) and is planned to be completed in the fall of 2006. 

2006 West Bear Engineering Proposals 

UEX is preparing to submit requests for proposals to leading 
mining engineering firms in order to advance West Bear to final 
feasibility. With the relatively soft nature of the host rocks 
and overburden, UEX believes that the deposit could be mined 
using low cost, open pit mining techniques within a very short 
timeframe. The deposit is located close to two existing uranium 
mills: Cameco's Rabbit Lake Mill (51.9 kilometres by road, or 
32.2 miles), and the McClean Lake Mill (73.7 kilometres by road, 
or 45.8 miles), operated by AREVA subsidiary COGEMA Resources 
Inc. ("COGEMA"). 

A series of recommendations by Cameco for future work is included 
in the 2005 interim resource estimate report that would lead to 
the commencement of a final feasibility study. These 
recommendations include: 

- the implementation of a 70-hole, 2,100 metres sonic drill 
program to 

define the eastern extent of the deposit; 

- the commencement of metallurgical test work on the West Bear 

mineralization; 

- improving the method used to determine dry bulk densities, 
since values 

obtained in 2005 may have, in Cameco's opinion, understated the 

resource; 

- the continuation of the environmental baseline study initiated 
in 2005; 

- scouting of a road route to connect West Bear to provincial 
Highway 

905. 

About West Bear 

West Bear is flat-lying and has been defined by drilling over a 
strike length of 300 metres. The mineralization occurs at a 
vertical depth of between 13 and 31 metres (or approximately 42 
to 102 feet) from surface and is one of the shallowest, 
undeveloped uranium deposits in the prolific Athabasca Basin. The 
deposit ranges in width from 5 to 25 metres, and in thickness 
from 0.1 to 10.5 metres. Approximately 70% of the uranium 
resource as calculated by Cameco lies within a 100 metre-long 
section of the deposit. The zones of mineralization have 
lithology, structure, alteration, and chemical features that 
closely resemble those at Cameco's Cigar Lake Deposit. 
Polymetallic mineralization is observed within the uranium 
mineralization, with higher concentrations of nickel, cobalt, and 
arsenic concentrated along the east end of the mineralized zone, 
as defined by the 2005 sonic drilling program. 

Historically, core recovery was a significant problem that 
plagued Gulf during its drilling definition programs in 1977, 
1978 and 1979. A single diamond drill hole in 2002, and a sonic 
drilling test of the deposit by UEX in 2004, combined with 
Cameco's review of the historical Gulf resource estimate 
suggested that the historical work did not accurately estimate 
the uranium content of the deposit. Sonic drilling was chosen by 
UEX as the preferred drilling method at West Bear due to its 
better core recovery in softer, highly-altered rock. In 2005, 
UEX's sonic holes were drilled on fences spaced 25 metres apart 
except over a single 50 metres strike interval where fences were 
spaced 12.5 metres apart. The spacing of holes along each drill 
fence was 5 metres. 

To view maps of West Bear please access UEX's website at 
http://www.uex-corporation.com under "Projects - Map Gallery". 

About UEX 

UEX is a Canadian uranium exploration company formed under an 
agreement between Pioneer Metals Corporation and Cameco 
Corporation. Cameco Corporation, the world's largest supplier of 
uranium, is UEX's largest shareholder. UEX began trading on the 
Toronto Stock Exchange in July 2002 and is actively involved in 
the exploration and development of 19 uranium projects, including 
seven that are 100% owned and operated by UEX, one joint ventured 
with COGEMA that is operated by UEX, ten under option from COGEMA 
and one under option from Japan-Canada Uranium Company, Limited, 
which are operated by COGEMA. The 19 projects, totaling 386,650 
hectares (955,400 acres), are located in the eastern, western and 
northern perimeters of the Athabasca Basin, the world's richest 
uranium belt, which accounts for approximately 30% of global 
primary uranium production. 

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF UEX CORPORATION

Stephen H. Sorensen, President & C.E.O. 

Forward looking statements: This news release contains certain 
forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are 
subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties beyond UEX's 
ability to control or predict, which could cause actual events or 
results to differ materially from those anticipated in such 
forward-looking statements. Although UEX believes that the 
assumptions inherent in the forward-looking statements are 
reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on these 
forward-looking statements. 

%SEDAR: 00017609E 

For further information: UEX Corporation, Box 12151 Nelson 
Square, Suite 1007 - 808 Nelson Street, Vancouver, B.C., Canada, 
V6Z 2H2, PH: (604) 669-2349, FAX: (604) 669-1240, Website: 
www.uex-corporation.com, e-mail: uex@intergate.ca 

UEX CORPORATION - More on this organization © 2005 CNW Group Ltd. 
PRIVACY &TERMS 
*****************************************************************
 75 TheBostonChannel.com: Town, Waste Plant Square Off Over Radioactivity 

Trash Company Blames Spike On Storm 

EST January 24, 					 					2006

HOLLISTON, Mass. -- Holliston residents are concerned that
radioactive material may have been stored at a sprawling trash
transfer station in town.

 NewsCenter 5's Jack Harper reported that the situation has led
to a tug-of-war between town officials and plant managers over
whether the 11-acre facility on Washington Street should remain
open.

The Board of Health ordered the transfer station to be shut down
this weekend after a materials transported from the site tested
positive for radioactivity.

"They have defied the town before on other things, and I am
afraid this is another case," said Holliston resident Andy Bell.

"Casella's interpretation of the order is that we're fully
compliant with it right now," Casella attorney Mike Healy said.

All day Tuesday, the trucks rolled into and out of Casella's
transfer station. The Board of Health moved after a positive
test for low-level radiation.

 "This weekend, a load of radioactive material got handled at
the facility. The good news was that it wasn't a high enough
level to cause immediate sickness. But it raised lots of
questions," Bell said.

Bell, along with other neighbors, have used their own cameras to
record the trucks coming and going from the facility.

The company said it moved quickly to comply with the board's
order.

"All the trucks are being manually tested right now. It's
Casella's interpretation of the order, it is called a notice of
violation, that once we delivered the plan, which we delivered
at about quarter after nine this morning, we are authorized to
take additional waste material into the facility," Healy said.

The trash company blamed the positive radioactive test on a
storm last week, saying a power surge knocked out detectors.

The residents said they believe the overall operation threatens
Holliston's water supply. They are enraged that the company
plans to expand their operations.

"The facility has caused a lot of these headaches while running
550 tons a day, now they want to be at 850 tons a day. We think
more garbage -- more problems," Bell said.

"It is like you give a permit to a guy to sell hot dogs; you
can’t tell him how many hot dogs to sell. You can’t regulate the
number of hot dogs," Healy said. 

Copyright 2006 by TheBostonChannel. All rights reserved. This
material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or
redistributed.
   
© 2006,                 Internet Broadcasting Systems, Inc. 
*****************************************************************
 76 AFP: Russia plans mine on the moon by 2020 -


MOSCOW (AFP) - Russia is planning to mine a rare fuel on the
moon by 2020 with a permanent base and a heavy-cargo transport
link, a Russian space official said.

"We are planning to build a permanent base on the moon by 2015
and by 2020 we can begin the industrial-scale delivery... of the
rare isotope Helium-3," Nikolai Sevastyanov, head of the Energia
space corporation, was quoted by ITAR-TASS news agency as saying
Wednesday at an academic conference.

The International Space Station (ISS) would play a key role in
the project and a regular transport relay to the moon would be
established with the help of the planned Clipper spaceship and
the Parom, a space capsule intended to tug heavy cargo
containers around space, Sevastyanov said.

Helium-3 is a non-radioactive isotope of helium that can be used
in nuclear fusion.

Rare on earth but plentiful on the moon, it is seen by some
experts as an ideal fuel because it is powerful, non-polluting
and generates almost no radioactive by-product. 

    Copyright © 2006 Yahoo! UK Limited. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 77 KLFY: Legislators travel to Netherlands to view uranium plant

  KLFY Creative   
  
January 26, 2006   

SANTA FE, N.M. Louisiana Energy Services plans to build a 
one-point-two (b) billion-dollar plant in southeastern New Mexico 
to make fuel for commercial nuclear power plants.The company 
spent nearly 20-thousand dollars to send two separate groups of 
legislators to the Netherlands to tour a similar enrichment 
facility.

Five lawmakers went to the Netherlands last June to inspect an 
enrichment plant operated by Urenco, a European company.

Urenco is part of Louisiana Energy Services, a consortium that 
proposes the Eunice facility.A Louisiana Energy Services 
spokesman says the trips were what he calls "fact-finding at its 
best.

"Marshall Cohen says the trips showed lawmakers a model of what 
would be built in New Mexico.

A decade ago, L-E-S wanted to build a uranium enrichment plant in 
Claiborne Parish. The plan was abandoned after opponents accused 
the group of environmental racism for picking a site populated by 
minorities.                                                  

Copyright 2006 Associated Press. All
  
 All content © Copyright 2000 - 2006 WorldNow and KLFY.
*****************************************************************
 78 UPI: Nuke waste panel wants delay on new plants
     
 United Press International - NewsTrack - 
																																																														-->
1/24/2006 9:00:00 PM -0500                              

LONDON, Jan. 24 (UPI) -- Some members of a committee named by
British Prime Minister Tony Blair to oversee nuclear waste say
the government is too slow to deal with the problem. 

Professor Gordon MacKerron, chairman of the Committee on
Radioactive Waste Management, told The Independent that
proposing new nuclear power stations before the committee's
final report is released could undermine the process of finding
a home for the waste. 

"People expect the waste issue to be resolved before any
decision is taken on building new reactors. That was what we had
been led to believe was the government's position," he said. 

Britain has about 2.3 million cubic meters of radioactive waste
from civil and military sources. More than 90 percent of the
waste is in temporary storage at 37 sites, and experts say that
24 of those sites could be vulnerable to rising sea levels or
suffer storm damage.

 © Copyright 2006 United Press
International, Inc. All Rights Reserved
*****************************************************************
 79 UPI: Radioactive leak taints water in Chicago
     
United Press International - NewsTrack - 

1/25/2006 1:30:00 PM -0500                              

CHICAGO, Jan. 25 (UPI) -- Radioactive tritium seeping into
groundwater near a Chicago-area nuclear power plant has prompted
the Exelon Corp. to offer compensation to property owners. 

The operator of the power plant in Will County, just south of
Chicago, has bought out one property owner and offered to
compensate 14 others for any loss in home value. 

Levels of the radioactive isotope near the Braidwood Nuclear
Generating Station so far have been well below the amount the
federal government considers unhealthy, the Chicago Tribune
reported Wednesday. But in one well on Exelon's property, the
amount of tritium was more than 11 times higher than the federal
limit for groundwater, according to the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission. 

The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency has cited Exelon,
the parent company of Commonwealth Edison, or ComEd, for two
violations of the state's groundwater standards, the Tribune
said. The company now faces a Feb. 3 deadline for filing a
report to the state detailing what they know about the tritium
contamination. 

Tritium is the radioactive form of hydrogen and is a byproduct
of nuclear energy production. Exposure can increase the risk of
cancer.

© Copyright 2006 United Press
International, Inc. All Rights Reserved
*****************************************************************
 80 American Chronicle: DAVIS, PORTER CALL FOR FULL COMPLIANCE WITH YUCCA 
MOUNTAIN PROJECT SUBPOENA

Thursday, January 26, 2006
 		 	 		 		 						 				
Congressional Desk              

The Congressional Desk provides information, news releases, and 
announcements obtained from communication and public relations 
offices. 

Review of draft license application "essential" to investigation 

WASHINGTON, D.C. - In a letter sent on behalf of Third District
Congressman Jon Porter, House Government Reform Committee
Chairman Tom Davis (R-VA) has called on the Department of Energy
(DOE) to fully comply with a subpoena issued by the Committee on
July 20, 2005. The letter is a direct response to Energy
Secretary Samuel Bodman's September 9, 2005 request to amend the
original subpoena, which was issued as a result of DOE's failure
to produce documents related to the ongoing investigation of the
Yucca Mountain Project. Bodman had requested that the
outstanding subpoena "be amended to exclude the draft license
application information...and to defer production of the
materials related to the ongoing uncompleted review of the
scientific work performed by" certain U.S. Geological Service
(USGS) scientists until that review is completed. 


"As the Subcommittee has uncovered more information pertaining
to the possible falsification of scientific data, it has been
made abundantly clear that Secretary Bodman's request to amend
the original subpoena would impede the Yucca Mountain Project
investigation," said Porter, who has been leading the
investigation as Chairman of the Federal Workforce and Agency
Organization Subcommittee. "As Chairman Davis noted in his
letter, a review of the draft license application by the
Subcommittee is 'essential to determine the impact on the draft
license application of the work contributed to the Project by
the USGS scientists, as well as others whose work is implicated
by the evidence of falsification already uncovered by the
Subcommittee.' In addition, based on a Nuclear Regulatory
Commission Order, any legal concerns DOE had about disclosing
the draft license application appear to be no longer valid." 

While DOE has provided materials responsive to a number of items
in the subpoena independent of the draft license application,
critical documents remain outstanding, including a list of
employees who worked on the water infiltration models from 1997
to the present. 

"DOE didn't even provide an excuse for withholding those
particular documents," Porter continued. "They simply chose to
ignore us, and ignore the safety of millions of Americans who
could be affected by quality assurance failures at Yucca
Mountain." 

Davis and Porter have asked that the Subcommittee receive
documents responsive to all requests in the original subpoena no
later than February 7, 2006. 

"The Department of Energy's failure to comply with this subpoena
has been an affront to all Americans. The message in this letter
is clear-no more special requests, no more delays, no more
hiding behind 'document sensitivity' concerns. This
investigation will move forward," Porter concluded. 

American Chronicle is a trademark of Ultio LLC.                 
*****************************************************************
 81 The State: Delay, cost hit SRS plant
 
 01/25/2
 
Cleanup facility will cost $180 million more, wont be ready
till 2011
 By SAMMY FRETWELL Staff Writer 

A new plant to clean up some of the worlds deadliest nuclear
waste at the Savannah River Site will take two years longer to
build and cost about $180 million more than projected. 

The plant, called the Salt Waste Processing Facility, is being
redesigned to reduce chances radioactive waste will leak,
according to the U.S. Department of Energy. 

Instead of being ready to process high-level nuclear waste in
2009, the plant wont be completed until fall 2011, in part
because of the redesign, federal regulators say. 

As a result, state regulators fear it could take more time to
clean out 49 tanks filled with highly radioactive waste. The
tanks are aging; some have leaked. 

We are very concerned, said David Wilson, an assistant
hazardous waste chief with the Department of Health and
Environmental Control. 

Energy Department spokeswoman Julie Petersen said the extra
costs and delays will mean a better-designed plant in the long
run. 

Federal officials initially said the Salt Waste Processing
Facility would cost about $440 million, but Peterson said
redesigning the plant will drive up costs by about $180 million. 

The salt waste plant is supposed to separate some of the most
radioactive materials in the tanks from the least radioactive
material. The most radioactive waste would be turned into glass
and shipped to Nevada for burial, according to plans. The other,
less dangerous waste would be buried in vaults at SRS. 

Petersen said the redesign includes making the plant 15 percent
larger, at 142,000 square feet; installing stronger pipes to
control waste; and increasing the size of the ventilation
system. 

It will take a little bit longer to enhance the design, but in
the end, it will be beneficial to all. 

Ed Lyman, a nuclear policy analyst in Washington, said its a
good idea to make the salt processing plant safer. But the
delays and cost increases dont surprise him. A mixed-oxide fuel
plant at SRS, which will process surplus plutonium for
conversion to nuclear fuel, is behind schedule and could cost
more than expected. 

Delay is the DOEs middle name, Lyman said. They barrel ahead
with plans, ignore any kind of criticism. Then all of a sudden,
management says What are you doing? Stop right now. And it
doesnt matter how much it costs. 

Petersen stressed the extra costs are estimates and are likely
to change; updated cost estimates are expected this fall.
Petersen said the Energy Department didnt decide to upgrade the
salt plant until November because it took time to evaluate
recommendations from the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board
in August 2004. The board evaluates safety on federal nuclear
weapons complexes and recommends improvements. 

She said the new design is expected to better contain
radioactivity in case an earthquake strikes the Savannah River
Site. Large earthquakes are rare in South Carolina, but tremors
sometimes occur because several faults run through the state.
The design also should better protect workers from radioactive
contamination. 

Delays and higher costs in processing high-level nuclear waste
are nothing new at SRS. The Energy Department spent $500 million
in the 1980s and 1990s trying to design a process to treat
nuclear waste from the 49 tanks. 

But the agency finally gave up on the design in 1998 after
deciding its process would be too dangerous to operate. Since
then, it has been working to find a different design to process
radioactive salts from the 49 high-level waste containers. 

Salt waste is watery, crystallized nuclear refuse that comprises
34 million of about 36 million gallons held at SRS. The
remainder is highly radioactive sludge the government turns into
glass. 

To separate the nuclear materials, however, the government needs
the Salt Waste Processing Facility. Until the plant is ready,
the Energy Department plans to use a process DHEC says is less
effective at separating the waste. That raises chances that
higher amounts of radioactivity will be stored in the salt waste
at SRS. The Energy Department announced plans Tuesday for the
interim processing. 

We dont want any more delays in construction of this
facility, DHECs Wilson said. Before we issue any permits, we
are going to make sure we are comfortable with the entire salt
waste processing strategy. It has turned out to be a
not-so-timely process. 

Reach Fretwell at (803) 771-8537 or sfretwell@thestate.com.
TheStateOnline
*****************************************************************
 82 DOE: Department of Energy Supercomputers to Analyze Hurricane 
Coastal Surges, Help Plan Rebuilding in Louisiana, Gulf Coast
 
  January 25, 2006
 
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The U.S. Department of Energys Office of
Science has allocated 400,000 processor hours of supercomputing
time at its National Energy Research Scientific Computing
(NERSC) Center to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers New Orleans
District to run a series of simulations of hurricane protection
projects within coastal Louisiana.   The Army Corps of Engineers
has been asked by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
to run a series of simulations estimating hurricane-induced
storm surge elevations as part of FEMAs Map Modernization
Program to update Flood Insurance Rate Maps in other areas.  The
data collected from the simulations will provide valuable flood
elevation data that will be used by FEMA to develop new flood
hazard information.  Additionally, FEMA has asked the Corps New
Orleans District to speed up development of new flood insurance
studies in areas where they are working on them.   Not only is
it critical that we help those communities which were devastated
by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, but it is just as important that
we provide whatever resources we can to help ensure that
rebuilding efforts are carried out with the goal of providing as
much protection as possible against the effects of future
storms, said Director of DOEs Office of Science, Dr. Raymond
L. Orbach.  Utilizing the computing resources at NERSC for this
project is an ideal match.  The center has consistently been
held up as a model for other computing centers and has a
well-earned reputation for providing highly reliable systems,
fast turnaround on critical projects and dedicated support for
users.  We are glad we can be of service to this important
project.   The goal is to complete the calculations by the end
of February.  To help ensure this deadline is met, NERSC will
provide dedicated technical staff expertise to the project. 
NERSC, which has been the DOE Office of Sciences flagship
center for unclassified supercomputing for more than 30 years,
will make its three supercomputing systems available for the
project.    Because of coastal inundation induced by Hurricanes
Katrina and Rita, the New Orleans District has begun to rebuild
and enhance the existing flood control system, as well as design
a new system. This design will offer a higher level of
protection to the city of New Orleans and coastal Louisiana
while at the same time encompassing the states coastal
ecosystem. A critical piece of information needed for such a
design is the resulting total water level (surge, tide, wave
setup, and wave runup) induced by a hurricane.   However,
accurately modeling such large-scale problems, which include
many complex factors, is a very demanding computing project and
is ideally suited to a large supercomputing center.  Running the
400,000 hours of simulations on a single-processor PC would take
about 46 years.  Running the code on a small supercomputer, with
128 processors, would take about 130 days. But by tapping
NERSCs supercomputers, which include a 6,080-processor IBM
supercomputer, an 888-processor IBM cluster computer and a
640-processor Linux Network cluster, the simulations are
expected to be completed within the one-month deadline.   Given
that the levee system must extend across the entire State of
Louisiana, a very large number of simulations must be conducted
in order to determine how to best design a level high enough to
provide the targeted protection level.  To obtain this
information, the Corps of Engineers New Orleans District is
performing three important hurricane protection projects within
coastal Louisiana.   The first project is the FEMA Coastal Storm
Surge Study.  FEMA has asked the District to accelerate the
computer modeling of these storm surge analyses across the Gulf
coast as the results will be critical to the rebuilding of New
Orleans.  The studies are performed using a high grid resolution
physics-based modeling software system called the Advanced
CIRCulation (ADCIRC) model, which was developed for the Corps
of Engineers by Dr. Joannes Westerink at the University of Notre
Dame, Department of Civil Engineering and Geologic Sciences and
by Dr. Rick Luettich at the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill, Institute of Marine Sciences.   The second and
third projects are the Donaldsonville and Morganza to the Gulf
of Mexico Projects.  The Morganza project alone is an
approximately $740 million project for building a 72-mile levee
protection system spanning the area between the cities of Larose
and Houma.  The Donaldsonville project is studying levee
alternatives to protect against surging water caused by tropical
storms and will provide protection starting at the New Orleans
West Bank Levees to Larose.   The Donaldsonville and Morganza
projects will form critical storm surge protection from the New
Orleans area west towards the Atchafalaya Basin River Levee
system.  Additionally, the ADCIRC work on these projects is
laying the foundation for large-scale Gulf wide coast storm
surge computations.   The ADCIRC mesh for Louisiana is over
600,000 grid points and contains more than 1.1 million elements,
and typically runs simultaneously on 128 or more processors.
Corps of Engineers computer experts predict the combined
computing projects will require more than 350,000 hours of
computer processing time.    Together with the Corps Engineer
Research and Development Center, the District will use the
ADCIRC model for estimating hurricane-induced storm surge
elevations for existing and design conditions.  They will also
use the STWAVE application, which predicts wave conditions in
coastal areas, for predicting wave setup and wave runup
elevations.   About NERSC   The NERSC Center currently serves
more than 2,000 scientists at national laboratories and
universities across the country researching problems in
combustion, climate modeling, fusion energy, materials science,
physics, chemistry and computational biology. Established in
1974, the NERSC Center has long been a leader in providing
systems, services and expertise to advance computational science
throughout the DOE research community. NERSC is managed by
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory for DOE.  For more
information about the NERSC Center, go to http://www.nersc.gov/.
  About the Corps of Engineers   The mission of the U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers is to provide quality, responsive engineering
and environmental services to the nation.  The Corps plans,
designs, builds and operates water resources and other civil
works projects; designs and manages the construction of military
facilities for the Army and Air Force; and provides design and
construction management support for other defense and federal
agencies.  For more information, go to
http://www.usace.army.mil/. 

Media contact(s):
 Jon Bashor (NERSC), 510/486-5849
Jeff Sherwood (DOE), 202/586-5806     [ ]   

  U.S. Department of Energy | 1000 Independence Ave., SW |
Washington, DC 20585
 1-800-dial-DOE | f/202-586-4403 | 
*****************************************************************
 83 DOE: Department of Energy Conducts Energy Saving Assessment at 
Terra Nitrogen Plant near Tulsa, OK
 
  January 25, 2006
 
Department of Energy Conducts Energy Saving Assessment at Terra
Nitrogen Plant near Tulsa, OK 

WASHINGTON, DC  The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced
today that a three-day Industrial Energy Saving Assessment will
take place at the Terra Nitrogen Company, LP plant near Tulsa,
Oklahoma, as part of the comprehensive national energy
efficiency effort undertaken by the Bush Administration. 
Through no-cost assessments, DOE is working with major
manufacturing facilities to identify opportunities to save
energy and money, primarily by focusing on steam and process
heating systems.   President Bush has called on all Americans
to be more energy efficient.  Private industry is joining the
federal government in taking a lead role in this effort,
Secretary of Energy Samuel W. Bodman said.  DOEs Energy Saving
Teams will play a key role in assessing and recommending energy
efficiency strategies for some of the largest industrial
facilities across the nation.   Terra Nitrogen Company, L.P.
(TNCLP) is a major U.S. producer of nitrogen fertilizer
products.  TNCLPs manufacturing facility is located just
northeast of Tulsa in Verdigris, OK.  The plant has the capacity
to produce 2.2 million tons annually of TerraSol®, TNCLPs brand
of urea ammonium nitrate solutions, and 1.1 million tons of
anhydrous ammonia, the basic ingredient for most nitrogen
fertilizers and many industrial products. Terra Nitrogen is
traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol
TNH.   DOEs Energy Saving Teams have completed visits to 28
large federal facilities and are in the process of visiting 200
of the most energy-intensive manufacturing facilities in the
United States as part of the national Easy Ways to Save Energy
campaign launched by Secretary Bodman on October 3, 2005.    The
first six Energy Saving Assessments that DOE has conducted of
private-sector facilities have identified, in aggregate, $10
million per year in energy cost savings, that  on average, will
reduce total plant natural gas consumption by 6.7 percent.  
Companies interested in accessing DOE energy saving resources
can get more details at
www.eere.energy.gov/industry/saveenergynow/and request brochures
detailing 15 Tips to Help Your Plant Save Energy.    For tips
on easy, inexpensive steps consumers can take to lower their
energy bills this winter, please visit
http://www.energysavers.gov/ or call DOEs Energy Efficiency and
Renewable Energy Hotline at 1-877-337-3463. 

Media contact(s):
 Michael Waldron, 202/586-4940     [ ]   

  U.S. Department of Energy | 1000 Independence Ave., SW |
Washington, DC 20585
 1-800-dial-DOE | f/202-586-4403 | 
*****************************************************************
 84 Hanford News: Energy committee head with Hanford ties named
 
This story was published Tuesday, January 24th, 2006 

By the Herald staff 

Sen. Pete Domenici, chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural
Resources Committee, has appointed a staff director for the
committee who has Washington state ties and knowledge of the
Hanford Nuclear Reservation. 

Bruce M. Evans, the son of former Gov. Dan Evans, will be the
new staff director. From 1991 to 1994 he served as a legislative
assistant for Sen. Slade Gorton, R-Wash., assigned to Hanford,
energy, water resources and agriculture issues. 

Two months ago, Domenici said state and federal officials need
to renegotiate and rewrite the Tri-Party Agreement that sets
legal deadlines for completion of cleanup work at Hanford.
Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire replied that it was
"unconscionable" for the federal government to try to get out of
the agreement or delay compliance. 

© 2006 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 85 Hanford News: PNNL scanner checking for explosives in London
 
This story was published Tuesday, January 24th, 2006 

By John Trumbo, Herald staff writer 

A high-resolution 3-D scanning system developed at Pacific
Northwest National Laboratory in Richland is checking
passengers' comings and goings on London's Heathrow Express. 

The holographic imaging system, licensed to SafeView Inc. of
Santa Clara, Calif., is being tested as a security system to
check for conventional and nonconventional weapons, explosives
and contraband carried by train passengers. 

Randomly selected passengers coming to and from Heathrow Airport
will be subjected to the low-power millimeter waves, which can
detect metal, ceramic, plastic and other materials. 

It will be in the trial phase for four weeks, SafeView CEO Rick
Rowe said in a prepared statement issued Monday. 

The detection system, called the Scout Personnel Screening
System, was tested in United Kingdom laboratories for several
months to confirm that it is safe and effective. 

The millimeter wave scanning system first made headlines more
than a year ago when it was licensed to Pennsylvania-based
Intellifit as a way to make 3-D body measurements for custom-fit
clothing. 

The Richland lab developed the imaging system more than a decade
ago for security uses similar to what SafeView is doing. The
original idea was to develop a technology for remote scanning at
airport terminals for security purposes. The Federal Aviation
Administration provided some of the research money. 

Millimeter waves harmlessly penetrate clothing and reflect off
the body, sending signals back to a transceiver. The transceiver
then sends the signals to a high-speed computer that creates a
final 3-D holographic image. 

Rowe said authorities like the SafeView scanning system because
it is fast and safe, uses no ionizing radiation (X-rays) and
easily detects threats of interest. 

The system is used at airports, military checkpoints, border
crossings, courthouses and government buildings, said Rowe, who
added that this is the first time the Scout system has been
installed in a rail station.

© 2006 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved.
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 86 Hanford News: State supports nuclear ban in court
 
This story was published Tuesday, January 24th, 2006 

By Annette Cary, Herald staff writer 

The Hanford waste initiative voters passed in 2004 could
increase the federal government's costs, but that doesn't mean
it violates the U.S. Constitution, according to arguments the
state of Washington has filed in federal court. 

The U.S. Justice Department has asked the court to strike down
the law based on the initiative, called the Cleanup Priority Act
or CPA, claiming it would give the state unconstitutional
authority over the federal government. 

"In the end, many of the plaintiffs' arguments boil down to the
complaint that the CPA may make it more expensive to clean up
Hanford and other sites," the state wrote in arguments opposing
the federal government's request for summary judgment. "However,
the plaintiffs have cited no authority for the idea that
increased expense is enough to cause a state law to be
pre-empted for 'frustrating' a national plan." 

Washington voters overwhelmingly passed the initiative, aiming
to prevent the Department of Energy from sending more waste to
the Hanford nuclear reservation until waste already there is
cleaned up. The site is contaminated with radioactive and
hazardous chemical waste from production of plutonium for the
nation's nuclear weapons. 

The state called DOE's record at Hanford "troubling," saying
that in the past decade DOE and its contractors have received
more than 70 written notices of violations of state and federal
hazardous waste laws. 

As a result, DOE and Hanford are registered in the Environmental
Protection Agency's database as a "significant non-complier," a
designation reserved for "exceptionally poor performance and/or
recalcitrant or repeat violators," according to state documents
filed in U.S. District Court in Yakima. 

The new law would not increase state authority over DOE, only
require that it regulate radioactive wastes mixed with hazardous
chemicals to the fullest extent of its authority, the state
contends. 

The Justice Department also has argued that the law would
violate the Constitution's Commerce Clause, which prohibits
states from imposing restrictions on commerce that serve to
isolate individual states from national problems, such as
radioactive waste disposal. 

But the law does not prevent waste from entering the state, just
temporarily bars it, the state argued. 

"If Washington continues to be a desirable location for mixed
waste disposal, the United States or a private entity could
construct a compliant mixed waste facility in Washington,"
according to the state filing. "Hanford is not a compliant
facility." 

The state and federal government also disagree on whether it is
constitutional for the state to collect a surcharge on the
Hanford budget, as the initiative provides. The Constitution
prevents a state from taxing the federal government, but the
state argues the surcharge is a legal and a reasonable fee to
defray costs. 

For the Justice Department to be awarded summary judgment, it
must show there is no potential constitutional application of
the new law, the state said. 

Summary judgment arguments are scheduled May 23 in Yakima.

© 2006 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 87 PE.com: Inspector general faults controls over Lawrence Livermore badges

Inland Southern California | State news
 
The Associated Press 

WASHINGTON 

There are inadequate controls over security badges at Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory, according to a report Wednesday
by the Energy Department's inspector general. 

The report said that of 1,261 employees with security badges who
left the University of California-run research and nuclear
weapons lab from 2002-2004, 373 did not turn in their badges
before leaving as required. Eleven badges were categorized as
"accounted for" when they actually were lost or stolen. 

Inspectors also sampled 140 employees who left the lab and found
that three dozen retained their Livermore security access
authorizations for 10 to 60 days after their departure date, and
others did not follow proper procedures for security termination
briefings or processing. 

Inspectors found no example of an employee taking advantage of
the security problems. 

"Nonetheless, any failure to properly control security badges
and clearance terminations for departing Livermore employees has
the potential to degrade the department's security posture,"
said the report, which recommended better internal controls at
the lab including improvements to how badges are retrieved and
the Energy Department is notified about security access
termination. 

In a letter replying to the report, Michael Kane, an associate
administrator at the Energy Department's National Nuclear
Security Administration, said lab managers would try to
implement the recommendations. 

"We are also aware that this inspection, and the subsequent
results, are similar to results identified previously by the IG
at Los Alamos National Laboratory," Kane wrote. "It is important
to emphasize that the report does not cite any instances of
inappropriate access to the laboratory or of any compromise of
classified materials." 

Following a string of accounting, security and safety lapses at
the Los Alamos and Livermore labs, the Energy Department decided
in 2003 to seek new bids for UC's contracts to run those labs
and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. 

Earlier this month the Energy Department opened the competition
to manage the $1.9 billion Lawrence Livermore lab 50 miles east
of San Francisco. UC has not officially decided whether it will
compete. 

The university recently teamed up with engineering giant Bechtel
Corp. to win the new contract to run Los Alamos, in New Mexico,
and last April it successfully held on to its contract to run
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. 

A Lawrence Livermore spokesman, David Schwoegler, said in a
statement that the lab acknowledges shortfalls in procedures but
classified information was not at risk because of "an 'onion
skin' model of security, with concentric layers protecting our
most important assets." Badges are one of the outer layers, he
said, and are turned off when employees leave. 

On the Net: 

UC: http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu

Lawrence Livermore: http://www.llnl.gov/

Los Alamos: http://www.lanl.gov/

Lawrence Berkeley: http://www.lbl.gov

Published: Wednesday, January 25, 2006 15:01 PST This text is

2006, The Press-Enterprise Company                 
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 88 DOE: Office of Arms Control and Nonproliferation; Proposed Subsequent 
 
                         FR Doc E6-913 
[Federal Register: January 25, 2006 (Volume 71, Number 16)] 
[Notices] [Page 4122] From the Federal Register Online via GPO 
Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr25ja06-52]                         
 
Arrangement AGENCY: Department of Energy.
 
ACTION: Subsequent arrangement.
 
SUMMARY: This notice is being issued under the authority of 
Section 131 of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended (42 
U.S.C. 2160). The Department is providing notice of a proposed 
``subsequent arrangement'' under the Agreement for Cooperation in 
the Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy between the United States and 
the European Atomic Energy Community (EURATOM) and the Agreement 
for Cooperation Concerning Civil Uses of Atomic Energy between 
the United States and Norway.
 
This subsequent arrangement concerns the retransfer of five 
irradiated fuel rods containing a total of 7,448 grams of 
U.S.-origin uranium, 76 grams of which is U-235, and 85 grams of 
U.S.-origin plutonium, from the Euratom Supply Agency to the 
Government of Norway for neutron radiography examination. The 
specified material is currently located at Studsvik Nuclear AB, 
Nykoping, Sweden and will, upon approval, be transferred to the 
Institut for Energiteknikk (IFE), Halden, Norway. IFE Halden is a 
research institute within the fields of nuclear technology, 
man-machine communication, and energy technology. After neutron 
radiography examination in Norway, IFE Halden will return the 
material to Studsvik Nuclear for final disposal. Studsvik 
originally obtained the material from Exelon Generation Company 
under the U.S. export license XSNM03408. In accordance with 
Section 131 of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended, we have 
determined that this subsequent arrangement will not be inimical 
to the common defense and security.
 
This subsequent arrangement will take effect no sooner than 
fifteen days after the date of publication of this notice.
 
For the Department of Energy.
 
Richard S. Goorevich, Director, Office of International Regimes 
and Agreements.
 
[FR Doc. E6-913 Filed 1-24-06; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 6450-01-P

 
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 89 DOE: Office of Science; Basic Energy Sciences Advisory Committee
 
                         FR Doc E6-934 
[Federal Register: January 25, 2006 (Volume 71, Number 16)] 
[Notices] [Page 4122] From the Federal Register Online via GPO 
Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr25ja06-53]                         
 
AGENCY: Department of Energy.
 
ACTION: Notice of open meeting.
 
SUMMARY: This notice announces a meeting of the Basic Energy 
Sciences Advisory Committee (BESAC). Federal Advisory Committee 
Act (Pub. L. 92- 463, 86 Stat. 770) requires that public notice 
of these meetings be announced in the Federal Register.
 
 
DATES: Thursday, February 16, 2006, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday, 
February 17, 2006, 8:30 a.m. to 12 p.m.
 
ADDRESSES: Bethesda North Marriott Hotel and Conference Center, 
5701 Marinelli Road, North Bethesda, MD 20852.
 
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Karen Talamini; Office of Basic 
Energy Sciences; U.S. Department of Energy; Germantown Building, 
Independence Avenue, Washington, DC 20585; Telephone: (301) 
903-4563.
 
 
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Purpose of the Meeting: The purpose of 
this meeting is to provide advice and guidance on the basic 
energy sciences research program.
 
Tentative Agenda: Agenda will include discussions of the 
following: Tribute to Rick Smalley News from the Office of 
Science News from the Office of Basic Energy Sciences Report of 
Activities from the DOE Laboratory Working Group Planned BES 
``Basic Research Needs'' Workshops and Grand Challenges Workshop 
Public Participation: The meeting is open to the public. If you 
would like to file a written statement with the Committee, you 
may do so either before or after the meeting. If you would like 
to make oral statements regarding any of the items on the agenda, 
you should contact Karen Talamini at 301-903-6594 (fax) or 
karen.talamini@science.doe.gov (e-mail). You must make your 
request for an oral statement at least 5 business days prior to 
the meeting. Reasonable provision will be made to include the 
scheduled oral statements on the agenda. The Chairperson of the 
Committee will conduct the meeting to facilitate the orderly 
conduct of business. Public comment will follow the 10-minute 
rule.
 
Minutes: The minutes of this meeting will be available for public 
review and copying within 30 days at the Freedom of Information 
Public Reading Room; 1E-190, Forrestal Building; 1000 
Independence Avenue, SW.; Washington, DC 20585; between 9 a.m. 
and 4 p.m., Monday through Friday, except holidays.
 
Issued in Washington, D.C. on January 19, 2006. Rachel M. Samuel, 
Deputy Advisory Committee, Management Officer.
 
[FR Doc. E6-934 Filed 1-24-06; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 6450-01-P

 
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 90 DOE: Environmental Management Site-Specific Advisory Board, Nevada
 
                         FR Doc E6-935 
[Federal Register: January 25, 2006 (Volume 71, Number 16)] 
[Notices] [Page 4123] From the Federal Register Online via GPO 
Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr25ja06-54] [[Page 4123]]
 
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), Nevada Test 
Site. The Federal Advisory Committee Act (Pub. L. No. 92-463, 86 
Stat. 770) requires that public notice of this meeting be 
announced in the Federal Register.
 
 
DATES: Wednesday, February 8, 2006, from 7 p.m.-9 p.m.
 
ADDRESSES: Bob Ruud Community Center, 150 North Highway 160, 
Pahrump, Nevada.
 
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Kay Planamento, Navarro Research 
and Engineering, Inc., 2721 Losee Road, Suite D, North Las Vegas, 
Nevada 89030, phone: 702-657-9088, fax: 702-649-3384, e-mail: 
NTSCAB@aol.com.
 
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: Update on radioactive waste management 
accomplishments at the Nevada Test Site 2006 Work Plans 
Recruitment campaign activities Note: From 6:30 p.m.-7 p.m., the 
Chairperson of the Citizens' Advisory Board (CAB) will provide a 
briefing entitled ``CAB Roadshow,'' designed to familiarize 
stakeholders with the overall scope and mission of the Board.
 
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 
presentations pertaining to agenda items should contact Kelly 
Snyder at the telephone number listed above. The request must be 
received five days prior to the meeting and reasonable provision 
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 U.S. Department of Energy's Freedom of 
Information Public Reading Room, 1E-190, Forrestal Building, 1000 
Independence Avenue, SW., Washington, DC 20585 between 9 a.m. and 
4 p.m., Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays. Minutes 
will also be available by writing to Kay Planamento at the 
address listed above.
 
Issued at Washington, DC on January 20, 2006.
 
Rachel Samuel, Deputy Advisory Committee Management Officer.
 
[FR Doc. E6-935 Filed 1-24-06; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 6450-01-P

 
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 91 KLASTV.com: Homeland Security Builds $33 Million Lab at Nevada Test Site

  David Suarez, Photojournalist

Radiation Test Lab at Nevada Test Site

Eyewitness News has an inside look at top secret research being
conducted at the Nevada Test Site. Homeland Security researchers
have been working there conducting tests involving nuclear
material. 
   
  Brian Allen, Reporter

Homeland Security Domestic Nuclear Detection office is using the
Nevada Test Site as its base of operations. It is constructing a
$33 million laboratory there to test radiation detection
systems. 

A temporary laboratory has been set up and testing is underway
on everything from large scanners to smaller hand-held devices. 

Homeland security officials announced Wednesday that 549
hand-held radiation detectors being used by U.S. Immigration and
U.S. Customs are only accurate 50-percent of the time. Homeland
security says while this is troubling it's not surprising. Many
radiation scanners have flaws which is why a scanner research
laboratory is being built there. 

While Eyewitness News was allowed to tour the temporary facility
on Wednesday, we cannot show much of it to you. Our cameras were
banned from most areas because of security concerns. 

This research has been underway for more than six months.
Federal officials say the Nevada Test Site was the only true
choice to house this operation. 

Email reporter Brian Allen at ballen@klastv.com   

      All content © Copyright 2000 - 2006 WorldNow and KLAS. All
Rights Reserved.
    
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NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 this 
material is distributed without profit or payment to those who 
have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for 
non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more 
information go to: 
<http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml> 
    
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