***************************************************************** 02/05/06 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 14.30 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** Send News Stories to news@energy-net.org with title on subject line and first line of body NUCLEAR POLICY 1 [NYTr] Iran Resolution Goes to Security Council 2 UN Atomic Energy Chief Asked To Report To Security UN On Iran 3 Iran and IAEA 4 Guardian Unlimited: A Look at What's Next for U.N., Iran 5 Guardian Unlimited: Iran's Nuclear History, New Developments 6 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Ends Voluntary Cooperation on Nukes 7 Guardian Unlimited: Security Council Members Differ Over Iran 8 Guardian Unlimited: IAEA to Report Iran to Security Council 9 Guardian Unlimited: U.S. Mum on Punishment It Seeks for Iran 10 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Defiant After Being Reported by IAEA 11 Guardian Unlimited: Excerpts From Resolution on Iran 12 Guardian Unlimited: U.S. Official: Iran Seems Intent on Nukes 13 Guardian Unlimited: Rumsfeld: Iran Regime Sponsors Terrorism 14 IRN: IAEA approves EU troika draft resolution on Iran - 15 Guardian Unlimited: Iran: Moscow Enrichment Proposal Dead 16 Guardian Unlimited: IAEA Reports Iran to U.N. Security Council 17 The Observer: Iran faces UN nuclear crisis 18 Guardian Unlimited: The gullibility that led us into the last war co 19 IRNA: NAM calls for inclusion of `non-nuclear ME' clause to EU draft 20 BBC: Iran reported to Security Council 21 IRNA: IAEA Board of Governors will lose legal foundation if it refer 22 AFP: Ahmadinejad laughs off 'funny' IAEA resolution, condemns `idiot 23 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Ends Voluntary Cooperation With IAEA 24 Guardian Unlimited: Bush: IAEA Vote Is Clear Message to Iran 25 AFP: US senator McCain calls for leaders to boycott G8 summit in Rus 26 AFP: Defiant Iran retaliates against nuclear referral 27 AFPP: Defiant Iran retaliates against tough nuclear resolution - 28 AFP: Iran to start full-scale uranium enrichment after IAEA vote - 29 AFP: Canada welcomes IAEA move to report Iran to Security Council - 30 AFP: Rice to Iran: 'Heed this clear message' 31 AFP: World won't permit Iran to have nukes: Bush - 32 Guardian Unlimited: Iran to Reevaluate Russian Enrichment Plan 33 AFP: Iran nuclear issue to be reported to UN Security Council - 34 AFP: Russia presses for Iran nuclear diplomacy - 35 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Willing to Negotiate on Nuke Program 36 AFP: Russia presses for Iran nuclear diplomacy - 37 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Vows Enrichment After U.N. Referral 38 Congress Seeks Bush Intel Report on N. Korea 39 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: Japan Has High Expectations for 3-Track T 40 SF Chronicle: Tough talk, few answers on North Korea 41 AFP: Japan, N.Korea resume bilateral talks - 42 DLC PR: DEMOCRATS URGE PRESIDENT TO RELEASE INFORMATION ON NORTH KOR 43 Rediff: Now, an India-France nuke deal 44 Xinhua: India, France to sign nuclear energy, defense pacts 45 Newsweek: Russian Nukes Redux - NUCLEAR REACTORS 46 US: Oppose Controversial New Nuclear Program 47 The Observer: Finland goes back to the future 48 US: The State: Agency plans meeting on S.C. n 49 US: Charlotte Observer: Nuclear plant wall topic of federal talks 50 The Hindu: `Integrated energy policy to be finalised soon' 51 Brampton Guardian: New energy for Brampton 52 US: JS Online: Point Beach could be sold 53 US: newsobserver.com: Triangle's energy future: the power to decide 54 BBC: Nuclear industry looks to Finland 55 US: Morning Call: Nuclear power rising 56 US: SF Chronicle: The case for nuclear power 57 Manitowoc Herald Times Reporter: Legislators seek to end nuclear 'mo 58 US: Burlington Free Press: My Turn: Is Vermont Yankee's review proce 59 US: Daytona Beach News-Journal: Solar is cleaner form of energy than 60 US: csmonitor.com: America warms up to nuclear power | 61 Mos News: George W. Bush Wants Nuclear Partnership With Russia NUCLEAR SECURITY 62 [Sunday Herald]: UKs secret nuclear sites exposed online - NUCLEAR SAFETY 63 US: LA Daily News: Fallout could include depressed home values 64 US: Paducah Sun: Plant retirees lobby for pension boost - 65 Pacific Magazine: FRENCH POLYNESIA: French Nuclear Safety Offical Ar 66 US: IEER | Missing Plutonium - Index NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 67 BBC: BNFL sells nuclear clean up unit 68 US: Las Vegas SUN: Nuke waste transport report due this week transpo 69 SA: The Citizen: Row rages over radioactive waste 70 US: SF Chronicle: The poisonous legacy of the chemical arms race 71 US: LA Daily News: What now? Life in toxic 'hot spot' 72 US: Salt Lake Tribune: CEO has grand plans for new waste giant 73 US: News & Observer: Response to Warren letter regarding waste dispo 74 US: Canon City Daily Record: Cotter projects six weeks left before l PEACE 75 EGYPT PUSHES FOR MIDDLEAST NUKE-FREE ZONE US DEPT. OF ENERGY 76 Hanford News: DOE to put new safety regulations in place for Hanford 77 Hanford News: Report blames faulty early estimate for rising costs 78 Hanford News: Report finds vit plant got off on wrong foot from star 79 Idaho Statesman: Idaho National Laboratory plans to dismantle old re 80 Tri-Valley Herald: Times good for bomb designers ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 [NYTr] Iran Resolution Goes to Security Council Date: Sat, 4 Feb 2006 14:20:26 -0600 (CST) Prensa Latina, Havana Cuba http://www.plenglish.com IAEA: Iran Resolution to UN Security Council Vote Is 27 to 3; 5 Abstain Vienna, Feb 4 (Prensa Latina) After three days of debates, the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Saturday finally approved a draft resolution adopted by the European Union troika (Germany, France and Britain) on taking the Iran nuclear case to the UN Security Council. The IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said the draft resolution was passed with 27 votes in favor and three against while five members abstained. Cuba, Venezuela and Syria voted against the draft resolution, while Algeria, Belarus, Indonesia, Libya and South Africa abstained. Though the decisions of the 35-member countries organization are generally approved by consensus, the lack of agreements in the last few days due to the opposition of the developing countries, as well as China and Russia, to sanction Iran, led to a divided verdict. Representatives of the Non-Aligned Movement, chiefly Egypt and other Arab countries, demanded to declare the Levant a nuclear weapon free zone, in a clear reference to Israel, which is suspect of having 200 missiles with nuclear warhead. Tel Aviv never signed the Non-Nuclear Proliferation Treaty, though it denies having nuclear weapons [MARTY!?], and is pressuring the White House to invade Iran under any pretext. The US, along with Germany, Great Britain and France, presented the draft resolution to take the Iranian case to the UN Security Council, and was opposed to the initiative against its main ally in the Middle East, considering the topic out of discussion. Washington and the European troika accuse Tehran of trying to create conditions for developing nuclear weapons. Speaking at a press conference on Friday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that Iran4s stands on its peaceful nuclear activities are quite clear and within the framework of international rules and regulations. Reacting to positions adopted by Western countries on Iran"s nuclear program, Ahmadinejad said a few countries armed with various types of weapons are trying to impose a kind of scientific apartheid and nuclear monopoly on the world. Ahmadinejad stressed that in today"s world no nation should yield to such arrogant demands, adding that the US and the European troika dictate their policies to those institutes from a domineering position. But they had better wake up from that long sleep, because otherwise the severe blow of the world nations on their faces will wake them up," he said. Stressing that Iran has no need to have access to nuclear weapons, the Iranian leader said that those countries ignore the existence of nuclear arsenals in countries near them and at the same time create problems for peaceful nuclear technology in others. mh/ajs/to/mf ***************************************************************** 2 UN Atomic Energy Chief Asked To Report To Security UN On Iran Date: Sat, 4 Feb 2006 16:00:16 -0500 New York, Feb 4 2006 4:00PM The Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) today passed a resolution in Vienna requesting the Agency's Director General to report to the United Nations Security Council on Iran. The action followed three days of debate on the issue sparked when France, Germany and the United Kingdom -- the so-called "EU-3" -- requested a special meeting of the Board after Tehran broke IAEA seals on equipment used to produce enriched uranium. By asking IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei to report to the Council all IAEA reports and resolutions relating to the implementation of safeguards in Iran, the Board moved the issue for the first time to the Security Council. Last September, the Board of Governors found that Iran's breaches of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) were within the competence of the Security Council, which can impose sanctions, but did not refer the matter to the 15-member body. Prior to the adoption of the resolution, Mr. ElBaradei said, "The draft resolution which is now before the Board (sponsored by Britain, France, Germany) says that we should report on that issue. But the sponsors made it clear that the Security Council is not expected to take any action at least before March." He said the period from now until then represents "a window of opportunity" for diplomacy. 2006-02-04 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 ***************************************************************** 3 Iran and IAEA Date: Sun, 5 Feb 2006 13:32:56 -0600 (CST) Institute for Public Accuracy 915 National Press Building, Washington, D.C. 20045 (202) 347-0020 * http://www.accuracy.org * ipa@accuracy.org ___________________________________________________ Friday, February 3, 2006 Iran and IAEA The International Atomic Energy Agency is scheduled to continue to meet this weekend on the case of Iran. The following are available for interviews: WILLIAM PEDEN, via Michael Kessler, michael.kessler@int.greenpeace.org, http://www.greenpeace.org Currently in Vienna at the IAEA meeting, Peden is a Greenpeace International nuclear analyst. The group has recently released a statement titled "Nukes, Iran, the UN: A Grave Mistake." MORDECHAI VANUNU, vmjc1954@gmail.com, http://www.accuracy.org/newsrelease.php?articleId=222, http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3171629,00.html Vanunu revealed Israel's nuclear weapons arsenal in 1986, at which time he was jailed by the Israeli government. In April 2004, he was released from prison but continues to be under severe travel limits and other restrictions. He notes that while Iran is being accused of wanting to secretly develop nuclear weapons, "that is what Israel did 40 years ago." Israel, India and Pakistan have refused to sign the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which Iran has signed. While the U.S. government has made many accusations about Iran and Iraq, it refuses to publicly acknowledge the existence of Israel's nuclear weapons arsenal, estimated at between 60 and several hundred warheads. Vanunu, who is in Jerusalem, has been frequently nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. His next court date is scheduled for Feb. 9. SIMIN ROYANIAN, ciwhr@yahoo.com Co-founder of Women for Peace and Justice in Iran, Royanian visited Iran in October. JACQUELINE CABASSO, wslf@earthlink.net, http://www.wslfweb.org JOHN BURROUGHS, johnburroughs@lcnp.org, http://www.lcnp.org Cabasso is executive director of the California-based Western States Legal Foundation, which specializes in nuclear policy. A recent report from the group is titled "War Is Peace, Arms Racing Is Disarmament: The Non-Proliferation Treaty and the U.S. Quest for Global Military Dominance." Burroughs is executive director of the New York-based Lawyers' Committee on Nuclear Policy. He wrote the recent piece "Hans Blix on Iran." They are among the contributors to the new blog: . For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy: Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020, (202) 421-6858; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167 _________________________________________________________________ You received this message as a subscriber on the list: public@lists.accuracy.org To be removed from the list, send any message to: public-unsubscribe@lists.accuracy.org For all list information and functions, including changing your subscription mode and options, visit the Web page: http://lists.accuracy.org/lists/info/public ***************************************************************** 4 Guardian Unlimited: A Look at What's Next for U.N., Iran [UP] Saturday February 4, 2006 9:01 PM By The Associated Press The International Atomic Energy Agency's 35-nation board of governors called Saturday for Iran to be reported to the U.N. Security Council over concerns it is seeking nuclear weapons. Here are upcoming events at the U.N. and in Russia on the issue: AT THE UNITED NATIONS: - The IAEA board formally relayed the final resolution to the president of the Security Council, U.S. Ambassador John Bolton, who now must share the resolution with the other members. - The council has intentionally set no date for when it will discuss the IAEA resolution because ambassadors say they want to study the document. Because of the delicacy of the issue, consultations likely will take place in private. - The first action by the Security Council likely will occur in March, when the IAEA board of governors meets to review the status of its probe into Iran's nuclear program and recommend further action. If the board finds Iran has not complied with IAEA protocols, Security Council diplomats will meet to discuss how to address the issue and whether to hold a formal Security Council meeting on Iran. IN MOSCOW: Iranian officials were expected in Moscow on Feb. 16 for talks on Moscow's proposal to enrich uranium for Iran's nuclear program on Russia soil. The offer, backed by the United States and the European Union, is intended to make it more difficult for Tehran to develop weapons. However, following the IAEA vote in Vienna, Austria, Tehran announced it was no longer considering the Russian proposal. Later, Russia's Foreign Ministry strongly urged Iran to cooperate with the IAEA but did not mention Iran's statement about the proposal. It was unclear whether the talks would proceed. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 ***************************************************************** 5 Guardian Unlimited: Iran's Nuclear History, New Developments From the Associated Press [UP] Saturday February 4, 2006 7:01 PM By The Associated Press Key dates in the West's standoff with Iran over its suspect nuclear program: - February-May 2003: International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors examine nuclear facilities in Iran, which the United States accuses of running a covert weapons program. - June 2003: IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei says Iran kept certain nuclear materials and activities secret. - November 2003: The U.N. nuclear watchdog agency says Iran acknowledged it produced weapons-grade uranium but there is no evidence a weapon was built. - December 2003: Iran formally signs the Additional Protocol to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to allow more intrusive inspections. - February 2004: Media reports say Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan delivered atomic weapons technology to Iran. - March 2004: The IAEA praises Iran's cooperation but criticizes past efforts to mislead the U.N. and urges Tehran to disclose all information concerning its nuclear program by June. - September 2004: Then-Secretary of State Colin Powell says Iran's nuclear program is a growing threat and calls for international sanctions. - November 2004: Iran announces the suspension of uranium enrichment and related activities amid fragile negotiations with European nations. - August 2005: Iran rejects a European Union offer of incentives in exchange for guarantees it will not pursue nuclear weaponry. Tehran announces it has resumed uranium conversion at Isfahan, and the IAEA calls an emergency meeting to deal with the crisis. - Sept. 17, 2005: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad tells U.N. Security Council it is Iran's ``inalienable right'' to produce nuclear fuel and rejects European offer of economic incentives to halt enrichment program. - Sept. 24, 2005: IAEA passes resolution calling Iran's nuclear program ``illegal and illogical'' and puts Tehran one step away from Security Council action on sanctions. - Nov. 11, 2005: Plans emerge for Russian offer to enrich uranium for Iran on Russian soil. - Nov. 24, 2005: The European Union accuses Iran of possessing documents used solely for the production of nuclear arms, warns of possible referral to Security Council. - Jan. 10, 2006: Iran removes U.N. seals from nuclear enrichment facility at Natanz, effectively ending a freeze on the process that can produce fuel for nuclear weapons. - Jan. 18, 2006: Europe, backed by the United States, rejects Iran's request for talks on its nuclear program, while Ahmadinejad accuses the West of acting like the ``lord of the world'' in denying his country the peaceful use of the atom. - Jan. 31, 2006: The United States and other permanent Security Council members agree that Iran should be brought before the Security Council, which has the ability to impose sanctions or take other harsh action. - Feb. 2, 2006: IAEA's 35-nation board begins deliberating Iran's referral. - Feb. 4, 2006: IAEA board votes to report Iran to the Security Council. Tehran vows to immediately start work on full-scale uranium enrichment and curtail agency's inspection powers in Iran. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 ***************************************************************** 6 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Ends Voluntary Cooperation on Nukes From the Associated Press [UP] Sunday February 5, 2006 10:31 PM AP Photo VAH101 By ALI AKBAR DAREINI Associated Press Writer TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran ended all voluntary cooperation with the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency Sunday, saying it would start uranium enrichment and bar surprise inspections of its facilities after being reported to the Security Council over fears it is seeking an atomic bomb. However, the Islamic republic left the door open for further negotiations over its nuclear program and, in an apparent softening of its position, said it was willing to discuss Moscow's proposal to shift large-scale enrichment operations to Russian territory in an effort to allay suspicions. A day earlier, an Iranian official at the International Atomic Energy Agency meeting in Vienna, Austria, said that proposal was ``dead.'' The comment was made after the IAEA's 35-nation board of governors voted to report Iran to the council, which has the power to impose economic and political sanctions. ``The door for negotiations is still open,'' Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said Sunday. But President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the West ``can't do a thing'' to stop Iran's progress. ``The era of coercion and domination has ended,'' Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying by the official Islamic Republic News Agency. ``Issue as many resolutions like this as you want and make yourself happy. You can't prevent the progress of the Iranian nation. ``In the name of the IAEA they want to visit all our nuclear facilities and learn our defense capabilities, but we won't allow them to do this.'' Uranium enriched to a low degree can be used for nuclear reactors, while highly enriched uranium is suitable for warheads. Iran insists it only wants to generate electricity, but the United States and some of its allies contend Tehran is trying to build a weapon. Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Sunday that Iran had ended all voluntary cooperation with the IAEA. The action, ordered by Ahmadinejad, was required by a law passed last year. The announcement means Iran has resumed uranium enrichment and no longer will allow snap IAEA inspections of its nuclear facilities, a voluntary measure it allowed in recent years in a goodwill gesture to build trust under a protocol to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. ``We do not have any obligation toward the additional protocol (anymore),'' Mottaki said. Iran repeatedly has stressed it would continue to honor its commitments under the treaty but that it has the right to pursue a peaceful nuclear program. ``Adoption of the policy of resistance doesn't mean we are on non-speaking terms or noncooperative,'' Mottaki said. ``Yesterday we had two options. One was the option of resistance and the other was surrender. We chose resistance.'' ``Our activities will continue within the NPT (and not beyond that),'' he told a press conference. ``We have withdrawn only the possibility of voluntary cooperation from them (IAEA and the West).'' Mottaki said the IAEA resolution was ``the result of a political will based on U.S. hostility'' toward Iran. He said Iran would defend its right to possess nuclear technology and enrich uranium to produce nuclear fuel. ``We will continue this path,'' he told reporters. The IAEA resolution requests the agency's Director General Mohamed ElBaradei to ``report to the Security Council'' with the steps Iran needs to take to dispel suspicions about its nuclear ambitions. These include that it return to freezing uranium enrichment; consider stopping construction of a heavy-water reactor that could be the source of plutonium; formally ratify the agreement allowing the IAEA greater inspecting authority; and give the agency more power in its investigation of Iran's nuclear program. Tensions were likely to rise as Iran rejects pressure from the outside. It started escalating last month after Iran removed U.N. seals and began nuclear research, including small-scale uranium enrichment. That came after months of futile talks between Iran and Britain, Germany and France, which negotiated on behalf of the 25-nation European Union. Asefi said Iranian diplomats still will attend Feb. 16 talks in Moscow concerning Russia's enrichment proposal. ``The proposal has to conform itself with the new circumstances,'' Asefi said Sunday. ``If the Russian proposal makes itself compatible with the new conditions, it can be negotiated.'' Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 ***************************************************************** 7 Guardian Unlimited: Security Council Members Differ Over Iran From the Associated Press [UP] Monday February 6, 2006 12:16 AM AP Photo VAH106 By NICK WADHAMS Associated Press Writer UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The campaign to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon has now moved to the U.N. Security Council, but countries there have vastly different ideas of what the council should do. The five permanent council members are split, with the United States, Britain and France hoping to pressure Iran into backing down with the ultimate threat of sanctions. However, China and Russia do not want to incite Tehran and would prefer that the council play a limited role, with the International Atomic Energy Agency keeping the lead in handling Iran. The Iranian government on Sunday ended all voluntary cooperation with the IAEA, saying it would start uranium enrichment and reject surprise inspections of its facilities. Uranium enriched to a low degree can be used for nuclear reactors, while highly enriched uranium is suitable for warheads. However, in an apparent reversal, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said the government was open to negotiations on Moscow's proposal that Iran shift its plan for large-scale enrichment to Russian territory in an effort to allay suspicions. A day earlier, an Iran representative at the IAEA meeting said that proposal was ``dead.'' For the U.S.-led faction, the IAEA's decision Saturday to report Iran represented a great success. U.S. Ambassador John Bolton had pushed for Iran to be brought before the council since his days as U.S. undersecretary of state for arms control and international security in 2001-2005. ``It inevitably changes the political dynamic when their nuclear weapons program has been considered in the Security Council, which is charged with the maintenance of international peace and security by the U.N. charter, rather than in a specific agency of the U.N. system,'' Bolton said Friday. ``The Iranians know full well what they're doing, which is trying to acquire a nuclear weapons capability, and I understand why they don't want people talking about it in the full light of day.'' In recent days, the diplomatic debate at the United Nations on the issue has focused on two words - ``reporting'' Iran to the council or ``referring'' it. The distinction reflects a fundamental difference in view. The Russians and Chinese do not mind if the council is informed of the IAEA's dealings with Iran, but they do not want the IAEA to ``refer'' Iran to the council. That, they believe, would give the impression that the IAEA was washing its hands of Iran and asking the council to take the lead. ``We and China can accept informing of the Security Council, which is quite normal,'' Russia's U.N. Ambassador Andrey Denisov said. ``That is the right of the Security Council to get any information it needs. But not referral, not official submitting, not handing it to the Security Council.'' The debate is so important in part because the Security Council is unique among U.N. institutions as the lone body with the power to impose sanctions or other punitive measures, deploy peacekeeping missions, and grant or deny legitimacy to military action. And though its resolutions sometimes go ignored or unheeded, there is also a symbolic shaming that goes along with bringing a country before a body whose mandate is to maintain international peace and security. In Iran's case, the council's options include issuing a public statement without imposing any action or adopting a resolution demanding Iran stop its activities and threatening punishment if it does not. The punishment could include an oil embargo, asset freeze and travel ban. Standing in the way of any such action is China, which has been blunt about its distaste for punitive measures. ``I think, as a matter of principle, China never supports sanctions as a way of exercising pressure because it is always the people that would be hurt,'' China's U.N. Ambassador Wang Guangya said. For at least a month, in the meantime, the council will not do anything publicly. According to the IAEA decision passed Saturday, the council must wait until the IAEA's Board of Governors meets again next month before considering what to do about Iran. One precedent is North Korea, which wrangled with many of the same players in 1993 and 1994 over its nuclear program. Through early 1994, the United States pushed hard for the council to impose sanctions but ultimately agreed to drop the threat after North Korea agreed in separate negotiations to freeze its nuclear program. While there had been months of behind-the-scenes debate in the council, its lone resolution came in May 1993, when it urged North Korea to reconsider its decision to withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Colin Keating, an analyst who sat on the council at the time as New Zealand's ambassador, said diplomats hoped for a similar result with Iran, with most discussions about its program taking place outside the Security Council chamber. ``This is a process which everybody is focused on trying to get a particular outcome, and ultimately the passage of a resolution with sanctions is probably a failure of the exercise rather than a success,'' Keating said. ``This is going to be an ongoing process of many months and it's one in which there will be lots of swirling around and probably very few public meetings of the council and a lot of the action will take place off stage.'' Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 ***************************************************************** 8 Guardian Unlimited: IAEA to Report Iran to Security Council From the Associated Press [UP] Saturday February 4, 2006 12:31 PM AP Photo VIE101 By GEORGE JAHN Associated Press Writer VIENNA, Austria (AP) - The U.N. nuclear watchdog on Saturday reported Iran to the U.N. Security Council in a resolution expressing concern Tehran's nuclear program may not be ``exclusively for peaceful purposes.'' Iran said it would retaliate immediately. The landmark decision by the International Atomic Energy Agency's 35-nation board sets the stage for future action by the top U.N. body, which has the authority to impose economic and political sanctions. Still, any such moves were weeks if not months away. Two permanent council members, Russia and China, agreed to referral only on condition the council take no action before March. Twenty-seven nations supported the resolution, which was sponsored by three European powers - Britain, France and Germany - and backed by the United States. Cuba, Syria and Venezuela were the only nations to vote against. Five others - Algeria, Belarus, Indonesia, Libya and South Africa - abstained, a milder form of showing opposition. Among those backing the referral was India, a nation with great weight in the developing world whose stance was unclear until the vote. Javed Vaeidi, the deputy head of Iran's powerful Security Council, said his country would ``immediately'' retaliate. He said that after approval by the Iranian council, Iran would stop honoring an agreement with the IAEA allowing its inspectors broad powers to monitor and probe Tehran's nuclear activities and would start work on full-scale uranium enrichment - an activity that can produce the fissile core of nuclear warheads. Iran says it wants to enrich only to make nuclear fuel, But concerns that it might misuse the technology accelerated the chain of events that led to Saturday's Security Council referral, after Tehran took IAEA seals off enrichment equipment Jan. 10 and said it would resume small-scale activities. Vaeidi on Friday said referral would mean his country would no longer consider an internationally supported plan to move his country's enrichment to Russia as a way of depriving Iran direct access to the technology. On Saturday, however, he said his country was still considering a response to the Russian plan. The resolution refers to Iran's breaches of the nuclear nonproliferation treaty and lack of confidence that it is not trying to make weapons. It expresses ``serious concerns about Iran's nuclear program.'' It recalls ``Iran's many failures and breaches of its obligations'' to the nonproliferation treaty. And it expresses ``the absence of confidence that Iran's nuclear program is exclusively for peaceful purposes.'' It requests IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei to ``report to the Security Council'' steps Iran needs to take to dispel suspicions about its nuclear ambitions. The resolution calls on Iran to: -Reestablish a freeze on uranium enrichment and related activities. -Consider whether to stop construction of a heavy water reactor that could be the source of plutonium for weapons. -Formally ratify an agreement allowing the IAEA greater inspecting authority and continue honoring the agreement before it is ratified. -Give the IAEA additional power in its investigation of Iran's nuclear program, including ``access to individuals'' for interviews, as well as to documentation on its black-market nuclear purchases, equipment that could be used for nuclear and non-nuclear purposes and ``certain military-owned workshops'' where nuclear activities might be going on. The draft also asks IAEA director general Mohamed ElBaradei to ``convey ... to the Security Council'' his report to the next board session in March along with any resolution that meeting might approve. Agreement on the final wording of the text was achieved only overnight, just hours before Saturday's meeting convened, after Washington compromised on Egypt's demand that the resolution include support for the creation of a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Middle East. Egypt and other Arab states have long linked the two issues of Iran's atomic ambitions and Israel's nuclear weapons status. The resolution recognized ``that a solution to the Iranian issue would contribute to global nonproliferation efforts and ... the objective of a Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction, including their means of delivery.'' A Western diplomat at the meeting said the United States felt strongly about not linking Israel to nuclear concerns in the Middle East when it considers Iran the real threat. But the Americans relented in the face of overwhelming European support for such a clause. Support for Iran shrank after Russia and China lined up behind the United States, France and Britain - the other three permanent council members - earlier in the week. --- Associated Press reporter Palma Benczenleitner in Vienna contributed to this report. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 ***************************************************************** 9 Guardian Unlimited: U.S. Mum on Punishment It Seeks for Iran [UP] Saturday February 4, 2006 8:31 PM By ANNE GEARAN AP Diplomatic Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration said Saturday's long-sought vote to send Iran's nuclear case before the U.N. Security Council gives Tehran one month to comply with the world's demands, but U.S. diplomats would not specify the penalties they hope might be imposed. ``I think we'll hold our fire,'' Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns told reporters. The U.N. nuclear watchdog said in a resolution that Iran's nuclear program may not be ``exclusively for peaceful purposes.'' Iran promptly said it would resume uranium enrichment at its main plant instead of in Russia. The United States is convinced that Iran is concealing its ambitions to build a bomb and has favored sending the matter to the Security Council option for almost three years. Washington cut diplomatic ties with Iran after militant students stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979 and took Americans hostage. The Bush administration stood on the sidelines during intensive diplomatic efforts by European powers, Russia and others to avert what many nations saw as a showdown between old adversaries. Continued provocation from Iran turned world opinion against it, U.S. officials said Saturday. ``The strong majority in favor of the resolution, representing all regions of the world, underscores the concern of the entire international community about Iran's nuclear program,'' Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in a statement. ``We hope the Iranian regime will heed this clear message,'' Rice said. ``The world will not stand by if Iran continues on the path to a nuclear weapons capability.'' The decision by the International Atomic Energy Agency's 35-nation board sets the stage for future action by the council, which has the authority to impose economic and political penalties. Any such moves are weeks, if not months away. Two permanent council members, Russia and China, agreed to referral only on condition the council take no action before March. The delay gives time for Iran's allies or others to try to intercede. U.S. officials said they will not stand in the way of new diplomacy. ``The challenge will be for Iran to choose diplomacy over isolation,'' Burns said. ``It's got 30 days to do that.'' The United States, which holds the rotating presidency of the Security Council this month, will circulate a report on Iran but not call for any discussion or other action until after a March 6 meeting of the IAEA, Burns said. At that point, if Iran has not complied with the agency's demands, the U.S. or others would begin what Burns predicted would be a vigorous debate in the council. Although tough penalties are one option, the United States has said it is not seeking them right away. ``We're going to ratchet up the pressure step by step,'' Burns said. The council could issue a nonbinding statement, set up its own list of conditions for Iran to meet, impose some punishment right away or do nothing. There is a strong distaste among some members of the council for broad and punitive penalties similar to those that contributed to a humanitarian crisis in Iraq when Saddam Hussein was president. China's U.N. ambassador said Friday that his nation is opposed to U.N. penalties as a matter of principle. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 ***************************************************************** 10 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Defiant After Being Reported by IAEA From the Associated Press [UP] Saturday February 4, 2006 8:16 PM AP Photo VIE113 By GEORGE JAHN Associated Press Writer VIENNA, Austria (AP) - The International Atomic Energy Agency reported Iran to the U.N. Security Council on Saturday over fears it wants to produce nuclear arms, raising the stakes in the diplomatic confrontation and prompting Tehran to threaten immediate retaliation. Of the board's 35 member nations, 27 voted for referral, reflecting more than two years of intense lobbying by the United States and its allies - and growing concerns about Iran's true nuclear aims. Washington critics Cuba, Venezuela and Syria voted against referral, and the other five nations abstained. Still, the near consensus came at a price for Washington. Long an advocate of firm Security Council action against Iran, including possible political and economic sanctions, the Americans had to settle for what is essentially symbolic referral, for now. After years of opposition, Russia and China backed the referral last week, bringing support from other nations - including India - that had been waiting for their lead. But in return, Moscow and Beijing demanded that the Americans - and France and Britain, the two other veto-wielding Security Council members - agree to let the Iran issue rest until at least March. That is when the IAEA board meets again to review the agency's investigation of Iran's nuclear program and its compliance with board demands that it renounce uranium enrichment. That process can produce either fuel for a nuclear reactor or the material needed to build a warhead. Iran remained defiant, threatening to do precisely what referral was meant to prevent. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ordered the resumption of uranium enrichment and an end to snap IAEA inspections of its nuclear facilities, according to state television. ``As of Sunday, the voluntary implementation of the additional protocol and other cooperation beyond the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty has to be suspended under the law,'' Ahmadinejad said in a letter to Vice President Gholamreza Aghazadeh, who also is the head of the nation's nuclear agency. Javed Vaeidi, deputy head of Iran's powerful National Security Council, also said his country ``now has to implement fuller scale of enrichment.'' Iran says it wants to enrich only to make nuclear fuel for generating electricity, but concerns that it might misuse the technology accelerated the chain of events that led to Saturday's referral to the Security Council. Tehran took IAEA seals off enrichment equipment Jan. 10 and said it would resume small-scale activities. Vaeidi also said a proposal to enrich Iranian uranium in Russia was dead. Moscow has suggested that Iran shift its plan for large-scale enrichment of uranium to Russian territory to alleviate international concern Iran might use the process to develop an atomic bomb. Other Iranian comment reflected Tehran's fury at Washington. The Islamic Republic News Agency quoted Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar describing U.S. leaders as ``terrorists and the main axis of evil in the world.'' Najjar was responding to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who at a high-level security conference in Munich, Germany, repeated Washington's view of Iran as the ``world's leading state sponsor of terrorism.'' European leaders expressed support for the referral, through a resolution drafted by France, Britain and Germany on behalf of the European Union. British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said the vote showed ``the international community's determination to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons in the Middle East.'' EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said through a spokesman that he hoped the vote would send ``a clear signal to Iran that it must comply with the demands of the international community.'' Russia's government urged Iran to ``respond constructively'' to the IAEA's decision, ``including the restoration of a voluntary moratorium on all uranium enrichment works.'' German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said the ``convincing'' vote sent a ``clear signal to Tehran'' to take account of international concerns. French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said he was ``very concerned and upset'' by Iran's decision to retaliate. The IAEA resolution links Tehran's referral to the country's breaches of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and the lack of confidence it is not trying to make weapons. The text expresses ``serious concerns about Iran's nuclear program'' and recalls ``Iran's many failures and breaches of its obligations'' to the arms control treaty. It also expresses ``the absence of confidence that Iran's nuclear program is exclusively for peaceful purposes.'' The resolution says IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei should ``report to the Security Council'' the steps Iran needs to take to dispel suspicions about its nuclear ambitions. These include that it return to freezing uranium enrichment; consider stopping construction of a heavy-water reactor that could be the source of plutonium; formally ratify the agreement allowing the IAEA greater inspecting authority; and give the nuclear watchdog more power in its investigation of Iran's nuclear program. The draft also asks that ElBaradei share with the Security Council his report to the March 6 IAEA board session and any subsequent resolution. Chief British IAEA delegate Peter Jenkins urged Iran to heed the resolution before March, warning: ``Should Iran fail to comply ... it will fall to the Security Council to bring additional pressure to bear.'' His American counterpart, Gregory L. Schulte, indirectly acknowledged that the Security Council's hands were tied until March, saying: ``We're not talking about sanctions at this stage.'' But Straw said that if Iran failed to use the March window of opportunity, Security Council action would be ``almost inevitable.'' A senior European diplomat familiar with the issue said there was general agreement among the five permanent Security Council members that - if Iran remains defiant beyond March 6 - the council would slowly increase pressure. A first step could be a council declaration urging Iran to comply with the resolution, the diplomat said on condition of anonymity because the strategy was confidential. Agreement on the final wording of the text was achieved overnight, only after Washington compromised on a dispute with Egypt over linking fears about Tehran's atomic program to a Middle East zone free of weapons of mass destruction - an indirect reference to Israel. The final resolution recognized ``that a solution to the Iranian issue would contribute to global nonproliferation efforts and ... the objective of a Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction, including their means of delivery.'' Israel, which is not an IAEA board member, welcomed Iran's referral and the call for a nuclear-free Middle East. Experts say Israel has the world's sixth-largest stockpile of nuclear weapons, but the Jewish state neither acknowledges nor denies having such a program. --- Associated Press reporters Palma Benczenleitner in Vienna; Amy Teibel in Jerusalem; and Ali Akbar Dareini in Tehran, Iran, contributed to this report. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 ***************************************************************** 11 Guardian Unlimited: Excerpts From Resolution on Iran From the Associated Press [UP] Saturday February 4, 2006 3:31 PM By The Associated Press Excerpts of the text of the resolution on Iran submitted by European nations to the 35-nation board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency referring it Saturday to the U.N. Security Council. --- The Board of Governors ... (f) Recalling that ... the Director General noted that after nearly three years of intensive verification activity, the Agency is not yet in a position to clarify some important issues relating to Iran's nuclear program or to conclude that there are no undeclared nuclear materials or activities in Iran, (g) Recalling Iran's many failures and breaches of its obligations to comply with its NPT Safeguards Agreement and the absence of confidence that Iran's nuclear program is exclusively for peaceful purposes resulting from the history of concealment of Iran's nuclear activities, the nature of those activities and other issues ... (m) Recognizing that a solution to the Iranian issue would contribute to global nonproliferation efforts and to realizing the objective of the Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction, including their means of delivery, 1. Underlines that outstanding questions can best be resolved and confidence built in the exclusive peaceful nature of Iran's program by Iran responding positively to the calls for confidence building measures which the Board has made on Iran, and in this context deems it necessary for Iran to: - re-establish full and sustained suspension of all enrichment-related and processing activities, including research and development, to be verified by the Agency; - reconsider the construction of a research reactor moderated by heavy water; - ratify promptly and implement in full Additional Protocol; - pending ratification, continue to act in accordance with the provisions of the Additional Protocol which Iran signed on 18 December 2003; ... 3. Expresses serious concern that the Agency is not yet in a position to clarify ... the fact that Iran has in its possession a document on the production of uranium metal hemispheres, since, as reported by the Secretariat, this process is related to the fabrication of nuclear weapon components; and, noting that the decision to put this document under Agency seal is a positive step, requests Iran to maintain this document under Agency seal and to provide a full copy to the Agency; 4. Deeply regrets that ... Iran resumed uranium conversion activities at its Isfahan facility on 8 August 2005 and took steps to resume enrichment activities on 10 January 2006; 5. Calls on Iran to understand that there is a lack of confidence in Iran's intentions in seeking to develop a fissile material production capability against the background of Iran's record on safeguards as recorded in previous Resolutions, and outstanding issues ... Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 ***************************************************************** 12 Guardian Unlimited: U.S. Official: Iran Seems Intent on Nukes From the Associated Press [UP] Sunday February 5, 2006 5:01 PM AP Photo VAH106 WASHINGTON (AP) - A top U.S. intelligence official said Sunday that Iran appears set to continue its nuclear program despite the threat of possible sanctions. Gen. Michael Hayden, America's principal deputy director of national intelligence, told ``Fox News Sunday'' that ``there may be the potential there to dissuade them, but right now they appear to be very, very determined'' - even after a decision to refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council for potential sanctions. Hayden declined to predict how Iran might react to the possibility of sanctions, but, he said, the United States is 's nuclear program in the wake of erroneous intelligence on Iraqi weapons, Hayden said officials are ``being very, very clear now in our estimates - where we have higher and lower confidence, where these are based on estimates, and where they're more based on hard, concrete evidence.'' Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 ***************************************************************** 13 Guardian Unlimited: Rumsfeld: Iran Regime Sponsors Terrorism From the Associated Press [UP] Saturday February 4, 2006 9:31 AM AP Photo FAG104 By DAVID RISING Associated Press Writer MUNICH, Germany (AP) - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld urged America's allies to increase their military spending to prevent the rise of a ``global extremist Islamic empire.'' He also urged the world to work for a ``diplomatic solution'' to halt Iran's nuclear program. ``The Iranian regime is today the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism,'' he said in prepared remarks. ``The world does not want, and must work together to prevent, a nuclear Iran.'' Rumsfeld was in Munich to address a defense conference focused on the relationship between America and its European allies. The remarks came as the U.N. nuclear agency was meeting in Vienna, Austria to vote on a U.S.-backed proposal to refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council over concerns Tehran may be developing nuclear weapons. Rumsfeld said terrorists hope to use Iraq as the ``central front'' in their war, turning it into a training and recruitment area like they had done in Afghanistan under the Taliban. He warned ``a war has been declared on all of our nations'' and said their ``futures depend on determination and unity in the face of the terrorist threat.'' ``We could choose to pretend, as some suggest, that the enemy is not at our doorstep. We could choose to believe, as some contend, that the threat is exaggerated. ``But those who would follow such a course must ask: what if they are wrong? What if at this moment, the enemy is counting on being underestimated, counting on being dismissed, and counting on our preoccupation,'' Rumsfeld said. Rumsfeld was to follow German Chancellor Angela Merkel in the opening speeches on the second day of 42nd annual Munich security conference. In the past defense experts and policy-makers have used the prestigious gathering in southern Germany for frank exchanges. Rumsfeld said violent extremism is a danger faced as much in Europe as in the United States. ``The struggle ahead promises to be a long war that will cause us all to recalibrate our strategies, perhaps further adjust our institutions, and certainly work closely together,'' he said. He said Islamic militants are on the move and have to be checked. ``They seek to take over governments from North Africa to Southeast Asia and to re-establish a caliphate they hope, one day, will include every continent,'' he said. ``They have designed and distributed a map where national borders are erased and replaced by a global extremist Islamic empire.'' Likening the war on terror to the Cold War, Rumsfeld said the battle could be won if nations persevered. He invoked Merkel's own experience - growing up in Communist East Germany to become chancellor of a unified Germany. ``Freedom prevailed because our free nations showed resolve when retreat would have been easier, and showed courage when concession seemed simpler,'' he said. But he pointed out that the United States spends 3.7 percent of its Gross Domestic Product on national defense while 19 of the 25 other NATO nations spend less than 2 percent of their GDP on defense. He did not name countries, but Germany, which spends 1.4 percent of its GDP on defense, and others have been under pressure to step up their funding. ``It may be easier for all of us to use our scarce tax dollars to meet urgent needs we all have at home,'' Rumsfeld said. ``But unless we invest in our defense and security, our homelands will be at risk.'' Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 ***************************************************************** 14 IRN: IAEA approves EU troika draft resolution on Iran - , Feb 4, IRNA The Board of Governors of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)on Saturday approved a draft resolution adopted by the European Union troika (Germany, France and Britain) on Iran. The IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said the draft resolution was passed with 27 votes in favor and three against while five members abstained. Cuba, Venezuela and Syria voted against the draft resolution while Algeria, Belarus, Indonesia, Libya and South Africa gave a vote of abstention. ***************************************************************** 15 Guardian Unlimited: Iran: Moscow Enrichment Proposal Dead From the Associated Press [UP] Saturday February 4, 2006 1:16 PM AP Photo VIE109 TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - A senior Iranian official said Saturday that a proposal by Moscow to enrich Iranian uranium in Russia is dead following the U.N. nuclear agency's decision to report Iran to the Security Council. Javad Vaeidi, deputy head of the powerful National Security Council, said there was no ``adequate reason to pursue the Russian plan.'' ``Commercial scale uranium enrichment will be resumed in Natanz (Iran) in accordance with the law passed by the parliament,'' Vaeidi told state television in a telephone interview from Vienna, Austria. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 ***************************************************************** 16 Guardian Unlimited: IAEA Reports Iran to U.N. Security Council From the Associated Press [UP] Saturday February 4, 2006 2:01 PM AP Photo VIE114 By GEORGE JAHN Associated Press Writer VIENNA, Austria (AP) - The U.N. nuclear watchdog Saturday reported Iran to the U.N. Security Council in a resolution expressing concern that Tehran's nuclear program may not be ``exclusively for peaceful purposes.'' Iran retaliated immediately, saying it would resume uranium enrichment at its main plant instead of in Russia. The landmark decision by the International Atomic Energy Agency's 35-nation board sets the stage for future action by the top U.N. body, which has the authority to impose economic and political sanctions. Still, any such moves were weeks if not months away. Two permanent council members, Russia and China, agreed to referral only on condition the council take no action before March. Twenty-seven nations supported the resolution, which was sponsored by three European powers - Britain, France and Germany - and backed by the United States. Cuba, Syria and Venezuela were the only nations to vote against. Five others - Algeria, Belarus, Indonesia, Libya and South Africa - abstained, a milder form of showing opposition. Those backing the referral included India, a nation with great weight in the developing world whose stance was unclear until the vote. Iran reacted immediately, saying a proposal by Moscow to enrich Iranian uranium in Russia was dead. ``Commercial scale uranium enrichment will be resumed in Natanz in accordance with the law passed by the parliament,'' Javad Vaeidi, deputy head of the powerful National Security Council, told Iran state television in a telephone interview from Vienna. Iran removed some U.N. seals from its main uranium enrichment facility in Natanz, central Iran, on Jan. 10 and resumed research on nuclear fuel - including small-scale enrichment - after a 2-year freeze. Full-scale uranium enrichment can produce the fissile core of nuclear warheads. The Kremlin had proposed that Iran shift its large-scale enrichment of uranium to Russian territory to allay world suspicions that Iran might use the process to develop a nuclear bomb. Vaeidi also said that after approval by the Iranian council, Iran would stop honoring an agreement with the IAEA allowing its inspectors broad powers to monitor and probe Tehran's nuclear activities. Iran says it wants to enrich only to make nuclear fuel, but concerns that it might misuse the technology accelerated the chain of events that led to Saturday's Security Council referral. The IAEA resolution refers to Iran's breaches of the nuclear nonproliferation treaty and lack of confidence that it is not trying to make weapons. It expresses ``serious concerns about Iran's nuclear program.'' It recalls ``Iran's many failures and breaches of its obligations'' to the nonproliferation treaty, and it expresses ``the absence of confidence that Iran's nuclear program is exclusively for peaceful purposes.'' It requests IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei to ``report to the Security Council'' steps Iran needs to take to dispel suspicions about its nuclear ambitions. The resolution calls on Iran to: -Reestablish a freeze on uranium enrichment and related activities. -Consider whether to stop construction of a heavy water reactor that could be the source of plutonium for weapons. -Formally ratify an agreement allowing the IAEA greater inspecting authority and continue honoring the agreement before it is ratified. -Give the IAEA additional power in its investigation of Iran's nuclear program, including ``access to individuals'' for interviews and to documentation on its black-market nuclear purchases, equipment that could be used for nuclear and non-nuclear purposes and ``certain military-owned workshops'' where nuclear activities might be going on. The draft also asks ElBaradei to ``convey ... to the Security Council'' his report to the next board session in March along with any resolution that meeting might approve. Agreement on the final wording of the text was reached just hours before Saturday's meeting convened, after Washington compromised on Egypt's demand that the resolution include support for the creation of a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Middle East. Egypt and other Arab states have long linked the two issues of Iran's atomic ambitions and Israel's nuclear weapons status. The resolution recognized ``that a solution to the Iranian issue would contribute to global nonproliferation efforts and ... the objective of a Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction, including their means of delivery.'' A Western diplomat at the meeting said the United States felt strongly about not linking Israel to nuclear concerns in the Middle East when it considers Iran the real threat. But the Americans relented in the face of overwhelming European support for such a clause. Support for Iran shrank after Russia and China lined up behind the United States, France and Britain - the other three permanent Security Council members - earlier in the week. --- Associated Press reporter Palma Benczenleitner in Vienna contributed to this report. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 ***************************************************************** 17 The Observer: Iran faces UN nuclear crisis [UP] Tehran defiant over uranium plans as watchdog's referral to Security Council raises the prospect of international sanctions Ian Traynor in Vienna Sunday February 5, 2006 The Observer Iran ignored world condemnation of its controversial nuclear programme last night by ordering the resumption of uranium enrichment. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called a halt from today to inspections of his country's nuclear facilities by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Iran's defiance came in response to a decision by the United Nations nuclear watchdog, which overwhelmingly voted to report Tehran to the Security Council over its nuclear programme. The top UN body has the power to censure Iran over its nuclear plans, which some fear could be part of a secret weapons programme, or order sanctions and ultimately the use of force to resolve the dispute. After more than two days' wrangling over wording, an emergency session of the board of the IAEA meeting in Vienna decided by 27 to three to risk Iranian retaliation and haul Tehran before the supreme world authority. Although the resolution asked the security council to defer any action for a month, giving Iran an opportunity to climb back from a showdown, Tehran immediately signalled an escalation of the crisis. Javad Vaeedi, deputy head of its national security council, denounced the decision, saying Iran would instantly embark on industrial-scale enrichment of uranium - the main path to a nuclear bomb. And Tehran said later it would end snap UN inspections of its nuclear plants from today. If the Iranians carry out their threats it will be far harder to monitor what is going on in their nuclear projects. They are also expected to reject a compromise offer from the Russians. Talks were expected in Moscow in a fortnight on the offer to enrich uranium for Iran's nuclear programme, ensuring that the Iranians obtain nuclear fuel for power plants but are unable to get highly enriched uranium used in nuclear warheads. That scheme - viewed by IAEA officials and Western diplomats as the best hope for pulling back from the brink of a much more dangerous confrontation - looked dead last night. As the crisis deepened, Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, drew parallels between Ahmadinejad and Hitler. She warned an international security conference in Munich: 'Looking back to German history in the early Thirties when National Socialism was on the rise, there were many outside Germany who said, "It's only rhetoric - don't get excited"'. The referral to the security council was a victory for Washington, which has been arguing for the shift for two years. The Europeans preferred to negotiate and resisted US pressure. But the collapse of the negotiations last month when Iran removed UN seals at its uranium enrichment site meant the Europeans had little choice but going to the security council. More crucially, countries more sympathetic to Iran, such as Russia, China and India, also voted to take the dispute to New York, leaving Iran with few friends apart from Cuba, Venezuela and Syria. Peter Jenkins, British ambassador to the IAEA, said the Security Council could bring extra pressure to bear on Iran 'if necessary'. The decision reflected the board's 'lack of confidence in Iran's nuclear intentions'. Iran is now likely to press ahead with its underground uranium enrichment complex at Natanz, which it had been developing clandestinely for 18 years until its existence was revealed in 2002. The complex is for 50,000 centrifuges, sophisticated and sensitive machines arrayed in cascades and spinning at supersonic speeds to convert uranium gas into fuel for power plants or fissile material for nuclear warheads. They plan to assemble six rigs of 164 centrifuges each to enrich uranium gas. But assembling and testing the centrifuges could take at least a year, say IAEA officials. [UP] Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 ***************************************************************** 18 Guardian Unlimited: The gullibility that led us into the last war could yet bring us a new conflict Guardian daily comment | Our leaders were never trustworthy, yet many people were only too willing to believe them - and they may do so again Gary Younge Monday February 6, 2006 The Guardian The day after Colin Powell did his show-and-tell before the United Nations security council in an attempt to prove that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, in February 2003, the late Washington Post columnist Mary McGrory wrote a column entitled "I'm persuaded". Describing how Vietnam "came close to making me [a pacifist]", McGrory conceded that "nobody I know was for the war". But something about Powell's performance made her reconsider: "I don't know how the United Nations felt about Colin Powell's 'J'accuse' speech against Saddam Hussein. I can only say that he persuaded me, and I was as tough as France to convince." Two and a half years later Powell referred to the episode as "a painful blot" on his record - a pack of lies and half truths that has led to an ever-increasing mound of corpses. The power of both illusion and delusion should never be underestimated. The compulsion to believe in something we need and want to be true, rather than see reality for what it is, can at times be astounding. Remember those eyewitness accounts of the Brazilian student Jean Charles de Menezes before he was shot dead on the underground? Not all of them were made up by the police, although they did nothing to deny them. Mark Whitby, a plumber from Brixton, thought he saw a Pakistani terrorist being chased and gunned down by plain-clothes policemen. Less than a month later Mr Whitby told the Daily Telegraph "he now believes that what he actually saw was the surveillance officer being thrown out of the way" as Mr Menezes was being killed. Anthony Larkin, who was on the train, said he saw "this guy who appeared to have a bomb belt and wires coming out". The Pakistani in the puffa jacket who vaulted the barriers, it transpired, was a Brazilian in a light denim jacket who picked up a free paper and used his Oyster card. I am not talking here about lying. The potency of downright fabrication is self-evident. What is truly insidious is the propensity of people to arrange an array of possibles, probables, maybes and might-bes, and construct from them a reality that is both definite and wrong. The power of suggestion, assumption and presumption is everything. The day before Menezes was shot, London saw an attempt to launch a second terrorist attack in two weeks. What Whitby and Larkin saw had been refracted through a prism of fear and stereotypes, and emerged completely distorted. The price was right; the market was ripe; people bought into it. The war in Iraq has revealed just how truly bullish and persistent this market in bad ideas based on flawed preconceptions can be. Bad ideas helped take us into the war; and unless we examine what they were and why some managed to believe them, they will prevent us from getting out. In such a market there will always be sellers aplenty. Someone, somewhere, will forever be peddling war, bigotry, conspiracy, profiling, persecution and plunder. It is only when the buyers come forward in large numbers that we really have to worry. For at critical moments people do not just consume these bad ideas; they invest heavily in them too. So when reality refuses to match up to the idea, they do not change their ideas; they change reality. There were of course lies; huge whoppers served up on both sides of the Atlantic. On February 23 2003 Tony Blair told the Commons that the government was giving Saddam "one further final chance to disarm voluntarily" through the United Nations. Three weeks earlier President George Bush told him the war was going ahead regardless of what the UN decided. Blair replied that he was "solidly" behind him. This is of course disgraceful, not least because those who lied have never accepted responsibility for their actions. But it was not a surprise. The case was always flimsy and those who made it were never trustworthy. What is shocking is the number of people who not only bought it but wore it and are still trying to sell it on. Last October the former Democratic presidential hopeful John Kerry said: "I regret that we were not given the truth; as I said more than a year ago, knowing what we know now, I would not have gone to war in Iraq. And knowing now the full measure of the Bush administration's duplicity and incompetence, I doubt there are many members of Congress who would give them the authority they have abused so badly. I know I would not." If Kerry did not have the full measure of Bush's duplicitous and incompetent nature by that stage then he is a poor judge of character. The overwhelming majority of people in the rest of the world - who had far less access to information than he did - managed to see the war for what it was. But then they weren't going to run for president. In November the former Powell aide Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson told the Today programme: "You begin to speculate, you begin to wonder ... was this intelligence spun? Was it politicised? Was it cherry-picked? Did, in fact, the American people get fooled? I'm beginning to have my concerns." Go figure. Shouldn't the speculation begin before the bombs drop rather than after? Everybody has the right to change their mind and make mistakes. The growing number of people on both sides of the Atlantic who believe it was wrong to go to war is heartening. But since the war has already been going for almost three years these regrets are only of any use, beyond personal expiation, if they help to correct the consequences of the original sin. These particular turnarounds fail on two fronts. First, they expose the anti-war case to the charge of opportunism. People such as Kerry backed the war not on principle but because it was expedient to do so. They oppose it today for the same reason. Second, there is little point in claiming you were tricked unless you address what made you so gullible in the first place. The basic idea that the US has a historic duty to bring progress, democracy and enlightenment at the barrel of a gun seems about as firmly ingrained in the American mindset as its record of doing the opposite in Central and South America and south-east Asia is in American history. Nothing that has happened in Iraq seems to have shifted that perception in the US. A significant minority were against the war from the start. For the rest, the trouble with the war is not that they invaded a sovereign country on a false pretext and killed hundreds of thousands. It's that they're not winning. "We can't leave Iraq. We simply can't," says Colonel Wilkerson. "We're there, we've done it, and we cannot leave." Kerry's position is similar. A Pew research survey in December showed that 48% of Americans believe that invading Iraq was wrong. A Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll last week revealed that 57% of Americans support military intervention if Iran builds itself a nuclear capability. With each exposé of torture, subjugation, blunder and plunder you keep hearing that Americans have lost their innocence. Somehow they always find it again just in time to buy into the next bad idea. g.younge@guardian.co.uk [UP] Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 ***************************************************************** 19 IRNA: NAM calls for inclusion of `non-nuclear ME' clause to EU draft resolution - Vienna, Feb 4, IRNA Iran-NAM-Nuclear Certain countries of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) in the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have called for the inclusion of a clause in the EU draft resoltuion calling for "a Middle East region free from nuclear weapons" in the draft resolution adopted by the European Union on Iran that is to be put to a vote in the IAEA Board of Governors' emergency meeting Saturday. A Western diplomat told IRNA here Friday that six member states of the NAM, chaired by Egypt, made the request. The EU opposes inclusion of the clause, contending that the issue therein has nothing to do with the issue now under consideration by the IAEA. The diplomat argued that inclusion of the issue was, in fact, the most important reason for the postponement of the emergency session of the IAEA's Board Governors from Friday evening to Saturday. The board has now extended its emergency meeting to three days instead of two. ***************************************************************** 20 BBC: Iran reported to Security Council Last Updated: Saturday, 4 February 2006 [Iranian girls at rally in support of nuclear programme] Iran says its nuclear programme is only for producing energy The United Nations nuclear watchdog has voted to report Iran to the Security Council over its nuclear activities. Twenty-seven states out of 35 on the IAEA board backed the move, with three against and five abstentions. The decision follows days of intensive diplomacy and could lead to possible UN sanctions against Iran. An Iranian official said Tehran would resume full-scale enrichment of uranium and Russia's compromise offer to enrich uranium on its own soil was in doubt. Javad Vaiedi, deputy head of the Supreme National Security Council, said the vote was politically motivated, adding that there was no international consensus. Iranians react to the threat international sanctions Tehran has also threatened to downgrade co-operation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and end any chance of a compromise on enrichment. Iran denies it has been concealing efforts to develop nuclear weapons, maintaining its programme is only for producing energy and does not have a military aim. 'Iran should listen' The resolution urged Iran to extend "indispensable and overdue" co-operation to the IAEA and help it "clarify possible activities which could have a military dimension". But it puts off any action until a report is delivered by agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei at the next IAEA meeting on 6 March. Russia and China agreed to support the resolution on condition it did not contain any immediate threat of sanctions against Iran. Only Venezuela, Cuba and Syria voted against it. India voted in favour of the motion in spite of the government coming under intense domestic pressure to stand by Iran. US ambassador to the IAEA Gregory Schulte said the vote sent a "very powerful signal" and the ball was now in Iran's court. "Iran, rather than threatening the world, should listen to the world and take steps to regain its confidence," he said. Research resumed The vote had been expected on Friday, but was delayed by an attempt by developing countries to soften the resolution, which was rejected by Germany, France and the UK, the countries proposing it. Also, diplomats say Egypt made a proposal to include a reference to making the Middle East a nuclear weapon free zone. This was rejected by the US, which saw it as an attack on Israel's nuclear arsenal. But diplomats told AP news agency that Washington eventually agreed to the clause after it received overwhelming backing from European allies. Iran recently decided to resume suspended research on uranium enrichment. This has not yet led to full-scale uranium enrichment - a process that creates fuel for nuclear reactors and, potentially, for a nuclear bomb - but Western powers are concerned. ***************************************************************** 21 IRNA: IAEA Board of Governors will lose legal foundation if it refers Iran to SC: Russian official - Moscow, Feb 4, IRNA Russia-Iran-IAEA A Russian official said here Friday that the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will lose its technical and legal foundation if it refers Iran's nuclear dossier to the UN Security Council under the US pressure. Leonid Ivashov, former head of the Russian Defense Ministry international cooperation department told IRNA that referral of Iran's nuclear case to the UN body has no legal base. Research activities and making use of nuclear technology for peaceful purposes are Iran's legitimate rights, he added. Washington, by politicizing Iran's nuclear activities, is trying to pave the way for exerting military pressures on the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ivashov reiterated. The US, after being trapped in Iraq, has understood that it can not do the same with Iran, he said adding that Washington and Tel Aviv should know that they will fail in any military plan against Iran and that they must pay heavy expenses. He warned Washington against launching any conspiracy against the Iranian nation which will be followed by resistance of millions of Iranians. The US military invasion of Iraq cost dlrs 200 billion for the Americans, he said reiterating that the expenses will be three times more in case of similar invasion on Iran. He termed the US threats on referral of Iran's case to the Security Council as "political pressure" and "with no positive outcome". Iran, as a member state of the IAEA and a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) has repeatedly announced that it respects Safeguards Agreement of IAEA. Iran gave 'objective guarantee' to UN nuclear agency with signing Additional Protocol to NPT in December 2003 that Iranian nuclear program will not be deviated from civilian use. ***************************************************************** 22 AFP: Ahmadinejad laughs off 'funny' IAEA resolution, condemns `idiots' Sunday February 5, 01:40 PM TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran's hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has brushed off a decision by the International Atomic Energy Agency to report his country to the UN Security Council as "funny" and labelled his country's enemies as "idiots". "You can pass as many resolutions as you like and be happy about it, but you cannot stop the progress of the Iranian people... We thank God that our enemies are idiots," he was quoted as saying by Iranian news agencies. The IAEA voted Saturday to report Iran to the UN Security Council amid fears the country is seeking nuclear weapons. Iran argues it only wants to generate electricity and has accused the West of trying to intimidate it. "We don't need you. It is you who need the Iranian people. This is the funniest decision I've seen," said the austere president Sunday. "They are angry at the Islamic Republic, because the Iranian people have reached the summit of science and technology." And in a direct challenge to the West, he added: "You know you cannot do anything, because the era of domination and repression is over and we are no longer in the Middle Ages." Iran has retaliated against the resolution, with Ahmadinejad ordering an end to snap IAEA inspections as well as the resumption of sensitive fuel cycle work. Copyright © 2006 Yahoo! UK Limited. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 23 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Ends Voluntary Cooperation With IAEA [UP] Sunday February 5, 2006 11:16 AM AP Photo VAH106 By ALI AKBAR DAREINI Associated Press Writer TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran said Sunday it has ended all voluntary cooperation with the U.N. nuclear watchdog but would still hold talks with Moscow on a proposal to enrich Iranian uranium in Russia, reversing an earlier decision to abandon those talks. Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Iran had implemented the president's orders to end voluntary cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had ordered the move Saturday in response to the U.N. agency decision to refer Iran to the Security Council over fears the country is trying to develop a nuclear bomb. It means Iran will resume uranium enrichment and will no longer allow snap IAEA inspections of its nuclear facilities - voluntary measures it had allowed in recent years in a gesture to build trust. ``We ended all the voluntary cooperation we have been extending to the IAEA in the past two-and-a-half to three years, on the basis of the president's order,'' Mottaki said. ``We do not have any obligation toward the additional protocol (anymore).'' The action was required under a law passed last year. Iran has repeatedly stressed that it will continue to honor its commitments under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty but that it has the right to pursue a peaceful nuclear program. ``Adoption of the policy of resistance doesn't mean we are on non-speaking terms or noncooperative,'' Mottaki said. ``Yesterday we had two options. One was the option of resistance and the other was surrender. We chose resistance.'' Earlier, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said Iran was open to negotiations on a Moscow's proposal that Iran shift its plan for large-scale enrichment of uranium to Russian territory. The plan is intended to allay world suspicions that Iran might use the process to develop a nuclear bomb. Uranium enriched to a low degree is used as fuel for nuclear reactors. But highly enriched uranium is suitable for making atomic bombs. ``The situation has changed. Still, we will attend talks with Russia on February 16,'' Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said at a press conference. ``The proposal has to conform itself with the new circumstances,'' he added. ``If the Russian proposal makes itself compatible with the new conditions, it can be negotiated.'' His comments came a day after Javad Vaeidi, deputy head of the powerful National Security Council, said there was there was ``no adequate reason to pursue the Russian plan.'' It was not clear if the change of course represented a major shift in Iran's strategy in the crisis over its nuclear activities. Asefi said ``the door for negotiations is still open'' over Iran's nuclear program. ``We don't fear the Security Council. It's not the end of the world,'' he added. ``The proposal has to conform itself with the new circumstances,'' Asefi said. ``If the Russian proposal makes itself compatible with the new conditions, it can be negotiated.'' Iran has said the Russian proposal has ambiguities that need to be clarified in talks. Iranian officials have also said Tehran would reject the proposal if it sought to prevent Iran from enriching uranium inside the country. They insist it must only be a complementary measure to Iran's nuclear program. Earlier Sunday, Ahmadinejad brushed off the IAEA referral. ``Issue as many resolutions like this as you want and make yourself happy. You can't prevent the progress of the Iranian nation,'' he said in comments carried by the official Islamic Republic News Agency. ``In the name of the IAEA they want to visit all our nuclear facilities and learn our defense capabilities, but we won't allow them to do this,'' he added. Asefi reiterated that Iran would cooperate with the IAEA within the framework of the NPT and the Safeguard Agreement. ``We chose our way wisely. We have solutions for all situations that may develop. Referring Iran to the Security Council will definitely harm the other party more than Iran,'' Asefi said. Twenty-seven of 35 member nations on the IAEA board voted for Iran's referral, reflecting more than two years of intense lobbying by the United States and its allies to enlist broad backing for such a move. Cuba, Venezuela and Syria voted against, and five members abstained. After years of opposition, Russia and China backed the referral last week, bringing support from other nations who had been waiting for their lead. But in return, Moscow and Beijing demanded that the Americans - and France and Britain, the two other veto-wielding Security Council members - agree to let the Iran issue rest until at least March, when the IAEA board meets again to review the agency's investigation of Iran's nuclear program and its compliance with board demands that it renounce uranium enrichment. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 ***************************************************************** 24 Guardian Unlimited: Bush: IAEA Vote Is Clear Message to Iran [UP] Saturday February 4, 2006 11:01 PM By ANNE GEARAN AP Diplomatic Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - In a rebuke of Tehran, President Bush said Saturday's long-sought vote to send Iran's nuclear case before the U.N. Security Council sends a clear message that the world will not permit the Iranian regime to gain nuclear weapons. ``The path chosen by Iran's new leaders - threats, concealment, and breaking international agreements and IAEA seals - will not succeed and will not be tolerated by the international community,'' Bush said in a statement the White House issued Saturday at the president's ranch in Crawford, Texas, where he is spending the weekend. ``The regime's continued defiance only further isolates Iran from the rest of the world and undermines the Iranian people's aspirations for a better life.'' The administration said the action gives Tehran one month to comply with the world's demands, but U.S. diplomats would not specify the penalties they hope might be imposed. ``I think we'll hold our fire,'' Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns told reporters. The U.N. nuclear watchdog said in a resolution that Iran's nuclear program may not be ``exclusively for peaceful purposes.'' Iran promptly said it would resume uranium enrichment at its main plant instead of in Russia. The United States is convinced that Iran is concealing its ambitions to build a bomb and has favored sending the matter to the Security Council option for almost three years. Bush said the United States expects the Security Council ``to add its weight'' to the IAEA's calls on the Iranian regime to suspend all enrichment and reprocessing activity, cooperate fully with the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog and return to negotiations with Great Britain, France and Germany. He said the vote by the IAEA board did not mark the end of diplomacy, but the beginning of an intensified diplomatic effort to keep Iran from developing nuclear weapons. ``Those steps are necessary for the regime to begin to restore any confidence that it is not seeking nuclear weapons under the cover of a civilian program,'' he said. Aside from his message to the Iranian government, Bush told the Iranian citizenry that the IAEA vote is not about trying to deny them from having a civil nuclear energy program, but was solely to prevent their leaders from acquiring nuclear weapons. ``Iran's true interests lie in working with the international community to enjoy the benefits of peaceful nuclear energy, not in isolating Iran by continuing to develop the capability to build nuclear weapons,'' he said. Washington cut diplomatic ties with Iran after militant students stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979 and took Americans hostage. The Bush administration stood on the sidelines during intensive diplomatic efforts by European powers, Russia and others to avert what many nations saw as a showdown between old adversaries. Continued provocation from Iran turned world opinion against it, U.S. officials said Saturday. ``The strong majority in favor of the resolution, representing all regions of the world, underscores the concern of the entire international community about Iran's nuclear program,'' Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in a statement. ``We hope the Iranian regime will heed this clear message,'' Rice said. ``The world will not stand by if Iran continues on the path to a nuclear weapons capability.'' The decision by the International Atomic Energy Agency's 35-nation board sets the stage for future action by the council, which has the authority to impose economic and political penalties. Any such moves are weeks, if not months away. Two permanent council members, Russia and China, agreed to referral only on condition the council take no action before March. The delay gives time for Iran's allies or others to try to intercede. U.S. officials said they will not stand in the way of new diplomacy. ``The challenge will be for Iran to choose diplomacy over isolation,'' Burns said. ``It's got 30 days to do that.'' The United States, which holds the rotating presidency of the Security Council this month, will circulate a report on Iran but not call for any discussion or other action until after a March 6 meeting of the IAEA, Burns said. At that point, if Iran has not complied with the agency's demands, the U.S. or others would begin what Burns predicted would be a vigorous debate in the council. Although tough penalties are one option, the United States has said it is not seeking them right away. ``We're going to ratchet up the pressure step by step,'' Burns said. The council could issue a nonbinding statement, set up its own list of conditions for Iran to meet, impose some punishment right away or do nothing. There is a strong distaste among some members of the council for broad and punitive penalties similar to those that contributed to a humanitarian crisis in Iraq when Saddam Hussein was president. China's U.N. ambassador said Friday that his nation is opposed to U.N. penalties as a matter of principle. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 ***************************************************************** 25 AFP: US senator McCain calls for leaders to boycott G8 summit in Russia - Sat Feb 4, 3:36 PM ET MUNICH, Germany (AFP) - US Senator John McCain called upon world leaders to boycott the G8 summit in Russia in July, questioning Moscow's commitment to democracy. In a speech to the Munich Conference on Security Policy, McCain said that President Vladimir Putin" /> had rolled back reforms in Russia and did not share the democratic values of the United States and Europe. "Under Mr Putin, Russia today is neither a democracy nor one of the world's leading economies, and I seriously question whether the G8 leaders should attend the St Petersburg summit," McCain said. The high-profile Republican senator for Arizona, a former prisoner of war in Vietnam who unsuccessfully ran for the US presidency in 2000, said Russia could have helped the United States and Europe transform the world following the end of the Cold War. "The Kremlin, however, shows no interest in such a relationship. Instead it continues to pursue foreign and domestic policies strongly at odds with our interests and values. "Even after Iran" /> rejected the EU-3 talks and removed nuclear seals, Moscow indicated that it would proceed with a one-billion-dollar deal to sell short-range missiles to Iran." With Russia's powerful Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov looking on, McCain said Russia had punished "democratic" Ukraine and Georgia by disrupting energy supplies "while providing cut-rate gas to the dictatorship in Minsk". "It (Russia) continues to prosecute a brutal war in Chechnya" /> that has killed as many as 200,000, radicalizing the Muslim population, and it actively supports dictatorships in Central Asia." McCain said "the broadcast media are Kremlin-controlled, as are parliament, provincial governors and the judiciary. All of these were free and independent when Mr Putin took office." The G8 summit will take place in Saint Petersburg on July 15-17. Turning to Iran, McCain described it as the "the world's chief state sponsor of international terrorism" and said it "defines itself by hostility to the United States and Israel". "Tehran's continued pursuit of nuclear weapons plainly poses an unacceptable risk to the international community," he said. Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 26 AFP: Defiant Iran retaliates against nuclear referral Sun Feb 5, 2:54 PM ET TEHRAN (AFP) - A defiant Iran" /> Iranmoved to block snap UN nuclear inspections and kick-start sensitive fuel work after being reported to the Security Council, deepening a crisis over its disputed atomic ambitions. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad dismissed the International Atomic Energy Agency" /> International Atomic Energy Agencyresolution as "funny" and labelled Iran's enemies as "idiots" -- even though fears Iran is seeking the atom bomb exposes it to the threat of greater isolation and potential sanctions. "You can pass as many resolutions as you like and be happy about it, but you cannot stop the progress of the Iranian people. We thank God that our enemies are idiots," he was quoted as saying by Iranian news agencies. "We don't need you. It is you who need the Iranian people. This is the funniest decision I've seen," said the austere president, who has steered his country on a collision course with the West since his shock election win last June. Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki confirmed Iran had laid down the gauntlet with immediate retaliation. "All voluntary measures taken over the past two-and-a-half or three years have been halted and we have no further commitment to the additional protocol and other voluntary commitments," he told a news conference. "This resolution has no legal basis. All it does is simply remove the opportunity for voluntary cooperation between Iran and the agency." The additional protocol to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty gives the IAEA stronger inspection powers and is central to the UN watchdog's three-year-old effort to determine what Iran is actually up to. Mottaki did not specify what other steps had already been taken, but Iran's voluntary measures had notably included a freeze on uranium enrichment -- a process that can also be used to make the fissile core of a nuclear bomb. Iran says it only wants to enrich uranium to make reactor fuel. It triggered the latest crisis by resuming uranium conversion activities last August and enrichment research on January 10. US President George W. Bush" /> President George W. Bush, however, said the resolution "is not the end of diplomacy or the IAEA's role" and merely the "beginning of an intensified diplomatic effort." "This important step sends a clear message to the regime in Iran that the world will not permit the Iranian regime to gain nuclear weapons," Bush said. Although Iranian retaliation is set to worsen tensions, the Islamic regime also signalled it was ready to press on with negotiations with Russia -- which now has a one-month window to talk with Tehran before the Security Council actually takes up the matter. Moscow's proposal is for enrichment to be carried out on Russian soil in order to allay proliferation concerns whilst at the same time allowing Iran to have nuclear fuel for civilian purposes. "The second round of talks will go ahead, but the Russian proposal must be adapted to the new situation so that we can examine it," foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters. The two sides are scheduled to meet in Moscow on February 16, with Russia keen to reach a negotiated settlement and guard its economic interests -- which include a one-billion dollar deal to build Iran's first reactor. "It is not in our interests to wait for the deterioration of the situation in an already explosive region," Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov said at a security conference in Munich. "I hope that Iran would accept the Russian proposal," he said. "This proposal is attractive because it will give Iran the full legal right to keep developing its peaceful nuclear energy programme. And we will support Iran." Iran is under massive pressure from elsewhere to comply with the IAEA's demands to return to a moratorium on fuel cycle work, show better cooperation with IAEA inspectors and return to negotiations. In the IAEA vote, 27 countries including the UN Security Council's permanent five -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States -- voted in favour and five abstained. Iran's only support came from Cuba, Syria" /> Syriaand Venezuela. Japan also said the resolution was "a clear message to Iran", and called on the Tehran to "take this resolution seriously and respond to it sincerely." "Iran has still a crucial opportunity between now and the March IAEA Board to comply," said British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw. "Otherwise, decisions by the Security Council are almost inevitable." And Iran's arch-enemy Israel" /> Israel, believed to possess nuclear weapons, was also watching closely. Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Iran faced a "very expensive price tag if it continues with its plans and tries to enrich fuel in order to realise the option of producing non-conventional weapons." Israeli fears over Iran have been reinforced by Ahmadinejad's call for the Jewish state to be "wiped off the map" or moved as far away as Alaska. Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 27 AFPP: Defiant Iran retaliates against tough nuclear resolution - Sun Feb 5, 4:55 AM ET TEHRAN (AFP) - A defiant Iran" /> is snap UN inspections of its nuclear programme and preparing to kick-start sensitive nuclear activities in retaliation for being reported to the UN Security Council. Hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad shrugged off the danger of UN action, which could include eventual sanctions, by asserting that even a long stream of tough resolutions would not make his country back down. "You can issue as many resolutions as you like and have fun with it, but you cannot prevent Iran's progress," the president vowed Sunday. "You know that you cannot do anything, because the era of bullying is over and you have to accept the realities," he said in comments directed at the United States and European powers, who had led the push for Iran to be reported to New York. An order from the president late Saturday put an end to Iran's application of the additional protocol to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which hands the IAEA stronger inspection powers and is seen as crucial to efforts to establish the nature of the Islamic republic's nuclear activities The protocol was signed by Iran's former reformist government but never ratified by the hardline parliament. Ahmadinejad also called for "preparations" to resume nuclear fuel work -- at the centre of fears that Iran could acquire nuclear weapons -- and the head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organisation responded by saying "the necessary measures" would be taken Sunday. Iran says it only wants to enrich uranium to make reactor fuel, but the process can be extended to make the fissile core of a nuclear bomb. Tehran prompted the latest crisis by resuming uranium conversion activities last August and enrichment research on January 10. US President George W. Bush" /> , however, said the IAEA resolution "is not the end of diplomacy or the IAEA's role" and merely the "beginning of an intensified diplomatic effort". "This important step sends a clear message to the regime in Iran that the world will not permit the Iranian regime to gain nuclear weapons," Bush said. Although Iranian retaliation is set to worsen tensions, the Islamic regime also signalled it was ready to press on with negotiations with Russia -- which now has a one month window to talk with Tehran before the Security Council actually takes up the matter. Moscow's proposal is for enrichment to be carried out on Russian soil in order to allay fears that Iran will develop the bomb whilst at the same time guaranteeing it access to nuclear fuel. "Conditions have changed, we are facing a new situation," foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters. "The second round of talks will go ahead, but the Russian proposal must be adapted to the new situation so that we can examine it". The two sides are scheduled to meet in Moscow on February 16. "I am sure that the Iranian leadership will look with all seriousness at Russia's proposal," Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov said. "This suggestion is the best way out of the situation." Iran is under massive international pressure to comply with the IAEA's demands to return to a moratorium on fuel cycle work, show better cooperation with IAEA inspectors and return to negotiations. Crucially, Russia and China also backed the resolution -- even though Russia has an economic stake in Iran's atomic energy drive and China is a major buyer of Iranian oil. Japan also said the resolution was "a clear message to Iran", and called on the Islamic republic to "take this resolution seriously and respond to it sincerely". "Iran has still a crucial opportunity between now and the March IAEA Board to comply," said British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw. "Otherwise, decisions by the Security Council are almost inevitable." Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 28 AFP: Iran to start full-scale uranium enrichment after IAEA vote - VIENNA (AFP) - Iran will begin full-scale uranium enrichment in retaliation for being reported to the UN Security Council over its disputed nuclear program, a senior Iranian official has said. "Our government has to implement full-scale enrichment," Javad Vaidi, head of the Iranian delegation to an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) meeting told reporters. Vaidi was speaking minutes after the IAEA's 35-nation board of governors voted to send Iran before the UN Security Council, which will wait a month before deciding on possible punitive measures. Vaidi said Saturday the "resolution is politically motivated since it is not based on any legal or technical grounds." He said Iran "has to bring into force immediately ... the law passed almost unanimously by the (Iranian) parliament in 2005, in order to suspend the voluntary implementation of Additional Protocol which has been for three years implemented as if it has been ratified, and the voluntary suspension of commercial scale enrichment activities." The parliament said that applying the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty's Additional Protocol, which allows for wider IAEA inspections, and suspending full-scale enrichment should cease if Iran were brought before the Security Council. Copyright © 2006 Yahoo! UK Limited. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 29 AFP: Canada welcomes IAEA move to report Iran to Security Council - Sat Feb 4, 2:02 PM ET MONTREAL (AFP) - Canada praised the International Atomic Energy Agency" /> 's decision to report Iran" /> to the UN Security Council over its suspected nuclear weapons activities. [ src=] The Canadian government said in a statement that it "welcomes the IAEA's decision to report the matter to the UNSC. "The resolution adopted today by the IAEA Board of Governors is a strong statement of the international community's ongoing serious concerns regarding the nature of Iran's nuclear program, and an indication of its resolve to find a diplomatic solution," the statement said. Canada urged Iran to "heed the calls of the international community to fully resume the suspension of all its uranium enrichment-related activities ... and to promptly address the lack of confidence resulting from its non-compliance with its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. "The board's decision is timely, and we strongly encourage Iran to seize this opportunity by promptly implementing the required transparency measures and actively cooperating with the IAEA," Ottawa added. The IAEA voted 27-3, with five abstentions, on Saturday to report Iran to the Security Council over fears that Tehran is developing nuclear weapons. The move opens the door to punitive actions. The resolution put off any UN action against Iran for at least a month, to allow time for diplomacy until the next meeting of the IAEA in March. But in a last-minute text change, it mandated the board to "immediately thereafter (following the March 6 board meeting) convey" a report and assessment by IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei on Iran to the Security Council. The transmission of this report would clear the way for the council to take action. Iran reacted sharply to the decision Saturday, saying it would move ahead on full-scale uranium enrichment and limit IAEA inspections. ***************************************************************** 30 AFP: Rice to Iran: 'Heed this clear message' Sat Feb 4, 3:22 PM ET WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States hailed an international decision to address the UN Security Council about concerns Iran" /> is seeking to build nuclear weapons, paving the way for possible sanctions. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice" /> said the United States hoped Iran would heed the "clear message" from the UN nuclear watchdog agency, which voted overwhelmingly to report Tehran to the Security Council over its nuclear program. Iran insists its program is for electricity production. "We hope the Iranian regime will heed this clear message. The world will not stand by if Iran continues on the path to a nuclear weapons capability," Rice said in a statement. "The strong majority in favor of the resolution, representing all regions of the world, underscores the concern of the entire international community about Iran's nuclear program," she said. The 35-member International Atomic Energy Agency" /> voted Saturday to refer Iran to the UN Security Council for its suspected nuclear weapons activities. The resolution was approved in a 27-3 vote, with five abstentions. The resolution, however, put off any action against Iran for at least a month, to allow time for diplomacy until the next meeting of the IAEA in March. In a last-minute text change, the resolution mandated the board to "immediately thereafter (following the March 6 board meeting) convey" a report and assessment by IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei on Iran to the Security Council. The transmission of this report would clear the way for the council to take action. Iran reacted sharply Saturday to the IAEA resolution, saying it would limit IAEA inspections and prepare to resume uranium enrichment. Rice stressed that the IAEA resolution "makes clear the steps Iran's regime must take. "It must suspend enrichment-related and reprocessing activities, cooperate fully with the IAEA and return to the negotiating process based on the previously agreed terms." Noting that the Iran issue was now in the domain of the Security Council as well as the IAEA, the secretary of state said: "We will continue to consult closely with our European allies, Russia, China and many other members of the international community in the coming days and weeks, in this new diplomatic phase." Nicholas Burns, undersecretary of state for political affairs, said the vote signaled a striking shift in the international assessment of the issue. "Today's vote in Vienna is a powerful message of condemnation and of concern about Iran's nuclear weapons ambitions," Burns said. "What is significant is that the vote represents the voice of the entire world community. You have the entire European Union" /> , Russia, China, India, Brazil and from the Arab world Egypt and Yemen," he told AFP. "None of this was in play as recently as the last major vote in the IAEA in September." Burns noted Iran's isolation, with only Cuba, Syria" /> and Venezuela voting against the resolution. A top Democratic lawmaker, Tom Lantos, meanwhile, hailed the IAEA for taking "a crucial first step" in bringing Iran's nuclear weapons ambitions under control. "The ayatollahs of terror in Tehran were sent a bold message today that their clandestine efforts to build nuclear weapons, and their transparent lies of peaceful intent, will no longer be tolerated by the civilized world," Lantos said in a statement. Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 31 AFP: World won't permit Iran to have nukes: Bush - Sat Feb 4, 7:07 PM ET CRAWFORD, United States (AFP) - The UN nuclear watchdog's decision to report Iran" /> Iranto the UN Security Council is a clear message that the world will not allow Iran to have nuclear weapons, US President George W. Bush" /> President George W. Bushsaid. "This important step sends a clear message to the regime in Iran that the world will not permit the Iranian regime to gain nuclear weapons," the US leader said in a statement. The 35-member board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency" /> International Atomic Energy Agencyvoted 27-3 in Vienna Saturday to report Iran to the council in a month's time if it fails to allay fears that it is hiding a covert nuclear weapons program. But Bush added that the vote "is not the end of diplomacy or the IAEA's role. Instead, it is the beginning of an intensified diplomatic effort to prevent the Iranian regime from developing nuclear weapons." "We will continue working with our international partners to achieve that common objective," he said. Bush said he expected the UN Security Council to back IAEA calls for Iran to suspend all uranium enrichment and reprocessing activity, cooperate fully with the IAEA, and return to negotiations with Britain, France and Germany. "The path chosen by Iran's new leaders -- threats, concealment, and breaking international agreements and IAEA seals -- will not succeed and will not be tolerated by the international community. The regime's continued defiance only further isolates Iran from the rest of the world," Bush said. But, in an echo of his State of the Union speech to Congress earlier this week, Bush also directly addressed "the Iranian people", saying that the IAEA vote was not an attempt to deny them access to civilian nuclear power. "Iran's true interests lie in working with the international community to enjoy the benefits of peaceful nuclear energy," he said. Iran reacted sharply to the IAEA resolution, saying it would limit IAEA inspections and prepare to resume uranium enrichment. But President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad appeared to stop short of ordering an immediate resumption of uranium enrichment -- a process that makes reactor fuel but which can also be extended to make the fissile core of a nuclear bomb. Tehran prompted the latest crisis in the long-running standoff with the West by resuming uranium conversion activities last August and enrichment research on January 10. Iran insists it has the right to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes and that its program is for electricity production, not weapons. Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 32 Guardian Unlimited: Iran to Reevaluate Russian Enrichment Plan From the Associated Press [UP] Sunday February 5, 2006 9:16 AM AP Photo VAH106 By ALI AKBAR DAREINI Associated Press Writer TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran said Sunday it will hold talks with Moscow on a proposal to enrich Iranian uranium in Russia, changing tracks a day after a senior Iranian official declared the plan dead because Tehran was referred to the U.N. Security Council. ``The situation has changed. Still, we will attend talks with Russia on February 16,'' Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said at a press conference. His comments came a day after Javad Vaeidi, deputy head of the powerful National Security Council, said there was there was ``no adequate reason to pursue the Russian plan.'' Vaedi spoke after the International Atomic Energy Agency voted to report Iran to the U.N. Security Council over fears it wants to produce nuclear arms. Iran responded by saying it would restart full-scale work on uranium enrichment and order an end to intrusive IAEA inspections of its facilities. It was not clear if the change of course represented a major shift in Iran's strategy in the crisis over its nuclear activities. Asefi said ``the door for negotiations is still open'' over Iran's nuclear program. ``We don't fear the Security Council. It's not the end of the world,'' he added. Russia had proposed that Iran shift its plan for large-scale enrichment of uranium to Russian territory to allay world suspicions that Iran might use the process to develop a nuclear bomb. Uranium enriched to a low degree is used as fuel for nuclear reactors. But highly enriched uranium is suitable for making atomic bombs. ``The proposal has to conform itself with the new circumstances,'' Asefi said. ``If the Russian proposal makes itself compatible with the new conditions, it can be negotiated.'' Iran has said the Russian proposal has ambiguities that need to be clarified in talks. Iranian officials have also said Tehran would reject the proposal if it sought to prevent Iran from enriching uranium inside the country. They insist it must only be a complementary measure to Iran's nuclear program. Earlier Sunday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad brushed off the IAEA referral. ``Issue as many resolutions like this as you want and make yourself happy. You can't prevent the progress of the Iranian nation,'' he said in comments carried by the official Islamic Republic News Agency. ``In the name of the IAEA they want to visit all our nuclear facilities and learn our defense capabilities, but we won't allow them to do this,'' he added. In the past, Iran had allowed snap inspections of its facilities, including military sites. But parliament passed a law last year requiring the government to block intrusive inspections of Iran's facilities if the country were brought before the Security Council. It also required the government to resume all suspended nuclear activities, chief among them, uranium enrichment. Asefi reiterated that Iran would cooperate with the IAEA within the framework of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and the Safeguard Agreement. ``We chose our way wisely. We have solutions for all situations that may develop. Referring Iran to the Security Council will definitely harm the other party more than Iran,'' Asefi said. Twenty-seven of 35 member nations on the IAEA board voted for Iran's referral, reflecting more than two years of intense lobbying by the United States and its allies to enlist broad backing for such a move. Cuba, Venezuela and Syria voted against, and five members abstained. After years of opposition, Russia and China backed the referral last week, bringing support from other nations who had been waiting for their lead. But in return, Moscow and Beijing demanded that the Americans - and France and Britain, the two other veto-wielding Security Council members - agree to let the Iran issue rest until at least March, when the IAEA board meets again to review the agency's investigation of Iran's nuclear program and its compliance with board demands that it renounce uranium enrichment. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 ***************************************************************** 33 AFP: Iran nuclear issue to be reported to UN Security Council - Sat Feb 4, 2:17 PM ET VIENNA (AFP) - The UN nuclear watchdog voted to report Iran" /> to the United Nations" /> Security Council over fears it is developing atomic weapons, sparking a defiant response from Tehran. (IAEA) that opens the door to punitive action against Iran. "Today's vote sends Iran a very clear and unmistakable message that they need to abide by their international obligations and to heed the call of the international community," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told AFP. The resolution calling on Iran to suspend all enrichment work and cooperate fully with IAEA inspectors passed by 27-3, with five abstentions. Gregory Schulte, US ambassador to the Vienna-based IAEA, described it as an "overwhelming majority." The resolution put off any UN action against Iran for at least a month, to give time for diplomacy until the next IAEA meeting in March. But in a last-minute text change it mandated the board to "immediately thereafter (the March 6 board meeting) convey" a report and assessment by IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei on Iran to the Security Council. The transmission of this report would clear the way for the Council to take action that is expected first to be a statement urging Iranian cooperation, with sanctions a possibility later on. Schulte said the idea was to get Iran to "choose a course of cooperation and negotiation over a course of confrontation," and not to punish Tehran. The IAEA has been investigating Iran for three years on US charges that it is hiding nuclear weapons development but has reached no conclusions. Russian foreign ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin said: "We urge Iran to respond constructively to the call by the IAEA's governing council to cooperate fully in solving outstanding problems" including by "reestablishing a moratorium on work related to uranium enrichment." Enrichment makes fuel for nuclear power reactors but also what can be atom bomb material. Russia has tried to maintain close ties to Tehran and has been building Iran's first nuclear power station at Bushehr. Chinese ambassador Wu Hailong said his country did not see the resolution as allowing for UN punitive action, but Schulte said it incorporated a September IAEA resolution that found Iran in non-compliance for hiding nuclear activities for almost two decades, a finding that requires the current report to the Security Council. German Chancellor Angela Merkel told a security conference in Munich that Iran had "overstepped the mark" with its nuclear program. But "our government has to implement full-scale enrichment," Javad Vaidi, a member of Iran's supreme national security council told reporters in Vienna, saying the Iranian parliament had passed a law requiring this to be done if referral took place. Iran was ready to inform the IAEA of its decision to restart enrichment work and limit inspections, a senior Iranian official told AFP. The vote at this week's meeting of the IAEA's 35-nation board of governors was delayed Friday when Egypt insisted on adding a clause implying that Israel" /> should give up its alleged atomic weapons. The United States finally accepted wording calling for a Middle East zone free of "weapons of mass destruction" instead of just nuclear arms, as this lifted the exclusive focus on Israel, a diplomat said. Cuba, Syria" /> and Venezuela, which all have disputes with the United States, voted against it, while Algeria, Belarus, Indonesia, Libya and South Africa abstained. Key non-aligned states Brazil, Egypt and India voted for it. The five permanent Security Council members -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States -- and Germany had closed ranks over the resolution to take Iran to the Security Council. Unlike the IAEA, the Security Council has enforcement powers. Moscow hopes the crisis can be defused without the Security Council imposing sanctions and is sponsoring a compromise proposal for Iran to carry out uranium enrichment in Russia so that the Iranians do not master this technology which is considered a "breakout capacity" for making atomic weapons. But Vaidi told Iranian state television that Iran may no longer even consider the Russian proposal. Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 34 AFP: Russia presses for Iran nuclear diplomacy - Sun Feb 5, 2:48 PM ET MUNICH, Germany (AFP) - Russia urged Iran" /> to provide "unequivocal answers" to mounting international concerns over its nuclear program in a call for continued diplomacy with the Islamic republic. 's hands," Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov said at the Munich Conference on Security Policy. "We expect unequivocal answers" from Iran, Ivanov said, referring to suspicions in Western capitals that Iran is trying to build a nuclear bomb. Tehran insists it is setting up a peaceful atomic energy program. "It is not in our interests to wait for the deterioration of the situation in an already explosive region," Ivanov said. The UN atomic watchdog voted on Saturday to report Iran to the UN Security Council, which has the power to impose sanctions. Ivanov warned there was a danger that the IAEA vote would lead the Islamic republic to throw the Agency's inspectors out of the country. "If they are expelled, that will be a very bad sign," Ivanov said after a defiant Iran announced it was halting snap UN inspections of its nuclear facilities in retaliation for its referral to the Security Council. "As long as they (the inspectors) are inside Iran, at least we can get some picture of what is happening there in this nuclear program." Ivanov, who is also Russia's Deputy Prime Minister, said he had doubts about imposing sanctions against Iran, where Russia is building the country's first nuclear reactor. "I am not sure that sanctions are effective," he said. "I am not sure every country will abide strictly by the sanctions." The minister also talked up a proposal by Moscow to carry out uranium enrichment on behalf of Iran on Russian territory to allay fears that it could be used to construct a nuclear warhead. Ivanov said that even if Tehran accepted the compromise it was essential that IAEA inspectors remained in Iran. "I hope that Iran would accept the Russian proposal, but still the Agency should be there in Iran. "This proposal is attractive because it will give Iran the full legal right to keep developing its peaceful nuclear energy program. And we will support Iran," Ivanov said. Iran's foreign ministry said on Sunday that negotiations with Russia on the possible compromise uranium enrichment deal would continue, with talks scheduled in Moscow on February 16. The Russian proposal would see enrichment -- to produce reactor fuel which can also form the core of a nuclear weapon -- carried out in Russia and then shipped back to Iran. The plan has received cautious support from the Western powers, but Iran appears reluctant to give up what it sees as a right to enrich uranium itself. Speaking at the same conference, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier urged Iran to accept the Russian proposal as a way out of the crisis. "It can be the key to a negotiated solution... Unfortunately the Iranian government has ignored this opportunity so far," Steinmeier said. "Solving the Iranian nuclear issue is the key task for the immediate future unless we want an arms race in the Middle East." In his conference speech, Ivanov stressed Russia's ties with the European Union" /> and NATO" /> but expressed reservations about the expansion of the transatlantic alliance. He also responded to criticism over Russia's record on democracy and its relations with other former Soviet states, such as Georgia and Ukraine, heard at the conference. "Democracy is not a potato that you can plant anywhere and it will grow," Ivanov said. The three-day Munich Conference on Security Policy, attended by heads of state, government ministers and senior security officials, ended Sunday. Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 35 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Willing to Negotiate on Nuke Program [UP] Sunday February 5, 2006 8:01 AM AP Photo VAH106 TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran said Sunday it was still willing to negotiate with the international community over its nuclear program, despite its referral by the U.N. nuclear watchdog to the Security Council. ``The door for negotiations is still open,'' Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said at a news conference. ``We don't fear the Security Council. It's not the end of the world.'' The International Atomic Energy Agency reported Iran to the U.N. Security Council on Saturday over fears it wants to produce nuclear arms. Iran responded by saying it would restart full-scale work on uranium enrichment and put an end to intrusive IAEA inspections of its facilities. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad brushed off the IAEA referral. ``Issue as many resolutions like this as you want and make yourself happy. You can't prevent the progress of the Iranian nation,'' he said in comments carried by the official Islamic Republic News Agency. ``In the name of the IAEA they want to visit all our nuclear facilities and learn our defense capabilities, but we won't allow them to do this,'' he added. In the past, Iran had allowed snap inspections of its facilities, including military sites. But parliament passed a law last year requiring the government to block intrusive inspections of Iran's facilities if the country were brought before the Security Council. It also required the government to resume all suspended nuclear activities, chief among them, uranium enrichment. Uranium enriched to a low degree is used as fuel for nuclear reactors. But highly enriched uranium is suitable for making atomic bombs. Asefi reiterated that Iran would cooperate with the IAEA within the framework of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and the Safeguard Agreement. ``We chose our way wisely. We have solutions for all situations that may develop. Referring Iran to the Security Council will definitely harm the other party more than Iran,'' Asefi said. Twenty-seven of 35 member nations on the IAEA board voted for Iran's referral, reflecting more than two years of intense lobbying by the United States and its allies to enlist broad backing for such a move. Cuba, Venezuela and Syria voted against, and five members abstained. After years of opposition, Russia and China backed the referral last week, bringing support from other nations who had been waiting for their lead. But in return, Moscow and Beijing demanded that the Americans - and France and Britain, the two other veto-wielding Security Council members - agree to let the Iran issue rest until at least March, when the IAEA board meets again to review the agency's investigation of Iran's nuclear program and its compliance with board demands that it renounce uranium enrichment. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 ***************************************************************** 36 AFP: Russia presses for Iran nuclear diplomacy - Monday February 6, 06:48 AM MUNICH, Germany (AFP) - Russia urged Iran to provide "unequivocal answers" to mounting international concerns over its nuclear program in a call for continued diplomacy with the Islamic republic. "Russia still believes that as long as possible it's better to keep the matter in the International Atomic Energy Agency's hands," Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov said at the Munich Conference on Security Policy. "We expect unequivocal answers" from Iran, Ivanov said, referring to suspicions in Western capitals that Iran is trying to build a nuclear bomb. Tehran insists it is setting up a peaceful atomic energy program. "It is not in our interests to wait for the deterioration of the situation in an already explosive region," Ivanov said. The UN atomic watchdog voted on Saturday to report Iran to the UN Security Council, which has the power to impose sanctions. Ivanov warned there was a danger that the IAEA vote would lead the Islamic republic to throw the Agency's inspectors out of the country. "If they are expelled, that will be a very bad sign," Ivanov said after a defiant Iran announced it was halting snap UN inspections of its nuclear facilities in retaliation for its referral to the Security Council. "As long as they (the inspectors) are inside Iran, at least we can get some picture of what is happening there in this nuclear program." Ivanov, who is also Russia's Deputy Prime Minister, said he had doubts about imposing sanctions against Iran, where Russia is building the country's first nuclear reactor. "I am not sure that sanctions are effective," he said. "I am not sure every country will abide strictly by the sanctions." The minister also talked up a proposal by Moscow to carry out uranium enrichment on behalf of Iran on Russian territory to allay fears that it could be used to construct a nuclear warhead. Ivanov said that even if Tehran accepted the compromise it was essential that IAEA inspectors remained in Iran. "I hope that Iran would accept the Russian proposal, but still the Agency should be there in Iran. "This proposal is attractive because it will give Iran the full legal right to keep developing its peaceful nuclear energy program. And we will support Iran," Ivanov said. Iran's foreign ministry said on Sunday that negotiations with Russia on the possible compromise uranium enrichment deal would continue, with talks scheduled in Moscow on February 16. The Russian proposal would see enrichment -- to produce reactor fuel which can also form the core of a nuclear weapon -- carried out in Russia and then shipped back to Iran. The plan has received cautious support from the Western powers, but Iran appears reluctant to give up what it sees as a right to enrich uranium itself. Speaking at the same conference, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier urged Iran to accept the Russian proposal as a way out of the crisis. "It can be the key to a negotiated solution... Unfortunately the Iranian government has ignored this opportunity so far," Steinmeier said. "Solving the Iranian nuclear issue is the key task for the immediate future unless we want an arms race in the Middle East." In his conference speech, Ivanov stressed Russia's ties with the European Union and NATO but expressed reservations about the expansion of the transatlantic alliance. He also responded to criticism over Russia's record on democracy and its relations with other former Soviet states, such as Georgia and Ukraine, heard at the conference. "Democracy is not a potato that you can plant anywhere and it will grow," Ivanov said. The three-day Munich Conference on Security Policy, attended by heads of state, government ministers and senior security officials, ended Sunday. Copyright © 2006 AFP. All rights reserved. All information ***************************************************************** 37 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Vows Enrichment After U.N. Referral From the Associated Press [UP] Saturday February 4, 2006 11:16 PM AP Photo VIE111 By GEORGE JAHN Associated Press Writer VIENNA, Austria (AP) - The International Atomic Energy Agency reported Iran to the U.N. Security Council on Saturday over fears it wants to produce nuclear arms, raising the stakes in the diplomatic confrontation and prompting Tehran to threaten immediate retaliation. Of the board's 35 member nations, 27 voted for referral, reflecting more than two years of intense lobbying by the United States and its allies to enlist broad backing for such a move. Washington critics Cuba, Venezuela and Syria voted against referral, and the other five nations abstained. Still, the near consensus came at a price for Washington. Long an advocate of firm Security Council action against Iran, including possible political and economic sanctions, the Americans had to settle for what is essentially symbolic referral, for now. After years of opposition, Russia and China backed the referral last week, bringing support from other nations - including India - that had been waiting for their lead. But in return, Moscow and Beijing demanded that the Americans - and France and Britain, the two other veto-wielding Security Council members - agree to let the Iran issue rest until at least March. That is when the IAEA board meets again to review the agency's investigation of Iran's nuclear program and its compliance with board demands that it renounce uranium enrichment. That process can produce either fuel for a nuclear reactor or the material needed to build a warhead. ``The path chosen by Iran's new leaders - threats, concealment, and breaking international agreements and IAEA seals - will not succeed and will not be tolerated by the international community,'' President Bush said in a statement. Iran remained defiant, threatening to do precisely what referral was meant to prevent. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ordered the resumption of uranium enrichment and an end to snap IAEA inspections of its nuclear facilities, according to state television. ``As of Sunday, the voluntary implementation of the additional protocol and other cooperation beyond the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty has to be suspended under the law,'' Ahmadinejad said in a letter to Vice President Gholamreza Aghazadeh, who also is the head of the nation's nuclear agency. Javed Vaeidi, deputy head of Iran's powerful National Security Council, also said his country ``now has to implement fuller scale of enrichment.'' Iran says it wants to enrich only to make nuclear fuel for generating electricity, but concerns that it might misuse the technology accelerated the chain of events that led to Saturday's referral to the Security Council. Tehran took IAEA seals off enrichment equipment Jan. 10 and said it would resume small-scale activities. Vaeidi also said a proposal to enrich Iranian uranium in Russia was dead. Moscow has suggested that Iran shift its plan for large-scale enrichment of uranium to Russian territory to alleviate international concern Iran might use the process to develop an atomic bomb. Other Iranian comment reflected Tehran's fury at Washington. The Islamic Republic News Agency quoted Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar describing U.S. leaders as ``terrorists and the main axis of evil in the world.'' Najjar was responding to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who at a high-level security conference in Munich, Germany, repeated Washington's view of Iran as the ``world's leading state sponsor of terrorism.'' Sen. John McCain, speaking at the same conference, said military action could not be ruled out if diplomatic efforts fail to stop Iran from developing a nuclear bomb. European leaders expressed support for the referral, through a resolution drafted by France, Britain and Germany on behalf of the European Union. British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said the vote showed ``the international community's determination to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons in the Middle East.'' EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said through a spokesman that he hoped the vote would send ``a clear signal to Iran that it must comply with the demands of the international community.'' Russia's government urged Iran to ``respond constructively'' to the IAEA's decision, ``including the restoration of a voluntary moratorium on all uranium enrichment works.'' German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said the ``convincing'' vote sent a ``clear signal to Tehran'' to take account of international concerns. French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said he was ``very concerned and upset'' by Iran's decision to retaliate. The IAEA resolution links Tehran's referral to the country's breaches of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and the lack of confidence it is not trying to make weapons. The text expresses ``serious concerns about Iran's nuclear program'' and recalls ``Iran's many failures and breaches of its obligations'' to the arms control treaty. It also expresses ``the absence of confidence that Iran's nuclear program is exclusively for peaceful purposes.'' The resolution says IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei should ``report to the Security Council'' the steps Iran needs to take to dispel suspicions about its nuclear ambitions. These include that it return to freezing uranium enrichment; consider stopping construction of a heavy-water reactor that could be the source of plutonium; formally ratify the agreement allowing the IAEA greater inspecting authority; and give the nuclear watchdog more power in its investigation of Iran's nuclear program. The draft also asks that ElBaradei share with the Security Council his report to the March 6 IAEA board session and any subsequent resolution. Chief British IAEA delegate Peter Jenkins urged Iran to heed the resolution before March, warning: ``Should Iran fail to comply ... it will fall to the Security Council to bring additional pressure to bear.'' His American counterpart, Gregory L. Schulte, indirectly acknowledged that the Security Council's hands were tied until March, saying: ``We're not talking about sanctions at this stage.'' But Straw said that if Iran failed to use the March window of opportunity, Security Council action would be ``almost inevitable.'' A senior European diplomat familiar with the issue said there was general agreement among the five permanent Security Council members that - if Iran remains defiant beyond March 6 - the council would slowly increase pressure. A first step could be a council declaration urging Iran to comply with the resolution, the diplomat said on condition of anonymity because the strategy was confidential. Agreement on the final wording of the text was achieved overnight, only after Washington compromised on a dispute with Egypt over linking fears about Tehran's atomic program to a Middle East zone free of weapons of mass destruction - an indirect reference to Israel. The final resolution recognized ``that a solution to the Iranian issue would contribute to global nonproliferation efforts and ... the objective of a Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction, including their means of delivery.'' Israel, which is not an IAEA board member, welcomed Iran's referral and the call for a nuclear-free Middle East. Experts say Israel has the world's sixth-largest stockpile of nuclear weapons, but the Jewish state neither acknowledges nor denies having such a program. --- Associated Press reporters Palma Benczenleitner in Vienna; Amy Teibel in Jerusalem; and Ali Akbar Dareini in Tehran, Iran, contributed to this report. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 ***************************************************************** 38 Congress Seeks Bush Intel Report on N. Korea Date: Sat, 4 Feb 2006 12:11:52 -0600 (CST) AFP - US legislators have asked President George W. Bush to declassify an intelligence report on North Korea's nuclear weapons so that Congress can hold a full debate on policy towards the Stalinist state. The US intelligence community recently completed a comprehensive national intelligence estimate (NIE) of North Korea's nuclear weapons capability and long-range missile development programs at the request of Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid. On Friday Reid and three other senior Democratic senators requested Bush to provide "a declassified version of that NIE so that Congress can have at hand accurate information about the current threat and engage in a full and free debate about the best policy on North Korea going forward." Noting that Bush did not touch on North Korea's nuclear threat during his State of the Union address last Tuesday, the senators called into question "the credibility" of his commitment to addressing the issue. "We urge you to clearly describe to America and the Congress your policies on North Korea so that we can begin, in a bipartisan effort, to put US policy on a more productive path that reduces the threat to US national security," they said. The other senators were Carl Levin of the Senate Armed Services committee, Joe Biden of the foreign relations committee and Jay Rockefeller, vice chairman of the intelligence committee. They cautioned Bush that "time is not on our side" and that it appeared his policy had failed to eliminate, freeze, or even slow down North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile activities. "We are now faced with the real possibility that North Korea may have perhaps as many as a dozen nuclear weapons," they said. There was also no guarantee that North Korea would not export fissile material or even finished nuclear weapons, they said. Many experts, the senators claimed, believed North Korea had the capability to deploy nuclear warheads on its Nodong missiles, bringing the entire Korean Peninsula and much of Japan under the threat of nuclear attack. Bush had in 2002 tagged North Korea together with Iran, and Iraq, then under Saddam Hussein, as an "axis of evil" and questioned their nuclear ambitions. Since then, North Korea has increased its fissile material stockpile by as much as 400 percent, the senators charged. Bush decided in 2003 to use China-led diplomacy to end North Korea's nuclear weapons drive. China hosted so-called six-party talks involving the United States, Russia, the two Koreas and Japan to woo North Korea to disband its nuclear weapons network in returns for diplomatic, security and energy aid guarantees. But negotiations have stalled since November after the United States imposed financial sanctions on North Korea for alleged counterfeiting and money laundering activities. North Korea has said it will not return to the talks unless Washington withdraws the sanctions, which Pyongyang felt was against the spirit of the six-party talks where it had agreed in principle to give up the nuclear arms. Bush said last week that the United States would not compromise on the financial sanctions to resolve the nuclear standoff. US officials have accused North Korea of using state trading firms, embassy diplomatic pouches and commercial cargo for criminal activity. North Korea has denied the charges. ***************************************************************** 39 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: Japan Has High Expectations for 3-Track Talks with N. Korea VOA.com Updated Feb.4,2006 11:34 KST Japan and North Korea. It is the first time the two nations will meet under a new format in which contentious issues are separated into three tracks. The talks are expected to last five days and Japan is insisting on progress. Japan on Friday issued a warning to North Korea that progress must be made at their talks, which, among other things, will cover the emotional issue of Japanese citizens abducted by Pyongyang. Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe told reporters Japan will negotiate firmly at the talks, which begin in Beijing Saturday. He said that if there is no breakthrough on the fate of Japanese abducted by North Korea then Tokyo will have to consider various options. Some analysts say that may refer to economic sanctions - something that North Korea has previously said it would consider tantamount to a declaration of war. It also could indicate that Japan will take other action, such as postponing talks on normalizing relations with Pyongyang or on granting it aid. But Professor Peter Hayes, the director of the Nautilus Institute at Australia's R.M.I.T. University, says North Korea is likely to be little concerned about the threat of sanctions. "Japan is now a relatively small economic player for North Korea," he noted. "China is now much more important economically than Japan, and, so to that extent, there's a certain 'hollow drum' being beaten by Japan here." The Korean peninsula was a Japanese colony for the first half of the 20th century until Japan's defeat in World War II led to the creation of a communist North allied with the Soviet Union and a republic in the South protected by the United States. North Korea has long desired diplomatic relations with Japan. Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who has made two trips to Pyongyang, has said that is not possible unless North Korea fully accounts for the Japanese citizens it kidnapped and returns any still alive. North Korea apparently used the kidnapped victims to teach spies the Japanese language and the country's customs. There are allegations Pyongyang also snatched people from other countries. Five of 13 known abductees returned to Japan in 2002, and North Korea said the other eight are dead. But Tokyo wants more evidence about their fate, as well as of three other people Japan contends were kidnapped. This round of talks will use a new format; one group will discuss the abduction issue, a second will cover normalizing relations while a third will deal with the North's nuclear weapons and missile programs. The Nautilus Institute's Peter Hayes predicts the three-track approach may prove more fruitful than lumping all the issues together. "It's rather like a snarl of ropes that are all tangled together," he explained. "If you try and solve it by just pulling on one rope to get things untangled, you won't get very far. Where as if you try and ease the tension on all of the ropes that are tangled together, you tend to be able to get things sorted out." Japanese media on Friday reported that Japan also hopes to convince North Korea to return to the stalled talks on ending its nuclear programs. North Korea has said it will not continue with those discussions until Washington lifts sanctions imposed on Pyongyang for alleged counterfeiting of U.S. currency and other illicit activities. The talks also involve China, South Korea and Russia. ***************************************************************** 40 SF Chronicle: Tough talk, few answers on North Korea [San Francisco Chronicle] Reviewed by David Bosco Sunday, February 5, 2006 Nuclear Showdown North Korea Takes On the World By Gordon G. Chang RANDOM HOUSE; 327 PAGES; $25.95 Sometime in January, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il crossed his country's border and passed into China. Traveling in an armored train, he apparently toured Chinese factories in search of an economic model for his destitute country. For more than a week, the Chinese and North Korean governments were silent about the trip, but rumors about Kim's trip seeped out of China and into the international press. Tourists in one town reported being ushered out of their swank hotel to make way for a "special guest." Finally, after Kim was safely on his way back to North Korea, the governments acknowledged the visit. What would be utterly bizarre behavior for other world leaders is by now quite standard for North Korea's reclusive leader, who sports a bouffant hairdo, designer sunglasses and platform shoes. Kim's idiosyncrasies might be little more than fodder for jokes (and brilliant parodies, like the one in the film "Team America"), were it not for two unpleasant realities: Kim runs one of the world's most hideous states, and he is developing a small arsenal of nuclear weapons. In "Nuclear Showdown," Gordon Chang, an Asia expert and the author of a previous book on China, takes the reader into a country whose schoolchildren are taught that their leader is the "Sun of the 21st Century" and where thousands starved to death because of his insane policies. The bane of its suffering population, the regime frightens its neighbors as well. In one of the book's most gripping sections, Chang relates the harrowing tale of the Japanese schoolgirl kidnapped by North Korean agents, zipped into a body bag, smuggled onto a boat and spirited away to North Korea so that its agents could study Japanese language and culture. The regime has apparently abducted more than 100 Japanese citizens for similar purposes. Chang doesn't skimp on the horror of today's North Korea, but he also offers some tantalizing evidence that Kim's control is slipping. Refugees are creeping across the border with China, peasants are grabbing land from the state, and a new and more assertive middle class may soon demand reform. "North Koreans, for the first time ever, seem to have taken the initiative," he claims, perhaps over-optimistically. More than a mere chronicler of Kim's regime, Chang dives enthusiastically into the turbulent regional politics surrounding the North Korean crisis. In readable and energetic chapters, he surveys a galloping but dangerous China, the increasingly anti-American South Korea, and a Japan struggling to mesh its post-war pacifism with frightening new realities. Along the way, Chang has harsh words for any leader willing to accommodate Pyongyang's madman. By appeasing the north, Chang charges at one point, South Korea "has turned its back on its most basic obligation as a state -- protecting its own nationals -- so that it will not offend the neighboring despot." Unfortunately, this often enlightening analysis is tone deaf. Chang is flippant, garrulous and judgmental -- though often inconsistently so. He casually lambastes Japan's leadership for its appeasement of North Korea and then concedes, a few short paragraphs later, that Japan's prime minister has few good options. Short on gripping reporting or inside access -- most of his sources are published news reports -- Chang relies on a grating colloquial style and peppers his narrative with folk wisdom from the likes of comedian Bill Cosby and playwright Tom Stoppard. But even Chang can't maintain his glibness when it comes to the crushing dilemma that is at the heart of his book: Can the world tolerate a mendacious and mercenary North Korea pumping out doomsday devices? Like many experts, Chang is convinced that we cannot simply bide our time and hope that Kim's regime collapses. "Kim may or may not be manageable now, but he certainly will be less so in the future." It falls to the United States to confront what the author labels an "existential threat to the international community." But what would he have us do? He has a few notions for new diplomatic strategies but concedes that they probably won't work. "Some disputes are not resolved without death in great numbers," he warns. "And the never-ending North Korean nuclear crisis is beginning to look like one of them." Chang draws analogies to Nazi Germany and suggests that it would be better to rid the world of this regime now rather than later. But a war to unseat the heavily armed regime would probably claim many thousands of lives, including many South Koreans who adamantly oppose military action. South Korea's capital, after all, is within easy range of Kim's forces. The book lavishly promises readers "a solution that can defuse the standoff once and for all." It doesn't come close. For all his bluster, Chang is as stymied as everyone else. David Bosco is senior editor at Foreign Policy magazine. Page M - 2 The San Francisco Chronicle] ***************************************************************** 41 AFP: Japan, N.Korea resume bilateral talks - Saturday February 4, 12:20 PM BEIJING (AFP) - Negotiators from Japan and North Korea have begun a fresh round of talks to discuss the normalization of bilateral ties, regional security issues and Pyongyang's abductions of Japanese citizens. A Japanese embassy official in Beijing told AFP the two sides would hold a working dinner to follow up on their initial session of talks, which reportedly resulted in the establishment of a timetable for the negotiations. Japan's top envoy to the talks, Koichi Haraguchi, said the Advertisement [ src=] two sides had agreed to discuss the kidnappings issue on Sunday, normalization of ties on Monday and security issues on Tuesday, Jiji press and Kyodo News said. North Korea has yet to forge diplomatic ties with Japan amid wrangling over compensation demands for Japan's harsh colonial rule of the Korean peninsula from 1910 to 1945. Bilateral ties have also recently turned sour over Pyongyang's nuclear weapons drive and its admission that it abducted Japanese citizens in the past -- a major stumbling block in normalizing ties between the two countries. Before going into the meeting Saturday, Haraguchi told reporters that Japan would push for the resolution of the abduction issue as a priority, saying: "We will do our best to make progress over the abduction issue." "I want them (the North Korean delegation) to understand that it would be difficult to see progress of the normalization talks unless we see their sincerity over the abduction, nuclear and missile issues," Haraguchi said. Before leaving Tokyo, Haraguchi said he expected Pyongyang would press Japan to settle the issues of damages caused by Japanese soldiers during World War II. "We have more things that we should say" on the abduction issue, Song Il-Ho, the head of the North Korean delegation, told reporters in Beijing, according to Kyodo News. He promised to "discuss the results when the talks are over," adding: "I believe we will be discussing issues of our interests in an earnest manner." "The settlement of the past is an issue that the whole world is paying attention to," he said. "We will take up this issue while assessing the level of preparation on the other side." Song said he was pleased that the normalization talks would resume after a hiatus of more than three years, Kyodo reported. Japanese foreign ministry officials said they expected the talks to last about five days. Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe said Friday Tokyo would demand the release of abducted citizens who are still alive, the handover of suspects and the truth about North Korea's actions. Japan is expected to call on North Korea to return to six-way nuclear disarmament talks and put a stop to its alleged nuclear weapons drive. Pyongyang had declared the kidnappings issue settled after repatriating five kidnap victims following a landmark summit in 2002 between Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and reclusive North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il. North Korea admitted having kidnapped Japanese citizens, mostly in the 1970s, to train the regime's spies. But Tokyo has insisted that at least eight Japanese are still alive and being kept hidden because they know too many secrets about the regime. Copyright © 2006 Yahoo! UK Limited. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 42 DLC PR: DEMOCRATS URGE PRESIDENT TO RELEASE INFORMATION ON NORTH KOREAN NUCLEAR THREAT Friday, February 3, 2006 Washington, DC— Today, Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, Armed Services Ranking Democrat Carl Levin, Foreign Relations Ranking Democrat Joe Biden, and Intelligence Vice Chairman Jay Rockefeller sent a letter to the President questioning why he has ceased discussing the serious threat from North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, which has grown substantially on the President’s watch. The letter calls for the President to provide Congress and the American public with a declassified national intelligence estimate (NIE) on North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile programs so that a full and free debate can occur about the best policy on North Korea going forward. A copy of the letter is below: February 3, 2006 The President The White House Washington, D.C. 20500 Dear Mr. President: Four years ago, in your 2002 State of the Union address, you focused the world’s attention on concerns about the possible nuclear ambitions of three countries you called an “axis of evil†– Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. Unfortunately, each now poses an even greater challenge to U.S. security than it did four years ago. There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but it risks becoming what it was not before the war: a haven for terrorists. Iran is closer to a nuclear weapon than it was four years ago. And North Korea has increased its fissile material stockpile by as much as 400 percent. In particular, we are troubled that the nuclear threat from North Korea, which has grown substantially, was ignored in Tuesday’s State of the Union address, calling into question the credibility of your commitment to addressing this threat. Four years ago, this is how you described your intentions regarding North Korea: We'll be deliberate, yet time is not on our side. I will not wait on events, while dangers gather. I will not stand by, as peril draws closer and closer. The United States of America will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons. (2002 State of the Union address) Three years ago, in a May 2003 joint statement with the President of South Korea you reaffirmed that you “will not tolerate nuclear weapons in North Korea.†Two years ago, the Vice President asserted about North Korea’s nuclear activities that “it is important that we make progress in this area. Time is not necessarily on our side.†One year ago, we wrote to you that “the record before us leads us to conclude that no real progress has been made†and that “with respect to the challenge of North Korea, American national security has degraded over the past year.†Today, it is even more clear that time is not on our side, and it appears that your policy still has not resulted in an elimination, freeze, or even a slowing of North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile activities. Most experts have assessed that from 1992 until sometime in 2002, North Korea had the capability to produce perhaps 1-2 nuclear weapons. North Korea recently has declared that since 2002 they have reprocessed 8,000 plutonium spent fuel rods, and have been engaged in preparing more plutonium for potential weapons use. We are now faced with the real possibility that North Korea may have perhaps as many as a dozen nuclear weapons. We have no guarantee that North Korea will not export fissile material or even finished nuclear weapons. Moreover, many experts believe North Korea has the capability to deploy nuclear warheads on its Nodong missiles, bringing the entire Korean Peninsula and much of Japan under the threat of nuclear attack. We urge you to clearly describe to America and the Congress your policies on North Korea so that we can begin, in a bipartisan effort, to put U.S. policy on a more productive path that reduces the threat to U.S. national security. The Intelligence Community recently has completed, at Senator Levin’s request, a comprehensive National Intelligence Estimate of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program and long-range missile development programs. We hereby request that you provide to us a declassified version of that NIE so that Congress can have at hand accurate information about the current threat and engage in a full and free debate about the best policy on North Korea going forward. Thank you. Sincerely, Harry Reid Senate Democratic Leader Carl Levin Ranking Democrat Senate Armed Services Committee Joseph R. Biden, Jr. Ranking Democrat Senate Foreign Relations Committee John D. Rockefeller IV Vice Chairman Senate Select Committee on Intelligence ### ***************************************************************** 43 Rediff: Now, an India-France nuke deal PTI February 05, 2006 17:50 IST India and France are likely to reach an understanding on civilian nuclear cooperation deal besides signing some defence agreements during the February 19-21 visit of President Jacques Chirac to Delhi. The nuclear deal will be on the lines of the one signed by India and the US on July 18 last year, diplomatic sources told PTI. "The groundwork for the deal has been done and if all goes well, it will be signed during Chirac's visit," they said. The deal will involve separation of civilian and military nuclear establishments by India for which negotiations will be conducted by the two sides. + Complete Coverage: The Indo-US nuclear tango Ahead of Chirac's three-day visit, his special envoy Maurice Gourdault-Montagne was in Delhi last week to fine-tune the deal. He met National Security Adviser M K Narayanan and some other officials to discuss various matters relating to the agreement. The sources said evolving public opinion in favour of the agreement would not be difficult in France, unlike that of the US. France has always had a favourable approach with regard to India's nuclear programme, the sources said, pointing out that even when New Delhi conducted nuclear tests in 1998, Paris was mild in its criticism unlike all the Western powers. © Copyright 2005 PTI. All rights reserved. Republication or Copyright © 2006 Rediff.com India Limited. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 44 Xinhua: India, France to sign nuclear energy, defense pacts www.xinhuanet.com www.chinaview.cn 2006-02-05 18:16:29 NEW DELHI, Feb. 5 (Xinhuanet) -- India and France are likely to sign defining pacts on civil nuclear energy and defense cooperation when French President Jacques Chirac begins visit here on Feb. 19, Indo-Asian News Service reported Sunday. The news agency quoted French envoy Dominique Girard as saying that Chirac will discuss the nuclear deal and other strategic issues with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The would-be India-France nuclear energy agreement will ask nuclear suppliers to make an exception in the case of India to facilitate nuclear business but only after India separates its civilian and military nuclear facilities, the press reported. It might be very similar to the India-US civil nuclear energy cooperation pact but details might differ, it quoted an anonymous Indian source as saying. The framework defense cooperation agreement is likely to cover the joint exercises between the armed forces, the joint production of armaments and other aspects of defense ties between the two countries in a broad framework. The delegation accompanying Chirac on his three-day India visit will consist of five senior ministers and 70 top businessmen and officials including officials of France's Nuclear Energy Commission and the CEO of Avera, one of the biggest manufacturers of pressurized nuclear reactors. Besides civil nuclear and defense pacts, the two sides plan to push forward economic relationship by encouraging the two-way investment and entering into more joint ventures in power, infrastructure, biotechnology and knowledge-driven industries like IT. France has made foreign direct investment worth 760 million US dollars in India. Enditem Copyright ©2003 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 45 Newsweek: Russian Nukes Redux - International Editions - MSNBC.com Looking to recapture lost glory, Moscow is building a new nuclear warhead designed to evade U.S. defenses By By Owen MatthewsNewsweek International Feb. 13, 2006 issue - Is energy the nuclear weapon of the 21st century? In recent months, Russia has shown that control of gas supplies to its neighbors can be a potent political tool. But when Vladimir Putin was asked exactly that question last week, he disagreed. "We still have plenty of nuclear rockets too," boasted Putin. "We recently carried out tests on new ballistic-weapon systems, weapons which no other country in the world has." The new Russian systems, he said, "don't care if there is a missile-defense system or not." In other words, for Putin, nukes are the nukes of the 21st century. Only one country in the world-America-is actually developing a missile defense system. So why, in an era when Russia and the United States enjoy friendly relations, do Russian leaders feel the need to revamp the country's nuclear arsenal, and add a new nuclear warhead designed specifically to penetrate the U.S. defenses? For the Kremlin's part, Putin sees nukes as Russia's membership card to the world's top table. Asked last week whether Russia really belonged in the G8 club of the world's leading industrialized nations, Putin's response was that Russia was a major nuclear power and couldn't be ignored. Putin makes no secret of his wish to see Russia great again-and since it's unlikely to join the ranks of the world's richest countries any time soon, staying in the nuclear game is a key part of that strategy. "Putin picked up on these weapons as a political slogan," says military analyst Pavel Felgenauer. "He is promoting this warhead as proof that we can still do things, still stay in the game." No one is suggesting that Putin intends to nuke Washington. But he does want to ensure he and his successors have that option. To that end, Russia has been giving its nuclear-weapons arsenal a major face-lift. The new targetable warhead Putin mentioned-a unique system no other country has so far tried to replicate-is specifically designed to counter U.S. anti-missile technology. The warhead is fired into space on a conventional ballistic missile. But instead of falling to earth on a predictable trajectory, it then detaches and maneuvers as it re-enters the atmosphere, like a cruise missile. This maneuverability, analysts say, would confound U.S. missile defenses, which work by plotting an incoming warhead's trajectory and intercepting it as it homes in on a target. Tests last year showed that for the first time, prototype targetable warheads can shift trajectory at Mach 8, making them almost impossible to shoot down. It will take several more years (and a lot more money) before the new warhead goes into production. But Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov promised last December that Russia would have a "new generation" of strategic missiles by the end of the decade. The idea of a targetable warhead has been around since 1983, when the Soviet Union sought an answer to Ronald Reagan's "Star Wars" Strategic Defense Initiative, which envisioned a missile shield mounted on satellites in space. Even though the SDI system was never actually built, Reagan's apparent determination to go through with it rocked the cold-war world. Then-Soviet leader Yuri Andropov ordered up the new warheads as Russia's "asymmetric response" to Reagan. By the time the Soviet Union fell, Moscow had sunk more than $20 billion into the project-three times more than the Pentagon actually spent on Star Wars. Indeed, for a while, the United States switched its attention to theater defense systems-ground-based rockets like the Patriot that can intercept small, low flying missiles. Twenty years later, the threat of rogue states has given new life to the old idea of a missile shield. An influential report drafted by Donald Rumsfeld in 2000, before he became George W. Bush's hawkish secretary of Defense, argued that the United States should urgently develop a system to defend itself against a rogue nuclear attack. September 11 gave that fear wings, and the U.S. government instituted a $100 billion missile-defense program. Five years on, the system is starting to take shape. In November, a U.S. Aegis warship launched a missile that successfully intercepted a dummy incoming rocket off Hawaii. Sixteen similar land-based interceptor rocket stations are scheduled to be deployed in Alaska this year (even though in two of the last three tests last fall, the rockets failed to launch). Building America's new anti-missile shield has meant unilaterally tearing up the 1972 antiballistic-missile treaty with Russia. That treaty's logic-to preserve the balance of mutually assured destruction between the superpowers-limited Soviet and U.S. anti-missile defense systems to just one station of 100 anti-missile rockets so that neither side would be able to attack the other and expect to survive an answering attack. "Bush argued that cold-war logic shouldn't stand in the way of America's ability to defend itself," says a senior Western military source in Moscow, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject. "What the Russians had to say about it didn't really matter." It turns out, though, that the Russians do have something to say. "I'm not saying this [system] is our response to missile defense," said Putin last week-apparently meaning exactly the opposite. Essentially, Putin's answer has been the same as Andropov's to Reagan a generation before. "They took the old system out of the locker and shook the dust off it," says Arbatov. The United States, for its part, doesn't seem too worried: Washington "does not perceive Russia's nuclear modernization activities as threatening," says State Department spokesman Adam Ereli, and added that what Russia is doing is consistent with existing treaties. Washington can afford to be relaxed because Putin's talk of nukes probably has more to do with boosting the reputation of his beleaguered military at home than making preparations for war with the United States. Putin likes to cast himself as a defender of Russia. He has boosted funding for the military by 15 percent to more than $24 billion in 2006. But that's just a drop in the ocean. The Army, argues analyst Alexander Golts, is still geared to fighting a world war, rather than local separatist conflicts that are Russia's biggest threat. Transforming the military into a smaller, more professional fighting force would mean spending more money-and taking on more vested interests-than Putin's ready for. Easier, then, to announce a terrifying new secret weapon than to tackle the more serious problems of Russia's creaky military. "Our Duma deputies were delighted as children when Putin made the announcement of our new system," says Arbatov. "And our generals, too." What makes Putin's boasts a little hollow, however, is that a new warhead alone isn't enough to create a new-generation nuclear arsenal. Russia almost certainly has the know-how-given time and money-to make a targetable warhead system work. But its delivery systems, both rockets and submarines, are rapidly aging. Of Russia's six Typhoon-class strategic nuclear missile subs (featured in Tom Clancy's cold-war classic "The Hunt for Red October"), only one, the Dmitry Donskoi, is actually refitted and serviceable. And a further seven Delta-4 class subs, a newer class built in the late 1980s, will also reach the end of their service life by the end of the decade. Just two replacement subs are planned thus far. Russia's missiles are degrading fast, too. In 10 years, analysts say, Russia's heavy SS-18 and SS-19 strategic rockets will be too old for use, and are being replaced by new Topol M's at a rate of only seven a year. In sum, says Arbatov, Russia is likely to have just 500 warheads in a decade, to America's 2,000 state-of-the-art nukes. But while Russia's new warheads may be more about posturing than substance, they're a symptom of something much more worrisome-a wider breakdown in the cold war's systems of controlling weapons of mass destruction. The ABM Treaty is now history, but the more important Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1970 could go the same way. The treaty, signed by almost all of the world's nations, was designed to control the spread of nuclear weaponry beyond a small club-the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France and China. India, Pakistan and presumably Israel have already broken the treaty and developed nukes of their own, and North Korea boasts that it has (though no one is quite sure). Last week, Russian intelligence warned that Iran may have enriched enough uranium to make a simple nuclear bomb-even though it still lacks an effective delivery system. "Disarmament has fallen apart," says Arbatov. "This has very bad consequences for proliferation." Some Westerners have taken solace that Russia's nuclear scientists are gainfully employed, rather than seeking freelance work from terrorists. Indeed, Putin has vowed to revive Russia's military industrial complex, consolidating 60 companies under an umbrella organization, Rosvooruzheniye, controlled by Viktor Ivanov, deputy chief of the presidential administration. Under the new management, the company has landed some lucrative deals, including a $1 billion contract to supply Iran with antiaircraft defense systems signed last December. Financially, however, the firm faces an uphill struggle. Salaries are still puny and unlikely to tempt back specialists who emigrated in the 1990s, says Felgenhauer, "and that's a major problem in an industry where most of the best experts are pushing 60." And, complains Col. Gen. Anatolii Sitnov, former head of the Defense Ministry's armaments department, quality standards are lax and many of the systems produced "inferior." Russia's new warheads may sound fearsome, but the real threat to world security is likely to come from upstart nuclear powers like Iran. Before too long, both cold-war rivals may have to retarget their warheads at new and less familiar enemies. c 2006 Newsweek, Inc. | © 2006 MSNBC.com ***************************************************************** 46 Oppose Controversial New Nuclear Program Date: Sat, 4 Feb 2006 23:30:02 -0600 (CST) Oppose Controversial New Nuclear Program In his State of the Union address, President Bush called for investment in "clean, safe nuclear energy." This seemingly harmless phrase, however, does not describe the controversial new program currently under consideration by the administration and some members of Congress. Under this new plan, the U.S. would "reprocess," or separate, weapons-usable plutonium from the spent nuclear fuel generated by U.S. power reactors. This proposal would make it easier for terrorists to acquire the material for making a nuclear bomb. It would require the construction and operation of an array of nuclear facilities that would handle enough plutonium annually to make thousands of nuclear weapons. It would also make disposing of nuclear waste more difficult, encourage other countries to reprocess, and cost a tremendous amount of money. Help us make this program politically "radioactive": please tell your representative and senators to keep nuclear material out of the hands of terrorists by rejecting all efforts to fund this dangerous plutonium reprocessing program. POWERFUL OPTION--INSTRUCTIONS TO RESPOND VIA THE WEB: Please make your letter personal by adding in your own thoughts and concerns. Every letter makes a difference, but customized letters have the greatest impact! Go to the following URL: http://ucsaction.org/campaign/2_2_06_nuclear_reprocessing/w3dbbe7ra5bted8? QUICK OPTION--INSTRUCTIONS TO RESPOND VIA EMAIL: Just choose the "reply to sender" option on your email program. Your letter will be addressed and sent to your representative and your senators. ----THIS LETTER WILL BE SENT IN YOUR NAME---- Dear Senators and Representative, I am writing to urge you to oppose all efforts to fund a program to "reprocess" U.S. spent nuclear fuel from commercial power reactors. Reprocessing, which separates weapons-usable plutonium from the other nuclear waste contained in spent fuel, would be enormously expensive, make disposing of our nuclear waste more difficult, and encourage other nations to pursue this technology, which can be used for a nuclear weapons program. Despite the significant dangers posed by reprocessing, the administration's new budget proposal is likely to contain a request for hundreds of millions of dollars for such a program. This funding should be stripped from the budget. A number of disingenuous claims are being made about reprocessing, but the facts are clear: * The creation of multiple reprocessing facilities linked by nuclear shipments would provide terrorists more opportunities to seize and use nuclear weapons materials; * The plutonium extracted from reprocessing can be used to build nuclear weapons; * Reprocessing produces more nuclear waste than is contained in the original spent fuel. As President Bush said, nuclear terrorism is the greatest threat we face today. Please keep dangerous nuclear material out of the hands of terrorists by opposing all funding for the reprocessing of U.S. nuclear fuel here and abroad. I look forward to hearing your position on this important issue. Sincerely, Visit the web address below to tell your friends about this. http://ucsaction.org/campaign/2_2_06_nuclear_reprocessing/forward/ ***************************************************************** 47 The Observer: Finland goes back to the future [UP] As Britain seriously considers launching a new nuclear programme, Robin McKie visits Finland to see Europe's first reactor for more than a decade, built as the only answer to the country's energy needs Sunday February 5, 2006 The Observer The first sight of the Olkiluoto nuclear complex in western Finland is decidedly unexpected. Towering over the plant's entrance is a massive wind turbine, slowly turning in the gales whipping snow and sleet across the bleak landscape - not what you anticipate from a nuclear power plant, particularly one destined to be the most advanced in Europe. The turbine, I am assured by Martin Landtman, head of the plant, is there for a good reason. It shows Teollisuuden Voima Oy (TVO), the private company building the Olkiluoto complex, is committed to all forms of energy generation. Well, up to a point, for Olkiluoto is certainly not renowned for its renewable energy but for the fact that Europe's first nuclear reactor for more a decade is being constructed there. Nuclear power is suddenly back on the agenda in Europe and, thanks to the folks at TVO, the Finns are leaders in the field. Why? For a start, says Landtman, the arithmetic was utterly compelling. Consider the alternatives, like that wind turbine. It can generate, at most, 1 megawatt (MW) of electricity; Landtman's new reactor will churn out 1,600MW. 'To match that, you would need 1,600 wind turbines and they would cover dozens of miles of coastline round here,' he adds. And it still would not be enough. During Finnish winters, temperatures often plunge below minus 20C. Masses of high-pressure air slowly swirl southwards from Russia and hold the country in a windless Arctic grip for several weeks. 'Wind turbines hardly move then,' says Landtman. 'You could build 10,000 and they would generate hardly a watt - just when people need electricity for their central heating and their saunas.' As for other alternatives, Finnish homes are already well insulated, so when new power production was being planned in the 1990s it was clear there was little hope of making significant improvements in energy saving. At the same time, increasing coal and gas power station output was a non-starter, as Finland is an enthusiastic supporter of the Kyoto agreement on climate change. Neither were new technologies considered an option. For example, carbon storage, which involves pumping carbon dioxide into old mines and oil wells so traditional power plants can continue burning oil, coal and gas, was rejected as Finland has few useful underground sites. In any case, the technology is untested. 'In the end, nuclear power was our only realistic option,' said Landtman. Thus Finland became the first European country for more than a decade to opt to build a new reactor. Fission technology, condemned and killed off in the Eighties and Nineties, would be resurrected on this remote Finnish island, it was decided. Of course, the country has its own, special energy problems that also influenced this decision. Electricity use has risen steadily by about 1 per cent every year, though overall energy consumption has remained stable. Other sources - wood, coal and oil - have simply been shunned. 'It's a matter of convenience. Once we lit logs to heat our saunas, now we just turn on a switch,' says Landtman. Maintaining that electricity supply has not been easy, however, and has only been achieved by importing electricity from neighbouring Sweden and Russia. Such dependence - an issue that is only beginning to touch the rest of Europe - leaves the country vulnerable and has frequently produced wild fluctuations in power prices. At times, major industrial users have found it cheaper to trim production and resell their electricity to other users. 'When electricity gets really pricey, we shut down part of our plant and sell it on to others,' says Pertti Asunmaa, general manager of the UPM-Kymmene Corporation, whose vast papermills dominate the coastal town of Rauma, near Olkiluoto. 'It makes money, but that is not what we are in business for. We would much rather have stable power supplies and prices.' His company is one of the main partners in TVO, the private investment group that is providing the 3bn (£2bn) for Olkiluoto 3's construction. It considered six designs for the plant before selecting the French-German 'evolutionary' pressure water reactor. This is being built by France's Framatome and its turbine hall by Germany's Siemens. (The pair can be expected to be key bidders to construct new nuclear reactors in Britain, with the main competition coming from British-owned, but American- based, Westinghouse.) Neither do the project's international credentials stop there. The reactor's uranium fuel will be mined in Canada, Australia and Africa and will then be enriched in Russia. Finally, it will be assembled and put into fuel rods in Sweden, Spain and Germany. However, the workforce - about 600-strong - will be 65 per cent Finnish. Over the past year, they have gouged a massive pit beside Olkiluoto's existing two reactors (which have a combined output of 1,700MW each, only marginally more than Olkiluoto 3's) and are now lining that base with a three-metre thick layer of concrete on which the new reactor will sit. Looming over this crater of steel and cement, one of the world's biggest cranes is lowering various components, including the reactor's 1,600 tonne steam generator, into place. When completed in 2009, this nuclear behemoth will be Europe's most advanced reactor and a marvel of nuclear safety, according to TVO. For example, if its control rods were to fail, triggering a core meltdown, a specially designed basin of concrete will hold the molten debris, preventing deadly releases of radioactive material. Olkiluoto 3 will take Finland's nuclear power output from its current 27 per cent of total electricity production to 37 per cent. And, given that all its current plants have at least 25 years' operating life left in them, while Olkiluoto 3 has been built to last 60 years, it is clear that Finland is building a stable, carbon-free power capacity that will last much of the rest of the century. One key worry remains, of course: waste. Spent nuclear fuel rods are the nastiest, most radioactive objects on the planet. Coping with them has been a headache for all reactor operators. Again, TVO insists it has the answers. It has built an underground depository for its low- and medium-level wastes (workers' clothing, tools and other material), a huge tunnel that gently descends through the solid granite beneath Olkiluoto to two vast silos 200ft below the surface. Now it is constructing an even deeper facility, where old fuel rods, encased in stainless steel and copper, will be buried in galleries half a kilometre deep for thousand of years. All Finland's high- level nuclear waste will be stored at this facility, whose construction cost is included in the 3bn price-tag for Olkiluoto 3. (By contrast, Britain - although warned 30 years ago that reactor waste storage was the Achilles' heel of atomic power - has still done nothing about its mounds of old fuel rods.) In all, Olkiluoto is an impressive set-up, constructed to a precise and careful plan. And that is the crucial point. You may be suspicious of atomic power, but if you are going to have a nuclear programme - and Britain is seriously considering launching a new one - Olkiluoto 3 shows how it should be done. [UP] Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 ***************************************************************** 48 The State: Agency plans meeting on S.C. n 02/04/2 The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff plans to meet Monday with Duke Energy officials about safety concerns uncovered during an inspection of the companys nuclear power plant near Seneca, the agency said. The commission staff found that Charlotte-based Duke did not promptly identify and correct a discrepancy with the exterior wall of the control room at the Oconee Nuclear Station. The agency questions whether the control room can withstand damage from a tornado, the commission said in a statement. The meeting is scheduled to take place in Atlanta and is open to the public. TheState.com | ***************************************************************** 49 Charlotte Observer: Nuclear plant wall topic of federal talks 02/04/2006 | Regulators say risk is minimal; Duke Energy's plants have solid safety reputation STAN CHOE Duke Energy Corp. meets Monday in Atlanta to talk about federal regulators' concerns over the strength of a control room wall in Duke's Oconee nuclear plant in Seneca, S.C. Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff requested the meeting after years of talks with the utility about the wall, NRC spokesman Ken Clark said. The security risk is not "a major safety situation," he said. The NRC's concern rests on the north wall of the main control room of Oconee's unit 3. It may not be able to withstand some extreme wind force, tornadoes or missiles to protect one of the plant's nerve centers, NRC staff says. After some study, the possibility of such damage is "probabilistically negligible," according to a letter NRC sent to Duke. Duke executives will be at the meeting, spokeswoman Rita Sipe said, and hope to continue their dialogue. The NRC staff rates risk with a color-coded system, with green as very low safety significance, rising to white, yellow and red. NRC staff have set their concern about the Oconee plant as "greater than green" but haven't yet determined whether it's white, the NRC's Clark said. Duke, which has three nuclear plants in the Carolinas, is regarded as a solid nuclear operator in terms of safety, said David Lochbaumn, director of the nuclear safety project for the Union of Concerned Scientists. "They're better than average," he said. "Oconee's performance kind of mirrors the industry. It seems to be on a downswing, but with a lot of attention called on that downswing, it won't swing very far." In the past five years, Oconee has had seven "escalated enforcement actions" by the NRC, where regulators notify operators of potential safety violations and can levy civil penalties. The NRC levied a penalty in one case for $60,000. Duke's other two plants in the Carolinas had one escalated enforcement action in the past five years, with no civil penalties charged. Duke is looking at building another nuclear plant in the Carolinas to stem what it sees as a power shortfall in the coming decades. It plans to announce a potential site by April. Here's a look at the safety record of Duke's three nuclear plants in the Carolinas: McGuire Nuclear Station Huntersville • In its last filed inspection, completed Sept. 30, the NRC found two violations. But regulators did not cite Duke for them, saying they were of very low safety concern and that the company had fixed the errors. The violations involved untimely revisions to a final safety evaluation report. • The plant has not had a major enforcement action in the past five years. The most recent was in 1997, when the company failed to remove security badges from the badge rack for seven contractor employees who had been terminated. The NRC did not levy a penalty. ***************************************************************** 50 The Hindu: `Integrated energy policy to be finalised soon' Monday, Feb 06, 2006 G. Srinivasan Dr Kirit S. Parikh, Member (Energy), Planning Commission New Delhi , Feb. 5 WITH the whopping rise in international crude prices, the country's dependence on imported crude has set off alarm over the sustainability and supply certainty of this fossil fuel, prompting the authorities to focus on integrated energy policy in general, and energy security in particular. The Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, last year set up the Energy Coordination Committee (ECC) which he himself heads. The ECC, which meets periodically, is set to meet here on Monday to take stock of the power situation in the country. Being a Member of the ECC as also the Chairman of the Report of the Expert Committee on Integrated Energy Policy (IEP), Dr Kirit S. Parikh, Member (Energy), Planning Commission, recently submitted a draft report on the issue. He shares his views with Business Line on the state of play on the energy front in the country as also the concerns and wide-ranging recommendations in his draft report. Excerpts: On the role of nuclear power: Nuclear power has a whole role to play. But we have to recognise that against the limited availability of resources, nuclear power is not going to be a major option in the short or medium-term unless our agreement with the United States results in an opening-up and that we can import a number of nuclear power plants. But, on our ability to build how many such plants, may be 10 or 15, the agreement does not clarify. On the issue of integrated energy policy versus integrated Energy Ministry: I am sceptical about the idea of integrated Energy Ministry. In my view, if there is one Energy Minister, he may be found neglecting power or focusing too much on oil. But if you have separate Ministers they will develop each of their sectors. You need integration at the broad strategic level, particularly when you are going for a more market-determined competitive system. The best way to integrate these is through an appropriate set of prices. Once you set up relative prices in a reasonable structure, then the user would automatically choose the best strategy. Still, the Ministry has a lot of role to play in terms of controlling monopoly and in ensuring that competition takes place. On the draft report: We have got a lot of comments. We shall look at them and finalise our report within the next 10 or 15 days and submit it to the Government. Once the government accepts the report, our idea is to go step-by-step in various areas and recommend specific plan of action so that it does not just remain a report and we have to see that it is implemented in the coming months. On the report's suggestion to reduce requirement of energy as part of conservation: Reduction of requirement is always possible not in the sense of becoming an austere person renouncing things. A lot of energy waste takes place that could be avoided so that the same functions are fulfilled with less energy. For instance, you can save a lot of energy in industry, lighting and air-conditioning. Studies have shown that if we can move cargo long-distance traffic between Mumbai-Delhi by train than by truck, your diesel consumption goes down by a factor of 5. If trains are made to give the same quality of service as trucks, then there is no loss and you have saved energy. A unit of energy saved by a user is greater than a unit produced, as it saves on production losses as well as transport, transmission and distribution losses. Up to 25 per cent reduction in the country's energy intensity is possible over extant levels. On power sector reforms: We are trying to get open access. We have taken too much time in finalising the Electricity Policy and Tariff Policy. Now that they have been notified, only the State Regulatory Commissions need to pronounce on the cross-subsidy surcharge. Another element is reform of the SEBs and unless the aggregate technical and commercial (AT) losses of SEBs are brought down, nothing much will happen. Unless the SEBs are financially sound, no private investor would come in because they find that the only customer is bankrupt SEB. Our guess is initially a limited number will come for open access and people will see how it is working. PSUs may come as they are going well because of tripartite agreement, which provides for a payment guarantee. But that period is going to come to an end in 2006; not that the guarantees will end but they will have to start paying the loan (principal). The SEBs financial situation is going to worsen unless they improve their performance. This is a very critical time and if you increase the proportion of generation by the Central sector, the amount of money the States will give to the Centre would increase and you would have to soon start making a call on the State Governments' budget and then the States will find it difficult to continue with reforms. But the things we have suggested in the IEP report can put the power sector on the right track, if implemented. On non-conventional sources of energy: Currently, we have given nothing but incentives and they are in the form of subsidies, which would never work. The best thing is to provide economically sensible incentives in a way that is linked to outcome. For instance, solar or wind power, just giving money for setting up will not do. If you give money for feeding tariff that for every kilowatt hour you generate, I will give you Re 1 or 2 extra plus avoided cost and fix the tariff for wind power, it will be more efficient. Copyright © 2006, The Hindu Business Line. Republication or ***************************************************************** 51 Brampton Guardian: New energy for Brampton Sunday, February 5th, 2006 An Ontario subsidiary of SNC-Lavalin Inc. has landed a $757 million contract from Sithe Global Power LLC to build Canada's largest "combined cycle" natural gas-fired power plant, which will be capable of recycling waste heat to produce electricity more efficiently. The 880-megawatt plant, the first of four natural gas-generation facilities being eyed in and around the GTA, will be located in Brampton on Goreway Dr., just north of Hwy. 407. At full output, it will produce power for 600,000 homes. Sithe Global also announced it closed a $942 million financing deal, co-led by TD Securities and RBC Capital Markets, which will be used to fund construction of the Goreway plant. Procurement of key equipment has already begun. "In combined cycle mode, it would be one of the cleanest- if not the cleanest- plants of its type in Canada," said Duane Cramer, vice-president of development with the New York-based power developer. He said the plant is being designed for an urban setting, and emphasis will be on keeping nitrogen oxide emissions low and minimizing the use of water. Increased efficiency Combined cycle plants increase efficiency by blending two methods for generating electricity. The first cycle burns a fossil fuel, such as natural gas, directly in a gas turbine that generates power. The second cycle uses the waste heat from the first cycle to boil water, and the resulting steam is used to turn a steam turbine that also produces power. Cramer said traditional thermal gas plants, such as the Lennox plant near Kingston, operate at about 30 per cent efficiency because waste heat escapes into the air, but combined cycle facilities can easily achieve 50 per cent efficiency or higher. "You can't manufacture power from natural gas much more efficiently than that kind of plant," said Paul Bradley, vice-president of generation development at the Ontario Power Authority, which negotiated a 20-year power purchase agreement with Sithe Global. The agreement assures Sithe Global a reasonable and predictable rate of return over 20 years, with the power authority essentially acting as a guarantor. If the company's return falls below the negotiated rate, the province will make up the loss; if the rate is exceeded, the province is refunded. The Goreway plant is expected to begin generating 600 megawatts in simple mode in June 2007, followed a year later by full combined cycle operation that will add another 280 megawatts to output. Second major project It is the second major Ontario power project awarded to SNC-Lavalin since the fall. The Montreal-based engineering and construction company won a contract through the power authority in November to replace steam generators at the Bruce nuclear plant. Bradley said new generation facilities are required in the GTA to meet peak demand for electricity, ease the burden on transmission lines carrying power into the city, and help replenish lost capacity from the planned shutdown of coal-fired plants. The power authority has recommended that capacity be built in Mississauga, the north part of York Region and downtown Toronto, which doesn't generate its own power but is expected to need 250 megawatts of new supply by 2008. "We're living off extension cords in downtown Toronto," said Bradley, pointing out that the city currently relies on the strained transmission infrastructure to draw electricity from other places. Premier Dalton McGuinty said this week building generation within the city, while controversial, is an issue that "we can't duck." Community groups in Mississauga, east Toronto and York Region, concerned about emissions from proposed plants and their proximity to residential areas, have been vocal in their opposition. The Brampton plant faced little opposition because of its industrial location. Brampton Guardian | Orangeville Banner | Georgetown Independent &Free Press © Copyright 1996-2005 Metroland Printing, Publishing and Distributing, North Peel ***************************************************************** 52 JS Online: Point Beach could be sold WISCONSIN ONLINE Other nuclear plant sales might trigger move By THOMAS CONTENT tcontent@journalsentinel.com Last Updated: Feb. 5, 2006 Wisconsin Energy Corp. is studying whether it makes sense to sell the Point Beach nuclear plant now that three of six plants once managed jointly for Upper Midwest utilities have been put up for sale. In the last six months, the Kewaunee plant in northeastern Wisconsin and the Duane Arnold plant in Iowa have been sold. In December, CMS Energy of Michigan said it planned to sell the Palisades reactor in South Haven, Mich. For Nuclear Management Co. (NMC), based in Hudson, which operates a group of nuclear plants for Upper Midwest utilities, the sale of Palisades would leave just three nuclear plants in its fold, including Point Beach and two Minnesota plants owned by Xcel Energy Inc. A sale of Point Beach could boost Wisconsin Energy in the eyes of investors because the company wouldn't have the day-to-day risks of operating a nuclear power plant at a time when federal nuclear regulators are keeping a close eye on aging reactors. It could also raise cash that Wisconsin Energy could use to pay for new coal plants it's building in Oak Creek. But customer groups are expected to weigh in against selling the reactor, just as they did in the case of Kewaunee, arguing that profits from selling low-cost nuclear power should stay close to home and that the plants need state as well as federal oversight. Owners of nuclear plants say their key concern is keeping the plants running reliably and safely. But they also face other challenges. For example, nuclear companies need to keep attracting top-notch nuclear engineers to work at Upper Midwest power plants during a period of rapid consolidation in the industry, and it's getting tougher to fill nuclear operations and management slots as the work force ages. Taking closer look Nuclear Management was created six years ago by utilities in Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota and Iowa to pool their resources to help attract nuclear workers, operate plants safely and help owners save money through streamlining and standardization. Beth Martin, a Wisconsin Energy spokeswoman, said the company is evaluating Point Beach along with other power plants to assess their role in the company's long-term power needs. "The CMS announcement to sell Palisades is a development that we will need to incorporate in our assessment," she said. The Milwaukee-based utility "will examine costs to our customers, NMC's ability to retain and attract necessary talent and the overall efficiency of operations," Martin said. Utilities smaller than Wisconsin Energy, including WPS Resources Corp. of Green Bay and Alliant Energy Corp. of Madison, have decided the risks are too great. "There has been consolidation throughout the country in the last several years into companies that do have the economies of scale to manage these assets," said Scott Smith, spokesman for Madison-based Alliant Energy. Alliant had a small stake in the Kewaunee plant, sold last year to Dominion Resources Inc. of Richmond, Va., and was majority owner until last week of the Duane Arnold reactor in Palo, Iowa. Industry observers wonder whether a smaller Nuclear Management Co. will have enough "economies of scale" to help spread its costs among various reactor owners, after half of its fleet is sold. "The trend's not a good one for Nuclear Management Co. The whole idea of pulling those plants together was to get the benefit that these companies like Dominion are getting," said David Parker, utility analyst with Robert W. Baird &Co. in Naples, Fla. Clout matters A key factor for nuclear plant owners is that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is more comfortable dealing with operators of multiple plants. "The NRC likes to see players that have a fair amount of assets with very experienced nuclear management teams that are focused just on that," Parker said. "If you get down to being only a group of three plants, your clout or your view with the NRC is diminished." For Point Beach, keeping that clout may be important as the management there is poised, perhaps within months, to emerge from several years of stepped-up scrutiny after the agency found repeated serious safety violations at the plant in 2001 and 2002. Point Beach was the only nuclear plant in the nation to have had two problems classified as "red" - the most serious category under a system that gauges the safety significance of problems found at nuclear plants. "Point Beach has just gotten over that issue and is moving forward with the help of the NMC - and now we're right back to this issue of will NMC be able to have the key managers, because nuclear management is a talent set that's quickly diminishing as a lot of managers get old," Parker said. Taking steps Nuclear Management, meanwhile, isn't taking the potential departure of its third reactor, Palisades in Michigan, lightly. Its senior management team has launched an effort this year to recruit new members and help bring down overhead costs for the remaining Nuclear Management Co. utility owners, said company spokeswoman Arline Datu. "We do want to boost that balance in the economies of scale, so that's why we are interested certainly in looking at recruiting new members." For its part, Xcel Energy has no intention of selling its two nuclear plants, Monticello and Prairie Island, a company vice president said. Charles Bomberger, general manager of nuclear assets for Xcel in Minneapolis, said Nuclear Management Co.'s track record has been strong. "We've reaped a lot of those economies of scale through standardization and a lot of that will still exist if membership departs," he said. "We will continue to re-evaluate the programs and the overheads that are applied, but we intend to keep NMC as the operator of our plants." Safety first Economies of scale may be important, but "it's not the most critical aspect" that has pleased Xcel about Nuclear Management Co.'s reactor operation, he said. "I really consider the safety performance as well as the reliability to be the primary things that NMC has improved for the Xcel plants," Bomberger said. "And in doing so they've done it in a very cost-effective manner for the past five years." Groups that opposed the sale of the Kewaunee nuclear plant have been bracing for a possible announcement regarding Point Beach. Selling Point Beach would also be opposed, said Charlie Higley, executive director of the Wisconsin Citizens' Utility Board, an advocacy group representing residential and small-business ratepayers. "Nuclear reactors deserve the extra round of oversight that comes with having them owned by Wisconsin utilities regulated by the Public Service Commission," Higley said. Customers today benefit when a state utility sells the power from a nuclear plant. But if Point Beach were sold, the benefits from those power sales would flow out of state to that company's bottom line, Higley said. "That's clearly the trend in the industry," he said. "It's just that we worry that ratepayers will lose any oversight or any benefit of having nuclear reactors in Wisconsin." Appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Feb. 6, 2006. Get the Journal Sentinel delivered to your home. Subscribe now. 2005, Journal Sentinel Inc. All rights reserved. | Journal Sentinel Inc. is a subsidiary of Journal Communications. ***************************************************************** 53 newsobserver.com: Triangle's energy future: the power to decide Letters February 5, 2006 Is it time to plug in a second reactor at Progress Energy's Shearon Harris nuclear power plant in southwestern Wake County, or are there better energy solutions? Staff File Photo Power of efficiency The Jan. 29 article "Surge in nuclear power likely" missed a critical point. Instead of trampling headlong toward new power plants, North Carolina should make efficiency its top energy priority. The Southeast uses more energy per capita than any other region of the United States, and we have countless opportunities to use electricity dramatically more efficiently than we do today. Efficient use of energy is good for families, business the environment, and the overall economy, and it is much more cost-effective than building new power plants. We are also fortunate that North Carolina is blessed with abundant renewable resources such as solar, wind and biomass. Coal-fired power plants are inherently dirty, even with pollution controls. And it is hard to imagine prioritizing nuclear when we have not figured out where to store its highly radioactive waste for the long-term. North Carolina should not build any new expensive power plants -- coal or nuclear -- until we fully exhaust all clean and safe alternatives. A surge in nuclear power is only likely if public officials ignore their responsibility to consider all alternatives, especially opportunities to use energy efficiently. Jane Preyer Regional Director Environmental Defense Raleigh We can handle it The issue of nuclear waste disposal is raised by opponents any time the building of another reactor is discussed (Jan. 15 article "N-plant plans revive spent-fuel concerns"). Every technology has to deal with its wastes, and coal, just about the cheapest electricity fuel, has multi megatons of solid waste and air pollution to worry about. The great advantage of nuclear energy is that the wastes constitute a very small volume in comparison, about 10 million times less than coal. We have a strategy for permanent disposal, that is, long-term burial in an engineered mine at a site in the desert of Nevada. The site is far above the level of groundwater there. It is designed to be safe for at least 10,000 years. If we stick to that approach, nuclear waste will never be an impediment to obtaining all the other benefits of producing electricity from the atom. William D. Walker Professor, Department of Physics Duke University Durham Beats nuclear Not so fast. Many of us in the business community see a very different response to forecasted increases in electricity demand over the next 20 years. Your Jan. 29 article "Surge in nuclear power likely" suggested that new nuclear power plants are a foregone conclusion. In fact, there are two alternatives to nuclear that may be cheaper, safer and economic bonanzas for North Carolinians. They are energy efficiency technologies and renewable energy. The electric utilities don't pay much attention to efficiency technologies, because the current rate structure rewards them for making more electricity rather than for reducing demand. That needs to change. As Amory Lovins points out in his book "Winning the Oil Endgame," (www.rmi.org) "negawatts," or energy saved through efficiency technologies, are a lot cheaper than megawatts. Renewable energy (powered by wind, solar and biomass) is now competitively priced with nuclear and powering businesses and homes around the United States and the world. Germany is converting from nuclear power to wind power over the next two decades. Cost and safety are their main rationales. Beyond the cost advantages, terrorists don't seem as keen to target wind farms as they do nuclear plants. Another reason to look beyond nuclear? Jobs -- in fuel cell, wind turbine, solar panel technologies, on farms in the east and west, where wind turbines could harvest an aboveground energy crop, and statewide where distributed generation facilities and small business people could participate in the energy future of our state. For the equivalent amount of nuclear generation, cost estimates only half and the job opportunities are three times that of nuclear. If true, that's worth some serious "surge" protection. Timothy Toben Founder &CEO KnowledgeBase Marketing, Inc. Chapel Hill The best choice Good electricity choices for our region are indeed limited, and while growth can be tempered with efficiency and conservation, demand will regardless grow ("Atoms again," editorial, Jan. 25). Nuclear power has proved itself to be an excellent long-term investment for our state, and new nuclear energy technology promises even greater economic return. To miss the opportunity to build the next generation of plants because Washington cannot get its act together to deal with nuclear waste would be shortsighted. Nuclear waste exists; it will find itself eventually disposed of at the Yucca Mountain, Nev., facility, and the incessant delays in the waste program are no reason not to press ahead with the next plant in North Carolina. John Chappell Holly Springs Energy pipedreams I feel compelled to ask for more details about miraculous technologies mentioned by the writer of a Jan. 27 People's Forum letter. We need more than headlines if we are to use these in North Carolina. How, exactly, does "hot road" technology provide enough energy for 400 homes in Holland? What energy -- electricity; steam? What use -- space heating? How does it get from the highway to 400 homes -- is there not also a (local) distribution system? What happens to the (former use of) playground areas in Denmark and Holland when schools are powered via (presumably) solar collection devices? Conventional solar collectors are notoriously space consuming; Denmark and Holland do not have an abundance of empty land. (That is one good reason why they now place wind power systems off-shore.) Eighty percent of new buildings in Berlin generate their own energy? This implies "all" of their energy, but this is unlikely, even if the writer is referring to burning garbage, trash, etc. Germany has an exceptional system for recycling, so there is little to burn. Mike Harpold Durham Cheaper and safer As a 20-year energy industry veteran, (working with corporations, utilities and government), and a Raleigh resident, I am disturbed by one-sided information being dispensed regarding nuclear power and the safe, working and viable alternatives that exist today. I believe in backing winners. Efficiency and renewables are winning worldwide because they are safe, efficient and clean. What is the No. 1 way to make cheap, safe and clean electricity worldwide now? Wind. Nuclear power plants take a decade to build and are horrifically expensive. They are uninsurable against disaster. If Standard and Poors says nuclear is a bad financial risk, and Fortune 500 and oil companies are buying strongly into solar electric and renewables like wind (BP, GE. etc.) why aren't we? Solving our energy, job, competitiveness and climate change challenges by creating electricity with nuclear power is like having your child cut butter with a chain saw. Dangerous. stupid, reckless and expensive. North Carolina has a great opportunity to transition to greater energy efficiency solutions that create whole new industries for our gutted textile and furniture manufacturing base and replace tobacco with ethanol, biofuels and waste to energy. Robert S. Gilbert President Washington Power &Light, Inc. Raleigh All rights reserved. This copyrighted material may not be published, broadcast or redistributed in any manner. ***************************************************************** 54 BBC: Nuclear industry looks to Finland Last Updated: Sunday, 5 February 2006 As Scotland considers its future energy options, which might include a new nuclear power station, BBC Radio Scotland's Simon Willis was given exclusive access to a new reactor project in Finland for this month's Investigation series. A private company is building the first nuclear power station in Western Europe since the Chernobyl disaster. [Construction site] Work is under way on the new nuclear facility Teollisuuden Voima Oy (TVO) claims the plant will be built, run and decommissioned by private capital with no subsidy from the Finnish Government. It also claims to have found a solution to the problem of nuclear waste. Many in the nuclear industry in Scotland are asking themselves if Finland's experience could be repeated in the UK. When the decision was taken, Finland faced many of the problems Britain faces now. Demand was rising while supply from ageing, polluting fossil fuel plants was falling. With Russia as a Cold War neighbour, security of supply had long been an issue. Attempting to hit Kyoto targets for reducing greenhouse gasses, Finland faced an energy gap. Competitive pri electricity has a market Martin Landtman TVO The new reactor is being built alongside two of Finland's four existing reactors at Olkiluoto Island in Western Finland. TVO is a not-for-profit company, owned by a consortium of industries which use vast amounts of power. To guarantee price and supply, they build their own nuclear power plants. TVO claims this guaranteed, long-term market for electricity makes the project economically viable. Nuclear economics Martin Landtman, TVO's senior vice president in charge of the project, told BBC Scotland: "TVO is a completely private company and there is no subsidy whatsoever involved in this project. "No state guarantees, no state subsidy, no state involvement on the ownership side. Competitive priced electricity has a market. [Deep waste store] Finland is examining deep storage of nuclear waste "So it was really no problem to get international bankers and financing institutions to back up this project." The economics are questioned by industry opponents, who suspect the fixed-price deal is a loss leader to get the nuclear ball rolling again. This is denied by TVO and Framatome ANP, the Franco/German consortium which is constructing the plant. A division of TVO called Posiva Oy is building a nuclear waste store 500m below ground. The Finnish Government has yet to give final approval, but the entrance tunnel is being constructed with the intention of it being the final store for all Finland's nuclear waste when it opens in 2020. Local backing Veli-Matti Ammala of Posiva Oy explained it would withstand the next Ice Age. He said: "After 30,000 years there can be three kilometres of ice above us. "And after 100,000 years the climate will be the same as it is now. And this system must withstand this." The local municipality of Eurajoki actually competed against another town to be chosen as the site for the waste store and power station, because it would bring several hundred jobs and increase local tax revenues. You can hear Simon Willis' special report on BBC Radio Scotland's Investigation programme on Monday 6 February at 0850 GMT. ***************************************************************** 55 Morning Call: Nuclear power rising [mall.com : The Morning Call Online] February 5, 2006 Industry gets nod in Presidential address; 10 plants are planned. By Robert Manor Special to The Morning Call Although energy policy warranted only a few words in the president's State of the Union speech Tuesday night, interest in nuclear energy is rising rapidly as utilities consider building new reactors for the first time in decades. President Bush mentioned renewable energy sources, conservation and a more diverse supply of petroleum as goals of the administration. He also gave a plug for more ''safe, clean nuclear energy.'' For that source of power, Bush is apt to get his wish. Utilities are discussing building at least 10 new nuclear reactors, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Last year at this time, only three new reactors were under consideration. No new nuclear plant has won an NRC license since 1978. Any new plant is still years away, although one utility says it hopes to begin construction in four years. Politicians, the public and utility executives largely lost interest in nuclear power after enduring huge cost overruns and difficulty running the plants efficiently. The partial meltdown at the Three Mile Island Nuclear plant and the catastrophe at Chernobyl seemed at the time to have buried nuclear energy. So why the new interest now? ''It was passage of the energy policy act last year,'' said Scott Burnell, spokesman for the NRC. ''Utilities started getting into detailed discussions with us.'' The energy bill demonstrates that if you want to encourage new sources of energy, come up with some money. According to the activist group Public Citizen, the bill grants up to $13 billion in subsidies to the nuclear industry. In his speech Tuesday, Bush mentioned ethanol, clean coal technology, and hydrogen as a fuel for cars. They all receive federal subsidies as well. ''To keep our economy growing, we…need reliable supplies of affordable, environmentally responsible energy,'' Bush said. The president's reference to ethanol must have pleased Illinois farmers. The gasoline substitute is distilled from corn, and is winning increasing use as a partial substitute for gasoline. Bush also promised to sharply cut petroleum imports from the Middle East, which supplies only about 20 percent of the nation's energy. Oil industry analysts say cutting imports from the Middle East would do nothing to lower prices or improve supply. Oil is a global product and its price and availability are determined by international supply and demand. ''It is a pipe dream and it is foolish to talk about energy independence,'' said Edward Stuart, professor of economics at Northeastern Illinois University. But at least some utility executives see a future for another kind of energy, that which comes from nuclear fission. A properly run nuclear plant generates electricity more cheaply than almost any other source. ''The investment incentives in [last year's] energy bill will help offset some of the risks'' of building a new nuclear plant, said Marilyn Kray, president of Nustart, a consortium of utilities including Exelon of Chicago, parent of Philadelphia's Peco Energy. In the past those risks included delays by regulators which resulted in construction cost overruns. Nustart is trying to obtain two licenses for new nuclear plants possibly to be built in Scottsdale, Ala. and near Fort Gibson, Miss. The plants would be operated by others. Exelon, with 17 reactors and the largest nuclear power producer in the country, says it is not enthusiastic about building a new plant any time soon. Chairman John Rowe has said he is not interested in a new plant until the government approves a final disposal plan for spent nuclear fuel, and that is years away. But New Orleans based Entergy, one of the nation's largest utilities, isn't waiting. www.mcall.com More Copyright © 2006, The Morning Call ***************************************************************** 56 SF Chronicle: The case for nuclear power Economists, environmentalists and energy consumers find incentives to start building new plants G. Pascal Zachary Sunday, February 5, 2006 [Chronicle illustration by Rick Nobles] [The government encouraged only dabbling in nuclear power ...] [Nuclear Power Reactors in the United States. Chronicle Gr...] view chart [Opinion] A quarter-century ago, I spent many months shuttling back and forth to a small town near San Luis Obispo, joining thousands of protesters opposed to a nuclear power plant named Diablo Canyon that was being built on an earthquake fault on a picturesque stretch of Central California's coastline. Although far more expensive than anticipated, the plant was put into service by its owner, Pacific Gas and Electric Co., in 1985. Repeated shakers, including a large quake last year, never interfered with the plant's electricity output, which has steadily improved through the years. Diablo, once dismissed by critics as superfluous, is now an essential part of the state's energy mix. The only other nuclear plant in the state is San Onofre in San Diego County, near San Clemente. I don't regret my youthful opposition to Diablo. Back then, nuclear plants were badly run and uneconomical, and the near-disaster at Three Mile Island exposed nuclear regulations as a sham. But much has changed in the past 25 years, and for a variety of reasons I think nuclear power deserves another chance. So does President Bush, who on Tuesday night in his State of the Union address highlighted the nation's need to boost nuclear power generation. I know I've lost a lot of readers already, so let me immediately introduce an important qualification: We can only push an expansion of nuclear power, which today supplies 20 percent of America's electricity, as part of a comprehensive program to limit the production of greenhouse gases, promote renewable energy sources, and dramatically raise the cost of burning fossil fuels in automobiles. Expanding nuclear power is only one piece of the energy puzzle. But it is a piece we cannot afford to dismiss. The reason is clear. Electricity demand is rising -- some say by as much as 50 percent during the next 30 to 50 years. Demand might even increase more with the spread of electric cars. Without a crash program to expand nuclear power, America's new electricity needs will be satisfied chiefly by new coal-burning plants. Coal is a remarkably democratic resource, spread fairly evenly around the globe. Scores of new coal plants are planned for the United States, where they already generate about half of the nation's electricity. Many hundreds are likely to be constructed around the world before the end of the decade. Coal does burn cleaner in new power plants than in older ones, but the goal of "clean coal" remains many years off and relies on unproven technologies. For the moment, burning coal to create electricity is sure to accelerate climate change. And coal isn't as cheap as it once was. Prices are soaring, narrowing coal's cost advantages over nuclear. The safety of new nuclear plants, in which computers run virtually all complex machinery, has vastly improved in the quarter-century since the partial meltdown of the reactor core at Three Mile Island. Still, plant safety is a concern, as are waste storage and possible terrorist threats. But these issues should not stop nuclear power from helping the United States reduce reliance on coal and other fossil fuels. There are good reasons to support a sharp expansion in new plants, and many reasons to believe these plants would be operated well and safely. Nuclear power has long been derided as too expensive, and new plants still carry multibillion-dollar budgets. The most optimistic estimates from reactor-makers Westinghouse and General Electric is that a single nuclear power plant, running one reactor, will cost from $1.2 billion to $1.5 billion But with natural gas in short supply and increasingly expensive, and gas prices at the pump unlikely to fall significantly, the costs of nuclear power seem less daunting then before. In recent years, several electric utilities have emerged as nuclear-power specialists, reaping economies of scale and building expertise that enables them to run safer, more secure operations. The shift, which began 10 years ago, caught critics of nuclear power by surprise. Historically, the U.S. government never encouraged a small group of utilities to specialize in nuclear power but rather encouraged many utilities to dabble in the technology. PG was typical, building only a single nuclear plant (with two reactors) at Diablo Canyon. This on-off tendency made it more difficult and costly for utilities to gain the expertise in nuclear power or to run plants properly. Vastly different in nature than coal-, gas- or oil-fired plants, nuclear power at first proved beyond the capacity of utility executives, a fact that became shockingly clear after Three Mile Island. Utilities only mastered the technology in the 1990s, when a few of them -- notably New Orleans-based Entergy and Chicago-based Exelon -- started buying "orphan" plants and assembling them into "fleets," seeking the benefits of economies of scale. Exelon, a Chicago-based utility, today owns 20 commercial reactors, one-fifth of the nation's total of 104. With a concentration of owners came a concentration of expertise, better nuclear plant performance across the United States, fewer safety hazards and higher profits. The unlikely result is that nuclear plants have become among the most sought-after industrial properties in the country. The most recent plant to change hands, the Ginna facility in New York, sold for $800 million, or 50 times what Entergy paid for the first reactor it bought. Says Michael Wallace, a top executive of Constellation, which bought the Ginna plant, "Nuclear plants are becoming incredibly valuable." So valuable are nuclear plants that none is for sale today. Indeed, scores of nuclear plants, once thought to be candidates for closure, are pursuing and receiving licenses to operate for at least an additional 20 years. So far, the NRC has extended the life of about 30 plants. Because these plants are fully bought and paid for (and even the money required to de-commission them sits safely in bank accounts), utilities are leaning on them, because they only incur operating expenses, guaranteeing that nuclear-generated electricity is by far the cheapest part of their energy mix. So far, electric utilities, while happy to harvest existing plants, are reluctant to build new ones. "I'm the biggest nuke operator in the country, but I have to get the timing exactly right if my company is ever going to build (another) one," says John Rowe, chief executive officer of Exelon. Other utilities are also biding their time, waiting until they get a clearer signal that new projects won't be delayed into oblivion by Bleak House-style lawsuits. And even when they resume building nuclear plants, "we will exhaust other opportunities" to generate electricity through wind and solar, Rowe says. Entergy, Exelon and a few other nuclear specialists are pressing the federal government for more guarantees against the many risks faced in building a plant, not the least of which are the inevitable legal challenges. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the chief regulator, has responded by imposing a one-stop approval process, but the process has never been tested in court. Arguably the biggest economic hurdle for nuclear power is short-term: who will bear the risk of being the first mover? To get past the economic penalties for being first, a consortium of utilities including Exelon and Entergy, has formed a clever joint venture. The group, called NuStart Energy Development LLC, is filing a single application for a combined operating and construction license, in effect testing the regulatory and legal environment as a group so that no one utility gets stuck holding the bag if the process goes awry. NuStart has yet to choose a site, though it hopes to do so by September. If all goes to plan, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will approve the plant (using either a Westinghouse or a General Electric reactor) by 2007, allowing for construction and operation by about 2015. Utilities are holding out hope that Uncle Sam will give more help, and Bush's State of the Union speech on Tuesday provided encouragement. They want more money for development of reactor designs, especially those cooled with gas. Such designs are considered inherently safer than today's light-water reactors and figure to be smaller, too, reducing costs and allowing more flexibility in deployment. What's more, they may be able to produce hydrogen as well as electricity -- hydrogen for a new generation of cars powered by fuel cells. A new generation of nuclear reactors -- especially the so-called "pebble bed" technology that promises far smaller, cheaper and safer reactors -- could help ease what will only be growing pressure on energy supplies, and rising costs of electricity. The trouble is, without a major push by the public and the U.S. government, improved reactors won't ever get built. Or by the time they are ready, America will have so gone so heavily into burning coal for electricity that the environmental damage may be irreversible. We need to encourage the few utilities that are pacesetters in nuclear power, notably Entergy and Exelon, to build new plants fast. We need to use tax dollars to make it happen. We need to stop using citizen activism and the legal system to stymie nuclear power and rob the country of one clear path toward energy independence. At the same time we need to push wind, solar and other renewable technologies. We need to promote mass transit and curtail automobile use by sharply raising taxes on gasoline and restricting cars altogether from some areas. We need to campaign more vigorously for conservation. And, yes, we need nuclear power. The coming energy crises are likely to be too painful and costly for Americans not to embrace nuclear. East Bay writer G. Pascal Zachary is the author of "Endless Frontier: Vannevar Bush, Engineer of the American Century." Page E - 1 The San Francisco Chronicle] ***************************************************************** 57 Manitowoc Herald Times Reporter: Legislators seek to end nuclear 'moratorium' Posted February 4, 2006 Leibham wants state to repeal restrictive criteria for new plants By Kristopher Wenn Herald Times Reporter MANITOWOC — Two state legislators said Friday they plan to introduce legislation this month to repeal criteria that must be met under state law before any new construction or expansion of nuclear power plants can occur in Wisconsin. Under state law, the Wisconsin Public Service Commission can only certify a new nuclear plant if it has: + adequate capacity to dispose of nuclear waste; + a reliable and adequate nuclear fuel supply; and + cost for construction, operation, decommission or any other economic factor is economically advantageous to ratepayers. State Sen. Joe Leibham, R-Sheboygan, and Assembly Majority Leader Mike Huebsch, R-West Salem, said the criteria have, in effect, created a "moratorium" on the construction or expansion of nuclear plants. Leibham said he endorses other renewable and environmentally friendly energy options, but nuclear power should be given the same level of consideration in discussing how to address the state's growing demand for energy. "The criteria have made it virtually impossible for nuclear power in Wisconsin," he said. "With this bill we would remove criteria specific to nuclear power so that it can be on the same playing field." Leibham said the state lacks the capability to access power from other states, and state laws restrict out-of-state transmissions. Jennifer Giegerich, state director of Wisconsin Public Interest Research Group, a non-profit environmental and consumer advocacy organization, said calling the criteria a moratorium creates misunderstanding. "The state says that in order to build a nuclear plant you have to have an environmental plan and an economic plan," she said. "They know that they can't meet the criteria, so that's why they want to do away with these considerations." According to a 2001 report by the state Department of Administration, Wisconsin will need an additional 6,300 megawatts of power to meet its energy needs by 2016. If no new power plants are put into service, the state could face a capacity shortage by 2007, according to Leibham. In December, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved the renewal of the operating lease for units at We Energies' Point Beach nuclear plant in Two Rivers. The regulatory approval extends the license for Unit 1 until 2030 and Unit 2 until 2033. The plant can generate 1,035 megawatts of electricity, or enough to power about 518,000 homes. The nearby Kewaunee Nuclear Power Plant was recently sold to Dominion Resources of Virginia. htrnews.com is a Gannett Companywebsite. ***************************************************************** 58 Burlington Free Press: My Turn: Is Vermont Yankee's review process adequate? Opinion burlingtonfreepress.com | Burlington, Vermont Published: Saturday, February 4, 2006 By Crea Lintilhac Recently, a key advisory panel of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) which licenses nuclear power plant increases, says Entergy Still, some Vermont officials, including U.S. Sen. Jim Jeffords have expressed concerns that the NRC and Entergy have not answered lingering questions about equipment fatigue. Inspectors have found cracks in steam dryers at the Vermont Yankee plant. I fear that safety concerns, once a primary obstacle to the further development of the industry, are being overshadowed by the need for more energy at the risk of overlooking flaws in construction and safety procedures that could prevent future accidents. My concerns remind me of an accident that occurred over 40 years ago. The events on April 10, 1963, changed the lives of many people living in Groton, Conn., where I lived as a child, the only civilian family living in a community of Navy families. The accident was due to metal fatigue in a nuclear submarine that was designed to achieve greater depth and speed without sacrificing control. The USS Thresher was the lead ship of her class of nuclear powered attack submarines in the U.S. Navy. Her loss at sea, and the loss of the 129 people aboard, many of whom were our neighbors, was a watershed event in the implementation of a rigorous submarine safety program. After the Thresher went down, the Court of Inquiry determined that the loss of the boat was likely due to welding failure that flooded the engine room with water. At the time, my father was working as a metallurgist for Electric Boat in Groton and was one of the engineers who had developed a new ultrasonic inspection device. Before heading out for deep-diving tests, those responsible for the commissioning of the Thresher had not found time in the schedule for thorough inspection and no time for ultrasonic inspection at the submarine base in Groton. The Thresher went to sea without the benefit of this new testing method and sank, taking the lives of 129 officers, crewmen and technicians. I have lingering doubts about the NRC's confidence that a 34-year-old reactor design can sustain increased power outputs. Their confidence is way ahead of their ability to cope with problems inherent in these "uprates." They simply don't have the data to make predictions and nuclear power is an unforgiving industry. The Quad Cities nuclear plant in Southeastern Illinois, a plant similar in pedigree to Vermont Yankee, developed cracks and fragments in the dryers. In June 2002, after the NRC allowed an uprate of 18 percent at the Quad cities 2, a cover plate on the outside of the steam dryer "broke loose," the NRC's report on the incident states, "and caused pieces of the dryer to be swept down the main streamline." A second failure of the steam dryer at Quad Cities 2 happened in May 2003. The cause of the failure was determined to be metal fatigue brought on by more vibrations due to higher flows of steam throughout the system. In December, at the Dresden II plant near Chicago, inspectors found new fissures earlier in a reinforced steam dryer. Days before, Entergy officials had reported that a routine inspection of Vermont Yankee had found 40 hairline cracks in a steam dryer that had been reinforced in 2004. After the Thresher disaster, the Navy implemented a program to correct design and construction problems on all submarines in service (both nuclear and diesel-electric), Likewise, citizens should demand a more adequate independent safety assessment that would provide a more thorough review of these aging reactors that may have special vulnerabilities. We must remember that, given enough time, a seemingly impossible turn of events becomes probable, and an unlikely one becomes certain. Crea Lintilhac administers the Lintilhac Foundation and the Conservation and Research Foundation in Shelburne. Copyright ©2006 Burlingtonfreepress.com All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 59 Daytona Beach News-Journal: Solar is cleaner form of energy than nuclear power Online -- Opinion February 05, 2006 By LEE BIDGOOD Solar is cleaner form of energy than nuclear power By LEE BIDGOOD Floridians should use free sunshine to generate electricity. Solar photovoltaic (PV) systems produce electricity reliably with little maintenance, but are expensive and need subsidy until volume production brings down costs. PV electricity replaces power from fossil fuel or nuclear plants. Such replacement may become vital to Florida's future as increased greenhouse gases heat the globe. Some people make the questionable claim that nuclear power plants are safe, cheap and emit no greenhouse gases. Progress Energy plans two large 1,100 megawatt plants in Florida and will announce site(s) in March. The utility's CEO stated that each reactor would take 10 years to build and cost between $3 billion and $4 billion, but it was too early to discuss financing. Nuclear critics remind us that six steps of uranium mining and processing endanger workers' health and require large amounts of fossil fuel energy, releasing much greenhouse gas. Building the plant takes energy. A typical nuclear reactor, every 18 months creates about 30 tons of the world's most hazardous waste which remains lethal for 250,000 years. Radioactive waste accumulates at plants with no approved permanent storage. Finally, more energy is used to dismantle aged plants with parts of them becoming radioactive waste to be transported somewhere or guarded on site. New Hampshire's Seabrook nuclear plant was projected to cost $850 million when construction began in 1976. The plant was eventually completed in 1990 at a cost of $7 billion. Nuclear plant fuel prices have risen faster than natural gas prices. Uranium "yellowcake," priced at about $7.50 per pound in 2001, surged to $27.50 this year with further increases expected. Mines can meet only about 60 percent of uranium demand. The balance comes from nuclear weapons stockpiles, a finite source. Mine expansions are planned, but costs will rise. Yellowcake is just the second of six steps in fuel preparation from uranium ore. Typical nuclear reactors require about 200 tons of uranium fuel annually. Startup requires 600 tons. Nuclear power is cheap only if bountiful subsidies are ignored. Solar PV will help to soften the impact of rising fossil fuel prices. Geologists expect that petroleum extraction rates will soon peak (if not there already) and afterwards, declining output and increasing demand will push transportation and heating fuel prices sky high. Fossil fuel power plants, especially coal burners, emit unhealthy air pollution. The American Lung Association of Florida and other organizations recently reported that Florida power plant emissions cause more than 38,000 asthma attacks, 2,100 non-fatal heart attacks and 1,400 premature deaths every year. Our most vulnerable people, the very young and the elderly, are the principal victims. Nationwide, power plant air pollution causes 38,000 premature deaths annually. That death toll from bad air exceeds the 17,000 people killed each year by drunken drivers. Cleaner, healthier air is a near-term benefit of solar energy, but its long-term benefits may become essential. Continued fossil-fuel burning is turning up earth's thermostat. Average global temperatures have increased significantly in the 100 years, and the rise has accelerated over the last 30 years, with 2005 the warmest year on record. Rising average temperatures don't kill, but the accompanying climate disruption brings more violent extremes of floods, droughts, heat and cold that destroy human lives and property. Arctic temperatures have risen two or three times the global average increase and pose an ominous threat to Florida. Greenland contains enough ice to raise sea level 23 feet if it all melts. Scientists don't expect complete melting for centuries or longer, but even a 10 percent or 15 percent melt would be a disaster for Florida's coastal counties. Last summer major Greenland glaciers melted more than twice as fast as in recent years. The melting trend could become irreversible this century. Scientists report that warmer ocean and gulf waters have strengthened hurricanes about 10 percent in the past 20 years. Hurricanes were already bad enough! Hurricanes have removed much of New Smyrna's beach. To protect beachfront property, government is spending $14 million to build a sand berm along five miles of the worst eroded beach in New Smyrna. It's expected to provide only temporary protection. There is talk of building more sea walls or revetments, but armoring only protects structures while increasing beach erosion. Humans may prevent extreme sea-level rise by cutting greenhouse gas emissions -- we hope. Florida, with much to lose, should set a good example. Taxpayers are spending $14 million to repair beach erosion temporarily, but would spend only $6 million on solar energy, if Rep. Hukill's solar-energy bill passes. It's essential that we restrain sea-level rise, because two- or three-feet higher seas, coupled with stronger storms, would eliminate most developed beaches along Florida's 1,350- mile coastline. Low-elevation buildings along more than 5,000 miles of inland tidal waterfront land would be especially vulnerable. Beaches fronting public parks such as Smyrna Dunes Park or Canaveral National Seashore would survive by retreating naturally. Switching to renewables is one key step in cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Let us hope that our leaders will have the vision to pass House Bill 713, as a modest step toward aggressive support of solar energy in Florida. Without leadership vision, our children and grandchildren will have to endure difficult conditions on a hotter planet, and there will be few beaches where their children might play. Bidgood, a retired chemist who lives in New Smyrna Beach, has solar panels on his home and is an advocate for alternative energy sources. | © 2006 News-Journal Corporation | news-journalonline.com (SM) ***************************************************************** 60 csmonitor.com: America warms up to nuclear power | Commentary: "Economic Scene: A Weekly Column" from the February 06, 2006 edition By David R. Francis The cure for the United States' "addiction" to oil is more nuclear power. That's becoming a more popular view. Even a few environmental groups see nuclear power as a necessity to maintain America's lifestyle. A public opinion survey late last year sponsored by the International Atomic Energy Agency in Paris found that, in America, 40 percent of the people see nuclear power as safe and support new plants; 29 percent say existing plants are OK, but oppose building new ones; and 20 percent say the plants are dangerous and want all of them closed. Curiously, the survey of 18 nations, rich and poor, found that nuclear power is seen more favorably in the US than it is in any other country surveyed except South Korea. Yet US utilities have not ordered a new atomic plant since 1978. Even in France, highly dependent on nuclear power, only 25 percent support more plants, and 50 percent say enough is enough - don't build more. Regardless of opinion, nuclear power is reviving around the world. Eight new nuclear plants came on line last year. One in Ontario, Canada, was restarted after a long shutdown. Globally, 443 "nukes" are in operation today. Last week, President Bush proposed an "Advanced Energy Initiative" that involves investing more "in zero- emission coal-fired plants; revolutionary solar and wind technologies; and clean, safe nuclear energy." To Patrick Moore, who cofounded Greenpeace, nuclear power is the only realistic solution to future power needs. "You can't solve this problem with windmills and photo panels alone," says the chairman of Greenspirit Strategies Ltd., a Vancouver, B.C., environmental consulting firm. These two power sources tend to be expensive. More important, they are "intermittent." They work only when the wind blows or the sun shines. Economies need "baseload" power that operates all the time. Coal can provide an around-the-clock power stream. But the 1,300 coal-fired plants in the US already belch out 10 percent of the world's greenhouse gases. Do we want more climate-changing gas? With encouragement and subsidies from the Bush administration and Congress, US utilities are further along with new nuclear plants than most Americans probably realize. Frank Bowman, president of the Nuclear Energy Institute in Washington, D.C., recently noted that nine companies, consortiums, or joint ventures have firm plans for at least 12, and perhaps as many as 20, new plants. The first application for a combined construction and operating license - a new procedure the industry hopes will avoid delays - should be submitted to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission next year and win approval by 2010 or so, Mr. Bowman reckons. Assuming construction takes four years, the plant could come on line by 2014. By 2025, 30,000 megawatts of new nuclear capacity will be operating in the US, with more plants on the way, Bowman guesses. That might displace 30 to 50 coal plants. Other nations are seeing a need for additional nuclear power. Last November, British Prime Minister Tony Blair talked of taking a "serious look" at new nuclear reactors. Ontario recently decided to restart two mothballed units at the Bruce nuclear power facility - in addition to the Pickering plant put back into operation last year. Pakistan wants to buy six to eight 600-megawatt nuclear-power reactors from China in the next decade. Germany had planned to shutter all its nuclear power sites by 2020. But the recent fuss over Russian natural gas supplies to Ukraine makes that less likely. China plans to add 27 new plants to its existing nine by 2020. And so on. Is this risky? Yes, but all power sources have problems. Coal mining is dangerous. Dams can clobber the environment. Natural gas is explosive. Oil is costly. All fossil fuels emit greenhouse gases. Windmills are noisy and can kill birds. To Dr. Moore, the dangers associated with nuclear power are exaggerated. Fewer than 60 people have been killed by nuclear power accidents worldwide, none in the US. An international team of 100-plus scientists, reviewing the worst nuclear power-plant accident (Chernobyl, Ukraine, in 1986), estimated last September that up to 4,000 people may eventually die from radiation exposure. That compares with earlier predictions of 300,000. Terrorists might succeed in crashing an airplane into a nuclear plant. But a modern containment structure is unlikely to be penetrated. It consists of six feet of reinforced concrete, with one-inch steel plates on both sides. Even if such a suicide mission succeeded in penetrating the dome, the plant would not explode. Radiation might be spread, but most of it would weaken rapidly and is less dangerous than many think, says Moore. More at risk in an aircraft attack is a liquefied natural-gas plant. It could create "one massive fireball," he warns. Moore supports energy conservation, energy efficiency, and alternative energy sources. But to him, the "mathematics" indicate that nuclear power is essential to the future provision of adequate electricity. Nuclear proliferation is a separate issue. It requires "real" attention, he says. www.csmonitor.com | Copyright © 2006 The Christian Science Monitor. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 61 Mos News: George W. Bush Wants Nuclear Partnership With Russia MOSNEWS.COM Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov / Photo from MN Archive Created: 05.02.2006 13:14 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 14:08 MSK President George W. Bush will propose funding for the creation of an atomic energy partnership with Russia in his upcoming fiscal 2007 budget, Reuters reported. The proposal would involve having the U.S. and Russia provide nuclear reactor fuel to other countries for use in generating nuclear power. The spent fuel would be taken back to prevent its use in weapons. A White House spokeswoman declined to comment. The report offered new details about an initiative the administration has said it is working on to create an international framework to deal with expanded use of nuclear power both at home and abroad. The administration, in its fiscal 2007 budget to be released on Monday, is expected to call for spending $250 million on research to develop new ways to reprocess the nuclear fuel so it would be difficult to use the plutonium in nuclear weapons. Reprocessing, which separates uranium and plutonium from spent fuel so the elements could be used further, is a technology abandoned by the U.S. decades ago as a costly security risk. Some in the administration see promise in new separation technology that would make it harder to use its plutonium byproduct in nuclear weapons. The technology is controversial and some experts believe a resumption of reprocessing would heighten risks that weapons-making material could fall into the hands of militants. Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday he was interested in the creation of a network of nuclear fuel cycle centers to enrich uranium for use in other countries that want to access it for nuclear energy programs. Write us: info@mosnews.com Copyright © 2004 MOSNEWS.COM ***************************************************************** 62 [Sunday Herald]: UKs secret nuclear sites exposed online - Scotland's award-winning independent newspaper Est 05 February 2006 By Rob Edwards, Environment Editor DOWNLOADING satellite images of top-secret nuclear weapons sites using a new piece of Google software could breach the governments strict anti-terrorism laws, experts claim. Over the past few months high- resolution aerial photographs of large areas of the Earths surface have become available to anyone with broadband and a computer. All they need is a copy of Google Earth, a remarkable global mapping programme being given away by the $129 billion internet company. The software enables online computer users anywhere to access and view graphic images from around the world. But nuclear specialists are worried that it could be used by terrorists to pinpoint potential targets at some of Britains most sensitive military sites. Using Google Earth, the Sunday Herald was able zoom in on defunct nuclear submarines at Rosyth in Fife, and scour almost all the facilities at Faslane on the Clyde, home to the submarines that carry Trident warheads. The UKs nuclear bomb bunkers and factories at Burghfield and Aldermaston in Berkshire were clearly visible. Im astonished, to be honest, said John Large, an independent nuclear consultant. I think this would be a great aid to terrorists because it gives much more detail than you can get by buying a map or driving past. Large argued that if he referred clients to the Google Earth images of nuclear sites, he could be in breach of the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001, which made it a crime punishable by up to seven years in prison to disclose any information which might prejudice the security of any nuclear site. He said: You are not allowed to take photographs of military bases but now, with this software, you can peer straight into them. Its incredible. The satellite photos clearly show the seven old nuclear submarines at Rosyth naval base as well as other shoreside facilities. Barracks, fuel depots and jetties are all visible at Faslane. The most sensitive parts of Britains two most secretive nuclear sites Burghfield and Aldermaston can be seen in great detail. From a few hundred feet up, users can view bomb storage bunkers and count cars outside buildings where bombs are made and refurbished. As well as the military nuclear sites, Google Earth enables users to see civil nuclear power stations like Hunterston, Torness and Dounreay in Scotland. But the satellite pictures available are of a much lower resolution and become blurred below 20,000 feet. But there is a crystal-clear photograph of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, scene of the United States most serious nuclear accident in 1979. If Osama bin Laden had broadband in his cave in Afghanistan he could be using Google Earth right now to plan a detailed attack on Faslane, said Dr Richard Dixon, the director of WWF Scotland. As the data on the site improves he will no doubt be interested to browse past Torness, Hunterston, Dounreay, Coulport and Chapelcross. This shows the vulnerability of our nuclear sites, with so much dangerous material concentrated in one spot. Dixon was opposed to any move to censor the information. If it is not on Google Earth, it will almost certainly be available somewhere on the web, he argued. John Ainslie, co-ordinator of the Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, said the images unprecedented detail would be of value to anti-nuclear campaigners . Unfortunately they could also be misused by anyone who was planning a terrorist attack, he said. The governments approach to secrecy is all wrong. They keep secret political plans for the future of British nuclear weapons, while close-up aerial photos of Aldermaston are freely available. Google said the satellite images were available from many sources and had helped fight forest fires and provide relief from natural disasters. We believe that the benefits of access to the information provided by Google Earth for such valuable purposes are greater than any negatives from potential abuse, said a company spokeswoman. Google takes governmental concerns about Google Earth and Google Maps very seriously. We welcome dialogue with governments and authorities about any concerns they may have. The Ministry of Defence (MoD) insisted that it didnt see Google Earth as a security risk. Some of the pictures were out of date and much of the information was available on maps. The MoD has no objection to sites being shown, and we have no control over satellite images, said a spokes woman. We dont have a problem with it. © newsquest (sunday herald) limited. all rights reserved ***************************************************************** 63 LA Daily News: Fallout could include depressed home values Article Launched: 02/04/2006 12:00:00 AM By Brad A. Greenberg and Kerry Cavanaugh, Staff Writers BELL CANYON - Scott Ewing was set to open escrow Friday on his $1.7 million home when the buyers learned that researchers had detected higher cancer rates among people living within two miles of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory. With the gated community of Bell Canyon just down the hill from the Rocketdyne plant, the buyers pulled out. "We're bummed," said Ewing, who recently bought a home in Simi Valley. "Now we have to prove or disprove what's in this study. The pool of people who are willing to buy in the area has diminished somewhat. And we have to disclose this study. "We're carrying two mortgages right now and we would have loved to have sold this house to these people." The two studies released Thursday - one by UCLA and another by the University of Michigan - could temporarily depress home prices in the bucolic hills and canyons along the Los Angeles-Ventura county line, real estate agents said Friday. But Tom Carnahan doesn't expect there to be a lasting effect. "There are very few things the consumer carries on for the long term," said Carnahan, past president of the Southland Regional Association of Realtors. Though not conclusive, the studies fueled the decades-long controversy surrounding the former nuclear research and rocket engine testing facility. The lab's soil is heavily contaminated by metals and chemicals, researchers said, and groundwater has been found to have high levels of radiation and the carcinogen TCE. Previous studies found higher rates of bladder and lung cancers among Rocketdyne workers. "I wish that I could do away with all that uncertainty and give you clear answers but I can't," Hal Morgenstern, author of the Michigan study, told residents at a community meeting Thursday night. "Would I consider moving here now? I'm not sure. Telling people where they should live and where they shouldn't live, I can't do that." Homeowners are required by law to disclose hazards to interested buyers and area realty offices already include the Rocketdyne site on disclosure forms. "Most people look at that and say, 'It's been there forever. I know it. I grew up here.' And they don't seem awfully fazed by it," said Leah Theune, past president of the Simi Valley/Moorpark Association of Realtors. Before Jill Lynch, her husband and three kids bought a mansion in Woolsey Canyon, they had the soil tested and ensured that they wouldn't have to rely on potentially contaminated well water. "After we did all the studies and came back squeaky clean, we weren't worried," said Lynch, who moved from New Jersey six months ago. Of the 28 homes listed for sale Friday in Bell Canyon, only one is listed for less than $1 million. Lori Siegel, who is showing a $2.4 million estate there, said the proximity of the Rocketdyne facility is as much a factor in buying a house as the quality of schools or the incidence of crime in an area. "If someone has a concern, they can do a soil test," Siegel said. "That should be done, depending on how close they are to the Santa Susana Field Lab. But, that being said, this is something that affects the whole West Valley." Brad A. Greenberg, (818) 713-3634 brad.greenberg@dailynews.com Los Angeles Newspaper Group ***************************************************************** 64 Paducah Sun: Plant retirees lobby for pension boost - Matt Sanders Paducah, Kentucky Whitfield is urged to help in securing money transferred to USEC. By Matt Sanders msanders@paducahsun.com 270.575.8659 Sunday, February 05, 2006 Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant retirees said Saturday that $100 million should have been added to the nearly $580 million in their pension account that was allocated to USEC when the uranium enrichment industry was privatized in 1999. Frustrated by rising medical costs and inflation, more than 200 retirees and survivors of retirees turned out Saturday to ask for help from Congress. They put several questions about their pension to U.S. Rep. Ed Whitfield in a meeting at the United Steelworkers Local 550 Hall on Cairo Road in Paducah. Two recurring questions: How can they get the $100 million they feel is rightfully theirs, and what was the logic in transferring their pension to USEC, while Oak Ridge, Tenn., retirees remained under the Department of Energy, asked Harry Colbert, who presented the retirees´ concerns to Whitfield. Most of the 780 Paducah retirees had retired long before USEC took over as operator of the plant in 1999 and wanted their pensions to remain with DOE. There also are 233 surviving spouses from the Paducah plant. Whitfield, R-Hopkinsville, promised the retirees that he would ask “for a line-item explanation from DOE on the allocation to USEC for the pension fund, which retirees feel was too low. While the nearly $580 million was moved to USEC to cover retirees from the plants in Paducah and Portsmouth, Ohio, about $2.5 billion stayed in the Oak Ridge fund with DOE. Retiree Tom Emerson said that was not an equal distribution. “I will follow this closely with your attorney (Rick Walter) and I will get an answer for you, Whitfield said. Whitfield explained that privatization legislation noted that changes in plant operators had occurred and that the plant operator would have the responsibility of administering the pension funds. Thus, USEC would control the fund for Paducah and Portsmouth retirees. Previous plant operators were Union Carbide, Martin Marietta and Lockheed Martin. Colbert said DOE does not want to change things. “DOE doesn´t give us any respect, Colbert said. “They don´t return calls. I could not even get a list of retirees in order to contact you people. In June 2004, Colbert, Emerson and 10 other retirees filed suit in U.S. District Court trying to force the government to supplement the Paducah pension fund by $100 million. The suit was dismissed based on defense arguments that retirees missed the filing deadline by about a month, based on when the pension fund was separated. Walter maintained that the deadline had not passed. The case was appealed to the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, where Walter hopes that oral arguments will be set within the next two months. A ruling from the three-judge panel would follow in three to six months, Walter said. “If there is a favorable ruling from this lawsuit, that would be the quickest way to remedy this, Whitfield said. “I will follow this closely and we will meet again. ***************************************************************** 65 Pacific Magazine: FRENCH POLYNESIA: French Nuclear Safety Offical Arrives Today Pacific Islands: PINA and Pacific Monday: February 6, 2006 An official with France's Delegation for Nuclear Safety and Radioprotection for Activities and Installations Relating to Defense (DSND) is scheduled to arrive in Tahiti Monday for a five-day visit. Marcel Jurien de la Gravière will meet with Temaru government officials involved in the current debate over the consequences of French atmospheric and underground nuclear tests conducted between 1966 and 1996 at two remote Tuamotu atolls. His objective, according to a communiqué from the French High Commissioner's Office in Papeete, will be to continue a dialogue initiated last year during his two first visits to French Polynesia. This visit, through Feb. 10, coincides with a French Polynesia Assembly inquiry committee's scheduled public presentation of a six-month investigation into the consequences from the nuclear tests. The committee will present its report before a public Assembly session on Feb. 9. -Tahitipresse Contact: Pacific Magazine: - Sales Manager Florence Betham Tel: (808) 537-9500, Ext. 225 Fax: (808) 538-6041 - Editor Samantha Magick Tel: (61) 2 9571-1595 Cell: (61) 439-485-179 ***************************************************************** 66 IEER | Missing Plutonium - Index IEER| Publications Plutonium Discrepancies in the U.S. Nuclear Weapons Complex In reverse chronological order Reply to IEER from A.J. Eggenberger, Chairman of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, January 30, 2006 IEER letter to Linton Brooks, Administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration, December 19, 2005 IEER letter to A.J. Eggenberger, Chairman of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, December 13, 2005 IEER letter to Samuel Bodman, Secretary of the U.S. Dept. of Energy, December 13, 2005 Weapons Plutonium in Los Alamos Soil and Waste: Environmental, Health and Security Implications IEER report, November 29, 2005 IEER letter to LANL Director Pete Nanos re: plutonium discrepancy, August 10, 2004 IEER radio commentary on plutonium discrepancy, August 2004 Follow the Bouncing Data: DOE's Ever-Changing Estimates of Buried TRU Waste, in Science for Democratic Action, vol. 7 no. 2, January 1999 Containing the Cold War Mess: Restructuring the Environmental Management of the U.S. Nuclear Weapons Complex, IEER report, October 1997 Guimond-Beckner DOE memo, "Plutonium in Waste Inventories,"January 30, 1996 Institute for Energy and Environmental ResearchComments to Outreach Coordinator: ieer at ieer.org Takoma Park, Maryland, USA Updated February 3, 2006 ***************************************************************** 67 BBC: BNFL sells nuclear clean up unit Last Updated: Friday, 3 February 2006 [Sellafield nuclear power plant in Cumbria] A number of nations are planning to boost nuclear power output British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) has sold its US nuclear clean-up unit for £51m ($91m) to Utah-based Energy Solutions. BNFL, which also plans to sell its US-based nuclear power station construction unit Westinghouse, wants to focus on its UK businesses. State-owned, loss-making BNFL operates the Sellafield waste reprocessing plant in Cumbria and the UK's remaining older Magnox stations. Plans to sell off its businesses is proving controversial. Many critics argue that the company is getting rid of valuable assets just as demand for nuclear power is about to pick up, a development that could make large amounts of money for the firm. ***************************************************************** 68 Las Vegas SUN: Nuke waste transport report due this week transport Today: February 05, 2006 at 7:59:56 PST By Benjamin Grove Sun Washington Bureau WASHINGTON - A long-anticipated report on nuclear waste transportation will be released Thursday. (OK, maybe not breathlessly awaited, but a few media and Nevada officials have been looking forward to it.) A panel affiliated with the National Academies of Science has been studying the issue since May 2003. The report will play into the battle between Nevada officials who argue that shipping the waste to Yucca Mountain is dangerous and nuclear industry advocates who say the transportation will be safe. In light of the government's plan to open the national waste repository at Yucca as early as 2012, the 16-member committee has studied the risks associated with the enormous number of waste shipments that would cross the country by truck and rail. The report is expected to shed new light on those risks and how they can be addressed. The panel also studied options for shipping routes, procedures for handling the material, and methods of communicating the risks to the public. The Energy Department has not disclosed the exact routes, although the most likely ones are well known. The department has a preference for sending the material mostly by rail, although trucks also would be used. Yucca critics have said the panel may have conflicts of interest because the $850,000 study was paid for partly by the Energy Department and the Electric Power Research Institute, a research arm of the utility industry, which includes the pro-Yucca nuclear power industry. President Bush will send his 2007 budget plan to Congress on Monday. It's expected to include about the same amount for Yucca Mountain operations as Congress approved for 2006 -- $450 million. Bush's proposal also is expected to include a request to take Yucca Mountain spending "off-budget," a maneuver the White House advocates to prevent Congress from curtailing work at Yucca by restricting the funding. +   Democratic Reps. Shelley Berkley of Nevada and Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas will host a forum this week on the killing and persecution in the Darfur region of Sudan. Lee has traveled to the Darfur. The forum is free and will be held at 7p.m. Thursday in room 109 of the Flora Dungan Humanities Building at UNLV. Benjamin Grove can be reached at (202) 662-7436 or at grove@lasvegassun.com. All contents © 1996 - 2006 Las Vegas Sun, Inc. ***************************************************************** 69 SA: The Citizen: Row rages over radioactive waste Monday February 06/ south africa RICHARDS BAY - The fate of thousands of tons of hazardous port waste, with apparent high radioactive levels, could be determined in court. The waste, generated in the harbour during materials handling, was moved to Nseleni by a contractor for the SA Port Operations (Sapo) for a fee of about R5 million. According to city officials the contractor, Futuretech Services and Logistics {(FSL), thought the stockpile could be recycled by separating the dry bulk materials. But in May last year municipal authorities, believing that the radioactive levels of the stockpile were a concern, classified the stockpile as hazardous and instructed that it be moved to an appropriate disposal site. But about half of the 20 000 tons of waste being stored was transferred from Alton to a disused warehouse at Nseleni Village. Health officials were visited by Sasol, owners of the warehouse. "With the warehouse being outside our area of jurisdiction, we referred them to Sapo, which accepted responsibility for the disposal of the waste in terms of the Environmental Conservation Act," said uMhlathuze director of community services and health, Fred Phillips. "According to Sapo, they are in negotiations with the departments of Water Affairs and Environmental Affairs to have the hazardous waste material declassified, to have it disposed of at the uThungulu landfill site at Empangeni. "But while Sapo is instituting legal action against FSL for breach of contract, according to unconfirmed information the contractor is allegedly refusing the release of the waste material for disposal at the uThungulu site." - CNS. 05/02/2006 12:57:14 © 2004 The Citizen "Proudly South African" ***************************************************************** 70 SF Chronicle: The poisonous legacy of the chemical arms race [San Francisco Chronicle] Reviewed by Mark Essig Sunday, February 5, 2006 War of Nerves Chemical Warfare From World War I to Al-Qaeda By Jonathan B. Tucker PANTHEON; 479 PAGES; $30 "The taboo against poison warfare has a source deep in the human psyche," Jonathan B. Tucker writes in "War of Nerves." But the book also makes clear that taboos were made to be broken. The first transgressors of consequence were the German generals of World War I who released clouds of chlorine, phosgene and mustard gases that seared the lungs and blistered the skin of British, French, American and Russian troops. The allies reciprocated by raining poison on German trenches, and by war's end chemicals had inflicted a million casualties. Revulsion at the toll prompted the signing of the Geneva Protocol of 1925, which banned the use in war -- though not the production and stockpiling -- of chemical weapons. The agreement had no teeth. In the 1930s Benito Mussolini dropped mustard-gas bombs on Haile Selassie's gasmask-less warriors in Abyssinia -- a gross violation of the Geneva Protocol that the League of Nations greeted with silence. Meanwhile, Mussolini's fellow fascists to the north had been busy in the laboratory. German chemists created new poisons, tabun and sarin, that wreaked havoc on the nervous system, causing spasms of the skeletal muscles, suppression of the brain's respiratory centers and paralysis of breathing muscles. The Nazis tested their new weapons by killing rabbits, apes and concentration-camp inmates, but Hitler shied away from using them in battle -- not out of moral delicacy but because he assumed, incorrectly, that Allied forces possessed similar agents and would launch counterattacks. After the war, Allied scientists analyzed Germany's chemical munitions and were shocked to learn how far they had fallen behind. The Soviets and Americans wasted little time in getting up to speed, launching a chemical arms race to complement the nuclear one. In the Strangelovian logic of the Cold War, nerve agents came to be seen as a more moderate "alternative to all-out nuclear war," Tucker explains, because "the scale of their use could be tailored to a limited conflict." In one sense, the dangerous game of deterrence worked with chemical weapons just as it did with nuclear: Neither the United States nor the Soviets deployed poison in combat. The problem was proliferation. Chemical technology spread more quickly than nuclear, and before long Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Syria and Israel possessed nerve agents. Chemical weapons became, in the words of one Iranian official, "the poor man's atomic bomb." In the 1980s, Saddam Hussein, aided and abetted by Western corporations, manufactured nerve agents and deployed them against Iranian troops and Kurdish civilians, killing thousands. The Reagan administration, which viewed Iraq as a check against Iran's Islamic militants, largely ignored these crimes against humanity, as did the international community. The enforcement vacuum allowed Hussein to stockpile weapons and grow more belligerent, creating troubles that Reagan's successors still struggle to address. Tucker, a political scientist with the Monterey Institute, approaches his topic more as journalist than as policy wonk. He writes clearly and forcefully, making his case not through argument but through the patient accumulation of appalling detail. The spare reporting style can be frustrating at certain points where the material cries out for the author to analyze and render judgments. He never tries to explain, for example, why we consider it more repellant to kill a man with a lungful of gas than with a bullet to the head. Tucker posits an "innate human aversion to poisonous substances," but that fails to satisfy -- especially because, when he accounts for why most possessors of poison gas have chosen not to use it, he speaks the language of realpolitik, not moral squeamishness. Just what is it that makes poison different? At times Tucker unwisely essays a melodramatic you-are-there style, noting in one scene, for instance, that "Hitler's toothbrush mustache bristled with irritation" -- a line more appropriate for a potboiling historical novel. On the whole, though, "War of Nerves" is an immensely useful book, presenting a vast trove of vital information in highly readable form. The 80-year history of chemical weapons offers the simple but crucial lesson that international agreements -- including the breakthrough Chemical Weapons Convention of 1993 -- are worthless unless enforced. Tucker's advice: Persuade nations to sign agreements, verify compliance and punish those that stray. The author downplays the Bush administration's warnings of potential chemical attacks by al Qaeda. The organization doesn't have the technical resources to make the weapons itself, he writes, and any nation that supplied such weapons to terrorists would risk retaliation by the United States. But there's still reason to fear. If chemical weapons proliferate, it will become easier for terrorists to acquire them, "either by stealing actual weapons or by obtaining the know-how needed to produce them." After World War I, an American general named Amos Fries argued in favor of using poison gas, claiming that "it gives the most scientific and most ingenious people a great advantage over the less scientific and less ingenious." Now, it seems, the people we call barbarians hold the advantage from chemical weapons, simply because they may be willing to use them. The wind has shifted, and the gas may blow back in our direction. Mark Essig is the author of "Edison &the Electric Chair." Write to him at . Page M - 2 The San Francisco Chronicle] ***************************************************************** 71 LA Daily News: What now? Life in toxic 'hot spot' Article Launched: 02/04/2006 12:00:00 AM By Kerry Cavanaugh and Dana Bartholomew, Staff Writers Within the past seven years, Marlene Calderone has been diagnosed with thyroid cancer, melanoma and cancer in both her breasts. Now after enduring surgery, radiation treatment and chemotherapy, Calderone is haunted by the fear that her illnesses could be linked to the pleasant hikes she took 20 years ago in the hills west of the San Fernando Valley - near Rocketdyne's Santa Susana Field Lab. Researchers revealed Thursday night that residents living within two miles of the facility have higher cancer rates than people living farther away. A separate study found that neighbors may have been exposed over the years to toxic chemicals through the air, water and soil. While study authors reiterated that their work is preliminary and they cannot link cancer cases to the field lab contamination, Calderone and other residents said the research confirms their suspicions. "I kind of knew it all along. No one in my family has thyroid problems or thyroid cancer. It was obviously exposure," said Calderone, 55, who from 1983 to '93 lived in a mobile-home park less than a mile from the former nuclear research and rocket engine test lab. In the gated community of Bell Canyon, which researchers identified as a contamination "hot spot," homeowners were more cautious in their reaction to the community health study. Michael Bubman, president of the Bell Canyon Homeowners Association, said there have been previous studies of Bell Canyon that never showed any problems. He also questioned the current health risks since the lab no longer tests rocket engines and ceased its polluting operations. "Is there really a concern in our backyard? To date I haven't heard anything that really sounded the alarm bells to me. Until we get results significant to us today, I want to make sure our communities don't get unduly alarmed." Designed to analyze community health and exposure around the Santa Susana Field Lab, the $700,000, federally funded studies built on more than 15 years of environmental investigations at the site. The Department of Energy and the Boeing Co., which owns the lab, are in the midst of a multimillion-dollar cleanup of the field lab, which opened for research in the late 1940s. Boeing officials said they could not comment on the specifics of the new research, but their analysis has shown that the neighboring communities have not been tainted by the lab's operations. Nevertheless, the two studies bolster concerns that decades of research using radioactive materials and highly toxic chemicals left an imprint of pollution and illness in the surrounding communities. Study authors said the next logical step is to combine their two studies - investigating whether cancer rates are higher in the contamination hot spots. U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., called Friday for the Energy Department to beef up its cleanup plan and acknowledge that contamination has spread off the site - particularly as the new housing projects are proposed for the area. "In light of these findings, it is incomprehensible to me that anyone would consider building new housing developments that will significantly increase the local population after reviewing the results of these new studies," Boxer said. Ventura County Supervisor Linda Parks, whose district includes Bell Canyon, urged Los Angeles County to follow its neighbor's lead and require soil and water testing of any new project planned within two miles of the field lab. But other leaders reiterated researchers' warnings that the studies do not link Boeing's lab to illnesses. Ventura County Supervisor Judy Mikels, whose district includes Simi Valley, said the researchers may have overstated the risks and she warned against additional, unnecessary environmental tests at and around the lab. "I firmly believe that the Department of Energy and Boeing are making valid tests and that they are keeping track of what's going on. There may be other agendas that are making people unnecessarily worried." Word of the cancer studies spread through Mountain View Estates mobile-home park like the wildfires that licked their doorsteps last fall. The West Hills park of 156 homes hugs the western gate of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory. Views of the Valley are spectacular. But the news spooked neighbors who either pooh-poohed the studies as overblown property-value killers, or worried residents who say they are potential victims of Space Age contamination. "I don't think there's a threat, and if there is, it went the other way,`' said Norma Erhardt, 61, cousin of the late pilot, who has lived 10 years in her double-wide and hopes to buy the land someday. "You know what? The air is cleaner (here) than living by the 101 Freeway," she said. "Most residents don't feel a threat." "My only concern is, if we wanted to retire and sell, this would really hit us in the pocketbook," said Ken Cummins, 61, an airplane mechanic and youth football coach. Michelle Puntillo, 36, lives up the street with her teenage son. A renter for eight years, she said they haven't lived there long enough to contract any illnesses from potential pollution from Rocketdyne. "It's not enough to start boxing my stuff," said Puntillo. "I don't feel threatened at this point. I feel more threatened by other areas and other countries." Bruce Gold isn't so sure. The 55-year-old custom car and bike builder, who lives with his girlfriend and her daughter, had hoped to buy the land during a planned zoning change - but not if it's not safe. He and others have asked for soil tests for chemical or radioactive contamination beneath their lots. "Would I move back to the flats because of this? Yes. I'm not going to jeopardize my lady's health, my health, my child's health, for this view ... I'd love to stay up here, I just don't want to glow." Kerry Cavanaugh, (818) 713-3746 Los Angeles Newspaper Group ***************************************************************** 72 Salt Lake Tribune: CEO has grand plans for new waste giant Article Last Updated: 02/04/2006 12:29:32 AM EnergySolutions: Small changes in Utah, yet a big role in cleaning up U.S. nuclear legacy, a $400B business By Judy Fahys The Salt Lake Tribune Steve Creamer EnergySolutions CEO Utah businessman Steve Creamer is anything but done building a nuclear-waste empire. On Thursday, he and his partners in Enivrocare of Utah announced they bought BNG America, a company that manages and cleans up nuclear reactors and highly contaminated sites. On Friday, he promised to make the company even bigger, after combining BNG with Envirocare's landfill for low-level radioactive waste in Tooele County and renaming the burgeoning hot waste company EnergySolutions. "Our plan will probably be to take it public in the future," said Creamer, president and chief executive officer of the new company. He did not provide a timetable for selling publicly traded stock. The moves look logical to anyone as optimistic about nuclear power as Creamer is. New York-based Lindsay, Goldberg &Bessmer teamed up with Utah-based Peterson Partners and Creamer to buy out Envirocare a year ago. But, with a controversial past and the market for big-volume government cleanups shrinking, Envirocare had trouble shifting course, said Creamer. "I'd love to have another 25-million-cubic-foot year," said Creamer, referring to Envirocare's record year of waste volume in 2005. "But it's not going to happen." That was part of the company's thinking last year when it bought a company called Scientech D, which cleans up and dismantles nuclear facilities. Yet, that new venture bogged down under the old name and an 18-year reputation for working with low-level - rather than higher-level - waste. Buying BNG America gives EnergySolutions good reason for a new name, "a fresh start," for two companies that otherwise might have been regarded as "the same sheep, new clothes," according to Creamer. "It's a great opportunity," he said. EnergySolutions will stick with earlier decisions to give up on a license for Class B waste, which is hundreds and sometimes thousands of times hotter than the mile-square Tooele County landfill is licensed to accept. And it has no need to add more waste cells, said Creamer: "I don't need more disposal capacity." He said Utahns familiar with Envirocare probably won't see any change, although more scientists and engineers may be recruited from outside the state, as well as from Utah State University and the University of Utah. But he noted that some personnel reshuffling already has begun within the company. "There will be no jobs lost in Utah," Creamer said. It's likely, however, there will be more growth beyond Utah's borders. BNG had operations where the government's biggest nuclear cleanups are located. Its federal contracts at Hanford, Washington; the Idaho National Laboratory; Oak Ridge, Tenn.; Rocky Flats, Colo.; and Savannah River, S.C., have been worth hundreds of millions of dollars. In addition, prospects for future contracts in high-level waste look promising. Decommissioning U.S. power plants could be worth as much as $7 billion a year, with the value projected to grow over the next 30 years, the Times of London estimated. Meanwhile, cleaning up the U.S. nuclear legacy could cost up to $400 billion. The Times, which put the BNG purchase price at nearly $90 million, reported 19 U.S. Energy Department decommissioning and cleanup contracts are expected to go out this year. EnergySolutions will be well-positioned to land at least some of those because they already are on site at key cleanup locations. But Creamer also has his eyes on international cleanups. He told The Guardian in Britain that his new company plans to bid on the government-owned British Nuclear Group's nuclear waste reprocessing facility at Sellafield, as well as other cleanup sites in the United Kingdom when they go up for sale. Managers of the government-owned British Nuclear Fuels, BNG America's former parent company, began pushing for the company's sale last fall. One estimate suggested it could be worth as much as $1 billion to the government's bank accounts. Creamer reiterated Friday what nuclear waste industry insiders have been saying for months: the Utah company has a big appetite. And he would like to parlay those new acquisitions into a full-spectrum nuclear company, one that can jump into nuclear fuel reprocessing should the U.S. ban on it be lifted. Creamer estimated reprocessing as a $100 billion business over the next 10 to 15 years. The BNG purchase "was definitely a surprise at first, but a surprise that really fits," said Martin Schneider, editor-in-chief of the Washington, D.C.-based trade newsletter The International Radioactive Exchange. With a resurgence in nuclear energy, and perhaps the reactor waste recycling in the United States, the new company has more opportunities, he said. "They can put something together to be a player." Vanessa Pierce of the Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah noted that serious health and safety problems have been traced to the Sellafield plant. For instance, British investigators have found plutonium in the teeth of children nearby. "With the sale, Utah stands to become to nuclear waste disposal what Las Vegas is to gambling," she said. In the state Capitol on Friday, longtime Envirocare lobbyist Bette Ariel handed out business cards bearing the new EnergySolutions name and logo. Mike Mower, communications chief for Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., got one. "This is a private corporate decision," he said. "We applaud businesses that want to build their administrative base in the state." State regulators have only begun to examine what the name change might mean to EnergySolutions' Utah landfill, said Dianne Nielson, director of the Utah Department of Environmental Quality. "There is paperwork to be filed," she said. "Beyond that I haven't heard any more." fahys@sltrib.com © Copyright 2006, The Salt Lake Tribune. ***************************************************************** 73 News & Observer: Response to Warren letter regarding waste disposal To the editor: The 1983 list of nuclear waste sites Mr. Ken Ferruccio mentions in his Feb. 1 letter to the editor was revised in 1986. The 1986 list includes only two North Carolina sites for possible disposal of high-level nuclear wastes: Rolesville, and Buncombe County. I found the revised report, #8220Briefing on the Draft Area Recommendation Report for the U.S. Congress, dated Jan. 16, 1986 at the Texas Tech University Southwest Collection, Special Collections Library, Box 31, Folder 19 of the Nuclear Waste Management Records Collection #S-1502.1 for $2.29. The original list of 249 sites was reduced to 12 sites. It will be of interest to your readers that Virginia has two sites on the list, one of which is enclosed in the South Hill-South Boston-Danville area. I had a letter in the Friday, Jan. 27 News &Observer about regional waste sites. Ron Bourgoin, Edgecombe Community College, Rocky Mount, N.C. ***************************************************************** 74 Canon City Daily Record: Cotter projects six weeks left before layoffs Publish Date: 2/3/2006 Blakely Thomas-Aguilar The Daily Record Current Cotter employees have approximately six weeks remaining before a layoff is expected to affect the majority of the uranium and vanadium processing site, mill manager John Hamrick said Thursday. Despite a 60-day notice given to employees at the beginning of November, ore production and quantities have extended work for approximately 40 Cotter employees. The “temporary” layoffs, as described in November by company representative Jerry Powers, will occur once the ore supply has bottomed out. Hamrick said he expects the ore at the Cañon City site and in area mines to keep the mill in production for six more weeks. There is the possibility that the employees will merely have a “furlough,” Hamrick said, if the corporation’s request to process nearly 11,000 tons of raffinate materials is cleared by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. “When we run out of ore, we’ll be shut down. What we hope will happen is it’ll be a short furlough until we can get the raffinates in here,” Hamrick said in a telephone interview Thursday. Should the materials from the Sequoyah Fuels Corporation be accepted, Hamrick predicted it would keep the plant running for another eight weeks. The Materials Acceptance Report, posted on the CDPHE Web site on Jan. 25, struck a controversial chord in Fremont County. In a meeting with members of the CDPHE Hazardous Waste and Materials department and the Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday night, residents expressed concern that the request is an attempt by Cotter and Sequoyah parent company General Atomics to conduct “sham processing.” The Sequoyah site in Gore, Okla., was shut down in November 2002 after an explosion killed a worker. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Committee reclassified the raffinate materials from low-level waste to processable 11e2 materials two years ago. “I have deep concerns about them receiving more hazardous materials,” Jody Enderle said Tuesday. “I hope we get more answers.” All contents Copyright © 2005 The Cañon City Daily Record. All ***************************************************************** 75 EGYPT PUSHES FOR MIDDLEAST NUKE-FREE ZONE Date: Sat, 4 Feb 2006 00:43:18 -0600 (CST) http://sg.news.yahoo.com/060203/1/3yfz2.html Agence France Presse Saturday February 4, 5:51 AM [afp.gif] UN NUCLEAR WATCHDOG DELAYS DECISION ON IRAN The United Nations atomic agency, the IAEA, delayed until Saturday a vote on sending Iran's suspect nuclear program to the UN Security Council after Egypt insisted on adding a clause implying that Israel should give up its alleged atomic weapons. Egypt pushed for a reference to a nuclear-weapons-free zone in the Middle East to be included in the resolution in order to represent Arab concerns over Israel's alleged nuclear weapons capacity, diplomats said. The United States opposed the insertion but France, Germany and Britain -- the so-called "EU 3" -- have drafted a compromise formulation currently under consideration by Egypt, a diplomat said. They propose a clause "recognizing that a solution to the Iranian nuclear issue would contribute to the goal of a Middle East free of all weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery." The US "will have to settle on some formulation, given how isolated they are," a second diplomatic said, pointing out that US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was discussing this point with foreign ministers from Britain, France and Germany. But another Western diplomat downplayed the rift. During this "consultation phase" the aim was, he said, to get as many nations on board for the next crucial step in the international community's confrontation with Iran, which the United States claims in hiding a secret nuclear weapons program. Non-aligned states, meanwhile, were challenging the very idea of reporting Iran to the Security Council for possible sanctions, though with little influence on the deliberation process. A Western diplomat said the resolution could be modified such that the moves against Iran would be "specific to this country" and not set a precedent that could interfere with a nation's right to use peaceful nuclear energy. An emergency meeting of the board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had been due to resume Friday but the plenary session was postponed as intense closed-door talks continued. The five permanent Security Council members -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States -- and Germany have closed ranks over the resolution to take Iran to the Security Council. Unlike the IAEA, the Security Council has enforcement powers. The text of the resolution is a compromise between the US call for immediate Security Council action and Russia's insistance that any decision be put off until the IAEA's next meeting in March. A non-aligned diplomat said that since previous Security Council resolutions had already referred to a nuclear-weapons-free zone in the Middle East, any resolution concerning Iran would have to include such a reference as well. But a Western diplomat said that countries including the United States "support the establishment of a nuclear-weapons-free zone in the Middle East but ... see this as a separate issue from what we are dealing with now." Russia, a key trade partner of Iran, hopes Tehran can be convinced to respond to calls by the IAEA to suspend all nuclear fuel work and cooperate fully with agency inspectors to defuse the crisis without the Security Council imposing sanctions. Iran has threatened to retaliate if referred to the Council. Top Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani sent a letter to IAEA director general Mohamed ElBaradei warning that Iran would move ahead on industrial-level uranium enrichment -- which can produce nuclear reactor fuel or atom bomb material -- if sent before the Security Council. Despite the IAEA call for Iran to suspend nuclear fuel work, Tehran pressed ahead in January with preparations for uranium enrichment. Cuba, Syria and Venezuela -- which all have disputes with the United States -- said they would vote against referral to the Security Council. But the resolution written by Britain, Germany and France is expected to meet the US goal of rallying some 30 of the board's 35 member states. It needs a majority to pass. ***************************************************************** 76 Hanford News: DOE to put new safety regulations in place for Hanford workers This story was published Friday, February 3rd, 2006 By Annette Cary, Herald staff writer Hanford workers should have expanded safety protection next year when new regulations take effect covering non-nuclear risks, such as chemical exposures. The regulations have been sought by worker advocates, along with some tank farm workers who believe their health has been harmed by breathing chemical vapors from underground tanks of nuclear and chemical wastes. Although two previous versions of the regulations were criticized, the Department of Energy's final version has been met with approval. "We came up with what we think is a rock-solid rule that meets the stringent health and safety requirements that DOE expects of all its contractors," said John Shaw, DOE assistant secretary for environment, safety and health. DOE contractors who break the rules could be fined $70,000 per day per violation. About 100,000 workers will be covered by the new regulations. "Until now, contractors around the country got to set their own rules for worker health and safety, with inadequate oversight and enforcement," said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., in a statement. "Now all DOE contractors will have to follow the same standards." Hanford and other nuclear sites have been protected by the Price-Anderson Act, which covers radiological safety problems, but not other safety hazards. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration does not have authority over most Hanford work. Under the new regulations, the same safety rules used by OSHA will apply to Hanford, but be administered by DOE. In addition, some of the rules are tougher, such as far stricter beryllium protections. Beryllium, a metal used during Hanford's plutonium-production years, has contaminated some Hanford buildings with fine particles that can cause an incurable lung disease in susceptible workers. Contractors also will be responsible for meeting other safety standards, such as those issued by the National Fire Protection Association and the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists. It's the first time in 65 years that such health and safety requirements have been enforceable, the Government Accountability Project said in a statement praising the new regulations. "Mr. Shaw overcame a number of hurdles to bring this rule to fruition, and nuclear workers are the beneficiaries," Richard Miller, a senior policy analyst at GAP, said in a statement. In April, DOE held a Richland hearing on the proposed rules. Hanford workers and some organized labor officials criticized that earlier version, saying it contained 10 broad exemptions that would undermine the intent of Congress. Congress required the new regulations in the Fiscal Year 2003 Defense Authorization Act and set the amount of fines. Critics said contractors could avoid fines by claiming costs did not justify the benefits of following regulations. The version adopted by DOE modified those exemptions, Shaw said. The new regulations will be published in the Federal Register next week and take effect a year later. © 2006 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 77 Hanford News: Report blames faulty early estimate for rising costs This story was published Friday, February 3rd, 2006 By Shannon Dininny, Associated Press Writer YAKIMA, Wash. (AP) - A faulty early estimate and an overly optimistic attitude about the uncertainty and risk of building a complex plant at the Hanford nuclear reservation are major factors in the recent skyrocketing costs and delays, according to a new review. The U.S. Department of Energy reported results of the review Thursday to members of Congress and Washington state officials. The Energy Department manages cleanup at the highly contaminated Hanford site, which was created in the 1940s as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb. Cleanup costs are expected to total $50 billion to $60 billion, with the work to continue until 2035. But the department and its contractor have been harshly criticized for their roles in building the vitrification plant, which is being designed to treat highly radioactive waste left from decades of plutonium production for the nation's nuclear weapons arsenal. The plant would convert the waste to glass logs. The project is years behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman already has taken steps to correct many of the issues identified in the report, spokesman Mike Waldron said from Washington, D.C. "This report certainly takes a hard look at where we have been, but Secretary Bodman has taken steps to set a realistic and achievable direction for the future of the plant," Waldron said. The report offered a detailed look at how the plant's cost has risen. In 2000, when the contract was awarded to contractor Bechtel National, the projected cost was $4.3 billion. By 2004, the estimate had risen to $5.8 billion. The Energy Department pushed the estimate to more than $8 billion in March 2005, after a review concluded the department had underestimated the impact a severe earthquake might have on the plant. That review, coupled with the rising price of steel and other problems, forced the agency to significantly slow construction last fall. The report Thursday attributed about $2 billion of the cost increase to four factors, including a faulty initial estimate. The review also said the department and its contractor were overly optimistic about the difficulty of building the plant, including the availability of physical resources and qualified personnel and regulatory compliance. In addition, schedule constraints pushed the cost up as the department reined in funding for the project, the report said. Those managing the cleanup were "caught in the middle - attempting to complete the project according to an unrealistic, mandated schedule and an inefficient, mandated funding profile." The report said the project cost estimate would likely continue to increase beyond the current $8.35 billion. In an earlier review, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers estimated the project could cost as much as $10 billion. The corps is conducting another review for the Energy Department that is expected to be completed later this year. Under the Tri-Party Agreement, the cleanup pact signed by the state, the Energy Department and the Environmental Protection Agency, the plant is to be up and running by 2011. The Energy Department has already said it will miss the deadline, marking the fourth time the project deadline has not been met. Waldron also said the Energy Department will add staff at its Office of River Protection, which oversees plant construction at Hanford, and improve reporting to the national office - two areas that were criticized in the report. Mike Wilson, senior policy analyst for the state Department of Ecology, credited the Energy Department for issuing an "unvarnished" report. "They took the blame, where it was their fault, and pointed out where Bechtel was in error," Wilson said. "What is paramount to us right now is to be assured that they are correcting their problems so that we can go to Congress ... and with a straight face tell them that the state of Washington is still behind this project." Last year, Congress cut annual funding for the project from $690 million to about $526 million. President Bush is scheduled to release his proposed 2007 budget on Monday, and state officials have been urging the federal government to fully fund the project. Waldron declined to comment on the administration's proposed budget for the plant. Members of Washington's congressional delegation have pushed for continued funding for the plant, but they applauded the department for conducting the review and sharing the results. "Senator Murray's ultimate goal is to get the site cleaned up. So while there is a lot that was troubling in this report, it's helpful to know what went wrong so we can correct the mistakes and move forward," said Alex Glass, a spokeswoman for Democratic Sen. Patty Murray. U.S. Rep. Doc Hastings, a Republican, agreed. "It's important to figure out what happened, but what's most critical is using this information to fix problems and set a path forward to complete the plant," Hastings said in a statement. © 2006 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 78 Hanford News: Report finds vit plant got off on wrong foot from start This story was published Friday, February 3rd, 2006 By Annette Cary, Herald staff writer The billion dollar leaps in the cost of Hanford's vitrification plant can be traced to a bad first estimate and misguided optimism, according to a new report released Thursday. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman ordered the report after problems revealed last year at the Hanford plant fueled unconfirmed estimates that the cost could increase to $9.6 billion. When contractor Bechtel National bid on the project in 2000, the Department of Energy estimate was $4.3 billion. That estimate, like the design then, was little more than conceptual, said the report prepared by LMI. Future estimates continued to be built on that unrealistic base figure. In addition, the complexity of the technical solutions needed for the project and costs for nuclear-quality supplies and highly skilled workers were underestimated, according to the report. "Unvarnished" was the description of the report's findings used by Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., and Mike Wilson, the congressional liaison for the Washington State Department of Ecology. "It's important to figure out what happened, but what's most critical is using this information to fix problems and set a path forward to complete the vit plant," Hastings said in a statement. Correcting the problems found in the report are critical to the success of the project and to maintaining credibility when the state and others are talking to Congress, which must approve money for the project to continue, Wilson said. The plant is intended to turn the most radioactive of the 53 million gallons of waste held in underground tanks into a stable glass form for permanent disposal. The plant legally is required to start making glass logs in 2011, but is not expected to start production until years later. Both Bechtel and the Department of Energy were overly optimistic when they assessed the risks of building the first vitrification plant of its kind in the United States, the report found. "While many claim to be shocked by the estimated cost growth, the situation with the (vitrification plant) project should not have been a surprise," the report said. Bechtel and DOE should have known that the tendency to underestimate the cost of one-of-a-kind and complicated projects is great, the report said. The report focused mostly on the cost increase, from the estimate in 2003 of $5.8 billion to estimates by Bechtel two years later that the cost would be $8.35 billion. That $8.35 billion estimate likely is low for several reasons, including a lack of enough contingency funds and a reduced overall budget this year that has slowed work, according to the report. Optimism in the face of four daunting challenges accounted for $2 billion of the cost increase. Problems started with Bechtel's underestimation of how complicated technical problems would be, such as figuring out how to keep radioactive waste with the consistency of catsup continually mixed in tanks that could have no moving parts. The report blamed Bechtel's "can-do" corporate attitude coupled with expertise in construction rather than complex nuclear-chemical engineering. When Bechtel did approach DOE with technical concerns, DOE wrongly said the previous contractor on the plant had solved those problems, the report said. Bechtel also did not realize how difficult and expensive finding nuclear-quality materials and equipment would be since no large nuclear plant had been built in the United States for decades. In some cases, it could find only a single supplier that used its monopoly to charge excessive prices, the report found. It had a similar problem finding qualified workers, including the 1,500 experienced engineers it needed to create a design team. Once crews were assembled, the learning curve was steep and they failed to meet performance goals, according to the report. The fourth problem - underestimating costs of complying with regulations - added $500 million to the project, largely because of new earthquake design standards. Both Bechtel and DOE seemed to bet they would not have to change standards until significant design and construction work had been completed, the report said. Low estimates of the cost were compounded by problems in management and a flawed contracting strategy when Bechtel was hired, the report found. When DOE ended its agreement with the previous contractor, BNFL, Bechtel was awarded the contract just seven months later. "By any standard for a project of this size, this was an extremely fast procurement," the report said. Then, construction began even though engineers had just begun the design. Instead of a traditional DOE contract, the agreement with Bechtel was stripped of administrative restrictions to remove bureaucracy. "The mindset of senior leadership was described as, 'We've hired the best, now get out of the way and let them do the job,' " the report said. Techniques adopted to streamline the project also reduced the effectiveness of management controls, the report said. It also questioned whether communication was adequate for DOE officials in Washington, D.C., to understand the severity of the problems on the project until it was too late to stop work. The DOE staff at Hanford with few exceptions "appears qualified and experienced," the report said. But the staff could have made better use of money for consultants for technical expertise and more contracting staff would have improved management, the report said. © 2006 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 79 Idaho Statesman: Idaho National Laboratory plans to dismantle old reactors 02-05-2006 The Associated Press Edition Date: 02-04-2006 IDAHO FALLS  Three nuclear reactors at Idaho National Laboratory, instrumental in leading to the understanding and construction of more advanced reactors, will likely be dismantled beginning this fall. "Projects only live so long," Emory "Sam" Mobley, who worked on all three reactors during his 37-year-career, told the Post Register. "They all ran a long time, and so it was good while it lasted, but they can't go on forever." The reactors to be dismantled are the Power Burst Facility (PBF) reactor, the Materials Testing Reactor (MTR) and the Engineering Test Reactor (ETR). The work is expected to be completed by 2012. CWI, the contractor for the Department of Energy's Idaho Cleanup Project at the 890-square-mile federal research area in eastern Idaho, is responsible for taking the reactors apart. Debris will either remain at the site in a special, lined area, or be shipped to other sites, including a permanent underground repository in New Mexico. "It really depends, when we get in there, what the waste types are," Amy Lientz, vice president of communications for CWI, told The Associated Press on Friday. "It could be one of several options." She said the INL would keep waste with lower hazards associated with it. State officials, the Shoshone-Bannock tribes and the public will get to comment on the plan to dismantle the reactors and dispose of the materials. "We're going through the public-comment process this year," said Lientz. "Not until we have an opportunity to have the plan reviewed will we have the opportunity to start work." The MTR went on line in 1952 as the world's first materials testing reactor, enabling engineers to see what happened to materials bombarded with radioactivity. It was shut down in 1970 after researchers built more advanced reactors. In 1957, the ETR became the second test reactor at INL. It closed in 1981 when the site's Advanced Test Reactor took over the research load. Engineers started using the PBF reactor in 1972 to test nuclear accident scenarios. That reactor went on standby in 1985, and is now awaiting demolition. Lientz said the only operational reactor at INL now is the Advanced Test Reactor, which runs experiments for the U.S. Navy. The Department of Energy wants to use it to make plutonium-238 for nuclear batteries used in space missions. ***************************************************************** 80 Tri-Valley Herald: Times good for bomb designers Last Updated: 02/05/2006 02:53:36 AM Scientists drawing up plans for new nuclear weapons with aim of replacing U.S. arsenal By Ian Hoffman, STAFF WRITER For the first time in more than 20 years, U.S. nuclear-weapons scientists are designing a new hydrogen bomb, the first of probably several new nuclear explosives on the drawing boards. If they succeed, in perhaps 20 or 25 more years, the United States would have an entirely new nuclear arsenal, and a highly automated factory capable of turning out more warheads as needed, as well as new kinds of warheads. We are on the verge of an exciting time, the nations top nuclear weapons executive, Linton Brooks, said last week at Lawrence Livermore weapons design laboratory. Teams of roughly 20 scientists and engineers at the nations two laboratories for nuclear-explosive design — Livermore and Los Alamos in New Mexico — are in a head-to-head competition to offer designs for the first of the new thermonuclear explosives, termed reliable replacement warheads, or RRWs. Designers are aiming for bombs that will be simpler, easier to maintain over decades and, if they fell into terrorists hands, able to be remotely destroyed or rendered as useless as a doorstop. Once the designs are unveiled in September, the Bush administration and Congress could face a major choice in the future of the U.S. arsenal: Do they keep maintaining the existing, tested weapons or begin diverting money and manpower to developing the newly designed but untested weapons?Administration officials see the new weapons and the plant to make them as truly transformative, allowing the dismantlement of thousands of reserve weapons. But within the community of nuclear weapons experts, the notion of fielding untested weapons is controversial and turns heavily on how much the new bombs would be like the well-tested weapons the United States already has. I cant believe that an admiral or a general or a future president, who are putting the U.S. survival at stake, would accept an untested weapon if it didnt have a test base, said physicist and Hoover Institution fellow Sidney Drell, a longtime adviser to the government and its labs on nuclear-weapons issues. The question is how do you really ensure long-term reliability of the stockpile without testing? said Hugh Gusterson, an MIT anthropologist who studies the weapons labs and their scientists. RRW is partly an answer to that question, and its an answer to the question (by nuclear weapons scientists) of What do I do to keep from being bored?'" The prize for the winning lab is tens, perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars for carrying its bomb concept into prototyping and production. If manufactured, the first RRW would replace two warheads on submarine-launched missiles, the W76 and W88, together the most numerous active weapons and the cornerstone of the U.S. nuclear force. Altogether, the nation has 5,700 nuclear bombs and warheads of 12 basic types, plus more than 4,200 weapons kept in reserve as insurance against aging and failure of the active, fielded arsenal. Most are 25 to 35 years old. All were exploded multiple times under the Nevada desert before U.S. nuclear testing in 1992. It is in most respects the worlds most sophisticated nuclear arsenal, and beyond opposition at home to continued testing, ending testing made sense to discourage other nations from testing to advance their nuclear capabilities. Faced by the Soviet Union, Cold War weapons scientists devised their bombs for the greatest power in the smallest, lightest package, so thousands could be delivered en masse and cause maximum destruction. Designers compare those weapons to Ferraris — sleek and finely tuned. Scientists at the weapons laboratories are laboring to keep the bombs and warheads in working order, by examining them for signs of deterioration and replacing parts as faithfully to the original manufacturing as possible. It is an expensive and not especially stimulating job. Some worry that an accumulation of small changes could undermine the bombs reliability. So far, every year since 1995 directors of the weapons labs and secretaries of defense and energy have assured two presidents that the weapons are safe, secure and will detonate as designed. The new reliable replacement warheads are actually an old idea that 1950s-era weapons designers called, with some disdain, the wooden bomb. Bomb physicists were proud of their racier, more compact designs and figured they were plenty dependable already. The wooden bomb by comparison was boring. They said, Well heck, that isnt a challenge to anybody,'" recalled Ray Kidder, a former Livermore physicist who found a chilly reception to proposals in the 1980s for clunkier, more reliable designs. It was like saying, Well, why dont you make a Model A Ford.'" Now the wooden bomb is back in vogue. With fewer, simpler kinds of warheads, the argument goes, the arsenal could be maintained more inexpensively and — assuming construction of a factory to turn out the new bombs on demand — thousands of reserve warheads could be scrapped. But in a sharp break with the past, the new bombs would never be exploded except in war. The only button-to-boom tests of the new arsenal would be virtual — simulated detonations inside a supercomputer. Todays weaponeers say theyve learned enough of the complex physics of thermonuclear explosives to guarantee the bombs would deliver precise explosive yields even after decades on the shelf. If military leaders agreed, the most lethal and final resort of U.S. defenses would be deployed without a test shot. Ex-military leaders are split on accepting a new, untested nuclear arsenal. Former Deputy Secretary of Defense John Hamre told a House appropriations committee last year that he thinks a new arsenal will be needed some day. But, he said, I do believe we should test the new weapons to demonstrate to the world that they are credible. Eugene Habiger, the senior-most commander over U.S. nuclear forces as chief of Strategic Command in the mid-1990s, said he would be inclined to accept the new weapons. The science is pretty well understood, he said. The Bush administration and weapons scientists say the warheads will not have new military missions. They will ride on the same bombers and missiles as todays nuclear explosives and strike the same targets. But administration officials are talking about eventually wanting features beyond the array of explosive yields and delivery methods available now: deep earth-penetrating bombs, enhanced radiation weapons and reduced collateral damage bombs with lower fission radiation. Designers and executives at Lawrence Livermore are taking a conservative line. The labs weapons chief, Bruce Goodwin, talks of starting with nuclear-explosive designs that are well-tested and well-understood. Our plan is to develop a design that lies well within the experience — and within what we call the sweet spot — of our historical test base, he said in a recent statement. One candidate under consideration as a starting point is the W89, a 200-kiloton warhead designed for a short-range attack missile. It is well-tested, plus it comes from a long line of well-understood designs and uses every safety and security feature available at the time. Yet weaponeers at Los Alamos lab and Brooks, as the head of the National Nuclear Security Administration, have talked of a more freewheeling design effort. This is not about going back to rake over old designs. Thats why Ive got two different teams of weapons scientists at two labs working on this, Brooks said. Theres never been anything tested that will do the sorts of things we want to do. Such talk alarms Stanfords Drell. How the hell do you make a new design without testing? he said. Those kinds of flamboyant statements worry me because I dont believe we could maintain a confident stockpile with new designs that havent been tested. Some former weapons scientists say the wiser course is maintaining the current arsenal and boosting its reliability in simple ways, such as adding more tritium to sweeten the hydrogen gases at the very core of the weapon. Weve got a reliable stockpile. We have a test base for it. We have now in the last 10 or 15 years far more sophisticated computational abilities than we had doing these designs originally, so things are extremely well-understood in terms of the performance, said Seymour Sack, once Livermores most prolific designer, whose innovations are found in nearly every U.S. weapon. I dont see any reason you should change those designs. Lawmakers say they are watching carefully to make sure the new warheads hew closely to existing, well-understood designs. But in a recent report on the new warhead program for the Livermore watchdog group, Tri-Valley CAREs, former White House budget analyst Bob Civiak said Congress has a poor record of restraining the weapons design labs from what after all they were built to do. Congress thinks it can allow the labs to design new nuclear weapons but restrict them to existing designs, he said. History shows that cannot be the case. Contact Ian Hoffman at ihoffman@angnewspapers.com. © 2000-2006 ANG Newspapers ***************************************************************** 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. 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